The New Magic - The Revelation of Jonah McAllister - Landon Wark (bill gates best books TXT) 📗

"Ah, okay. And when you say help, you mean—"

Jonah's eyes, rimmed in black shadows from the tablet screen met with first his and then Carmen's, barely taking time to register their concern. They didn't really know him, aside from his two forays into the confines of the house from his tiny lab. They looked at him like they would look at a derelict raving about moonmen on the sidewalk.

"We can rebuild her. We have—will have—the... whatever. Better. Stronger. Faster. All that stuff."

"Holy shit." Clay nearly staggered into the wall. "You can't just—"

"I know I can't just. Hence, the lab mice. I'm going to need your help. Jenny and Paul too. It's an all hands situation. You'll all need to know everything."

"What is he talking about?" Ezra tried to insert himself into the exchange. Clay put up a hand to silence the older man, but Carmen managed to get in around him.

"So, all that talk about safety and not showing us too much that we're not ready for?"

The wild look in Jonah's eyes redoubled as he returned to the dim white screen of the airport vending machine tablet. His lips pulled back into a sneer as the memory of standing before the hole in his apartment wall slipped away from him for the first time in nearly forever.

"Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead."

A Ritual in the Night

There was something odd going on in the house in the woods. About that all the neighbours had agreed since the property had been bought and people had started disappearing inside. No good could come from so many people living under one roof, as history had a way of pointing out. Speculation came from all sides about the things that went on there: Devil worship, human sacrifice, public nudity, polygamy, homosexual orgies. The list got longer as the weeks rolled on. When strange flashes of light began breaking through the tree cover and drawing the attention of the distant neighbours one week in early June things began to reach a fevered pitch.

There were rumours that one of the inhabitants was holed up in the local hospital with severe burns covering most of her body. The staff at the hospital, no matter how many drinks they were plied with, could not (or would not) confirm those commonly agreed on facts. Delivery and mail carriers were set upon and insisted that they only ever saw the outside of the house, or sometimes maybe a small group outside trying to do some routine maintenance on the grounds.

A few Sheriff's deputies, on conditions of anonymity, talked to the local paper about a drug raid, settling many minds that it was some sort of neo-hippie commune.

Bill Hernandez's vague ramblings about witchcraft up there were folded into the rumour mills, homogenized and ultimately their source lost. He enjoyed a brief resurgence in popularity during that week in June, but by then he had all but withdrawn from any sort of public life, wandering around the paid off house and going out in the dark of night for food at a series of convenience stores.

He had called a bomb threat in to the hospital from a derelict payphone, but it accomplished nothing.

A trio of teenagers, each barely fifteen had managed to penetrate into the trees circling the house in the light of dusk, but ventured no farther after seeing a fat man nearly spot them as he walked to the main house from the cabin with the flashing lights that was their target. Though they had seen nothing, they claimed a UFO in the form of a hovering wedge had hung over their heads as they ran across the field separating them from the ATVs they had used to get within walking distance.

The commune idea was amended to include neo-new agers.

At about that time a little buzz surged up at the local Sheriff's office. Information was collected. Phone calls were made, but nothing came out to the public. The rumours continued.

And then one night, after the week of the flashing lights, cars driving on the highway into town passed by a huge, outdated station wagon pulling out from the trail up to the house. Inside the observers swore they saw a group of people in black robes and hoods. Although the sky was clear and the stars clearly visible, they also reported hearing a clap of thunder as the car finally completed the turn. All of them pressed down harder on the accelerator, hoping to make it home before whatever trouble the hippie/new ager/satanists were bringing into town with them.

Jonah stood in the hospital room, nervously scraping his dry tongue over the back of his front teeth. His body was on edge, but his mind was curiously calm. Calm might have been the wrong word. Contented was a little closer. The past week had been a rush, but within its flow he had managed to find something. Among the fourteen hour meetings with the others, with Clayton James mapping out a diagram on a white board of oblong ovals and squiggling lines and Jenny Hernandez trying to get the phonemes written in a way that was parsible for the others, he had unexpectedly found... What was it? Friendship? Maybe not. A sense of camaraderie.

He straightened the blanket covered cube on the bed. A small smirk came to his face as he thought of Carmen Carruthers pointing out that the entire week could have been called a montage. He knew for a fact that she had spent a nonzero amount of time coming up with a song to set it to.

The only sticking point had been Ezra and Paul. Though the former had kept quiet, certain that they were at least trying to help his niece and saving his criticism for when he could see the results. He had largely pushed Paul's objections to the side, getting