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

look up at the old surveillance cameras through the veil of the glimmer above him. He took note of the grayish tinge the field above him gave to the air. With a little practice he might be able to make it one way, completely invisible.

He was about to reach out to help with the card terminal when he paused. Given the right set of circumstances he might even be able to scatter light around an object. For all intents and purposes he might be able to make something entirely invisible to anyone outside the field. And if he could make the field one way...

At once the small notebook he kept in his right pocket was in his hand, the pen sliding out of the left. He began to jot.

He managed to pull out of the physical world and into his head in time to miss the figure out in the hospital parking lot dart from one car to another, taking a moment to glance through the window at him.

He looked back to where Sandy was trying to reach up to the edge of the counter, fumbling for the credit card and frowned.

Stay focused. Be a good friend.

"It says 'declined'," the clerk said.

"Let me try it again." Sandy's voice was enough to make him look up.

"Something wrong?" he asked from the corner.

"No. Just... The credit card isn't working."

"Oh? It's in your name."

She glared at him. "Yeah, and I paid the hell out of it."

A flickering of motion caught Jonah's attention and he turned back towards the window in time to see a figure running from behind one car to another, his back hunched so as to keep low. At first he thought it might be a child playing some sort of game out in the hot evening sun, but the appearance of a tie and jacket gave away the figure of an adult merely acting out what a child might be doing.

He placed his notebook back into his pocket and watched as the man disappeared behind a van closer to the main entrance, his face peeking out from behind the vehicle for long enough to get a glimpse of the large Buick in the parking lot. Jonah started backing towards the counter.

"I'm going to have to call the card company," the clerk started stammering.

"This one's new. Just... use the tap."

"We need to go," Jonah said.

"That one's declined too. And I still have to call the credit card company."

"Let's go!"

Jonah grasped the handle of the wheelchair and nearly tore his arm off trying to move Sandy. The chair rocked once before swivelling behind him as he dragged it behind him. Sandy shouted as the chair rattled and bucked.

"Stop!"

Jonah grit his teeth and waited for her to climb out of the chair. His eyes darted over the parking lot, trying to single out the shape he had seen. An acidic taste came to him along with a ratcheting up of the worry that had been low key around the surveillance cameras.

"You still have to pay!" the clerk shouted after them.

"What the hell are—" Sandy's words were stifled when Jonah continued pulling on her arm, her bulk preventing him from pulling her very far, but staggering along after him out of the door anyway. "What's happening?" she demanded.

As they stepped quickly towards the car the figure broke from the side of the van and clomped heavily towards them. Jonah skitted and nearly fell to the sidewalk, pulling Sandy with him. The man pointed a long, accusing finger from within his yellowing sleeve. His wild, malicious eyes glared over a quivering lip and bared teeth set in skin that was decorated with painted Christian crosses of various sizes. The smell of body odour and ground in despair nearly overcame Jonah as he shifted his weight to prevent falling completely.

"They're gonna come for you!" he shouted. "They're gonna come, you fucking witches!"

"Bill?" Aegera shouted incredulously. "Bill Wilson?"

"Fat fucking witch!?" he shouted.

The man's body looked ready to beat them both senseless, his hands clenching tightly, but his eyes suddenly shifted from murderous to terrified as he advanced a step. His face blurred and his face took on a discoloured tinge. Rattled, he took a step backward.

Jonah frowned as the field above them lost integrity, plunging the world around them into a blurry discoloured snow globe. His first instinct was to retrieve his notebook from his pocket and record the result, but now it was Sandy who was pulling him towards the car as a couple of people paused on the opposite side of the parking lot.

"Witches!" Bill screamed, his finger waving at the discolouration that was now melting into the street. Now the clerk from inside the hospital was approaching the door, her face slack as she looked at the blurring street.

The two of them pulled away from the scene the man was making and yanked open the creaking car doors and slid inside. The blur of the air followed them inside and became so oppressive that the people outside became little more than smudges of light outside of the windows.

"Get us out of here," Jonah said. "Something's happening."

"I can't see shit!" Sandy shouted as the distinct imprint of an index finger pressed up against the window along with the accompanying shouts.

As the field continued its dissipation more fine details became clear outside as the engine of the car fired. A group of nearly half a dozen people had gathered along the sidewalks. Stopped by Bill Wilson's scene in the street they were now all enthralled by the glimmer that was bleeding out of the car and into the world around. Jonah wracked his brain to think of a way to speed up the dissolution, but with all that was going on around him he came up with little.

There was a loud