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

duplicate money or to make lights with her voice. In his fear that something dangerous might come of his research he had kept it to himself. There was little she could hope to do to help him.

Unless…

“Out,” the massive hulk holding him against the wall barked and Sandy stopped short. She was not afraid. Nothing made her afraid anymore, but Jonah McAllister was holding up a limp hand, trying to get her to stop; with his other he was groping for the door of the safe beside him.

His hands grew cold as his nerves numbed and he fumbled, letting the notebook slip to the bottom of the safe twice before his hand fixed around its smooth cover and he threw it towards where his acolyte stood, deep worry and fear outlined on her face. It managed about four feet before falling to the floor, narrowly missing the encroaching flame and sliding to Sandy’s foot. Her surprised face disappeared into the haze surrounding the ever-approaching fire as his eyes drooped and the world seemed to fall away from him.

She looked up at the monster holding Jonah and then, as if struck on the head, scooped up the notebook.

The giant looked over his shoulder at her with a sneer. Satisfied with the state of his victim he let Jonah fall to the floor, coughing and gasping for breath, he was barely able to feel the fire coming towards him even as it burned the tips of his fingers. He jerked away with a gasp, smoke filling his lungs as he coughed for breath.

Aegera retreated a step as she broke open the smooth cover of the black notebook, cowering away from the giant that was bearing down on her, teeth exposed in a smile of glee, illuminated by the light of the fire.

Within the book there were words, like the ones he gave her to tell the others, written down in the same way, they didn’t look any different. She knew the power these words had, her very body was a testament to that. They had brought her many things. Wealth, family, hope. She looked at the monster before her. Implicit in all of that was that they could be used to take as well, but she had never dared venture past the implication. God was in the words. Was the devil as well?

One massive arm reached towards her and all thought and worried were gone. She managed a glance toward where Jonah lay, gasping on the ground. If he trusted her with it…

“Keep focused,” she told herself. “Look at your subject.”

How could she look away?

The fire was everywhere now. Not an inch of the walls were visible beyond the flames. The heat was all around her and suddenly she was aware of her sweating and shortness of breath.

The colossus loomed up over her.

The words poured out of her mouth, tinged with harshness and urgency.

Nothing happened.

The red-scarred face blinked, flesh stretching over it like a bad Halloween mask. Its eyes filled with malice and rage.

And recognition, she realized.

A swirl of air told of a massive arm swinging towards her.

She threw up her arms and shouted once again, now with desperation.

The giant was lifted clean off his feet and thrown against the back wall where moments before he had held Jonah in his massive hands. Those hands proved little use to the man as the wall, weakened by fire and force, buckled outward. The giant was thrown into the flame brightened night. His legs trembled once in an attempt to recover from the shock of it, already he was getting to his knees and then back to his feet.

Sandy rushed briefly towards the flame, pulling back when the heat got unbearable. She stopped just before where Jonah fumbled around the ground like a blind beggar. Her heart pounded like a kettledrum as she pulled him to his feet.

She screamed at him to help, but he would not, or could not. The cabin was coming down around them; embers filled the air like the flakes in some demented snow globe. The door was burning from its hinges, the frame disintegrating into little more than a pile of burning wood.

Sandy struggled with the bulk of Jonah’s body, lugging it step by treacherous step. Her shoes smouldered against the heat of the floor and there were several moments she was sure her clothing was on fire. At every step she told herself to let him drop and save herself but that part of her she tossed into the heat.

She screamed as the fire at the door burned her feet and collapsed on the other side, barely able to roll herself and her charge out of the way of the collapsing roof.

Both coughed into the crisp cool air of the night, limbs slowly grasping for the ground to push themselves up. Sandy rose slowly to her feet, painfully aware that the giant was still on the other side of the cabin.

“Car,” she coughed violently.

Jonah struggled up, elbows braced against his knees, roaring with a fit that would have risen the dead.

“Wait,” he barked, scraping around the ground and pulling to his chest what looked like a collection of blue tiles.

The grizzly face of the monster emerged from around the side of the cabin. His clothes were dusted with splinters and embers, smouldering through the fabric and burning into the uncaring nerves beneath. A fresh trickle of blood smeared the corners of his contorted mouth.

“Come on,” she begged, but he would not be moved from the piles of books on the ground.

The giant broke into a powerful stride that shuddered the earth beneath their feet, towering before them. Sandy pressed her fingertips against the black notebook cover and took a single step towards the monster. The words she had used only a minute or so earlier tore through the