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

of non-detection. While she was certain he would never rat them out, his use of the abilities he was gaining was disturbing. While nightclubs were no longer the forbidden places they had been in her old body, the ones Tom frequented set her teeth on edge. There were one or two she refused to enter, even if she could not be seen. She was uncertain of what went on inside, but it certainly skirted the laws of the land, not to mention those of good taste.

When she brought this up with Jonah, he seemed not to hear and simply muttered that Tom’s tastes were his own and that as long as they didn’t interfere with the running of the Assembly he would allow him to pursue them.

She buffered her concerns, telling herself that it was merely an artifact of her rural, conservative upbringing and put an end to her surveillance. Still, there were tickles in the back of her mind.

Whether the cause was rational or not, Aegera still did not entirely trust the man who had taken to calling himself Tom Nightshade even as she watched him with the potential Initiates.

He was in the process of showing them what he called “flair”, in this case a fiery sword spinning with rhythmic intent when there was a commotion at the rear of the crowd, a few paces from where Aegera stood. She turned around in time to see nearly half a dozen uniformed officers pushing in through the crowd. Her mastery of the regional language was still very much a work in progress, but what she could make out sounded like calls for the crowd to disperse. A single phrase stood out in her mind as ‘unlawful assembly’.

She pushed through the crowd herself with equal vigor, standing in front of the foremost officer, a shorter man, maybe a hair taller than her. He glared at her from behind the visor of his helmet.

“We have every right to be here,” she proclaimed in English, not even daring to try her hand at the local dialect.

“This alley, private property is,” he responded in the garbled English that seemed common here and pointing at the buildings surrounding them. “You moving, must be.”

The crowd looked at each other and then at Tom standing on the stage, who was squarely fixed on Aegera. She clenched her hands around the remaining books she carried. It was time to play the leader.

“Tell us where a good place is and we’ll meet there next time.”

The officer simply stared at her before waving dismissively. "Now move.”

Aegera looked around at the assembly. They were tense and anxious. Some were new, many were those who had come back for a second taste and a handful were Adepts. If she gave in too easily they would start to think maybe they should handle the police on their own. If things started to break down there could be an altercation. She looked to Tom who didn’t seem to want to move.

“Can I offer you a book, officer?” She held up the stack to him. “I think we have enough for all of you. We can always make more.”

A thick hand slapped the books out of her hands, sending them down to the dirt in the street. There was an eruption from some of the Adepts toward the front of the crowd. The officers huddled forward towards the loud noises. Aegera called for quiet and was promptly ignored. Less ignored was the explosion that sounded in the air just above everyone’s heads a moment later. Both sides staggered back, shocked. The police were at the ready with their weapons and the potentials cleared out of the way as the Adepts elbowed past them.

“That’s enough!” Aegera shouted. She turned to the officers encroaching dangerously on the space she occupied. “We’ll move along.”

The Adepts looked at her unhappily, but dispersed as she bade them. They would make arrangements, she promised. As a final act of defiance one of the Initiates kicked one of the fallen books at the officers and said something derogatory but unintelligible. One of the officers flinched, but there was no further action from them. Within several moments there was no one left in the alley but Aegera and Tom.

The first shadows of dawn were creeping into the street sending the dregs of the night scurrying away from their perches and haunts. As he walked home from the embarrassment that had been the end of the meeting Yuri Hennigar tried to shrug his coat upward so that the turned up collar gave his face some shelter from the damp, cold breeze. The effect was not as warming as he would have hoped, but it was better than nothing. If he could remember to do it he would have to work with the other Adepts to create a wind deflector for his face. To hell with these minus twenty degree days. By the time they were done a man could walk down the street naked and not feel a lick of it.

Or teleport himself to Tahiti at sundown.

Yuri snorted. He was not under any of the illusions that the Westerners were. For whatever reason they seemed to think that everything would be sunshine and roses as soon as the entire Earth had learned the sorcery they were trying to pass off. What this McAllister that the woman spoke of like he was the Pope didn't seem to realize was exactly how crowded Tahiti would get if everyone was shooting off to Tahiti every night.

It was a typically Western view of the world. Overly rosy, completely short-sighted and oblivious to any of the realities of human nature.

Yuri pursed his lips as another gust of wind blasted into him.

His honeymoon period with the Adepts was fast approaching its end. The wonder and excitement he had felt had bloomed into hope, but that hope had been blunted,