The New Magic - The Revelation of Jonah McAllister, Landon Wark [10 best novels of all time .TXT] 📗

high. Feeling like a white knight standing, shield at the ready against the oncoming dead-eyed muppet hordes. Raymond fucking Polaski, defender of the purity of Capitalism and therefore of civilization itself.

He was barely able to stub out the cigarette before the face of a woman appeared in the window of the conferencing app. He was about to say something when she preempted him with an accent tinged voice. A moment to appreciate her lips forming the words and he sat back in his chair.

"Please hold for Mr. Abramov."

The line went to a screensaver-like background while a tinny musak played through the speakers of his laptop. Ray sighed and swept his fingers through his hair. His heart pounded furiously with the knowledge that he was about to try to convince a member of a foreign government that there were literal wizards running around in his country. Literal. Fucking. Wizards.

He mouthed the words once and then twice.

But this was the way it was meant to be. His body on complete edge, brain practically itching. An overtly sexy woman passing him on to a man with more power than should legally be allowed to make an insane, impossible pitch. Fuck it felt good to be alive!

"Hello."

He had chosen Abramov for two reasons: First, he had studied at Oxford so his English would be first rate and second, Bob owned an entire city block's worth of property in his district. Just dropping the name had gotten his foot in the door. Of course Bob had no idea. It was one thing that strangers thought he was 'round the twist, but his colleagues?

"Hello?"

Ray straightened up. Abramov's face was like a slab of granite, somewhat intimidating, but his left eye was slanted in the direction that must have been his keyboard. It was all Ray could do to keep from cackling like a teenager at the sight of it.

"Mr. Abramov," Ray channelled his confidence and shackled the thundering of his heart. The adrenaline was going to carry him through this. "How are you? Ray Polaski. Bob Whitmier sends his regards."

"Yes. What can I do for you, Mr. Polaski?"

The sentence was not even a question, more of an annoyed grunt. Raymond mentally frowned, but the smile never left his face. He was expecting a little more sycophantic greed. The dollar was supposed to mean something over there. But, so much the better. The harder the pitch the sweeter the high.

"Mr. Abramov, we've been noticing some unusual trends coming out of your region. It's looking like sales are tanking pretty hard."

Abramov grunted. "Tanking." His non-lazy eye darted sideways, looking for the word on another screen. Abramov's English was obviously not as good as advertised.

"I'll save you the trouble of parsing the idiom. Everything but real estate is not selling. Maybe you've been able to figure out why, maybe you haven't—"

"Did Barsi put you up to this?" Abramov asked pointedly.

"I'm sorry?"

"Barsi. I don't know what happened to the man. You tell him to get back to... reality. There is no way to increase his budget, cult or not."

Raymond arched an eyebrow. Maybe they weren't as slow over there as he had thought. "And let me guess, he told you this cult is being run by a man named McAllister?"

Impatiently Abramov drummed his fingers audibly on whatever desk he was using. Ray imagined it was a stalwart slab of dark, heavy wood. A couple of cracks began to appear in the other man's impassable facade and he felt the first feelings of glee fill him, running all the way to his fingertips.

"He did."

"All right. So..." he made the motions of going through some blank pages on his desk. "Mr. Abramov, I'm here to tell you that this cult is responsible for the drops in revenue you're seeing. Did this... Barsi explain to you how they're doing it?"

Abramov grunted again. "Barsi spins fanciful tales of witchcraft. He says that people are out there selling their souls to this... McAllister for the power to make money from nothing."

Ray pawed at the pen at the side of the desk, scribbling down the words 'soul' and 'witchcraft'. Despite everything he had not thought of putting it in exactly those terms. If nothing else he could take that away from this conversation.

"They're not just tales, Mr. Abramov." He inhaled through his teeth as he entered the most treacherous part of the pitch as he had mapped it out. "It's real. I've seen it. I've done it. There's an instructional video coming from your country. At least it was before your boy Barsi got it taken down."

"Look, Mr. Podolski—"

"Polaski."

""Yes. Mr. Polaski. Your Bob Whitmier has sent my re-election campaigns much money over the last few years. That is why I don't immediately hang up on you. But, if you want someone to tell fairy tales to, I have a niece who is five. I can have her nanny swing by with her this afternoon."

"Does your niece like her nanny?" Ray shot in almost immediately. The time for niceties had passed. "Let me ask you something, Abramov: Would that nanny take care of your niece if she could get everything she wanted out of thin fucking air? Look. If it's real or not is not the question. People over there believe it. And the more they believe in it, the less they're going to believe they need people like us."

Abramov paused. If nothing else had, being cursed at had gotten his attention.

"Abramov," he continued. "Men like you and me: We're the big, lumbering dinosaurs of this world. The twenty ton goddamn T-rexes. We keep the weak and stupid shitting in caves instead of all over the forest. And we're fucking good at it as long as we don't have a bunch of piddling crap to look after. Imagine a world where your brother or sister has