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

to look after your niece by themselves, or where you have to do your own laundry because you can't pay someone enough to touch your jizz-stained boxers."

Recovered from his shock Abramov looked on the verge of hanging up on the call, but at the same time Ray could see him chewing on his tongue a little.

"There's a meteor coming, Mr. Abramov, and it's gonna wipe out all us big swinging dick dinosaurs and hand the planet over to some mewling, teat-sucking monkeys. Unless we do something about it. We both know you've got more than enough resources to crack down on this—what did you call it?—cult. You do that and I'll send over some goodies over to you from the States."As the last cracks began to form in the dour persona on the screen Ray glanced over at the three lines of white powder on his coffee table. It was going to be glorious.

Christ, why did humanity ever think it could improve on board meetings and blow?

"All right, Mr. Polaski, you've convinced me we need to do something about this cult. As for the rest... You can prove this to me?"

"I'll do you one better. I'll send you the video file. Follow the instructions. Do not let anyone else see it. And Barsi, he must have given you something. That should clinch it. I guarantee that this is going on right under your nose."

Abramov slowly nodded. Ray could make out his good eye darting to another screen as he attempted to surreptitiously search the word 'clinch'. Oxford or no his knowledge of English idioms was lacking.

"Let us assume I believe you," Abramov said. "What are you planning to do about it? What can the two of us do to prevent the spread of witchcraft?"

"Prevent?" Ray pulled a twenty dollar bill out of his pocket and rolled it into a tight cylinder under the desk out of sight of the webcam. "We can't prevent it. Best we can hope to do is delay. Delay until the current dinosaurs are dead of natural causes."

Abramov laughed and pursed his lips. "Fair enough. So, what do you do to delay it?"

"You keep doing what you're doing. Tell that Barsi that I'll have some cash coming his way. And Abramov, find this McAllister. We're going to need to know everything that he knows about... witchcraft."

"We have no information about him. Just whispers here and there. Only one or two have seen his face, but we can't find them either."

"I might be able to help you with that too." Ray flexed the bill/tube in his hands. "There was a Jonah McAllister who bombed a hotel and an apartment building. No explosives were found at either site. I've got a couple of guys who have apparently seen his face coming up."

"And you think anyone who would bomb an apartment building would be stupid enough to not use an alias?"

Ray chuckled and made the misstep of pointing at the screen with the bill/tube. He doubted Abramov noticed, but he quickly hid it all the same.

"I don't think he's stupid. I think he's probably the smartest motherfucker on the planet. He's so smart that he needs everyone to know it. That meteor that's coming; he needs to have his name plastered all over it. He needs it to be the goddamn McAllister asteroid."

Jonah McAllister Makes Good

The rooms in the apartment complex that he had taken over proved to be somewhat less than suitable for the experiments that Jonah McAllister had in mind to further his latest creation; the neighbours had a bad habit of complaining in whatever language it was they spoke (he was often too busy to take stock of it). And so he was forced to rent out a firing range on the outskirts of the city. The owner had protested when he had asked for the entire space and privacy to use it in, but when Jonah had produced a wad of bills of whatever domination they used in this place, the man’s eyes had lit up.

Aegera watched as he unloaded several of the long metal tubes from the rented truck and walked them to the range gallery. Producing a roll of duct tape he shifted the tubes around until he found what she assumed was the particular one he was looking for. She arched an eyebrow as he removed one last object from the back of the truck. She had known about the tubes, but had no idea of the origin of this last object. Where had he bought it and when?

Jonah held the rifle awkwardly as he approached the firing line, his face a grimace of determination and curiosity.

“Are we going to talk about the Adepts or is that going to make you shoot me?” she asked.

“Not today,” he replied without a trace of amusement.

"Uh... We're not going to talk today or you're not going to shoot me today?"

Jonah did not look up from the scope. “We've been over this. We can't put the genie back in the bottle. We can't change human nature.”

"So your official response is 'fighters gonna fight'? You want to do nothing?"

“No, not nothing.”

“Then what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to fix this scope for me.”

She laughed. “I’m going to fix that for you?”

He looked up at her. “I thought everyone where you’re from was good with guns.”

Her laugh turned into a scowl. “I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.”

With a single motion he pulled the ocular off the rifle and set it aside. “Anyway, accuracy of the shooter isn’t really vital.” He placed the rifle on the bench and stood up, motioning for her to sit. “Do you think you can hit one of those targets down the field?”

Aegera squinted. “No.”

“I want you to try anyway.”

"You can't do it?"