The New Magic - The Revelation of Jonah McAllister Landon Wark (free e books to read .txt) 📖

what he wanted. "Tell her. Okay? If you see her, will you tell her? Tell her I said I was sorry."

"You can tell her yourself, Bill," Vern said. The anticipated close of the conversation was welcome, but at the same time it was terribly sad at the same time.

"I can't," Bill said, his legs looking weak, jelly-like. "I-I-I can't. Not... Not strong enough."

Vern watched as Bill almost staggered into the wall of one of the buildings on the street, two pedestrians only barely managed to dodge around him. They glared at the two deputies with accusation and if there weren't other things that took priority Vern would have hauled him down to the drunk tank. He wasn't drunk, of that she was certain, but there was some damn thing wrong with him. Some real damn thing wrong.

As she and Terry swung themselves into the cruiser Vern gestured for the radio. Terry frowned and refused, but a slap once across the chest was all it took to get him to surrender. He rubbed the mouthpiece on his shirt and then handed it over to him.

"Dispatch, this is A-four. Can you put me through to A-one?"

There were some electronics noises over the radio. Why they were still using this old fashioned centralized dispatch crossed Vern's mind once, with the answer coming instantly. It was the same reason they went up to that cabin in the woods the first time.

"What is it?" the voice of Sheriff Timmons was garbled by whatever late afternoon snack he was currently into.

"We're ready to go here," Vern answered. "Just... This tip didn't come from Bill Wilson, did it?"

There was the smacking of lips. "No. After the last time you think I'd give that crazy sumbitch the time of day?"

Vern clicked her tongue. There was some damn thing going on here. She didn't know what exactly, but it was some damn thing. Alarm bells were going off in her head. Losing his goddamn son had put Bill into a depression, but losing his wife to whatever was going on in the woods had fucking broken him. What the hell was it?

Asking the follow up question meant that Vern's mind had to go back over a memory, not one that she particularly relished going over. The marshals... Well, more the men who were with the marshals when they had come into the department. Vern shuddered at the thought.

"The marshals say where it did come from?"

There was silence on the other edge filled with barely audible static.

"They want to know why you're asking."

"Fuck," Vern muttered. The thought of them sitting there with the Sheriff sharing an afternoon coffee rattled her.

"What the hell are you trying to pull?" Terry asked from the distant driver's seat.

She put up a hand to silence him.

"This kid," she continued. "McAlpine or whatever, they say what we're going after him for? I got grandkids, boss. I'd like to know if this is going to be another Q siege."

"Just do your job, Vern."

"Boss."

This time the silence on the other side lasted twice as long, and by the time Vern was ready to put the radio down and resign herself to going up there blind the radio came to life.

"Domestic terrorism." Timmons' voice was chillingly flat. And when the next words came up Vern thought Christ, we sent only two guys up there last time. "Motherfucker blew up a hotel way up North."

Jonah McAllister Goes to Town

Sandy Jenkins was not feeling quite like herself.

It was not really a bad feeling... or maybe it was the harbinger of something that had gone horribly wrong with the experiment. She hadn't spontaneously combusted or morphed into some kind of monster, but they had mucked around in her DNA. They had mucked around with the contents of her cells as Jonah had explained it to her. She had survived the procedure and so there was little risk afterwards. Her near apoplexy at that little nugget being dropped had been shoved aside by Jonah's promise that the process in the mice was nearly identical to what it should be in humans. It had taken the sharpest edge off of her anxiety, but she still got up to check her complexion in the mirror every half hour. She had noticed the dark rings around her eyes starting to clear and if she squinted hard enough she thought she could see some of the cellulite wrinkles in her cheeks starting to fill in.

And she felt good about it.

She felt energized. Maybe it was the experiment, maybe it was the knowledge that the next step was just on the horizon, but the dizziness and the headaches that had been with her only a couple of days prior were starting to drain away. The tingling in her fingers that came and went had gone and not returned. Maybe there was freedom after all. Maybe anything was possible. She felt good. She felt... reborn.

It was the way the rebirth of Phyrn, Phoenix of the West had been described...

She put the thought away. There was no need for make believe any more. No need to see the world through the prism of another person's descriptions of people and places that had never existed. There was going to be work to do. And she felt strong enough to do it.

Feel like I could take on the entire world, she thought as she pulled the clothes the others had brought to her out of the plastic shopping bag.

The shirt was one of the baggier ones that she preferred, one that would hide exactly how many rolls her stomach had, and it fit well, but they had made a mistake with the pants, they were a little too large.

Why in the hell didn't we buy a better car?

The question lingered for a moment at the old Buick rattled to