The New Magic - The Revelation of Jonah McAllister by Landon Wark (free ebooks for android txt) 📕

air and slammed into the juggernaut, there was the scraping of gravel as the words washed over him, dragging the feet across the ground. The white teeth clenched as he slid backward, retaining his feet through sheer force of defiance.

“Jonah?”

“Come on!”

The flaming ruins of the house they had all once lived in lit their way back to the car; the pounding footfalls of the giant after them every step of the way. Jonah clutched what remained of his notebooks to his chest as they ran, his pace maintained by the fury with which she pulled him on. The passenger side door flew open and with all the grace that panic and horror could provide they were inside with the door slammed and locked, for all the good it did.

The ham-sized fist burst through the window with a spray of glass. The engine roared to life and the horn sounded as gravel squirted out from under the front tires. The arm flew out of the window, leaving a slick of blood on the remaining glass. Sandy steered the car in reverse down the thin lane toward the highway.

They did not get far.

Whatever the cause was, there was no time to discover. The rear end of the car threw a cloud of raw dirt into the air as it plowed into the ditch running alongside the back lane. The driver’s side swung into a black poplar, jamming it closed.

Sandy threw her foot against the gas pedal and the engine whined. More dirt sprayed out of the rear, but the car refused to move.

From out of the inferno up the hill, face rimmed in the pall cast by the burning house, marched the intent form of the monster that had come for them.

Jonah pulled against the door, forgetting that it was locked. There was a fleeting moment when he knew they would not be able to get away on foot. The monster was bearing down on them. He was faster, stronger and they had no weapons powerful enough to stop it.

There was only one chance.

“Give me the notebook,” he shouted.

She fumbled with it before shoving it into his hands. He nearly tore the black cover off opening it.

“I need you to say this with me,” he said, underlining a large block of text with his finger. “Do you remember how?”

She glared at him.

“Quick!”

She was barely able to keep her voice even as they read, out loud, trying desperately to stay in sync. It was long. The giant who had started at the top of the hill was nearly at the car door by the time they were halfway through. Sandy rushed, cramming more sound in. He grasped her wrist to slow her. There was one line left as the door swung open. The hand grasped Jonah once more and nearly yanked him from the car. He managed to keep his composure and the last word came.

Sandy screamed. Her nerves frayed and twitched. She felt as if someone had attached strings to each of her fingers and toes and begun to pull in exactly opposite directions. Her eyes went blind in a light so white that she became lost in it. There was the feeling of motion, which stopped just as soon as it started and then there was the feel of nothingness. Complete and utter nothingness.

Aftermath

The screen shook a little and for what seemed like the first time in days the world around it came into sharp focus. The empty car. The man's fist crashing through the driver's side window. The dissipating flash of light that had momentarily illuminated the hillside around them against the light from the burning house reaching its zenith.

Brendan Lamonte blinked, running one of the many checks he performed daily to make certain he wasn't dreaming. Positioned safely up the hill a ways he had had a perfect vantage point to capture the majority of the action that had occurred, both in the small hut and along the road winding down the hill. There had not been much happening in the former, though perhaps the rotund pudge of a woman throwing his partner across the room might count for something. It was proof that the power was spreading. But what had happened in the car was far more spectacular. Seeing two people there one minute and gone the next. There was real power that was gripping the world.

In contrast setting alight the house with the incredulous local police sitting impotently in their squad cars had been a humdrum event.

In the end he wasn't sure why the fire had been necessary, but these days it was best not to ask such questions. One of the marshals they had come with had tried to ask and... Well, that had not gone very well for anyone.

He lowered the phone to avoid capturing the vehicles of the local cops, a slick of blood that was black in the light from the fire oozing down one of the windshields. As the uploading symbol appeared along the phone's notifications bar Lamonte managed to pull his eyes away, focusing on what had once been his partner.

Furrows of rage crossed the burnt-in scars along his face as his massive fists continued to pound dents into the hood and door of the vehicle. Lamonte felt a twinge of fear as he watched, knowing that any attempt to stop him would be met with violence. Bright slicks of blood spewed over the rust of the car. Fenderman had never been the sharpest tool in the shed, but he was relentless. A sledgehammer of a cop rather than the scalpel Lamonte saw in himself. But, after that night in the station back North whatever little patience he had was gone. The scarring from whatever that McAllister kid had done to him ran deeper than his skin. Lamonte wasn't privy to his partner's medical records in any