by Gary Jonas
Table of Contents
The Half-Assed Wizard
Title Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The Big-Ass Witch
Title Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Dumbass Demon
Title Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Lame-Assed Doppelganger
Title Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
About the Author
THE HALF-ASSED WIZARD
by Gary Jonas
CHAPTER ONE
If I’d known they wanted to kill me, I would have stayed in bed. I wasn’t asleep when they rang the doorbell at the crack of noon, but I sure as hell wasn’t ready to face the world. Still, I rolled out of the sack and staggered down the stairs.
“Hold your horses,” I called. My long hair was a rat’s nest, and I wore only a pair of navy blue sweat pants with a silver stripe running down each leg. I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to straighten it, but only managed to pull it. “Ow.”
I opened the front door. Two large men glared at me from the porch. Maybe they didn’t like standing in the Texas sun in the middle of July. The humidity was so bad it would have been nice to have gills. I shielded my eyes and squinted. Maybe I shouldn’t have had that seventh glass of whiskey at the club last night.
“Mr. Brett Masters?” one of the men said.
“Who wants to know?” I asked, looking them up and down. They both had slicked-back dark hair and wore matching smartly tailored Brioni suits with red power ties, crisp white shirts and Salvatore Ferragamo Crocodile loafers. The shoes looked black to me, but these guys would turn up their noses and insist they were Nero.
“I’m Mr. Russo,” the larger man said. He didn’t have any trace of an accent.
“And I’m Mr. Toscano,” the other man said. He had a permanently furrowed brow and a tilt to his lips that made it look like he’d been sucking lemons all day.
“We’d like to come inside, Mr. Masters,” Russo said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Allow us entry and we’ll explain the situation.”
I rubbed sleep from my eyes. “Place is a mess,” I said. “It’s early, and I’m not ready for company.”
“In reference to your objections in order, Mr. Masters, we don’t care,” Russo said. “It’s after noon. And once more, we don’t care.”
Toscano opened his jacket a bit. At first I thought he was just hot, but his intent was to show me he had a gun in a shoulder holster.
“That a Beretta?”
“Bersa.”
“And you’re threatening to shoot me in broad daylight?”
Toscano nodded. “I’d be quite happy to shoot you, Mr. Masters. I’m not much for small talk.”
Russo smiled and for a moment, his teeth looked sharp, but when I looked at him again, the teeth went back to normal. “We would enjoy killing you, Mr. Masters, but our orders are simply to retrieve a package and we are to allow you to live as long as you cooperate.”
“Please don’t cooperate,” Toscano said, and for a moment, his teeth looked sharp too.
Shit. They were Mako Clansmen. These guys were known to shoot people in the kneecaps to prevent them from running, then they took turns taking bites out of their prey. They liked to keep their victims alive for hours, feasting on them. I’d never met any of them in person before. Yeah, I should have stayed in bed all right.
“I don’t have any packages here.”
“You have a UPS delivery due at two this afternoon,” Russo said and shoved me away from the door so he and his partner could enter the house.
“I didn’t say you could come inside.”
“We don’t care,” Russo said. He strolled to the right into the living room, looking at the tasteful decor.
The air conditioner kicked over and shot
cool air into the foyer. Toscano pushed me to the left toward the stairs. He stepped into the house and closed the door. “Don’t want your parents to cool the great outdoors.”
It was a jab, of course. They wanted me to know that they knew I didn’t own the house. It was a family home, and a survivor of the Great Storm. I was crashing here in the East End Historical District of Galveston. My folks were in New Orleans. They owned a number of houses around the world,, including this beautiful old Victorian. You might say they were rich, but that would be an understatement. Someday I’d inherit a share of their wealth. Well, if the Mako Clansmen didn’t eat me today.
“So you know who my parents are,” I said.
“We do,” Russo said.
“Then you know they can have you killed.”
“Not in time to save you, Mr. Masters. You’ll die as a thirty year old failure to launch.”
“Whatever, dude. Can you at least tell me who hired you?”
“Joseph Carlisle Sinclair III.”
“Never heard of him,” I lied. He was a powerful wizard out of New York City, and had been after some of the artifacts my parents had collected for decades.
“Well he’s heard of you.”
“Does he want a signed CD?”
“He’s not a fan of the noise you make,” Toscano said as he followed his partner into the living room. “Nor are we. Perhaps you can pour us each a glass of wine while we wait for the delivery.”
“Guys, I told you, I’m not expecting anything.”
“It’s not addressed to you. It’s addressed to your father. A gift from your Uncle Paul. And it was not his to send.”
I laughed. “Uncle Paul always had a comprehensive view of the word ownership.”
“I’m delighted that you can find humor in your current predicament.”
I leaned against the wall, making sure my feet remained on the cool tiles and didn’t touch the carpet in the living room. “Dude, you already told me you won’t kill me if I cooperate, and I couldn’t give a shit less about family politics and all the stupid squabbles about magic and whatever nonsense goofy-assed cannibals like yourselves are into. Take the package when it gets here and go. Not my circus, not my monkeys.”
“And if we decide to make it your circus?” Toscano asked.
“Down, Mangani,” I said as I placed my hand on the light switch.
“Toscano.”
“Whatever.”
“You will show us some respect.”
“Blow me,” I said and flipped the switch to the on position.
The light came on and the Mako Clansmen grimaced, sharp teeth revealed in full. They fell backward to the floor as the carpet rolled up on them. Mangani’s slurping turned my stomach, and again, I regretted that final glass of whiskey, but when someone orders you a glass of Jameson, it’s rude not to accept.
The carpet unfurled. All that remained of the Clansmen were their polished white bones and a couple of Italian guns.
“Finish your meal, Mangani.”
The carpet twitched.
“I know you don’t like bones and metal,” I said. “But remember, there are carpets starving in China.”
Mangani hesitated, then folded over the bones and weapons. The crunching was louder than normal, but Mangani hadn’t had a fresh meal in at least a decade. Every so often, we had to feed her, but she was fine with slabs of steak. Self-cleaning rugs are tough to come by. The rest of the house had normal carpeting, of course. Security rugs like Mangani preferred main rooms where they might eat a burglar every now and then. Mangani was house-broken, so she wouldn’t eat company unless I told her it was okay with the light and the command. She would always recognize family members, but strangers were fair game if we weren’t with them.
I went upstairs, showered, shaved, dressed, and came back down before the UPS guy arrived.
I signed for the package, thanked him, and closed the door. I went into the downstairs study and opened the box. I pulled up the cardboard flaps to reveal an ornately carved four inch by six inch mahogany box with a gold clasp. I dumped the wooden box into my hand and set the cardboard container on the desk by the laptop. I unfastened the box and lifted the lid. The box was lined with crushed red velvet and held an ancient deck of Tarot cards. The backs were covered with geometric shapes and sigils I didn’t recognize. I could feel the blood magic when I touched the top card. I flipped it over.
Death.
Of course, the Death card meant change, not actual death, but I could feel the power in the deck. Just for grins, I turned over the next card. An upside-down Empress looked up at me. In Tarot, an upside-down card is reversed – it takes on the opposite meaning. Not that I remembered what that was – I slept through most of Tarot class as a kid.
The ink used to draw the pictures had family blood mixed into it. The magic was paid in full, and any wizard, even a clown like me, could use them and not have to pay the blood price.
No wonder Sinclair wanted it. But why would Uncle Paul send something like this here? He knew I was staying here. He also knew that of all the members of my family, I was the one least qualified to use magic. Then again, maybe that was exactly why he’d sent it here. But why didn’t he call me and tell me?
I flipped through the cards. Power emanated from them and I felt a vibration in my bones. I had no idea how old the cards were. I didn’t pay much attention to all the magical studies when I was a kid. Controlled magic required blood from the user unless the price had already been paid. That meant constantly stabbing yourself with a pin or cutting yourself with a ritual blade or biting the inside of your lip. Pain hurts. No thank you. In most situations, there was a mundane solution, and those were often easier.
I tried to keep up when I was a kid, but my siblings were all so much better at it that I stopped trying. When you’re held to a much higher standard, you either rise to the occasion or decide it’s not worth the effort. Magic wasn’t worth it. Not if it had to hurt.
I’ll stick with magic paid-in-full, thank you very much. Like my guitar pick. Or like this deck of Tarot cards. I counted the cards. All seventy-eight were there. Twenty-two Major Arcana and Fifty-six Minor Arcana. The card on the bottom was The Fool.
How appropriate.
CHAPTER TWO
The sound of the door closing caught my attention, and I set the cards back into the box, which I slid into the top desk drawer before leaving the study.
A tall, slender woman with dark hair cropped shorter on one side than the other set a suitcase down on the floor and looked over at me. She looked to be about my age, and wore thick-rimmed glasses, which were considered stylish. I hated thick-rimmed glasses. “Hello, Brett,” the woman said.
“Do I know you?”
“You don’t recognize me?”
I shook my head.
She rolled her eyes, which were magnified by the glasses. “After all the time we spent together studying magic as kids? Hello? It’s your cousin, Sabrina. Call me Bri.”
“Like the cheese?” I asked, messing with her a bit.
“Ha ha,” she said. “I’ve never heard that one.”
“Then you should get out more because it seems kinda obvious to me. So what do you want, Cheese Whiz?”
“Don’t call me that. My father sent a package, and I was trying to get here in time but traffic on the causeway was backed up by an accident. The tracking number shows the item was delivered. Where is the box?”
“There was nothing addressed to you,” I said. “How did you get in?”
She held up a keyring. “My father co-owns the house, and I’m going to be living here for a while.”
“Like hell you will. This is my place.”
“Family-owned, Brett. Means I have as much right to live here as you do.”
She was right, of course. The house was a shared inheritance by my father, her father, and my father’s sister, Cora. Aunt Cora had never even bothered to visit. She was shacked up with a ghost lover in Nebraska. And by ghost love
r, I mean she was sleeping with the wraith of some dead guy named Rupert. Uncle Paul had spent a couple summers here right after they inherited the house. My father hated the place, but I liked it. And I sure as hell didn’t want to share it. Especially not with a fuddy-duddy librarian.
“You can stay for the weekend, but you won’t like it. I have band practice tonight.”
She laughed, and put her keys in her purse. “Like you’d practice.”
“I resemble that remark,” I said.
“What instrument do you play?” she asked as she placed her purse on the suitcase.
“Guitar.”
“Bullshit,” she said. “You can’t play the guitar. It would take years of practice and you’ve never applied yourself to anything in your life beyond where to score your next dime bag.”
I held up my left hand. “Really? Check out the calluses on my fingertips and tell me I can’t play.”
She shook her head. “You have the pick, don’t you?”
“I use a pick.”
“No, dipshit, you have the pick. Please tell me you’re not using the Hendrix guitar.”
“I’m not. It’s in the basement.”
“There’s a basement here? I thought most Texas homes didn’t have basements because they’re difficult to do correctly. Water tables, shifting clay foundations, and such. Unless it’s an above-ground basement like at Bishop’s Palace.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know about any of that shit. I just know there’s a basement.”
“Cool. I wonder if your parents cast a spell to prevent flooding, or if the builder—”
“Who gives a shit? There’s a basement. What difference does it make?”
“I like to know how and why things work.”
“You’re the librarian. Your sister was the cool one. Right?”
“My sister is a slut.”
I nodded. “I like easy women.”
“You don’t have a choice. Which room is mine?”
“Any of the rooms on the third floor,” I said.
“Will you carry my bag upstairs for me?”
“I’m not your servant.”
“Fine. Now, where did you say the package was?”
“I didn’t.”
“You opened it, didn’t you?” she asked as she crossed the floor toward me.
“What if I did?”
She moved past me and walked into the study. “You came out of here, so it’s probably in the desk drawer.” She tugged the drawer open and lifted the box out. “It wasn’t addressed to you either,” she said, glancing at the cardboard box by the computer.