The Half-Assed Wizard: The Complete Series: Books 1-4: The Half-Assed Wizard, The Big-Ass Witch, The Dumbass Demon, The Lame-Assed Doppelganger

by Gary Jonas

  He nodded, and walked after his dog, knelt when the animal rushed over to him. He ruffled the dog’s fur and laughed, then took the stick and threw it down the street a ways.

  My mind drifted elsewhere. If Russo and Toscano weren’t working for Sinclair like they claimed, then who did they work for? Should I be worried about another player? What if they showed up tonight and set the house on fire?

  Yeah, I was getting paranoid. I might have to give up the weed. God, I hate magic.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Teddy and Chuck arrived before the shit went down. Teddy Andrews hated his given name of Theodore, and the only person who still called him that was his mother. He played rhythm guitar for the band, though he had the talent to play lead. He preferred to hang in the background.

  Chuck Zee didn’t mind being called Charles, but other than a police officer who pulled us over last summer due to a broken tail light, I’ve never heard anyone call him anything other than Chuck. He was our drummer, and while he was no Neil Peart, he was solid, and without a solid drummer, a band is totally screwed.

  “Teddy,” I said as I opened the door for them. “What did you do to your hair?”

  He had it tied in a ponytail, but there was more color in it than usual. And when I say color, I don’t mean brown. I mean purple and orange. He looked ridiculous. “It’ll wash out,” he said as he entered the house and leaned his guitar case against the wall. “I let Emily and her friends play hairdresser this afternoon.”

  Emily was his niece. Teddy’s sister was married to an architect in Houston, and their youngest daughter had a birthday party today. I was invited, but to get there would have entailed getting up before noon. Not gonna happen.

  “You better hope it washes out,” I said.

  Chuck would never have that problem. He was bald as a cue ball, and squat as a fire hydrant. He pointed to his van, parked in the street in front of the house. “Wanna help unload?”

  “No,” I said, “but I’ll do it anyway.”

  “Good man.”

  While we unloaded the drum kit and set it up in the back of the house, Sabrina came downstairs. Teddy’s jaw about hit the floor.

  “I’m going out to the grocery store,” Sabrina said. “Do you need anything?” She wore shorts and a sleeveless shirt that hugged the few curves she had.

  “Beer,” Chuck said.

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” Sabrina said. “I was talking to my cousin.”

  “Beer,” I said. I introduced her to Teddy and Chuck. Chuck gave her a nod. Rumor had it that Chuck’s wife kept his dick in a jar on her nightstand, which explained why he barely noticed other women.

  “You’re a hottie,” Teddy said.

  “Um,” Sabrina said. “Thank you?”

  “You’re not going to impress the chicks with your hair all fucked up like that,” I said.

  “My niece did this to me,” he said.

  “How thoughtful,” Sabrina said.

  “You wanna hang out sometime?” Teddy asked. “I’ll wash my hair first, of course. We can go to dinner and then go back to my place and watch TV.”

  “Dude, she’s not going to want to hang out in your mother’s basement watching Star Trek.”

  “I’ll just leave that out there,” Teddy said.

  “Good to know,” Sabrina said with about the same interest a cat pays to a scratching post, and turned to leave, but ran into Michael Pruitt, our bass player in the hall. “Oh, sorry.”

  “Quite all right,” Michael said. His long dark hair flowed over his shoulders. His skin was pale and he always wore dark sunglasses and black pants. His shirts tended to be button ups in solid colors. Today, it was crimson. His fingernails were painted black.

  “Michael,” I said, “the geeky girl is my cousin, Sabrina. She’s visiting for a few weeks, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t sleep with her.”

  “Like I’d sleep with your friends,” Sabrina said.

  Michael lowered his sunglasses and gazed into her eyes. “I assure you that in my case, it would be worth it.”

  “Oh,” she said and her knees went a little wobbly. Michael had that effect on women.

  Michael put out a hand to steady her. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Oh, um, yes, I think so. Oh my. I need to get going. Where was I going?”

  “Grocery store,” I said.

  She hurried down the hall and out the door.

  Michael stepped into the family room and gave me a nod. “I may not be capable of resisting her charms, Brett.”

  “She might not be capable of resisting yours, you mean.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched into a lopsided grin.

  “Let’s finish setting up,” I said. “Poe’s going to be late.”

  Michael frowned. “How late?”

  “Nine or ten.”

  He sighed. “What’s the point of practice if he can’t be bothered to put in an appearance?”

  “I’ll sing,” I said.

  “Be still my heart,” he said.

  “I can sing,” I said.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Brett, but if you were our lead singer, we’d have never booked a gig.”

  “There’s a right way to take that?” I asked.

  We played for a bit, running through a few cover songs before tackling a few of our originals. When it came to our original songs, we could really let go, and I seemed to be an innovator when it came to solos and such, but I have to admit that Sabrina was right. It was my pick that made all the difference.

  The pick was something my father carried with him for many years, and he eventually allowed me it to use on the condition that I let amazing guitarists use it too. My father used to book private shows with major bands and players. Or he’d arrange to have them over at parties and ask them to play a song or two. When they accepted, he would hand them the pick, and the pick would magically arrange to nick each guitarist enough to draw blood, which it absorbed.

  So this particular pick had been used by Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Joe Satriani, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eddie Van Halen, Chet Atkins, Mark Knopfler, Jeff Beck, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Carlos Santana, Slash, Prince, and so many others. Due to the talent of the musicians who’d used it and bled on it, there wasn’t a song I couldn’t play, and because of the magic infused into the pick, I could create new music on the same level the masters did. The problem, of course, was that without the pick, all I really had was three chords and an attitude.

  Why waste time learning something when legend had it that the pick was possessed by the spirit of Robert Johnson and had gained pieces of the spirits of each musician who used it?

  When it came to CDs, Delta Poe and the Magicians had three of them so far, and while they sounded pretty good, the magic was lost in the recording. We could play amazing live shows, but if someone recorded the live show, it would only sound okay.

  Magic, it seemed, could only take you so far. To really make it in music, you needed real talent or a gimmick.

  I ran my fingers down the fretboard of my red Fender Stratocaster, and it made sounds that did not match up to where my fingertips hit, which was just as well because I couldn’t hit the right notes on an air guitar. But I could imagine how the notes should sound, and the pick sent that through the strings so they put out what I imagined I was playing. If only the rest of life could be so simple.

  Sabrina burst into the room, two plastic bags in each hand. “Holy fuck!” she yelled. “Turn that down!”

  I stopped playing. “Oh, hi,” I said. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “The whole fucking island can hear you playing! I’m shocked the cops aren’t banging on the door right now. Actually, they probably did bang on the door and you didn’t hear them.”

  “Calm down,” I said.

  “We’re just practicing,” Chuck said. “We do this all the time.”

  “Not anymore you don’t! I live here now, and I will not have that awful racket blasting me ou
t of the neighborhood!”

  I strummed the guitar and started playing like Willie Nelson, who also used the pick, by the way.

  I sang to the tune of a classic Willie song, “On the rag again, Sabrina Tenn is on the rag again, like a screaming harpy she yells at my friends, that’s ‘cause Bri is on the rag again.”

  Teddy laughed.

  “Boys,” I said,” I think we have ourselves a hit there.”

  “You’re gonna get hit,” Sabrina said as she set her bags on the kitchen counter. She strode across the floor and punched me in the arm hard enough to leave a bruise.

  “Ow!”

  “Serves your sorry ass right,” she said. “You guys need to pack up and get the hell out.”

  A tall man dressed like a wild west gunslinger right down to the flowing duster stepped into the room. He held a pistol in one hand. “Oh, I don’t think anyone’s going anywhere just yet,” he said.

  “Who the hell are you?” I asked, still rubbing my arm.

  “Name’s Clyde Gentry.”

  “Never heard of you,” I said. “Aren’t you burning up in that coat?”

  “You, you, and you,” Clyde said pointing his gun at Teddy, Chuck, and Michael, “hunker down in the corner right there.”

  Michael lowered his sunglasses and met Clyde’s gaze. “It’s time for you to put the gun away and go home now, Mr. Gentry.”

  Clyde stared at him for a moment, went slack-jawed, then holstered his gun. “I reckon you’re right,” he said, and turned to go. He started down the hallway, but stopped at the door.

  Michael followed him down the hall. “Keep going.”

  Clyde lowered his head, then turned.

  Michael walked toward him and pointed. “Go.”

  “That ain’t what I wanna do.” Clyde stared at the floor, refusing to meet Michael’s gaze. His eyes cleared and he reached for his gun.

  Sabrina pushed past Michael and I followed her. She blasted Clyde with a ball of controlled fire.

  Clyde went up in flames. He staggered out the front door onto the lawn, ran around screaming, then dropped to the grass and rolled around.

  The fire kept burning, lighting up the night. He struggled to get out of the duster, then rolled some more and got to his knees. His coat smoldered in the grass six feet from him, and smoke rose from his western shirt. He brushed himself off and moved to stand, but Michael towered over him.

  “You are to leave and never return,” Michael said.

  “I’ll leave,” Clyde said. “But you ain’t heard the last of me.”

  Clyde tried to grab his coat, but burned his hand and jumped back, shaking it. He pulled his shirt sleeve down over his hand and grabbed the coat again. This time, he tossed it into the back of an old Chevy pickup. He threw an angry look at us, but Sabrina stood ready with flames dancing in her hands, and Michael had his sunglasses lowered so he could stare over them.

  “And don’t come back!” I yelled after him, as if I’d had anything to do with running him off.

  After Clyde drove away, Michael turned to Sabrina. “I’m impressed with your skills.”

  “I’m impressed with yours,” she said.

  “No sex on the front lawn, you two,” I said.

  Sabrina shook her hands and the fire went out. “Very funny.” She brushed past me and returned to the house.

  Michael grinned and used his index finger to slide his sunglasses back into place.

  “I didn’t realize your eye thing worked on guys,” I said.

  “It works on most people,” he said. “A gift and a curse.”

  I nodded. “You really are a vampire.”

  His grin widened. “I thought you knew that already.”

  “Suspected. But at first, I just thought you were faking it to get laid.”

  He sighed. “When your life is over, you play with what you have.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Poe had flowing blond hair and a smile that cost a fortune. His gleaming white caps sparkled in the overhead light when he stepped into the practice room.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “My little head was in control of my whereabouts today.”

  “Like most days,” I said. We were already packing up the gear because after the showdown with Clyde, we didn’t feel like practicing anymore. Teddy and Chuck thought Gentry was another jealous husband. Let’s just say it wouldn’t be the first time, and it was easier to let them believe that than to explain any wizard stuff to them.

  Michael turned his sunglasses toward Poe. “You’d better be on time tomorrow. You and Brett might not need money, but the rest of us have bills to pay.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it. Jenny is looking forward to the show, and we’re going to open with that Tommy Tutone song in her honor.”

  “No we’re not,” Michael said. “We’re opening with Pink Floyd’s ‘Hey You,” and the only one hit wonder in our entire set is going to be ‘I Melt with You’ by Modern English. You don’t show up for practice, you sing what the fuck we tell you to sing or your ass is on the street and we’ll get a new singer. Got it?”

  “Who pissed in your Post Toasties?”

  “You did,” Michael said. “And just so you know, they don’t make Post Toasties anymore.”

  “That’s not my fault.”

  “Tell that to someone who gives a shit.”

  Michael pushed past him and left without saying goodbye to anyone.

  “Must be his time of the month,” Poe said.

  “Go home, Poe,” I said. “And he’s right. You need to be on time tomorrow.”

  “Well excuse the shit out of me.”

  “We might beat the shit out of you,” Chuck said.

  “Et tu, Brute?”

  “This is the third practice in a row you’ve blown off.”

  “Well, I was getting blown.”

  “Do it on your own time.” Chuck turned to me. “Can you help carry this out to the van?”

  I nodded.

  “How about you, Teddy?” Poe said. “You pissed too?”

  Teddy hated confrontations, but even he was sick of Poe’s shit. “You should have been here, Poe.”

  “Well fuck you guys. I quit.” He turned and strode out of the house.

  “Uh,” Teddy said. “Should we try and catch him?”

  “No,” Chuck said. “Brett can do the singing tomorrow.”

  Teddy frowned. “No offense, Brett, but you’re too pitchy.”

  “Well, we don’t have time to find a new singer,” I said. “We’ll just crank the volume. People will be too drunk to notice.”

  “What about your cousin?” Teddy asked. “Can she sing?”

  “I haven’t a clue.”

  “Ask her.”

  I didn’t want to ask her. I didn’t want her to be here.

  Sabrina, however, was on her way down the stairs and overheard part of it. “Ask me what?” she said, stepping into the practice room.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  Chuck shook his head. “Ignore him.”

  “Always,” Sabrina said. “Ask me what?”

  “Can you sing?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “Our lead singer just quit.”

  “Oh, wait a minute. I don’t want to join the band.”

  “We don’t know that you can really sing,” I said.

  She glared at me. “Singing is easy, and you know it.”

  She meant using magic, of course. I wasn’t willing to pay the price, and even if I did, control was still an issue, but we won’t go there.

  “Michael will be there,” Chuck said. “He’s always wanted us to have a female lead singer.”

  “What songs?”

  “You don’t know any of them,” I said.

  “Try me.”

  Teddy shrugged. “We can switch some stuff around. Maybe do some Joan Jett and some Lita Ford.”

  “Katy Perry?” Sabrina asked. “Taylor Swift?”

  “Maybe some Fleetwood Mac?”

  “I want
to sing ‘Royals’ by Lorde. And ‘Try’ by Pink. And ‘Girl on Fire’ by Alicia Keys.”

  I sighed. “And we’ll change our name to Sabrina and the Poppettes.”

  “Sabrina Tenn and the Magicians is fine,” Sabrina said.

  “We do rock and roll and some blues.”

  “Expand your horizons, Brett.”

  “We’re in,” Teddy said. “I like Alicia Keys.”

  “You couldn’t name an Alicia Keys song if your life depended on it,” I said.

  “Really? ‘Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart’ and ‘If I Ain’t Got You’ and ‘My Boo’ and ‘Fallin,’” he said with a grin. “I can go on if you want. ‘Unbreakable,’ and ‘You Don’t Know My Name’ and—“

  “Stop,” I said. “You can turn in your man card now.”

  “Alicia is hot,” Teddy said.

  “I have to agree,” Chuck said. “I’ve always liked Alicia Keys.”

  I sighed. I didn’t want to admit that I liked her too, so I rolled my eyes. “Pussies,” I said.

  “Should we call Michael and have him come back?” Teddy asked.

  “I’ll text him,” Chuck said.

  And before you can say, “Let’s all be pop singers,” Michael was back and we were changing up our set list. Say goodbye to Pink Floyd, and say hello to Shakira. Say goodbye to Linkin Park and say hello to Carrie Underwood.

  We decided to kick off the set with Heart’s “Crazy on You” and we closed it out with “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll” by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. While we did work in a lot of pop songs and even a few country tunes, we played around with the arrangements and I had to admit the sound was a lot cooler than I expected.

  Unfortunately, the first thing the guys said when we broke down for the night was that Sabrina should be our permanent lead singer. I didn’t want that to happen. I wanted her to go home. I didn’t want to share the house. And that was before she started leaving yoga pants draped over the shower rod.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I rolled out of bed at two the next afternoon. Sabrina left a note saying she was out shopping, so I grabbed some toast and a glass of orange juice before taking a shower. Thirty minutes later, I walked out the front door wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and some old tennis shoes. I walked the eight blocks to the beach. I could have gone left and headed toward Porretto Beach, but instead I crossed Seawall Boulevard, descended the concrete steps and turned right toward one of the jetties. I kicked off my old shoes and placed them by a patch of grass toward the edge of the seawall.