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

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “There’s no one else here.”

  “There’s a nuisance demon named Kevin here,” I said, pointing to where he stood in the doorway to the bathroom. “The son of a bitch pissed on me.”

  “You had a dream where you had to pee, so you just peed?”

  “It was a demon.”

  “A demon made you pee?”

  “No! The demon peed on me.”

  She laughed. “Whatever. Wash your sheets. And for the love of magic, please keep your voice down. I’m trying to sleep upstairs.”

  With that, she turned and left the room. Kevin stared at her ass as she walked away.

  I glared at Kevin. “You think this is funny?”

  He nodded. “I know it is.”

  “You could have at least made yourself visible to Sabrina so she’d know I didn’t wet my bed.”

  He kept grinning. “Word will get out that you’re a bed wetter. Maybe you shouldn’t have a drink before bed. You ever think of that?”

  I flipped him the bird, as I walked around the bed to reach the pillow. I picked up the pillow by the corner. While I could wash the pillow case, I was not about to ever lay my head on the pillow itself ever again. Seventy-two cans of Lysol and fifty bottles of Fabreze wouldn’t change the fact that it was covered in demon piss. I carried it out of the room, down the stairs, and out into the garage, where I dropped it in one of the green plastic trash cans.

  I’d need to buy a new pillow.

  When I went back upstairs, Kevin was lying on the bed.

  There was a wet spot around where the pillow had been, but the rest of the mattress was dry.

  “Bastard,” I said.

  “Something wrong, Brett?” he asked, all innocent.

  I tried to punch him, but hit the mattress.

  Helen needed to teach me how to make contact because Kevin needed his ass kicked more than anyone I’d ever known.

  I grabbed a bottle of Fabreze from beneath the sink, and emptied it on the mattress.

  “There will always be a piss stain there,” I said.

  “A little something to remember me by,” Kevin said. “And if any woman ever finds you attractive enough to sleep with again—something I think I might have messed up for you the other day—she’ll know you’re a bed-wetter too.”

  I threw the empty bottle at him. It flew right through him, and bounced off the wall.

  “Be quiet down there!” Sabrina called. “I’m trying to sleep!”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Kevin and I arrived at the Oracle Recording Studio five minutes early. The building stood on a fenced-in gravel lot near where Avenue S meets Seawall Boulevard. I couldn’t remember ever being early for anything before. On the drive over, I’d crammed as many Altoids into my mouth as possible, and they still burned my tongue as I got out of the car.

  Lakesha sat on a bench in front of the building in a smoker’s area. The sound of traffic over on Seawall made for soft background noise. Most of it was blocked by the fence.

  “Look what the demon dragged in,” Lakesha said.

  Two rows of palm trees lined the walk to the studio and the smoking area. I leaned against one of the trees and tried to speak, but several mints spilled out of my mouth. One of them stuck to my blue button-down shirt, while the rest hit the sand by the walkway.

  “What the hell are you eating?” Lakesha asked.

  I shook my head and tried to answer, but I couldn’t form the words.

  “He has a bad taste in his mouth,” Kevin said. “Morning breakfast elixirs don’t agree with his delicate palate.”

  A taxi pulled up to the curb, and Helen got out of the backseat. She leaned over to pay the driver, and the way her red dress hugged her curves was a sight to behold. She turned toward us, and smiled.

  “I’m glad you both made it.”

  “What about me?” Kevin asked.

  “You? Not so much.”

  “Hear, hear,” I said, sending little white mints flying all over the walkway.

  Helen grimaced and held that look for a moment. “Maybe you should stay out here with the demon,” she said. “Lakesha and I can handle this.”

  I spit out the rest of the mints and wiped my mouth on my sleeve, leaving a trail of white residue on the blue material. “No way. I didn’t get up at fuck-this-o’clock to wait outside.”

  She looked me up and down. I had a nice shirt on, and tan slacks. I tried to brush the white flecks from my sleeve, and only succeeded in spreading them around a bit.

  “You don’t own an iron?” she asked.

  I guess my shirt was a bit wrinkled, too. I tried to smooth out some wrinkles to no avail. And the white streak from the mints didn’t add to my professionalism. I rolled up the sleeves to hide the stain.

  “And you don’t own any socks?”

  I had loafers on, but she was right about the lack of socks. I had shorts on under the slacks, and planned to remove the damn pants as soon as we were done here. I didn’t expect anyone to look to see if I was wearing socks. Who does that?

  Lakesha pushed herself to her feet, and walked over to me. She pointed to the street. “Walk with me.”

  Great, I thought, she’s going to give me shit about my lack of professionalism.

  I walked with her. She held a hand out toward a painted symbol on the road, drew magic from it, and waved a hand over me.

  She pursed her lips for a moment then nodded. “That will do.”

  I looked down. My shirt and pants were clean and pressed, and my hair felt different. I reached up, worried that she’d magically sheared it, but no, it was still nice and long. It was just magically combed back. I gave my head a shake to loosen it up. There was a limit to how professional I needed to look. I was a musician, after all.

  “Better,” Helen said when I approached. “I still wish you’d worn socks.”

  “And I still wish I was in bed sleeping.” I touched her arm. “Before we go in, I have to ask you something.”

  “No, I won’t go out with you.”

  “That’s not what I was going to ask.”

  “Oh.” She seemed surprised. “What, then?”

  “How do you manage to hit the demon when I can’t?”

  She grinned. “The demon is from another dimension, and as such, his atoms vibrate at a different frequency. I simply adjust my vibratory frequency to match so I can smack him.”

  I blinked at her. “Can you tell me that again in six words or less?”

  “What did you get from what I said?”

  “The demon is from another dimension so you hit him with a vibrator.”

  She laughed. “He’d like that too much.”

  “Come on,” I said. “Help me out here.”

  “Work your magic so you’re on his frequency.”

  “That’s still more than six words. What is he? A radio?”

  “You know how all atoms are in motion, right?”

  “No.”

  “Trust me, they are.”

  “And?”

  “You need to have your atoms moving on his level.”

  “Still more than six words.”

  “Too bad,” she said.

  Kevin scrambled around in front of me. “You need good vibrations,” he said and punched me in the crotch.

  I stared down at him and smiled. “Nice try, dumbass.” I rapped my knuckles on the cup I’d strapped on for protection that morning.

  “Cheater,” he said.

  “Children, it’s time,” Lakesha said.

  We all filed into the building, and a receptionist directed us to a meeting room down a hallway lined with posters for famous bands. I looked at the pictures of Bon Jovi, the Stones, Maroon 5, and Glen Campbell and shook my head. Glen Campbell might have come in here because he’d done the song “Galveston,” but the rest of them? No way. Somehow, I knew the owners of the studio would say the posters were merely decorations and not intended to suggest the artists had ever set foot in the buil
ding or recorded here.

  A sign glowed over a closed door at the end of the hall to let us know a recording was in session, but we didn’t have to go that far. Instead, we took a right-hand turn into a meeting room with dark paneled walls. A long oak table filled the room, and ten black leather chairs were positioned along the sides with one chair at the head of the table. That chair faced a window that looked into the recording studio where a blonde woman adjusted a breath screen in front of a large microphone.

  “Can we take that from the top?” she asked, her voice piped in through a speaker in the wall.

  “Hello, Apollo,” Helen said.

  A tanned hand reached over to the wall to turn off the speaker, then Apollo spun around in his chair to face us. He had an olive complexion, dark, slicked-back hair with gray at the temples, and deep brown eyes. He wore a gray three-piece suit with a dark blue tie.

  “Helen,” he said. His voice was rich and filled the room. “You brought friends.” His eyes locked onto Kevin. “A demon? Really? It has to wait outside.”

  “Blow me,” Kevin said.

  Apollo waved his hand and Kevin flew out the door, and the door slammed before he could come back into the room.

  “Who are your companions?” Apollo asked.

  “This is Lakesha,” Helen said. “She’s my manager.”

  “You have a manager now?”

  “And this is Brett Masters, my new agent.”

  I nodded at him.

  Apollo looked me up and down. “An agent who doesn’t wear socks with his slacks?”

  “He’s … eccentric,” Helen said. “The important thing here is that they know who and what you are.”

  Apollo didn’t have a reaction to that. He simply gestured toward the chairs. “Be seated,” he said.

  We took our seats, all three of us on the side of the table closest to the door. Helen sat closest to Apollo. I sat beside her, and Lakesha took the chair next to me.

  Apollo studied us and rubbed his chin. He pointed at Lakesha. “You’re a witch,” he said.

  She nodded. “Impressive.”

  He looked at me. “You have access to magic, but it’s so sporadic that you’re not worth my time to bother with, and if you’re an agent, I’m Elvis Presley.”

  “Wow,” I said, “I thought you died on the toilet.”

  “Fake agents need not speak,” he said.

  Helen glared at him. “If my agent and manager don’t approve of your contract, I’m not signing.”

  He grinned. “You’ve had time to think, and I’ve adjusted the contract a bit. It would not be wise to defy me.”

  He waved his hand in the air and a stack of papers magically appeared before him. He snatched them, flipped through the pages, and nodded. Then he handed the contract to Helen without another word.

  She didn’t even look at it. She set it on the table and slid it over to me.

  Wait a minute. I didn’t want to read the damn thing. What did I know about contracts? So I slid it over to Lakesha.

  “Really?” she whispered.

  “Give it a once over,” I whispered.

  Apollo stared at us. “Fake agent can’t read a real contract?”

  “I’m here to negotiate or to turn you down. Lakesha is here to see if the contract is fair to our client.”

  “Right.”

  Lakesha flipped through page after page.

  “You’re not going to offer us drinks?” I asked.

  “No,” Apollo said.

  “That’s a strike against you right there.”

  “I’m a god,” Apollo said. “You would do well to remember that.”

  “I thought you were a god of light and music and healing. You’re supposed to be a good guy.”

  “That was a long, long time ago.”

  “I don’t suppose you have any M&Ms here?”

  “No.”

  I shook my head. “You should send the receptionist out to get some. And have her remove all the yellow ones. Those damn things are cowards.”

  He just stared at me.

  Gods. No sense of humor.

  Helen turned toward me. “Brett, maybe it would be best if you played the Quiet Game.”

  Lakesha flipped through more pages. “This isn’t a normal contract,” she said.

  “It’s the best she’s going to get.”

  “If I’m reading this correctly, you want her to sing with you.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And to do that, she’s required to join with you in bonds of matrimony?”

  “If I’m going to share a stage with her, she needs to be elevated to godhood.”

  “And she’s to call people to you?”

  He nodded.

  “Because you want people to worship you again?”

  “It will unite the world in a singular purpose. You can see that as an opportunity to bring about world peace through music.”

  “So she has to marry you and call people to worship, but what’s this other clause?” She flipped through more pages. “I’m not reading this correctly.”

  “I suspect you are,” Apollo said.

  “There’s a lot of fine print here about responsibilities and a time table for production and release. I don’t see anything about payment.”

  “Survival is her payment. I shall provide for her, and people will worship at her feet. All the world will be our stage. We will bask in the adoration of billions.”

  “But this other clause. I don’t understand.”

  “It’s spelled out in clear language, witch.”

  “If I’m reading this correctly, it says you will own her.”

  “Exactly.”

  “That’s slavery.”

  “So?”

  Lakesha shook her head. “You can’t own people these days, Apollo.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s wrong. And what’s this? You want her to feed anyone who doesn’t worship you to the sharks?”

  “The Mako Clansmen?” I asked.

  “They do get hungry.”

  Lakesha shook her head and flipped more pages. “Your plan is to release a single for radio airplay and then do a world tour in support of it?”

  “So the people can worship me. They worship people like Bruno Mars, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Beyoncé, and Taylor Swift. So too shall they worship Apollo, the god of music. They will worship or they will die.”

  “What if the song sucks?” I asked.

  “The song will be the biggest hit of all time. I’ll have the benefit of a siren calling, the muses as backup singers, and I shall play my lyre.”

  “You think the people of today want harp music?”

  “Lyre music.”

  “Dude, have you even listened to today’s music?”

  “Yes.” He waved his hand dismissively. “It’s all noise.”

  “If you want to make a hit, you have to appeal to the youth of today, not those of thousands of years ago. You start playing a lyre, it won’t get any airplay on the radio.”

  “I will have airplay,” Apollo said. “They won’t be able to refuse. That’s covered.”

  “Right,” I said. “While Lakesha finishes reading the contract, which already sounds like a no-go, what say you go get your lyre and play something for us. Show us how that’s going to work for people in the twenty-first century.”

  I expected him to simply refuse. After all, I was just a mortal, and he was a god. He had nothing to prove to me. But I guess if you go thousands of years without worship, maybe you start to feel that maybe you do have something to prove.

  “Wait here,” he said, and left the room. When he opened the door, Kevin tried to slip inside, but Apollo kicked him out of the way.

  Helen stared at me for a moment. “You might be careful what you say when he comes back. You just challenged him, and he’s ready to kill people who don’t bow down before him.”

  “We may have other problems,” Lakesha said.

  “Like what?” I asked.


  Lakesha held up the contract. “Helen, is this your signature?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “That dirty, rotten, slimy, skuzzy, nasty, gross, awful…” Helen trailed off.

  I shrugged. “I think the word you’re searching for is asshole.”

  “Let me see the paper.”

  Lakesha held it up and sure enough, there was a dark brown signature at the bottom beside an X, and based on Helen’s reaction, it was legit.

  “He transferred my signature from something else,” she said.

  Lakesha flipped the page over. “This is a color copy.”

  “The original is signed in blood,” Helen said. “But it wasn’t for this contract.”

  “Your word against his on that,” I said. “And he has physical evidence. And as I suspect that’s signed in your blood, the original would have DNA proof of that.”

  “And?”

  “Welcome to show biz?”

  “Some agent you turned out to be.”

  “Contract, signed in blood. What was the original for?”

  “I wasn’t born a siren.”

  Lakesha nodded. “Magic powers granted through blood. Makes sense to me.”

  I looked at the door. “Did Apollo leave his lyre in Greece?”

  “You’re right,” Lakesha said. “He should have been back by now.”

  “He wouldn’t just leave us here, would he?”

  Helen frowned and looked over at the window to the studio. “Oh, Apollo,” she said, shaking her head.

  I followed her gaze. The blonde wasn’t standing there now. I stood and walked over to the window. “You’ve gotta be shitting me,” I said.

  “What?” Lakesha asked.

  I reached down and punched a button on the wall panel to pipe the studio sound into the room.

  Grunts and moans.

  I glanced over at Lakesha. “I think Apollo works out. And it looks like he’s got the backseat rhythm.”

  Inside the studio, Apollo’s pants were down around his ankles, and he had the blonde bent over a speaker. He was flat going to town, puppy dog style.

  I knocked on the window.

  He ignored me and kept pumping away.

  I knocked harder.

  No good.

  I glanced at the wall panel, and grinned. I pushed a button. “A little to the left, old man.”

  Apollo didn’t even look at me. He simply took one hand from the blonde’s hip and held it up with his middle finger extended.