The Big-Ass Witch (The Half-Assed Wizard Book 2)

by Gary Jonas

  I shook my head. “I’m getting a new tattoo tomorrow, so your lessons will have to wait.”

  “That’s the best you can come up with?”

  “My father’s orders,” I said.

  “You do realize I can call him, right?”

  “I do.”

  “So your lie can be revealed in moments.”

  I extended my hand. “I’ll bet you all housework for a month that my father is not only approving of the tattoo, but he’s actually calling to set the appointment.”

  She hesitated and narrowed her eyes. I could practically see the gears turning in her head. Was this a grand bluff designed to get her to simply accept it without verification, or was I telling the truth, and my father, who had always said tattoos were not appropriate for anyone in the magical community, had changed his stance? His view was that if you have a tattoo, anyone with any competence in magic could catch you when your guard was down, and magically transform the ink into a binding sigil that would render you instantly helpless.

  “There’s no way he would do that,” she said.

  I kept my hand extended. “Prove me wrong,” I said. “Shake on it.”

  She kept those narrowed eyes on me, and I focused on maintaining no emotion. Lakesha had seen right through me, so I needed to prove to myself that I had a good poker face. Sabrina started to reach for my hand, then stopped.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “I want to negotiate the terms.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “If you’re telling the truth, I’ll take care of the housework for the month, but if you’re lying, you’ll get up every morning at seven to make breakfast for me.”

  “Deal,” I said.

  She shook my hand.

  “Call him,” I said.

  “No need,” she said. “I know you’re telling the truth.”

  “Did he already call you?”

  She laughed. “No. You didn’t even hesitate after I said you’d have to get up early.”

  “Which means you want to do the housework?” I asked, confused.

  She grinned. “When’s the last time you did any housework?”

  I rubbed my chin. “Give me a minute.”

  “My guess is years,” she said.

  “So you lost on purpose?”

  Her grin widened. “I didn’t lose anything. Ask me why I’m cleaning.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “You have to ask.”

  “I don’t give a shit.”

  She laughed. “Humor me.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said and started up the stairs.

  “Fine. I’ll tell you. I’m cleaning so I won’t be embarrassed when the maid service starts tomorrow.”

  “Which means you’re cheating on the bet. You’re supposed to do the housework.”

  “Oh, it gets better. The maid service comes out of your monthly stipend.”

  “What?”

  “Your father didn’t like the state of the house when he visited last week, so he told me to set up a service, and you would pay for it.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “That, my dear cousin, is the truth.”

  I pointed to the carpet. “Mangani, you have my permission to eat Sabrina for dinner.”

  “She won’t do that. Mangani and I have an understanding.”

  The carpet gave a ripple that amounted to a shrug.

  “Oh,” Sabrina said. “One more thing. Michael is coming over in a bit. We’re going to watch a movie, so I’d appreciate it if you could make yourself scarce tonight.”

  “Is Michael getting lucky tonight?”

  She grinned. “I shaved my legs.”

  Chick talk for yes.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  King Solomon’s Tattoos was a ways down Seawall not too far from the Lone Star comic shop. In a that never happens turn of events, I was early. I know, don’t get used to it. I popped into the comic shop.

  Long boxes filled with comics lined tables in the center and sides of the store. Bagged and boarded comic books adorned the walls. I didn’t want to spend time going through the boxes, so I went to the counter, where a bunch of superhero dolls stood in various poses. One nerdy-looking dude stood behind the counter talking to another nerdy-looking dude in front of it.

  They were arguing about who would win a fight between Wolverine and Superman, and they stood resolute in their determination that one would destroy the other. I waited for an opening, but between talk of heat vision and adamantium claws, I wasn’t sure I’d get one.

  The clerk suddenly stopped and turned to me. “What do you think, man?”

  “I think that if either of you ever want to lose your virginity, you’ll need to find other topics of conversation.”

  “We get plenty of girls,” the clerk said.

  “I’m excited for you. Can you point me to any comics about a guy called Power Man?”

  “Luke Cage rocks,” the customer said.

  “I’m sure he does,” I said. “But I’m asking about Power Man.”

  “Luke Cage is Power Man, dude.”

  “Good for him. I just need a comic for a kid.”

  “We happen to have a mint condition copy of the first issue of Luke Cage, Hero for Hire. It’ll set you back four bills.”

  “Maybe you didn’t hear me. It’s for a kid. I don’t care about condition.”

  “Latest issue is on the rack,” he said pointing to the new comics.

  “They’re still making them?” I asked.

  “You live under a rock, dude? The Netflix series brought him back to his own book, but he’s been a member of the New Avengers, and—”

  “Not really my scene.” I went to the rack with new comics. It looked all fancy with slick paper. Maybe Demetrius would rather have one from when he was alive.

  I went back to the counter and interrupted their argument again. “Got any of the older ones that aren’t expensive?”

  “We’re sold out. They’re popular books now.”

  “The kid likes another character. Black dude who does voodoo and shit.”

  “Doctor Voodoo?”

  “That sounds right. Fights a werewolf or something?”

  “That would be back when he was Brother Voodoo. You want Werewolf by Night issues thirty-nine and forty.”

  “You remember the numbers?”

  “Of course. They fight Dr. Glitternight.”

  “Wow, what a stupid name.”

  The guy blinked at me.

  “Do you have those issues?” I asked.

  He sighed. “Let me check.” He opened a laptop, typed a bit. “Yeah, we have them both.” He pointed to one of the tables. “Probably in the penultimate box there.”

  “The what?”

  “The next to last box. Geez.”

  What a wonderful way to start my day. Comic nerds looking down their noses at me. I found the comics, tossed them on the counter with a ten dollar bill.

  “Little tip,” I said. “Should you ever talk to a girl, leave words like penultimate wrapped up in your wallet with your expired condom.”

  He shook his head and gave me some change. “As it happens, pretty boy, I’m married, and my wife has a doctorate in chemical engineering.”

  “Oh, burn!” said the customer.

  As I walked out of the store, both guys in unison said, “Asshole.”

  I hopped into my car—well, one of my father’s cars—and cruised over to the tattoo parlor.

  ***

  King Solomon’s Tattoos was so clean you could eat off the floor. Art decorated the walls, of course, lots of skulls, flowers, barbed wire, angels, dragons, the usual. Notebooks filled with illustrations stood open on a counter for customers to flip through.

  A lanky man in his late sixties sat in a black leather chair, eyes closed. He was rail-thin, wrinkled, and covered in tattoos. When he moved to look at me, the tattoos shifted around on his flesh.

  “You’re late,” he said.


  I guess I took longer than I thought at the comic store.

  “Sorry, man. I got hung up.”

  He scratched his beard. “Right. So you’re one of the Masters family.”

  He didn’t look impressed.

  “Guilty as charged,” I said.

  A snake tattoo curled around his arm and shot up his sleeve. By that, I mean it was actually moving. A barbed wire tattoo crawled out of his collar and slid around his neck then shifted into a thick circle with a pentagram inside it before it slid back into his shirt. The tattoos were mesmerizing.

  “Your old man wired a payment to my account. The size of the payment has me a bit wary, truth be told. He wouldn’t tell me jack or shit about what he wanted me to do, so what say you spill on the details so’s I can decide if it’s worth my time, effort, and talent.” As he spoke, a Mexican dancing girl sashayed out of his hair and swayed her way down his cracked face before twirling into his collar and out of sight. The art on his arms swirled constantly.

  “My father wants me to call him.”

  “Then make the call. Until I know I’m keeping the full payment, you’re not taking up any more of my valuable time.”

  My father answered on the third ring. “Solomon Kane wants to talk to you,” I said.

  “That’s King,” Solomon said.

  “Huh?”

  “Solomon Kane is a character created by Robert E. Howard. A Puritan who hunted evil wherever it chose to manifest. And while my mother, rest her soul, named me after the character, my surname is King.”

  “Put me on speaker, Brett,” my father said.

  I tapped a button on my phone. “Okay, Dad, you’re on speaker.”

  “Mr. King, I appreciate you making time for my lazy, good-for-nothing son.”

  “Your cash, your call, Mr. Masters.”

  “Brett, did you bring the deck?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Show it to Mr. King.”

  I pulled the Tarot deck from my pocket, and Solomon took it from me. He flipped through the cards.

  “What happened to these?”

  “They spent some time in the Gulf,” I said.

  “Not the water damage. This is ancient blood.”

  “Precisely,” my father said. “I want you to transfer the blood and images from the cards to my son’s arm.”

  “That’s a lot of magic, and doesn’t require any artistic skill.”

  “I want you to build a tattoo around the cards, and I want my son to be able to shake his arm to call on the cards to guide him.”

  “That’s a new one on me,” Solomon said.

  “Can you do it?”

  “There are seventy-eight cards. You want them all in one spot?”

  “I do.”

  “That will take a lot of sessions.”

  “I want you to do it in one session.”

  Solomon shook his head. “Say what?”

  “One session. The magic is simple. The blood debt is paid.”

  “You have any idea how much pain that will cause?”

  “I do.”

  “Pain for me or you?” I asked. I knew magic could hurt.

  He scratched his beard again. “The pain will be all yours, kid.”

  “How much pain?”

  “More than you’re going to want.”

  “I don’t care what he wants,” my father said. “He should know how to ease the pain. He’s a full-blood wizard, and with family blood on the cards, he can handle it. Get it done.”

  “Uh, I don’t know how to ease the pain, Dad.”

  “Figure it out.”

  Solomon frowned. “I’ll have to do a custom design around the images for each card as I transfer them. This should be done in seventy-eight sessions.”

  “I think I paid you well enough to do it in one.”

  “Oh, I can do it in one,” Solomon said. “But your son doesn’t know how to erase the pain. I just don’t think he can take it. No one could.”

  “Don’t give me that. I’m paying a premium price, so do your job. When it’s finished, call me, and I’ll wire a tip of forty percent.”

  My father hung up.

  “Your old man must hate you, kid.”

  “Any chance you know how to ease the pain?” I’d managed to heal simple scratches, so maybe I could stop the pain, too.

  He shook his head. “My magic is in art and transference. With each card, as I do the transfer, you’ll feel the pain like knives carving the images into your flesh. Then I’ll have to tattoo a binding spell to each card as we go.”

  “Can I call a friend to come erase the pain?”

  “If I’m gonna transfer seventy-eight cards and do the binding spells, we’ll be here all day and all night. You’re definitely gonna want someone to ease the pain, but we’re gonna need to get started now. Get in the chair.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Solomon King was a dick.

  As soon as I sat in the chair, he took a card from the Etteilla deck, palmed it, and pressed it against the inside of my forearm.

  It felt like he set my fucking arm on fire.

  It hurt so bad I couldn’t even scream. My breath caught in my throat and first I stiffened, but then I tried to yank my arm away.

  His hand held me like a vice. “Man up,” he said, keeping pressure on my burning arm.

  When he finally released me, I let loose with a string of cuss words that would have gained me lifetime admission to the Sailor Hall of Profanity.

  I bolted from the chair, still cussing. I kicked a cabinet, but that just hurt my foot. I noted the pain in my foot, but it didn’t distract me much from my arm. I looked down and saw that the card’s image covered my forearm.

  “One down, seventy-seven to go,” he said with a grin.

  “Like hell.”

  “I need to do some normal needle work to ground a spell into place that will allow you to access the cards in your arm.”

  “The card is in my arm?”

  “The blood from the card is in your arm. The image is there, too, though it’s a transfer. I’ll give it the horizontal flip when I do the web lines.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” I said, still cradling my arm. I was afraid to touch the image because it still burned like a son of a bitch.

  “This next part won’t hurt as much,” he said. “Sit down.”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  He laughed. “I don’t care. You’re going to sit down so I can ink you up, or I’m going to kick your ass and strap you down so I can continue.”

  I wasn’t a fighter. I didn’t like pain because it hurt. And I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to go home.

  Solomon slowly rose from his seat and clenched a fist.

  “Don’t get your panties in a wad,” I said. “I’m sitting down.”

  “You might want to call your friend.”

  “No shit.”

  He took my arm with one hand, and started the tattoo gun with the other. The gun buzzed softly, and all was good until the needle stabbed my arm. I’ve had tattoos before. This was nothing like that. This felt like the gun was pushing magma into my skin. Again, I couldn’t speak and I stiffened up. He held me in place as he drew lines this way and that, curving around here and there.

  I heard a weird high-pitched screeching noise, and soon realized it was coming from me. My throat let loose with a cry like a kid pulling the lip of a balloon to squeal in that unparalleled annoying fashion. But I couldn’t stop myself.

  Solomon switched off the machine and set it on the counter.

  “Fifteen minute break,” he said. “I need a cigarette, and you need to grow a pair. Wipe those little bitch tears from your eyes.”

  I dabbed at my eyes with my left hand. I didn’t want to move my right arm because it hurt so much.

  I fumbled for my phone, and called Sabrina. “Please pick up,” I whispered. “Please pick up.”

  She answered on the third ring. “Hello?”

  “Sabrina, it’s Brett. I
need you to come down to King Solomon’s Tattoos. Please hurry. This guy is trying to kill me.”

  “I’m busy.”

  “Get un-busy,” I said. “I need you.”

  “What do I get out of it?”

  “You get to see me crying in pain.”

  She laughed. “That’s almost worth it.”

  “Sabrina, please. This motherfucker is going to start torturing me again. You need to come down here and work your magic to keep the pain away.”

  “What if I want to see you suffer?”

  “I’m begging you,” I said.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll come ease your pain, but you owe me a favor to be named later.”

  “Anything,” I said. “Just please get here fast. I can’t do this without you.”

  “Maybe I should get three favors.”

  “Fine. Just hurry.”

  “Where is it?”

  I gave her the address.

  “That’s about twenty minutes from here.”

  "What do you mean? It's only like a five minute drive!"

  "I want to get a walk in today. And I need to grab a shower first."

  “No you don’t!”

  She laughed. “I’m just messing with you. I just need to put on my shoes. I’ll see you in a bit.”

  “Thank you.”

  I tried to get up, but my knees wobbled, so I dropped back into the chair. I didn’t want to look at my arm. I felt certain it would be a bloody pulp right now. But I had to see. I slowly turned my gaze to the tattoo.

  My skin was red and inflamed around the rectangular image. As I’d just been in a comic book store, the webs Solomon had drawn across the image of the card looked like the lines on Spider-Man’s costume.

  Solomon entered the shop and wandered back to me. He stank like cigarette smoke.

  “Ready for round two?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Let’s get this show on the road anyway.” He grabbed another card, slapped it against my arm and started the torture all over again.

  I thought I was going to pass out.

  Once the card was transferred and the image flipped, he started in on me with the tattoo gun. By the time he finished the second card, my legs were noodles and I had to dab away more tears. It was the worst pain I’d ever felt. It was like having a root canal done without Novocaine.