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

by Gary Jonas

  “I don’t know you.”

  “There are Dark Ones,” Lakesha said. “I know what he’s saying is true, and if you look deep, you’ll know it too.”

  “Look deep? What kind of bullshit is that?”

  “You’re just being lazy. It’s your job to help people in trouble now. That’s why your father is paying you a stipend.”

  “I doubt my old man wants me to help thieves.”

  “You’re a thief,” Gene said.

  “As my father doesn’t want to help me, I rest my case.”

  “He helps your uncle,” Lakesha said.

  Uncle Paul loved stealing shit, and my father had helped him many times over the years, so my case didn’t get to rest for long.

  “Well, shit,” I said. “He doesn’t want me to help witches?”

  Lakesha gave me a slow blink.

  “I know,” I said. “He doesn’t want me to help ghosts? I mean, who cares if these Dark Dudes eat up a few ghosts. Right?”

  “You want them to destroy Demetrius?”

  “No.”

  “Then I rest my case.”

  And her case stayed rested.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “So how long have you been a warlock?” I asked.

  Gene and I were alone in Lakesha’s backroom because she’d gone out to deal with a customer. I wasn’t sure what to say to the old man, so that seemed like an okay way to make small talk. He looked at me like I was retarded.

  “I’m a witch,” he said. “Part of the coven.”

  “Yeah, but male witches are called warlocks. Right?”

  “I call myself a witch.”

  “So you think of yourself as a chick?”

  “Witch is a gender neutral term,” Gene said.

  “I hear the word witch and I think chick. If I were you, I’d call myself a warlock because it sounds cool.”

  “You, sir, are a moron.”

  “It’s not my fault you chose an effeminate occupation,” I said.

  “I don’t think of it as an occupation, I think of it as who I am at my core.”

  “A chick?”

  He sighed and shook his head.

  “Go with warlock,” I said with a nod. “Unless you’re gay. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t care one way or the other. It’s cool if you blow dudes in your spare time, and if that’s the case, being a witch makes sense. But if you want a strong masculine job, you should definitely call yourself a warlock.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Just saying.”

  Lakesha returned. “Are you two getting along?”

  “No,” Gene said.

  “Yes,” I said at the same time.

  “I don’t want to know,” she said.

  “It seems to me that girly-boy Gene here might not be as honest as he claims,” I said.

  Gene shot me that look that suggested I was mental again. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You show up out of nowhere, expecting us to help you. Seems mighty convenient to me. Like the lobster dude in the Star Wars movies says, ‘It’s a trap.’”

  Lakesha gave me the same look Gene did.

  “Boy, did you smoke something while I was gone?”

  “Yeah, you were gone so long, I rolled up some coriander and sage doobies,” I said. “Witchiepoo here didn’t want any, so I kept it all to myself and I feel so much better now.”

  “He’s lying,” Gene said. “He didn’t smoke anything.”

  “I know that,” Lakesha said.

  “So why did he show up the way he did?” I asked.

  “You don’t believe him when he says he needs a witch to fill the coven or are you still trying to get out of doing anything?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I just don’t like trusting him when he’s known thief and ghost-napper spinning yarns about Dark Things coming to eat people.”

  “The Dark Ones feed on souls,” Lakesha said. “They kill people, but they don’t eat them.”

  “How do we know this isn’t a trap? Maybe they kidnapped Sabrina, and they have her at an underground bunker where they can do Shakespearian double, double toil and trouble shit to her. Abigail could be guarding her right now, fixing to chop her up and stir her into a cauldron of nasty boiling gunk.”

  Lakesha rolled her eyes. “Why do you say that?”

  “Have you seen Sabrina today?”

  “No.”

  “Neither have I. You know who else we haven’t seen? Abigail. And Abigail is a witch, so she could be torturing Sabrina while we’re sitting here with Gene.”

  “For the last time, my name is not Gene.”

  “You’ll always be Gene to me,” I said.

  Lakesha rubbed her temples. “You’re giving me a headache, Brat. I’m a witch, and I don’t do the whole Macbeth routine. But, fine. Let’s set your mind at ease. You have a phone, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Call Sabrina.”

  I hesitated because she had to bring logic into the situation. All this magical influence stuff was messing with my mind. Besides, how can you trust some dude who wants to be a witch instead of a warlock?

  After taking a few breaths and staring at Lakesha longer than I should have, I pulled out my phone, scrolled through my “recents” and called Sabrina.

  She answered on the second ring. “What’s up, Brett?”

  “You okay?”

  “Of course. Why?”

  “You didn’t come home last night.”

  “So?”

  “So I’m here with a suicide ghost pecking the inside of my head, and a couple of witches telling me we have to stop the Dark Ones, and—”

  “Stop talking,” Sabrina said. “You’re not making any sense.”

  “Where did I lose you?”

  “You haven’t expelled Regina yet?”

  “So I lost you right from the start? I thought I was the one who needed things in six words or less.”

  “Fewer,” she said. “Sorry, I can’t help correcting you.”

  “Whatever. Can you come to Lakesha’s store?”

  “I’m with Michael.”

  “Bring him along.”

  “Sunlight is not his friend.”

  “Then leave his ass behind.”

  “He drove.”

  “Uber it.”

  “Is there some emergency?” she asked.

  I covered the microphone on the phone, and faced Lakesha. “When do we need Sabrina? Or do we need her at all?”

  “She’s a mid-level wizard, so yes, it would be good to have her along when we face the Dark Ones. Your vampire friend would be welcome, too.”

  I uncovered the phone. “When can you and Michael get here?”

  “After the sun goes down, so eight thirty or nine?”

  “That will have to do,” I said, but I knew from the previous night that Regina would get extra antsy as eleven o’clock rolled closer. I’d be ready to party, and she’d be ready to die. Stupid ghost was already dead. Still, I was handling her better than Abigail had. Unless Abigail had been faking it.

  Yeah, I have trust issues.

  I finished the call and gave Lakesha a shrug. “She’ll be here by nine or so.”

  Lakesha nodded. “Where are the Dark Ones now?”

  Gene hesitated. “They’re holed up at Alsup’s Auto Salvage in South Houston, but they’re difficult to track, so it’s possible they could have moved on by now.”

  “That’s an hour away,” I said.

  “So?”

  “So I have a suicidal ghost in me, and she gets more motivated as her death time approaches.”

  “The Dark Ones won’t leave their base until midnight unless there’s a mass murder or major accident to feed on.”

  “Ghosts are more active after people go to sleep,” Lakesha said.

  “The Dark Ones feed on ghosts because they’re easy marks,” Gene said. “The living tend to fight back, and when they kill people, it tends to attract wizards and paranormal warriors, so
they prefer the low hanging fruit. But these two have been feeding, so they’re a lot stronger than you’d expect.”

  Lakesha considered that for a moment, then pointed at me. “You, go home and get that black onyx necklace. We need to make preparations for your coming battle.”

  “My coming battle?”

  She grinned. “Picked up on that, did you?”

  “Kinda hard to miss.”

  “It was more than six words, so I thought I could slip it past you. Maybe you pay more attention than you claim.”

  “What do you expect me to do?”

  “Fight the Dark Ones. You’ll have help. Sabrina and Michael can assist you in the fight.”

  “But you witches are going to sit it out?”

  “If we attack something with magic, it comes back at us three times. That’s not a problem for wizards or vampires.”

  “This is sounding less and less like something I want to be a part of,” I said.

  “Too bad. Go get the necklace.”

  “What about Regina? You going to help me get rid of her?”

  “We’ll deal with that later.”

  “So I’m going to have Dark Dudes trying to kill me from outside, and a ghost trying to kill me from inside?”

  “You’re a member of the Masters family,” Lakesha said. “This should be child’s play for a wizard of your stature.”

  “Seeing as how you haven’t taught me a damn thing about magic, and neither has Sabrina, I don’t think that’s a fair assessment.”

  “I see,” Lakesha said. “And how many days have you been on time for your studies since we started?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “You don’t respect my time, so why should I go out of my way to help you? I’m available, as is Sabrina, but we get paid whether or not you accept our instruction. Things are slower in the mornings, but you can’t be bothered to show up until afternoon. I have more customers to deal with then.”

  I laughed. “You’ve had one customer in the last two hours.”

  “On normal days, I’d be packing online orders in the afternoons, but since you don’t show up until late, I’ve been doing that in the mornings.”

  “So now you’re going to tell me that you do most of your business online?”

  “Not anymore. Your father pays me quite well now.”

  “So why not close down your stupid shop and adjust your schedule to mine?”

  Isis growled from where she sat in the corner.

  “Shut up, cat,” I said. I stared at Lakesha. “Answer me.”

  “You won’t like it.”

  “Answer me anyway.”

  She took a deep breath. “Fine. The truth is that when your father approached me, he paid me what you might call a signing bonus so that no matter what happened, it would be worth my while.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Your father knew you wouldn’t apply yourself, Brett. I believed you would, but after spending a few days with you, I realized he was probably right.”

  “He knows me better than you do.”

  “This conversation is making me uncomfortable,” Gene said. He fidgeted in his seat.

  “Get over it,” I said.

  “Your father knows the way you were,” Lakesha said. “I see the man you can grow to be, but I worry you won’t have that opportunity. This is not what I wanted for you.”

  “Psychic powers on the fritz? Figures.”

  “Oh, I knew it was only a matter of time before something went wrong because my job is to find threats for you to handle. I wanted to start small, and I thought the ghost problem would be a lot simpler than it’s turned out to be, but that danger is always there when the supernatural is involved. There are dark forces out there.”

  “You’re stalling and I’m about to fall asleep waiting for the so-called true answer you promised me.”

  “Your father paid me up front for a year. That was my signing bonus. Mine to keep no matter what happens.”

  “Good for you. And yet you haven’t adjusted your schedule.”

  “I saw glimmers of hope, Brett. You were good with Demetrius.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Something about your father.”

  “Spill.”

  She looked at the floor for a moment. “In six words or less?” She raised her head and met my gaze, held it, then said, “He doesn’t expect you to survive.”

  “So you’ve been well compensated to find something that might kill me?”

  “No. I don’t want you to die, Brett. I just haven’t seen enough desire from you to learn in our limited time together. You’d rather sleep than learn to protect yourself.”

  “I like sleeping.”

  “Yes, well, your father has a pool running right now. Whoever guesses which month you die wins a million dollars.”

  “You’re in this pool?”

  “Of course not!”

  “So why even tell me about it?”

  “Because your father chose August.”

  So my old man didn’t expect me to make it through my first month of training. Good to know. I can’t say it surprised me much, but it was still a punch in the gut.

  I nodded as the truth sank in. He thought so little of me even after I’d saved his ass, that he assumed I wouldn’t make it as a working wizard for one lousy month. Not only would I not make it, but I’d die on the job he was forcing me to take. Grow up or die.

  “Say something.”

  “What is there to say?” I asked. “My father is an asshole. And clearly, there’s something to your feeling that I wasn’t worth changing your schedule to accommodate because you believe he’s right that I won’t make it a single month.”

  “I’m hoping you prove me wrong.”

  “Hope in one hand, shit in the other. You know which hand will fill up first.”

  “Your father set the rules.”

  “He always does,” I said. “I’ll go get that necklace now. Evidently, I have an appointment with death so my old man can win a million bucks. I’m glad you get to keep your pay.” I got up and left the store.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  My father and I used to watch Clint Eastwood movies. We both loved the westerns, of course. Beyond that, I always liked the funnier movies like Every Which Way But Loose with the orangutan, but my father always liked the Dirty Harry flicks. I suspected The Dead Pool was his inspiration for his own little dead pool because I doubted he’d seen the Marvel movie.

  As I drove home to get the necklace, I thought about my childhood. Those hours spent on the sofa watching movies with my old man. That was our time. It was about the only time he and I shared alone, and the only time where he wasn’t constantly criticizing me. I didn’t have a lot of good memories from my childhood, but movie time with my father was right up there toward the top of that short list.

  We didn’t just watch Clint Eastwood movies. We watched all kinds of movies, but Eastwood was my father’s favorite actor, so as a kid, Eastwood was my favorite, too. Eastwood as the Man with No Name was so damn cool. He’d walk into a town with confidence knowing he could outdraw and outshoot anyone. My father identified with that.

  “Brett,” he said once, “that’s how I live my life. I walk in and I know I’m the most powerful wizard in any gathering. I stand alone at the apex of the mountain and in a face-off with any other wizard, I will always come out on top.”

  One night, we watched the James Garner movie Support Your Local Sheriff. In the film, Garner played a guy who doesn’t seem like he’s any stronger or badder than anyone else. People constantly underestimated him, and he kept having to prove himself, but he outsmarted and outwitted everyone. When faced with a gunfighter, he chased the son of a bitch out of town by throwing rocks at him. When he accepted the job as sheriff, and the jail didn’t have any bars on the cells, he dripped red paint on the floor before arresting Bruce Dern’s character. He told Dern that the paint was blood from the last guy who
tried to escape. I loved that movie.

  “Dad,” I said when the movie was over, “that’s how I want to live my life. Someone points a gun at me, I’ll just stick my finger in the barrel.”

  “Son, that movie is a comedy. Life doesn’t work like that. To live in this world, you need to be more like Clint Eastwood and less like James Garner.”

  But I wasn’t like Clint Eastwood and I knew it.

  I wasn’t up to James Garner level either, but at least I could identify with him. In The Rockford Files he got his ass kicked. I got my ass kicked a lot. And again, Rockford outsmarted everyone by running cons and being persistent. I lost the persistent side of things, of course, except when it came to procrastinating. I once considered trying to be the world’s greatest procrastinator, but it took too much effort.

  When I pulled up to the house, it was just after six in the evening. A white van sat at the curb. I wheeled over behind the van and hopped out of my car.

  Teddy and Chuck climbed out of the van.

  “Hey, guys,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Band practice,” Chuck said, running a hand over his bald head. “Don’t tell me you forgot.”

  “I forgot,” I said.

  “I told you not to tell me that.”

  “I’m sorry, guys, I have to cancel.”

  “Is Sabrina here?” Teddy asked. He looked hopeful.

  “No, dude, she’s with Michael.”

  The way he flinched made me think maybe I should have just left it with a simple no.

  He stubbed his shoe against the pavement and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Figures,” he mumbled. Then he looked me in the eyes. “You forgot to tell Michael about practice tonight, didn’t you?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “And you didn’t tell Sabrina either.”

  “Right again. My bad.”

  “You know we have a gig on Saturday, right?” Chuck asked.

  “The beach thing,” I said.

  “Yeah, the beach thing. It’s a paying gig, Brett. And it’s a chance for us to showcase our talent with Sabrina’s vocals and our new set list. But we haven’t had a single practice since you fucked up our last show at the Hideaway. They won’t book us again, by the way.”

  “I figured.”

  “If you don’t care about the band, why are you in it?”