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

by Gary Jonas

  “It wasn’t your fault, Auntie. It’s not Brat’s fault either.”

  A wave of emotion swept through me, not mine, but Regina’s. “You can find it in your heart to forgive me?”

  “There’s nothing to forgive, Auntie Regina. You were always good to me. I know you would have saved me if you could. And even when you couldn’t see me, at least I could see you, so I was never really alone.”

  Through Demetrius, I saw one of the Dark Ones coming toward the hearse. “Hey, little man,” I said, “get in Michael’s car. Your aunt and I need to know you’re safe.”

  Yes, safe, Regina said to me. We die for him.

  I stomped on the gas and the hearse shot forward through Demetrius and toward the Dark One.

  But before we struck the creature, one of the machines on the side of the crusher moved forward. It was a weird looking thing, like a cross between a tractor and a forklift, but had massive curved metal fangs above the forks. As I raced forward, that big machine slowly moved between me and the Dark One. Regina wouldn’t let me brake or turn the vehicle. The forks raised and tilted up and I ran right into the damn thing. I slammed forward, smacking my head on the windshield so hard the glass starred. I hit the steering wheel, but because of my reaction to straighten my legs, I didn’t break any bones. It did tell me to never sign up to be a crash test dummy.

  The forks pressed down, crushing the fenders and holding the hearse in place. Then those massive metal fangs bit down near the windshield and pulled away, clawing the hood off. It yanked the engine block from the front of the hearse. The teeth raised up with an awful scrape of metal on metal and crashed down again, closer to me, ripping the front of the car apart.

  It’s one thing to die, but it’s quite another to get ripped open by a huge machine. I opened the door and bailed out. When I hit the dirt, I rolled. The engine biter made quick work of the hearse.

  I tried to focus my magic enough to hurl the machine out of the way, but Regina screaming at me to die die die was too much of a distraction.

  Another Dark One came out of the car crusher.

  Strong hands grabbed me and pulled me to my feet. I twisted and saw it was Michael. “Run!” he yelled, and practically threw me back the way I’d driven.

  We have to die die die, Regina said, but I ran away instead.

  We bolted toward the gate, but we didn’t make it that far.

  Sabrina stood in our path, hands glowing with energy.

  “Get down!” she yelled.

  We dove to the ground as she let loose with everything she had.

  Her blast of light and power smacked into one of the Dark Ones, driving it backward, arms windmilling. Its long-fingered hands ended in dark claws.

  As soon as her blast ended, the Dark One moved toward us again.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Michael said.

  Behind Sabrina, Gene shoved Lakesha into the salvage yard, then slammed the gate closed behind her.

  We’d been betrayed.

  “That lying sack of shit,” I said.

  Lakesha drew a circle in the air, spun it around so it glowed and expanded.

  “Get over here!” she yelled.

  Sabrina, Michael, and I ran to her and she threw the circle on the ground, then dropped to her hands and knees, scrawling symbols in the dirt.

  “That will keep them out,” she said.

  “For now,” I said.

  “Just remain inside the circle and all will be fine.”

  Die die die, Regina said, more insistent.

  I turned to step out of the circle, but Michael grabbed me.

  “Regina wants me to die,” I said. “She’s right. It’s time.”

  “Don’t give me that bullshit. You’re too lazy to die,” Michael said. “Channel your inner slacker.”

  “She’s too loud.”

  Lakesha started singing “It’s a Small World.”

  “Stop that,” I said.

  She kept singing. As she sang, she finished the symbols and hauled herself to her feet.

  “Hold him in place, Michael,” she said, which thankfully ended the song, though it kept going in my damn head.

  Outside the circle, the Dark Ones loomed, walking around us, staring in with their eyes so dark they were like staring into a black hole. A feeling of malevolence poured off them. They were the stuff of nightmares. Their mouths remained open chasms of deep darkness. Their robes flowed like torn bits of material in jerky, stop-motion jump cuts as if they were created by a movie special effects crew who left out some of the frames when they spliced the film back together. It was unnerving.

  But I figured it would be a quick and easy death, and Regina wanted me to go to them, so I tried to break free from Michael’s grip. He held me in place. Dude was strong.

  “Regina is winning her battle with him,” Michael said.

  “Regina and Sabrina, hanging in a tree,” I said in a sing-song manner.

  Sabrina slapped me. “Stop it!”

  “Ow,” I said.

  “I thought he could push her out,” Lakesha said. “I don’t care what Nathaniel Masters says. Our lives are all on the line now.” She pulled a magic marker out of one of her pockets and drew something on my forehead.

  “That better not be a dick,” I said.

  “Shut up, Brett,” she said and finished her drawing. She tapped the image and my skin went cold. Regina oozed out of my forehead and spilled into the circle with us as a separate entity.

  I dropped to my knees. “Wow, man,” I said. “That felt wild.”

  I didn’t have time to think about how she’d just defied my father, and maybe just cost him a million bucks in his dead pool. Then again, I didn’t need to think about it because I felt it deep in my soul. Lakesha chose me over my father. That was a first.

  The Dark Ones kept moving around us, clawing at the edges of the circle. They screeched in a high pitched howl.

  “We need a plan,” Sabrina said. “I hit one of them with everything I could pull up and it barely pushed it backward three steps.”

  “Michael,” I said, “maybe you can lure them into the crusher. We can toss a couple of cars in there, smash the bastards into the cubes with a binding spell and call it a night.”

  “What about me?” he asked.

  “Turn into a bat and fly away.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Shift into a mist and drift away?”

  “You’ve watched too many movies. I can’t do that kind of stuff.”

  “Then what’s the benefit of being a vampire?”

  “Extra strength, hypnotic suggestive powers, eight hour erections, practical immortality provided you don’t get staked in the heart, decapitated, or devoured by Dark Ones.”

  “I want to punch Gene,” I said. “Double-crossing little bastard.”

  “His name is Quincy Black and he didn’t double-cross us, Brett,” Lakesha said. “I told him to send me inside and to close the gate. I’m still connected to the coven by the pendant he gave me.” She held it up. It looked like costume jewelry, but it had a small black onyx stone in the center.

  “What good does that do?”

  “For one thing, it allows me to keep the circle even if we move.”

  “So we can move and they can’t get in?”

  “Exactly. And with eleven other members to draw from, plus the power in the larger black onyx from the necklace, we’re safe for a time, and the Dark Ones won’t leave us while we’re here.”

  “Yeah, but we’re locked in here with them.”

  “Or they’re locked in here with us,” she said. “Your idea about the car crusher is a good one.”

  “Okay, but it’s empty.”

  “It is right now, but we can load it up.”

  “The Dark Ones can control the machines, though,” I said. “As Exhibit A, take a look at your hearse.”

  “They can’t control anything inside the circle.”

  “And the circle isn’t big enough to cover
one of the machines.”

  “I can expand it by drawing on your power.”

  “I can drive the forklift,” Michael said.

  “There isn’t room for all of us,” I said.

  “I’ll hold Regina,” Lakesha said as she drew a triangle on her forearm. She grabbed the ghost. “Regina, I invite you.”

  Regina darted into Lakesha.

  “No, Regina, you didn’t fail me,” Lakesha said. “I failed you.”

  “Oh shit,” I said and grabbed Lakesha to hold her in place. “Regina is in full suicide mode.”

  Lakesha slapped my arm. “Let go of me, Brat. I’m not under her control. I welcomed her. If I don’t send her out and let her back in, she won’t be able to overpower me for at least twenty-four hours.”

  “Oh.”

  Abigail had released her and Regina dove back inside. Abigail struggled early because of that. I hadn’t struggled until the last few hours, but I hadn’t been able to expel her.

  “Sabrina, can you draw from Brett to blast the Dark Ones away long enough for us to load the crusher?” Lakesha asked.

  Sabrina nodded. “I can’t recharge fast enough, but Brett can. He just can’t control his power.”

  “Maybe I can fling them into space,” I said.

  Sabrina patted me on the shoulder. “Better if you let me handle the magic.”

  “Your call,” I said.

  She took a deep breath, grabbed me, and waited for an opening. The Dark Ones moved around the circle. “Now!” Sabrina yelled and pulled me.

  We leaped from the circle. Sabrina just jumped, but I did a shoulder roll.

  “Idiot, get close to me,” she said.

  I raced over. One of the Dark Ones remained at the circle, but the other moved toward us. She blasted it and sent it flying into a stack of old cars.

  Then she grabbed hold of me. “I need a power boost,” she said.

  “Take it,” I said.

  The Dark One stepped away from the cars and lumbered toward us. Sabrina threw her hands forward, but sparks only sputtered from her fingertips.

  “Uh oh,” I said as the Dark One approached.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “Bite the inside of your cheek,” Sabrina said.

  Oops. Blood magic did require blood. I hadn’t done much of it, so I forgot. After all, I don’t like pain. I bit the inside of my cheek and tasted blood.

  The Dark One reached for us.

  Sabrina pulled the power from me and hurled it, blasting the Dark One across the junkyard.

  “Wow,” Sabrina said. “That felt good.”

  “My power is stronger than yours,” I said.

  “Don’t be a douche,” she said. She pulled more power from me and blasted the other Dark One away from the circle.

  Lakesha and Michael hurried to a forklift.

  I kept biting the inside of my cheek to keep the blood flowing.

  Sabrina blasted one Dark One with her left hand, and the other with her right hand.

  “This is fun,” she said. “And it doesn’t even hurt.”

  “Speak for yourself,” I said.

  “I just did.” She blasted them over and over.

  The forklift rumbled to life and Michael speared a car from one of the stacks. The lift beeped in a steady rhythm as he put it in reverse. He shifted to forward and the beeping stopped. He loaded the first car into the crusher.

  It was a good sized machine, so it would hold four cars easily.

  Sabrina blasted away at the Dark Ones.

  Michael loaded another car into the crusher.

  Rinse and repeat twice more and my cheek throbbed with pain while Sabrina laughed with exuberance as she took shots at the Dark Ones. Each time she hit them, they screeched like pterodactyls in heat, and sailed backward a good fifty feet. And each time they instantly came at us again.

  The forklift beeped as Michael backed it away from the crusher. He shut it off, and hopped to the ground.

  Lakesha climbed down a lot slower, but she joined him in front of the machine. Sabrina and I maneuvered our way over to them.

  I kept biting my cheek, and Sabrina kept throwing energy blasts. “I could do this all night,” she said.

  “Not a good plan,” I said.

  “Shut up and bite yourself.”

  Lakesha put a hand on Michael’s shoulder. “Are you sure you understand what to do?”

  He nodded. “I do.”

  Before I could ask what that was, Lakesha twisted her forearms forward. She’d drawn another triangle on her other arm. Regina shot from her arms and dove into Michael.

  “You’re doing the right thing,” he said.

  “It doesn’t feel like it,” Lakesha said.

  “She’s been in a loop for more than thirty-five years. She’s ready for the pain to stop.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s what she wants,” Michael said.

  “I know,” Lakesha said again. “And at least she got to say goodbye to Demetrius.”

  “I’ve got this,” he said and gave her a hug.

  She embraced him back. “I know you do.”

  And I realized the hug and final exchange wasn’t between Lakesha and Michael, but between her and Regina.

  Lakesha stepped away and pulled out her cellphone. She hit a button, waited, then said, “Open the gates.”

  Michael pointed to the side of the machine. “Sabrina, Brett, get over there. And be ready to hit the green button to crush the cars.”

  Sabrina took another shot at each of the Dark Ones as we moved to the side of the machine where the controls were located. There were two buttons. One green, one red. The red one was helpfully labeled Emergency Stop.

  “Hey, you bastards, are you hungry?” Michael yelled.

  Lakesha had drawn triangles on his forearms too, and he aimed them at the Dark Ones as they soared toward him.

  Their high pitched screeches were worse than fingernails on a blackboard. Michael stood his ground until the last second, then fired Regina into the Dark Ones. They devoured her instantly, finally ending her pain.

  Michael did a shoulder roll past the robed bastards.

  “Copycat,” I said.

  Sabrina raced over and blasted the Dark Ones into the crusher with the cars.

  Lakesha drew symbols in the air, and those symbols glowed like fire in the night. Extra energy flowed into the symbols from eleven separate rivers of light. The rest of the coven walked through the gate and moved toward us hand in hand, pendants glowing.

  I hit the green button.

  The Dark Ones tried to come out, but Lakesha shoved the symbols forward, wrapping the two sons of bitches tightly.

  “Damn girl, you’re a bad ass,” I said

  She pushed them back into the crusher and we stood there listening to the satisfying crumpling of metal.

  The crusher did its job then shut off.

  Lakesha set another layer of glowing symbols over the crushed vehicles.

  “There’s no way they’re getting out of that,” she said.

  “Nicely done,” I said.

  “You expected less?” she asked. “Please.”

  The witches from the coven cautiously approached the crusher and stared. They looked exhausted.

  “Is it over?” Abigail asked.

  “Not quite,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” Lakesha asked.

  “My control of magic might not be as strong as it should be, but I’m loaded for bear when it comes to power,” I said.

  “Don’t go there, Brett,” Lakesha said.

  I ignored her. All I’d done was press a stupid button. I wanted to show off and impress Abigail. I’d tossed an excavator into the Gulf of Mexico a few weeks back, and I’d raised the ocean from its bed and let it drop back, stunning an army of shark dudes.

  “Oh, I’m going there.” An excavator weighed more than thirty thousand pounds, while four cars probably weighed about half that. And I couldn’t even guess how much that water wei
ghed, but a metric fuck-ton sounded about right. “I’m going to throw the Dark Ones and these crushed cars into space where they belong.”

  “Don’t do it,” Sabrina said.

  I ignored them. I raised my hands over my head, focused on the crushed cars, lowered my hands. I’d need to pull the cars out of the machine then fling them skyward.

  I bit my cheek once more, tasted the coppery blood, felt the power surge inside me, and I motioned for the cars to fly into space, throwing my arms up in dramatic fashion.

  “Hasta la vista, Dark Ones,” I said as I made the move.

  The cube of crushed cars tilted forward about six inches, then rocked back into place inside the machine.

  “Maybe Sabrina used more of my magic than I thought,” I said. “Let’s try this again.”

  Sabrina walked up to me as I made my preparations. She put a hand on my shoulder and whispered in my ear.

  “Brett, you didn’t throw the excavator on your own, and you didn’t lift the ocean on your own either.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your father did that to make it seem like you had more control over your untapped power. It was all a show for Sinclair.”

  “But…”

  She shook her head. “The power is all there. Buck up, you’ve got the potential to be a great wizard. It will take lots of practice for you to be able to call on that kind of magic on your own, though.”

  “Why didn’t he tell me?” I asked, feeling like an idiot.

  “He wanted you to try for a change.”

  I felt demoralized.

  “I don’t know if it helps,” Sabrina said, “but you sure pressed that green button like a champion.”

  “That doesn’t help, but thanks anyway.”

  She patted me on the shoulder, then moved off to talk to Michael. The coven broke off into smaller groups to chat, and some of them wandered off to go home to husbands, wives, kids, dogs, cats, you name it. Some of them had to work in the morning, and being a witch was just one facet of who they were.

  Lakesha stood talking to Gene or Quincy or whatever his real name was, and I stared at the crushed cars in the machine.

  Abigail walked up to stand beside me. “Hey there, big guy,” she said.

  “Hey, hot stuff.”

  “Sorry about the perfume spell. It’s not normally that effective on anyone. It will wear off soon. I hope.”