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 started to lean back against the counter, but Isis growled at me.

  “She doesn’t like you,” Sabrina said.

  “What was your first clue?”

  “I always knew Isis had good taste. Isn’t that right, Isis?” The cat purred as Sabrina stroked her back. Her ass went up in the air with each stroke.

  “Don’t get the cat all hot and bothered,” I said.

  Sabrina made a face. “Gross.”

  “You’re the one getting her to raise her butt.”

  “Don’t be a dumbass. Oh, yeah, you can’t help it.”

  Lakesha returned with a ceramic cup. She handed it to me. “Drink this. It’ll wake you up.”

  It smelled like coffee. “What’s in it?”

  “Coffee.”

  “You didn’t mix in some magical herbs or anything?”

  “It’s regular coffee. Drink it while I gather a few things.”

  “Did you spit in it?”

  She glared at me. “Don’t get cute with me, boy.”

  She disappeared into the backroom again.

  I sipped the coffee. It was good. And sure enough, it perked me up a bit.

  “Bring me up to speed,” Sabrina said. Then she grinned and added, “And do it in six words or fewer.”

  I returned the grin. “An abducted ghost is killing people.”

  “How does one abduct a ghost?”

  “With a couple of flashlights and a smart phone. Evidently, there’s an app for that.”

  Lakesha returned with a big purse over her shoulder. “I think I have everything I need. Let’s go.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Houston.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s where the man was killed.”

  “And how do you know Regina did it?”

  “It was on the news.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Breaking news, a ghost named Regina is killing people in Houston, Hashtag poltergeist. Hashtag Austin’s jealous.”

  Lakesha shook her head. “Boy, I oughta slap you upside the head.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “Might knock some sense into you.”

  “It’s a legitimate question. You want to drive an hour to Houston when all I want to do is go to bed.”

  “He has a point,” Sabrina said. “What did you see on the news?”

  “All right, look,” Lakesha said. “You’re right that they didn’t come right out and say it, but if you dip Occam’s Razor into a cauldron overflowing with magic, you can put two and two together and get seven. I had a feeling I should watch, so I did, and what I saw convinced me I was right.”

  “You lost me at Occam’s Razor,” I said.

  “Confession time,” Sabrina said. “You lost me, too.”

  She sighed. “Neither of you watched the news?”

  Sabrina and I shook our heads. “I was busy getting tortured,” I said.

  “And I was busy enjoying it,” Sabrina said.

  “Well I damn sure didn’t record it, so you’ll just have to trust me.”

  “I could bring it up on my phone,” Sabrina said.

  “That’s all right.” Lakesha said. “I’ll drive, and I’ll explain on the way.” She held up some keys and jangled them. Her key chain featured an odd looking slitted brown ball, and when she held it up, the lids opened to reveal a bloodshot eyeball.

  Before I could ask about it, she shoved me toward the door. The Van Morrison song “Brown Eyed Girl” got lodged in my head.

  She flipped the store sign to closed, then locked up, and led us around to the back alley. When she hit the key fob, her alarm chirped and the running lights flashed on a mid-seventies black Cadillac hearse.

  “There better not be a corpse in there,” I said.

  “You’ll be the corpse if you don’t get moving.”

  Sabrina laughed as she and I went around to the passenger side. We all piled into the front of the hearse with Sabrina in the middle. I looked into the back. The original rollers with tables were still there, and curtains stretched across the side windows. There were curtains on the back window, too, but they were open. The interior smelled like a fresh Christmas tree, which made sense since there were two pine air fresheners dangling from the rearview mirror.

  My right arm throbbed, and I didn’t want to use any muscles, so I reached across with my left hand to shut the door.

  Lakesha fired up the car and we headed for Houston.

  “The news had a story about a man dying at a shopping mall and I got a feeling about it.”

  “And that tells you Regina’s ghost killed the dude?” I asked.

  “Witnesses said he had a confrontation with a security guard on the escalator. One witness said the guard rolled up his sleeves and moved toward the guy, and his victim staggered back as if struck even though they were five feet apart. The victim staggered off the escalator to the second floor, spun and tumbled over the rail, falling to his death. Broken neck. What do you think?”

  I leaned my head against the window while she spoke, and when she finished, I gave her an exaggerated snore.

  “Hit him for me,” Lakesha said to Sabrina.

  “With pleasure.” Sabrina punched my shoulder.

  “Ow.”

  “Did you listen to what I said?”

  “Part of it,” I said. “Still trying to figure out why we’re heading to Houston for this. They had to list it as an accident, right?”

  “They did.”

  “And you think it’s murder.”

  “I do. I told you, I sensed it. They interviewed the guard in question, and in the middle of the interview he reached back to scratch his head, and I saw a tattoo on his forearm of a Solomonic Triangle.”

  “Was Regina’s face in the circle inside that triangle?”

  “No.”

  “And there can’t be more than one guy in East Texas with a triangle tattoo on his forearm?”

  “You forget that I’m psychic.”

  “I thought you were a witch.”

  “Hit him again for me,” Lakesha said.

  “Gladly,” Sabrina said and punched my shoulder again.

  “Stop it,” I said.

  “She’s a powerful witch, Brett,” Sabrina said. “Of course she’s psychic.”

  “So you had a feeling,” I said.

  “That’s right.” Lakesha gripped the wheel tighter.

  “I’ve got a feeling too,” I said. “My feeling tells me it’s nap time.”

  “You’d best start believing my feelings, Brett. I’m never wrong.”

  “Wake me up when we get wherever it is we’re going.”

  “The mall.”

  “So you can sense some more bullshit?”

  “Show some respect,” Sabrina said.

  “She’s not Aretha, so I don’t have to.”

  I leaned against the door and went to sleep.

  CHAPTER TEN

  If you’ve seen one large shopping mall, you’ve seen them all. Lots of little shops selling a bunch of crap nobody needs. Gift shops, overpriced shoes, ladies lingerie. Okay, maybe the lingerie was necessary.

  Lakesha parked by the movie theater entrance, and led the way into Westlake Mall. The place wasn’t very busy, but it was a school day before three, so other than a few gangbangers, there were old women, a few middle-aged men out buying jewelry to get out of the doghouse with their wives, and a few women with toddlers heading into a toy store.

  “Can we start with the food court?” I asked. “I could sure go for some Panda Express. Maybe the panda witnessed the ghost slaying. And if not, at least I can get some Szechuan chicken.”

  “Keep it up,” Lakesha said.

  “I haven’t had anything to eat since yesterday.”

  “I’m hungry, too,” Sabrina said.

  “We’re going to the escalator first,” Lakesha said.

  We stopped at the first escalator. Lakesha held her arms out and shook them while closing her e
yes. She snapped to attention and started walking toward the other end of the mall.

  “Your psychic powers couldn’t even put you on the right side of the building?”

  “You’re cruising for a bruising, Brett.”

  “I’m already bruised.”

  We walked past sporting goods stores, kiosks with cellphones and sunglasses with cute girls trying to stay awake while a few potential customers moved by without stopping, a pretzel shop, where I really wanted to stop because a hot pretzel sounded good, a T-shirt shop, a game store with a couple of kids skipping class, and so many others until we finally reached the other escalator. Lakesha closed her eyes, jiggled her arms, and pointed to the escalator going up to the second level.

  “This is it,” she said. She pointed to the floor near a fountain with pennies in the little pool. “He died right over there.”

  She got on the escalator, and we followed her.

  As we rode up the escalator, she held out her arms.

  Three quarters of the way up, she doubled over and pulled her arms to her body as if she’d been punched in the gut.

  “Oh!” she said.

  “Ghost punchers?” I asked.

  Sabrina didn’t wait for a prompt to punch my shoulder again. It hurt, and I knew I’d be sporting yet another bruise.

  “She was here,” Lakesha said. “She didn’t want to do it.”

  “Is she still here?” Sabrina asked.

  “No.”

  “Are you all right?” Sabrina laid her hand on Lakesha’s shoulder.

  “I’m fine, sweetie. The emotion was overwhelming for a moment there, but I’m good.”

  “There’s a pizza by the slice place over there,” I said, pointing. “Let’s eat before we play Scooby Doo and find out that Mr. Jenkins was trying to sell the mall to a Russian oligarch and would have gotten away with it if not for us meddling wizards and witches.”

  We stepped off the escalator and Lakesha went to the railing to look over. She turned in a slow circle. Then she pointed to the lower level. “Back down,” she said, and walked around to the down escalator.

  “So, no pizza?” I said.

  “We’ll eat later, Brett,” Sabrina said.

  “You’re hungry, too, right?”

  She nodded.

  “You’re not buying into this whole charade, are you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, is this another test?”

  “Huh?”

  “Are you guys testing me? Seeing if I’ll sniff out the bullshit, because I’m calling you on it right now.”

  “She’s sincere,” Sabrina said. “It’s not a test. Or if it is, I’m not in on it.”

  “Right.”

  We rode to the lower level again, and I worried we might just walk around going up and down the escalators, but Lakesha made a beeline down a hallway toward the restrooms and mall offices.

  She stopped at a door marked Security.

  “Let’s see if he’s in here.” She tried to open the door, but it was locked.

  “We can open it with magic,” Sabrina said.

  “Or we can do it the easy way.” I reached past them and knocked on the door.

  A large man in uniform opened the door. When I say large, I mean he stood six foot four and could have played linebacker for the Texans.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  Lakesha looked him up and down. She nodded. “I’m Donna J. Cavendish from the corporate office. These are my associates, Dean and Loretta. We’re here about the unfortunate accident last night.”

  “Corporate was here this morning.”

  “And we’re here to follow up.”

  “Nobody told me about that.”

  “What is your name, young man?” she asked, digging in her purse for a pen and a memo pad. She looked at him and waited.

  “Henry.”

  She jotted his name in her pad. “Last name?”

  “Benford.”

  “How long have you worked here, Mr. Benford?”

  “Three months.”

  “If you want to make it to four months, you’ll step back and start cooperating.”

  She oozed authority, and the chump fell right into line like a whipped dog.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He looked at Sabrina and me. My long hair, T-shirt, and shorts didn’t scream corporate man. Sabrina’s yoga pants and a blue blouse didn’t either, but he wasn’t about to call us on it while Lakesha held the reins.

  The office featured a desk and a bank of monitors. We could watch shoppers wander through the mall from eyes in the ceilings.

  He might have been watching as we went up the escalator. I wondered what he thought of Lakesha’s act when she doubled up. Maybe that he’d better not visit the food court that day.

  “I need to see the accident report, and the security footage, and I need those right now, Mr. Benford.”

  “Maybe I should call to get authorization.”

  “I’m authorizing it right here, right now. Don’t make me write you up. Three written warnings and you’re history.” She stared at him. “You already have two verbals and two written, isn’t that right?”

  “What? How could you—?”

  “She was underage, Mr. Benford.” She glared up at him.

  “She said she was eighteen. Look, I need this job.”

  Okay, maybe she was psychic.

  “Cooperate and you can keep it. Who was on duty last night?”

  “Weston Hughes.”

  “Show me the footage.”

  He blinked a few times, but gave in and moved behind the counter. We all crowded around the large monitor on the desktop. He punched some keys on the computer.

  The image was black and white and from a distance. The bird’s eye view showed a security guard move around a gaggle of teenage girls to catch up to an overweight man in a short sleeve button up shirt with a striped tie. The man wore thick glasses, and the security guard, Mr. Hughes, looked at him straight on even though he was several steps below.

  Hughes rolled up his sleeves, and leaned forward. Hughes was a young man—early twenties—and looked like he spent his off hours working out. He had chiseled cheekbones, and short, dark hair. The man in the tie jerked backward as if punched. The escalator carried him to the second level and he staggered backward at the top, then turned and tried to catch himself, but tumbled over and fell out of sight of the camera.

  “Back it up.”

  He hit a few keys and the image danced backward so the tie man flipped over the railing and moved toward the escalator to go down. He jerked forward.

  “Freeze it.”

  He paused the image.

  Lakesha leaned toward the screen. “Can this zoom in?”

  “No.”

  She tapped the screen pointing to a visible tattoo on Hughes’ forearm. It was a triangle, but the image was too small to make out a circle inside it.

  “Does Mr. Hughes work tonight?” she asked.

  “He’s due in at five.”

  “Pull up the accident report.”

  He tapped the keys and clicked the mouse a few times, then the screen was filled by a report. Lakesha quickly read it. “Thank you, Mr. Benford. I’ll make sure the higher-ups know you’re doing a good job. How late are you here?”

  “Six.”

  “Very well. We’ll be back to talk to Mr. Hughes at five.”

  “He already talked to corporate security and the police.”

  Lakesha gave the power reigns a sharp tug. “And he’ll talk to me as well.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  As we left the office, Lakesha took a plastic bottle of hairspray out of her big bag. She sprayed a circle on the door with a symbol of some sort inside it. The circle was only visible from an angle, and when it dried, it would be invisible.

  She repeated the circle and symbol a few times on walls, and support posts as we worked our way over to the food court.

  “What are you doing
?” I asked.

  Sabrina sighed. “She’s setting warning sigils, of course.”

  “Bingo,” Lakesha said.

  We grabbed some pizza at the food court, and watched people shopping. The mall had a number of stores with their metal security grates down and For Lease signs in the windows.

  Lakesha straightened in her seat, eyes wide. “They’re coming,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “One of my sigils was just triggered. Behind me, coming around the corner.”

  A man in a security uniform came around the corner beside an attractive, thick woman in a smart business suit. The guard was definitely Weston Hughes, and based on the triangle tattoos on the woman’s arms, she was the big woman who’d helped abduct Regina.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Nothing right now. Don’t attract attention.”

  “You’re going to confront him anyway in a few hours.”

  “Not in public.”

  “Your call,” I said.

  When I looked back at the woman with Hughes, I was transfixed. She was a damn fine looking woman. She laughed at something Hughes said, and her smile reached her eyes. My first thought was that if I could ever make her laugh, I’d have done something worthy of note.

  They walked past, and her perfume smelled like flowers after making love in a soft rain. A warm feeling washed over me. I wanted to go to her and win her heart. Without even speaking a word to her or hearing her voice, I got the impression that she was the woman I’d been searching for my entire life.

  I started to push myself out of my chair.

  Sabrina touched my arm. “What’s wrong with you?”

  I snapped out of it. “Huh?”

  “Oh, shit,” Lakesha said, staring over my shoulder.

  I turned in time to see Hughes turn toward us. He strode up to our table.

  “Who are you?” he asked, narrowing his gaze at Lakesha.

  The woman walked over with him.

  I stood and reached for her. “Hey there, beautiful,” I said.

  “Bugger off, asshole. She’s mine.” Hughes shoved me, and I tripped over my chair, falling to the floor. A few people turned to watch, but no one moved closer.

  Lakesha pushed her chair back and rose. “I know who you are, Weston Hughes.”

  “I feel like I should know you,” Weston said.

  I got to my feet, and tried to move toward the woman. “I’m Brett,” I said. “I’m in a band.”