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

  “Good for you,” the woman said.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  Weston grabbed my shirt and pulled me close to him. “I told you to back off, asshole.”

  “Technically, you told me to bugger off,” I said. I looked over his shoulder at the woman. She grinned and batted her eyes at me. “What’s your name, gorgeous?”

  Weston cocked his arm back and clenched a fist, ready to punch me, but Sabrina made a quick motion with her hands and Weston’s pants dropped to his ankles.

  “What the hell?”

  He wore boxer briefs with the Batman symbol on the crotch. Guess what’s hiding in the bat cave?

  “Dude. Batman?”

  He let go of me so he could pull up his pants.

  “You children can argue all you like,” the woman of my dreams said. “But I have to get to work.”

  She walked away. Her ass was almost as big as Lakesha’s and I liked the way her black skirt hugged her curves. I sure wished I had a swing like that in my backyard. I started singing “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-A-Lot under my breath because I liked big butts, too.

  “Brett, where are you going?” Sabrina asked.

  I snapped out of it to some degree. I realized I’d moved around Weston to follow the woman. I watched her go into a store called Jacob’s Jewelry. Weston fastened his pants. He looked toward the woman, then back at Lakesha, confused. Should he stay and confront her, or should he go after his girlfriend?

  “What’s her name, man?” I asked.

  “Fuck you.”

  “That’s not a very good name.”

  A couple of Weston’s security guard buddies ambled our direction. I suspected this wouldn’t go our way.

  “Is there a problem here?” one of the guards asked.

  “No, guys,” Weston said, waving them off. “Just a misunderstanding.”

  “You need us, we got your back.”

  “Thanks.”

  The guards walked to the railing overlooking the floor below, then stopped and turned, keeping an eye on us. Or more to the point, making sure we saw them. They weren’t going anywhere.

  Weston gazed at Lakesha. “You seem awfully familiar.”

  Lakesha and Sabrina could handle Weston. I moved off toward the jewelry store. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t win the big girl’s love. She was like an earth mother, and something about her had speared my heart and soul.

  “Brett?” Sabrina said.

  Weston strode after me, grabbed my shoulder, and spun me around to face him.

  “Careful,” I said, putting my hands up. “I bruise easily.” Moving my right arm hurt like hell.

  “I’ll break your face if you go near my girl.”

  Lakesha held up her hand to reveal some gray powder in her palm. She blew the powder into my face and said something that sounded like gibberish.

  I blinked a few times.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Go sit down, Brett. Sabrina, can you handle the other guards?”

  “On it.” Sabrina intercepted Weston’s buddies, who’d already started back across the court.

  “I’m going to kick your ass,” Weston started to roll up his sleeve.

  Lakesha was faster. She drew a circle in the air and ran her hand through it.

  Weston stepped back and looked dazed. His arms dropped to his sides.

  Lakesha held the invisible circle between her hands, pushing it together in the air. “Finish rolling up his sleeve, Brett.”

  “I thought I was supposed to go sit down,” I said.

  “Brett,” she said and it sounded like a warning.

  “Don’t let him hit me.”

  “I’ve got him for now.”

  I looked over at the other security guards. Sabrina had them back at the railing, distracted. She leaned against the railing, smiling at them, and from the way they smiled, they probably thought they could get lucky.

  I rolled up Weston’s right sleeve. Solomonic Triangle tattoo.

  “Regina?” Lakesha said.

  The black circle inside the triangle swirled and a woman’s tortured face rose out of the tattoo. She was a black woman in her early thirties. Regina. She mouthed some words, but there was no sound.

  Weston broke free of the spell. He shook his head, and glared at Lakesha. “Witch!” he said.

  She reached up and grabbed his ear. She yanked him down, and he cried out in pain.

  The guards heard the cry. It broke them out of whatever spell Sabrina had them under. “Hey!” one of them shouted.

  “You haven’t seen the last of me,” Lakesha said, then let go of him.

  “You’re hereby banned from the mall,” one guard said.

  Lakesha laughed and stepped close to the approaching guards, waving her hands. She whispered, “You can’t hold it any longer.”

  The guards’ eyes went wide as they wet their pants.

  “Oh no!” one said.

  “Oops!” said the other.

  “Wet clean up in the food court,” I said.

  “Might want to go get changed,” Lakesha said and patted them on the shoulders.

  “Where did Weston go?” Sabrina asked.

  I turned, and realized he was gone. Not my problem, but I’d use him as an excuse to get where I really wanted to be.

  “He probably went to the jewelry store,” I said. “I’ll check.” I started off toward the jewelry store at a fast trot.

  “Wait,” Lakesha said. “We’ll go with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the woman is a witch, and she cast a spell on you.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  Lakesha rolled her eyes. “You can barely get outta bed, and now you’re practically sprinting through a mall.”

  “Just trying to be helpful.”

  “There’s a first.”

  The jewelry store looked like your typical mall variety with a number of clear glass cases showing off a variety of necklaces, rings and earrings. An old man in a gray three-piece suit and a red power tie stood behind a counter displaying diamond rings. He looked to be in good physical condition, but his hair was silver and he wore a neatly trimmed beard and mustache.

  “My name is Gene. How may I help you?” he asked.

  “There was a hot chick here a minute ago,” I said. “I think she works here.”

  “No, I’m the only one here,” Gene said. “Haven’t had a customer in fifteen minutes, either.”

  I pointed to an open cabinet. It displayed a row of black headless mannequin necks with various necklaces: diamonds, rubies, sapphires. One of them was naked. “Is that supposed to be open?”

  “Oh dear,” Gene said, putting his fingers to his lips. “We’ve been robbed!” He moved his hands out in an exaggerated gesture of surprise, palms toward me as if I was pointing a gun at him.

  “They only took one item.”

  “The Eye of the Tiger,” Gene said, lowering his hands as he approached the case.

  And the old Survivor song got stuck in my head. Maybe the band could add it to our playlist.

  “What’s the Eye of the Tiger?” Sabrina asked.

  “It’s a black onyx necklace,” Gene said. “I am so fired.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  We didn’t hang around to see what happened with the robbery. While Gene called the police, we exited the mall. Lakesha led the way.

  “They had to go out this way,” she said, pointing to an exit leading to a parking garage.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because they didn’t set off any of my wards the other way.”

  “For all we know, Scotty beamed them up to the Enterprise,” I said.

  “James Doohan is dead,” Lakesha said, “and Star Trek was a TV show.”

  “Star Trek was a movie. Who’s James Doohan?”

  “Scotty.”

  “That’s Simon Pegg,” I said.

  “I trust you’re kidding,” she said as we finally reach
ed the exit.

  I grinned. “A little. I didn’t know you were a Trekkie.”

  “I grew up watching Star Trek. You have no idea what that show meant to me. It was the first time I saw someone who looked like me doing an important job on television. Nichelle Nichols is one of my personal heroes, and Uhura is my favorite fictional character.” Lakesha looked up and down the row of parked cars in front of us. No one was around. “Maybe we should split up and check the parking garage.”

  “You can’t check it with magic?”

  “I’m tapped out. It took a surprising amount of energy to hold Weston.”

  “What about Sabrina?”

  Sabrina shrugged. “I don’t know what kind of spell I can use.”

  “A location spell would be nice,” I said. “Bite yourself and find them. Or can you only do housework?”

  She pointed her finger and zapped me in the ass.

  “Ow!”

  “Don’t piss me off,” she said. “I’m tired and cranky.”

  “Seems to me they had a getaway driver,” I said.

  “Let’s split up and search anyway.”

  “And if we find them?” Sabrina asked.

  Lakesha hesitated. “I don’t know. Follow them?”

  “Wow,” I said. “We make a great investigative team.”

  “Shut up,” Lakesha and Sabrina said at the same time.

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Shut up!”

  We split up. I checked the main level of the parking garage, but didn’t find anything unusual, and found no sign of the love of my life. I leaned against a concrete pillar for a moment, then slid to a sitting position. If they were on an upper level, they’d have to drive down. Made sense to me. If they were already gone, why should I waste time walking around?

  As soon as I sat down, I realized I should have looked first. Something squished against my butt. I moved to get up and saw that I’d planted myself on a piece of bubble gum.

  “Oh, man,” I said.

  I tried pulling it off the seat of my pants. My fingers got sticky, and gum got caked under my fingernails.

  This wasn’t working.

  I took off my shorts. I wasn’t going commando or anything, so it wasn’t a big deal. I stood there in my boxer briefs and tried to get the gum off my shorts.

  I was still working on it when Sabrina found me.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  I held up my shorts. “Some jerk spit out their gum on the ground.”

  “So you thought you’d sit down on the job?”

  “I was watching for them.”

  “You were planning to take a nap.”

  “I was just going to rest. There’s a difference.”

  Lakesha wandered over, out of breath. She stared at me for a moment. “This ain’t no strip show, boy. Put your clothes on.”

  “No sign of them?” Sabrina asked.

  “Nothing at all.”

  “What are the odds Weston shows up to work?”

  “Slim.”

  “We should wait to see.”

  “Cool,” I said. “I need to buy some new shorts.”

  “You got that right,” Lakesha said. “You sure as hell aren’t planting your gum-covered ass on my car seat.”

  I tried wiping gum off my fingers onto the concrete pillar. Some of it came off, but most of it didn’t. “I hate people,” I said.

  “They hate you too,” Lakesha said.

  I pulled on my gummy shorts and we went back into the mall. I bought a pair of shorts in a department store and changed in one of the restrooms.

  As I walked out of the bathroom, I caught a whiff of the girl’s perfume.

  “Oh, baby,” I said. Like Toucan Sam searching for Froot Loops, I let my nostrils lead the way to the women’s restroom.

  I realized the restroom was for women only, but I figured what was in my pants was also for women only, so I pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  “Hey, pretty lady,” I said. “Come on out. Let’s talk.”

  There was a row of four stalls. Only one was occupied.

  I knocked on the stall door.

  “You about done?” I asked.

  No answer, but I heard something dripping.

  “Hello?”

  She wasn’t peeing. The sound was a slow and steady drip, drip, drip. I pushed on the door, but it didn’t budge. “You asleep in there?” I asked. “Wake up so I can pledge my undying love to you.”

  Still no reply.

  I dropped to my knees to peek under the stall. Either this chick had gigantic feet or this wasn’t her. A dark puddle of blood spread out on the floor. I couldn’t fit underneath the door, so I entered the next stall over and stood on the toilet. I peered over.

  Weston Hughes sat on the john and his head was cocked to the side. His throat had been slashed.

  “Gross. That undying love thing?” I said. “I take it back.”

  A few minutes later, I had Lakesha and Sabrina in the restroom. When they saw him, Lakesha shook her head and Sabrina blanched, putting a hand to her mouth.

  Lakesha rolled up Weston’s sleeve and placed a hand on the Solomonic Triangle tattoo.

  “Regina’s not in here.”

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “I don’t know. I think the witch wanted us to find the body, though.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  “Because she drenched it in her perfume.”

  I shrugged. “I can think of a few good things about it.”

  “Really?” Sabrina asked, trying not to look at the body. “I can’t. It means the witch got away. And it means she’s a murderer.”

  “True,” I said. “But it means some other things, too.”

  “Such as?”

  I smiled and raised a finger.

  Lakesha shook her head. “I don’t even want to know,” she said.

  “I’m going to tell you anyway.”

  “I knew you would. Get it over with so I can smack you upside the head.”

  “First of all, it means she wasn’t in love with Weston here.”

  “I don’t care,” Sabrina said.

  “Oh, but I do. It means she’s free to hook up with me when we find her.”

  “She’s a killer,” Sabrina said.

  “We don’t know that for sure. Maybe the other guy killed Weston and she poured her perfume on him to make sure he was found.”

  Lakesha rolled her eyes. “Your pretzel logic is stupid.”

  “Another good thing is that I smelled the perfume and felt the spellbinding effects, but when I saw dipshit here, I didn’t want to be with him.”

  “Which proves, what? That you’re not gay?”

  “That, plus it proves I’m not a necrophiliac.”

  “That was in doubt?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t care that Lakesha thought it was stupid. It distracted Sabrina enough that she didn’t hurl on the body. You take the positives where you can.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “I’m going to report the body,” Lakesha said. “There should be plenty of cops at the jewelry store. You two are going to track the witch.”

  “How are we going to do that?” I asked.

  “Sabrina will enhance your olfactory senses, and you’ll follow the trail of her perfume.”

  “I think I can do that,” Sabrina said. “And I need to get out of here. My stomach is still doing flip flops.”

  “There’s no puking at crime scenes,” I said. “Let’s talk about the magic. How enhanced? Can you focus it on the perfume?”

  “You could if you’d ever bothered to learn any control.”

  “So when you heighten my sense of smell, I’m going to have to smell a fart at a hundred yards?”

  “You’re going to smell everything,” Sabrina said.

  “I don’t want to do that.”

  Lakesha shook her head. “Nobody asked what you want, Brat. I’m supposed to be teaching you how to use your own
magic, but so far, you’re still leaning hard on your cousin.” And as she turned to leave, she shook her head in disgust. Didn’t she know I’d helped Sabrina deal with the body? I hated to admit that her headshake bothered me. Shades of my dear old dad’s disapproval.

  Sabrina grabbed my nose. She didn’t even wince as she bit the inside of her cheek to draw blood. Then she dialed up my olfactory system.

  She shoved me out of the women’s room. “As hot and bothered as you got for that witch, this should be easy for you.”

  I took a whiff of the air.

  Okay, if you ever get a heightened sense of smell, don’t use it near the restrooms. I wrinkled my nose.

  “Focus on the perfume,” Sabrina said.

  I moved farther down the hall and sniffed again. Still shitty, but now I could detect those flowers. Sabrina followed me down the hall into the main mall. I sniffed one way. Popcorn. Movie theater was that way. I sniffed the other way. Pizza, Chinese food, and the guy walking past us had a dime bag of weed in his back pocket. He also needed to wipe better.

  Yeah, I needed better focus.

  A mother pushed a stroller with a baby, and the baby needed changed. At least it was number one. I tried to hone in on the perfume. Too many other women wore perfume as well.

  Too many men wore cologne.

  The janitor needed to change the mop water.

  I focused not only on the smell, but on the feeling. Sniff, sniff. Desire welled up a bit. I pointed. “She went this way.”

  It’s not easy to ignore smells. As we moved through the mall, I cringed a few times. “Personal hygiene much?” I said more than once.

  Sabrina slapped my arm. “Be nice.”

  “They’re the ones stinking up the place. I want to hand out Altoids to most of these assholes, too.”

  “That could be you,” Sabrina said.

  “That lady needs to wash her hair,” I said, pointing.

  Sabrina smacked my hand. “Stop it,” she said, but chuckled.

  That was all the encouragement I needed. “That dude uses Irish Spring. That dude needs to.”

  “Follow the perfume.”

  “Oh, damn, that dude just let a nasty one rip. I think something crawled up his ass and died.”

  The trail of perfume led to a shoe store.

  “Smelly feet coming right up,” I said. “She went in here.”