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

  “Go back to your demon bitch in that other dimension then.”

  “Don’t call Gorenzia a bitch, you sniveling little pissant.” And he zapped me in the nuts with a jolt of electricity.

  “Oh!” I doubled over and clutched my crotch. My balls buzzed painfully and I dropped to one knee.

  Kevin tilted his head to the side. “Would you like another? Too many shots will make you sterile, but that’s probably a good thing.”

  “Go away.”

  “Make me.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Duh,” he said, and tapped my forehead. “Learn.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  He shrugged. “Before I take on my task and drop down to the level I’ll need to play on, allow me lay out some ground rules.”

  “And back to the talking. Let me lay down so you can put me right to sleep.”

  He smiled and his sharp teeth glistened. “I’m allowed to deprive you of sleep.”

  “Good luck with that one.”

  I walked away from him, but he followed me and kept right on nattering.

  “I’m not allowed to kill you,” he said, “but if you choose to kill yourself, that’s perfectly acceptable under article seven, section twelve-A in the demon service agreement.”

  “That’s not going to happen.” I stopped in the kitchen, opened the fridge to see if there was anything to drink. No such luck. I checked the cupboard to see if we had any whiskey. I tried to ignore the little dude, but he wouldn’t stop talking.

  “If you reconsider, just know it’s always an option,” the demon said. “In fact, if you die, I’m automatically returned to my dimension, so if you get tired of me, just remember that. All right, you’re the only person who can see my true form. I can make myself appear to others if I think it’s worth it.”

  “Dude, it’s time for you to shut up.”

  “Are you taking notes? There’s going to be a pop quiz later.”

  “I’m not playing. Go away.”

  “I wish I could, but you have to send me away with your magic.”

  “Abracadabra, alakazam,” I said. “Damn. You’re still here.” I went back to the living room and plopped on the sofa. I figured that maybe if I watched TV this asshole would shut up. I grabbed the remote, turned on the TV.

  Kevin appeared on the screen. He waved at me from where he stood by the sofa, and at the same time, from on the TV screen. “I promise not to behave as we go through our little trials and tribulations. It sucks that I’m not allowed to kill or maim, but I can wreak havoc in varied and sundry ways, which I certainly look forward to exploring over the next twenty years.”

  “Hold on. Twenty years?”

  “That’s the length of the contract.”

  “No. You need to get the hell out of here now.”

  “Then make me. You can banish me as soon as your power is strong enough.”

  I grinned. “I’ll have Sabrina vanquish your ass.”

  “The only beings in this dimension who can get rid of me are you, once you develop the necessary skillset, and your father, who summoned me in the first place. He won’t do it, so that leaves my fate in your incapable hands. You can gather all the mages, witches, dogs, cats, fish, and bumble bees you like, but not all the king’s wizards, nor all the king’s mistresses can rid the world of my wonderful presence.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “Indeed we shall. Just remember, you brought this on yourself.”

  “Like hell I did.”

  He kept smiling. “I will keep you working on a set schedule. It’s in my best interest to make sure you’re gaining power. Now that I’ve told you all this, I’m going to lower myself to your level, if I can go that low.”

  “I’ll blow your head off with a shotgun,” I said.

  “Sounds like fun. Do you have a shotgun?”

  “No.”

  “Then maybe you’d just like to blow me.” The demon yanked his underwear down. His big red dick popped out like a jack-in-the-box. “Buddy up on this right here.”

  I jumped back. “Put that thing away.”

  “Just taking things to your level,” he said, waving it at me.

  I covered me eyes. “Dude!”

  He laughed. “If you weren’t such a shitty wizard, Gorenzia would be playing with this right now.” He pulled up his briefs.

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “Thank you. All right, would you like me to explain the parameters we’ll be working under?”

  “The only thing I want you to explain is how to get rid of your sorry ass.”

  “Magic, you dumbass.”

  “You’re the dumbass.”

  He shook his head. “I think I’m still overestimating your intellect.”

  “What kind of magic? What spell in particular?”

  “It’s not a particular spell. It’s taking magic, bending it to your will and making things happen. Reshaping the universe as you see fit within your limited jurisdiction. It’s not that difficult to send a being like me back to my dimension. I don’t belong here. You just have to dial up the will and the way. Too many words for you? Anything I need to define?”

  “Fuck you. How do I do that?”

  He shrugged. “I just told you.”

  “You’re no help.”

  “Oh, I’ll be very helpful.” He maneuvered around in front of me as he waved his hands. Bolts of energy shot into me. Each blast felt like getting thumped by a kid doing a finger flick.

  A weird flavor burst onto my tongue, but it disappeared after a fraction of a second. My nose twitched. My eyes burned for a moment.

  “Based on what you’ve said so far, that’s a good start,” he said.

  “What did you just do to me?”

  He grinned. “Oh, but that would be telling.”

  I tried to kick him, but my foot went right through him. He solidified around my leg and punched me in the family jewels.

  I bent forward in that moment before the pain hit. He phased through my leg and laughed as I blew air out and put my hands protectively over my crotch to prevent further attacks. Too little too late, but at least I didn’t take a third shot.

  When my voice returned, I said, “You suck.”

  “Not everything that sucks is bad,” he said. Now, gather up your balls, and we’ll get started. You’ve got some magic to learn.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Muse on the Strand was a new club in the Strand district, and my band, Sabrina Tenn and the Magicians, was scheduled to perform their grand opening show. Some act called Helen and the Peregrines was headlining. I’d never heard of them. Chuck and Teddy booked the gig because it paid. Michael, Sabrina, and I didn’t much care about the financial side of things, but Chuck and Teddy needed money to pay their bills. They even had regular jobs. Poor saps.

  The bar was crowded thanks to the promise of cheap drink specials for the guys and free drinks for the ladies. A group of dudes who were never going to get lucky, sat at a table bitching about how the women got free drinks, but the men didn’t. I shook my head and didn’t engage with them. If they didn’t like it, they could go down the street to another bar where ladies didn’t get free drinks, and the guys could have their own little sausage party.

  Kevin walked through people unnoticed, and as he passed a woman in a low-cut blouse, he pushed her clutch purse off the tall round table. She bent to pick it up and he leaned over to stare down her front. He rose with a grin and winked at me. I rolled my eyes. Little demon perv. Just what I needed.

  Did he really think things like that put him on my level? What did that say about me? I didn’t do things like that. I mean, if a woman’s leaning over, I’m bound to look because I’m a guy, but I don’t try to knock things over to make them pick things up.

  When the woman put the purse back on the table, Kevin grinned and reached over to cop a feel. The woman pushed her chair back. “Who did that?” she demanded as she pulled some pepper spray from her purse.
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  Kevin chuckled, and pointed at me. I tried to slap his hand down, but passed right through him.

  The woman glared at me. She aimed the pepper spray at me. “Did you grab me?”

  “What?” I asked. “I didn’t do anything.”

  She must have realized I was too far away to be the douchebag because she lowered the spray. I already hated the damn demon.

  Sabrina waved to me from the back of the bar. She’d changed her hair color and style, and now looked like a purple-haired Cleopatra. She even wore extra mascara to try and achieve a more Egyptian look. I tilted my guitar case as I squeezed between patrons to maneuver my way to the stage. Chuck had his drums already set up, and Teddy’s guitar sat on a stand beside Michael’s bass near the wall and blocked from the view of the audience by massive stacks of Marshall amps. I slid my case onto the stage far enough that it would be out of reach should someone want to try and grab it without climbing into full view of everyone. Kevin jumped onto the stage and sat on the case. Was he being protective or trying to damage my guitar? I had no idea. Nobody else could see him because the little bastard was still in stealth mode.

  “You’re late,” Sabrina said.

  “I’m early,” I said. “You said nine. That’s still a couple minutes away.”

  “I said we go on at nine, but to be here at eight.”

  Michael came out of the restroom. He wore a black leather jacket in spite of the lack of air conditioning. His eyes were hidden by dark sunglasses, and his long, dark hair flowed perfectly around his face as he walked. It had to be a supernatural effect. His own perpetual gust of wind. And that walk had just the right amount of bounce to draw attention and still look cool. He was a vampire, so he couldn’t practice that walk in front of a mirror. Yes, I was a little jealous.

  He gave me a nod as he slipped an arm around Sabrina. “Glad you could join us.”

  Michael and Sabrina had been doing the horizontal bop for a few months now, and neither of them seemed to be getting tired of the other. In the time I’d known Michael, he’d had a different girl every night until he hooked up with my cousin.

  A couple of drumbeats broke through the din of the crowd. I glanced over to the stage. Chuck was in his seat, tapping the bass drum.

  “Might want to get plugged in,” Michael said. “We need to start the show.”

  Teddy walked on stage and grabbed his guitar. He strummed a few chords.

  “Let’s rock,” I said and climbed the steps to the stage. I put in earplugs to protect my hearing, then pulled the guitar case away from Kevin, who flipped me off before moving to the side where he could watch the show. I took out my guitar, plugged in, and plucked my magic pick from between two strings on the neck.

  I let my fingers dance across the frets while the pick worked its magic, making an Eddie Van Halen style riff flow from the instrument. It sounded great, but the blood price for the pick’s magic had been paid by a long line of amazing guitarists, living and dead. I rolled into “You Really Got Me” by the Kinks.

  Sabrina glared at me as she stepped up to the microphone.

  Oops. We’d changed the set list. I grinned and shifted to a solo that allowed me to lead into the opening of Scandal’s “The Warrior.”

  Sabrina nodded and started singing. She amped up the energy level and the crowd nodded in rhythm with our playing. Sabrina liked newer songs, of course, but she had a thing for eighties tunes, so we worked quite a few of them into our sets.

  Kevin watched for a few, then curled up and went to sleep.

  About halfway through the set, a woman entered the bar with two men in tow. She carried a guitar case, and they each carried cases of their own, one of which was oddly shaped. The woman didn’t pay any attention to the men with her. She clearly trusted them to simply follow her as she weaved through the crowd. Clad in thigh-high leather boots, and a little red dress, her black hair tumbled down her back so elegantly, she could have been in a shampoo commercial. She wore sunglasses, and dark red lipstick that made her face seem even paler than it was. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

  We finished up a fast song with a flourish of drums and me pulling a tortured riff out of my Stratocaster. The room went silent for a moment, and just as people were about to applaud, Sabrina held out her hands for quiet and went into a haunting version of Labrinth’s “Jealous,” while Teddy switched to a keyboard.

  It was Sabrina’s best performance ever, and as I wasn’t playing much in this song, I studied her to see if she’d drawn blood to enhance her voice with magic, but it was all her.

  The song was a showstopper and we let the crowd sit in stunned silence for a moment. They applauded, and I broke into “Wicked Game” by Chris Isaak. Two slow songs in a row just felt right, and Sabrina was up to the task. We closed with a cover of “Somebody to Love” by Jefferson Airplane, and the crowd hooted and hollered. It was a good set, and I felt we’d done the songs justice. I pulled the plugs from my ears and put them in my pocket.

  As we packed up our gear, the dark-haired woman in red stepped onto the stage. She looked over at Kevin, did a double-take, then blinked and scanned the crowd as she grabbed the microphone from the stand.

  Had she seen Kevin? It sure seemed like it, but she didn’t look at him again. Instead, she stepped to one side of the stage so her bandmates could join her. They opened their cases. The oddly shaped case held a small drum with long legs. The drummer set it up quickly and tapped out a rhythm, while the other man took an acoustic guitar from his case, and slipped it on. The guitarist didn’t bother with a pick. He simply used his fingers to pluck out a melody.

  The black-haired woman sashayed to the center of the stage with a bass guitar slung low. She surveyed the crowd for a moment, then let out a low, throaty moan that raised an octave at a time. She went up six full octaves, then took it three notes higher.

  I stared at her, transfixed as she let her voice dance around, displaying a range greater than Mike Patton of Faith No More. I’d never seen anything like it. Her voice was beautifully haunting, and after an amazing series of vocal runs, she launched into an ultra-sexy version of “Physical,” the hit made famous by Olivia Newton-John. The song had been written for Rod Stewart, but as this woman sang, it seemed it had been written only for her. Every guy in the club stopped whatever conversation they were having, got up, and moved toward the stage. I was lucky to be in the front row.

  Kevin hopped off my guitar case, got down on his hands and knees and crawled toward the singer. From the look in his eyes, I suspect he wanted to look up her skirt, but without even seeming to notice him, she did a spin and kicked him in the face.

  To my surprise, Kevin flopped backward, stunned from the impact.

  That snapped me out of her spell because her foot should have gone through him.

  He lifted his face from the stage and shook his head.

  I glanced back to the singer, and forgot all about Kevin because the woman’s voice once again mesmerized me. I wanted to get physical with her, and I’d be happy to sell my soul to do it.

  She wrapped up that song and darted right into “So What” by Pink. All of us backed off a bit. Then she sang Cheap Trick’s “If You Want My Love,” and reeled us all in again, only to push us back by singing “Bitch” by Meredith Brooks.

  She kept this up, playing with us. She held us in the palm of her hand, and we all loved the way she manipulated our feelings. When the set finally ended, I had to sit down. I felt like I’d spent the last forty minutes in wild abandon and ecstasy.

  A few minutes later, Teddy, Chuck, Michael, and Sabrina approached the table. “She was good,” Sabrina said.

  “She was amazing,” Teddy said. I thought he was going to compliment Sabrina saying Sabrina was better, but he didn’t go there. In fact, he craned his neck to try to spot the dark-haired singer.

  “Incredible,” Chuck said. “And drop dead gorgeous. Holy moly.” That surprised me because Chuck was so devoted to his wife that he rarely noticed other wom
en, but he was looking toward where the singer stood with her bandmates in the hall by the restrooms.

  “Phenomenal,” Michael said, aiming his sunglasses at the hallway, too.

  “Hey,” Sabrina said.

  “You were good too,” Michael said, but didn’t look at her. That snub after she’d given her best performance was going to cost him later. And the fact that he kept staring at the mystery woman was going to cost him even more. “Oh, she’s coming this way.” He sounded excited, like a teenage boy getting a glimpse of a celebrity crush approaching.

  I glanced over and sure enough, the woman thanked a few men, while skillfully blocking their feeble attempts to get in her way. She slipped past them and headed toward the front door, with all the men in the bar turning to watch her go. But two large men in fancy suits rose from a table near the door and blocked her path. They wore headphones, and smiled to reveal sharp teeth.

  “Mako Clansmen,” Kevin said and zapped me in the leg. “Get your ass in gear, loser. You have to rescue her.”

  “She can handle herself,” I said.

  “Who are you talking to?” Sabrina asked.

  But the woman backed away from the headphone men. One of them pulled a gun from a shoulder holster.

  “Help her!” Kevin yelled and zapped me again.

  I jumped off my barstool and took a few steps toward the woman. She turned and ran right into me.

  “Sorry,” I said, and spun her around behind me. I turned to face the Clansmen, but one of them punched me in the nose and I sat down on the floor. They rushed past me.

  In cartoons, people see stars when they get punched. I just saw colored lights dancing around in front of my face. I put my hand to my nose, which sent waves of pain through my head. Blood seeped between my fingers.

  “You okay, man?” someone asked.

  I got to my feet and turned to look down the hall, trying to blink the spots out of the way. The woman was gone, and so were the Mako Clansmen.