Accidental Wizard Read online

  Accidental Wizard

  The Accidental Wizard

  Book 0

  Stefan Lear

  Fractured Mind Publishing, 2018

  First edition. June 21, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 Stefan Lear

  stefanlear.com

  All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Accidental Wizard

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  The End

  Coming Soon

  Connect with Stefan Lear

  Also By Stefan Lear

  Dedication

  To all the authors that helped guide me along the way and shared their knowledge with me.

  To my mother and sister who have shown me undying support in my wretched writer’s life. Not once have they judged or demeaned me for having the lofty goal of entertaining and enriching the public’s lives.

  A special shoutout to my amazing cover artist, Mariah Sinclair. She has mad skills, and will be helping bring to life three more stories of the fantastical life of Paul Logan, The Accidental Wizard.

  You can find more of her amazing work on her site https://thecovervault.com

  Accidental Wizard

  What you hold in your hand is Book 0 of the The Accidental Wizard trilogy. Let’s just call it an origin story. It was important to tell this part of the story so that flashbacks in the trilogy could be kept to a minimum and not interrupt the flow. The Accidental Wizard Books 1-3 are a different sort of story all together. The are just as dark and twisted as what you hold in your hand, but cover a lot more ground than what you will find here. This is just the events that shaped our hero, Paul Logan, into the man he will become, the man you will come to know, the man that will sometimes perplex you but never disappoint you.

  I’m glad you decided to jump onboard. The ride to our final destination is I hope well earned and entirely engrossing. Each novel in the trilogy is shaping up to be 300+ pages each. You’ll definitely want to be here when they are released.

  Chapter 1

  It was raining and cold on the platform. Paul checked his watch. Less than five minutes until the Max arrived. He shivered. He had already been waiting seventeen minutes, and before that he had stood at the exposed bus stop to catch a bus here. Every day he wasted three hours of his day waiting or riding on public transportation. It was a grind that got old quickly. He wished for adventure, for a break from the drudgery.

  He wanted to ride aboard the Greenpeace ship and blockade whaling boats. He wanted to join Earth First and be an ecoterrorist. He daydreamed about being the Indiana Jones of the ecological crusade, the hordes of the corporations that enslaved man and destroyed the earth desperate to stop his message of redemption.

  He didn’t want to just put one foot in front of the other and be a cog in the wheel that crushed the human spirit. He wanted to make a difference, to be someone that mattered to the generations that came after him. Yet here he was, sorting mail all night long, and heading home to sleep the day away. At least this was the end of his work week. Now he had three days off to live life.

  The light rail came to a stop, the doors slid open, and the throngs exited the cars, most headed to their day job. After the people had exited, he walked onto the Max and found a seat facing away from where the rising sun would peek over the horizon. He was tired after a ten hour shift, and direct sunlight made his eyes hurt. It was one of the dangers of working the night shift.

  Paul pulled the hood of his rain jacket up over his head to help shield his face from the sun when it showed, and settled in for the fifty minute ride downtown to the Max station nearest his apartment. He paid a lot to live downtown, but everything he needed on a daily basis was within a seven block radius. Downtown was also where the counter culture people hung out. The people that society deemed fringe or socially undesirable. Those were his people. His tribe. It was still mostly dark out and a large number of them would be headed to the mission for breakfast.

  By the time he got downtown his weekly paycheck would be in his bank account. He decided that he would splurge on breakfast at Starbucks. He could sit at the table outside and check his email.

  Maybe Marie would be online. He wanted to ask her if she was going to the Roxie tonight. If she were headed there, that meant she would be at one of the bars in the area beforehand. Maybe he would luck out and run into her before she got to the Roxie. It would have to be luck. Marie wasn’t big on relationships. She didn’t believe in them. She was good with hanging out, though.

  He had hung out with Marie once before, and after a night of drinking, and early morning scones and coffee, she was more than willing to continue hanging out with him in his tiny little SRO.

  Thoughts of another hangout session with Marie danced through his mind as the Max came to a stop across the street from Target. He left his seat and exited the light rail. A homeless guy was playing a Steve Miller Band song on the guitar and not doing too bad of a job.

  Paul went into the convenience store there at the station and got a cup of coffee. He put some creamer in the coffee, put a lid on the cup, and grabbed some sugar packs. After paying for the coffee, he walked back outside, the sound of a Cat Stevens song drifting toward him. He walked over to the guitar player, set the coffee down beside the guitar case, and threw a couple of dollars inside the case.

  He smiled and nodded at the street performer, and walked off toward Starbucks. Just two blocks to go before he could eat an egg and muffin breakfast. With a nice blonde americano coffee. Paul could almost taste it.

  As he walked past the entrance to Target, a man began walking along beside him.

  “Got a dollar?” the man asked.

  Paul was startled out of his mental dining reverie. “Sorry, I only have plastic, brother.” He hadn’t noticed the man before.

  “Are you sure you don’t have any cash, Mr. Magnus?” A flicker of derangement danced in the stranger’s eyes.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” Paul said good-naturedly. He was a little uncomfortable, but the man was no more mad than some of the homeless that roamed the area.

  A knowing grin broke out on the man’s face. It was somewhat creepy, and curly black hair framed his head. He reached toward Paul’s head lightning quick and snatched his hand back as Paul ducked his head to the right.

  The man raised his fist to his mouth, exhaled onto it, and held it out, as if inviting examination. Paul looked at him, and then at the man’s fist. Slowly the man opened his fist. Inside, laying in the palm of his hand was a golden colored disc. It looked like some kind of coin.

  “See, you did have coin,” said the man as he tossed the coin at Paul. He walked away as Paul caught the coin as it came at him. “Enjoy your breakfast,” the man tossed over his shoulder as he hurried away.

  Taken aback by the whole scene, Paul watched as the man disappeared around the corner. He looked down at the coin in his hand. It was golden, and had strange markings on it. It almost looked like it could be from the far east. Curled around the edges of the coin was a dragon and a tiger. Strange characters adorned the edges in a l
anguage he didn’t recognize.

  Paul put the coin in his pocket and continued on his way toward his breakfast. Although stranger things had happened to him in this city, a feeling of intent followed him. He couldn’t shake the feeling. It stayed with him at the counter while the ordered his coffee and breakfast. It stayed with him when he sat down at the table outside and began to eat. Even though he couldn’t shake the feeling, he did start to ignore it more with each bite of his breakfast. Soon it was no more than a distant memory.

  He pulled out his phone and typed in his security passcode. 821131. It was a passcode he would never forget. It was the day his father had brutally beat his mother to death. It was the day that he lost the most beloved person in his life.

  Ah! There she was. Marie was online. He took another bite of breakfast, and took another drink of coffee. He composed a message and sent it to her.

  Chapter 2

  Hitch walked away from the Amtrak station and headed across the street to his camp underneath Broadway Street. It was night out and since the station was closed, he had gone into the bushes to take a whiz. He only pissed near his camp when it was an emergency.

  When he had crossed North Station Way, he walked to where his tent was at. He got lucky and was able to have it right up against the hard concrete that formed the base of Broadway where it started rising up over the ground toward the bridge. At least one side of his tent was safe from intruders, and he could clearly see if the cops were coming toward his camp. In the concrete triangle across from him, three or four junkies had laid out their sleeping bag and were either laying down or sitting up while getting their fix.

  There was a tent on either side of him, too. He didn’t know who the people in the other tents were. Most of the time they were nodding out from the dope they did. Dope wasn’t his way, thank you very much. No, he liked his cheap rum. Kept a buzz going on the cheap, and that was just fine with him. Occasionally another tramp would offer him a toke off a joint, but he generally passed it up. Ya just didn’t know what they were lacing that weed with.

  “Liquor is quicker,” he mumbled as he stepped inside his tent. He zipped the tent halfway up and sat down on his bedroll. He reached into his pack and pulled out a candy bar and his pint of rum. He pulled the wrapper part-way off the candy bar and took a bite. It was hard to distribute the taste throughout his mouth with only eleven teeth left in his maw, so he took a swig of rum and swirled the taste of rum, chocolate, and caramel around his mouth.

  He closed his eyes, slightly leaned his head back, and smiled crookedly. It was a damn fine tasting breakfast he thought to himself. Speaking of breakfast, James would be coming by soon with a serving of eggs and toast. James always went through a second time at Jesus Saves and put the eggs and toast in a container for him. In exchange for the morsels, Hitch let him take a couple of swigs out of his pint. James wasn’t very good at panhandling, so he was always grateful for the drinky drink.

  Hitch laid his head down to let the rum soak further into his synapses. It was drizzling outside and the light patter of tiny drops hitting the ground nearby enticed him into relaxation. The world was ok at that moment. The only thing he had to do was relax and wait on James to appear at his camp.

  “What the hell?” It was loud and carried fear with it. The exclamation shattered Hitch’s calm revery. Hitch bolted upright, his head spinning slightly from the rum.

  “Get off me!” This time the voice was insistent, demanding. Hitch got to his feet to peek out of his tent. It wouldn’t be the first time he had to cuss out someone so that he could enjoy some silence. He unzipped his tent and poked his head out the front door of the tent.

  He looked up in the direction the voice had come from and his voice froze in his throat. There, in front of him and all the other tramps that had gathered under the bridge, was a man spinning in the air two foot off the ground. Hitch’s mouth dropped open as he stared in stunned amazement.

  The man spun randomly. First he spun to the right, then to the left. Never did his feet touch the ground, as if Pinocchio had become a human but the strings never were cut off. The man desperately tried to move, to get away or stop whatever force controlled him. He made no progress in his efforts. He was stuck suspended in mid-air by something no one could see. All he seemed able to do was thrash about while in the air.

  His eyes bulged further and a cut opened on this cheek, exposing the pink tender flesh under layers of skin and beard. Blood ran and matted the man’s beard.

  Suddenly his arm shot out and straightened stiff. The suspended, tortured man started screaming as his arm was distended, seemingly of it’s own volition. Violently and slowly the arm was detached from his body, the cloth of his shirt soaked with the blood of his blackguard dismemberment. The detached arm fell to the ground and lay in a pool of bloody spasms, as if the arm were in shock it was no longer a part of the man’s body.

  The man stopped screaming and passed out. From terror or blood loss Hitch couldn’t tell. When the body hit the pavement, all those that had stared in shocked horror and disbelief started to turn and run.

  Hitch brought the rest of his body back in the tent. What the hell had he just seen? He sat on his haunches and rocked for a moment, his eyes darting rapidly back and forth. This was too much. A man had just had his arm ripped from his body while suspended in mid air in front of at least twenty people. Never mind how the man had stayed up off the ground, how had his arm been ripped from his body? Who... no what, had ripped his arm off. Goosebumps ran from Hitch’s neck to his ass crack. Never before had he seen something like that. It shook him to his core.

  He reached to grab his bottle of rum, twisted the cap off, and took a long hard pull from the mouth of the bottle. Fuck, he didn’t want to think about it, much less remember it. He knew one for sure way to make his brain foggy, and so he took another drink. He kissed the bottle of rum.

  Suddenly a thought popped into his brain. “What if the thing that killed that guy decided to come after him?” He didn’t want to think about that. Or what would happen to him if it did set its sight on him. There wasn’t much you could do to something you can’t see, something that could easily rip your body apart. So he turned to his friend.

  “Don’t fail me now, baby,” Hitch pleaded with the bottle and turned it up to his lips to take another swallow. The fear, the horror he had witnessed was still a part of his conscience, but soon it would fade from Hitch’s consumption of alcohol, or the stupor the rum would induce. Hitch knew comfort and oblivion would consume him soon, and he could live with that for now.

  Hitch didn’t care or remember about breakfast at that moment.

  Chapter 3

  The alarm woke Paul from sleep. He rolled over, grabbed his phone, and silenced the alarm. It was 5:30 in the evening, and all the people that worked downtown would be heading home. Paul’s morning was just beginning.

  He went to the kitchen, set up the coffee maker, and turned on the power switch. He turned around and went to turn the shower on. While the water was warming up in the shower, he took the time to stand over the toilet and let out everything that had built up while he was sleeping. It took less than a minute, and Paul stepped out of his underwear and took two steps into the water. “One of the perks of living in an SRO,” he thought. Sometimes Paul felt cramped in his tiny apartment, but he often appreciated the efficiency with which he lived. It was no more than fifteen step from end to end, and less than ten steps side to side. Water splashed over his chest, the warmth loosening the grime he always felt on his skin upon waking. He scrubbed at his skin with the honeyed organic soap. After he had washed himself thoroughly he stood under the water, enveloped in heat and steam. It was something he considered a waste of water, so was a luxury to him.

  He turned off the stream of water, reached for the towel on the rack next to the shower, and began patting himself dry. He dried himself thoroughly and wrapped the towel around his waist. He stepped from the bathroom to the kitchen and pulled the carafe from
the coffee maker. He bent to smell the aroma of what would be his first cup and inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring.

  “Oh, yeah. That’s good.”

  He poured the coffee into his cup and went to his desk chair and sat down. It was the only chair in his place. He had found it for twenty dollars at the thrift store and bought it. They had even delivered it to the door of his place. He had been very pleased.

  Once in the chair, he propped his feet up on his desk and looked out his seventh floor window. When the sun set, it reflected off of the buildings downtown. The reflection sometimes made the buildings glow with an inner fire. It was mesmerizing.

  It had crossed his mind that as he rose from sleep, the sun was setting and night was his playground. Almost like a dark creature with supernatural powers rising from a long slumber to reign over the earth. Often he saw it in his mind in black and white. It was like watching a campy b-grade horror film.

  “My dominion shall rise!” he jokingly said to the world in a raised voice. Though he never fully felt like everything was going to be ok, he had bright spots like this where he could push away all the doubts and dark memories. In these rare moments when he wasn’t being betrayed by his past he could feel like a monarch observing his kingdom from atop the throne.

  Paul raised his cup of coffee to the reflection of the sun on the buildings, and took a drink. The coffee was dark and bitter. He smiled. It was a good way to start his day. Despite the unshakeable memories from a distant past that threatened to blanket him in darkness, and questions he could never answer on his own, this was a good way to start his day. The dark encroached upon the day, but not upon Paul.

  PAUL EXITED THE ELEVATOR and walked to the front security door of the apartment building. Checking carefully, he walked out, satisfied that no one was lingering nearby trying to infiltrate the building. Turning left, he walked to Washington and turned right. It would take him close to where he was meeting his friend Jamaal for drinks. There was no telling what woman he would have lined up as a date. He had only brought the same woman on two outings before. Paul was glad that Marie had agreed to meet him. Paddy’s was a great place to hang out, get a bite to eat, and down a few drinks.