Accidental Wizard E-Book

Stefan Lear

• Herausgeber: Fractured Mind Publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 102

Beschreibung

Evil is a constant, not a concept, and Evil won't stop until Paul Logan is destroyed.

Paul Logan watched his mother die before him. When a hound of hell takes his girlfriend too, the rage flowing through his veins causes an explosion of magic.

With the help of a grizzled mentor, Paul struggles through intense training. But when the man who murdered his family returns with a vengeance, the novice wizard must become a master in a hurry.

As guns blaze and magic flares, Paul has one chance to defeat the evil in front of him before he becomes the next victim.

Leseprobe

Accidental Wizard

Stefan Lear

Accidental Wizard

The Accidental Wizard

Book 0

Stefan Lear

Fractured Mind Publishing, 2018

Copyright

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.

Contents

Introduction

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

About the Author

A Special Thanks

Also by Stefan Lear

Patreon

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.

Introduction

What you hold in your hand is Book 0 of The Accidental Wizard series. It was important to tell this part of the story so that flashbacks in the series 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. They 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.

I’m glad you decided to jump onboard. The ride to our final destination is I hope well earned and entirely engrossing. You’ll definitely want to be here when they are released.

Chapter One

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 many 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 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 language 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 he 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 Two

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.