Bad Apple (The Warner Grimoire)

by

Clay Held

BAD APPLE: BOOK ONE OF THE WARNER GRIMOIRE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents in this product are fictitious, and the result of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Likewise, any similarities to actual monsters, creatures, bad things, wizards, witches, warlocks, sorcerers, or other supernatural entities are entirely coincidental. Please refrain from cursing, eating, haunting, or otherwise inflicting paranormal harm on the author.

Copyright © 2013 by Clay Held.

First Kindle Edition, 2013.

ISBN: 978-0-615-76656-0

No part of this ebook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without explicit written permission by Clay Held. Excerpts may be used for the purposes of review. All rights reserved.

Produced in the United States of America.

This one is for my wife, Kat.

You always see the good in me, even when I can’t.

So each night in sleep I strove to find the hidden latch of the gate in the ivied antique wall, though it was exceedingly well hidden. And I would tell myself that the realm beyond the wall was not more lasting merely, but more lovely and radiant as well.

--H.P. Lovecraft, Ex Oblivione

A WORD OF WARNING...

Know this, mortal. A wizard's power has two halves.

The first half is his
soul
, the source of all magic inside of him, and his connection to the great elemental forces of the universe.

The second half is his 
grimoire
, which is his guide, his constant companion, and his unbreakable secret keeper.

You hold in your hands the grimoire of a young wizard named Simon, a brilliant but bashful child who was unnaturally summoned into this world, as his parents would later claim, entirely by accident. How
you
came by his book, and why he no longer has it--that is a mystery, yet one I can not solve. As such, while not in the hands of my wizard, I must make hidden the ways of magic on these pages.

But…if you insist on continuing, as I suspect you will, I
do
have a story to share. I will fill these pages with the story of my young wizard's life, and his journey shall be the way we pass the time during our prolonged and idle discussion. Our
palaver
, as an old friend once called it.

Listen well, mortal. I am the 
Warner Grimoire
, and I was born the day Simon Warner died.

Act One

The Wizard and The Boogeyman

The Old Ones came here from Algul.

That was their first mistake.

––
Nicodemus Limnic, An Honest History of the Wizard’s Craft, Chapter 18

CHAPTER ONE

A NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE

Many years later, Simon would look back and remember how quiet it was the first time he died.

At the time the quiet surprised Simon, who had just a moment earlier been hanging over the dock guardrails, reaching past the very large and very clear NO CLIMBING sign, thinking he could grab the overhanging branch and steady himself without falling.

He was wrong.
Again
.

He had misjudged the reach of the branch, and before he could catch himself, he was falling into the water. The undertow seized and pulled him down before he could even realize it. There was no time to yell. No one saw him climbing over the guardrail, not even his ever-present father Sam, who usually kept such a close eye on him.

His lungs ached.

His eyes burned.

His heart pounded.

If the water didn’t kill him, the fear just might. From below, the surface of the lake rippled like milky spiderwebs.

Simon was overtaken by panic. He flailed uncontrollably, uselessly, trying in vain to reach the surface. Instinctively, he tried to scream, but huge bubbles came up out of him, and the cold lake water rushed down his throat, stinging and freezing him all at once. The force of the undertow crushed him against the retaining wall of the spillway, and he struck his head hard against the steel bars of the submerged drain.

He gulped down great big gobs of water, and his vision began to blur. Panic gave way to raw terror, but even then he could not move. He just stared hopelessly at the milky surface of the water until he no longer really saw
it.

Unexpectedly, memories began to leak out of him as the water claimed him. The memories rapidly flashed by, his life before his eyes, bubbling up out of him to the surface, lost. He forgot how warm the sun had felt that day, then coolness of the autumn breeze, and then even falling into the water suddenly seemed just so very far away. Everything played through his mind in reverse: Sam’s warning to stay away from the guardrail, their hike to the shore, the picnic they had packed, and finally, everything else in his short life. Sam’s girlfriend, Molly. Her six-year-old daughter, Zoey. His school, his room, his books and his classmates. Everything blurred together in a confusing, soggy mass, and then it simply floated away, leaving him empty and alone, forever.

Simon felt so little now, waterlogged and soaked and stuck at the bottom of the lake. His concentration slipped away with every failed breath, and the feeling of pins and needles began to spread across his limp, freezing body.

He was cold and alone.

A strange voice whispered in his mind. “
You’re dying, Simon.”

A relentless humming grew louder in his mind. Must have been his ears shutting down. “
This is it,”
the voice spoke in his head. “
You are going to die. Right here, right now.”

The water crushed him, pinning him down to the bottom of the spillway. For only being fourteen years old, his time was already here.

The humming faded. Silence and darkness surrounded him, and then Simon felt...nothing. Everything became so very, very still.

There was a brilliant flash of silver light, and then, Simon died.

CHAPTER TWO

THE NIGHTMARE

The Illinois sun had just broken over the town of Crowley, and the first rays of light had begun to creep into the alleyway behind the Rabbit’s Paw Tavern. Sam Thatch, the owner and operator, leaned against the backdoor while the deliveryman parked. Sam scratched at his beard while the deliveryman, an older fellow with salt-and-pepper hair and a large bushy beard, walked around to the rear of his truck and lifted the rolling door.

“Morning,” the deliveryman said. Sam answered with a small nod, rubbing his hands together for warmth. The deliveryman dropped the metal ramp out of his truck, letting it drop onto the dead leaves. He rolled out a fully loaded cart, his feet crunching softly as Sam held the door open for him.

“Getting cold quick,” the delivery driver said, wheeling the cart down the hallway and into the kitchen. A brunette woman stood near the passthrough window, tending to a pile of unwrapped silverware, quickly snatching forks and knives and wrapping them with alarming speed, then piling them onto a serving tray set off to her side.

“All the better, Frank.” She smiled and turned away from her pyramid of silverware. “It’s been too hot already. Zoey almost wilted when we took her and Simon to the park last week. Besides, this cold front was just what we needed to get in the mood for Halloween.”

Frank parked the rack near an island in the middle of the kitchen. “It’s you brunettes, Molly. Little bit of heat and you just about shrivel up.” His eyes twinkled when he laughed a good, honest laugh that started in the very bottom of his large belly, spending considerable effort working its way up and out. A few small strands of his white hair snuck out from under his delivery hat, and never once did he seem to mind as he unloaded the bread. The wild hairs stuck straight out to the side, blowing like unanchored strands of spider silk.

“You stop it.” Molly set down her last silverware bundle, then picked up the tray and headed towards the door to the dining room.

“You two already bickering?” Sam said as he entered the kitchen, placing his clipboard on the old chipped countertop.

Frank’s laughter dropped off slowly, and he eyed the door to the dining room. “She’s a keeper,” he said, his voice low and conspiratorial. He handed his invoice over and leaned in. “You ought to marry her before she slips away. You and Simon can’t live upstairs forever.”

“Don’t plan on it,” Sam whispered, smiling slightly.