Wanderers 4:
A Tough Act to Follow
Richard A. Bamberg
Text Copyright © 2017 Richard A Bamberg
All Rights Reserved
Published in the United States of America
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover art by RAVVEN (www.ravven.com)
ISBN-13: 978-1979307826
ISBN-10: 1979307822
9876543210:
DEDICATION
For the love of my life, Joy.
.
Contents
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
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Other WORKS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Rene’ and Robert, for their encouragement and their patience.
Chapter 1
Alexander
Spring break in Cancun. I deserved a break. Since Mom’s death at the hands of the supernatural shades, my life had been five months of misery. At first, I was too busy to grieve. The motel and restaurant had to be kept running; people depended on me. I couldn’t just lay off the entire staff while I wallowed in self-pity. Grandma and Grandpa Dockerty flew in for the service and stayed the first month until I was able to get a handle on things. They’d been a big help, and I would have loved for them to stay longer, but they were getting on in years, and I knew I had to stand on my own feet. They did stretch their stay until after Christmas, but the holiday wasn’t the same without Mom.
My Grandparents and I had jointly interviewed hotel and restaurant managers in the period before Christmas and made job offers the week before New Years. Then I drove my Grandparents to the San Antonio airport, and we had a tearful farewell before they flew back to their retirement B&B home on the Caribbean coast of Belize. I didn’t stick around to see their plane fly off into the morning sky. I had the new hotel manager arriving before lunch and the restaurant manager arriving that afternoon.
I know my Grandparents had hoped I’d take over the business after Mom died, but I no longer had any interest in managing the operations on a daily basis. Hell, I didn’t even want to continue my studies any longer.
The Wanderer, Raphael A. Semmes, and his beautiful and sexy Apprentice, Therese E. Sylvan had disrupted my life but had also shown me that there was more to life than running a small restaurant and motel on the Guadalupe River outside New Braunfels, Texas. Exposure to the reality of magic and the possibility of creatures that belonged more in mythology than south Texas had blown my desire of a mundane life to pieces. I had begun to learn magic! How does a teenage boy go back to hotel management after he’s seen real magic?
Mom’s death had just been the final straw. I’d already realized that I was going to become a wizard. It sounds preposterous. Boy, don’t I know it, but whether you call magic users witches, mages, or wizards, the truth of real magic was too incredible to let slip out of my grasp.
I leaned back in my chair and watched the gibbous moonrise over the Gulf of Mexico. I was sixteen floors above a beach lined with palm trees. Their frons swayed in the light breeze coming in off the ocean and bringing with it the scent of salt and the occasional whiff of decaying fish. Between the trees and down into the water, the beach was crowded with bikini-clad girls and a comparable number of boys. They were partying the night away, even if it was still daylight, just as they had each of my first three nights in Cancun. I’d hooked up with a couple of the ladies already and had a date with a third one tonight. I smiled and took a swig of beer. Yes, spring break in Mexico was what I needed to begin my new life.
Sunday night, everything would change. Tess had relayed to me the name and address, outside Atlanta, of a friend of Raphael’s. He had already arranged things with Christine Ronue to have me apprentice under her while I learned magic. The brief taste of it I’d gotten while Tess and Rafe were visiting New Braunfels had not been nearly enough, but Rafe had promised he would arrange a mentor for me so I could continue my studies in the art. I had learned so little with Tess and Rafe, but it had been enough to leave me wanting more.
The sun was baking my face, but I’d slathered on a good layer of SPF 30 and I was being reasonable about the amount of sun I got. Mom had always harped on me about not getting too much sun. The thought brought a moment of melancholy. My Corona was empty and I was considering getting another one from the fridge when I heard a grunt of pain above me. I glanced up in time to see a woman with long blonde hair hanging partially off the edge of the roof, one floor above me.
