Giver's Grave: Book # 1 of the Alis Giver Series

Giver's Grave: Book # 1 of the Giver Series

 I should have been a janitor.

Nothing would be trying to rip out my heart or tear into my throat or cast a blood altering curse on me. I would be plain old Alis Giver. I'd be Mister Giver, the man who cleans the bathrooms, mops the floors, and goes to work at six in the morning and leaves at five in the evening, not Crazy Alis down the block who runs around the town like its freakin' on fire. With everything I'd done in the time I had moved to Goldfield, it wouldn't surprise me if that was how most people saw me: 'that Crazy Alis Boy'. But everything I had been chasing around and visa versa knew me as Alis Giver: Wizard, pathetic human, and...I don't know, killer of fun time, maybe?

****************************    

 It was only after I woke up in a cold sweat feeling drowsy and winded that I remembered that I had made it home and was now safe and sound in my bed and I had only been reliving those moments in a dream. It took a few seconds, however to regulate my heart and get my lungs to come to the same realization. Once I accomplished that, I found that I was clutching a pillow to my chest like an infant, holding on to the soft bundle of feathers as if it held my life line.

I groaned loudly and threw the pillow across the room in frustration. Stupid was the only word that could sum it up. I. Was. Stupid. The pillow landed with a 'thunk' against the wall and a soft 'thump' as it hit the carpet. Only a few seconds of silence pasted before a knock on my door shook the house. I tried to pay no mined to the slight trimmer that reverberated through the walls as I felt the poor 60's cabin's bones quiver.

I glance at my blue Cookie Monster shaped alarm clock and moaned- don't judge...When you're as broke a practicing wizard with the ability to make money disappear in the most unmagical way possible, you tend to settle for the less than luxurious items you've been caring with you for years.
    
     And right now that small bit of faded and old yet, most importantly, working piece of junk was tell me I had gotten maybe an hour or two of sleep. And I was feeling the 'lovely', sweet, half lidded, droopy eyed effects. I was half inclined to ignore the rapid beating on my door but instead- against my better judgment- made my way to the front of the house, all the while mumbling and grumbling like a cranky, old man under my breath.

Coming from the bedroom, I enter into the living room. Lining almost every inch of the walls were book shelves, none of which were made in the same decade let alone same year, containing a large number of...special books, which were all dedicated to magic and wizardry. A creamy colored couch- the single piece of furniture in the room other than the footstool by the door- sat in the middle of a worn out rug facing the empty, brick lined fire place. Atop the footstool by the door were a pair of black, extremely well worn boots. Just sticking out the top of the right boot was the pair of sunglasses I had been looking for over the last three days.

Well, Alis, I thought to myself as I shook my head in disbelief, I've found your head. Thats right. Seems to have been up your butt for the past week.

After fumbling at the door handle with my still swollen hands, I swung the door on its rusty hinges and blinked my watery eyes awake...and blinked again.

"Who the flying apes are you?" I managed. My voice came out...different, raspy, raw even.

The young woman before me glared up at me with evil intent. Well, maybe not evil but it was pushing it. It was more of a murderous look-one, I might add, that was dampened by a pair of big, familiar-looking winter blue eyes. "Funny," she said chewing slowly on a piece of gum, "I was about to ask you the same. Where's Malty Crewer?"