Atomic Mage Read online

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  The End and the Beginning

  A little pain

  Welcome to the fucking jungle

  Captain Caveman

  It's only a flesh wound

  Call me DR Cade

  Meeting the neighbors

  Your a wizard Cade...well kinda

  Damsel in distress

  A whole new world

  Super cat woman

  Cleaning up shop

  The Love Boat

  Well there goes the neighborhood

  Sexual healing

  A plan of attack

  Collecting strays

  Falling tears and promises made

  Now there are two of them

  Rolling up the river

  A meeting of the minds

  A self taught man

  Complications

  Half baked

  Eve of Battle

  Last minutes plans

  Upgrades

  Payback is a bitch

  Epilogue

  Foreword

  First of all I would like to thank you the reader for picking up my book and giving me a chance to entertain you with the labor of love that this it became. I can't understand how some of the authors i read push out these books so regularly.

  I would first like to thank my wonderful wife who challenged me to write my own book after I complained about running out of new ones to read.

  I would like to thank my sister who's enthusiasm was greater than mine when I told her I was planning on writing a book.

  I hope I scratch the itch that brought you here, the same itch that caused me to put these word to page.

  I would like to credit Wenart for my cover design, you can find him on deviant art and his Instagram.

  The End and the Beginning

  Driving down the mountain road Cade Willmartin glanced at his side-view mirror before changing lanes with an exhausted sigh.

  Long trips like these use to be a joy for him.

  The twisty mountain roads were the highlight on the long trip to see his kids on the east coast for their yearly get together.

  The new reason for the yearly trip made what used to be an enjoyable road trip feel more like a funeral march.

  Completing his lane change on the rain-slick road Cade shifted his right arm to the passenger seat to be met with nothing but the cloth seat.

  Cade choked back a sob but the tears fell despite him.

  The trails left by the falling rain on the windshield mirroring their tracks down his wrinkled face.

  A little over three years ago he had lost his other half, his Tony, his side seat driver, the love of his life to cancer.

  Their cigarette smoking habit catching up to her first.

  Placing both his hands on the steering wheel Cade's mind slipped back to three years ago, to the first time he had made this drive without her.

  That first trip without Tony to celebrate her birthday with the kids had been one of the worst in his 68 years of life.

  His daughter Candice had guilted him into coming to her house in Virginian after Cade had been shut in his in Missouri for six months.

  Cade thought back on that, realizing how upset Tony would have been at him for giving up on life like that, and he had, on a few bad nights he had the drawer next to his bed halfway open as he looked longingly at the pistol he kept there for home defense.

  Candice and his son Vince were the only reason that he was still here. They had religiously checked on him morning, noon, and night.

  Cade had ignored their calls at first but Candice showing up at his home furious at him and all but beating a promise to answer their calls from now on had ended that pity party.

  He was glad she had, his days had been infinitely better after that day, hearing his children and his grandbabies voices soothing a portion of his grief.

  As he rounded a curve Cade voiced his thoughts to the empty car.

  "They were mourning their mother just the same as me, this get together is just a way for them to share our pain and celebrate the time we had with her." His melancholy stood its ground though against his less than earnest attempt to logic his way through his grief.

  "I'm trying though Tony, I really am." He said to the rainy road.

  Cade knew he was one of the lucky ones, he had Tony for 42 years of blissful marriage and she had given him 2 beautiful babies.

  His son Vince now married 10 years had his own landscaping business and two rug rats of his own that Cade had spoiled on every occasion.

  Vance had served 20 in the Army to spite Cade with his own 10 years of service in the Navy, and Cade couldn't be more proud of the man he had grown up to be.

  Candice his daughter was the CFO of a security firm with multiple contracts with the DOD.

  Tony had been a one-woman cheering squad when Candice had received her masters in finance.

  Cade smiled as he remembered her hooting and hollering for the whole stadium filled with people to see, screams of "THAT'S MY BABY, THAT'S MY GIRL!!!" rebounding off the walls.

  Returning to the present Cade choked back another sob, “Goddammit I miss that woman.” He said as the tears began to flow again.

  He indulged himself for a few minutes and let them go, finally collecting himself, he refocused as he smoothly rounded and other curve continued his drive.

  Heading around a curve a half-hour later, Cade suddenly saw a jack-knifed 18 wheeler.

  As he slammed his breaks he saw that he wasn't going to stop in time.

  Grimacing he turned towards the tiny shoulder of the road in hopes that it would give him room to avoid the accident, the tires of the car squealing in protest as they fought for grip on the wet road.

  It didn't work out though, Cade's eyes squeezed closed and his hands gripped the steering wheel instinctively as the front driver's side of his car slammed into the rear end of the trailer.

  The sound of the airbags going off was silent compared to the screeching of metal and the smell of smoke.

  The car careened off the trailer and was sent tumbling into the void off the side of the mountain taking Cade along for the ride.

  A little pain

  Cade woke up with a moan, suddenly in the most pain, he had ever felt. Screaming he writhed weakly on the ground, his whole body felt like it was on fire.

  The pain suddenly began to fade, as a droning sound began in the back of his head overtaking the sounds of birds he had never heard before.

  Cade's whole body relaxed as the excruciating pain left him, numbness replacing the firey pain.

  Trying to lift his head off the ground to take a look at himself he was surprised at how weak he felt.

  His skull felt like it had gained 100 pounds as it fell back to the ground from the minuscule distance he had lifted it with a light thud.

  He struggled again to lift his head and failed to lift it.

  On the third try with a gargantuan effort, Cade succeeded in holding the position for a few seconds.

  With the little time he had until his exhaustion forced him to lay his heavy burden back down Cade examined his numb body.

  He saw that his right leg was broken jutting off to the right at a sickening angle and his left foot was twisted backward.

  His guts felt odd and watery, loose in a way that sickened him on a primal level.

  Attempting to move either of his arms resulted in a disjointed movement midway down his upper arms, which elicited a groan as some of the pain broke through his numbness.

  After his heavy head fell back to the loamy ground in weariness, Cade thought over his current predicament.

  "Well shit this sucks" was all he could think through the mind-numbing pain that was again starting to radiate through his bod
y.

  He was amazed to still be conscious even though he looked and felt like a 2-year-old's action figure, not to mention the numerous cuts, bruises, a pond of blood, and the all-encompassing droning sound in the back of his skull.

  Taking stock of the countless injuries he had glimpsed he slowly thought on the most serious.

  "Probably some internal bleeding on top of all the other shit." Cade thought to himself.

  That train of thought chilled him, without quick medical care he was as good as dead.

  Cade slowly attempted to move his bruised and broken body to set a mental picture of how bad the damage was.

  Sharp pains followed the movements, but he was surprised by the image he saw in his mind's eye of his body lying flat on his back.

  The areas where he felt pain were clearly damaged, internal bleeding evident by the severed veins and arteries pumping his lifeblood into his body cavity.

  "Fuck" he said softly, despair choking him.

  Cade's outlook was grim, so much blood loss would kill him soon.

  The idea of trying to fix it himself was laughable, he was no surgeon.

  He was surprised a moment later when the injuries he had viewed were slowly stitching themselves together in his mind's eye.

  The broken blood vessels that he was just fretting over reconnecting, the bruised and ruptured organs knitting becoming whole, and broken bones snapping together.

  Flabbergasted by what he was seeing, Cade took it as his last wishes playing out in his blood starved brain before his body failed and he passed into the great unknown.

  Opening his eyes Cade began to come to terms with his last moments before he was startled by the sound of small rocks shifting next to his shattered arm.

  Apprehension gripped him as he slowly turned his head to see what forest animal was about to feast on his remains.

  Cade was surprised to see no critters waiting on him to pass but his arm shifting the rocky soil it sat on as it straightened out on its own with a few pops.

  He was dumbstruck by the apparent lack of damage to his arm, though still peppered with cuts and the beginnings of a few dozen bruises it was no longer broken.

  "What the actual fuck." Cade said in disbelief at the sight before him.

  Slowly attempting to sit up, he realized his mistake too late, as his still mostly broken and bruised body rebelled against the action.

  Cade fell back with a wet grunt and rolled to his side, heaving a blood donation that would have done the red cross proud.

  After entirely too long for his liking the heaving ended.

  Gingerly lifting himself off the ground into a seated position to prevent another blood tsunami, Cade groused to himself "Well that was bad" into the humid night air, as he wiped his forearm across his mouth to remove the last of the sick and blood from it.

  The realization hit him a second later as his eyes widened.

  Cade looked again at the arm that, all though was still covered in blood, was clear of the cuts and bruises that he had just seen before he had upchucked.

  "What the hell," he said softly. Looking down himself, all the cuts and bruises he had seen in his quick survey just minutes before were healed.

  All the damage Cade had seen through the ragged clothes he had on had also disappeared as he patted his torso down gone as if by magic.

  Cade suddenly slammed his fist on the ground with a groan at a sudden itching and pricking sensation as he watched with a grimace as his left foot performed a trick.

  A loud snapping and grinding sound heralded its return to its rightful position pointing straight up into the night air.

  Cade's eyebrows rose to his hairline as his right leg, under its own power, straightened out with an audible crunch to match up with his left.

  He slowly caught his breath and whistled as the itching prickling sensation faded after a few moments as the magical healing ended.

  Rotated his ankles Cade was surprised at the lack of pops and pain that had plagued him since he finished his service.

  Doing another once over on his newly healed body Cade smiled at the lack of back and hip pain before he let his curiosity about the sounds and smells he was just beginning to notice take over.

  As he looked at his surroundings free of the healing's distraction, he noticed a slight depression close to 3 meters wide and a few inches deep around him.

  Though it was almost filled with his blood and vomit it was devoid of plant and animal life.

  "Hmm when did that happen?" Cade said, thinking that such a perfectly level swath of ground wouldn't occur naturally.

  His contemplation of the strange gore-filled depression was interrupted by a pained roar in the distance.

  "Well let's not wait around to find out whatever made that sound," Cade said as a spike of fear went through him.

  Standing up gingerly and more exhausted than he had felt in a very long time, he slowly turned in a circle in an attempt to get some sense of his surroundings.

  Looking straight into the sky Cade wondered where the bright illumination of his current surroundings was coming from.

  Covering a quarter of the sky, the moon glowed an intense white, illuminating the surrounding area in a pale glow.

  Setting the problem of the monster moon aside for another day Cade returned his attention toward finding a place to sleep for the night, his exhaustion causing his eyelids to droop and his mind to wander despite his desperate situation.

  Shaking his head to keep the exhaustion at bay Cade looked around himself once more.

  "Trees, yup that's a lot of fucking trees, let's find one to shimmy our asses up, sound good Cade, yup let's do it, Cade." He said grimly, his irritated tone caused in turn by his dire situation and the cloying smell and sticky feeling of his blood and vomit drying on him beginning to overwhelm him.

  Cade gave up wiping his hands on the tattered remains of his shirt that only resulted in smearing the blood on his torso.

  Promising himself a thorough bath at his earliest opportunity, Cade began his search for a safe haven for the night quickly as he heard faint shouting in the distance.

  A half-hour of searching later, Cade despaired of finding a tree with low enough branches for him to climb as his exhaustion fought against each step he took.

  Massive trees spread as far as he could see, which wasn't much with how thick the giants were on the ground.

  Silently bemoaning his lack of footwear, probably lost in the crash, he continued his search.

  Cade's search came to an end when he found what could be considered a sapling amongst all these giants.

  "Finally found you, you're going to be my little home away from home tonight aren't you, your a little homey tree, yes you are," Cade said as he patted the rough bark of his little treehouse sanctuary with relief and excitement before he started his climb to safety, at least for tonight.

  After locating a sturdy branch that would support his weight close to 20 feet off the ground, Cade tied himself as securely as possible with a length of vine he found.

  With a tired sigh, he let his ever-present exhaustion overwhelm him slipping into a dreamless sleep.

  Welcome to the fucking jungle

  Awakening with a start Cade found himself 20 feet off the ground, strapped to a branch and wondering what the fuck was going on.