Page 1 of Jack of All Trades

Chapter One

Walking and waiting. Walkingand waiting. He walked everywhere he went, unable to save enough money for a decent car of his own. His last one died all of two months after he’d purchased the thing before the engine seized, and he was stranded five miles from his apartment.

The waiting part? Jack Pengrove wasn’t what he was supposed to be, and he waited for the moment someone would discover that.

You see, Jack was born into one of the most powerful witch families in the world. They were heads of state, ambassadors, CEOs of corporations, and all had gotten that far with the help of their powers. When Jack didn’t come into his powers by thirteen, the cutoff for powers in his family to blossom, his family had all but given up on him. Until he was eighteen, well, he was their dirty secret, kept home from boarding schools, as his siblings attended, kept out of parties, and in the care of nannies when they traveled.

Tired of being treated like the freak of the family, he’d run off soon after his eighteenth birthday, looking for things he figured he might never find.

His powers, for one and another, were simple acceptance. He had only found the latter when he found Valleywood. Even so, it was only those in the dark recesses of the well-cloaked city for all things supernatural that accepted him. He was an outsider, after all, no matter his family name or reputation for breeding powerful witches. He was a powerless witch.

A fucking poser, a freak, an odd man out, a liar, and a closet mundane mortal.

He didn’t advertise the fact, in fact, he tried his best to hide it. Funnily enough, no one had ever asked him to use his powers. For that, he was thankful, but that was about all he had to be grateful for.

The storm had dumped tons of snow throughout the city and surrounding areas. It had come in waves until it finally broke, and he sloshed through the remnants of it, his simple, cheap sneakers soaked through with the dirt-blackened snow he walked through.

He caught his reflection in the window of an abandoned storefront, stopping to check his appearance. The only thing he had gotten from his family was his good looks. Not that he looked anything like them, no. They were dark-headed and dark-eyed, while his hair was on the blond side of brown, and his eyes were a crazy hazel that turned from green to gray depending on his mood. Keeping up his muscled frame wasn’t hard with the line of work he had had to take. Handyman/hooker. He got workouts from both, and what they didn’t provide, a cheap set of weights in the studio apartment he shared with two other men did.

On the corner of Twenty-Ninth and Peacoat Avenue. Right on the corner. The windows were blacked out with paint. The doorwas covered with decades-old flyers, and the annoying buzzer that sounded when the door was opened could be heard for a block or more.

There was, of course, a reason for that. Usually, Colin Avery, the owner of Handy-Men or what was secretly known as Handsy-Men, was in the back playing grab-ass with the secretary, Lois Hanoverian.

Lois was a shifter, and Jack had often walked in to hear her whinnying in the back while they were doing…something. He didn’t want to know.

She was dressed when Jack walked into the place, the tattered couches and chairs of the waiting room empty of humans and supes alike, as usual. “Jack, how are you?”

“Better since you called with a job,” he said with an edge. He wasn’t Lois’s favorite person, and he suspected she was suspicious of him, but he was paranoid. Everyone that didn’t seem to like him mad him think they were catching onto him being a fake witch.

With her pinched nose up in the air like she had something to be high-and-mighty about, she got onto the computer and brought up the current jobs. “Yes, here it is. Maltin Grave. He needs a roof to be patched in the industrial district.”

“Roofing, cool. I figured I’d get a few of those after that storm.”

“Three others have gone out for them, three with much better experience,” she said snidely. She handed him a card with the address and information, and he knew he was dismissed.

He snatched the card from her and trudged along the street after leaving the office, the buzzer still ringing as he crossed against the light.

Waiting for the bus, he watched a couple walk hand in hand across the street. The woman had her hair done in big bouncy curls, and her male friend covered his hair with a black hoodie.They laughed as their hands swung together, making Jack turn away from the scene.

He’d never have that. The biggest obstacle was if his family knew about him. No, not about being gay. They didn’t care about that so much as the children that he’d have. To have a Pengrove that had no powers giving their precious last name to a new generation of embarrassments, well, they’d use all their powers on him to take him out of the world altogether.

Not that he had any plans to or an opportunity to have kids. He was a hooker. No one of quality would have him for more than a regular screw on Wednesday or an all-nighter when they came to town for business.

It paid the bills, though. He had almost enough saved for a car, even if it would have to be a junker.

It seemed like hours before the bus arrived, mostly because it was so cold. He hated the cold. Jack’s dreams were of lying on a beach in the tropics. When he stepped on the bus, he immediately smelled cheap perfume and stale beer and had the misfortune of sitting behind the lady wearing both.

In her hand was a can covered in a paper bag, and she slurped loudly as the bus started rolling. Jack wished he could have a beer or a shot of tequila, anything but working on some roof in the cold. He wanted the money, sure, but if things went like usual, he’d work his ass off on the roof, then work getting his ass fucked for fifteen minutes after by some slimy dude that couldn’t pick up a quicky at the club.

Maltin Graves. What a name. Jack pictured a bloated man in a dirty wife-beater, coffee or blended scotch stains down the front, food stuck in his mangy beard.

No, Jack’s mood wasn’t the best that day. He’d called his parents to check in, as was the expectation. No, they didn’t much want anything to do with him, but if he didn’t call once a month, they acted like he was the one rejecting them.

Hypocrites.

The bus stop was half a mile from the address Lois had given Jack. Once the bus came to a stop, Jack rose to start up the aisle but was stopped by the woman with the beer.

She reached out for him, snatching his arm in her bony grip. “You’re about to find your mate, canine.”

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