The Reluctant Sorcerer - Simon Hawke, ebook
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Sorcerer 01 – The Reluctant Sorcerer
Simon Hawke
CHAPTER
ONE
"It's alive! It's alive!"
"Darling... come to bed."
"Just a minute," replied Marvin Brewster, staring raptly
at the television set where Colin Clive, in the role of Dr.
Victor Frankenstein, was gripped in a paroxysm of unholy
glee as his creation twitched to life on the laboratory table.
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 "Darling..." Her voice was low and throaty with a
British accent. "I'm waiting..."
"Ummm." Brewster didn't turn around. If he had, he
would have seen a sight that would have reduced most men
to drooling idiots. His fiancee. Dr. Pamela Fairbum, was
standing in the bedroom doorway, dressed in nothing but a
slinky negligee that was so sheer, it looked like a soft mist
enveloping her lush, voluptuous curves. She stood in a pose
of calculated seduction, one long and lovely leg bent at the
knee, one arm stretched out above her, pressed against the
door frame, her long auburn hair worn loose and cascading
down to her ample, perfumed cleavage....
Whoa, wait a minute. Let me catch my breath.
Sorry about that. Narrators are only human too, you
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know. Okay, now where were we? Oh, right. This gor-
geous, incredibly desirable woman is exuding premarital
lust all over the place and that fool, Brewster, is simply
sitting there and watching a monster movie on TV. Any
other red-blooded male would know exactly what to do,
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 right? You betcha. Hit that remote control and make a
beeline for the bedroom. Any normal, sensible man hearing
that incredibly sultry and seductive voice would turn around,
take one look, and experience the hormonal equivalent of a
nuclear meltdown. (And considering how beautiful Dr. Pamela
Fairbum was, a lot of women would, as well.) However,
Dr. Marvin Brewster was not exactly normal. Or sensible.
That is to say, he was incredibly intelligent—a genius, in
fact—but he didn't have a lot of street smarts.
Nor was this just any movie. To Marvin Brewster, it was
the movie, the one that had the single most significant
impact on his formative years. The one that had made him
realize exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up. He
first saw it at the age of nine and from that moment on, he
knew. He was going to be a mad scientist.
It wasn't Boris KarlofiFs portrayal of the monster that had
so affected him, nor the idea of creating life from sewn-
together pieces of dead bodies, it was that laboratory. All
that marvelous equipment. The bubbling vials and beakers,
the intricate plumbing and wiring, the spinning dials, the
Jacob's ladder arcing electrical current.... He took one
look at that wonderful laboratory and he fell in love, a love
far deeper and more abiding than he would ever feel for any
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 woman, even a woman as undeniably womanly as Pamela
Fairbum.
She knew and understood this. Earlier that evening, when
she had spotted the listing for the film, she'd realized what
was liable to happen and she had hidden the TV Guide, but
Brewster had just happened to turn on the tube after their
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late-night dinner, and scanning through the channels, he'd
stumbled on the film. Now Pamela knew there'd be no
prying him away till it was over.
'She sighed with resignation and walked over to the couch
where he was sitting, settled down onto the floor beside
him, and leaned her head against his knee. Without turning
from the television, he offered her the bowl of popcorn. She
took a handful and popped it in her mouth. Even in her
sexiest lingerie, she knew she couldn't compete. She didn't
really mind, however. She understood about obsession. She
had one of her own, and that was her career as a cybernetics
engineer, which was how she had met Brewster.
It had been during a symposium at Cambridge. She'd
spotted him at once. He was the only American present, but
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 that wasn't what had made him stand out. There was just
something about him, about his rumpled, tweedy, and horn-
rimmed appearance, his curly and unkempt blond hair, his
rather shambling and distracted manner, and his total unself-
consciousness that had struck her as incredibly endearing.
He was part little boy, part unmade t-?d. He had gotten to
her where she lived, where most women live, in fact. Right
smack in her maternal instinct. She wanted to pull him to
her breast and hug him to pieces.
She was later to discover that Brewster often had that
effect on women and part of his charm was that he was
totally oblivious to it. He was simply clueless. He was the
kind of man women wanted to mother into bed, only he was
so preoccupied and absentminded that if they succeeded, he
would probably forget why he was there. Pamela Fairbum
could have had any man she wanted. She could walk into a
crowded room and every man present would immediately go
on point. All she'd need to do to insure most men's undying
and slavish devotion would be to flutter her eyelashes and
act stupid. But with Marvin Brewster, she could be herself.
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Her intelligence did not intimidate him. More often than
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