Charlie Carver




 * Concept: Working Class Warlock
 * Class: Sorcerer / Cult Leader
 * Inspiration: Adrian Tooms (Michael Keaton) as the Vulture in Spiderman.
 * Family: Helen (Wife), Eric (Son)

Tropes

 * Working Class Warlock: His materials are inexpensive, commonly available and generally what’s on-hand. His magic is fairly straightforward, working-class and without many frills. He’s the guy who would spend his evenings pouring over chinese take out while piecing together how to create a magical effect that he saw in a movie or tv show. He’s usually trying to find some way to get a payday to keep the wolves at the door.
 * Basement Black Magic: Some Black Magic is the stuff of legends, crippling whole cities or enslaving counties to the demonic hordes summoned by the foul magics. Trick isn’t there yet. His black magic is the stuff that one can summon in their parent’s basement. Cursing people with bad luck didn’t hold him for long. Trick needed more. His sacrifices were strays, his invocations passable and his rituals rudimentary but he was able to get it done. His magic could stretch out to wrap around the targets and cause boils, blisters and burns. Also, he might call up a spirit of suicide or death to send out to plague the target until they killed themself.
 * Discovered Dangerous Books: Books aren’t generally considered dangerous. However, those books that teach how one could build a bomb should probably be restricted from those angst-ridden teenaged eyes that might want to blow up a school. More importantly, books shouldn’t teach a newly awakened mage how to achieve the same effect without needing the bomb at all.

Background
Charlie Carver is an auto mechanic that lives and works in Pigeon Hill. His shop, the New Era Garage, supported himself, his wife Helen and his son Eric for years. They were a small, but loving, working-class family. His son played football for the local High School, his wife kept the home and was going back to school to become an accountant to help pull in extra money. Though they had their fair share of trials, they were, fundamentally, a happy family.

The summer when Charley’s son Eric turned thirteen, Helen started to suffer from headaches that would last for days. Originally it was thought to be just the stress from having to read so much for her first years of the new education. Maybe it was migraines from trying to balance school and home. It wasn’t until Charley got a call from Eric that his mother had collapsed from the pain that he realized that this wasn’t just another problem for them to weather.

Helen was taken to the doctors and they delivered the bad news; cancer. Charley tried to be optimistic and he dug in for the path to a cure and his wife’s recovery. She did chemo and her hair fell out and week by week he saw his wife start to slip away from him. She wasn’t getting any better. The family was in a very dark, very low place. The doctors said that the treatments weren’t as effective as they had hoped and suggested that they should focus on the quality of her remaining time. Charley and Helen weren’t going to give up so easily. ..

They searched the internet for any sense of hope and as fate would have it, Helen found some right in her own backyard. A friend had come to visit while the boys were gone and brought a pair of friends to meet her. Helen wasn’t really up to meeting new people those days but she was not going to be accused of being a poor host. So she put on a brave face and agreed to meet the two women, the owners of the Bell, Book and Candle; a metaphysical shop near the Historic district.

The two women had come to offer their assistance and had brought with them some herbal teas which they said would help her with the constant nausea. She was a bit suspicious of the whole ‘new age’ thing, but she just assumed that it was a front for a pair of marijuana growing old hippies. It’s not like Helen and Charley had never indulged. If her son knew half of the things that she and her husband were doing when they were his age he’d probably never sleep again.

So, with a grateful smile, she accepted the “tea” and told them that she’d keep in touch. At worst, she thought, she might get a bit of a break from the constant sickness so long as they were willing to provide her a bit of their “herbal tea”. She told Charley about it that night and the two just snickered to each other. Within a day the woman’s nausea stopped. Within three days she was starting to feel hungry again and within two weeks she had put color back into her cheeks. Charley and her son were amazed to wake up one morning to the smell of bacon cooking and it seemed as though Helen was on the road to recovery.

The tea she was given lasted only a month and now she figured that the true cost of the women’s generosity would come to light. Now that she had seen the power of their “herbs”, she was hooked and if they wanted to charge a fortune for the next batch she knew that she’d have to pay. She even warned Charley that she was going to drive over to their shop for a refill and that it might be expensive. He was all for her feeling better and said that there were plenty of cars that needing fixed - they’d find a way to afford it. Even her son, Eric had picked up a part time job to help out where he could.

Helen was surprised to find that the two women didn’t want anything too extraordinary for their ‘remedy’ and had even invited her to join their circle. She did and in time she realized that the two women were witches. She didn’t tell Charley that part mostly because she didn’t want him to laugh at her. She liked the women of the circle and she was feeling stronger and stronger as the weeks continued. By the time Eric had started high school she was all but fully recovered.

Charley was beyond happy. The garage was doing well, Eric made the football team and he had his wife back. He suspected that she was getting into the whole ‘New Age’ thing but if all it cost him was her going to meetings and crystals around the house it was a small price to keep his family going.

So when Helen was hit head-on by a drunk driver on the way home from one of her meetings, it was like the world dropped out from under him. There were no herbs that could fix this. There wasn’t much to do; she had died instantly and the guy was arrested. He wanted to murder the man, twice, for taking away what he had -just- gotten back. The police told him that the man would face charges and be put in prison for the rest of his life for what he had done. Charley was told to just go home and take care of his son.

The funeral came and went. The trial took a glacier’s age to proceed but as if the gods weren’t done screwing with Charley Carver, the man’s lawyer got him off on some legal trick. He was not drunk at the time just ‘slightly intoxicated’. Then they claimed that Helen had run a red light and that he barely managed to swerve out of the way of -her- reckless driving. Autopsy reports were read into court revealing that Helen had marijuana in her system and that was all the attorney needed to claim that she was unable to control her vehicle. It didn’t matter that Charley explained that she was using it for her cancer and that she was easing herself off of it now that she was in full remission.

When the trial ended and the man was cleared of the charges through some miraculous twist of fate, both Charley and Eric had to be forcibly removed from the courtroom. But in the whole dramatic conclusion, Charley saw the women from the book store there in the court. They, along with a few other women he had recognized from Helen’s friends were not watching him and the boy but were focused intently upon the drunk driver. It was like they knew something.

Charley and Eric were swarmed by reporters out in front of the court house but no one wanted to talk about the travesty of justice. Rather they just wanted to ask the two of them about their motivations for blaming such an upstanding citizen for their wife’s drug-fueled negligence. They were so filled with anger and rage that they were both ready to dive into the reporters and leave none standing. They would have been arrested for assault and taken to jail which is probably what was planned. Thankfully the two sisters came up behind the boys and took each one by the arm and lead them away.

The older women were not exactly strong but it was like having a pair of grandmothers wade in and grab you by the scruff of the neck. They were extracted from the throng of reporters just as the ‘innocent man’ walked out in triumph. The sisters didn’t go into detail there at the stairs of the court house but they told the boys to go home and that they would “handle things”. Charley wasn’t sure what that meant but he didn’t want his son arrested; Helen wouldn’t have wanted that.

Sure enough, within a week of the trial, the man who had killed Helen was found at the Moonlite Motel with a prostitute; an underaged prostitute. When the cops searched the room they also found a bag full of heroine, wads of cash and the young girl explained that ‘John’ was her supplier. The man was ruined and his business seized as a possible front for a money laundering operation. He wasn’t beaten to a pulp, but he’d sure get some serious pay back in prison. Charley would make certain that the right people would be informed of his arrival. More than one of the guys in his garage had done time. It was nothing very serious but they knew people who knew people. Dear “John” would suffer.

But that wasn’t the end of things for Charley. He wanted to know how a couple of old hippies could take this guy down so quickly. If they had that kind of power and connections they’d be people worth knowing. He decided to pay them a visit on one of their ‘circle nights’; a time when he knew that they’d all be there and the place wouldn’t be open for business. It might be easier for them to talk.

The sights and smells of the place almost knocked him over. It was everything he could do to just keep a straight face with all of the crystals, fairies and dragons all over the place. This is where his Helen found help? One of the two sisters found him as he walked in with a pair of women from the circle and asked what he wanted. He lied and said that he wanted to thank them for all of the help that they provided Helen when she was sick. The women who had already arrived heard his voice and came to the front of the store to see what was up.

They each told Charley how wonderful a women Helen was and that he should be proud at the work that she was doing with them. This caught him off guard because he wasn’t aware of any “work” she might be doing at all. The two sisters explained in a very ‘new agey’ way that Helen’s healing was a gift and she was using that gift to help heal others. One woman said that her fibro had stopped hurting thanks to Helen’s art and another said that her arthritis was all but gone.

Charley had never knew that his wife was doing any of this, but he wanted to talk to the sisters about how they targeted the guy that had killed her. The sisters and the women just smiled knowingly and said that he had gotten what he deserved; the universe always seeks a balance. They thanked him for his visit but told him that they needed to start their meeting soon and that he would have to leave.

Confused but still happy that Helen’s killer was going to get what he deserved, Charley went back to work and tried to pull together the pieces of his life. Eric finished the football season and winter settled over the town. Aside from some arsons of some buildings around town, the season wasn’t that remarkable. Then a car load of high school boys turned up missing. Charley freaked out and didn’t stop calling Eric’s phone until he got an answer. Thankfully Eric wasn’t one of them. A week or two passed and then another car full of kids went missing and his son’s phone didn’t answer.

He called the cops but they didn’t have any answers. A day passed and no word and then two and then three. He was a wreck. No sleep, lots of drinking and no food. Charley hadn’t really been a serious drinker - not since before Eric was born. But this was the lowest his life had been. Helen was gone and now his boy and he was powerless to do anything. Or was he?

In a half-drunk stupor, he drove to Bell, Book and Candle to get some answers. The front door was locked so he went around to the back and knocked. No answer. He heard them inside through the door but couldn’t get them to hear him. He wasn’t leaving empty-handed. A small window, above the door, might give him an idea of what they were doing and maybe they’d see him. He grabbed the garbage can and drug ti over into place so he could crawl up on it. It took him a few tries to get up there and balanced but he could peek inside.

About a dozen women were seated in a large circle in the back room, crystals, bunches of dried herbs, knives and such were all placed near the women in a small circle outlined in white paint. These twelve circles, with only two empty ones, were then connected into a larger circle with lines connecting each one of them in a large star pattern. At its center was a glowing ball of light-blue light. At first he thought it was some kind of weird lamp and he even let his eyes search up to the ceiling to look for a suspension wire or a power cable but there wasn’t any.

Magic? Helen was in with witches? Like -real- witches? The light seemed to pulse occasionally as the women chanted in low tones and light seemed to emanate from their chest and flow down the painted lines to feed into that central ball. One of the two sisters asked a question of the light and something inside of it answered. He couldn’t totally hear what they were doing but this was some seriously weird stuff.

Before he could see any more, his balance shifted, the trash can lid buckled and he fell from his perch. Now he -seriously- needed answers but he’d have to come back and corner them when they weren’t doing whatever it was that they were doing. Nursing a bruised ankle, he limped back to his car and drove back to his house. What all had Helen been doing there? What all had she gotten into? He couldn’t really move her stuff out of their bedroom in the months that she had been gone. He just didn’t have the strength to deal with those emotions. But now he started tearing through her things in a blind search for answers.

He looked through her shelves in their room, her dresser, their closet and found nothing. Then he started tossing things out of the hall closet of no return in the hope that she might have stored some things there since no one had successfully found anything in that closet since Eric learned to walk. Nothing. If there was something that might help him, it would have been kept with her so that he or her son wouldn’t have just accidentally found it - he thought.

So he went to her school bag, since that’s what she had with her at the time and emptied it on the kitchen table. Accounting books, notebooks and pencils scattered but there was another book that was out of place. It was one of those black-covered sketchbooks that looked like a ‘real’ book. The book had a symbol on the cover of three old skeleton keys pushed into the cover like a stamp. He opened it and found that it was a sort of journal or diary of Helen’s path into the circle.

By dawn he had read through her book at least three times. It didn’t make much sense, but it was sort of a notebook for her prayers and ‘spells’ that she learned when she was in the circle. It wasn’t anything weird or spooky, just her thoughts and notes much like she would have for any other class. Every turn of the page made his eyes water because he couldn’t read the lines without hearing her voice in his head.

In a stupor of a fading buzz and little sleep, one of the things that he read caught his attention. Helen had written up a few pages on how to contact spirits and said that they were good to find answers. Well, that’s what he needed was answers. So what the hell. He’d try it. Thankfully his Helen took excellent notes and her book provided a nearly step-by-step guide on how Charley could create the proper ritual to contact a spirit. He didn’t really think anything would happen but he wasn’t really thinking on all cylinders.

The ritual wasn’t that complex to set up. He went into the garage because that was one of the few places where could draw a circle as large as the notes said in chalk. Most of their house was covered in carpeting so that wasn’t going to work. Helen’s smell-good candles were put at the right places, herbs from the kitchen were scattered and he cut his finger with a box cutter to add a drop of blood to the circle. Oddly enough, the whole process of the ritual was something that he liked; it gave him purpose. With Eric missing and everything out of his reach, having something that he could do - however stupid as it felt - was good for him.

He lit the candles, sat at the edge of the circle and said the words. Nothing happened the first time, nor the second. But when he said them a third time the candles flared up like someone hit them with a can of hairspray. The herbs at the center smoldered and a thin trail of smoke crawled up from them and formed into a pair of eyes that looked right him.

Charley’s first summoning wasn’t the best. It didn’t last long and he did get some answers but he had to promise a lot to get them. Once the sun was up he ran over to B. B & C to confront the women about what he saw. The second that he walked into their shop, the looks up like he was a bull in a china shop. They weren’t the welcoming old ladies that he remembered. They looked at him and each other like he was something different. The sisters watched where he walked and how he looked and he kept having to look down to his feet to see if he had stepped in something on the way in. They didn’t give him any information but told him that he ‘shouldn’t poke his nose into what he clearly doesn’t understand’.

He pressed for information but they told him to get out of their shop or they would call the police. He left their shop in a growling huff. He could tell that they knew more than they were telling but he couldn’t make them tell him. Or could he? The spirit he contacted said that it could help him but it needed things too. Like any other machine he had ever worked on, you couldn’t expect the engine to run if you didn’t give it gasoline. He’d pay the spirit’s price. He’d get his son back with or without their help. For now, he headed to the animal shelter for...fuel.

Just like the two sisters had their circle, he needed help with his rituals as well. Some of the ones listed in Helen’s journal needed at least five people. So he pulled in some of his employees - the guys that had seen jail time and those he could be sure would keep their mouth shut. Their magic wasn’t earth-shattering, nor was it horrific. These were working-class warlocks. They wanted more money in their bank accounts not the promise of power and glory to come. The powers that they bargained for let them break into places, steal things that could be sold quickly in the nearest big cities. Everyone got paid and paid well.

Charley became the leader of a small coven though he preferred the term ‘crew’. They went after people who couldn’t be touched by the police, the politicians and fat-cat businessmen who stepped on the necks of the poor schmucks who couldn’t get out from under their boots. With some of his profits, Charley bought the lots behind his garage so that he could turn it into a junkyard. It seemed like a perfect cover that would allow them to conduct bigger rituals and dispose of whatever they needed to behind tall privacy fences and stacks of old buicks. The New Era garage became the New Era garage and salvage yard and his crew started calling themselves ‘Scrappers’; sorting through the junk and refuse of the metaphysical world to find the stuff that they could use.