Life at 165 S. Riordan Ave was peaceful. There was clean air, no crime, and plenty of plenty of nice folks that made up the small neighborhood community.

Except for one.

I wheeled my large grill to the backyard after a long afternoon of cooking with friends. The grill was almost a decade old, and despite my best efforts to keep it in the best condition possible, repeated use wore down the rubber pads that kept the top from hitting the bottom. With every bump traversed over, the metal parts clapped creating a loud donk each time. Being careful not to awaken the beast next door, I moved slowly, almost to a tip-toe. It only took one more muffled donk to ruin my day.

Objecto Inanis!

The silver handle my hands were wrapped around disappeared...along with the rest of the grill.

"Goddamnit you son of a bitch! Bring it back!" I said in a rather nasty tone of voice.

The middle-aged man with a salt and pepper beard and mustache hovered in the air, legs crisscrossed and holding a shimmering white orb. He shook his head. "Nope. Not this time."

"Why? Why send it to the void if it can easily be repaired? Can't your shitty little ball do that?"

"The orb, mind you, only has limited functionality. If I was able to repair it, it would have been

done in its time in the void the first time."

I balled up my fist, and an image of me clocking him right in the jaw appeared through the red tint of anger. "Fine. Have it your way Tycho." I stormed off, reached my back door, and turned to him before walking in, "And that's a stupid fucking name too!"

Kirsten, my wife, heard the door slam behind me and groaned. "What did he do this time?"

"I annoyed him with the grill. That bastard took it away too."

"He couldn't just be nice for once and fix it?"

"That's what I said!" I threw up my hands, and fell backwards onto the soft cushions of the sofa. They say taking a deep breath helps in times of anger. They were wrong.

"Just give it some more time. He'll loosen up."

"It's been almost a year Kay." I often called Kirsten by her middle name, especially when I was too mentally spent to add more syllables to a sentence. "We've invited him to this and that and even spent money to fix his enchantment desk. He just doesn't like me."

Kirsten rubbed her cheeks. "I'll go talk to him."

I held my hands out as if I was keeping someone from getting closer. "Please don't. He might turn you into a dog or some shit, and I'm not staying married to a dog."

"Oh you wouldn't leave my sight even then." Kirsten said then kissed me on the cheek before heading out the door.

My anger soon degraded to frustration, and I could begin thinking more clearly. Revenge was on the horizon. But just how do you exact retribution on a wizard? The planning stages had begun.

A week had passed since the death of my grill. It wasn't coming back. Kirsten had tried her best, but regardless of how nice Tycho was to her, bringing back my possessions was off the table. At the least, willingly.

The plan was simple; WizCon was just around the corner, and every time he went, he would be gone for almost a week. Motherfucker doesn't teleport either. He drives a beat-up Fiesta, and once that leaves the driveway, I was to break into his house, find the damn orb, and...somehow use it to bring back my grill and countless other objects he sucked up in the span of almost a year. I had enough of it and I believed it was time for me to put him in his place. I rubbed my hands together with excitement after talking to myself as I stared out the bedroom window, which gave me a clear view of the side of Tycho's house.

Like clockwork, the middle-aged wizard jumped into his lime-green Fiesta and drove out of his lot, disappearing into the late afternoon traffic. I darted to the back door, carefully stepping out. It wasn't necessary, since Kirsten was gone and wouldn't arrive till late, but it was more a force of habit than adrenaline. Like a thief in the night, I climbed the wooden privacy fence, and landed on the uncut grass of Tycho's backyard. Through the backdoor--which was unlocked to my advantage--I snaked inside, watching to see if anything would poke me, flay me, or crush me. Nothing but an odd assortment of trinkets were scattered about. Old black and white vintage photos lined the walls, and different styles of furniture cluttered the floor, leaving only a pathway throughout the house no wider than my torso.

"Tycho...more like psycho." Tip-toeing around like an attempt not to wake the parents up early in the morning, I made my way to what I assumed to be the office. Bookcases full of books, and in the center, next to the intricately carved desk, was a pedestal that held Tycho's most prized possession. The Orb. I carefully lifted the object from the purple cushion it sat on. It was heavy, and very much felt like glass or stone.

I brought the orb closer to my face. Peering into its shimmering surface I could see things floating around inside. It was blurry, and hard to make out exactly what they could have been, but I was certain that one of them was my grill. And a pair of my shoes. Maybe even my cat that suddenly disappeared last summer. Regardless, I looked around the room to locate some sort of manual. Do orbs come with manuals? If watching Harry Potter taught me anything, there must be a spellbook somewhere near. On the desk was a book inscribed with strange lettering on it's cover. It had to be it. Opening it up the pages moved in it's own, flipping to what I presumed to be the last page the wizard was reading.

"Eeem...emego...emago...fuck." The words were in some other language I had never seen before. The only thing I could even remotely understand was the over-sized letters at the very top. "Partum...Felinus?"

Suddenly, a whoosh of air circled the room and slammed into the desk, blowing books and papers off and onto the floor. The only thing now on its surface, was a small grey kitten, barely a day old.

"Oh. My. Fuck."

It began to meow, attracting a larger, more mature black cat. The black cat grabbed the kitten with her jaw, gave me an angry look, and walked out of the office. I wasn't completely sure what I had just seen, but I knew with certainty that I had used the orb to summon a kitten out of thin air. I picked the book up and flipped the pages with urgency. I just needed the spell that brought my stuff back, and nothing else. Near the back of the book, I saw a spell that caught my intrigue. Corporis Secarus. It sounded interesting, but with no way to read what the spell did, I was left to my own imagination. "Corporis Secarus." I said under my breath just before hearing the sound of a car door next door. I looked towards the general direction of my house. "Oh fuck."

I slammed the book shut and tossed it on the desk, then briskly maneuvered myself through the clutter and out the back door. As I climbed back over the fence, I could see the white sedan Kirsten drove to work. She was back extremely early. I stopped myself short from entering my house and took a second to catch my breath. Walking in, I acted like nothing had just happened. Totally normal day like usual. I opened the fridge door and called out to Kirsten. "Hey honey, how was work?"

"Ty, Is that you?" Kirsten said with panic in her voice, "I need help, please!"

Curiously, I walked over to the bedroom. Expecting to see her needing her shoes off or something trivial, I took my time. "Oh, uhh, what are you needing--"

Time froze as I discovered Kirsten on the floor. In pieces. Somehow, she was still alive, and her severed head blew hair from her face.

"You going to just stare or are you going to help me out?!"