by A. Star
“Yes,” Irving replied, smiling at a trio of old women sitting across the aisle from us. They dissolved into giggles instead of glares, which probably wouldn’t have been the case if I’d been alone. “The last time I was summoned to the human realm was four hundred and twenty-four years ago. Machines such as this did not even exist then.”
My eyes popped wide and I looked around to see if anyone had heard him. The bus was only about half full, though, so it appeared we could talk freely.
“How old are you, Irving?”
“Old enough,” he replied. When he realized that his answer wouldn’t suffice, he added, “I have been in existence for well over a millennium.”
“Well over a millennium?” Though that didn’t answer my question exactly, I got the picture. But what his little explanation didn’t explain was why he didn’t seem to be surprised or intrigued by all of the technological advances humans had made since he had last visited our realm almost half a millennium ago. I wanted to ask him, but if the explanation turned out to be long, I didn’t want any interruptions. So I decided to hold the question until class was over.
Campus was pretty tame due to summer break, but that didn’t stop us from drawing stares from students and faculty alike. I was only glad that I had a big lecture class that day, World History, and that hardly anyone knew me in it. That would stem the questions about who Irving was, where he came from dressed like that, and probably, if he was single.
“This reminds me of the schools in Shrinelyn,” Irving said, looking around the lecture hall. He’d taken the chair beside me in the very last row, and while I pretended to be oblivious to all the staring, he seemed to actually be impervious to all the eyes we had on us.
“It does?” I made a face.
“Not the appearance, but the manner in which you obtain your learning. We too gather around the guru and absorb their teachings. It is not uncommon for our assemblies to double in size in comparison to your class.”
“Guru?” I couldn’t stop the grin that assaulted my lips. “Your teachers are called gurus?”
Irving nodded once. “Why do you find this so amusing?”
I shrugged. “Sometimes humans use the term as a sort of joke. You can be the guru of anything, which just means you’re really good at whatever it is. But we don’t often use the term in any official way. We don’t really take it seriously.”
Irving shrugged. “I am not surprised. Humans do not seem to take anything seriously.”
I shot him a dirty look. “That’s not true and you know it.”
Irving shrugged again and gestured toward the front of the hall where my professor was standing and ready to begin his lecture. I wanted to punch Irving in the throat, but instead I faced forward and tried to pay attention.
As the minutes ticked by, I seethed. The way Irving kept downing humans was wearing my nerves to threads. What had humans ever done to him to make him hate us so much? And why did he feel he was allowed to take it out on me? In my opinion, it seemed like he wasn’t even really aware of what he was doing. But then again, maybe he was. Irving seemed pretty smart, and it was hard for me to believe that this Djinn had spent the last thousand years treating all of his masters as though they were the scum of the Earth. Someone would have punched the bastard in the face by now and let him know what’s up. Maybe that would be me.
As soon as class let out, I was out of the door and storming down the hall. To my annoyance, Irving followed close behind and called my name a few times. I ignored him, but by the fifth “Glory” I could sense that Irving knew something was up. I slipped down a side hallway so he could confront me without making a scene. Something told me he would have if he had to.
I stopped and turned to finally face him. He came to a stop in front of me and wasted no time getting to the point.
“You are angry with me,” he said, his accent sharper than normal. “Why?”
I glared. “Because you’re an asshole. Because you stand there and look down on me and pass judgment, and you don’t even fucking know me.”
“I have history with your kind, Glory St. Pierre. I bet I know you better than you know yourself.”
“No, you think you know me, but you don’t! And how dare you group all humans together as though we’re not individuals with our own minds and desires?”
“Because humans are all the same!” he exclaimed. “Even your historical guru presents the evidence. Your kind, no matter which part of this realm they are from, are greedy and selfish, and have a history of enslaving and murdering inferior people and taking whatever they cannot persuade one to give to them. That is your kind. The Djinn do not make it their mission to conquer and divide entire nations, nor would we ever force them into slavery or to submit to us. Yes, we will defend our realm with everything we possess, but we do not seek to dominate and rule the universe. That. Is. Your. Kind.”
I stared up at Irving and nearly got lost in his blazing amethyst eyes. But my anger kept me focused. “I don’t deny that humans are flawed beyond words, but that doesn’t justify you treating me as though I don’t deserve respect because I’m one of them. It’s rude and unfair, and as long as you keep that frame of mind, we’re never going to make this work!”
“Make what work?” Irving lowered his head to bring us closer. “What are we trying to make work, Glory?”
“This.” I gestured between us. “You and me. Master and Djinn. I get it, you know. I understand why you hate us, but I didn’t make the rules that say this is the way things are supposed to be between us and you shouldn’t treat me as though I did.”
Irving took a step back and shook his head. “You do not know what you are talking about.”
“Yes, I do and I understand. You hate being a Djinn and granting wishes, and—”
Irving’s hand shot out to grab my arm, effectively cutting off my words. He looked me dead in the eyes and said, “You do not know what you are talking about, human. Not at all.”
“Let me go, Irving,” I said through clenched teeth. “Right the fuck now.”
He released me, but I could tell he hadn’t wanted to. I examined my arm even though Irving had barely been squeezing hard enough to do any damage. Still, the fact that he’d felt he had the right to touch me in that way pissed me the hell off. I swore right then that if he ever tried it again, he would bid farewell to the hand committing the offense.
Irving knew he had made a mistake, too, but he didn’t apologize for it. “Are you going to make a wish today?”
I laughed at the nerve of this Djinn. “No.”
“Then may I leave?”
I laughed again, but this time out of frustration. “Sure. Run away again.”
He snorted. “I am not running away from you. You pose no threat to me.”
“Are you sure? Because the way you talk, bringing on the apocalypse is the goal of every human.”
“What would you know of the kayamata?”
“The what?” The way he gazed at me triggered every sensor in my body and not in a good way.
“The apocalypse, Glory. What do you know of it?”
I frowned. “What are you talking about? I don’t know shit about any apocalypse.”
His expression said he didn’t believe me.
“You can go, Irving,” I said, not caring to understand. “I’ll get home just fine.”
He hesitated, just like the last time. It didn’t make any sense. He didn’t seem to like me and made it clear being around me was a burden on his life. So why did he hesitate?
Irving opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off.
“Go already!” I practically shouted. I wanted to punch myself in the face at the wounded way I sounded. Another student passed by at that moment, avoiding all eye contact, and that just pissed me off more. Irving was making me feel like a fool, and one thing I didn’t do was let men make a fool of me.
“Get the fuck away from me, Irving,” I growled, feeling the pissed off tears welling up in my eyes. �
��Now. I’m commanding you to leave. Go! Now!”
The look Irving gave me just confused me more. It was apologetic and angry at the same time, but he was smart enough not to try and argue me down.
“Your wish is my command, Glory,” he mumbled. Then, without a care for being seen, and damn sure without a care for me, Irving disappeared.
For a moment, I just stood there trying to understand what the hell had happened. Had I honestly let this jerk Djinn get to me to the point that I was about to cry? I wasn’t a crier. I didn’t shed precious tears over men. Especially men I’d just met. Even more so men who looked down on me from their fucking magic carpet with all the arrogance of a bastard who had already pinned all kinds of assumptions on me without even taking a moment to realize that he didn’t know a damn thing about me.
I wobbled on shaky knees to the bus stop and shook with rage the entire ride home. Ash was laid up watching television when I burst through the front door, disheveled and red in the face. One glance at me and she knew something was up.
She leapt to her feet and threw the remote on the couch. “You grab the trash bags, I’ll get the shovel.”
I waved her down. “Nobody’s dead…yet.” Throwing down my backpack, I leapt over the back of the couch and settled in. “Irving just pissed me off, but it’s nothing.”
“Better not be,” she grunted as she dropped back beside me. “But if it ever becomes something, he’s a fucking corpse.”
I grinned despite my pissivity. “Woman, you should come with a warning label. Don’t fuck with me. No one will find your body.”
“Damn right,” Ash said with a laugh. “Don’t fuck with me, and for damn sure, don’t fuck with my Glory.”
I looked at her. “That’s why I love you. You always have my back.”
She nodded. “And I’m putting that little line on a t-shirt too. It was pretty good.” We shared a laugh.
“Wanna have a girl’s night?” I suggested as I watched Ash flick through the channels. It was the middle of the day so nothing was on but a bunch of bullshit.
“You know I do.” Girl’s night always included take out food from four of our favorite restaurants, action flicks, and on-demand karaoke via cable TV, which would last well into the wee hours of the morning if Ash had anything to say about it.
“Rocky Road ice cream for dessert?”
“And chocolate cake,” Ash added. “Ooh, and chocolate chip cookies!”
I laughed. “No wonder your ass has spread like peanut butter. You eat like a cow out to pasture.”
“Fuck you. I get nothing but compliments and praise about this ass. Men like curves and booty, I don’t give a shit what society would have you think.”
“What?” I had a sudden revelation. Not about men loving curves, I already knew that, but about what Irving had said the night I’d met him. My skin flushed with heat as it dawned on me. Irving liked the way I looked. He had tried to relay that to me, but hadn’t really known how so he had bailed on the compliment all together.
I resented the giddy feeling that flooded my gut. This changed nothing. Irving still treated me like a pimple he was itching to pop, and the fact that he may have been attracted to me didn’t justify that. This wasn’t fucking elementary school where the boy picked on the girl he liked. We were adults and either Irving was going to act like it or get used to being cursed out on a daily basis.
“Out of your head, St. Pierre.” Ash snapped her fingers in front of my face. I grinned and swatted at her hand.
“I’m here. Now go get your sketchpad. I have an idea for a new tattoo.”
“About fucking time. I haven’t tatted you in months.” Ash grabbed a pencil and her pad from her room and eagerly flipped it open to a fresh page. “Okay, now where are we putting this tat?”
I lifted my shirt and bared the space on my hip.
Ash nodded her approval. “Nice. And what’s the idea for the ink?”
I smiled, knowing she would love it. “A mechanical bat.”
Two weeks passed and I didn’t summon Irving. After the night of foolery with Ash, I felt empowered and pissed off all over again. Girl’s Night was notorious for doing that. I now seriously contemplated forfeiting my wishes and banishing Irving from my life forever, and every day that passed without me being able to take my anger out on him, I just became more resolved.
I didn’t know what had happened to Irving in his past to make him despise the human race like he did, but whatever it was didn’t give him the right to treat me like crap and insult me every chance he got. And the way he kept calling me human? I swore that if I ever saw him again, I would make an oath to slap him every time he said the word.
Dammit. This entire situation sucked. I wanted my damn wishes, but I also wanted Irving not to be a complete asshole. It seemed that I might end up disappointed on both fronts.
“Well, well, well, look who decided to finally join us for dinner.”
I smiled as I entered my parents’ kitchen where they were preparing dinner on the second Friday I’d gone without summoning Irving. His Chronolier was still on the shelf in my closet and the key was hanging around my neck, but it was getting pretty easy to pretend I’d never met Irving and had no clue that Djinn existed, which kind of worked for me.
I greeted my dad first and bit his brown-bearded cheek for his comment. “Sorry, Father dear. I’m taking summer classes and have been pretty wrapped up in my school work.” I smoothed down a piece of his dark brown hair that was sticking up.
“Or wrapped around a man,” Elena muttered in my ear before kissing me on the cheek. My aunt was single and childless and often joined my parents for dinner, so I was not at all surprised to see her there.
“You must always make time for family, no matter what,” my dad scolded me. He winked a brown eye and jerked a thumb toward my mother, who was stirring something on the stove. I giggled and stepped around him so I could wrap my arms around her.
“Bonjour, Maman.” She pretended to ignore me until I pulled a strand of ash blonde hair from her perfect little bun with a nice, hard tug.
“Damn you, fille!”
I laughed and jumped out of the way when she tried to swat me, but I could see her smile and knew she was happy to see me.
“So tell me, how is your school work really coming along,” my dad said once we’d all sat down around the dining table.
I grinned. “I wasn’t lying, Dad. I really have been taking my classes more seriously. Summer classes are shorter and more difficult. Can’t afford to fool around.”
“That’s my Daffodil.” He winked at me over his wine glass.
I groaned. “Dad, seriously. You know I hate being called that, family tradition or not. You guys and Ash are the only ones who know that is my hippie ass middle name and I want to keep it that way.” Irving had stated he would figure it out, and I wondered if he had yet. Then again, who cared?
“I hate the tradition too,” Elena said around a mouthful of shepherd’s pie. “I think one of us should end this travesty and give our daughters names after our favorite desserts, instead of flowers.”
I grinned. “I claim shortcake! Strawberry Shortcake St. Pierre.”
“Ooh, I like it. I choose eclair. Chocolate Eclair Favreau.”
“Caramel Flan St. Pierre,” my dad tossed in with a goofy grin. Elena and I burst out laughing, more at my dad’s silly expression than anything.
“You all are such children,” Mom said, reaching for more of my aunt’s spinach salad. But the corners of her lips were turned up into a smile, telling me she enjoyed our antics more than she would ever admit to.
I stayed for dessert—my mother’s famous Crêpes Suzette—and a few rounds of what we called Vulgar Charades, but after that, I told my family I needed to get home because I had a test to study for. It was true, though the idea of studying on a Friday night made me want to gouge my eyes out.
It was as I settled into bed for a long night of Jim Carrey’s greatest hits on Netflix, that
Irving came to me. I was completely shocked by his appearance, but it wasn’t because I hadn’t summoned him. It was because of the blood.
He was covered in it, so much that I had no idea whether Irving was the bleeder or if I should be reporting a murder to the authorities.
Irving stumbled across my bedroom and reached for me. “Glory,” he choked out.
“Irving!” I exclaimed, shooting out of bed to help break his fall as he collapsed to the floor. I let him roll over in my arms, not wanting to hold him too close. I didn’t want to hurt him anymore than he already was.
He cried out and reached for his left shoulder. That’s when I saw the steel arrow sticking out of it.
“Ohmygod!” I screeched. Irving had been shot. “Tell me what to do, Irving!” But all he gave me was a gargled groan.
I shot to my feet and practically ripped the door down trying to gain access to the hallway. I was so glad Ashlyn had a date that night. There was no way I would have been able to explain why a man was bleeding out on my floor and why I hadn’t bothered to call an ambulance.
I threw open the door to the linen closet and pulled every available towel from the shelves. I tripped in my mad sprint back to my room and ended up slamming my foot into the doorframe.
“Fuck!” I cursed, but the adrenaline racing through my body swallowed the pain and allowed me to focus on Irving, who was bleeding everywhere. How could a single arrow cause this much damage?
I dropped to my bare knees, grabbed a big towel, and applied as much pressure as I could to his wound without touching the arrow. Irving still cursed me, though. Shit. That damn arrow had to hurt like hell!
“I’m going to pull it out!”
He grabbed my wrist and squeezed. “Barbs,” he growled.
“The arrow has barbs?” He nodded. “Fuck. Okay, how do I take it out then?”
“Button,” he sputtered. “Find—” He was cut off when his body spasmed with pain. His teeth clenched in agony and blood spurted from his nose when he coughed.
I cursed again. “Hang in there, Irving. I’m going to get this fucking thing out of you.”
He roared in agony as a response.