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Magic Makes the Man

Page 2

by Jason Hutchinson


  With an overall unsatisfying click, a panel of the wall popped open a crack.

  Gingerly, Steve pressed it back in, activating the release. The wall opened up to darkness.

  Pulling his phone out of his pocket and activating the flashlight app, he peered inside. Leading off to his left was a narrow, cob-webbed passageway. About three feet down, he saw the plumbing for the bathroom, including the much-sought-after shutoff valve.

  “Bingo.”

  Shielding his face, Steve wedged himself into the opening and shuffle-stepped over to the valve. It turned easily and he could actually hear the tempest in the bathroom dwindle to a complete stop.

  “You da man, Ballard.” He laughed.

  The laugh stopped in its tracks as his phone sputtered out and the wall panel clicked shut, leaving him in utter darkness.

  Chapter Three

  “Shine a light, shine a light or something.”

  Cinder.

  At a little over two-thousand-years-old, she was the youngest and the most enthusiastic. It had been over a century since she had been summoned. The last owner had belonged to Crystal. She was the oldest.

  “The next one is Firefly’s, anyway.” Crystal admonished. “We have to limit our intervention and you know that.”

  The three were sharing the same vision, outside of their lamp. In essence, the ancient, brass piece was not only their home, it was their eyes to the outside world.

  “You’re the one that let him hide it away like this.” Firefly said. “I’m just hoping that I’ll be finally be able to get out and stretch a bit.”

  In actuality, the space within the lamp was outside of reality. It was endless, but no matter how big the cage, it will eventually feel like a prison.

  “Well, how was I to know that he was just going to up and die like that?”

  “They are just mortals.” Cinder giggled. “Maybe you gave him too much of a good thing.

  “He’s coming.”

  Firefly’s whisper silenced the trio quickly. He was edging his way towards the chamber where the lamp had been hidden, though the darkness was making him justifiably cautious.

  “I Don’t know why you turned his lamp off.” Cinder said, her voice almost inaudibly low.

  “It’s not a lamp, it was one of those talking things. The magic messes with that sort of stuff.”

  “Oh.”

  “Shhh…”

  Steve Ballard almost panicked when the narrow passageway opened out into a chamber. It was still pitch black, but the tightness of the space had felt a little safer. He reached back, finding one of the corners, tracing the wall around.

  Firefly focused her thoughts on one of the spiders on the wall. She nudged it upwards, having it brush his hand. With a bit of panic, Ballard’s hand moved quickly away, ending up flipping up the lone light switch.

  “That’s borderline, Fire.” Crystal whispered.

  Firefly didn’t care. It was her turn to be out in the world. Her turn to finally have a master again.

  Chapter Four

  The old incandescent bulb wasn’t very bright, but it was still a relief to Steve. He looked down at the traitor that was his phone, pressing hard on the power button to get it to wake back up. It chimed as the splash screen displayed.

  “Figures.” He sighed.

  The room he found himself in was only a few feet square and contained only one entrance he could see; the one he had come in through. In fact, the only thing that seemed to be in the room itself was a small shelf holding an old oil lamp.

  Steve turned back to the narrow hallway, flicking the flashlight app back into action. Within seconds, it blacked out again. The phone was off again.

  “Son of a bitch.” He cursed.

  The light from the bulb in the room wasn’t going to illuminate the passage as far as he would need in order to figure out how to reopen the secret panel that had let him in. He turned the phone on one more time, but it died even before it was fully booted.

  He rummaged in his pockets.

  “Yes.” He said, his fingers wrapping around the object he’d been looking for. A lighter. He was going to burn the heck out of his fingers, but it would work.

  He was about to step back into the hallway when he thought about the lamp. He turned, picking it up from the shelf. The touch of it comforted him, somehow. He turned it over in the low light. Maybe some way to actually use it? He wiped away some of the cobwebs, looking for a way to open it. If there’s oil in it, he thought, I can use it. In fact, it looks antique and it might score some points with the lady of the house.

  Ballard grew a smirking smile as he was examining the lamp. The whole thing was ridiculous. From being in Iraq in the first place, Open Sesame activating a secret doorway…now an ancient, brass oil lamp.

  “Time to get me a genie.” He laughed.

  Steve pulled the tail of his t-shirt out of his pants and gingerly rubbed it against the lamp’s base, removing some of the grime. It felt empty.

  He waited.

  “Go figure.” He sighed.

  Tucking the lamp into the cargo pocket of his pants, Steve ventured back into the passageway, holding the lighter up like a talisman.

  Just as he reached the spot where the secret panel had been, it popped open, allowing him to slip back into what he was honestly hoping was Amira Nimri’s personal bedroom.

  Leaning against the wall, Steve took a deep breath.

  “Well, that was a hoot.” He said, pulling the lamp back out of his pocket.

  Covered with sand.

  “Shit.”

  “Steve?”

  The voice came from the other room. It was Amira.

  Steve fumbled with the lamp, pulling his shirt back out, trying to brush some of the sand off that had been attracted to the light sheen of oil on the lamp. He didn’t really want to be caught in her bedroom, but there wasn’t really any other option.

  “Sergeant Ballard?”

  He heard the echo of her voice from the tile on the bathroom walls. He accelerated his work trying to clean the lamp, all the while trying to rehearse just what he was going to say. Hey, at least I got the water turned off, he thought. Maybe she’ll be thrilled about the antique.

  Sparks suddenly flew from the lamp, ramping his anxiety up even higher. It grew hotter and hotter to the touch until nimbly passing it from palm to palm wasn’t cutting it. It clattered to the floor, righting itself almost immediately.

  Steve would always consider it like a scene from a movie, or more accurately, a scene from one of Scheherazade’s stories; descriptively gripping by design to simply save her own life.

  A light blue smoke billowed from the lamp’s end. It was thick and voluminous, but also inarguably under some sort of guidance. It swelled and pushed outwards, part retracting until the smoky column started taking on a distinct figure.

  The figure of a woman.

  Ballard stepped back towards the doorway in awe, waiting for Amira Nimri to barge in and ask him what the hell was going on. It wasn’t a question he was going to have an answer to.

  “Hey.”

  As an introduction, it was rather anticlimactic. When Steve turned back from trying to find the door handle to face the lamp again, the column of smoke was gone.

  In its place was a young woman, almost pixyish in appearance. Her short, choppy hair covered one of her eyes and seemed to shimmer back and forth between a silvery white and a blue bordering on a lavender hue. Sparkling lights seemed to play back and forth across her cute face and exposed shoulders as if bathed in the light of a disco ball.

  “I’m Firefly.” She said, giving him what he would later describe as the biggest shit-eating grin he’d ever seen. “…and I’m yours!”

  The laugh was actually his body’s defense against the crippling anxiety and shock that could have brought him down if left unchecked.

  “Of course you are.” He grinned.

  The thought that the whole thing was some kind of joke didn’t even raise its head. It w
as far too good, not to mention elaborate, to be some sort of trick. The woman was somehow real and fairy tale-like all at the same time.

  She suddenly seemed to check herself. She put her hand to her chin and scrunched her face up into a tremendously cute, if not comical, expression of thinking.

  “It’s been a long time. Crystal had to really convince her last Master that the things he’d thought of as fairy tales were true. I’ll have to explain better or give some sort of demonstration.”

  “I’m right here, you know.” Steve said. It had been as if someone had turned the volume up on the creature’s internal monologue.

  She looked up at him. Her bright red lips were such a contrast to her pale skin that they jumped out. Her smile was striking. She pushed her hair out of the way of her one covered eye, revealing the matching blue pool he had already seen. It fell back into place almost immediately.

  “My name is Firefly and I’m a Jinn.” She said, seemingly starting over. The words came out as the emotionless monotone of someone reading an instruction manual. “Since you freed me from the lamp, you are my Master. You can harness my magical powers by asking that your wishes be fulfilled.”

  She stopped, looking at him again as if that should be all the clarification that he could possibly need.

  “A Genie? Three wishes?” Steve laughed. He looked around. This had to be some sort of ruse after all. Regardless, Amira would probably be coming through the doorway behind him at any moment. Funny, though; she’d stopped calling his name.

  “A Jinn,” Firefly corrected. “and I never said anything about three.”

  “Did Mrs. Nimri put you up to this? Major Benson?” Neither really made sense. He knew he was grasping at straws.

  “Why don’t you ask Amira herself?” The Jinn asked, the playful smirk in full effect on her gorgeous face.

  Steve found himself wondering why he was fumbling blindly behind him for the door handle. It wasn’t as if the young woman in front of him was an armed assailant. A quick glance up and down revealed a remarkably fit little body, but nowhere to hide a weapon. The thin, silk chemise she wore was loose and flowing yet somehow highlighted her remarkable figure.

  The door opened behind him and he tentatively peered out into the entryway, startling a bit.

  Amira Nimri was standing there, a step and a half away from the door, reaching towards the knob. There was an oddness about her that only took him a second to fully identify. She wasn’t moving at all.

  “She really loved him, you know.” The Jinn whispered from behind him, one hand on his back, the other suddenly pushing out between his left arm and his side. “Razwan. He was Crystal’s master, but he…died.”

  The head pulled back from his arm and Steve Ballard slowly turned to face her.

  “You’re not kidding me, are you?”

  Firefly smiled. “Why would I do that? I want to get out, have some fun, do exciting things!” She paused for a moment. “Don’t you?”

  Steve laughed. “Well, yeah, but this is…a lot to take in.”

  “Well, you could always wish for something.”

  He thought about it. “You said I don’t get three. Do I just get one? And what about all that stuff about the wishes being turned back around on the wisher?”

  Firefly laughed. It wasn’t a quick one, either. She went for almost a minute, the laugh narrowing to a giggle before suddenly exploding again. Steve simply watched her, entranced, until it finally settled. By the time it was over, he was wearing one of his own.

  With just a twitter of mirth left over, she spoke. “That’s so much bullshit, Steve.” She said. “I’ve never understood why humans have to take a good thing and twist it around. Whoever first said that if it looks too good to be true crap should have kept his mouth shut. Hell, you guys even managed to turn sex into something people look down on.”

  “So, if I wish for a new car, it’s not going to land on top of me?”

  “What would be the point of that?”

  “I don’t know, it’s just what…” He paused himself, gesturing with his eyes back over his shoulder. “Is she, you know, okay?”

  “Well, she’s got some resentment issues towards her late husband. The anxiety of the run for government is really starting to wear her down and she sometimes gets a rash on…”

  Steve pressed his index finger against the Jinn’s bright red lips, imagining it coming back as red as a raspberry. “I mean, is she fine frozen like that?”

  Firefly blinked and even the brief loss of those bright eyes was like the beam of a lighthouse panning past a ship. He felt it.

  “Oh, no. She’s fine.” She looked past him again, out the doorway. “What do you think? Hot, huh? You know, I could make that…”

  “Yeah, no.” Steve said, drawing the line. “I’m all for the wish thing, but I don’t want to make anyone do anything they don’t want to do.”

  Firefly laughed again. She took two steps backwards and somehow ended up on the huge bed, where she bounced playfully up and down. “I always forget that humans can’t read each other’s minds. You know, it would really make the world a better place. Consider the conflict you’re in right now. The opposing geopolitical…”

  “What do you mean about reading minds?” Steve interrupted.

  “I was trying to tell you.” Firefly pouted.

  “Specifically regarding her.”

  “Oh.”

  The Jinn continued bouncing on the bed, doing a complete pirouette before finally facing him again. “She’s actually really into you, Steve.”

  “What?” Steve glanced over his shoulder at the beautiful, olive-skinned woman in the entryway, frozen in the act of looking for him. “Wait, how do you know my name?”

  Firefly gave him that wicked smile again as the flashing lights around her skin grew more intense. She was fading away.

  “It’s because I belong to you.”

  Chapter Five

  “There you are!”

  Steve’s eyes were still adjusting to the fact that Firefly was gone when he heard Amira’s voice behind him.

  “Sorry, I needed to find the shutoff for the water,” He stammered. “I hope I didn’t offend you by…”

  Amira smiled. “No, I’m glad. I see that you did manage to get the water shut off. For that, I’m eternally grateful.”

  “It’s my pleasure, really.”

  He looked into the woman’s beautiful face, his mind on the things that Firefly had said.

  She’s really into you.

  Considering it, he thought he could actually see it. When his eyes re-focused, she was giving him a funny look.

  “If you’re not in a hurry to get back to your other work…” Amira finally said.

  “Digging a hole? Not really. I’d kill for a shower, though.”

  Amira’s smile was magnetic. It somehow managed to backlight those dark brown eyes. “The shower actually works in the other bathroom, so…”

  Steve Ballard was a country boy. He’d grown up around southern hospitality, including the constant reminder to not impose on people’s kindness. That being said, it had been a month since he’d had a decent shower that didn’t trickle down on him from above like a sad rain shower.

  “I can even throw your uniform into the wash, if you want. You can wear some of my late husband’s clothes while you work.”

  He gave her another look of appreciation. Firefly’s words echoed in his head again. Had all that really happened? “You know, I think I’m going to take you up on that offer.”

  Amira’s smile grew even bigger.

  Five minutes later, Steve was in heaven. The water was cool, but that was to his taste. After months exposed to the harsh heat it was refreshing to say the least. He felt it ripple down his skin as he simply stood, letting it pour over his short hair and into his face.

  “See, I told you she liked you.”

  “Shit.”

  Steve took a deep breath. So, that answered the was it real or not question. The waifish
voice was coming from directly behind him.

  “Yeah, that’s strictly a human thing. Jinn don’t eat, so we don’t…”

  “That’s okay, Firefly.” He said, water sputtering from his lips as he spoke.

 

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