by A. R. Moler
Djinn 3: What Would You Sacrifice?
By A.R. Moler
Published by JMS Books LLC
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Copyright 2018 A.R. Moler
ISBN 9781634865371
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
* * * *
Djinn 3: What Would You Sacrifice?
By A.R. Moler
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 1
Today was a basement day. Given the decades’ worth of accumulation of items in the house, Dale Edinger tried to rotate around the areas he worked on cleaning. The house was part of an inheritance from his Aunt Mildred. When she had passed away a few months ago, he thought he had been prepared to deal with the legacy of her hoarding tendencies. He hadn’t counted on the magic or the djinn.
“I’m going to be downstairs for a while,” Dale called into the kitchen where Riadh was doing dishes by the conventional method of actually washing them in the sink rather than using his ability as a djinn.
“Do you need my help?” Riadh asked.
“Enh, I hope not, but I’ll let you know.”
Dale walked down the stairs into the basement. There were cupboards that needed to be emptied and shelves of boxes that had to be gone through. Some of the contents were probably mundane but others…could vary from weird to downright dangerous. He started with some of the boxes. Aunt Mildred had been a travel agent, or at least that had been half her career. Dale sat on the floor and began to sort through the contents of the box he had pulled down. Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore, Bryce Canyon, all the flyers and travel guides in this box were related to National Parks. The age of the information seemed to be mostly the 1970s and 80s. Nothing appeared to be unusual enough to save. One box down, too damn many to go.
The next one was a weirder mix. In among “Visit scenic Maine” guides were tax returns and some old family photos and a box of Christmas ornaments. Dale was about to toss the plastic bag of ornaments back in the box for disposal when a tingling, or maybe that was closer to a buzzing sensation in his fingers got his attention. Taking magic lessons from a dragon had its uses.
He opened the bag and plucked one of the ornaments out. It was glass, transparent with an artistic rendition of an angel drawn inside a recessed depression. Touching the painted image produced a feeling of euphoria with a side order of dizziness, not completely dissimilar from being totally hammered drunk. He sat there staring at it for an unknown number of minutes before he finally drew his thoughts back together enough to set it on the floor. Whoa. That was no average antique ornament.
“Dale?”
He heard the soft pat of bare feet on the stairs and saw Riadh coming down them.
“Are you okay?” Riadh asked.
“Yeah, fine. I found some…The Christmas ornaments in this bag are magic or enchanted or however you’d like to label them.”
Riadh squatted down and picked up the ornament that lay separate. “I think maybe I remember these. Mistress Mildred jokingly referred to them as ‘Christmas joy balls.’ They were a trade for spell supplies.”
“I touched that one and it gave me a buzz better than a fifth of tequila.”
“I’ll put it back in the bag for you.”
“No, let me. The last lesson from Summer was all about getting a better grip on not noticing magic when I needed to shut it down.” Dale took the glass ball from Riadh and tucked it gently back into the bag with the other ones. “If you could put this in the chest of drawers with the other sellable things…?”
“Of course.” Riadh gave him a smile. “Are you almost done down here?”
“By what stretch of the imagination would you assume that?” Dale cast a glance at the still mostly full shelves.
“I only meant for today.”
“No, I think I’ll put in a little more time. The box of national park flyers needs to go in the recycling. And I guess I need to pick something to work on next.” Dale stood and walked over to a metal cabinet affixed to the wall. He opened it and stood there in confusion. It was full of vases interspersed with canning jars, and the canning jars were full of…something.”
Riadh stepped up behind him and looked over Dale’s shoulder. “Oh, those.”
“I am having a what-the-fuck moment. What’s in the jars? It looks nasty as all hell.”
“One summer in the 1980s Mistress Mildred went on a canning binge. Some of what she canned probably used to fall in the edible category…some not so much.”
“Details please,” Dale said.
“She did some tomatoes, and watermelon, that pickled stuff, and well she also tried her hand at demon.”
“At what?”
“Demon. The little ones that are hardly more sentient than the average snail.”
Dale looked at Riadh, and then at the jars. “And exactly what did she plan on doing with them?”
“They used to fetch a price for certain spell work, but not really so much anymore.”
“What the hell do I do with all this stuff?”
“Maybe you should ask Summer. She might have an idea,” Riadh suggested, referring to the “entity” that was mentoring Dale on the use of magic.
“I’m scheduled to go see her tomorrow.” Dale shut the doors of the cabinet. “And I want to ask her about the bullet.” He didn’t especially want to think about watching Riadh bleed out and discorporate, but he did oh so definitely want to find out who had both broken into the house and fired the gun that shot Riadh.
Riadh put a hand on Dale’s shoulder. “That’s probably a wise idea.”
* * * *
Summer Azhdaha lived in an old farmhouse. Off the beaten path, the place was a good dozen miles from the nearest town. Dale parked his car in the gravel driveway and walked up onto the wide porch that wrapped from the front of the house all the way around the right-hand side. Late August sunshine baked the wooden boards and the soles of Dale’s feet felt the heat even through his sneakers. Riadh stood at Dale’s side as Dale knocked on the front door.
In a couple minutes it was opened by an older woman dressed in a battered pair of jeans and a t-shirt that bore the logo—Same Shit Different Day. She had curly graying hair and a cigarette hung between her fingers. “I hope you’re in the mood for something new.”
“I guess.”
“Come on in.”
Dale and Riadh followed her back to the kitchen. Dale asked, “Can I ask you a few things before we get going?”
Summer exhaled. Smoke flowed from her nose despite the fact she ha
dn’t inhaled from the cigarette. “Ask.”
“If I let you look at a bullet, could you tell me something about who fired it?”
“Maybe. Why?”
“It’s kind of a complicated story.” Dale pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sat. He wished he could just hand the bullet to Summer without any further explanation. Revisiting the events of that night twisted his gut in knots. Dale looked at Riadh, who slouched casually against the wall. Memories of holding Riadh as he bled out blended with memories of Colin. Dale drew in a shaky breath. “Someone broke into my house,” he began. It took several minutes to explain, then Dale took the bullet, in a Ziploc, out of his pocket and laid it on the table.
“Can I take it out and touch it?” Summer asked. This time, she took a long drag on her cigarette.
“Yeah sure. I thought about taking it to the cops, but that would mean I’d have to explain…things.”
Summer picked up the bullet and rolled it around in her hand. Her eyes narrowed and Dale saw her pupils constrict into vertical slits. Sometimes Dale could almost forget Summer was actually a dragon, other times it was creepily obvious. She stubbed out her cigarette in an ashtray. “The man who touched it last was hired. It was not his task to kill Riadh. Not that a bullet would accomplish that anyway. Collateral damage was allowed, maybe even encouraged.”
“But you can’t tell me the identity of the man?”
“He no longer exists.” Summer said.
“Dead?” Dale guessed.
“Probably. His…presence…is no more. For a human, that generally translates to dead.”
“Okay, so he was a hired gun? Who hired him and what was his actual assignment?”
Summer tilted her head. “That’s not something that can be determined from this bullet.” She set it back in front of Dale.
“Great,” Dale muttered sarcastically.
Riadh said, “If killing me was not the target, and killing you was permitted, I’d say that points to one particular person as the instigator.”
Dale looked at Riadh. “Archimedes. Under the auspices of if he can’t buy you, he’ll acquire you by having me murdered.”
“It’s logical,” Riadh said.
“And creepy and terrifying on a whole batch of levels. I have no way to protect you.” Dale rubbed his hands down over his face.
“I’d say more lessons might be in order,” Summer said.
“Firebolts? Vaporizing spell? Turn him into a sticky puddle of slime? All those sound useful to me.” Dale picked up the bullet and put it back in the baggie.
Summer gave him a dubious look. “Really?”
“I have no idea. I’m guessing.”
“How ‘bout you prove to me you learned how to tell what has magic imbued within and what doesn’t?”
Dale heaved a sigh. He was enough of a realist to suspect that learning to wield magic well had no short cuts. “Fine.”
“Come out to the garden. There’s lemon verbena that needs to be cut.” She walked out the back door.
Dale made a face at Riadh. “She’s frustrating, and she probably thinks the same of me.”
Riadh smiled. “With her, it’s hard to tell.”
* * * *
Outside in the extensive backyard, hot summer sunshine beat down and the scents of dozens of different plants wafted through the air.
“That’s lemon verbena.” Summer pointed at a row of bushes. “Dig up the weeds around the base of the bushes. Trim six to eight, one-foot long branches off each one and make a stack in the wheelbarrow. Pick up the leaves that blew off the trees and put them in the compost. When you’re done, I’m going to ask you which tools have magic.”
“You enjoy having free labor,” Dale said.
“It has its uses. May I ask Riadh to prune the honeysuckle?” Summer asked.
Dale frowned, wondering for a moment why she was asking him, then comprehended that although she didn’t treat Riadh like an object, technically Riadh was his possession. It was apparently courtesy to ask. “If he’s willing, then yes,” Dale answered.
“It’s fine. I like the way the honeysuckle smells,” Riadh said.
It took the best part of an hour to do the tasks assigned, making mental notes of what tools he touched that gave him the subtle tingle indicating magic. Dale noticed something bluish on the ground, half covered by a leaf. He picked it up, still holding a bunch of weeds in the opposite hand. At first, he thought it was a very large bug, then he realized it was a hummingbird. Poor thing, it was dead.
It fluttered feebly. Oh, maybe it wasn’t dead, but it certainly wasn’t in good shape. Maybe if he laid it somewhere protected, it might recover. He stood there thinking for a long moment. His hand felt hot. The tiny bird fluttered some more and a glow surrounded its body. Suddenly it darted away, flying out of his hand. Dale was mystified. He looked down at his opposite hand. The cluster of freshly pulled weeds had become so dry, brown, and brittle, they were practically disintegrating in his grip.
“You don’t even know what you did, do you?” Summer asked.
“No…I guess the hummingbird was only stunned.”
“It was nearly dead.”
“It couldn’t have been. It flew away.”
“You transferred what was left of the living energy of the weeds to the bird and brought him back to life.”
“But that’s impossible.” Dale wondered at the stupidity of the words as they came out of his mouth, especially since he was standing in a garden with a dragon and a djinn. “Isn’t it?”
“You’re beginning to unfold, one layer at a time,” Summer said.
“And what does that mean?”
“Time will tell.” Summer regarded him with an inscrutable gaze, and he expected her to breathe out those wisps of smoke she seemed so fond of. “Now tell me which tools are magic.”
* * * *
On the drive home, Riadh studied his lover. Dale had been very quiet since they left Summer’s farmhouse.
“Did you mean to revive the bird?” Riadh asked.
“I don’t know. Not really. I thought it was sad that it was dead and then it wasn’t and the batch of weeds in my hand were. I don’t even have a clue what I did or how I did it.”
“A significant portion of magic is intent.”
“But I didn’t intend to bring it back to life. And is it really alive or did I make some sort of zombie hummingbird?”
Riadh laughed. “No zombies. It’s alive, but then I don’t think it was quite dead to begin with.”
“Does that make me some sort of necromancer? Or maybe not since you said it wasn’t actually dead, did I heal it?”
“I…I’m not sure it’s that straight forward.”
“Between you and the dragon, I’m not getting much in the way of actual answers,” Dale said.
“Sometimes magic is cut and dried like following the recipe in a cookbook. Sometimes it’s art, intuitive and emotional.”
“Are you saying the half dead bird came back to life because I wanted it to?”
“To a degree. I think Summer’s right, it’s going to take some time to learn if this is something you’re good at,” Riadh said.
“On the topic of dead things, I forgot to ask her about the pickled demons. Eeww, I sound crazy just saying those two words together.”
“Those jars have been in the basement for decades. I don’t think it’ll make a difference if you wait until next week to ask her what you should do with them.”
* * * *
Back at home, Dale retrieved the shoebox from the trunk of the car. Along with asking Summer about the damned pickled crap, he probably ought to ask her what he could do about transferring the spell that kept Riadh’s binding intact from the flimsy cardboard box to something more durable. Something metal like an ammo box or a tool box seemed like a good idea. The key problem being that he had no more clue on how to safely accomplish the transfer, than why the bird had revived.
“You look concerned,” Riadh said.
>
“I’m just worrying about the box. We’ve been toting it around lately.”
“It’s fine. You’ve been careful.”
“Careful doesn’t seem like enough, when we’re talking about your life,” Dale strode inside and promptly went up the stairs to set the box on his dresser in the bedroom.
“I should probably think about recharging,” Riadh said. He leaned against the foot of the bed, arms crossed.
“That makes you sound like a battery.”
Riadh smirked. “I’m better than something battery powered.”
Dale gave Riadh a soft push, tipping him backward onto the bed. “Mmm, very true.” Dale laid down on top of Riadh and kissed him. “Any chance you can postpone your recharging for a little while?”
“It’s not critical. I have a few hours left.”
“That sounds like enough time to get naked and messy.”
* * * *
Richard Henning sat in his rental car with his camera in his lap and watched. The blond man with the heavy beard stubble had to be Dale Edinger. Henning observed him getting out of the car, accompanied by a slender dark-haired man. The dark haired one, Henning suspected might be the djinn. Funny, that one looked like he ought to be some foreign exchange student here on a visa for college. Magic could be weird. You could never trust that an object or a person was what they seemed.
Edinger retrieved a box of some kind from the trunk of the car. Hmmm, the care he picked it up with implied it was either valuable itself or contained something valuable. Archimedes, Henning’s employer, had given specific instructions indicating that a physical object would be the tie between the djinn and its master. Could it be the box? It was possible, but Henning planned to observe a while longer until he had a better idea on the topic. So, he waited.
* * * *
What Dale wanted was unlikely to last “hours.” His legs straddled Riadh’s thighs and he leaned on his forearms where they framed Riadh’s head. It gave Dale a very good angle to kiss Riadh while grinding his lower body against his lover’s groin.
“Shall I dispense with clothing?” Riadh murmured, his tone teasing.
Dale chuckled and said, “Make it gone.” Abruptly, he was naked and so was Riadh. The sensation of Riadh’s warm skin against his own was delicious. Dale skimmed a hand along Riadh’s chest. Scooting lower, Dale left a trail of kisses and licks down over Riadh’s collar bone, to his nipple and eventually to his hipbone. Riadh moaned and shifted position on the bed. There was a deep intimate satisfaction in knowing he was the one winding Riadh up. Dale reached between them and stroked Riadh’s cock. Mmm, more breathy, pleasurable sounds from his partner. Now, the real question was whether Dale’s body would perform or if he would end up sucking Riadh off. PTSD was such a fickle bitch. Only recently, with patient and gentle care by Riadh, had Dale been able to get off at all. And the last time hadn’t even been in the “real world,” but inside the snow globe dimension where he felt oddly safe and apart from the miseries of his past.
