by Marie Hall
For a second Nixie wondered how the three could still be genies and yet no longer required to serve masters. Or were they? What kind of magic would she be able to perform with these new powers? Would she be limited only to the whims of her masters, or would she have magic of her own?
There was so much of this world she did not know.
With a final smile, Cyrus gestured for her to walk to the center of the room.
“Come child and be baptized by the Mother of our Creation.”
Nixie stared hypnotized at the glowing circle of brilliant bluish-white light. Many years ago her father had told her the story of how a true-blooded genie was born. Genies, he’d said, were born of a bright pulse of nascent light called a quasar. They were conceived within the birth of a star, that was where the power lay and that was where they wanted her to step into now.
“I love you guys,” she whispered without turning back, because she knew if she did she’d fling herself into her father’s arms and cry like a baby, beg him to save her from this fate.
Steeling her nerves, she thought not of her parents, or her boyfriend, or even the life she’d be leaving behind, but of her one day a year and all the things she’d do with it.
Nixie stepped into the circle and was bathed in the light of rebirth.
~*~
4 months later
“Come here, slave,” her sneering master said with a lecherous grin tipping the corner of his oily, lamb-smeared lips. Patting the edge of his plush daybed draped with the snowy white and black-speckled pelts of snow cats, he waited expectantly.
Nixie jerked as the fiery sensation of electrical impulses flooded her system. The longer she kept her feet rooted to the ground, the more pain she felt. Sweat dotted her forehead as the blood in her veins began to bubble and froth; her body would not die, but the agony that consumed her sometimes made her wish she were merely mortal again.
“Come. Here.” Josiah’s molten silver eyes gleamed with a predatory and fierce light.
The second command caused the pressure in the air to thicken, making her lungs gasp for want of oxygen. Nixie clutched her chest, wheezing as first one foot then the other stepped forward, her traitorous body unable to withstand the weight of denying him his mastery over her.
Reclining back, Josiah plucked a grape from the golden fruit bowl sitting beside his bed and chewed thoughtfully. “I’m very displeased with you, genie.”
Nixie took a deep breath, counting to three in her head before she felt able to talk to him without scorn dripping from her words. “How so, Master?” She clenched her teeth on the title.
She’d tried once, several days ago, not to say it to him, but the second she failed to do so she’d doubled over, gripped by lancing, searing pain in her midsection that hadn’t abated until she’d muttered the moniker.
The number one rule of being a genie was that you did not belong to yourself.
Bowing her head, though not out of difference, but rather from the humiliation of the injustice, she clenched her fingers. Scoring her palms bloody from her nails driving through them.
A fur trader would never amount to any true wealth in Kingdom. Unlike on Earth, where intuitiveness and a go get ‘em attitude could take you far, Kingdom was almost entirely built on a caste system. Meaning if you were born into a family of metal smiths, you would die a metal smith. You would not move on into fame, unless of course you married in, or stole as your trade.
And yet here reclined Josiah Smith, a short, fat man with a lion’s mane of hair—both on his head and chest—with sunken in beady eyes, a bulbous nose, and rotted teeth, surrounded by a bevy of nude harem girls fanning and fawning over him. Their kohl-rimmed eyes and pomegranate juice-stained lips making them a sumptuous feast for the senses. That’d been his first wish. His second had been wealth.
Josiah’s indigo tent sat like a miniature oasis in the middle of a sandy wasteland. He had women, he had stockyard animals aplenty. Camels that were draped in hammered silver and gold. Oxen with their noses pierced through with jade-tipped rings. Peacocks, their gorgeous plumage shimmering with metallic hints of bronze as they danced and paraded about. So much coin that he could live comfortably for millennia.
Only just months into her curse and already she was coming to understand that these two wishes alone would make up at least sixty percent of all wishes she’d be asked to perform.
Josiah was not her first master. He was, in fact, her seventh. Because the moment they used a third wish, she was exiled to her prison and spun through the heavens, landing only God knows where and waiting for some asshole to stumble upon her and have the process repeat itself all over again.
“I told you I wished to have that girl from the tavern be mine, and she is still not here.” His fat lips thinned.
Nixie’s left eye twitched. “Then go down to the bar, hand her some money, and bring her here. What do you want me to do about it?”
He sneered. “You are my genie!” He shot up, shaking his fist at her, causing the girls around him to scatter like bowling pins to escape his wrath.
The harem weren’t actually real women. Well, not real in the sense that they’d been born. They were simply spun fantasy from her imagination of what harem women should look like. She’d based their looks off movies she’d seen back on Earth.
Shapely, nubile women who simpered and smiled and had not an intelligent thought in their vacant heads. Eye candy and nothing more.
“What, you mean this?” He yanked on the black hair of one who’d fallen to her knees in front of him, jerking her up so hard that she whimpered and gripped at her skull. Terror danced in her eyes.
Though the women were magic, they did feel. They did hurt.
“Release her, you’re hurting her!” Nixie took a step forward.
He spat. And not by the woman’s foot, but in her face. A hiccupping sob tore from the vessel’s throat. “You mean this waste of air? It isn’t real. As you’ve often reminded me. It feels nothing!” He slapped her.
Tipping her claws, Nixie ran for him, but immediately the air between them thickened like a wall of steel. She bounced off it, landing squarely on her ass and glaring at him hotly.
Snorting with mirth, Josiah tossed the women from him. She scampered off with tears streaming down her eyes.
One more night, Nixie reminded herself. One more night, and then she would belong only to herself—even if only for a day. She could take her free pass at any point during the year and, while she was still so fresh into this, and it would have been better if she waited to use her chance closer to the end of the year, there were matters that needed settling with Josiah.
“You can’t hurt me, bitch. I am Master here. Get me that girl.”
“Is that your final wish?” Soon her molars would break from grinding them too hard if she didn’t stop.
“You would just love that, wouldn’t you? You worthless piece of scum. To rid yourself of me?”
Nixie stood up, dusted off her golden silk pants, and notched her chin high. She would not let him get to her. She refused to let a worthless piece of life like Josiah Smith make her feel less than.
“Do you,” she stressed, “or do you not wish to use your final wish?” She paused. “Master?”
His mouthful of rotted teeth smiled back at her. “Aye,” he bit out, “make her mine, and then you may go.”
She closed her eyes. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was help Josiah, in any way, but she’d learned enough to know that even if she wanted to or not, as a genie she had to do what she’d been programmed to do or suffer terrible agony.
She’d already suffered enough because of this jackass.
“You do understand, that unlike the harem, the girl is a free women, able to decide whether she will accept you as a mate or not. I can only bring her to you. No more.”
Ripping into another haunch of lamb, he masticated on it loudly before tossing it over his shoulder, only half eaten.
Her parents had never b
een poor, but Nixie had been raised in a large city where poverty had stared her daily in the face. To see him be so wasteful with his blessings, she wanted to kill him all over again.
She’d thought the last master had been bad, a petty and selfish spoiled thing of ten, but little had she known then just how much she’d wish for screaming tantrums over this perverted bastard of a man.
“Duly noted. Bring her to me, and then you may go.” He flicked his wrist.
Rubbing her wrist cuffs, a habit she’d developed only recently—the power of the genie lay in the cuffs and their soothing hum often helped ease her strain—she turned to go when a hard hand smacked her roughly on the ass.
“Such a fine arse you have, genie.” Josiah’s lecherous tone had her skin crawling.
Turning an evil eye on him, she snapped, “You will take your hand off my ass and never do that again. I am not one of your playthings.”
Just because he could, he pinched her. Hard. Causing her to yelp and grab at herself as she jumped clear of him.
“You can’t hurt me. You can never hurt me. So why should I listen to you?”
He held her gaze for ten silent, breathless heartbeats. He was right. She was bound by the laws of her kind to never harm her master. Not under any circumstances, even if they deserved it. Nixie wondered if she could just talk to Cyrus, there had to be a loophole; some way that she could put a bastard to heel, at the least.
“But”—he reclined quickly back, and she could breathe easy again—“you’re not my type. Far too hippy for me. Be off with you, then.” He shooed her, then slapped at the passing body of one of the harem girls, causing her eyes to wince in agony before turning to him with a vacant smile. “Fetch me more wine, whore.”
Nodding, the petite brunette trotted off. The bells tied at the red silken sash around her waist jingled with her hurried steps.
Real or not, the harem did not deserve this. Tomorrow she would return and vanish all his wishes. She could do as she willed for one day, and she aimed to rectify this mess.
~*~
Nixie pulled her cloak off her head as she stepped through the darkened tavern door. It was early evening, and so therefore not terribly crowded. Not as it’d been the last time she’d come here. There were only a few drifters inside. A couple of men chugging on tankards of ale to one side and a couple eating their supper at the opposite end.
The tavern was built of chiseled stone and wood. There was sometimes a draft inside, especially when someone pushed open the door, but it was well lit and had a homey, cheery kind of vibe to it that she’d immediately taken a liking to.
It’d taken Nixie about two weeks to adjust to how antiquated and Old World things felt in Kingdom, so at odds with the world she’d left behind. But she was used to it now and found that there were things to like on this backwards planet after all.
Immediately she spotted the blonde girl behind the bar. She was laughing with an elderly man as he sat eating a bowl of stew before her.
Nibbling on the corner of her lip, Nix took a hesitant seat at the opposite end of the bar. But she was still close enough to hear the conversation going on between the two of them.
“Come now, Angus,” the girl chided, “I know my cooking’s good, but truly, I think Mrs. Daniels is likely to be missing you something sore.”
“Aye, my dear.”
Angus slurped at his dark wood bowl, lifting it up for a refill with imploring, mischievous eyes. Sighing, the girl took the bowl from him, ladled another spoonful of stew into it and passed it back with a gentle pat to his hand.
Sighing happily, he spooned another bite in before saying, “I expect she does miss me, and we both know that I love me little pearl dearly, but she is a right horrid cook. At least this way I can put a little something palatable in my belly before I must force hers down.”
Covering her mouth, the girl gave a shy, small laugh. “Well then, let’s let this be our little secret, aye?” And with a wink, she pulled out a warm slice of bread from behind the counter.
“Bless you, girl. Bless you.” The wizened old man attacked the rest of his food with gusto.
With a slight shake of her head, the girl trotted over toward Nixie. Her brown eyes still sparkled with mirth.
Nix took that moment to really study her. The girl wasn’t as drop-dead gorgeous as the harem girls were. Her hair was long, but so straight it appeared slightly thin in spots. Her skin was youthful and had a shimmering glow to it, but her features were plain. However, Nixie had no problem understanding why Josiah had fallen for the young thing; there was an aura, an air about her that just drew people in.
She was full of laughter and light and goodness. Nixie could see that just as plain as day and her heart twisted in her chest at the thought of having to take this innocent creature to her foul, perverted master.
So deep in thought had Nix been that she didn’t realize the girl was looking at her strangely and waving her hand.
“Huh?” Nixie jerked, only just realizing the girl must have been saying something to her.
Laughing, the woman stuck out her hand. “I said hello. My name’s Luminesa, and this here is my tavern. We have hot stew and good ale, so what will you have?”
Feeling the first real smile she’d given in months, Nix shook her hand back. “Nix. And I love your name, it’s quite beautiful.”
Luminesa beamed. “Thank you, I like yours too.”
All Nixie would have to do was snap her fingers and Luminesa would have no choice but to follow her, but that wasn’t the way Nix worked. She, more than anybody, knew what it felt like to have your will stripped from you.
Drumming her fingers on the countertop, she sighed. “I wish I could say I was just here for a nice meal and drink, but the truth of it is, I’m a genie on a mission.”
The girl stopped smiling, she blinked a few times, and then finally Nixie began to read the truth dawning on her.
“Ah, I see.”
“Do you?” She cocked her head.
Luminesa thinned her lips and tossed a dishrag over her shoulder. “I wondered when it might happen, truth be told. Josiah’s been after me nigh all his life.” She sighed with a soft shake of her head. “I’d heard the rumors that he’d found hisself a genie.”
Nixie grabbed her cold hand when she stopped talking. “He hasn’t asked me to make you fall in love with him. Besides, I couldn’t even if he asked. His last wish was merely to see you again.”
“He is a cruel man.” Luminesa stepped back, rubbing the wooden grain of the already gleaming countertop with aggressive strokes. “Though I do not fear him, you should know that. We grew up together, he and I.”
That shocked Nixie. Luminesa looked half Josiah’s age. Granted, inhabitants of Kingdom aged at a ridiculously slow pace, meaning Josiah and Luminesa were likely several thousand years old by Earth standards.
“I would not have guessed it.”
“No, I’m sure not. His hatred has aged him quickly.” Taking a tankard, Luminesa tapped the ale spigot, filling it to the brim before pushing it back toward Nix. “On the house.”
“Thank you.” She smiled and tipped the mug in thanks, then took a tiny sip. The apple-tinted drink went down smoothly. Cold and delicious. “This is wonderful.”
“It’s a family recipe.” But not to be deterred, Luminesa returned back to the subject of Josiah. “I will go with you, but you must know, no amount of riches will make me change my mind where Josiah is concerned. I’ve quite made up my mind to remain single forever. I love my life and do not wish for a man to come in and spoil all that I’ve worked for.”
“Well, I can say, with some authority, Luminesa, that not all men are as mean-spirited as Josiah. They are not all bad.” Nixie recalled Eric as she said it.
“Genie you might be”—Luminesa patted her hand—“but you are young. We live long lives here in Kingdom, long enough to see love turn to hate, kindness to cruelty. Over and over, even with those we thought so highly of once.”
/> Her voice drifted off as she stared over Nixie’s shoulder, clearly remembering something painful. Whether Luminesa was speaking of Josiah himself or someone else, Nixie had no idea.
She gave the girl a tight smile. “I suppose you are right.”
“Will you go with me?” Luminesa asked with a tightness to her voice.
Nixie grabbed her upper arm. She couldn’t. The moment she delivered Luminesa to him she’d be forced back into her bottle; her time with Josiah would be at an end. “This is his final wish, so I will be forced back into my bottle and sent only God knows where. But if you like, I can return in the morning.”
Luminesa squared her shoulders. “As I’ve said, I do not fear him. I know him well, but I am sure I will shatter the last of his hope tonight and that I do not relish.”
“I will return in the morning, Luminesa, I promise.”
Her smile tightened around her eyes. “Then let me ask my friend if he would mind watching my tavern whilst I am gone. And then we can go.”
~*~
Nixie strolled through the tent with Luminesa tight at her heels.
She’d imagined the place to still look like a den of inequity, but Josiah had cleaned things up. The harem was out of sight. He’d even washed up. His hair was still wet and his cheeks rosy.
The pair of trousers he wore were a size too tight and the cream blouse tucked into it just a tad too baggy, making him look a little like a bloated marshmallow with red fur, but it was a marked improvement from earlier.
“Luminesa,” Josiah said in a tone of voice Nixie had never heard him use before. He held out his hands. “I am rich beyond imagining, my love.”
The moment he spoke those words the magic of the bottle surrounded Nixie in a glittering purple fog, wrapping tightly around her like a band and dragging her back to the only home she’d know for the next forty-nine and a half years.
Although it wasn’t all bad. She wasn’t squished into something no mortal body could survive, as she’d once feared she might be.
