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Djinn - 03 - Holiday in Tahiti

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“Tahiti?” Paul took another drag from his cigarette. “Sounds okay, I suppose.”

Obviously I’m not pushing the right buttons on this guy yet. It doesn’t really matter where we go, as long as it’s far away from here, and quickly.

“Tahiti is nice. Sun, sand, drinks,” I gripped him by the shoulders. “Girls. Turning you into a millionaire playboy dripping in girls is not an impossible wish. I can make it happen, and we can cover the terms and conditions is a much more relaxed environment.”

Paul nodded. “Arright. I wish I was in Tahiti.”

Oh Paul. Foolish, foolish, Paul. If I didn’t need you, you’d be standing on a lovely beach all alone right now.

Compulsion flowed from the lamp and filled my body with power. “Your wish,” I said, spreading my arms dramatically, “Is my command!”

Smoke surrounded us and moments later the golden sands of Tahiti scrunched underfoot. Before us, the sun was dipping into the pacific ocean causing the water to sparkle with a million lights. I popped a couple of lounge chairs into existence, along with a table and umbrella, a cooler full of drinks, and then swapped our clothes into something more suitable for the environment - shorts, sandals, Hawaiian shirts, and sunglasses. My lamp sat in the middle of the table gleaming in the setting sun.

“Pretty nice, eh?” I said, handing him a cold umbrella drink and motioning to a seat. “Let me toss up a barrier and we can talk without worries.”

“Sure,” Paul plopped into a seat and took a sip of his drink.

“You’ll need to wish for it,” I prompted.

“I wish there was a barrier.”

Casting my arms wide, the sand flung itself out in a perfect circle around us defining the edge of the barrier. Walking around it, I chanted in a low voice, filling it with Kufic script so the magic would flow according to my desire. A minute later, I was done and we were sealed against a multitude of physical and magical forces.

Paul watched with me with squinted eyes. “What did you do?”

“I put up a magical barrier to keep things out,” I explained. “Remember how I told you I couldn’t cover your tracks because there was a magical barrier around the penthouse? I did the same thing here so no one could find us. Do you really want the previous owner of my lamp to come looking for you?”

“Good point,” Paul said, sipping on his drink. “Why don’t I just wish them all dead?”

“Because based on the barrier I encountered,” I explained, sitting in the other chair “that probably wouldn’t work. This is just a hunch, but I’m betting such an attempt would probably piss them off really bad. Like pulling a drive-by on a mafia boss. Unless you kill him the first time, you’re probably not going to enjoy the rest of your life.”

Paul set down his drink and stretched. “I’m not even sure why I wanted that lamp. I spotted it through the window one day and suddenly it was the only thing I could think about.” He said with a yawn. “I spent a week planning on how to get in there to get it.”

“What do you mean you saw it through the window?” I asked, confused.

Paul laughed and ground his cigarette into the ashtray. “Got any more of those smokes on ya?”

I materialised a packet and lighter on the table. He pulled out one and lit it. “I’m a window washer for High-Kleen,” He explained. “I clean windows on skyscrapers.“Last month I was cleaning the Muntz building with my partner Larry and spotted the lamp through the glass. It was like a magnet, I couldn’t look away. All I could think about, ya know?”

He took a drag off the cigarette and waved his hand, describing the scene. “I kept daydreaming about ways to get it and finally realised that my contractor card probably still had access. So I got a blowtorch, drill, saw, hammer, and put it all in a bag and went back. It was super easy to get in. I swiped in at the employee door, and took the service elevator all the way up to the roof. Then I jumped on the scaffold and lowered down to the window and cut through. All hell broke loose after that. An alarm went off, guards came in and I panicked and started shooting.”

“How’d you get the gun?” I asked.

“I bought it years ago,” he laughed. “America ain’t like England, we got a right to bear arms.”

With all the excitement, I hadn’t given any thought to all the minor details. His accent was American, the security guards were armed, and he shot me when I was summoned. My lamp had been moved to America.

“Where are you from, Paul?” I asked.

“Alabama, the asshole of America,” he chuckled. “But I travelled a lot working for High-Kleen. I was lucky the lamp was in Birmingham, it made things a lot easier. How’d you get in the lamp?”

I sighed and sat back in my chair. “My mother tricked me. Like I said, I was raised as human. Single mum, no da, not unusual. Had no idea I was any different from anyone else. Went to school, got into fights, got my arse kicked a few times. Could have used some cosmic power back then, yeah?” I laughed at the irony.

“So I’m home from uni on holiday and mum tells me that our family is gifted with magic, spins a good story and pulls out an old coin with Kufic script on it.” The bittersweet memory pulled at the corners of my mouth. Mum and I had never been close, but that coin was the beginning of the end.

I materialised a replica of the coin and handed it to Paul. “It’s like a magical primer. Solve the maze and it’ll produce a blue flame,” I said. He examined the coin, following the maze-like script with his eyes.

“So I solved the maze. It wasn’t hard, but frustrating sometimes because the maze seemed to change. I thought it was a gag, but I could feel something, right? And then Woosh! A blue flame shot out the coin,” I chuckled. “Nearly shat myself.

“This is pretty hard,” Paul said. “The pattern does change. It feels like I’m fighting to keep it straight.”

“Ayup,” I nodded. “You’re imposing your will on the universe. Once you grok a small fragment of magic, it unfolds like origami. The more you learn, the more you discover. It’s like a tangram - a small number of pieces with simple rules that fit together in an infinitely complex way. Keep pushing through the maze. If mum could do it, you can too.”

“So what happened next?” Paul asked, turning his attention back to the coin.

“So I practised with the coin until I could make the flame appear and keep it burning without a thought,” I continued. “When I reached that point, dearest mum told me to stare into the flame and ponder it until I learned my true name. I would need my true name to use higher aspects of magic she said, and I ate it up like ice cream. Real Magic! Can you imagine how I felt?”

“Nope. Can’t even begin to imagine how you felt when you discovered magic was real,” Paul deadpanned in an exaggerated southern drawl.

A damn burst within me and I laughed until my sides ached. Paul caught the giggles and we both laughed until the seagulls above mocked us for our foolishness. Some of the tension flowed out of me and I felt relaxed for the first time in forever.

“I’m really glad I didn’t screw you over,” I confessed. “You’re an okay guy.”

He smiled then looked away quickly, blushing. “I’m glad you didn’t either. I keep waiting for this whole thing to blow up in my face or something. Did you learn your true name?”

“Oh yeah,” I said, scowling at the memory. “I did. Names have power, Paul. Never tell anyone your true name. It’s like giving them an all-access pass to your soul. Mum was right there when I discovered it. I knew it was significant, something sacred that shouldn’t be shared… But she was my mother. I trusted her.

“Less than a fortnight later, I was ripped from my bed in the middle of the night. My true name was spoken and I was utterly helpless. I materialised in a barrier like this one, but smaller. Mum was there, Lord Hatt, and others I recognised too. All friends of the family. They conducted a ritual I didn’t recognise at the time, all chanting like monks. I thought it was the initiation ceremony mum had mentioned and I was being inducted into a secret society of wizards. I watched, piss-scared and happy all at once. And then Mum came forward with the lamp. I’ll never forget her smile. The way she smiled. Her mouth smiled, but her eyes were filled with something else, something greedy.

“She held the lamp up to the edge of the circle and said ‘Come out of the circle’ and I grabbed the lamp.”

I poofed up another gin and tonic. “And then I was sucked into the lamp. No idea what happened next, but the power of the lamp gives me some ideas.”

“So what do you want to do now? Paul said, sipping his drink and pulling out another smoke.

I answered honestly. “Reward you for releasing me from the lamp, kill my parents, and unbind myself from the lamp so I’m not a slave any more.”

Paul took a long drag from his cigarette and looked across the ocean thoughtfully. “What if I don’t want that?”

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