Tom Holt: Djinn Rummy

He said; and vanished.

Much to Jane’s surprise, he came back twenty minutes later.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked.

“Thank you,” Kiss replied. “Nice place you’ve got here, by the way.”

Jane raised an eyebrow. “You like it?” she said. “Personally, I think it’s a dump.”

“Objectively speaking, it probably is. Sure beats an aspirin bottle, though.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Jane replied. “Milk and sugar?”

Kiss shook his head — he was, Jane noticed, considerably more together than he had been; the gaps between the little points of light and shadow that comprised him were much smaller, and unless he stood with his back to the window you’d almost imagine he was solid. “A slice of lemon, if you’ve got it.”

“Sorry.” Jane frowned. “Hey, who’s doing the wishes around here, anyway?”

Let there be lemon; and there was lemon. She handed him his cup (it was disconcerting to say the least to push one of her grandmother’s Crown Derby teacups into a glistening dust cloud, but there was no crash) and bade him sit down. He repeated the hovering manoeuvre she’d witnessed before.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” she said.

Kiss’s eyebrows flickered sceptically. “You usually lay out the best china just for yourself, do you?” he enquired.

“I don’t remember giving you my address,” Jane replied.

Kiss snorted. “Give me some credit,” he said huffily. “I am, or was, one of the marshals of the hosts of heaven, rider of the tempest, companion of the cherubim. Looking someone up in the phone book is scarcely taxing my powers to the limit.”

“So how did you find out my name?”

“You write your name inside your handbag; evidently a throw-back to your schooldays. Rather endearing, I thought. Mind if I smoke?”

Jane frowned. “Actually,” she said, “I’m allergic to tobacco.”

“Who said anything about tobacco?”

Jane shrugged. “Please yourself.”

A second or so later she became aware of the most delicious perfume; attar of roses or something like that. Two hundred quid for a tiny bottle sort of thing. She nodded approval.

“Actually,” said the genie, “it’s woodbines. Well, this is all very pleasant. So far, anyway.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Jane replied. She pushed her hair backup out of her eyes, and put on a serious face. “I think it’s time we did a little basic ground-work, don’t you?”

The genie looked at her. “Ground-work? You mean ploughing or something?”

“I mean,” Jane replied, “I want you to tell me something about yourself. You see, I haven’t got the faintest idea what a genie is, or where they come from, anything like that. Except that they come in bottles and grant you three wishes,” she added lamely.

“I see.” Kiss scratched the bridge of his nose. “That’s a bit like saying all you know about America is Eggs Benedict and the date of Groundhog Day. Not enough, in other words.”

“That’s what I’d assumed.”

“Right, then,” the genie said. “Now, where shall I start?”

Genies (Kiss explained) are fallen angels. That is to say, in the beginning they were created out of the Mind of God, to do the things for which angels are necessary. All I can say about that is, He’s got one hell of a warped imagination.

Most genies got to be genies by backing the wrong side in the civil war between the archangel Michael and Lucifer, Son of the Morning. Not me, though; I was on the right side in that lot, albeit in the Pay Corps. As I remember, I spent the duration of the war either playing cards or wandering around with a clipboard trying to keep out of the way of the officers. Which suited me fine, by the way. Never saw a thunderbolt thrown in anger, and I play a really mean game of djinn rummy.

No, my departure from Heaven was the result of an unfortunate misunderstanding about a lorry-load of black market stardust somehow going missing en route to HQ from King Solomon’s Mines. I was, of course, framed, but would they believe me? Would they hell.

Well, after that I bummed around for a bit, doing the things genies generally do — You don’t? Well, all sorts of things, really: raising storms, necromancy, digging up pots of gold at the ends of rainbows, riding the moon, changing princes into frogs, a few real estate deals, anything to pass the time and put a few dinars in your pocket. It’s a good life if you like that sort of thing, though you do tend to end up mixing with heroes and grand viziers and a lot of other lowlifes, and you’re really only ever as good as your last job. Particularly these days, with all the science and stuff. In fact, quite a few of the lads I used to hang out with have packed in the road and settled down as lift operators. No, not lift attendants, lift operators. You don’t seriously think lifts go up and down all day with just a bit of wire and a few pulleys, do you?

And the movies, of course; special effects. You’ve heard of George Lucas, I take it? Now that’s one genie who really did make the big time.

Anyway, there I was, just sort of pottering about, minding my own business; and then, wham! Lamp time. It happens to all of us sooner or later, of course, it’s genetic programming or something, like lemmings. Doesn’t stop you feeling a right idiot when the stopper goes down, though.

Well, I was out of circulation for, what, five hundred years, five and a bit, and then — Sorry? Look, do I have to, because it really is very embarrassing? All right, if you insist.

I was at this party (Kiss said, cringing slightly) and there was this djinn, right? Tall, slim, blonde, pair of fangs on her like a sabre-tooth tiger; I mean, we’re talking serious chemistry here and, besides, I may have been drinking. Alcohol has a bad effect on my metabolism, it has to be admitted. All I have to do is sniff a bottle of cough medicine and somebody has to take me home in a wheelbarrow.

Anyway, there we were and one thing led to another, and she said, “Your place or mine?” and the next thing I remember was waking up in this lamp thing with a splitting headache and the lid coming off and me being shot out like someone had just shot a hole through the cabin wall at fifty thousand feet; and there’s this magician type in a big pointy hat staring at me and saying, “Hold on a minute, you’re not the usual fiend, what’s become of Mabel?”

Mabel, needless to say, was the looker with the luxury dentures, and she’d lured me back to her lamp, done a runner and left me there. I tried explaining, but it didn’t do any good. “Never mind, you’ll just have to do instead,” was all the sympathy and understanding I got out of him, the bastard.

Now here’s a word of advice, from someone who’s been there; if ever you get yourself indentured to a black magician, try to make sure it’s not a black magician who’s into the financial services stuff. It’s bad enough as it is with the hurtling backwards and forwards through time and space, I-hear-and-obey-oh-mastering twenty-four hours a day, doing evil and getting yourself thoroughly disliked all the time. When you’ve got all that, plus you have to play snakes and ladders with the international currency markets, it can get to be a serious drag. You can imagine the sort of thing I mean: go sink a few of So-and-so’s ships so I can mount a hostile takeover of his company. Oh look, the Samarkandi dirham’s risen in early trading, go and raze their walls to the ground and eat their finance minister. I mean, where’s the self-respect in that?

(At which point Jane interrupted to say it sounded awful. Kiss nodded sadly.

“It was,” he said. “And you know what the worst part of it was? All this inside information floating around and me without a dinar to my name. A few lousy coppers in the right place and I could have been taken seriously rich, you know? As it was…”