The Replacement Genie

I washed up on the shore in mid-afternoon. I was hot, soaked to the skin, and utterly intolerant of this pissant little island. I was even less tolerant of the sea-serpent I’d hired to get me here in the first place. Foul things, sea-serpents. My broken wing throbbed under the dripping bandage holding it together and all I could think of was kicking Orem’s butt next time I saw him.

“Uh, excuse me,” a voice scraped my eardrums from behind. “Are you a genie?”

I had to take a deep breath and relax my wand hand before I could trust myself to turn around.

“It’s Djinn, genius,” I said as I looked the pathetic creature up and down. Friggin’ humans. “And I ain’t no Djinn. Your Djinn is, uh, occupied. So you get me.”

“But I rubbed a lamp! I’m supposed to get a genie and three wishes.”

“Yeah, well your ‘genie,’ Orem, is locked inside an ancient rune or sigil or some stupid thing because an idiot human like you probably wants to make a druid-vampire-unicorn-kitten or something. He saved me from a dragon once and much as I hate to admit it, I owe him, so I’m filling in. I’m Carl.”

While she processed this, I tried to fly closer to check her out, but I forgot my busted wing and fell down in the sand. I muttered a curse under my breath as I got up and a crab a few yards down the beach exploded. Served him right.

“I’m Zaphora,” she said. “and I wish...”

“Stop. I’m a fairy, I don’t do ‘wishes,’ that’s Orem’s gig. Just talk to me.”

She screwed up her face like thinking was new and hard. I counted trees behind her to pass the time.

“Did you hurt your wing or something?”

This was clearly one of the great thinkers of the human race.

“If you must know,” I said, “I turned a teddy bear real for my last client, and the stupid thing crushed my wing trying to get to a jar of honey.”

She laughed so hard, I thought she’d explode like the crab. After a moment she said, “You got crushed by Winn...”

“Shut it! Just tell me your problem. I don’t have all day.”

“Sorry,” she said, “It’s my Step-Mother.”

“Oh no! Does she make you do chores, and try to poison you with apples when she gets jealous?”

“She’s my bookie.”

That got my attention.

“Go on,” I said.

“I kind of have a thing for betting on the ponies,” she said. “I was into her for two golden eggs and a basket of goodies. I was desperate.”

“Yeah, yeah, last resort, whatever. Get to the point.”

“Well, this guy in a robe with a pointy hat told me he had a sure thing. He magik’d up some rodent into the fastest horse you ever saw and entered it in the third at Crenshaw. I put everything I had on Octodon to win, but it wasn’t enough to cover my marker so Marlena, that’s my Step-Mother, suggested I throw in my freedom.”

“So, what happened with your sure-thing?”

“Well, the spell was supposed to last until midnight, but apparently Dufus-dore messed it up so it ended at noon instead. Octodon was three lengths ahead and about to win when he suddenly turned back into a rodent and went scampering all over. All the other horses went into a panic, and they fell into a heap. Octodon got crushed.”

“So Evil Step-Mother sent you here?”

“Yeah. She’s trading my soul to enslave some guy named ‘Jim.’ When she dropped me off, she said I’d be buying her wishes for the rest of her life. Then she laughed and took off. I was pretty excited when I found a real genie’s lamp, at least until you showed up.”

She kept blathering, but my mind was in overdrive. It couldn’t be this simple, could it?

“Wait, you said she’s enslaving a guy named ‘Jim’?”

“Yeah. Prob’ly an old boyfriend or something.”

“Djinn! Not ‘Jim’ you idiot! She’s trying to enslave a Djinn! Orem!”

I ran by her and scanned the beach. When I spotted the lamp it was still humming and vibrating. There was still time.

I pulled out my wand and whipped up an insight spell to see through the lamp. Sure enough, there was Orem, bound in mystical chains and fighting some human hag that just had to be Marlena.

“C’mere Zephora, we’re gettin’ out of here!”

I made an intricate (and somewhat suggestive) gesture with my wand and closed my eyes to focus. Traveling the lamp-net was a dangerous game for non-djinn types.

“Grab my hand and rub the lamp again!”

“But...”

“Just do it.”

She grabbed, she rubbed, and we both stretched out and got sucked in like noodles into a Cocker Spaniel. Our senses were scrambled, and one of us puked just a bit (probably her. Yeah, definitely her.) but we were eventually spit out into a dingy basement with candles and weird symbols etched all over in chalk. For some reason, Barry Manilow was playing softly from somewhere.

Orem was in the middle of a smoldering shape on the floor, bound with faintly glowing manacles.

“What the f...” Marlena yelled, but I rolled up on her, ignoring my bum wing, and leveled my wand at her kneecaps.

“Enjoy the island, jerkstore,” I said, and I zapped her through the portal and out the lamp on the other side.

Zaphora gawped at me. “What the heck just happened?”

“Your soul was about to be bound to Orem’s lamp,” I explained. “I pulled something similar on a guy back in Orc War II. As long as you were bound to the lamp, Orem would have to do Marlena’s bidding. But she was too stupid to close the lamp portal, so I just swapped you and the hag while it was still open. Friggin’ humans.”

“Carl! Buddy!” Orem was overjoyed. “I knew you’d pull my fat out of the fire. Why don’t you get these offa me and we can get outta here?”

He tried to walk away, but an invisible force yanked him over to Zaphora’s side.

“Oh no, ‘buddy,’” I said as I headed for the door. “You still got nabbed, I can’t fix that. You belong to Zaphora now, as long as Marlena is in that lamp. And you deserve it for making me ride a sea-serpent.”

Orem blubbered and cursed, but I ignored him and left. As the door closed, I heard Zaphora.

“Hey Jim, you know anything about horse racing?”