King of Babylon, Chapter 3

King of Babylon

Dark Sploosh

Chapter 3: Wishes and Worlds

We caught the bus just before it left. The driver gave us a strange look, which I’m sure was directed at Jinn. Not like I could blame him.

“He’s got a condition,” I explained. At that the driver nodded and let us on the bus, so I sent Jinn on as I tossed my suitcase into the storage compartment under the bus. Following Jinn inside, I paid for the both of us, and walked to the very back of the bus, where Jinn was sitting down. There were only five other people on the bus, and none of them were near the back, so I guess we got lucky.

Jinn took up most of his seat, so I sat across from him. The bus slowly began to roll forwards.

“Unbelievable,” Jinn whispered, looking out the window as we began to pick up speed.

“What is?” I asked.

“This thing. Called a bus, right? Something only humans could have dreamed up.”

“Mmm, I guess. Anyway, those aren’t bothering you, are they?”

I was talking about what Jinn was wearing. The fact that we were using public transportation called for a great deal of subtlety, and a glowing body didn’t cut it. I had stopped by the campus store on Moat Street real quick and bought a few of the largest, darkest hooded sweatshirts they had, with a few large pairs of sweat pants.

Jinn was wrapped in three layers of sweatshirts and pants, and underneath the three hoods on his head, I had wrapped a ton of layers of bandages over everything except his eyes. It seemed like overkill, but the end result was that his glow was completely invisible. If anyone asked, like the bus driver, we could always pass him off as a burn victim or something.

“Not bothering,” Jinn said. “Made of fire, remember? Can take much higher temperatures than humans.”

I had a feeling. We fell into silence after that. I still had a bunch of questions, but as I opened my mouth to ask the first one, a long yawn came out instead.

“Feeling tired?”

The girl was sitting next to me, staring out the bus window at the dark scenery passing by.

“Yeah,” I admitted. She gave me room to maneuver around her in the seat, so I could place the pillow I had brought with me up against the window. Once it was in place I leaned against it, satisfied. The girl laid down on top of me, snuggling against my chest. Smiling, I placed my hand on her head and began to stroke her hair. Even here, on the road and at the beginning of this great adventure, the ritual we always did before sleeping was the same.

I noticed Jinn watching us, and I froze up for a second. I forgot that he could see us, and I felt my face burn and my stomach turn. He was just calmly watching, or at least I thought so. I couldn’t see anything except his dark eyes through all the layers and bandages, and it was hard to read his emotions from just those.

“Um...is something wrong?” I asked. I could feel the girl stir a little in discomfort.

“No,” Jinn whispered. “Nothing’s wrong, master. Enjoy sleep.”

As small as it was, that was enough to let me ease up. The girl relaxed again, and I continued to hold her until the both of us fell asleep to the monotonous humming of the engine roaring down the road.

-------

The bus took us as far as Columbus. After that we had to get off, otherwise we would be heading east, and after going five hours west, I figured that would be sort of counterproductive.

Jinn, the girl and I stood at the bus stop, staring around the city. A few rays of daylight were peeking over the office buildings and shining right in my eyes. At this hour the most noticeable sound was the cacophony of honking horns as everyone rushed to get to work, clogging the streets with traffic.

“Loud,” Jinn commented. I nodded.

“Well, we should get going, then.”

The girl and I started walking towards what should have been west, based on the sun. Lugging my suitcase behind me, I got to the first crosswalk before I noticed Jinn wasn’t with us. Frowning, I turned around. He was still standing at the bus stop, staring after us, or at least I thought he was. The hoods and bandages made it hard to tell.

“Come on,” the girl shouted, gesturing for him to follow. At that he started moving, but by the time he reached me the light changed and we had to wait a bit more to cross.

“What’s up with you?” I asked. “If those hoods and bandages are bothering you, you can take them off in a bit. Soon as the sun’s all the way up, okay?”

“I know,” he grunted. “Not problem.”

“Okay, so what is?”

Jinn’s eyes blinked a few times in the slither between the bandages, and he sighed.

“Lachlan,” he said, “don’t you want to make wish?”

Ah. That.

“Of course I do,” I said. “That’s the entire point of our relationship, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but haven’t made any yet. Kind of boring.”

“I don’t think it would be very safe to just start wishing away when I don’t even understand how it works yet.”

“Then I’ll tell.” Jinn sounded impatient. It was kind of interesting.

“I suppose that would be for the best,” I admitted. “I wanted to find a good place to rest before we started talking about it, though.”

The girl snapped her fingers and laughed.

“Ah, well, then how about we talk about it over dinner? I’m starving ”

“It’s breakfast,” I muttered, “and besides, you don’t eat.”

The girl gave me a nasty frown. “Hey, if you don’t like to think about the state of my existence, stop bringing it up yourself. How about that?”

“Whatever. But I guess breakfast would be nice.” I turned to Jinn. “How about you? How much do djinni eat every day?”

“Three times,” he said. “Same as humans.”

“All right, then.”

There was a nice looking place right across the street, so we crosses as soon as we could. The restaurant was fairly empty, which was good. I didn’t need a lot of people paying attention to me and the giant wrapped in bandages while we discussed wishes.

We sat down in a booth at the very back of the restaurant, as far from the windows as possible. A lady came over with our menus in a second, and I was glad that she didn’t bat an eye towards Jinn. I waited for her to leave hearing range, and then I leaned forward a bit over the table and started whispering.

“So, I guess first I need to know what the limits of wishi...hey, are you even paying attention?”

Jinn was staring the menu in front of him, his eyes narrowed.

“Can’t read this,” he muttered. “Anything on there with bones?”

“It’s the breakfast menu, so probably not.”

“Well, try and get some bones.”

“I thought we were going to talk about wishes.”

“We will. But need food first.”

“Breakfast doesn’t have bones in it.”

“Can’t eat anything else. Think of something, master.”

The girl elbowed me gently. “Stop being mean to him and get him some bones.”

Sighing, I waited for the lady to come back and asked if she could make an exception for my friend and get him some chicken legs. I could tell she wanted to say that breakfast didn’t start for another five hours, but she took a quick look at Jinn and agreed with a smile.

As she walked off with our menus, I chuckled. “Maybe we should keep those bandages on you. The sympathy could work towards our advantage.”

“No thanks,” Jinn said. “Will get uncomfortable soon.”

“Yeah.” I waited until I was sure Jinn was paying attention. “So, what’s the deal with the wishes?”

I might have imagined it, but the bandages covering Jinn’s mouth contorted over the shape of a huge grin.

“Kept mentioning three wishes, right?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Well, it’s half-true. Technically, get infinite wishes.”

“Infinite?” I whispered, interrupting him.

“Technically. But those have rules.”

“And what rules are those?”

Jinn held up his hand. “Five rules. First one is that wishes must always be bigger than last.”

I fell silent for a minute as I tried to wrap my head around what that entailed.

“What do you mean bigger than last?” the girl asked for me.

“What it sounds like. Really up to me to decide what bigger than last means, but can’t break rules, even for own human. I’ll try to decide in your favor if possible. Recommend you start small. Bigger you start, less wishes you get to make. Gets harder and harder to make bigger wishes.”

Nodding, I looked down at the salt and pepper shakers on the table.

“So, for example,” I said as I lifted the salt, “if I wished for this salt to turn into, I don’t know, gold, could I not do it now?”

“No, could,” Jinn said.

“Interesting. So on the sliding scale of wishes, killing two men is smaller than changing something to gold?”

Jinn laughed a bit, scratching his chin through the bandages. I wondered how tough his skin had to be for those nails of his not to slice his cheek open.

“No. Killing is big. One of biggest. Forbidden by God, after all.”

He held up two fingers.

“Second rule is you get three wishes free from first rule. And used the first one to kill those men.”

Lachlan frowned.

“That hardly seems fair. I didn’t even know I was actually wishing for anything.”

“Can’t help it. Djinni and humans meet through first wish. Before that, human and djinn can’t see each other. Not well, anyway.”

That explained why he just looked like an orange glow before I made the wish.

“So what did I look like to you? Before the wish, I mean.”

“Humans looked like blurs. Apart from you, most still do, but becoming easier to see. Should be same with you and other djinni.”

“You mean I can see them now?”

“Will be able to, with time. Understand them, too. But none on this side of worlds anyway, so don’t worry too much.”

When he brought up the two worlds thing again, I felt like asking exactly how he crossed over to the human world. It probably had something to do with me, otherwise humans would have been noticing a lot of strange glowing lights all the time. Of course, there were always UFO sightings and stuff like that, but something made me feel it wasn’t that simple.

I didn’t want to stray from the topic, though. “So, three wishes that I can use regardless of my other wishes. Convenient. I can see how that would get screwed up in mythology.”

“Two now,” Jinn reminded me.

“Of course. So what’s rule three?”

Jinn breathed in to speak, but his words never came. His eyes focused on something behind me. Slowly, I turned around in my chair.

I caught my breath before I gasped. Sitting in the booth behind and to the left of us was a young girl, couldn’t have been more than twelve years old. Her head was a tangle of yellow curls, bobbing as she laughed at something her companion said. Then she turned to look at us, and a small smile spread over her face.

Sitting across from her in the booth was, quite simply, a golden glow.

“Uh, Jinn?” I asked, unable to take my eyes off the faint light, playing the vague shape of a person, “what were you saying about there being none on this side?”

“No way,” Jinn muttered, his voice shaking. “Lachlan, stop looking.”

I obeyed, turning back to stare into Jinn’s smoky eyes.

“Are we in danger?” I said that, even though the answer was obvious.

“Not yet. Could be. Need you to hide somewhere.”

“Hold on,” I whispered, even as my eyes searched for a place I could take cover. “Stop scaring me for a second. What are you going to do?”

If he was going to answer me, he never got a chance. A sound exploded behind me, a massive cracking of wood. I ducked beneath the table, just as something went sailing over my head. Sailing wasn’t the right word, though. It was more like thundering.

Another noise, the crash of something heavy on wood, rocked the floor. The sound of clicking on the tiled floor. In all the sound and confusion, I saw that Jinn’s legs were not in front of me.

The shriek of a girl pierced the air, followed by two shouts that sounded like roaring, bestial and violent. Gritting my teeth, I peered out from the side of the seat, but lost my breath at the sight of it.

Jinn was across the room, his hulking figure at the table where the girl and the glow had been, only the table was gone. What was left were two large chunks of splintered steel and wood, and Jinn’s arm dividing them right down the middle. He tore back, ripping his massive fist out of the rubble and turning to his target.

That golden glow, wrapped in the faintest physical form, shielded the small girl. I would have expected that girl to be scared, howling in terror. Instead, all I saw was the wide open eyes of a child witnessing the spectacle of a lifetime. I think I was more frightened than she was.

“Kanak,” Jinn growled, his fist ready to strike if necessary. Even through those layers I could see the raw power in his arms. “How’d you get here?”

“Same as you,” the glow replied. I could hear it clearly, but I was surprised. The voice was female. “Don’t want trouble. Akasl wouldn’t like that.”

“Nothing to do with this,” Jinn said back. Behind him I could see the waitress from earlier running out the front door screaming, the cooks following her. I was somehow able to forget about what was happening before me just long enough to realize that drawing all this attention to ourselves was bad.

“Hurt the girl, I kill you.” The glow’s tone made me think of a pissed off mother bear.

Jinn laughed at her, but his rage didn’t subside. “Funny. No way you found your human too. Not this soon. Impossible.”

“Happened, so deal with it. Going to fight or not?”

I had absolutely no idea what was going on, but I could tell it was going to get a whole lot worse. Jinn grabbed the front of his sweatshirts and tore them off as if they were confetti. His naked torso, shining like a dying fire, was olympian in its crafting. There was not a trace of skin on this being that did not wrap tightly over the muscle beneath, flexing with intent to kill.

God made djinni physically superior to humans. There was no way to doubt that now.

Jinn chuckled as he tore the bandages from his head, revealing his grinning face.

“Indecent, Kanak,” he said, stepping out of his shoes. Those spikes that served as toenails clicked upon the floor a few times, readying themselves. “So I’ll join you.”

There was silence for a moment. Jinn assumed some kind of fighting stance, the claws on the

tips of his fingers ready to strike.

“Get out of here,” the glow shouted. Nodding, the girl slowly backed away and then disappeared from my sight completely. I heard the door open and shut.

“Warned you,” the glow said simply.

And then Jinn yelled and charged forward, his arm, his claws held back to lash out.