King of Babylon, Chapter 4

King of Babylon

Dark Sploosh

Chapter 4: Mama Bear

Right as Jinn began his charge, I knew I had to get out of there too. About the only reason Jinn hadn’t demanded it was because that glowing djinn was blocking the way to the door. All I could do was sit, watch, and wait.

Jinn struck out at the glow, who he had called Kanak, driving his fist into what I guessed was where her stomach would be. The area of impact flashed like a strobe light, the sound of the hit a hammer on stone, but Jinn didn’t give Kanak a rest, as he brought his other hand, curled tight in a fist, and sent it flying into the glow just as hard. And again. And again.

There was no pause between his strikes, no recovery. Each hit made the golden light burst into brightness with the speed of a flickering bulb. It was so ridiculous that I couldn’t even feel fear anymore, because nothing could possibly survive what Jinn was doing.

But as soon as I thought that, the light of Kanak shot straight up into the air. It hit the ceiling, and I could see the tiles up there burst upward from the impact, but by then the light zipped straight back down and crashed into Jinn like some kind of small meteor.

An orange blast of light registered as the mighty djinn went flying back, hitting the side of a booth. Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself forward to attack, but Kanak had already reached him. Her movements were nearly impossible to read, but Jinn raised his arms to shield his face. One, two, three quick flashes on his forearms, each flash sending a wave of force rippling through his muscles. The strain looked unbearable, but Jinn didn’t look tired in the least.

Then, as a thin, glowing limb sped out of Kanak in what I was beginning to recognize as the signal of its attacks, Jinn fell to a crouch. A deep roar filled the room as he rose up, his right arm leading the charge in some kind of uppercut, but something about it was off. I didn’t have time to understand, but the glow was lifted off the floor, a massive burst of light stunning me for a moment. When I could see again, the glow was gone.

I wanted to shout out in victory, but I held my tongue at the last second. There was no proof that this was over. Jinn had not yet let down his guard. His eyes were darting around the room, searching. The enemy wasn’t finished, she was just hiding.

In the small pause that followed, I noticed for the first time that the girl was with me, holding onto my arm.

“Look around, Lachlan,” she whispered into my ear. “We don’t know where she is.”

I glanced down the aisle behind us, but she wasn’t there either. My nerves were beginning to come back, my eyes darting back and forth from the front of the diner to the back, ready to run at the sight of the glow.

A light shone from the front. Gasping, I turned to look, but it wasn’t Kanak.

The sun had just made it all the way over the buildings, its rays shining unobstructed through the glass facade of the diner, filling the dingy room with light. Jinn was bathed in it, and his glow disappeared almost instantly, snuffed out into his darkness again. He gave me one look, and I knew everything it meant.

No more playing around. I had to get out.

Jinn ran towards me, and I scurried out from under the table. Just as he reached me, I heard something behind me. The screech of tearing metal.

It was stupid, but I stole a glance back. All I saw was one of the tables, torn free from its metal stand, hovering in the air. Held by the djinn who, with the sun hiding her glow, I could no longer see. The table dropped to the ground, and with a bang shot forward, like a bomb had gone off behind it.

No time to even realize what was going on. Jinn was already in front of me, and another long bang erupted as the table smashed into him. He took it head on, his arms defending him as best they could. The table was bent into something else, wrapped around Jinn’s arms.

I stood still, stunned by what I was seeing, by everything that was happening. Jinn did not move, the table-bullet stuck against him.

“Get out,” he growled finally. With a massive grunt, he ripped his arms free, the table pieces clanging to the floor.

“Wait,” I breathed, “can’t I wish for you to win?”

“Don’t need it,” he said, not taking his eyes off the invisible opponent before him. “Leave.”

The door was right behind me. I burst through it and out into the street.

There was already a crowd of people gathered, peering through the windows at the battle, jabbering in awe to each other. As soon as I came out, all their eyes shifted to me.

“Hey, what’s going on in there?”

“That’s gotta’ be the craziest fight I’ve ever seen ”

“Someone call the police already ”

Their eyes were overwhelming. Gritting my teeth, I tried to look for an opening to slide out.

And then my eye fell on the little blonde girl who had been with Kanak. She was standing behind the crowd, revealed for just a moment by someone shifting forward. Our eyes met, her childish smile burning me.

I ran forward into the crowd, forcing myself past them. However much they wanted to talk to me, they didn’t stop me. They were already focused on the fight again, unwilling to miss any of the supernatural rumble.

By the time I squeezed past the last person, the little girl was gone.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted her bobbing gold curls as she disappeared into an alley. I took off, running after her, focusing on nothing else.

When I reached the alley entrance, she was already far ahead of me.

“Come back here ” I shouted. Maybe not the smartest thing to do, but it made sense at the time.

“No way ” she yelled back. I kept running. This was no contest, really. I would catch up to this girl in seconds. Her shorter legs didn’t stand a chance of outrunning me.

Pretty soon I was able to reach out and grab the back of her sweatshirt. She squealed and twisted in protest, but I didn’t let go.

“What the hell is going on?” I demanded.

“I don’t know,” she shouted back, kicking out at me feebly. “You guys started it ”

“We didn’t start anything. Kanak, or whatever her name was, shot something at us ”

“Only because you guys were gonna’ kill us ”

She kicked out again, coming annoyingly close to my groin.

“Look, I just want you to go back and make Kanak stop,” I shouted.

“Why don’t you go make your big, stupid guy stop?”

“He will, if you call it off.”

This wasn’t getting us anyway. Gritting my teeth, I let the girl go. She took two steps forwards, stopped, and then turned to look back at me. She was out of breath, but despite all the running and kicking, she actually gave me that annoying smile again.

“Oh fine, whatever.”

I had enough time to notice she had a British accent.

Then the wall behind her exploded. Before I knew what I was doing, I grabbed the girl and shielded her with my body. Something heavy and hard struck my lower back, and I cried out through gritted teeth. Dust was blowing all around us, so I closed my eyes and tried to cover the girl’s face. She squirmed a bit, but a bit was all it took for the dust to disappear.

My back ached, but it wasn’t too bad. I looked behind us. There was a huge hole in the wall, big enough to see most of the room inside. A huge pile of destroyed concrete and who knows what else covered the floor. Lying on the pile was Jinn, coughing and laughing at the same time.

“Good as they say, Kanak,” he said, rising back to his feet with ease. He didn’t even look winded as he assumed another fighting stance, staring back into the hole.

“Jinn ” I shouted.

His eyes widened for a second, and he glanced over at me.

“Lachlan?”

“Hey. Uh, I think we need to call off this fight.”

I stood up, or at least tried to, because the pain in my back was keeping me pretty slow. The girl pulled away from me, staring into the hole. Jinn looked at the girl, and then back at me with understanding.

Then something came flying out of the hole and slammed into Jinn. He stumbled back against the other wall, stunned.

“Didn’t hear the boy?” he growled, brushing some dust off himself. “Fight’s off, Kanak.”

This alleyway was still hidden from the light. Crouched down in the pile of debris where Jinn had been a moment ago was the golden glow again. Only now it wasn’t just a glow.

“Suppose so,” Kanak said, rising to her feet. I could actually see her now, but I’m not sure I was prepared for it.

She was tall, a few inches taller than me. Not quite at Jinn’s height, but bigger than your average human woman. Her skin glowed faintly like Jinn’s, but it was that golden light that until now had been my only way of seeing her. Maybe the color difference was why I noticed.

Or maybe it was because so much of her golden skin was showing. In a less dire situation I would have been a embarrassed to look. All she was wearing was some kind of black cloth wrapped around her breasts to hide them, and some tight, short pants that were made out of some kind of leathery material.

What was that Jinn had said earlier about her being indecent?

“Not good time to stare, kid.” Kanak turned to meet my gaze. Her eyes were smoky, like Jinn’s, around two blue irises. Focused on me with a deadly caution. I felt like I was in some kind of staring contest, so I refused to look away.

“Anna,” Kanak said, still looking at me, “you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” the girl said. “Did you win?”

“Uh, no one won, girl,” Jinn insisted.

This was a pretty ridiculous way to end a fight. Hadn’t these two been trying to kill each other a few moments ago?

The wailing of police sirens made me forget it all for a moment. I turned to Jinn, but all he did was shrug and point back to the girl and Kanak.

The girl grabbed Kanak’s hand and looked up at her, her eyes shining.

“Shanzi,” she said, “I wish the four of us were back at my hotel room.”

Kanak simply nodded, and then her whole body burst into a dazzling golden flash. I felt water wash over me, sucking my feet out from under me. The tidal wave swept me away, my eyes shut tight to block out that bright golden heartbeat that flickered and flashed all around me.

It died all at once. The light. The water. The movement. I opened my eyes, and I was sitting on the floor of a lavish room.

The girl was crouched down in front of me, smiling.

“Welcome to my place,” she giggled.

-------

About an hour later, I was sitting in down in a big armchair, wrapped in an unbelievably comfortable robe, curling my bare toes on the soft red carpet, and staring at the girl looking out the window. The huge glass pane gave an amazing view of the city. We had to be at least ten floors up.

About the only thing that was off was that it was dark out again. The city lights were on below us, tiny gold dots illuminating the life below. The clock on the wall said it was about 8:30 PM. Something very strange had happened.

On top of that, I couldn’t entirely relax with the female djinn sitting on the edge of the king sized bed giving me the death glare. The room was well lit, so she wasn’t glowing anymore. Her skin was now a kind of ashen gray, and it made me wonder if this was what Jinn had meant when he spoke of djinni races. My wondering was hard to do with her staring at me like that, though.

It wasn’t as if Jinn had been that impolite. Well, other than asking where the food was the moment we arrived in the room. He was back in the bathroom taking a shower at the moment, something which struck me as dangerous for a being made out of fire, but I supposed he knew what he was doing. He had been more concerned about leaving me alone, but I had insisted as a sign of goodwill.

Every second Kanak gave me that look I felt more and more like there was something wrong. If this djinn had a problem with us, I figured I had to explain our side of the story.

“Um, thanks for letting us use your place,” I said to the girl, trying to pretend Kanak wasn’t even there, which was very difficult.

The girl finally looked at me and shook her head.

“Don’t mention it,” she said. “You guys aren’t that bad.”

“Did try and kill us, though.”

The djinn was fingering a loose lock of her dark hair, which in the back was pulled up and braided into some kind of tribal looking ponytail. The gesture seemed less like absent minded fidgeting and more like an excuse to remind me that her fingernails could slice my throat open. It didn’t help that she made a point to click her sharp nails together every time she pulled lightly at her hair.

“I don’t know anything about that,” I said, trying to look civil. “Jinn saw you and told me that we were in danger. Then I, uh, I think you threw something at us.”

The girl raised her hand. “Oh, sorry, that was my fault! Shanzi told me you two might have been trouble, so I asked her to get rid of you. So she threw a chair.”

“Woulda’ took your head off if you didn’t duck,” the djinn threw in.

“Yeah, sorry,” the girl said.

Her smile seemed to say that ‘sorry’ was enough to make up for nearly decapitating me.

“Anyway,” said the girl, “my name’s Anna, and this is Shanzi. Nice to meet you.”

Shanzi waved at me, wiggling her spiked fingers. Nice to meet you, indeed.

“My name’s Lachlan,” I said. Then, without thinking, “why was Jinn calling you Kanak earlier?”

“Why call him Jinn?” she replied, nodding towards the bathroom. “Not his name either.”

“He hasn’t told me his real name. He just said I should call him Jinn.”

“Egotistical coward. Not surprised.”

I wasn’t sure how Jinn and Shanzi knew each other, but it wasn’t hard to imagine why Jinn would be wary of her.

Anna walked up to me and sat down on the floor, like a child at story time.

“How old are you again?” I asked.

“Twelve,” she replied, just as I guessed. Didn’t twelve year olds act a bit more mature than this? “What about you?”

“Nineteen.”

“Where are you from?”

“Here. You?”

“London.”

“Oh. Interesting.” I had absolutely no idea what this little Q and A was going to solve, but I wasn’t sure what else I should be talking about. Except for the obvious, of course, but it didn’t feel right asking about that stuff without Jinn.

“How’s your back?” Shanzi asked. The sudden concern was nice, even if it didn’t sound very warm.

“It’s fine,” I said. “Just a big bruise.” I had checked it out when I used the shower, but it wasn’t too bad. It just stung and was a bit purple. I was surprised she had even noticed it.

By the way, the bathroom was huge. Part of me wondered if a wish had been involved in getting this suite in the first place.

“That’s good,” Anna said. “Wouldn’t want to waste wishes saving your life if it had been bad.”

At that, I felt like I couldn’t wait for Jinn any longer.

“So, Anna,” I said casually, “what kinds of things have you wished for?”

She shrugged. “Oh, not much. Mostly just zipping around to different places, seeing the world, that kind of thing.”

“You mean teleporting?” I asked. “Like how we got here?”

She nodded. “And since I’m sure you were wondering, that’s also the reason why it’s dark out. Shanzi says that traveling wishes also send you about fifteen hours into the future. Sort of like a penalty for the wish, you know?”

Jinn never said anything about penalties. I decided not to tell her that was because his explanation was cut short by a chair-bullet.

“That sounds like a pretty big wish,” I said, deciding to grill Jinn a bit more thoroughly later. “Jinn told me about the three free wishes, and how all the others have to be bigger than the last one, so...”

“Oh, that?” Anna asked, waving it off. “Well, teleporting’s kind of big, but you know you can use wishes that are just as big as the last one, right?”

I shook my head, looking back at the bathroom. “No, Jinn neglected to mention that.”

“Well, as long as we just teleport places, or do wishes of the same size, I don’t have to make any bigger ones.”

“But wouldn’t the distance you travel affect the size of the wish?”

“No,” Shanzi said, rising off the bed. I glanced down at her feet, very surprised to see that her toenails were not sharp like Jinn’s. In fact, her feet looked pretty similar to human feet, ashen color aside. “Long as destination’s on Earth, distance irrelevant. What matters is number of people or objects sent.”

“Well, then sending us here had to have been slightly bigger, right? Before this it’s just been the two of you.”

“Correct,” Shanzi said. “Unless Anna uses free wish, all traveling wishes need four people or more to work now.”

She gave Anna a look, as if scolding her for something, but Anna didn’t seem to notice.

“I’m still kind of confused about the size of wishes,” I said. “Jinn hinted that the size was sort of subjective. How exactly do you know?”

“Oh, guessing,” Anna said. “If you aren’t sure, well, Shanzi, I wish I had a necklace made of fudge.”

Shanzi rolled her eyes. “Can’t do it, mistress.”

“There ya’ go,” Anna said, snapping her fingers. “If your djinn can’t do it because it’s too small, they’ll feel it and let you know.”

“But otherwise it really is just estimating.” Terrific, I thought. If I’ve got time to think it’s no problem, but in a life-or-death situation, a quick guess may be all I’ll get. “What about your free wishes?”

“What about them?” Anna asked.

“How many have you used? Besides the first one, of course.”

Anna frowned, but somehow didn’t look very displeased. “I don’t feel like saying.”

“Good. We don’t care.” Jinn came out of the bathroom, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. Didn’t bother me, but I noticed Anna was having a very hard time looking at anything else.

Twelve years old is just about that time, isn’t it?

“Clothe yourself in front of Anna,” Shanzi ordered. Jinn frowned at her, his eyes shifting down to stare at her feet.

“Could say same about you. Humans may not care, Shanzi, but I’m getting distracted.”

Shanzi sat back down on the bed, drew her legs up, and covered her feet with the bed sheets. “Happy?”

Jinn shrugged. “Actually, kind of miss them.”

Shanzi glared at Jinn in a way that would have made me run for my life, but he just smiled back at her.

“Hey, stop it,” I said, “there are more important things to worry about right now than djinni nudity taboos.”

Jinn shrugged and sat down in the chair next to mine, which creaked under his weight. “Such as?”

“Well, what are the chances that some girl and her djinn would be visiting places all over the world, and just happen to visit the diner where another djinn and human were?”

I eyed Anna while I said this, and she looked over at Shanzi for a moment. “Uh, well, I kind of wished to meet someone else who had a djinn. So here we are.”

A few moments of silence passed as I thought about that.

“You wished to find us, and the moment you do, you attack us?”

Anna laughed a little, her fingers fidgeting behind her back. “Hey, Shanzi was really scaring me, I overreacted. I only asked her to get rid of you guys, it was her idea to toss a flipping chair.”

“Don’t blame me,” Shanzi said, suddenly unable to look at anything but the carpet. “This guy’s trouble. Didn’t want to take chances.”

“Guess not,” Jinn said with a smile.

“I don’t care about that,” I said firmly. “But that sounds like a pretty vague wish.”

“So?” said Anna.

“Well, I’d assume a vague wish would be bigger than a clear one. And if you can still make clear wishes about teleporting, I’m guessing that took one of your free wishes, leaving you with just one left. Am I right?”

Anna blinked a few times, and looked to Shanzi again. Shanzi shrugged.

“Uh, well...damn.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle a little. All that did was make Anna blush and shoot me the first frown I’d ever seen from her.

“Congratulations, master,” said Jinn. “I’m liking our partnership more and more all the time.”

As much fun as it was, outsmarting a twelve year old wasn’t a tremendous achievement for me.

“So, Anna, you’ve found us. What do you want to do now?”

Anna shrugged, refusing to look at me. “I dunno. What are you going to do?”

“Not sure myself. Jinn and I were just heading west while I decided what to wish for.”

Saying it that simply made me realize for the first time how strange it must have sounded, but Anna just smiled again.

“Okay. Let me and Shanzi come with you.”

“Mistress,” Shanzi said, jumping off the bed, “I’m protesting this.”

“I’m not,” Jinn said, grinning at Shanzi’s bare feet.

“Stop it, will you?” I shouted to the both of them as Shanzi covered her feet back up, grumbling. “Thank you. Now then, I really wouldn’t mind if Anna and Shanzi came with us. What about you Jinn?”

I looked at him. His smiled faltered for a moment, but he shrugged. “Fine by me.”

“Yay!” Anna said, pumping her fist in the air. Shanzi didn’t seem quite as enthused, but I knew she’d be nice as long as Anna wanted her to be. To be honest, that was half the reason I agreed. An angry twelve year old with a djinn wouldn’t be the greatest person to be in the same room with. Besides, the company would be nice.

I suddenly found myself yawning. I wasn’t sure whether it was because it was dark out, or because I had only gotten five hours of sleep on that bus.

“We’re leaving tomorrow morning, though,” I said, rising up from the chair. “So if that’s okay with...oh crap.”

“What is it?” Anna asked.

I pointed to the bed that Shanzi was sitting on. The only bed in the suite. “I guess that means Jinn and I are going to be sleeping on the floor?”

Anna laughed and climbed onto the bed with Shanzi. “Yeah. Sorry.”

Oh well. It was just for one night. I didn’t have a problem with it.

“Gotta be kidding me,” Jinn grumbled.

I gave him a look, but he didn’t let up.

“Master, wish for bed.”

“No way. I’m not wasting a wish on that.”

“Haven’t used any yet. Just wish for bed from another room. Smaller than creating one.”

“Forget it. You can sleep on the floor for one night. Besides, this carpet’s nice and soft.”

Jinn frowned, but all he could do was sigh and drop to the floor. A bit too loudly. The whole room shook a little, and I wondered if anyone below us had felt it.

I went over and turned off the lights, but the darkness didn’t come. Turning around, I realized we had a new problem.

“Um, guys? How are we supposed to sleep with the both of you glowing like that?”

Jinn and Shanzi were a pair of giant orange and yellow night lights.

“Hold on, Lachlan,” Jinn said. In a few seconds, both of their lights dimmed. Now they were no brighter than the lights on a digital clock.

“Why couldn’t you just do that when we left this morning?” I asked him with a frown.

“Djinni need sleep too,” Jinn whispered. “When we sleep, we dim inner flame. Not using much energy.”

Well, I guessed that made sense. It wouldn’t be a problem anyway.

“Good night then, everyone,” I said as I sank to the floor and tried to get comfortable.

“Good night Lachlan,” Anna whispered. “Good night Jinn. Good night Shanzi.”

“Night, Lachlan. Anna.”

“Sleep well, mistress.”

Those last two hadn’t sounded very happy, but I ignored it and closed my eyes. Sleeping was kind of hard, though. I was just too happy about what was going on to stop thinking about it.