Genie Knows Best (5 page)

Off in the distance, walls ringed the city. Walls of sand that stretched to the sky, the tops of them in a perfectly straight line—

As if they had a lid on them.

A glass lid.

“Is that… You mean that’s… It can’t be…”

And then a huge bird flew overhead. It looked like a giant pterodactyl.

Not that she knew what a pterodactyl looked like, since they were, you know,
extinct
, but that was no ordinary bird. With tail feathers like a peacock on steroids, the claws of a lion, and the head of a dog, it made the platypus look like a beauty pageant queen. And when it skimmed that supposed ceiling, its dog head, long neck, and rounded back—not to mention its wings—all flattened for the few dozen feet it coasted along the glass.

Samantha looked at Kal, then pointed up. Words just weren’t happening.

Kal conjured a glass of iced tea. He took one of her hands and wrapped her fingers around the glass. “Drink this.”

She didn’t even think not to drink it. Prehistoric dog-bird? Glass ceiling? The sugary, minty beverage went down, if not easily, at least without choking her. “What happens if it falls?” And she could be talking about either the sky or the bird—that thing was no Chicken Little.

“It won’t. The glass has been there for longer than anyone can remember. And considering I’m over four thousand years old, that’s a long time. I think you’re safe.”

The glass slipped from her fingers, and she barely noticed that she and the lantern were now wearing sweet mint tea. “Four…
thousand
?”

Kal waved his fingers again, and she was once more holding a glass full of tea. Another wave of his fingers and the wet spot on her
djellaba
disappeared.

“Nice,” she muttered. “I wish you could get rid of these extra ten pounds as easily.”

“As you wish.”

He waved his hand again, and if Samantha wasn’t above imagining such things, she would have sworn the waistband of the skirt she had on beneath her
djellaba
slipped a few inches.

Actually, given what was going on around her, she
wasn’t
above imagining such things, so she stood up. Her skirt fell down.

She almost did, too, but elected to gulp the rest of the tea instead. She gave half a thought to wishing for more of that water/wine he’d given her earlier, but figured sobriety was the better part of valor here. “Well
that’s
handy.”

Kal stood up and took the glass from her,
poofing
it into nothingness. “Your wish is my command, Samantha.”

If only Albert had prescribed to the same train of thought.

No, not really. Samantha didn’t want someone to be at her beck and call; she just wanted someone who wanted to share his life with her. Equally. Who wanted the same things she did.

Maybe she ought to wish for Kal to conjure up Mr. Perfect for her—though in that outfit, he was looking pretty perfect himself.

When something jostled the carpet and he grasped her elbow with a “hold on to me, Samantha,”
perfect
was exactly the word that came to mind.

“The wind currents are all over the place when Maille turns up the heat,” said Kal, his breath warm beside her ear.

The dragon wasn’t the only one turning up the heat.

So
not what she needed to be thinking about thirty feet off the ground.

She adjusted her stance on the carpet that was shifting like quicksand beneath her feet, and almost kicked the lantern into that aforementioned thin air.

She looked over the edge of the rug. The leprechauns were still fighting the gnomes, and Wayne was having a tough time with four of the under-the-hat garden variety clinging to his legs, plus another two on his tail, and one with a double-fisted grip on the mane that ran down his back. The gnome was flopping from side to side while Wayne tried to shimmy him off.

Then a blast of dragon fire collided with the spontaneously combusting phoenix about ten feet off the front right corner of the rug, the heat forcing Samantha back, and, of course, thanks to the skirt at her feet, she tripped.

Right into Kal’s chest.

She
would
like to thank her skirt. And Kal for zapping those ten pounds away. And the dragon for being oh-so-helpful in getting her into the vicinity of Kal’s arms, and Fate for presenting the situation in the first place.

So much for not thinking about it…

Samantha fought for her balance. And her dignity. This was a mess—and she could be talking about the fracas going on below the carpet or the humming hormones above it. Or the fact that she was practically half naked beneath this robe.

“Samantha? Are you okay?” Kal’s breath tickled her temple, causing her to shiver.

She was more than okay, and that definitely wasn’t a tickle. It—he—felt good. Better than good. He felt so much more
more
than anyone had before. Plastered against her back, his warmth seeping through the
djellaba
, making her hotter.
Wetter
—

She pulled away. She was thirty feet in the air, for God’s sake, dodging dragon fire. Practically naked from the waist down, and if not for this heat melting her brain, Kal and his magic fingers wouldn’t be sidetracking her. She needed to do something about that.

She looked back over her shoulder. “Um, Kal? Is it possible… that is, can I get a new outfit? Something a little cooler that fits and covers all the necessary parts?”

“Sure you can.”

He smiled and Samantha’s pulse kicked up a few more ticks.

But his hand didn’t move.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Are you going to?”

“Am I going to what?”

“Give me a new outfit?”

“Is that what you wish?”

Not
exactly…

Her breasts tingled where she’d felt that fleeting touch and she wished he’d do it again.

Samantha held her breath, half expecting it to happen, but then she realized she hadn’t uttered that wish out loud. Although… what if she did?

Another blast of hot dragon fire erupted off to the left, and Samantha decided that was what had fried both her brain and her hormones. She couldn’t actually be considering kissing him again, could she? She’d just gotten burned by Albert; did she really want to go down that road again?

Then again, Albert hadn’t been all that interested in kissing her, or anything else for that matter, which probably should have been her first clue that he was more frog than prince, but with the strain of coping with Dad’s illness, the house, the staff, the company, and everything else, she’d actually been glad of the reprieve.

Her hormones, however, apparently hadn’t been and were more than willing to make up for lost time. Now, however, was
not
that time.

She shook her head, took two more steps away from Kal, and then turned around. “You don’t have a girlfriend, do you?”

“I do.” Dirham hopped to his feet with his perpetual smile, but then it faltered and he dropped his shoulders. “Lexy just doesn’t know it yet.”

Kal stared at her, then shook his head. “What makes you ask that, Samantha?”

She crossed her arms. “Your lantern, for one thing. You have to be a tad snug in there, given its size. I don’t see how another person could fit in it with you.”

“Lexy says size doesn’t matter,” chirped Dirham.

No one on the carpet said a word.

Wayne, on the other hand, shouted a very descriptive expletive from the street that was not only heard, crystal clear, above the din, but also actually had something to do with Dirham’s malapropism.

Samantha tried to get that whole image out of her head. “And secondly, you obviously don’t have a girlfriend because when a woman says she’d like something, it usually means she wants it.”

“Ah.” Kal nodded. “So you wish me to conjure up new clothing for you.”

“If you could.”

“Of course he can,” said Dirham, bouncing again. “It’s what he does.”

Kal glanced at Dirham, then winked at Samantha. “As Dir says, it’s what I do.”

Samantha waited.

More expletives from Wayne filled the air, but Kal didn’t do the hand-waving thing.

“Um… so?”

“So what?”

“Are you going to”—she swept her hand up and down in front of her
djellaba
—“you know, replace this?”

“Is that what you wish, Samantha?”

“Do I have to say ‘I wish’ any time I want something?”

Kal nodded. “I can’t do anything to you unless you specifically wish it.”

“That seems excessive. Why can’t you just go with implied wishes? And aren’t I supposed to only get three?”

Kal arched an eyebrow. “Don’t believe the mythology. You get a lot more than three, and you should be thankful that you have to make a specific wish because that way, a genie can’t do anything to the master that the master doesn’t want. Just think if the genie didn’t like the master. Or if a genie’s magic got out of control. A lot could happen, so there are rules.”

“You’re going to have to go over those with me because you gave me food and wine when I hadn’t asked for them.”

“That’s different. I can conjure up things to give you comfort, but I can’t do something to your person without your express wish.”

She knew a few things he could do to her person…

So much for being burned by Albert; being burned by Kal was so much better.

Samantha cleared her throat and prayed he couldn’t tell her face was burning. “Alrighty then. I wish you’d conjure up an appropriate outfit for me.”

Kal waved his fingers again, but Samantha didn’t have any sensation of her clothes disappearing or something new showing up on her body. One second she was in the
djellaba
and the next—

“Are you kidding me?” She fingered the yellow-green gauzy harem pants and half shirt. Typical guy.

She brushed the orange glitter away and glared at him—and tried not to notice that he was anything but typical. Heart-stoppingly devastating with the wind blowing through his hair, that same wind tossing the edges of his vest aside as he stood there, hands fisted on his hips, looking like something out of every woman’s fantasy. Definitely a guy but definitely
not
typical.

“I wasn’t attempting to be humorous, Samantha.”

Good thing because she wasn’t laughing.

No, she was mentally smacking herself upside the head. Leprechauns and gnomes, a dragon who could fry her to a crisp, Albert’s betrayal… and she was obsessing over a good-looking guy? And not only that, but a guy who’d put her in
this
? Talk about sexist.

She shoved her hands to her hips, but the anger dissipated somewhat when she felt those missing pounds. She had to admit, that felt nice. But still… “Seriously, Kal. A harem outfit?”

Kal spread his arms. The vest gapped open again—thank you God and the wind—and his washboard rippled. “I’m wearing something similar and it keeps me cool. I didn’t intend to offend you, Samantha. You asked for appropriate; that outfit is appropriate for Izaaz.”

When he put it like that… She was going to have to watch what she wished for around him.

And then the dragon let loose with another blast of fiery hot air, and the fringe on the corner of the carpet ignited with a
whoosh!
and her outfit was the least of her concerns.

The rug lurched, throwing Samantha into Kal’s arms again, and the two of them tumbled to the carpet while the lantern and Kal’s sword went sliding toward the edge.

Samantha managed to hook the lantern on the curled part of her harem girl footwear, but the sword went sailing over the edge.

With Dirham not far behind.

Samantha had two seconds to worry after the fox’s high-pitched “Kaaaaaaaallllllllll!” sailed away with the wind before the carpet started spinning out of control and her worry shifted to the here and now—

And the soon-to-come crashing around them, because she and Kal were going down!

Samantha grabbed hold of Kal’s shoulders and hid her face in his neck as the carpet spiraled downward. She didn’t want to die like this.

She didn’t want to die, period.

“I wish you’d get us out of this!” she yelled as the wind ripped through her hair and she prayed that was all it ripped through.

“As you wish, Samantha.” Kal’s voice rumbled against her ear, and for a moment she forgot they were in dire circumstances.

But then they landed, and even though the landing was gentle, straddling the branch of a giant palm tree while being half wrapped around a half-naked guy was a bit dire in and of itself. Especially since
she
was half-naked, too. And with her emotions raw and her ego fragile, this probably wasn’t the best position to find herself in—though her nerve endings might disagree.

Samantha disengaged herself as quickly as possible and grabbed the lantern off her slipper. “This isn’t quite what I was expecting.” Which would be to find herself back in Dad’s office. “But at least we’re not up a creek. Though it sure feels like it.”

“I can set you down in one if you wish.” Kal brushed something off her cheek. Probably orange sparkles; they went everywhere his magic did. “The palm was closer—and dryer—and you didn’t specify.”

“Semantics, I know.” Trying to ignore the tingles from where his fingers had brushed her skin—and failing miserably even though they’d almost plummeted to Earth and died, but hey, apparently that was reason enough for her hormones to be on high alert—Samantha yanked her crop top down so she wasn’t flashing any of the coconuts. And, no, that wasn’t a euphemism, thank you very much.

Samantha adjusted her shirt again. At least Kal hadn’t gotten an eyeful, though she thought he might have gotten a handful when she’d fallen on him. Her thighs went all quivery at that thought.

She readjusted her seat on the wide branch—because the bark was rough, not because there was any tingling going on
between
her thighs.

Okay, so maybe there was, but they’d only shared
one
kiss; why was she making it so much more than what it was? But oh, what it’d been…

Samantha cleared her throat again and glanced at the tree trunk. “So how do we get down? And why the tree? Why not the ground?”

“Have you looked at the ground?”

Samantha peeled back one of the fronds. The fight had escalated into a cartoonlike cloud of white dust with arms, legs, hooves, a couple of hats, and a shillelagh or two sticking out all over the place.

More troops kept arriving from every corner. Packs of gnomes and leprechauns. A bunch of beings she didn’t recognize. More ogres. Or trolls. She hadn’t gotten an answer to what Orkney and his cousins were yet, but they sure could shot-put a gnome.

One of the victims landed about fifty feet from the fray, jumped to his knees, yanked his pointed hat down over his ears, and army-crawled back in. “I’ll show you, you… you… wig wannabe!”

Samantha winced when the handle of a gnome’s pitchfork landed across the backs of a leprechaun’s thighs, sending him crashing atop something small and furry.

“Is this a common occurrence?”

Kal shrugged. “Gnomes are always itching for a fight.”

Another centaur bounded from one of the stone tepee things, along with something that looked a lot like that jackalope she’d accused Dirham of being.

Dirham! “Kal—where’s Dirham? Is he going to be okay?”

Kal pointed to the sky. “Coming up on the right.”

Dirham rode by on the back of the feathered pterodactyl, or whatever it was, waving and bobbing up a storm with a grin stretching along the sword blade he held in his teeth. When he was overhead, he dropped it to Kal.

“He seems to be enjoying himself,” Samantha said.

“I’m sure he is. It’s not every day Kismet allows someone to ride her.”

The pterodactyl angled up and her head skimmed the ceiling. Dirham ducked.

“And that’s a good thing because…?”

Kal’s pecs flexed when he brushed his hair off his forehead. “Kismet is a Simurgh, the last of her race. She carries all the knowledge of the world on her shoulders. It’s a heavy burden and, to carry someone else, even someone as small as Dirham, well, it’s incredibly difficult for her.”

“But very unselfish.”

Kal nodded. “Kismet’s a good egg.”

The funny thing about that statement—besides the pun—was that Kal wasn’t trying to be funny, so Samantha tried not to laugh. “So, um, how long are we going to have to stay up here? Can’t we go somewhere more comfortable?”

“Sure we can. Where do you wish to go?”

Kismet took Dirham in for a landing on the outskirts of the fight, a nice, gentle landing. Safe and sound. Which sounded pretty good right about now.

Then a blast of dragon fire sent two gnomes howling into the sewer grate on the side of the road, and safe and sound sounded
really
good. “Can I go home?”

Kal nodded. “Of course. Whenever you want. All you have to do is wish it, and it will be so.”

“No clicking my heels three times and saying, ‘there’s no place like home’?”

Kal’s arched an eyebrow. “If you feel the need.”

She smiled at that, but then the reality of her situation sneaked up on her. She should go back now because people would be wondering where she was. It was Dad’s memorial after all, and she should be there. Although… Dad
had
wanted her to have the combination tonight; he had to have figured she’d open the safe. Maybe he’d thought something like this would happen. Well, not the dragon and incinerating carpet she was sure, but the whole genie experience. But would he have expected her to leave?

Knowing Dad, he might have. But Dad wasn’t there to explain her absence to everyone.

“I guess we should go back. I’ve been gone at least an hour already, and if people haven’t started wondering where I am, they will soon. They’ll never believe this—unless you want to give a demonstration?”

“Most masters like to keep my existence a secret, Samantha. I’ve seen a lot of not-so-nice things happen when someone starts claiming to have a genie, from theft to attempted murder. You’d be best served not telling anyone.”

Which explained why her father had never told her about the lantern. Understandable, perhaps, but she wouldn’t have minded a little advance warning before the cloud of smoke had carried her out of one reality and into another. “But how will I explain my disappearance?”

“No explanations will be necessary. We’ll return to the time that you left.”

“You’re talking time travel?” She almost did lose her perch at that. Although… since he could perform magic and travel through the air, why not time, too?

Kal squinted. “Not time travel, per se. Meaning, I can’t take you back in time to a place where you didn’t exist, like the 1700s. I also can’t take you back to a place where you do exist because we don’t want two of you there at the same time. That causes all sorts of problems with the world’s axis, and there have been enough natural disasters lately.

“Unless, I drop you back into who you were at that point, but that can then negate everything that came after, starting you off on a cycle of redos. Given that, in all probability, you’d make the same decisions that landed you here in the first place, you could end up stuck in an endless loop, never moving forward, so I don’t recommend that, either.”

Her brain was on overload. What genies and time travel and natural disasters had in common was beyond her ability to assimilate at the moment, and as for an endless loop… well, she sort of felt like that now. Especially when their tree swayed as more ogres or trolls stampeded from a structure that looked like a 1950s drive-in restaurant.

“I can, however, return you to a place where you aren’t but could be,” Kal continued. “If, for instance, you want to travel the world or take an extended vacation, I can return you to the point in time immediately after you left and no one will ever know.”

“So if I decide I want to stay here for a while, it won’t matter when I go back? People will think I was there all along?”

“Exactly.”

Hmmm, that was something to consider because it wasn’t every day that someone got to talk with gnomes and be insulted by leprechauns. Fly on a flying carpet. Almost die on one. Kiss a genie.

Lip-locks aside, if Kal employed his little semantical time-manipulation trick, she’d have time to not only explore this new world, but also figure out what she was going to do with the company she’d inherited and her penchant for attracting hangers-on and fair-weather boyfriends.

This journey had bonus written all over it.

“Okay, so let’s say I hang out here for a while. Where are we? I mean, I know this is Izaaz, but where exactly is Izaaz? Are we still on Earth?” She shifted off the piece of bark that was cutting into her thigh.

Kal looked at her as if she’d asked him the size of his—well, as if she were out of her mind. But just because she might be didn’t invalidate her question.

“Of course we’re on Earth,” he said. “Where else would we be?”

She started counting off on her fingers. “Mars. Venus. Some planet I’ve never heard of. Another dimension. A distant time. The future. How the hell do I know? I’m talking to a genie, for God’s sake, on top of a palm tree on steroids, with gnomes and leprechauns and dragons fighting below me. You tell
me
where I am.”

Kal put a hand on her arm. “Son of a Sumerian—”

“Well, okay then,
don’t
tell me if it’s that big of a deal.”

“No, Samantha. Him.” Kal pointed to a second dragon waddling out from the drive-in, only this one’s scales looked like polished coal and it had two legs instead of four, and those looked like an eagle’s.

“Who’s he?”

Kal swung his leg over the branch and waved his hand. A classic Mercedes
poofed
out of nowhere in a shower of orange sparkles. A black, 1956 gull-wing coupe, if she wasn’t mistaken, and very nice. Dad had had one for a while.

Probably
this
one.

“Bart’s the baddest wyvern this side of the equator,” said Kal. “The other side, too, though I won’t say that to his face. His head’s inflated enough.”

“What’s the big deal? Can’t the other dragon take care of him?”

“That’s a problem. Maille has taken care of him before. He’s Maille’s mate, and theirs was never a happy union. They’ve been separated for about fifteen hundred years, I think. Bart being here doesn’t bode well. I need to get down there and make sure things don’t get out of control.”

Samantha looked at the jumble of body parts still tossing up dust, pitchforks, and the occasional gnome or two. Things could get worse?

The doors on the car raised, and Kal motioned for her to climb in. Then the car rotated in the air so he could.

“Any particular reason we’re not using the carpet?” Not
how
does
the
car
hang
out
in
midair
, or
did
my
father
fly
this, too,
just a question about the mode of transportation. Samantha tucked a few curls behind her ear. Well, she’d wanted to get away from all her troubles; she’d certainly done that.

Whether she’d inherited new ones or not remained to be seen.

“You mean, besides the fact that the carpet was torched?” Kal asked, waving his hand for the doors to close. Then he turned the steering wheel and the car angled
down
.

Samantha pulled on the seat belt in case this ride went the way of the carpet ride. “Don’t tell me there’s only one flying carpet in your world.”

“No, but around Bart, it’s a good idea to show some strength. The carpet’s a little too flimsy. And flammable.”

And a classic sports car was the perfect way to do macho. Kal might be a genie, but she’d been right; he actually was a typical guy.

Samantha clicked the seat belt. Obviously she wasn’t going anywhere yet. And that was good for a few reasons, including time for her to come to grips with all that was going on in her life—current situation notwithstanding—plus, it’d give Albert the chance to wonder where she’d gone. Maybe worry a little. Panic even, because without her, he’d have nothing.

The corners of her mouth twitched upward. Panicking would do Albert some good.