Djinn 3: What Would You Sacrifice?

Chapter 1 Today was a basement day. Given the decades’ worth of accumulation of items in the house, Dale Edinger tried to rotate around the areas he worked on cleaning. The house was part of an inheritance from his Aunt Mildred. When she had passed away a few months ago, he thought he had been prepared to deal with the legacy of her hoarding tendencies. He hadn’t counted on the magic or the djinn. “I’m going to be downstairs for a while,” Dale called into the kitchen where Riadh was doing dishes by the conventional method of actually washing them in the sink rather than using his ability as a djinn. “Do you need my help?” Riadh asked. “Enh, I hope not, but I’ll let you know.” Dale walked down the stairs into the basement. There were cupboards that needed to be emptied and shelves of boxes that had to be gone through. Some of the contents were probably mundane but others…could vary from weird to downright dangerous. He started with some of the boxes. Aunt Mildred had been a travel agent, or at least that had been half her career. Dale sat on the floor and began to sort through the contents of the box he had pulled down. Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore, Bryce Canyon, all the flyers and travel guides in this box were related to National Parks. The age of the information seemed to be mostly the 1970s and 80s. Nothing appeared to be unusual enough to save. One box down, too damn many to go. The next one was a weirder mix. In among “Visit scenic Maine” guides were tax returns and some old family photos and a box of Christmas ornaments. Dale was about to toss the plastic bag of ornaments back in the box for disposal when a tingling, or maybe that was closer to a buzzing sensation in his fingers got his attention. Taking magic lessons from a dragon had its uses. He opened the bag and plucked one of the ornaments out. It was glass, transparent with an artistic rendition of an angel drawn inside a recessed depression. Touching the painted image produced a feeling of euphoria with a side order of dizziness, not completely dissimilar from being totally hammered drunk. He sat there staring at it for an unknown number of minutes before he finally drew his thoughts back together enough to set it on the floor. Whoa. That was no average antique ornament. “Dale?” He heard the soft pat of bare feet on the stairs and saw Riadh coming down them. “Are you okay?” Riadh asked. “Yeah, fine. I found some…The Christmas ornaments in this bag are magic or enchanted or however you’d like to label them.” Riadh squatted down and picked up the ornament that lay separate. “I think maybe I remember these. Mistress Mildred jokingly referred to them as ‘Christmas joy balls.’ They were a trade for spell supplies.” “I touched that one and it gave me a buzz better than a fifth of tequila.” “I’ll put it back in the bag for you.” “No, let me. The last lesson from Summer was all about getting a better grip on not noticing magic when I needed to shut it down.” Dale took the glass ball from Riadh and tucked it gently back into the bag with the other ones. “If you could put this in the chest of drawers with the other sellable things…?” “Of course.” Riadh gave him a smile. “Are you almost done down here?” “By what stretch of the imagination would you assume that?” Dale cast a glance at the still mostly full shelves. “I only meant for today.” “No, I think I’ll put in a little more time. The box of national park flyers needs to go in the recycling. And I guess I need to pick something to work on next.” Dale stood and walked over to a metal cabinet affixed to the wall. He opened it and stood there in confusion. It was full of vases interspersed with canning jars, and the canning jars were full of…something.” Riadh stepped up behind him and looked over Dale’s shoulder. “Oh, those.” “I am having a what-the-f**k moment. What’s in the jars? It looks nasty as all hell.” “One summer in the 1980s Mistress Mildred went on a canning binge. Some of what she canned probably used to fall in the edible category…some not so much.” “Details please,” Dale said. “She did some tomatoes, and watermelon, that pickled stuff, and well she also tried her hand at demon.” “At what?” “Demon. The little ones that are hardly more sentient than the average snail.” Dale looked at Riadh, and then at the jars. “And exactly what did she plan on doing with them?” “They used to fetch a price for certain spell work, but not really so much anymore.” “What the hell do I do with all this stuff?” “Maybe you should ask Summer. She might have an idea,” Riadh suggested, referring to the “entity” that was mentoring Dale on the use of magic. “I’m scheduled to go see her tomorrow.” Dale shut the doors of the cabinet. “And I want to ask her about the bullet.” He didn’t especially want to think about watching Riadh bleed out and discorporate, but he did oh so definitely want to find out who had both broken into the house and fired the gun that shot Riadh. Riadh put a hand on Dale’s shoulder. “That’s probably a wise idea.”