Genie Knows Best (4 page)

Literally
fading into the background. Sparkles and all.

While Samantha was still processing that, the gnomes, en masse, raised their pitchforks.

And then all hell broke loose.

The leprechauns started dropkicking the gnomes, their curses in a brogue so heavy that Samantha couldn’t understand a word anyone said. Then Orkney and his cousins started stomping the ground, which sent the fox into an apoplectic frenzy of bouncing, the phoenix
poofed
back into existence in a crackling burst of flames, the centaur pranced around the edges playing whack-a-gnome, and the dragon swung around to join in the fray, her long, sinewy tail almost slicing Samantha in half, if not for tall, dark, and genie-ish grabbing her out of the way.

Well,
grab
wasn’t exactly the right word. Samantha wasn’t sure what the right word was for what Kal did because he simply waved his hand and she went—

Flying
across the sky!

Albert Viehl flipped his phone closed and, with Henley’s threats still ringing in his ears, barely refrained from throwing it across the biggest guest suite in Samantha’s home. He didn’t want to have to pay for wallpaper repairs when he moved in as soon as she accepted his proposal. That she would, he had no doubt. He wished Henley wouldn’t doubt it either—and he wished Monty had died six months earlier so that this nightmare would be over already.

Albert leaned against the headboard and dropped the phone onto the pillow. No sense crushing it in his fist; that would just be one more expense he’d have to cover. His funds were a little low.

A
lot
low.

He eyeballed the phone. Henley was getting impatient. With good reason. Albert owed him too much money for it to be written off. If only he’d stopped when he was into the thug for the first hundred grand…

Albert flung his forearm over his eyes. What the hell was the combination to that safe? Monty had been the sentimental sort, so Albert had tried every date that could possibly be special to the man, but none had worked.

He needed that genie.

Albert stood up and shoved his phone into his pocket. What a coup it’d been the day he’d gone looking for Monty to ask for Samantha’s hand in marriage. She was the quickest way to get his hands on a huge amount of cash, and if he didn’t love her, well, hell, her bank account was an equitable trade, and her utter lack of interest in anything resembling business would give him carte blanche to plunder it. But then he’d seen Monty conjure up that genie and plans had changed.

He’d listened to the two of them chat while they’d played chess. He’d heard it all, how Monty and his wife had found the genie’s lantern in the Moroccan marketplace and then discovered the genie inside, and how the genie’s magic had made the company what it was today.

And now the lack of that magic was sending the company spiraling down the tubes. Just like Albert’s gambling career and bank account. Jesus, he should have stopped months ago.

He needed that combination.

He headed into the sitting room. With Samantha occupied playing hostess, and the housekeeper, Pitbull Wanda, directing the staff in the kitchen, now was the perfect time to search the old man’s office yet again.

He paused in front of the full-length mirror in the sitting room and adjusted his robe. Samantha’s insistence that everyone dress in costume had been a boon; he’d sneaked inside the house without anyone noticing, and he’d go out the same way.

He reached for the fez he’d set onto the table beside the love seat—

Samantha’s earring was on the cushion. It hadn’t been when he’d put his hat there.

She’d been in this room. Had she heard him? Did she know?

Damn
! Albert ran from the room and tore down the steps. He had to find the lantern before she did or he was going to be shit out of luck.

Outside Monty’s office, cold sweat snaked down his back. The door was ajar. Dim light bled beneath it.

He listened but didn’t hear anything inside. Good. Maybe Samantha was in her room crying because of what she’d overheard. Albert would be, too, if he wasn’t so pressed for time.

The door swung open on well-oiled hinges—perfection that could be traced to genie magic. Probably how Samantha had gotten the drop on him upstairs.

Biting back the fear that his meal ticket had been fried to a crisp, Albert went inside.

No Samantha.

He exhaled, then caught his breath when he saw the safe. The door was open.

For a second—the tiniest, barest of seconds because no one would ever say Albert wasn’t an opportunist—he stared at the open door as if it couldn’t be real. And then he moved, practically vaulting the desk to get to the safe.

It was empty. Well, not completely empty: two bags were inside, but the lantern, the most important thing, was gone. Samantha must have found it.

Cold swamped his body. Could genies do invisibility? Were the two of them watching him right now to see what he’d do?

“Samantha? Honey?” He spun around, putting worry on his face. Not that he had to work at it, but he had to make it look like the worry was for her, not himself. “I don’t know what you think you heard, but you obviously didn’t hear the whole thing or you wouldn’t have left. I love you, babe. This is just a simple misunderstanding.”

Nothing. Not a single breath of anything fluttered the letter on Monty’s desk.

“Samantha?” He listened.

Nothing.

The bitch had taken the genie. She’d grabbed that lantern and left him to fend for himself. Some fiancée she was.

And where the fuck was she? Walking around the party, or had the pampered princess gone somewhere else? St. Moritz? Monaco? The South Pacific? Christ, she could afford whatever she wanted even without the genie; what more could she possibly want?

Albert cursed. It wasn’t fair. He’d been following her around like a lapdog, hoping for a few crumbs from the almighty Blaine table, and
she
ended up with the all-powerful being.

What the
fuck
was he going to do? Henley was going to kill him if he didn’t pay up. He had to come up with something—

The bags!

Albert turned back to the safe. If Monty had locked them up with his prized possession, they had to be worth something. Maybe enough to get Henley off his back.

He removed one of the bags and dumped a six-inch, orange crystal obelisk onto his palm. Light from the desk lamp prismed through it, scattering tiny particles of orange in the air. He doubted it was a gemstone because the cut was one he’d never seen, and the fact that Samantha had left it here would support that idea. The woman did know jewelry—especially when one of her pieces had gone missing. That’d been the last time he’d taken anything from her seemingly endless stash.

He set the bauble on the desk, where it threw orange sparkles onto the blotter in a trick of the light. Then he removed the other bag and untied its strings.

A thick, gold coin slid out. As big as his palm, the weight alone would mark it as valuable, but the profile etched onto one side of a woman in an Egyptian headdress made it even more so.

This was an old coin. An old gold coin. A
big
old gold coin. And if that profile was who he thought it was… Had that genie given Monty some treasure from Cleopatra’s coffers?

Giddiness trickled out in the form of a muffled laugh. Oh yeah, this could more than take care of Henley.

Albert sat in the old man’s chair and set the coin on the blotter. He traced the profile. Cleopatra. Gold. He was rich. Beyond rich.

But he still wanted that genie. Monty had gone for small potatoes, wanting his company to be the best, never grasping his treasure’s full potential. Albert sure did. With that genie, he’d be the most powerful man on Earth.

He lifted the crystal in his other hand. First, a priceless genie lantern, then the rare coin. There had to be more to this crystal than met the eye.

Rotating it caused orange sparkles to shimmer in the air behind the desk—orange sparkles in the shape of a man. Albert waved the crystal around. More sparkles formed a path in the air from the safe to the image, and Albert’s pulse rate picked up. And then…

The outline of a lantern shimmered on the desk in front of him, and Albert almost let out a whoop. He’d found the genie—or, actually, a way to track him.

Albert tucked the crystal and the coin inside the breast pocket of the suit jacket he wore beneath the robe, and patted them in place against his heart. Gold might be intrinsically valuable, but that crystal tracking device was, to him, even more.

She wasn’t going to cut him off that easily. Albert Viehl did not go down without a fight.

His fingertips stroked the coin. Now if only he could find her… He wished he knew where the genie and Samantha had gone.

And, in a surprising
poof
of golden glitter, he was off to find out.

“What the—!” Samantha grabbed hold of Kal’s arm when she landed next to him on a carpet that was a good thirty feet above the ground.

There was nothing good about being on a carpet thirty feet off the ground. Actually, there was something seriously
wrong
with being thirty feet off the ground on a carpet that was supposed to be
on
that ground.

“What just happened? What are we doing up here?” she asked, trying to catch both her breath and her balance, the latter made easier by her now-missing shoes that were probably back on Earth somewhere—if that’s where she’d been to begin with.

“The natives got restless.”

Two questions, one answer. It was a good thing that Kal had covered her hand with his to keep her from falling off the edge of the carpet, but with the impossibility of what she was seeing, not to mention the
flying
thing, plus the kiss, plus the fact that he was a genie,
plus
the dragons
and
the gnomes
and
the leprechauns
and
the unicorns
and
the—what was Orkney? An ogre? Or a troll? Which ones were taller?

Was she really contemplating a correct answer for that question? Why? What difference would it make if he was an ogre or a troll or even an island bum with that hair? None of it would make her feel any steadier.

And then Kal put his arm around her and tucked her against him.

Now
that
, on the other hand, would.

But then the fox flew by, dangling from the fairies’ ribbons, and any steadiness went flying off with the breeze that had turned the little thing’s ears inside out. Then her knees gave out from under her, and she sank onto the carpet.
The
flying
carpet
.

“Uh, Kal? Iph you woul-n-t mind…” the fox said around the ribbons in his mouth.

Kal drew his scimitar and cut the ribbons so that the fairylike
peris
could deposit Dirham on the rug. Samantha scooted out of the way—though not too far. The carpet wasn’t that big, and she doubted the fringe would hold her.

That sentence would have made no sense a half hour ago.

Dirham bounced to his feet—the only surprise there was that he didn’t bounce higher—and shook his head. His ears flipped right side out again.

Kal knelt down and tapped him on the snout. “Settle down, Dirham. I was just about to explain to Samantha what all of that is.” He waved his hand toward the melee in the street.

“Ooh! Ooh!” There went Dirham bouncing again, one paw in the air as if he were in a classroom. “I know! I know! Let me tell her! Let me!”

Kal smiled, and Samantha’s heart stuttered.

Sheesh
… She rolled her eyes. This was neither the time nor the situation to find a guy attractive. Even if she was single. Newly single. So
newly
that her ex didn’t know it yet. But definitely single—and Kal was definitely attractive. Combine that with his genie-in-shining-orange chivalry, and Kal was already light years beyond Albert in the Prince Charming department.

“So what happened is this.” Dirham settled down with a halfhearted and half-heighted bounce. “Maille—the dragon—insulted the
peris,
and since
peris
are related to gnomes, Fritz took offense. Seamus did, too. Leprechauns are very particular about their gold, you know, especially because they think gnomes are beneath them.” Another bounce had Dirham’s tail flicking Samantha’s cheek. “Actually, considering gnomes live underground, I guess that’s true.”

Samantha brushed a tiny fur ball off her eyelash. “I am
so
not in Kansas anymore.”

Dirham cocked his head to the side. “But you weren’t in Kansas before.”

She couldn’t help smiling at his earnest confusion. “I know. I was in my father’s office.”

The fox grinned—and there was so much wrong with just those three simple words, she ought to keep a running list of wrong things she and everyone else around her said. It’d probably end up being longer than that dragon’s tail—

And there was another one.

“We were there, too, you know. We were inside the safe.” Dirham stopped bouncing long enough to scratch one of his ears with his back foot.

“And
you
know that that’s not a normal sentence, right?”

“But it’s the truth.” The fox looked confused.

Samantha patted him on the head. “So you guys live in the lantern?”

“Oh, not me. I just visit,” said Dirham. “But Kal does.”

“Not if I can help it,” the genie muttered.

The tone was what surprised her. Didn’t living in a lantern go with the whole genie gig? “You don’t like your lantern?”

He glanced at her, then away. “It’s not that. It’s just that the outside world isn’t as… solitary.”

“And it’s bigger,” the fox added with a bounce. “Prettier.” A higher bounce. “And the air is better.” He almost landed off the carpet.

Kal caught him and set him in the middle. “That, too, Dir.”

The “solitary” part struck Samantha because she knew exactly what he meant. With Dad gone, she was alone in the house, even with the staff there. The closest thing she had to a family was Wanda, the housekeeper who’d practically raised her. But Wanda went home to her own family. It just wasn’t the same. Albert was supposed to have filled that void, but that obviously wasn’t going to go as planned. Not that she wanted it to anymore.

But she did want someone in her life. Someone she could laugh with and make memories and a family and a future with. Someone who cared about her wants and needs because he cared about
her
, not because he wanted her to toss a bunch of stock shares into his portfolio. Looked like she was back to square one on that front.

A flame of purple smoke singed the tips of the gold fringe, grabbing Samantha’s attention. She looked over the edge of the rug. Orkney’s hair was singed, too. Or was that one of his cousins? She couldn’t tell because they all looked alike. “I really wish someone would explain all of this to me. In terms that make sense.” A definite pipe dream, but then, a girl could always hope.

“As you wish, Samantha.” Kal waved his hand, and the carpet behind them folded itself to resemble a step. He removed his sword and laid it on the rug, then brushed aside the orange glitter that seemed to accompany his magic and sat down. “Please make yourself comfortable.”

Comfortable? On a flying carpet? She raised her eyebrows but leaned back when he waved his hand again. The “step” gave way, contouring to her back and cradling her with just the right amount of support. She didn’t even have any sensation of flying; if not for the wind blowing in her hair and the fact that they were thirty feet off the ground, she wouldn’t have thought anything of it. But they were and she did, and oh God—they were
flying
.

“I have a feeling I’m never going to be comfortable again.” She gripped the lantern in her lap with both hands.

“They all say that at first,” Dirham said, his bounce somewhat subdued.

“They?”

“My masters,” Kal answered, leaning back and stretching his long legs out in front of him.

“But then they start making wishes and pretty soon they’re very comfortable.” Dirham circled around and settled down, the tip of his bushy tail flicking like a metronome keeping time for “Flight of the Bumblebee.”

“So.” Samantha set the lantern on the rug beside her thigh. “You’re a genie. Like Aladdin’s.”

Dirham squeaked and his fur bristled. “Kal? Like them? I think not.”

Kal patted the fox’s head. “Thanks, buddy.” He scrubbed his jaw. “Aladdin’s genies were women. That history got lost in translation.”

“You mean the mythology did.”

“Mythology?” Dirham hopped to his feet—nothing new there. “Mythology? You can say that? Take a look down there.” He leaned so far over the edge that Samantha was afraid he’d fall off. “You call
them
mythological?”

Orkney howled when the dragon singed his hair again. Now he had a bald spot above the mullet he had going on behind his left ear.

“Good point.” Samantha strummed her fingers on the carpet—something normal at last. Not common, but normal. Would wonders never cease?

And then a gnome went flying straight up in the air on a plume of purple smoke like a whale’s spout, his little legs pinwheeling without a bicycle.

No, apparently they wouldn’t.

“So how do you know the mytho—er, history is wrong? You didn’t actually
know
Aladdin, did you?” Although… Kal had mentioned something about a century. When had Aladdin lived?

Had
Aladdin lived? Wasn’t he just some story Scheherazade came up with to save her life?

Samantha wouldn’t mind having a story like that to save her sanity right now.

“No,” said Kal. “Thank the cosmos, Aladdin and I never crossed paths. And before you ask, I didn’t know any of the forty thieves either.”

“What about Scheherazade?”

A tiny smile crept across his face. “Yes. I knew Sherry.”

Something twisted in Samantha’s belly. It made no sense, but that was the least of the things that didn’t make sense right now.

He shook his head. “But that’s ancient history, Samantha.”

Really ancient. So ancient Samantha didn’t even want to contemplate how ancient it was. Or how he could have known
Sherry
, and she didn’t mean in the biblical sense, more the chronological one because she really didn’t want to know if he knew
Sherry
in the biblical sense, thank you very much.

“For now, while my lantern is in your possession, you are my master, and I’m here to serve you. Is there anything you wish?” He waved his hand and a mug appeared in it. “Coffee?” Another wave had some breakfast pastries magically appearing. “Croissant? Or what about this?” A bowl of fruit was next, followed by a four-course meal.

Each one appeared in a shower of orange glitter and the blink of an eye as if they weren’t there one second, then, the next, they were. Which actually was what happened, but that didn’t explain why it happened or how it happened, and she didn’t really think there
was
an explanation, which put the suddenly appearing food back in the insanity category again—

Just like the leprechaun that went flying on the dragon smoke this time, him going one way, his hat the other.

“I wish that guy could have his hat back.”

Yes, that was what she wished. Not for unicorns or magically appearing biscotti, but that the mythological creature should get his hat back.

She had to be losing her mind. Had to be.

But if she was, then the leprechaun had to be, too, because when he fell back to Earth, he had his hat clutched in his hands.

She watched him go all the way down. He slid off the phoenix’s gold wing, landed on the centaur, who bucked him off like a bronco—which technically, she guessed, he was—then flopped sideways over the dragon’s back, sliding down the tail to land on top of another leprechaun, and his hat went flying again.

She glanced at the half-naked hottie. The
genie
. “I thought that wasn’t supposed to happen?”

Kal shrugged. “You only wished for him to get it back. Not keep it.”

As if that made any sense. Samantha rolled her eyes. “Semantics? You’re going to focus on semantics?”

“It’s my job.”

Everybody with the job thing. Like they were waiters or doctors or parking attendants instead of talking animals and fantastical myths come to life. She shook her head. “This is surreal.”

“Tell me about it,” said Dirham, curling his tail around himself at the corner of the carpet. “The place has changed a lot since I was here last.”

She reached for a piece of the biscotti and then remembered that it had appeared out of nowhere and snatched her hand back. “Where exactly is
here
?”

“Ah.” Kal crossed his legs and waved his hand. The food disappeared with a tiny crackle—or maybe that was the coffee mug clanking against the dinner plates as they flew off to wherever magically appearing foodstuffs disappear to—and an old map appeared on the rug in front of them. Kal lifted it to shake off the glitter.

“What’s that? A pirate’s treasure map?” She leaned forward. The map looked more brittle than parchment, but there were decorations on the side, pictures of monsters undulating beneath the waves, and intricate drawings of strange plants and beings. No big red X, though.

She was buying into this whole fairy tale way too much.

You
have
another
explanation
for
the
flying
thing?

Yeah, that was a problem.

“Pirates would give all of their bounty to get their hooks on this.” Kal tugged the map closer. “No, it’s a map of Izaaz.”

“Is what?”

“Izaaz. Otherwise known as
Madeenat
Al-saqf Al-zojaajey
. The City of the Glass Ceiling.”

“Glass ceiling? Why would anyone name a city after an antiquated, sexist corporate structure?”

Kal raised an eyebrow. “Because we’re under one?” He pointed up.

Samantha followed his finger. All she saw was sunshine. “I don’t see anything.”

“Try a pair of sunglasses.”

“But I don’t have—”
Any
sunglasses
was what she was going to say, but before she could, he waved his hand and two display shelves full of designer glasses materialized out of thin air in a sparkle of orange.

Thin
air.
That
was why she was having trouble catching her breath. The air was thin. That explained it.

Um… no.

She was half afraid to touch the glasses. Like gnomes and talking foxes, these shouldn’t exist. Not floating in the middle of the sky. Then again,
she
shouldn’t be floating in the middle of the sky, so what was one more thing?

“Go on, Samantha. Try some on,” said Dirham.

Hesitantly, she took a pair and put them on, and instantly she got a perspective on exactly what Kal meant.