a/n: So...lately I re-started The Amulet of Samarkand, and now I keep having this urge to raid Barnes and Noble in the middle of the night and steal the other two books. Because I don't have money to pay for them. But anyway...This is a bit AU, more or less. It's in England, but nowhere near where any of the other books take place. So...yes. Alright, have fun.

The moment I felt my essence shiver, I started muttering imprecations in every language I knew. (1) All my planes started to distort and become skewed, and I underwent what some humans would call an "oh shit" moment. (2) And it was at that exact moment that I knew who was summoning me. I didn't bother with the thematics; instead, as I began slipping from the Other Place to Somewhere, England, I began composing a well thought out, intelligent retort for my 'master'.

"You know full well, Mr. Mandrake, that I am not your friend, or your pet, or your form of entertainment. I am a djinni, and I damn well deserve to be treated like one."

Irritated as I was, I took a glance at dear old Nathaniel, stoic as ever, staring at me from his pentacle. I cocked an eyebrow; strange how much one boy can change in only a year or so. Nathaniel, somewhere in his later teenage years, now sported a mess of poorly dyed hair that appeared as though he had been electrified. Dark circles surrounded his eyes, premature exhaustion that was common in young magicians. It was amazing they lived past thirty. His schoolboy clothing had been discarded for more stylish (3) garb; greyed denim pants, a black shirt with slanderous words spattered across it, and a long trench coat, which I presumed was stolen as it was far too large and ragged to be his own. While I was looking, I gazed about the room into which I was being summoned, and seriously questioned what had happened to the once-innocent child. As far as I could tell, Nathaniel now resided in a flat barely large enough to house himself, and dark enough to obscure and owl's vision; I caught the scent of something burning that certainly wasn't incense.

"What the hell happened to you, Nathaniel?"

An estranged giggle escaped the boy, though his dark eyes remained cold. He did not answer, but instead bored those black pools into my forehead, glazed over and distant. I would have hit him if not for the fact that I was technically bound to his will, and he could technically, despite all my years of saving his sorry ass, subject me to horrible torture. Technically. Though I highly doubted that he would, he didn't seem quite...normal.

"Bartimaeus..." I heard the faintest murmur from the figure in the pentacle.

"That is what they call me." Perhaps my nonchalant manner of dealing with him would snap him back into reality and out of his hazed dreamland, like it once would have. No such luck. He only continued to stare. "What can I do for you, O Master?" Each word was so horribly facetious I thought even I would want to punch myself. But at least it got an answer out of Nathaniel.

"I...I summoned you because I needed to...say goodbye," he explained laboriously, voice still low and hoarse.

"Are you...going somewhere?" I didn't like where he was headed; I like to be in the know (4), and I was more befuddled than a chicken in a glass room. Another demented snicker came from the shadowed form, shaking his skeletal body. There was a sharp halt to his laughter, and I expected him to go into detail about this 'goodbye' ordeal. However, as meticulously as possible, he raised up his arm, curled his last three fingers to his palm, his thumb and forefinger remaining outward, and put the tip of his forefinger to his temple, then pressing down his thumb and jerking his head to the side. Another peal of laughter, just as hollow and haunted as the first. An unstable concoction of emotion bubbled up inside me, corked only by my sensibility. I had no idea what to think, how to respond; to be angry for being summoned for a reason I scarcely knew, to be impressed that someone had summoned me while under the influence, or to feel utter shock for the truth that was vaguely placed in front of me: Nathaniel, barely an adult, was going to pull the trigger.


(1) Which happens to be quite a few. I was angry.

(2) I've been picking up some modern human phrases, sadly. Oh, well. It's not like I could help living around them when a certain someone had been calling me up every other day for a few years.

(3) Stylish to whom, I can't be certain.

(4) Another phrase. Mind searing, I know. To me, at least.

a/n: Short, I know. Too bad for you.