I Wish…
Lina smiled triumphantly as she watched the very last bandit fall over in a crisped heap. There we go, then! Her crimson eyes scanned the area for the treasure that she knew was here. She'd tailed this group for a week.
She'd forgotten what fun it was to go blasting bandits on her own. Without the others to drag her down, she'd been moving a lot faster than normal. She'd even make it to Saillune tonight – three days early for the festival.
Digging into the treasure, she grinned. Three days longer to prepare things to be sold for even more money. She pocketed almost everything, leaving a small handful of things in front of her. She was running out of pockets, and there were a couple of things that still caught her eye.
There was a dagger… but she'd learned about mystery daggers, hadn't she? Better leave that behind. The bottle looked interesting enough, so she picked it up and put it in her pocket. That left the necklace and the tiara. Oh bother, better takes those too.
Cramming things into already full pockets, Lina turned and walked away, satisfied that she'd done enough today to warrant a nice room just outside of the Palace. Amelia wouldn't approve of Lina's enchanting the more ordinary objects just to sell them for a higher price.
In fact, Amelia wouldn't approve of the number of bandits that Lina had fried today.
Oh well.
Lina dumped everything onto the bed in front of her and looked it over with a skeptical eye. She picked up the bottle and looked at it. Now that she saw it in the light, it was rather plain. She should have left it behind.
She uncorked it, peering in, and sneezed at the dust.
"Bless you."
"Mmmm. Thanks… huh?" Lina jumped, looking over to see a smallish figure standing by the door. "Who are you?"
"Call me Gene. As in Genie," the blue eyes of the genie twinkled. "And I'm going to give you three wishes in exchange for my bottle back. You seem reasonable, what do you say?"
Lina's eyes narrowed. "Three wishes? Just for your bottle back? What happens if I don't give it back?"
"Then you get absolutely nothing but my company. And I can make you miserable."
Lina pondered. You, make me more miserable than Xellos can? I doubt it. But he could be useful for… "Okay, you've got a deal."
"Great!" The genie said, clapping his hands. "So, what's the first wish?"
Lina didn't really need to think it over. "I want a bag of gold that isn't fairy gold and never runs out."
The genie wrinkled his nose. "I see you know my people's tricks. Very well," with a wave, a bag appeared beside Lina.
Not being a fool, Lina pulled out several coins and transferred them to her pockets. If the bag vanished, she'd hopefully still have a few coins. "I know your tricks. I'm Lina Inverse. Now are you ready for my second wish, or do I have to wait a night?"
"No… if you know what you want, there's no sense in it. Go ahead," he sounded disappointed. Of course, the supernatural knew of Lina Inverse. This particular genie hadn't known she was in his area, or he'd stayed away from the bandits. Relying on mortals to travel was so risky…
Lina was good at handling genies and fairys. She'd grown up doing it. "Okay. I want another bag, but this time I want it to have an endless supply of food. Whatever I ask it for, I want it to produce."
The genie sagged, waving his hand and watching the bag appear. "Look, I think I know where the last wish is headed, so can we just get this over with?"
Lina grinned. "No, you don't know what my third wish is. So I'll have to tell it to you very carefully…"
She leaned over and whispered something in the genie's ear. "And if you don't get it right, you don't get your bottle until he's cured. Got me?" That was the whole deal. If Lina didn't let go, the genie was forced to stay near her. And she knew he'd be easier to deal with than Xellos.
The genie's eyes widened. "But… that…"
"Did I ask for your opinion? Just do it, or I'll Dragon Slave you from right here into the next century!" Lina snapped.
"Fine, fine!" The genie cringed at the thought of Lina's Dragon Slave, and waved his hand. "It's done."
As luck would have it, someone else was staying at the same hotel that night. He'd seen Lina's name on the register, but her door was shut, so he figured she was asleep.
If she had been, she wasn't anymore.
When he walked by the mirror in the hallway, it was so startling that he hollered loudly enough to potentially wake the dead.
Lina stuck her head out into the hallway, completely unsurprised by this turn of events. People had ways of turning up around her. She looked, grinned, and called out. "Hey Zel, good to see you." She paused just long enough for him to look at her, and the shock in his eyes almost caused her to double over in laughter. "You look good. See you in the morning, neh?"
She shut the door and looked at the genie. "Fine, fine." She threw the bottle at the genie and went back to the treasure on the bed.
Outside in the hallway, Zelgadis just stared.
He 'looked good?'
He looked… human.