Chapter 4: Beginning of a Quest

After their classes were over for the day at the university, David and Kristine met up with each other outside on the steps. "Boy, I'm beginning to wonder if those jewels are having an effect on my mind now," said Kristine.

"Then you felt it too?" David asked.

"Too?" Kristine asked. "What do you mean?"

"In the middle of a report I was reading before the class," said David, "I abruptly swooned when I thought I saw a vision of somebody helping Rachel in some way. Rachel was hurt and bleeding, but the woman in the vision healed her somehow. It felt almost as if I had received a vision from Heaven itself."

"You did?" exclaimed Kristine, "I had a vision much different. I envisioned Rachel being thrown around her lab by something invisible. She was all bloody there, too, and when it ended, she fell on the ground and died! I screamed for a second, and my professor asked me if I needed to take a time-out from class. I assured him that I was fine, and I kept my self-control for the rest of class time."

"When I zoned out," said David, "my professor scolded me for spacing out while speaking a report I should've been able to recite even in my sleep."

"Yeah, people can be so picky these days," said Kristine. "But what do you think those visions meant? Did something bad happen to Rachel?"

"And could it be connected to those jewels we gave her?" David agreed.

"I say that we pay her a visit before we go home," Kristine suggested, "After all, we did promise her that we would."

"I agree," said David, "Let's roll!"

When they arrived at the building, they went straight for the front door and ran up the steps to look for Rachel. When they reached the lab, the sight shocked them, to say the least.

"Oh my God," Kristine whispered, "What happened in here?"

"Rachel?" David called out. She didn't come out to meet them. "Rachel?" Kristine tried. Still, no Rachel.

"I'll look around the inside," said David, "You check the outside, Krissy."

Kristine ran out to do so. David looked around every nook and cranny. The piled up food and water puzzled him, and he didn't remember Rachel having a bed in her lab. That was odd. Soon, he also noticed that both of the gems were nowhere to be found.

"Where's the sapphire?" he muttered to himself. "Where's the fire opal? Oh, I hope Kristine has better luck than I am."

Suddenly he heard a screech from outside. He looked up, and for the first time he noticed the shattered window in the back of the lab. He ran out of the building and to the back.

Kristine looked absolutely horrified, and when David saw why, he too was aghast with grief. There was Rachel lying on the ground, unmoving, bleeding everywhere, her clothes torn in many places, and a broken neck and spine. It looked like two shards of glass had gouged out her eyes. She was quite clearly dead.

One would normally expect the woman or the girl to burst into tears at a sight like this. But it was in fact David who cried almost uncontrollably at the gruesome sight on the ground. He had always loved Rachel like an unrequited love interest, and would do many things to insure her safety, and here she was, dead in a pool of blood on the ground, right outside her own lab.

Kristine joined him in his weeping for a minute, but more quietly. "I can't believe she could end up like this," she said. "And just this morning she seemed to be doing so well!"

David dried his eyes as best he could, which was a mighty feat, and he said, "I'm gonna nail him, Krissy. I may not be a cop or a vigilante, but I'm gonna find out who did this, and make sure he pays dearly!"

"Now, David," said Kristine, "Don't get any ideas."

"But I already have one!" he said sharply. "Rachel is lying dead on the ground right before our eyes, mangled as though she had been put through some kind of slicing machine. And you want me to not get any ideas? To hell with that!"

"At least hold on to your sanity, for God's sake Peter!" Kristine snapped, "Even if this idea made sense, you won't do anybody any good by losing your self-control! I mean, this is so unlike you!"

"I'm telling you, Krissy," David argued angrily, "I am gonna get whoever did this and teach him a lesson. And you're going to help me."

"What?!" she exclaimed, "No, you're not getting me involved in your private vendetta, especially not against my will!"

"Blast it, Krissy," said David, "Your head is the one that's stuck, not mine! You're haunted by these strange visions just as much as I am! You seemingly awoke something in that opal just like I did with that sapphire! And Rachel was your friend as much as she was mine! She even offered to have you as a girlfriend before you rebuffed her as politely as you could! Face it, Krissy, you're in this just as deeply as I am. And if dad ever finds out what we've been up to, he'll never forgive us for it. We have to do this together."

Kristine groaned in defeat. "Fine, then," she retorted, "I'll help. But I'll do it for Rachel, and to stop a maniac, and not because I want to be complicit in your private vendetta, you got that, brother?"

David looked at her mildly. "Yes, sister. That was all I wanted right now."

Back inside the lab, they couldn't find any evidence of foul play besides the horrific mess the lab was in. David told Kristine that the sapphire and the opal were both gone. "Someone must have taken them with him, or her," he speculated. "Something tells me that those stones might have played a part in Rachel's death."

"What do you think we should do about it?" Kristine asked him.

"Dad promised us that he would have enough time for a big dinner tonight with us," said David. "Now we can't reveal just yet that we nosed around in those gold boxes he dug up. I suggest we casually ask him some questions about Arabic and Islamic folklore, since the markings on the boxes resemble those cultures. Maybe he knows something about it, or maybe he can direct us to someone who has better knowledge of it than he does."

"We might as well, I guess," said Kristine. "It sounds as good a plan as any. Can you help me think of some casual questions I can ask dad on our way home, David?"

"I'm sure I can, Krissy," said David.

That evening, at the dinner table, as David and Kristine did their best not to remember Rachel's messy corpse, Howard brought out a duck and some rolls and vegetables to eat. His assistant, Gerald, had been invited, as well, and sat opposite his boss at the table while David and Kristine sat across from each other. They didn't feel entirely comfortable with one of their dad's helpers at the dinner table with them, but they decided to take a chance and talk to Howard with Gerald's presence.

"How does the duck taste, kids?" Howard asked his children.

"Oh, it's good," said David as cheerfully as he could. "You really know how to cook, dad."

"Yeah, dad," said Kristine, "though I think someday I should show you some more of the ins and outs of real cooking. This is good, but I think there's room for improvement."

"Well, that's why I ask for criticism as well as praise," said Howard, "And I'm glad I taught you both how to criticize as well as how to praise."

"Thanks, dad," said Kristine, "Uh, listen dad," he said, choosing her words carefully, "I'm curious. I'm going to be doing some courses in one of my classes about Persian and Arabic mythology, and I was wondering if you could tell me anything about…what sort of supernatural stuff they believed in, or what kind of magic they practiced. The information could get me a good grade on my next assignment."

"Really?" said Howard pleasantly, "Well, I know that they were both Zoroastrian and Islamic, and those cultures have long believed in strange spirits existing alongside mankind, spirits besides God's angels and the Devil's demons, that is. But I'm afraid I don't know a great deal beyond that; I'm afraid you'll have to find someone else to ask, I'm sorry."

"Oh," said Kristine. David gestured to her sidelong. "Well, uh, do you know of anyone who could give us better answers about this question?"

"Oh, so David's interested too," said Howard curiously, "Well, that's all right. I'm glad my boy and my girl appreciate education."

"Excuse me, Howard," said Gerald suddenly, "but what about Marcus Jones, the folklore professor at the university? He knows a lot about Persian and Islamic history and folklore. Maybe he could help David and Krissy out."

"Oh yeah," said Howard, "Why didn't I think of that myself? Thanks for the suggestion, Gerald."

"Who's Marcus Jones?" inquired David.

"Dr. Marcus Jones," said Howard reverently, "He specializes in Middle Eastern material, everything from folklore to geography and spirituality. Some of the other professors consider him a legend, partly because he's seventy years old."

"Spirituality," David whispered to himself. He winked at Kristine. "That sounds terrific, dad. Is it possible for us to meet Dr. Jones?"

"I can arrange an appointment with him," said Howard, "He'll probably be able to see you either tomorrow or the day after."

David and Kristine weren't too thrilled about hearing that they might have to wait until the day after, but they thanked their father for the offer anyway, and said that any time would be good for them.

"Fantastic," said Howard, "Now let's finish this meal with some lighter talk than this, okay?"

In another part of town, it was getting darker. An old bum in a hat and trench coat was walking up to a pharmacy store, grumbling to himself about how he had "three fucking prescriptions" to pick up from the pharmacist tonight. Actually, they weren't really "prescriptions;" bums can rarely afford to have them, let alone shelter them from thieves, because they are homeless, after all. He really wanted to get a bottle of Aleve, a bottle of cough medicine, and a packet of Lifesavers to freshen his bad breath a little.

He walked into the store and started to trod toward the shelves to get his purchases, but the pharmacist, an old man who didn't care for bums on his property, caught him slipping behind the shelves and yelled at him.

"You!" he shouted. "I thought I told you never to come in here again until you get a home, some money, and some decent clothes!"

"Oh yeah," said the bum angrily, "Well fuck you, pharmy! I need my Aleve to stop this stinking arthritis from shooting pain through my poor old bones, and I need my cough medicine to stop this-(cough, cough)-damn cough, and my mouth tastes so terrible those Lifesavers will be a miracle lifesaver if I can only get my hands on some!"

"That's too bad," said the pharmacist, "You're always disturbing the peace in my business, and if you don't stop and go to another pharmacist soon, I'm going to call the police and have you forcibly removed!"

The bum snarled like an animal. "Okay, fine, asshole," he said, "But you just remember that I'm not going to leave you alone anytime soon. If you threaten to throw me out of this joint again, I swear I'll kill ya myself!"

Some of the other customers were disturbed by this remark. He looked at them and said, "Yeah, I mean it! I'm gonna kill him!"

"Get out, now!" shouted the pharmacist.

"I'm gonna fuckin' kill ya!" the bum yelled one more time before walking out into the streets again. He trudged off, grumbling again about how "tough the goddamn world was," and that he'd fight it all by his lonesome if he had to.

Then, as he stepped into an alley next to the pharmacy to light a cigarette, he stopped in surprise to see a beautiful young woman with black, shoulder-length hair and dressed in dark blue-and-white clothes standing a few feet away from him. He blanched, obviously not prepared for something so beautiful to be standing in a trashy alley in the middle of the city, especially considering that she was looking right at him.

"I pity you, old man," she said in a voice that almost tinkled with delight, "People like you always have it so hard in the world. Of course, that pharmacist has troubles of his own, and I'm sorry you can't see them."

The bum flushed in embarrassment to be addressed this way by a woman who was beautiful without being the slightest bit slutty at the same time. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded to know.

"My name is Victoria," she said, "and I already know that yours is Mark. A pity that such an honorable name goes to someone as foul as you are."

"Huh?" Mark exclaimed, "How did you know that? Are you some kind of psychic charlatan or something?"

"I assure you, I am not a charlatan," she said firmly, "I have the ability to grant wishes to people who desire things. Surely there is something that you seek for? A home? A new savings account? Better clothes? Toothpaste and a toothbrush?"

Mark looked at Victoria as if she had two heads. "Are you kidding me?" he asked, "People can't do shit like that! That's only in kiddie's fairy tales like Aladdin and the Magic Lamp!"

"Ah, Aladdin and the Magic Lamp," Victoria said wistfully, "I have heard of that one. 'Tis supposed to be one of the greatest Arabian fairy tales ever written from what I have heard. But don't act so obstinate now! There must be something you want that I can grant you to get you out of your rut. Speak it, and you will get it."

Mark looked back toward the pharmacy. He frowned at it and said, "Well, there is one thing that would make me feel better. That pharmacist has always had it in for me, and I feel the exact same way about him. What do you say if I use a wish to make him die?"

Victoria's eyes widened. Her mouth twitched in disgust. "Now why would you wish for such a terrible thing, old man?" she said, "What has he ever done to you, besides push you out of his business? And even if he was more guilty, vengeance is not the path of right. Besides, I am aware that you pack a concealed gun in your coat pocket. Did you ever consider using such a ghastly item to kill him before?"

"What!? You know about that too?" Mark said, suddenly jittery. "How much do you know about me, anyway?"

"Too much for comfort, I must say," admitted Victoria. "But surely I can grant you a wish that will save you from the gutter you wallow in and give you a new and better life to start from scratch?"

"I'm beyond caring about all that moral garbage!" roared Mark, then more quietly, "I just want to see that damn pharmacist suffer! I want him to die. I want to see him die. If you really are some kind of genie, make it happen!"

A sadness came to Victoria's face. "As you wish."

A moment passed. "Okay," said Mark, "So, how do I know that he's actually dead, anyway?"

"You want proof that I am not making this up?" said Victoria mildly. "Go back inside that pharmacy and see for yourself. Then you may judge my powers however you want to."

"All right, I think I will," said Mark, shuffling back to the front doors of the pharmacy.

Inside, Mark saw the pharmacist handing out a prescription to a customer. Said customer walked out of the store. The pharmacist watched her go, and then his eyes set on Mark again.

"What in hell are you doing back in here so soon?" he demanded.

Mark squinted at him in disbelief. "You're not dead," he said.

"Of course I'm not dead," the pharmacist said, his impatience mounting, "Why does it concern you? Have you returned to kill me?"

Mark grumbled once more. "The dumb broad was a charlatan after all! This asshole is still alive!"

What happened next went so quickly that it happened before Mark was aware of what he was doing. Suddenly, as if his hands, arms and body were controlled by invisible puppet strings, his right hand shot into his pocket and he drew his semi-automatic handgun that he normally used in self-defense. Then in one blink of an eye, he aimed and fired, shooting the old pharmacist in the head twice.

The other people in the store screamed. Most of them put their hands up as if in surrender. One man panicked and lay flat on the floor. Unknown to everyone, one woman dived behind some shelves and frantically whispered an emergency 911 call through her cell phone, begging the nearest police officers to come to the pharmacy at once.

Mark had no idea what had happened initially. He felt as if he had done some kind of action while in a trance, but he wasn't sure what it was. Then, he saw the horrified customers staring at him fearfully. Next, his gaze turned to the pharmacist just in time to see him sink to the floor, two neat bullet wounds in his skull. Finally, Mark became aware that he was holding his pistol in the pharmacist's direction, and the smoke coming out of the muzzle, meaning that it had just been discharged.

Gaping in alarm, he tried to tell the people, "I didn't do it! I didn't kill him, honest!"

"Mister," one customer said as bravely as he could, "You did kill him. We all saw it. You can't fool us!"

"Quiet," said a woman, "He might kill all of us too!"

But Mark was in too much shock to even consider threatening the other people. He ran to the pharmacist's body to make sure he was dead. The old man indeed was.

At that moment, he remembered the wish he had insisted the strange woman grant for him if she was for real. She must have done this to me. I made a wish, and she really did make it come true!

His body shook with horror as the enormity of his wish hit him. He didn't know what to do or where to go. But soon he wouldn't have to worry about that anymore, at least.

At that moment, the doors burst open and numerous policemen entered the store, their guns trained on the old man holding the smoking gun. "FREEZE!" they yelled. Helplessly, Mark shook his head and dropped the gun. The officers roughly frisked him, taking away his hat, and cuffed him. One officer read him his Miranda rights.

"Officers, no, this is all a mistake," he pleaded, "I didn't mean to kill him! I wasn't even trying to kill him!"

The customers looked at him with expressions that clearly said that they were not fooled. "Officer," the woman with the cell phone said to the sergeant, "Don't believe him. We all saw him do it. Earlier, he was threatening to kill the poor pharmacist, and he sounded like he meant it! Then he came back about five minutes ago and said something about how he wasn't dead yet. Then, he suddenly whipped out his gun and shot the pharmacist twice in the head! He used the gun as if he was some kind of professional marksman!"

Mark's mouth did quite a workout, but no sound came out of it. The police looked at him. He knew that he couldn't logically argue with the woman over what happened. Who would believe him anyway?

"Come on, mister," said the sergeant, "You're going to jail. And stop trying to deny what you did. We have many witnesses who are willing to testify against you."

As he was being led to one of the squad cars, Mark decided he was damned if he gave up on mentioning the woman. "Listen," he said, "Before I shot the man, I encountered a strange woman in the alley. She said something about granting wishes, and she apparently granted my wish to see him die, but I didn't think she was going to use her power to make me do the deed!"

Some of the cops laughed at Mark, obviously amused by his far-fetched story.

The sergeant frowned at him, evidently losing patience with Mark's stories. "No more stories, mister," he said, "I'm getting tired of them."

"No, I mean it!" Mark insisted, "She's probably still there, or she's near the alley. She had black hair and deep, dark eyes, she was dressed in midnight blue-and-white, and she was stunningly beautiful. Go find her, she'll tell you!"

The sergeant looked disgusted, but he finally submitted, ordering two of his men to look for said woman in the alley and the immediate surrounding area. The officers went to do their bidding, and soon leaped into the alleyway with their guns drawn. No one was visible except for another bum who looked like he just wanted to get some sleep. They searched behind boards, trash cans and other things that are usually found in a street alley. Still no dark, beautiful woman. They holstered their guns and made a quick look at the people standing nearby. One man in a dark suit was watching the scene with a cross between what could only be amusement and thoughtfulness, but otherwise, nothing looked out of the ordinary. They returned to their sergeant, and one of them said, "No dark, beautiful woman, no nothing, Sarge."

"What?" said Mark. "That can't be! She was there! She must be hiding in the crowd! Please, just search the onlookers until you find her!"

The sergeant's patience had worn thin. "All right, that's enough, old fool," he said, "Save the rest of it for the courts, or better yet, for a white room in an institution." His partner pushed Mark into the patrol car.

"NO!" Mark shouted, begging for clemency, but the cops meant it when they said they had enough. The door was shut in his face and the sergeant and his partner piled back into the front seats. Mark suddenly caught a glimpse of a familiar face out of the window. He looked more carefully, and there was Victoria, looking right at him with a sad but stern look of reproach on her face.

"There she is!" he yelled, "In the crowd! I can show you where she is, sergeant-"

"Shut it, man!" said the officer, "I don't want to hear anything more about it, or else your giving up the right to remain silent will bite you back like a Komodo Dragon in court!"

Utterly defeated, Mark leaned back in his seat and hung his head, silently weeping and cursing Victoria's name, as he went to jail.

The djinn known as Nathaniel Demerest had been watching most of the affair. He hadn't originally known that his nemesis amongst his own kind was in this very same area he was in. It intrigued him a little that he was not the only djinn presently on Earth, though he would have liked it more if she had been amongst his evil brethren instead of one who held to the path of so-called righteousness. That meant that he had a powerful opponent to best, and he might have to do so before he could grant his Waker three wishes and open the portal to the void. Still, it was exciting to know that he had an extra challenge to conquer besides just collecting souls through single wishes, and the djinn loved a good challenge.

"I am certain," he said quietly to himself, "that the djiniri is looking for her Waker just as much as I am looking for mine, and if I can track down both Wakers, perhaps I can use the djiniri and her Waker as leverage to make my Waker utter her own fatal three wishes. Hm hm hm!"

Unfortunately, for some reason, he could not detect the presence of the djiniri anywhere nearby. She must have left in a hurry, he thought. No matter. He could have used that bum, and perhaps the pharmacist as well, as a couple more souls to power his gem, but there would be others who would desire selfish and tempting things.

Nathaniel snickered quietly and left the scene before anyone besides those two cops noticed him there.

Victoria, meanwhile, was about two blocks away by this time, and she was determined to make even more distance between herself and that crime scene. It had appalled her to her very core to grant such a monstrous wish for a wretched bum who didn't want salvation, just revenge, but she was a djiniri, and she had no choice but to obey that command. It had also sapped some of her strength to fulfill that wish, for vile wish fulfillments always ate away at the holiness of a good djinn and tainted his or her image as an icon of selfless compassion. But still, she had given him fair warning against asking for such a thing as murder, and he had ignored her, and she had to make the pharmacist's death look like it had happened according to the normal laws of the evolved planet Earth. She was not entirely to blame for this unfortunate incident. In fact, from a certain point of view, she was not to blame at all, she realized.

The djiniri only prayed that modern humanity wasn't incorrigible as a whole, like Rachel and Mark had been. She wanted to make good people happy, and to help people in need, not to grant the sorts of wishes normally reserved for the evil djinn.

Pulling a blue hood over her head, she put her hands in her jacket pockets and blended into the night once again, determined to find her Waker and purify the Earth as was her duty.