CHAPTER EIGHT

With deep regret, Genie Richard clapped his hands, blinked his eyes and nodded his head, and Paige and I collapsed to the ground. As I felt my spirit float away from my body, I heard Chris exclaim "NO!" in horror. My spirit watched as he rushed to our bodies, while Genie Richard stared, grief-stricken, as Jinny smirked, "Not bad for a newbie," before commanding. "Now, into the bottle!" and Genie Richard smoked into the bottle. Then Jinny locked eyes with Chris, telling him in a sugar-sweet voice, "My condolences," before shimmering out with the bottle.

Chris, anguished, sat beside our dead bodies, as I turned to look to see Paige's spirit floating next to mine. I waited for us to move on, as I knew we must, a bit excited to get to see Grams and Mom and Prue, but we just floated there. Chris desperately leaned over our lifeless forms, shaking them, hoping against hope that he could wake us up somehow. "You can't be dead!" he moaned. "It's not your time yet…I know it's not…" Then he looked up and saw our spirits and watched as we began to rise. Reaching up, he grabbed us, crying out, "Damnit! You're not going anywhere!"

And Paige's spirit and my spirit looked down in confusion. To our surprise, something must've happened, because we didn't move on; we just floated there. So we hovered overhead, looking down at Chris, who was near tears. "I'm so sorry. This is all my fault. She was gonna kill Mom and Leo."

Slowly, our spirits returned to the floor. When our feet touched the floor, I noticed that Paige's spirit had stopped glowing, and when I looked down, I saw that mine wasn't either.

I tried my voice and it worked. "Uh, Chris? We're not moving on."

"Why aren't we moving on?" Paige's spirit wanted to know.

"Who cares why not?" he asked in triumph. "You're still here!"

Paige's spirit looked at mine. ""You have any unfinished business?"

I thought about it. "No. You?"

"Well, now that you mention it, yeah. It would've been nice to know I had another nephew before I died."

I sighed impatiently. "I was gonna tell you; I just didn't get a chance."

"We can fix this," Chris assured our spirits. "We can reverse this magic, but we need the genie bottle."

"That's right," I realized. "We're ghosts. We can possess Jinny. But where is she?"

"She was planning to conjure that lost city." Paige's spirit reminded me.

"Don't worry, we'll stop her," I assured Chris. Then I thought of someone else. "Should we check on Piper first?"

"No, Piper's okay," Chris assured us. "She must be. I'm still here, right? If she's dead, I'd have vanished."

So how could Jinny wish the Charmed Ones dead, but Piper was OK?? Well, that would be something we'd have to figure out later. There were more important things to worry about now.

"Okay," Paige's spirit agreed. "So--how do we reach Jinny?"

"You're a ghost," Chris pointed out. "You can haunt anybody you want. Just concentrate; you should wisp right to her."

So we closed our eyes and focused, and, sure enough, we turned into wisps and shot upward towards the ceiling.

"Hey!" cried Chris. "Wait for me!" and he orbed out after us.

We ended up going right back to the cave where we originally found Jinny. She was looking into the bottle. "Genie, I wish to resurrect the Lost City of Zanbar!"

There was a pause, then the ground began to rumble. The Arabian palaces of Zanbar rose out of the sands. "Finders keepers," declared Jinny greedily.

Paige's spirit grinned at me, then told her, "I wouldn't unpack just yet."

Jinny spun to see our spirits standing inside the cave, along with Chris. Jinny and the thieves stepped over to confront us. "Why haven't you moved on? You're dead."

"So are you!" I told her and I jumped into Jinny, possessing her, and forcing her to drop the bottle, as we struggled for control of her body.

Meanwhile, the Head Thief charged Chris, and Paige's spirit called out a warning to him. Chris turned and waved his hand, TKing the Thief into a wall, dazing him. The other thieves drew their swords and advanced on him.

"Phoebe!" he yelled. "A little help!"

And Jinny, still possessed by yours truly, turned and threw two fireballs in quick succession, vanquishing the two thieves. Hey! That was fun! "I think I got control of her body." I cried out in triumph.

Chris picked up one of the fallen scimitars and stalked over to the Head Thief and plunged it into him, vanquishing him.

Paige's spirit looked around, "All clear."

I nodded, then bent Jinny's body down and used her hand to pick up the genie bottle. With Jinny's voice, I declared, "Richard, I wish you free!"

The swirl of smoke emerged from the bottle, so I quickly jumped out of Jinny's body, so the smoke enveloped only her. When the smoke cleared once again, Richard was standing there, back to normal, genie bottle in his hand.

Paige's spirit smiled. "Hi, honey--"

Richard peered into the bottle to see Jinny, back in her outfit again, as she screamed at him, "Let me out of here!"

He grinned. "Sorry, I kinda like you that size." Then he added, "I wish the Charmed Ones alive again."

And for once I could empathize with a bad gal, knowing how badly she didn't want to do it, but knowing she had no choice. "Yes--Master." And her palms must've gone together, her eyes must've blinked, and her head must've nodded, because next thing I knew, I was back in my body. Seeing Paige's body move, I knew that hers had also returned to her bodies, leaving Richard and Chris alone.