Henry Rider: Clown Hunter

Chapter Thirty Four

Chapter Thirty Four

"YOU'RE OUT OF YOUR MIND!"

Those were the first words I heard when I rose out of my comfy, cozy coma. I'd been dreaming about being appointed chief sour cream taster in Tacoland. I sighed in disappointment. Did I have to come back to reality now?

"I did what I had to do," said a softer voice. Was that Jade? "I don't regret it."

"But after everything you've been through," whined the other voice. That one was Aesop. "You're just going to throw it all away? For him?"

"Hey!" said an offended, and very Ethan-ish, sounding voice.

"It doesn't matter what you think, Aesop," Jade snapped. "It's done."

"Yeah, well, congratulations. You're a slave again. I hope you're happy!"

I winced, but kept my eyes closed. I understood why Aesop was so upset...assuming that what I remembered had really happened...but that was taking things too far. Nobody said anything for a long time.

Be-deep....Be-deep...Be-deep.

Was that a heart monitor? Was I in the hospital? That would explain why the sheets were so uncomfortable. Like someone had combined cotton and sandpaper into an unholy abomination and then expected me to sleep on it. I wasn't in any pain, though, which was a first. Usually when I woke up here, I had a broken leg, or a cracked skull.

"So, explain this all to me again," Ethan finally said. "You're a genie?"

"Yes," Jade answered softly. "I'm...a living conduit, I guess you could say. This body I'm using now? It's not me. It's just something I made to give myself physical form. The gem on that necklace is the real me. It's connected to the mana dimension the same way that your spellhammer is, Ethan. Except that I'm, you know, alive."

"How?" Ethan asked.

"Nobody knows. It's just something that happens now and then. I don't even know where I came from. The first thing I remember is waking up thirty million years ago—"

"You're how old?" Ethan exclaimed.

That almost made me laugh, but I held it in. This was a conversation the two of them needed to have alone.

"Thirty million, give or take a few thousand," Jade answered.

"Wow," Ethan said flatly. "You don't look a day over twenty million."

"I don't age like people do. I don't age at all, in fact. I can form my body however I want in order to blend into my environment. I've been so many people it's hard to keep track of them all."

Something clinked. "So, when you gave me this necklace..."

"I gave you myself. Literally. That stone is what's called my core. Everything that I am is there in your hand."

"Whoa."

"I know, right?"

"What does that mean, though? Do I get, like, three wishes?"

Jade sighed. "Two now, actually. You used your first one when you asked me to stop Henry."

"Oh." Ethan swallowed. "Right. So, I make two more wishes, and then what?"

"And then I disappear," Jade whispered, "and you never see me again. That's the law."

"Law? What law?"

"The Law of the Djinn. It's an unbreakable spell that gets put on our cores as soon as we're discovered. It keeps us from using our magic for ourselves, except to make physical forms like this. The only way we can use our magic is to grant wishes for the people who hold our cores. And once those wishes are granted, our core gets whisked away to some random place in some random dimension, and we stay there until somebody else finds us."