Jacob awoke with a jerk. Not the kind of startle-you-out-of-your-sleep kind of jerk, but a real numpty. He had been partying in Vauxhall the night before, booze galore, and maybe a touch of ecstasy.
This particular jerk was from South Africa and, though they similarly shared a love for the red stuff, even now Jacob found himself looking through his stash of potables to cure what was sure to be an oncoming hangover. Inside the deep freeze was a handle of Absolut, mostly consumed. How much had he been drinking last night?
He cast a glance at his watch: 10:15 am. Okay, not too late, not too early. And no work today, though he was on call. He flicked the gem in his ear to assess the situation. Of course, on his day off it would be Victoria Davidson, the largest of prats, that would answer.
“Orange, it’s strange for you to check in on your day off.”
“Victoria,” he said, “must you be so shrill? I’m just looking for a chat, considering, oh, the world’s been going to hell in a hand-basket and our small team of mages is responsible for maintaining order.”
“Out again?” Victoria asked.
“Always. But spare me the aforementioned shrillness and give me an update, please.”
“Doctor Munroe is currently dealing with an outbreak of the Obelisk virus in Taiwan. It looks like you’re free for the weekend.”
“Thank the gods,” Jacob said and cut the connection with a quick snap of his fingers. He didn’t necessarily want to be rude to her, but given her over-pronounced accent and attitude, it was all too easy.
“Hey,” called a voice from Jacob’s bedroom. “Who were you talking to?”
Johannes was standing in the threshold, burnished and even more gorgeous than the night before. Did the man brush his teeth in his sleep? Jacob felt sullied and longed for a nice, hot shower.
“Just Alexa; I’ve got an Amazon delivery coming soon,” Jacob lied. Being an agent for a clandestine bureau of the UN made him a smooth salesman.
“You look like you could use a spa day,” said Johannes.
Jacob managed to smile, and responded in Dutch. “Lekker,” he said.
“It’s incredibly cute that you honor my South African heritage.” Johannes touseled Jacob’s ginger hair. “I’ve got to get going. Make sure my number’s in your phone.”
Phones. Jacob murdered his last cell phone in a fit of rage; technology was not his sidekick. “I’ll post it on the refrigerator. I’ll call.”
“Hmm,” said Johannes. “Somehow I doubt that. But I’ll write it down all the same.” And he set about writing his contact info on a Chinese takeaway menu magnetted to the fridge door.
Despite his hangover, Jacob was gracious enough to show his overconfident one-night stand to the door. Considering the state of his affairs, the most pressing thing on his mind was a hot, hot shower.
As the hot water trickled down his body, all Jacob could think about was his day off. He would start it with some wine, maybe a little gaming, and definitely a nap. Too tired to wash his hair, he cast a glamour on himself to look less broken than he felt. He had a craving for proper ramen, and UberEats seemed like the best solution.
After toweling off, he headed back toward his kitchen. His stash was crying to be raided by him with abject immediacy. “Before the ramen,” he announced to his empty flat, “there shall be wine.”
One of the perks of being an agent was that he had access to some wonderful vintages. The wine cooler popped open with a refreshing blast of even cooler air, waking Jacob up from his musings in the shower. “What should I start with? A white or red?”
His hand teetered toward a 2017 Pinot Grigio, and as he was about release it from its captivity in its shelf, the chime on his door rang. Naked as the day he was born, Jacob swore and hurried to throw his dressing gown on.
“Coming!” he shouted as he scurried to his flat’s threshold. Thankful for his glamour, he unbolted his barricade and slid the barn-style doorway open.
“Delivery for one Mister Jacob Tennyson Orange,” boomed a voice. It belonged to a blustery fellow who seemed from all appearances to be accustomed to hauling heavy parcels.
“That would be me,” Jacob said. “I hope you pardon the dressing gown.”
“I’ve seen worse, m’lad, don’t you worry. Could you sign here?” The burly courier waved a delivery sheet before him.
Jacob paused, looking at the sender’s address. “V. Davidson? Victoria? What on earth could she be sending me?”
“Not my business, Mister Orange. Sign please.”
Jacob hurriedly scrawled his name on the parchment and hoisted the box away from its dispatcher. It was heavy, but not too heavy for him to place it down on his kitchen island.
He flicked on his ear piercing, which would connect him to the agency and the culprit. “Victoria,” he said, “do you copy?”
“That’s Davidson to you while we’re on the record. Shouldn’t you be in some ditch in Vauxhall about now? It is your vacation, after all.”
“You sent me a package.”
“Ah, that was Doctor Munroe’s doing. I just filled out the claim.”
“Of course. Thank you for your as-expected ambiguity. I’ll open it now.”
“Davidson out,” she responded with BBC elocution.
Curious as to what his boss at the agency, Hats Munroe, would send to him on his vacation, Jacob didn’t bother to get a knife to slash open the parcel. Instead, he traced a finger along the seam of the tape, all the while thinking “cut.”
Where his index finger cut became a fiery brand, melting the plastic and severing the bonding in twain. Jacob opened the box with unbridled gusto.
Swarmed by packing peanuts, he sneezed profusely several times, which caused his spell to make the flat to reek of sulfur. After his fit subsided he dived into the package to find a 1998 Stag’s Leap Artemis, one of his favorite vintages from California. To get it imported to England must have cost Munroe at least two hundred quid.
There was a note. “Dear Agent Orange,” it read. “Please find this particularly curious bottle of wine a subject of your gratuitous enjoyment during your ‘stay-cation’.”
The bottle itself was dusty, as though the sender hadn’t bothered to wipe it down before placing it in its box. Jacob took a moment to grab a handful of paper towel to clear it off before gazing at it more intently. If Hats Munroe sent wine for him to investigate, Jacob, a pro-bono sommelier, would get to its cause.
“1998, eh?” he said to himself. That would have made Jacob seventeen. He damped the lower half of the bottle. “Artemis,” he read aloud. “Open me by moonlight and twist the cork three times widdershins.”
What a naggy bottle of wine, thought Jacob. Wait till moonlight indeed. He’d had enough direction and wasn’t inclined to follow anymore nonsense while off the clock.
Jacob strutted out of the kitchen and onto his balcony. It was devoid of furnishings — Jacob was frugal unless it came to booze — and a slight stench rose from the Thames, but Jacob was more than happy with his comfortable flat.
“Three times widdershins.” One of the most beneficial things about being a practical magician was that, aside from Davidson’s cursed technology, he had his brains and powers for mere mundane task.
Focusing his concentration on the bottle, he honed in on the cork, waiting for pressure to build. Widdershins or not, this particular wine was going to titillate his palate either way. With an exertion of some will, the stopper popped out and plummeted toward the river below. The sweet draught itself bubbled with the release of cork, and Jacob hurried to lap up its contents.
Before he could do that, however, the bubbles congealed into smoke, then further metamorphosed into a scantily clad lady in a sarong. She hovered over the bottle, and to the amazed Jacob, she was somehow looking more impressive than her diminutive height of two feet seemed free to allow.
“Who awakens me from my inebriated slumber and dares to ask for wishes?” Her statement would have been more powerful if she had forgotten to hiccough at the end. Apparently, it was a very good vintage indeed.
“Um,” Jacob said. “My name is Jacob Orange. Jacob Tennyson Orange. May I ask who you might be?”
“I’m Tatusha. Hic. So, Tenny, gimme your wishes and let’s be done with the whole affair.”
“You’re really a genie? No one’s encountered one in centuries.”
“I’m the genie, mister. Do you want your wishes or not?”
“I’d like a glass of wine,” Jacob muttered.
“That’s it? Easy-peasy.” Tatusha floated down, snapped her fingers, and a glass appeared hovering in the air in front of Jacob. She even tipped the bottle’s contents into the stemware herself.
“Wait, that wasn’t a wish! I have wine for days in my–“
“–in your nice little flat, I know. But, hic, them’s the breaks, kiddo.”
“Is the whole wishing for more wishes cliché out of the question?” Jacob helped himself to the wine, seeing thats he may as well get something out of this strange encounter. It was velvety, and left his palate with a sumptuous taste of blackberry.
“Yup.” Tatusha belched. “Standard djinn contract. One of the clauses is no asking for more wishes.”
“I wasn’t aware genies had contracts,” said Jacob. He took another sip of his wine and rumpled his hair, still a bit wet from the shower.
“Listen, pal,” Tatusha continued, “let’s make this quick. What’s your next wish? Moolah? A harem?” Her accent was distinctly American, and she smelled like one of Jacob’s old haunts when he was in graduate school.
“Are you drunk?”
“Okay, sir, when you live in a wine bottle it’s kind of hard not to be perpetually sozzled.” Tatusha gave a cursory sniff. “I could say the same for you.”
Jacob flushed and wondered why on earth Doctor Munroe would have sent Jacob of all people an intoxicated divine being. Demons, angels, eyeballs that walked on legs, sure, send them his way. But a sassy pygmy barely clothed offering some wishes? Jacob downed more of the wine.
“I’ve seen the Disney movie Aladdin enough times to know how this works,” Jacob finally said. “You want me to wish for your freedom, right?”
“Hell no! If you had to live out all of eternity stuck somewhere, wouldn’t you want it to be in a surfeit of booze?”
“What happens when the wine runs out?” It really was a very good year and Jacob now found his hangover lifting with each sip and his curiosity piqued.
Tatusha smiled, revealing teeth stained purple with grapes. “The wine never runs out.”
“Can you bring back the dead?” Jacob said suddenly and rather seriously.
Tatusha grimaced, her wine-coated lips tense and pursed. “That’s technically not out of bounds,” she said, her words deliberate but still slightly slurred. “And there’s been precedent for it before. But, hic, the dead don’t always come back the same. That’s out of our control.”
Jacob frowned. In all of his occult studies, the djinn — or genies — were notoriously tricksy, so his inner desires were tinged with fears that his wish might conjure up some sort of mindless, drooling zombie.
“Can I have another glass of wine?” he said thickly.
“Is that a wish?”
“Consider it a chummy request.”
Tatusha whirled about in midair, the wine bottle hovering in space. “I don’t grant freebies,” she said. Her voice was flat.
“Fine,” Jacob replied. He could only think of two things he really wanted to do; he had enough money to buy all the booze and boojie clothes he needed. “Wish number two: cure my hangover.”
“Ha! Done!” Tatusha snapped her fingers and instantly Jacob felt the throbbing in his head subside, his nausea quelled.
“Now, for wish number three…” he began.
“I warned you about raising the dead.”
“Can I speak with the departed?”
“It’s not, hic, impossible. But are you sure?”
Jacob had seen enough in his time at the agency that in moments of clear-headedness gave him pause. He recalled his mission to New Egypt, deep in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. A message from an angel never delivered.
“Let me speak with former agent Mabel, genie,” Jacob commanded.
The air was still. Even the genie seemed collected for the moment. “This is why I was sent here, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” whispered Jacob. Doctor Munroe surely knew Jacob had unanswered questions, questions the director himself wasn’t permitted to answer.
Tatusha sighed, heavily, as though this task was a great labor. “I wish you respected how much effort this takes on a genie. Even I have standards. Hic.”
“Summon Mabel’s spirit, please.”
The wine bottle shook violently, and Jacob worried for a moment that it might shatter. Tatusha snapped her fingers twice and a plume of smoke surrounded her. It smelled strongly of lavender.
From within the smoke an ephemeral image appeared of a bespectacled woman in bell bottoms.
“Hello, Mister Orange,” a voice carried on the wind.
“Mabel: I let you down. I failed to protect you and your angel, the malakim.”
“You never let me down. You saved me.” Jacob remembered the husk of a girl plummeting a story to her death. He hardly thought that qualified as saving at all.
“The angel was the message,” Mabel continued. “Meant for you to find it.”
“But why me?” Jacob asked.
The shade… giggled? Jacob had never expected someone to be so mirthful in death.
“Look for a woman who smells like I do,” Mabel said.
“Lavender?”
“Yes,” she replied. “And she’ll have glasses like me.”
“What,” Jacob began, “is her name?”
“Her name translates to the fairest of cloths.”
“Fairest of cloths? Like the saffron-dyed robes of the ancients?”
“I’m sorry, Mister Orange, but I think I have to go now. It’s… difficult staying here.”
Jacob nodded, wishing to embrace the shadowy figure but knowing it would do no good. This was an echo of the creature Mabel once was.
And as the breeze blew in, so came with it the scent of the Thames once more. The smoke dissipated, carrying away Mabel on the wind.
“The fairest of cloths…” Jacob repeated.
“Happy now? Hiccup,” said Tatusha. “The dead are always so cryptic.”
“Couldn’t she have stayed longer?”
“Maybe if I wasn’t sozzled six ways from Wednesday,” the genie replied.
Jacob grabbed the bottle from midair and took a pull. “All right, genie,” he said, “you may go.”
“Hic! Thank you, oh humble master,” she stammered and, much like the spirit he had encountered, Tatusha, in a heady, wine-sodden mist returned to the bottle. Jacob placed it on the floor of his balcony.
“Fairest of cloths… faircloth.” He touched the piercing in his ear. “Davidson?” he murmured.
“What is it, Orange?”
“I need you to patch me through to Doctor Munroe; it doesn’t matter if he’s in the middle of something.”
“What, pray, shall I tell him?”
“I think I’ve figured out the password to the Progenitor Machine.”
“You… all right, give me a moment.”
The Progenitor Machine, the mysterious artifact that held the secrets of mankind past, all hinged on this woman. Faircloth. He would find her.
“Atlantis,” Jacob said to himself. “I will uncover your mysteries at last.” With that, he picked up the genie’s bottle, very unceremoniously summoned a wind, and let the currents take it off into the Thames. As he marched back into his flat, the jewel in his ear bellowed.
“Orange,” it said, “report to headquarters at once.”
“Yes, Doctor Munroe.” It seemed he was on the right track after all.
“I will expose all your secrets,” he said to no one in particular. Without fail. He tore off his dressing gown, started to gather clothing scattered about, and steadied himself with a shot of vodka.
The hunt was just beginning.
“Jacob and the Genie” © 2023 Brian Fence. It first appeared in the podcast “Crossroads of Inspiration.”
Artwork “Jacob and the Genie” © 2024 Brian Fence
Isn’t it lovely? We can thank the truly wonderful Marissa Morris for her creativity and consistency across all three novels. Speaking of Freewoman, I’m chopping away and editing it together bit by bit. Winter is coming.
I just can’t get enough of these cute little buggers.
