Page 2 of Bewitched By the Djinn
My fingers wrap around the bronze base, and I’m not entirely sure I can put it back down. It hums in my grip.
I have to have it.
It’smine.
I shake my head, trying to jostle the word loose.
What is wrong with me?
Focus. I need to play it cool, or Ernie’s going to charge me an arm, a leg, and my future firstborn. I need enough left over from this music box sale to buy groceries and chip away at Jackie’s latest ER bill.
I tap the side of the lamp, feigning mild interest. “When did it come in?” I was here last week and it wasn’t, I’m sure of it.
“Yesterday.”
I can’t drag my eyes away from it. “Who brought it in?”
He clears his throat. “Why does that matter?”
I guess it doesn’t. “How much?”
He shrugs. “One hundred.”
“I’ll give you fifty.”
“Seventy-five.”
I frown. “Sixty.”
“Seventy,” he fires.
A shrill voice calls from the back, “Dammit, let the girl have it, Ernie! Stop being such a cheap bastard!”
“No one asked you!” he shouts over his shoulder. Then he scowls at me, but it’s half-hearted. He waves a hand. “Fine. You want the music box still?”
Oh, right. I had nearly forgotten why I was here, to get the music box for my client for less than a grand so I can turn a neat profit. “Yes.”
“I’ll give you both, music box and the lamp, for seven hundred.”
Bless you, Moira.
That’s what I was willing to pay for the music box anyway. I’d been trying to talk him down to five bills, but if he’s throwing in the lamp? “Deal.”
We shake on it.
Ten minutes later I’m walking home with my bag of goods, winding through the quieter arteries in the French Quarter, right off Chartres. Even here, blocks from the noise and chaos of Bourbon Street, art galleries and bars are opening their doors, blues and jazz music spilling out onto the darkening street. The sky looms above, a swollen gray slab of clouds.
A balcony overhead is draped with fake spiderwebs. A giant skeleton leans out over the street, wearing a pirate hat and eye patch.
Once upon a time, Halloween was my favorite holiday. Now, it’s just another line item in a budget already screaming for mercy.Find costumes for two tiny humans who change their mind hourly.
I quicken my pace, cutting through a gathering of people reading a menu outside of a restaurant.
After dinner I’ll get a chance to take a closer look at the lamp. It will be late, but it’s not like I sleep anyway.
I should talk to Mimi about it. She’s been around the magical block so many times she’s worn a groove into it. But... I am not sure I can share it yet. The thought makes me physically ill.
Why? What is wrong with me?
