Chapter 1

I’m just an ordinary man, at least I always thought I was. I was part of a covert operation operating near Iraq. We have crossed over from the bombed-out town of Nisab. Hardly even two clicks from the Saudi/Iraq border.

We were clearing insurgents along the border. Shit, they were like cockroaches, you kill one, another three appeared. We had bugged out back to the Saudi side under heavy fire. We were holding our own, ‘til they started the artillery, not that light shit, heavy shells and mortars.

The only problem was that the fuckers were actually following us as far as they could. We finally made what was left of the bombed-out town. The commander had called an air strike, twenty minutes, yeah right, we’d be dead by then.

I was as far behind as I could get trying to let the squad get under cover. I was leap frogging toward the nearest wall, when I was hit five feet from it. I swear, I could hear several of the fuckers cheering when I went down.

I started to crawl as fast as I could, my dirty blonde hair peeking out from my helmet. The searing burn in my leg made moving, and life a lot harder. Once I made the single lone wall I smiled, I had cover, more were going to die before they got me.

I heard several of the insurgents advancing, as I peeked up, taking two in rapid succession. This gave the rest of them pause. I looked down, seeing the tear in my sand fatigues. Damnit! I also had a rather large tear across my leg.

Well, I thought, I might bleed out I was taking as many with me as I could. I peeked out again, killing another, severely wounding another. I moved to the other side of the wall when I hit something metal.

I froze as I looked down expecting to see a mine, thinking I was dead. What met my eyes looked nothing like any mine I had ever seen. It wasn’t a damn IED that I had seen (I had seen all of them).

It wasn’t like any type of ordinance I had ever seen. I carefully moved away as it fell into the small depression I had made. What the hell I thought? I could see that it looked a lot like an old, very old type of oil lamp.

I shook my head there, I had nearly shit myself from a piece of junk. That was the moment that the world went to shit. They had started to zero in on my position, then I heard her voice in my damn head!

HEY! I heard; my home is not a piece of junk! You need to apologize!

I shook my head. I was going nuts from loss of blood, I thought.

Oh dear, I heard. Rub the lamp. I did not know that you were injured, hurry rub it now! I heard her urge.

At that moment, a machine gun started to fire on my position. I looked back at the squad, thankfully they were a hell of a lot further away from where I was.

I managed to get a few more shots off hitting the machine gun. Unfortunately, this only delayed them as more took up the gun. Beside me, I felt the cool metal of the lamp again as it rubbed against me.

I became annoyed as I started to push the lamp away from me. I started to kick against it, then there was a poof of smoke. I shook my head as one of the most gorgeous women I had ever seen appeared in front of me.

“Holy shit!” I said. She immediately turned toward me. The most beautiful smile I had ever seen was on her face.

“Might I suggest that we go somewhere less deadly.” I swallowed hard as I nodded yes. “I assume that is a yes?” She said.

Finally finding my voice, I said, “Yes, I can bleed to death as well somewhere else.”

Another smile replaced the look of expectation on her face. Almost immediately, we were in a gray misty area. OK, I thought, this was starting to get stranger and stranger.

A further look around seemed to confirm to me that yes, I was losing it. It was probably due to a loss of blood. I nodded my head, yeah dying with such a lovely woman with me helped.

The beautiful, barely dressed woman, looked at my leg with a concerned look. She reached down, touching where I had been shot, causing me to flinch. The thing is, there was no pain, plus the blood slowed then stopped.

I looked at the wound a moment, then was shocked when I saw that there was no wound. “There master, your injury is healed, may I offer you something to eat?” She said.

My mouth twitched a moment as I thought, then jokingly said, “yeah a nice thick T-bone steak, mashed potatoes, with thick onions and gravy.”

The woman smiled again then snapped her fingers. My mouth dropped open as a table and the asked for food appeared. Less than a moment later, my mouth started to water from the aroma of it all.

I once again shook my head as I could only stare at the table. “What the hell is all this?” I asked.

The woman’s face fell, as did she to the, I guess, ground as she lowered her head. “I am sorry master, I didn’t mean to upset you.” It was at that moment that I noticed that there were tears falling from her eyes.

Alright, what the hell had I done now, I thought. Then I shook my head again what in the hell was wrong with me? This wasn’t real there was no way that this was real!

I heard a gasp from the woman as I turned to stare at her. “I assure you, master, this is real. I am your servant, almost anything that you want can be yours you just need to ask.”

I had started to tell her to prove this was real when I caught myself. “Almost anything, what pray tell can not be mine?”

“Master,” she started, “I can not kill anyone out of anger, I am only a normal Jinn.”

“Jinn? Seems I have heard of that. Care to explain?” I asked her.

“Hmmm,” she sat in contemplation a moment as if she was reading something. Then she suddenly sat up, “Ah! A Jinn in your language, I believe, is called a Genie.”

“A Genie,” I said. “You mean like magic powers and the like?”

When she only nodded, I had to sit back, what in the hell had I gotten myself into? That was assuming, of course, that this was really real. I was still having a very hard time wrapping my head around all this.

“Alright, so you said there are a few things that I can’t have or do. The first is that you can’t kill out of anger, though I assume you can kill?” I asked her.

She nodded yes, then shuddered, “I prefer not to, it is almost as unpleasant as the second thing.”

“The second thing? It is worse than the first?” I asked.

She nodded then continued, “I, like most Jinns, do not try to bring the dead back. It has never turned out good as they tend to turn, then try to kill everything. As I said, it isn’t good at all.”

“Yeah,” I said, “it doesn’t sound good at all. Anything else?”

“Yes master, I can not cause anyone to fall in love with anyone else. There is an ancient love magic, though it can not cause love,” she said.

“Can’t cause love? So, basically you can’t force someone to love someone else, what can you do?” I asked.

“Well, master, if there is love there? I can make it stronger so that they notice it more, see?” she said.

I just shook my head, not really getting it. If I meant if this was real, then I could get used to it later.

“Master, you don’t believe me? What can I do to convince you?” She asked.

I sighed, this was modern day, there hadn’t been anything magical in as long time in this era. I just started to shake my head as I tried to think. A few minutes later, I couldn’t think of a single thing.

“Nothing comes to mind; I need to get back. If I am going to die, I can at least keep my squad alive,” I told her.

I saw that she had a very determined look on her face. “No master, I won’t allow anything to happen to you,” she said.

I sighed as I looked at her, wishing that was true. That I could survive against the onslaught of the insurgents I had seen. I sighed as I wished her luck, telling her that she was beautiful, then that I was ready.

As soon as I appeared, I noticed that I was not where I had been when all this started. What the hell? Then I noticed that the woman was standing beside me. Strange thing was no one seemed to see her.

It was then that I noticed that I had a clear shot at almost all the insurgents that I could see. I carefully moved my Mark 12 Mod 0 up, checked my ammo then carefully started to pick off all that I could see.

I smiled as I had put down at least twelve. Now the bastards weren’t laughing. Shit I thought they were starting to get pissed, it seemed. I had put another four down when I heard a loud roaring noise.

As it got louder, I smiled, it sounded like our F-18 Hornets. The line beyond the last wall where the strange lamp had been, suddenly lit up. I immediately started to bug out as fast as I could.

I knew the radio control was damn good though, I didn’t want to be mistaken as an enemy. Thankfully, the enemy was too busy dying to continue firing on me.

I looked back to see if the woman was still following me, then nodded when I saw nothing. Still, I had a full stomach, so, had it been a dream or an illusion? Hell I had no idea.

I caught up with my squad less than twenty minutes later. Luckily, I could see that none of them had been hit. As I approached their position, I started to worry. I had been hit, had been seen being hit, it wouldn’t go over well if I appeared uninjured.

Just before I got in sight of them, I started to limp, as I felt blood start to ooze down my leg. I nodded my head silently saying thank you.

I barely managed to get to where they were, they were starting to load up when a few of them saw me almost fall.

“Lieutenant Richards!” I heard two of my men yell as they ran to help me the rest of the way in. I was loaded up after they managed to staunch the blood flow.

We high tailed it out of there, reaching our base less than a half an hour later. I was put on light duty for a few weeks to be evaluated in a few weeks. I was lying there wondering what the hell I was going to do when she appeared again.