Dead and Horny Ch. 06

"Yes, but..." Mike stood and laughed. "Could such power defeat an army? Are you even the most powerful sorcerer in the world anymore? Surely someone has surpassed you."

"Nobody can surpass me," he said, then opened his hand to summon lightning once again.

"Actually," the djinn interjected. "You are no longer the most powerful sorcerer in the world."

"What?" Aladdin whirled around on the djinn. "Explain!"

"The pursuit of power is never ending. You may wish to be the most powerful sorcerer today, but it may no longer be true tomorrow."

"And what if I wished to be the most powerful sorcerer to ever exist?"

"A djinn cannot see through time. We can see what is to come, but never know the specifics. Such a wish would be wasted, for somebody could wish to surpass you and then it would be granted."

"Damn." He got ready to throw lightning again, but paused. "Succubus. You were going somewhere with your inquiries."

Mike chuckled and stood, unharmed. "I remember the djinn telling you once upon a time that the many tribes of the djinn could have no children. They have all been created, yes?"

Aladdin looked at the djinn expectedly.

"This is true," said the djinn. "My race was created in the beginning and we do not breed, nor are we born. As the years turn, all we can do is hope for our freedom or be destroyed."

"Yet you have knowledge. You can read the fabric of reality, yes? So much knowledge and power. Yet if our master could surpass you, surely he could avoid the calamities of the future."

The djinn looked shocked, and he eyed Aladdin with uncertainty. "I cannot simply give him a djinn's knowledge. He is still human, and his body cannot contain such power. It would be like putting lightning in a bottle, and would destroy him."

"And yet there are other djinn, right? What if somebody wished for him to lose his powers, or what if you were stolen away? What then? Not only could he be surpassed, but he could be reduced to nothing, turned back into an ordinary peasant." Mike laughed. "Do you not see, Master, what I suggest? You should wish to become the most powerful djinn in the world. Such a thing should not be beyond his power, and then you could grant your own wishes, know snippets of the future, and become a being that cannot be stopped. No djinn could undo this wish, and you could rule as a god over all of China, if not the world!"

Aladdin was stunned, and he looked at the djinn. "Is such a thing possible?"

The djinn uncrossed his arms and looked at Aladdin. "I...can grant such a wish, but I beg you not to make it. This is a big wish, and it will grab the attention of every kind of divine being who will seek to undo it. A djinn cannot be omnipotent in the face of an angry god, and they would come and smite you from existence."

"But I would see them coming." Aladdin grinned and picked up his lamp, his eyes on Mike. "And you would have that, yes? A master who can never be defeated?"

Mike nodded. "And I could remain by your side forever."

"Slave, hear my wish and grant it." Aladdin looked at the djinn, then back at Mike.

"Here it comes," muttered Lily.

"I wish that the vessel of every djinn powerful enough to undo any of my wishes or defeat me with magic be destroyed immediately."

"What?" cried Mike.

The djinn let out a shriek of rage as his body lit from within with magical power. The room filled with pressure as the lamp in Aladdin's hands cracked and turned to dust.

The djinn exploded, creating a shockwave that blasted all the windows out of their frames. Broken glass crashed onto the floor as molten hot motes of light blazed their way across the marble as if trying to hide. Each one flickered out of existence, leaving behind a series of ominous fractals that had been scorched into the floor.

"Do you think I'm stupid?" asked Aladdin. "If I had become a djinn, I, too, would have been bound by their laws." He summoned the lightning again and blasted Mike across the room.

Mike laid on the floor and Lily knelt down by his side. Even though he looked like her right now, he was still experiencing the agony that accompanied each magical blast. Aladdin turned his back on the two of them and stared at the palace door.

"Maybe I will be surpassed, but that's okay. There are other means of achieving power, and I have the rest of time to do it. The djinn has made me soft, and you were right. It would only be a matter of time before someone used his power against me." He looked at the door of the palace, then looked down at the ring on his hand that contained a minor djinn inside. "We leave tonight for a brand new world, you and I. The Han can have their dynasty, for when I return to reclaim my rightful place, they will be naught but dust in the ground. Tonight is the night I leave the good king Aladdin behind and aspire to something greater. As for you? Well, you did just cost me a servant, so you will be punished." He laughed and summoned the lightning once again. Mike screamed and the dream crumbled into sand around them, leaving just him and Lily on the cold shores of the Dreamscape.

Dana pushed the wheelchair across the dusty parking lot of the trailhead until she was up onto the pavement underneath the map display. She grabbed one of the maps and tucked it into the back pocket of the wheelchair before heading onto the trail. A couple of hikers who saw her gave her funny looks, but she ignored them and soldiered forward.

Lily giggled, her gaze on something she couldn't see. She had stopped randomly shapeshifting sometime this morning, which meant this part of the trip shouldn't draw too much attention. However, the stolen car she had left behind already had, and she was a fair way into the forest when she looked over her shoulders and caught the faint glimpse of red and blue lights flashing in the parking lot.

The car they had taken from Butte hadn't lasted long. It was running low on gas by the time she made Spokane, so she had pulled into the parking lot of a nicer hotel and scoured it for a car that had a full tank of gas. With Tick Tock's help, she had broken into a nice rental and had loaded the disoriented succubus inside. As the miles ticked by, she was eventually able to get directions from Lily, though those moments were few and far between.

"Birds!" Lily shouted, then pointed at a nearby rock.

"Shhh." Dana shoved the wheelchair up a steep hill and was grateful when Tick Tock extended arms to help her push. She probably could have carried the succubus over one shoulder, but she kept squirming about and kicking her legs, and this was the best idea she had.

The vegetation was thick, but she could smell the thickening presence of people in the parking lot. Her best bet was that the rental car had a GPS tracker inside, but it was too late to worry about things like that now. She closed her eyes and summoned a mental image of the map she had looked at and compared it to what Lily had told her during one of her fever dreams.

There was a trail on the map that dead-ended with a cute little loop on the end. Apparently there was an unmarked trail from there that could be followed. Lily had mentioned something about a road that they could drive on, but she had been unable to get clear directions from her past that. They were a little northwest of Bend, Oregon and headed for the border between Deschutes and Willamette National Forest. If what Lily had said was right, they could be on the edge of Mike's property in just over half an hour.

The trail had split off in a couple of places already, and Dana was already pushing the wheelchair as fast as it would go along a trail that had been largely overtaken by vegetation. It was probably an old hunting trail, or maybe even a path to a secret place where the locals smoked dope, she had no way of knowing. However, the wheelchair kept catching and she groaned in frustration.

"I'll go this way." It was a man's voice, and Dana looked over her shoulder and scowled. That's what she got for stealing a rental. She felt the handles of the wheelchair shift in her hands and when she turned around, Tick Tock had transformed into a large dolly with Lily strapped to it. It made her think of Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs.

"Try to stay standing," she told the succubus and pushed her faster now.

"Mike?" Lily tilted her head and followed a small bush as they passed it by. "Like, you're standing in front of me, but I don't feel like that's really you."

"It's a bush, now shut up." She wished she had a roll of duct tape or something to silence Lily. The succubus was now engaging in conversation with someone but was slipping from one language to another. Dana recognized Italian, then Japanese, and then a little French. At one point, Lily was spouting Latin, and Dana heard rustling a ways back and turned around, and spotting a couple of rangers pushing through the brush. They were too far away to be heard, but if Dana could see them, then they could see her.

"Hey!" one of them called, and she broke into a run. It was difficult keeping the dolly going straight, but Tick Tock helped as best as he could by using his arms to keep her steady.

"Oh!" Lily sprouted horns and her eyes went black.

"Oh, come the fuck on," Dana swore, then swerved off the trail. "This would be so much easier if you would wake up, even for ten minutes."

It reminded her of a time when one of the girls in her dorm had gotten so drunk that they had to take shifts making sure she was okay throughout the night. However, that girl had gotten better after puking after breakfast, whereas Lily's post Elder-God hangover was going to keep fucking them both. She wondered if she would be able to fight off the people chasing her by herself? What if Lily transformed in front of them?

The path thinned out and then merged with a bigger trail, which made it easier for Dana to run. It was all uphill, but she wasn't going to tire anytime soon, so she just plowed forward as quick as she could. When they reached the top of the hill, the dodollyllie twisted out of her hands and she hopped on. Tick Tock lowered an extra pair of wheels to the ground and she rode down the trail on the dolly like a make-shift Segway while Lily burst into a raucous rendition of "She'll be Comin' 'Round the Mountain".

At the bottom of the hill, Tick Tock spun back around and Dana pushed again. By the time they made the next hill, she looked back to see a pair of rangers covered in sweat and gasping at the top of the last hill. With incredulous looks on their faces, one of them paused to talk into a walkie-talkie.

Somewhere behind them, she heard the sound of an ATV revving up.

Tick Tock spun around and she rode him all the way to the floor of the next valley. No matter how long they did this trick, an ATV would catch them eventually. She caught the split where they needed to get off and ran long it. The dolly left trail lines in the dirt, and she could only hope that whoever was following wouldn't spot it in time.

The trail wound through the woods and over a small creek. She passed a couple of warped benches and a trash can when the ATV came into view behind them, a pair of rangers riding it together.

The loop was coming up, and Dana ran into it, her whole body hot with exertion. She was sweating, but that also meant she was getting hungry.

"There will always be someone more powerful than you," Lily told her.

"Opposite of encouraging," Dana replied.

When they came to the end of the loop, she pushed Lily through a gap in the bushes. It was narrow enough that, when the ATV caught up, the rangers were forced to dismount.

"Half a mile, half a mile," she muttered, then ran as fast as she could. The dolly caught multiple times on rocks and sticks, and twisted out of her hands dangerously at one point. Barely able to hold on, she found herself in a small clearing of waist high wheat with trees on the other side. The air seemed to shimmer at the halfway point, and when she passed the boundary, a tingle moved through her entire body.

She was nearly at the trees when she turned around to see where the rangers were. Both of them had stopped at the boundary and they wandered around in confusion.

"C'mon," she muttered, then put her hand over Lily's mouth to silence her.

"You sure they went this way?" one of the rangers asked.

"I thought so, but...they must have doubled back." Even though Dana and LIly were still in plain sight, the rangers turned and ran back to their ATV.

Dana let out a sigh of relief, and then stared daggers at Lily.

"You so fucking owe me," she said, and then pushed her into the trees.

It was slow going for a while. The brush was largely impassable, but Tick Tock used a pair of blades to clear a path for them when he could, and they eventually wandered into a clearing surrounded by large rocks. Dana flopped down on a nearby rock and gazed up at the sky.

"This really sucks, do you know that?"

The land itself seemed to be blessed with the same magic that protected Mike's house, but now what? Was she supposed to wander around out here for a week and then steal a car to get home? She had a bag of magic marbles and her magic flask was back in her room in the future, so she would have to get that somehow, too. "You wanted to stick it to the man, I get that. But now we're royally screwed for the next few days, and I get the feeling I'm going to have to learn how to take down a deer with my bare hands or something to keep from trying to eat your damned face."

Lily giggled and her eyes changed color.

"Yeah, wonderful. At least Tick Tock contributes." She sighed and turned her thoughts back to the broken motorcycle they had left behind.

Alex. Dana had spent a year fixing up her late girlfriend's bike, only to lose it forever. She had kept the feelings at bay during their tense flight from Montana, but those feelings could only be bottled up for so long.

When she cried out, it was the wail of an injured animal. She fell to her knees and clawed at the earth beneath her, the dam finally breaking. Hundreds of hours of pounding out the dents that Alex had put in it during the crash had been an effort to undo tragedy, a means of healing. However, the bandage had been ripped off the wound long before it could heal, and now she was consumed by a never-ending tide of grief.

Between broken cries, she could hear Lily mumbling, and it took everything in her not to try and strangle her. She knew it wouldn't hurt the demon, and none of it was even Lily's fault, but she needed someone to hate, to blame for everything.

She thought back to something Lily had once told her and looked up at the succubus and wiped the tears from her eyes.

"I need you," she said. "I need your advice. I'm feeling particularly murderous, and only you can help me with that."

"Nobody's getting murdered today." The voice that came from behind her was a man's voice, followed by the unmistakable cocking of a shotgun. "If you're lucky, that is."

Dana put her arms in the air and groaned. Apparently not everybody in the Forest Service was affected by the magic protecting this place.

When she turned to see who it was, she was shocked to see an old man aiming his gun at her. His white hair was long and pulled back into a ponytail, and though his face was lined with deep wrinkles, he had the confident stance of someone who had no problem pulling the trigger. He wore an old pair of jeans and a red flannel shirt. He had on combat boots that were covered in dry mud.

"Thought maybe you girls had gotten lost or somethin', wanderin' onto my land and all. Looks like you're up to no good."

"Easy." Dana stood slowly and turned to face him properly and moved toward him. "Okay, so I can explain. We needed that car to get away from my friend's abusive husband. He was chasing us and so we stole that car, and I'm so very sorry, and..."

He aimed the gun at Dana's head. "I see you walkin' my way and have no problem paintin' the woods with your face." He looked past Dana at Lily. "Who the hell was your friend married to? She's got horns."

"Oh, yeah, she was wearing a costume when I rescued her. They're super-glued on."

"You're so full of shit, you stink." He sniffed the air. "Literally. I can smell you from here. You bathe in garbage or something?"

Lily laughed and leaned forward, causing the dolly to tip and crash to the ground. She let out a grunt of pain and her tail appeared, whipping about in an effort to tip the dolly back over.

The old man pointed the gun at Lily, then back at Dana, then rolled his eyes. "How did you two get past the barrier? No bullshit this time. Your friend clearly isn't human."

Dana stared into the man's eyes. He was taking this very well. "We're running away from some bad people. You probably haven't heard of them, but we just need a place to stay for a week. My friend owns this land and we hoped it would be safe here."

"What's your friend's name?"

"Mike. Mike Radley."

He scrunched up his face. "Don't think so. This land is owned by someone else."

"Do you mean Emily? She died a couple years ago. It belongs to Mike now."

He chewed this over for a moment and then looked at Lily. "What is she?"

"A succubus."

"Hmm." He thought it over for a few seconds and then lowered his gun and looked over his shoulder. "What do you think?"

"I think one smells of brimstone and the other of death." The voice was deep and gravelly, but Dana couldn't see anyone there. She sniffed the air, but all she could smell was the forest and the woodfire stink of the man in front of her. "But Emily would be an old woman, if she lived, so it rings of truth."

"Who's there?" Dana asked.

"Don't mind him, my friend is real good at hiding." He looked over his other shoulder. "And how about you?"

There was no answer this time, but it was clear that he was looking at someone. He nodded and then cocked his shotgun and extracted the shell from the bottom, which slid easily into the pocket of his flannel shirt. He set the safety and slung the shotgun over his shoulder by its strap.

"Yeah, okay," he said. "My name's Darren."

"Dana. And this is Lily." She pointed to Lily, who was still trying to flip herself over using her tail. "Look, no offense, but it's probably better if you just let us go do our own thing. We're not exactly safe to be around."

Darren snorted. "I've had daydreams scarier than the pair of you. Though your friend's gonna need to calm down with that tail of hers if I'm gonna help her back up."

The crunch of heavy footsteps startled Dana, and she turned around to see a large figure step away from the tree where it had been leaning. His moss-covered fur was brown like the earth and his feet were as big as the legends made them out to be.

"I can help with this one," Bigfoot said, then casually swatted away Lily's tail and lifted the dolly up with one hand. Lily's face was covered in dirt, and her eyes locked on the sasquatch's face.

"I thought you'd be taller," Lily told him.

"I'm not wearing shoes today." Bigfoot undid the straps and slung her over one shoulder. "Don't sting me or I'll stick you in the ground and roll a boulder on top of you."

"I love a man who knows how to talk to..." Her eyes went vacant and she babbled.

"Is your friend okay?" Darren asked.

Dana shrugged. "No idea. We've been running since this happened. Oh, and the dolly is alive. If you could all look away, that would be very helpful."

Darren looked doubtful at first, but he turned his head and Dana heard a loud pop. Tick Tock was now a desk clock, and she picked him up in both hands.

"Now that's different. There aren't any more of you, are there?" Darren scanned the forest. "No men, right?"

That's a weird question, she thought. "Just the three of us."