Free Take The Stage By Storm: A Tina Storm Short Story (2) by Lissa Bilyk Page B

demonic pact seemed my best bet, but from
what I could gather, Sarah was one of those annoyingly beautiful
and annoyingly nice people. It’d be tough to justify vengeance
against her. I’d have to do some snooping around Julia to find an
amulet or something from the dealmaker demon.
    Snooping
wasn’t as hard as I thought it might be. Unlike the rest of the cast, who kept their bags
in the greenroom, Julia insisted on having hers backstage. While
she and the director and the rest of the cast were taking notes on
the rehearsal before going home, I – knowing it was totally wrong
and that I shouldn’t be doing it – searched her bag. Of course, if
it was an amulet, she could have been wearing it, but I hadn’t seen
a necklace on her at all. So unless I wanted to break into her
house, which I wasn’t so keen on, I would have to find something
among her personal possessions.
    But there
was n othing but books,
make-up, a drink bottle, a phone, wallet, keys, another drink
bottle… what
have we here?
    The
second seemingly innocuous drink bottle was glowing. It was one of
those metallic ones, and it tingled in my hand as I pulled it
out.
    “What the hell
are you doing?”

    I spun
round. Julia stood before me, hands on her hips. The theatre was
now empty, waiting for the night janitor to come and shut off the
house lights and lock the doors.
    “Nothing,” I
said, trying to hide the bottle behind my back.
    “Give that to
me,” she replied in a low voice, stepping forward.
    I told you I
was a bad actor. I stepped away from her. “I know what you’ve done.
You were the one who hurt Sarah.”
    “Sarah was hit
by a car. Not my fault.”
    “ It is if
you wish it. Using a djinni.”
    Julia stared at
me. “Give me the bottle…” She seemed to hesitate at the end, like
she wanted to say my name but couldn’t.
    “You don’t even
know my name, do you?” I demanded.
    Confusion cleared and her eyes hardened. “So what? You’re just
chorus. You’re a nobody. I’m the lead and you have to do what I
say, or you will regret it.”
    “ This
isn’t royalty,” I snapped back. “You’re not really some princess.
I’m not afraid of you or your empty threats.” I twisted the cap of
the bottle open. Soft pinkish smoke spewed forth from the neck and
twisted in on itself, spiralling and twirling and warped with
purple and green. In the middle of the smoke a figure appeared: a
very beautiful and exotically clad yet strangely androgynous youth
with longish light brown hair and oddly purple eyes. A djinni. A
wish demon.
    Julia moved
faster than I did, leaping forward to attempt to snatch the bottle
away. However I have demon hunter reflexes bred into me. I twisted
out of her way, and in her sudden rage, she yelled at the djinni.
“Kill her!”
    The youth
stood perfectly still and blinked slowly as I grappled with Julia.
“I can only grant wishes, mistress.”
    Julia threw her
weight on me and I tumbled to the hard theatre floor. I refused to
give up the bottle.
    “I wish that
she were dead!”
    “I am afraid
you will have to be more specific, mistress.”
    “ Her!
Her! The one I’m-” I cut her off with a hard knee into her stomach
and threw her off me. Gasping for air, she demanded of the djinni,
“I wish for more wishes!”
    The
djinni turned his… her… its head and regarded her with indigo
feline eyes. “You have forfeited your wishes.” And then the
mystical smoke overtook the djinni again, in wisps of purple and
pink and green, as it disappeared back into the bottle I was
holding.
    Julia and I both
stared at the little prize in my hands. Then we looked at each
other. Julia made a frantic leap while I hurriedly undid the bottle
cap for a second time. Out poured the colourful smoke and the
djinni took shape.
    “ Your
wish is my command, mistress,” the djinni said, its strange quiet
eyes locked on me. “Forfeit rule: no infinite wishes.”
    “ I wish
for you to undo the two previous wishes made by Julia