Never Fails

It never fails. I manage to gather up enough power to actually amuse myself, say a nice drink and a couple girls, and the call comes. I’m sucked up and out of the spout, spilling my booze and managing to piss off a girl of my own invention. Ah, well. Maybe this will be the day someone slips up.
What should I choose? It’s so hard to get it right these days. I either get the hoary old lags who’ve seen and done it all, or the unshakably confident youth who doesn’t bat an eye. The tunnel whizzes by. It looks sunny at the end. Was that a palm tree? Got it. I’ll go with the old standby, a mini-sandstorm with a human torso on top. Not very original, I know, but I was rushed. The tunnel ends; I soar as far up as the lamp’s tether will allow, a whirling pillar of wrath and power.
“WHO DARES TO SUMMON ME!?-wha?” I boom out into the desert air. The desert smog. Some joker has called me up in Vegas. Las-freaking-Vegas. I can see the Pyramid behind the little snot, who thinks he’s got me off balance. An amateur. Excellent. “Whelp,” I ask, keeping the aura of seething rage, adding a tiny hint of malice “Was this your doing?”
“Yes. I have a proposition for you.” The child’s voice cracks as he speaks; he blushes red. Astounding! He can’t be more than 15. I swear they get younger every time. Wait…a proposition? What, does he think I am a fishwife to be haggled with at market? “Give me power. Magic, strength, the whole shebang. In return, I give you your freedom.”
He’s crafty. The children of the lamp are bound by laws as ancient as the sand, one of them being ‘thou shall not give our crafts unto any mortal.’ But, if I was free… no more laws. Eternal life, enough magic to level a city (hmm, that has potential), and no. more. laws. I’ve gotten offers before, but none so poorly worded. I could exploit this so easily I was tempted to warn him. But only tempted. I keep a straight face. “Very well. Power for freedom it shall be” I rumbled in a ground-shaking baritone.
I gather power-It comes so easily outside the confines of that accursed lamp- and bring my hands together in a tremendous blast of light and noise. The child utters the primary, secondary, and tertiary confirmations. My tether snaps. I give a great booming laugh and soar upward, up past the highest mountain, beyond the moon and sun, past every star save that single body which cannot be reached by the likes of me. And I fall. I dive down, down so fast that space itself cries and writhes at my passing. I come to rest without even disturbing the nearby alley cats. All of this in the space of a breath. The whelp was not even aware of my absence. Now comes the fun part.
My face contorts into a demonic grin. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Power to power and rust to rust!” That dingy, corroded, old lamp begins to shine. Lines of reddish brown light shoot out and ensnare the child in a net of inimical energy. He cries out in pain as the foul device draws him in. I feel a tiny twinge of regret, and then it’s gone. I think of a similar situation I was involved in, so many aeons ago, albeit from a different perspective.
The streets are quiet now, the hustle and bustle of Las Vegas nothing compared to the roar of sunfire and starsong. I look down, stirred by an unfamiliar sensation. Legs. I begin walking, whistling a jaunty tune. I was naked, human and powerless, quite possibly forever. Oh well; worse things have happened in Sin City.