"And That's How It Was, Officer" by Ralph Sholto (reading books for 4 year olds .TXT) 📕

wrists and that gold ring on his finger, a snake clasping its own tail, was only checked by the large, arthritic knot of a finger knuckle. “Arthur is an unreasonable man.”

“But a man of his word.” Billi sat down on the chair on the other side of the coffee table, putting her shopping bag upon it, beside a gleaming black-screen mobile phone. Nice to see that Lawrence, despite his age, was keeping up with modern technology. “It’s all there. Count it if you want.”

“Why? If you can’t trust a Templar then who can you trust?”

She hated this sort of banter. This unsubtle trading of barbs and faint witticisms, pretending not to know what each other was really up to. She knew exactly what Lawrence was, and what he did. And Lawrence knew all about her.

Lawrence smiled. “Tea? The hotel does a most excellent selection of cakes.”

“No.” She supposed as he was immortal, he wasn’t in a rush for anything, but she was. And the flies were getting on her nerves. “Where is it?”

Lawrence tapped his cane on the marble floor.

The side door opened and another guard-type entered, carrying a wooden box, roughly the size of a shoe box. She’d come for the box, but her attention was all on this new guard.

He had, literally, a stony face. Minute cracks ran jagged paths across his cheeks, the unblinking eyes and the gap that was a mouth. Within the eye sockets glowed an eerie, pale blue light. His hands were likewise stone, grey, lifeless and dusty.

“A golem? How did you get him through customs?” asked Billi. She’d never seen one, not for real. Read about them, of course. The ancient Hebrew sorcerers had created them from clay and magic. She could hear the soft hum of power reverberating from within.

Lawrence smiled admiringly at his stone servant. “Through customs? Quite easily. Just packed him in a crate with a label on the front. Garden ornament.”

The golem moved slowly, methodically, tempering his strength so as not to crush the box in his hands. He set it carefully down on the table between them.

The box. This was it. She wiped her hands on her trousers. She needed to be calm and stop acting like an eight-year-old on Christmas morning.

“May I look?” She hoped her voice didn’t tremble.

Lawrence nodded. Not much, his neck couldn’t handle too much movement. The golem took a step back. Billi drew a pair of white cotton gloves from her pocket.

The lid slid off and within was a container similar to an Egyptian canopic jar, made out of old bronze, rather than clay or stone, and nestled in with palm fibres as packing. It was about twenty centimetres tall and large enough to contain about half a litre. Patches of green patina covered the jar, but under that Billi could just make out regular rows of dashes and wedges. Cuneiform. Billi wasn’t an expert, but it looked like ancient Sumerian. She picked it up, it was much, much heavier than she’d expected. The lid was capped in lead engraved in Arabic, which she could read, they looked like the standard mystical warnings, and finally it was imprinted with of a six-pointed star.

The Seal of Solomon.

Was it just the lighting or did the seal briefly glow?

Lawrence leaned closer and gestured with a talon-like forefinger. “It’s been authenticated. The jar was sealed by Mohammed ibn Nazir al-Hasan. That Arabic is in his own hand. You must have heard of him?”

“The famous fakir of Baghdad. The guy was vizier to the caliph.” The metal was warm, more than that, it felt… alive. She could feel the pulse of a heartbeat coming from within. “So, who’s the guest?”

“The cuneiform gives the name. Sarabda. He was known to the ancient Mesopotamians and popped up later in Assyria, he was briefly servant to King Ashurbanipal. Legend has it he turned the tide of the war against the Elamites. The Arabs mention him throughout the reign of caliph Haroun al-Rashid and that’s when our friend got himself caught and bottled up.”

Billi smiled as she looked over the jar. This was exactly what she’d been told, but it was always worth checking. “My very own genie in a bottle.”

“You know you can trust me when it comes to djinn,” said Lawrence, using the more traditional, Arabic term. “I’ve had plenty of experience.”

“You’ve not thought to use him yourself?”

“Wishes don’t work on wishes,” said Lawrence, not without bitterness.

He looked even more ghoulish up close. The skin was paper thin and the veins beneath thick and grotesque. The folds were encrusted with dried blood, they tore so easily. How old was he now? They’d been dealing with him for over two centuries and he’d been old even then. She’d researched Lawrence through the Templar diaries, kept by every grandmaster since the very first, Hugues de Payens, when he’d established the Order back in the 12th century.

They still fought the Battaille Tenebreuse, the dark conflict. It was their duty to fight the Unholy, the supernatural enemies that preyed upon humanity. Billi had battled vampires, werewolves, ancient witches, fallen angels but this was her first djinn. She wanted everything done right.

Lawrence took another shaky breath. He probably didn’t speak much anymore, it took too much effort, but this was business and he wanted to make sure she knew what she was buying. Plus, Billi reckoned, he never got the chance to share what he knew with someone who might understand — appreciate — what he did. Immortality must be lonely.

“The caliph had the jar hidden away very deep. But then such treasures have a way of working their way back up to the surface. We move to the modern day and the era of Saddam Hussein. There were rumours regarding supernatural weapons of mass destruction.”

Billi nodded. “He planned to unleash monsters like the djinn when he had nothing left to lose, right?”

Lawrence glanced over at the golem. “Not just djinn. There are worse horrors in the desert, believe me. It is fortunate for us