Unknown Laboratory, Beneath Grit City’s East End
The lamp sat in the center of a runic circle, glowing faintly under the scrutiny of the Sorcerer Scientist. Purple light from arcane monitors and glass canisters cast flickering shadows across her lab—an eerie blend of old-world alchemy and bleeding-edge technology. Glass tubes pulsed with strange fluids, and metal limbs twitched on half-assembled constructs bolted to the walls. The scent of ozone and sandalwood thickened the air.
Her gloved hand hovered over the lamp, the sigils on her gauntlet pulsing in time with the enchanted circuitry embedded in the ritual ring.
She closed her eyes. Spoke the ancient words. Wove the spell.
And waited.
Silence.
No swirling smoke. No booming voice. No pudgy djinn at her command.
Nothing.
Her silver eyes opened, narrowed, then burned with a searing intensity.
“…Why isn’t it working?” she whispered.
From across the room, Madam Boszorkány emerged from a lattice of shadows. The old sorceress’ cane clicked sharply against the lab’s steel floor, her twisted silhouette flickering under the pulsing purple light.
“You expected a djinn freed once to simply return when called?” she asked, her voice calm and cutting.
“I expected control,” the Sorcerer Scientist hissed. “I expected obedience. This lamp was mine—paid for in rare bone and bloodstone. It was mine!”
She clenched her gauntleted fist, and a pulse of violet energy burst from her arm, crackling across the ritual circle and causing the lamp to skitter like a bug across the floor.
Madam Boszorkány gave her a sideways glance but didn’t flinch. “Temper tantrums won’t summon a djinn, my dear.”
The Sorcerer Scientist turned on her sharply. “Then what will?”
Boszorkány slowly approached, her fingers weaving ancient symbols in the air. Wisps of blue-green flame coalesced above the lamp, casting an ephemeral shadow—Jubbar’s outline, distorted and distant. The flame twisted once, then blinked out.
“Residual magic. Traces of his essence,” murmured the Madam. “But his tether to the lamp has been severed. Jubbar has already been summoned—and not by you.”
The Sorcerer Scientist’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I already guessed that. I want to know who did it.”
Madam Boszorkány arched a thin, parchment-like brow. “Then ask the lamp.”
With a grunt of irritation, the Sorcerer Scientist knelt again and placed both hands—bare and bionic—on the lamp. She opened her mind and felt. Arcane energy surged through her nerves like static through copper wire. Images flickered in her consciousness—a blast of gym lights, echoes of laughter, the scent of chalk dust, protein powder, and juvenile embarrassment.
Then, like a snapshot etched into the back of her mind, she saw a face. A boy—barefoot, wide-eyed, red-cheeked, wrapped in absurdly oversized clothing and wrapped even tighter in a swirl of wish-born magic.
The lamp flared once and dimmed.
She snapped upright.
“…The boy.”
Boszorkány’s smile was as thin and sharp as a scalpel. “The one you slapped aside like a fly?”
“Yes,” the Sorcerer Scientist muttered, pacing now. “That child—blond hair, ridiculous costume. He was the one. He rubbed the lamp. He summoned the djinn.”
“Then you need him,” Boszorkány said simply. “To summon Jubbar again, to trap him. The first summoner must participate in the anchoring ritual. It is ancient law, written into the djinn’s bindings.”
The Sorcerer Scientist ground her teeth. “I thought he was just a sidekick wannabe. A fanboy. I didn't think…”
She stopped pacing. Her fingers curled slowly into fists. Her breath slowed.
“He has no idea what he’s done,” she said slowly. “He doesn’t know the power he touched.”
Boszorkány turned to face her student fully. “Then the question becomes: do you ask the boy for help—”
The Sorcerer Scientist smirked coldly. “—Or do I take him?”
The air seemed to still at those words. The lab lights flickered.
“Wherever he is,” the Sorcerer Scientist continued, already spinning toward a console, “I’ll find him. That little brat may have thought he was playing hero, but he’s the key to summoning Jubbar again. And I will not be denied.”
Boszorkány nodded with slow approval. “Just remember, my child—djinn are creatures of mischief. If you force his return without caution... you may unleash more than you bargained for.”
The Sorcerer Scientist’s gaze was ice.
“I’m counting on it.”
She turned to a nearby array of screens, hands dancing across runes and touch interfaces as surveillance feeds snapped into place. The face of the boy—young Ethan—was being sketched in real-time by magical software, extrapolating from the momentary mental image she had pulled from the lamp’s magical residue.
Within seconds, facial recognition programs filtered through Grit City’s street cams, public records, and even local school databases.
The Sorcerer Scientist smiled as one of the screens pinged.
A match.
A fuzzy camera still from outside the Keller Estate.
There he was.
She leaned closer, whispering like a predator. “Found you, my little summoner.”