Nate stared at the purple tag. DO NOT REMOVE THIS TAG. There was no other information on it, so what was the point of it? It was on the second-hand mattress he had bought cheap, all that he could afford, and the mattress was not very comfortable. In fact it was lumpy, and the lumps tended to poke him almost as if self-animated. He was getting ready for bed, dreading another bad night’s sleep, with the night yet young, and in no mood for arrogant tags. It was bad enough existing on unemployment and limited savings; he didn’t need this.
What the hell. At least he could deal with this annoyance. What could they do, throw him in jail? He took hold of the tag and pulled.
It resisted his effort. “So it’s like that, is it?” he muttered. “Well, we’ll see, you self-important little piece of fluff.”
He went to fetch a pair of pliers. He fastened them on the tag and yanked hard. It ripped out of the mattress seam with a pained noise of separation. It truly had not wanted to be removed. But it had tangled with the wrong person.
Then mist issued from the small tear where the tag had been. Purple mist or smoke. Was the mattress on fire? Fascinated for the moment, Nate watched the vapor curl out and spiral upward, thickening and expanding. There was evidently a lot of it inside the mattress, now released by the slit. It became a dark cloud eighteen inches in diameter, swirling internally.
The vapor formed into a horrendous face with cauliflower ears, beetling brows, a crude vent of a mouth, flame-like hair, and darkly smoldering eyes. “So, mortal!” it rumbled. “Thou hast released me at last, thou foul son of a she-dog!”
This was weird. It was also insulting. “Listen, airhead. If you’re what inflated the mattress, get back in there and do your job. The damned thing is bad enough without going all the way flat.”
“I be the Ifrit Ibraheemstukobritch,” the face said, or something that sounded something like that. “Three thousand years have I been trapped in this vile container. Other ifrits got confined to fine glass bottles, but no, I was stuck in this ill bag. King Suleiman, may the gods defecate on his name, doubtless had a sense of humor I share not.”
This was one of the genies the ancient Israeli king had confined to bottles so they wouldn’t bother human folk? That didn’t make sense. “How come? He must have had a reason.”
More of the demon formed. Now he was a complete figure of a supernatural spirit, with muscular limbs and an impressive naked torso. “Know, O foolish mortal, that I always had an eye for the damsels. The queen was one luscious creature, but her suite was warded to repel ifrits like me. So I sneaked into a mattress that was being delivered to her bedroom, and when she sat her bountiful bottom down in it, I gave her a little poke up through the cloth.” He illustrated by poking a single ham-finger up suggestively.
“That wasn’t smart,” Nate said, smiling.
“Mayhap not. Her scream roused the entire palace staff, including the king, who was not much amused. He was in his night dress, with a disheveled concubine trailing behind. ‘O foul spawn of hell,’ he swore, ‘since thou does like mattresses so much, be thou forever confined to it.’ Suddenly I was locked in, with a magic tag for the seal, and the mattress was heaved onto the trash pile. I could hear what passed outside it, but could not see, and of course I could not escape. It were not the mattress that confined me, but the seal, which I could not remove from inside. The mattress passed from beggar to beggar over the centuries, and each insisted on using it despite my efforts to make it uncomfortable. It was in my mind that I might torment someone into burning it, and when the flame made a hole I would escape. But the infernal thing was fireproof. Thus I remained, until this moment thou didst free me. So thank thee, mortal, and now begone.”
“Begone?” Nate repeated, outraged. “Listen, you refugee from Arabic fantasy, this is my apartment.
The ifrit contemplated him thoughtfully. “Thou beest correct. The mattress should have its occupant. Since it be thine, I will cram thee into it, and thou canst spend the next three thousand years contemplating thy insignificant navel therein.”
“The hell with that!” Nate said. “I’m not getting inside any—”
But the ifrit reached out with a hand suddenly grown huge and gripped him about the body. “In thou goest, fell mortal,” he said, and jammed Nate’s head at the slit. The vent actually enlarged to take him in.
Obviously he had misplayed this situation. The demon had powers he couldn’t match. He needed to talk his way out of trouble in a hurry, because he suspected that he would not be able to escape the mattress once he was inside. “Wait!”
The ifrit paused momentarily. “What, mortal?”
“You—you’ve been trapped for three thousand years. You have no experience with the modern world. You’ll be hopelessly lost if you try to wing it alone. You’ll get in terminal trouble. You need a guide who is familiar with the local customs.”
“Trouble? With what? Suleiman be long gone.”
Nate thought fast. “The IRS, for one thing. It will come after you for having no visible means of support and not paying taxes. You could wind up confined again.”
The ifrit considered. “I know not this Iris. Be she a powerful goddess?”
“The worst! Nobody can stop it, uh, her. Even the worst criminals get caught in her clutches.”
“She must be a distant daughter of Suleiman.”
“Very distant,” Nate agreed. “And she’s just one of the hazards of the modern world.”
The ifrit considered further. “Be there damsels here?”
So he was a lecherous knave, as had been hinted when he got into the queen’s bed. That was the undoing of males in all cultures. “Oh, sure. Gals galore. Here, I’ll show you.” He wriggled out of the demon’s grasp and went to turn on the TV, and set it to a porn station. The raunchy action was continuous.
“In a magic box!” the ifrit said, impressed. “Lovely creatures.”
“They’re actually full sized,” Nate explained. “This is merely a picture. But as you can see, they have the essential features.”
“They do. I want some of those.”
“Uh, you can’t just fetch them. They are protected by, uh, wards. This is just to prove that they exist. First you have to blend in with the culture.”
The ifrit sighed. “Ever thus. Very well, mortal, I will spare thee the mattress, for now. But thou must show me this blending.”
“It’s a deal.” He considered. “But first some cautions. You’ll need to don some clothing. Contemporary clothing, not pantaloons and slippers.”
“Clothing,” the ifrit agreed with resignation. Pajamas matching those Nate was wearing appeared on his body.
“That’s night clothing,” Nate said. “I’ll show you day clothing. But first, you’ll need a name. Not a ten syllable Arabic moniker. Why don’t I just call you Tag? That should pass muster.”
There was a rude sound, followed by a ruder smell. “There, I passed mustard. Be that satisfactory?”
“Uh, no,” Nate gasped as the thick odor made him gag. “No mustard gas. Not in public. I just meant that the name Tag should do. Next, the language. You’re speaking an archaic dialect. In fact, how is it you’re speaking my language at all, if you’ve been out of touch for three thousand years? Shouldn’t you be speaking Aramaic or something?”
“I could hear folk speaking when they were on the mattress. I picked up on the languages as they gradually changed. There was a really nice damsel about three centuries ago in England. She put her ear to the mattress, and we conversed. So I learned her dialect.” He frowned. “But she wouldn’t remove the tag, so I tuned out.”
“Her loss,” Nate said. “Can you orient on the dialect I speak?”
“Sure can, numbskull.”
Nate ignored that. He went to the closet and donned day clothing. He turned around and saw Tag dressed identically. Good enough. “Now we’ll take a walk in the mall, where you can pick up on the local scene. Don’t do anything without my advice.”
“Got it, pinhead.”
They took the elevator to the basement floor. Tag was much intrigued. “A moving room!”
They walked to the nearby mall. “Moving steps!”
“That’s called an escalator. See, folk ride up and down on them. We’ll do the same. No flying or conjuring, okay?” Nate paused.
“Why are we waiting?”
“See those young women on the escalator? I am mentally undressing them. It’s a common male pastime.”
“Ah.”
The women screamed. Their clothing had disappeared.
“I said mentally, not physically!” Nate said. “Quick, clothe them again, before they make a worse scene.”
“What good is mentally?” Tag grumped. “It’s their bare behinds that count.” But clothing reappeared on the women.
Yet somehow the women were not satisfied. “That’s my outfit!” one screamed at another.
“Well, you got mine!”
“I may have put them back on the wrong women,” Tag said.
“Let it be!” Nate said before the ifrit could magic the clothing further. “We’d better make ourselves scarce.”
They turned, only to be confronted by another young woman, a pretty one. “Not so fast, you two,” she said. “I saw that, and heard you talking. Did you use stage magic?”
“Of course,” Tag said, before Nate could stop him.
“Really? How did you do it?”
“Like this.”
The woman’s clothing disappeared. She was quite well formed, and obviously it was all natural. But unlike the others, she did not scream. “That’s not stage magic. That’s real!”
“No, it’s fake,” Nate said desperately. “All pretend.”
“Fake?” she asked Tag.
“Of course not. My magic is always real.”
“Show me something else.”
“Don’t do it!” Nate said. But again he was too late. The woman was already sailing up into the air, still naked. Now many heads turned.
“Look at that!” a child cried. “Bare boobs!”
The men in the area oriented. “More than that,” one said, licking his lips.
“Get her down here, safely, clothed,” Nate rasped. “Fast!”
The woman reappeared before them, clothed. “Amazing,” she said.
“Take us back to my apartment,” Nate said, trying desperately to stop making a scene.
Then they were back in his apartment. Tag, Nate, and the woman. “Uh-oh,” Nate muttered. He had not meant for the woman to be included.
“This is wonderful,” the woman said. “You really can do magic!”
“It’s all illusion,” Nate said.
“Nonsense. My hobby is paranormal investigation. Ninety-nine percent are fakes, but I know a real one when I see it. When it undresses me, and flies me high in the air, and conjures me to another place.” She faced Tag. “Sir, you have phenomenal talent.”
“Thank you, damsel,” the ifrit said modestly. “Shall we now have a wild orgy of sex?”
“No!” Nate cried.
“He’s right, this time,” the woman said. “This is not the time. We hardly know each other. I am Lotus Long.”
“Nate Boxer,” Nate said. “And this is Tag Ifrit.”
“How do you do, Tag?” Lotus said, proffering her hand.
“Well, I’m a magical creature,” Tag said. “It comes naturally to me.”
“She meant to shake hands,” Nate said quickly. “Like this.” He proffered his hand, and Lotus took it.
“Ah.” Tag shook hands with them both.
“How did you catch on to what we were doing?” Nate asked Lotus. “In fact, why were you there? It seems like sheer coincidence.”
“Not at all. I am one of the one percent. That is, I’m a real paranormal. My premonition is infallible. I knew that something significant would occur at that time and place, so I made sure to be there. Now I have a marvelous opportunity to investigate.”
“Investigate me,” Tag said, his chest swelling.
“She means your paranormal aspect,” Nate said, staving off a spot siege of jealousy.
“That, too,” the ifrit agreed reluctantly.
“You really are magical?” Lotus asked.
“I’m an ifrit. All ifrits are magical.”
“How is it there’s been no newsflash about this before?”
“I was sealed in this mattress,” Tag explained. “Until Nate removed the tag and released me. Now I’m learning about his world. It’s intriguing.”
“I would imagine so,” Lotus said. “How long were you in the mattress?”
Nate had given up trying to hide the nature of the ifrit. There was bound to be a globe-splattering splash. Where would it end?
“Three thousand years,” Tag said almost proudly. It seemed that he liked having the attention of a pretty girl, as what male didn’t.
“That’s amazing!” Lotus said warmly. “It must have been maddening to be trapped without being able to participate in world events.”
“You have no idea. All I knew of the world was what I could hear from inside the mattress, and that was mostly snoring. Except when a couple was making love. Then the bouncing could get horrendous, especially because I knew what caused it. Hard to sleep through that. If I could’ve gotten out, I’d have showed them some real action. Speaking of which—”
“All in good time,” Lotus said smoothly. Nate realized that she could handle the situation. She was playing the ifrit, using his desire to get her onto the mattress to evoke more information about his nature and history. Nate could only wish that she had reason to play him, Nate, similarly. “I want to learn all about you, so I can write a book documenting a real live paranormal manifestation and become famous.”
Tag’s eyes squinted cannily. “You are using me.”
“Well, yes, technically. This is potentially the story of the millennium, and it’s all mine, mine!”
“Then you should let me use you in return. This is only fair.”
Lotus considered. “I suppose you do have a case. Very well, I’ll give you a minute to court me. Then we’ll return to business.”
“But his idea of courtship is akin to a cave man dragging a wench into his cave by the hair,” Nate protested.
Both turned to him. “So?” they said almost together.
Nate shut up.
“You have ox eyes, a giraffe’s neck, breasts like ripe melons, lips like fat red worms, hair like a camel’s tail, legs like those of an ostrich, a wasp’s waist, a butt like that of a baboon in heat, feet like—”
“You do have a certain way with words,” Lotus said, smiling. “But not quite right for today’s women, complimentary as they may be.”
“How not?” Tag asked, perplexed.
“Suppose I returned the favor, per a current joke, saying your ears are like flowers, cauliflowers. Your eyes are like pools, cesspools. Your lips are like petals, bicycle pedals—bit of a verbal slurring there. Your teeth are like stars, they come out at night. Your nose is a Roman nose, it’s roamin’ all over your face.”
The ifrit nodded, impressed. “You’re a fair hand at courtship yourself, damsel. But what is a bicycle?”
“Um, you do need to get a better acquaintance with today’s scene. You probably don’t know about cars, planes, computers, TV—”
“He knows about TV,” Nate said. “He saw, uh, girls there.”
“I want one,” Tag agreed. “Or three.”
“I’ll bet,” she said. “Maybe we should visit a casino, where anything is available for a price. How are you for gambling?”
“I am good at it. I always win, of course.”
“Of course,” she agreed thoughtfully. “But we’ll need money to start.”
“Here is money. A bag of gold.” The bag appeared in his hand.
Nate took it and reached inside. He drew out a small gold coin with ancient script on it. “Er—”
Lotus saw the problem. “Wait, if you always win, we can start with some of mine, and parley it into a better stake. So let’s go to the casino.”
Suddenly they were in a busy casino, standing beside a roulette table. Sexy girls were circulating, serving drinks. Tag was pleased; this was what he had come for.
Lotus shook her head. “First we need to build up our stake and buy some chips. This way.” She headed for a row of one-armed bandits. She put in a silver dollar she had, and pulled the handle.
The tokens whirled in the little windows and settled into place. The machine gave a hoot and poured out dozens of silver dollars. Nate and Tag gathered them up and followed Lotus to the cashier’s window, where she exchanged them for betting chips. Then they returned to the roulette table. And won. And won again.
Before long the casino bouncers appeared. “The boss will see you now,” one said menacingly.
“Why?” Tag asked, curious.
“You’re winning too much. Something’s fishy.”
“This is a problem?”
“Listen, joker,” the bouncer said, drawing back his fist.
“Don’t threaten him!” Nate warned. Too late, as usual.
Tag snapped his fingers. The first bouncer sailed through the air and crashed into a slot machine, which in turn crashed to the floor. The second bouncer turned into a white rat that scurried across the floor, starting a commotion.
“We’d better get out of here,” Nate said urgently. “And not by supernatural means. We’ll take a taxi.”
“A what?” Tag asked.
“A car. One of the things you need to learn about.”
“Good idea,” Lotus agreed. “We’ve made enough of a scene for the moment.”
They barged out and caught a waiting taxi. “Where to?” the cabbie inquired.
“To hell and back,” Tag said.
“That’ll cost you extra.”
Then there was a siren as the police closed in. “I think we ruffled some feathers,” Lotus said, not entirely dismayed. “This could get awkward.”
“Too bad we can’t just fly out of here,” Nate said, resigned to more than awkwardness. All this, because he had pulled off a stupid tag!
Then the taxi sailed up into the air and floated to another lane, where it landed. “Good trick!” the cabbie said as he accelerated. “In the morning I may wonder about this.”
“Cars aren’t supposed to fly,” Lotus told Tag.
“But Nate said—”
“I think we’d better just get home,” Nate said.
Then they were back in his apartment. Nate turned on the TV, fearing the worst. It was there. “There was a remarkable scene at the casino,” the announcer said. “It appears to have started with an unnatural winning streak. There are rumors about a man turning into a rat, and a flying car. Also nude women at another location. The authorities are investigating.”
“Aw, zip your lip,” Nate muttered.
And the mouth of the TV announcer became a closed zipper. He looked startled.
“Um, Tag, there are a number of things we have to caution you about,” Lotus said. “Such as figurative speech.”
“And we haven’t even touched upon the Internet,” Nate said.
“The what?”
“It’s a global communication system with its own protocols and dangers.”
“Dangers?”
“Like viruses. They can really mess you up.”
“Viruses?”
“They infect machines as well as people these days.”
“Machines get ill?”
“They do when their software gets infected.”
“Software?”
“This will take weeks,” Lotus said impatiently. “Where to begin?”
“This is giving me a headache,” Tag complained.
“Ifrits get headaches?” she asked.
“No. That’s what makes it hard to handle.”
“Well, we’ll handle it. I have a book to write. I need to know everything about you. Then we’ll put you on display for the public, doing real magic tricks. Proof of the supernatural at last. Take that, skeptics!”
Tag shook his head. “Damsel, you’re enticing, but this is not worth all the confusion. I’m going back into the mattress so I can sleep until a better day.”
“Don’t you dare! Not before I finish the interview.”
But the ifrit was already fizzing into vapor and sliding into the mattress. In moments the purple mist disappeared, leaving only the purple tag to seal it.
Lotus grabbed at it, but it was illusory: visible without being real.
“He made sure it couldn’t be removed this time,” Nate said, halfway relieved.
“Come out of there, you shirker!” Lotus screamed. “I need you to prove the supernatural is real! Otherwise they won’t believe me.”
A finger-shaped section of the mattress poked up in response.
“Oh is that so! Well, I’ll damn well drive you out again, Spook! You won’t get a minute’s sleep.” She jumped on the mattress and bounced repeatedly. “Take that! I have not yet begun to bounce!”
But the mattress was annoyingly unresponsive.
Meanwhile Nate noticed the bag of gold still sitting on the table where it had been forgotten. He took out a coin, then another, but the bag remained full. Finally he turned it over to dump it out. A stream of gold coins fell, piling until they overflowed the table, far more than the little bag could have held. “It’s an endless bag!” he breathed, amazed. “I’m rich!”
“No you aren’t,” Lotus said from the bed. “Spending those ancient coins would arouse immediate suspicion. We’ll have to fence them carefully. I have a connection.”
“We?” he asked blankly.
“We’re in this together, aren’t we?”
He gazed at her. She was slightly disheveled from her bouncing, but prettier than ever. There was hardly anything he could think of he would like more than being “we” with her. “We are.”
“But it would still be better with Tag on the scene so I can write my book and prove it. A real live ifrit! Vindication for the supernatural!”
Nate opened his mouth, about to suggest that, as Tag said earlier, the best way to wake up the ifrit was bouncing on the mattress. Preferably while clasped together, naked. Then he thought back on the events of the evening and decided it was definitely best to let sleeping magical creatures lie. And also that he liked Lotus too much to use a lame pickup line on her.
“Let him sleep,” said Nate. “There must be other ways to prove the existence of the supernatural. With your premonition talent and all this gold, we’ll find them for sure.”
“We?” Lotus asked.
“We’re in this together, aren’t we?” he repeated what she said earlier.
Lotus beamed at him.
Nate smiled back. He was ready for their adventures together. But first he’d need to find a nice, quiet storage unit that was large enough to fit a mattress.
***
Piers Anthony is one of the world’s most popular fantasy authors and a