All Your Wishes Read Online Free Page A

particularly in an enclosed space. It makes me twitchy. Gwen, my long-term therapist, says I have trust issues. Talk about your understatement of the millennium.
    â€œDottie, will you please buzz Dawna and ask her to join us?”
    â€œOf course.”
    Walking into my office was like stepping into a rainbow filled with boxes. The sun wasn’t yet shining directly through the stained glass, but it was bright enough outside that the colors shone like jewels just the same. Patel stopped and stared.
    â€œWow.” He smiled as he turned his attention to carefully removing Minnie from her seat on the visitor’s chair facing the desk. He brushed the seat with his hand to clear away any stray cat hairs, then sat. Minnie, offended at finding herself on the floor, gave him a baleful, green-eyed glare.
    â€œIt is pretty impressive,” I agreed. “It almost makes up for the temperature difference.” Actually, it more than made up for it to me. I could get another fan or a room-cooling unit easily enough, and the play of light was beautiful and unique.
    I moved a stack of boxes from atop the desk to the floor so that I could see my guest, then settled in. Dawna arrived and took the chair next to the client, shifting it close enough to my desk that she could set her iPad on it and take notes. “So, Mr. Patel, what is it you need from our firm?” she asked.
    â€œI am about to undertake a very dangerous quest. My wife tells me that I need you,” he stared directly at me when he spoke, to make his point absolutely clear, “to ensure that I survive long enough to complete it.”
    I blinked. I hadn’t heard someone seriously refer to something as a “quest” in a while—if ever. But he meant it. His expression was terribly serious, and there was a hint of sadness in those beautiful brown eyes. “Your wife?”
    â€œAbha is a level six clairvoyant. She was most insistent.”
    Dawna and I traded a knowing glance. You ignore the advice of a seer at your own peril. That explained why Patel was here, in spite of his visible misgivings.
    He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a device approximately the size of a cell phone. I recognized it immediately. It was the latest piece of technology to take the market by storm. Ridiculously expensive, it combined magic and electronics and was the darling of law enforcement agencies, criminal defense firms, and more. It used a spell disk to create a holographic recorder and projector and could produce accurate, three-dimensional scenes that seemed so real you could practically touch them. The little machine even incorporated smell. The movie industry was desperately scrambling to find a way to incorporate the technology into the theater experience, although, honestly, I wasn’t sure having slasher flicks seem that real was a particularly great idea. And really, who’d want to live through the explosions in action movies? I’ve been in real explosions: there’s nothing fun about it.
    Still, I’d bought one when Isaac Levy first got them in stock. I wasn’t sure what use I would make of it, but I’d splurged on one just the same. I mean, seriously, it’s a tech toy. How could I resist?
    â€œMay I?”
    â€œSure, go for it,” I answered.
    He set the device on my desk, pressed the button, and “poof,” just like that, I was on the holodeck of the old science-fiction show I’d watched as a kid. Well, not really. But I might as well have been. My office disappeared and while I knew Dawna and Rahim Patel were there, I couldn’t actually see them unless I concentrated really hard. Instead, I was sitting in a well-lit room full of shelf after shelf of … djinn jars.
    Shit, shit, shit! I cursed inwardly. I knew it. I just knew it.
    Stationed at regular intervals on the shelves, the ancient jars were absolutely gorgeous. They varied in size, each one a completely