“Did you hear?”  Sara heard a group of female students murmuring to each other as she passed down the hall.  Normally she would simply ignore them,  but she found herself drawn to what they were saying for some reason.

“Hear what?”

“Professor Richardson has resigned.”  Sara’s eyes widened when she heard this, it was to good to be true right? Her luck wasn't that good was it?

“Yeah, I wonder if it has something to do with Millie.”  said another girl in the circle.

“What about Millie?”

“She is pregnant,”

“No way, really? But Mr Richardson is married...”

“Well you know what they say, a ring plugs no holes.”

“That saying is for married women you idiot...”

“Or maybe Mr. Richardson is more, experimental than we thought!”

The group of girls burst out in a fit of giggles, and even Sara couldn't help but laughing at the mental image she had just then.

“No, but seriously, I heard it had something to do with health issues.”

“Like what Aids?”

“Maybe who knows?” Sara shook her head as the girls went back to laughing at there own quips.  She walked away, realizing she was not going to get anymore information out of all of this gossip.

If he really had resigned then this was shaping up to be a beautiful day.

[The Shoppe of Oddities]

Dan could not believe it, it had only been a day since he had talked to George, and already the windows and door were in place.  The big man himself had come over with three other people and had gotten it all done in one fell swoop.

“So, what do you think boss? Good enough handy work for you?”  He asked with a proud laugh. “I even took the liberty of adding a relief kerf in there for you.”

Dan had no idea what a relief kerf was, but if george though he needed one then he must have needed one. “So how much do I owe you for this?”  he asked the big man.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Actually I have Rachel chatting it up with the insurance company, I am going to get them to pay for it.”

“Oh, I talked to the rep and he said I would have to pay it out of pocket and then get a reimbursement-” Dan started to say, but was stopped by george who shook his head.

“Any way they can make money those greedy bastards, don't worry we have done this before.”  he showed a big grin and flashed a wink at Amani who was currently standing slightly behind Dan almost like she was frightened by the large man. “Well, anything else you need boss?”  he asked.

“Nope, once again I appreciate it, really.”

“Don't mention it!” He laughed, gripping Dan’s hand in a near bone crushing handshake before departing.  Dan and Amani went inside the shop for the first time since that night.

It was still hard to see all that damage, but Dan knew he had to move forwards, there was no point dwelling on the past.  With a sigh he started the long process of making the shop presentable.

With Amani’s help he picked the shelves back up and started tossing all the broken antiques in large black garden trash bags.  In the end he was left with a clean store with next to nothing on the shelves.  

“Dan,”  Amani walked up to him, she had a slightly worried look on her face. “You haven't seen my bracelets have you?” she asked, she was shuffling her feet nervously.

“What bracelets?”  he asked, why was she acting like she had done something bad?

“You know, before you wished for my freedom, I was wearing them, and they fell off when I was freed.”

“Ohh, I put them in the back room, I didn't know if you were coming back, but they seemed to be to valuable to sell in the shop at anyrate so I just put them up.”

“Where exactly?”  she asked.

“On the nightstand by the hidabed.”  Amani flew past him, and with a confused look Dan followed. “Find them?”  he asked, looking at amani as she turned the room upside down looking for the bracelets.

“No...”  she groaned.

“Well, honestly it doesn't surprise me, the vandals stole all the money, why would they leave golden bracelets behind?”  he shrugged his shoulders, honestly he felt bad that she had her things stolen, he would have to get her some new ones.

“No, No you don't understand!”  she said popping up, and with a single clap of her hand she floated the couch into the air. “If someone puts those on it would be really bad.”

“How bad is really bad?”  Dan asked, he was starting to get a bad feeling about this.

“End of the world bad I don't know, terrible, awful pick your favorite”  she said, scrambling around looking for it.

“Why don't you just teleport them here?”  he asked, she had after all been able to teleport herself to Dubai and back, how hard could it be to teleport some bracelets back to them.

“No, No they are covered in sealing runes from the Akkadian empire, it is extremely bad if anyone puts it on but me.”

“AMANI!”  he grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “Calm down, breath, and let’s start this at the beginning, what would happen if say a person was to put on your bracelets?”

“They would be made into a Gallu.” she said, not looking into Dan’s eyes.

“Ok, and what exactly is a Gallu?” he asked.

“A fake Djinn,”  she said. “Also known as the beast that devours hope.”

“That doesn't sound to good...”

“It's not, those bracers had over ten thousand years of my magic sealed in them, its how you seal a being made out of pure magic, you drain their magic so they have no power to do anything, as such that is what the bracers do to Djinns.”  she looked at Dan. “Those bracers have so much mana in them...”

“So a Gallu is pretty much a genie that wasn't born from nature but later turned into one?”

“Not quite, you see they may have the power and mana of the Djinn, but they have no control over it, they are not made of magic how are they supposed to know what it truly is or how to use it?”  she sank her head into his chest. “They can only unleash the mana in destructive ways, They often go mad from the pain of having magic forcefully occupying their bodies, they were not made for it.”

“So what you are saying is it is likely the person who vandalized the shop is now most likely one of those?”

She nodded, there was after all a good chance that the vandal had put them on, and she had no way of knowing where they were due to the anti magic runes the Akkadians had placed on them.

“Well fuck my life, is there a way to stop one? Do they have a weakness?”

“They do, not many, but they do...”

“I want to know what those are...”  he growled.