Djinn Rummy by Tom Holt

you try and drop something through the Earth’s atmosphere, it burns up, so as it turns out I needn’t have bothered. All right?’
    Jane stared. ‘Are you serious?’ she demanded.
    â€˜No,’ Kiss said, pointedly not looking at the picture of the three kittens. ‘Most of the time I’m aggravatingly frivolous. If you mean am I telling the truth, the answer is yes.’
    â€˜A friend of yours was trying to destroy the planet ?’
    â€˜Well, sort of.’ Kiss yawned, and stretched. ‘Actually, he’s just this bloke I’ve known for, oh, donkey’s years; and he wasn’t planning on destroying the Earth, just all non-vegetable life forms. Or at least I assume that was what he had in mind. My split-second spectroscopic analysis of the plant seeds leads me to believe that that would have been the inevitable result. Bloody great primroses,’ he added with a grin. ‘With teeth.’
    â€˜Hadn’t you better tell me what’s going on?’
    Kiss shook his head. ‘Tricky,’ he said. ‘You remember what I told you about being limited to the possible? However; to start with the primary question, Is there a God? we really have to address the . . .’
    Jane asked him to be more specific.
    â€˜Guesswork, largely,’ Kiss replied, materialising an apple and peeling it with his claws. ‘My guess is that somebody hired my old chum to destroy the human race. Somebody a bit funny in the head, I shouldn’t be surprised.’

    â€˜This chum of yours -’
    â€˜A genie,’ Kiss explained. ‘A Force Twelve, like me. That’s pretty hot stuff, actually, though normally I wouldn’t dream of saying so. We rank equal and above the Nine Dragon Kings, just below the Great Sage, Equal of Heaven. We get fuel allowance but no pension.’
    â€˜And this particular . . .’
    â€˜He goes by the name,’ Kiss said, straight-faced by sheer effort of will, ‘of Philadelphia Machine and Tool Corporation the Ninth, or Philly Nine for short. Remarkable chiefly for how little time he’s had to spend in bottles. He’s a shrewd cookie, Philly Nine, always was. Mad as a hatter, too, of course.’
    â€˜I see.’ Jane sat down on a desperately fragile Tang-dynasty vase, the molecular structure of which Kiss was able to beef up just in the nick of time. ‘So he’s dangerous.’
    â€˜You might say that,’ Kiss responded, spitting out apple pips, ‘if you were prone to ludicrous understatements. If midwinter at the South Pole is a bit nippy and the Third Reich was, on balance, not a terribly good idea, then yes, Philly Nine is dangerous. Apart from that, a more charming fellow you couldn’t hope to meet. Plays the harpsichord.’
    Jane blinked twice in rapid succession. ‘Oh God,’ she said.
    â€˜Ah yes,’ Kiss replied, ‘I was just coming on to that. If we posit the existence of an omnipotent supreme being -’
    â€˜Will you shut up!’ Jane looked around for something solid and reassuring in which she could put her trust. Unfortunately, everything she could see had the disadvantage, as far as she was concerned, of having been materialised or otherwise supplied by a genie. Eventually she found her left shoe, which she had brought with her
from the life she’d been leading before all this started to happen. She hugged it to her.
    â€˜Sorry, I’m sure. Do you want me to make a start on the conservatory?’
    â€˜All this,’ Jane mumbled. ‘It is real, isn’t it? I mean . . .’
    Kiss clicked his tongue. ‘Try banging your head on it if you’re in any doubt. I have to say, I find all this ever so slightly wounding. I mean, I do my level best to make things nice for you, and the first thing I know you’re questioning its very existence. Gift horses’ teeth, in other words.’
    â€˜I thought I told you to be