The Epic Crush of Genie Lo Page 9

Ah dang it. I kept forgetting the girl in the shop. I ran over to her and laid her on the ground. She was breathing, deep and slow enough to give me pause, but breathing nonetheless.

  “You saved her life,” Quentin said. “I didn’t get through the barrier in time. She’d be dead if it weren’t for you.”

  It had been such a close call that a drop of blood trickled down her forehead from where one of Tawny Lion’s fangs had pricked the skin. I dabbed it away with my sleeve, a brief motherly instinct overtaking me even though I was younger than her.

  “I thought from reading the book of your stories that consuming spiritual power might be like a ritual, or a vague kind of energy vampirism,” I said.

  “Nope. Straight-up chewing and swallowing.”

  The sound of tapping on glass startled me out of my reverie. I looked over to see the opaque shield that Tawny Lion had put up over the front of the store beginning to fade. There were people outside, some of whom looked like they wanted in.

  Oh god.

  What was I doing? There were bodies in this store. Dead ones, maybe. We couldn’t be caught like this.

  Oh god oh god.

  I ran over to the door and locked it before anyone could come in, but once the veil disappeared completely we’d still be visible to bystanders. “Quentin!” I shouted. “What the hell are we going to do about this?”

  “About what?”

  I waved my arms around. “This!”

  “Oh!” he said. “Right. Wow. This is not good for you, is it? Not a thing that happens to people these days. Hrm.”

  He began pacing about like we had all the time in the world for him to think. I wanted to scream.

  “Can’t you hide them with magic?” I pleaded.

  “I could, but the next people to walk in here might, oh, I don’t know, notice tripping over invisible bodies? You know this would have been a lot easier if you had killed them.”

  “What!?”

  “Yaoguai disappear back to Hell once they’re dead. These guys are still alive, even Tawny Lion. You want me to, uh . . .” He made a clicking noise with his teeth and a twisting motion with his hands.

  “No!” Fighting was one thing, but straight-up killing a downed enemy was a line I couldn’t cross yet.

  Quentin rolled his eyes at me like I was being the unreasonable one.

  “Then the only other option is to have a member of the celestial pantheon come and take them into custody,” he said. “But Tawny Lion and his brothers were never associated with any gods. There’s no one who’d be willing to pay bail. Except for maybe—”

  “No maybes! Get help now or else the two of us will be seeking enlightenment from the inside of a juvenile detention facility!”

  He scrunched his nose. Whoever it was I was making him call upon, he really didn’t want to owe them one. He sat down in the middle of the floor and pulled his legs underneath him.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Praying.” He took a deep breath, inhaling for what seemed an eternity, and lowered his head.

  A vibration like a brewing storm emanated from his throat. It hardened into syllables. He was chanting, not like a monk but like a whole choir of monks in an echoing stone abbey that doubled and redoubled their voices. The air tingled with a sense of urgency.

  “Na mo guan shi yin pu sa,” Quentin droned.

  “Namoguanshiyinpusanamoguanshiyinpusa Namoguanshiyinpusa.”

  I could have sworn the ground was shaking under our feet. Quentin grew louder and louder until it seemed like all the glass inside the shop would crack.

  “Na mo guan shi yin pu sa,” Quentin continued. “Salutations to the most compassionate and merciful Bodhisattva.”

  A burst of light came from the window, startling the bejeezus out of me. Quentin, however, appeared to be expecting it. He got up, opened the door, and motioned for me to come outside with him.

  I was so worried at what I might see that I shielded my eyes, a bomb shelter refugee stepping out of the hatch. But the scene in the street was fairly normal. Sunshine, people, cars.

  Everything was just frozen in time, was all.

  Pedestrians had stopped mid-stride. Anyone who had been talking had their mouths open. A driver checked her mirror for a turn that had been paused indefinitely. The entirety of Johnson Square, as far as the eye could see, had been turned into a snow-globe without any white flakes.

  There was no sound anywhere. I snapped my fingers to see if my ears still worked. Thankfully they did.

  “Did you do this?” I asked Quentin.

  He shook his head. “I’m not that powerful.”

  I tried not to touch anything. I’d read enough sci-fi to be unsure of what time manipulation rules applied here. Maybe I could have posed everyone’s bodies in amusing positions, or maybe any contact with them would have triggered a quantum wave collapse or something.

  Quentin led me to one person who turned out not to be frozen, just standing still across the street. I probably should have noticed her earlier. She was only the most gorgeous woman I had ever seen in my whole life.

  She was as tall as I was. But she wore her height with such grace and poise that it made me feel unworthy to share that trait with her. Her elegant face was the kind that needed to be painted and housed in a museum, just to be fair to everyone born in the next century. She smiled at Quentin, and then at me.

  “Genie Lo,” Quentin said. “This is the Bodhisattva Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, She Who Hears the Cries of the World. Benefactor to Xuanzang and my friend from the old days.”

  “Hey girl!” Guanyin threw her arms around me in a fierce hug.

  Huh. I thought the deified personification of kindness and compassion would have touched down on Earth in flowing robes and a crown of jewels. Not jeans and a pixie cut.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, my chin stuck on her shoulder. “Who’s that guy?”

  There was another person who was free to move about. He was dressed like a cross between a Secret Service agent and a GQ model. He was as handsome as Guanyin was pretty, his facial features sharper than his five-figure suit. But his air of cold disdain made it clear he wasn’t in the business of handing out hugs. Quentin tensed up when he saw him.

  “Erlang Shen,” he hissed with more vitriol than he spent on the Demon King of Confusion. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Erlang Shen pulled off his sunglasses and scanned the block with an imperial, unblinking gaze.

  “Escorting the Lady Guanyin,” he said while completely overlooking Quentin. “Aren’t you going to introduce me as well, Keeper of the Horses?”

  That had to have been some kind of insult, because Quentin looked as if he’d rather Erlang Shen’s face get acquainted with his fist. All I knew of the other god was that he was the only person who’d ever bested Sun Wukong in a fight. The grudge must have run deep.

  “Of course not,” said Erlang Shen. He smirked as if getting under Quentin’s skin was the sport of kings. Then he turned to me and bowed slightly.

  “You’re . . . the nephew of the Jade Emperor, right?” I asked.

  “Among other things. I prefer to be known for mastering the torrents and bringing life to the fields.”

  “He’s basically a glorified ditch-digger,” Quentin said.

  “Be nice,” said Guanyin. “I heard you two needed some help.”

  “Yes!” I chimed in. “We do. We need to get rid of some demons, quickly.”

  Erlang Shen made a move like the bodyguard he resembled, stepping forward and reaching inside his jacket, but Guanyin held him off. “Where are they?” she asked.

  “Inside the shop. We need someone to take them away, or else I’m going to be in trouble. A lot of trouble.”

  “Okay, sure.” Guanyin wiggled her fingers vaguely in that direction. “Done. Bibbity bobbity boo.”

  “What?” I said. “Just like that?”

  She smiled. “Sometimes it’s just like that.”

  The door to the sho
p swung open and lions filed out. Not men in lion masks, like what had briefly appeared to me before. Full-on lions with lion bodies, walking on all fours. I had to do a double take to make sure it wasn’t a group of oversize housecats or possums or any other more plausible animal. But no, seven lions limping meekly on parade.

  They picked their way through the forest of frozen humans and went up to Guanyin, pushing me aside. The wounded beasts flocked around her and nuzzled at her outstretched hands. She looked like a Disney princess befriending the local wildlife, her munificence taming even the most vicious of creatures.

  One of them was in way worse shape than the others. That must have been Tawny Lion. It cringed when I looked at it and tried to keep to the opposite side of Guanyin.

  It was a lot harder not to feel bad when they were in this form. I wasn’t big on animal cruelty.

  He nearly killed someone, I reminded myself. He’s lucky he’s not a rug by now.

  Guanyin stepped back and made a face of slight concentration. The pride of lions began to quiver. Not like they were afraid or cold, but like they couldn’t decide whether they wanted to exist or not. In a final small flash of light, only the strength of a disposable camera maybe, they were gone.

  I stared at the space where they’d been, trying to wrap my head around the last ten minutes.

  “I’m having a hard time believing what I’m seeing,” I said. “The lions, the people in the street, all of it.”

  “Do not doubt the Lady Guanyin’s abilities,” said Erlang Shen. “She once pacified Hell itself by giving away her own good karma. There was so much overflowing from her that Yanluo, King of Death, had to beg her to leave before her virtuous aura quenched the fires of suffering and allowed the guilty demons to escape their sentences.”

  “I’ll . . . take your word for it?” I said.

  Guanyin turned to me. “That’s that. I put them in one of my divine sanctuaries, where they can do penance for their crimes. It’s not as harsh as sending them to Hell, but at least you won’t have any trouble from Tawny Lion again. I took care of that poor girl, too; she’ll be fine. Won’t remember a thing.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Is there, uh, anything I can do for you? Light some joss? Recommend a restaurant?”

  “You could give me the pleasure of your company for a while,” Guanyin said. “We really need to talk.”

  She raised her hand as if to cast another spell. “Let’s do it somewhere more private. Your place, if you don’t mind?”

  I flinched. “You’re not going to zap us there, are you?”

  Guanyin smiled. She swirled her finger and suddenly the street came back to life. People resumed what they were doing, unaware that anything had happened.

  “Actually, it’s such a nice day that I was thinking we could walk.”

  18

  I’d never poured tea for a god before. And now there were two of them in my house. Mom was missing out on the biggest guests of her life.

  The composition of the scene in my kitchen was disjointed in a way that was hard to describe. Guanyin and Erlang Shen didn’t quite fit in the frame. They were larger than life. Or a lot better looking than it, anyhow. To have them casually and patiently wait for me while I played host was like those moments where your favorite celebrities proved how down-to-earth they were on camera.

  Quentin ruined the divine triptych by refusing to sit at the same table as Erlang Shen. He skulked off to the side, pacing back and forth.

  I brought the tray over and poured for everyone. I was glad that we had jasmine instead of oolong. I didn’t want Guanyin thinking I was being cute, serving her a drink named after her.

  She took a sip to be polite and set her cup aside.

  “So you’re her,” Guanyin said with a warm smile. “I never would have guessed. You look a little like Xuanzang.”

  I knew I looked like that drawing of him, but hearing someone else compare me to a guy made me hitch a little. “Xuanzang was prettier than the Four Great Beauties,” Guanyin said, sensing my discomfort. “It’s a compliment.”

  “Thanks, I guess? You know who I am?”

  “We know you’re the Ruyi Jingu Bang,” Erlang Shen said, eyeing me side-to-side like a vase that he would have been upset to find any cracks in. “Any spiritual being who has been in the As-You-Will Cudgel’s aura would recognize it if they got near enough. The Lady Guanyin and I have both seen your original form many times.”

  It was unsettling to hear the two of them talk like that. Like meeting a distant aunt and uncle who only remembered you in diapers. “The two of you are really gods?”

  “Yes,” said Guanyin. “We’re members of the celestial pantheon of immortal spirits, over which the Jade Emperor presides.”

  Oookay. “And you’re from . . . Heaven?”

  She nodded. “A different plane of existence than the one that contains Earth, if that helps you think about it.”

  It really didn’t. My skeptical side was taking an absolute beating right now. But science! I wanted to shout. Empirical thought! Magnets!

  “I know you might be a bit confused,” Guanyin went on. “But by and large, there’s no need to be. Earth is still Earth. Your universe is still your universe. It’s just that sometimes there’s bleed-over from other spiritual dimensions. Like today, for instance.”

  I wasn’t sure what other kind of explanation would have kept my head from spinning, so I decided I’d have to roll with this one. Gods in Heaven. Check.

  “To preserve order and stability, we retain dominion over the mortal realm in many areas,” Erlang Shen said, interjecting in case I’d gotten the wrong idea about the power balance. “Such as those involving yaoguai.”

  Quentin slapped the nearest wall at the end of his lap around my kitchen. “Yes!” he said, his not-great patience already running thin. “Can we talk about that for a moment? Why a bunch of demons I personally dispatched a long time ago suddenly show up out of the blue?”

  I cared more about the broader issue than the particulars of whom Quentin killed or didn’t kill once upon a time. “Why are there any demons walking around my town in the first place?” I asked, raising my voice above his. “These aren’t ye olden days of legend!”

  “And why did Tawny Lion claim that more are coming!?” Quentin shouted, topping me with one last demand.

  Erlang Shen met our agitation with stoicism. He picked up his tea, quaffed it, and set his cup down before speaking.

  “The answer to all of your questions is that there’s been a jailbreak,” he replied.

  Quentin couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “A jailbreak? From Diyu?”

  “Yes. A number of yaoguai have escaped the plane of Hell, and we have good reason to believe they’re headed to Earth, if they’re not here already.”

  Quentin didn’t respond, either a minor miracle in itself or a sign of impending disaster. He rubbed his face up and down.

  “You would have learned about this had you not run off to Earth, itching for a fight, at the first sign of demonic presence,” Guanyin said to him gently.

  “Hold up,” I said. “That doesn’t explain why a bunch of these escaped demons showed up in my hometown. There’s nothing special about Santa Firenza.”

  “Of course there is,” Erlang Shen said. “You.”

  It was my turn to go mute.

  Erlang Shen saw that he needed to elaborate. He took the lid off the teapot and pushed it to the center of the table. This explanation needed props, apparently.

  “Imagine the tea leaves are yaoguai,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said. I had chosen the glass set, so I could see the loose tea scattered across the bottom of the broad, round pot.

  Erlang Shen held up his index finger. “And this is you. The Ruyi Jingu Bang, former axis of the Milky Way.”

  He dipped his finger into the vessel. The pale green liquid began swirling around it in a miniature vortex. The tea leaves were whisked along by the flow, rising and falling in a tightening loop
, faster and faster until Erlang Shen ceased the water’s motion. Once everything had settled, there was a tight pile of tea debris gathered right under the spot he was pointing at.

  He withdrew his finger and flicked the moisture away.

  “Every otherworldly being has its own spiritual gravity,” he said. “That’s why they aggregate in the same general locations instead of dispersing to the four corners of the Earth. They’re drawn to existing supernatural masses like moons around a planet. You are what’s pulling them to this location.”

  I looked at Quentin. He looked at me.

  “Technically, the Monkey King also being here makes it even worse,” Erlang Shen said. “It’s not fate or destiny that has you running into your old enemies. Sun Wukong and the Ruyi Jingu Bang are each the equivalent of a black hole. Any yaoguai that come to Earth are going to get sucked into your orbits, without fail. It’s just a matter of how close and how fast.”

  “Oh my god,” I said. “You’re telling me a horde of demons is going to show up on my doorstep?”

  “If only,” Erlang Shen said, insensitive to how that sounded. “Then it would be a lot easier to track them down. I’d say they could show up anywhere within a couple hundred miles around your physical location, give or take.”

  That wasn’t a whole lot better. I mean, it was, but still not great.

  “Please tell me you’re going to do something about this,” I said. “You can’t let demons from Hell wander freely over the entire Bay Area.”

  “Heaven has a plan to deal with the situation.” Erlang Shen stretched in his chair with the litheness of a panther, hinting at a wiry martial artist’s build under his suit. “My uncle the Jade Emperor has decreed that the fugitive yaoguai will be apprehended by a pair of champions who are well-tailored to facing this particular menace.”

  “Okay then.” I breathed a little easier. “I’m glad you and Guanyin are on the job.”

  The god returned to his normal posture and fixed me with a pointed stare. “I wasn’t talking about us.”

  I didn’t get it. Were there other divine beings nearby I didn’t know about?

  Quentin coughed and kicked the back of my seat.