The very solid, tangible demon in front of me laughed.
“On the contrary,” Tawny Lion said. “Confronting the specters of our past is only the first item on our to-do list. If we want to make any headway toward the rest of our goals, we’re going to have to settle in right here on Earth.”
Dammit. So much for th
e “weaseling out of small talk” strategy.
“What, uh, are your goals exactly?” I felt like a Super Bowl sideline reporter forced to interview her least-favorite team. “Because maybe you don’t have to be here to accomplish them.”
“Eh, you know, a bit of this, a bit of that,” Tawny Lion said to me. “Mostly they revolve around becoming stronger. You may not believe it, but for a yaoguai, self-improvement is the greatest goal imaginable. To have ultimate control over your body and mind is to move closer to enlightenment. All demons want to attain the Way.”
He winked at me. “And the wealth of powers that come along with it aren’t so bad.”
I yielded to his explanation with a slight nod-shrug. Quentin had only just been saying that a lot of his enemies trained themselves to level up as much as possible. And from what I’d read so far in the book of Sun Wukong’s journeys, the bulk of the demons attacked the party because they wanted Xuanzang’s flesh as a spiritual steroid boost.
“Earth is like one big nature retreat, ideal for discovering your inner strength,” Tawny Lion said. “Slim chance of getting anything done in Hell with so many distractions. Now that we’re alive again, my brothers and I are going to continue our personal development and pick up where we left off back in the days of Xuanzang.”
Quentin did not like the name of his old master crossing the demon’s lips. “You mean you’re going to cheat your way to power by eating any human being that suits your needs!”
“Whaaat? Nooo,” Tawny Lion said, teasing. “That’s not our plan at all. Maybe that’s what the other yaoguai are going to do once they get here, but not us.”
The bottom had just dropped out of this conversation. Not that it was a sparkler to begin with, but now it was fully pear-shaped.
“Other yaoguai?” Quentin said slowly. “What other yaoguai? You mean the Demon King of Confusion?”
“That weakling? I guess he’s around somewhere, too, but I meant the other yaoguai coming to Earth,” Tawny Lion said, as if it were common knowledge. “I’m talking about your old friends from your little road trip.”
The look on Quentin’s face told me I could start freaking out any time now. I was way ahead of him. The sinking feeling that had been in my stomach since the beginning of this encounter was now the size of an iceberg.
“Oh dear,” Tawny Lion said. “I thought you knew. Because there are some real bad characters in that bunch. I wouldn’t want to be a human caught in their path. Can you say bloodbath?” The demon chuckled at the thought.
“Quentin?” I said, unsure of what to do.
He didn’t answer. He was lost in thought, moving his lips silently over a number of possible futures, all of which appeared to be very, very bad.
“See, that’s what I’m talking about,” Tawny Lion said to me. “Check out the monkey’s face! That’s how you can tell I’m an okay guy. Most other demons take shortcuts on the path to power by eating anyone they think will give them the slightest leg up.”
“I’ve got a different strategy,” he went on, obviously fishing for the follow-up question.
I fell for the bait. “Which is?”
Tawny Lion smiled. “My shortcut is that I’m going to steal the Ruyi Jingu Bang.”
He made a quick signal, and the six men in the back pounced on Quentin.
“Barrier,” Tawny Lion said, spreading his hands out.
The shop snapped in two. Not physically. But I could feel a wall slam down, separating me and Tawny Lion from Quentin and the others. I could still see them, but the sound of their scuffle was muted by half.
“Bind,” Tawny Lion added.
My legs and arms jerked together, and I stood up so straight it hurt, a fresh recruit ordered to attention by a drill sergeant. I couldn’t move.
“Genie!” Quentin shouted. The other men weren’t brawling with him; they were focusing solely on containment. Three of them were grappling him physically, and the others were standing back to channel a similar binding spell, muttering the command over and over to hold him down. Between all six, they were succeeding.
The invisible constriction around me tightened, and I cried out in pain.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Tawny Lion said. “I know who you are, and that’s not even close to causing you harm.”