The Epic Crush of Genie Lo (The Epic Crush of Genie Lo 1)

Despite not having any sensory orifices to speak of, the yaoguai was channel-surfing on a huge wall-mounted screen. Each time he clicked the remote, the surface of his face rippled like a pond with a pebble thrown into it. I had the distinct feeling that he was absorbing something from the experience, the way hit men in movies practiced different accents while looking into mirrors.

I couldn’t see any signs of the apartment’s original occupants. Maybe they were still at work. Maybe the demon had swallowed them whole. We had to move now.

“So the plan is we go in through the main entrance on the ground floor to cut off his escape,” Quentin said. “I get us past any security on the way up, and we confront him once we’re sure that no one’s around to get caught in the cross fire.”

A strange well of confidence filled my chest. “Let’s do it.”

We strode into the lobby like we owned the place. I approached the blazer-wearing man at the front desk and put on a cheery smile.

“Excuse me sir,” I said, Quentin winding up for a spell behind me. “Can you tell me if the folks on the top floor have—”

The doorman leaped over the desk and clamped his jaws around my windpipe.

27

I let out a shriek of surprise. The man’s teeth slid off my skin without drawing blood as I frantically pulled away. But the fury in his eyes was terrifying in its complete mindlessness. He would kill himself trying to kill me.

I reared back to clock him in the head.

“No!” Quentin snagged my arm from behind and brought me down, allowing the man to pummel me with impunity.

“What’s wrong with you?” I screamed at him. My attacker was doing his best to cram more of my face into his mouth.

“He’s a human!” Quentin said, pinned under us both. “You’ll kill him if you hit him that hard!”

I was going to snap at Quentin for not giving me any options, but then I remembered how many I really had. The doorman was a massive, bulky guy, and only my head thought that I lacked the strength to throw him off. That wasn’t the case anymore.

With a form that would have made Brian and K-Song proud, I grabbed the rabid human by the collar and belt and hoisted him bodily over my head. He continued to thrash and flail in the air, but he wasn’t as frightening once I held him like an overgrown toddler.

“Okay, so what’s his deal then?” I said to Quentin, craning my neck to avoid a frothy wad of spit dangling from the man’s mouth.

“He’s under some kind of frenzy spell. If you put him down he’s liable to tear his own skin off.”

“I can’t hold him like this forever. We still have the yaoguai on the top floor to deal with. Do you think it noticed us by now?”

Ding!

All three elevators reached the lobby at the same time. The doors opened to reveal they were packed sardine-tight with people bubbling at the mouth with pure hatred for no one but Genie Lo and Quentin Sun. They barreled out the doors at us like horses at the Kentucky Derby.

“I would say yeah,” Quentin called out before disappearing under a pile of rage zombies.

I got tackled to the floor and landed with my face in someone’s armpit. As gently as I could under the circumstances, I shoved at the mass, hoping to get some breathing room. A few of the people went flying across the lobby hard enough to crack the full-length mirrors they landed on. Whoops.

“Cast Dispel Magic on them or something!” I shouted at Quentin.

“That’s not a thing!” he said scornfully. “The effects have to wear off over time!”

A woman in hair curlers with a good left hook busted her knuckles wide open on my nose. “Then put them to sleep! For however long it takes!”

Quentin spun around, throwing attackers off his back with centrifugal force. I acted as a human chain-link fence, keeping back anyone who would have interfered with his hand motions.

“Sleep,” he declared. “Sleep!”

“Why isn’t it working?”

“This spell is really strong! Whoever cast it is nearly as good as I am!”

“Then you have to do one better! Now!”