The trail of smoke leading into the sky only made it seem bluer and clearer by contrast. The grass under our feet was as crisp and green as money. Even the plain, redbrick façade of the school looked handsomer than most days. Good old SF Prep! Dinged up a bit by today’s events, but still standing proud.
I could feel my wounds melting away like Quentin said they would. The tingling sensation was mildly euphoric. But even better than the mutant healing factor was the sense of closure. We’d found the faceless man, sewn up the loose thread. We’d corrected our mistake and could close the book on this case.
We ran into Mrs. Nanda coming the other way around the building. She was wearing a bright-orange safety vest over her dress and carrying a walkie-talkie.
“Genie! Quentin! Where were you two?” she cried out, angry and relieved at the same time. “You know our class’s rendezvous point is by the baseball diamond! I was worried sick!”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Nanda,” I said. “The, uh, smoke got too thick and we had to use the opposite exit. We’re fine.”
“Well get over there right now and stay put!” She pressed the button on her handset and it squawked to life. “I found Lo and Sun,” she said. “Repeat. Lo and Sun are with me.”
The walkie-talkie beeped back. “Affirmative. What about Park and Glaros?”
Quentin and I stopped walking at the mention of Yunie’s and Androu’s last names.
Mrs. Nanda’s voice wavered as she spoke. “Still no sign.”
“I don’t understand,” said the person on the other end. “We’ve done a full sweep. A bunch of the kids said they saw them before the alarm went off. Where’d they go?”
“I’ll check back in the East wing again, including the locked areas,” Mrs. Nanda said. “Maybe they got past the doors somehow. Do another head count just to be sure, and call their parents.”
Our teacher hurried off, concern for her missing students quickening her pace.
The siren of a fire engine wailed louder. Approaching. Imminent. My words echoed in my head.
An evil copy of Quentin.
A copy of Quentin.
According to the book, Quentin could make copies of himself.
“What are the signs of spiritual power in a layperson?” I asked, swaying where I stood, a palm tree buffeted by a storm. “How do demons choose their prey?”
“If you’re not a monk like Xuanzang, then the biggest indicators are . . .” Quentin’s eyes widened. “Unyielding moral character. Or exceptional talent.”
I began to tremble.
“Genie.” Quentin gripped me by the arms. “Genie, breathe.”
I couldn’t feel his hands on me. I couldn’t feel anything. I would never feel anything again.
Quentin guided me across the school lawn to a side street where no one would see us. It took a long time. I was deteriorating rapidly.
He set me gently down on the curb. I squeezed my knees to my chest. I wanted to be small, to shrink myself until I died.
“We won’t find her,” I choked out over the tightness in my throat. “If the earrings aren’t going off then they’re not working for some reason. I won’t know where to look.”
“Genie, don’t give up.”
Quentin was doing his best to be resolute, but even he couldn’t keep the act going. I could tell he thought the odds of getting her back were slim to none.
He began walking in a circle. “Think,” he said out loud to himself, rubbing his temples. “Think.”
I had never seen him do this before. He must have been truly desperate.
“We don’t know where he is,” Quentin muttered. “We only defeated a copy of him before. But if he took two humans for whatever purpose, he would have done it himself.”
I choked back a sob. Yunie and Androu didn’t even have names anymore in Quentin’s clinical triage.