“There’s only so far they could have gone,” he said. “The farthest away they could be is . . . as far as I could have taken them.”
He stopped pacing. A glimmer of hope poked through in his voice. “The Macaque’s not an ordinary demon. He’s not setting off the demon alarm . . . because he’s me. He’s me, down to the last hair on my head. He has my looks, my smell, my aura. My aura that reacts to your aura.”
Quentin kneeled down in front of me. “Genie,” he said. “I might be able to find them using you as a signal. But you have to be in a state of complete disconnection for your aura to be strong enough. This is a long shot and I know it’s never worked in the past, but I need you to calm yourself and—and—”
I knew what he was asking. He needed me to meditate.
“You can do it,” he said. “Just empty your mind and think of nothing. Nothing at all.”
I didn’t protest. This would be easy.
I took one last look around. The street was still empty and silent, the din of the emergency vehicles having ended. The firemen were probably making their way through the halls of the school right now, searching for two students who fi
t Mrs. Nanda’s description.
I closed my eyes and found only hollowness inside me. I didn’t want to continue anymore. I wanted to sever myself from the Earth completely.
A deep chime erupted from my core.
It was as if someone had struck a giant iron bell with a sledgehammer. Concentric rings of energy shot out from me in every direction. I could sightlessly feel them carry over the landscape, like I had joined the ranks of whales and bats and other creatures with echolocation.
“Stay here,” I heard Quentin say. “I’ll come back for you once I find them.”
He ran away so fast that a small dust cloud blew into my face. I opened my eyes. They were blurry with tears, so I could have been seeing things, but it looked like there was a geometrically increasing number of Quentins speeding off into the distance, chasing the invisible sonar waves of my aura.
I had no idea how long I had been sitting there in the street when Quentin returned. Even the position of the sun failed to register for me.
He came in hot. I felt the impact of his landing, a small quake in the ground under my feet, and then he was by my side again. Like he’d never left.
“Get on!” he shouted in my ear. “Hurry!”
He wouldn’t have motored like this if the situation were either irrevocably lost or saved. But I couldn’t share in his hope. I was still numb.
I wasn’t moving fast enough, so he swept me onto his back, and we were airborne.
We landed in the middle of a tree grove. We’d traveled all the way to the city in one leap, touching down in the forested park that drivers had to pass before crossing the landmark bridge where Quentin first taught me how to use true sight.
The eucalyptus trees reached to the sky, forming bar codes against the waning daylight. There was no beaten path anywhere near us. The woods were silent, strained free of man-made noise.
This was the site of a showdown. Handpicked for maximum effect. The director of the scene stepped out from behind a thick tree trunk, still wearing Quentin’s face.
“You made good time,” the Six-Eared Macaque said, using Quentin’s voice but in a slightly higher register, as if he was doing me a favor to tell them apart.
“So are you a copy, too?” Quentin said.
The Macaque grinned. “Nope. You’re looking at the head vampire right here.”
He was telling the truth.
“If you’re relieved that you only have to kill me one more time, I wouldn’t be,” the Macaque said. “After all, I have your friends. They’re still alive, but they won’t be unless you do exactly as I say.”
He spread his hands out like he’d arranged a delicious feast. “Let’s play a little game. One that requires you to use every power of the Ruyi—”
I was upon him before either of us knew how.
I pinned the demon to the ground by the neck with one hand and punched him with all of my might.
My knucklebones broke with the first impact, but so did part of his face. I punched him again, hard enough to indent the soil underneath his head.