I couldn’t believe that my friend, or anyone else for that matter, had the endurance for this. I’d once chased a horse demon twenty miles down Highway 101 in the dead of night without breaking a sweat, but trying to be social throughout last night’s party had crushed me into a marble.
A knock came at the door. It was too genteel to be Quentin, and Ji-Hyun would have let herself in, so I assumed it was one of her ghost roommates, who theoretically existed and yet were never here.
When I opened the door I got a surprise.
“What?” Guanyin said, reading my face. “Is now a bad time?”
When I couldn’t muster a response, the goddess stepped inside and closed the door behind her discreetly. If the filthiness of Ji-Hyun’s apartment bothered her, she didn’t let it show.
It was surprisingly difficult to process this visit. Guanyin came on official business or in times of desperate need. She didn’t show up out of the blue, like a mortal who needed to talk.
“I need to talk,” she said.
Wow. Okay. I looked around for a clean place to sit and saw Yunie staring at us.
The wrongness of this situation jumped an order of magnitude higher.
“Hi,” Yunie said. “You must be Guanyin.”
“Yunie,” the Goddess of Mercy said with a fixed smile. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
And then that was it. They didn’t say anything else or shake hands. I provided zero conversational help.
It was because I had absolutely no plan for a meeting like this. In fact, it was explicitly never supposed to happen. Guanyin was breaking the promise she’d made to me to keep anything supernatural as far away from Yunie as possible. And the goddess herself counted.
While I knew Guanyin could be trusted to the ends of the universe, she represented so much magic walking around that it was as if the guy holding the suitcase of ballistic missile launch codes had strolled into the apartment. It was technically safe, but I still didn’t want it near my human friend.
Yunie tapped her foot, a musician waiting for her entrance.
“So you’re the person taking up all of Genie’s time,” she said with what was supposed to be a joking lilt.
Oh dear.
“She and I do important work together,” Guanyin said after a pause. “Of course, it’s all very behind-the-scenes, but regular people like you benefit.”
Ohhhhhh dear.
Guanyin’s number one concern was humanity, of course, but her complete lack of bias toward individuals sometimes made her come off as cold. Like she thought people were interchangeable. That was . . . an incompatible philosophy with Yunie’s worldview. And self-view.
“I mean, it must be important work,” Yunie drawled. “She comes back with her clothes torn, like she’s been attacked by wild animals. I once saw her arm looking all metal-y. I hope that with everything she does, she’s not in any danger. That she has enough support.”
Guanyin let slide the implication that she wasn’t giving me enough help. Or maybe she didn’t let it slide, because there was another awkward silence. The goddess towered over my friend as they stared at each other.
Is that what the height difference looks like when I stand next to Yunie? I thought. Damn.
Guanyin smiled again. “Could you give us a moment alone, dear?” she said to Yunie.
Yunie’s nostrils flared. She didn’t “give people moments alone” with me. Even Quentin knew not to ask her that. When my boyfriend needed to talk to me in private, he waited until Yunie lost interest in us and drifted away like a cat moving on to a different toy.
I made a helpless face at her. She frowned and went outside.
“Our agreement, remember?” I whispered at Guanyin once Yunie shut the door. “Work and her are never supposed to meet!” I slashed my hands up and down through the air to make a visual of the separation.
“I remember,” Guanyin said dryly. “You remind me quite often. Of all the things you’re supposed to be diligent about as the Shouhushen, that’s the only one you’ve never let your guard down on.”
“For good reason. You said you needed to talk?”
Guanyin nodded. “I received an update from Heaven.” She paused. “I’m in. I’m in consideration for the Mandate.”