The skies fell out of their moorings. The seas turned black. Guanyin had brought the end times.
My face didn’t show it, nor did hers. The two of us had cemented our expressions to the point where it looked like we were having a funny, lighthearted conversation, like women in stock photos. All we needed were some salads.
“You are the one person whose ass I wouldn’t kick for saying that,” I said. “In fact, I’m not sure I’m not about to kick your ass for saying that.”
“Genie, look around you. Half of these yaoguai are a hair away from death and will require major healing magic. Earth is about to have more spirits in it than have been seen in a millennium. The other end of this rift is packed full of some of the least aware human beings I’ve ever walked amongst.”
She let out a measured breath. “The ant was right. It’s going to take a divine presence on Earth to handle this situation properly. Our agreement with the yaoguai doesn’t mean we get to put them out of sight and out of mind. They need care and attention. I have to stay with them for who knows how long, which means dropping out of the Mandate Challenge.”
Okay. This was a problem to solve. That’s what Guanyin was posing to me. A farmer was trying to cross a river with a fox, a chicken, and a bag of grain. I simply needed to be good enough, fast enough right now. Shouhushen my ass off.
“No big deal,” I said, psyching myself up. “Quentin and I can go back while you stick with the group.”
“Genie, I don’t know if you, me, and Quentin combined can deal with this cleanly. For Heaven’s sake, it’s hard enough for me to keep this portal open right now. If it closes while someone’s partway through, it’s going to snap them in half.”
I wrung my hands out, trying to stay loose and keep my brain oxygenated. “Okay,” I said. “This is bound to be simpler than it appears. I can fix this.”
“No Genie, you can’t. Neither can I, or Quentin, or any of the gods here. This is a simple matter of priorities. If we want to save lives, then I have to take the hit.”
My efforts to breathe ground to a stop, leaving nothing but tightness in my lungs. I’d been so wary of a god betraying me, and it turned out to be Guanyin.
In mummified silence my eyes fell on the portal. Werewolf was next to it, but instead of jumping through himself he spent a moment nuzzling the sleek, long-lashed fox whose turn it was. He whispered goodbye in its ear and dutifully hustled back to his guard post farther down the line.
The fox caught me looking and blushed through its fur. It gave me a timid wave of its paw before vanishing through the gate.
I opened my mouth, needing to count through the steps that made up speech. “Why is it always you?” I choked. I wanted to pound my clenched fists against her chest. I wished I was in my childhood bedroom so I could scream my lungs out with the right context. “Why do you always have to be the one making the sacrifice?”
“Because that’s what stepping up and taking charge truly means,” Guanyin said gently. “This is the only lesson I ever needed to teach you. You can’t win every battle, no matter how powerful or clever or perfect you are.”
She laid her arm over my shoulders and pulled me in close, providing a screen for my sniffling. “Sometimes you just have to take your losses,” she said.
She was trying to soften the blow by comparing this to a single meaningless game. But in my mind, the analogy didn’t work. We weren’t surrendering a game, we were voluntarily forfeiting the whole season. We were giving up an entire future.
I couldn’t process this. Backing down was not how I operated. The contradiction threatened to turn me into dust.
I was so distraught, in fact, that it took me a while to notice the faint sound of screaming in the distance.
21
Some of the yaoguai, the ones who resembled easily spooked prey species, whipped around to look back down the line. I heard it again. There were definitely screams, coming in louder and longer.
“Go find out what that is,” Guanyin said to me, forcing calmness into her voice. “I have to stay here and keep the portal stable.” She turned to the yaoguai. “Eyes forward and keep moving!”
I jogged down the column and snapped my fingers at the other gods. They’d all heard the noise with their sharpened senses. The horsing around was over, and any lingeri
ng feuds had to be set aside. Quentin, Guan Yu, and Nezha with Erlang Shen in tow formed a new battle line next to me. The Great White Planet followed behind us.
Our party turned the heads of demons as we passed. They knew as well as we did that something was terribly wrong.
Suddenly, a pulse of fear came rippling through the line, coming from the back like an electric current through a cord. I could see fur standing on end, teeth beginning to chatter, a frightened whisper taking hold of the crowd.
“Stay in line and keep going!” I yelled at the demons, echoing Guanyin’s command. “It’s the fastest way through!”
But the gears of panic were in motion. They couldn’t be stopped. It took only one phrase to kick them up a notch.
“Yin Mo!” a demon screamed. “It’s here!”
The swell of terror made me think of an explosion captured on high-speed video. The demons who’d heard the name of their tormentor ran straight into the ones who hadn’t, causing a pileup that started slow and picked up speed. The conclusion made its way through the line, each yaoguai learning from the one behind it. The Yin Mo had come.