Anastasia put a hand on my arm, silencing me. “Sun Wukong is a good Buddhist. ‘Victorious Fighting Buddha,’ isn’t it?” she said.
He chuckled, but the sound was sad. “I never could stay out of a fight.”
The vampire knelt by the creature’s body. “Poor Hundun. Always being used, always at others’ mercy. No wonder he’s so angry.”
I hunted around on the floor where Henry had lain, and by kicking through the ash and torn paper found what I was looking for—the coin I’d taken off Henry. I held it out to Sun and Anastasia. “We probably ought to do something about this.”
Standing, Sun held out his hand for the coin, which he dropped on the floor, then pounded his staff end-first on top of it. It landed with a bone-rattling crack of thunder. The impact produced a puff of smoke and a scattering of dust, and the coin was gone.
“Stay sharp, people,” Cormac said. He was looking through one of the doorways. The darkness there was solid.
“Cormac?” I prompted.
“Someone’s there,” he said.
“Roman?” I said, tensing. We all backed into defensive stances.
“Dux Bellorum no longer has a guide through the tunnels.” Xiwangmu spoke, emerging from the tunnel on the opposite side of the room. The nine-tailed fox stood at her side, flicking its tails and staring down its whiskered nose at us. The three-legged crow perched on her shoulder, beak slightly open as if about to speak.
The sight of her made me lightheaded, then made me smile. Grace knelt as she had before. Sun also seemed happy to see her. The others—Ben, Cormac, and Henry—blinked, nonplussed.
Anastasa’s relief seemed even more heartfelt. Approaching the goddess, she bowed her head and got down on her knees. Drawing the bag with the Dragon’s Pearl over her shoulder, she offered it to the goddess and spoke in Chinese.
Xiwangmu answered, and I thought I recognized Anastasia’s name—her real name, Li Hua. They conversed. Anastasia became agitated; Xiwangmu was never anything but kind.
I approached Grace and whispered, “What are they saying?”
“I don’t know. They’re speaking early Mandarin and I only know Cantonese.”
“The Queen Mother is refusing to take back the Dragon’s Pearl from Li Hua,” Sun Wukong announced.
Xiwangmu glared at him. “This wasn’t your conversation to pass along, Sun Wukong.” He just shrugged, and the goddess sighed, as if she expected nothing different from him. Turning back to Anastasia she said, so all of us could understand her this time, “I will protect the Dragon’s Pearl, Li Hua, but I want you to carry it for me, and come with me as one of my handmaidens.”
The vampire stared, baffled. “But I have so much work to do here. Someone has to stand against Roman. No one else knows him like I do. I’m the only one who recognizes his tokens—” She gestured back to the coin that Sun had smashed.
“And now others do, too.”
She shook her head. “You’ve seen what he can do—”
“You have allies now who can do the work for you.”
The goddess looked at me. And then everyone was looking at me. The weight of the attention made my shoulders slouch.
I shook my head. “No, I can’t do it, I don’t know enough, I’m not powerful enough—”
“Kitty,” Xiwangmu said, and her eyes sparkled when she smiled. “You have been battling demons for a long time now, and holding your own among gods. You’re powerful enough.” Beside her, the fox barked, as if to say
Well. I didn’t know how to respond to that. I’d survived this long, hadn’t I? That had to count for something. I just had to keep on doing it, one way or another. I could only stare at her, blinking dumbly.
Xiwangmu turned to Anastasia. “You, on the other hand, have been battling for a very long time. Come with me and rest for a little while.” She smoothed back Anastasia’s hair, brushing it behind her ear. Anastasia touched that hand, holding it, and for a moment she seemed like a little girl whose mother had just kissed away some hurt.
For that moment, the scene was perfect—safe, gentle, and full of love. I wanted the credits to roll.
Sun said, “Queen Mother, it’s time to go, I think.”
“Yes. You can lead the others out of the tunnels?”
“I can.”
The goddess said, “Li Hua, are you ready?”
The vampire stood and came to me. She even looked younger, as if eight hundred years of life and cynicism had fallen away.
Earnest now, she said, “Stay vigilant, Kitty. Stay watchful. Roman isn’t finished.”
“I don’t exactly need an archvillain in my life.”
“It’s a little late for that.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know why you think I can do this. I don’t have your contacts, your experience.”
“Just do what you’ve been doing. Find allies.”
Build the army to stand against Roman’s army. I was going to need to get myself a new Rolodex.
I reached out a hand, and she shook it. “Take care of yourself,” I said. “I don’t know what’s ahead for you, but, well, be careful.”
“I don’t know what’s ahead, either. I think I like the feeling.” She actually smiled—a genuine, open smile, full of hope. Maybe her first in a very long time.
She squeezed my hand, then turned her shining smile back to Xiwangmu. After giving each of us a look and a quick nod—a blessing, maybe—the goddess walked side by side with Anastasia back through the doorway and disappeared into the shadows of the tunnel.
I had a feeling that if I ran after them, I would find the tunnel empty. I didn’t try, and so saved myself another round of bafflement.
“Who was that?” Henry asked, a tad awestruck.
He’d missed that little bit of the previous night’s adventure. “Queen Mother of the West,” I said, unable to explain beyond that.
“Who?” he replied.
“Where are they going?” I asked Sun.
“Into the West,” he said. “The Queen Mother’s realm.”
“But where is that?”
He gave me a look, like I should know better than to ask such a question.
Heaven, earth, and how many places in between?
“We should get this one home,” Sun said, nodding at Henry, who was hugging himself and looking longingly after Anastasia, who’d been his anchor.
“Henry?”
“I’m fine,” he murmured, not seeming altogether present.
“Yeah,” I said to Sun. “Let’s go.”
Grace was standing with her head bowed, eyes closed.
“Grace?” I said, tentatively touching her shoulder. “We have to get going.”
Sighing, she pulled herself from the wall and joined us.
Now to find that escape ladder.
Sun Wukong gave the monster’s body one last, sad look before leading us down a different hallway than the one we’d come from or the one the others had left through. We continued on in semidarkness. Our lantern seemed to grow dimmer, and the shadows more pervasive. I reached, and found Ben’s hand reaching for mine. We walked together, shoulder to shoulder, as wolves do. Cormac kept glancing behind us.
Finally, Sun stopped and put his hand on the rusted rung of a ladder climbing up toward a grating. What do you know? An escape ladder.
