I knew how big I needed to be. There was no need to go overboard. I just needed to grow to the size where the god hovering in midair was a little larger than the palm of my hand, relatively speaking.
Roughly the size of a volleyball.
I recognized the look on Erlang Shen’s face. I’d seen it on my opponents so many times, up close, masked only by the loose weave of a net. The look that said, Oh god, she can’t be that tall. Who paired me against her?
He turned to flee but caught a mouthful of Quentin’s shoulder. His collision with the Monkey King kept him spinning in the air. Quentin had given me the perfect set.
“MINE!” I screamed out of habit. My voice thundered over the mountain, warning anyone and everyone not to take my kill.
I spiked Erlang Shen into the ground with so much heat that I could have made the dinosaurs go extinct all over again. I highlight-reeled him. It made me sad that scouts for the national team weren’t watching.
And gods bounced, apparently. Who knew?
Erlang Shen dribbled away from my feet like a ball without enough air in it. Before he even came to a stop, he imploded around an infinitesimal point, some kind of gravity sucking his body inward into nothing, like a black hole. It happened without a sound.
Maybe when you were giant, everything seemed anticlimactic.
“Is he dead?” I asked. I winced after I spoke. I hated how loud I was.
“No,” answered Quentin, who managed not to come across as tinny. “Gods get a sweeter deal when their physical body is busted. It’s straight back to Heaven for him.”
“That’s BS.”
“Not this time. He’s committed blood treason against the Jade Emperor. There will be a quick hearing before he’s punished. There’s literally a special place in Hell for that crime.”
Of course—the only thing the Jade Emperor would act quickly upon was a threat to his rule. If it meant Erlang Shen getting what he deserved, though, I wouldn’t complain.
“Are you going to stay up there all day?” Quentin asked.
Shrinking down was easier and much less disturbing than drawing back an extended limb. Quentin and the ground came closer as if I were on a helicopter touching down. My body stopped naturally where it was supposed to. I could have tried to keep going and see what life would have been like as a size small, but there was no way I was ready to unpack all of that baggage right now. Regular, tall-ass Genie would suffice.
We were both still soaking wet. I figured watching Quentin shake the water from his hair like he’d emerged from the pool in a cologne ad was my reward for a job well done. His now-transparent shirt lapped at the muscles on his torso.
His eyes caught mine before doing a double take. “Holy crap,” he said. “Look at your arm.”
I yelped. The limb that Red Boy burned had been washed clean of rock dust. Now it was shiny black from my fingers up to my elbow. The color of polished iron.
My nails were as golden as my true sight eyes. They glittered expensively in the sun, like unburied treasure.
I wiggled my fingers. There was no loss of motion or sensation. The transition between the iron and flesh was a fine ombré.
Hoo boy.
Rather than process this like I needed to, I let my mind slip away. It might return to me later. Right now my thoughts were as free as a bird.
“Hey, tell me something,” I said. “I never made it to the end of your book. What did your traveling group get for completing their quest?”
Quentin rubbed his chin. “Xuanzang was given Buddhahood. Sandy became an arhat. Pigsy got to be a shrine cleaner, which meant he could eat all the offerings of food people left for the gods. He couldn’t have been happier. Why?”
Xuanzang might have gone all the way to the West and back purely out of noble intentions, with no expectation of a reward. But it sounded like everyone still got what they wanted at the end.
That settled it then. I happened to want this.
I grabbed Quentin by the collar, leaned down, and kissed him.
He was a little startled at first, but then he kissed me back, hard. Like real hard. Like he’d been waiting for this moment since the day we met.
I felt his strong arms circle my waist and cinch tight, lifting me off the ground. I grabbed fistfuls of his hair, which I’d always secretly dreamed about doing, and crushed his lips to mine. Kissing Quentin was as rough and as confrontational as any of our other interactions, and I loved it.
“This is so wrong,” he said, his words slightly muffled as I bit him in the mouth. “It’s like King Arthur having feelings for Excalibur.”
Eh. From my perspective it was more like Jane Goodall hooking up with King Kong. You know, if King Kong were hot and infuriating and oddly supportive of Jane’s feelings over time.
Quentin went for my neck in a way I was highly looking forward to, but then he suddenly stopped.
“Uh, Genie,” he said, pulling away. He peered over my shoulder at something.
“Do not give me bad news right now,” I snapped. “Don’t you dare.”
“All right,” said Quentin. “Good news, then. We found what we were looking for.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know how there were one hundred and eight escapees from Hell? And we only took care of a handful at most?”
I groaned. “And I said that the rest were probably hiding here under the cover of the smoke, waiting for Erlang Shen to call upon them as needed.”
“Yeah,” said Quentin. “The good news is that you were right, as usual. Yaaay.”
The wildfires had receded without Red Boy there to sustain them. They mostly just disappeared instead of burning out, leaving behind brush that didn’t even appear scorched. The smoke that had been clogging my true sight rolled up and left, drawing back the curtain on . . .
Demons. Lots and lots of demons.
“There’s the Black Wind Demon,” said Quentin. “Lingxuzi as well. The Golden Horned King. Xiong Shanjun. The Scholar in a White Robe—”
“Quentin, I get it.”
They could have been a crowd sitting around an outdoor concert waiting for the band to appear. The smoke clearing up got them on their feet. Maybe the show was about to start.
A few of them tapped tentatively at the air, expecting there to be a barrier of some sort. If Erlang Shen had been using one to contain them, it was gone now.
I could tell the figures were all yaoguai without true sight. They fit the profile—human forms, with one or more monstrous aspects. Clothes that were just slightly off-kilter somehow. An expression of intense hatred once they spotted Quentin.
I seethed right back at them.
“This is bull crap!” I shouted. “I’m tired! I don’t have the energy for this!”
“Genie,” Quentin said. “Please stop telling the swarm of yaoguai how weak you are right now.”
“I don’t want to deal with you!” I hollered at the demons from afar. “Screw everything! Evil wins, are you happy?”
“You know, if you’re not up for another fight, you could let me take care of it. Like in the old days.”
And here I thought our make-out session had signaled progress.