“Lieutenant, how’n the hell does she know so much?” the elephant asked.
Jing-Wei ignored him, realizing that she was on the ground, on soft blankets just as she’d dreamed. She got up and moved toward the blue bubble. She approached it and reached out a hand.
“Wait!”
“I’ve never touched a demon,” Jing-Wei said. To the bubble, she said, “Are you the one who killed our witch, Lau De, my teacher?”
“It can’t be,” the eagle said. “We captured it weeks before you arrived.”
“How many weeks?” Jing-Wei asked. “The demons started their worst attacks about two weeks ago.”
“About two weeks ago,” the elephant said, nodding toward the demon.
“That’s data we didn’t have,” Shahbaz the eagle said to the lion, who had a horrified look on her face.
“So, is this demon important to them?” the elephant asked.
“And how is it important?” the eagle added. “It could as easily be an escapee as an envoy.”
“Did you kill Lau De?” Jing-Wei said, looking through the blue luminosity that held the demon at the dark shadow that was the demon itself. Her face hardened as she continued, “Let me tell you about Lau De. She raised me when my parents died. She raised me like her own. She raised me to know about peacocks and lions and elephants. She told me the stories of the great dragons, the most powerful beasts in the sky. She taught me to look up to the stars and wonder at the beauty that surrounds us all.
“And then you demons killed her,” Jing-Wei finished, surprised by her own tears. “You murdered her with a hailstone and left her to drown in a ditch by the shivelrat weed.
“Is that all you demons are? Murderers?” Jing-Wei asked. “Do you care about us at all?”
“Child—” the lion said slowly.
Jing-Wei shushed her with a backward-flung hand and a shake of her head. “Demons have taken my laughter, my happiness, and given me in return only bitter tears.”
Inside the blue jail, the demon turned a shadowy green. Was that remorse or exultation?
“You want to kill us all?” Jing-Wei shouted at the thing. “Very well,” she said, thrusting her hand through the blue barrier. “Start with me. I am no one now. You have taken all that I ever was.”
“Wait!”
“No!”
“Lieutenant, she’s breached the barrier!”
The words were flung at Jing-Wei, but she did not hear them as she entered the blue energy that held the demon.
“Kill me,” Jing-Wei said, now peering at the green ball shape that was the demon. “Because I have sworn to kill you. You killed Lau De, you destroyed my village. You should die!”
Life, the word sprang into her head. Kill ends life?
“Yes,” Jing-Wei said. She did not stop to wonder how she could hear the demon in her head. She moved toward it, wishing she had a knife or something that could kill demons. Lau De had said there were ways but that no one in the village had the tools.
Life is good, the demon thought inside her. No more life is bad. We want more life.
“You killed Lau De,” Jing-Wei said. “Do you take our lives for your own?”
Some do, the demon thought. Are afraid. Don’t know. Don’t want to try. To change.
“Jing-Wei?” The lion’s voice came muffled through the energy barrier. She sounded worried. “Are you all right?”
“The demon speaks in my head,” Jing-Wei said.
“It does?” the elephant boomed in amazement. “And you understand it?”
“Of course!” Jing-Wei shouted back.
End life bad. Life forever. End . . .
Jing-Wei got the impression that the demon was looking for a word and could not find it, finishing instead with: not life.
“When you kill, people are gone forever,” Jing-Wei said.
Gone forever, when kill? the demon said in her head. She got the impression that the demon meant that it would be gone forever when Jing-Wei killed it and that people were gone forever when the demons killed them.
“Gone forever,” Jing-Wei agreed.
Forever is now, the demon said.
“Stupid demon!” Jing-Wei swore, diving toward it. She hit it and flew backward, stung by something that bit her and left her skin feeling odd.
“What did it say?” the lion cried, loud enough that Jing-Wei heard her clearly.
“It said that ‘forever is now,’” Jing-Wei repeated.
“That doesn’t make sense,” the eagle muttered. “How can that be?”
“Sounds rather Zen,” the elephant said. “Like everything is in the moment.”
“Did it say anything else?” the lion asked.
“And why did you fly back like that?” the elephant added.
“Are you okay?” the eagle said.
“It said lots of things about life and death,” Jing-Wei said. “And I flew back because it bit me. And I’m going to kill it.”
“Bit you?” the lion repeated.
“We read a surge of static electricity,” the eagle reported. “It might have just zapped her.”
“Why didn’t you kill me?” Jing-Wei asked, flexing her hand where the bite had hurt the worst.
No kill. Kill is forever. Life is forever.
“Life isn’t forever,” Jing-Wei said. “People die.”
Not we people.
“We’ve killed you, I know we can,” Jing-Wei said, wondering if, perhaps, there was no way she just on her own could kill this demon.
Yes, the demon agreed. Many people are dead.
“You killed my people,” Jing-Wei said.
Your people? We people. The demon seemed confused.
“We’re people,” Jing-Wei said.
“Oh! Semantic mismatch!” the lion cried. “Jing-Wei, it may be that the demons think that they’re the only people!”
“Well, then they’re stupid!” Jing-Wei snapped back. “Tell me how to kill it.”
“We don’t want to kill it,” the eagle told her.
“That’s because you’re demons, too,” Jing-Wei shouted, showing her despair. She was trapped with a demon she couldn’t kill and she’d been led here by demons who were going to eat her. She was doomed, her village was doomed—Yan Dingbang, his brothers, sister, and parents; Zhou Mei-Xing, her only friend, and her stupid parents; Zhang Chen and all the others . . . doomed.
“This is supposed to be the cave of miracles! Why won’t you help me?” Jing-Wei sobbed. She drew a deep breath and shouted with all her might: “Oh, great masters! Please hear my plea! My village and valley are beset by demons and without your aid all will die!”
“Oh, great masters!” the demon cried in a young boy’s voice. “Hear my plea! I am the last child and I have no one to play with. The solid ones come and destroy my friends, dig up my plants, destroy my toys, and they won’t listen! My parents are gone, lost in a battle I don’t remember. My sisters are weeping for there can be no more children and the solid ones will overpower us. We are dying. We want peace. They will not listen. Oh, great masters! I call on you for justice! For compassion! For love!”
“What?” the three animals cried from outside.