EVEN VAMPIRES GET THE BLUES

I bit my lip as I looked closely at Pilar. He looked human, absolutely mortal, except for the cold that seemed to roll off him like a dense fog. "Caspar said you were a kung, a Chinese water demon."

"I am many things. That is just one part of what makes me a whole."

The pieces of the puzzle fell together with a snap that I could have sworn was audible. "Were you, by any chance, held prisoner in a stone prison for fifteen hundred years?"

Pilar smiled.

"You're Sun Wukong, aren't you? The monkey god? The subject of the Jilin statue? The one Buddha released, the one who became a champion against demons."

"And their lords. Now I seek to stop Yan Luowang, whatever the cost such an action may demand." Pilar made a polite little bow. "And you, Beloved, will do very nicely as the blood price."

Chapter 19

"I thought you were supposed to be the sacrifice?" Clare groused as she took my hand. "I don't see why I have to come along."

I looked beyond her to Paen, giving him a small, hopeful smile. He didn't return it.

"You have to pull me into the beyond. Evidently since I'm soulless, I can't enter or leave it on my own, but you can take me there."

"It's a ridiculous plan," she snorted, casting pathetic glances at Paen. "Don't you think it's ridiculous?"

"Very much so," he said.

"Stop doing that. Paen is on the edge as is," I whispered to Clare, jerking her hand to get her attention. "My hands are full trying to keep him from attacking Pilar, without you baiting him into an action we'll all regret."

"Well, it is silly. I don't know anything about this beyond place. I don't know why he thinks I'm going to be able to find the statue," she said, frowning at Pilar.

Beppo sat on his shoulder, making occasional chirruping noises as Clare and I prepared to retrieve the statue.

"You do not have to find it. The Beloved will find it. She was born of the light; she will have powers there," Pilar told her for the third time. "Just do as you've been instructed."

"Yes, but it's all so very silly," Clare said, stalling like mad.

"Look at it this way," I told her. "At least if we die, we'll die together."

Her look of outrage would have brought a mortal to her knees. "I am not going to die!"

"I know that," I soothed, giving her hand a friendly squeeze.

"I should hope you do," she said, transferring her glare from me back to Pilar.

"Faeries can't die," I added, smiling at her outraged snarl. "Come on, Glimmerharp. Let's get this over with so we can take care of Caspar."

Clare swore colorful oaths at me as we turned and walked straight toward the rock face, where Pilar had indicated the nearest entrance to the beyond was. I was just about to ask her if she talked to her mother with that mouth when we hit a wall—or rather, I did. Clare passed through it, but I was held back by a field that didn't want to let me pass.

"Clare, you're going to have to pull," I said, pushing myself against the barrier between realities. "I can't… seem… to get thr—"

She wrapped a second hand around my wrist and yanked with a strength that was surprising. I was jerked clean through the barrier into the beyond, stumbling over a rock and falling to my knees, the shock of passing through it enough to strip the air from my lungs.

Sam? Are you all right? You disappeared. Paen's voice was warm and reassuring in my head, but it was different somehow—stretched, as if it came from a great distance.

I'm fine, I answered, getting to my feet, brushing the knees of my jeans as I took a quick look about. Just a little shaky. I don't think that was the most graceful entrance I've ever made. Everything OK out there?

Yes. Pilar and I are having a stare-down.

Who's winning?

He is. I don't think he has eyelids.

Maybe you should offer to arm-wrestle him, or have a spitting contest or something, I said, gathering up every warm emotion I could muster in the cold void of my soulless self, and sending them to him.

I love you, too, he said, and for a moment, he shared his warmth and light with me, reminding me again that I wasn't alone.

Clare looked around us. "This is certainly different. Where did all these trees and lovely flowers come from? And that brook? I know that brook wasn't there a few seconds ago," she said, pointing to a stream of silver that spilled over the rocks in a graceful display that promised refreshment and relaxation to any who paused to sit a while near it.

"You're in the beyond, now, Clare. Things are different here. Expect Disney music and dancing teacups at any moment. Put down that dove you found and come along. We have places to go, statues to rescue, demon lords to cream."

"Where exactly are we going?"

"To find the statue."