The Dragon Warrior

by Katie Zhao

  The nián let out a low rumble of agreement, its eyes glowing like yellow orbs as it pawed at the ground.

  “No, you idiot boy,” Chuangmu shouted up at the Red Prince, stomping her heel against the stage. She ignored the roar of the nián as it turned toward her. “When I saved you in D.C., this is not what we agreed to.”

  “She followed us. I knew I smelled knockoff Chanel,” Moli sniffed.

  My mind leapt to the sense I’d had of being trailed back in D.C.’s Chinatown. Now it all made sense. “But how?”

  “She must’ve snuck in by disguising herself as part of Cindy’s team,” Alex murmured.

  “Weren’t you on Xi Wangmu’s side?” I cried at Chuangmu. “You should be helping us!”

  “Xi Wangmu turned against me when she decided to help you humans escape my hotel,” the goddess spat, her eyes glowing with rage. “It seems I choose all my allies poorly.”

  Chuangmu thrust her microphone at the Red Prince and turned her back to us, which I guess meant we’d just been dismissed. “The deal was that we take Cindy You out of commission, disguise you to put on this concert, and then wreak havoc on the Queen Mother of the West. Now, get back out there and finish your finale.”

  The demon lord sucked in a huge gust of air and blew it back out—as fire. Samadhi fire. The flames shot into the curtain, searing through the fabric and tearing it down in one blow.

  “Now that’s what I call a grand finale,” the Red Prince bellowed.

  “Why are you demons so—so—demonic?” asked Chuangmu.

  A cloud formed under her feet, and she shot up into the air, the flames chasing her as she soared over the panicking crowd and out of sight.

  Although my brain screamed at me to run and never look back, I pulled out Fenghuang and faced the demon lord with my spear in front of me. He now sat on top of the nián, and I craned my neck to meet him at eye level.

  I’d beaten both these demons once. I could do it again.

  But before I could lunge toward the demon lord, his guards rushed between us, meeting my spear with their swords.

  “Our demon lord is busy, can’t you see?” one of them growled, jerking his head toward the fiery mess that had once been the curtains. The fabric fell to the stage, which burst into flame.

  The screams of hundreds of deities filled the concert venue. They clamored over each other to be the first to fly away from the outdoor auditorium on their clouds. Several stagehands and minor deities threw water onto the fire, but the Red Prince’s demon flames only grew.

  “We need the help of the dragon kings to put out those flames,” Ren shouted, panting and wiping sweat off his brow. I could tell he was having a hard time breathing “I’ll … I’ll try to turn into a dragon. One of them might listen to me then, and—”

  “Too risky,” I said.

  You don’t trust me, the look on his face said.

  But I knew how much it cost Ren’s humanity to let the dragon take over—and I couldn’t let him do it. Couldn’t lose more of Ren.

  Smoke clogged my lungs. But I had to keep fighting. If we didn’t stop the demon lord, he could wipe out hundreds with his samadhi fire. Even the deities didn’t stand a chance against the evil flames.

  Something warm and hard thudded against me.

  “I’ve got your back,” Ren yelled. He notched an arrow and shot it at the nearest demon.

  As one unit, Ren and I fought off the demons. The pressure of his solid, warm back pressed against mine reassured me that he was still standing. Still fighting. Though they couldn’t stand against Fenghuang, the Red Prince’s bodyguards were relentless in their attack against me. They slashed down everything in their path: music stands, microphones, each other. I slashed them into oblivion with my spear, but more kept coming.

  Alex and Moli met the demons head-on, slicing their swords and parrying the attacks without fear. I slashed Fenghuang’s tip down a row of charging men. They vanished, their souls turning into wisps that floated away.

  A demon ran at me, his sword pointed at my heart. I parried his blade, sending him bowling into two other men. They tumbled to the ground in a tangled heap of ugliness and confusion. One of them tried to stand up, but Moli shrieked and beaned him in the head with a box of wires. He went down again with a groan. She sliced him in half with her sword, and a ghostly white wisp floated from the ground, all that remained of the demon. Moli wiped her brow and shot me a thumbs-up.

  Another demon snuck up on my brother, raising a sword high in the air, but I was on him in an instant. Fenghuang pulsed beneath my hands.

  “Get away from my brother, freak!” I slashed my spear down with speed and power that I’d never known I had in me, the crystallized point slicing through the guard as though he were made of nothing more than water.

  “Th … thanks,” Alex panted, wiping ash off his face.

  “Shut up …” It was so hard to breathe now. “… Idiot.”

  Though I’d meant the words to come out hard, my voice, clogged with smoke, betrayed the fear I’d felt the moment I thought Alex had fallen victim to the demon.

  While his henchmen held us off, the Red Prince tossed ball after ball of flame into the audience. His men ripped down the remains of the curtain and wadded up the flaming fabric, throwing it into the crowd. Young deities screamed as the flames consumed them. They burned up right before my eyes.

  The walls caught fire, the flames climbing and licking the ceiling.

  Eyes and lungs burning, I ran at the Red Prince—and prayed. Praying to the gods I’d just turned my back on left a sour taste in my mouth, but I didn’t see another choice.

  Deities, give me the power to kill this demon lord.

  That same low female voice responded. I have the perfect weapon for you, Heaven Breaker.

  Something fell into my sweaty hand. I opened my palm. A white lotus flower.

  The deity’s voice entered my head again. Guanyin’s lotus bed trapped the Red Prince once, hundreds of years ago. This is my refined version of the weapon, which will stop him—and his samadhi fire—again.

  I chucked the flower as hard as I could at the demon lord. When it landed on the ground in front of the Red Prince, it grew to the size of a small couch. The flames leapt off the ground and walls, sucked into the bed of the lotus flower.

  The Red Prince’s eyes widened when he realized the air was clearing, that his flames had been conquered.

  “Wh-who—? What? Impossible—” The demon lord kicked the nián with his heels, but the beast didn’t react quickly enough.

  Two thick green vines shot out of the lotus, yanking the Red Prince off the nián and into the depths of the flower. He screamed, “Not again!” and thrashed. The flower’s petals and leaves grew, sucking him inside.

  “Where’s the real Cindy You?” I shouted. “What did you do to Ren’s mother?”

  “Why do you care what happens to a silly mortal woman?” the Red Prince spat. His eyes widened with fear as the vines crawled over his face. Trapped and defenseless, he looked, for the first time, quite pitiful. “Help me!”

  “Not unless you tell me what you did to Cindy.”

  “This isn’t the end, stupid girl,” the Red Prince shouted as the vines thickened over his eyes. “I’m only the first of the demon lords breaking out of Diyu. Just wait till you face my masters—the demon kings. You and all of Earth will—”

  The rest of the Red Prince’s threat was lost. He vanished. The flower shrank into the ground and disappeared.

  “The nián,” Ren shouted. The huge beast had lunged out into the crowd of scattering deities. As I looked, it reached out a scaly paw to swipe up a young male deity who was wearing Cindy You gear from head to foot—and swallowed him whole. Then the nián ate another deity. Then another.

  I watched with horror as the beast swelled in size with each deity it consumed, its deafening roars drowning out the screams of the fleeing gods and goddesses. Within seconds, it had doubled in height, standing at least thirty feet tall
. The nián stormed over the deities, each step as loud and heavy as an earthquake. The young gods and goddesses flooded through the doors, until only a handful of the braver ones remained behind, wielding everything from swords to hairbrushes as weapons.

  If I had to guess, these deities were disciples under the major gods and goddesses. They were basically food for the nián.

  “How are these deities so powerless?” Moli yelled as she took down one of the Red Prince’s last guards with a slash of her sword. “Can’t they just fly away or something?”

  “They can’t,” Alex realized. He dove in front of Moli, who hadn’t noticed a second guard creeping up on her. “These deities are so minor, nobody prays to them. They’ve got no power.”

  Ren gave me an imploring look. “C’mon. We’ve gotta help them.”

  With a jolt, I recognized the warning signs of his transformation: shifting eye color; pale, sweaty face.

  “Ren—”

  He leapt over the stage and sprinted toward the nián. Each of his arrows met its mark in the nián’s body, but the demon merely swatted at them like they were splinters.

  “Ren!” I screamed. His figure was tiny compared to the hulking beast.

  Please, master. The rumbling voice of Ren’s dragon entered my head. Let me transform and defeat this demon.

  I bit my lip. It was true that unless he turned into a dragon—sacrificing part of his humanity—Ren didn’t stand a chance. No warrior did. This powerful version of the nián wasn’t one that the warriors were equipped to handle.

  But the fear of loss wouldn’t leave me. My mother, father, grandfather—I’d already lost so many loved ones. I couldn’t lose more of Ren, too.

  “What’re you standing around for?” Moli demanded, wiping at a cut on her cheek. Her ruined sleeve came away wet and red with blood, but she was too busy glaring at me to notice. “You’re the Heaven Breaker, aren’t you? I know you can stop them.”

  She grabbed my hand and yanked me in the direction where Ren had disappeared into the crowd, and Alex was pushing past deities to try to reach our friend.

  Shoving through the crowd and raising Fenghuang into the air, I channeled my thoughts into the spear that had slain so many beasts already.

  Please take on your dragon form to help us, Ren.

  Ren drew closer to the beast. The spear shook uncontrollably in my hand, searing white-hot.

  Ren was only feet away from the nián, which had turned its great gold-and-red head toward him, its mouth parted to reveal razor-sharp teeth. Ren’s form bubbled. His limbs shot upward.

  Alex stumbled out of the crowd, and the nián’s yellow eyes snapped onto him. With a shriek, Moli let go of my arm and rushed over to aid my brother.

  I brought the spear in front of me and prepared to lunge forward. But an unseen force slammed into me. I stumbled back into a bunch of deities.

  No, Heaven Breaker. The familiar voice of the female deity again. You are to wait.

  “What?” I spluttered, so stunned that my spear nearly slipped out of my hand. The screaming deities pushed me away, farther from Ren. He was now a fully fledged green dragon, facing down the still-bigger nián with Moli and my brother by his side. My heart pounded wildly. “Wait? The Red Prince might be gone, but there’s another demon destroying Heaven!”

  I’ve changed my mind. I command you to wait. Let the nián teach these pitiful deities a lesson. How dare they throw a concert, accidentally let in demons, and make a mockery of the Lantern Festival banquet.

  A realization hit me like a blow to my gut. Every time I’d prayed to the gods using Fenghuang’s power, that low voice had entered my head. And at last, I could pinpoint why it sounded so familiar.

  I pictured the regal woman who sat next to Jade Emperor. Xi Wangmu, Queen Mother of the West.

  She had been controlling me all along.

  CHAPTER

  25

  The goddess’s power seeped into me, turning my blood into liquid fire. My vision sharpened. Details popped out at me. I could see the fissures form in the wall as it cracked, leaving the entire side of the raised auditorium exposed. The wall fell and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, hundreds of feet below.

  Ren, Moli, and Alex beat back the nián, dodging each swipe of its massive claws. But I was useless. Rooted to the spot by an invisible power.

  Wait, Heaven Breaker. Let those who mocked our great tradition suffer awhile for their sins.

  I tried reaching out to Ren with my thoughts, but his head was filled with incoherent fragments of rage. A small part of my brain screamed at me to move move move, but the compulsion to obey Xi Wangmu won out.

  Do as I say, and you will be rewarded with the highest of honors. Your heritage will make you unstoppable. The greatest general there ever was.

  Fenghuang grew unbearably hot beneath my palms. My blood sang. My vision zoomed in on a crate of Cindy You firecrackers pushed off to the side. On the colorful scales of the nián. On the sweat that beaded down my brother’s forehead and the droplets of blood that oozed out of the scratches on Moli’s cheek.

  If I obeyed Xi Wangmu—stood here and did nothing, letting the nián attack the minor deities—would that make me brave? A strong warrior, worthy of my father’s memory, worthy of the gods?

  Or would it make me a coward?

  Use Fenghuang, but do not let it control you, my grandfather had insisted in my dream.

  The spear had helped me slay many demons. I couldn’t bear to part with its power. I couldn’t let it control me.

  Rage, warrior. Xi Wangmu again. You will break this world for me. You will break the Earth—and bring on a golden age of the gods.

  The nián swiped its paw and sent Ren skidding across the floor. Moli and Alex lunged forward and dodged as the beast’s fangs missed them by a hair. Deities continued streaming out of the ruined auditorium, leaving only the bravest ten or so behind.

  Mao’s sneer swam in my mind. The daughter of a traitor, she’d always called me. Strange.

  Xi Wangmu had praised me. Strong. Powerful.

  But I didn’t feel like any of those things, either. I was just … me. Faryn Liu. A girl who wanted to be the warrior her father once was.

  Why couldn’t anyone else understand that?

  My grandfather’s younger face swam in my vision. Now, more than ever, I needed his help. I needed to pray. I didn’t know if he’d hear, I didn’t know if he’d be able to escape or help, but I had to try. I took a deep breath, closing my eyes and clasping my hands in front of me. Please come to Peng Lai Island, Ye Ye. We need you.

  When I opened my eyes again, I threw Fenghuang with all my might, through the hole in the ruined wall, into the seas far below. Xi Wangmu’s voice disappeared, as though I’d turned a volume dial. Gone, too, was the heat of the power that had crackled through my nerves only moments before.

  The gods’ will had abandoned me. I’d never become the Jade Emperor’s general now. Yet I’d never felt more powerful, self-assured. In control.

  A loud whooping noise sounded from above me, followed by a bird’s screech. I looked up—and dove out of the way before a huge, brilliantly red phoenix nearly took my head off.

  “You called, sūn nǚ er?” A blast of wind blew against the back of my head as the phoenix landed. I turned around and found myself facing—

  “Ba!” Alex cried from somewhere behind me.

  My brother shoved me out of the way and knelt in front of the figure before us: a broad-shouldered, handsome twentysomething man with black hair pulled back into a short ponytail. He wore a long-sleeved white shirt that was tucked into brown pants. His intelligent black eyes were so familiar.

  “That’s not our father,” I whispered. “That’s … Ye Ye.”

  “Huh?” Alex’s jaw dropped. “No way. This guy is, like … young. And cool.”

  Ye Ye shouted and pointed behind us.

  The nián beat back a row of deities with its claws and picked up speed, charging toward Ren and Moli. Even in his
dragon form, Ren looked small next to the monstrous creature.

  “Ah Li. Falun.” Hearing those familiar names, the ones only my grandfather called us, made tears prickle in the corner of my eyes. Ye Ye’s eyes were solemn—and, I was surprised to see, watery and red. My grandfather never shed tears. It went against his Wise Mentor image.

  “Ye Ye,” I cried, “everything is a mess. San Francisco is in trouble, along with a bunch of other Chinatowns, and now this—”

  “San Francisco is holding up well. Don’t worry,” Ye Ye reassured me. “Wang and the other warriors have been taking their duties seriously, protecting the people of San Francisco. But I don’t have much time. Wenshu will know I’ve escaped from his study soon. Before then, we must kill this beast lest it destroys the minor deities.”

  “Ye Ye—” Alex said in a choked voice.

  “How are you here?” I spluttered.

  “Wenshu’s security was lax today, since he came to attend the banquet. I might have, ah, given the guards a slip.” A mischievous light glinted in Ye Ye’s eye. “Falun, Ah Li, don’t look so pathetic. You’re warriors. Now, tell me—what does the nián fear most?”

  Though I was feeling dizzy with the adrenaline of the fight and revelation of Ye Ye standing right here, I could still recall the answer with perfect clarity. If there was anything the Jade Society warriors knew about the beast that emerged in the Lunar New Year, it was this: the nián feared one thing, and one thing only.

  I knew what I had to do.

  I dashed over to the crate of firecrackers with Cindy You’s face on them, Ye Ye and Alex on my heels. Lighting a red firecracker, I flung it at the nián. It exploded on the demon, showering it with sparks. It roared and swiped away the debris. My brother pitched a second firecracker at the nián.

  “Throw the firecrackers!” I yelled at the motionless deities. I overturned the crate and dumped the red-and-gold objects onto the ground. Ye Ye lit up firecrackers as easily as if his hands were made of fire themselves, sending the crackling objects soaring into the nián’s face.

  Even if they were useless with swords, the deities seemed to be good at setting off firecrackers. They snatched up the fallen red-and-gold objects and chucked them at the nián.