I didn't hear footsteps as I began the walk back to my house, or see a shadow trailing mine, but I spoke anyway.
"Are you going to tell me I was rude?" I said. "That I shouldn't have spoken to an adult like that?"
Inside I was kicking myself. I was rude. Mrs. Thompson didn't deserve any guff from me. She was like Mrs. Claus and Maria von Trapp put together.
"I'm not going to tell you anything," Quentin said from behind. "Except that you're going the long way."
I turned to face him. "Okay, how much of a stalker are you that you know more than one way to my—"
Standing behind Quentin, perfectly and unnaturally stock still, was a huge man.
The hugest one I'd ever seen. He had to have been at least eight feet tall.
He was wearing a suit made out of silk so black it looked like human hair. His bulging eyes didn't seem to point in the same direction, and there was something crooked about his massive arms, almost as if they had an extra joint he was hiding.
Quentin noticed my surprise and glanced behind him. In the blink of an eye he was by my side, shoving me away from the stranger.
"Ho, little one," the giant said to him. "You've gone soft to let me sneak up on you. What happened to that famous vision of yours?"
"Hunshimowang!" Quentin shouted. "So it was you I sensed lurking about this town! How did your sorry ass get out of Hell?"
"Oh, wouldn't you like to find out?" the man in black said with a laugh. "Let's call it 'good behavior.' What really matters is that I, Hunshimowang, the Demon King of Confusion, am finally back in the world of the living." He fanned the air toward his egg-size nostrils and breathed in appreciatively.
Oh god oh god. Yunie was right. Quentin was a gangster and this was some Tong friend of his from prison. I fumbled for my phone to call someone, anyone, but the sweat pouring out of my palms cost me crucial seconds.
"Mmm, is that the smell of human child?" said the man. "After I kill you I'm going to have to follow the trail back and have myself a celebratory meal. It's been ages since I've tasted flesh of any kind."
"You make one move toward her and I'll feed you your own liver!" Quentin snapped.
"Always such concern for mortals." One of the man's eyes, just the one, swiveled toward me, and he licked a strand of drool off his lips with a tongue as thick and knotted as a two-by-four. His nauseating appearance and bizarre threats robbed me of the ability to respond quickly. Maybe I could have gotten over my confusion, and maybe I could have powered through my fear, but not both together.
"I notice you haven't told the girl to run yet," he said to Quentin. "Could it be that you're scared to face me without her? Surely you haven't become that weak?"
Quentin bristled. "You don't know who she is! And I don't need anybody's help to beat you to death a second time!"
He snatched my phone out of my grasp before I could hit the second 1 of 911.
"I'm sorry, Genie," Quentin said, crushing it to glass and metal splinters with a single squeeze. "But we can't involve anyone else."
The man in black grinned. And grinned. And kept grinning. His smile parted his face and sliced toward his ears, exposing a mouth that went nearly all the way around his head like a crocodile's.
Quentin snarled, his flawless looks contorting into a mask of rage. I could see his canines bared, much longer than they should have been. He gave me a hard push to the side, sending me through the air. I landed on the grass as he launched himself at the giant.
The force from their collision nearly popped my eardrums. Quentin was telling the truth before. Whatever he and the man in black were doing, it wasn't wushu. They attacked each other like rabid animals, clawing and biting as much as they punched and kicked.
I scrabbled backward on my heels and hands, trying to get away from the radius of their malice. My heart hadn't beat in the last minute. I was looking at two people trying to kill each other. The sight was an infection that I couldn't allow to reach me.
I heard a sharp wooden crack across the street like a tree had split and fallen, and suddenly Quentin was gone from sight. He must have been thrown off into the distance.
The giant yawned in pain and rolled his shoulders before turning his attention to me. He walked over and crouched down, slamming his hands against the ground on either side of me, blotting out the sun above.
"It's strange, meeting you for the first time under these circumstances," he said, his foul, raw-meat breath descending over me. "Let's see if I can get a taste of you without cracking my teeth."
His saliva spattered against my cheek. I shut my eyes, screamed my lungs out, and kicked him as hard as I could.
It felt like I completely whiffed, which should have been impossible given how big he was. But the stench abated. I looked up to see an expression of complete shock on the man's face as he backpedaled away, a foot-size chunk missing from his flank. Black goo dripped from the wound onto the sidewalk.
He and I must have shared the same bewilderment at that moment. Look buddy, I'm as confused as you.
"Don't touch her!" Quentin roared, taking advantage of his opponent's distraction to make his flying reentry. He dropped from the sky onto the man's platform-like shoulders and the two of them spiraled away into the street.
Despite their injuries, the fight wasn't over by a long shot. The giant managed to get Quentin at both arms' length and smashed him into the ground repeatedly like he was trying to open a coconut. I thought Quentin was dead from the first impact alone, but his legs snaked out and wrapped around the man's neck. He pulled the man's head into his abdomen and began strangling him with his whole body, all while being bounced against the pavement so hard I could see an outline of his shoulders on the ground where they blew away the dust.
The giant kept ramming Quentin into the earth, but his strength started to flag, especially since he was still bleeding heavily from his side. His knees buckled and he fell to the ground like a chain-sawed oak. Quentin maintained the chokehold until the man in black stopped moving, and then some.
Finally he scooted out from under his opponent. Then, without hesitating, Quentin clambered onto the man's back and grasped his chin and the top of his head.
"Wait, no!" I shrieked once I realized what he was going to do.
With a twist of his arms, he broke the man's neck.
Quentin looked up at me, breathing heavily.
"Are you okay?" he said.
"No," I whispered. "No no no."
"Genie, please," he said, reaching toward me. "I can explain—"
I wasn't listening. I was too busy staring at what was happening to the giant's corpse.
It was dissolving. Into the air. The dead man's body suddenly resembled a still-wet painting dunked into a tank of water, the colors and hues that made up his existence bleeding away into a surrounding liquid.
His body silently burst into a great splash of ink. Spouting swirls of his former mass chased each other in all directions like calligraphy strokes until they faded into invisibility.
Nothing remained of him. Even his blood, including the half that had been splattered all over Quentin, was gone.
Quentin waved his hand over where the body had been. "I, uh, can explain that, too."
No he couldn't.
I didn't waste another word. I just ran, and ran, and ran.
