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"No, I hurt you. And I'm about to hurt you a whole lot more if you don't--"
"She got away. The necromancer. She did escape us."
"Then why are you still here?"
Silence. Mom drew the sword back along the shallow cut. The demon writhed, then spat, "She is here. The Tengu can smell her. But we cannot find her. She hides."
Mom's exhale of relief was so deep the sword shuddered, making the demon yowl. She raised it off the girl's skin.
"Okay," I said. "So we need to find--"
"In a moment," Mom said. "Jaime's safe. She's found a place to hole up. We need to ask a few more questions."
"But--"
She lowered the sword again. As the demon squirmed, so did I. Yes, we had questions, but the main one had been answered. The rest we could figure out on our own.
"Who sent you?" Mom asked.
"Nobody sent us. We saw opportunity. We acted. The Tengu are not slaves."
"No, but they are boot-licking toads. You saw an opportunity to grab Jaime. And do what? Who wants her? You were going to turn her over to someone. Who?"
"Mom?"
She lifted a finger from the sword, telling me to wait.
"Mom, they don't want Jaime. That's not the opportunity they saw. It's you. They came for you. Jaime's just a means to an end."
Mom turned back to the demon. "Is that right? You saw me materialize and you came for me. You went after Jaime to get me. Who--?"
The demon let out a wail so high-pitched it made my ears hurt. Then the girl's body went slack, head lolling back. Eyes closing.
"Here we go again," Mom muttered. "Tengu do love drama."
The girl's eyelids fluttered. Then they slowly opened. She blinked. Frowned. Looked around at the treetops. Then at the sword.
"What the hell?" the girl said.
She followed the sword up to my mother's arm, then to my mother, still kneeling on her shoulders.
"What the hell!"
The girl struggled, kicking and hitting and swearing a blue streak. Not exactly the language you'd use if you were trying to impersonate an eleven-year-old. One look at the girl's ragged clothing, though, and you knew she wasn't just some random child plucked from the schoolyard. She was a street kid.
This time it was Mom who cast the reveal spell. The girl didn't flinch, just keep struggling and shouting obscenities.
Mom eased off the girl's shoulders, lowering her sword and holding the girl by the arm instead. The girl let Mom help her up, then took a swing. Mom lifted her sword and said, "Uh-uh, sweetie."
"I'm not your sweetie," the girl snarled. "If you brought me here for some perv, you'll be sorry. I've got friends, you know. They have blades and--"
As she twisted to talk to my mother, she winced. She pulled up her shirt. "What the hell? You cut me! And burned me! You can't do that. I've got rights."
"Yes, you do," Mom said, keeping her grip tight on the girl's arm. "I'm sorry you got hurt. We didn't mean it. But someone gave you something--drugs or something. You attacked a friend of ours."
"I didn't attack any goddamned--"
The girl stopped. She stared down at her blood-speckled shirt. Then she lifted her hands. Her nails were crusted in blood. Her eyes widened and the tough little girl fell away, horror filling her face.
