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The jiangshi—too beaten down to fight anyone—let Conn bring him a chair so he wouldn’t fall. Dejected by his shriveling humanity that he could no longer change for himself, he leaned on the cane and mourned what we’d done to him.

Mulan’s father—angrier than ever—spoke slowly to her, pronouncing each sentence with a glaring finality. I watched Mulan straighten as she glared back at him. Hurt oozed from every pore. But she answered her father with a swipe of her staff in the air in front of us and a guttural utterance of a single word.Her gaze moved from her father to her mother to her sister. Then she turned away from them.

“What did they say to ya?” I asked.

“I am disowned,” Mulan said. “It is official.”

“So it won’t matter what happens to him now? We can do what we like with him.”

“It matters only to him and us. I will never forgive them even if they beg. I have no family now.”

I fished the coin from my pocket. “Then let’s create a superhero. I bet he’ll be yer fan.”

Mulan walked to the jiangshi. I trailed a step or two after. She talked low to him, using her hands to illustrate. I didn’t need the words to know she was outlining the risks to him. He’d been living with death for so long that it amazed me he might still fear the real thing.

He looked at me with hope in his eyes. Then he nodded. I nodded back. I pulled the talisman from my pocket and showed it to him.

Mulan backed away from me to give me room for the spell.

“Ya might want to warn him this could hurt.”

“I already did,” Mulan said.

I patted my chest. “Showtime, guys. I need ya boost my power.”

We agree with your intention. We will do as you ask.

I hadn’t known I needed their agreement. I’d have to ask them about that later.

I chanted quietly and sent my magick into the talisman to let it know I was there. The jiangshi struggled until he got to his feet. He held his torn robe aside for me to put the talisman and my palm against his decayed flesh.

I gathered the power rising inside me and sent it flowing through my hand.“Per vim facinnt huius te resurrecturus!”

His body failed to hold him up so my power did the job.“Per vim facinnt huius te resurrecturus! Per vim facinnt huius te resurrecturus!”

My voice echoed in the foyer like a god’s as I commanded the talisman to resurrect the man’s true human form.

His screams of pain moved through both of us. I held on as the talisman burned its way through dead flesh and into the part of the jiangshi that was still alive.

Finally, he fell away from me to back up. Still screaming, he clutched at his chest. But it was too late to halt what had been done. The change was happening.

The jiangshi crumpled to the floor as we watched and then slowly rose to his feet. He walked around the chair Conn had brought him. He rubbed his chest that was filling out. His whole body began to glow.

There was a burst of light and before us stood a stranger. Mulan glanced at me with her “check-him-out” look in her eyes. I ducked my head to hide my smile. The talisman had worked.

“Tell him it might or might not last. Or it might happen spontaneously now and again. We don’t know how it will work long term.”

She turned to the jiangshi and did as I asked. He walked forward to us then, no longer afraid. I stepped back when he dropped to his knees at my feet. The effect he produced in me was radically different than when the guardian did it. This man at my feet made my lips curl.

“What is he doing?”

Mulan covered her mouth to stifle her giggle. “He thinks you are goddess. He worships you.”

“Well, tell him I’m not one.”

Her shrug was large. “You are child of god with guardian blood. Maybe you are goddess. I will not lie for you.”

“Mulan, that’s not funny.”