The demon leapt onto the rooftop, rising three storeys in a single leap. The sack fell heavily against its back, yet the weight of the Golden Buddha had not hindered it.
Chi Lei skidded to a stop in the street below. The thieving demon grinned and kicked a roof tile over the edge. She smashed it with a ferocious blow from her staff before it hit the ground.
In all her years of training, there was a single technique she had not mastered. Her master had tried, on lonely mountain tops. Do not jump, he told her, step. Do not leap, simply rise. There had been moments when she believed that she was lifting, as if carried by some heavenly wire, but they had always been brief and quickly followed by painful, rocky disappointment. And now she needed it.
The demon turned to flee and her anger rose. She was passing a first floor window before she realised she was rising in body too. Chi Lei laughed as the air rushed by. The demon turned in time to catch the end of staff in its face as she landed upon it.