Blue Dragon

‘What happened?’
    ‘Demon poisoning, dear.’ Meredith’s voice was crisp. ‘We need to clear this out of you. Now. Concentrate on the sound of my voice. This will hurt.’
    Her cool hands were on my forehead. Before I could do anything my veins filled with needle-sharp, ice-cold fire. The pain was unbelievable. I screamed and thrashed.
    Emma, keep still, John said into my head and I subsided. Concentrate. Let Meredith help you. Try to control your reaction to the pain. He hesitated. I know it hurts, love, but this must be done.
    ‘John?’
    ‘I’m here, love.’
    I exhaled a huge sigh of relief and let Meredith hurt me for a million years.
    ‘We came so close to losing her,’ Meredith said softly.
    ‘I must stay nearby,’ John said. ‘If I had been nearby this would not have happened. This demon waited until I was out of range and then came.’
    ‘Was the student poisoned too?’ I said without opening my eyes.
    ‘No,’ John said, his voice soft and warm. ‘All he had was a bloody nose, and he fainted at the sight of the blood. He’s fine, his nose isn’t even broken.’
    ‘God, what a wimp,’ I whispered, my voice hoarse.
    ‘He brought the demon in,’ Meredith said. ‘It took the form of a pretty girl and he led it right in the front door. There’s some disagreement as to whether we should let the stupid little bastard stay.’
    ‘He’s very talented; he just needs to mature,’ John said.
    ‘He’s probably only been here a week. Let him stay,’ I said.
    ‘Yes, ma’am,’ John said, and I tried to raise my hand to thump him but I was too weak. I struggled to open my eyes and saw the ceiling of the Folly apartment. I was lying on the living room couch. I wanted to pull myself upright but I couldn’t.
    Meredith pushed me back. ‘Rest some more, then we’ll take you home.’
    ‘Holy shit, not directly,’ I said. ‘That’d kill me.’
    ‘You are quite correct,’ John said. ‘So Meredith will carry you down to the car and I will drive you home. But we want to make sure that you’ll survive the trip first.’
    ‘I’m fine.’ I wanted to pull myself to sit but I couldn’t even raise my arms. ‘Whoa. I’m so weak.’
    ‘Look at your chi level,’ Meredith said with amusement.
    I felt a shock as I checked my central dan tian. I was running on empty. ‘So that’s what it feels like.’ I closed my eyes. ‘Can you top me up, Meredith, to get me strong enough to go home?’
    ‘Sorry, dear, you were too badly poisoned,’ Meredith said. ‘If I were to fill you with chi now, the energy would kill you in your current weakened state. You will need to go home and rest for quite some time, building the chi slowly yourself.’
    That made sense. I heaved a huge sigh.
    ‘Do you realise what you just did?’ John said quietly.
    ‘Yep,’ I said. ‘I fell for the oldest trick in the book and nearly got myself killed.’
    ‘You took down a level seventy, Emma.’
    ‘With your bare hands, no less,’ Meredith said.
    I was silent.
    ‘You took down a demon that was more than a match for two Celestial Masters,’ John said. ‘And youdid it full of demon venom. You just get better all the time.’
    ‘Astounding,’ Meredith said. ‘Wish I could have seen that.’
    I wanted to run my hands through my hair but I was too weak.
    ‘Rest,’ Meredith said. ‘Then we’ll take you home.’
    The next day I was up and tottering around the house like an invalid. I could barely lift my cup of tea in the morning, but after a good sleep I could actually eat something at lunchtime. John and I shared a huge pot of vegetarian ho fan in the dining room.
    ‘How long before I’m back to normal?’ I said.
    ‘About five days, give or take,’ John said. ‘You will be too weak to practise anything for a while. Your already injured liver is slowing the healing process; there is still poison in your system that needs to be filtered out.’
    ‘Damn,’ I said into my noodles. ‘Monique just generated her first chi and now I can’t help her.’
    ‘Meredith will take over,’ John said with amusement.
    We shared the noodles in silence for a while.
    ‘The Tiger has a suggestion,’ John said. ‘Simone is at school for another two weeks until the end of term. She is cared for by Leo and Michael. I am here. You are too weak to do anything except rest. Why don’t you go to the Western Palace and see your family? Recuperate there? You’ll recover much faster on the Celestial.’
    I glanced at