Blue Dragon

paused, musing. ‘I wonder if it will become infected, considering his current weakened state.’
    ‘I’m still right here,’ John growled.
    ‘Leo?’ I said.
    Leo paused, then understood the question. ‘I’m okay.’
    ‘Don’t worry about antibiotics. I don’t think he’ll need them if Leo’s okay,’ I said.
    Regina studied Leo. ‘What?’
    Leo didn’t say anything and I slapped my forehead with my palm. ‘ Men !’
    ‘Oh, dear Lord,’ Regina said softly. ‘Why didn’t anybody tell me?’ She raced to her desk and scrabbled through the drawers. ‘I’ll need prescriptions right away. It will take weeks for me to get the right cocktail of drugs from the States or Australia, and acquiring them without giving anything away about our operation will be incredibly difficult. Damn !’ She rounded on Leo. ‘How bad was it? It was before you went to Malaysia, wasn’t it? Tell me now .’
    Leo slowly and gracefully rose to his feet, towering over all of us. His face was rigid.
    He fell to one knee before me and saluted, head bowed. ‘My Lady,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘I wish to make a request.’
    I didn’t move, watching him. ‘Regina,’ I said softly without turning to her, ‘don’t worry about the AIDS drugs. DNR. I’ll manage the pain for him as much as I can.’ I heaved a deep sigh. ‘Leave it.’
    Leo rose with a great deal of dignity and bowed from the waist to me. ‘I thank you, my Lady,’ he said softly. He bowed to John. ‘My Lord.’
    John didn’t say anything but his face was tight.
    Regina turned away and thumped the desk.
    ‘Let’s take him home,’ I said with resignation.
    ‘I don’t need to be taken home,’ John said.
    ‘No, what you need is to be left in the middle of the street across the tram tracks,’ Leo said with feeling. ‘Let’s get Simone and go.’
    We put him in the front of the car. As Leo guided him in, he hissed with pain. ‘I took the drugs,’ he said. ‘They didn’t work.’
    ‘I think they did, but not completely,’ I said, buckling Simone into the seat in the back. ‘You’ll still be in quite a lot of pain anyway.’
    ‘I don’t know how you humans live with it,’ he said.
    ‘Is Emma human?’ Leo said quickly as he pulled himself into the driver’s seat.
    John paused, the seatbelt buckle halfway into its slot. He pushed the buckle all the way in and faced the front. ‘Interesting question. Hard to say.’
    ‘We need an answer. There’s dinner riding on it,’ I said.
    John didn’t turn. ‘Let me think about it.’
    ‘If you need to think about it then she’s not human,’Leo said. ‘If she’s human, you’d be able to say so right away. If you have to think about it then she’s not.’
    ‘I think he’s right,’ John said.
    ‘Emma is human,’ Simone said with conviction. ‘But the snake isn’t human.’
    ‘Does that mean that I’m not the snake?’ I said.
    ‘That’s right,’ Simone said, facing the front of the car. ‘Emma’s human, but the snake isn’t.’
    ‘I think she’s right,’ John said.
    ‘We can’t both be right,’ Leo said.
    ‘I am human,’ I said. ‘I can’t do anything that a very talented human can’t do.’
    ‘Yes, you can,’ John said. ‘Humans cannot work with shen. Humans cannot heal with energy. Humans cannot run one hundred metres in three seconds.’ He gestured at Leo next to him in the front. ‘Absolutely no human could lift him with one arm.’
    ‘I win, Emma,’ Leo said. ‘Face it. You’re not human.’
    ‘What am I then?’
    Nobody said anything.
    We went to the American restaurant in the Peak Tower and Leo ordered the most massive steak that I had ever seen, so rare it was still mooing. I ordered vegetarian pasta.
    I took a sip of the beer and winced.
    ‘What?’ Leo said.
    I studied the bottle. ‘Ever since I started working with energy, alcohol tastes strange. Wrong. I don’t like it any more.’ I put the bottle down and glanced around for a waiter. ‘Mineral water.’
    After the waiter had brought the mineral water I poked my fork into my pasta with amusement. ‘I might as well shave my head and start wearing brown Taoist nun’s robes,’ I said. ‘No meat, no alcohol, no sex. I’m a freaking nun.’
    ‘At least if you dressed like that you’d be tidy,’ Leo said. ‘You wouldn’t always look like you fell out of bed in the clothes you wore the night before.’
    I reached across the table and gave him a push. ‘Oh, thank you very much