Blue Dragon

the long grass of the lot. Then I relaxed: the snake’s trail was from me . I curled up to sit with my knees in my chest behind the grass. It was high enough to hide me from anybody passing. I’d chosen a good spot.
    Mid-July was always blistering hot, day and night, and the evening was very humid. The fact that I didn’t have any clothes didn’t make me any more comfortable; the dust clung to the sheen of sweat on my skin. I brushed at the dirt on my arm, then stopped to study it. The dust had stuck to my arm in a scale pattern,obviously left over from when I’d changed. I ran my finger over the edge of the scales, not completely sure how I felt about that.
    ‘Agate in Shantou. No,’ the stone said. ‘Amber, Xian. No. Hold on, Amethyst’s answering. Damn, he’s under the ice of the South Pole, having a holiday. Can’t contact anybody for us.’
    ‘You going through your address book?’ I said, amused.
    ‘Bauxite isn’t answering, that’s strange. He has a human family in Russia, Siberia. Should be there, I wonder what happened to him? Anyway…’ The stone fell silent again.
    I waited patiently. I dozed off over my knees; I was exhausted. The lights above the train tracks blinked on. Crickets chirped. I hoped that everybody was okay: the students in the Academy and the Follies. And Simone. I sighed. Simone, more than anything. A train rolled past and I curled up in the grass and sat very still. I felt the vibration through the ground. Nobody in the train noticed me; they were moving too fast.
    It occurred to me that John might be gone. I searched for him with my consciousness; I hoped that when he left I would be aware of it. I smiled slightly into my knees. Yeah, right. Not likely.
    ‘Found one,’ the stone said. ‘This is most unusual, Emma, a great many of my children are not answering my calls. To tell you the truth, I am concerned about them. Anyway, I managed to contact Fred in Lingnan—he’s calling the Dark Lord on his mobile. May take a while, the phones there are a bit dodgy.’
    ‘Fred?’
    The stone didn’t reply.
    ‘Are you Chinese?’ I said. ‘Most of your children are in China, but you take European human form.’
    ‘Of course I’m Chinese,’ the stone said impatiently. ‘I took the European form to honour the present company.’
    ‘You were just stirring.’
    The stone was silent.
    ‘You really like to watch?’ I said softly.
    It stayed silent.
    ‘How does that work? You’re a rock .’
    ‘The Dark Lord made me promise to behave after I woke, and I have been extremely good,’ the stone said. ‘I meant it when I said that I was asleep, and he does me the honour of taking my word for it.’
    ‘Geez,’ I said into my knees. ‘I’m going to kill him.’
    ‘I have been extremely useful, you have to admit, Emma.’
    ‘Yeah, you just chopped up my goddamn hand,’ I said.
    ‘And it got you out of there.’
    I sighed. I wanted to curl up and cry my eyes out. What I really needed was a hug from my man.
    ‘We will have you home soon, and you can have a long hot shower and sleep,’ the stone said.
    ‘Holy shit, I wear you in the goddamn shower !’ I said fiercely, curling up tighter.
    ‘Makes no difference to me whatsoever,’ the stone said.
    ‘Yeah. I really believe you.’
    ‘Really. You can ask the Dark Lord for confirmation. In that respect, I truly am a genderless piece of rock.’
    ‘You are extremely weird,’ I said.
    I could picture the stone’s human form shrugging with a wry smile. ‘Aren’t we all? Leo is the only really normal member of the Chen household, Emma.’
    I sighed into my knees again.
    ‘He’s onto them. They’re okay,’ the stone said.
    ‘All of them?’
    ‘All of them, Emma. They are all fine.’
    I heaved a huge gasping sob of relief into my knees and went still.
    ‘Leo is on his way to collect you. Lord Xuan has remained at the Peak with Simone, because the apartment has no door.’
    ‘How many students did we lose?’
    ‘You will be home soon, Emma.’
    I buried my face in my knees and waited.
    ‘That’s him, dear,’ the stone said, waking me. ‘He’s looking for you.’
    The dark Mercedes rolled slowly past the block, its headlights bright.
    ‘There’s nobody around to see you,’ the stone said. ‘It’s okay.’
    I rose and staggered towards the fence. The car stopped, then reversed slightly.
    I raised my hand. Leo came out of the car and hurried to the fence. ‘What happened to you?’ He looked at the