-

7. Out of the Frying Pan

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"Will you stop throwing pieces of yourself at me?!"

"I am Klatch the Destroyer! You shall perish!"

"Excuse me, did you actually just use the word 'perish'? That is, like, so passé. Come to think of it, appending 'the Destroyer' to your name hits new heights of melodrama, too. What was wrong with just plain Klatch? The name your mother gave you not good enough anymore?"

"Infidel! I am my own maker. I am the everything and the nothing. I. Am. Divinity!"

"No, you're a giant snotball, and you're seriously getting on my – whoahellothere! Sensitive areas strictly off limits, even to goo monsters. Oh. Oh, that's just not nice. You burned a hole right through my outfit."

"Infidel!"

"Yu-huh, I got that part."

Kimiko wasn't sure you could really count this as witty banter. It was more like sharpening a fillet knife on a thicker than average piece of blunt metal. Or maybe leather. Something very … un-sharp.

She'd retrieved her PDA, but her water canteen had been crushed when Klatch rolled over it. Most of his disconnected bits had been reabsorbed, though he was still shooting the odd splat at her. More often than not she'd run to a dark corner, only to find something sticky and grabby lying in wait there. Rather like hormone-crazed boys, really.

In truth, she was getting tired. There seemed to be no such thing as a good offence with Klatch, or even a good defence. Options consisted of running away or being caught, and since she was in no hurry to go for the second, all that was left was the first. And though Xiaolin training had left her in better physical condition than she'd ever been in, what it hadn't done was give her exceptional stamina. Showdowns were usually short but intense. All this running was sapping her strength far faster.

Which left her in a very tricky situation. Not to mention sticky.

"I don't suppose there's any chance you'd give me a leg-up to the ceiling, is there?"

Klatch roared and spat out another goo-ball. She ducked and rolled.

"Thought not."

The Star Hanabi rattled in her pocket. It was so tempting, but she knew she couldn't. As satisfying as barbequing Klatch the Destroyer might be, somehow the idea of sending herself up with him made it less attractive. Funny, that.

Swush-swaaaawwwwap! Sccchhhllllrrrp!

An extra-long tentacle snapped out and tripped her up. When this game of ring-around-the-rosies started she probably would have been able to dodge, or even flip right out of its grip, but by this stage she was getting slow-footed and clumsy. It wrapped around her ankles, binding them together. She went down hard, throwing out her arms to shield her face because, while she wasn't Paula Radcliffe, she still knew how to control a seemingly uncontrollable fall to avoid broken bones. Her left elbow burned where it scraped along the floor when she was dragged along and hoisted her up in the air. She hung upside down, hair tangling around her face as Klatch drew her in like a fish on the end of a line.

The underdone face didn't look any better this way up. "Now you shall learn some respect," Klatch hissed.

"Oh, stop living in the past. I'm part of the next generation. We don't do respect for snotballs. We wipe them on tissues and flush them."

An eyeball honed in on her face. She resisted the urge to clap her hands, if only because she really didn't want to know what it felt like to squash an eye between them. "Insignificant mortal."

The Star Hanabi tingled in Kimiko's pocket.

I caaaan't…

"How do you think you are allowed to attack the dignity of Klatch the Destroyer?"

"Haven't you been listening?" The germ of an idea turned over in her mind. It was risky – so very, very risky – but so was getting closer to the big blob of black mucus that had thus far tried to perform complicated surgery on internal organs without anaesthetic. Or a scalpel. "I'm Kimiko, Xiaolin Dragon of Fire. And you're about to get flushed."

"What is that?"

"Star Hanabi! Fire!" Kimiko pitched the magickal throwing star. It whirled around the cave, flickering with tiny flames as it went and leaving a faint greenish glow on the retina. Or it would have, had she been looking. Instead, Kimiko was scrunching her body up as far as it would go, waiting for just the right moment.

It came when the Star Hanabi ignited the methane in the air, and was engulfed in a maelstrom of fire, which mushroomed to fill the whole cave. She threw out her arms and freed herself from Klatch's grip with a strong bicycle kick from her aching legs. As she landed on the floor and the maelstrom billowed, she screamed, "Judellet Flip! Fire!" pumping her thigh muscles and directing the force of her jump to propel her towards the ceiling.

She couldn't afford to screw up her eyes, but she had time to hope it was enough, and that the Judellet Flip had given her that extra oomph, and that she'd got her aim right.

Then the fire hit, engulfing them both.

Her tiny pocket of super-heated air was flung at an even greater velocity, the swell of the mushrooming fire pushing her before it. Like a bullet exiting a gun – or, no, like a dinghy riding a tidal wave! – Kimiko scudded blindly upwards. She felt something solid pass by, trying to tear off her elbows and lower back. Then she was in descent, fountains of fire whooshing beautifully past her. She hit the ground and rolled to keep her neck intact, then huddled with her hands over her head and hoped she wasn't too close to one of the holes that irony took a hand and she was killed by her own element.

Down in the cave, Klatch the Destroyer shrieked as flames buffeted every inch of black sticky skin. Klatch was very old – older than Kimiko would ever know – and it's possible it would have survived the inferno. However, it wasn't just faced with that. As its tentacles withered and dropped off, leaving the body to weather this firestorm, something small spun out of the fires, punched through Klatch's skin and buried itself far inside its mysterious heart.

For a second Klatch quivered faster than was natural, as its insides were heated faster than a Lamborghini went from nought to sixty. Then it exploded.

It wasn't a bang or a boom. It wasn't even a whoosh. It was the wettest, most corpulent eruption in the history of terminal flatulence. Dark red flame fringed with black roared through the yellow-orange inferno, cutting a path and belting all comers aside. Ragged pieces of monster rocketed through the air and slapped wetly against the walls, where they sizzled and shrivelled and, finally, turned as hard and black as they coal they were fused to.

Thus ended Klatch the Destroyer.

But back to Kimiko, who was sweating so much she should, by rights, have been dripping wet, except that the fountains of flame around her were evaporating it as soon as it reached her skin. The fine hairs all over her body were singed, and her fuchsia pink hairdo was beginning to smoulder and smell like that tar pit she'd visited once while on vacation with her father when she was eight. She turned her head, trying to see a way out, but her eyes dried out so fast her vision was a scratchy blur.

This isn't supposed to happen, she thought wildly. I'm the Dragon of Fire. I like fire. I used to watch matches burn down to the tips of my finger and thumb. I set fire to Raimundo's combats when he infected my computer. I'm not supposed to get caught in a situation like this.

A touch of starshine glimmered in a nearby fountain. The Star Hanabi shot towards her, slowing as it went, as if knowing she was in no fit state to catch it. It bounced once, twice, and then rolled to a stop with the lightest tap against her fingers. They closed blindly around it. It was about the only thing around that wasn't too hot. She clutched at it like it could save her.

But it couldn't. And Kimiko honestly didn't know what could.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire indeed.

-

Dojo's first priority was getting Omi some help.

His second priority was making sure it was the right kind of help.

Not being the most medically minded of dragons (he tended to look down on modern medicine, since it was incurably nearsighted, arrogant, and had forgotten more than half the advances of the ancient world), he couldn't really tell a good doctor from a bad one. All doctors had their problems. If he'd had his way he would rather have taken the kid back to Master Fung. Now there was a guy who struck a good balance between remedies. You couldn't go far wrong with someone who wasn't too snobby to stick his hands in the fresh droppings of a llama to heal a man's shingles.

The Red Cross outpost had two doctors – one male and one female. The man barely looked old enough to shave, let alone tell one end of a poisonous eel from the other, or crumble enough quail eggshell to ease rheumatism without giving someone the trots. The woman, on the other hand, had a face like a fist and the beleaguered air of one who may have seen it all, but really couldn't be bothered to tell you about it without a stiff drink first – probably on someone else's tab. Dojo felt more comfortable letting her see Omi than the boy-man.

There was green all around, an adequate patch of it near the entrance to the tent with the big cross painted on the side. Fortunately there were few people around to see him land in it. There were few people anywhere, in fact. For a place of healing, it was remarkably quiet.

There were some dragons in history that could imitate any voice, pitch-perfect. Dojo was not one of these. "Help! Help!" he called loudly, edging as close to the tent flap as he dared. "Man down!"

Nothing happened.

Must not be close enough. He crawled forward a little more, laying low so anyone would think him just a snake – hopefully a harmless one. The desert had those, right? "Help! Help!"

Still nothing happened.

Jeez, and these are supposed to be medical professionals?

He didn't want to be seen. Not that he was against proving the world wrong about dragons – although being cut up in the name of science had crossed his mind, and sent it plummeting yet further in his estimation – but now was not the time to be engaging the only useful people around in a mythological debate. Although, really, how would it go? "You're not real!" "Yes I am." "No you're not!" "Yes, I really am!" ad finitum. Those dedicated to western medicine tended to be very blinkered when it came to magick.

There was nothing else for it. He was going to have to take a peek inside. Dojo slithered on his belly around the edge of the tent flap, spotted the nearest thing to hide behind, and dove for it.

It turned out to be a table – quite ordinary, maybe even a bit boring. The tent had none of the beeping machinery and personnel Dojo had come to associate with medicine. Instead, it had a line of cots – only one of which was in use – the table he was hiding behind, a few scruffy chairs, a filing cabinet, a battered water cooler, and a metal cupboard with a big padlock. The floor had tarpaulin stretched across it, but there were holes in the corners and sand tracked across it where people had forgotten to kick their boots as they came in.

Apart from the patient in the cot, the place was empty.

Where's they go? He'd seen the two doctors when he circled the place. Not trusting meant he'd been very careful before allowing Omi anywhere near it. 'Reconnaissance' was a word that sprang to mind. 'Casing' was another. He knew they'd been there. "Help?" he said experimentally, ready to scuttle back through the tent flap if necessary.

Not even the patient stirred.

"Nutbunnies," Dojo muttered, crawling out to see what was to do. The way his day was going, the doctors had probably been kidnapped by marauding demons or something. Or maybe struck by a sleeping potion. Beamed up by aliens? That would be just his luck.

The patient on the cot turned over and groaned loudly, revealing five o' clock shadow and eyes swathed in bandages. Startled, Dojo went back behind the table. "To hell with this."

Then he thought about Omi outside in the bushes, small and hurt and totally dependant on him. And even though he didn't want it to, Dojo's resolve hardened. He drew himself up. Sometimes a conscience got in the way of a really good bout of cowardice.

"Water…" the patient murmured. His voice sounded raspy and pathetic.

Dojo bit his lip, then went over to the water cooler and pulled himself up to press the lever and pour a little into one of the paper cups. It dispensed with a noise like a macaw's mating call. Then he wobbled over to the cot, climbing up on the chair next to it. Only a little water slopped out. Omi could fix that when he got better. It helped to think those kinds of thoughts. "Here," he said gruffly, trying to disguise his voice.

"Dr. Mischa?" the bandaged man said weakly.

"Drink this," Dojo replied, pushing the cup up towards his lips, since he couldn't reach his hands. The water went over both cheeks and down his chin, but a bit went into the man's mouth. He sighed with relief.

"Thank you, Dr. Mischa."

"Grrnf." Dojo wondered which one was Mischa.

"You do indulge an old fool, but you're kind and good of heart. I can tell. I can see the sun, you know. My eyes may be ruined, but I can still see the sun. It's setting on mankind. Such a shame. The boy so young, too. Ah, but you're tired of hearing my silly ramblings, eh Dr. Mischa? You listen to me even when Dr. Brooks won't. But we shall have kippers for breakfast! Yes indeed. Kippers and salt crystals. And you shall have some, my friend. Just as soon as we set fire to the sea."

Dojo arched an eyebrow. Mad as a pickled goat. Oh, now look at me! Too much time hanging around Clay.

He hoped Clay was all right. He hoped Raimundo and Kimiko were all right, too, but he felt extra responsible for Clay. After all, Clay was the one he'd dumped in that madhouse and left. Rai and Kimiko had been taken from him. A sense of complex accountability weighed heavily on Dojo's shoulders.

The patient settled back. Snores issued from his parted lips no more than a minute later, ruffling a bit of bandage dangling in front of his nose. Dojo set the cup on the chair and decided he would have to try and find another place for Omi if he couldn't find someone here. He didn't have much patience where doctors were concerned.

Which was when a flap he hadn't noticed opened at the back of the tent. The boy-man doctor walked through, eyes devoted to the raw beauty of notes on a clipboard.

Dojo squeaked and hustled under the patient's pillow, where he wanted to slap himself for squeaking like a mouse when he could roar like a thunderstorm in his larger form.

The boy-man doctor looked up. "Hm? Hello. Who is putting this cup over here?" Footsteps approached, clumpy but firm. "Mr. Hupsu? Are you awake? No, you are sleeping. Is good. Will help you heal faster. Sleep is best medicine, da?" He spoke with an accent Dojo recognised from the brief period Vlad stayed at the temple.

Mischa. Of course. Russian name.

But now he had the doctor he was trapped. To talk risked exposure. Wonderful.

Although, maybe…

"There's a boy outside," Dojo said in a voice made to sound so weak it was difficult to identify. "He's hurt."

The footsteps, crossing the tent to the water cooler, stopped abruptly. "What?"

"Hurry. I can see him."

"Mr. Hupsu, I think you are hallucinating." The 'again' hung off the end of the sentence like its nail had come loose.

Hallucination? Dojo could work with that. And at least that meant Dr. Mischa hadn't seen that the bandaged man's lips weren't actually moving. "I can see him. Please. Indulge an old fool. He's so small, so very small. With an extraordinarily big head."

"Mr. Hupsu - "

"Go look for him, you idiot! It's not like I can do it! Call yourself a doctor? Pah. Not if you don't help those who really need it!"

The footsteps backed off. Hopefully that blast of venom had done the trick. It helped that Dojo hadn't faked all of it.

Dr. Mischa sighed. "If I am looking outside for you, Mr. Hupsu, you are promising not to get out of bed to get water again, da? You must not further injure your foot."

"I promise, I promise. Just go look." Dojo coughed. "Oh, and kippers for tea! With salt and vinegar!"

"Da, Mr. Hupsu. Of course." The footsteps went towards the tent flap. "I am looking, Mr. Hupsu, but there is being nobody out here."

"In the bushes. Just poke around, past that prickly one with the pink flowers on it."

There was silence for a moment. Dojo peeked out from under the smelly pillow.

Dr. Mischa had gone.

Fantastic. But I suppose I shouldn't have expected any more from a doctor –

"My god!" said Dr. Mischa from outside. "There is a boy out here!" He appeared around the side of the tent flap. "Dr. Brooks! Dr. Brooks, come quickly! There is a boy here – badly injured! Dr. Brooks!"

The woman doctor came storming through the other flap with a face like a fist that had just punched something – or wanted to. Dojo vanished back under the pillow. "What is it, Dr. Mischa? I was on the phone to - "

"Is boy! Here, look, in bushes! Is hurt boy, all beated up and unconscious. Mr. Hupsu said to look, said he saw it like he sees other things, but this time he is right!"

"Excuse me?"

"Look!"

"If there is someone out there, Dr. Mischa, then I should do more than look. I should bloody well get him inside before the sun does more damage than whatever put him out there."

"Da. I mean, yes, of course. Is just what I was thinking."

Dojo sighed. This pair was the best he was going to rustle up at short notice. He didn't want to leave Omi alone with them, though. You never knew what doctors would do with their weird ideas and appetite for needles. The kid was a fighter. He'd get better real quick – or if not better, then at least to a point where he wasn't getting worse. Then, if they needed to, they could go rescue the others.

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To Be Continued...

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