Of Blood and Ashes

by Kyoko M

  Baba Yaga snarled and whipped her tail out straight. The sharp, spiny end of it speared the man and pinned him to a tree. His head hung forward and the gun slipped from his grip, tumbling into the fiery underbrush.

  The last man yelled for Aisaka as he backpedaled. Baba Yaga stomped towards him, limping slightly, her yellow eyes fixed on him. She was less than a few yards from him when Aisaka dropped down from a collapsed tree trunk and fired her stolen cold gun directly onto the dragon's face.

  Baba Yaga roared as the freezing liquid hit her scales and instantly hardened into thick chunks. Blinded, the dragon worried Aisaka like a bucking bronco, flapping her great wings to throw the woman off her neck.

  Aisaka lost her perch and hit the ground, hissing as the cold pack dug painfully into her spine. She scrambled backwards on her hands and knees, swatting aside the burning brush, and stood, firing again. The liquid caked onto the dragon's neck and right shoulder, making the dragon stumble to one side. Aisaka kept going, dousing her entire right arm down the claws and then circling toward the dragon's back, until she'd frozen her wing as well.

  Baba Yaga tried to crawl away with her working legs, but couldn't get far. She smashed into trees and finally collapsed on her side, attempting to claw the substance from the cold gun off her head with no success. Aisaka raised the cold gun again, but this time, she was met with only a hiss. Nothing came out of the nozzle. She'd emptied the tank.

  "Chikusho!" Aisaka spat, and unstrapped the heavy pack from her back. By now, the fire had all but consumed the clearing and she had to cover her nose and mouth as she tried to see if the dragon had fallen unconscious.

  "Aisaka-san!" the remaining man called. "We can't stay here! The fire will kill us both!"

  "She's almost down!" the woman yelled back. "We can take her!"

  The man darted forward and grabbed her arm. "We have to go now! We know her coordinates. We can send for the chopper, but only if we're alive enough to do it. Come on!"

  Aisaka gritted her teeth, shooting the man a hateful glare, and allowed him to drag her deeper into the forest as the fire licked up the trees around them and sent hellish light up into the darkening sky.

  ***

  "The gunfire's stopped," Fry said, stepping around the corner and squinting up at the flames surrounding the opening Baba Yaga had escaped through. "Let's go. I'll head up first. If something happens to me, don't be a hero. Head back the way we came and find another way out."

  Kamala nodded and followed him around the corner. Fry grabbed the knotted rope and climbed his way up, stopping once he was level with the ground. Kamala held her breath.

  "Fire's everywhere, but it's clear," Fry called down to her. "Follow me, doc."

  He hauled himself up, donned his hood, and immediately began extinguishing the flames around him as Kamala carefully climbed up after him. Fry offered her a hand and pulled her over the edge. She put her hood on as well and helped him with the fires.

  "Looks like Baba Yaga took care of the riff-raff like we predicted," Fry said, nudging the scorched remains he spotted. "Only question is if they took each other out."

  Kamala examined their surroundings, noting the broken trees. She pointed north. "They headed this way."

  She and Fry climbed the hill. He grabbed her as soon as he cleared it, jerking her aside, his voice an urgent hiss. "Get down! She's there."

  Kamala pressed her back to a nearby tree, making sure she was hidden. Fry gave a silent count of three and then glanced around the tree trunk. A moment later, he exhaled softly. "Shit."

  "What?"

  "Looks like she's down."

  "Dead?" Kamala asked, breathless.

  "Doesn't look that way, but she's hurt."

  She tried to examine his disturbingly blank features. "Then why the look?"

  Fry took a deep breath. "This...isn't going to be easy for you to see, but I guess there's no way around it."

  An icy pit opened up in Kamala's belly. "What isn't?"

  "See for yourself."

  Kamala leaned around the tree to see Baba Yaga. She froze. "Oh, goddess above."

  "Doc--"

  She ignored him and stepped around the tree into the clearing, transfixed by the sight of the dragon half-encased in the freezing compound. She removed her hood, hoping that her eyes had deceived her, but she knew they hadn't. "H-How did they get..."

  As she shuffled closer, her boot clipped something silver and shiny on the forest floor.

  A discarded cold pack.

  Kamala knelt and flipped it over in her hands. Why would one of the cold packs be here? She lifted it and felt that it was too light, as if its contents had been emptied.

  But how had it gotten here? There was no sign of Jack. Unless...unless...

  Kamala's gloved hands began trembling.

  Unless they killed him and took it.

  She shut her eyes. "No. I refuse to believe that."

  You know the truth, that awful, quiet voice from before whispered in her ear. You knew it the second he left your side. He's gone, Kamala. You're all alone. You're going to raise your child alone.

  Fry reached her side. "I take it that's Jackson's pack. Then they got to him first."

  "No," Kamala said hoarsely. "It could be Snow's."

  "Not in this direction. Not without her corpse attached. You know if she'd been here, Baba Yaga would be dead, not wounded. Come on, Dr. Anjali. Don't do this to yourself. You won't survive 'what ifs' in your state--"

  "In my state?" she snarled, raising her tear-stained face towards him. "You are insisting that the father of my child is dead. What state should I be in right now?"

  Fry took a deep breath. Then his tone softened. "Kamala. Let it go. You have to let him go."

  Kamala stood and stepped over the discarded pack, her hands balling into fists. She was several inches shorter than Fry, even in her boots, but she shoved her face up towards his, her voice ringing with barely contained rage and grief.

  "Then I will bring his body back to his family," she whispered. "I will not leave him in this forest."

  "The odds of finding him at night without getting yourself killed are slim to none. This mission is about the dragon. We've got her. I'm not overriding my primary objective to go wandering around in the woods to save your boyfriend."

  "Then don't," she spat. "I don't care what you do. I am not leaving this forest without him."

  Fry massaged the bridge of his nose. "Like a dog with a fucking bone."

  He shook his head and turned away, examining the motionless dragon. "I'm guessing the ringleader escaped to go contact someone for pick up. That means we're out of time." He reached into his utility belt and grabbed a flare, handing it to her.

  "Pop it. I'm going to do a perimeter sweep."

  Kamala shot the flare, watching its high arc through the treetops and above the forest. True, they'd alert other parties to their presence, but they had no choice. Staying here after dark meant certain death, whether it was delivered by the dragon or the yakuza or even the forest itself. Her stomach clenched at the thought.

  "The chopper will be en route from base. Once they airlift the dragon to safety, I'll send another one back for you. From an aerial view, it should be easier and safer to locate Dr. Jackson. That's all I can do for him."

  "Then so be it."

  Fry withdrew the Desert Eagle and began methodically searching the clearing. It wasn't long before he vanished from sight.

  Kamala stared down at the empty cold pack and wiped her eyes.

  "He's not dead," she whispered, touching her belly. "I know him. I would have felt it. He's not dead. He can't be."

  She raised her brown eyes to the night sky and willed herself not to cry again.

  "Watch over him," she prayed. "Please. Keep him safe."

  The night sky did not answer.

  For once, she wished it had.

 
She kept an eye on her infrared scanner, watching for any sign of life aside from Fry making his perimeter sweep. Nothing yet.

  A weak, pained noise reached Kamala's ears.

  Reflexively, she glanced in the direction of the injured dragon. Baba Yaga lay around twenty yards away. Half of her great, dark, scaled body was encrusted in the frozen compound. It glittered white and almost opalescent in the dying light of the fires still simmering in the underbrush. The dragon had begun to curl into the fetal position and every breath stirred the grass and dirt. And with every breath, Kamala could hear that the creature was in pain.

  She bit her lower lip and glanced at the infrared scanner. Fry was pretty far off and hadn't headed back her way yet. Maybe just a quick look couldn't hurt.

  Cautiously, Kamala crept closer to the giant dragon, her steps slow and light. As she approached, she could see the upper part of the dragon's head was encased in the substance. The dragon's nostrils flared as Kamala drew near and she tried to rise, but crumpled to the ground once more, sending a minor earthquake through the area. Almost everything in Kamala told her to back off and stay away from the living, breathing nightmarish killing machine before her.

  Almost everything.

  "Shh," Kamala whispered, resting one hand on the dragon's snout. "You are hurt. You must lie still."

  The dragon's breathing picked up exponentially as Kamala's voice reached its ears and she stirred, still trying to move. However, she didn't lurch around trying to bite her. She could tell by the dragon's sluggish movement that the substance had indeed subdued her mobility and she was starting to slip into her dormant state.

  Baba Yaga cocked her head towards Kamala and another eerie screech of pain escaped her jaws. Something pricked the scientist's heart.

  She stroked the dragon's snout, wincing as its hot breath blasted over her. "I'm afraid I have limited supplies, but I might be able to help you if you lie still."

  She stepped inside the semi-circle of Baba Yaga's massive body. Up close, the dragon's scales were small and tightly packed together, overlapping each other. She moved closer to the section beneath the dragon's unfrozen wing, which was folded into her spine once more. She spotted several oozing wounds, counting them up. Six total.

  Kamala checked through her belt until she found the small First-Aid kit and popped it open, inspecting what she had to work with. The dragon's hide was far too thick for a simple suturing to work. Maybe Kamala could apply a small amount of the substance to close up the wounds and prevent the dragon from slowly bleeding to death. Even after all the pain and misery Baba Yaga had caused, she couldn't bring herself to let it suffer anymore than it already had. After all, it hadn't been the creature's choice to be spawned into this world by thoughtless tyrants with delusions of grandeur.

  She found a pair of tweezers, a wad of gauze, and alcohol wipes, then scooted further away from the dragon's wide, sharp jaws as she decided to give it a shot. "Listen to my voice. I know you can't understand me. But I'm going to try to help you, okay?"

  The dragon just made another whimpering noise. Kamala took a deep breath and probed the first bullet wound.

  Predictably, Baba Yaga snarled and snapped her jaws in Kamala's direction. On pure, possibly maternal instinct, Kamala smacked the dragon's snout. "No! You will sit here and behave if you want me to help you, you great nuisance!"

  Baba Yaga growled and hissed. Kamala glared at the dragon and tried again. The dragon flinched away, but this time, it made no attempt to bite her. She gripped the slug tight and yanked it free from the dragon's thick hide. Blood flowed unblocked from the wound and she cleaned it with an alcohol pad before applying pressure until the blood slowed. After it did, she applied a glob of substance from the cold gun and moved to the next wound.

  The dragon squirmed with discomfort, shuffling her tail back and forth nervously, hissing under her blood-soaked breath. Kamala tried to think of what to do to get the dragon to stay still, and recalled an old legend she'd heard. Sure, it applied to Chinese dragons, but perhaps there was some commonality among the different species.

  She cleared her throat and began to softly sing to the dragon.

  "The ballroom was filled with fashion's throng,

  It shone with a thousand lights,

  And there was a woman who passed along,

  The fairest of all the sights,

  A girl to her lover then softly sighed,

  There's riches at her command;

  But she married for wealth, not for love, he cried,

  Though she lives in a mansion grand."

  The dragon's head angled towards her. Its jaws closed. Its breathing slowed significantly. Encouraged, Kamala reached for the next wound.

  "She's only a bird in a gilded cage,

  A beautiful sight to see,

  You may think she's happy and free from care,

  She's not, though she seems to be,

  'Tis sad when you think of her wasted life,

  For youth cannot mate with age,

  And her beauty was sold,

  For an old man's gold,

  She's a bird in a gilded cage."

  Baba Yaga quieted. Kamala extracted the bullet, cleaned the wound, and sealed it. She continued singing as she worked and the dragon seemed to almost fall under a spell, entranced perhaps. She hadn't known what brought the song to mind; it was an old ballad she'd studied in an elective course back at MIT. The slow, waltzing beat seemed to soothe the creature, as unbelievable as it sounded.

  She moved on to the wounds in the dragon's hind leg as well, finished, and patted the dragon's snout once more, her voice gentle. "Rest."

  She turned and jumped as she spotted Fry standing several feet behind her, staring at her as if she'd walked on water.

  "How," he said slowly. "The hell did you just do that?"

  Kamala kept her expression neutral. "I'm a doctor. Healing comes naturally."

  Fry sent an inquisitive look at the dragon. He took one experimental step closer to it.

  Baba Yaga's nostrils flared and her jaws parted in an angry growl. He stepped back.

  "Yeah," he said, his voice thick with disbelief. "That's totally just a doctor thing. Maybe we should start calling you the dragon whisperer."

  He cleared his throat. "Area's all clear for now. We have to finish encasing her in the compound so she's out before the chopper comes. You ready?"

  Kamala nodded. "Alright, stand back."

  She moved away from the dragon and raised the cold gun, unable to help murmuring, "I am sorry, my dear."

  Baba Yaga flinched as the liquid splattered onto her dark grey hide, hardening instantly, and snapped her head in their direction, but obviously was too weakened to produce her mighty fire. They coated her limbs first so she couldn't try to move away and then her other wing. The dragon shuddered and writhed weakly, but as they covered her enormous torso, she finally went limp on the forest floor.

  Just as they shut off the nozzles to the cold guns, the roar of a helicopter's rotors reached their ears.

  "Here comes the cavalry," Fry said, peering up into the sky as he noticed a spotlight in the distance. "Finally, some goddamn good news."

  The spotlight flooded the clearing, splashing near-blinding light over the frozen, slumbering dragon, and then over the two of them. Fry waved.

  Then he frowned.

  The man standing in the cockpit had an M134 mini-gun pointed right at them.

  "Fuck me."

  ***

  Jack was lost.

  Granted, he'd been lost somewhat before he embarked on the journey away from the area where Aisaka had tied him to the tree, but now he knew he'd gotten totally lost. Once the sun sunk beneath the horizon, he'd tried to close in on the figure in the distance and had lost sight of them. Darkness enfolded the forest, and with it, came an unfathomable chill. He'd known from research that Aokigahara got cold at night this t
ime of year, but nothing had prepared him for it. Even in his insulated suit, he couldn't stop shivering, and his growing panic about being alone in the woods only worsened his condition.

  The only good luck to report was that he'd found a small pond. He was on his knees greedily slurping the surprisingly not-disgusting water down. Purging his stomach had dried him out. He'd needed it rather badly. Earlier, he'd put one of the botany classes he took in undergrad to good use and had munched on some non-poisonous berries he'd discovered along the way. They wouldn't hold him over for long, though.

  "Gotta find an entrance to the caves," Jack murmured to himself. "Only thing I can think to do. There's got to be a way back to where I entered and then that'll get me closer to the campsite."

  He shuddered as a cold wind swept past the small clearing. Moonlight peeked in between the branches from above. Visibility was about three to four feet in front of him. His shoulders cramped from being so tight with fear. Baba Yaga could be anywhere. Aisaka and her yakuza could be anywhere.

  And so could whatever had told him to follow the sunset.

  "No," Jack reminded himself. "No such thing as ghosts, stupid. Focus. The caves. Gotta find the caves again."

  He glanced over his shoulder at the way he'd come. Should he retrace his steps? Could he even do so accurately in the dark? There was no telling how far Aisaka had dragged him. He could just as well make himself even more lost.

  Jack sighed. "Or maybe I should just admit the truth. I'm proper fucked."

  "Don't say that, friend."

  Jack leapt to his feet and raised his fists, ready to fight the person behind him who had spoken.