Fire and Fantasy: A Limited Edition Collection of Urban and Epic Fantasy

by CK Dawn

  Art pencils filled the bag. Lots of pencils—at least fifty, maybe more—all high-quality and in every color imaginable. She flipped open the book.

  Dragons. Big dragons. Little dragons. Mythical European dragons with wide wings and fiery breath. Smooth, sinewy Asian dragons with long, gracefully curving bodies. Colorful dragons. Dragons in black and white. They were all sketched out with great care.

  The artist was good. Raw, but good. She ran her finger over a particularly detailed golden beast sitting on a pile of rubies and sapphires.

  The next picture also had a knight. The next, a princess. The next, a samurai. Every drawing showed a fairytale or a myth. Not one reflected a real dragon.

  The world had Shifters and Fates. It also had dragons. Two dragons, to be precise. Two secretive, elusive, wonderful beasts who lived with two equally secretive and elusive humans.

  They had to hide. When you’re thirteen-feet-long snout to tail and breathe fire, people tend to scream. At least the dragons’ camouflage-capable hides mimicked the environment so well they effectively became invisible, allowing them to hide from an over-reactive planet.

  Mostly Brother-Dragon and Sister-Dragon lived their long immortal lives with their humans and stayed away from normal people.

  Bright colors from the sketchbook’s next page peeked out from under the current scene of tiny fire lizards buzzing around a bubbling stream. Daisy lifted the paper’s corner.

  “Orel doesn’t like anyone looking at his sketchbooks.”

  She gasped and dropped the book on the table. It bounced and knocked the crystal ball, which wobbled precariously. Daisy snatched it up so it wouldn’t roll onto the floor.

  Nax stood in the exact center of the office space, his arms crossed and his eyes narrow. “That belonged to his mother.” He walked forward and gestured at the room. “Most of this belonged to her. I keep it for Orel.”

  He tilted up his chin and waved his fingers at the orb.

  How the hell did that man continue to sneak up on her? No class-three enthraller had enough control or strength to mask his scents and his movements the way Nax did.

  And once again, Daisy thought liar.

  Nax’s frown turned cold. His shoulders tightened and he wiggled his fingers. “Please,” he said.

  Daisy handed over the crystal ball. “I’m sorry for prying.”

  Nax carefully set the ball back on its stand, and just as carefully, he straightened Orel’s art pad and his pencils.

  “He’s good.” Daisy pointed at the book. “He should think about art school when he’s old enough.”

  Nax sniffed. “His mother had the talent, too.”

  Liar flitted through Daisy’s head right along with a strong sense that Nax was lying with the truth. That his one short sentence about Orel’s mother was as true as it was false.

  He stepped back and pulled his cloth out of his back pocket again. “The bike’s fine. Suspension’s good and the engine checks out. The fuel line popped off. It needs to be replaced but I fitted it back on. It’ll hold until you get to the lodge. I filled her for you.” He pointed at the door, then rubbed the side of his nose.

  She didn’t need a bloodhound nose to tell her Nax wanted her gone.

  “How much do I owe you?” No matter how weird the situation, she should pay for his labor.

  He shook his head and stuffed the cloth back into this pocket. “Don’t worry about it.” He stepped to the side so she could pass. “You helped Orel. That’s all the payment I need.”

  Nax gently placed his hand on the sketchbook, but he didn’t look down. He watched Daisy.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Say hello to Orel for me.”

  “I will,” Nax said.

  Then he turned his back in a way that clearly said Go away.

  The bell over the door chimed as Daisy walked out into the summer air. She looked back through the screen. The crystal ball had the same resonance.

  Nax had vanished.

  She squinted. The sketchbook was gone, as well. He must have walked into the backroom while she walked out.

  Daisy made her way to the motorcycle. She put on the helmet and threw over her leg before she realized she hadn’t found a phone.

  She looked over her shoulder again before taking the motorcycle down the drive and toward the lodge.

  Seven

  The lodge’s front desk countertop pressed against Daisy’s hip. She wiggled and stepped to the side, but the desk phone’s receiver cord only stretched so far.

  Marci grinned and pretended she wasn’t listening.

  Ice clinked on the other end of the call. “You are safe, daughter?” Daisy’s father asked.

  “A little miffed I still haven’t gotten a water slide t-shirt,” she said. Turned out the motorcycle’s fuel line was fine—at least according to Jacob. The bike was scuffed, but like her father, Jacob had been more interested in her health than anything else.

  She’d insisted on paying a rental fee on the bike and for an extra night in one of the rooms, no matter what Jacob said.

  On the other end of the old-school front desk landline’s connection, her dad laughed. “I will send this lodge in which you are staying a box of The Land of Milk and Honey t-shirts as a thank you for their help.”

  Daisy pressed a couple of fingers into her forehead. The Dells was not “Russian territory”—whatever that meant—and the last thing she needed was to be the cause of a Shifter clan war. “I hope you’re joking, Father,” she said.

  He laughed again. “I am looking to expand.” The laughter vanished. “I would not close the car rental office on off days.”

  And there it was, her father’s generalized annoyance at the incompetence of the planet, and in particular the parts of the planet he did not run.

  “I think a train ride will be relaxing,” she said. “The motorcycle is fine. I’m fine. I’ll go into town and buy a new phone and a ticket and be back in St. Paul in a few days.”

  “Ah,” her dad said. Someone at the bar yelled and laughed.

  Daisy got the distinct impression that her “gangster” father would prefer to send his plane for his daughter.

  So she wondered if asking her next question was wise. If, by opening up her inquiry, lots of squishy things would come slithering out.

  She had to ask, anyway. Her gut told her she owed it to Orel.

  Why, she wasn’t sure. Perhaps it had to do with her own childhood—the running and the hiding and the not knowing who or what she was. She hadn’t even known who her father was until she was seventeen.

  He’d taken her in, no questions asked. He’d extended his aristocratic hand and given her the safety she needed to get beyond the horrors of her younger life. And now she was about to start her graduate studies, all because Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov believed in her.

  But he could be overprotective at times.

  Still, for Orel, she needed to ask.

  Marci sat down on a stool behind the desk. She fiddled in one of the drawers while continuing to do her best to pretend she wasn’t listening to Daisy’s end of the phone conversation.

  “Do you know… someone…who calls himself Nax?” Daisy asked her father. She paused around “someone” so her father understood that she was asking about a fellow Shifter. Best not to speak directly of Shifters and their abilities in front of a normal like Marci.

  Her father paused once again. More happy, entertained yells resonated from the background. “No. I will ask.”

  I will ask meant that he would have a full dossier on Nax the mechanic by this time tomorrow.

  “It’s not important,” she said. Why, she didn’t know. It was important. Something about the situation poked at her gut. What if Orel needed help? “He’s got a son. Orel.”

  “Do you believe the child might be in danger?”

  No, she thought. Maybe. “Do you remember how I told you Mom used to hide things from me?” Her mother had disappeared around the same time Daisy found her father.

&nbs
p; Her mother had never, not once, mentioned to Daisy, or told her any history about, or prepared her in any way, for becoming a Shifter. Her father had taught her what it meant to be a bloodhound and a healer of animals.

  He was the better parent by a long shot.

  “I remember,” he said.

  “I’m getting that vibe, Dad. I don’t know what it means. I don’t know if Nax is lying, or if he’s truthful about who he is. But I swear Orel is more than the son of a… mechanic.” She glanced at Marci.

  Another long pause punctuated by clinking ice echoed through the phone connection. “Aye, daughter.”

  They finished the call with Daisy promising to be back in her house in St. Paul as soon as possible. Until then, she would stay out of trouble and enjoy her remaining time in The Dells.

  She handed the receiver to Marci, who placed it in the cradle.

  “My niece’s class has a kid named Orel,” Marci said. “She likes to talk about the strange-but-cute boy with the odd name. Says he couldn’t speak a lick of English when he showed up last year in the middle of the school year, but sounded just like everyone else before the summer started.”

  So Orel also had an affinity for languages.

  Daisy stared out the open front windows of the lodge’s lobby. The sunset spread lovely golds and reds over the trees. A soft wind freshened the air without drying it out. And somewhere out there was a little boy whose grasp of language came out clipped and who liked nature in his own way.

  And who might be a Fate, no matter what his father said.

  Marci tapped on her keyboard. “How many more nights are you staying?”

  As many as it takes, Daisy thought. “Not sure. Until you kick me out.”

  Marci looked up. “We have a group coming in this weekend. They booked the entire lodge.” She nodded toward the back. “You’re good until then.”

  Daisy watched the sunset. “There’s a mall in town, right?” She waved her finger at the old-school phone behind the counter. “I need to replace my phone.”

  Marci looked out at the sunset, then at Daisy, then back at the coming night. She shook her head. “Are you thinking of taking the motorcycle out again?”

  Daisy shrugged.

  “You have a death wish.” Marci tapped something on her keyboard. “There are two stores, here and here.” She pointed at the screen. “Depending on your carrier.”

  The closer store was the one she needed. “They close at nine?”

  Marci tapped again. “Yep.”

  Daisy didn’t have a lot of time. “Thanks.” She swiped the motorcycle key off the counter. “Tell your grandpa I promise not to crash his bike again.”

  She ran for the lot.

  Eight

  Motorcycles were never the safest option, nor were they the warmest. Not during the day, and certainly not at night. Daisy should have asked Marci if they had a jacket she could borrow along with the bike.

  She’d made it to the phone store before it closed, but not the train station. She would book a ticket from Amtrak’s website when she got back to the lodge, or ask Jacob or Marci for help.

  Outside of town, on the windy side roads, the only light came from the moon and the cycle’s bright headlight. Daisy took the curves slowly anyway. And this time, she wouldn’t be surprised by random scents, calling or otherwise.

  Shadows infested the trees, and the land beyond the ditches was one big black cloud. The bike groaned along, obviously still pained by her slide earlier in the day, but it did its job.

  The curve with the sign came into view. Tensing now would only increase the likelihood of her doing a stupid skid again, so she willed her shoulders and her arms to relax. She inhaled too, to make sure nothing caught her off guard.

  Exhaust from the bike. Trees. The ever-present creeping Charlie. But no wounded raccoon and no obvious traces of a Shifter with enthralling abilities.

  The cycle’s headlight hit Nax’s white and yellow sign. Daisy squinted at the bounce-back.

  She didn’t see Orel sitting on the ground with his back against the sign’s inner post until she rode by.

  Why was he out here in the night? And why, deep in her gut, did her body thump out It’s a trap?

  He was a kid, for goodness’s sake. Not an active anything. Not someone’s pawn. She couldn’t leave him if he needed help.

  Daisy turned the bike around and pointed the headlight away from the sign. Enough light scattered so she could see him, but not enough that the glare would blind either of them.

  She took off her helmet. “Hey, Orel,” she called. “You okay?”

  He didn’t look up and continued to stare into space. He didn’t respond at all.

  The kid looked dazed. Not dazed as in dreaming or simply thinking, but medically dazed. Trauma or shock or a seizure kind of dazed.

  Daisy set the helmet on the back of the bike and made her way down the ditch and through the weeds.

  “Orel.” She squatted next to him.

  He still didn’t respond. She checked his pulse and sniffed—and swore she caught a faint hint of an electrical fire again. She looked up. Perhaps one of the lights on the sign was malfunctioning.

  Orel blinked—and his scent blinked. The baseline that was Orel—the young male scent mixed with the paper pulp and the dustiness of pencil pigment—pulsed. The hint of electrical fire dissipated.

  Did his scent just change? But it didn’t—nothing new, nothing not Orel, manifested. It just wasn’t the same as it had been a microsecond before.

  Daisy rubbed at the side of her nose. Even with Nax messing with her head, and the overwhelming weeds, no scent-scape changed, then un-changed. Not like that.

  “Orel?” She touched his face. “You’re cold.”

  He blinked again. This time, his scent stayed as it should.

  She’d seen enthralled normals acting dazed like this before. Customers at The Land who got out of hand and tried some nasty business with one of the waitstaff would get their asses enthralled and sent back to the hotel.

  But she’d also seen enough medical issues to wonder if he needed a healing.

  Which she couldn’t provide. Her healings and enthrallings only worked on animals. “Orel, honey, are you okay?”

  He shook. The wave started in his neck and worked all the way down his spine and into his arms and legs. “It is okay that you do not like Fates. My mother does not like Russians.”

  Daisy sat back on her heels. His mother was a Fate. She had to be. No doubt about it now.

  “I’m Australian.” She dropped her voice into her native accent, mostly because almost everyone on Earth found an Australian accent friendly. “My mum’s part Aborigine, part Japanese, and part off-the-boat, mate.”

  Orel blinked again. His lips rounded. “Oh,” he said. “You have a funny name.”

  “Daisy?” she asked. “Daisy isn’t any funnier than Orel.” Her Australian mother happened to like flowers, which was why she got the flowery name.

  Orel shrugged and went back to staring into space.

  “Where’s your mom?” Maybe he’d tell her. Maybe she’d get him out of this funk and be able to help him once and for all.

  Orel pulled away. He brushed his knees and patted the ground in much the same way as the raccoon kit had the first time they met. Then he did the straight-backed, straight-up standing again.

  “Orel?” She asked.

  And once again, he cocked his head as if listening to someone she couldn’t see.

  Daisy stood, too. “Who are you listening to?”

  Orel narrowed his eyes and pointed at her chest. “You heal animals.” He spoke as if her abilities should allow her to see whoever—or whatever—he saw. As if she should have the same affinity he did.

  “I do,” she said. “But I think you might be more special than me.”

  Orel tipped up his chin. “You are the Russian’s daughter.”

  Nax must have said something to him about her father, which meant that Nax had been doing some
digging. But why? Daisy looked into the dark toward where the driveway wound into the trees.

  Maybe she could use her heritage to an advantage. “It’s true my dad is Russian.” A Grand Duke, to be exact. “I’m related to the last Tsar.”

  His eyes rounded as much as his mouth. At least he seemed to be out of his daze.

  “Are you a princess?”

  Technically, she would be a Duchess, but Orel didn’t need a lesson on the structure of defunct Russian royalty. “Maybe. I’m not sure.”

  Orel peered at her face. “You’re pretty like a princess.”

  Daisy chuckled. “Thank you. But you do know that it’s what’s up here,” she tapped her temple, “and what’s in here,” she tapped over his heart, “that makes a person good.”

  Orel nodded vigorously. “He tells me not to be fooled by pretty things because sometimes they’re mean.”

  Ain’t that the truth, she thought. She patted his shoulder. “Someone who is pretty but mean abandoned me here in Wisconsin Dells.” She pointed up the road. “I was on my way back from town. I bought a new phone.”

  “Someone left you all by yourself?”

  Orel wrapped his arms around his chest. His scent flickered away from the interest he had begun to show toward a bitter and icy fear. Or at least she thought he smelled fearful. It was hard to tell with all the minty lavender of the creeping Charlie.

  Daisy leaned forward so she could look him in the eye. “Orel, do you know where your mom is?”

  His eyes grew huge once again, and once again, he acted as if someone whispered in his ear. “You ask a lot of questions,” he said.

  Daisy extended her arms instinctively, as if whirling her arms would keep a ghost away from her body. Maybe not a ghost, but she might be able to hold off an enthraller pretending to be a ghost.

  “Nax,” she growled, “if you are manipulating this child, I swear to God I will—”

  “Nax is my father!” Orel screeched. “Nax came for me and my friend and now we are safe in America!”

  His friend? Was there another Shifter here? Maybe she’d been wrong all along. Maybe Nax wasn’t manipulating Orel. Maybe she missed the real threat.