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

by CK Dawn

  A sketchbook fell out of the tree.

  Orel had tucked himself into a dip between two large branches about six feet up. He’d hooked his bag onto a branch, but it had tipped. He must have been carrying the flowers and his art supplies. His hollow looked sturdy and fairly safe, so even if he dropped his stuff, he wasn’t likely to fall.

  “How did you get up there?” Daisy picked up his sketchbook.

  A corner of one of the tarot cards she’d seen in the office poked out between two of the pages. The gold trim caught the glare from her flashlight and shimmered in the night air.

  She glanced up at the bag. A bulge in the bottom suggested he carried the crystal ball, too.

  “Did you run away, Orel?” she asked. He’d run away and taken his mother’s metal-touched objects.

  He held up his hand to shield his eyes from the flashlight’s glare. “Leave me alone.”

  Daisy carefully tucked the card into the sketchbook. She pointed the light into the tree and away from Orel, so he wouldn’t need to shield his eyes.

  She held out the book. “It’d be a shame if the raccoons carried this off.”

  He made a point of looking away.

  “They were just here.” Daisy pointed at the clearing. “The mom and the kits. You probably saw the whole thing, didn’t you?”

  Orel nodded.

  “Why are you hiding out here?” Daisy waved her hand at the trees. “It’s dark. You’ll get cold.”

  “Drako says I cannot trust you. I want my book back.” Yet Orel pulled himself tighter against the larger of the two branches.

  His dragon was feeding him unverified opinions. Either Orel was manifesting a psychological problem much more intense than an imaginary friend, or this Drako was more than he seemed to be.

  With all the manipulations Nax had laid on her, Daisy’s money was on Orel’s mental health being just fine.

  Orel pointed. “You are Russian.” He spit out his words just as his father had, and with more venom than she expected for an eight-year-old. The amount of sour fear rolling out of the tree spiked.

  “It’s true that my father is of Russian descent,” Daisy said. “He’s an American now. I was born in Australia. I came here when I was younger than you. No one here is going to hurt you.”

  She checked the tree for footholds. He was too afraid to be up there by himself.

  “They came for Mama and Maty and Papa. They hurt Maty. Then Nax came. I remember Mama and Nax yelling.” He switched over to a language Daisy didn’t understand, but sounded vaguely like Russian.

  His eyes took on the same faraway look they’d had when she found him dazed out.

  “Where are your Mama, Maty, and Papa now, Orel?” she asked. Maybe if she got him talking to her, he’d come out of his trance.

  “I’m not stupid!” he yelled. “I knew Drako wasn’t real! But when Nax came, the real Drako came with him! That’s how I knew it was okay to go with him. He is my father! Mama said so. Nax did not know, but Drako did! Papa said one day I would see the truth and I did!”

  Even from the ground—and in the dark—Daisy saw Orel shaking. His scent also… shook. Slippery came to mind—slick but not oily, soft like a cloud, and just as diffuse. These terms shouldn’t have a scent, but with Orel, they did. He shook, jittered, fluxed…

  Orel’s mouth slackened. His eyes dazed, and he slumped against the tree trunk.

  Daisy tucked the sketchbook into the back of her waistband and darted up the tree. Fingers curled into bark. Feet slipped. But she made it into the crook of the branches before he teetered too far forward.

  “You okay, buddy?” She curled her arm around his middle and settled him better into his hollow.

  Orel leaned against the branch. “Mama cut the little doggy ivy to discourage bloodhounds,” he said. “She said it barks and keeps away all the bad ghosts and bity things.”

  Daisy patted his leg. “I figured that’s why there’s so much ground ivy around.” She leaned close. “It’s called creeping Charlie here.”

  Orel blinked. “Roshidnyk zwichainii,” he muttered, then dug in his bag. “I pulled some. To keep away bad things.” He held up a handful of the ground ivy.

  “Do you think I’m bad, Orel?” If he didn’t think her bad, maybe she could get him to open up about Nax. “Do you think Drako is?”

  He tossed the ivy out of the tree. “I want my book back.”

  Daisy handed over the sketchbook.

  Orel held the book in such a way that she could not see his work. He flipped through the pages, half eyeing her and half looking at his drawings, and stopped when he came across the card. Carefully, he picked it up and ran his finger over the gold edging.

  “Mama told me to take these,” he said absently.

  The nakedness of the moment raised the hairs on her arms. Those cards—hell, for all she knew, the crystal ball, too—were special.

  Not once in her life had she thought about what made a hunk of metal a Fate talisman. What about an object imbued it with real, literal power for the triad who touched it.

  She still did not understand, and she probably never would. How could she? She wasn’t a Fate, or a proto-Fate, like Orel. Talismans were not her domain, any more than laying hands on an animal and transferring the necessary energy to heal a wound was Orel’s.

  There were mysteries in the world, and part of understanding what a mystery meant was understanding that its meaning might not be yours.

  But they were all human. She could help him with that.

  He tucked the card into his bag first, then followed it with his sketchbook. “How old were you when you left your home?”

  Daisy settled herself into the tree as best she could. The bark rubbed and the knots poked, but the tree had room for both of them.

  “Five,” she said. “We lived mostly in San Diego. When I was seventeen, I met another Shifter.” A friend. “A doctor, and a good man. He taught me all about Fates and Shifters and Burners and the dragons.”

  If it hadn’t been for the doctor, she would never have left San Diego. She would never have found her father.

  Orel picked at the oak’s bark. “I saw a Burner once. He was scary.”

  Daisy grinned. “And stinky, I bet.” And dangerous, but Orel seemed to be calming and she didn’t want to ruin it by discussing how to avoid the fire ghouls.

  Orel’s eyes rounded. “Like burning rotten eggs.” He frowned. “Burners didn’t come for Mama and Maty. Men in green uniforms and masks did.”

  “And then Nax came? Did your Mama send you with him?” Did Nax take Orel from an area under Russian military control?

  Orel clamped his mouth shut and shook his head.

  His scent… slipped again. His eyes glazed.

  “Orel?” What was happening to him? What…

  Why hadn’t she realized earlier? His changing scent. The dazed looks. The running away.

  Had Nax activated his son? Had she scented the beginnings of an activation when she found Orel under the sign?

  But that was last night. If Orel was activating now, Nax must have made activation spit only a couple of hours ago, which explained Orel running away. If she didn’t know what was happening, and then saw a parent spit out the iridescent activation liquid, she would have run, too.

  Did Nax activate Orel on top of whatever she’d been scenting these last couple of days?

  She touched Orel’s forehead. No fever, which was unusual, for an activation. She touched his cheeks. “Are you hungry? Do you feel like you could eat an entire restaurant’s worth of burgers?”

  Because activations prime all appetites. He was too young to be thinking about sex—at least she hoped he wouldn’t be thinking about sex right now—but he should want to eat everything within a twenty mile radius.

  He should also feel hot, unless he was destined to be a strong healer. Healers sometimes got out of the fevers. Sometimes.

  “Honey, did your dad spit for you this morning? Into your drink, or your mouth? Did h
e tell you why?”

  She was going to knock that man’s head clear off his shoulders. What was he thinking, activating an eight-year-old child? One with traumas—and who was half Fate.

  He shouldn’t be up here in a tree by himself. He should be with others. A person-healer, at least. Someone who would know what to do if his Fate blood caused problems. She had no clue, but the Shifters at The Land had told her stories. Children dying was one of the many reasons Shifters and Fates didn’t get together. Not a lot of couples could handle dead babies.

  If Nax had activated Orel, he’d be a Shifter, for sure. Nax had effectively destroyed any possibility of his mother activating him as a Fate. It was always one or the other. Never both. Activating as both meant death for the halfling.

  And that son of a bitch Nax had activated Orel out here away from any and all medical help. Did he want Orel to die? Was he looking to punish his ex in the most horrific way possible?

  No. Nax might be a criminal and he might be a douchebag, but not once did she feel—or scent—from him anything other than that he loved Orel.

  She touched the boy’s cheek again. “Can you hear me? Orel, it’s important that you answer. If you need help because your father activated you, I need to get you into town, okay? I can call my dad. We’ll find the closest strong healer. We need to keep an eye on you and make sure you’re okay.”

  “Drako?” he whispered.

  Below them, in the dark, branches cracked. Undergrowth snapped.

  The ground moved.

  A dragon appeared.

  Fifteen

  This beast was not a beast she knew. It stood taller at the shoulder than either of her friends. Its neck coiled more than the thicker, stronger, more wolf-like necks of the two Dracae. Instead of the intricate, interwoven nubs and ridges of a true dragon’s crest, this creature had scales and eyebrows and two horn-like projections.

  He did have the basics—no wings, the shimmering photo- and chromodynamic skin that oscillated through a hypnotic array of reds, blues, yellows, and greens, all in circular and geometric patterns. The six-fingered claw-hands and their retractable, deadly talons. The agile shoulder joints, the ridged back, and the long, powerful tail.

  Yet Drako looked more like a fairytale dragon than anything remotely real.

  Fire belched from his mouth.

  Daisy had nowhere to go. No place to hide other than to scramble higher into a tree she could barely make out against the night’s shadows. The dragon-that-was-not-a-dragon—which could not be real—was close enough to swipe his huge hand-claw and open her guts right here in the tree.

  Drako reared onto his back legs. He used his hide to flash angry, intense reds and oranges at the tree, then snaked his too-long neck through the branches. And the dragon that could not be real sniffed at Daisy’s face.

  “What the hell are you?” she breathed.

  The colors moving over his skin flickered toward midnight blues and purples that mimicked the night. Small bright points moved down his neck, along his back, and toward his swishing tail.

  He ground his hind claw-feet into the dirt and a ripple moved up his back and along his too-long neck.

  Drako chuckled.

  He chuckled with the bravado and all the condescension of a jerk. The goddamned fake dragon chuckled right in Daisy’s face as if he was some sort of frat boy douchebag fairytale dumbass version of Brad.

  Daisy swung a right hook right into the beast’s head.

  Nothing happened. Nothing changed. Drako neither reacted nor appeared to have even noticed. She pulled in her arm.

  “Nax!” she yelled. “I don’t understand how you’re using your calling scents to warp reality! That’s what you are doing, isn’t it? Enthralling us to see what you want us to see?”

  She poked her finger at Drako. “Because that is not a dragon!”

  Drako swiped his big hand-claw at her middle.

  His talons caught her hoodie. Fabric ripped. Something excruciatingly sharp grazed her belly.

  She screamed and pulled back.

  Daisy patted at the wounds. Patted at her own blood, yet she didn’t. Her mind said rip and wound and blood, but her nose said no.

  She wasn’t bleeding. Orel’s scent slipped and Drako smelled of male but also fake cinnamon and citrus, as if someone sprayed an artificial air freshener in her face—or calling scents that person thought were supposed to trigger the scent of a dragon.

  “I’m a bloodhound!” Daisy yelled.

  Drako growled.

  “That’s more like it,” she spat back. “Growl at me. Attack me. I’ve taken on worse than you, Nax.” And she survived. Lesser men might think her a prize but Daisy always survived.

  She kicked at the phantom beast’s head. “I came back because my nose told me something was wrong. A part of me knew you activated him. What were you thinking? How could you? You are a coward.” She kicked again. “You’re all cowards.”

  “Stop!” Orel yelled. “Please stop! Please don’t! Drako. You’re supposed to protect me! You’re not supposed to hurt anyone! You’re not! You’re not.”

  Orel threw his sketchbook at the beast.

  Drako pulled out of the tree. He shook and the colors of his hide brightened for a split second before he vanished completely.

  Orel twitched. He gagged, and the dazed look returned, as did the electrical smell.

  They weren’t anywhere near lights, or motors, or wiring. The smell was coming off Orel as if his body was making a small fire every time he dazed out.

  “Nax!” she yelled. “You son of a bitch! Your son is having a seizure!”

  Orel shook. He blinked, and reset. “I am fine,” he said, as if seizing wasn’t new to him. “I am okay.”

  “No, you are not.” Daisy picked up her flashlight and quickly checked Orel’s eyes. His skin had flushed. She checked his forehead again.

  He was hot. It could be from watching his “friend” attack Daisy, but she doubted it. “We need to get you down.” She reached around Orel to untwist his bag’s strap from the branch.

  “Father spit in my water. He told me that if I drank it the spells would stop. Mama told me she would spit for me when I am as tall as Papa. Nax said I would heal and that no one would ever come after me again if I drank the water.” He went limp again. Dazed, like he was before. “I am not supposed to have the spells anymore.”

  “I don’t think it’s working, honey.” Daisy stopped fiddling with the bag. Did Nax pre-emptively activate Orel to ruin him so Russian Fates would leave him alone? Did he honestly think that activating him early would stop his seizures?

  Because it wouldn’t. If anything, an activation would make them worse, at least temporarily.

  “Kid, I’m sorry.” She hugged him quickly. “You could have asked for help!” she yelled out into the night.

  But from who? The many Shifter syndicates would have been just as likely to use Orel as the Fates. The Dells clans were likely too small to be willing to take on any Fates, and in particular ones capable of utilizing a Russian militia to get what they want.

  And there was no way Nax would trust the one Shifter in the United States with enough power to help—her father.

  So Nax was hiding in Wisconsin and pretending, for his son, to be the one creature on Earth who could protect them both.

  “Listen to me, Nax! He needs a healer.” Daisy pulled the bag off the branch. “I give you my word that my father will not—”

  A hand scooped between her and Orel. A big hand attached to a large, strong, male body. She felt it touch; felt it grab and curl around her waist, but she saw nothing. She smelled nothing. Yet Nax had ahold of her.

  He pulled her out of the tree.

  Sixteen

  Daisy managed to land on her feet. She stumble-tripped and skidded into the trunk of another tree, but somehow stayed upright.

  She couldn’t see. Nax had also knocked out—turned off, broken, she didn’t know—her flashlight. The woods dropped into the inky, eer
ie darkness of a shadowed, living place—things here moved. Things under leaves and behind bushes bit. They saw you, but you couldn’t see them.

  Her nose told her that all the animals had left the area. The scent-scape gave her a map of the vegetation—the oak tree ten feet in front of her, the birch she’d just tripped into, the bushes and the open meadow area to the south where she’d seen the raccoons.

  Nax might be able to knock out her vision, but he could not make her blind.

  “Orel,” he said. “Come. We must leave.”

  “I can’t see,” Orel whispered.

  Drako appeared between Daisy and the tree. A full, fairy-glimmering, friendly dragon, with softer features and a cuddlier hide than what had appeared before.

  Mega-Nax stood silhouetted in front of Daisy and between Drako and the tree. He loomed over her like a huge angry bear ready to knock off her head for coming near his cub. “If I could enthrall you to forget this, I would, Ms. Pavlovich,” he said.

  Behind him, Orel pulled the strap of his bag over his head and slowly climbed down the tree. He moved tentatively, as if his body didn’t really believe it could see what it was doing.

  “My father will not harm Orel,” she said. “He won’t. And if anyone can deal with the Fates who came after him and his mother’s triad, it’s him.”

  Nax glanced over his shoulder at Orel. “The Grand Duke would have made a fine Tsar,” he said offhand. Then he looked at her. “Grand Duchess Daisy Pavlovich Romanov, the half-Russian, half-Australian lover of animals who thinks she can save a child from Fates.”

  He chuckled like a pompous ass once again.

  Daisy held her tongue. Arguing with Nax would not help Orel.

  Nax squatted next to her. Behind him fake Drako scratched at his side like a puppy. “I do not think you understand the situation.”

  She knew to stay out of the way of Fates. That didn’t mean she couldn’t offer help. “I stand by what I said.”

  “Of course you do.” Nax stood and hugged Orel to his hip. “If it means anything, I believe you.” He looked off into the woods, then down at her. “My children don’t activate.”