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

by CK Dawn

  Her shoulders slumped a little at the idea of giving herself such a title. She had no intention of hunting vampires. However, if one should decide to hunt her, she would at least be ready to take him on, or more likely, succeed in running away.

  She let her hand rest on the drapes as she looked out across the rooftop toward the high rises and spires of the university district. What was Bill doing out there? He knew it wasn’t safe for anyone to be out at night. She was still horrified by the memory of the night that Bill had flung himself at her door begging to be let in. It had taken him a full hour and several shots of vodka before he could give her a coherent description of what he’d seen on the loading dock. Ted, foul and undead with his clothes hanging in tatters and reeking of blood; a grey-skinned child with wide red eyes, growling like a lion, and Wally, baring his fangs and hissing his challenge to anyone who would hurt Miss Phoebe.

  When Bill had finally recovered his senses, his acceptance of her story was immediate. The books of vampire lore, the closely drawn drapes, even the descendants of Wally’s white mice scurrying around behind the sofa, all made sense to him. He was ready to believe and ready to help.

  She sighed. What would she have done without his steadying influence? How would she have known what exercises to do to strengthen her legs? Without his help how would she be able to stick to a diet? She spared a thought for the box of chocolates she had concealed beneath the sofa cushion. Just one, she told herself. I’ll only have one.

  As she turned away from the window, she heard movement on the balcony. She reeled backward feeling as thought her heart was going to pound right out through her chest. Bill? Where was Bill? How dare he leave her alone here?

  “Miss Phoebe.” A familiar voice and a light tap at the window brought her heart rate down a couple of notches and gave her time to place her hand dramatically on her bosom while she rolled her eyes at the figure on the balcony.

  “Let me in, Miss Phoebe.”

  Finally he had shown some commonsense and decided to come back to her. She peered through the window at him. He didn’t have his box with him, or even a garbage bag, so he hadn’t succeeded in making a real escape, but at least he was here tonight. He could run some of the errands that Bill refused to run. She needed potato chips, vodka, chocolates. The list was quite long and Bill had been no help. She would need to find her purse and give Wally money to go shopping.

  He tapped on the window again. “Let me in, Miss Phoebe.”

  “Are you alone, Wally?”

  “Yes, of course I am.”

  “I want you to go shopping for me.”

  Wally’s face behind the plate glass betrayed his impatience. “No, Miss Phoebe, I am not going shopping. I have to talk to you. Let me in before someone sees me.”

  Phoebe lifted the latch and slid the door to one side. He stepped inside trailing a miasma of foul air and dirt. She was tempted to make him wait outside but when he grinned at her, she found her heart becoming quite soft toward him.

  She placed a tentative hand on the sleeve of his raincoat. “You’re a mess, Wally. How could you let yourself go after everything I taught you?”

  Wally hung his head. “The baron don’t go in for washing and ironing and things like that.”

  Phoebe felt a faint frisson of guilty pleasure. “So my sister is not living in the lap of luxury? Will that improve when she becomes the baroness?”

  “She won’t care,” Wally replied.

  “Well, it all sounds very unpleasant to me,” Phoebe said. “I’m glad I’m not involved.”

  Wally raised his eyebrows. “Not involved? Of course you’re involved. We’re relying on you.”

  “I never said I would help you,” Phoebe protested.

  Wally walked to the center of the room and looked around. “Looks like you’re planning something.”

  “Yes, well —“

  Wally raised his hand to stop her. “Don’t tell me nothing. I can’t keep nothing from the baron, not now I’m his slave, so least you say, least I can tell him. All I want to say is that I think you’re up to something and I’m grateful.”

  “I’m not up to anything,” Phoebe insisted.

  Wally looked around at the apartment. “What’s all this sports equipment?”

  “It was his idea.”

  Wally grimaced. “Don’t tell me who he is, don’t tell me nothing. I can’t know.” He took a step backward and looked Phoebe up and down in a way that should have been insulting, but somehow she was not insulted.

  “What do you think?” she asked. “Do I look like I’ve lost weight?”

  “Oh yes, no doubt about it.” His face clouded with worry. “It won’t help you none. You won’t be able to run away, not even with them new sneakers. I hope you have a better plan than that.”

  “Plan for what? What exactly are you expecting me to do?”

  Wally glanced suspiciously around the room

  “There’s no one here,” Phoebe said. “You can tell me.”

  “We’ve run out of time,” Wally said. “You have to do it now.”

  “Do what?”

  “Kill the baron. It’s the only way.”

  “Kill!” The word stuck in Phoebe’s throat. “I don’t know how to kill him.”

  Wally looked at the pile of books on the coffee table. “Yes you do. You’ve been looking it up, ain’t you?”

  “I’ve been studying about vampires, but I haven’t found anything. It’s very difficult, Wally. There are so many stories and it’s hard to know what to believe.”

  “Well, you’d better believe something,” Wally said, “because we’re out of time. He’s getting ready for the ceremony and there won’t be no going back after that. When your sister comes into her full powers, she’s going to be stronger than he is. There’s something special about your sister. Was she ever a nun?”

  Phoebe shook her head. “Being a nun wasn’t enough for Catherine. She’s an overachiever, always has been. She joined a church where she could call herself a priest, but it’s not real.”

  “Don’t tell me no more,” Wally said. “I can’t tell him what I don’t know. You have to hurry because I already know too much.”

  “We need more time,” Phoebe complained. “My … friend … the man who is helping me, has been trying to find a way into the building where the baron sleeps but it’s locked up tight in the daytime.”

  “I know,” said Wally. “That’s the way it has to be. We’re all helpless as new born babes in the daylight. Mark my words, Miss Phoebe, there ain’t no way for you to get in there. I’ll have to bring him here.”

  Phoebe’s heart took another pounding and her voice rose to an astonished squeak. “Here?”

  “Yes. You could give me the invitation and permission to bring him and —“

  “Don't be ridiculous. He can't come here. I've spent the last two weeks trying to keep him away from here. That’s the most absurd idea that I have ever heard. I’ve done my best to help you, but I’m not going to allow that terrible person to come in here, sister or no sister.”

  Wally turned away and hung his head. When he finally spoke his voice was soft and woebegone. “I understand, Miss Phoebe, but you know that none of this would have happened if you hadn't tricked me and made me stay with you.”

  Oh no, he was not going to play this game. “I didn’t trick you, Wally.”

  “It was you wanting your Bloody Marys what tricked me,” Wally said in a pathetic undertone. “If you hadn’t wanted me to make you drinks and fetch you your chocolates, I would have been clean away, wheeling me native earth down the road and the baron would never have known what happened to me, your sister wouldn’t never have met him, and she wouldn’t be trying to kill you now.”

  “That is not true,” Phoebe said vehemently.

  Wally hung his head. “Think about it,” he muttered.

  Phoebe shook her head. “All I wanted was some company.”

  Wally looked at her under guilt-inducing eyelashes. “Yo
u said it was wrong for people to be slaves, but you did it anyway.”

  He picked up the ornate mirror that Catherine had given to Phoebe, the mirror that had been the final nail in his coffin. He shook his head as he looked. “You could have broken it. You could have let me go, but now we’re all going to be undead, even your friend, even after we saved his life once. Ted nearly had him, me and Tabita had to risk everything to save him.”

  He hung his head and stooped his shoulders, the picture of dejection. “You started this, Miss Phoebe. It’s all your fault.”

  Phoebe burned with righteous indignation.

  “It is not.”

  “If you say so, Miss Phoebe.” He turned away. “I’ll leave now. I don’t suppose we’ll see each other again, alive.”

  Someone was banging at the door. Wally glanced over his shoulder and then trailed dejectedly toward the balcony. “Best if I don’t see him,” he said. “Best I say goodbye now.” He sniffed and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his coat. “Goodbye, miss.”

  “Wait, just wait.”

  Wally halted. The banging on the door grew louder.

  “Phoebe, open the door.”

  Wally sniffed again.

  Phoebe, light footed in her new sneakers hurried into the kitchen and fetched her key ring. “Alright, you win. Bring him here.”

  “Soon as I can,” Wally said with an astonishing renewal of good spirits.

  Phoebe shook her head. “Not yet.”

  “We don’t have much time.”

  “Not yet,” Phoebe repeated, but her words were drowned out by Bill banging on the door in a state of rapidly rising panic. She turned toward the door. “I’m coming.” She turned back to make sure that Wally understood, and was in time to see Wally launch himself from the balcony.

  Bill was still pounding on the door and making such a noise that Phoebe feared that the neighbors would soon be complaining. The Atrium was not the kind of building that gave free reinto large panicked men pounding on doors.

  She unlocked the door and Bill tumbled through. Today he was dressed from head to foot in camo and for some reason had smeared black smudges on his cheeks. His eyes were bright with anger.

  “Why didn’t you open the door?”

  Before she could speak he had crossed to the windows and drawn the drapes. “I thought I told you to keep these closed. How often have I told you that you have to guard your perimeter? Come on, shape up marine.”

  Phoebe sighed. She needed Bill’s help, but it came with a price.

  “I had a visitor.”

  “Who?”

  “Wally.”

  “Ah.” Bill was silent for a moment. He could hardly complain at a visit from Wally who had, no doubt, saved his life.

  “What did he want?”

  “To warn me about Catherine. We're out of time, Bill. He says it'll all be over any day now.”

  Phoebe was surprised to find a tear trickling down cheek. Was she crying for herself, or crying for Catherine, or crying because she was suddenly aware that she was the cause of all of this trouble?

  Bill looked at her with calm sympathy. “Easy there, marine; no call for tears.

  “I’m not crying,” Phoebe insisted. “I don't have time for tears. And will you please stop calling me, marine.”

  “Sorry. I meant it as a compliment.”

  Phoebe swiped a hand across her face and fought back her tears. “Where were you? It's already dark. I was worried.”

  “I was getting the holy water. It took longer than I expected. Do you know that all the churches are locked up tight in the daytime? There's no way in. I waited down the road at St. Matthews until they opened for Mass and then I infiltrated”

  Phoebe took another look at Bill’s smudged cheeks and head to shoulder camouflage. “You infiltrated a church in that outfit?”

  “It was dark. I kept to the shadows. I don’t think the altar boy knew what hit him.”

  Phoebe tried to imagine the altar boy’s reaction to Bill appearing from the shadows and depriving him of the container of holy water. Questions would be asked. Bishops would be consulted. Rumors would soon be making the rounds.

  Bill removed a small glass bottle from his pocket. “I hope this is enough. I’ll put it with the rest of the stuff. Where did you put the duffel bag?”

  “Behind the sofa.”

  Bill walked behind the sofa, disturbing a white mouse that twitched its nose and scurried under Phoebe’s desk.

  “We need a cat,” Bill said.

  Phoebe considered that statement on so many levels that she was momentarily speechless. We need a cat – were they now a couple, a we? Was Bill planning to move into the apartment with her? So far his behavior had given no hint of any romantic attachments, although he had started to call her by her first name. Of course that meant nothing; they were being soldiers, marines, together, that was all. And what about the mice? Was she resisting the exterminator or a visit from “rent a moggy” because she secretly hoped that Wally would return to eat the mice?

  Bill dragged the duffel bag out into the center of the room and began to inventory its contents.

  “Crosses, garlic, prayer books, holy water and …” He held up a bouquet of red roses. “Where did these come from?”

  Phoebe pointed to the books on the coffee table. “I read it in one of those books. "The Tomb of Sarah, F. G. Loring.”

  Bill searched among the books. “I don’t remember that one.”

  Phoebe walked over to the table and selected the book she needed. Their hands met momentarily as he moved the books and she found herself blushing. Ridiculous! She pulled her reading glasses from her pocket and began to read.

  "We stepped from the pulpit and taking dog roses and garlic from the vestry proceeded to the tomb. I made a circle large enough for the rector and myself to stand in. Now, I said, you shall see the vampire afraid to cross this circle, for legend teaches us that vampires will not cross over the blossoms of the dog rose." She took off her glasses and set the book back on the table. “So I called the florist and ordered a dozen long stemmed roses.”

  Bill surveyed her with his chin in his hands.

  “Aren't dog roses those little wild roses you see by the side of the road?”

  Phoebe retreated to haughty superiority. “I have no idea. I don't go looking by the side of the road for wild flowers. The only kind of roses I ever see are long stemmed ones, preferably red, so that's what I ordered.”

  Bill nodded his head and Phoebe felt that she had made her point. She was not the kind of woman who could be kept happy with bouquets of daisies, buttercups and wild roses.

  Bill pulled a string of garlic from the bag. “Well, we all know what this is. No two ways about this. Garlic is garlic.”

  “Wally says it might work on Ted, but he doesn’t think it will have any effect on the baron.”

  She struggled to hold onto her sense of purpose as she stared down at their arsenal of anti-vampire weaponry. “I’m not sure if any of this stuff will do any good. It's all a bunch of old legends. I don't know if we can believe any of it. It’s all nonsense, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t think so.” Bill’s voice was firm and confident. “Two weeks ago I didn’t believe that vampires even existed, but now I’ve seen one for myself. So if vampires exist, some of these vampire cures must be true. I liked the one about getting him into church. You know, where it said that if a priest forgave him his sins, he'd just wither away and die. There was a ring of truth in that. A church is a powerful thing.”

  Phoebe shook her head. “The baron’s old and cunning. He’s never going to set foot in a church. The only way we’re going to defeat him is to kill him.”

  “So we kill him,” Bill said. He leaned down and picked up a pointed stick. “Is this the oak stake you ordered?”

  “No, that’s one I made myself. I ordered a real one from vanishthevampire.com but it hasn’t arrived yet, so I thought I should make one. It was a paper towel holder. I took it apart my
self and sharpened it with a kitchen knife.”

  Bill put an arm around her shoulder and smiled encouragingly. “That’s my girl.”

  “I’m not your …” Phoebe let the words die before they were born. Was she his girl? She sat down abruptly on the sofa. Everything was moving too fast. After fifteen years of nothing moving, she was not sure she could adapt herself to this new pace.

  Bill sat down beside her, pulled his Swiss Army knife from his pocket, and began to trim the point on the makeshift oak stake.

  He lifted his head for a moment. His tone was very matter of fact. “We’ll need something to cut off his head. We’ll have to use an axe.”

  Phoebe was uncomfortably aware of the feeling of Bill’s thigh pressed up against her but he seemed not to notice. She shifted her weight but the soft cushions of the sofa rolled her back into position. Bill’s knife slipped and he gave an annoyed grunt.

  “Sorry,”

  Phoebe wanted to stand up and move away, but Bill resumed his careful sharpening of the stake. “We still have to find a way into his house,” he said. “Did your friend Wally give you any new intel?”

  “He said it’s impossible.”

  Bill paused. The stake now had a deadly point. “Nothing is impossible.”

  Phoebe was proud of herself. “I made a decision. We can’t go there, so Wally is bringing the baron here.”

  “Here? The baron's coming here?”

  “Yes, Wally's going to bring him. It seemed the simplest solution.”

  Bill set the stake down on the floor and turned to look at her. “Here, to this apartment?”

  “Yes, I've given Wally a key. He's going to bring him here and we're going to finish him off.”

  Bill’s eyebrows drew together in a frown and she noticed that his cool blue eyes were capable of displaying heat and anger. “Are you out of your mind? You don't ever bring the enemy into your own camp.”

  Phoebe hauled herself to her feet. “Well, we certainly can't go into his, so I don't see what choice we have. We'll be ready for him. We'll set up the garlic, and the holy water, and everything. He'll be walking straight into a trap. He doesn't know about you, and Catherine doesn't know that I'm not sick any more so they won't be expecting an attack. They won't be expecting any opposition.”