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

by CK Dawn

  By that time, he had little choice but to dispense with the Jacks any way he was able; watching them trying to fly with their new wings was painful. No longer able to buzz around and unable to reconcile their baseball-sized bodies to the lilt of the larger, more delicate wings, they crashed drunkenly into every conceivable surface.

  And if listening to them mate before had been annoying, it was now maddening and still made folk stop and snicker all these years later.

  Like porn stars on helium. Jasper shifted his gaze to the fantastical balustrade and scowled at the pair of Jacks perched on the despondent bunny’s head, stuck end to end and circling one way and then the other in attempt to culminate. He sighed and admitted to himself that he should’ve forgone his last, desperate attempt to get rid of the insects, but somehow accomplishing that task had become a defining moment for him; a moment that separated men from boys and would confirm his innate strength despite the loss of his magic.

  A moment that could somehow change a phooka into a father.

  It was that challenge that had occupied his thoughts one day on his way to pick Dragon up from archery lessons with General Kwatee (retired). He had slowed to avoid colliding with the manager of a busy Thai restaurant taking out garbage, a colored metal corner peeking out of a ragged hole in the garbage bag catching Jasper’s eye. He’d reached for it, tearing away plastic and avoiding the rotting food that spilled out as he retrieved a dented jest-in-the-box.

  Quickly wrapping the thing in a bit of newspaper and hiding it in his backpack, he’d picked up Dragon, settled her at the kitchen table with a head of lettuce, a couple hard-boiled eggs and three sugar cookies for dinner before examining it. As soon as Dragon quit gaping at her meal and proceeded to eat it, he surreptitiously laid the flat of his tongue along the cleanest edge of the box.

  It wasn’t evil, Herne be praised—it’d be a hell of a thing if he had to deal with the demons that would come running once their toy exploded—and its intent was to deter, that much he could tell. What exactly he wasn’t sure. It could be anything: a noxious smell, ill-thoughts or something more specific like the 110th Squadron’s bullets. The fact it had been thrown away lead him to believe that it was a DIY Obeah mosquito bomb. Though Obeah magic was as foreign to him as magic in general was to humans, even he knew there were some things better left to the pros. Trying to get rid of mosquitoes by mixing this, that and the other with overproof white rum was idiotic, but as long as the intent of this bomb was defensive, which it definitely was, then all Jasper could do was fix the mechanism that popped the clown out of the box, and fragment and disperse the charm, and hope for the best.

  It was only after he’d set the handle of the box to wind by itself, the music playing discordantly, and the charm had shattered all over the Salon that he realized that the box was a disguise for an old fae spell to imbue the receiver with the power to flourish from a mean state to one of abundance.

  The annoyance repeatedly charging into the waved panes of the mullioned window was what the kitchen-sink cleansing charms he’d used on the pestilences combined with the false mosquito bomb and his own desperation had wrought. In every way except for appearance, they behaved a lot like flies: they bore close to fifty offspring at a time, vomited digestive enzymes over the pecan-cinnamon roll you’d been jonesing for, bit when threatened or hungry depending on the availability of other food sources and had a lifespan of about two weeks. Unlike true flies, however, Jacks looked like tiny fairies with butterfly wings.

  Tiny, naked fairies wearing well-placed scales who fucked day and night during the summer and who made even the most conservative prudes of Halo City hunger for an encounter that made them scream like a Jack.

  Three months out of the year, Jack flies romped alongside insects of all species, wreaking enough havoc to exhaust the police, confound emergency rooms and ultimately force the City to level exorbitant fines against several import companies, blaming their practices for the appearance of this new prolific irritant—a fact Ch’in used to blackmail Jasper into allowing him room, board and discretion at the Salon after Ch’in simply walked away from military service that over and over required him to destroy innocence.

  The door to the women’s bathroom swung open and Dragon hurried out; a bit of steam and fragrance billowed after her. She breezed past Jasper tucking the edges of a faded blue towel around her as she headed for her rooms situated on the perimeter of the ballroom’s large, oval parquet floor.

  The furious plink plink plink at one of the bay windows stopped her.

  “Daddy,” she huffed, exasperated. “You’ve got to actually get up and let the beastie out if you want the annoying noise to stop.” She walked to the window, staying to the side of the Jack fly so as not to crowd it, grasped the pewter handle of the already-open window and pushed it wider. “Get out little thing,” she crooned softly. “Outside is to your right, you idiot.”

  At that, the Jack fly finally noticed its escape route and shot to freedom.

  “It’s skilled you are, love,” Jasper said deliberately thickening his accent. “You make yer da proud.”

  Dragon rolled her eyes at Jasper’s teasing and strode to her room. “You’re lazier than Buddha is what you are,” she threw over her shoulder and closed the door behind her.

  Jasper glanced at the chocolate gryphonita sprawled on the old leather recliner to his left. “I think I’ve just been insulted.”

  The ninety-pound cat didn’t deign to twitch an eyelid, but acknowledged that he’d been referred to by fully extending his light-brown, spotted wings.

  “A warning or just stretching?” Jasper murmured.

  Buddha carefully folded each wing against his back and yawned. Unlike true gryphons, which abounded in the flat arid lands to the west, gryphonitas were smaller, about the size of a puma, and retained the body of a cat in its entirety. Only its wings were evidence of its dual nature.

  “Stop pestering him, Jasper,” Quill said, walking through the swinging doors of the kitchen and past him. “He will speak in his own good time.” Her voice echoed over the gentle thwamp of the still swinging doors.

  Jasper snorted. “Rumor,” he muttered, returning to his paper.

  “An ancient and oft-repeated legend,” she corrected. She handed him a Bloody Mary over his shoulder. He took it, suffering a condescending pat on the head and the resulting jingle of gold bangles with creditable aplomb.

  “Also known as a rumor. That you started,” he finished bluntly when Quill took a deep breath to argue.

  “Well,” Quill flipped her waist-length black hair over her shoulder, “being a goddess does have its privileges.” She adjusted the knot of her batik sarong and smoothed the fraying hem of her Halo City Jazz Festival Volunteer T-shirt. She settled on the other end of the silver settee and reached to scratch Buddha’s head.

  The resulting purr could’ve been measured on the Richter scale.

  Jasper took a sip of his drink. “Virgin,” he sighed unhappily, placing the drink on the coffee table before him and raising his voice to be heard over Buddha’s pleasure. “It was my understanding that being an Incan moon goddess—”

  “Fuck!” Dragon’s outrage interrupted Jasper. The door to her bedroom flew open and she barreled out in a push-up bra and a pair of unbuttoned dark-blue jeans.

  “Bloody hell,” Jasper muttered, throwing the paper down on a claw-foot coffee table that sported two-inch talons: a dumpster-dive find that had lingered too long in the company of botched Hebrew mysticism. Two of its mahogany feet tapped impatiently on the floor, reflecting Jasper’s agitation.

  “Cut that out,” he ordered the table distractedly. “Put some clothes on!” he shouted as Dragon sped by him, not bothering to acknowledge his discomfort. She barged into Jasper’s room on the other side of the ballroom.

  “I was speaking!” Jasper threw his hands up. “You heard me speak, didn’t you?”

  Quill grinned and Jasper was momentarily stunned by the pearlescent glow that highligh
ted her features. Thirteen years ago when she’d shown up on the steps of the Salon, so beaten that no one would’ve recognized her as Mama Quillya, lunar deity and mother of the Incan race, it had been Dragon who’d brought her inside when Jasper would’ve put the bloody bundle of rags on the curb with the rest of the trash. Dragon had fallen in love with Quill the minute she cracked open one swollen eye, much to Jasper’s surprise. Though why he hadn’t anticipated such an outcome was beyond him; Dragon regularly gave her heart to anyone who asked for it.

  His daughter stormed out of his bedroom and rushed by them holding a large safety pin. “Dad, I need to borrow this.”

  “Hold it right there, young lady.”

  Dragon turned to face them, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other. “What, Dad? Come on, I need to finish getting ready.”

  Jasper’s jaw hardened and Quill stood and walked over to Dragon.

  “Willita,” she crooned cupping Dragon’s face in her soft hands. “Your father just wants to know…if you enjoyed yourself last night.”

  “Excuse me?” Dragon exclaimed, her dark eyes widening comically.

  “If it has anything to do with that imbecile then I forbid her to leave this house. Tell her that!” Jasper stood, pulled off his shirt and wrapped it around Dragon’s shoulders.

  Dragon rolled her eyes, dragged the shirt off and dropped it on the coffee table. “I don’t have time for this. I gotta go to work.” She stormed into her bedroom, sank to the bed and sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

  From the living room, Quill and Jasper watched Dragon shake off whatever had suddenly dimmed her energy and lay on her bed, the muscles in her arms quivering as she forced the two sides of her jeans together and worked frantically to slide the button into its hole. Once done, she took several relieved breaths before threading the safety pin into the zipper’s tab and dragging it up. As the teeth closed, Dragon uttered encouragement. “Just a little more.”

  “I do not want you seeing that boy, Wilhelmina Fergusson, do you hear me!” Jasper bellowed. He pulled on his shirt and paced briefly before picking up the juice he’d abandoned and draining it. “Gawd.” His face puckered. “That’s awful. Quill, it’s disgusting.”

  “Your cholesterol is through the roof.”

  “What the hell does that have to do with anything? I’m immortal!”

  “You can be immortal and healthy or immortal and toxic.”

  Jasper looked to the only other male in the room to verify that his household was absurd and when Buddha peered at him through one barely-open eye, Jasper took that for a bit of much-needed commiseration.

  “I’m twenty-nine years old, Father!” Dragon grunted as she pulled harder on the safety pin.

  “Jasper,” Quill whispered. “You’re not following the plan.”

  “The plan?” he repeated dumbfounded then continued with a scowl. “Quill, she went out again with that fuck and I know she tried to fix him. I’m sick to death of it,” he said, standing and dramatically covering his heart with one hand. “I did not raise her to date fucks.” He lowered his voice. “I did not raise her to leave loose ends. That must be your doing.” He sank sanctimoniously to the sofa.

  “My doing?” Quill gasped. “I, Mother Moon, would never encourage a daughter of the Earth to,” she lowered her voice, “maintain prolonged contact with a loser.”

  “Dear God,” Jasper moaned. “Harvey-Three-Eyes said some bloke came ’round his shop last week asking questions. Said he was looking for a ‘fixer’.” Jasper met Quill’s worried brown eyes. “She’s being careless.”

  “All the more reason why we need to stick to the plan,” she reminded him.

  “All right, all right.”

  The front door opened and a whoosh of air fluttered the pages of The Rapture on the coffee table as Ch’in stepped in and shut it behind him.

  “You’re late,” Quill hissed, pulling a red from the well-stocked rack against the wall.

  “Shiva, Quill, it’s eleven in the morning,” Jasper complained.

  “Oh please, like you don’t want to break out that single malt Jiff gave you for your birthday.”

  “I went to three different places to find flan,” Ch’in said, ignoring the familiar bickering that generally led nowhere. His voice had a low, breathy quality that rarely modulated and caused even the most fervent haranguer to stop and listen. “It was the fourth place. Finally.” He shucked his jacket and tossed it to the waiting arms of a teak coat tree.

  “Flan?” Jasper asked bewildered.

  Ch’in stopped and looked down at the pastry box tied with colored string in his hands. “I thought a nice dessert would be calming.” Ch’in glanced at Jasper, then Quill beseechingly. “Were we not scheduled to confront the Dragon about her tendency—her unfortunate tendency towards…heedless intimacy?” he finished uncomfortably.

  “Delicately put, Ch’in,” Quill said.

  Ch’in sighed, relieved and handed the flan to Quill. “Is it my turn? I have prepared a short speech on the value of chastity.”

  Jasper winced then flopped on the settee. “My child is a slut,” he groaned.

  “No, don’t even say that,” Quill admonished. “She’s simply…”

  “Profoundly optimistic,” Ch’in supplied.

  “I was going to say in love with love, but optimistic. That is more appropriate, yes.” She opened the pastry box and inhaled the still-warm flan.

  Ch’in inclined his head elegantly at Quill’s compliment. “Each human male she chooses—most of them unworthy—she gifts with all the hope she possesses, praying that this attempt at love will be fruitful. That she offers her body to ensure the undertaking is not a sign of her…indiscretion, but merely further proof that for the Dragon, love is just as much an act as it is a state of mind.

  “The two are indistinguishable to her: To give one is to feel the other.” Ch’in smiled serenely and ran his fingers over the feather-soft, turquoise scales that flowed over his left brow and cheekbone. “She has the beauty of a true dragon, even if she is one in name only.” He settled on the floor amongst a group of jewel-colored pillows next to Buddha in the recliner.

  A Chinese dragon king who, with his three brothers, once controlled the oceans, all that remained of Ch’in’s fearsome aspect were the scales that decorated his face and the occasional crab contingent that showed up at the Salon on ancient Chinese days of import to attend to him—his honor guard in the old days.

  A frustrated yell erupted from Dragon’s bedroom followed by a few thuds as she hopped around putting on her shoes.

  “Yeah, well that optimism is going to get her,” Jasper pointed at Dragon’s bedroom, “me, you, him, all of us killed.”

  Ignoring his dire prediction, Quill eased back onto the settee and crossed then recrossed her legs. “Does everyone know what to do?”

  Ch’in pulled a folded piece of notebook paper from his breast pocket. “My speech,” he said. “Very nonjudgmental as requested.”

  Quill smiled approvingly at him then turned her attention to Jasper.

  “I couldn’t find any educational opportunities for people who have meaningless sex,” Jasper muttered uncomfortably. “And we decided that Dragon’s tendencies did not fit Sexoholics Anonymous’ mission.”

  “We also decided that if you couldn’t find educational opportunities that were directly on point that you would locate viable substitution possibilities—replace the offending behavior with more constructive outlets,” Quill recited as if from memory.

  “Dragon does not crochet and that was the only class immediately available at the community learning center,” Jasper said wearily.

  “In truth, what activity could turn anyone’s mind away from love?”

  “Ch’in, mijo, let’s try to be positive. We must explore every avenue no matter how insignificant in the hopes that it will show Willita the value of good judgment.”

  “Apologies, Quill. You are right, of course. Needle and yarn could well hold the answ
ers we seek.”

  Quill scrutinized Ch’in carefully, as usual unable to discern anything but neutrality in his tone. She looked at Jasper for enlightenment and frowned when he shrugged.

  “She comes,” Ch’in whispered, pocketing his speech. “Good morning, Little Sister.”

  Dragon grinned at Ch’in as she buttoned up a straight-forward silk oxford and adjusted a multi-strand necklace of fat, black pearls.

  “Brother, good evening.” She nodded at Ch’in and moved the items from last night’s clutch to a large wheat satchel with tortoise-shell bracelets that gathered at the base of the strap.

  The day she’d gotten her first and only tattoo—a detailed dragon wyrm that roared at the webbing between her thumb and index finger, curled sinuously along her wrist and flourished along the delicate flesh of her inner forearm—it had been Ch’in who relentlessly instructed the tattoo artist and Ch’in who, in a fit of impatience, finished the mark himself with an artistic-looking silver hammer and flat-head needle he’d produced from a worn leather billet.

  “How do I look? Am I okay?” She turned around, her agitation and hurry evident in every step.

  “You are and have always been exquisite.”

  Dragon stopped fidgeting and gaped at Ch’in. “God, Ch’in,” she gasped, quickly kissing his cheek. “You kill me.”

  “And me,” Quill said, drawing the cork on the wine to conceal her emotion.

  “Will you marry me, mate?” Jasper rolled his eyes at his women’s melodrama. “Dragon, love, we’ve got to talk before you go.”

  “I’m late, Jasper.”

  “Excuse me?” Jasper asked almost hostilely. “What was that? Don’t think I heard you right.”

  Dragon’s smile was exasperated and grateful. “I’m late, Dad,” she corrected.

  Jasper nodded curtly, shifting in the settee to relieve his tension.

  Six months after Phyllis walked out on them, Dragon had introduced him as “Dad” to her fourth-grade teacher. Surprised and profoundly pleased, Jasper had wholeheartedly accepted the title, refusing to go back to “phooka” or “friend” when Dragon felt comfortable enough to be rebellious. “I hate you” was tolerated only if he was addressed as Daddy.