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

by CK Dawn

  “Thanks!” she called with forced perkiness over her shoulder as the goblin raked the barred elevator door open then closed. She slunk into the back corner, hoping to hide as much of herself from Fel as she could. The elevator started down with a jerk and she wondered as she braced her arms against its walls for support, if there would ever come a time when her life didn’t confuse the hell out of her.

  Fel ignored the hob as he lewdly flicked his tongue at him and watched the top of Dragon’s head disappear as the elevator descended. He nodded at Barbara in five-oh-three, who’d poked her head out to grab the rolled newspaper lying on her welcome mat. She fluttered the end of her boa at him and grinned at his erection.

  “Want a nightcap?” she called, bending over provocatively to pick up the paper, her breasts nearly tumbling out of her push-up.

  Fel noted how the straps of her garter stretched over her ass with a polite smile. “Some other time?”

  “You know where I live.” She blew a kiss at him and closed her apartment door behind her.

  He ducked behind his own door and turned the lock. He strode to the low bureau against the wall and stared at the collection of ornate decanters. Two were genie bottles, their former occupants freed and squatting in an abandoned Ladies First plus size dress store in the suburbs. He’d rinsed the bottles out with bleach to remove the magical dust and dander and filled them with two different single-malt Scotches. Two ordinary crystal decanters were filled with vodka and cognac—whatever he could get with the twenty vens he’d had at the time. The last was a flat brown bottle that he’d poured the cough syrup out of and filled with the bootleg faerie wine that Carlos and Goat brewed in the tank of their toilet.

  His hand hovered over the top of a Scotch then moved to the vodka then rested on the faerie wine. A large, baroquely framed oval mirror reflected gray eyes filled with disappointment as they watched his free hand open a drawer and pull out a pebble of undertow wrapped in a bit of cellophane. He ignored his reflection’s censorious look and headed to his gear in the bathroom. He pulled the koi syringe out of the medicine cabinet and quickly assembled it, setting the spoon next to it before returning to the bedroom to retrieve the bottle of faerie wine.

  Placing the undertow in the spoon, he covered it with the wine. He reached for the disposable lighter set on a bit of tiled ledge that protruded about an inch from the wall, flicked it and heated the underside of the spoon until the undertow melted and mixed with the faerie wine to create a lime mouthful, bright with crimson ripples. The needle went in the liquid next and he pulled the plunger back and watched hungrily as the syringe filled with a decadent, now-violet bliss.

  He let the empty spoon clatter in the sink and reached for the length of rubber tubing that hung on the bathroom’s doorknob. He leaned his back against the door and slid to the floor, drawing the rubber tight around his arm with his teeth as his ass met the floor.

  He sighed, relieved as the needle pricked his skin, and he closed his eyes, needing to take no care as he adjusted it and pushed the liquid into his waiting vein. Once there it exploded through him like a wave cooling a parched beach. He called forth the image of Dragon reaching unabashedly for orgasm: her legs open wide, uncaring who saw, her back arched, her tight, hard nipples pointing towards the sky, her bottom lip caught between her teeth to contain all she wished for.

  In his mind’s eye the skirt that had bunched around her waist disappeared as did her plain cotton underwear, frilly blouse, and functional bra, and her rounded, brown body trembled for him. Naked, he eased between her waiting legs and ducked down to suckle an erect nipple, drinking in her cries like a starving man. He placed the flared tip of his cock at her entrance and ruthlessly buried its length until it was fully imbedded in her.

  “Wait, wait,” she gasped, licking her dry lips.

  He stilled, bracing his weight on his straightened arms and looked down at her, loving the way she anxiously turned her head from one side to the other as if that action could relieve the erotic tension building in her. His gaze trailed between her large breasts. The way they quivered, calling to him. He drew a nipple between his lips, holding it against the grooved roof of his mouth while he sucked. He bit the tip between his teeth, raising his head upward until the breast was pulled taut.

  She groaned, but didn’t stop him.

  Satisfied, he lowered his head and tongued her sensitive, distended nipple gently before releasing it. His eyes followed the frantic movements of her soft belly and he exhaled a shaky breath of his own at the sight of their joined bodies. He rotated his hips so that their heaving stomachs brushed against each other and waited. He did it again, allowing the hair trailing down his flat abdomen to sand her belly twice before his patience ran out.

  “Okay?” he begged leaning down to kiss her softly, hoping enough time had passed to accustom her to him. That was his intention, but she opened her mouth under his, whether to answer him or take a breath, he had no idea. All he knew was that he could taste her at last. When her tongue curled around his, he lost control and started shafting her in long, excited strokes.

  “God,” he muttered. He lowered himself so that his elbows framed her head, curling one arm around it and threading his fingers in her hair, noting that she raised her legs until her calves skimmed his flanks and her bent knees rocked to and fro in time with his determined hips.

  “Dragon,” he gasped and gave himself completely to the pleasure of being inside her. He lowered his torso until, belly to belly, breast to chest, he rested on her soft body and adjusted his hip’s steady forays to more rhythmic, brutal digs that dragged desperate whimpers from her.

  Her hands tangled in his hair and he turned his head to meet strangely cold lips.

  Confusion broke the pulse of his hips.

  She was deathly still beneath him, her upraised legs having wilted to the hard gravel beneath them. The whites of her dark-brown eyes were bisected by burst blood vessels and her nose was broken, bleeding and nearly concave. Her hand fell weakly from around his neck and her entire body seemed to slowly leak life.

  He retracted his hips slightly, then more when the flesh gloving his dick started growing cold. He cupped her face between his hands and shook it a bit to liven her blank, still gaze.

  Her stomach heaved violently against his and he flinched away, repulsed. His eyes widened at the splatter of blood on her bottom lip and trailed down her cheek and he leapt away from her, horrified.

  More blood surrounded the broadsword protruding from her soft belly, adding to the growing puddle next to her.

  He stared at the sword’s metal hilt, the grip worn to give the vague impression of four fingers on one side—a deeper indentation indicated a ring around the middle—and a thumb on the other. He reached for it, mildly surprised to note that his own hand fit perfectly in the mold and drew it out of Dragon’s naked, lifeless body.

  Out of nowhere, a woman in coarse blue linen approached him. He moved without thinking, cleanly cutting off her head. Fel watched the headless body flop, reached into his uniform’s breast pocket for his orders, wrapped in a plastic sleeve to protect it from…the elements, and perused them, jerking a nod at the description of CRA’s latest enemy:

  Description: Target will be female, approximately 158 centimeters, Asian features. She will look lost and needy. Touch engages the bomb’s mechanism lodged within target. DO NOT TOUCH TARGET WITH NAKED SKIN.

  Order: Kill. POWs are a NO.

  Method: Killing wound to the head. Killing wound to the heart. Note: Wound to the heart is harder to achieve during combat.

  Follow up: Get the hell out of Dodge. End.

  As he tucked the missive away, another target approached him, holding an infant and begging for aid.

  He cut off its head and stabbed his sword through the chest of the squalling child until it ceased to make noise. More targets dropped from the sky like rain and he methodically slaughtered each one, barely noticing if they turned a translucent turquoise, indicating that
their magical payload had been neutralized, or if their life’s blood poured out at his feet.

  The downpour ceased and the sun peaked around a mountain of frowning storm clouds. To his knees, Fel was submerged in a sea of blood and dismembered limbs. He stumbled through the muck, disoriented as if waking from a dream, and made for a rocky outcropping—an oasis in the slowly rising charnel ocean. He scrambled on top of it, tearing the flesh off his fingertips and palms to achieve the summit. Once there, he heaved onto his back and stared at the now-blazing sun as he caught his breath.

  Waves of flesh and blood lapped at his “island,” and an enormous flock of seagulls hovered greedily over each bountiful crest. One snagged a pink ear, still sporting a diamond stud, and flew into the horizon. Another gull, this one chased by three others, fled the ever-growing flock with a severed hand clutched in its beak. As it dove then climbed, trying to evade its pursuers, Fel’s gaze caught on the intricate design tattooed on the seagull’s bounty: a dragon that breathed fire towards the thumb and wound around the stump of a wrist.

  “No!” he screamed, the echo returning to lash him over and over. He drew up his legs and curled to his side as gut-wrenching sobs overwhelmed him. His cries pained him and he punched the rock he lay on until his knuckles were shredded.

  “Flannacán?” a whiskey-soaked baritone called. “Lieutenant,” the voice tried again. “Grab his feet,” it said and two arms clutched Fel around his chest while his feet and legs were levered into the air by another pair of no-nonsense hands.

  “Come on, buddy. Time to wake up,” the voice insisted.

  Fel struggled and, managing to free one leg, landed a kick to someone’s gut. His bare feet were released and thudded painfully to the bathroom tile.

  “Fuck,” the voice at his feet said, gasping for breath. “Don’t think he’s floating.”

  “What gave him away?” the first voice dead-panned, irritated.

  “Well, he kicked me. You see, undertow can either sink you or you can ride it out. Floaters are usually easier to handle than this guy ’cause they’re feeling the bliss, so he’s definitely gotta be sinking.”

  There was a long moment of frustrated silence.

  “Jesus Christ, when I get my hands on Mario, when I get my fucking hands on that kid…” the first voice muttered angrily to no one in particular.

  Fel chuckled drunkenly, still caught between the two men. “It’s not Mario’s fault Tommy’s dead and you’re stuck with a moron—”

  “Hey!” the second voice objected.

  “No offense—to back you up. It’s yours.” He looked up at the bulky man who held his arms and patted his cheek. “Right, buddy?”

  “Oh ho, he speaks! Haydon, let’s get him to the bed,” the first voice said.

  “Haydon?” Fel said incredulously then giggled which quickly dissolved into hacking coughs.

  The bedsprings squeaked in protest as they levered him onto it.

  Almost immediately, Fel’s breathing became more labored until he began to feel lightheaded from lack of oxygen, a sure sign that his trip was going bad fast. “You wouldn’t happen to have a little air,” he muttered, squinting at the pair then hauling a bit of the filmy curtains out from under him as he turned onto his stomach.

  “The stomach makes the drowning sensation worse,” Haydon chirped direly. “Tell him, Charlie.”

  Charlie helped Fel onto his back and met his annoyed squint with one of his own.

  “I miss Tommy already. Kill this new one,” Fel gasped. “Promise me.”

  “First chance I get,” Charlie said.

  “Air?”

  Charlie sighed and drew a small brown paper bag from his breast pocket. He picked apart the crumpled top and pulled out a small clear substance that looked like a marble shot through with a rebellious ray of the sun and swirling with dust motes. “Say ahhh,” he crooned before dropping the mystical gumball in Fel’s mouth.

  “Suck it, don’t crunch,” said Haydon. “If you crunch, the air hits you too fast and you cramp up.”

  Fel rolled his eyes up to meet Charlie’s long-suffering ones.

  Fel struggled to sit up then bit into the air, his fists clenching against the terrible pressure that constricted his lungs and twirled his brain as if he ascended too quickly. Ignoring the pain that felt like every muscle cramped at once, he inhaled, grateful to be able to breathe again.

  “Also? It totally wipes out any magic you got shooting up,” Haydon said.

  Four

  “Christ Almighty,” Charlie growled. “Haydon, wait outside.”

  Pain lanced down Fel’s spine. He threw back his head and gritted his teeth, the raised veins of his neck a visible blueprint of his distress.

  “Out, Haydon,” Charlie said and waited for the door to click open and closed before laying a compassionate hand on Fel’s shoulder. “Easy, buddy. Breathe through it.”

  “Fuck,” Fel groaned as he crunched on the last bit of air and another burst of pain flared through him. Smoke steamed from his very pores as if the wound the undertow had opened was being cauterized.

  “Jesus, Fel. Why do you put yourself through this?”

  “Why do you?” Fel gasped, groaning as the pain slowly dissipated, leaving him with an artificially cleared head. “Besides, what else have I got to do?”

  “You could not be a whore and an addict, Lieutenant.”

  “And you could not be a pimp, drug dealer and contract killer, Sergeant. We all have our crosses to bear.”

  “Yes sir, thank you, sir.” Charlie saluted before slinging an arm around Fel’s shoulders to help him sit up. “Speaking of fucked-up shit, you, uh, owe us quite a bit of money.”

  Fel swung his legs to the floor, tried to stand up and sat heavily when lingering dizziness overwhelmed him. He held his spinning head with both of his hands and breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. “Delicately put, Sarge. That your usual method of persuasion?”

  “Came up with it special. Just for you.”

  “I’m touched, buddy. Really.”

  “Well, I could’ve broken your legs, but then I thought, what the hell are friends for?”

  “Shall we add repo-man to your list of professional qualifications?” Fel stared at his friend, ignoring for the moment the tortuous subtext of his comment.

  “Let’s.”

  Charlie had been a great human in his day. A warrior, an intellectual and King of the Franks. Unfortunately, being a great king didn’t leave room to be a good husband and, after he’d saved his first wife’s soul—bargained to win his love—he dumped her.

  The Gremory demon she sent after him made the concept of a scorned woman seem downright nurturing, and to get it off his tail he’d turned the Gremory over to an eager bounty hunter offering immortality as a reward and walked away scot-free. That was until the Gremory, stripped of her powers but still immortal and so fucking pissed even Mepho gave her a wide berth, came gunning for Charlie.

  A thousand years later they were still at it: the demon would manipulate, con or out-and-out force the most honorable human Fel knew into perpetrating acts of sordid mayhem, and Charlie would return the favor by revealing her existence to the living souls she’d damned trying to buy her way back into Hell. One guy was a serial killer with a deep-freezer just waiting to be filled.

  “Just fuck already,” Fel had advised a few centuries ago, which they had ad nauseam with no appreciable effect.

  These days, due to a bizarre set of coincidences and favors owed, Gemma, the Gremory, was Charlie’s boss and Charlie, Charles the Great, was a lowlife, which meant that Gemma was in hog heaven.

  “How’d we get here, Charlie?”

  “K'Davrah, buddy.” Charlie got up, went to Fel’s decanters, used a bit of the cheap vodka to clean out a chipped coffee mug and poured a measure of Scotch. He sipped it slowly, his startling hazel eyes closing gratefully. He took another sip and ran a tired hand over his blond buzz cut. “So, you got the money or what?”

>   “What.”

  “Look, man, I been sticking my neck out for you, but I can’t keep doing it. Gemma…she’s got me by the short ones this time.”

  Fel snorted. “You always say that. Pour me some of that, will you?”

  Charlie pulled open a couple of drawers and found a dusty shot glass snuggled amidst dress socks. He wiped it with a finger, filled it with Scotch and handed it to Fel, who’d put a couple of pillows against the headboard to support his back.

  “It’s different this time.”

  “If you say so,” Fel said, taking a healthy gulp. “Oh, that’s good.”

  “Gemma’s got something going on, I’m telling you.” Charlie filled his mug again and eased onto the ugly green sofa, stretching his long legs and crossing them at the ankle. “Calling in all outstanding miscellus debt. Humans get a pass, but everyone else…something’s seriously up. Can’t cover for you anymore.”

  “That’s really unfortunate.”

  “Tell me about it. So, you got any prospects?”

  Fel thought of Dragon, the way she’d willingly suffered her boyfriend’s clumsy and self-serving touch then later, with him, fled her own pleasure guiltily. He closed his eyes and sank into the memory of her smell, citrus and clean like barely opened freesia, and her taste, tart at first like star apples then morphing to frothy sugar like ripe, sweet sap, surpassing even the magical high he got shooting undertow. “Nothing promising.”

  “Liar.” Charlie sighed a bit of a laugh.

  “She doesn’t have any real money.”

  “You got talent, buddy; get blood out of a turnip when you put your mind to it.”

  “Fuck you, man.”

  “Fuck me? All right, fine.” Charlie shifted to get more comfortable and took another sip of his excellent Scotch. “Tell me about Miss No Money.”

  “Nothing to tell.” Fel wasn’t about to reveal to anyone that just having Dragon in his arms had generated a longing for home so profound, he’d given his first-ever free consultation. He wasn’t about to reveal that he’d been so grateful for her touch, like the first glimpse of fae he’d had since the war, that he’d begged a human to allow him to please her (they always pleaded with him); that he’d been near desperate for her to stay another hour, the night, the weekend, forever; give him a few lousy minutes to lose himself inside her heat, then a few more to watch her explode one more time.