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

by CK Dawn

  Same as I ever was, she thought, then quickly revised when she met Sage’s probing eyes reflected next to hers.

  Edvard squealed happily as he removed a bloated tick from Sage’s ear canal, drawing all attention to his station. The monkey plucked the squirming insect—the size of a grape tomato—from his tongue’s beak and stared at it greedily before popping it in his mouth like it was a blood-filled chocolate.

  “Thank God!” Sage sighed in relief, stroking the monkey gratefully. “Who’s a good boy?” he cooed at the monkey. “Who is Daddy’s best little boy? Who fixed Daddy’s ear so good and makes Daddy feel so much better?”

  “Fernando, if you would stop being such an elitist pig—elephant—whatever and give him the time of day,” Mrs. Glassman answered irritably, staring at a handful of her newly clipped hair. “Car, take off another inch. These ends are a disaster.” She turned her attention back to Sage. “He plays for your team, thinks the ears are cute, and is hung like a Shetland pony, but you didn’t hear it from me. What more could you want from a man?”

  “Not a Clydesdale?” Carmen commented wickedly.

  “You want him coming or in the hospital?” Mrs. Glassman said. “All I’m saying is that Fernando’s a nice guy. Short a couple place settings in the upstairs,” she pointed to her temple, “if you get what I’m saying, but still very, very nice. And polite. And can cook a Cornish game hen like nobody’s business.”

  Sage glared at Carmen who cleared her throat and launched into her prepared speech.

  “Mrs. Glassman, I know Sage appreciates your concern, but he’s currently not on the market.”

  Sage’s grateful smile lit up his face.

  “Fine. I won’t utter another word about it,” Mrs. Glassman said. “Except to say that if you’re wasting your time on that muscle-bound ignoramus from the mani-pedi shop down the street, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. That’s it. That’s all, I won’t say another word.” She pretended to turn an imaginary key over her closed mouth and hide it in her cleavage.

  Carmen shook her head at Mrs. Glassman and flashed a commiserating smile at Dragon and Sage before going back to work, her three and half inch stilettos and scissors clicking rhythmically around Mrs. Glassman like an earnest satellite orbiting a contentious planet.

  Dragon blew a kiss to Sage and grinned at Carmen before plugging in her curling iron stove in preparation for the five kinky, black heads and three curly, white heads she had on her schedule today.

  “You still haven’t answered my question,” Carmen said over the whir of the hair dryer she used it to blow away the excess hair off of Mrs. Glassman’s person.

  And I’m not going to, Dragon thought, though if she were in the mood for confession, Carmen would be the member of Elemental that Dragon would confide in.

  A fixture in Halo City’s fashion community, Carmen and her abilities as a hairdresser were legendary. No one knew her age, not even the telepathic miscellus who frequented the salon. Somewhere between fifty and ninety was the general consensus. Immortal and cursed said the conspiracy theorists. Utterly fabulous said everyone who had ever met the barely five foot Puerto Rican woman.

  At Elemental, she was like the celebrated Sun House’s jewels: rare, awe-inspiring and so valuable, one soft-spoken word from her made even the salon’s shadowy owner bend to her will. For Dragon, listening to the stories of Carmen’s life and how she’d overcome so many obstacles was a map for her own with turn-by-turn instructions for avoiding very bad men, sexually transmitted diseases and the worst restaurants in town.

  Dragon had told Carmen about Ryan when they first met, and instead of looking at Dragon like she was a silly teenager making a common mistake, Carmen had styled her hair and wished her well. A bottomless glass of wine and a sympathetic ear had been implicitly offered with every flick of Carmen’s comb.

  Dragon fiddled with her purse, pretending to rifle through it to buy herself time to come up with a decent answer to Carmen’s question. What the hell happened? What hadn’t happened?

  Carmen placed a delicate hand over Dragon’s busy ones, gently stilling them. The jeweled rings on every one of Carmen’s fingers were caught by a few sunrays and Dragon blinked at the winking kaleidoscope the coupling caused.

  Sighing in defeat, she met Carmen’s patient gaze, grimaced a bit and shrugged. “It is what it is.”

  Carmen nodded, pulled Dragon’s face closer to her own so she could buss her forehead and went back to her client.

  “I broke up with him,” she said, looking at Sage in her mirror.

  “Really?” he scratched the tick monk’s wiggling body as it searched for treasure in his other ear. “Edvard baby, do you think Miss Dragon is telling us the truth?”

  “Nope,” Saras answered as she breezed past Dragon to the receptionist’s desk to check her calendar. The twenty or so solid gold bangles on her wrist jingled as she flipped through her schedule’s pages. “I think he broke up with you,” she said, seeming to be preoccupied with her book.

  Dragon lowered her eyes and clenched her jaw to keep her unstable emotions from spilling over. An uncomfortable silence descended, broken only by Carmen’s clipping scissors and the occasional squeak from Edvard.

  “Did he?” Saras asked, suddenly standing next to Dragon, her gaze compassionate.

  Dragon said nothing but slid into the embrace her best friend’s warm brown eyes offered, fitting her head against the shorter woman’s smock-covered shoulder. “I’m not going to cry,” Dragon assured her though her throat closed and tears threatened, embarrassment over this morning’s intervention and fear over her lunchtime bloodlust finally catching up with her.

  “You can if you want to.”

  Dragon pulled away from her and smiled sadly. “I know and that’s what makes you my best friend in the whole wide world.” She turned toward the mirror, checked her hair, the impulse to pull Saras into a quiet corner and tell her everything falling to an inexplicable bit of caution and one last murderous reminder.

  Blood, it whispered hungrily before quiet dominated.

  Ignoring it, Dragon continued. “That and the fact that you squeal like a cat in heat every time I try to dump you.”

  “Does she get on her knees and flip her tail up so you can see her swollen genitals?” Mrs. Glassman asked, trying not to laugh.

  Dragon nodded and dodged Saras as she aimed a slap upside her head. “Every chance she gets. It’s embarrassing, really.”

  “Bitch,” Saras laughed.

  Dragon giggled and ducked and bobbed Saras’s attempts to pinch some sense into her, plowing heavily into Kristi as she pony-walked to the receptionist’s desk.

  “Excuse you,” Kristi said with a huff. She smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from her pinstriped oxford.

  “Sorry,” Dragon said, still smiling from Saras’s teasing.

  “Did you slut your way through another evening? Shocker.” She squinted at Dragon as if she was a parasite Edvard munched on.

  “Kristi-with-an-I, no one was talking to you,” Saras growled, going easily into combat mode. A learned state for her, her divine instinct drawing her towards learning, not violence. An old war injury prevented her from digesting knowledge like intelligence was a savory spice in every dish of a seven course meal, but she compensated by staying in school and racking up PhDs like they were Hummels in an old lady’s curio.

  When Saras lost the last of her powers in a bloody skirmish that took place well after the global ceasefire, it was a then-thirteen-year-old Dragon who taught Saras how to accomplish everyday tasks without magic. How to suffer through a hot shower that used city water instead of the divine water from her choice of dimension-wide springs and mineral pools was a particularly long lesson.

  “Yeah, Kristi-with-an-I, mind your own fucking business,” Dragon said with a laughing sneer. Her giggles erupted again when Edvard tried to mimic Dragon’s sentiments by intoning a few high and low squeaks to approximate her words.

  “Edvard, hush,”
Sage said. “You bad boy.” He kissed the tick monk several times, taking the sting out of the reprimand.

  Nobody liked Kristi-with-an-I. The fact that her handwriting looked like it had been infested with bubbles and that she dotted her I’s with a heart was how she earned her nickname, but was only the tip of the iceberg.

  “You know, Dragon, I’m trying, but an apocalypse could leave the city in ruins and your legs would still be wide open. In other words, your business is out there for all to see.”

  “Oh, honey.” Dragon shook her head at the woman. “That last line took the wind out of the sails of a halfway decent set down.”

  “The problem is,” Saras explained, sounding like an announcer disseminating the behavior of a new species. “Kristi-with-an-I’s mouth runs about three speeds ahead of her brain, so she needs the second comment to help her understand the irony of the first.”

  “Saras, you have to have had sex in the last decade to take part in this conversation.” Kristi-with-an-I ignored Dragon’s angry glare and the finger that dragged an imaginary knife across her throat, and answered the phone. “Thank you for calling Elemental, this is Kristi-with-an—this is Kristi, how may I help you?”

  “Forget her,” Dragon said, wrapping her arms around Saras in a smothering hug. She kissed her friend’s forehead several times in quick succession and stared into Saras’s embarrassed, brown eyes.

  Kristi-with-an-I’s comment had scored a direct hit.

  Even Dragon didn’t know why the goddess had stopped having sex; only that fifteen years ago the slowing trend became more pronounced until it wasn’t just the sex that had stopped. Saras couldn’t recognize genuine interest or flirtation if they came up and tapped her on the shoulder. Worse, she could no longer see her own beauty. A mirror’s opinion would have helped if Saras ever bothered to look in one. The collective view of the salon—Kristi-with-an-I excluded—and anyone who got a gander at the goddess’s flawless copper skin, expressive doe’s eyes, and fertile body didn’t seem to matter.

  Deep down in her toes, Dragon had pitied her. So intrinsic was the instinct to give one’s body and heart, she imagined that Saras soul slowly withered like a dying houseplant.

  Like breathing love was.

  Only recently did she come to understand that there was pity enough to spread between the two of them and that breathing, for all its seeming automation, could be done incorrectly.

  “I’ve been thinking about making a vow,” Dragon said, knowing that her usual response to a failed relationship would make Saras smile.

  The exasperated roll of Saras’s eyes lifted Dragon’s heart. “Tell me.”

  “No more men.”

  The entire salon, including clients reading fashion magazines in the waiting area and the barely human hair washers rinsing out overpriced conditioner, groaned loudly.

  “Ever,” Dragon insisted, daring the salon to roll their eyes or exhibit some other condescending behavior.

  “If you’re going to solemnly swear, then you should do it for real this time. No more putting up your hair dryer and curling irons for collateral,” Kristi-with-an-I said. “It’s totally lame for one—but knowing you and your friends, who could be surprised—and not even remotely binding for another.”

  “You have no idea how much I hate saying this, but I agree with Kristi-with-an-I,” Carmen said.

  Mrs. Glassman patted Carmen’s hand consolingly. “At some time in everyone’s life, we all have to dance with one of the Devil’s slimy, bitchy, damn-near illiterate minions.”

  Sage snorted, placed Edvard on the elaborate cat tree next to his station and waved Mrs. Shelton into his chair.

  “I’ve got the Cliffs of the Bhagavad Gita in my purse,” Old Mr. Jenkins offered from behind an issue of Couture.

  “And I’m a notary. That should be enough to help you keep your word,” Bev said, browsing high-priced shampoos. “And if not, Lady P on 9th can cook up any kind of binding spell you could want. Uh, I’ve got class in an hour. Is Jessie going to be in soon?” she asked, referring to Elemental’s youngest and most pierced stylist.

  “I, Dragon, born Wilhelmina,” Dragon started, forestalling any more comments, “being of sound mind—”

  Throats were cleared from the back of the salon to the front.

  “—and body do solemnly swear to avoid men—”

  Saras coughed like a pack-a-dayer and leveled a hard look at Dragon, who quickly revised.

  “—avoid all sexual contact—”

  “Oh, the inhumanity,” Sage moaned.

  “—all shared sexual contact,” Dragon said, looking at Sage for confirmation, then further amended at his raised eyebrows. “All sexual contact between myself and animated—”

  “Zombies,” Saras reminded her.

  “Right.” Dragon nodded. “Between myself and living, breathing creatures with anima intact who seek to harm me or use my heart and soul, given in good faith, to further their own endeavors or in any way contrary to the reciprocation of true, everlasting love, so help me gods, goddesses, angels or demons of love, family or lust of any pantheon past, now or forever. Amen. Does that cover everything?” she asked the salon.

  After a prolonged silence, heads started to nod followed by a smattering of applause.

  “I promise,” Dragon swore to the only person in the joint who mattered.

  “That’s not what I want for you,” Saras said, laughing.

  “Excuse me. Hello?” a dark, seductive voice said. “I’m looking for Dragon.”

  Seven

  This morning—afternoon actually, Fel was not woken by his alarm clock or the beams of sun that routinely snaked by the incompetent guard of his pull-down shade. He wasn’t even roused by the persistent knock of one of Muhammad's daughters looking for a freebie—a circumstance that he never indulged in and that would have gotten him evicted, crabs and Shiva knew what else.

  This morning an amorphous punch to his gut helped him to welcome the new day. Mafia craft, he’d thought as he clutched his stomach and gasped for breath. It was just a standard collections charm. Nothing special—he was just a junkie dreadfully in arrears after all. He’d cracked open an eye just in time to see the signature of the spell’s initiator puff in front of his face like the exaggerated exhaust of airplane gymnastics.

  Hayden, the disappearing puffs of smoke misspelled jerkily, striking through the last two letters to correct the spelling with a few wispy, red streams.

  “Charlemagne, you fucking pussy,” Fel had yelled into the stale morning air the Plaza’s aging filters generated. Surely the length of their friendship guaranteed that messages, no matter how violent, were delivered lackey-free.

  He slowly got out of bed and was immediately doubled-over by another punch. This one, more seamlessly executed than the first, was clearly inspired by the recent heavyweight champ’s winning round house, had a few primeval top notes, and a long finish.

  “You still hit like a girl,” he said when he’d caught his breath. He waved away a smoky fleur-de-lis—Charlemagne’s signature from the old days—and grabbed his little black book stoically suffering between a new-age bestseller (a gift from a client more fae fan than lover) and Fuck: 1000 Ways to Please Human and Miscellus Lovers (a regular’s to-do list, abandoned when her husband—and his money—left her).

  Charlemagne had been right when he said the shit on the street was, well, shit. Problem was, Fel’s jones wasn’t as discriminating as his palette and the days when Fel could say no to undertow were nothing more than an old postcard reminding him of where he’d been and the good times he’d had while there.

  He flipped through his address book, disregarding the first three dealers on the grounds of quality and the next three on the grounds of price.

  He debated the merits of patronizing a cheap, unreliable dealer with ten percent pure product versus a slightly less cheap, slightly less unreliable dealer with half the quantity and seventeen percent pure product when his he-man doorknocker grunted loudly befo
re lifting his qualifying weight over his head and dropping it with a triumphant bang.

  “No freebies, no discounts!” He shook his head, irritated, and made a mental note to see if he could avoid Muhammad's daughters altogether by conning Doug the elevator operator to bring him clean towels. He knew of an after-hours joint that hosted a mixer for hunters of giant Jacks—information that might tempt the elevator operator.

  His knocker groaned again and he tucked his black book between his mattress and box spring, hauled on a pair of sweats, strode to the front door and snatched it open before the knocker was forced to shoulder its weight again.

  “Gemma,” Fel said pleasantly, trying not to react to the sight of his demon boss masquerading as a petite human wearing an elaborate diamond-studded crown and black nylon track suit.

  “Flannacán. Long time.”

  Fel let his lips curl into an empty smile. “You’re looking good.” He let his eyelids droop and tilted his head a bit to the right so that a few strands of his hair fell about his eyes in a seductive shroud that he’d been told should be patented.

  “Very nice,” Gemma said with a condescending smile. “Didn’t know I was on the clock.”

  “Thought you might appreciate the royal treatment, what with the crown and all.” He nodded at the intricate platinum twigs and vines that rose two feet off her head and teamed with glittering diamonds. An affectation used to remind one and all that though she may be mostly human now, she once ruled in hell, and would again, to hear her tell it.

  “What I would appreciate,” she said, shouldering past him and heading towards the decanters on the bureau, “what I think I deserve is, for once from anyone, a timely payment. Given all I do, all that I sacrifice, I think I’m owed that much.”

  Fel closed his front door and turned to stare at the demon that held just about everything he had, except his soul, in the palm of her hand. She was beautiful, he’d give her that. A glorious amalgamation of the human world’s globalization, her eyes were blue—cobalt really—and tilted up just enough at the outside corners to hint at the exotic without falling into the inconvenient complexity of true culture. Her hair was dark, nearly black and touched her waist in abundant stick-straight strands. Her mouth was rendered in lush, deliberate lines and her overall coloring was a pleasing glossy caramel, only a shade or two lighter than Dragon’s.