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

by CK Dawn

  “I ordered some delivery from that bodega on the corner. Soup and some staples,” Dragon said.

  Fel waited a solid minute before peering around the sail cloth he’d rigged as a shower curtain. He scowled as he met Dragon’s anxious eyes. Her smile was determined even as it wavered and she closed the toilet’s lid and sat on it, crossing her legs as if to prove her commitment to his sobriety, being cheerful in the face of his discouragement, her foolish willingness to stand by him given his nefarious plans for her, or D, all of the above.

  “I’d like some privacy,” he said, ducking back under the spray, hot now. Hot enough, he wondered, to wash the stench of weakness down the drain? Nothing’s that hot.

  “Dr. D. said not to leave you alone.”

  “Fucking Bobby,” he mumbled, leaning his head against the white tiles in front of him. If the doc said that Fel shouldn’t be alone, then he shouldn’t be alone. Bobby wasn’t one to exaggerate a situation. Honest to a fault was Dr. Death. Still, Fel would’ve appreciated some alone time. He’d put a bug in Selena’s ear about Bobby’s drunken pledge to give the good doctor a taste of his own medicine.

  Annoyed at her well-meaning intrusion, and hating that he deserved it, he raked open the shower curtain. “Get your money’s worth,” he muttered to Dragon’s astonished eyes.

  He closed his and went back to his shower, trying to forget that she watched him, that she could see all the flaws undertow highlighted like a fluorescent marker. Even when he felt her standing next to him, he refused to look at the pity that surely must be on her face.

  Instead he felt her fingertips land gently on his shoulder. He cracked one eye just in time to see her bend in front of him and fit the rubber stop in the drain of the large claw-foot tub. She depressed the button that switched between the shower and the tub’s faucets and looked up into his eyes.

  “Sit,” she said and turned to the shelving next to the sink and the dusty bottles that had been there since before he moved in.

  He left her to whatever she planned and eased into the rising water, surprised at how much better it felt than the shower.

  “I have no idea how old this is,” she said, pulling a stopper off a rounded glass bottle. “Or what it is, but it smells good.” She poured a measure of the clear liquid in the tub and smiled as the scent of ivory tea and fresh lime filled the room.

  “If it’s poisonous,” he said, sighing, “I’ll try not to die.”

  “Die if you want to. Just be quiet about it.”

  He smiled and watched as she unearthed a genuine sponge from a grimy cardboard box on that same shelf and put it under the sink tap.

  “You’ll never get that thing to do any work,” he said, swishing his bath so that the hotter water coming from the faucet warmed the cooling water at his back. “Looks like it hasn’t been near water in years. Probably dead.”

  “It’s yawning,” she said, her voice delighted. She held the oblong mass in one hand and used her forefinger to stroke repeatedly over the creature’s nooks and crannies until it shuddered happily. She carried it over to the tub, now filled with fragrant, violet water and dropped it in. Fel heard the thing chortle gleefully before it allowed itself to suck up enough water to sink to the bottom of the tub. Once there it made its way to Fel’s right foot, its many mouths feeding on the calloused bottom with tiny bites that felt like kisses and occasionally tickled.

  “Haven’t had a pedicure in a while.” Fel let his head rest on the terry-cloth rag Dragon used to pad the tub’s edge.

  “Then the sponge should eat good tonight,” she said, shutting off the pipe before dipping another rag into the water, soaping it and running it over his arms and shoulders. She squeezed the excess over his chest, then wet the cloth and started the procedure all over again. At his feet, the sponge surfaced, took a deep breath that sounded like a breeze gusting through a single blade of grass and submerged to curl around his heel again.

  He groaned helplessly when Dragon’s soapy hands finally slid into his hair, the need to remain stoic in the face of such tenderness falling away. “You win, Dragon,” he said, giving in to her ministrations. “God,” he sighed.

  “Have I?” She massaged the base of his skull, his neck and shoulders.

  “How can I misbehave? The shape I’m in, a blind man’d see me coming from a mile out.”

  “Really? ’Cause I’m running blinder than usual.”

  He opened his eyes as her hands came to rest in a fan on his chest. “You and me both,” he said, covering her fingers with his.

  She ran her slick fingertips over the intricate genealogy scaring his chest then over the healed bumps of his knuckles. “Thought you punched a mirror?” she asked.

  “Your kiss made it better,” he flirted automatically, wondering if it actually had.

  Four days ago after the most arousing walk he’d ever taken, and the threats from Jasper and Quill that oddly made him nostalgic for the razor-sharp pathways of the Sun, he’d headed back to the Yorktown and pawed through his dresser drawer, looking for undertow before he remembered he’d taken the last of it that afternoon.

  His shredded knuckles had tingled then, distracting him from the urge to hit the streets and look for an eight-ball to calm his jones. He’d unwound the gauze around his hand, expecting to find that scabs topped his knuckles. Instead, his flesh, as good as new, confounded him. His gut told him that Dragon, the puzzle that surrounded her, her astounding effect on him and yes, even that chaste kiss was behind what amounted to a miracle.

  His fear reasoned that this was nothing more than the lingering effects of Gemma’s trick or the hit he took earlier, anything but the maudlin idea that some chick could make him whole. Not even Tosh had managed that, and before she dumped him, that bitch had sent him soaring. If a fae beauty hadn’t been able to right all his wrongs then surely a human couldn’t…

  He had glanced at his hand again, so seamlessly sewn together the scarification looked brand new, then reached for his little black book, hoping work would obliterate Dragon’s inexplicable appeal.

  No such luck. The one client he’d been able to schedule had requested her usual from him, which beyond all logic, he couldn’t bring himself to provide. A straight sex package with a silk scarf/padded cuffs option was brainless work and when Inez had asked for it, he’d breathed a sigh of relief, knowing he could secure his fee plus a generous tip while operating on automatic pilot.

  But Inez had smelled funny—the same as she always did, but suddenly too pungent, like a straight shot of wasabi. He’d begged off—a migraine, he explained not having to feign the nausea that had knocked him flat.

  He turned his head toward Dragon and buried his nose in the crook of her neck. Her scent was fresh, clean like a lazy, sun-warmed day. It was also strangely complicated, filled with lush valleys, hidden grottos and unexpected stings of ferocity.

  He shifted, sloshing water over the side of the tub, until they faced each other. He met her velvety eyes easily now that his magically-induced inadequacy had been revealed. She hadn’t fled screaming, which was certainly a mark in her favor. He kissed her quickly then, questioningly, holding until her hungry eyes focused on his mouth. Even then, unsure of his welcome, he nuzzled her nose with his to test the waters. Her response, her tongue sliding over his closed mouth, begging for entrance, made his heart pound with steamy want.

  “Love me?” he asked, sucking her tongue into his mouth, trying to incorporate her essence into his chemistry.

  “Well,” she said, pulling away from him then almost helplessly capturing his lips again as if the sight of them, unattended by hers, was too unfortunate to remain unremedied, especially when the fix was so deliciously consuming.

  Finally she eased away from him, but her eyes, Fel noted with a great deal of satisfaction, normally a luxuriant chocolate, had dilated almost entirely black, leaving a ring of color heated to molten copper by her desire. “Um, not exactly,” she said.

  Fel frowned, trying to reference th
at statement. When he did, his heart twisted a little, even though he knew her answer was reasonable given the brief time they’d known each other and the abundance of honesty their relationship had suffered from since the very beginning. His lips kicked up in a wry smile directed at himself. He hadn’t even considered the idea that he might be in love with her. Sure he wanted her. Bad enough to cross Gemma without thinking twice, but was that love? He’d risked his own life time and time again during Pan, had risked his sanity just by agreeing to take part in that war. Was that love?

  “I mean, I want you,” Dragon said, interrupting his thoughts. “More than anything, but love? I’m the last person anyone should look to for a definition of love. Remember?” Her smile was self-deprecating and her eyes, losing their erotic sheen, were sad.

  He nodded both to her question and in agreement with her statement. “The idiot from Junior’s.”

  She grimaced. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think I would mind being in love with you.”

  “No?” He drew her face closer to his and gazed into her eyes. The tenderness was back again, but this time, instead of reminding him of his faults, it forgave him for every one and gladly accepted this version of him not because this stripped-down model was the only choice she had, but because he was the only choice she wanted. It humbled him, having her look at him like that, and made him feel that as long as her eyes lay upon him there was nothing he couldn’t achieve. Worse, it made him want to do nothing to disturb the place from which that look originated. Keep it alive and vibrant as long as he as he was able. Longer.

  Maybe that was love.

  “That’s good to know,” he said gruffly and caught her lips again, pulling her closer and closer until he dragged her over the lip of the tub and on top of him. His hands tore at her sopping clothing, trying to reach her skin with little effect. An unaccustomed fatigue weighted his muscles and stilled his efforts.

  She broke their kiss with a questioning look.

  “As much as I’d like to continue this—I’m actually in no shape to continue this,” he admitted with a shrug.

  “No problem.” She grinned when he raised his eyebrows. “I mean I’m profoundly disappointed of course. In the meantime, I have a very important question to ask you.”

  “Shoot.” He used the toes of his left foot to turn on the hot tap and heat their water. He stirred the water closer to their heads, smiling at the pleasure he got from watching her hair float on the eddy like dark seaweed.

  “What’s a widow lady’s clean house?”

  “Ahh.”

  “And a thousand-petal lotus drop and a fifteen-piece quartet?”

  He laughed self-consciously and ran his hand over his slicked-back hair, in an attempt to move it out of his eyes. “They’re cons.”

  “Oh. Really?” she said, disappointment making her voice lower by a third. “I thought they were—I mean, I knew you were going to use me. In theory. I guess seeing it is a little too real for me.”

  “Good ones,” he qualified quickly. “Actually, most grifters acknowledge that if you have to resort to those cons, the mark is definitely ungettable.”

  “Liar,” she whispered, sliding her arms around his chest and resting her forehead against his tucked chin. “But the extra effort makes me feel all glowy and special.”

  “I was hedging my bets is all,” he said, trying to make his low-down dirtiness seem meaningless.

  “There was a graph predicting probability. A full color graph with pen and ink rendered illustrations.”

  “So I’m organized. Sue me.”

  “The date on the chart is the same day we met.”

  “And optimistic.” He laid a smacking kiss on her forehead and squeezed her until she gave a disgruntled squeak. “We’re halfway there, love. As soon as I get on my feet—”

  The bathroom door exploded, obliterating the rest of Fel’s sentence. Splinters and shards of wood flew at them like they were shot from a sawed-off and Fel, still clutching Dragon, rolled like an alligator until she was under him and the water. He grunted when knife-sharp slivers of wood embedded themselves in his back, and used all of his energy to get to his feet and find a weapon before the smoke cleared.

  The minute he levered himself off of Dragon she sat up, gasping for air.

  He placed his hand on her chest, meeting her terrified eyes briefly before saying, “Trust me.” He didn’t wait for any acknowledgement, just pushed her back down, gritting his teeth as her nails dug into the wrist and arm holding her down. He glanced into her furious eyes, no less angry though they were underwater, and grinned, which only made her madder.

  He looked around for something he could use to defend them and saw his straight-edged razor lying on the sink’s vanity eight feet away. Forgetting for the first time in years that he had no magic, he stretched out his hand and called it to him. The razor didn’t move and the knowledge that his past mistakes had left him powerless and might get them both killed nearly choked him. He looked down into Dragon’s eyes and wasn’t surprised to see that she understood what was happening and what was at stake.

  Her breath held and her face grim, she reached for his hand. He took it without hesitation, looking at her curiously as her grip got tighter and tighter. She jerked on his hand to get his attention and nodded for him to call the razor to him again.

  He did so without second-guessing Dragon’s abilities or the familiar echo of his former power that heated his blood. This time, when he reached for the blade, it responded, the worn grip smacking against his palm just in time for him to throw it at their assailant.

  Haydon twisted to the left and the razor flew past him and embedded itself in the doorjamb. He blinked owlishly at the still-quivering razorblade handle, then pointed at it as if to assure himself of what he saw.

  “Dude, that was seriously close.” He turned to Fel and did a melodramatic double-take. “Man, what ate you and shat you out? Sorry about the door, by the way.” He nodded at the jagged edges of wood.

  Still holding Dragon’s hand, Fel stepped out of tub and dragged her from under the water, ignoring her hacking coughs.

  “You? Gemma sent you?” Fel barked incredulously.

  “Hey! I’ve been working my ass off for her for three years. I deserve a promotion!”

  “That is not why you’re here,” Fel growled, pulling Dragon out of the tub as he reached for Haydon’s neck. He wrapped his fingers around it, applying pressure to the nerves of his spinal cord. The maneuver induced a good deal of pain and not much else, but it came with the element of surprise, which gave Fel time to mark a connect-the-dots path on Haydon’s cheek and forehead with his fingertips—the first stages of an off-the-books fae interrogation technique.

  He glanced back at Dragon, conveying with one hard glance that he expected her to provide power, despite any reluctance she might feel about making a human bleed for information.

  She nodded and closed her eyes, the room’s temperature dropping by thirty degrees before Fel felt the searing jolt her jumpstart gave him. Feeling his old power course through him, Fel easily paralyzed Haydon by sending a hit of arctic magic to the smaller man’s spinal cord.

  Haydon’s eyes blinked rapidly and his breath came out in frosty pants, and unable to help himself, Fel glanced at Dragon over his shoulder. “How are you doing this?” he breathed incredulously.

  She didn’t answer, still locked in whatever process it was that allowed her to rejuvenate his magic. Happy to have this miracle and leave the hows of it unanswered, Fel returned his attention to Haydon’s torture.

  When the lackey’s twitching eyelids slowed their trembling then stayed open, Fel stepped closer and laid the flat of his tongue against Haydon’s twitching left eyeball. He muzzled his revulsion at the salty taste and slick feel of Haydon’s eye and, using Dragon as a lens, eased into Haydon’s psyche, reminding himself to step carefully over psychological barriers like tripwires.

  Unlike the blurry, shadowed images of hospital scans, Fel
’s probe went deeper, querying busy cells like a detective running down the last-seen of a missing kid.

  A cluster of several million cells occupied with ensuring that Hayon’s body sweated when it was supposed to, upon detecting Fel’s presence, turned a disinterested shade of mauve. Long-term memory elected to remain impartially beige, while involuntary movement acknowledged Fel’s presence by dedicating Haydon’s next twitch to him.

  Short-term memory was silent, and Fel zeroed in on that location. Instead of the dense, forest landscape teeming with wildlife he expected to encounter, Fel only saw the crumbling foundations of a recently bombed city.

  He jerked away from Haydon, dropped Dragon’s hand and lurched to the sink to spit. He turned on cold tap, stuck his mouth under the faucet, swished and spit some more.

  “Gemma fucked you more than you’ll ever know,” he said, using a hand towel to blot his mouth.

  At Dragon’s askance look he said, “My boss is a greedy, terminally pissed demon. She’s been fucking that piece of garbage for a while, which would be fine if a bloody ass-reaming was all she was taking from him.”

  “Let me guess,” Dragon said, wringing water out of her dripping T-shirt. “A bloody ass-reaming was the least of what Gemma was taking.”

  “She swallowed his short term memory like it was a row of Tequila shots.”

  Dragon grimaced at the thought. “Which means what for us—you—us?”

  “Us. Definitely us,” Fel confirmed. “It means that she really wants me dead.”

  “Yeah, I sort of got that when the door exploded and belly-button lint over here,” she motioned to Haydon, “threatened us with his—is that a cat-o-nine tails?” Dragon squinted at the leather whip coiled at Haydon’s waist.

  Fel followed her gaze and shook his head at Haydon’s ridiculous affectation. “That Charlie didn’t kill you on sight is a credit to his commitment to democracy.” Fel ignored the confusion wrinkling Dragon’s face and answered her earlier question. “Gemma went to a lot of trouble to send what amounts to a mindless bomb after me.” He smacked Haydon’s cheeks to wake him from the stupor telepathic catechism induced.