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

by CK Dawn

  “Love?” Robynne squinted his eyes in disgust and shoved three cookies in his mouth. “A girl has the rest of the puzzle. You don’t gotta love her. Just find her, get your stuff and leave. Jeez.”

  Just get your stuff and leave, Fel thought, suddenly paralyzed with the realization that the power he lost during the war, the power that had allowed him to survive death over and over despite insurmountable odds, the power he’d tried to reclaim by becoming an addict, the magic he assumed was intrinsically him, now resided in Dragon.

  The war did not obliterate it, he thought as his brain tried to substitute the life of suffering he’d lived these last years with a picture of what it could’ve been. What it should’ve been. The truth of me still exists.

  “How do I get her to give me my pieces?” Fel barked, succumbing to the desperate hope he felt and annoyed that getting information from oracles, even prepubescent ones who picked their noses, was like trying to get your fortune out of a bank: paperwork, bullshit fees with cryptic descriptions and still no sign of your money.

  “Just go fuck Dragon and let’s wrap this shit up,” Charlie said.

  “Is that what I need to do, Robynne?”

  “We watched a reproduction movie during Health last week,” Robynne said pensively. “Put your wee in the hole—seemed pretty simple. I think piecing yourself together is going to be a little more complicated than that.”

  “Jesus, kid,” he ran his fingers through his hair. He could be himself again and this little shit was prevaricating. He could have it all and then some. He could go home, make everyone in the Sun regret that they’d agreed to forget that he existed, make them beg for his favor and kneel at his feet. He could rule his world as soon as Dragon gave him back his shit. Oh God, Dragon.

  “How much more friggin’ complicated?”

  Robynne shrugged, held the bottle of milk to his mouth, chugged it and belched loudly. “Wanna hear me do the alphabet?”

  “No,” Fel said, grabbing the milk and screwing the top on firmly.

  “Let’s hear what the kid’s got,” Charlie said.

  “Some other time, okay, kid?” Fel snatched the bag of cookies out of Robynne’s hand and put it and the milk into the Rooks burlap sack. He dug in his pocket, pulled out a roll of bills, peeled off a few and dropped them in the bag as well. “Better get to work, Robynne. Rapture won’t deliver itself.”

  “Okay,” Robynne stood and cast a disappointed look at Charlie and what promised to be the ultimate belch contest.

  Fel got up and walked the dejected boy to the door.

  “Should I come back later? Maybe you’ll need more news by then,” Robynne said hopefully. “I could try to look closer, get more details.”

  “Better not, kid,” Charlie said rising to administer a few consoling pats on the boy’s shoulder.

  “Charlie’s right, Robynne. You don’t wanna go doing too much too soon.”

  The search for clarity was the Holy Grail to every oracle Fel had ever known. Like finding the Grail, seeing an exact picture of the future was just as impossible. Yet time and time again oracles tried to nail down the ephemeral nature of what was to come and had the wires that helped their brain send messages permanently crossed for their trouble. Fel had seen good men and women reduced to a vegetative state because they’d blown too many synapses peeling away layers, looking for extra space and extending the acceptable boundaries of time. An inch to the left, another to the right and back to the left again. In the end the picture turned out to be even blurrier than it was in the beginning.

  “Let it go, kid. The info you gave me will keep me busy for weeks.”

  “Really?” Robynne’s enormous blue eyes gazed into Fel’s with perfect trust.

  “Sure,” Fel said, averting his face. Dragon’s kindness was more intimacy than he could handle. Taking on Robynne’s innocent offering had Fel’s rusty cup running over.

  He watched Robynne hop on his bike and ride twenty feet before stopping next to the Williams’ picket fence. Carolann, the Williams’s twelve-year-old daughter, added a bag of shredded paper to the recyclables sitting on the curb. Still on his bike, Robynne held on to a plank of the fence to maintain his balance, his feet pedaling aimlessly backward while he tested his preteen game on the red-haired girl who promised to be a beauty.

  “That little girl looks dangerous,” Charlie said from over Fel’s shoulder. “Especially if she smells good. Maybe I should warn the boy.”

  “She probably smells like vanilla wafers.”

  “Kid’s a goner.”

  Fel stepped back into the house. “Drink, Charlie?”

  “What do you think?”

  Nodding, Fel pulled the bottle of faerie wine out of his duffel and held it up to the light. Seeing that only a swallow filled the brown cough syrup bottle, he headed to the kitchen and stomped questioningly on the floor boards next to the sink, then the ones in front of the cold box, smiling when one popped up to reveal three wide-mouthed bottles. He withdrew them, placing each one reverently on the Formica countertop.

  “Carlos and Goat?” Charlie said.

  “Goat before she hooked up with Carlos. She brewed with a couple of her sisters then, not because she had to, but because making merry deserved a proper drink to go with the dance and song.”

  “Shiva wept. Fel that stuff is worth a fortune. You sure you want to open it?”

  “When I am whole—if I’m ever whole again—I will be the most powerful person in the world, which is a power I’ve always had, but never known about or had access to. I want to love a girl, but I’ll probably be dead before I get the chance…” Or maybe she will. Fel closed his eyes. “If not now, when?”

  Charlie grunted and opened a few cabinets, humming with pleasure when he found two pink plastic margarita glasses. A few more opens and slams yielded cans of sardines and a box of unopened water crackers. The bottom half of the cold box boasted a wild tomato plant rooted in the corner (standard issue in most models) and sporting ripe fruit, a hunk of monk cheese covered in blue crust, and a jar of olives.

  “Last Supper is served,” Charlie grinned.

  “Me I get,” Fel said, filling their glasses. “I am fae. My entire being is capable of holding magic, but Dragon…” He picked up his drink and swirled it, watching as the wine of fae sparkled an unfathomable gold. “That much power should’ve killed her already. As it stands, it’s like she’s old parchment: she’s so worn away that if you touch her she’d crumble. Except…”

  “Except?”

  “When she’s with me.”

  “Really?” Charlie raised his eyebrows.

  “I can feel her relief, it’s that profound.” And sexy. Who doesn’t want to believe that their arms offer safety and a break from life’s punishments?

  “Well, now we know why,” Charlie said. “That is, if the kid is right.”

  He’s right, Fel thought grimly, remembering the run-in he and Dragon had had with Haydon. The power she’d loaned him had filled him so easily and had been so achingly familiar.

  “He hasn’t been wrong yet,” Fel muttered, wondering if this “puzzle” was behind her inexplicable appeal, then shrugging the notion off. His need for her hadn’t magically vanished during those brief seconds when he’d probed Haydon. And it wasn’t her scent, which had always reminded him of home, that he’d surrendered to in the moments before. It was her compassion, her strength. She’d seen his desperation, seen him as unmasked as he’d never been before, and had stayed. She could’ve left, his beautiful girl, but she stayed.

  “Okay, so maybe he can tell an accurate fortune and maybe predict the winning horse at the track, but the shit he was talking about sounded real,” Charlie said. “It sounded apocalyptic. It sounded evil. Sure his prophesying chops are up to that?”

  “Who can say for sure?” Fel braced his arms on his knees and met Charlie’s eyes. “But after the war, I felt as if I’d been hollowed out. Never gave it much thought because we were all in such a bad way when we c
ame home, I figured the emptiness was normal.”

  “It was,” Charlie said with a wry smile.

  “Robynne only gave us half the story,” he continued frowning. “We know the what, but not the who or the why.”

  “Two guesses as to who and it rhymes with fun and fade, but the why of it all is a bird of a different feather. What we need,” Charlemagne said, holding out his glass for a refill, “is an authority. Someone who has some real experience with prophecy and soothsaying. Someone who can not only read the old texts, but who wrote them.” Charlie peeled back the lid of a sardine tin and ate a pinch of fish, licking oil from his fingertips.

  “Know anyone like that?”

  Nineteen

  Saras flipped an inch-thick slice of bologna as she hummed the chorus from Perrelli’s version of “My Way.”

  Toast and thick slices of City-distributed cheese were at the ready, as was a full bottle of homemade ketchup.

  “Dragon, get me a sesame tomato from the box.”

  “No,” came Dragon’s muffled response. Sitting at Saras’s kitchen table, her head resting on the cool wood of the antique, she found comfort there. The first bit of relief since she’s woken this morning and lurched to the toilet.

  Saras tsked disapprovingly and opened the cold box.

  “Why’d you let me drink so much?”

  “Baby girl, your boyfriend’s a whore and an addict—recovering,” she revised at Dragon’s middle finger salute. “He’s honorary son to the self-proclaimed leader of all miscellus and the target of a jealous Sun prince. Letting you get your drink on seemed like the thing to do.”

  Dragon agreed with an internal nod. To do so physically would’ve sent her flying to the bathroom again.

  “I should’ve just stuck with Midnight Follies,” she moaned, her head pounding to each syllable.

  “Those Field of Dreams are deceptive,” Saras agreed. “The fresh rose makes you think they’re innocent, even healing, and then the Deviant rum hits you.”

  The scent of frying meat approached Dragon like a punch to the gut and she fought the urge to gag. “Can you please turn that shit off?”

  “Best hangover cure I know. First,” Saras set a glass in front of Dragon, “a hair of the dog protein smoothie.”

  Dragon blinked at the rum and raw egg concoction. “This doesn’t help,” she said, plucking the spring of lavender from the glass.

  “Drink it down,” Saras said, watching as Dragon closed her eyes and pinched her nose before gulping the contents of the glass.

  “Oh my God,” Dragon said, clapping a hand over her mouth. Her stomach boiled and toiled like trouble was imminent and she stood in preparation to resume her porcelain prayers.

  “Then a bit of grease followed by more if symptoms persist.” Saras slid a plate of deep fried bologna in front of Dragon. The oil from the meat had already soaked the bun, turning it an unhealthy gray.

  Dragon’s belly roiled magnificently once more then abruptly calmed like a storm front blown out to sea.

  “Eat,” Saras said.

  “Okay,” Dragon replied, surprised that she had every intention of inhaling the low-class victuals in front of her. She picked up the sandwich and took a huge bite.

  “Good?”

  Dragon hummed between chews. “I have to find Fel,” she said when only a quarter of the sandwich remained. “He needs to know about Críos and I need to—”

  “Orgasm?”

  Dragon glared at Saras, grit her teeth and sighed. “You can’t know what it’s like to feel this,” Dragon searched for the right word, “done. Being with Fel is like coming home after completing a long day of mundane errands—after doing so much good or achieving all the things necessary to making your life run smoothly, the rest of the day is yours and the meal and rice pudding that follow are just desserts. An indulgence to be sure, but a richly deserved reward all the same.

  “If that’s what coming means then yes, I need to find Fel so he can fuck my brains out.”

  “Okay,” Saras turned off the stove, placed the still hot pan in the sink and turned on the cold tap, staring contemplatively at the resulting bubble and hiss. “I feel you, believe me. But if it were me, I’d want a few answers apart from my boyfriend-of-a-couple-weeks’ knowledge.”

  Years of friendship attuned Dragon to Saras’s intentions like they were her own, but she asked anyway. “Meaning?”

  “I made a call,” Saras confessed.

  “To whom exactly?”

  “Um. Well, you know I love you, right?”

  “Shiva goddamn wept, Saras! What the fuck did you do?”

  Knuckles rapped against Saras’s apartment door.

  “I made a call,” she repeated stupidly, plastering a smile on her face which she quickly abandoned at Dragon’s murderous look. “We needed answers.”

  She trotted to her front door, her scarlet kimono billowing behind her, and opened it without peering through the hole to see who stood on the other side.

  Bad sign, Dragon thought to herself. The sentiment was confirmed when the familiar scent of vanilla-spiced honey warmed by human flesh hit Dragon and she raised astonished eyes to her grandmother’s green ones, as hardened by fast living as ever.

  “Hey there, Chicken. How’s your world?”

  The sharp pain of her grandmother’s years-old betrayal scored Dragon like the wound was fresh, and she bit her lip, that pain warring with the tears that threatened and rested her head back on the kitchen table—hiding behind her hangover. “Thought you were dead,” she muttered.

  “No, Wilhelmina. I’m not dead.” Phyllis nodded at Saras and sauntered into the apartment, looking disdainfully at Saras’s Zen-inspired décor. Phyllis’s taste, Dragon remembered, ran towards the saffrons, olives and reds of sunset and the ripe vineyards it gilded.

  Her grandmother pulled out the piece of ultramodern art next to Dragon, settled into it and crossed her legs on top of Saras’s kitchen table.

  Dragon glared at her shoes and closed her eyes as envy cut through her like a dull knife lancing a boil: delicately quilted slingbacks of champagne pigskin mounted on a four-inch heel that flirted with its own platform, and a peep toe that was downright slutty.

  The look she leveled at poor Saras hovering anxiously near the kitchen doorway was so venomous, the six-hundred-year-old goddess actually glanced back at her loft’s front door as if calculating the time it would take to make a dash for safety.

  “You better run,” Dragon growled. She straightened in her chair, keeping her eyes closed until her brain quit bobbing.

  “How’s Jasper?” Phyllis said, her tone a shade too nonchalant.

  Dragon peered at her grandmother like a tortuous fear Dragon was determined to face. “He thinks you’re dead too.”

  “Bullshit,” Phyllis laughed. “That man couldn’t get enough of me. I’m not a woman men forget, little girl.”

  “Fuck you, crow’s feet. And serious sun damage, if I’m not mistaken,” Dragon said, her smile a hate-filled sketch. “Still worshipping in nothing but baby oil? It definitely shows, Phyllis.”

  Her grandmother swung her feet to the floor with an angry thunk and stood, her hand raised for a stunning slap upside the head.

  Dragon jumped to her feet, caught her hand then pushed it and its owner back until Phyllis hitched up against the kitchen wall.

  “You don’t get to talk to me like that,” the older woman ground out.

  “You left me,” Dragon said, using her body to pin her grandmother while her free hand encircled the older woman’s neck.

  “I had my kids. Did my time,” Phyllis squeezed out.

  At that, Dragon abruptly released her. “Very true,” she said, sliding back into her chair. “You didn’t want the kid you had and damn sure didn’t want the kid she had. A few good looks at me had you running scared. Your prerogative.” Dragon shrugged. “You threw away being a parent, which means you threw away any respect that comes with the gig. So fuck you, bitch. Fuck you and the
horse you rode in on,” Dragon finished with another glare in Saras’s direction.

  “We needed answers,” Saras said again, taking a hesitant step into her own kitchen. “I could get them, but having her,” she gestured to Phyllis, “would take less time.”

  “I’m still your blood,” Phyllis said shrilly, increasing the distance between her chair and Dragon’s before easing into it.

  “Phyllis,” Saras said, pinching the bridge between her eyes, “let it go. You were a bitch then and you’re probably a bitch now. That information is simply not relevant to our current situation. Something to wet your whistle?” she inquired politely.

  Phyllis looked at the wine rack that dominated one wall of the connected dining room. Enormous glass doors kept Saras’s precious babies safe, yet visible, and a complex refrigeration system powered partly by rooftop solar panels and partly by a what’s-mine-is-mine charm kept them perfectly chilled, or not, per each varietal’s requirements.

  “It’s barely 10:00 a.m.” Dragon said.

  “And her granddaughter just tried to kill her. She’s due,” Saras said, selecting a brooding Cabernet from the rack.

  Phyllis downed the contents of the balloon-shaped stemware in front of her and nodded for Saras to hit her again. “What is relevant?” she said after three large, careless gulps of what Dragon was sure was a superb red.

  “Well, our Dragon met a guy,” Saras poured herself a coffee and sat at the table. “Not some normal bloke who will fuck her over and then realize after he’s cheated on her a few times that she’s The One. A real loser—a fae reject if you can believe it—and his family’s come ՚round to have a look at her.”

  “So?” Phyllis looked at Saras’s cold box meaningfully. “Anyone else feel a bit peckish?”

  “So, a prince of the Sun has taken an interest and not just for purposes of slumming.” Saras put a box of Fiber Chews cereal in front of Phyllis, who it picked it up with a sneer, then met Saras’s hard eyes, an understanding waving the air between.