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

by CK Dawn

  “The dreams,” he said calmly, “they aren’t just dreams.”

  I swallowed in anticipation for the answer that I was going to get.

  “They are dreams of your past lives.”

  I gasped at his revelation. It took me completely by surprise. The dreams were vivid, but I could never imagine that they were me reliving my past lives in my sleep. His explanation made sense, but it was so far-fetched.

  “I used to be these people?” I needed more explanation, “Like reincarnation?” I asked.

  He gave me a firm nod.

  “So if that is true,” I said slowly. “Then how come that guy tried to kill me? And how come I dreamed about you? Did we know each other in the past?”

  “Yes, many times over.” He made a nervous gesture with his hands, “when I passed you on the sidewalk that day. I knew exactly who you were, but I couldn’t show it.”

  “And then guy in the alley? I think you called him Jonah? Or the guys with my picture at school today?”

  “They were trackers,” he frowned, “they want to keep people from understanding what is really going on in the world. And they could be either good or evil, who knows,” he shook his head, “they just don’t want the other side to get more soldiers in the end.”

  “What is going on in the world?” I asked him genuinely confused, “good and evil, soldiers?”

  “We live the same lives over and over again with the same outcome every time.”

  “And the good and evil, part?”

  “The proverbial battle against good and evil,” he frowned, “and the trackers keep people quiet about everything.”

  I nodded in understanding. The dreams were showing me what had happened in lives that my soul had lived in the past. Soul? I wondered to myself. “Like our souls, keep being reborn or something and we always do the same thing.” I asked clarification.

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “So,” I thought out loud, “the million dollar question is: how are we aware of all of this now?”

  “I’m not sure,” he frowned, “Dr. Griffin was trying to help me figure it out while protecting me from the trackers.”

  “So tell me why she treated me like I was stupid?” I asked bluntly.

  “When you appeared in her office she was able to put together that you were aware as well but that you weren’t exactly aware of what was going on. So since our past lives were entwined we decided to see if we could protect you.”

  “By making me feel crazy?” I didn’t even try to hide the anger that I felt.

  “I’m sorry, I guess that was the result.”

  “How did you become so aware?”

  “I did a lot of research, apparently they weren’t able to hide everything people had written about being reborn in the past.”

  Like Katherine Martin, I thought to myself.

  “What about Dr. Griffin?”

  “She used to be a tracker.”

  I gasped.

  “Many years ago she became sympathetic to what they were doing and started hiding people who had become aware of the truth behind reincarnation and the human soul.”

  “So what is the truth exactly?” I asked him more calmly than any of my other questions had been asked.

  “Essentially from what Dr. Griffin taught me. I learned we live the exact same lives over and over. Have the same families, the same type of job, make the mistakes and even have the same lovers.” He looked out the window avoiding my curious gaze at the last statement, “the only things that change are technology and places.”

  “Okay, I get that.”

  “Sometimes though something changes in life and they become aware and realize that they have done it all before. They start having visions or in our cases dreams of what the past was.”

  “You had the same dreams I had?”

  “Some, but they were different from what you described. Different points of view and stuff like that.”

  “Right,” I agreed with him, “so why did that guy Jonah try to kill me?”

  “He wanted to kill your soul,” he paused, “for good. And it was his job to keep you quiet.”

  “What?” I asked my mouth wide open. Everything he said to clarify things only made me more confused, “but wouldn’t I only be reborn at some point and start over again.”

  “No, his knife and the incantamentium he was saying would have permanently sealed your soul.”

  “The what?’

  “Incantation or spell,” he explained, “if he would have finished and stabbed you.” He swallowed, “you would have ceased to exist.”

  “Wow,” and then it dawned on me, “so is that what you did to him.”

  “Yes,” he said with his jaw clenched.

  I gave him a horrified look.

  “It had to be done. He would have continued to come for you.”

  “Where did he go?” I asked.

  “I really don’t know,” he pursed his lips in thought, “it was as simple as him or us,” he said resolutely.

  I massaged my temples and stared at the table, “this is all so weird for me.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed, “but you can’t turn back now.”

  “Why not?” I asked, “how do I get them to leave me alone.”

  He looked thoughtful.

  “Seriously,” I continued my face red, “there were guys at my school and well they don’t seem to be chasing you.”

  He shook his head, “they were at my school this morning,” he explained, “but I learned early on how to make them disappear. I don’t bother them and they don’t bother me. They must have been at my school to get to you.”

  I sighed, how would Liam’s reply help me get these people to leave me alone? The guy may be super good looking, but his responses were annoying as hell. He didn’t explain much. My past lives were into his crap?

  “So let me get this straight. Everyone is continuously reincarnated and pretty much live the same lives over and over again. And then sometimes something screws it all up and we can become aware of all of this soul reincarnation stuff and fate gets all twisted up.”

  He responded with a curt nod.

  “And then these guys who could be either good or evil hunt you down and kill your soul because they don’t want you to tell anyone else and really the biggest reason is that they don’t want the other side to get more people.”

  “That pretty much sums it up,” he agreed while he massaged his temple.

  His head hurt? Mine was about to explode.

  “And you have pretty much kept them away from you by killing the ones that have come after you?”

  “Right.”

  “So show me how,” I pursed my lips together and stared out of the window facing the backyard that I played in when I was a small child. My focus was on a blue bird sitting on the old wooden jungle gym that had been in the same spot since Jack was able to climb. The paint was old and faded and I was surprised it had lasted so many years.

  “Okay,” he responded quietly. I sharply turned my head toward him and waited for him to say more when his cell phone alerted him to a message.

  He frowned as he read the message.

  “Turn on the news,” he said.

  Seven

  I turned on the TV in the adjacent living room to the local news and gasped immediately when I saw my school yearbook photograph next to a similar picture of Liam. The caption under the photo simply said wanted for questioning.

  “The HPD is currently seeking Amelia Fitzgerald and Liam Kingsbury for questioning in the disappearance of a Houston man last week.” The reporter on screen said and a photo of Jonah replaces the two of ours on the screen.

  “Oh my god,” was the only thing that would come out of my mouth as my hands came up to cover it.

  I turned to check his response, but he had his cellphone back out trying to make a call.

  “Did you see it?” He was asking whoever was on the other end of the phone.

  He paused to listen to their r
esponse to the news story.

  “Yeah, okay,” he frowned, “she is with me,” another frown.

  Another pause.

  “We will be there,” he finished and ended the call.

  I looked at him expectantly and waited for him to say something while my stomach turned somersaults.

  “Do you think you can grab a bag of clothes quickly?”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Dr. Griffin’s home,” he answered scrolling on his phone.

  “I need to let my brother know.”

  “You can’t,” he said sternly, it’s too much trouble, “the doctor is going to figure out who is pulling the strings, so we can rid of the police threat.”

  I nod, but we are interrupted by the sound of my cellphone screeching a loud heavy metal song through the air. “It’s my brother,” I explain, he hated the song so I had set it has his alert tone.

  “Leave it,” he says simply, “he is safer not knowing. Besides they can track us through the phones.”

  “What about yours?” I questioned his logic.

  “I’ll give it to the doctor.” He answered seeming unbothered by my question.

  “Fine,” I frowned and placed my now silent phone on the bar separating the kitchen from the living room.

  “Get a bag,” he instructed more gravely than before, “don’t leave a note or anything that could tip anyone off.” He explained looking out into space with his eyebrows drawn as if this was something he had experienced before.

  I left him in the living room while I went up the stairs to get extra clothing for myself so that we could go into hiding. In my room, I closed the door softly behind me causing it to make a soft clicking sound.

  I glanced around the room at the endless photos and mementos scattered across the different surfaces. The photo of Arianna and I starting kindergarten, my mother and I with our old dog Mouse, who had unfortunately gotten ran over by car shortly after my parent’s accident, and then the photo of my father and I ready to go to my sixth-grade dance. I looked so proud in the photo with my normally curly blonde hair straightened for the occasion and my dad with a million dollar smile on his face while he stood with his arm draped across my shoulders. Too many memories were coming back as I looked at each and every happy memory I had told in pictures around me. The paint my mother and I picked out before she passed. The knick knacks my father had brought back from his many business trips.

  I caught my breath and blinked back tears. It felt as if everything was changing. Determined not to cry, I decided that I would save that for when everything went back to normal and I was sleeping in my bed again. Whatever normal for me was now?

  We just needed to get all of this mess cleared up.

  “It’ll be okay,” I whispered to myself as if I was trying to make myself believe it. With a huff I lifted my heavy backpack and dumped the contents onto my huge four poster bed with its lavender blankets in the center of my room, “this will all get cleaned up and I’ll be back in no time.”

  I packed essential clothes into my bag that should last for a week along with my journals that Dr. Griffin had told me to keep. All three of them, with hope that something I had written down would help.

  With one last glance around the room my eyes rested on Teddy the ragged stuffed brown bear that rested on my pillows. Jack had given him to me when my parents had brought me home from the hospital. I went to pick him up to stuff into my bag, but thought better of it. It was my way of leaving Jack a sign that I would be back.

  “Don’t leave your stuffed bear on account of me,” Liam’s voice caused my heart to jump.

  “I was just looking at it,” I explained, “besides it would probably fall apart if I took it anywhere.” It wasn’t far from the truth my mom had had to sew it back together several times when I was a kid. There was even an incident a year ago where I had haphazardly sewed Teddy’s leg back on when Arianna and I had snuck strawberry wine coolers. Some spilled on him, and his leg had fell off in the wash.

  That was an odd time for me because it was right around the one-year anniversary of my parent’s deaths. Alcohol was what I had used to numb the pain and distract myself from the dreams. Arianna, who was “naïve” to everything, was a willing participant. She had thought it would make us seem cool.

  I turned to look at him, “another thing please knock when you enter a room in someone’s home.”

  “Sorry,” he said and raised his hands up in front of him in a defensive manner.

  With a roll of my eyes I brushed my hand over the bear one last time and started to finish stuffing my thing into my backpack.

  “What are these?” he asked and I looked over at him holding one of my journals that had slipped out onto my bed.

  “My journals that the doctor had me keep,” I told him with a shrug, maybe there is something I missed in them when I was writing them that could help.”

  He then started flipping through the one he held and started reading. When I realized that he was actually reading I grabbed it from his hands, and turned my now red cheeks away from him and put it in my bag. There was really no telling what I had written on that page. It could have been about our past lives together. Or even something personal, Dr. Griffin was the only one I would allow to see them. I could just imagine things between us getting way more awkward than they already were.

  He didn’t seem put out by my abruptly taking the journal away, maybe he understood what personal meant.

  “Why are you bringing hair dye?” He asked holding up a box of blonde dye.

  “Oh, that’s my natural color,” I informed him, “I had plans to use it soon, so why not sooner.”

  He just stared at me.

  “Besides it can only help,” I held my arms out in exasperation and shrugged, “the only current pictures they have of me have this color,” I told him and twirled a strand of long red hair out in front of me, “the will be looking for red hair not blonde,”

  “Oh, right,” he said and understanding reached his green eyes and for once he seemed like a clueless teenage boy and not someone with knowledge I didn’t understand. Which had seemed to be the standard since we met.

  After the backpack had been filled until it was bursting at its seams and closed, Liam followed me back downstairs into the kitchen. I opened the pantry door and out from nowhere came Jules our twenty-five pound grey tabby. Liam seemed to jump in surprise at her arrival, but hid it quickly.

  “She’s hungry,” I explained rubbing her back while she started to eat the food I had sat out for her. “Jules, usually sleeps in the family room when I’m not here, and I usually get her to come out with food.”

  He just nodded and reached out to pet the purring cat himself.

  After making sure Jules was taken care of until Jack made it home I finally turned to Liam, “I’m ready.”

  “Let’s go meet Dr. Griffin,” he said as I hefted the overweight backpack onto my back.

  “Does she live close?”

  “No back in the city,” he informed me and I followed him back out to the motorcycle.

  “What’s going to happen?” I asked him before he could get on.

  “We just have to speak to the doctor,” he said softly, “and see what she says about the situation.”

  I gave him a nod and glanced around my quiet neighborhood and gave an awkward wave to my neighbor who was checking the mail. “Now this is going to be awkward,” I mumble to Liam, as Mr. Henderson my neighbor half-heartedly waves back with an odd expression on his face and I watch as he flees into his house not bothering to hide the cellphone already to his ear.

  “We better get out of here,” Liam told me as we see Mr. Henderson’s door shut.

  “Yeah.”

  Liam smoothly gets on the motorcycle and waits for me as I awkwardly tried to mount it with my overweight backpack hindering my movements. He gave me a chuckle when I finally get on and I gave his arm a smack as I settle and he takes off on the bike.

  As we pull aw
ay from the house, a black SUV pulls up with two men in the front. It’s the men from school.

  “Go,” I frantically shout over the sound of the motorcycle as they turn around in my driveway to follow us, “Go, that’s them.”

  Liam doesn’t think twice and guns the motorcycle and starts breaking every law that he can on the slow residential streets.

  Several times I glanced behind us to see if the trackers are still behind us. I never see them after we leave the house. We are flying down the streets and I do not dare try to look at the odometer to see how fast we are going. My stomach felt as if it were in my throat and knowing exactly how fast we were going would just make it worse. Liam seems prepared though and soon we are on the freeway and barreling into the city and Liam is weaving in and out of traffic and I am sure the SUV is no longer behind us. I am relieved that the threat is behind us for now and that hopefully Dr. Griffin and can fix this and we can go back to our lives.

  To myself I make a resolution to never mention the battle between good and evil or anything about reincarnation. No one will ever know that I know a thing. Liam continues to help us get away from the by going down side streets so that there would be no way the men could keep up with us.

  Liam pulls into a parking garage surrounded by townhouses and is waved through by a parking attendant. When he finally parks in a space marked for home sixteen, I feel as if the adrenaline has my heart at heart attack levels.

  He is able to slip off the motorcycle without me moving and proceeds to help me off. “Give me your bag,” he told me, “it’s heavy and I can tell that you’re barely going to be able to walk again,” I just gave him a dumb stare until he reached for the backpack. I didn’t even object when he took it the damn bag did weigh a ton.

  “That’s her car, isn’t it?” I asked him nodding to the other parking spot for sixteen which was occupied by the same grey Mercedes sedan I watched her get into prior to the confrontation with Jonah.

  “Yeah,” he said and I followed him out onto a back sidewalk.

  He knew an awful lot about Dr. Griffin, I thought it was strange that he was waved right into her building’s parking garage and knew where she lived. But I decided to let my curiosity go for now and followed behind him.