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

by CK Dawn

  Diving over the surf, she plunged into the water, propelling herself through the water with strong, smooth strokes.

  It only took her a few moments to reach the bobbing figure. She surfaced, taking a big gulp of air. A man, in a red wetsuit. That’s what had caught her eye. He was lean, which meant he wasn’t very buoyant—especially if there wasn’t any air left in his lungs. His body was mostly submerged, only emerging every few seconds. She flipped him over before wrapping one arm under his shoulder and around his chest and made for shore.

  Only then did she realize how tired she was. She was already exhausted from the magic on the beach, and then this. The water spirits were in no mood to aid her, and only grudgingly allowed her to reach the shore.

  She reached the beach, staggering to her feet as she dragged the man out of the water. Everything ached, and her legs were wobbly, threatening to completely give out on her.

  In the distance, she could hear ambulance sirens. This man couldn’t afford for her to wait, though. He wasn’t breathing, and she didn’t know how long it had been.

  She turned his head to the side, placed a hand on his chest, and closed her eyes. The water spirits in his lungs and stomach were angry at the disturbance. She released a bit of her power, opening up a way for them to come out.

  Spirits were lazy, and like all magic, they followed the path of least resistance. She needed that path to be her.

  “Come on you little buggers, come out.” She released a little more power, widening the path.

  His body suddenly began to buzz as her magic opened up, and a wall of power struck her. She cried out as she the force of it flung her back.

  The man began to cough. Water poured from his nose and mouth, the spirits running down the beach and join the rest of their kind.

  What the hell was that?

  Of all the spirits, she liked water the most. They were predictable and often fun to play with, but this… this was weird. The odd buzzing had caught her off guard. The dissonance felt like a wall of static jarring her to the bone. No matter how angry the spirits, nothing like that had ever happened to her before.

  She hadn’t seen something truly new in a long, long time, and now her curiosity was well and truly piqued.

  The man rolled over, putting his hands beneath him as he tried to struggle upright.

  The odd buzzing was gone now, fading until Caitlin felt normal again. Maybe the weird feedback had been caused by the tsunami, somehow. She knew the wave hadn’t been natural. It would have spread out along the coast, but as far as she could tell, it was local to the beach.

  The man was too weak to get up. Caitlin reached out to help him up, hesitating for a moment before touching him. Nothing happened. She helped him into a sitting position.

  “Are you all right?”

  It seemed like a stupid, useless question when the guy had just drowned, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  He looked up at her, brown eyes wide with shock.

  “It’s okay, you’re okay,” she reassured him.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but whatever he meant to say was lost as he bent over, another gout of water gushing from his mouth.

  She sat back on her heels and patted his back. He was a little older than she first thought. She was terrible at judging age on humans, especially with the variation in skin tone.

  Her best guess was that he was closer to thirty than twenty. His skin had that deep tan from a lifetime in the sun, but not too weathered. His hair was black, turning to a sun-faded brown near the top.

  “Thank you,” he said when he could speak again. He wiped his mouth with the back of her hand. “Really.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I’m just glad I saw you. You must have been pulled in by the tsunami—”

  “Tsunami?” He looked at her blankly.

  Caitlin cursed herself silently. He probably didn’t even know what had happened, and here she was mentioning it offhandedly. He might have had friends or family on the beach.

  “Where am I?” he asked, scanning the beach with a dazed expression.

  “Don’t you remember? You were floating face down in the water. Did you hit your head on anything?”

  “I was…” he trailed off, seeming to forget what he was going to say.

  He was wearing a wet suit—or at least, it looked like one, but the material wasn’t quite right. A surfer, maybe. He must have been far enough out for the tidal wave to pull him in. That was enough to sink even a strong swimmer, and he was built like one. Lean muscle, the kind that comes from using your body, rather than the sort made in a gym.

  “Come on,” she said to him. “Let me check you out.”

  Did she really speak those words out loud?

  “I mean… let’s get you checked out by a doctor.” Idiot. “Uh, were you at the beach with anyone?”

  Fortunately, he seemed too dazed to notice her faux pau. “I don’t—I don’t think so.”

  “Oh my god, it really is her!” a woman squealed from several feet away. Caitlin glanced up to see several people lingering nearby in a none-too-subtle sort of way.

  One of them pointed, whispering to his friends. “It had to be her, dude. It was magic.”

  Well, damn. So much for breaking it easy to her parents.

  She patted the shoulder of the guy kneeling beside her. “Come on.”

  She tucked herself under his arm and helped him to his feet, trying not to make eye-contact with anyone else.

  There was no helping it now. One guy let out a loud whoop and started clapping. “Yeah!”

  The rest of the crowd started clapping too, almost drowning out the continuous stream of ‘thank you’ and ‘you saved my life’.

  How was someone supposed to be graceful, under the circumstances? Should she bow? Blow kisses? Any acknowledgment seemed so attention-whorey, so she made do with a few nods and a smile here or there.

  Attention wasn’t something she minded, usually, but this was different. She shouldn’t be thanked for something that everyone on the beach would have done if they’d been able to. She was just the only one with the power to make it happen.

  Her discomfort didn’t stop her from thinking again about the feedback she’d felt when she touched the man slung over her shoulder. Part of her wanted it to happen again, just so she could pay better attention.

  Finding something unexpected within the realm of magic was incredibly rare, and it excited her. She’d have to stick with him for a few hours and see if she could figure out what was going on.

  They made their way across the beach to the sea wall stairs that led up to where her car was parked. Their appreciative audience followed her, while she chanted her don’t trip, don’t trip mantra in her head. And while she was at it… what the hell was stuck in the waistband of her bikini?

  Was that sea moss?

  A clump of little green strings peeked out from beneath the waistband like she was some sea sprite badly in need of a bikini wax.

  Poseidon. Please don’t let there be video of this.

  Turning toward the man she was helping, she used him a shield while she picked the moss out of her waistband and dropped it to the ground just as they reached the sea wall.

  As if on cue, a guy darted up the stairs past her, and then stood at the top of the stairs, staring silently at her in that weird, distant way people did while filming with their link. Not pointed at her bikini bottom, thankfully, but it was a nice, full-on shot of her face—and probably uploaded directly to a live stream.

  She’d have a million hysterical messages from her parents by the time she got to the hotel.

  Fantastic.

  Wash stumbled along, leaning on the woman who had pulled him out of the water. She was slight and shorter than him, but she was strong.

  By the time they reached the middle of the stairs, his legs and lungs were burning from the exertion of walking through wet sand—and that was on top of whatever the hell had just happened to him.

&nb
sp; He rubbed his face with his free hand, trying to jog his memory. There was a lot of water, and before that was kind of fuzzy and indistinct. The ache behind his left eye pounded, sending flashes of pain and a burning sensation through his head with every step.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. He must’ve groaned out loud and hadn’t realized it.

  He coughed, and his lungs burned. “Yeah, I just… I must’ve hit my head or something, it feels like a box of rocks rolling downhill.”

  “I don’t see any bruises or cuts,” she said, craning her neck to look up at him. As she tilted her head, her wet hair shifted, and he saw her ear.

  She was an elf.

  That made perfect sense, because she was gorgeous. The sort of woman you’d dream of rescuing from the ocean… except with him, it had been the other way around. He couldn’t say he minded all that much.

  “Might be the oxygen deprivation. You weren’t breathing for a while before I pulled you out.”

  “Thank you again,” he said.

  She ducked her head in an awkward gesture. “Don’t mention it.”

  She’d said something about a tsunami. That didn’t sound right. He was pretty sure the people on the beach would have looked a lot more dead, had that been the case.

  There was a lot of debris on the beach, though. Fresh seaweed lay piled against the base of the sea wall, and the wall itself was wet.

  He tried to think of his last memory. It certainly wasn’t a sunny beach. Maybe he’d made a trip to Virginia Beach? That didn’t sound right, and this beach didn’t feel like Virginia.

  He must have hit his head, and pretty hard at that. Reaching up, he ran the fingers of his free hand through his hair, looking for sore spots, but found nothing.

  Grasping the stair rail, he tried to find his balance.

  “I think I can walk.”

  “You sure?”

  Hell, no, he wasn’t sure. He wouldn’t mind her staying tucked under his arm for a while, but he knew he must be heavy, no matter how strong she was for her size.

  She ducked out from under his arm, keeping one hand on his back to steady him.

  “My car is right there,” she said, pointing.

  “The white one?” White was being generous. It looked more like gray, with a couple of dents in the door.

  “No, the one beside it.”

  He blinked. The car she was pointing at was expensive. Not, I’ve really gotta save up for a while expensive, but a poster on your wall expensive. An Aston Martin, to be precise. The wing on the hatch was very distinctive.

  He stammered, searching for something to say before lamely spitting out: “Wow.”

  “One of the perks of my job,” she said, not seeming to notice what a complete and total moron she was helping.

  “You guys hiring?” he asked, just making it worse.

  She laughed, and that made it worth it. It was a good sound, seeming almost to have a melody to it.

  “You wait here. I’m gonna bring the car to you, okay?”

  “I can walk—”

  She raised a finger at him. “Recently drowned people don’t get to make decisions.”

  “I guess I missed that rule.”

  “Stay here.”

  No arguing with her, clearly—and he didn’t regret it as he watched her walk away from him.

  He’d heard most elves were beautiful, but he’d never met one in the tiny town he was from. If the rest were like her, he decided none of the stories quite lived up to the mark.

  Her skin was a deep golden olive, and she had long black hair. It was wet and stringy from the salt water, but that just added to the whole effect. Gorgeous face, gorgeous… everything.

  Maybe he hit his head really, really hard and this was some kind of oxygen-deprived hallucination as he drowned.

  “Open the hatch,” he heard her say as she crossed the lot. Not to him, but to her car. The car’s computer obeyed, and the hatch glided open.

  She reached in and pulled a shirt out, slipping it over her head—sadly—before she got into the driver’s seat. The car’s lights flashed as the electric motor hummed quietly to life.

  Pulling out of her parking spot, she brought the car up alongside him and jumped out.

  At first, he thought she meant for him to drive, which would have clinched the whole hallucination theory. Then, he realized she was going to help him around to the passenger side.

  “I can walk, really—”

  “Open the passenger door,” she told the car. And then, to him: “Recently drowned—”

  “Right, right.” He grinned at her. The pain in his head spiked as his eyes caught a flash of sunlight glinting off one of her mirrors, and he momentarily forgot whatever it was he meant to say. Probably for the best.

  By the time his vision cleared, she’d maneuvered him into the car and slipped back into the driver’s seat. The interior of the car matched the exterior. Hand-stitched leather, chrome, and expensive wood covered every surface. Meanwhile, they were both wet and salty. This was going to totally ruin the leather, but she didn’t seem concerned.

  A whole lot of people had followed them up the sea wall stairs. He hadn’t noticed them before, but they were all looking in his direction. Well, probably her direction. A few of them were pointing at the hot girl in the hot car.

  She waved out the window, and then pulled away from the curb. They hadn’t gotten far when she found a place to turn off and brought the car to a stop.

  Turning, she pulled a towel and a zippered hoodie out from behind her seat.

  “Here,” she said, handing him the hoodie. “Put this on. You’re shivering.”

  As a matter of fact, he was. He was freezing. He unzipped the hoodie, noticing some foreign script across the back of it.

  Greek, it looked like, but not the sorority kind. There was a whole paragraph of words, with some kind of crest beneath it.

  She let the engine idle as she wrapped the towel around her hair and squeezed the water out before twisting it into a tight braid.

  He tried not to be too obvious as he cast sideways glances at her. Damn. He figured he had ten minutes. Eight to get to the hospital, two to help him to the door and wish him luck before speeding off.

  “So,” she said as she tied off the braid, and Wash had to pretend he hadn’t been looking at her the whole time. “Hospital?”

  From his pounding head to his burning lungs and aching everything, that sounded like a pretty good idea. Maybe a doctor could explain the time loss. What was he doing in the water?

  “First, where am I?” he asked her. He tried to think back before waking up on the beach and… nothing. He knew who he was and everything—no movie amnesia—but he wasn’t sure how he’d ended up here. Or even where here was.

  “I’m not sure what the locals call the beach. My concierge told me it was private and spectacular, and he was right on both counts.” Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully at him. Reaching over, she ran her slender fingers through his hair, sending prickles of goosebumps up his arms.

  Her fingers brushed across a tender spot he hadn’t found in his own quick examination, and pain lanced through his eye.

  “That’s a pretty good bump you have, there. Definitely hospital.”

  In a matter of minutes, she had the car on the coast highway heading west away from the beach. On the one side, the vast blue ocean stretched out looking unperturbed from the tsunami. On the other side, a wall of green trees rose up. The highway itself was only two lanes and well kept. No major potholes and the lanes were recently painted.

  “Are you a diver?” she asked. “That’s a pretty fancy wetsuit just for swimming.”

  Diving.

  Images rushed into his head, seeming to click into place.

  “Yeah, I am. Wow. Phew.” He let out a breath of relief. Memories flooded back. Not everything, but he’d started thinking she was going to tell him it was thirty years later than he thought it was, or something.

  “You didn’t remember that?”<
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  “For a few minutes there, no. My name is Thomas Washington, but my friends call me Wash. This is Puerto Rico, right?”

  She nodded. Good, no thirty-year jump. It wasn’t all back, just little bits, and pieces. He’d been here for a diving job, as crazy as that sounded to him. Who’d hire him for a diving job? The details were all still fuzzy, but he was hopeful they’d come back to him soon.

  She cast him another sideways glance. “You’re looking at me like you’ve never seen an elf before.”

  “Uh—” Well, no. But he couldn’t admit that without sounding like a creeper. “It’s not that. I’m just thrilled to be alive.” He almost thanked her again—wanted to—but he also didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. If only he could get this damn smile off his face.

  Be cool, Wash. Be cool.

  “Well, I’m glad I could help. I’m Caitlin Vnois.” She reached over and shook his hand. Her skin was warm and smooth against his rough hands. She seemed to hold on longer than was normal… but he couldn’t complain.

  What was with him? He couldn’t get it together. He’d just hit his head and almost drowned, but he was pretty sure that didn’t have anything to do with how good it felt whenever she touched him. And not just the usual sort of good he’d expect from a beautiful woman. Maybe it was an elf thing. Magic, or something.

  “Likewise,” he said after an awkward delay. “I mean…” Ugh. “I mean, pleased to meet you.”

  She chuckled. “You too.”

  Damn it, Wash. Stop staring at her. At this point, he was just being weird. Any moment now, he’d start to freak her out, and then he’d be on the side of the highway. He forced himself to look away. There was just something really… nice about looking at her. Like his eyes just wanted to be there.

  Really weird.

  Before he could think of an appropriate response to himself she guided the car around a long corner. Several skyscrapers, thousands of feet tall, floated out over the horizon casting a shadow on the massive city ahead.

  “Something to see isn’t it?” she said.

  “Wait, are they in the water?”

  Now it was her turn to grin, “Ocean Park, it’s the major business attraction to San Juan. Wait, are you not staying in San Juan?” She shook her head. “I’m sorry—I just assumed, but I can take you wherever you want to go. It’s the least I can do.”