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

by CK Dawn

  She ducked into the bathroom and fired up the shower, kicking her sweaty, salt-crusted and sand-filled clothing into a corner. Standing under the hot stream of water, she pressed her forehead against the tiles and tried to figure out what she was going to do about her sister.

  Wash’s mouth watered at the smell of seared steak filling the room. He glanced down at the platter of food, including the extra bowl of strawberries the staff had brought up.

  Despite what Caitlin had said, Wash settled for one of the bottles of local beer chilling in the ice bucket next to a bottle of expensive looking Cabernet.

  He didn’t really know anything about wine. Beer was more his speed, and even that he didn’t drink often. As for the food, it could wait until she could enjoy it with him.

  Beer in hand, he wandered over to the edge of the impressive bed and sat down. He popped the top and took a long pull of the lime-flavored drink. His throat rejoiced at the cold liquid as it swished its way to his stomach. His empty stomach. It growled in protest. He could wait, though. From the sounds coming from the bathroom, she was in the shower and he wasn’t going to be the tool who ate her food without her.

  He’d already been interested in who she was when she pulled him out of the ocean. That curiosity had only increased when they were surrounded by reporters and cameras… and now, he absolutely had to know. Who was this woman?

  Her sister had just been kidnapped, apparently, but she didn’t see the need to call the police. She’d saved his life this morning and then without missing a beat, she’d dragged him into hers.

  Not that he was complaining. He couldn’t help but smile as he took another sip. He was just a diver who’d had the dumb luck to get hit by a tsunami.

  Had he though? He still couldn’t exactly remember. His memories of his flight here had become clear. And he remembered saying goodbye to his mom at the front door…

  Mom.

  He didn’t have a link to check or call. If he did, there would probably be a hundred messages from her.

  All he could hope for was that it hadn’t made it to the news. Wash stood and waved his hand in front of the TV to activate it.

  The huge screen flared to life, treating him to a bird’s-eye view of the tsunami forming. With a flicking motion, he changed the channel. Same thing. And the next, and the next.

  The tsunami was the story on every station that covered current events. He sank to the bed, beer forgotten. His poor mother was probably, at this very moment, frantically dialing his link over and over again, only to be forwarded to voicemail.

  Osiris Corp defended their use of the ‘Tsunami Buster’ technology they developed to keep Ocean Park safe from just these events.

  The words scrolled across the bottom of the screen, in time with the announcer’s dry voice.

  The device came online around eleven AM local time and unleashed a harmonic pulse that, according to them, disrupted the ionic bonds of the water, robbing the wave of its strength.

  Some say the device is nothing more than an experimental weapon. Regardless, it did work, and the only effect Ocean Park experienced from the wave was an extreme high-tide. Local fishing boats are reporting masses of dead sea-life along the weapon’s path.

  He waved the TV off as they started to switch to some kind of celebrity sighting. He couldn’t listen to anymore. His mom was probably in a complete panic. He always returned her calls. She’d be absolutely sure he was dead. Caitlin had said to use the hotel line, but… he couldn’t see an interface anywhere.

  The TV looked pretty high-end, though. That probably meant it had a link built in. He waved the set back on and found the right control. The link interface popped up, and he tapped out his mother’s number.

  He spent the next ten minutes reassuring her that he really was okay, and by okay he meant actually physically well, rather than “will probably recover” because she still remembered that one time at swim practice fifteen years ago…

  “Mom, you get some rest, okay?” Wash was grinning at the link interface, even though she had the video off on her end. She only did that on her really bad days. “Don’t forget your night meds, and call Carol if you need anything.”

  “All right, all right,” his mother conceded. “You’re just rushing me off the line because of that girl you mentioned, aren’t you? Is she cute?”

  Wash waved frantically, ticking down the volume on their connection. “Uh… what girl?”

  “Mmm-hmmm. Okay, honey. Call me tomorrow?”

  “Of course. Love you.”

  “Love you too, son.”

  The door buzzed as the link disconnected, and he went to answer it. A man in a hotel uniform smiled at him politely on the other side.

  “Señor?” The man held out an armful of packages bundled together, with a fancy-looking envelope tucked between.

  Right. Caitlin was expecting a delivery. He grasped the bundle in one hand, trying not to spill the beer in the other.

  “Thanks,” he said, nodding to the fellow, and turned to shut the door. A polite cough stopped him, and he saw the man still standing there, hand slightly raised in a remarkably discreet tip me gesture.

  “Uh, sorry. I don’t have anything.” The way the staff treated Caitlin, he was sure she was generous. “Can you just charge it to the room? Maybe fifty dollars?”

  Was that too much? Not enough? Hell, he didn’t know anything about this stuff. Not on the level, Caitlin lived at.

  The young man grinned. “Gracias!”

  Probably too much, then.

  The fellow ducked his head in a little bow and was gone. The door swung silently shut and locked with a click.

  Wash placed the packages down on the bed. He recognized the two smaller boxes on top. They had Osiris Corp’s logo on them, a stylized black and gold O. These were the links Caitlin had ordered. Osiris had invented them something like fifty years ago. They still made the most expensive ones, if not the best, in his opinion.

  He was leaning against one of the large picture windows, sipping his beer, when he realized Caitlin was singing in the shower.

  She must not realize he could hear her. He didn’t understand any of the words, but her voice was sweet, and the tune was haunting. His heart swelled as she sang, the words growing and building on each other. He found himself frozen, unable to move lest he miss a single note.

  Memory and feeling swept through him like a tide, somehow stirred by the music. His heart pounded the way it had the first time he kissed a girl. Then he was on the beach, kneeling in the sand, proposing to his high-school sweetheart. The excitement of her response, and the passion of the night they spent together afterward flowed through each note.

  Then the song changed, and along with it his thoughts. He found himself remembering the first time the Navy put him on a destroyer. Six months at sea, and even though he’d talked to her every day, he knew she felt abandoned.

  Abandoned and alone.

  A cool wind blew through the open window, chilling his face. Wash reached up to wipe his eyes, realizing he was crying. It was the song. Somehow, it was manipulating his emotions, but that didn’t make his heart ache any less.

  The kind of ache of someone who had been cast aside.

  He scrubbed at his eyes with the sleeve of his borrowed sweater, refusing to go down the hole those memories would take him.

  For the last three years, he’d done nothing but linger in a long, cold winter, waiting for things to change. Knowing they never would. He was done waiting. He needed to be done. It was time to re-engage with life.

  Upending the bottle, he downed the rest of the beer before placing the empty in the trash and grabbing another one. It was time to move on, if for no other reason than he was sick of letting his memories ruin his life.

  The song ended on a long, low note. As big as the room was, it was too small. Wash flung open the sliding doors to the balcony. He needed air and time to think. On this side of the Marriott, he couldn’t really see much of San Juan, which mostly
lay behind him.

  Instead, the ocean spread out along the horizon, interrupted only by the mass of skyscrapers jutting out from the ocean floor, in what was collectively known as Ocean Park. It was possibly one of, if not the most famous business park in the world.

  He’d seen news footage of the event. It was old when he was a kid, everyone knew the stories. The day magic returned to the world. The day gods walked on water and the science of the world turned on its head.

  For him, though, it was all history. Magic wasn’t common in humans, and he’d never even met a mage before he met Caitlin.

  The largest of the buildings built into the ocean floor had a massive ‘O’ on the side facing San Juan. The headquarters for Osiris Corp. Why did that name tickle a memory? He closed his eyes casting his mind back to the last coherent memory he had. The plane, flying on the plane first class to Puerto Rico. Then, nothing.

  “Not a bad view, huh?” Caitlin said from behind. He gripped the railing tight to keep from jumping.

  She came out on the deck with him, dressed in a torn, faded pair of jeans and a white t-shirt that slid off one golden brown shoulder. Her hair was wet, and hanging loose. She hadn’t even bothered to brush it out, but there was something comfortable and effortless about the lack of artifice.

  “It’s one of the reasons I chose this hotel to stay in,” she said, twisting the cap off her own beer. “No matter the side, the view is incredible.” She held out her bottle, and after a moment of hesitation, he tapped his own to it.

  Caitlin granted him a brilliant smile and tipped the bottle to her lips. As she moved, Wash’s gaze caught on the silver necklace she wore. On the beach, she had worn it wrapped several times around her throat, like a choker, but now it dangled loose almost to her navel, glinting in the late afternoon light.

  Caitlin sighed after a long sip and closed her eyes. “I love Cerveza medulla. It’s half the reason I come here.”

  He would have said something in return, but he was too busy looking at her. When she opened her eyes again, he didn’t even try to pretend he’d been looking anywhere else… but she didn’t seem to mind.

  “Not hungry?” she asked, glancing back at the food cart, still loaded with covered platters.

  “Starving,” he admitted. “I just didn’t want to start without you.”

  Her green eyes positively sparkled with delight, as though no one had ever paid her that kind of courtesy.

  “Such a gentleman,” she said, looping her arm through his. “Well then, let’s eat!”

  An hour and an incredible meal later, Wash opened the last beer. The bottle of wine lay untouched in the bucket. Caitlin held her glass out to him and he filled it with half the contents of the brown bottle.

  “Do you not like wine?” He nodded at the unopened green bottle sticking up from the silver pale of half melted ice.

  Caitlin’s smile faltered for a moment. She’d eventually brushed out her hair—in front of him, which had been mesmerizing to watch—and twisted it into a long black braid that draped over one shoulder.

  “My sister loves wine,” she said, with a slight hesitation in her voice. “Maybe a little too much. She gave the hotel standing orders to include a bottle with every meal. Which she feels obliged to finish.” She sipped at her beer. “I didn’t think to tell them not to send it up.”

  Being an only child, Wash didn’t quite understand the tenseness in Caitlin every time she talked about her sister. He’d often dreamed about having a sibling.

  “Ask,” she said, as though she could read his mind. “It’s okay.”

  “You don’t seem to like your sister very much.”

  “You’re not wrong.” She took a long drink and sighed. “I know this is going to sound very ‘resentful second child’ to you, but you have to understand elven society. It’s very… rigid. When I say that Daphne is special, and I’m not, I mean that in a very real sense.” She shrugged. “I know, a lot of people aren’t special. But when your parents remind you of the fact every day of your life, it takes on some new meaning.”

  She sat up, draining the last few drops from her bottle. “Add to that my sister’s complete lack of responsibility or consideration for anyone else, and you end up with me being blamed for everything that goes wrong in her life.

  “Even the things that happen when not even on the same continent. She might be my older sister, but I’m the one that has to be the grown up. And the moment I look away…” She waved her hand at the empty room.

  “So that is my sister and me in a nutshell,” she said.

  He nodded. “Thanks for… sharing, I guess. I know how difficult it can be to speak about family problems. I’m sorry she puts you through all that.”

  He hoped he’d said the right thing. He was always better in the water than on land. When she leaped up to place her empty dishes back on the tray, he figured he had.

  There was something inherently graceful in the way she moved… but without a trace of self-consciousness, as though she didn’t have any idea she moved differently than any other person.

  When she finished neatly stacking dishes, she wandered over to the pile of packages on the end of the bed and waved him over. He came and stood by her shoulder as she opened up the large package.

  Inside were a pair of black leather boots, jeans, a red polo, and a brown leather jacket. They were men’s clothes, obviously not meant for her.

  “You bought me clothes?”

  “I’m pretty sure I got your sizes right.”

  “But—”

  “Wash, you’re wearing my hoodie and a wetsuit. I can’t imagine you’re comfortable.” She laid the jeans and polo over his arms and placed the jacket and boots on top. “I asked Alfredo to send some things up.”

  Right. Wash had forgotten what a complete mess he was. “Well… thank you.”

  “A shower might not be uncalled for either,” she said mildly.

  A wave of embarrassment hit him. As bad as he looked, he probably didn’t smell much better. “I’m so sorry. Of course.”

  He couldn’t leave the room fast enough, but managed to drop one of the boots, and then the jacket. By the time he made it into the bathroom, he shut the door and lightly pounded his forehead against the frame. Idiot.

  A knock came, and he jumped back from the door, startled.

  “Yeah?” He cracked the door open a tiny bit, though he was still fully clothed.

  Caitlin held up a link. “I need to make a few calls, and you probably have some of your own.”

  He managed to thank her without making too much a fool of herself. Then he shut the door and leaned back against it. Without the scent of food or eau de beautiful woman, he could smell himself even better. He definitely needed a shower.

  Caitlin listened to the shower come on in the bathroom. Of all the days for this guy to fall in her lap, it had to be this one. There was so much about him she wanted to know, but there were about seven million other things demanding precedence.

  He’d waited for her to get out of the bathroom before he ate. That was a pretty classy move. Not that she hadn’t ever had someone open her door and pull out her seat for her before, but it was unusual.

  She remembered one guy in particular who had been pretty smooth, though that was where his depth of character both began and ended. But with Wash, it seemed almost innocent. Like there was no other shoe waiting to drop. No falsehood in his attention.

  Here she was, stacking him up against past men who’d tried to date her. Is that what she thought he was doing? Wooing her?

  She shook her head. Wrong time to be thinking about this. Looking down at the link in her hand, she bit her lip.

  Should she even call her parents? What good would it do? They’d insist on their own people handling it, and when that failed, she’d receive the lion’s share of the blame.

  Dammit, Daphne.

  She ran the fingers of her free hand through her hair. For once, though, this wasn’t Daphne’s carelessness—at least, n
ot that Caitlin could tell. She knew her frustration with her sister wasn’t about today, it was a product of the unending string of messes that followed her sister around like a parade of crazy. She just needed to focus on today.

  Taking a deep breath, she pressed the link just behind her right ear and flicked it on.

  An Augmented Reality spread out in front of her, lines of blue and white that only she could see, stretched out across her hotel room floor.

  There were a ton of messages from her mother, just as she had expected, as well as a few from friends.

  Are you okay? I just saw you on the news…

  She dismissed the message with a wave.

  Was that you on the beach, Cait? I told you that bikini was gonna look great…

  She waved again, and then scanned back through her parents’ messages, which contained pretty much what she had suspected.

  Half of them were asking if Daphne was okay. The rest reprimanded her for her reckless and showy use of spirits.

  She should have expected that. But how was she supposed to know that link footage of the whole thing was going to show up all over the place? And really, what was her alternative?

  Her parents disliked the use of elven magic in public. They wanted to keep the true power of her home and people secret from the outside world, and she understood that. But still, letting all those people die for a charade wasn’t something her conscience would allow.

  No one else had called or messaged. No ransom demands, or gloating messages. Nothing. Before she disconnected, she called up the virtual keyboard and typed out a quick text to her mother telling her that she and Daphne were okay.

  She followed that up by letting her mother know Daphne hadn’t even been at the beach when the wave hit. With any luck, that would keep her parents out of her hair for a few days. She sent the message off and closed the link down. She wasn’t interested in her mother’s response, and she would be notified if anyone else called or messaged.

  With a sigh, she flopped down onto the white leather sofa. What she couldn’t figure out was who would want Daphne.

  It was incredible to her that anyone with a brain would think taking Daphne was a good idea. Yes, she was important. She was heir to the throne of Atlantis, but it could be centuries before that became relevant. Not to mention that her parents were very well known to be pretty ruthless, by human standards.