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

by CK Dawn

  “So long? You young people. You’re not even thirty yet.”

  “Yeah right.”

  “Just don’t go out there and do something you regret. Don’t go looking for trouble. You may think that what you’re doing is right, that it will somehow free you from something, but it may be the thing that traps you forever.”

  “You think so?”

  “I’ve seen so many people go on a rampage, going out there trying to solve one problem and creating so many more. I don’t want that for you, little sister.”

  “I’ll be okay, Sunny. Besides, I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.” She placed a twenty on the bar, as always paying triple the cost of the drink.

  “Asa.” He stopped her, for the first time saying her name. “Seriously, whatever it is you’re planning to do, really consider the consequences. Be sure this is a battle you’re ready to fight.”

  She turned to him. “Be careful there, Sunny, you’re starting to sound like you do believe in all that mumbo jumbo.” She winked at him and made her exit from the bar. His words would stay with her, his warning.

  Where did that come from? When did their normal witty and sarcastic banter take such a serious turn?

  Asa’s back slammed against the wall as two large hands held her in place. She grunted on impact and struggled to catch her breath. He’d taken her by surprise; it wasn’t often that that happened.

  “Who the hell are you and what do you want? Why are you following me?” The tall, dark-skinned man with hair of short dark curls and hints of red, leaned over her and waited for her reply.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She choked out the lie as she struggled against his hold. He was a lot stronger than she’d thought he’d be. Under normal circumstances, even the strongest of human men posed no contest to her strength. These were not normal circumstances, that became very clear as she inhaled the scent of his skin. He was no human man, and she may have misjudged her target altogether.

  “Bullshit! You’ve been tailing me since this afternoon.” He leaned up against her, pushing the weight of his body against hers so that she could not move. “The café, the train, the grocery store. Did you think I wouldn’t see you sitting outside of my apartment and watching me? What the hell do you want? Who are you?”

  He was absolutely right. She had been following him, but it was for much longer than a day—it seemed her target wasn’t as astute as he would like to believe. The beacon had drawn her to a subtle and hidden café in downtown Chicago. She was greeted by the aromas of honey and cinnamon as she entered the small space. Eclectic individuals barely made account of her arrival as they read, wrote, and performed various other artistic tasks. Sitting at the very back, in a corner barely touched by the morning light, was a man who looked too big for the seat he occupied. She watched him there for three days. Each day he ordered the same thing: Chai tea with a teaspoon of honey. As he sipped his tea, he made notes in a small leather notebook that he would tuck away in the inside pocket of his leather jacket before leaving.

  Each day she followed him, and tried to understand his routine. The train, not the same one every day, would take him to various parts of the city. The first day, a Metra took them to the west suburbs where he stopped at a grocery store and took supplies to an elderly woman. She thanked him wholeheartedly and kissed his cheeks multiple times. Before she let him leave, she insisted that he try her zucchini bread, which he did.

  The second day, the South Shore train took them south east of the city, into Indiana, where he met a single mother. Asa wondered if the child was his, but the young boy called him uncle when he grabbed hold of his thigh to hug. There was no family resemblance between either him and the boy or the child’s mother. While there, he worked on her car, fixing mechanical issues, and then gave her cash from his own wallet with instructions to get the little guy what he needed. The mother looked as though she would cry and thanked him profusely for his generosity. When he turned from her, instead of a look of satisfaction, his face displayed one of guilt.

  On the third day, the redline took them south, into the parts of the city mostly reported on because of its crime rates. This was in no Chicago brochure; it was nothing that would draw tourists. There he went into a foster home. He spent time with the children, and she noted one in particular that he paid attention to. They cooked a meal together, and played games. This was the longest of his visits. The middle-aged man who ran the home shook his hand before he left and thanked him for his time.

  Each day, he gave hours of his life to aid someone else. Each day, after his task was complete, he returned to the city, grabbed a meal from one of the many restaurants, and headed home to a modest apartment just north of the city. It was because of his meager lifestyle that she didn’t take him out right away. He was different than the other vessels. What good could they get from this man? There had been a pattern, those of power, those of wealth, and yet he was neither of the two.

  “You’re really strong you know?” She smiled at him beneath the weight of his hold. “How long are you going to keep me pinned up against this wall? People are starting to stare.” She turned her head to the group of women at the end of the street watching them. “We already have an audience.”

  After doing his own scan and realizing he was calling attention to himself, he quickly adapted his actions to divert the eyes who unwittingly observed them. He shifted his weight; using one hand he pinned her arms to her back and the other he pulled her tight to him to make it look as if they were two lovers, ready to end the night with a passionate kiss.

  “Tell me who you are.” He put his face close to hers, lips separated by a mere fraction of space. The warm air passed through his lips and dusted her own.

  She smiled. “Look, I don’t know who you think I am, but I damn sure wasn’t following you all day. My apologies if I got too close to you in there,” she retorted as her eyes watched the movement of his lips. She’d known something was up when his usual night in turned into an outing. He’d received no call, no form of invitation to go out, and he hardly seemed like the type to frequent the bars and clubs of Wicker Park. He was young, yes, but older than the general crowd of college age “adults”. He seemed more grounded. Knowing that his actions were out of sort, she followed him anyway.

  “You’re coming with me,” he ordered, and pressed his body farther against hers.

  “Excuse me?” She huffed. “Look, I don’t know what you think this is, but I’m not trying to hook up with you.”

  “You’re going to stand here and lie to me, tell me that you haven’t been tailing me? Fine, don’t come, but we both know the second I step away from this building, you won’t be far behind. Don’t think I’m going to just let you keep staring into my life.”

  He pressed his lips against hers, kissing her just enough to deter the women on the corner who had yet to take their eyes from the couple, and to steal the breath from within her. With the same aggression, he then let her go. His eyes locked with hers and she saw something familiar. A glint of something that made her stomach lurch. Could this really be him, Ares? This had to be him, his aggression alone was that of Ares. The forcefulness, the power, the way she wanted to give in to him. Oh, this was definitely who she had been looking for.

  “I’m going to move away from you, when I do, you’re going to follow me.” He needed to take the conversation to a less public forum. There were far too many eyes on them and the last thing he needed was for someone to call the police reporting domestic violence on the street. Even with that kiss, things between them appeared suspicious.

  Asa waited a beat before she followed him. What if it was Ares, was she ready to face him? For the first time in centuries, she doubted herself. And though she had an internal struggle, as instructed, she followed. How would she play this? Ares would know who she was. Ares would smell the magic on her. Why was he pretending not to know her? It didn’t matter, she would have to stick with him and play it out. This wasn’t h
er plan, yet she had no choice but to roll with the punches. Like he said, it wasn’t as if she could just go back to stalking him. The cat was out of the bag.

  They walked, just a few paces apart. He took the lead while tapping the screen of his smart phone as he strolled along looking calm, unaffected by their situation. She took her time, calculating his every move and monitoring her surroundings to be sure he wasn’t calling for back up. At the end of the crowded street, a black sedan pulled up. He opened the door to her. She raised an eyebrow and he lifted the phone so she could see that he had called an Uber. This was no set up, just an attempt for a private ride. She had followed him to the crowded club scene on the train which was loaded with bodies, already drunk and headed for more. That mode of transportation was too public, left too many vulnerabilities.

  The ride was a quite one. Time and time again she would see the driver awkwardly peek back at the two of them. The only time he spoke was to confirm the address he’d been provided through the application on his phone. The driver all but sped away from the two, happy to be away from the awkward pair the moment they exited his vehicle.

  Once again, Asa followed her brooding target, this time into the dingy building that housed far too many apartments—all one bedroom or less and horribly overpriced for the space allotted. They piled into the elevator, which seemed too small for one person let alone two, riding the lift in silence. The only sound was the soft static ding of the counter. Five dings and then the door slowly slid open, so slowly that Asa questioned if it would open at all. Perhaps they would have to pry it open with their hands and climb out. Once out, she stepped into the long hallway with dingy green carpet and stucco walls that smelled of mold; clearly a health concern, yet so many people lived there as if it were no issue. The place was an eyesore. An old structure which had been quickly rehabbed for a new purpose. No real thought was put into the planning and management of the building, which explained why there was an obvious moisture problem that made the carpet stick to the bottom of her shoes. At the end of the hall, the last door on the right, was his.

  Inside it was small, yet larger than she imagined it would be. One bedroom, one bath, with the kitchen, dining, and living room blended into one large space. He’d painted the walls, one red, one black. The floor was a nice hardwood, and the furniture well thought out for the small space it occupied. After dropping his keys on the kitchen counter, he headed to the fridge. From inside he pulled out a cold bottle of water and offered her one. She thanked him and took the water.

  “Tell me … who you are? You aren’t a god, so why are you here?”

  Asa nearly choked on cool water she’d just filled her mouth with when he chucked the question at her like a dagger to the chest.

  “Excuse me?” It was the last thing she expected for him to ask her. He was cutting the bull, getting right to the point. That wasn’t very like the guy she remembered. He loved to tiptoe around the issue and try to get inside your head.

  “Are we going to pretend like you aren’t here to stop me from killing them?” He finished off his bottle and tossed it into the recycling bin in the back corner of the kitchen.

  “Killing who?” She backed away from him. “You’re trying to kill someone?”

  “Okay, I’ll play into this with you. My name is Carter, but you know that already, don’t you? As long as you have been following me, I would hope you would have figured out at the very least, such a basic detail. So, let’s move on to the real stuff, shall we?” She nodded, he was right, she knew everything about him: name, date of birth, even his favorite color, green, the shade of the leaves found on willow trees. It was very odd and extremely specific and she liked that about him. “I have been tracking the return of the Gods of Olympus. They are all returning and I don’t want them here. Only, lately it seems whenever I make it to one, they’ve already been snuffed out.”

  “Is that so?” She took a step closer to the door. This was a trap, it had to be.

  “Yes.”

  “You know you sound completely insane right now, right? Gods of Olympus returning to Earth?” She laughed and made a spiraling gesture next to her head. She watched him closely. Not a glint of humor. She questioned if his easy confession was more indication of an elaborate trap.

  “That is what I said.”

  “Right, I better go.” She headed for the door, but the small space meant he was easily able to reach her before she escaped.

  “No!” He grabbed her arm and stopped her from reaching the door. Once again, she was shocked by his display of strength. None of the others had even a fraction of the strength he held. What the hell was so different about him? “Tell me the truth about who you are. I can smell it, you’re the one. Every time I am on the trail, following a beacon, I get there and they are gone, dead, and the smell that lingers. It’s you. At first I thanked you for doing my job for me, but now you’re here. What the hell do you want from me?”

  “Look—” She pulled away, but he held her tightly.

  “Don’t lie to me again. Tell me who you are and why you’re here.”

  She thought about what he said. It didn’t add up. How could he not be Ares? Nothing made sense. The God of War wouldn’t be out chasing down the others to kill them, not without receiving some major backlash. It would mean a war like no other. If he was Ares, if he knew her scent, surely time would have revealed to him the truth of who she was. Even centuries masked as another couldn’t erase the true essence of Calypso. He spoke as if he had been at this for a while, yet she had only felt his beacon a few days prior.

  “I was tracking a beacon, one that led me here, to you.” Nothing about their encounter was going as she had planned anyway, and his unexpected confession had thrown her for a loop. Whatever well thought out plan she had developed was long gone, leaving her with the next best option: roll with the punches.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. It quickly became clear, from my observations, that it is not possible that you are one of the fallen, which of course means that my target fooled me. Not that I find it all that surprising considering his background. I did, however, want to find out how he figured me out and why he chose you.”

  “Who was your target?”

  She thought twice about telling him who she was after, but his stern expression and powerful grip convinced her to spill the beans.

  “Ares.” A close watch of his facial expression showed his surprise and immediate concern.

  “God of War, he has returned?” His grip lessened as he took in the news and his mind moved into calculation. What did it mean, and how had he come without any of them being aware? He felt no beacon, he had no knowledge of his return.

  “Yes, as well as his love, Aphrodite, another elusive figure. It was my intention to take care of him before they reunited, as it seems they arrived in separate locations, but they are getting closer. Or they were, I honestly don’t know now. I thought you were him and that means I have no idea where he really is.”

  “Well, clearly I am not him.”

  “Yes, as I stated before, that much is obvious. There is something that bugs me, though. You remind me so much of him. It’s almost as if your essence is him, an echo of the god.”

  “I don’t have the answer for that. I’m not even sure how you would know what his essence is like. Maybe Ares wanted to take us both out, pit one hunter against another. At the very least he would rid himself of one problem.”

  “Perhaps.” That seemed too simple an explanation. Ares was more of an intricate planner, he loved the long game.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” He leaned back, still holding her in place. However, his hold had loosened, and if she wanted to get away, she could have.

  “You have to excuse me, I’m not quick to trust, and this all seems a little too convenient.”

  “Is that right?” He finally moved away from her to return to the kitchen where he grabbed another bottle of water, this time sipping it slowly. “Well, what would it ta
ke to prove to you that I am not the God of War?” he questioned jokingly. She didn’t believe that he was, but he poked fun at her anyway.

  “Hold out your hand.” Asa was prepared for the question.

  “What?” He put the water down on the counter and stared at her. What could she want with his hand?

  “Hold out your hand, palm up please.” She reached into the pouch hanging at her side. Out of the bag, she pulled a small pin coated in a thin, blue liquid. “One prick to test. If it turns purple, you’re good, and if it turns orange … well, you’re dead.”

  “Right,” He thought about it. A little prick of the hand and she would trust him. It was worth it. He hoped. “Well, get it over with.”

  She watched his face closely as she pricked the tip of his middle finger with the pin. Not even a flinch from the pain. The tip of the needle had to become fully saturated in his blood before the magic would work. Both of their eyes were locked on the tip as she lifted it from his finger twisting and observing the pin which turned neither purple nor orange. “Interesting.” She held it up.

  “What?” The tip glowed, but instead of becoming purple or orange, the color was a swirl of the two. “And what the hell does that mean?”

  “I’ve seen this a few times before. You’re not a god, but you aren’t human either. Something like a hybrid of the two.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Demigod.” She shrugged and returned the pin back to her pouch.

  “Excuse me? I am no such thing.”

  “Oh, calm down. Lucky for you, I don’t care about killing half breeds.”

  “This isn’t right, test me again.” He stuck his hand out to her, revealing a fresh finger.

  “The blood in that finger is the same as the other.” Smiling, she shook her head. “Look, maybe this is disappointing to you, but the test doesn’t lie. It’s ancient magic and I highly doubt that it would randomly decide to falter now after centuries of success. Like it or not, you’re kind of the thing you hate right now, at least partially so.”