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

by CK Dawn

“Can I walk you home, then?”

  “I know the way, thanks.” She smiled and made a big show out of putting things in drawers and dropping her combs into a large jar of cleaning solution.

  Fel grabbed her hands and pulled her to face him, leaving barely six inches between their bodies. “Aren’t you attracted to me?”

  “Yeah, sure,” she enthused, trying to please. She looked into intent gray eyes that saw through her efforts to downplay his effect on her and sighed. If only she could cut off her hair and be a new woman like Sahar, free of her ability to heal men whose wounds had yet to show.

  She threw the strap of her purse over her shoulder, called to Kristi-with-an-I that she was leaving and nodded at Saras’s and Sage’s call me looks as she strode out of the front door.

  The evening air hit her face and she closed her eyes to help remind her to be grateful for what she had instead of regretful of all she managed to screw up.

  “Carry this for you?”

  She felt Fel pull her bag off her shoulder and let him do it, acknowledging that even if he didn’t deserve the truth, she did.

  “Flannacán, I want you. Seriously,” she confirmed at his skeptical smile. “However, the practice of wanting men has been mostly detrimental for me, so I’ve put myself on a diet of sorts.” She pulled her bag out of his hands, slung it back on her shoulder and started the walk home. “And if you could do your best not to tempt me, I’d consider it a favor.”

  He caught her purse strap, jerking her to an unbalanced halt. “So let me get this straight. You want me?”

  “Unbelievable.” She laughed. “Take it.” She handed him her bag. “It looks good on you. Goes with your eyes.” She glanced quickly into those hypnotic, smoky depths then at his chest to avoid the urge to suction herself to him like a barnacle. Unfortunately, his chest was stunning as were his abs and Dragon covered her eyes with one hand to help steady her libido.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Peachy,” she muttered and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.

  They walked silently for a block and a half, Fel seemingly at ease and Dragon becoming more agitated with each step.

  “I’m not rich,” she blurted out as they crossed Delfy Boulevard.

  “Is that right?” He smiled, shoved his hands in his pockets and whistled a blues riff. “This is nice.” The stylish satchel at his shoulder framed his biceps. “Pricey.”

  “It’s a throwback to my money days,” she said, fingering the bag’s soft leather.

  “So you are rich! And he’s back in the game!” He pretended to hit a fastball out of the park.

  Dragon rolled her eyes. “I was rich once.” Her smile was nostalgic. “I was so greedy then. The more I got the more I wanted. And my job, they rewarded me for it.”

  “The salon did?”

  “No, no. Werner and Yin Investments,” she intoned with exaggerated pomp and circumstance. “They tossed me out a few years back, me and two hundred of my fellow colleagues. Budget cuts,” she explained with a shrug.

  “Oh. Wow. My condolences.”

  She laughed. “Thanks.”

  “Without suffering there can be no—” he started to quote sanctimoniously.

  “Please.” She placed a hand on Fel’s arm. “I could use a break from all the suffering-induced growing and learning I’ve done in the past—well, since the womb actually.”

  “You and me both. But the salon, that must be a halfway decent gig.”

  “It pays the bills. Barely. Had to move back home just to make ends meet. That was six years ago.”

  He bobbed his head in commiseration and she reflected the movement.

  “So what would you do if you could?” He placed a hand on the small of her back and guided her around Mama Neck Tie’s enormous behind as the zombie bent to dig through one of her larger trash bags.

  She muttered angrily to herself, too caught up to notice them passing for which Dragon was grateful. Mama Neck Tie would most assuredly know Flannacán who won the crown of a queen with just a smile. She had an annoying way of knowing just about everything and remarking on the worst aspect, the one that was so true it sliced to the bone.

  “Your dream job,” he reminded her when Mama Neck Tie was behind them.

  “Uh, you mean like a save the world type of thing?”

  “Sure, why not.”

  “In that case, savior of the world, I guess.” She grinned. “I mean, I know it’s not possible, not the whole Collapsed world anyway. It’s just that recycling and using the conservation spells the city advises—”

  “God they smell. Cubic Z is not a replacement for Conical Z.”

  “I know, right? Anyway, doing those things just doesn’t feel like enough. And then I do hair for a living which is a little on the shallow side.”

  “You make people feel good about themselves,” he said.

  “Wow, that was just resounding. My ego is restored.”

  He burst out laughing and Dragon’s heart thudded heavily like his hilarity was a seductive act.

  “Priests make people feel good about themselves,” she corrected.

  “They do?”

  “Yes. After the guilt trips and, in some cases, a flawless con job, people generally leave church or whatever feeling good.”

  “Would you feel better if you knew that church or whatever never did that for me?”

  “I didn’t think that the fae indulged in human religious services.”

  “We don’t have to—never dying gives a somewhat different meaning to eternity—but sometimes we get a hankering.”

  “Really?” Her eyes squinted skeptically.

  “The intent towards hope and peace and happiness is always greater around houses of worship. For us that’s like seeing a rainbow or the Aurora Borealis.”

  “That’s amazing. I had no idea.” She walked a bit further, charmed by the notion that beings who’d actually watched civilizations rise and fall would pay homage to what she saw as ordinary, even boring. “But not you.” She stopped, forcing him to do the same. “The Aurora Borealis a little too ho-hum for you? That’s a whole lot of cynicism.”

  “Well, I’ve been saving up for a while.”

  “Yeah? How long exactly? Just how old are you?”

  “Anyway.” He ignored question her with a grin. “I hung out at churches during the early days.”

  “The Stone Age? The Restoration? Somewhere in the middle?” She grinned at his glare, softened by his twitching lips.

  “But unexpectedly their appeal became—I don’t know—passé? Can men say passé and still be real men? With muscles and a hunting rifle designed to take down a full-grown rhino?”

  She shook her head apologetically. “I don’t think so. Well, maybe there’s a grandfather clause somewhere.”

  “Anyway, I fell under the spell of—” he continued his eyes twinkling.

  “A caster with a home business?”

  “Worse, an optimist.”

  “Oh, one of those. You poor thing.” She rolled her eyes at him.

  “He brought out the big guns. The old we-can-make-the-world-better-together speech. And I bought it.”

  “Hook, line and sinker?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “Like that.”

  They walked passed a talons-only nail salon and a crowded greasy spoon. “So, four tours later, I can’t go home—”

  “No?”

  “Social pariah,” he confessed with a shrug. “No one else fell for the speech. But I fought with distinction for the right side, so that’s a plus. Helps me sleep at night.”

  “Really?”

  “No. Not really. Look at me, Dragon. I turn tricks for a living. If I’d known being a warrior for good would turn out to be so fucked up, I might have gone the fry cook route.”

  A fallen cherub sidled between them with a mumbled, “Excuse me.”

  Dragon used the time it took to make a face at the creature’s pungent pheromones to come up with the appropriate pl
atitude that said I’m sorry life’s woes forced you to be a whore. Instead, she took his hand and gave his chest a consoling pat then pulled him back into their walk.

  “So your life should be looking pretty good right about now,” he said.

  “Yeah, kinda,” she said with a compassionate smile. So he was a whore? So what? she thought. Surreptitiously she powered up her vision, hoping like a frazzled grad student during finals that this time when she rebooted, his blankness would reveal an icon or two, instead of a miserably blue screen—anything to help her be on solid footing again.

  Seeing absolutely nothing, Dragon took a deep breath and released it, praying that as she did, her anxiety would go with it.

  “Why didn’t you back out—when you realized that making the world better was a losing proposition? Or did you just wake up one day knowing that the speech was bullshit?” she said.

  “Little of both.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I became dissatisfied early in life—early for fae,” he revised with a smile that acknowledged her humanity. “My mother always said I was old before my time and predicted I’d leap to fade with a smile on my face. Following Doque into hell was one way to avoid boredom. It pricked at my heart, the plight of the underdog—all one billion of them. Don’t get me wrong, I believed in what I was doing, but eventually it went way past giving me something to do.

  “You know, I’ve lived for a little more than two thousand years, seen the world many times over, but war—a flesh and blood war where no one was injured then restored to full a few days or weeks later—that is not my vocation. No god or cause is worthy enough to call anyone to such service.

  “There’s no coming back from slaughter, Dragon. No matter how right you are and how wrong they are. Your soul, my soul was not engineered to withstand the destruction of war. Whether we are hammer or nail, bleaching away the sweet measure of eternity within weakens us like striping enamel from a tooth.”

  “Is that why you do what you do? For a living, I mean?”

  “I consciously followed a path, hoping to find the best part of me. That’s true. It is also true that I’m still looking. In the meantime, I have no choice but to deal with the most honest part of me, which wants to go home. Loneliness is a constant pain that forces my soul to limp. Most days are just…bad,” he finished.

  “Your work helps?”

  “Mostly not, but the few times I’ve been able to connect were like standing in a church alleyway for the very first time.”

  “The Aurora Borealis?”

  “In unbelievable Technicolor,” he agreed.

  “Plus it meets the ends.”

  “That it does.”

  “And undertow?” She met his eyes briefly before looking away with a shrug. “I snooped. Sorry.”

  His mouth flattened into an uncomfortable grimace. “The Aurora Borealis is just a light show. Spectacular to be sure, but when the show’s over the only way to see it again is to buy another ticket. My clients are…what they are. Generous for the most part, but using them as a lens to see the best part of me is like expecting to win the lottery every time you play.”

  “I see,” she said with a sad smile. “Undertow has better odds.”

  “It’s not real, like the Aurora Borealis. I know that, but it feels real. For days at a time I actually feel like myself—the old me. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to forgetting that I am banished, that I am reviled or at best, a cautionary tale told throughout the Sun.”

  They walked silently for a while. The air around them felt like a lead weight to Dragon and she struggled to find a way to ease the loss and betrayal that must bow his shoulders with their burden.

  “I’m sorry,” she said finally.

  “Thanks.” The corner of his mouth hitched up in a self-deprecating smile. “I’ve decided to kick it.”

  “Really? Cold turkey?”

  He nodded. “My plan is to replace the offensive behavior with something more constructive.” He sent Dragon a smoldering look.

  “Me?” she asked incredulously. “Sorry, do you remember last night? The part before we, ah—we.” She blushed. “The part where I got seriously dumped? Well before that is a long line of…just very bad decisions.” Dragon’s shoulders hunched in self-recrimination and she ran a hand nervously over her forehead. “Your behavior may be offensive, but mine is nowhere near constructive. You might want to try to crocheting class down at the community center,” she finished lamely.

  He contemplated her profile for several uncomfortable seconds. “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Suit yourself.” She wasn’t a cure for anything, no matter what he thought. He’d find that out soon enough. “So, you,” she said uncomfortable with his scrutiny, which flattered even as it reminded her of her failings, “clean and sober. Will that affect how you, ah, conduct your business?”

  “We’ll see. Won’t we?”

  I guess we will, Dragon thought, wondering what she was doing. She ticked off bullet points in her head: a bit of pleasure for myself; no need to try and fix him—he has no potential that I can see, which is a good thing considering how frayed my soul has become, and it just feels good be near him.

  Just because you can’t jeopardize your soul in the usual fashion doesn’t mean consorting with a prostitute and addict isn’t dangerous, she cautioned herself. To your body and spirit. The warning pounded through her and like an echo, and with nothing tangible to sustain it, disappeared leaving no evidence behind that it even existed.

  “I must look like chopped liver compared to your other clients.”

  He hummed noncommittally in response.

  “Because I have no money,” Dragon clarified.

  “Money does not a connection make,” he intoned like it was a Taoist truism.

  “My monthly take-home would make a homeless guy drop some change in my coffee cup.” Dragon stepped in the middle of the street they crossed and threw up her hands. “I’m poor, okay?” she shouted.

  “Hey sweetheart, come a little closer and I’ll make a deposit,” a bony Minotaur said from his rickety perch atop a hansom cab. “A really big deposit, if you catch my drift.” To underscore his sincerity, the golden goose next to him honked loudly and laid a stone egg. The monk who worked the original golden goose spell did so under duress and with the goal of supplying a battalion with arms, food and medicine. His lifelong commitment to economy and chastity got in the way.

  “Yeah, me too! I’d fuck you real strong!” a grimy human shouted from his seat on a rusted bicycle. Naked from the waist up, his nipples were painted green to let single intulo beasts know that he was disease-free per city regulation and willing to engage in all acts listed under the current municipal commercial code.

  “Way to finesse her, Randy!” came an angry voice from the iron-plated cage attached to the intulophile’s handlebars. “When I break the hell outta here, I’ll show you how it’s done.” The albino leprechaun leered at Dragon and cupped his genitals. “Look for me at the End of the Rainbow tomorrow at happy hour, sugar. My dick will make you forget your own damn name!”

  Dragon pinned Fel with a long-suffering glare. “Do you see how poor I am?”

  Fel laughed and slung an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t I look fantastically gorgeous right about now?”

  “You were always that,” Dragon muttered. The green traffic light and blaring horns moved her to step lightly to the sidewalk on the other side of the street, but not rapidly enough to dislodge Fel’s arm. “But I am still poor!” she shrieked, scaring an elderly junkyard gnome right out of her custom walker.

  “Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” Dragon reached to help the woman as her personal nurse did the same.

  Fel laced his fingers with hers and pulled her away just as the gnome snapped at Dragon’s breast.

  “Vicious little shit,” she muttered, craning her head to watch the nurse dodge the gnome’s repeated attempts to gnaw at whatever body part protruded. In the nurse’s case, all but her fingers were en
cased in a protective, padded suit.

  As they put distance between them and the gnome, Dragon tried to convince herself that relinquishing his hand was a good idea, as beneficial as a flu shot.

  She absolutely failed. Her mouth turned down in a self-aware grimace of disappointment. She glanced at their clasped hands, admiring the pleasing aesthetics of the combination. Hers a smooth coffee, cream, easy sugar, and his, lighter like the fevered glance of the mid-afternoon sun.

  “Does this bother you?” He swung their joined hands forward.

  The mix of color? The concept of holding hands in general? With him in particular?

  “What happened?” she rubbed her thumb gently across the bandage covering his knuckles. “Run-in with a jealous husband?” she guessed, lacing the question with a dollop of Jasper’s British Isle bluntness.

  “Run-in with a wall when I realized my lifestyle didn’t leave room to worship you twenty-four hours a day.”

  Dragon laughed, glad to be reminded that he wasn’t real, that the potent seduction he laid on her wasn’t something she could incorporate into her life and expect to comfort her when she’d had a helluva day.

  “I kinda figured a hot bath and a glass of wine would have more of a lasting effect than…” She glanced quickly at him then let the rest of what she was thinking become a noncommittal hum.

  “Me?” he finished for her.

  “No offense.”

  “You’ve devastated me,” he murmured.

  “You look it,” she scoffed with a grin at his twinkling eyes.

  “I like you. Is that so terrible?”

  “You like me, so you punched a wall?”

  “Technically it was a mirror, and I punched it because, for a second after I woke up this morning, I thought I was me again.” His smile was sad as he continued. “You know, Flannacán map Cinid ocus Barita seirbhíseach Mahb Tóisech—”

  “Wow, that’s a mouthful.”

  “—able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.” His eyes slid away from her, becoming preoccupied with early evening street traffic.

  Dragon followed his gaze to the sight of rickshaws, coaches and one super bus, loudly belching steam from a crudely rigged engine.

  “And when you remembered you weren’t who you used to be?”