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

by CK Dawn

  “Excuse me,” Dragon said, her voice an unrecognizable growl, as Mama Neck Tie tossed the needle away and screwed the lid on the baby food jar.

  “Oh, hey girl,” the zombie glanced over her shoulder then did a double take. “What the hell happened to you?”

  With stolen magic increasing her strength, Dragon rammed the length of her stick through Mama Neck Tie’s chest. She watched as flying insects poured out of her body to feast on the decayed flesh of the zombie’s wound.

  “I need—” Fel mumbled, thrashing fitfully. “Can I come up for air? Please?” he gasped before he clamped his mouth tightly shut, his diaphragm expanded and unmoving.

  Dragon’s anger doubled at that broken plea and she promised herself she would kill Gemma if she ever got out of this. Even her very brief interaction with the demon was enough to tell Dragon that the Gremory had tortured Fel, Shiva only knew how many times, by withholding air.

  Easily rolling Mama Neck Tie away from Fel, Dragon eased to her knees next to him and gently cupped his jaw, her thumb brushing across his cheek.

  She smiled, relieved, when he took a deep, sudden breath and his eyes fluttered open. Keeping her face positive and reassuring, she wiped away the green tears that leaked into his hairline.

  “Hi there,” she whispered.

  “Hey,” he said, his smile rapturous. He ran his hand along her newly colored neck and into her hair. “New look?”

  “Thought I’d try something different.” She closed her eyes as his fingers gently massaged her nape.

  “Nice,” he said before gulping and holding several lungfuls of air.

  Knowing it was futile, Dragon sat him up and peered at his face, hoping to see that her attempt to keep his head above water had worked.

  With a sputtering cough, he looked into her eyes. “Tell me you love me.”

  “I love you,” she said brokenly, vibrant tears streaming down her face and ornamenting his cheeks and mouth in beautiful watercolor.

  “With all your heart and soul,” he prompted.

  “Forever and ever, amen.” Unable to hold on her façade of false calm, Dragon gave in to her fear and a low trembling started in her hands and engulfed her body like she ran a fever.

  “Cold?” Fel raised arms that appeared to be heavily weighted down.

  “Yes,” she replied, sliding to her hip and guiding his arms around her.

  Her body sweated the power out of her, covering both her and Fel in a blanket of larvae, furiously evolving until they were nothing more than dust particles easily absorbed by Fel’s skin.

  Ignoring this and the pain that seared through her as the magic clawed its way out of her, Dragon, remembering the air Leyton threw at her, scanned the area for her duffel. Torn between wanting to save Fel and not wanting to leave his side, Dragon briefly wished someone would come along and bring the bag to her before she sighed and began to extricate herself from Fel’s loose hold.

  Like a puppet being hoisted up by its strings, Mama Neck Tie rose jerkily to her feet and with a few stiff, robotic steps, retrieved Dragon’s duffel, unzipped the bag, upended the contents, handed Dragon the stash of air and, as if her strings had been cut, dropped to the ground in an awkward sprawl.

  A shot of nausea rose in Dragon’s gorge a hundred times as intense as the dizziness she experienced when she merely tried to discern potential and she fought the urge to retch. She swallowed repeatedly to calm her roiling stomach and pulled a marble of air from the baggie. Forcing Fel’s mouth open, she placed undertow’s antidote in, watching to make sure he sucked on it, though at this point, with green liquid oozing out of his nose and ears, Dragon couldn’t see how chewing on a bit of sobriety could do any more damage.

  When his mouth remained slack, Dragon’s panic exploded. Undertow addicts on the very edge of an overdose either held their breath—a natural response to the drowning sensation too much undertow induced—or panted as they waited for the next crashing, salty wave. An OD at rest meant that undertow had held them under long enough for their lungs to be metaphysically filled.

  Without hesitation, Dragon took the air out of Fel’s mouth and the two marbles still in the baggie and shoved them in her own mouth, chewing and swallowing even as the antidote burned its way up her nose like horseradish. She covered Fel’s mouth with hers and slowly exhaled, turning her head to the side to inhale and fitting her lips to his again.

  After repeating the procedure three times, Dragon peered at his face and, detecting not even the faintest puff of breath against her face, levered herself to her knees and began chest compressions.

  “Come back to me,” she said before covering his mouth with hers again. As she blew air into him, she instinctively powered up her second sight, pain thundering through her like her bones were being broken.

  As it always did, the urge to interact with the future she saw came upon her. Normally, she resisted, more concerned with cataloguing the improvements that were possible and how they could impact or benefit her.

  This time though, she followed that lure, praying as she immersed herself in Fel’s potential that his future was brightly lit because he was alive and happy. Even knowing she wouldn’t survive to bask in that hopeful tomorrow, she wanted him happy.

  She held her breath as his promise resolved itself, going from a few watery splotches to a crisply rendered portrait like a puzzle only a few pieces short of completion. A light breeze ruffled his hair as he slowly turned, surveying the park, then his legs and hands, eyes shining with disbelief and gladness.

  When he faced her, Dragon raised her hand to cup his cheek, unconcerned by how indistinct her own body appeared.

  “You’re here,” she said, her relief so profound it blunted her pain for several seconds.

  “I am.” He ran one hand through his hair, biting his bottom lip as he checked his surroundings again before grinning.

  “Stay a while,” she offered, grinning back.

  Nodding, he took a step closer to her, his beautiful gray eyes intense. “What about you?”

  Dragon shrugged, the action sending a wave of pain lancing across her shoulder blades. “I’ll see you when I see you.” She maintained her smile.

  “Stay,” he murmured, lowering his head to kiss her.

  “Tell me you love me,” she said, his lips a breath away from hers.

  “I love you.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and guided her hands behind his neck. “More than I ever thought I could.”

  He kissed her then, her body liquefying in anticipation and her heart and soul committing themselves to him as they did every time his lips met hers.

  She slowly pulled away, watching the colorful flesh of her arms disintegrate before her eyes and settle onto Fel like seeds drifting away from an arid plane and sinking into him—that lush soil Mahb had cultivated all those years ago.

  Seeing her limbs turn to dust goosed Dragon out of her self-sacrificing fugue and, suddenly, desperately terrified, she said, “Find me.”

  Her thighs crumpled and fell away like sand, and a cool wind blew against her back, drying her exposed eyeball and scattering her hair all over the pristine contours of this metaphysical place.

  She wasn’t this brave girl willing to watch from on high as the love of her life looked at someone else the way he looked at her now. She’d never claimed to be more than the greedy, hardheaded, complicated, loving, fucked-up, pleasure-seeking romantic that she was.

  She deserved Fel.

  She’d earned him and, as far as she was concerned, still had a substantial balance left on that free consultation he’d offered her what seemed like just yesterday.

  “Find me,” she whispered again as that determined breeze tickled the exposed edges of her heart.

  “Always.”

  Twenty-Six

  Saras dithered at Bliss Gate’s main entrance, plucking at the suede tassels that hung from her medical satchel. Blood from the beating she had laid on Gemma tarnished the thick filigree ring she wore on her for
efinger, and Saras used the long front panel of her beach cover-up skirt to clean it.

  Sighing at the unaffected ring, she smoothed the cotton back over her jeans and stared at the chirping tower before her wondering if amid those squeaks was the answer to that age-old question: Should I or shouldn’t I?

  Shiva, that Gemma was a tenacious old broad. Spitting up blood one minute then delivering a truth so twisted and pointed, shame crept up Saras’s neck like a mosquito looking for a good spot to drill.

  “What would Dragon say?” the demon had sneered, drinking from the bottle of water Saras held to her mouth during a brief intermission.

  Saras’s reply—an expertly wielded baseball bat—had made her position clear, but her conscience had already caught hold of the conundrum and ran with it.

  “You know Mama Neck Tie’s gonna kill him, don’t you? Slit his throat if she remains true to her signature. What? Don’t tell me you actually thought that nickname referred to the scarf around her neck?

  “Think your girl will still have you when she finds out you killed the love of her goddamn life?”

  It was the last, spit out along with several teeth, that propelled Saras out her front door, a bag of common cures for common ailments and wounds slung over her shoulder.

  Standing in front of Bliss’s babbling tower, her instinct to look out only for herself debated with her conscience’s need to do right by the woman who’d loved her no matter what.

  She took a step forward, resolved to find Fel and face the consequences, then immediately turned and took a step in the opposite direction, the thought of full restoration giving her pause.

  Intention at her fingertips again and divinity a breath or two later versus…loyalty.

  She stopped, stepped backward twice, turned and plunged into the park, her steel-toed boots punching through the darkness.

  Nightingales sang as if nothing were out of the ordinary as she came upon Dragon, Fel and Mama Neck Tie lying prone in the light of the full moon.

  “Nonononono,” she said, running to her friend and pulling her off of a perfectly still Fel, and cradling her in her arms.

  Saras dug in her bag, discarding the soap root, mint methane and true-gum powder for her five-seasoning adrenaline boost. Prying open Dragon’s lids, she dropped six drops in each eye, gently massaging a thumb over each lid to distribute the medicine.

  Abruptly, Dragon’s body stiffened, her back arching high off the ground. Just as suddenly, she relaxed then stiffened again, raising her heart to the sky.

  “Easy, girlfriend,” Saras crooned when Dragon began to cough and gag as if to expel the life Saras’s medicines had thrust upon her. “Easy now. Hey, girl,” she said when Dragon’s eyes fluttered open. “Hey there. I need you to breathe, slow and easy. There you go.” Saras smiled, using the sleeve of her T-shirt to wipe away the bile Dragon had puked as she found her way back into this world.

  “Saras,” Dragon said, her eyes struggling to focus.

  “Right here.” Saras retrieved water from her bag and dampened a folded handkerchief before blotting Dragon’s lips with it. “You’re okay now,” Saras said as she wrung the last drops over Dragon’s mouth and saturated it with more from her water bottle before blotting it over her friend’s lips.

  “Wait a minute,” Dragon muttered, pushing the cloth away. “Fel?” she asked then closed her eyes and turned her head away from his still body, answering her own question. “I’m dying, Saras. Let me go.”

  “No,” Saras said, feeling for Dragon’s barely beating heart, the faint thump quashing the argument between her desire and conscience once and for all.

  She retrieved a large syringe, prefilled with her five-ply snake oil, stabbed it in the middle of Dragon’s chest and injected the medicine, watching with grim eyes as it appeared to leave Dragon’s condition unchanged.

  She pried Dragon’s eyelids open and, horrified by what she saw, said, “Don’t do this.” She dumped the contents of her bag on the ground and began combing through the liquids and powders for something to help her friend.

  “Let it go, hon,” Dragon said. “You and your bag of tricks ain’t got nothing on this.”

  “Don’t give up on me!” Saras swallowed a sob and continued to look through her medicines. “I need to know what that bitch gave you.” She looked at Dragon’s face expectantly and smothered a cry at her closed eyes and slack jaw. Feeling frantically for a pulse, Saras sighed at the slow, weak thud that beat against her fingers.

  “Stupid, fucking zombie. I told her specifically to leave you alone,” she muttered to no one, picking up a cutting of ginger root and contemplating the possibilities of mixing it with onyx powder and leaf of life.

  “Did you?” Dragon whispered without opening her eyes.

  Shock stilled Saras, which she tried to cover up by feeling for Dragon’s pulse again. “Thought I lost you for a second.” She stroked Dragon’s dark hair away from her temple.

  “Told her or paid her?” Dragon persisted, her eyes slowly opening, the betrayal in them piercing Saras like a knife.

  Briefly she contemplated lying.

  “I die, Saras. Don’t waste time.”

  “Paid,” Saras admitted.

  Dragon’s faced filled with such despair, if possible, her already ashen face grayed even further. “I would’ve done anything for you. I have done anything for you.”

  “I know.”

  “You didn’t feel the same?” Disbelief bruised her voice.

  “I—” Saras thought frantically for the right response to alleviate the ache of this fresh pain she had caused and gave up. Sending an assassin after Fel had broken Dragon’s body and heart. Nothing but the one thing Saras didn’t have in her bag would help Dragon now: time.

  “I watched you from the time you were a child,” Saras said, her voice brimming with regret. “Like a soap opera. I screamed at the TV when you made stupid moves, but I never let you know me. There was too much between us—humanity, divinity, electronic components and an inch of glass.

  “You were my friend, but I wasn’t yours. Not really.” Tears ran down Saras’s face like a river. “Can I be your friend now? Please?”

  Instead of answering, Dragon’s eyes rolled back in her head, her body falling perfectly still.

  “Dragon!” Saras called, gently laying her on the ground and preparing to do CPR.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw the dull gleam of a baby jar next to Fel’s body, the green liquid filling only a few centimeters at the bottom, glowing like the only light in the middle of a storm.

  Crawling over both Dragon and Fel, Saras snatched up the bottle, opened it and ran the tip of her tongue on the inside lip.

  The unbearably salty flavor confirmed that it was undertow and Saras scanned her strewn medicines for an eye-dropper. Finding it, she crawled back to Dragon and, kneeling by her friend’s side, used the eyedropper to suck the last of the undertow from the baby jar. Tilting her head back, she squeezed a few drops of the drug in both eyes, blinking to distribute the drug before repeating the procedure until the eyedropper was empty.

  Magic exploded throughout her body like a grenade and, having never taken undertow before, she gloried in this first, potent, familiar taste of who she once was. Not familiar exactly, but like an imitation intent on stealing the reality’s place. Not that it mattered to Saras. Music, a constant harmony since she’d first attained godhood and conspicuously silent since her wartime service, tentatively sang.

  A hurried scale slid down the length of her psyche—a quick warm-up before the notes fell into a gentle, circular rhythm that sounded like a balmy summer’s night if such a thing could sing.

  Before she could lose herself in this divine symphony, she cupped the back of Dragon’s head and lifted her friend closer.

  With her power temporarily restored, Saras looked up Dragon’s nose for some sign that Dragon’s soul hadn’t totally left her. Seeing a bit of streaming gold, Saras spread her hand over Dragon’s heart, focused h
er falsely restored power and attempted to resurrect her. When nothing happened, Saras looked at her hand, completely nonplussed. Shaking her hand like it was a ball-point pen out of ink, she tried again with similar results.

  Undertow was sleight-of-hand good, cut-a-woman-in-half good, but ultimately it was just a facsimile—a copy of a copy at best. Certainly not good enough to coax life back into her friend.

  Despair coursing through her, Saras kissed Dragon’s forehead tenderly.

  “I want to give you a piece of myself. I can’t let you leave this earth without knowing me—the real me.”

  Fitting her mouth over Dragon’s, she exhaled, infusing her falsely-potent breath with her darkest secrets.

  Memories assailed her and resisting the centuries-old habit of evasion, deflection and lying to everyone including herself, Saras let Dragon see all that had informed, influenced and shaped her.

  Like her mother and grandmother were before her, Saras was dedicated to a tiny corrupt temple in her poverty-stricken village at eleven years old. By day she was untouchable, not permitted to drink from the village well or sit in the same seat or eat from the same plate as any of the other villagers. By night, forced to fulfill her spiritual calling, she carnally served the priests, initiates and any stranger requiring shelter and hospitality. Starving and in rags, this sacred prostitution was the only way she could provide for herself and her family.

  It was her final patron that changed her life. A leper and brother to a great chieftain, he’d used her, hoping as many pilgrims did that joining with a temple devotee would take his illness from him. When it didn’t immediately work, he beat her until she was a bloody puddle, assuming she was dead when he turned to dress.

  Saras gave Dragon the strength she found in that moment to stand and the fury which guided the knife she’d held all those years ago.

  Into her friend she blew the tendrils of strength that lessened her pain as she’d limped away from that temple still shrouded in night. She gave Dragon her rebirth at the hands of Brahma and Vishnu and her determination to give knowledge and choice to the most untouchable.