Flame Caller (30 page)

“
Come now, girl,” General
Abraxas said with a malicious smile. “There are lots of people who
are looking forward to seeing you again.”

The edge of the horizon was boiling
with angry, black clouds, a nothingness that slowly devoured the
steely gray of the evening sky. Despite flying far south of the
hurricane, Xander could feel it pulling on him, tugging at his
clothing as they approached land.

Patrick led the group lower until they
skimmed over the top of a cliff face and touched down on the lush
grass at its crest. Xander collapsed onto the damp grass, exhausted
from carrying Sean the entire flight. He rolled over on his back,
ignoring the moisture that seeped through his T-shirt.

The other Wind Warriors sat down
beside him and caught their breaths.

“
It’s beautiful,” Jessica
remarked as she looked around the sloping countryside.

Below them, they heard the waves
crashing into the rock face like thunder. The air was crisp without
being overly cold and was filled with the scent of the
ocean.

“
Where are we?” Xander
asked as he propped himself up on his elbows.

Patrick took a drink of water and
cleared his throat. “Ireland. My home.”

“
That’s a little ways away
from Iceland, isn’t it?” Jessica asked as she rubbed her exposed
arms for warmth.

“
About a thousand miles,
give or take,” Patrick replied.

Patrick pointed at the dark horizon to
the north. “We can’t fly through that. Even with all our power
combined, a stray gust of wind would blow us all right into the
ocean or worse, into a cliff like this one. We’re far too exposed
in the air without an anchor to keep us grounded. So we’re not
going to fly there. We’re going to sail there.”

“
I hate to be the voice of
reason—since I so rarely am,” Sean said, “but what’s going to keep
us any safer in a boat?”

“
I grew up on these
waters. The boat will ride the waves no matter what we do,” Patrick
explained. “Knowing that, we can focus on keeping the hurricane
from tearing the boat apart. That’s a much easier task for the five
of us than trying to stay in the air and defend against whatever
wild debris the hurricane has picked up. I’m the last man that
wants to see a large fish or shark flying through the air at
me.”

“
I loved that movie,” Sean
said with a smile.

“
What movie?” Patrick
asked, genuinely confused.

“
That doesn’t explain how
we’re going to find a boat,” Xander said, ignoring their sidebar
conversation. He stood up stiffly and stretched his aching lower
back. He felt far older than his twenty years. “There’s not a boat
captain alive who would risk sailing into that
insanity.”

“
Oh, I think you’d be
surprised to find that there are one or two out there.”

Patrick pointed to the lights of a
small town glowing below them. The street lamps were just beginning
to shine as dusk quickly approached. A few lights flickered in the
windows of the tightly packed houses. On the far edge of town,
barely visible in the dimming light, Xander could see the buildings
give way to a small dock jutting out over the ocean.

“
Is that your home?”
Xander asked in amazement.

The town was smaller even than White
Halls, with only a single main street cutting through the fishing
community.

“
Ardara, Ireland,” Patrick
said with a broad smile. “Home, sweet home. Come on. We don’t want
everyone to go to bed for the night or get three sheets to the wind
before we have a chance to talk to them about a boat, do
we?”

The Wind Warriors swooped through the
valley that led to the outskirts of the town. The sun was nearly
set, turning the rest of the sky a mirror to the stormy clouds.
Xander got unnerved as he looked north again. Twinkling stars were
emerging above him, filling the sky with shimmering brilliance. To
the north, though, there were no stars. The inky blankness of the
sky seemed to absorb the light from the sky around it.

It was dark enough by the time they
arrived that the Wind Warriors were able to fly around the outside
of the town without worrying about being seen. They arrived shortly
at the far end of the docks.

With the storm brewing violently off
the coast, most of the boats were dry-docked. Only a few still sat
in the water, owned by those either brave enough or stupid enough
to risk fishing in the turbulent ocean.

The boats in the water looked covered
and tied tightly to the docks, obviously packaged for the night.
Only one ship still had a light burning in its cabin. The owner
stood on the dock, checking the motor as it was propped out of the
lapping waves. With a push of a button, the redheaded man turned on
the boat’s engine and watched as the propellers started spinning
quicker than Xander’s eyes could follow.

Patrick stomped down the dock and the
others hurried to follow. The sound from the motor was deafening,
drowning the noise from their approach. As they got closer, Xander
could see the boat owner’s mop of red hair waving in the cool
evening breeze. The man’s back was turned but he was large, built
like a man who had spent his entire life doing manual
labor.

“
Oy, wanker!” Patrick
yelled over the rumble of the boat’s engines.

The redheaded man quickly turned off
the engine and spun sharply, glaring at the gathered group of Wind
Warriors. Upon seeing Patrick, his face split into a toothless
grin.

“
You bloody Mick bugger,”
the man yelled. “You’ve got to be daft, coming back
here.”

The two men stepped toward each other
before embracing in a massive hug. Xander could hear the rush of
exhaling air as the two men squeezed one another.

Sean leaned toward him. “Do you have
any idea what they’re saying?”

Xander shook his head. “Only every
third word or so.”

The two men separated, each smiling
broadly. The older man slammed his hand onto Patrick’s
shoulder.

“
What brings you back
here?”

“
We need a
boat.”

“
Seems a long way to come
just to find a boat. Don’t they have those where you’re living
now?”

“
They do, but we also need
a captain.”

“
Aye, those usually help
with boats.”

“
We need a captain crazy
enough to take us north.”

The man’s smile faded. “Toward
Iceland? Are you staring up your own arse? There’s bad weather that
way. No one’s crazy enough to take their boat up that
way.”

“
You are,
Seamus.”

Seamus stroked his stubbly chin.
“Bollocks. These others with you, are they like you?”

Patrick gave a quick glance to the odd
assortment of Wind Warriors and humans. “Aye, for the most
part.”

“
And this reason you have
for going to Iceland, does it have something to do with everything
happening around here?”

Patrick nodded. “Aye. Going there
could stop it.”

“
Bollocks,” Seamus
repeated.

“
So you’ll help us?”
Xander said, stepping up beside Patrick.

Seamus nodded. “Aye, I’ll help you,
though I must be daft for even considering it. If we’re going to
Iceland, you’re going to need some warmer clothes.”

“
I always thought
Greenland had more ice than Iceland and Iceland was greener than
Greenland,” Sean said from behind everyone.

Seamus arched his eyebrow. “True. But
three might be a bigger number than two, but it’s still a right wee
number, isn’t it?”

Sean shrugged. “I don’t really know
what you just said, so maybe?”

“
Come on,” Patrick
demanded. “Let’s find some coats and get on the boat.”

Sammy’s room had been stripped of all
its furniture. Her desk and chair were missing. Even the bed frame
had been stripped from the room, leaving only her hard mattress
resting on the floor.

The Fire Warrior shoved her roughly
inside. As she struggled to maintain her balance, she heard the
door behind her slam shut and the external bolt thrown across.
Aside from stripping her room of any semblance of comfort, it had
clearly been converted into a prison cell.

Sammy collapsed on the mattress and
brought her knees to her chest. She rocked in silence. Once she was
sure she was alone, she let the tears fall from her face. All the
pent-up stress and worry flooded out of her as her shoulders shook
uncontrollably. She had tried to keep a brave face in front of
General Abraxas. She didn’t want him to see her break down or give
him the satisfaction of seeing her fear. Alone, she had no such
reservations.

When the tears finally dried, she
forced herself to stand and walk to the window. It was far too
narrow to climb out of and too high up to try to climb down, even
if she could get out of it. The view only offered her a brief
escape from her prison.

Sammy looked down on the courtyard far
below and laughed sadly to herself. She was a trapped princess,
high in the lone tower in the evil castle. It was a fairy tale,
except she didn’t remember ever reading such a dark ending to any
of the normal fairy tales.

Her story did have a dark ending. She
knew it from the moment Abraxas kidnapped her in the swamp. There
was no way to tell what the Fire Elemental had in store for her—or
her father, for that matter—but she knew it could only end one way.
For a moment, she remembered standing at the gap in the bridge and
wondered if she should have just jumped.

She turned back to the room and chewed
on her lower lip. Whatever was going to happen, Sammy wished there
was a way to speed it along. Patience had never been her strongest
virtue. It was a trait of the Fire Caste. It was as hereditary as
the blonde hair on her head.

She heard the bar slide back on the
door and foolishly thought for a moment that her prayers had been
answered. The door opened only a narrow crack, just far enough for
a Fire Warrior to slide in a bowl of food and a small glass of
water. As quickly as it had opened, the door was slammed shut and
locked again..

Walking to the door, she picked up the
meager meal and walked back to her hard mattress. Despite the
grumbling in her stomach, the food seemed horribly unappetizing.
She took the metal spoon and pushed the gamey meat and mushrooms
around the bowl but didn’t bother taking a bite. With a sigh, she
sat it down beside her and instead just took a sip of water. With
the dryness gone from her mouth, she sat the glass down as well and
simply lay back on the bed. She stared up at the ceiling and tried
to count the obsidian stones above her. Many of them were lost in
the shadows but she frowned just the same. She used to know the
numbers by heart, when she was a little girl. Now, though she
struggled to remember the exact count, the number wouldn’t come to
her.

Her stomach rumbled again and she
looked back over to the bowl of food. A debate raged in her head.
On one hand, not eating would be a silent protest toward her
unwanted captivity. Knowing what was to come, however, she wondered
if it would be more worthwhile to have her strength.