Flame Caller (33 page)

Abraxas laughed maniacally before
launching forward. He passed dangerous close to Sammy and she felt
the heat roll from the wings as they skimmed by her face. The
General disappeared into the tunnel, his glow receding as he sped
toward the surface.

Sammy’s stomach clenched tightly and
she turned aside, vomiting onto the stone floor. She had warned the
Wind Warriors of the Fire Elemental, though she doubted they took
her warning seriously. There was no way, though, to warn them of
the rebirth of General Abraxas. He was a dangerous assassin before
she attacked him. Now, with the power of the Elemental coursing
through him, he would be practically unstoppable.

When her vomiting turned to dry
heaving, Sammy righted herself and stared back at the dragon. She
didn’t want to give it the satisfaction of seeing her weakness but
the nausea had come on unexpectedly.

She wiped her mouth with the back of
her hand and stared at the Elemental defiantly. “What do you want
with me?”

The dragon crawled forward, though
Sammy quickly realized that it didn’t have a lot of room to
move.

“
Your boyfriend, the
Wind Warrior, has upset the balance of the elements. His very
existence is an abomination, a trick on the part of the Wind,
Earth, and Water Elementals to deny me what is rightfully mine—my
reign as master of the planet.
”

“
I won’t help you against
Xander or any of the other Wind Warriors,” she said, placing her
shaking hands on her hips.

“
When I’m done with
you, you’ll do anything I tell you.
”

The dragon scraped its claws across
the stone floor. A pain erupted through Sammy and she pitched
forward, collapsing onto the floor. She cried out in pain as it
felt like all her nerves were suddenly ignited
simultaneously.

“
I gave you your
powers. You control the flames at my bidding. Right now, I’m taking
back what’s mine. The pain you’re feeling is a result of your
powers being ripped from your body. Do you want the pain to
stop?
”

Despite her best efforts, Sammy
screamed loudly as the pain intensified.

“
Do you want it to
stop?
”

“
Yes,” she cried out.
“Please.”

The pain stopped completely. She still
felt phantom pains radiating through her limbs but the burning
sensation was gone. Meekly, she climbed back to her
feet.

“
The other Elementals
have conspired against me. They have created the perfect vessel for
their power within your Wind Warrior. This abomination cannot exist
in nature. You’re going to help me eradicate it.
”

“
I… I don’t understand.”
Sammy choked on the words as she tried to speak, her throat still
reeling from the pain.

“
They’ve grown weak
over the generations. They believe humanity deserves to live, in
contradiction to the prophecy we all agreed upon millennia ago. To
ensure my defeat, they manipulated genetics until Xander Sirocco
was born.
”

Sammy wiped away the tears streaming
down her face. “You expect me to help you kill him? No matter what
you do to me, I won’t help you do it.”

“
Silly fleshling
,”
the dragon mocked. “
The creation of your Wind Warrior wasn’t
their only betrayal. While I slumbered, the Earth Elemental trapped
me within this stone prison. You’re here to do more than just help
me destroy Xander Sirocco.
”

It leaned dangerously forward until
she could smell its sulfurous breath.

“
They bred a champion
for their cause, so I created one of my own. I can’t escape this
stone prison in this form, so I created you to help
me.
”

It exposed its rows of teeth and Sammy
flinched involuntarily.

“
You’re going to be my
new host.
”

“
Watch the wave on the
left,” Xander yelled seconds before the wave crashed over the deck
of the ship, soaking the Wind Warriors as they concentrated on
keeping the ship afloat.

Xander sputtered, spitting out a
mouthful of salt water. He shook his head, knocking his wet, dark
hair out of his eyes.

“
Hold the line,” he said,
trying to be heard over the howling wind. “Don’t break your
concentration.”

The sea boiled as waves crashed over
them from all angles. The water’s color had gone from the deep blue
green near Ireland to a nearly steely gray the further north they
had sailed. Now, the sea was nearly the same dark black of the sky
overhead. Xander looked up but he couldn’t tell if it was day or
night. No sunlight penetrated the swirling clouds, though he knew
it had to be past sunrise by now. With a cough, he cleared his
throat from the remnants of the seawater. He reached up and wiped
away the water that pooled in the strands of his hair and over his
eyebrows. The driving rains had left everyone soaked long before
the first wave crashed over the deck of the ship.

The wind was staggering and Xander
struggled to keep his feet. The ship was blanketed in a cushion of
air created by the Wind Warriors but the force of the hurricane
imposed its way through their strong defenses and sent the boat
careening from one cresting wave to another.

“
This is insane,” Patrick
said. The protective wall shimmered just beyond his reach. “This
thing is going to kill us long before we make it to
shore.”

The ship lurched as another gale-force
wind broadsided the vessel. Xander dropped to a knee to keep from
being thrown overboard. The other warriors clung to the railing but
quickly righted themselves and reinforced the
protections.

“
Do you wankers think you
can do something about this wind before our whole boat capsizes?”
Seamus asked from within the cabin of the ship. He leaned out the
room’s single window and shook his shaggy, red hair as the beating
rain poured over him. “I’d like to make it home in one
piece.”

The burly Irishman started to say
something else but a crash of thunder drowned out any other sounds.
Seamus quickly pulled his head back inside the helmsman’s cabin and
shut the window behind him.

“
He’s right,” Thea said.
Her normally carefully coifed hair hung wet in her face and Xander
could see the fear in her eyes. “We’ll never last in this. We have
to turn around.”

“
No,” Xander replied.
“We’re over halfway through this already. Turning around is
suicide.”

“
Staying here is suicide,”
she retorted. “We need to turn the boat around and head back to
Ireland.”

“
Then what? Where will we
go? No matter where we settle, it’ll only be a matter of time until
the Fire Warriors hunt us down. We’ll burn with the rest of the
planet. Either we push forward or we let everyone die.”

“
We go forward,” Giovanni
added. “We’ve already come too far.”

“
Xander,” Alicia said, the
concern evident in her voice. She pointed toward the front of the
ship.

Xander gritted his teeth at the sight.
A massive wave bore down on the bow of the ship. The tip of the
wave grew white capped as it threatened to crest and swallow the
little fishing vessel whole.

“
Brace yourselves,” he
ordered.

Xander quickly glanced around and
realized he was the last that still needed to hold on to something
as the ship started to tilt upward, riding the angle of the wave.
He stumbled backward on the slick deck and leaned against the
wheelhouse.

The angle of their ascent grew steeper
and Xander wondered if the whole ship would simply careen backward,
end over end, to be swallowed by the sea. They had no choice but to
drive forward but he wasn’t sure Thea wasn’t right. This was very
possibly a suicide mission.

Thea cried out as she clung to the
ship’s railing. Her feet were nearly dangling off the surface of
the boat, as the vessel grew nearly vertical.

“
We’re going over,”
Patrick said as he reached out his hand and grabbed a hold of
Thea.

“
No, we’re not,” Xander
replied.

A swell of power roared through him as
his eyes turned ghostly white. A surge of wind struck the back of
the boat, driving it forward. It bounced on the tall wave as it
sliced through the waters at neck-breaking speeds. Xander was
driven against the wooden cabin.

The boat crested the top of the
massive wave in a rush and for the briefest moments flew from the
top of the wave.

Xander looked out over the top of the
roaring ocean and swore he saw a glow of sunlight not far from
where they sailed. The sun beat down on an island of lush greenery
in the distance. For a moment, he allowed himself to smile at the
sight. His happiness was immediately washed away as the boat
crashed back down into the water and hurtled down the backside of
the huge wave.

Thea, already unsteady, was thrown
forward. She dropped to her hands and knees, her hair dangling down
over her face. She reached up slowly with one hand and touched her
forehead. As she pulled her hand away, Xander could see the dark
red blood staining her fingers.

“
Thea?” Patrick said as he
turned and saw her stooped behind him.

As soon as she focused on the blood in
her hands, her eyes rolled back and she collapsed onto the
deck.

“
Thea,” Xander and Patrick
yelled at the same time.

The Irishman turned and rushed to her
side. Xander watched him roll her over and cradle her head to his
chest. He was worried about her safety until the strain of
maintaining the protective wall around the ship became physically
painful. A blinding pain erupted behind his eyes and he staggered.
His stomach churned and he swore he was about to vomit.

“
Patrick, we need
you.”

Patrick remained sitting on the deck,
holding Thea close.

“
We can’t hold this by
ourselves,” Giovanni added.

The wind was picking up as it slowly
dismantled the wavering wall around the ship. Xander could hear it
howling and the deck groaned against the pressure. His ears popped
suddenly and his hair whipped around his face.

“
There’s no time,” Alicia
warned again.

Xander didn’t need to see where she
was pointing. The boat leveled out between the waves before it
began climbing again. Xander tilted his head upward and saw a wave
twice as large as the one they had just ridden. They had no chance
of riding a wave this enormous without sinking the ship.

“
This is it,” Giovanni
mouthed, though his words were stolen by the stormy
wind.

The roof of the wheelhouse cracked as
the hurricane tore loose a wooden beam. Xander ducked quickly as it
flew overhead and disappeared off the starboard side of the ship.
One of the cables snapped and swung wildly, slicing through the
railing beside Patrick and Thea. It thankfully wrapped tightly
around one of the railing supports, keeping it from slashing
through any of the men and women stuck above deck.

“
Keep the wind back,”
Xander ordered.

The roar of the hurricane was
deafening but Xander could hear the whisper of the wind singing
hauntingly underneath. The core of his body responded to the music
and the power built within him. His eyes turned ghostly white again
as the gale-force winds flowed around and through him.

Another gust pushed him aside and he
staggered toward the railing. He struggled to keep his footing and
plunged headfirst toward the boiling ocean. Giovanni reached out
and clutched his thick jacket, catching him inches from the edge of
the railing. Xander let out an exasperated sigh and stepped lightly
backward.

The boat began to tilt upward as the
massive wave before them pulled it into itself. Xander’s stomach
dropped as the boat picked up speed, not from his power this time
but from the pull of the ocean.

He closed his eyes and sought the song
of the wind again. It slowly came back into focus and the power
swelled again in his gut. It built until it matched the howl of the
hurricane around him. It built until he didn’t think he could stand
the pressure within him. His skin felt like it was crawling, trying
to escape the elemental strength inside. His head pounded and each
pulse was a hammer pounding inside his skull. He had once thought
it felt like water trying to fill a bottomless pit. Now he realized
it wasn’t bottomless at all. He felt filled beyond
capacity.