Flame Caller (4 page)

Xander frowned. Though she called it
sleeping, he knew his grandfather was actually unconscious, as he’d
been ever since being attacked by General Abraxas.

“
Should we come back
another time, then?” he asked. “I don’t want to wake him
up.”

Alicia shook her head. “You don’t need
to worry about waking him up. It’s better that you come to see
him.”

She pulled the cloth tarp aside,
revealing the cool darkness of the one-room building. Xander looked
to Sammy, who only shook her head and gestured for him to go
inside. She knew as well as Xander did that this was something he
needed to do without her.

Xander stepped past Alicia and was
swallowed by the deep shadows in the room. His eyes strained to
adjust to the dim light; a single lantern was the only light source
in the room. As his eyes came into focus, he saw his grandfather
lying on the room’s sole bed.

The elder man’s chest rose and fell
unevenly as he clearly struggled for breath. The left side of his
face and part of his exposed left arm were heavily bandaged in
white linen but Xander could see spots of red and yellow, as the
fresh burns oozed through the wrapping.

Xander fought the urge to throw up.
The emotional turmoil within him reached an apex as he stared at
the man he had loved his entire life. His grandfather had lived
with him and his parents since he was a child. Though Xander had
never known the Wind Warrior secret his grandfather had harbored,
he had always shared a special kinship with the old man. To see him
injured and—though Xander was loathed to admit it—dying on the bed
left an unending ache in his chest.

Alicia closed the tarp behind her as
she followed him into the room. She moved wordlessly past Xander
and retrieved a bowl of water from a nearby table. Dipping a rag
into the cool water, she patted his grandfather’s
forehead.

“
How… how is he?” Xander
stammered.

Alicia looked up at him and smiled
meekly. “He’s dying, Xander. He’s a strong man, one of the
strongest among us, but he’s old just like the rest of us, too. His
body just can’t take abuse like this.”

Looking around, Xander found a chair
nearby. He pulled it over to the bedside and sat down heavily.
Reaching out, he took his grandfather’s uninjured hand and squeezed
it tightly.

“
There has to be something
we can do,” he whispered, without looking up at his aunt. “Take him
to a hospital or something. There’s a really good burn hospital in
Texas, I think.”

Alicia shook her head sadly. “If it
were an option, we would have done it. He’s just too weak. He’d
never survive the flight. To be honest, I’m surprised he made it
all the way here. He’s obviously holding on for something
important. I’m assuming that something is you.”

Xander leaned his head forward and
rested it on his grandfather’s arm. He squeezed his eyes shut
tightly as a tear rolled off his eyelashes and fell to the
floor.

“
You guys keep saying
that,” he muttered. “I’m not special. I’m just a kid trying not to
lose the only family member he has left.”

He didn’t hear Alicia move from the
far side of the bed but she placed a compassionate hand on his
back.

“
You are special, Xander.
There’s a reason you were chosen to be a Wind Warrior when it
seemed like our time was done. Even if you don’t believe in
yourself, you’ve ignited something in the rest of us that we all
thought had died. You’ve given us hope for the future, not just our
own but all of humanity’s.”

Xander lifted his head and turned it
toward his aunt. “You may believe that but the rest of them are
still ready to lie down and die.”

“
Give them time,” she
replied. “They’ll come around.”

“
We don’t have time. The
Fire Warriors are coming for us.”

Alicia sighed and retrieved a second
chair. She placed it next to his and sat down so they were eye
level with one another.

“
Xander, dear, you have to
remember that we’re old and stubborn. We’ve been Wind Warriors for
decades now. We became warriors back in a time where there were
literally hundreds of us living on this island alone, and we were
only one clan of many throughout the world. Over the years, we’ve
watched our loved ones, our friends, and our fellow warriors die of
old age. We’ve seen so many of our kind simply fly back to their
homes to live out their days alone. And all because we knew our
time was coming to an end. We spent so much time being Wind
Warriors that we never stopped to consider starting families. And
those of us who did start families never had our children
activate.”

Xander was surprised to see her reach
up and wipe away a tear. He’d been so saddened by his own loss that
he had trouble remembering how painful this must be for everyone
else.

“
We all knew the signs,”
she continued. “Our time was coming to an end. That was probably
the most painful thing of all. We knew what it meant when we were
gone. It meant that nature had decided humanity wasn’t a good fit
for the Earth any longer. It meant that… that it was time to wipe
the slate clean and start again.”

Xander sat in silence, letting the
weight of that realization sink in. He remembered how surprised he
had been when he found out what would happen when the Fire Warriors
rose to power. He couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to
have that realization while actively a Wind Warrior; to realize
that the world had suddenly decided you were obsolete.

“
Then why didn’t you fight
back?” he asked. “Why didn’t you do everything you could to stop
the Fire Warriors?”

Alicia laughed softly. “Oh child, you
sound so much like your grandfather. That’s exactly why he became
our leader.”

Xander frowned at the implication. “So
you did fight back? But it didn’t work, did it?”

“
Humanity had progressed
too far beyond our help. We were its spiritual guides but humanity
no longer had a need for spirituality. The world prayed to
technology and cared less and less about its impact on the world
around it.”

She stood and moved her chair back
against the wall. “You have to appreciate that we’ve had years to
realize that we were going to die and no Wind Warriors would take
our place. I guess, eventually, we just gave up trying. That’s why
you’re getting so much resistance from the others. They were
content thinking that this was the end for them. They were resolved
in the thought that they were going to die and there wasn’t
anything they could do to change the world for the
better.

“
And then you came along.
You’re giving them hope, but that hope has to break through some
pretty resistant barriers.”

She slipped her hand under his arm and
helped him to his feet. “Just don’t stop trying, okay? Give us a
chance and we won’t let you down. It’s what he would have wanted,
out of you and out of us.”

Xander looked over at his grandfather
before turning back to Alicia. He wrapped his arms around the
elderly woman and pulled her into a tight embrace.

“
Thank you,” he
whispered.

“
My pleasure, dear,” she
replied as he released her.

Xander looked back at his grandfather
once again, taking in the sorrowful image of the wounded man. He
hated to see the older Wind Warrior that way and just wished there
was something he could do to make him better.

“
Promise me you’ll let me
know as soon as he wakes up,” he told his aunt.

Alicia nodded. “On my
honor.”

Xander nodded and walked back out
through the draped tarp. He had to squint momentarily as he was
assaulted by the glaring sunlight. As his eyes cleared, he saw
Sammy watching him intently from beside the doorway.

“
How did it go?” she asked
pensively.

Xander managed a faint smile. “It went
well.”

“
So where do we go from
here?”

“
I’m going to fight back,”
he said sternly, finding a strength in his voice he hadn’t heard in
a while. “I’m going to train and I’m going to convince the other
aunts and uncles to help me.”

Sammy stepped up beside him, a beaming
smile on her face. “I’m so glad to hear it. There’s something I
didn’t tell you before but I think you need to hear it now. You’re
something special—”

“
Don’t you start with
that, too,” he interrupted.

Sammy shook her head. “I’m serious.
You told me before that you didn’t see the point in fighting since
one Fire Warrior did so much damage. But that Fire Warrior was one
of the strongest and deadliest I’d ever seen. And you’re fighting
at a disadvantage since your caste was created only to bolster our
abilities. But when you and General Abraxas faced off, he threw
some of the most powerful fire attacks I’d ever seen and you stood
your ground. You were able to tap some reserve of power, even
without any real training.”

Xander felt a hollowness inside of him
that wasn’t related to his depression. He remembered the fight with
Abraxas and the power that flowed through him, how it seemed to
pull from his very soul as it poured from his body. Could Sammy be
right about him? Could they all be right?

“
Great,” he said, “now I
just need to convince all the others.”

Sammy cringed as she looked over his
shoulder. “Looks like you’re about to have your chance.”

Xander looked over his shoulder and
sighed heavily. Of all the people to approach, Thea was probably
his last choice. The stern Wind Warrior looked set to walk past him
when he stepped into her path.

Thea arched an eyebrow, expressing her
displeasure. “Yes?”

Xander took a deep breath. “I want you
to train me.”

“
We tried that already,”
she replied curtly. “You’re not very good. And frankly, I don’t
have the time right now.”

She pushed her way past him, glowering
at Sammy as she went.

“
Please,” Xander called
after her.

Thea stopped. She turned sharply on
her heel and stared at the young man. “Why should I?”

He swallowed the hard lump in his
throat. He looked at Sammy from the corner of his eye but she was
staring off into the distance, either oblivious to the conversation
or not eager to get involved.

“
Because I want to make a
difference.”

“
Like you did with Bart?”
she retorted.

Her words stung far worse than if she
had struck him. He took a step back but kept his gaze locked on
Thea.

“
No, not like Bart,” he
replied softly. “But because of him. And because of my grandfather.
And… and because of my parents. And because of the billions of
other people on this planet who are all in danger right now.
Because if I don’t do something—if
we
don’t do
something—they’re all going to die. The Fire Warriors are going to
cleanse the world so it can start again. And I don’t know about
you, but I’m not ready to lie down and die just yet.”

Thea stood tall but he could see her
resolve faltering in her gaze.

“
Did you ever have
children?” he asked.

Thea’s hard gaze quickly returned
before she shook her head. “No.”

“
But you did have family,
right?” He didn’t wait for her response. “Parents, of course, and
maybe some siblings. Maybe even some nieces and
nephews?”

He could see his words cutting through
her rough exterior.

“
I know you don’t like me
and you don’t want to help me, if you can avoid it. And I
know
you don’t like Sammy. If you won’t do it for me,
though, then do it for all the family of yours that probably still
exist out there, all your family that’s still in
danger.”

He took a step forward and was
surprised when she didn’t back away. “I don’t know if we can
actually stop the Fire Warriors but I’m sure not going to give up
without a fight. Will you help me?”

Xander could see her jaw muscles
clenching and unclenching as she considered her options. Finally,
she nodded sharply.

“
Meet me in the courtyard
in fifteen minutes,” she said before turning away.

As she walked away, she called over
her shoulder, “And Xander, you won’t enjoy this.”

Xander didn’t care about her thinly
veiled threat. He smiled broadly as he turned back to
Sammy.

Sammy didn’t meet his gaze. She stared
past him in the direction of the retreating Thea. He glanced over
his shoulder quickly to make sure Thea wasn’t giving Sammy a sour
look but only saw the back of her as the older Wind Warrior walked
away.

He turned back to the Fire Warrior.
“Sammy? Earth to Sammy.”

Sammy blinked hard as her eyes came
back into focus. Reaching up, she wiped away a thin sheen of sweat
from her forehead.

“
Sorry,” she said before
coughing politely. “I was off in my own little world.”

Xander couldn’t blame her for wanting
to avoid any confrontation with Thea. Only Patrick would have been
a more unpleasant encounter.