Flame Caller (11 page)

When Sammy was out of eyesight, she
leaned heavily against the closest wall and rested her head against
the cool stone exterior. She could practically hear the sizzle of
her hot skin against the cold marble.

Her body felt achy. Every muscle
seemed to scream defiantly when she moved and her joints were
unwilling to bend accordingly. She hadn’t lied when she told Xander
that she’d never been sick before. Unfortunately, she also knew
that what she was experiencing had little to do with
sickness.

She raised her head hesitantly and
stared at the exposed sky between the narrow rooftops. There, high
above her and looking down watchfully, the glowing draconian eye
followed her every movement. Its gaze made her skin feel like it
was on fire. She was forced to look away. Though as her vision
settled on a nearby building, the red eye peered at her from behind
the open window.

Everywhere she looked, the eye was
ever present. Its presence was burning into the core of her. As it
watched, she could feel beads of sweat rolling down her back. The
heat was becoming oppressive and she stripped away her thin tunic,
letting it fall to the ground forgotten.

She stumbled forward wearing only her
pants and sports bra but even those few articles of clothing seemed
too tight. The sweat that coated her body made her pants cling
uncomfortably to her legs.

Rounding the corner, she could see her
house directly ahead. The air in front of her eyes seemed to
shimmer like a mirage and breathing was becoming difficult, as
though she were parched in hot, desert air.

Sammy crashed through her front door
and immediately dropped to her knees. Within the cool interior of
her house, she couldn’t see the watchful reptilian eye. The cool
from the marble seeped through the thin, damp fabric of her pants.
Groaning, she laid out flat on the floor, pressing as much skin as
possible onto the cold stone. Without the present eye, the marble
stole the warmth from her body. By the time she dared stand, she
felt almost normal again.

She hurried upstairs and changed into
her loose-fitting pajamas. Before climbing into bed, she made sure
her shutters were all closed and locked tightly, as though the thin
wood would keep the eye at bay.

Exhausted, both physically and
emotionally, Sammy fell almost immediately to sleep.

When she opened her eyes, Sammy was
standing on a narrow, black stone walkway, perched hundreds of feet
above a boiling river of lava. She knew the location well, having
walked these narrow catwalks for most of her youth. She knew that
if she turned around, she’d be face to face with the charred black
exterior wall of her father’s keep.

The surprise of being home made her
stagger. Her foot slid to the side and dropped precariously over
the edge of the catwalk. She dropped painfully to her knees to keep
from falling sideways and teetering into the angry, molten magma
below.

“
This is a dream,” she
muttered, despite the very real pain she felt in her knees. She
knew they were cut from the sharp obsidian walkway. She could
practically feel the blood seeping into her pant leg.

“
It’s just a dream,” she
reiterated. “I’m not here. I’m with the Wind Warriors. Wake up,
Sammy, wake up.”

Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t
seem to escape her dreamscape. Nervously, she climbed back to her
feet and looked to the far end of the catwalk. A dark crevice in
the cavern’s stone beckons her forward. She didn’t remember there
being an exit like this one from the castle, though she had
explored every inch of their expansive cave system as a
child.

For a moment, she considers turning
back toward the keep. The great unknown of that crevice, combined
with the realism of her dream, left her greatly unnerved. She was
ready to turn back to the familiar castle when a voice boomed
through the cavern.

“
Welcome back,
fleshling
.”

Sammy’s body shivered uncontrollably,
as though the words were reverberating through every cell of her
being. She recognized the voice at once and knew that it belonged
to the giant orb of an eye that had haunted her waking moments
since her encounter with it.

She instinctively knew that if she
turned back toward the castle, she would see that eye staring at
her unblinkingly. Instead, she sprinted nimbly along the obsidian
catwalk toward the strange crevice in the stone face in front of
her.

The demonic voice cackled at her
retreat, its voice chasing her into the narrow chasm in the stone
edifice. She disappeared into its dark tunnel, enveloped by its
consuming darkness.

She slowed to a walk, knowing that the
eye couldn’t fit into the narrow tunnel. Reaching out, Sammy
ignited flames around her hand, illuminating the narrow shaft. The
tunnel ran generally downward, deeper into the earth. She risked a
quick glance behind her but the entrance to the tunnel was lost in
shadows. Sighing, she continued forward, hoping her mind would
awaken from her nightmare sooner rather than later. Everything
about this dream frightened her.

As she followed the tunnel deeper, the
walls became smoother and carved, as though worked by hand. Moments
later, she came across her first support beam. The beam was set
against the wall but still required her to turn sideways to bypass
its girth. As she slid past, her breath caught in her throat. She
remembered doing this before, in a similar passage behind her
father’s throne room.

Sammy quickly turned away from the
passage, willing to take her chances back on the black stone
catwalk. When she turned, however, she found herself facing a solid
stone wall. What had once been a descending, sloped passage was now
an alcove.

She sobbed silently as she turned back
around, already aware of what she would find. The passage ended
directly in front of her feet, opening into a massive underground
chamber. The stone wall behind her slid forward, screeching against
the floor and forcing her into the room.

Despite her light’s inability to
illuminate the far end of the room, she knew what awaited
her.

As if on cue, the giant burning eye
flicked open, illuminating the far end of the chamber. Its presence
set her skin aflame. The fire oozed from her pores. Though she
could feel the intense heat, she knew she wasn’t going to burn to
death.

“
I told you we’d meet
again
,” the reptilian voice hissed, its voice filling the
chamber.

Flames flickered from the left of the
glowing eye, illuminating blood-red scales surrounding an elongated
snout. Sammy tried to scream but the licking flames around her body
swallowed her voice.

“
Come to me, my
child
.”

Sammy tried to resist but her body
moved of its own volition. She strode into the center of the room
while the draconic eye followed her movements. Slowly, the eye
turned away until another joined it; both eyes burned on opposite
sides of the creature’s enormous, reptilian head. Flames danced
from the end of its snout, briefly illuminating the rows of
razor-sharp teeth beneath its nose.

“
Come to me and be
consumed
,” it hissed.

The giant maw opened and flames poured
out, consuming Sammy where she stood.

Xander cleared the table, scraping the
vast majority of the uneaten food into the trash. His romantic date
with Sammy had been a bust. He didn’t go into the date with high
expectations of how the evening would end, but he didn’t expect his
girlfriend to stagger away from his home looking ill.

He smiled as he set the plates in the
sink. Sammy was his girlfriend. He hadn’t really dared admit it to
himself since they reunited. It wasn’t that he was unused to being
in a relationship; he had dated Jessica for years. Sort of dated,
he had to remind himself. It was hard to think of Jessica now. She
seemed to pale in comparison to Sammy. Maybe it was the elemental
connection they shared, or the strange attraction they had for one
another, but their relationship was already far stronger than his
and Jessica’s had ever been.

With the table cleared, Xander climbed
the narrow staircase and walked into his bedroom. He wasn’t feeling
very tired despite the late hour and the exhausting day he’d had.
He had already mentally prepared himself for a late night with
Sammy and now that he was left to his own devices, he was frankly
bored.

Lying down on the bed, he stared up at
the faded mosaic on his bedroom ceiling. His eyes didn’t fixate on
the clearer figures this time as they had before the funeral.
Instead, he let his mind drift to the dinner and the ending of
their date. He ran through all the conversations in his head, every
gesture and glance, and psychoanalyzed them for hidden meaning. He
knew it was a sign of his own insecurities and that he was probably
reading too much into her expressions, but he couldn’t stop his
mind from delving into the details of the night.

The sun finally set over the island,
casting his room into darkness. He had some lanterns strategically
placed around his room but didn’t bother lighting them. He almost
wished the other Wind Warriors had splurged for portable generators
so he could at least have some basic electricity. It was amazing
how much he longed for the simple amenities. It was a sign of his
generation, he knew. If he were back home, he’d be clinging to his
cell phone like it was all that was keeping him afloat in a sea of
technology. Thinking about it, Xander realized that he didn’t
necessarily miss the technology. He had been managing just fine
without it, just like he was doing without television or computer
games. He no longer felt like he needed technology, but on nights
like this when he was so incredibly bored, he really, really wished
he had access to some video games to pass the time.

Sighing, he climbed out of bed. Sleep
wasn’t going to come any time soon and it seemed like a waste to
spend his evening lying around. Not that there was much else to do
on the island other than walk the cobblestone streets, but it
seemed a far better option than lying in bed until he passed out
from sheer boredom.

He considered checking on Sammy. She
would have been back at her home for an hour or so by then. She was
probably asleep, he realized. She had barely seemed able to keep
her eyes open when she was leaving after dinner.

Xander frowned. Checking on her
wouldn’t be worth his time. Best-case scenario was that he found
her asleep, recovering from whatever illness suddenly struck her.
Worst-case scenario was that he accidentally woke her and had to
face the wrath of an angry woman and Fire Warrior.

Whatever was wrong with her, he hoped
it wasn’t serious. He had never considered her getting sick. He had
always just assumed that her internal fire would burn away any
germs. Realistically, it would have to, he realized. She had been
raised in a cavern underground. It was practically an isolation
chamber where the germs of the outside world didn’t dare to
go.

Did she even have immunities to most
of the basic illnesses that he had and gotten over when he was a
kid? Or worse, did her higher body temperature actually just work
like an incubation chamber for bacteria?

Xander suddenly wished he had never
taken college biology.