Flame Caller (26 page)

Sammy glanced over at the speedometer
and saw it creep above eighty miles per hour. The narrow highway
was relatively straight but hardly catered to such a high speed. As
the road gently curved, Abraxas overcompensated and caused the car
to fishtail dangerously. At least now, she understood why her ride
in the trunk had been so painful.

“
I see you still haven’t
learned how to drive,” she said sourly.

The General laughed. “I still find
half the things humans do to be nonsensical but driving makes me
happy. It makes my mission that much shorter. It’s just that
everything in this contraption is just so touchy.”

The car jerked again and Sammy heard
the rumble strip roaring under the passenger-side tires. Abraxas
quickly pulled the car back into their lane.

“
Go ahead and ask me,” the
General demanded.

“
I don’t know what you’re
talking about,” Sammy replied curtly.

“
Ask the question. I know
you’re dying to know.”

Sammy remained silent and crossed her
arms defensively over her chest.

“
Ask it!” Abraxas
yelled.

“
Why aren’t you dead?”
Sammy shot back.

The General laughed heartily. The
sound of a gleeful Abraxas was frightening. “It’s not for lack of
effort on your part, trust me. You really caught me by surprise. I
give you credit; not many people get to do that to me. But my
master has much greater plans for me. I knew he wouldn’t let me die
in that horrible little town.”

Sammy shook her head. “I saw the
island. There’s no way you would have survived its crash into the
ocean.”

“
You’re absolutely right,
had I been stupid enough to be on the island when it fell. It
didn’t take a genius to realize that they were using their powers
to keep the island aloft. I led my warriors up the ropes until I
could locate the most obvious location for the Wind Warrior
controlling the island. I ordered my soldiers to retrieve the Wind
Warrior and then I returned to the boat to watch the destruction.
And the destruction was magnificent.”

“
You just sent them to
their deaths, knowing the island would crash into the ocean? You
knew they’d die.”

“
But I didn’t care. A king
on the chessboard doesn’t care about the sacrifices a pawn has to
make to ensure his safety.”

“
You’re not a king; you’re
like a cockroach. You just don’t know when to lie down and die,”
Sammy huffed. “What’s stopping me from trying again? What’s
stopping me from just setting you on fire right now and making this
whole car crash into those trees? The world would be a better place
without you in it.”

“
You won’t do it and we
both know it. You actually have something to live for. That little
boy toy of yours has made you weak when you should have been one of
the strongest among us. If you die now, you’ll never see him
again.”

The mention of Xander caused a hot
knife to settle in Sammy’s gut. She didn’t dare betray that they
had a falling out, not to someone as maniacal as the
General.

“
Besides, you’re a smart
girl. Killing me won’t make any difference. Even if I die, my
master will still raze the world, cleansing it of the human stain.
Someone else will take my place. Someone like your father,” he
chided.

Her neck muscles tightened at the
mention of her father, though she didn’t give Abraxas the
satisfaction of seeing her squirm in discomfort.

“
You’re going to sit there
quietly,” he continued, “because you know the only chance of saving
your boyfriend and everyone else you’ve met and care about on this
wretched planet is to find a way to stop my master.”

Sammy frowned and turned her head away
from General Abraxas. She stared out the window at the blur of
trees that flew by. In time, she knew they’d give way to the cacti
in the American Southwest and eventually would end at a familiar
rocky outcropping, concealing a murderous clan of Fire Warriors
deep beneath the earth.

She knew Abraxas was right. She
wouldn’t risk anything happening to Xander or the other Wind
Warriors, regardless of how they felt about her and treated her. If
there were going to be a way to stop the Fire Caste from destroying
the planet, she would have to find a way to stop the Elemental.
Thinking about the glowing draconic eye, however, made her cringe
in fear.

She only hoped that when the time
came, she’d be strong enough to fight back.

Xander stopped unpacking his meager
backpack of belongings halfway through removing a wrinkled shirt.
He ran the fabric between his fingers as he chewed on the inside of
his lip. With a huff, he pulled the shirt free of the bag and threw
it hard against the wall. He hoped his outburst would make him feel
better but the fact that the shirt did little other than flutter
harmlessly to the floor just angered him even further. He turned
the backpack over and dumped its contents onto the bed before
brushing the rest of the clothes and toiletries onto the
floor.

“
Is this a bad time?”
Giovanni asked, swooping in and landing behind him.

“
I really need to fix the
hole in that wall,” Xander replied without turning around. He stood
in a mound of his own clothes and belongings. “You’d be surprised
the things that are fluttering through that gap.”

“
I’ll assume that was a
joke that I don’t understand,” the Italian said, making himself at
home on the only chair that survived the Fire Warriors’ assault and
the collapse of the island.

Xander reached down and picked up a
handful of clothes, tossing them onto the unmade bed. With a sigh,
he picked up the closest shirt and tried folding it. Folding
laundry had never really been his forte and the shirt looked far
worse folded than it had simply crumpled. With a growl, he threw it
back down on the bed.

“
Do you want to talk about
it?” Giovanni asked from his seat.

“
It or her?” Xander asked,
cutting to the crux of the conversation.

“
Either. Whatever’s on
your mind.”

Xander stared at the clothes for the
third time and realized what a wasted effort it was to take out his
frustrations on the inanimate objects. He sighed and pushed the
backpack out of the way, clearing a spot on the bed to sit down
on.

“
I can’t believe he’s
gone,” Xander began. “I’ve been killing myself, trying to find a
reason to go on, and I just don’t know if I can anymore. He’s the
one that wanted me to fight. If none of this had happened—if I
hadn’t suddenly gained my powers—I’d still be a nobody living a
nobody life in a nobody town.”

“
Don’t you think he’d want
you to keep fighting—to not give up hope just because he’s
gone?”

“
I don’t know, Giovanni.
His last words were telling me to go find the Wind Elemental. He
wants me to find this mythical being somewhere on a planet of seven
billion people. ‘Needle in a haystack’ doesn’t even do it justice.
It’s an impossible task.”

“
But?” he asked, as though
he knew there was more to Xander’s train of thought.

“
But the Wind Elemental is
the only hope of us stopping the Fire Caste. I don’t really have a
choice in this, do I?”

“
I think you answered your
own question.” Giovanni leaned forward, resting his elbows on his
knees. “Your grandfather was a good man and a wise one, too. He
wouldn’t have told you to find the Wind Elemental if he didn’t
think you capable of doing it.”

Xander sighed and looked over his
shoulder toward the Italian. “I don’t think he knew me as well as
he thinks he did. I’m not as strong as he thought I am.”

“
You’re stronger than you
think. I don’t know if I’d still be fighting if I had lost all that
you had.”

Xander turned back and lost himself in
the pile of halfheartedly folded clothes on the bed.

“
Do you want to talk about
her?” Giovanni asked.

“
Do we need
to?”

“
I think you need to. When
I said you had lost so much, she doesn’t have to be included in
those numbers. Are you mad at her?”

“
It’s complicated and it
depends. I’m angry because she lied to me—to us—but I’m also
feeling guilty for sending her away. But as soon as I realize I’m
guilty, I feel angry about feeling guilty because she was the one
that did something wrong, not me. Does that make sense or did I
completely confuse you?”

Giovanni smiled. “You just sound like
a man in love going through a lover’s spat.”

“
That’s part of the
problem,” Xander replied, throwing up his arms. “Do I really love
her? I’ve been defending what she and I have this entire time but
now I’m second-guessing myself. Was everything we had faked? I just
feel like she was playing me the whole time.”

The Italian stroked the stubble on his
chin. “What do you think? Do you think it was all a
trick?”

“
No,” Xander replied as he
pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, I feel like what we had was
real. I guess that’s why it hurt even worse that she betrayed
us.”

“
When we first met, I
promised you I would give you advice on flying and women. I seem to
spend far less time teaching you to fly.”

Xander smiled despite his growing
headache. “So what would you recommend? That I just forgive and
forget?”

“
Do you really think she
betrayed you?”

“
Of course I do. She’s the
daughter of the man trying to kill us all. That’s information
that’s worth sharing. Why would she keep something like that
secret?”

“
Maybe because she knew
this is exactly how you would respond?” Giovanni
postulated.

“
I hate psychoanalysis,”
Xander replied flatly. “I hope you realize that.”

“
I’m not defending what
she did, but ask yourself if her keeping this secret was really as
bad as you’re making it out to be.”

“
Of course it is. She put
us all in danger.”

“
All of us,” Giovanni
agreed, crossing his legs and leaning back in the seat
thoughtfully. “Herself included. Think about it, Xander. If the
Fire Caste hates us as bad as they do, how do you think they feel
about one of their own that betrays them for the sake of loving one
of their mortal enemies? Her life is in greater risk than any of
ours. Don’t you think she knew that all along when she was keeping
her secret? Don’t you think that ran through her mind every time
she thought about telling you the truth?”

Xander frowned and crossed his arms
across his chest. Everything Giovanni said chiseled away at his
resolve.

“
So what? Do you think I
made a mistake?”

“
I don’t know if I’d go
that far. I probably would have reacted the same way. But don’t you
think she deserves a chance to explain? She did save both of our
lives.”

“
So give me some advice.
What do we do now?”

“
I think we find the Wind
Elemental,” Giovanni said matter-of-factly. “I don’t think that’s
up for debate.”

“
And Sammy?”

“
That’s up to you. If it
were me, we’d stop by and pick her up on the way.”

Xander smiled. “You’re killing me,
Giovanni. What do the others think?”

Giovanni shrugged. “Patrick and Thea
still don’t trust her.”

“
That’s going to be a
problem.”

“
No it won’t. They may not
trust her but they trust you. We’re not crazy. We know the world is
hanging by its fingertips to the edge of a cliff. If you want to go
after the Wind Elemental, every one of us will support you. If you
stop and pick her up on the way, they may not like it but they’ll
still support you.”

“
Then we need to go let
them know.”