Flame Caller by Jon Messenger Page A

pain far exceeded anything he’d experienced before. Moaning,
he reached upward and searched for the windowsill. He fought the
urge to curl into the fetal position on the floor and wait for the
pain to pass. If he was feeling this exquisite of pain, it could
only mean that the island was in trouble.
    Finding the windowsill with his hand,
Xander pulled himself up to his knees. A dim light was visible,
flickering through the closed slats. The smell of smoke was
stronger now and he could see wisps of gray ash seeping through the
closed window. Reaching out, he knocked the shutters
open.
    Dancing flames were visible through
the cloud of putrid smoke that billowed down the street in front of
his house. The vibrant oranges, reds, and yellows illuminated the
island in ghostly shadows.
    He couldn’t see the source of the
flames through the black cloud but he didn’t need to. There were
only a few houses on the island that were occupied and only one
that was that close to his own house.
    Sammy’s house was on fire.
    Despite the pain, Xander leapt from
the window without a second thought, buoyed by a sudden updraft of
wind. The smoke stung his eyes and burned his throat. He shifted
the direction of the wind around him, blasting the smoke away from
him. It obeyed his command and parted as he flew forward, but the
smoke curled angrily around behind him, enveloping him in its
consuming darkness.
    The smoke parted before him as he
approached Sammy’s house. The heat was intense, rolling from the
upper floor of the building in scorching waves. Flames licked the
roof as it poured through the slats of her closed shutters on her
bedroom window.
    Xander started to approach, pushing
the smoke aside with the wind he generated. The angry flames
reacted to the extra flow of air by flaring brighter. The clay
tiles of the room cracked in the sudden increase of heat. He saw
the red shingles fall from the building in shattered clusters and
smash into the ground below.
    Panicked, he pulled up short and
pulled his buffeting wind in closer to his body. He didn’t know
what had happened to Sammy but he couldn’t risk harming her in his
poorly conceived rescue plan.
    “ Sammy,” he screamed into
the night’s air but the roar of the fire stole his
words.
    The smoke around him whipped
chaotically, signaling the arrival of the other Wind Warriors.
Giovanni emerged first, being the fastest flier of the group.
Xander turned to the others as they approached, signaling for them
to keep their distance.
    He turned back to the house and saw
the shutters on her window catch fire. They glowed a vibrant amber
as the paint peeled away, quickly turning from wood to smoldering
embers.
    “ Sammy,” he yelled
again.
    He could hear the warning calls of his
aunts and uncles as they gathered behind him. They saw something in
his body language that was only just now occurring to Xander. He
knew Sammy had to be inside. Whether she was inside with another
Fire Warrior or by herself, he didn’t know. Frankly, he didn’t
care. Sammy was in trouble and he was going to save her.
    Xander tilted forward and launched
toward the closed bedroom window. The others called cautions behind
him but he ignored them as he flew to her rescue.
    He crossed his arms defensively over
his face moments before he struck the burning shutters. The
shutters exploded in a spray of sparks and wooden splinters as he
crashed into the room. The wind faltered with his concentration and
he tumbled onto the bedroom floor. He tumbled across the floor,
slamming into a chair and writing table before sliding to a
halt.
    The smoke was choking inside the
bedroom. He could barely see his hand in front of his face as his
eyes watered where they burned from the ash. Xander tried to keep
himself low to the ground, remembering that the oxygen in the room
would remain on the floor.
    “ Sammy,” he choked. He
tried to yell for her—to find her in the gloom—but the smoke burned
his lungs every time he tried to