The Fire Elemental rose from the water on its hind legs, water spraying off its body. It stretched its wings wide as it howled angrily into the air. It turned its gaze toward Xander, who climbed quickly to his feet. Rather than launching itself into the air, the Elemental brought its wing down in a broad sweep. Xander summoned a gust of air to carry him aloft but did so far too slowly. The wing struck him across the chest, sending him soaring into the woods.
His buffer of air kept him from being crushed, both by the wing and the trees through which he crashed. He came to a stop against a broad stump before slumping to the ground.
His body ached. He was certain there were pulled muscles all along his back. His hips ached, as did his head. The combination of being struck along with his overexertion left his mind feeling like mush. It was hard to concentrate, much less focus on the area around him. The trees swam in his vision, intermixed with the explosions of light that danced across the scenery.
A strong wind washed over Xander as the dragon lifted back into the air. It soared majestically away, though he could already see it banking for another pass. It could have crushed him, Xander knew, but it wanted him, like all of humanity, to burn.
As his vision cleared, Xander forced himself to his feet. He rushed out of the trees, knowing a forest fire would only make matters worse. The Fire Elemental was darting in and out of the clouds as it made its broad turn. There wouldn’t be much time until it would be coming in with another scorching breath.
It was too far away for Xander to drain the wind from beneath its wings again, even though he wasn’t convinced that would be the best plan. He had grounded the Elemental on his first try, but it had proven even more dangerous on the ground.
If he was going to come up with another brilliant plan, now was the time.
The Fire Elemental banked through the clouds, the cold wind stinging the new gash across its cheek. The burning anger within it was nearly matched by the searing heat roiling in its gullet, preparing for another blast on the hapless Wind Warrior. He had the audacity to injure the Elemental and for that, he would be destroyed.
“Don’t fool yourself,” Sammy said within its mind. “He’s going to destroy you. He’s taken the best you have to offer and shrugged it off.”
Through the dragon’s eyes, she could see Xander standing unsteadily in the row of black, torn earth. She wanted to be confident in Xander’s abilities against the Fire Elemental and, admittedly, she had been surprised at how well he had handled himself, but she wasn’t entirely certain he could withstand too many more attacks. His skin was bright red and irritated from the heat. He stretched awkwardly, as though his back was bothering him. It all added up to a Wind Warrior who didn’t seem ready to continue this battle.
The Fire Elemental chuckled throatily, sounding like a hoarse cough as it rolled down the long, draconic neck. “You may be able to sense my anger, but I can sense your lack of confidence. Your love is weakened and tired. He was a fool for believing he was ready to face me.”
“You’re only attacking him because you’re a coward!” Sammy yelled. “You know that once he finds the Earth Elemental, he’ll destroy you.”
“What you see as cowardice, I see as strategy. I haven’t survived all these millennia by acting rashly.”
“Like attacking a Water Elemental when he’s standing next to a river?” Sammy chided.
The dragon hissed as its righted its course, angled once again directly toward Xander. The Wind Warrior was little more than a speck in the distance, only truly visible through the dragon’s sharp, reptilian eyes. It sucked in a mouthful of air, letting the air mix with the fire burning in its throat. A smoldering red illuminated the scales of its long neck, turning to orange, yellow, and then white as the intensity of the flames increased. In the cloudy French sky, the dragon’s throat glowed like a second sun as it swooped toward Xander.
Sammy tried to rein in the dragon’s attack, just as she had tried futilely during its first pass, but the Elemental wasn’t to be deterred. She screamed into its mind, trying to break its concentration, but it didn’t seem to be enough. Sammy wracked her brain as she tried to remember how she had influenced the Elemental’s actions before. She had taken control of the body, even if only temporarily, but she couldn’t seem to do the same now, when she really needed it.
Not when she really needed it, she realized. When Xander really needed it. He couldn’t take another wave of fire. His powers might be incredibly strong, stronger than even Sammy assumed when this fight began, but he was getting weaker with every attack. It wouldn’t take much, just a flicker of its searing flame, to kill him.
In the distance, the sight of Xander caught her attention. His eyes glowed so brilliantly white that it was easily visible even from their great distance. Sammy smiled, knowing Xander hadn’t yet given up the fight.
The anger within the dragon flared at the sight, and it increased its speed. The trees below became a green blur as it shot over the countryside, closing in once again on the dark-haired man standing defiantly before it.
Sammy focused on the periphery of the Elemental’s vision, in which she could see the sky boiling angrily. Gray clouds grew black and flashes of lightning replaced the dragon’s breath that had once illuminated their depths. A storm of incredible power was brewing overhead. The Elemental seemed unaware or, probably more accurately, uncaring. It remained unmoved as it sped toward Xander.
She expected a lightning strike to bring the dragon low. Instead, even Sammy was surprised when the clouds elongated, stretching in a swirling vortex toward the ground below. Startled, the dragon tilted away from the nearest tornado as it touched down in the woods, uprooting trees and filling the air with whirling debris. Sammy could feel the tug of the air on the dragon’s wings, pulling it toward the closest vortex.
“You fought a Water Elemental near a river, and now you’re facing a Wind Elemental while flying,” she said, knowing her words would be heard clearly within the dragon’s mind. “You really didn’t think this through.”
“Silence,” it growled. “All his tricks won’t save him after I’ve devoured him.”
It tilted abruptly, avoiding a second tornado. More appeared along its path, creating a labyrinth of maelstroms through which the dragon was forced to maneuver. The leather of its wings fluttered, causing turbulence as it passed narrowly between two of the newer tornados.
Xander was clearly doing all he could to stop the Fire Elemental, but the dragon handily avoided every attempt. He was growing closer by the second, the features of his face visible through the dragon’s telescopic vision.
Sammy felt a panic welling up inside her. She had silently, and not so silently, cheered as Xander threw new imaginative roadblocks in the dragon’s way. She had hoped one would have been enough, but nothing was stopping its assault. It was getting closer; soon it would be close enough to spew its molten flames over him, something she wasn’t sure he’d survive. She was seconds away from losing Xander forever.
“No!” she yelled as the dragon avoided another of the tornados. “I won’t let you kill him.”
“You can’t stop it. It’s already done.”
Her panic ignited a fire within her own belly. She clenched her teeth and was surprised to feel the dragon’s maw closing as well. Her hold was tentative but she was influencing the Elemental’s body. As quickly as it came, she could feel it slipping away as the dragon fought to regain control. Knowing time was short, Sammy did the only thing she could think of. She tilted the Elemental’s wings and drove it straight into the nearest tornado.
Xander strained to maintain control over a dozen tornados, touching down along the dragon’s path. From across the river, he could feel the wind howling around him, tugging at his clothing and his hair. It was deafening, despite the natural protections against the wind powers that existed around him.
The strain was getting to him, causing a sharp pain behind his eyes. It began as a low throb but kept growing in intensity, each
pulse of his heart driving a spike into his forehead. More frustrating than the strain he was feeling was that his attempts to stop the Fire Elemental were proving useless. The dragon was darting easily between the tornados, tilting its wings as it glided past each summoned vortex.
It was growing closer, first a red speck on the horizon but quickly becoming the aircraft-sized monstrosity it was. Xander swallowed hard as he tried to create more tornados, but he could feel the power slipping from his fingers. He had overexerted himself, not that he had any other choice in a battle to the death. The more distal tornados were already faltering, dissipating into the air and dropping their gathered debris into the forest.
The dragon neared the edge of the river. One final dip of its wings would bring it in line for another attack. Xander was ready to create another ice wall and wind buffer like he had done before, but his arms still stung from the last assault. This one might leave his hands and arms burnt and useless.
He braced himself again, ready for whatever may come. What came, however, caught him completely by surprise.
For no apparent reason, the dragon tilted its wings and slammed into the closest tornado. The whipping winds sent the Fire Elemental careening end over end as it struggled to right itself. For a moment, Xander didn’t know how to respond to his sudden turn of good luck. Noting that the tornado would only keep the dragon confused for a moment longer, he changed the direction of the air pressure, slamming the dragon into the ground.
It fell from a hundred feet in the air, plummeting toward the river at speeds that would kill a normal man. Xander had no illusions that the fall alone would kill the Elemental, but it would hopefully stun it enough for him to press the advantage.
The dragon’s crash into the river was far more violent than it had been the time before. For a brief moment, as the water surged over the banks and flooded the nearby woods, Xander could see the rocky bottom of the riverbed. The displaced water quickly rushed back into the banks, splashing over the Fire Elemental’s submerged upper body.
The dragon sputtered as its head rose from the depths. It started to right itself when it sensed an intense chill in the water around it.
The murky gray of the water turned a startling blue as fracture patterns spread over its surface. Ice crystals formed along the riverbanks before rushing at an accelerated rate toward the center of the stream.
Thrashing in the solidifying water, the Fire Elemental struggled toward the nearest shore even as ice floes crashed into its legs. Its movements grew sluggish as it tried to lift its clawed feet from the bottom of the river. A knee emerged, though it was stark white with frost. The dragon howled angrily as it tried to move, but the rushing ice froze the churning water into blue-white peaks and valleys surrounding the now-trapped Elemental.
The dragon tried to lift its head but its shoulders and neck were submerged, held firmly in place by a ton of ice. It writhed unsuccessfully, a single freed wing flapping uselessly in the air as it tried to pull the rest of its bulk free from its prison.
Slowly, the glow faded from Xander’s eyes. He slumped to the ground, his legs unsteady and weak after the exertion. His breath came in labored gasps as his chest ached and lungs burned. Raising his head, he looked at the Fire Elemental, realizing how pathetic it looked trapped in its frozen confines.
The dragon’s head turned slowly toward him, its reptilian eye fixed on Xander. Its scaly lips pulled back in a poor facsimile of a smile as it brought its maw to bear. Its mouth opened slowly, revealing first the razor-sharp teeth before stretching wider, showing the fire burning in its throat, ready to be released.
“Don’t,” Xander ordered. He pushed himself to his feet. Around his hand, a maddening swirl of white and blue circled as he summoned his powers once more. “You so much as inhale and I’ll drive an icicle straight through your brain. If that doesn’t put you down, I’ll keep doing it over and over until your head is nothing but mush. Go ahead and see if you can regenerate from that!”
The dragon’s head paused, its horns scraping the surface of the ice. Eventually, the maw closed until Xander could once again see the dragon glowering at him from the center of the icy river.
The dragon’s mouth curled at the ends in a sardonic smile. “No, you won’t.”
Xander sneered at the creature as he raised his hand. The surface of the ice rippled, as a massive icicle emerged, jutting upward toward the dragon’s exposed head. The tip of the spear glistened in the sunlight as it approached the underside of its jaw. When it encountered the thick red scales of the dragon’s throat, the Elemental pulled its head away as best as it could, though it couldn’t escape the sharp shard of ice. At the dragon’s most outstretched, the icicle pressed against its throat until Xander could hear a sizzle of its superheated blood seeping from between the pierced scales.
“You don’t think I’ll do it? I’ll kill you.”
The sadistic smile never faded from the monster’s mouth. It tilted its eye toward him as best it could. “You won’t risk killing us both.”
“Both of who?” Xander asked, though he felt his stomach drop at the mention.
The body of the dragon rippled as though it were losing its consistency. Its long neck receded, leaving the ice spear lonely, jutting haphazardly from the surface of the river. Likewise, its body seemed to shrink before Xander’s eyes as though it were dissolving.
Xander panicked as he watched. He had the Fire Elemental where he wanted it, ready to be destroyed, and now it seemed to be escaping. Rushing onto the ice, Xander charged toward the chasm where the dragon had once been imprisoned. Arches of ice that had once coated the creature’s back were still in place, dangling precariously over the hollow gorge beneath. Empty pillars that had housed the dragon’s broad legs dropped away to the riverbed below, stones revealed under the churned earth.
As his eyes followed the vacated icy tomb, Xander’s breath froze in his chest, an effect that had nothing to do with the biting cold surrounding him. Near where the draconic belly had so recently been laying, Sammy stood naked. Her unkempt blonde hair draped over her shoulders though it did little to conceal her nudity.
Sammy raised her head and stared at Xander standing at the lip of the chasm. Her eyes burned red, her pupils elongated vertical reptilian slits.
“As I said,” the Fire Elemental said, “both of us.”
“No,” Xander whispered, as he stared at Sammy. “This is a trick.”
The Fire Elemental stepped forward; the ice melted beneath it with every step, sluicing into a stream that refroze behind it. “It’s no trick, Wind Warrior. This body is why you fight, isn’t it? There are no altruistic reasons in this battle, other than to save the woman you love. Well, that woman is gone, claimed as my host.”
Xander staggered backward as though he had been kicked in the chest. It suddenly made sense, why the Water Elemental had seemed so reluctant to discuss Sammy and her fate. She had known what Sean and Jessica had assumed all along. Sammy was gone, claimed by the Fire Elemental. Hosts didn’t survive the process; Xander had been told over and over.
“I don’t believe you,” he said defiantly, his vision blurred by the welling tears.
The Elemental scoffed as it climbed higher out of the ravine. “Your eyes don’t deceive you. We Elementals can do many things, but shape changing isn’t one. We have a true form, and we have a host for passing amongst the humans. You’ve seen the true me, even had it trapped in the ice. This is the only other form I can assume, the human skin I wear.”
Xander turned away from the sight, looking instead toward the scorched and ruined forest along the shore. Everything he’d done, he’d done to save Sammy. She couldn’t be gone. She was far too much like him, perhaps the only person who truly understood everything he’d been through and would continue to go through, as he claimed Elemental powers.
“Give up this charade,” it said. “What you fought for is gone; there’s no more reason to resist the natural order. Allow my Fire Caste to complete its
mission and reduce humanity to ash. Perhaps, with the power of both the Water and Wind Elementals, you can help shape the next dominant species to work in harmony with the planet, rather than against it. Be a better guide than your predecessors.”
Xander didn’t hear its plea. He was thinking of all their times together, his and Sammy’s. When he had first met her, it had seemed like love at first sight, a concept Xander hadn’t even been sure he believed in before that moment. He had even dumped Jessica just to spend more time with Sammy, never knowing all along that she was a Fire Warrior sent to kill him.
It wasn’t as though he hadn’t questioned their odd connection. Xander was a natural skeptic and certainly questioned why a beautiful woman was suddenly interested in a directionless college student. Then he discovered the truth. Their connection wasn’t random. It wasn’t even love at first sight. They were created similarly, part of the grand design of the world. He had been designed to harness the power of the four Elementals while she had been nurtured to be the next host for the Fire Elemental. They were far more alike than they had ever realized.
“We’re alike,” Xander mumbled, raising his head and wiping away the streaks of tears from his face.
“There’s no reason for this senseless war to continue,” the Elemental said, oblivious to Xander’s inner turmoil. “Stop fighting and this will all be over before you know it.”
“We’re alike, she and I,” Xander said, turning toward the pit. He was surprised to see Sammy standing before him, the heat from her naked body radiating from her in waves.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you’re full of crap,” he said angrily. “Sammy and I were crafted to be alike. It was in our genes, genes your kind helped cultivate in the both of us. That’s why we always felt so connected to one another. I can hold the power of two Elementals within me without losing myself, and I’m willing to bet Sammy’s the same way. You made the perfect host, but I’m willing to bet you made her just a little too perfect.”
Earth God Page 9
