“All the more reason for us to stick around. I respect what you and the other blokes are doing, you’re good people, but this is our home. My family’s here and my home is just across the Channel. If I don’t help free England from these wankers, who will?”
Xander chewed on the inside of his lip. He was genuinely sad to see the British officer go, so soon after reuniting. “Wilkes, if I can—”
Wilkes waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it, Yank. Besides, what good would we do you after you leave here? What the bloody hell do you think we’d be able to do to a dragon?”
Xander embraced the black man unexpectedly. Wilkes paused for a moment before wrapping his arms around Xander’s back.
“You know we’re going to miss you, right?”
Wilkes pulled away from their embrace and looked sternly toward Xander. “I meant to talk to you about that as well. I think Sean and Jessica should stay here with us.”
Xander shook his head slowly. He wasn’t sure how to explain to Wilkes that they had become his anchor during all the insanity. He needed them nearby, just to remind him that the world was worth saving.
“I know they’re your mates. I’d never try to step in between you three, but they’re mortals, just like my men and me. They’ve been following you because they believe in you, but they keep winding up in danger.”
“They’ll be in danger no matter where they go,” Xander countered.
Wilkes nodded. “You’re right, of course, but do you think they’d be safer here, with the rest of the French resistance, or with you, facing a dragon and the best of the Fire Caste? I’m sorry if I sound accusing, I’m not trying to be. Quite the opposite. I’m here because I respect you more than you’ll probably ever know. You just need to ask yourself if you’re doing this for the right reasons. Are you keeping Sean and Jessica around because it’s in their best interests or because it’s in yours?”
Xander legitimately didn’t know which was the right answer. He had promised Sean he’d keep him around—that staying close to Xander meant staying safe. Wilkes, however, made a good argument. He had quickly accepted Sean’s terms, to always keep them close no matter where he went, because he wanted them nearby as much as they wanted to remain close. He didn’t want to consider the truth—that staying close to Xander might just get them killed.
“It’s not my decision to make,” he said, finally. “We can ask them and no matter what they say, I’ll respect their decision.”
“It’s all I can ask,” Wilkes said.
The Brit followed him back to Sean and Jessica. No one spoke, though everyone knew a sad goodbye was coming.
“So you’re staying?” Sean finally asked.
“Got to. My family needs me here, not chasing after some mythical creature.”
“We’ll miss you,” Jessica said. “We owe you everything, both for London and for what you did here.”
Wilkes smiled. “I seem to remember you all saving my arse in both places. Seems like I still owe you all instead.”
Wilkes looked to Xander, who cleared his throat loudly. “Wilkes and I talked and we want to offer you a choice. You know where my path takes me from here. I have to find the Earth Elemental, and then I’m going to confront the Fire Elemental. Leftanant Wilkes is going to stay and fight, try to free France and England both. Staying with me isn’t going to be safe. I’m going up against the dragon, and it kicked the living crap out of me last time. If you want to stay, I won’t—“
“Shut it, you tosser,” Sean said, glancing at Wilkes with a smug smile. “We’re not going anywhere, except with you.”
“Yeah,” Jessica said with a shrug. “You’re stuck with us for the long haul. That hasn’t changed.”
Xander nodded, feeling a wellspring of emotion at his friends’ loyalty. He turned toward the Brit, but Wilkes was already nodding with a broad smile.
“They love you, Yank, I can’t fault them for that. You all be careful, though. I won’t be there to save your arses next time, which means you’re on your own.”
“It goes both ways,” Sean said. “I won’t be saving you anymore either.”
Wilkes pulled Sean into a bear hug. “Take care, mate.”
Jessica stepped forward and slid her arms over their shoulders. “Take good care of your family.”
They slowly separated, and Wilkes turned finally toward Xander. “Take good care of them. It’s all on you now.”
Xander nodded without offering a reply. Words didn’t seem necessary, all things considered.
With a final nod, Wilkes turned away from the group and yelled something in French. The Frenchmen stood and gathered their belongings, slinging packs and rifles over their shoulders before they all disappeared into the woods. Wilkes paused at the tree line and turned back toward the friends, offering a half wave before vanishing into the foliage.
The three stood for a long while, just watching where Wilkes and the others had vanished. Eventually, the stillness in the air seemed to recede and they turned toward one another.
“So…” Sean said slowly.
“Yeah,” Jessica replied, as though that was all the conversation that needed to happen.
“He was right, you know,” Xander said. “This won’t be easy.”
“Sure, yeah, we got it. Saving the world never is.” Sean chuckled to himself. “Savior of the Planet. Sounds like you should have a Queen theme song, or at least a bit part in a Highlander movie.”
“I mean, you already have the Wind and Water powers,” Jessica offered, slipping an arm over Sean’s shoulders.
“Next we need to find Earth,” said Sean.
“Then Fire,” Jessica said.
Sean’s eyes widened slightly. “And then we can find Heart!”
“Ooh,” she replied. “Then we can summon Captain Planet.”
“Man, I bet Captain Planet could have kicked the crap out of that dragon. And for the record, you’re even more beautiful now that I know you get my dorky references.”
“I’m a closet dork,” she admitted.
Xander shook his head. “I’m not entirely sure I like you two being friends. Everything seemed so much easier when you just hated each other.”
Sean hefted the backpack onto his shoulders. It was light, considering most of the food had been eaten and his jacket, which had been packed in the backpack previously, had been buried underneath a collapsing barn.
“Everyone ready?” the heavyset man asked.
Xander smiled sheepishly.
“What was that?” Jessica asked, pointing toward her ex-boyfriend.
“What was what?” Xander asked.
“That. That right there. That halfhearted smile you used to give me whenever you didn’t want to tell bad news. You’re doing it again.”
Xander sighed. “I don’t know where we’re going from here.”
Sean arched an eyebrow. “Sure you do. We’re going to find the Earth Elemental.”
“That’s what I’m telling you. I don’t know where he is anymore.”
Sean stepped closer, though he seemed more concerned than angry. “You found him before. You said the Elemental was on an island, right?”
“Yeah,” Jessica agreed. “You found him right before the Fire Elemental appeared. Just go find him again.”
“I can’t,” Xander said, exasperated. He threw his hands up in the air apologetically. “He’s not there anymore. I can’t sense him like I did before.”
“Well, try again,” Sean said, suddenly sounding threatening. “We stuck by you because we were going to find the Earth Elemental.”
“I have been trying.”
“Try harder.”
“I can’t try any harder, Sean. He’s just not there anymore.”
“What could happen to a…” Jessica began before she paused. “You don’t think the Fire Elemental had something to do with this, do you? Or the earthquakes? Do you think the earthquakes had to do with the Elemental?”
“I don’t know.
I know exactly as much as you two do. I was in a coma during all the earthquakes, in case you forgot.”
Jessica sighed and sat down on the grass. “What do you know about this island?”
Xander shrugged. “It’s roughly a triangle. It has three volcanoes on it, one in each corner. It’s somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.”
Sean and Jessica looked at him for a long, silent second, as though they were expecting him to say more. Finally, they glanced at one another.
“That’s it?” Sean asked. Jessica tried to quiet him, but he wouldn’t be shushed. “No, it needs to be said. That’s absolute crap, Xander. Do you have any idea how many islands there are in the Pacific?”
“Do you?” Xander retorted.
Sean opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He glanced over to Jessica, but she shrugged, offering no assistance.
“Well, it’s a lot,” Sean said eventually. “How are we supposed to pinpoint a single island in the middle of the Pacific?”
Xander rocked back on his heels but couldn’t think of a good answer. As much as he was loathed to admit it, Sean had a good point. The Pacific Ocean was ridiculously huge, not even taking into consideration the fact that there were entire island nations throughout the Pacific. He regretted the fact he hadn’t been able to gather any more details about the island before the dragon showed up. Now he couldn’t sense the Earth Elemental. The Elemental had been his beacon, drawing him across the ocean.
Sean exhaled slowly as he calmed himself. “Can’t you go all Elemental and find the island? I mean, you can become the water or the air, and just detect erupting volcanoes.”
Xander frowned. “I tried that, too. You have absolutely no idea how many erupting volcanoes there are just around the Pacific Rim.”
“How many?” Sean asked.
“Probably about as many as there are islands in the Pacific.”
Sean nodded. “Yeah, okay, that’s a lot. Man, I’d kill for Wi-Fi right about now.”
“That’s probably not going to happen for, oh, I don’t know, another decade or so.”
“Guys?” Jessica asked, interrupting their musings. “You do know people used to find things out before Google, right?” When neither man responded, she sighed. “Did you all ever step foot into a library when we were in college?”
“We had a library?” Sean asked.
Jessica stood from where she had been sitting in the grass and punched him on the arm, eliciting a groan of pain.
“Why did you punch me?”
Jessica shook her head. “Because I literally can’t decide if you were being serious or sarcastic.”
“Remember our talk about how if I say something and it can be taken two ways and one of those ways doesn’t piss you off or make you want to hit me, I meant it that way?”
Jessica stared at him. “You were going to get punched regardless. If you were being sarcastic, then I punched you for being a jerk. If you were serious, then I punched you for being a stupid slacker in college.”
“I bet Xander didn’t know either,” he muttered under his breath.
“We can’t go back to White Halls,” Xander said. “Even if there’s any of the town left, the Fire Warriors will be watching it.”
Jessica sighed. “Every college has a library. We just need to find one. Do you remember the general path you took toward the island?”
Xander nodded as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Vaguely. I’m pretty sure I passed over Central America on the way.”
“Mexico it is,” Sean said.
“I said Central America, not Mexico,” Xander replied. “There’s a difference.”
Sean tapped beneath his eye. “Look into my eye and see how much I don’t care.”
“Good,” she said, interrupting the two men. “Then we’ll start there. Fly us to Central America and we’ll find a university somewhere with a library.”
“Let me guess, you speak Spanish, too?” Sean asked.
“Not as well as Portuguese, but probably well enough to find an atlas.”
They hefted their bags once more and turned toward the Wind Warrior. Xander nodded as he summoned a cushion of air beneath them. As a group, they lifted into the air. Once they had cleared the treetops, Xander leveled them out until they were facing the ground before they accelerated in a blur. Despite the buffer of pressurized air around them that kept out the roaring wind, their ears still popped when they broke the sound barrier.
They chased the setting sun across the Atlantic, the water passing beneath them in little more than a blur of black depths and white caps. A few islands passed by quickly, a spotting of standing buildings visible in small towns. Xander guessed the Fire Warriors hadn’t boarded boats to search the small islands, meaning there were more survivors, safe from the destruction throughout the rest of the world. He mentally catalogued the Caribbean islands as they passed, thinking they might be a good place to settle once all this nastiness was done. Raising his head, he noted the position of the sun. It hung over their right shoulder as they angled toward the south, heading toward Mexico.
“What exactly are we looking for when we get there?” Xander asked, his voice carrying easily over the dull roar of the passing wind.
“A bookstore, a university, or a library,” Jessica replied, having to yell far more than Xander to be heard. “Any place that has books will have an atlas we can use.”
Sean shook his head. “Life sucks without the internet. I’m totally a tech junky. This new world isn’t really working for me.”
“Let’s just hope we can find somewhere with books that haven’t already been burned,” Xander said, ignoring Sean’s complaints.
“You don’t think they would have burned books already, do you?” Sean asked.
“Like the Nazis?” Jessica asked.
“I’m not saying they had big book burning parties but… no, actually, I am saying that. These guys live to burn everything man ever created. Is it really that hard to believe they would have dragged books into a pile and set them on fire?”
Jessica shrugged. “Strangely, that doesn’t sound so odd. I hadn’t thought about it. Thanks for that. Now I have to worry there aren’t any books left in the world. You may miss your technology, but I’m going to be really depressed if I’ve read my last copy of Harry Potter.”
Xander glanced over his shoulder with a smirk, having spent enough time with Jessica to know her reading habits. Sean, however, looked at the blonde in surprise.
“Harry Potter? Really? I would have pegged you more for a Nicholas Sparks reader or one of those other books with covers of white people almost kissing.”
Jessica laughed, though the sound was mostly stolen by the wind. “Don’t worry, I do. I guess you dodged a bullet. Without electricity or cable, you’ll probably never have to watch a rom-com with me.”
Xander rolled his eyes. “You have no idea how lucky you are.”
“So there is an upside to the end of the world? I’ll never have to watch The Notebook or soap operas.”
Xander waved his hand, catching their attention. He pointed ahead, toward where land could be seen on the horizon. It was impossible to tell where exactly they were. It had to be somewhere in Central America, since he knew they were flying over the Gulf of Mexico, but geography had never been his strong suit. It was either Mexico or one of the countries further south, one of the many countries of which he didn’t know the name. Guatemala, perhaps. Panama sounded right.
He had tried to angle further south than the Mexico-US border. There were bigger cities in northern Mexico, including Mexico City, but cities seemed like a bad idea. Most of the destruction was localized in capital cities and only recently had the Fire Caste begun spreading out to the countryside. If there were a small town library somewhere untouched, it would be their best chance at success.
“Keep your eyes open once we make landfall,” he said over his shoulder. “We need to find any signs of civilization. I’ll put us down once we find something.”
The beaches in front of them were well groomed. Beautiful, golden sands glistened in the setting sunlight. Tall, tropical trees hugged the back of the beach, giving way to bisecting roads just beyond the tree line.
“There are beach chairs,” Jessica remarked, pointing toward the beach below. “That means there has to be civilization somewhere nearby.”
“There are some villas or bungalows, whatever you want to call them,” Xander said, noting the squat, straw-covered buildings, clearly designed for tourists.
Sean tapped Xander’s foot and pointed further down the beach. A few tall buildings jutted from the edge to the south. Xander changed their direction and hurtled toward the buildings. As they grew closer, it was easy to tell they were clearly deserted hotels. Glass windows had been broken along the faces of the buildings with twinkling glass scattered across the ground far below.
“Check that out,” Sean said.
Xander followed his gaze and noticed a pair of cruise ships moored to long docks. Colorful flags had been run up the ropes across the tops of the ships, but none of their group understood their meaning. As they watched, a person emerged onto the upper deck of the ship, binoculars grasped in their hand. They raised the binoculars and looked toward where Xander, Sean, and Jessica hovered in the air. Though the trio couldn’t hear the person’s cry of alarm, the motions were obvious. The man ran back inside the cruise ship, shutting the door quickly behind him.
“There are people still alive here,” Jessica said, awed.
“There are probably people living all over,” Xander replied, “but I would guess most of them wouldn’t be all that happy to see us.”
Sean pointed toward the cruise ship’s upper deck once more. “You mean like those people?”
A small contingent of men and women had emerged through the same door through which the lookout vanished. It was hard to see what they were carrying, but Xander didn’t need to see to know. He tilted and the trio flew quickly behind the nearest hotel, placing the large building between them and the cruise ship.
“Were those guns?” Jessica asked.
Earth God Page 17
