Wind Warrior by Jon
Messenger
(NA- Paranormal)
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THE EARTH GIVES WAY TO
THE SEA,
THE SEA BOWS BEFORE THE
WIND,
THE WIND FEEDS THE
FLAME,
THE
FLAME BURNS THE WORLD OF MAN DOWN TO THE EARTH.
The
sleepy town of White Halls harbors a dangerous secret. On a picturesque street,
two houses down from a lovely little park, in a quaint little home with a
wraparound porch, lives a family that seems rather normal. Sure, their
twenty-year-old son, Xander, still lives at home, but he's going to college and
dating the leader of the schools top sorority. It's all very... normal. However, when a man is miraculously saved
from being hit by a bus, Xander's life turns in to the living embodiment of the
tornadoes he can suddenly create with a flick of his wrist. Whether he wants
this gift or not, Xander must learn to use his new 'super power' quickly if he
wants to survive. For his kind is a
dying race, and when this sleepy town has a sudden influx of new, blonde, fire
wielders, no one is safe, especially Xander. It doesn't help that one of these
blondes happens to be the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. Xander can't deny
the instant connection he feels to her so, when she tries to kill him, it
certainly makes things complicated.
Excerpt from Wind
Warrior (From Chapter 15, Secondary Characters- Sean and Jessica):
Sean pulled back the curtain and
glanced outside the window for the hundredth time that day. Nothing obscured his view of the parking lot
and the road beyond. Despite the densely
parked cars in the parking lot, he saw no sign of the blonde haired fire
wielders who had attacked him and Jessica.
The strangers seemed to have gone as they came.
He let go of the curtain and let it
fall back into place. Though it seemed
as though the Fire Warriors hadn’t followed him to his apartment, Sean refused
to let go of the nervous breath he was holding.
After all the time that had passed
since the fire in the park near Xander’s house, no one had heard from his best
friend. On the few rare occasions in
which Sean ventured out from his apartment, he had asked some of Xander’s former
classmates if they had seen him, which none had. He hadn’t been to the school nor returned to
his parent’s home. His friend had, for
all intents and purposed, vanished.
Pushing himself off the couch, Sean
walked toward the kitchen. His
refrigerator was running dangerously low of food but there was always food to
make into a decent snack. He knew the
jokes Xander would make about eating as a nervous habit but Sean felt justified
in being nervous.
As he opened the refrigerator and
started pulling out lunchmeat, he heard a gentle knock on the door. He froze, his hand unmoving around the
plastic turkey container.
“Go away,” he whispered into the
room.
He didn’t know who was at the door
but he honestly didn’t care. He doubted
Xander would knock so gingerly and no one else would be bringing him good
news.
Sean slid the turkey package out of
the refrigerator as quietly as possible and softly closed the door. Logically, he knew that the person on the
other side of the door couldn’t hear his refrigerator closing. Normal people couldn’t hear that, he had to
remind himself. His best friend could
control the wind. The people that were
hunting him could throw fire from their hands.
There was no telling if super hearing was another of their hidden super
powers.
As he reached toward the stack of
bread, the same person knocked again at the door. Glancing around nervously, his eyes fell on
the bottle opener magnet hanging from the fridge. Sean pulled it off the fridge and held it in
front of him defensively. He left the
kitchen and walked toward the door.
When the person knocked for the
third time, it seemed far more insistent.
“Who’s there?” Sean asked, trying to
force some mock confidence into his voice.
“It’s Jessica.”
Sean visibly sagged with
disappointment. He almost wished it were
one of the Fire Warriors.
“What do you want?”
“Can you open the door?” she said
pleadingly. “Please?”
Sean sighed as he reached out and
unlocked the door. As he pulled the door
open, he was surprised to see a fairly disheveled Jessica standing before him. Loose tendrils from her shoddy ponytail hung
over her face. She didn’t seem to be
wearing any makeup, aside from the obvious lip gloss that caused the unnatural
shine on her lips. She wore a
loose-fitting blouse that was heavily wrinkled.
Sean couldn’t remember ever seeing her looking anything less than fully
composed. Despite her obviously harried expression, she still found the reserve
to frown at her nemesis.
“Sean,” she said.
“Wicked Witch of the West.”
She opened her mouth to offer a
sharp retort but quickly thought better.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I didn’t know where else to go,”
she admitted sheepishly.
“You didn’t have GPS on your broom?”
Jessica smiled humorlessly. “Are you done?”
“Not by a long shot,” he replied.
“Go ahead. Get them all out of your system.”
“You figured the inside of my
apartment would keep you out of the life-ending rain? Your flying monkeys ran out of likely
candidates to kidnap? You do realize I
don’t even have a dog named Toto, right?”
“Can I please come in now?” Something in her voice caught Sean off guard
and the humor seemed to bleed out of the situation. He nodded and stepped out of the way.
As she entered the apartment, he
closed and locked the door behind her.
She walked a few steps inside before
turning toward him. Glancing down, she
noticed the bottle opener in his hand.
“What’s that for?”
Sean looked down and seemed equally
surprised to see it still clutched in his hand.
“I don’t know. I figured I could
stab someone with it if I had to.”
“You got that from the kitchen?” she
asked. “Why didn’t you just get a
knife?”
Sean was genuinely dumbfounded by
the question, especially since he didn’t have a logical answer. He tossed the bottle opener onto the couch
angrily.
“Shut up. You still haven’t even told me why you’re
here.”
“I told you, I didn’t know where
else to go. I’ve been totally freaked
out ever since the other night. I’ve
barely slept. I’ve barely eaten.” Her voice lowered to a soft whisper. “I think one of those blonde guys has been
following me.”
“And you came here?” Sean yelled
before throwing a hand over his mouth to silence himself.
“You came here?” he said again in a
harsh whisper.
“I told you. I didn’t know where else to go. No one else would believe me if I told them
some guy set my car on fire using only his hands. You have no idea how hard it was to explain
what happened to my car to my dad. I had
to give him some totally crazy story about a drunk homeless guy.”
Sean stormed past her before pausing
in the doorway to the kitchen. “Did you
even stop to consider what would happen if you really were being followed? You could have led them right to me!”
“Oh, yeah Sean. You’re practically 007. Everyone’s trying to hunt…”
The words faded from her lips as
someone knocked on the door. The stern
knock was the complete antithesis to Jessica’s soft knocking from earlier.
Jessica started to whimper but Sean
stepped forward and clamped his hand down over her mouth.
“Stay quiet,” he whispered.
Sean slipped past her and eased his
way to the door. Leaning forward, he
glanced out the peephole. The man on the
other side of the door was unmistakable.
His close-cropped blonde hair and dark leather tunic looked identical to
the man that tried to kill Sean at Xander’s house.
“Is it?” Jessica asked, leaving the
end of question hanging.
Sean nodded as he inched his way
back to her. The Fire Warrior banged
loudly again on the door.
“Let’s just not answer,” she
offered. “He’ll go away eventually,
right?”
“He followed you here,
remember? If he wants in, he’ll just
burn the door down.”
“Then what to do we do?”
Sean stroked his hairless chin. “You’re going to open the door.”
“Oh no, I’m not!” she replied
sternly. Jessica placed her hands on her
hips and flipped the few hanging tendrils of her blonde hair out of her
face. “If you want the door open, you’ll
have to be a big boy and do it yourself.”
Sean frowned. “You’re going to open the door so that I can
attack him. Unless you want to attack
him, that is.”
Jessica quickly shook her head. “No, that’s fine. I’ll get the door.”
Sean disappeared into the kitchen as
Jessica moved to the door.
“Ready?” she asked.
Sean leaned around the corner and
nodded. She held up three fingers and
silently counted down. When she dropped
the last finger, she unlocked the door and threw it open.
The Fire Warrior on the other side
seemed temporarily startled. He quickly
overcame his surprise and stepped into the room, chasing after the retreating
Jessica.
She stumbled backward and fell into
the middle of the room. The tears
already threatened to fall down her face as she stared at the frightening
warrior entering the room.
The Fire Warrior smiled wickedly and
extended his hand. The tips of his
fingers ignited as flames danced over his hand.
“Sean?” Jessica sobbed.
“Here I am,” he replied, stepping
through the kitchen door. He held up the
large red cylinder in his hands and pointed the nozzle at the confused Fire
Warrior.
“Suck on this, dude.”
Sean squeezed the handle to the fire
extinguisher and the far end of the room was consumed in white powder. The cloud sprayed over the Fire Warrior,
extinguishing the flames on his hand, as he was covered head to toe in white
foam. Sean held down the handle until
the small extinguisher ran dry and sputtered in his hand. As the cloud settled, the entire room was
coated in white foam, to include an undignified Jessica who sat sputtering on
the floor.
The Fire Warrior coughed loudly as
he seemed frozen in confusion. Sean
paused, realizing that he hadn’t thought through his plan beyond spraying the
man with the extinguisher. Despite him
being coated in inflammable foam, Sean was still facing a vastly physically
superior man.
“I really didn’t think this
through,” he muttered as the Fire Warrior reclaimed his wits and stormed toward
Sean.
Sean gulped and dropped the
extinguisher, as though releasing the weapon would alleviate him of the blame.
The warrior reached Sean in a few
large strides and grabbed him by his shirt.
Despite Sean’s weight, the Fire Warrior lifted him from his feet and
pinned him against the wall.
“Can’t we talk about this?” Sean
said meekly.
The blonde warrior merely growled at
him. The Fire Warrior leaned in, his
nose mere inches away from Sean’s face.
Sean could practically see the fire burning behind his dark eyes.
A hollow thud suddenly echoed
through the room. The smoldering glare
in the warrior’s eyes disappeared as his eyes rolled up into his head. The Fire Warrior pitched to the side, his
arms going limp and releasing Sean in the process.
Jessica stood behind the warrior,
clinging to the extinguisher like a club.
She looked nervously at the unconscious Fire Warrior.
“You think he’s going to be okay?”
she asked.
“Who cares,” Sean replied, laughing
nervously.
Jessica dropped the extinguisher and
smiled weakly. Sean returned the smile
before spreading his arms and motioning her forward.
“You did great,” he said as they
hugged one another in relief.
For a long moment, they stood straddling
the unconscious blonde man, embraced in each other’s arms. Suddenly, as though remembering her
surroundings, Jessica stiffened.
“You know that we’re only hugging
because I’m so relieved to still be alive, right? Nothing more?”
Sean nodded quickly. “Of course.
Sure.”
“I mean,” she continued, “if it
weren’t for the fact that someone just tried to kill us, we wouldn’t even be
caught dead in the same room, right?”
“Sure,” he said softly as he took in
the smell of her hair cascading past his face.
She paused and turned her face
toward him. “Did you just smell my
hair?”
Sean arched an eyebrow as his face
flushed in embarrassment. “No, no, of
course not,” he laughed nervously. “That
would have been weird!”
“This moment’s over,” she said
sternly, pushing him back.
As they separated, Sean
inadvertently kicked the unconscious Fire Warrior. The man groaned softly. The pair looked at each other again, suddenly
remembering what brought them together in the first place.
“What are we going to do about him?”
she asked.
Sean shrugged. “I guess we tie him up?”
“He makes fire out of the air,
Sean. What’s to stop him from just
burning through his ropes?”
“Then we put him in the shower?” he
offered. Her withering stare ended that
train of thought. “No, you’re
right. That was a stupid idea.”
Jessica shrugged. “Yeah, but I don’t really have a better one.”
About Jon Messenger:
Jon Messenger (Born 1979 in London, England)
serves as an United States Army Captain in the Medical Service Corps. Since
graduating from the University of Southern California in 2002, writing Science
Fiction has remained his passion, a passion that has continued through two
deployments to Iraq, a humanitarian relief mission to Haiti, and an upcoming
deployment to Afghanistan. Jon wrote the "Brink of Distinction"
trilogy, of which "Burden of Sisyphus" is the first book, while
serving a 16-month deployment in Baghdad, Iraq.
Wind Warrior is Jon Messenger's break through
novel published through Clean Teen Publishing.
Author Website: http://www.jonmessengerauthor.com/
Twitter: @JonMessenger
YouTube: Watch
the trailer today! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PbsBD3XeT4
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