I could have waited for the Metro, but based on the bus schedule, the shop was close enough that I’d probably get there sooner if I walked. It was only a couple of miles away.
As if I weren’t tired enough already. But as predicted, my workout had given me a temporary boost of energy. I could handle the two miles.
Have you ever had the sneaking suspicion that someone is watching you? Following you? Then you turned around, and no one was there? I could swear that someone was lurking around, ducking between buildings or whatever, keeping an eye on me.
I don’t know how I knew. Maybe I was just being paranoid. I stood at a crosswalk and hit the “walk” button, then looked over my shoulder. No one was there. Come on, Caspar. Why would anyone be following you anyway?
I shook my head. Paranoia was only part of it. Not enough sleep was likely responsible, too. I walked a few blocks farther. Seemed like I was greeted by a red hand at every crosswalk.
I chuckled. Someone had taken black electrical tape and covered all but the middle finger on one of them, so it looked like the crosswalk light was saying, “Fuck you, you can’t walk yet.”
Then I heard a buzzing sound in my ear. At first I thought it was an alert to let me know the signal had changed to walk, but then Ensley appeared in front of me.
“Ensley!” I said. “We’re in the middle of the streets. If someone sees you…”
“Worth the risk,” Ensley said. “Keep walking.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There’s someone following you, Caspar. I don’t know who. He’s all in black.”
“In black?” I asked. “Did you see his face?”
Ensley shook his head. “His face is covered too.”
I cocked my head. “What do you mean, covered?”
“I saw a few men like that in King Brightborn’s court. I think they were assassins.”
“You can’t be serious,” I said. “Assassins?”
Ensley nodded. “Just pretend like nothing is wrong. Keep walking.”
“But the elf gate is still closed,” I said.
Ensley shrugged. “I don’t know how he got here. Maybe there’s a fairy traitor working with him. If there is, I’ll have his head.”
“You behead your traitors?” I asked.
“Doesn’t everybody?” Ensley replied.
“No,” I said. Then again, I didn’t know what happened with traitors. I wasn’t in a line of work to deal with traitors. Back-stabbers, sure, but traitors? That was high-level government-type stuff. Not my domain.
“Or,” Ensley said, “it could be that King Brightborn had operatives here from before. Sent them when the gate was open.”
I nodded. “Maybe. Should I port out of here?”
“Only as a last resort,” Ensley said. “If you do that, he’ll know you’re on to him. It might force him to get more aggressive about his pursuit.”
I nodded. “All right. I’ll just keep walking.”
I was only a couple of blocks from the tire and lube shop. If I could get there before the assassin made a move, I’d probably be in the clear.
I pulled out my phone.
“What are you doing?” Ensley asked.
“Texting Layla,” I said. “I just put a locator app on our phones so she can keep an eye on things. And watch her back.”
“Okay,” Ensley said. “Good idea. But try to be subtle about it.”
“Ensley,” I said, “half the people out here are using their phones. It would be stranger if I didn’t pull out my phone the whole time I was walking.”
“Okay,” Ensley said. “Fair point. I’m going to disappear again. Hopefully, he hasn’t seen me.”
I nodded.
Ensley’s shape disappeared in a puff of green magic, but I was pretty sure he was still nearby.
I picked up my pace, not so much that it looked like I was running away from someone but enough that, having just checked my phone, it would seem like I was in a hurry. And I was. I only had about twenty minutes until my AA meeting was supposed to start.
Should I even go to my meeting? I thought. Probably. Who knew how long this assassin had been trailing me. Had he overheard me telling Layla I was going there? Had I even mentioned it? I wasn’t sure. We’d talked about it before. Still, best to stick to my planned routine. That wouldn’t send up any red flags.
Maybe Ensley would be able to figure out who he was and get a solid identification for him. If he was an elf assassin, chances were that Layla would know who he was. Maybe she’d know his strengths, his habits, his weaknesses.
I finally reached the tire and lube shop and stepped inside. The door dinged. Just being inside, I felt a little safer. If someone in all black with his face covered came through the door, I’d notice. The door would ding for him, too.
“Caspar!” Cecil said as I stepped through the door. He was at the front desk.
“Hey there! Here for the Eclipse.”
Cecil nodded, reached behind him, and grabbed a set of keys. “Here you go!”
“How much?” I asked.
Cecil smiled. “Three-fifty.”
“That’s all?” I asked. “For a full set of tires?”
Cecil nodded. “I said you were a friend of the family, so they let me use my employee discount. You’re getting them at cost.”
I smiled. “Wow, Cecil. Thank you!”
“It’s my pleasure,” he said.
I reached into my pocket, retrieved my wallet, and handed him my credit card.
“See you at church tomorrow?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t miss it, Reverend!” Cecil exclaimed, smiling.
I nodded and stepped out the door. It dinged on my way out, too. I looked around. No one was nearby, at least no one I could see.
I spotted my car waiting for me in the parking lot to the side of the building. I walked over to it as quickly as I could, got in, and locked the doors.
I checked my phone. Layla had answered.
Be careful. Still going to your meeting?
I texted back a thumbs-up because the phone offered it as a suggestion and clicking that was easier than typing yes.
Layla texted back.
I’ll keep an eye on you on my phone. Come as soon as you can.
I drove away. Now that I was driving, I’d probably lose the assassin, but if he was trying to find me, he probably knew the spots I frequented. The gym. My apartment. The church. Even my AA meeting, most likely.
But I’d be able to put a little distance between him and me.
Chapter Seventeen
I probably looked like a deer in headlights as I walked into my meeting. I couldn’t stop glancing over my shoulder.
I didn’t think Layla was in much danger. If King Brightborn had sent an assassin, it wasn’t her he’d have killed; she was his daughter. Not that kings hadn’t done worse to their children. King Herod, the one who’d had all the firstborn males slaughtered based on rumors that a new king had been born, had also killed his sons.
But every time he’d had a chance to go after Layla so far, he hadn’t harmed her. He was focused on me; I was the threat. He could dissuade her of her belief that I was the chosen one after getting me out of the picture.
The assassin was trailing me. I was his target.
Usually, I had a chance to shoot the shit with some of my friends and fellow AA members before the meeting started. Today, when I walked into the room, they were already reciting the serenity prayer.
I quietly took my seat beside Rusty, my sponsor. It had been more than a week since I’d last made a meeting. I never went more than a week without attending one. I generally made two or three.
Most people, I suppose, wouldn’t understand why, with so much going on, attending a meeting was a priority. For me, my sobriety was a matter of life and death, every bit as much as the assassin was who was on my tail. The truth of the matter was, I was lucky to be alive when I remembered the quantities I used to drink and the number of times I’d fo
olishly found myself behind the wheel while three sheets to the wind.
It was by the grace of God alone.
Ultimately, I think being sober today was more foundational to my faith than any dogma the church had ever taught me. When I was in seminary, I’d learned all the rational “proofs” of God. I’d studied the Bible in its original languages. I never doubted God’s existence from the time I was a young child until now, but my belief had come by default. I believed because to me, it was more sensible to believe than disbelieve.
That was what my faith used to be. I believed in God because no one could disprove His existence. You can never disprove a negative proposition. It’s basic logic.
But then I discovered I was an alcoholic. I kept things together for the most part and hid it well, but inside, I was a hot mess. I was drinking myself to death.
And I couldn’t quit. Willpower didn’t work. The church didn’t help. Therapy didn’t make a difference.
But the twelve steps of AA did.
As far as I was concerned, my sobriety was a miracle, more than the healings I’d done. More than any spell I’d learned.
Even if the assassin got me, the last five years were a grace I didn’t deserve. If I hadn’t found AA when I did, if I hadn’t surrendered to the God of my understanding, I had no doubt I’d have been dead long before now. No assassin, no king, no one could take away my years of sobriety.
Today was a step meeting; the topic was the third step. To make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.
The pronouns weren’t important. Some of our members believed in goddesses. Some worshipped cosmic principles. Some were polytheists, and others were monotheists.
There were probably as many different ideas about God in our room as there were men and women sitting around the table.
But none of us had achieved sobriety by willpower. Every one of us, at least those of us who had spent any time in sobriety, had said the third-step prayer. We’d turned our will and our lives over to the care of our various gods.
But today, I had a grievance. As we went around the table talking about how God had miraculously gotten us sober, I had to admit that I still had questions.
“My name is Caspar, and I’m an alcoholic,” I said.
“Hi Caspar,” everyone responded in unison.
“In sobriety,” I said, “I’ve strived to always do the next right thing next. I know I can’t look too far into the future. I can’t dwell on the past. All I can do is the next right thing and trust that God will work things out better than if I didn’t. But I have to be honest. Lately, I’ve done the next right thing, and the shit has still hit the fan. The last right thing I did, thinking I was going to make a real, positive, difference in a lot of lives… Well, I’ll just say I lost a friend lately, and if I hadn’t done the right thing, he might be alive. What I did, while I thought it was right, devastated a lot of people. If even in sobriety I’m wreaking havoc in people’s lives by doing the right thing, how can I ever know what the next right thing is?”
That was all I had to say. Of course, I was talking about Brag’mok. No one around the table knew the situation, of course. They didn’t realize I’d effectively given a tyrant the power to commit genocide. And according to the prophecy, if I kept doing the next right thing, more bloodshed would follow.
I stopped talking.
“Thanks, Caspar,” everyone said in response.
People aren’t supposed to cross-talk in AA meetings. Everyone’s supposed to share their difficulties and put their doubts and struggles out there. It was a way to get stuff off our chests. A way of taking hard issues and unhealthy thoughts and bringing them into the light. When we swallow this stuff—which I’d been doing ever since I heard about Brag’mok’s death—it tends to fester in darkness. It grows. It becomes insidious. It threatens our sobriety.
So no one said anything to me directly, not in the meeting. But one of our old-timers, a man in his seventies named Doug, used his time to paraphrase a passage from the Big Book.
“I’m Doug,” he said. “And I’m an alcoholic.”
“Hi, Doug,” I said, adding my voice to the rest of the group.
“All we can do,” Doug said, “is what we think our God would have us do while humbly—and I emphasize humbly—trusting Him. Only then does He enable us to match calamity with serenity.”
Doug cleared his throat and continued speaking. “I’ve had to learn that I never have the full perspective. I try to do what I think my God wants. Sometimes it works out. More often than not, it does. But not always. When it doesn’t, I have to trust that I’m not in charge. I have to admit that if I’d done the wrong thing, if I’d followed self-will rather than doing what was right, things would likely be even worse.
“I don’t have great eyesight, and I’m not just talking about my physical sight. God knows my vision isn’t great, but I’m also incredibly nearsighted when it comes to spiritual sight. I see no more than two steps in front of me, but I have to trust that my God sees a thousand steps ahead. And I have to trust, like a blind man holding onto his seeing-eye dog—dog is just God backwards, after all—that my God will eventually see me through the journey.
“But suppose what I thought was the next right thing ended up being the wrong thing? Well, in that case, I latch onto my guide dog again since I know he’ll take me where I need to go a lot more reliably than if I’m walking blind. I’ve been there, walking blind, and I’ve walked right into walls and off my share of cliffs. I’ve even walked out into traffic. But my guide dog, who I choose to call God, will eventually take me to a better place.”
I’m not sure what anyone else said during the rest of the meeting. I was still stewing over Doug’s words. I don’t think he had any real religious background. Certainly not any biblical education. But dammit, he had more faith than I ever did. And he was right.
I might have recharged the ley lines on New Albion. I might have inadvertently given King Brightborn the power to slaughter the giants. To kill my friend. But I wasn’t the one who’d pulled the metaphorical trigger. I didn’t kill anyone. When Cain killed Abel, was God to blame because he’d created the stone Cain had turned into a weapon? All I’d done was give Layla’s homeworld a chance to thrive again.
King Brightborn had spoiled that chance. He’d taken what was good and warped it into evil.
I might take a blade to my gut the second I walked out of the meeting. I might not even make it back to my car. Maybe I wouldn’t see Layla again, but as I left the room, I took hold of my guide dog again. I trusted God to lead me back to my car and from there to Layla, and then to complete the trials.
I had to trust the assassin wouldn’t prevail, and even if he did, even if I died before I had a chance to fulfill the elven prophecy, I wasn’t the author of the prophecy. I wasn’t in charge. It would be fulfilled one way or another, with me or without me.
Chapter Eighteen
I had a new vigor in my gait. A new confidence. I made it to my car without incident.
“You here, Ensley?” I asked as I pulled back onto the street.
My fairy friend appeared on my dashboard.
“All clear!” Ensley said. “You lost him, but somehow, he escaped me, too.”
“So, still no clue who he is?” I asked.
Ensley replied, “He has to have access to some kind of magic. There’s no other explanation. I was following him, but I think he must’ve known.”
“I thought you could sense magic? That’s how you tracked me originally.”
“I can sense it if he’s wielding Earth magic. Anything bound to the elements. Even if he utilized spirit, I’d know. But it was like he just disappeared.”
“Like you disappear and reappear?” I asked.
“Except it wasn’t fairy magic,” Ensley said. “I’d know it if it was.”
“The drow use enchantments,” I said. “You heard how Aerin explained it. They’re experts at evading the fae.�
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“It’s possible,” Ensley said. “But if he’s using enchantments, they have to be insanely powerful.”
I bit my lip. “Why would one of the drow want me killed? One of Aerin’s lackeys, one of those males? Maybe they’re dressing like Brightborn’s assassins to deceive us.”
“Maybe,” Ensley said. “But I don’t know how the drow would know what an elven assassin dressed like.”
“Hector,” I said. “Or another of the king’s emissaries could have been in cahoots with the drow all this time. It’s not impossible that at some point, they planned this together.”
“I don’t know,” Ensley said. “I’ve never encountered anything like this before.”
I nodded. “Think you can find him again?”
“I can try,” Ensley said. “But like you said, the drow have avoided being found by us for centuries.”
“Do what you can,” I urged.
Ensley nodded and disappeared again.
Layla was waiting for me as I pulled up to the gym. I suppose she knew I was coming, thanks to the app.
She jumped into the car, and I quickly briefed her on what Ensley had reported.
“If it is the drow,” Layla said, “the whole point of the trials might not be to prove that you are the chosen one. It might be to kill you. The water elemental almost got the best of you.”
I sighed. “But I did survive, and Aerin gave me the clues I needed to do it. If she hadn’t told me what she did, the thing would have killed me.”
“Those two men,” Layla said. “They might not be as obedient to her as they seem.”
I shook my head. “But if that was their plan, why send an assassin after me now?”
Layla scratched her head. “Perhaps you were more impressive during the first trial than they anticipated. The assassin might be their Plan B.”
“If I prevail again tonight,” I said, “it’s likely the assassin will get a little more aggressive in his pursuit.”
Layla nodded. “True. Are you sure we can trust Aerin? Perhaps she wanted you to win the first round.”
Three Dogma Night (The Elven Prophecy Book 3) Page 11