“I think that might be a good idea,” I said. “We’re pretty sure the elf king has assassins here to take me out.”
“Would you accompany me to Washington?” the general asked. “The President would like to speak to you in person.”
I bit my lip. An invitation to the White House? How could I decline?
“I’m not sure we have the time for that,” Layla added. “My father’s legions could launch an assault at any time.”
“And you’re certain he’d attack here, in St. Louis?”
I cocked my head. It hadn’t occurred to me that the elf king would attack anywhere else. This was the epicenter of everything that had happened so far. Then again, if I was going to attack another world, would I start where the only person who had a chance to stop me lived? Or would I try to evade him at all costs?
“It’s a fine point,” Layla said. “Under normal circumstances, I’d be inclined to agree that you might have other assets in other parts of your country that he’d prioritize. But I’ve seen my father’s wars my whole life, and he almost always attacks the enemy’s strength first.”
General Breeland pressed his lips together. “Perhaps, Layla, you’re the one we should speak to at greater length. Our intelligence regarding your father and his capabilities is virtually nonexistent. All we know is what the elf who founded our chapter in Washington told us.”
“Let me guess,” Layla said. “Hector said you wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“When facing conventional threats, our military is second to none. But if we’ve learned anything in the war on terror and the wars we’ve fought abroad for the last couple of decades, it’s that when it comes to unconventional methods of battle, our usual methods are not as effective as we’d like.”
“My father has capabilities that even I am not aware of,” Layla said. “I’m afraid he’s hidden a lot from me. He used me to gather intelligence on this world while hiding his true intentions.”
“That might still be useful,” the general said. “Sometimes, just as important as knowing the enemy’s capabilities is to know what the enemy knows about yours.”
Layla shook her head. “Even in that respect, I’m afraid to say, I might not be as much help as you hope. I know what I’ve reported over the years about your world, but most of what I’ve shared has been cultural. Tidbits about this world’s people, the values Americans and other people share. He knows as much about your military and the wars you’ve fought as the common citizen might. I cannot account for whatever Hector might have shared before he died.”
General Breeland smiled wide. “We have that covered. Do you think any of us seriously accepted his proposal of surrender?”
Layla sighed. “I don’t know. You realize they can manipulate the weather, right?”
“So we’ve been told,” the general said. “But it seems your fellow elves underestimated American resolve. I’ll simply say we were more open than we’d normally be with him. We talked quite a bit with him about what we might or might not be capable of.”
“Why would you do that?” I asked.
“Oh, we didn’t tell him the truth about much,” General Breeland said. “When you’re at a disadvantage in terms of the information you have about an enemy, the second-best thing you can do is make sure the information they’re gathering is inaccurate.”
“So, you gave him disinformation?” I asked.
“Of course we did,” General Breeland said. “Many of the cultists who feigned loyalty to the elves were doing exactly what we wanted them to do. They shared information liberally and gave him the impression they were his allies. All the while, very little of what they told him will prove useful.”
I scratched my head. “We were thinking we could maybe lure him here sooner than he intends. I might have a way to open a portal to New Albion.”
The general nodded. “I still say you should come with me to Washington. The President insists.”
“Even if it leaves the city vulnerable?” Layla asked.
“We can have you in Washington and back in less than a day,” the general said. “I am not at liberty to tell you more than what the President has allowed me to share, particularly not here. We can’t be sure who might be listening, but the Oval Office is secure. And I think you’ll find what he has to share with you exceedingly helpful.”
Chapter Thirty
I hadn’t ridden in a limousine since my senior prom. That one didn’t compare to this one.
Thinking back on it, I felt a little bad for the limo driver we’d hired for the night. After hanging out the sunroof acting like imbeciles, we got pulled over and warned by the cops that if we didn’t behave, our night would be spent not at the school dance but at the local city-sponsored criminal resort, aka jail.
And we didn’t even tip the driver. We were just teenagers being morons. I didn’t envy that driver’s job.
No such antics this time. I expected that standing up and spreading my arms over the sunroof, shouting, “I’m the king of the world” wouldn’t go over well with the general.
The whole king of the world thing, besides being reminiscent of the movie Titanic, wasn’t funny at the moment, given the circumstances. Layla’s father was intent on becoming exactly that.
This limo had much less of a party feel to it. Sure, there were drinks. The seats were comfortable. It had that new car smell that everyone loves, and rather than being accompanied by my high school buddies and their dates, or mine (who, the last I’d heard, had married a postal worker and had five children), we were sitting with the Secretary of Defense and two congressmen.
Senators Flumer and McDonnell. I didn’t know much about them except that they were usually on opposite sides of every issue. Even now, they weren’t talking much.
The ride was awkward, and it didn’t get much better when we boarded the government jet. At least the limos that met us in Washington split us up. The senators had their limos waiting, and Layla and I joined the general in a third limo to take us to the White House.
I thought that the general probably didn’t get this kind of armored car escort all the time. When Breeland had mentioned Secret Service protection, he hadn’t been joking.
It was all weird to me. I mean, who was I? Until now, I was mostly insignificant from the government’s perspective. Just a common preacher who paid his taxes, tried to follow most of the laws, and stayed to himself.
Now, it seemed, I was Asset Number One. Were they even going to let me go back home to my apartment after this? Agnus would be pissed if he didn’t get his evening tuna.
A whole cadre of black-suited, sunglass-wearing agents surrounded General Breeland, Layla, and me as we exited the limo. We followed them through a series of doors unlocked by one of the agents who was communicating with someone through an earpiece, entering passcodes on doors, and passing through a bunch of other security measures.
We were all frisked and taken through metal detectors and body scanners, the sort they had at airports so TSA agents could creep on you naked even though you were clothed.
It seemed silly since Layla and I could wield magic. They’d all seen just how much magic I could wield the night before. Now that I thought about it, I presumed these Secret Service agents weren’t surrounding us for my protection but for the President’s.
I’d only ever seen one President in person, and that was before he was President. Then-candidate Obama had held a massive rally on the grounds of the St. Louis Arch back in 2008. I was just a seminary student at the time, but even I couldn’t help but be captured by his charisma. I stood there with the rest of the crowd, holding “Change You Can Believe In” signs and shouting “Yes, We Can!”
I was about to stand face to face with the current President. Butterflies churned in my stomach. What would I even say? Probably something uncalculated and dumb since I tended to do that when I was nervous.
We stepped through the door.
The President was sitting at his desk in the Oval Office, but
I didn’t see him since a much larger and imposing figure was in my line of sight.
When we stepped into the room, he stood up. I couldn’t believe it!
“Brag’mok?” I exclaimed, tripping over my tongue. “I thought you were dead!”
Chapter Thirty-One
Hugging a giant is risky. You know, given the likelihood of being squished.
“I thought you were dead!”
“So did I,” the giant said. “It’s a long story.”
“Apologies, Mister President,” I said, turning to the man I’d expected to meet. “I just…I thought he was dead!”
The President laughed as he stood up, a wide smile on his face. He was a little taller than I’d anticipated. Television can be deceptive when it comes to height.
“Caspar Cruciger,” the President said, shaking my hand before turning to Layla. “Princess Brightborn, I presume?”
I nodded. My nerves hadn’t settled, and I was still floating on Cloud Nine since Brag’mok was alive.
“Take a seat,” the President said. “Mi casa es su casa.”
I smiled. “Literally, right? The White House is the people’s house, isn’t it?”
The President nodded. “Which was why I said it.”
So much for my half-hearted attempt at light humor. I suppose when the joke was exactly what someone intended and not a joke at all, it loses its effect.
I stood awkwardly for a second before realizing Layla had taken a seat on one of the leather chairs around his desk.
I took the hint and sat down.
“Again,” I said. “Apologies, Mr. President. I guess you’re used to people being nervous when they meet you, but I’m still shocked by all this.”
Before the President could speak, a green glow formed to the right side of his face, and Ensley appeared, perched on the President’s shoulder.
“Ensley?” I asked. “You’re here, too? Where have you been?”
“Helping this oaf of a giant come back from the dead!” Ensley said. “Technically, he wasn’t dead.”
“But you said you saw him fall.”
“I did,” Ensley said. “But my subjects healed him before his spirit departed from his body. When they came to Earth and found me, I didn’t have any time to waste. I had to get to him and bring him back here. To Earth, I mean.”
I just sat there shaking my head. “I’m sorry. I’m speechless right now. You two have been in Washington all this time?”
“They arrived late last night,” the President said. “Caused quite the stir. A giant of a man and a pixie.”
“Fairy,” Ensley corrected.
“Apologies,” the President said. “A giant and a fairy appeared out of thin air at the foot of my bed. I’d never heard the First Lady scream so loud!”
I laughed. “I can only imagine the ruckus that must’ve caused.”
“I would have pressed the emergency security button next to my bed,” the President said. “But Ensley here had somehow managed to superglue my hands to my thighs.”
I chuckled. “Sounds like him.”
Ensley just smiled and shrugged.
“Eventually, I’m sure the hair will grow back on my thighs,” the President said, shaking his head.
“You’re lucky it’s just your thighs,” I said. “He put Nair in my shampoo bottle once.”
The President winced. “Nair? Seriously, Ensley?”
“I have to say, Mister President. Your reaction to the presence of a giant and a fairy was remarkably calm.”
“You’d be surprised the things you encounter in this job. Ever heard of Area Fifty-One?”
“Of course,” I said. “What’s there, anyway?”
The President snorted. “I could tell you, Caspar, but then I’d have to kill you.”
I laughed. Then I noticed the President wasn’t laughing with me.
“Seriously?” I asked.
The President stared at me blankly for two long seconds, but he couldn’t hold back his shit-eating grin. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist. You should’ve seen the look on your face!”
“So, there aren’t alien spaceships there? And you aren’t secretly in talks with little green men?”
“Not at all,” the President said.
I laughed.
“They aren’t so little and not exactly green. I’d call it more chartreuse. But calling them tall, lanky, otherworldly chartreuse hominids doesn’t have the same ring to it.”
I cocked my head. “Really?”
“I’m fucking with you, Caspar,” the President said.
“So, are you saying that there are, or aren’t aliens that you know of?”
The President grinned. “It’s classified.”
“Of course it is.”
“Back to the task at hand,” the President continued. “I’ve learned quite a bit from Braggie here.”
“Brag’mok,” my giant of a friend said, correcting him.
“Your kind not much on nicknames?” the President asked.
“’Your kind?’” Brag’mok replied. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
The President winced. “I didn’t mean. I’m sorry. That must’ve sounded prejudiced.”
“I was going to say racist,” the giant said.
The President tapped his fingers on his desk. You could’ve cut the tension in the room with a knife.
Then Brag’mok burst out laughing. “I’m sorry! I couldn’t resist. As you’d say, Mister President, I was fucking with you.”
The President tilted his head, then started laughing. He was so tickled he slapped his hand on his desk. “I like this guy! I have to say, people who come see me, they’re always so formal, so anxious. It’s easy for me to take advantage of that. I do so much of the fucking, it’s nice to get fucked sometimes. Fucked with, rather. That came out wrong.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
The whole experience was surreal. I had just sat with the President of the United States and a friend I’d thought was dead and another who had been missing, along with the elf princess I was in love with. We discussed how to thwart the plans of an elf king from another planet who intended to take ours over.
They didn’t prepare me for this shit in seminary.
General Breeland stayed behind after our discussions to talk over plans and recommendations. Brag’mok had already been through a series of interviews with various members of the President’s team, and they wanted to follow up with Layla and me individually.
Those interviews were not as delightful as our encounter with the President. He had been surprising, almost unusually normal. I’d expected him to be the politician I’d seen on television, campaigning, answering questions from the press and the like, but there was a crassness to him in person that was oddly charming.
Couldn’t say that about the black suits who interviewed us afterward. They behaved precisely the way you’d expect of someone who worked in government and was accustomed to keeping corn cobs up their ass.
I knew the sort. None of them were like that in their daily lives, but this was their second life, the place where they wore a façade. They had to act like people they weren’t because that was what was expected.
Kind of like being a minister. The constant pressure to watch your mouth, to appear semi-happy even when you aren’t, the false piety and pseudo-Christlikeness that only showed up during official church business. Such was my life before. And such was, in my experience, the life of most pastors—and apparently, government officials.
Sure, the façade they had to wear was different. Closer to assholiness than being Christlike. No false happiness or joy, but a perpetual air of formality that left me with the impression that their emotional intelligence was closer to that of Schwarzenegger’s Terminator than to real humans.
The Secret Service folks stayed near us at all times. I still suspected they weren’t as concerned about protecting us as with protecting others and the President in particular from us.
And I was the only
one who was a citizen. The rest of them, Layla, Brag’mok, and Ensley, were illegal aliens.
I expected ICE agents to show up at any time, but to deport them to where exactly? Instead, before we left, we were told they’d been granted temporary asylum. They were refugees, and particularly in Brag’mok’s case, I doubted they were inclined to simply release them into the community. But they also took the threat of invasion seriously. This wasn’t the first time they’d considered it. It had been on their radar as a matter requiring high-security clearance to discuss ever since Hector had shown up and founded the Elf Gate Cult.
They sent a guy named Darrishaw with us. He was the primary contact between us, the Secret Service, the President, the military, and anyone representing the government. I didn’t know Darrishaw’s first name. He was just Darrishaw, a handsome man, clean-cut and only slightly more personable than the rest of them.
I prodded him on the flight. Ensley could have ported us back, but the flight provided an opportunity to get to know this Darrishaw fellow and try to sort out how the government planned to help us. All I learned was that he was a former Navy Seal who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan. I asked him about his family, and he said he had one. I suppose that when you’re dealing with threats and assets like us, you keep your personal life out of it.
“The general has requested a demonstration of your abilities,” Darrishaw said during the flight. “Will that be possible?”
I snorted. “I’d like a demonstration of my abilities too. I just got them. I don’t know what I’m capable of.”
Darrishaw pressed his finger to his ear. Someone was listening and giving him feedback on the other end.
“Besides,” Layla added, distracting Darrishaw from the voice in his head. “If you still want us to attempt to lure the elven legion here, we need to move before my father does.”
He extended his index finger in the universal though unofficial sign for “wait just a second.” He took a few steps away, just outside of where we could hear. If he was trying to avoid being heard by us, fat chance. Ensley was on it.
Three Dogma Night (The Elven Prophecy Book 3) Page 17