Old Dogma New Tricks (The Elven Prophecy Book 2)

by Theophilus Monroe

  Jag smiled back. “I’m not your therapist. I’m not trying to make you feel better. Not trying to make you feel worse, either. Just the truth. You are where you are, and that’s your journey.”

  I nodded. “Seems like you’ve been on this path a while.”

  Jag bit his cheek. “I saw you watching me over there while you were pushing your weight. You know, I didn’t always lift this much. I used to lift what you do.”

  “What,” I asked. “When you were fifteen?”

  “Four years ago,” Jag said. “Sure, I’m only twenty-nine. But I used to be no bigger and no stronger than you. And back then, if I’d looked at the other lifters and tried to be them, I’d have quit before I started.”

  I nodded. “I can see why someone might do that. I’m having a hard time staying motivated myself.”

  “The trick is to become your own competition,” Jag said. “Every time you come here, the only one you’re trying to beat is your previous self. As long as you’re winning that battle, you’ll hit your goals eventually.”

  I smiled. “You know, that’s pretty good advice.”

  Jag grinned. “Yup. Learned that from the King, too. You realize after he won the first time and there was no one bigger than he was, he still came back the next year larger than the year before?”

  I shook my head. “That’s impressive.”

  Jag nodded. “It’s because he was still competing with himself. Ronnie just wanted to be a better version of Ronnie. The other men on the stage with him, the way he saw it? They weren’t even there. He didn’t worry about them. That’s why he dominated the Olympia for almost a decade.”

  “So, you don’t think I’m a pussy for only lifting twenty pounds and the bar?” I asked.

  Jag bellowed a laugh as he scooped some kind of powder into a shaker cup. “I didn’t say that. You’re still a pussy.”

  I smiled. “Thanks, man. Encouraging.”

  “Just keeping it real, bro. That’s the thing. If you don’t want to be a pussy, come back tomorrow stronger than you were today.”

  “What are you drinking there? Protein?” I asked.

  Jag nodded as he started shaking his cup, the blender ball inside clicking as it banged back and forth inside. “It’s partly protein, several kinds. Whey isolate, whey concentrate, casein, and collagen. But this baby is also packed with glutamine, creatine, BCAAs, and a lot of other shit.”

  “So, that’s your magic sauce?” I asked.

  Jag shrugged as he gulped it down. “It helps. But the real magic sauce is what happens out there on the floor. None of this stuff would do squat if I wasn’t pushing myself in the gym.”

  I bit my lip. “Well, thanks for sharing, Jag.”

  He snorted as he gulped down the rest of his drink, then ran his hand across his now-sweat-filled mohawk. Then he stood, walked up to a mirror, and roared.

  I pressed my lips together hard. I was trying to suppress a giggle.

  Jag pointed at himself in the mirror. “You’re going down, asshole!”

  He took the whole “competing against your former self” thing seriously. It was a very different approach to utilizing a mirror than I was used to. I had grown up with Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley. Sure, it was just a Saturday Night Live act, a character by Al Franken. But I’d be lying if I said I’d never tried it.

  You’re good enough, Caspar. You’re smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like you.

  It never occurred to me to call myself an asshole.

  I glanced at Jag.

  He was still fixated on his reflection.

  “What you looking at, you little bitch? You want some of this?”

  That time, I had to press my whole hand against my mouth to prevent myself from laughing. I mean, part of the comedy of what was happening was that this hulk of a man wasn’t just dissing himself in a mirror. He was doing it in his tighty-whiteys.

  Don’t laugh, Caspar. Hold it in.

  Sure, Jag seemed nice enough, but he didn’t strike me as the sort of dude you’d want to make angry. And I doubted he’d appreciate being laughed at. I mean, I’ve heard of ‘roid rage, and there was a reasonably good chance that his witch’s brew of proteins and whatnot wasn’t the only thing he was taking. I know a dedicated regiment of diet, exercise, and basic nutritional supplementation can lead to decent gains, but this guy’s thighs were the size of my waist. His biceps were as big as my skull.

  I’d never seen a human that big before. He was almost as big as B’iff, the elven giant, which Layla’s people refer to disparagingly as “orcs.” B’iff, oddly enough, was the one responsible for vesting me with my relatively newfound powers. He’d inadvertently stabbed me with a mystic blade imbued with Earth’s magic. Little did I realize at the time that he was trying to bring magic back to his people on New Albion.

  While he looked like a prototypical villain with greenish-brown skin, massive incisors overhanging his lip, and a serious case of resting I-want-to-eat-you-for-dinner face, he was committed to protecting humanity from the elves.

  The elves, Layla’s father and his kingdom, intended to leave their planet and return to Earth. A couple thousand years ago, give or take a few centuries, the Earth had been their home. They were druids in what I suppose would be modern-day Britain and Wales. They had fled under persecution from the Romans and then the Christians. The elven giants had gone with them, and ever since, they’d been fighting some kind of otherworldly war.

  The elves believed they were destined to return to exact vengeance on humanity for what had happened to their ancestors. They wanted to take over and use Earth’s magic to dominate the globe. The elven giants, aka the orcs, were committed to staying on their new world, New Albion.

  The only reason they fought was to prevent the elves from coming here.

  But the wars had taken a toll on their new world. The magic they’d brought with them from Earth to make their planet habitable was waning. Too much magic had been used for fighting wars. As their supply failed, the condition of their world worsened.

  B’iff had come to Earth with the Blade of Echoes, the enchanted dirk that had been used by the ancient druids to bring magic to New Albion, intending to recharge the blade and return to their world to reinvigorate their planet. The elves had other designs: to take the blade from the giants before they could do it and instead use it to forge a permanent gateway to our world.

  Long story short, we’d managed to prevent the elves from getting the blade. B’iff had given his life to see the blade destroyed.

  The problem? When we did that, a surge of energy coursed through the ley lines and blasted the gateway between our worlds open.

  The elves ultimately got what they wanted, and the giants didn’t have any magic left on New Albion that they could use to stop them from coming.

  It seemed there was only one reason the elf king, King Brightborn, hadn’t marched on our world yet.

  To his chagrin, I had convincingly fulfilled the five known facets of an elven prophecy. He wasn’t happy about it because in his mind, the chosen one should have been an elf, not a pipsqueak human.

  Also, Layla was his daughter, and she’d sided with the giants and me against her people. If he came here before trying to smooth things over politically, he’d have a real mess on his hands. He might have little choice but to try his daughter for treason. Also, since I’d fulfilled most of the prophecy, he needed some time to sort things out with the elven priests.

  Layla was reasonably confident, and the king had confirmed as much when we’d confronted him, that he was looking for some loophole in the elven dogma, something he could use for waging his war without setting himself up as the enemy of the chosen one.

  While I didn’t know much about the elven prophecy I was fulfilling, I did know enough about Biblical prophecy because of my theological education to know that most prophecies were cryptic and could be interpreted in a variety of ways. There probably isn’t a book in the Bible, for instance, with more varied i
nterpretations than Revelation.

  In short, the elven king would have to do some complicated political gymnastics to justify his war while also setting himself up as the true defender of the prophecy rather than its enemy. He needed the elven priests to help him with that, and, according to Layla, they’d be inclined to do so. And the elves would likely buy it. The common elves were utterly dependent on the priests when it came to such matters. They didn’t have their own copies of the prophecies. What the priests said, the elves would believe.

  While all that was going on, though, we were preparing. It wasn’t likely I could defeat an entire elven legion on my own. It was more than likely the king would try to take me out or at least capture me before bringing his legions through the gate. He’d send assassins and maybe a few death squads my way.

  I needed to acquire a lifetime’s worth of skills as soon as possible. I needed to master my magic, yes, but I needed to be in good physical shape, too. I needed to learn to fight.

  Thus, the whole gym routine Layla was subjecting me to.

  It gave me the opportunity to meet interesting people like Jag, who was now flexing in the mirror and demeaning himself.

  “Look at you,” Jag said to his reflection. “You’re soft! A wimp! I’m going to crush you!”

  I finished changing my clothes now that I had the bench to myself. It still wasn’t easy. The soreness in my legs hadn’t disappeared. I would have tried to use magic to soothe the pain, but that would be counterproductive since Layla said the pain was a part of the process. It was how my muscles were being torn down and rebuilt. If I healed the pain, I’d hijack my gains. No pain, no gain.

  Chapter Four

  The worst part about my apartment was that I had to climb a bunch of stairs to get there. I’d never counted them until now. The bar below my apartment had high ceilings, so that meant twenty-four steps of agony. I know, it’s not that many. Under normal circumstances, it would have been nothing. But with legs like hams dangling from my hips, every stair sent pangs through my thighs, hamstrings, and glutes.

  I chuckled to myself even as I winced from the pain.

  Moons over my hammies.

  Shorthand for my butt and hamstrings. Also, a breakfast plate at Denny’s.

  “Excuse me,” Layla said as she whizzed past me, skipping every other stair on her way to the top.

  “Showoff.” I grunted.

  Layla shrugged and grinned widely. “I promise, Caspar. The next leg day, you’ll just be a little sore. After that, you’ll hardly be sore at all. It gets better!”

  I shook my head. “Next leg day? Why does there have to be a next leg day?”

  “Come on,” Layla said. “You’re through the worst of it. I promise.”

  I finally made it to the top. I tried to put my key into the deadbolt, but it was the wrong key. I had new locks, but I hadn’t removed the old key from my keychain. No reason, just lazy. After my apartment door was busted in recently, my landlords had installed a heavier door and an extra lock. I swapped keys for the correct one and tried again.

  The lock was stiff, but it clicked.

  I turned the knob and went inside.

  “Agnus, what the hell?”

  My cat was sitting on the couch, watching Animal Planet and licking his junk. His body flailed for a second before he fell on the floor, then he got back to his feet. “Casp!” Agnus said. “You should knock before barging in on me like that!”

  I rolled my eyes. One side-effect of the magic I had recently acquired was I could hear my cat speak. We could have conversations. Since Layla was an elf and could access magic, she could hear him, too.

  And from the looks of things, despite lacking opposable thumbs, he’d figured out how to use the remote to navigate to his favorite channels.

  He’d found a program on the mating habits of Bengal tigers. Apparently, he found it alluring. It was narrated by some British guy because you have to be British to narrate animal documentaries.

  I guess it made sense. I mean, I couldn’t imagine someone with a Southern or, closer to home, an Ozark hillbilly accent detailing animal mating habits in any dignified way.

  “Agnus,” I said, “why would I knock? It’s my apartment. Besides, you have great hearing. Didn’t you hear me try the wrong key first?”

  Agnus shook his head and sat back down. “I guess my mind was someplace else.”

  I raised my eyebrow. “In Bangladesh?”

  Agnus looked at me. “Bang-la-who?”

  “It’s where Bengal tigers come from,” I said. “They’re native to Bangladesh.”

  Agnus cocked his head. “Not interested in banging la desh, whoever that is. But I’d sure bang la tiger. Look at those stripes on her!”

  I bit my lip and looked at Layla. She shrugged. At least now, he was appropriately interested in felines and wasn’t flirting with my girlfriend.

  I smiled and, bracing myself to bend over the best I could, given my soreness, scratched Agnus behind the ears. “Yeah, she’s a real beauty. A bit large for you, though, don’t you think?”

  Agnus looked at me. “I like big Bengals and I cannot lie.”

  I smiled. “You other kitties can’t deny?”

  Agnus wiped his paw across his head. “Don’t try to piggyback off my joke, Caspar. It’s lame.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  Agnus sprang to his feet and took off across the floor.

  Layla was opening a can of tuna. No sooner did the opener pierce the top of the can than he was at her feet, meowing loudly and pawing her leg.

  I used to just open the can for him and let him go to town. Layla insisted that wasn’t a good practice since he could cut himself on the can. I tried to explain I had one of those extra safe can openers that left a dull edge, but she wouldn’t hear it. She always put it in a bowl for him.

  I sat down on the couch. Layla came over and sat next to me as Agnus went to town on his food.

  “Anything else on television?” Layla asked as the screen showed two Bengal tigers licking each other. “After what just happened, it feels oddly dirty watching this.”

  I chuckled. “Well, you’re sitting right where he was doing his thing.”

  Layla shrugged. “Trying not to think about it.”

  I grabbed the remote. It was Sunday, but we were now out of football season. My Chiefs, despite being favored, had been trounced in the Super Bowl. Not a bad season, all things considered, but you can only get away with so many injuries on an offensive line. Sadly, they didn’t have a chance from the start, but there was always next year.

  I loved football. I don’t know why, always had. I looked forward to it every week, and now, only a few weeks into the off-season, it felt like I had to wait an eternity before my team would get another shot at redemption. It also meant we had to find something else to watch on Sundays.

  It was the one day of the week I didn’t pull an afternoon shift at O’Donnell’s, the Irish pub underneath my apartment. The pub’s owners doubled as my bosses and also my landlords. They’d given me a job as a bartender when I’d lost my position at the church. Now, even though I was back in the ministry, I just felt bad leaving the job after they’d been so generous. Besides, they’d said as long as I worked for them, they’d waive my rent.

  I needed the money. If push came to shove, I supposed I could always pawn my old wedding ring. I wasn’t holding onto it for sentimental purposes. My sentiments regarding my marriage were mostly in the form of regrets. But the price of platinum was down at the moment, so I left it in the bottom of my underwear drawer. With free rent and a modest second income from bartending, I wasn’t destitute. I had enough to eat, and I had credit cards.

  Not to mention, Holy Cross was such a small church that it wasn't a full-time gig anyway.

  A lot of folks might think it wouldn’t be wise for a recovering alcoholic to work behind a bar. They’d be right, in some instances, but the AA Big Book says that if you’re in a fit spiritual condition, you don’t need to avoi
d being in places where alcohol is served. Hell, we even had a guy in our meeting who owned a local vineyard and winery, and he had a few more years of sobriety than I did.

  I had a lot of issues with my religion. I didn’t agree with everything they told me I was supposed to preach. It was one reason my former bishop had tried to oust me. Healing Doris had been the straw that broke the camel’s back. He’d been trying to get rid of me since I’d gone through my divorce. Every time he’d tried, he couldn’t get past the fact that my congregation supported me completely, and while they were a small group, our membership consisted of a few wealthy benefactors who were primarily responsible for supporting the district over which the bishop presided.

  The healing, though, had given him the excuse he thought he needed. It had been a risk, I suppose, but my healing someone—which, according to our denomination’s teaching was the sort of thing that was no longer normative in the Christian experience, being a gift that belonged to the age of the Apostles—was the first time he’d seen me do something he felt was intolerable.

  Philip was more understanding. He was what you’d call a more progressive bishop. More like me. While he didn’t always vote in my favor, when he had just been an ordinary minister in our district, he’d secretly harbored views more aligned with my own. He’d just felt at the time that since we were a minority, it was to his benefit to vote with the bishop—a wise career move that left him without a target on his back. That had allowed him to move into his current position, which, in the end, saved my career.

  I mention all that to say that I didn’t begrudge him his past voting habits. It had all worked out. I was the hard-headed one who consistently voted my conscience.

  We had a council meeting later that evening, the first since my reinstatement. Philip had promised me we’d revisit the question of partnering with the Methodists to run a local soup kitchen. Under the previous bishop’s regime, the question had been dismissed out of hand. Since we didn’t fully agree with the Methodists about doctrine, it was argued that partnering with them would give the false impression that we agreed with their abominable teachings. Thus, we’d be complicit in possibly leading people to hell.