Junkyard Dogma (The Elven Prophecy Book 4) Read online

  Layla shook her head. “Nothing so graphic. We always believed that they had descended from some kind of ancient deity. But I don’t think we had any myths or whatever to explain how that happened exactly.”

  “Not surprising,” Brag’mok said. “The story effectively puts the elven kingdom of your ancestors at odds with not just those your people refer to as orcs, but it implies that opposing us is as good as opposing the Earth itself.”

  “And now my father hopes to use the Furies, the fairies, and the elements themselves, to defeat humanity so that the age of the elves can begin.”

  “We need to talk to Aerin about this when she gets back,” I said. “If I can approach the Furies as the one who represents the elementals, having harnessed their power, and Brag’mok can speak on behalf of the giants…”

  Layla nodded. “It makes sense, but you aren’t exactly an elemental yourself. Will they even recognize you as anything more than a human?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Ensley believed in me. If they can be convinced that he had good reason, maybe? I don’t know if it will work, but it’s worth a shot. So long as your father has the fairies on his side, I can’t do much of anything without him knowing it.”

  “It won’t stop my father,” Layla said. “But it would certainly remove one of his most significant advantages from the equation.”

  “It might force your father to take a more aggressive posture,” Brag’mok said. “Which could give the government reason to reconsider its position.”

  “I agree,” Layla said. “There’s one other thing we should explore.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  Layla raised her hands. “These rings. Not just the wedding ring, but the other two artifacts that gave me this new power. My father hopes that it will make me the chosen one in the eyes of the legion. I can harness this power, learn to use it. From what I sensed of its potency when Fred was using it, he barely scratched the surface of what this so-called angelic or celestial magic can do.”

  “You’ve used it to portal yourself,” I said. “That’s how you escaped your father. Fred was able to charge those daggers with the magic. That’s how he poisoned you.”

  Layla smiled. “Two steps ahead of you. Already tried that with a few of my arrows. Can’t be too careful, though. I’m not sure it’s possible to heal someone from that. Not without wearing the rings.”

  I nodded. “So unless you’re going to shoot to kill, probably better to stick with normal arrows.”

  Layla shook her head. “Not necessarily. There might be other benefits. The way Fred wielded this magic was crude. I need to experiment with it a little. Not like we’ve had the time.”

  I took a deep breath and released it. “And with a hundred drow, none of whom probably have any better an idea how to pitch a tent than Aerin, I think we’re going to be busy a while.”

  Layla shook her head. “If she can even find that many tents. I imagine she could buy every tent in stock at Walmart, and it still wouldn’t be enough.”

  I scratched my head. “Not necessarily. They make some big tents that can sleep, like, ten people. Doubt they carry a lot of them at Walmart.”

  “We’ll see what she comes up with. At least since she’s doing the shopping, she’ll also have to deal with the complaining. These drow women, maybe they’re great warriors. But from the looks of them, I don’t think any of them have a lot of experience with the great outdoors.”

  I glanced at Brag’mok. “Any ideas of how we can keep these drow warriors entertained until Aerin gets back?”

  Brag’mok grunted. “Looks like Jag has it covered.”

  I looked around the corner from the pile of junk that Brag’mok was tall enough to look over. Jag was standing in a crowd of drow, his shift lifted while one of them stroked his abs. He was flexing one arm while one of the drow was hanging from it as if he were a jungle gym.

  I snorted. “Should’ve figured. You should head over there, Brag’mok. Compared to you, Jag is small. Think of all the attention you could get.”

  Brag’mok grunted. “Not interested. I am married.”

  I cocked my head. “You are?”

  “I mean, I was,” Brag’mok said. “Before Brightborn.”

  “I’m sorry, Brag’mok,” I said, shaking my head. “I had no idea.”

  “I had twelve children…” Brag’mok turned around.

  “Twelve?” Layla asked, raising her eyebrows at me.

  “I do not want to talk about it. What is done is done.” He screamed and grabbed the bed of a rusted-out pickup truck. With both hands, he tore it in two and tossed one chunk into another junk heap.

  “Holy shit,” I whispered to Layla. “Did you know he was that strong?”

  Layla nodded. “Crazy, right?”

  “I have an idea,” I said, seeing a way to help him and everyone else here. “One second…”

  I stepped up behind Brag’mok and reached up to put my hand on the small of his back. Any lower, I’d be cupping a butt cheek. That wouldn’t exactly send the message I was hoping for.

  “If you need to vent your frustration,” I gestured to the trash pile, “have at it. But do you think you could build something with all this scrap? I figured, if you’re tearing it apart anyway…”

  Brag’mok grunted and nodded. “It would be good to do something with my hands.”

  “I don’t know how you’d go about it,” I said. “But maybe you could repurpose some of this junk to make some shelters?”

  Brag’mok nodded. “I’m sure I can figure something out.”

  Chapter Six

  I sat on an old, abandoned rocking chair and stared off into the distance. All of us had lost something. Aerin had lost her chance at love. Layla had lost the world and the only family she ever knew. I’d lost my vocation. None of us had lost more than Brag’mok. For his entire race, numbering in the millions on New Albion, to suddenly be gone…

  How does one even begin to wrap one’s mind around a loss of that magnitude? So far he’d been in denial, trying to press on without thinking about his loss. Now, he was in the second stage of grief, anger. Based on the model I’d learned in seminary during the one and only required course that would-be ministers took in counseling, after anger came bargaining, then depression, and finally acceptance.

  Knowing Brag’mok, the anger stage would probably last a while. He’d probably breeze past bargaining and come out of his anger in depression. It was normal, but we also had a world to save. I wasn’t trying to be insensitive, but the way I figured it, giving him a way to channel his anger productively would have the added bonus of helping him feel useful. It was my hope, ultimately, that this would help minimize the depression that was surely coming.

  Watching him work from a distance was impressive. He yanked the hood off an old rusted-out station wagon, bent the edges with his bare hands, and locked it into another piece of metal that he’d modified in a similar way. He clearly had some kind of experience with this sort of thing. Whatever he was building wasn’t pretty, and being made of metal, it would probably get hot as hell come the heat of summer, but it was a shelter. At least, it was starting to look something like one.

  The old farmhouse wasn’t at all luxurious, but it did have a nice country-style porch that wrapped around the front of the house.

  Layla was working with Jag to get the drow situated. I needed some time to think. We had a lot of very vague, general ideas. We needed something to do. It’s hard to do the next right thing when you don’t have a clue what that might be. It was like we were wandering barefoot through the dark rooms of a place we’d never slept in before in the middle of the night with the goal of reaching a bathroom. The immediate goals were clear: avoid getting arrested, convince the Furies to break the alliance with Brightborn, and hopefully gain a few advantages over the enemy. We just didn’t know where the bathroom was, what legos might be on the floor that we might step on, or what other surprises might be waiting for us in the dark.

&
nbsp; Hopefully, Aerin would have some ideas.

  I saw the headlights of Dwight’s rig from probably a mile away. It hadn’t been dark for long. The drow had scrounged up some tinder and built a fire. They were singing songs and dancing. Not anything I recognized, not even in the English language, but it sounded jovial.

  Layla was dancing with them. She didn’t know their songs or their dance moves, but she seemed almost at home with the other drow. They were elves, after all. From entirely different worlds, of course. But elves, no less, and elves who were on our side.

  I’d never seen so many beautiful females in my life. Sure, they caught my eye as they gyrated their hips and shook their bodies to the songs they were singing. But it was Layla who captivated me as she moved. She wasn’t the best dancer of the bunch, by any means. But she was my Layla. It was good to see her smile. Even when shit is hitting the fan and flying all around you, it’s good to find opportunities for joy.

  I just couldn’t get out of my head enough to bring myself to join them. The old me would have grabbed a fifth of whisky, drowned out my anxieties, and joined in the fun. But right now, I needed to allow myself to feel my sense of worry. I needed to be honest with whatever it was that made me uncomfortable. I had to name it, acknowledge it, and then apply the Serenity Prayer—to figure out what things I could and couldn’t change and find the courage to do what I could.

  With Aerin and Brag’mok grieving in their own ways and both of them placing their hopes in me and my abilities as the chosen one, it didn’t feel right to dance and sing.

  Besides, if anyone ever saw me dance… My moves usually resembled doing yard work. I had the lawn mower—acting like I was pulling on the rope start. I had the shovel—kicking one foot in front of me as if I was digging into the ground. Then, I had something I called the sprinkler. One arm up in a ninety-degree angle, the other extended horizontally and moving back and forth, bouncing off the other one.

  If anyone ever defined every stereotype of white-boy dancing, it was me. I also did a mean Hokey Pokey.

  Jag was just standing there nodding his head and making his pecs dance beneath his shirt while one of the drow, one of the more stunning of the bunch, stood at his side giggling and poking at his bouncing chest muscles.

  Who needs smooth dance moves when you’ve got the body of a professional wrestler?

  I chuckled to myself. Jag always talked a big game when it came to his desirability amongst the females. This was the first time I’d really seen him put his boasts into practice. I had to admit, in a strange way, I was impressed.

  Dwight pulled his rig up in front of the farmhouse, and Aerin jumped out with a wide grin on her face.

  “Get everything we need?” I asked.

  Aerin smirked at me. “You’ll see.”

  Dwight opened up the back of the truck.

  I stood there a half-second with my jaw agape before I could find the words. Several generators, still in their boxes, all stacked up. More than a dozen five-gallon gas cans, all filled. Several portable air conditioning units.

  Several pallets of non-perishable foods, one of them stacked with nothing but box upon box of Top Ramen soup. College students, everywhere, were probably protesting the Top Ramen shortage in the wake of Aerin’s purchase. There were a bunch of tools, ranging from small hand tools like screwdrivers and hammers to larger power tools like table saws and even an electric jackhammer. There were at least three weedeaters and one John Deere zero-turn mower.

  “Holy crap, Aerin,” I said. “Did you buy out the whole Home Depot?”

  “Almost,” Aerin said. “We did buy all the tents at Walmart. Not enough, but all they had. We have about twelve more. We’ll have to get some more later when they are back in stock.”

  I shook my head. “How the hell did you do all this in just a few hours?”

  Aerin smiled. “I just told the customer service people what I wanted. Asked them to load it all up. Funny how hard people will work when you throw extra money at them.”

  “You tipped the loaders at Home Depot and Walmart?” I asked. “I didn’t think workers there could accept gratuities.”

  Aerin chuckled. “Probably not. But it isn’t like any of them were going to tattle to their bosses about it. An extra thousand dollars for a low-wage worker will go a long way.”

  I snorted. “You gave them all a thousand bucks?”

  Aerin shrugged. “It’s just money. Never saw so many smiling humans work so hard.”

  “I bet!” I said. “And you two filled all the gas cans yourselves?”

  “Nope,” Aerin said. “The people who worked at the gas station apparently respond well to cash, too.”

  “You realize you probably spent more tonight than I used to make in the ministry over a whole year? Hell, you probably spent more than I earned the entire time I was a pastor.”

  “I’m not worried about it,” Aerin said. “Like I said, I have more money than I know what to do with. Besides, what’s too much money to spend in the name of saving the world?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Good point, I suppose. If the world ends, money won’t be worth much. It would suck to not have spent it.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Aerin exclaimed.

  “I realize this might not be the best time to talk about it, but do you know much about the Furies?”

  Aerin nodded. “More than most, but even that is very little. Why do you ask? Are you thinking about trying to convince the fairies to break with Brightborn?”

  “It wasn’t my idea. Brag’mok said that his race, along with the elementals, share an origin with the Furies. He thought if we could present our case to them, we might persuade them to switch their allegiance.”

  Aerin bit her lip. “I wasn’t aware of that. I knew the elementals were born alongside the Furies, but the giants?”

  I nodded. “He thinks if we approach them representing two of the other three races originally created to defend the natural order, we might turn the tide in our favor.”

  “It’s a fine idea,” Aerin said. “But trying to evoke the Furies, it’s not easy, and it would come with some serious risks.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Think about it, Caspar. We’re talking about deities of a sort who embody ideas like vengeance and wrath. Those aren’t the sort of beings you just approach on a whim.”

  “What’s the worst that could happen?” I asked.

  “Let me put it this way,” Aerin said. “Ever heard of Mount Vesuvius?”

  “Yeah, isn’t that the one that erupted and destroyed Pompeii?”

  Aerin nodded. “What you probably didn’t know was that it happened after some of Pompeii’s citizens attempted to evoke the Furies in the hopes that they might help destroy the Roman Empire. The Furies have a history of turning on those who petition them, punishing those who do so without what they deem to be a worthy cause in devastating ways.”

  “A history? What other disasters in history can be attributed to the Furies?”

  “I suppose we’ll never know. I just know if I hear of such a catastrophe, whether it be an eruption, a hurricane, even a pandemic, I always wonder if the Furies were behind it. If maybe someone evoked them out of turn and unleashed their wrath.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know about them. But if Brag’mok is right, as the last giant, he certainly has a right to say something. I’ve subdued the elements, too.”

  “But the trials didn’t make you an elemental,” Aerin said.

  “They didn’t. But you’d said before that you believed the chosen one would be able to wield all five elements in unity. I’d be able to at least bring all five elements together, along with Brag’mok, to present our case to the Furies.”

  Aerin sighed. “The drow have spent centuries trying to avoid engaging the fairies, much less the Furies.”

  “But whether we like it or not, the fairies are already involved. They are helping Brightborn. What if that’s what the prophecy is about? What if, before
I can unite all peoples, I have to first unite the giants, elementals, and Furies for the first time since…”

  “Since what?” Aerin asked, detecting my hesitation.

  “Since they existed as a part of some god’s testicles.”

  Aerin cocked her head. “Is that what Brag’mok said?”

  “He said it was a legend that his people inherited. Said one of the Titans supposedly sliced open his scrotum, and when his spooge fell to the Earth, they gave birth to each of the three.”

  “Greeks have weird myths,” Aerin said. “I’m surprised that the giants knew of Greek stories. Most of the giants, I thought, came to New Albion from Britain, the original Albion.”

  I shook my head. “It’s hard to say. Long before the elves, the former druids, and the giants fled to New Albion, the influence of the Greeks had spread far and wide. Ever since the time of Alexander the Great, there wasn’t a corner of the known world that wasn’t touched by Greek ideas. It isn’t impossible to imagine that some of the stories, particularly if they had a peculiar interest for the giants, might have reached them at some point.”

  Aerin bit her lip. “This is possible. In truth, we do not know if the giants had always called the British isles home. There are stories of giants in many cultures.”

  “In the book of Deuteronomy, King Og of Bashan is described as the last survivor of the giant Rephaites, and it says he had a bed that was nine cubits long. That would be about thirteen feet, roughly Brag’mok’s size. If they were the same race as Brag’mok, it makes sense that they were probably numerous in other parts of the world as well. Not to mention, the Bible speaks of the Nephilim and describes them as giants. I can’t prove that these people were the ancient ancestors of the giants who ended up on New Albion, but it’s possible. From what we do know of them, at least in the Bible, they were defeated. Since history is usually written by the victors, it isn’t exactly surprising that we wouldn’t know much more about these people.”

  “All speculation,” Aerin said. “But it doesn’t matter. If there is truth to Brag’mok’s story, and he’s right that he represents the last of a race meant to guard the world alongside the Furies and the elementals, there might be something to this plan.”