Too Long a Soldier (Kingdom Key Book 3)

by TylerRose.

  “I would imagine they would more be happy to see you.”

  “Only one way to find out,” Tyler said, and peeled up the tape along the top seam.

  Roc saw wads of newspaper, colored design paper, notebook paper. Tyler reached, hand hovering until she heard one that wanted to come out. Delicate as if she was picking up a fragile flower, she lifted the faded peach paper from the box and opened the wrap.

  A tea cup.

  Small, white with yellow and gold pattern. Tyler smiled as it told her a story of many an afternoon tea. A happy life. She got up to place it on her dresser, near the mirror, gently placing inside the dented straining spoon it had come with. She reached for the next. A carved wooden bear that showed her the faces of many happy children. This she put on a night stand ear the clock.

  “A grandmother’s tea cup?” Roc asked, looking at it without touching.

  “Yes, but not my grandmother. I found it in a flea market in California. I thought it lovely and picked it up and it told me the story of a fine southern belle who died 150 years ago. A happy life she had, as daughter of a merchant and then Mistress of a grand house on a small tobacco plantation. Every afternoon she would have tea on the veranda and watch her husband work in the fields. She had three sons and two daughters and that tea cup saw it all. The bear was carved by a father as he waited for his wife to deliver their first child. It was a family tradition of sorts in a tribe of Indians in the Los Angeles area five hundred years ago. I found it at an estate auction. Poor thing. No one wanted it. I got it in a box lot for ten bucks.

  “You touch things and they tell you a story? Always the same story?”

  “No. Some things have different stories to tell. Every time I pick that item up, it tells me another part of its life.”

  “Can you do this with everything?” Roc asked.

  “Just about.”

  “What about this?” Roc asked, taking a ring from her pinkie finger.

  Tyler looked at it between Roc’s fingertips. “Are you sure you want to know?”

  “Yes. Please. It belonged – “

  “Stop,” Tyler held up her hand. “Never tell whose it was. I could make up any ol’ vague thing and you wouldn’t know the difference.”

  She held her palm up flat to receive the ring. Always that jolt. Instant immersion into the story. She spoke in Taveragian.

  “High Priestess in the prime of her glory. Already having two children, the games were played to find the best man to conceive her third. She had two sons. She wanted a daughter to inherit her Temple.

  “Glorious games well fought to the last man standing. He was a spectacular sight. Tall and strong with gold brown hair, and the darkest brown eyes. He had taken a wound to the upper arm. Three days of sequester. He tried to convince her to make it permanent but she would not. When she woke from a nap, her eyes were blue with conception and he walked out. They never saw each other again. She died giving birth to the prodigy of prophecy. Landra Ahr gave you this ring when you were big enough it would fit your middle finger.”

  The vision shattered like rain and she handed the ring back.

  “I was nine,” Roc said. “I hadn’t known my father had taken a wound. Or that he’d wanted to marry her.”

  “No one would have known that since they were in sequester,” Tyler replied.

  “Excuse me. I need to be alone.” Roc fled through the bathroom, shutting her own door behind herself.

  Buzz completely lost to the powerful vision, Tyler packed a few hits and continued to open and place her treasures. She created a book shelf unit to house her journals. Nearly 100 of them, written from the age of fifteen until her death ten years later. Early on, there were several different covers. The first four had been given to her by Nails. He’d given her more on the two birthdays after taking her virginity. After leaving Toledo, she’d bought them herself. Once she’d discovered her abilities, she’d taken to reproducing a copy from an original blank, including the white one with the colored lines and boxes she’d left in the Torino for Jerome.

  She had a made a copy of the duct tape bound book. She put it on its long edge behind the books on the top shelf. The entire row pulled out the three quarters of an inch, no one would know it was there. She’d made it before putting the original in the Torino, in case she ended up in another timeline.

  All this time she’d been alive in this new body, she’d not written in a journal. Not a single word. She would take it up again, and made a copy of one of the blanks to start later. She would not use the white with colors, however. Not ever. She needed to get new ones, she realized. The sight of these old covers, the thought of using them, rankled her. She packed all the blanks into her smallest box.

  Other boxes flattened and in the closet with the blank books, she stripped nude and climbed into bed. For the first time since returning to Earth, she pleasured herself to climax before falling into a deep, solid sleep.

  Tomorrow, supper.No new dishes.

  “I was too busy today,” he dismissed the matter. “I’ll get to it later this week.”

  Eyes around the table were on her as she scowled down at him, then back to him, oblivious as he was.

  A week passed and she came down to find the same dishes on the table.

  “How long until supper?” she asked in general.

  “Couple hours,” Gable replied.

  “Come shopping with me.”

  “Okay, lemme get my shoes on.”

  They were on the mat under the coat rack, next to the elevator door with everyone else’s shoes but hers. She kept hers in her room.

  She teleported them to a small space outside a pair of restrooms. Walking out into the kitchen section of a large department store, he saw they were in a JCPenney.

  “I won’t insult his manhood by getting something with flowers or pink,” she said. “But we’re buying the fucking dishes. Get us a cart.”

  He did as told, not about to get in the middle of the personal power struggle happening in the warehouse. He found her standing in front of a kids display of dishes. Superheroes and Disney plates and cups.

  “You said you wouldn’t insult his manhood.”

  She held out a Flash cup.

  “Ooh! MINE!” he said, snagging it from her hand.

  She moved on. “I like square plates rather than round ones.”

  Together they picked out a dark green stoneware set with black edges and backs.

  “Should we get two?” he asked, putting the box into the cart.

  “No. I’ll make two copies when we get back and we’ll keep the original set in the store room in case we need more for guests.”

  “We don’t really do guests. Except for Chen. He’s coming tonight.”

  “One never knows what might happen,” she said, finding matching butter dishes, sugar and cream set, salt and pepper shakers.

  “I’ll make copies of those too. We’ll have a set at each end of the table to minimize passing. One sugar bowl for granulated and another for me with cubes.”

  “Why do you prefer cubes?” he asked.

  “Because it’s easy to know exactly how much I need without using a spoon and getting sugar all over the counter,” she said, selecting complimentary bread and dessert dishes in slightly different colors to act as accent pieces.

  Platters and serving bowls, an eight place cutlery set and a full service set.

  “When’s the last time he bought a decent knife set?”

  “Ummm…when we moved in.”

  She selected a steak knife set and a full block and they looked at tea services. She selected two different ones that were complimentary so the women could use more feminine cups and the guys could have more manly ones. Glassware was next. Full set of three sizes and then a set of wine glasses.

  “How are you paying for all this?” he asked when they got in line.

  She popped up with Jerome’s credit card between her fingers. “He dropped it in the hallway. Oops.”

  Gable said n
othing. He went first and paid for his cup himself. Everything else rung up, she signed the bill and they pushed the cart back to that space by the restrooms. She teleported them directly to the kitchen and immediately made two copies of everything purchased. Gable put the originals on a shelf in the pantry while she opened boxes.

  “We don’t have time for the machine. I’ll wash. You two dry. Star can set,” she said, already having piled the dishes on the countertop and filled one side of the sink with hot water.

  In went a pile of plates and she swiftly wiped them with the sponge. Into the second sink and Gable took it out to dry with a towel. Roc took the next. When the plates were ready, Star took them into the dining room table. By the time she came back, the salad bowls and bread plates were done.

  All the food was on the table when Jerome came up from his office with Chen.

  “Anyone seen my credit card?” he asked.

  “It’s on the breakfast table,” Tyler said. “Supper’s ready.”

  He went in, not noticing anything until he sat down and saw the dark green and black plate.

  “What’s this? Where’d these come from?” he asked, looking up the length of the table to her.

  “I went shopping since you couldn’t be bothered.”

  “How much all this cost?” he asked.

  “Exactly the right amount considering I purchased one set and came home and made two copies of everything. You got three for the price of one on everything except the tea sets. Those I only copied once.”

  “Still sounds expensive,” he complained.

  “Not as expensive as it could have been,” she raised an eyebrow at him.

  “What do we need two butter dishes for?” he asked.

  “I’m tired of having to shout down the table and wait for it to get to me,” she said, spearing a breaded pork cutlet off the platter. “I’m sure you’ll survive the notion.”

  “None of this is necessary.”

  “It absolutely is.”

  “It goes back tomorrow,” he decided.

  “No. I asked you to get dishes. You said you would. You didn’t. I picked up your slack. Something I have a feeling I’ll be doing a lot of.”

  He stared at the empty plate in front of him and Chen gave him a swift kick under the table. The two men exchanged a glance, Chen’s eyes far harder than Tyler’s had yet been.

  “You’re being an ass,” Chen said to him.

  Jerome looked at the plate again. “Square, huh?”

  “Easier to give each food its own space and put more on,” she said, scooping potatoes onto her plate.

  Mouth twitching. “At least they’re not full of flowers.”

  “I would not do that to you,” she said.

  “I got a Flash cup,” Gable said, holding it up. “They didn’t have Batman or Captain America or I’d have gotten you one.”

  “You were in on this?” Jerome said.

  “I was drafted. I had no choice in the matter.”

  “Ya’ll are conspiring against me,” Jerome muttered more good naturedly.

  The matter dropped as the meal progressed. She left the room immediately afterward, intending to smoke a bowl and rethink being part of a household. Chen caught up to her at the phone nook.

  “I’m going to move back to your Kwoon tomorrow, Sifu,” she said. “I can’t deal with this.”

  “You are going nowhere but to your room to be alone for a while. Listen to your calming music. You knew this would not be easy.”

  “Not easy and constantly battling are two different things,” she said.

  “I know. I’ll give him a smack,” Chen said. “Go on up. He will be there shortly to apologize.”

  “Somehow I don’t think he’s the apologizing type unless it suits his purposes,” she complained, but went upstairs.

  Chen turned around to go back to the dining room. “We will speak,” he said to Jerome, and went out to the back patio. “What is the matter with you, Jerome? The woman did a very nice thing. She picked out exquisite dinnerware and you act like she killed your dog.”

  “But she—“

  He slapped Jerome upside the head.

  “Don’t even start a sentence in that manner. You did promise, did you not?”

  “Promise is a strong word,” Jerome said.

  “You told her you would do it, yes?” Chen pursued. “I’m sure there’s something about making promises to her in that book she gave you. I would like to think you’d been taught better than that, but apparently not. You will go to her and apologize for your lack of manners and for your disrespect toward her. Now.”

  “You know about the book? Did you read it?” Jerome asked.

  “Whether I have or have not is irrelevant. No stalling. Go now.”

  She felt himcome up the stairs. He hesitated outside her door a good half a minute before finally knocking and she waited him out. She opened the door and saw him holding a tray with a new teapot, two cups, and dessert. And a video tape.

  “I’m sorry. You’re right. I was an ass. I said I’d do it and I didn’t. You picked out great stuff. Peace?”

  “Chen slap you?”

  “Yeah. Fuckin’ hurt, too. Does he do that to you?”

  She backed up to open the door far enough for him to carry in the tray.

  “No, I get a kiss on the forehead, which he knows I hate.”

  “Fuck, how you get off so lucky.”

  He poured the tea while she started the video. Tim Burton’s Batman starring Michael Keaton. They shared a joint, shared a bowl, and when the movie was over he kissed her hand and took the tray away with him.

  Chapter Three

  Landra Ahr’s sensorspicked up music from the front of the second floor. Tyler’s room. He realized that she thought she was alone in the house and was taking the opportunity to be herself as she was in private moments. He determined the guitar riffs and drumbeats of the rock and roll genre and her voice.

  She was singing to the music as if she was the performing singer. He did not hear the lead vocals coming from the stereo, but background vocal tracks were present. Interesting. None of Jerome, Tony or Gable’s music was played thus. Then again, none of the three could sing worth a damn, so it was probably a good thing that they didn’t try to be professionals at it.

  Tyler, on the other hand…Landra Ahr recognized a certain professionalism to her voice. She had been gone for eons, had only been back a few weeks, yet she sang this song as if she had never been away from it. She sang with pain and passion, and a gruff exaggeration to some words that had been practiced in order not to damage the vocal cords. He had listened to many performers over the centuries. He knew a skilled songstress when he heard one.

  Something odd was going on in the room, as various sensors around the warehouse began to tell him in rapid succession. A particular energy the computer could not identify was building and expanding. Plugging himself into the computer in order to adjust settings and fine tune the sensors, Landra Ahr homed in to see it was coming from Tyler. Directly from Tyler, emanating from her while she sang.

  The computer could not put a name on the energy, could not determine its purpose or composition, only that Tyler created it. Its properties changed as the tone of the song changed, changed again when a second song began, one with a different tempo and story. The energy surged when the song suddenly turned to a pounding screamer, enveloping the entire warehouse in a sphere that extended out to the parking lot sensors and those he’d placed on the edge of the stand of trees 200 yards out.

  The warehouse was nearly soundproof to the human ear. If anyone else had been home, they would barely have been aware of her music. Landra Ahr could hazard a guess that one or two of them might have been able to feel the change in the energy of the place, even if they didn’t know why or from where.

  Curiosity piqued, he left his command center. He paused outside the door, not exactly listening but preferring to wait for the song to end before he interrupted her. Though she said nothing, Ty
ler did not like untimely disruptions. They annoyed and irritated her into an impatience others in the house took to be anger. There was certainly no need to do that now. The average rock and roll song wasn’t much more than four minutes anyway.

  When the song faded, he gave the door a series of gentle knocks, ever aware that with too much force and he’d put a hole in the door.

  It opened a crack.

  “Yes, Landra Ahr?” she said in her normal tone of voice.

  “May I enter?”

  “Yes.”

  He was privy to two hours of song, her most private thoughts and emotions as they talked. He set a time during the night, when the household was asleep so he could analyze those hours in the smallest, most minute detail. He wanted to examine second by second her connections to the energy of the music, that of the world and within herself.

  He would study her worlds, particularly what she’d said about her telepathic strength compared to L’Roc-ai’s.

  “When we speak telepathically, I keep myself to a whisper. Otherwise I’d overload her and hurt her. Do not underestimate my abilities, Landra. I could rip through Jerome’s Staff Power if I wanted to. He’s not center of the universe either. He is not the only one capable of defeating Adamantine.”

  “Who else? You?”

  “Yes. I defeated him and I lived every time I faced him. I just wasn’t there for many of them.”

  Another day, another session with the stereo. And a truth.

  “Ultimately, you are not here to protect L’Roc-ai,” she told him.

  “You are going to say it is you I should protect. Why?” he asked.

  “Following the Staff and watching over L’Roc-ai were pretexts that brought you to this planet. Guiding Jerome in his use of the Staff and protecting his household kept you in one place long enough for me to arrive. You will not see it that way, of course. You made decisions that were exactly correct for what had to be done at the time, for your people and for your planet. Step back and see the Universe as a whole, Landra Ahr. In all the timelines I saw, success depended upon only two things. Me and you. The survival or death of other people in the group depended on either me or you.”