Too Long a Soldier (Kingdom Key Book 3)

by TylerRose.

  “Hold on Giuseppe.” He turned the phone away from his mouth. “You sure? It’s a big restaurant.”

  “Oh please. Everyone’s in one room. Max 500 people. I ran an entire space station with thousands of patrons and three hundred sex girls.”

  Jerome considered for about two seconds, and brought the phone up.

  “Okay, I have a replacement. My friend Tyler. She’ll work 8 to 2 for $200 cash until you get a new cooler.”

  “Two hundred for six hours? She worth that much?”

  “She’s worth five times that.”

  “Okay. I’ll give her a trial night. Thanks, Romey.”

  “You’re welcome, Pops,” he said, grabbing another two muffins. “These are good. You sure you wanna do this?”

  “Give me something to do a few nights a week,” she shrugged. “Other than spend your money.”

  “Okay then,”

  He watched her slip into a trance. Again. A lot lately, in fact. He reached for her hand. She jumped with a hard gasp.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I saw Adamantine as he killed a woman he’s been keeping captive,” Tyler said. “Heard Dominion tell him about our lack of planetary defenses. He’s reset course. He’s on his way.”

  “We knew it would happen sooner or later. Get shoes on. We’ll go for a drive,” he said.

  Chapter Ten

  Doctor Dominionanalyzed the scanner readings and took the chip to Adamantine’s quarters. The door opened only a second after he stopped in front of it, camera scanning his face having replaced guards outside the door. He went in and wished he’d have waited another two minutes. He pretended not to see as Adamantine choked the life out of his latest bed warmer.

  “If I may, magnificence?”

  “What?” Adamantine said calmly, watching life fade from her brown eyes.

  “You wanted to know the defenses of your target planet. I finally have them. Long range scans show almost nothing capable of defeating your supreme army.

  “Almost nothing?” Adamantine questioned, dropping the dead woman to the floor. “What is this word ‘almost’?”

  “They have nuclear plants. Those could be powerful enough if attached to the right weapons. However, it seems they are only used to power houses and cities. In fact, I see no evidence of any unified planetary defense system. A lot of air vehicles travel in all directions. Some military grade as well; but it seems nearly all of them obey strict boundaries or routes. There are distinct planetary shipping lanes in the air and on the sea. I think we are looking at a primitive, fractured planet, with each land mass, or sections of a land mass, responsible for its own protection from the others. They do not work together.”

  Adamantine smiled. “Good. All the easier to take what I want. Where is what I want?”

  “Near the middle of this large land mass off on its own. There is a region of water, here.” He drew a circle eight inches across. “It makes a good barrier for the scanners to focus on. The Taverages Staff is currently somewhere in here. It doesn’t appear to move but we are too far away to determine minute motions within a city. When we get closer I’ll know more of course.”

  “When will we arrive?” Adamantine asked.

  “That depends on you, Magnificence. There are other planets between here and there. If you stop to take them, you will be delayed by five to ten days each. You will not arrive for 200 days. But if you do not stop, the Taverages Staff will be yours in less than 130 days.”

  Adamantine sat in his bedroom throne, grasped the hair of the second female chained by the ankle to it. He looked into her eyes.

  “Very good work, Dominion. You can have this female.” He unchained her ankle. “Get a Soldier. Tell him to bring me an untouched female and take these dead ones away.”

  “Yes, Magnificence, and thank you. What shall I tell the Bridge?” Dominion asked.

  “To set course directly for the Taverages Staff and not deviate from that course. Make all speed. We will see how good is your guessing.”

  “Very good, Magnificence,” Dominion bowed, and snapped his fingers for the female to follow.

  He paused in the corridor to call for a soldier to come down and get a female from the cell of virginals next door and carry away the dead girls from Adamantine’s room. He took his prize to his own room. She cowered on the floor at the end of his bed. He called the Bridge to give orders and looked at her for a long moment.

  Knowing Adamantine didn’t feed them, and she’d been in his room for two days, Dominion got a bowl of food from his little refrigerator. Setting it on the floor, he went to his desk to continue to fine tune the control panel that connected his mind to the Rhutvak. There were some adjustments to make now he’d added the new power source to the fliers.

  When he was done, he turned to look at her.

  “Do what I tell you and you won’t die. Go to the toilet. Clean yourself up. Then return to where you are now.”

  She did exactly those things, to sitting on her bottom on the floor. He ignored her a few minutes more while he shut down machines.

  “Stand up and bend over my bed.”

  She rose high enough to slide over the open foot of the bed against the wall. He went to her, did some feeling around with fingers, and pumped himself into her. A matter of five minutes, at most, and he was finished. He chained her by the ankle to the ring on the wall at the end of the bed and gave her a blanket and a pillow. She had enough chain to lie on the mat there.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Where are we going this time?” Tyler asked as they headed into downtown.

  “You’ll see,” he replied, and held out the nearly finished joint. “It’s just you an’ me today.”

  She took her toke and saw him turn on the blinker. Looking to see where they were, she saw the big front façade of the Toledo Museum of Art.

  “The museum?” she questioned.

  “Yeah.”

  “No.” Deadpan tone. Flat-out refusal.

  “What? Why not?” he asked, the light turning green for him to turn.

  “Dude, you’re taking a telepath so strong that inanimate objects talk to her into a place with inanimate objects that are thousands of years old. And a mummy! You seriously thought I’d be okay with that?”

  “Okay, fine. Where to, then?” he asked, ignoring the car honking behind them.

  “Just drive. I need to be away from here.”

  She really did. Her psionics were crackling against his Staff Power like fireworks, and not in the fun way like when they were being intimate. These were painful little explosions, zapping all over his right side. Incessant, increasing in intensity as her whole body started to heat up. He pulled a U-turn and headed down to Summit Street, turning left onto it and then right onto the Cherry Street Bridge.

  Reaching over to take her hand, he got a stronger zap.

  “It’s okay, babe. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. But it explains why you set off my perimeter whenever we drive by the place. You can hear them from the road?”

  “I start hearing it from quarter of a mile away. I do my best to deal with it until we pass.”

  “Why didn’t you ever say anything?” he asked. “I would have gone another way.”

  “Another way around every cemetery? Every school? Every mall or movie theater complex? That’s ridiculous, J. It’s my shit. I deal with it. I never needed to say anything before now.”

  Clenching his jaw against another example of her self-imposed isolation, he had an idea, and turned into Pearson Park a few minutes later.

  “How about this instead?” he asked, putting the car into park in the lot near the pond.

  She smiled at him. “I’ve always preferred this.”

  They got out and she didn’t pull back when he took her hand again. One trip around the pond in silence as her energy continued to spark and bounce off him. At least it was finally slowing. When it had nearly stopped, he took her into the woods.

  Not saying anything, they listened
to the trees and watched the birds and squirrels. With fall upon them, squirrels were very busy gathering tree nuts. Halfway through the path, her hand on his arm halted him. He looked to see what she saw, and a deer stepped out onto the path about ten yards on.

  “Stay here,” she said, and walked forward.

  The deer waited for her, watching her, watching him. Tyler put her hands together to form a cup and the deer tilted her head to see, then lowered to eat from the cupped hands. Jerome eased forward one silent step at a time, clearing his mind of conflict to be at peace within this quiet space.

  “She asked me if I knew where better food was,” Tyler said gently, raising a hand to rub the animal’s neck.

  In her own time, unafraid and unhurried, the deer walked away into the trees. Jerome slipped an arm around Tyler’s waist to pull her against him for a long and thorough kiss.

  “What was that for?” she asked when he released her mouth.

  “For being the single most incredible person on this entire planet. If not the entire galaxy. So…no museums?”

  “No museums,” she said as they started to walk again. “In fact, that’s how Earnol got me off Earth in the first place. He met me at the Tower of London. I couldn’t stand it for five minutes with all those tortured souls screaming out their pains.”

  “So cemeteries are out too.”

  “I also have a hard time in hospitals, old folks homes and animal hospitals. Anywhere people and animals go to die in fear and sorrow.”

  “I never really thought about that,” he admitted. “I’ll be more mindful in future. Is that also why you don’t watch the news? So many stories of people dying in tragedy?”

  “Yes. If I didn’t feel it all by myself, the television makes a connection for that energy to reach me and I feel it when I need not have. I could very happily live up in a cave away from everyone and everything. Seriously.”

  He chuckled. “Sounds good. So long as we have furniture. If we’re ever going to make love, it’s going to be in a proper bed, dammit.”

  She laughed, the tension around her finally breaking completely. They finished the path and he took her to the little restaurant across the road from the park entrance for an early supper. She had the duck a l’orange and he the prime rib.

  “You should tell me when you intend to be gone all day,” Landra admonished when they returned to the warehouse.

  She glared up at him and ported.

  “Fuck. Dammit, Landra. Thanks a fucking lot. You used to be the one lecturing me on not chasing her away, remember?” Jerome bitched, taking out his phone and texting her.

  Come to my room. We’ll smoke one.

  Send, and a beep sounded from within his own room. He unlocked the door and there she was sitting in his desk chair with a joint sparked up.

  “I was already here.”

  Grinning, he kicked backwards to shut the door. No sex. No orgasms. He didn’t try to put hands on her, but he very much enjoyed holding her in his arms while she slept a couple hours before going to work at the restaurant. And she let him.

  Her shift started at eight. She showed up in the empty family side ladies room at seven thirty. Walking through, she sensed no deception in the employees on this side of the restaurant.

  The connecting corridor. The coal room. Little problem there. Bar. Paul was solid as could be. Separate registers kept the other two bartenders honest…as did the automatic measuring of all beer and counting cups and bottles at the end of the shift.

  Five bus boys. One problem.

  Four bouncers, three on duty tonight. One problem.

  Twenty waitresses covering tables, billiards, and darts, the side bar.

  Two problems there.

  Kitchen. Busy busy.

  She found Giuseppe in his office finishing his dinner before the night began. They’d met before, when the guys had come on Friday nights.

  “Hello again, Tyler,” he said in thickly accented Italian. “Jerome doesn’t have many friends who look like you. I’m guessing there is more to friendship than he says.”

  She smiled. “Probably. I have a great deal of experience keeping the peace in a busy place like this. I specialize in catching employee theft. After close tonight, I’ll bring you what I find.”

  “Okay, but I don’t think you’ll find much. We have a good bunch.”

  She smiled. “I’m sure you do. My goal isn’t to get people fired, but to stop theft or fraud so your patrons know they can trust you and your restaurant. Then they’ll come back more often and spend more money.”

  Giuseppe smiled. “I like you already. Let’s go introduce you to your boys.”

  Turk, Rob, Mark and Tim. He introduced her and went back to his own work.

  “We’ll keep it simple, gentlemen. You patrol the floor. I’ll be perched around in various spots depending on what I want to see. Our goal is to keep the peace. You contain the situation until I arrive to resolve it. Pay particular attention to women who leave their drinks alone on a table. We will not allow a women to fall prey to a predator. Talk to the people. Learn if it’s the first date, blind date, anniversary, whatever. Get to know your regulars and their patterns. Then you’ll know when something isn’t right. Enough for now. Let’s help Giuseppe make a lot of money.”

  Head bobs and “Yes, Ma’am.” She went to the bar top while they filed out.

  “I want a very weak jack and water. One shot in a water glass, to the top with ice and then tap water.”

  He got it for her. She picked her spot by the rail and became invisible. She skimmed the ocean of energy for disturbances, stalled out several misunderstandings, ignored the band. They were terrible. She’d do something about that soon as she could.

  An hour at the rail and she got a refill of ice. A hot game of 9-ball, and a shark who took a small fish for a painful $300. She went over for that one.

  “I’ll play you,” she said.

  “Okay. Twenty a ball?”

  She smiled. “Hundred a ball. Five hundred for the nine. I know you got it. You took that much off your last three suckers.”

  “Okay then. I’ll even let you break, sweet thang,” he smiled with too many teeth.

  She offered her hand for a shake and took the stick out of his hand. She pointed to a random player.

  “You. 9-ball rack.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Winner breaks second game,” she said.

  “If there’s a second game,” sharkie boy said.

  “Oooohh, there’ll be a second game,” she said, chalking the stick well.”

  She watched the rack slide up into place, moved the cue ball to the right about eight inches. Deep breath as she bent over, cue sliding over her finger. Drew back and a thump and the cue flew into the balls. Wild careening around the table for eight balls but the 9 ball went directly into a far corner pocket.

  Incredulous cheer and she held out her hand.

  “Pay me.”

  Five hundred dollars.

  “I’ve more time? Double or nothing?” she said.

  “No way you can do that twice.”

  “Rack ‘em!” she said, and chalked again.

  One shot, just like the first, with the same result.

  Hand out. “Pay up.”

  One thousand dollars.

  “Do it again?” Triple up or nothing?”

  “Three grand? One ball?” he stared. “Naw, man. Too rich for me.”

  She threw the stick at him. “Take your wood. Get out of my House. Try and hustle my patrons again and I’ll take more than just your money.”

  Sharkie boy fled. FAST.

  “He didn’t pay his tab,” the waitress said, panicked that she’d get in trouble for the unclosed bill.

  “How much was it” Tyler asked, straightening her wad of cash.

  “Forty.”

  Tyler gave her a fifty. “Keep the change.”

  She returned the $300 to the sucker and pocketed the rest. She went for a fresh Jack and water. Cliff, th
e second bartender, was not happy. Sharkie boy had been paying him a cut.

  “Anyone else you got givin’ you a kick back, you just tell ‘em not to. This is not their work place anymore,” she told him. “Do what I say and I don’t tell pops. Try to get away with it on nights I’m not here, and I’ll tell him in a heartbeat. This is your one chance to straighten your ass up.”

  She walked away to the rail to be invisible again. The band came back for a second set from eleven to one. A better set but still not up to her standards. They were Cliff’s doing too, and paying him fifty bucks a night they played. Yep. That would end.

  She spotted a bus boy palm a $10 bill as he picked up his bin. Damn.

  No fights all night, no heated table arguments. It was a good crowd. As soon as the last one was out and the doors all locked, Giuseppe called the employees to the dance floor. Jerome was there to take her home, and she asked him to sit with Giuseppe. She stood next to a table a few feet in front of them and called over the busboy Dana.

  “Put it on the table.”

  “What?”

  “All of it. Now.”

  A moment of staring at her and he folded. Onto the table he put $35, $25 in one dollar bills plus the ten she’d seen him take. The entire group of waitresses and busboys became a mushroom cloud of anger, gasps and one word epithets and exclamations.

  “You’re fired,” Tyler said. “Get the fuck out.”

  Dana threw down his over shirt and walked out.

  “Cliff.”

  “What?”

  “”Get your ass over here, what,” she scowled at him, and waited for him to move the three steps forward. “Put it on the table. Now.”

  “I don’t have anything.”

  “Do what she says,” Jerome spoke up. “I trust her word over yours any day the damn week.”

  Cliff held.

  “That’s fine. We’ll just call the police. They can search you for the missing money. They’ll find the knife in your pocket and the unregistered nine millimeter in your car,” Tyler said.

  Cliff turned on her and she took a step forward, her face in his.