Too Long a Soldier (Kingdom Key Book 3)

by TylerRose.

  “You were hurt in the fighting,” he said indicating the cane. “Otherwise, are you well?”

  “Well enough, and you?” she asked in return.

  “Shall we go to my office?”

  In the blink of an eye they were there.

  “I meant walk,” he complained.

  “I’ve done enough walking today.” She stood at the window, watching the morning rush of a children coming to school. Many memories. Such a darkness to her thoughts. She had never liked this angry part of herself.

  “I know your mother died that day. I’m sorry,” he said, as sincere as he had ever been.

  Tyler’s mood darkened deeper than it already was. “I never said I intended to save her life; but I was hoping other changes would alter her death. The Universe unfolds as it cannot help but do.”

  “Other than her death, do you call your mission a success?”

  “An astounding success.”

  “Then what brings you here?” he had to ask.

  “I’m not sure, Father Jim. My eyes should feel clear now, but I’m just as shrouded as I was before.”

  “Is there more for you to do here before your mission is finished?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. You and I have had our differing points of view but I’ve never lied to you and you’ve never given me false council.”

  “Even if you didn’t take my advice?” he smiled.

  “Oh, I took it. I didn’t often use it at the time is all. If I am able to leave Earth, which I can do physically any time I want, how can I leave behind the people who have become almost family?”

  “How did you do it before?” Father Jim asked.

  “Before was easy. I didn’t have anyone else, Mom was lost to me. No one was willing to put up with me while I got my shit together. Everything in my world was pushing me away. Everything had to.”

  “Who do you have now? Who grounds you the most?”

  “Well, Landra Ahr for one. He can’t fly through space farther than to the moon and back.”

  “I don’t mean mechanoids. I mean humanoids with emotions and beating hearts. Who is special to you? Who is sacred?” he asked.

  Tyler clammed up.

  “There is someone, isn’t there? Male or female?”

  “I cannot love,” she said flat and emotionless.

  “Are you letting fear of losing that person hold you back?” he asked.

  “I don’t feel fear. No fear, no regret, no doubt and no guilt. I cannot love because I cannot see. So long as my vision of the universe is clouded and I cannot see, I am in danger. So are the people around me. That’s just how it is.”

  “You’ve spoken to me before of a placed called Sanctuary. Can they help you?”

  “No, not this time. Or, at least, not yet. When I’ve gone there it has been an emergency. This isn’t an emergency. I don’t know that I could even go,” she sighed. “I don’t know. I do feel there’s something else I have to do before I can move on but I don’t know what that is.”

  A moment of silence.

  “Well, Tyler, I’m going to send back at you your own quote. ‘The Universe unfolds as it cannot help but do.’ Which means to be patient and it will reveal itself to you.”

  She glared at him, suddenly annoyed. “Be patient? Isn’t that much the same advice you used to give me when I was sixteen?”

  “Is it any less valid now that your soul is 40 million?” he asked.

  “Probably not,” she had to admit. “You’ve got two nuns coming up the stairs for a meeting. I’d best be going. Do you want to remember or would it be best for you to forget until next time?”

  “I’m a priest, Tyler. Head of this city’s Catholic Church. I cannot fulfill my post if I know the God I’m supposed to be devoted to is a dead alien from halfway across the galaxy.”

  “Alright then, thank you for your time, Father Jim. Forget.” His eyes blanked as she exerted the command.

  She teleported back to her room at Mickey’s. Fatigued, pain fast increasing, she undressed and crawled into bed. She fell asleep and enjoyed a solid, natural sleep for the first time since before the battle.

  Inching down the stairs some hours later, she heard muffled sounds of practice in the garage. Using the walking stick, she made her way slowly and identified who was present before she arrived at the bottom.

  All the core band had come. They were working on the new songs, making a pretty good job of it. As always, the song they were on continued to its finish when she came in. Almost nothing would bring the music to a halt. She joined the lead lyrics in the dark hardness of tempo change in the middle.

  “Where did you get these?” Ben asked from behind his drum kit when the song “I Think” ended.

  “In my travels,” she said, sparking up a joint for the small table.

  “Powerful stuff.”

  “Wait until you hear it with all the vocals,” she said giving the joint to Mickey and eased her right hip onto the stool.

  They passed it around until it was gone, and played the album in the order she intended it always to be played.

  “Are we expecting anyone to show to play Droghers?” she asked at the end, meaning the kids who often rounded out the brass.

  “Likely not,” Mickey replied, putting his guitar back into its place on the wall and taking down another.

  “Are you going to sing?” Roger asked her and passed her the next joint.

  “Absolutely,” she replied.

  “What’s the playlist?” Hank asked, returning his bass.

  No one answered. She released the smoke she’d held for nearly a minute.

  “I suggest we simply play what we want at the time,” Tyler said. “We just get up there and jam every song we have always loved to perform. However long we want. You know they’ll be there, and they always like what we do. If we don’t have the kids we don’t have to worry about how late we play or how drunk we get.”

  Silence. She knew the door she’d just opened.

  “That’s not a half bad idea,” Hank spoke up first, and toked the joint. “Having the kids play is great and all, but I’d like to play more gigs with just the six of us. Tyler’s the best singer around far as I’m concerned.”

  “I doubt that,” Tyler said, head tilting down.

  “I don’t,” Hank said. “Not one bit. You’re always been too modest about your real vocal ability.”

  “Well, I certainly will agree to keep Droghers a closed gig this time,” Mickey said. “We’ll see about other gigs. I will name Tyler our one female lead. If she’s not here, no other female will sing lead.”

  “That’s not necessary, Mickey,” she denied, and dropped the roach into the ashtray.

  “I think it’s long overdue, and I won’t hear another word on it. Let’s go through Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks songs. Get you warmed up.”

  With that he began the riffs to “Gold Dust Woman.”

  She used the walking stick onstage, preferring to have it rather than overdo without it. She still overdid. While she might pay for the performance when getting out of bed tomorrow, tonight she needed to release some emotion. She needed to feel some emotion. Droghers clubhouse was a safe place to do that. They played for nearly six hours, taking half hour breaks every thirteen to fifteen songs.

  After, she took to the reclining chair in the quiet back room to rest before going home. The same chair Dicer had striped her ass over; in front of which she’d knelt many times, in her previous life, to give him a blow job; where he’d fucked her bent over the arm many times; held her across his lap for many spankings.

  She felt him come into the room. He was one of those she had always known the proximity of. He squatted next to the lifted foot of the chair, looked at her with that particular expression that always matched the thought. Don’t feed me no bullshit, little girl.

  She blinked at him. “I haven’t been a little girl for a very long time.”

  “I know where I was on February 18th at nine in the morning. I
know where you were too. I know what you did because I saw it for myself through the scope of my rifle. I watched this little thing kill a man with one bare hand in a manner few men can accomplish. You’d rather clam up and say nothing than lie to me, so I won’t ask,” he finished, pushing back to sit in the perpendicular companion chair. “Tell me. How bad is your hip?”

  “Bad enough,” she grunted, adjusting again. “Deep tissue bruising mostly but very painful when I walk or stand my weight on it too long.”

  “Or sit,” he nodded at her adjustment.

  Her head tilted to the side. “Yeah, well.”

  One of the club women brought a sealed bottle of Jack Daniels, a pitcher of ice water and two glasses. Dicer sent her away with an order to shut the door and put the do not disturb sign on the handle.

  “Okay, little girl who isn’t so little. Tell me a story of things I won’t believe.”

  Together they killed the bottle and three joints, shot for shot, toke for toke. She didn’t tell everything. Just enough for him to grasp the scope of her previous existence. He didn’t need to know about being a call girl. He didn’t need to know about the child she birthed. She told of being held captive by Solomon several times; of living on worlds and the many lies told her. Then finding people who at last told her truths.

  “So here I am. Doing it as it was supposed to have been done all along.”

  Dicer was quiet, staring hard at her as she stared back emotionless. “Seems you’ve done that. Now what?”

  “I don’t know. I thought defeating the invading force would do it; but nothing is clear yet.”

  “You ever need anything, you know all you have to do is ask.”

  “I know. Right now I need to go home to bed,” she said.

  She lowered the foot of the chair and used her arms and a bit of psychokinesis to lift herself to her feet. Hip painful, she leaned on the walking stick more than she wanted to.

  He stood as well, and slid his arms around her for an embrace she rarely allowed. His kiss had not changed. Strong, commanding a response, warm lips, soft mustache, and the smell of Jack Daniels. She allowed the kiss, returned it, and put her head on his chest. He held her a moment in the silence, just like he used to when she was having a bad day.

  “I know you won’t be coming to my bed this time around. Don’t make Jerome wait too long before you tell him how you really feel. He doesn’t deserve to be jerked around.”

  “I know. I’m not and neither is he. We don’t use that love word is all. Soon as my lips are able to say the words, they’ll be spoken. Thanks for the drink and the talk.”

  “Anytime, Rose.”

  She teleported out of his arms, arriving in the empty kitchen. This was the first time since the battle that she’d been to the warehouse. Thirsty, she got a drink of plain water. Before it was down her throat, Jerome was in the room. Walking stick in her right hand, she turned gingerly to see him.

  “You’re up late,” she said.

  “I haven’t slept since I woke up after the battle,” he told her. “I suddenly have eighty times the Staff Power I did before. You?” he asked, seeing she wasn’t quite right.

  “I’m alive.”

  She started to walk, ignoring the expression on his face as he saw her severe limp.

  “What the hell happened? You’re limping like you got a broken leg.”

  She ignored the comment and stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “How is Star?”

  “Recovering. She’d have died if you hadn’t brought her back here,” he said.

  “I know.”

  She looked up the tall flight of stairs. “I’m just gonna port. I’m not up to climbing them. We can talk tomorrow.”

  “You’re not going up at all. Come sleep in my bed. I’ve been worried sick about you not being here where—“ He cut himself off, knowing the rest would piss her off.

  “Where you could keep an eye on me,” she finished for him with that look he knew too well.

  The silence was uncomfortable. The walking stick tapped the floor several times.

  “I heal in private, just like you do. You didn’t need me here with my troubles while you were all dealing with Starbird. She was part of this team before I was. She needed you more than I did. I had my own shit to deal with. How is Starbird?”

  “You just asked me that.”

  “Did I? Sorry. I’ve had rather a lot to drink tonight,” she said, passing him on the way to his bedroom.

  “How much?”

  “Enough that I’m actually drunk. Dicer and I killed a bottle of Jack together.”

  Jerome made no reply, keeping his patience and his anger in check as she limped step after step into his room. If she was limping this bad ten days after, how bad had it actually been on the day?

  He waited while she used his bathroom, resisted the urge to help her undress. Instead he watched her every move to see what she was hiding. All she removed were her shoes and bra, both while sitting on the edge of the bed. A small grunt as she eased down to lie on her right side.

  It did not happen often that he heard a person fall asleep. So keen were his senses now, so concentrated was the Staff Power within, that he heard her breathing change and felt her energy drop. The sensation was palpable. He knew she was out, and went to talk to Landra Ahr.

  “You went to see her the night after the battle. How bad was she?” he demanded to know in a tone that Landra Ahr knew would not be put off this time.

  A second of silence and the Command Center door slid shut.

  “She is asleep?” he asked first.

  “You and I are the only ones currently conscious. What’s the deal?”

  “This stays between us. She is not to know.”

  “Okay,” Jerome agreed.

  “Her hip was broken in two places. She had third degree burns from knee to ribs on her left side. By the time I got to her that night, someone had partially healed the broken bones and taken the burns from third to first degree.”

  “Who?”

  “I do not know. I have not told her the extent of her injuries and she has not asked. I told her to stay there for a few days and injected her with enough Keepelquer to make her sleep for thirty six hours.”

  “Well, she’s asleep in my bed now, and very drunk; but at least she’s home.”

  “You’ve not slept yet, have you?

  “Nope.”

  Landra Ahr’s dart was so fast Jerome couldn’t stop it.

  “You bastard!”

  “Your team is intact. Your mission is complete. You have about half a minute or you sleep where you fall because I will not move you.”

  “I’ll get you for this,” Jerome vowed, backing away.

  “Get me in two days. That’s when you’ll wake up.”

  “Fuck!” Spinning to the door, he was already feeling the sedative. “Crap! You asshole!”

  He barely made it to his bed and under the blankets to spoon behind Tyler before passing out.

  Landra Ahr monitored everything in the warehouse and its immediate vicinity, fielding all calls that came in on the various telephones. He visually checked on Jerome and Tyler every three hours. Seven in the morning and Tony and Gable rose to begin their days. Roc left her bed to tend Starbird. He went up to assess Star’s progress, finding her walking on her own into the hallway to the bathroom only two days from waking from her coma.

  “Has Tyler come back?” she asked in Taveragian.

  “Very early this morning. She and Jerome are sleeping. She needs to rest and not overdo for a while.”

  “Is she hurt too?”

  “Yes. She is walking with a cane.”

  “A cane?” Roc startled.

  “Do not make anything of it to her.”

  “How badly is she hurt?” Roc pressed, having not questioned him about the missing housemate in all these days since the battle.

  “Do not make a fuss or she will return to Mickey’s home. That is the last thing we need right now.”

  �
��You’re right, Q’Sil. But if what she needed to do is done, won’t she be leaving anyway?” Star asked.

  “I have not yet discussed it with her.”

  Star went into the bathroom and Roc opened the door to Tyler’s room.

  “She’s not there.”

  “She is in Jerome’s bed. She could not walk up the stairs and he stopped her from teleporting.”

  She said nothing more, waiting for Star to come out again.

  Landra Ahr sensed an additional life form in the warehouse, in Jerome’s room. Down the hall, down the stairs, fast as he could levitate. Not even twenty seconds and the life form was gone again. He scanned the room intensely. Everything was as it should be with one change. The bruising in Tyler’s hip was better by nearly half. Twenty seconds had healed her to minor bruising.

  Whatever the lifeform had been, it had evaded his port traps. Only lifeform sensors had gone off. Interesting. What type of being could be there without triggering the traps? He would have to look into it further.

  March 1st, 1993

  She stared at the blank page for ten minutes. She made another cup of coffee and stared at the page another ten minutes. Sitting back in the chair, looking out the window and staring at nothing, she sipped the steaming coffee that felt so good with her hands wrapped around the warm cup.

  Words were failing her.

  March 1st, 1993--What was there to say? She could fill a thousand page book with the tale. Looking over to her bookshelves, she realized she already had written ten thousand pages.

  Her hand began to write.

  March 1st, 1993

  I was unable to save Mama.

  She closed the book, put it on the arm of the chair and curled up to sit in silence and think.

  No fear. She had not expected to be face to face with Adamantine, but it had been so right in the moment. She had known as it was happening that it was as it should always have been.

  No doubt. She had not questioned one single thing about the entire battle. Not once since coming back.

  No regret. She had done everything she could.

  With these three emotions removed, all their shadows were gone as well. Fear’s shadows were anxiety, apprehension. Doubt’s shadow was indecision. Regret’s shadows were guilt and shame.