Too Long a Soldier (Kingdom Key Book 3)

by TylerRose.

  “When we are certain she will live long enough and has developed far enough along to be without equal, you may speak on the topic with her.”

  “Without equal? She has an equal. Jerome,” Hades said with no small suspicion.

  “He needs to live long enough also.”

  They were gone.

  A long moment and he moved to the chair Jiogaard had been in and lit a rare second cigarette. A blow of smoke and he watched her sleep.

  Hades. Satan. One name born and one he’d taken. Both feared by the people of Earth. This woman had not feared him from that moment in his arms in front of Rosary Cathedral. She responded to him the way she responded to Tiberius. Thinking on it, he realized she probably responded to Tiberius the way Hades had taught her in the other timeline.

  The Magistrates did not know what he’d done on the steps of Rosary Cathedral, how he’d invaded her woman’s core and tried to claim the entity within. Jerome had already done it. Odin did not know or he would have stomped and kicked in fury.

  Cigarette long out, he rubbed fingers across his eyes and forehead, so very weary. When he lowered the hand, there she was. Irresistibly gorgeous and blinking at him. She climbed into his lap, resting her cheek on his shoulder.

  “You are as troubled as I am sometimes. Why?” she asked.

  “You’re not the only one with a past, babygirl.”

  A silence as he enjoyed having her so close despite the many things he could not tell her. Her breath on his neck stirred something too deep within and he realized his building need to take her and have what he wanted of her, knowing that she would yield to his slightest touch.

  He patted her thigh. “Your maidenhead is intact. You need to go home to him now before I don’t give you the option to say no.”

  A few seconds and she kissed his cheek. “Since when do you ever give a woman that option? It’s one of the things I’ve always liked about you, Kevin. I did not give you my virginity. You took it, in every sense of the word.”

  She left his lap to get her clothes and shoes and he let her. If only she knew the danger she could be in from his lust.

  “I’ll bring the shorts back next time.”

  He only nodded. Normally acutely aware of his surroundings, he was taken aback when her arms slid over his shoulders to hold him from behind.

  “I do not ever try to invade your mind, Kev. Not the slightest bit. One day, will you tell me your burdens?”

  His hand closed warmly over her forearm. “I can’t babygirl. I would if I could. I simply can’t.”

  “I’ll let it go for now.”

  “For good, Tyler,” his voice hardened in that way she knew so well.

  She chuckled. “Yeah, that tone might have made her quake; but I don’t let muchanuttin’ go for good. I don’t fear anyone or anything. We will return to the subject and you will tell me. See you next weekend.”

  She ported away, leather jacket over her arm. He felt her leave. An instant emptiness with a palpable sensation. He died a little inside with the loss of her. Again.

  A death of 1000 partings.

  If he could die, he’d have killed himself ten centuries ago. How he envied her lack of regret and guilt. Regret was so useless. Here he had buckets to spare and his cup runneth over to fill the oceans. It got him nothing, not the smallest consideration from the Magistrates of Sanctuary.

  Needing to calm his blood before he went out to ferry a few souls, he turned on the cd player. Perpetually cued up and on repeat, a single song from one of her first gigs since coming back. He’d seen then, seen it in her eyes, how different she was. She had learned truths. She knew things.

  The throb of Searchin’ for the Kingdom Key, and he listened to her pure soul sing so many truths. Some she did not yet realize she knew. The second verse, about dreams left to die and hopes rejected and truths that were lies. Roads traveled and turning people away. Lonely souls and missions of mercy.

  He let out a long, deep sigh as the song ended and applause from his people went on for half a minute. She fired his blood one minute and in the next she quieted his soul. It was he who had first been made for her. He who had been paired with her at the atomic level. He who had screwed it up and was paying the price every minute of his life. Hearing her, feeling her, unable to take his place at her side and in her bed, was a punishment more cruel than anything he’d ever thought up for the most evil of souls.

  Impervious to the chill of the night, he went out to find some innocent souls in need of mercy. He took them to the nearest Gatekeeper. Tonight he extended mercy to Tyler and did not take any to her. He went to look in on her, as he so often did. Invisible in his ethereal form, hovering outside the shrouded windows of her lover’s bedroom, only a few seconds and he had to go. While not engaged in the ultimate act of male and female, he and she were certainly, unmistakably, intimate. He couldn’t stand to see it, knowing he could not have her.

  Grey of predawn and he went to his bed for two hours of hard, exhausted sleep. Up at 7am, out the door at 8am, in court by 9, and in front of the Federal judge to defend another innocent soul.

  Hades’ work was never done.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  March 31st, 1993 – Wednesday.

  Tyler and Gable returnedfrom a coffee buying trip to Hawaii, a fifty pound sack of raw Kona coffee beans over his shoulder. In the kitchen, they got out the small roaster and started working on batches until they achieved the right intensity of flavor.

  “Have I said how much I love that you live here?” Gable asked as they sipped cups brewed in a single cup pour-over rig.

  She smiled at him, her ear catching the news from the sitting room.

  “There’s a new, highly addictive drug in our area. Called Rovan, authorities have no idea where it came from. It first appeared just two weeks ago…”

  Tyler rushed in from the kitchen. “Rovan? Did she say Rovan?”

  “Yeah,” Star replied. “Why?”

  “Son of a cunt,” Tyler breathed, stalking backwards out the door and into the Command Center. “Landra, we have to talk. We’re about to have a very big problem. It was never here before. I need you to learn everything you can about Rovan on Earth. When it got here, where it started, exactly what police and hospitals know.”

  “What is the significance?” he asked.

  “It comes from Voran III and is the worst possible poison to humans that you can imagine. If it’s here, someone had to bring it. That means there are unauthorized aliens here. I didn’t feel them approach or arrive, so they probably did while I was down from my injury after the battle.”

  “Aren’t you an unauthorized alien, technically speaking?” he said in his version of a tease.

  “So are you, but we didn’t bring mass suicide with us. That’s what’s going to happen. I’ll bet you it’s already happening. I’m going to get ahold of Julian.”

  She ported to her own room for the quiet and sat in one of the armchairs to calm herself first. Her heart was pounding with the meaning of this development, remembering Mariah dead in the bathtub with slits up both arms.

  [Julian. We have to talk.]

  Silence.

  [Someone brought Rovan to Earth.]

  He appeared within seconds. “What?”

  “There was a news report at noon. They called it Rovan and people are already dying. The factory has to be in this area.”

  “How the hell did a Voranian drug get here?” he demanded hotly.

  “That’s what I need you to find out. Are any Voranian ships missing? Was some Rovan stolen recently? I know Encito. He will have kept a theft quiet, but is going to want to know who did this.” She was on her feet and pacing, mind consumed with past events.

  “We’ll figure it out. Calm down.”

  “It wasn’t your best friend who killed herself,” she said, short and irritated.

  “I know. I was there,” he reminded her, and stopped her for a hug. “We’ll figure it out.”

  “Will the AASTT st
ep in this time?”

  “I don’t know. Let me talk privately with Shestna. I’ll get back to you in a few days.”

  “He can’t know I’m here,” she reminded him.

  “I know that too. Try not to worry, okay? We’ll get to the bottom of it and get rid of it. Shestna is on the station today. I’ll go find him.”

  He disappeared, leaving her alone and unsettled. She tried her headphones. She tried singing out loud. She could not rid herself of this odd agitation, and went down to find Jerome.

  “Got the bike out yet?” she asked.

  “When you went to Cali to get your car, actually. Why?”

  “Let’s go for a ride.”

  “Okay. Put on some jeans and your leather,” he told her.

  She ported to her room to change and then back again with a new leather jacket bought on the way home from California. Hard surface leather, thicker for riding on the motorcycle. Helmets on, they rode south in the sunshine.

  Down 1-75 to Findlay, he split off from the highway and went onto Route 68 instead. She saw a sign pointing to the left. Immaculate Conception church on East North Street, and asked him to go there. Pulling into the first parking spot on the side corner, not so sure about this, he followed her to the front door. People tending their walks and yards stopped to stare at the odd sight of these strangers in their small town. She seemed not to see them, pulling open the door like she owned the place.

  He remained in the vestibule doorway, feeling as out of place and conspicuous as ever in his life, while she went to the candle bank. She dropped a hundred into the donation box and methodically lit every candle in the bank of little glass cups.

  One by one by one, down one row, up the next, in a ritual all her own. When they were all lit, she stood there with her arms high over the glow to feel the warmth. She breathed in deep, released it out slow, and the tiny flames began to stretch upwards.

  His own discomfort forgotten, he watched with interest as tea light sized candles produced flames a foot and a half high under her energy. He saw the parish priest enter through a rear doorway, halting to see her with her head tilted back and the flames reaching nearly to her arms over the candle bank. The priest crossed himself, frozen to the spot in his astonishment.

  When she was ready, she exhaled a tremendous breath. Hands slamming down and outward, the entire bank extinguished into a cloud of swirling smoke. Her head turned. She saw the priest. The priest saw solid black eyes and a devilish smile. An eye winked at him and she turned to walk away.

  Jerome said not a word. Her eyes were solid black as she approached him. Seeing him, she blinked and they were again her beautiful green. He reached for her hand and they exited together.

  “Feel better?” he asked, straddling the bike and ready to start it.

  “Much. I’m hungry.”

  Back to Route 68 and he turned into the diner on the left side. Seated where they could see the bike, she told him about the Rovan. She told him what was going to happen as it spread out across the country. Crime waves to be expected as addicts did anything and everything they had to do in order to acquire the next fix and stop the pain. She told him a steadily rising death toll as withdrawal would be fatal to every human who did not get their fix in time.

  “Hell on Earth,” he commented.

  She nodded, chewing a bite of her waffle. “It was brought here for a reason. This is not a random act of opportunity. Someone was waiting for the right moment to land and start production.”

  “But who knew Earth was going to be vulnerable?” he asked. “Knew to be ready for it?”

  “Earnol. Julian is going to do some looking. Really, I cannot describe exactly how vile the addiction is. There is no counter drug for humans. There is no coping drug. It’s a permanent addiction that never lessens and never goes away. Ever. Get your fix or die from the pain; or kill yourself from the insanity it causes.”

  He reached across the table to hold her hand, needing to offer some comfort for the pain and distress so plain on her face. “You saw it up close and personal, didn’t you?”

  Blinks, sadness, remembering. “My best friend Mariah. She sliced herself from wrist to elbow on both arms in my home on Voran, in her bathtub. I found her.”

  “You’ve never mentioned her before.”

  “Because I don’t talk about her,” she said too quietly. “There’s no need for anyone else to know about her at all.”

  She saw him glance up with unexpected recognition, and looked herself to see Julian approaching. He sat next to her in the booth.

  “Hello kids.”

  “You have news already?” she asked.

  “Not from Voran. Shestna knows nothing offhand and will speak to the necessary people and get back to me as soon as he can. The Rosaas, however, are very quietly admitting only to me that one of their ships is missing and they can’t find it. They won’t say which one.”

  “Of course not.”

  “There’s more.”

  Tyler knew that tone. This would be bad.

  “The Indigenous Tyler is dead. She was killed on Crecorday two months after she went back. I just found out a few minutes ago.”

  “Who did it?” Jerome asked, watching her in his considerable peripheral vision.

  “We don’t know yet.”

  “What more?” Tyler asked. “There’s more.”

  Julian sighed hard. “We got a report from Quarint. The indigenous Solomon was killed in his cell three weeks ago.”

  Half a heartbeat and Tyler had teleported herself to the road. She walked hard, feet stomping on the edge of the asphalt as she walked North along the empty field.

  “Let her go,” Julian said when Jerome got up.

  “I don’t work that way,” Jerome said, tossing two twenties onto the table, and jogged out after her.

  “Where are you, you son of a cunt?!” she roared across the miles, and stopped walking.

  He appeared an arm’s length away with that same cocky smile. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  She launched herself at him in a flurry of fists that landed like the sledgehammers she’d struck Jerome with at the motel in Pennsylvania. Jerome’s jog became a dead run on seeing her pounding the fuck out of a man in the shoulder of the road.

  “How are you here?!” she demanded in a fury.

  Her next punch landed square on the cement when he, battered and bloody, teleported away. She roared out her pain and rage.

  “Get back here you fucking coward!” she thundered in a voice as much like a demon as Jerome had ever heard from anyone.

  Jerome squatted beside her to take the wrist she cradled into his own hands to see what she’d done to it. “Who was that?”

  “Solomon. My Solomon!”

  “Yours?” he asked, eyes darting up to hers. And halting. Her eyes were completely black again. No iris. No pupil. Solid black that he’d not seen from this close before. “From your timeline?”

  “Yes! You’re hurting me,” she snarled.

  “Well, your wrist is at least sprained. I have a bandage in the bike. Come on. We gotta get moving anyway.”

  They started the walk back the fifty feet to the diner driveway. Julian met them at the bike.

  “So your Solomon that you personally killed in another timeline somehow followed you here?” Jerome asked. “He killed your counterpart, killed his counterpart, stole a K’Tran ship and the Rovan drug, and came here to make millions?”

  “Yes to everything except the following part. He did not know I was here, which means Earnol still doesn’t know I’m here.”

  “He say so?”

  “His thoughts said so. He was very surprised to see me.”

  Bandage out, he started the temporary wrap. “Did it feel good to pound the fuck outta him?” he grinned.

  “Like you don’t know,” she hissed. “This changes things,” she added to Julian.

  “Indeed. We cannot leave him here to do as he pleases,” Julian said.

  “But wi
ll the AASTT, specifically Earnol, do anything?” she asked. “I’ll bet no. He’ll pull that non-interference bullshit.”

  Julian’s lips pursed, knowing she was right. “He’s got most of the Council under his own considerable influence. They’ll vote how he wants.”

  “So we’re on our own,” Jerome said. “Again.”

  “I’ve always preferred it that way,” she said, the fury calmed enough that her eyes were back to normal.

  “We’ll stay down here in a motel for the night so he can’t as easily trace us directly back to the warehouse,” Jerome decided. “Get on.”

  “He’s not going to show again. I gave him an unexpected hurt. He’s going to be far more wary about approaching me directly in the future,” she said, a hand on his arm as she put a foot over the side of the Harley.

  “He better. He’ll have me to deal with this time,” Jerome said, and lifted his leg over to sit behind her.

  “At least you have allies against him this time,” Julian said.

  “I’ve had allies in the past. They all died,” she shot back.

  Jerome turned her chin to him, made her look at him. “This is me, babe. Not this time.” Releasing her chin, one hard thrust of his foot and the hog came alive.

  “I’ll see you as soon as I’ve talked to Shestna,” Julian promised, and vanished.

  Helmets on, ignoring the stares from inside the diner windows, Jerome headed back up to I-75, to find a hotel in Findlay.

  “Top floor, please. Room with a balcony if you have one,” Jerome said, handing over his credit card.

  The room had a bed, recliner and sofa, small dining table, full kitchen with little coffee pot. Once there, Jerome performed a security check, phone already out to call Landra Ahr.

  “We’re at high yellow alert. Record every face that comes onto the property or observes the property from the Masonic or Rosie’s until I tell you to stop.”

  “What happened?”

  Jerome gave the quick and dirty version ending with her wrist injury.

  “I’ve wrapped it but she hit the pavement pretty good. She may have a broken wrist bone or two.”