Too Long a Soldier (Kingdom Key Book 3)

by TylerRose.

  “There’s no need to wait,” she said, taking her seat.

  “The least we can do is wait for the chef,” Star said. “But it’s a good thing you didn’t take much longer.”

  “Yeah, another ten seconds woulda been it for me,” Gable put in.

  “They made me wait,” Roc said. “Blackmailed and threatened me.”

  Laughter all around. Easy, genuine laughter.

  After a few minutes of intense eating, she felt a need to speak. “I wanted to thank you all for being patient with me. The last time I tried to live with a group of people, bad things happened.”

  A brilliant flash of lightning and a bone-jarring crash of thunder and rain poured in huge drops.

  “Gotta love a midsummer pop-up thunderstorm,” Jerome grinned at her.

  “I think our situation calls for caution from all sides,” Starbird said. “There’s too much on the line for all of us for trust to be misplaced. So you go on not trusting all you want. Just don’t stop cooking.”

  “Here here!” Jerome chimed, and reached for a second serving, and ended up serving more to everyone except Tyler.

  Acceptance was as hard as trust sometimes. To have both from the same people was a marvel.

  “Do you have a Scrabble board?” she asked.

  “Don’t think so,” Jerome said.

  “Nope,” Gable replied.

  “What is Scrabble?” Roc asked.

  “A word spelling game. What about Life?” Tyler asked.

  “We have Monopoly. That’s it,” Gable said.

  “Then how about you and I go to the toy store,” she said to Jerome.

  He shook his head vehemently. “No way! Not with this weather.”

  “He means the lightning,” Starbird said. “Staff Power attracts it.”

  “Ah. Okay. How about you, Gable?”

  “I would, but I don’t like driving in this kind of downpour.”

  “I was thinking more of porting at this point,” she said.

  “Oh, okay,” Gable perked. “Porting is fun. When we gonna do that coffee run?”

  “We’ll see. Who wants to give me money to buy with?”

  All eyes went to Jerome.

  “Hey, Gabe ain’t poor, you know.”

  “True. But he’s only got forty bucks in his pocket. You put up fifty and I’ll put up fifty and I’ll get a bunch of games.”

  “Deal.” He got up from the table to dig into his money pocket and hand over a fifty.

  She ported up to her room, putting the fifty into her safe and making a copy of one of her crisp hundreds. Feeling a strange warmth, she walked down the stairs. Hand on the wall, feeling for energies. It was lower. In the hallway, it faded. Following her instincts, she walked around to the long stairway down to the basement. Leaving the light off, she walked down. Light from the door into the first floor shined a stripe at the landing and there she stopped. Strong essence of someone. She sat on a step to concentrate.

  “Where’d Ty go?” Jerome asked out of the blue when she’d been gone fifteen minutes.

  “I saw her head into the basement stairwell,” Roc pointed at the open door to the kitchen.

  “I’ll go get her since I’m going with her anyway,” Gable said, wiping his mouth and tossing the napkin down. “Don’t no one touch that crisp.”

  Out and to the left and the shaft of light from the doorway illuminated the stairs. There she was sitting, and startled into looking up. Dabbing her eyes with a tissue.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I was talking with the spirit that lives here on the landing.”

  “A spirit lives on the landing?” he questioned. “Seriously?”

  “Yes. You’ve felt him many times. He doesn’t mind you so much. Jerome freaks him a bit now, with the Staff Power. So does Star. But he’s glad Tony is gone. Shut the door and come here.”

  Gable didn’t question her. He closed the door and made his way down in the dark, staying to the right side so he wouldn’t step on her.

  “Sit there,” she said when his feet were on the step on which she was seated.

  He lowered his butt.

  “Just be quiet. When you see him, don’t freak. Don’t make any sudden moves. Don’t speak,” she said quietly.

  “Okay.”

  He heard her draw in a deep breath and exhale with that same thick hiss as earlier. In a few seconds, there stood a shimmering cloud that formed into the image of a farmer. Tattered hat, weathered skin, dirty shirt and pants. A man who worked a hard life.

  “This is Mr. Reynolds,” she said. “He used to own this land. He farmed corn and beans. He died on this spot, trying to get into his storm cellar when a tornado ripped through in a storm just like this one. He’s been more active this week because we’ve been coming up and down so much. He’s upset about all the activity. I was explaining that we’re going to use his cellar to save many people from the worst tornado he’s ever seen. I’ve asked him if he would please help me to look after them when they arrive. Like he looked after his family that day. They all lived. He didn’t because he was last and shut the door when he realized he wouldn’t make it and they’d all die.”

  “Holy fuck,” Gable breathed. “Does he agree?”

  The specter nodded slowly and faded to black. The light at the top of the steps came on and Gable saw a tear drip before she could wipe her eyes.

  “You’re having kinda a rough day, aren’t you?” he asked gently.

  “This is my every day, Gable,” she admitted. “It’s non-stop.” She blew her nose into a tissue and stood up. “Okay, let’s go.”

  “You sure? We don’t have to.”

  “I have a little crisis. It passes. I’m fine. Then I get on with what I was going to do.”

  A hand on his arm and they teleported to a little hallway between bathrooms in a Toys ‘R Us.

  “Why do you let Starbird slug you like that?” she asked.

  He chuckled. “That just means she’s horny. We got an agreement. For every time she slugs me one, I get to fuck her up the ass. Since we just started having sex, I got lots comin’. I’ma start collecting that one tonight.”

  Tyler had to laugh. “Get a cart and meet me on the board game aisle.”

  Parcheesi, Life, Pay Day, Sorry, Trouble, Scrabble, Mouse Trap. They turned up the next aisle and she froze. Star Wars action figures. Her skin sheened and prickled with energies dancing over and around her. Scanning characters, looking, and there was a Dagobah Yoda one peg higher than she could reach. Hand outstretched, it floated down to her and she held onto it while he pushed the cart toward the front.

  Purchase completed, bags full, Tyler looked directly into the security camera, gave it a wink and a smile, and they vanished.

  “Woo! What a ride!” Gable whooped on arrival in the kitchen, and looked at the receipt. “We were in Billings, Montana?”

  “Yep.”

  “What will we play first?” Roc asked, looking over the pile like a kid on Christmas morning.

  “You pick,” Tyler told her. “I’ma go change clothes. Jerome, did you wanna have that joint meeting?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Honey, I’m gonna participate in the joint meeting,” Gable said to Star, and followed.

  “My room,” Jerome said.

  “Two minutes. Don’t start without me,” Tyler said, and ported to her room to get into stretch pants and a t-shirt, and put Yoda on her dresser next to the candles and incense.

  Porting to Jerome’s door and knocking on it, because porting inside was rude, they shared a fat one. Mouse Trap was ready to play when they returned to the game room, and a rousing game it was with Jerome taking the car from the Monopoly game to make five players.

  “Why do you keep touching me when you spin?” Jerome asked after the fourth turn, with the trap halfway built.

  “To prove I ain’t cheating,” Tyler said. “If you’d prefer, I’ll touch Star instead.”

  “Yes, please do,” Gable said, deadpan se
rious. “I’d like that very much.”

  Star slugged him hard in the upper arm. “I will hurt you, Earthman.”

  Jerome felt it that time, a sizzling, intense jolt.

  “Excuse me,” Tyler said, getting up quickly. She ported to the roof.

  A split second of memory, part of a much larger event, that she had nearly forgotten. Better left forgotten. She cried in the rain, grieving tears of immense loss. Her phone began to ring. She ported it to her bed.

  Jerome answered his phone, Landra Ahr calling. “Yeah?”

  “Finish the game without her. She is on the roof.”

  “Okay.” He hung up and spun for his turn.

  “It must be difficult to come back to a physical form and never know what may cause a memory to surface,” Roc observed.

  “That what happened?” Star asked.

  Roc nodded. “I heard it. A man’s voice.”

  “Let’s finish up then,” Jerome said. “She wouldn’t want us to hold up for her.”

  Three rounds later, Roc set the trap into motion and won the game. Delighted with her new favorite thing, she happily put it away.

  Rain was slowing, lightning having passed to the east, and she was wiping her face with the back of her hand. He squatted next to the chimney platform where she was sitting.

  “I did not run,” she said. “I excused myself.”

  He had to smile. “Yes, you did. We’ll call that significant improvement and leave it at that. What did you remember?”

  Her eyes met his. Forlorn. “I told you I found you and Roc in Mexico?”

  “Yeah,” he said, and sat next to her on the concrete slab.

  “Sta went with me. You said some really harsh things to me, made a motion to hit me. Shestna stepped in and informed you that not only could he take the crystal power from you but if you laid a hand on me, he would –and I quote—hurt you, Earthman, in ways you never been hurt. End quote. I hadn’t remembered that part until Star said that. I’d forgotten that moment.”

  “How’d you end up married the first time?” he asked.

  “A Voranian male tricked me. Put a Psala flower in my hand when I wasn’t looking. Sta made the Outdare and they fought. Sta won. Thus followed the mandatory seven night marriage. He chose these beads because they matched my eyes,” she said, pointing to the blue bead with the gold script. “The gold insignia means he is a royal prince and first son of Emperor Encito, and the person wearing it is his bride.”

  “Did that make you a princess?”

  “For the second marriage, yes. Not the temporary one.”

  “Could he really have taken the Staff Power from me?”

  “Yes. He actually did. Voran III has a huge crystal in the middle of the royal palace. They worship it, take minute charges from it. He knows how to use the power.”

  Something to ponder later. “An’ he’s up there now. Right now?”

  She nodded, looking up to the clearing but dark sky. “I may never be able to know him.”

  “Ya know what? I think it’ll get easier, as time goes on and having memories surface isn’t so new anymore.”

  “I don’t want people to censor themselves or worry that something they might say will upset me,” she said.

  “They understand, babe. Roc even said it must be difficult. Nothin’ about this is easy. We’re in completely uncharted territory and you’ve only been on Earth – what? Seven weeks?”

  “Give or take, yeah. I’m trying to keep it under control; but I have to keep in mind how I got myself into trouble before. So I cannot hold it all in like I used to. I have to take opportunities to vent the emotions or outright purge.”

  He put his arm across her shoulders to pull her close. “I wouldn’t want you to hold anything in. Thanks for suggesting the games. I think everyone had a good time.”

  “That was the idea.”

  “Come on. Let’s go smoke a doob.”

  “I have to dry off and change clothes,” she said. “And serve dessert.”

  “Okay. No nudging tonight.”

  He went into the game room to find Life set up.

  “Hold up. Ty’s bringing dessert.”

  “I’ll go help,” Gable said, getting up. “Got the munchies fuckin’ big time.”

  Portions cut with a sharp knife, the crisp went into the oven to warm again. She got plates and spoons out onto the serving cart. Tea kettle on the stove, decaf vanilla tea bags in the ceramic pots with cups on another tray.

  “I don’t recognize these,” he said, picking up one of the three calla lily cups to look at it more closely.

  “They’re mine,” she said a little too quickly, getting out the small bowl of sugar, a spoon, and a dish of cubes.

  His gentle hand on her upper back stilled her. An unfamiliar touch from a familiar energy.

  “Are you really okay? I ain’t said anything about it; but I know more than they do about today,” he said.

  “I’m fine. No one did anything wrong. I told you it’s never-ending. The energies aligned in that moment in such a way that I saw something I hadn’t seen before. A word, a smell, an image. I never know what will trigger what. If it’s a powerful vision, like that one, I have to remove myself until it passes. No one did anything wrong.”

  Water about to whistle, she filled the ceramic pots.

  “If there was ever a group of people to understand, Ty, I think we’re it. You don’t have to remove yourself.”

  “Yes, I do. First because I don’t need the emotions from those around me to come crashing in as they each deal with my outburst. Second, so long as I am able to get up and walk away and be alone, then I’m okay. It’s when I cannot walk away that you know something is really wrong. I don’t want anyone to follow me. I don’t need anyone to comfort me. I have to deal with the crisis and get a grip myself.”

  “Just know that we are here. You don’t have to deal with anything alone.”

  Crisp out of the oven, she dished it up and he scooped the ice cream right behind her. A drizzle of caramel sauce and she tossed over each a sprinkle of chopped pecans she’d put into the oven next to the crisp. Buttered pecans she’d salted before chopping. He pushed the cart and handed out the plates while she poured tea and offered cups.

  “You need to be paying this woman for cooking,” Roc declared, and ate a caramel coated pecan.

  Jerome grinned as he scooped a heap of sugar into his cup. “I just might do that. Sugar, Ty?”

  “One teaspoon, please.”

  He scooped.

  “I said one.”

  “This is one,” he said.

  “That is, like three, dude,” she scoffed.

  “Is not.”

  “See them cubes?” she pointed. “Two make one teaspoon.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I will bet you one thousand dollars that two of my cubes is one teaspoon and what you got there is a tablespoon.”

  “You’re on!” he pointed at her.

  “Woohoo!” Gable whooped and jumped from his seat. “I’ll get the measuring spoons.”

  He was back in a flash and Jerome went first. Spoon into the dish as he would normally scoop out for his coffee and carefully poured into the largest measuring spoon. Damned if it didn’t fill it and then another teaspoon.

  “Shit. Okay, smarty pants, how are you going to measure cubes?” he challenged her.

  She picked up a cube and an unused spoon from the tray. Cube inside, she used the back of another spoon to carefully crush the cube. Tilted to slide into the one teaspoon measure and she repeated with the second cube. One teaspoon exactly.

  “I’ll be a son of a bitch,” Jerome complained.

  “Twenties will be fine,” she said to him, and poured the one teaspoon into her cup. She sat back with the cup in hand, triumphant and grinning.

  “Okay, never betting against the red head,” Gable chirped, and poured his own tea.

  Chapter Five

  Prince Shestna,the new Councilman of the Cele
stial Congress, found himself overcome by a debilitating wave of grief. He had to sit and catch his breath, had to work hard to maintain his control. Hand over his heart as it raced a pounding pace that made him dizzy. Physical pain wrenched his gut to bend him over slightly.

  “Brother? Are you unwell?” Prince Dorn asked, an alarmed hand on his only older brother’s shoulder.

  “It’s clearing,” Shestna said with a cleansing breath. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I think a doctor should see you.”

  “No. Tis not my illness this time. It came from another person. It’s not the first time I have felt it, although this was the strongest.”

  “Can you find out who?” Dorn asked, knowing well his brother’s telepathic abilities.

  Shestna looked up from the fire pit behind his private residence and gestured to the stars.

  “Where do you suggest I look?”

  Chapter Six

  Jerome did what he did best.He took charge.

  “You’re up early. Get dressed. We’re going for a drive,” he told Tyler at the kitchen table when he came back from his jog.

  “Where to?”

  “You’ll see. You got twenty minutes.”

  He went to his own room, stalling any refusal. L’Roc-ai and Tyler exchanged a raise of the brow.

  “He’s feelin’ his britches, ain’t he?” Tyler said, and took her cup to the sink.

  She was ready on time in jeans and a tank top. In the Torino and they drove West. Hundred miles an hour, with a stop halfway through Indiana so they could have a late breakfast.

  “Where are we going?” she asked over her nearly empty pancake and sausage plate.

  “For a drive. Stop asking,” he said with a smile.