Too Long a Soldier (Kingdom Key Book 3)

by TylerRose.

  He socked Jerome on the arm. Jerome socked him back twice as fast and they shook hands with a mutual “take it easy” in parting.

  Nails was right. She was naked in his bed, waking as he slipped between the sheets.

  “Still in a bad mood?” he asked.

  “Bad enough.”

  “Good.”

  He reached for a latex glove from the pack he’d bought on the way home, and the new bottle of silicone lubricant. Pushing her onto her belly, shushing her with kisses to her shoulders. Slowly, methodically, listening to her desperate little cries and feeling her tremble and shake and shudder against him.

  “Is that good, babe?” he asked when he had four fingers up to the last knuckles holding steady in her anus.

  Low moan, deep and ethereal and she managed to whisper yes.

  “Shall I go the rest of the way?”

  “Please, Sifu,” in a whisper of a plea.

  Out a little, in a little deeper. Her stillness amazed him. She was a languid puddle beside him, only the sounds coming from her betraying the distress she was in. Then penetration was complete and she all but screamed guttural sobs, almost a convulsion of sound, into the pillow. All at once, she surrendered to heavy, fast breaths and a shiver. He took her only another moment before slipping his hand out and stripping the glove off inside out.

  Their energies had stopped crackling with her surrender. He spooned with her, two fingers reaching between her impossibly slick labia to find her impossibly engorged clit. A hard gasping cum with barely a press of fingertips, she stiffened from head to toe, body fairly resonating as he kept her going for a full minute before letting her go. Her hand flew down, sharp nails digging into his wrist and trying to stop him. He ignored it until he was ready to release her.

  She lay gasping for breath, shaking beside him, and he realized how correct Nails had been. Melted butter and he could have done anything…literally anything…he wanted with her.

  He chose to give her a kiss on the cheek and let her fall back asleep.

  Noon and she didn’t wake. He was torn between wanting to go for his jog and staying with her. He placated himself with a nunchuku workout. Twenty minutes solid and he glanced to see she was curled up in the blanket and watching him with sleepy eyes.

  “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

  “Yes. Don’t stop on my account. I like to watch you.”

  He came and sat on the edge of the bed, moving aside a curl on her cheek.

  “You talked to Nails last night after I left the restaurant, didn’t you?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  She grinned.

  “Did you know he called Thomas Holmes and told him to find you and watch out for you? If he did it in this one, I’m sure he did it in other timelines too.”

  She knew, but said nothing.

  “Still going to your Gramma’s?” he asked.

  “Yes. Over tonight definitely. Not sure about tomorrow.”

  “You go as long as you want, babe. Just come see me before you leave, okay?”

  “I will.”

  She ported to her own room for a bath, needing to soak muscles aching from the long show. She’d worked hard.

  “May we speak?” Landra Ahr met Jerome at the Command Center door.

  “What about?” Jerome asked, stepping in.

  The door closed behind him.

  “Your room is not as sound proof as the others. None of them heard her this time; but I thought I should inform you that it can be heard.”

  “Like I give a shit. She’ll be as loud as I want her to be. This will never be a discussion again.”

  He walked out to get some lunch.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The family was already there, campers parked in the curve and tents set up on the other side of them in the back yard. The big fire pit was going, the teen boys taking their turns keeping the spit turning with the whole hog skewered over it. They’d been here since the previous day.

  Uncle Radames was waiting for her at the steps when she appeared in the quiet, cool entry. Two steps with tall legs and he had her in a warm embrace of acceptance.

  “You’ve come back to us, Wildflower. I’m so happy to see you well!”

  He looked deep in to her eyes. “I see the Ancients in you. This is a much older soul than the girl who left us.”

  “What did Gramma tell you?”

  “She doesn’t have to tell me anything. I can see for myself. Let’s go see the family and then we’ll talk.”

  He took her on his arm out the back door to the family waiting to see her. Smiling faces. All sincerely happy she was there, even Zarabeth. But Tyler no longer sat with the teenagers. Gramma Addie took her by the hand to sit at her right, with Radames across. One simple act that placed Tyler as heir apparent to the Matriarch. Only when Radames requested they go for a walk did Addie let her granddaughter leave her side.

  Hot as it still was, approaching Halloween, he took her to the weeping willow beside the stream. A blanket on the ground in its shade and they sat with a cold bottle of white wine.

  “What would you tell me, Wildflower?” he asked.

  “Do you have some reason to come to Toledo in February?” she asked in return.

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “You do now. You and the uncles. On February 18th at 8am, I need you to be on the west bank of the Maumee River, ready to help if things go badly for me and my group,” she said, a little lizard climbing onto her hand.

  “Help how?” he asked, watching her stroke the reptile that would normally flee from humans.

  “By stealing us away to safety. South along the Maumee River and through to Mexico if needs be. Or wherever he wants to go,” she said.

  “He? Your fool?”

  “So she has talked to you.”

  “Does it matter?” Radames asked.

  “No. I trust Gramma. I trust you. No one else matters.”

  “You play a dangerous game, don’t you, Wildflower?”

  “Very. If I fail, millions die. If I succeed, those millions live and truths will be known.” She put her hand down and the lizard scrambled off into the sands.

  “Truths? So you fight against liars and deceivers. That means you cannot fail. Liars cannot hide forever. Truths cannot be denied forever.”

  Tyler had to smile. “I’m trying. I do not like having to sneak around to find my allies. It’s going to be very bad, Radames. Hell on Earth like no one has ever seen outside of a movie theater. Leave the women here. Make them hide.”

  Radames took her meaning, nodding.

  “If anything happens to me and I cannot get away, do not try to rescue me,” she said. “You’d only die for trying. You have to get the others to safety.”

  “Wouldn’t you die?” he asked.

  “Not right away. He’ll want to enjoy me a long while before disposing of me. It will be in that captivity that I will bring about his demise.”

  “You’ve seen it then.”

  She nodded. “A hundred times over. Almost every time I’ve had to kill him, I did it in his bed.”

  “And then what? His people killed you?”

  “No. I became the energy he possesses.”

  “Became the energy? Became like him?” he asked.

  “No, Radames, not like him. In some, I left physical form and became omnipotent energy. You’re the only person I’ve told that. Please don’t tell Gramma. In the not too distant future, I’m going to ask her for a reading. I don’t want her to be influenced by knowing too much.”

  “I understand, of course. All this knowledge you have must be a tremendous burden.”

  She nodded. “I tend to cry a lot, and you know that’s not like me. I hate it.”

  “You have to have some outlet, Wildflower. Have you no one you can talk to? No confessor?”

  “I do, but I can’t tell him everything.”

  “What of your priest? You may have been excommunicated but that does not mean he will not
advise you.”

  Interesting. In this timeline she’d been fully excommunicated? She’d have to look into that.

  “I cannot burden my priest with what I know. For him to remember and know would render him useless to his people. His entire religion is based on lies. I can’t do that to him.”

  “How do you mean?” Radames asked, pouring her wine fresh. “Tell me. You won’t offend me.”

  “I won’t offend you because you already know about what I’m supposed to be. I don’t remember all of it; but I had an event while visiting here and you helped me. Don’t let Zarabeth marry this boy Pali. He’ll beat her and kill their first child for being a girl.”

  “Thank you for telling me. I will see to it. You came back to fix things. Why? You could have left it all be and enjoyed being dead.”

  “Because it’s right. I couldn’t leave it. I tried! I kept getting pulled back. I was compelled to live again and put things right. I can’t stop until I have, regardless of the consequences to myself.”

  He looked at her with a peculiar expression. “You are a Quester. There have been many. Moses was one. So was Harriet Tubman. She was often said to have a sixth sense, knowing when patrols were near. If she’d been caught, she’d have been killed.”

  “Was she?”

  “No. She died a very old woman,” he said. “Maybe you should read about her. Perhaps you will find the similarities to be a comfort.”

  “Maybe so. Thank you for listening, Radames,” she yawned, the wine making her sleepy after her very late night. “I need to lie down.”

  He held her arm. “Give your priest the chance. He may just surprise you.”

  She ported to her room, bringing her weekender bag to her from the warehouse. She set the clock for 7pm and stripped to her skin. The sheet was light and cool and she fell into a hard but not dreamless sleep.

  Shackled, both wrists to the floor, by a two foot long chain. She slipped out of them and stepped into a warm, sun-filled field. She could smell the breeze. Something familiar. Jerome took her hand and they walked and walked and walked for days

  The dream reset. More intense emotion of oppression from all sides. Shedding the chains, stepping into the sunshine. Walking with Jerome and they both turned into dragons. The dream reset five more times.

  The alarm went off to a song on the local radio station, and she was more tired than when she’d gone to bed. She dressed and went out in her bare feet. Most of the family had left. Radames remained, and brought her a plate saved from the pig roast.

  “We will bring as many of the brothers and cousins as we can,” he told her. “They are going now to pass the word.”

  Tyler only nodded. “I want to ask you something else.”

  “What, Wildflower?”

  “Why does the family not hold me to the Gypsy traditions?” she asked. “In another life, I brought someone to the family someone from my travels, and the only one who sneered at him was Pali. No one from the family batted an eye. If it had been Zarabeth, they’d have beaten his ass all the way up the road into the next swamp.”

  Radames laughed and had to agree.

  “No one ever scolded me for having a love life, for having my lover in my room with me. Gramma insisted I should. No one has ever told me to get married and stay home and clean house, except for one aunt, and she married into the family.”

  She stopped talking, eyes questioning him further.

  “I think you know the answers and don’t want to say the words,” Radames replied.

  “So say the words I don’t want to say. Articulate it for me,” she insisted.

  “You know now who and what you are. You were hidden among the Gypsies for safekeeping, entrusted to those who stole the fourth nail. We’re not going to make you keep to our traditions because we know that you cannot. You have too large a future to be a housewife. No ordinary man will ever suffice. You need an extraordinary man to capture your heart, likely more than one. It was much easier to protect you when you were a little girl.”

  She laughed, seeing the truth in that. There was nothing more to be done on this end. That urgency was returning, like there was more to do somewhere else.

  Gramma’s hand came to rest on hers. “Be still, child. Let the world lay where it may for a time. It won’t fall to pieces without your constant vigilance. Enjoy the silence where you find it.”

  “I’m trying, Gramma.”

  “You are trying too hard, child. Let life happen for a change.”

  Something not as easy as Gramma made it sound. Tyler said her goodbyes and returned to the warehouse.

  When she woke the next day, she spoke to Landra Ahr privately in the Command Center, saying only that she was going to be gone most of the day. Jerome was already gone, off on errands around the city and to have dinner with Tony and his parents.

  She ported to that empty coat room and walked in to the service. He saw her, and after a brief pause no one else noticed, continued with the sacrament. She went to the long tables of candles and dropped a C-note into the money box. One by one she methodically lit candles, thinking the name and seeing the face of the person associated with each.

  Alen, Jerry, Amy, Nancy

  Osan, Mankell, Curry, G’ven

  Shestna, Dorn, Emperor Encito and Alila, Pisod

  Mother, Gramma Addie, Radames

  Jerome, his mother, father, grandparents, brother and sisters

  Roc, Starbird

  Gable and his mother

  Tony and his parents

  Nails, Thomas, Dicer.

  The priest walked by on his way to the door to see his flock out.

  She blew out the fourth stick, having lit the entire bank of candles, and slowly waved her by the hand over the candles. Only about two inches over the flames. Warmth, detachment.

  “What brings you to this house?”

  She smiled to herself, hearing Mankell’s voice so long ago, greeting her for the first time.

  “I need to burden you,” she said, watching the flames as her hand travelled through them.

  They grew tall to reach her and she swept through their caress.

  “Burden me?” he questioned.

  “You steadfastly maintain your faith in an unseen god who abandoned Earth nearly 2000 years ago,” she said. “What if I told you he was actually here to help me? A whole team of people like him came with him, to wait for me to be born to a woman named Mary and help me to become a goddess in my own right.”

  “You think you’re a goddess?”

  “Bring me a cup of Holy Water,” she said.

  “What for?”

  “You do not question your god. Do not question me now,” she calmly said, hand still waving through the flames.

  He went to the vestibule, to the basins of water worshippers dipped a finger in to genuflect. He dunked the cup in and brought it back.

  “Take a drink. Prove it is water.”

  “Tyler--“

  She hissed, the flames flickering wildly along the entire table left to right.

  Father Jim drank. Her left hand waved in front of the glass in his hands.

  “Drink again,” she said, still not looking at him.

  He did, and spat it back out. The water had become wine and he’d been unprepared for the taste.

  “Have you a fish?” she asked, and held up her left palm for him to see a goldfish flopping there. “I do. I have five.” Five little goldfish. “Shall I feed the 5000? I can.” They vanished.

  “Prefer a loaf of bread?” A Eucharist appeared in her palm.

  “Have a dozen.” A pile in her hand.

  “Ever seen Paris?” They were atop the Eiffel Tower.

  “Perhaps you would prefer this instead.” In front of a startled congregation inside Notre Dame Cathedral.

  They returned to Rosary Cathedral, in front of the pews, and he sat.

  “I carry a great deal of information,” she said. “I have chosen you as my Confessor. When I come, you will remember everything.
When I leave, you will forget.”

  “Why me, Tyler? I expelled you from our school. From our Holy church. Why would you choose me?”

  “Because no one else is objective enough to offer me counsel. Few are learned enough.”

  “If I refuse?” he asked.

  “You cannot refuse me any more than you can refuse the dying their absolution. Your god commands you tend anyone who comes to you in need. Your own conscience will not let you refuse. I need to unburden my troubled soul.”

  He thought a moment, deciding she was all too right. “Let’s go to my living quarters. The seating is more comfortable.”

  She stayed so long she ended up cooking them an early dinner. He listened, asked the right questions, and when she finally returned home, it was with a much lighter soul.

  Landra Ahr got one word out. “Where--“

  Her hand up and out and he perceived the psychokinetic blast.

  “Not a word,” she said, index finger up as she passed him. “Not your concern.”

  She went up to her room to sit alone and watch a movie.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Let it happen, Gramma had said.So not an easy thing to do; but she did let it go for a while. Dressed in the best pieces from Gramma’s attic trunks, she and Roc walked a few streets in a dense neighborhood for Roc to see what happens on Halloween. Half an hour of that and Tyler ported them across town to Giuseppe’s.

  One of the few Saturdays Jerome came to the restaurant. Dressed as a steampunk pirate, complete with eye patch, he gave Tyler a hug and an ass squeeze and showed her to the table they’d enclosed to look like a gypsy wagon. Gable was dressed as The Flash, Starbird as Wonder Woman.

  “Five dollars green, your future be seen,” Tyler flirted, but would only allow one person inside at a time.

  “Two men I see,” she told a party store wench. “One called Todd and one called John. If you go with John, you will have the three-point-two children, two car American Dream complete with white picket fence. But you will have little love. If you go with Todd, you will have no money, no children, and no picket fence, but you will always have love. Love, and mind-blowing hot monkey sex. So that is your choice. Comfortable and unloved or poor with beautiful love,” Tyler concluded, holding out a bowl with percent-off or free item coupons.