Too Long a Soldier (Kingdom Key Book 3)

by TylerRose.

  The back window was unlocked as promised, Tyler asleep in the bed. He scanned her again, finding very different results than he had on the street. What had been a badly burned thigh was now only mildly burned flesh. Where her hip had been broken in two places was a solid bone with barely a trace of the fractures.

  She had been healed. There was no doubting it. Mickey? Someone else? Perhaps Julian had come.

  She groaned in pain. Stirred on the bed. Her eyes opened a sliver in the soft lamp light. She saw him, brain slow to register what she was seeing. Her senses spiked in all the wrong places, betraying exactly how much pain she was in.

  “You made a second armor,” she whispered.

  “When one is taken out of one’s flow of time and a course of action is suggested, one tends to do as suggested. It was a long trip to Earth with nothing better to do. I have two other armors in various stages of completion.”

  She smiled, winced in pain and fell asleep again. He gave her a dose of Taveragian painkiller, enough to keep her sleeping for a day and a half, and left the way he had come.

  He circled the city to survey the damage done. Not really so bad as Tyler had described from her home timeline. The East Side of the city likely was exactly as she had told, as no one had been able to prevent Tony’s step-father from using Sun Oil to destroy a hundred Rhutvak and foot soldiers.

  Flying over the ruins of houses, he saw much human activity. Seeming oblivious to the cold, people and dogs searched the rubble for survivors. As Landra approached a known address, a woman was pulled from the charred wreckage that had been her home.

  “Where’s my daughter?” She asked weakly, an arm stretching out, hand reaching for Phantoms in the dark. “Tyler?”

  Her vital signs faded to nothing and she died on the stretcher before they could carry her to the ruins of the street.

  Some things refuse to be changed, Landra thought, and continued to survey the devastation.

  Coming up the Maumee River from the south, he checked the High Level Bridge, finding it intact. The Cherry Street Bridge, however, was nearly gone. It had come down with the Owens Corning building and Portside.

  Already the Army Corps of Engineers was on site to put up a temporary bridge. On the East side, a tent city was up and expanding on the lawn of Waite High School, to house those who had been in the area at the time of the battle.

  He was certain Tyler had performed a mass command and sent people out of town. She wasn’t going to admit to it, of course; but how else could it be explained that thousands of people who lived in East Toledo went for a long and orderly drive the night before and hadn’t come back yet? How else could one explain why thousands more did not drive to work in the tall buildings of Downtown Toledo? How else could the casualty numbers be estimated at fewer than five hundred?

  Excruciating pain woke Tyler. In a flash she remembered everything up to seeing Landra Ahr fly over her on the street. It was done. She had succeeded. She could die now, and almost wished she would. She tried to push up to look around, finding her muscles too sore to move.

  “I’m here,” Mickey said gently, coming in to help her up and to the bathroom.

  “What’s the news say?” she asked, grunting, groaning and limping across the room with him.

  “While the government would really like to claim mass hysteria, too many television stations are airing video footage of bikers fighting alien foot soldiers and flying mechanoids. There were several cameras around the area.”

  “Do any show Jerome?”

  “Miraculously enough, none really show him—or you—close enough to tell who it is.”

  He stood outside the open bathroom door; back to her while she went the rest of the way.

  “How many dead?” she asked.

  “Estimates are currently at 423. I’m sorry, but your mother is listed among them.”

  He let the silence go for some seconds.

  “You were asleep for nearly three days. Today is the 21st. The Army has control of the city, but they’re letting people go to work near downtown and move about as they choose. Martial law lasted only that first night.”

  “How many bikers have died?”

  “The grass roots forces were estimated at 8000, of which 213 were killed, Almost none were injured enough to be treated at a hospital. They are taking care of themselves, no doubt.”

  She finished and washed her hands, then opened one of the packaged toothbrushes he always kept in the guest bath. She brushed her fuzzy teeth, combed her hair, and cleaned her face while he watched in the doorway.

  “No one else is here?” she asked, feeling no one near.

  “They keep calling to ask when the next rehearsal is going to be. I’ve not decided.”

  “We have a gig at Droghers on the 28th,” she remembered. “We should keep the date.”

  “You gonna be ready?”

  “I can sit on a stool if I have to. If no one else is here, I’d like for us to work on some new songs.”

  “You have them on disc?”

  “Of course.”

  “Okay, I’ll bring up the portable,” he said, turning to head downstairs.

  “No. I’ll meet you in the garage.”

  “Tyler, you took a serious hit.”

  “I’m not going to lie in bed for a week,” she stopped his protest.

  She teleported down, and brought to her hands the CD she wanted to work with. She’d have to remember to take it with her when she went home. She played it for him straight through, singing along, pointing out what she heard in each, the guitar, the drum, the female’s voice, the underlying rhythm. The cues she took.

  “This is very dark,” he commented when it was done.

  “And exceptionally apropos to the times we find ourselves living in.”

  “That it is,” he had to agree. “Alright. I’ll get us some dinner and get to work on the sheet music.”

  During dinner they watched about five minutes of the news before she couldn’t stand it anymore. He turned to a movie. After washing the few dishes, Mickey retired to his den to start the sheet music to the new songs. He never let anyone in when working on sheet music.

  Strangely tired though she felt she’d done nothing, Tyler turned off the television and made her way slowly up the stairs. The trip was exhausting. Despite not finding a truly comfortable position, she fell asleep quickly. Embraced in a particularly comforting warmth, her soul rested from its long journey.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Five days passed, six days. Jerome hated not knowing where she was. He stormed into the Command Center.

  “Not even a phone call? Where the hell is Tyler?” he demanded to know.

  “She is safe.”

  “That’s not good enough this time. I want to know exactly where she is.”

  Silence for two seconds as Landra Ahr decided if he should answer. “She is at her friend Mickey’s home. He is caring for her, and doing a good job of it.”

  “What’s the address?” he insisted.

  “That I will not tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because she is entitled to her privacy and does not need you showing up uninvited.”

  “How often do you go there?” Jerome asked.

  “I check on her every night. If she is in pain, I give her a shot and she sleeps for 18 hours.”

  “Okay answer me this. When the battle ended, who was in worse shape? Star or Ty?”

  “Starbird. Tyler’s injury, though severe, was not life threatening. She will return to the group when she is good and ready, and you will let her be until then.”

  “Is that another order?” Jerome asked.

  “Does it need to be?”

  Jerome glared at him, getting tired of sudden orders. Landra Ahr seemed to have changed his personality along with the armor.

  “I have a question for you. When is the last time you slept?” Landra Ahr asked.

  “That is unimportant and beside the point,” Jerome denied.
<
br />   “No it’s not. You’re so worried about Tyler but you’ve not been taking care of yourself.”

  “I have too. I eat, I work out. I shower and change my clothes. Hell I even brush my hair.”

  “But you do not sleep,” Landra Ahr said.

  “Dude, you try sleeping with the power of eighty Universe Staffs coursing through your Chi. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

  “Unless you want me to make you sleep, you had better go do something more productive than annoy me about Tyler.”

  Jerome took the hint and went for another hard work out on the wing chun dummy. He’d not been kidding about the power of so many staffs and crystals. He thought he’d had energy to spare before? Now it seemed limitless. Meditation served him more than sleep did at this point.

  A blast of cold air woke Tyler. Landra Ahr had come to check on her.

  “How’s Starbird?” she asked, her first thought on a groggy awakening.

  “Unchanged.”

  “She’ll survive.”

  “I am not so certain,” he admitted.

  “I am. Her heart will restart the day after tomorrow. How is Gable dealing with it?”

  “He is worried of course. I am more concerned with you,” he redirected, having finished his intense scan. The fractures were completely healed now.

  “I’m okay. It hurts, but I’ll be fine.”

  “Has Julian been to see you?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. I don’t expect him to come this soon. Earnol is likely all over him right now,” she said, easing onto her right side.” I’m not turning my back on you. I just can’t get comfortable.”

  “Let me help you with that,” he said and gave her a dose big enough to make her sleep through the rest of the night.

  A presence in the room woke her from the sound sleep. Familiar and comfortable. “Julian?”

  “Yes.” He was setting on the edge of the bed, a hand on her injured hip. ”How are you feeling?”

  “I’m here.”

  “That the best you can tell me?”

  “At the moment, Landra Ahr keeps giving me shots that make me sleep,” she replied ruefully. “I’ve not had a lot of time to think. So I don’t know what I feel.”

  “I understand. Judging from the statistics, you obtained your goals. Jerome defeated Adamantine with a minimum of damage. Davis Bess did not blow up.”

  “The East Side is still dead.”

  “Is there word on your mother?” he asked gently.

  “She died.”

  “Damn… I’m sorry, Tyler.”

  “Don’t be,” she grunted, getting off the bed. “Can’t change what won’t be changed.”

  “I have something for you.”

  He held out his hand and a walking stick appeared in it. She froze a moment, remembering the previous owner. It had belonged to G’Ven, Mankell’s oldest personal servant and Houseman. She remembered the day Mankell had brought the cane to her.

  Taking it in hand, it showed her the story of the day she’d met G’Ven, the moment when she’d gone diving into the pond between Mankell’s land and the neighboring House, to save a fluffy Tihi bird baby from drowning and becoming a snake’s breakfast. A happy memory, his admiration for her instant.

  “I stopped by your room at the warehouse and saw it in the corner,” he said.

  “How many times have you been here?” she asked.

  “A couple. I brought you some clothes too. Why don’t you change and we’ll go on a walk.”

  She didn’t put up a fuss, feeling a need to get some air and be on her feet for a while. They didn’t go out the front door, instead teleporting in the early morning hour to the charred ruins of the East Side. 5:30AM, no one was about except the occasional stray dog or cat looking for its former home and human. Tyler made several bags of food appear and ripped them open.

  She and Julian stood in place while she scanned the area. They teleported beside what used to be her mother’s home. Her heart was heavy and she drew several hard breaths in the cold. He watched her closely and she made no comment. For a long while in the cold they said nothing. There wasn’t anything to be said. Under five hundred dead where there had been two million. Several billion dollars in destruction where before there had been untold trillions.”

  “Earnol has been curious as to why and how so many people knew to leave the city,” he finally said.

  “Let him wonder,” she replied hobbling into the rubble that had been her home so long ago.

  The sky was brightening with the coming dawn. Cold as it was, she felt only her own heat. She burned. Something at her feet spoke to her. Using the cane for support she bent over and reached. Her fingers picked up a piece of plastic, brought it to her eyes. A cheesy plastic figurine of a kitten she’d given her mother for Christmas when she was about six years old. Happier times.

  It spoke to her, telling story after story in the blink of an eye before releasing her. She put it into her inner coat pocket, looked around again.

  Julian’s arms came around her from behind. “Remember what happened the last time you did not allow yourself to grieve.”

  That was all she needed. She purged her sadness through an intense burst lasting nearly two minutes. When it ended, she was cleansed and ready, at last, to leave this part of herself behind. She had spent so long trapped in the specter of this battle, this place, this moment in time, that she had not been able to see beyond it. Perhaps a necessary state, but one she was fully ready to shed. Walking away from the ruins of her past, she became aware of advancing humans

  “You’d better go,” she said.

  “I feel them too. What are they going to do? Arrest me?” he scoffed.

  She smiled, and saw a group round the back side of the Ruins of Raymer Elementary School.

  “It’s Feds,” she said. “My father is with them.”

  “What do you intend to do?”

  “Walk up and say hello.”

  At a distance of two hundred feet, guns came out. Tyler and Julian stopped walking in the middle of what had been Nevada Street at the corner of Raymer Street.

  “Hello, Dad,” she called out, and pushed back the hood of her insulating jacket.

  “Tyler?” His gun went into the holster and, ignoring a colleague’s plea to come back, he hurried forward. “I thought you were still out in California. What are you doing here?”

  “What do you think I’m doing here?”

  “This is a controlled zone. How did you get this far in without being seen? What happened that you’re walking with a cane?” he asked.

  “I’m the one on top of the Blade building, killing the machine and the aliens, in that tape you’ve been staring at for almost a week,” she said. “I’m the one who brokered peace between the Droghers and the Iron Knaves. I’m the one who brought them together, with others, into an armed civilian army. I’m the one who made several thousand people gather their children and take a long drive for no apparent reason. I orchestrated the entire resistance.”

  “You?”

  She nodded. “This is my friend, Julian. He’s been with me the whole way.”

  “You’re not the one from the tape.”

  “No, I’m not. I was not here,” Julian said.

  “I know what is being thought,” Tyler said, looking to the male on her left. “You want to take me into custody and try to get me to tell everything I know. You want the man who has the flashing power and defeated the Alien invader. That’s not going to happen. We want one thing out of our service in saving this shithole of a world: To be left alone. We did our bit. Don’t bother us.”

  “It’s not that easy, Tyler.”

  “Make it that easy, Dad. Neither of us wants it to get ugly. If swat teams and army troops suddenly show up on my doorstep it will get far uglier than you can possibly imagine. We will defend ourselves and we don’t pull punches. You know that already. I don’t care who I have to kill.”

  “Are you threatening us?” the woman asked.


  Tyler’s gaze levelled on her. “I’m telling you like it is. Are you going to leave us alone?”

  “Tyler-“

  She knew that tone and cut her father off. “It’s a yes/no question, Dad. Are you going to leave us alone? Yes or No?”

  The silence spoke volumes to her.

  “Okay, fine,” she said and pointed to the man on her left. “Forget.” She pointed to the woman. “Forget.” She looked at her father. “Should I make you forget too?”

  “Maybe you’d better, if that is what you do.”

  “I do a lot of things, Dad. Maybe someday you’ll be ready to know. Mom never was” she said and gave him a series of numbers. “That’s my phone number, should you need to reach me. You will remember it when you need it. Forget.”

  She teleported herself and Julian back to her bedroom at Mickey’s.

  “Do you want me to stay for a while?” Julian asked, concerned about the suddenly impenetrable shield of anger she threw up around herself.

  “No. I’m fine. I need to think for a while.”

  “Alright. Earnol’s trying to keep me close. I might not be back for a week or so.” He gave her a hug and was gone.

  Half an hour of pacing the room and she couldn’t stand to be inside anymore. She teleported to the empty coat room in Rosary Cathedral. She walked up the carpeted center aisle, remembering quite a few Sundays and four or five trips to the Principal’s office at the school next door. She walked up to the platform at the end, stared up at the crucified Jesus hanging behind the pulpit. She knew a sudden urge to speak her mind.

  “Why do I have the feeling that you are the cause of all my troubles?”

  “How did you get in here? The doors are locked.”

  She knew the voice, the familiar presence, and turned gingerly with her walking stick. “I have often wondered at the hypocrisy of a church locking its doors.”

  “Tyler? When did you come back?”

  “Father Jim,” she nodded acknowledgment. “I need you to remember.”

  He blinked with the flood of previous meetings coming back to his memory.