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fiction: serial fiction
the crown, book one: chapter 5
James and Tonya sat silently on his roof, watching the sun set, several hours after their early morning flight along the coast.
"I'm still sleepy," James finally offered.
"Go on back down," Tonya offered, "I'm gonna try to take a quick nap after this."
"No, it's a good idea, watching the sunset," he replied, stifling a yawn. "You say you do this every day?"
"I try to," she said. "Of course, I miss some. I oversleep, stuff happens, I'm traveling or whatever. Most mornings and evenings, I'm watching the sun do it's thing. Have been for more years than I can remember."
"I always feel like asking you the same question about stuff," James said thoughtfully. "It never gets boring?"
"The sunset and sunrise we see now are very different from, hell, even forty years ago," Tonya said, eyes locked on the horizon. "The air pollution or whatever, the colors are different. Plus, my time in Kemet gave me a different perspective, you know? This is the only thing in my whole life that's never changed, and spending some time appreciating that is important to me."
James nodded, glancing up and down her sleek form. "You know, it may be a little while before you take your nap," he said with a rakish grin.
"What?" she returned, still mostly watching the sky. After a moment, she glanced over at him, seeing the look in his eyes. "Boy, you stupid," she laughed, waving him away. He smirked and returned his attention to the setting sun.
After a few minutes, she spoke up. "The reason I didn't wanna talk about the others earlier was that I have some really hard memories about ... well, one in particular. I really don't remember a whole lot, over all this time, and he's someone I wish I could forget."
James turned towards her, listening.
"His name ... well, it used to be Set-Djed. He was the first other immortal I ever met. He stopped aging about the time he was twenty seven, and he was ninety when he entered the Mysteries school."
"Do you think you'd ever let me write about you?" James blurted. "Even if it was done in kind of fictional terms?"
Tonya looked strangely at him.
"I ask because I feel like I should be taking notes," he said. "This is the sort of story that ... I think it should be told."
Tonya just stared at him. "Maybe. We can talk about that later."
"Sorry, go on," James said sheepishly.
"Anyway, he was a soldier. He actually grew up with Thuthmoses III, and was a lieutenant in the army. Campaigned all over. Didn't die, no matter what crazy thing they sent him to do. When he outlived the suten he grew up with, they started checking him out."
"Why was he immortal?" James asked.
"Immortals are just born every once in a while," Tonya said grimly. "It's sort of like a genetic mutation in most cases. Just won't die. He was that way. Mostly that's all they get, but Set-Djed was also almost impossible to hurt. He wasn't that much stronger than anybody else, not really any faster. Just tough. So they brought him to the school, I'd worked my way back into the program, just to see how it'd changed. He was ... well, wild is the best way to describe it. He walked around like he owned the place, even in the holiest shrines. His pride, sweet spirit ... his pride was as big as an obelisk. I was curious, so I just watched him, but he was crafty. He noticed."
"You started dating."
Tonya nodded. "That's not what it was called back then, but yeah. He ... well, he really did a number on me. I didn't fall in love with him, but it was really intense."
"Did you give him the Crown?" James asked, getting comfortable using the terminology.
"No, but ... he found out that I could," Tonya said darkly. "He was very intense, and the records weren't as bad as I thought. He figured out I was the long lived female teacher. Mostly by tricking me into saying things that went along with his research. So, when he was sure who and what I was, he confronted me with the research, and asked if it was true. I was a lot more ... trusting back then. I confirmed what he learned. Then he got mad."
"Mad?"
"We'd been together almost a year, seeing each other secretly, since public opinion was important and I wasn't in a marrying mood. He was furious when I admitted who I was, and more furious knowing he still didn't have the Crown. He wanted it, and I told him it would only work if I loved him. 'So, love me!' he said. I told him that first it wasn't that simple and second he was scaring me ..."
"I don't think I like where this story is going ..."
Staring down at her hands, as she had that first night after James learned the truth about her, Tonya said quietly, "I'd had bad things happen to me before. I fell off a cliff once, and walked with a limp for almost six years. I got hit by a bus in the 60s, when I was high as hell. I've been shot at least ten times."
She looked up into his eyes, tears forming, her lip quivering at the horror of the memory. "Nothing like that has ever happened to me, James. He beat me so badly I couldn't walk. He used pressure points and all the military skill he knew. He hurt me in a way I didn't think I could be hurt. I guess it was because we were both so hard to hurt, only he could. It seemed to last for hours. He finally got tired, and then ... god ..."
"Baby ..." James reached for her with the word.
"No," she resisted, pushing him back. "No, I have to get through this, because we are not talking about him again. He ... he took me. He rolled me over and ... he used me. I mean, we'd had sex before but ... I can't even describe it to you. He raped me. Me. I never even imagined anything could be so terrible."
James nodded solemnly.
"Anyway, he got done, and he was still mad, so he beat me some more," Tonya said, sniffling. "I guess he got tired after a while, and he left me alone. We were out in the western desert, a secret meeting place we had. He left me there. I must have passed out, because it was afternoon when I woke up, sore and scared."
Tonya flipped her hands over, watching them, and continued. "I didn't even go home. I just started walking west. That was when I found out I could go a long time without food and water. Stupid desert. Anyway, I ended up out in the middle of nowhere with some completely isolated tribe that I never did understand. They helped me get even farther away. I didn't see him again until around 1000. I found out he left Kemet a few years after I did. By that time, Set-Djed was some kind of knight with this berserk Teutonic clan, just looking for trouble, I guess. Called himself Dane or something back then. I was an artist in residence for the King of Spain, and he was visiting for some idiot reason. He saw me across the main chamber, and smiled so slowly. My hair was different, I was in one of those frilly outfits, but he remembered me. I snuck out that night, hid in England until 1066, when the Battle of Hastings happened, and then I figured I wanted a continent between me and him, and I ended up in Asia, like I told you."
"Is he still alive?" James asked quietly.
"He mostly lives on the east coast," Tonya nodded. "He's alive. He's way worse than he ever was back then. I've seen him, but he didn't see me."
"Way worse?"
"He's ... I don't even know how to describe him. He's a bad man, he has his fingers in a whole lotta pies. When I last saw him, it was a photo of him and Clinton cracking jokes with one another after some event in Harlem."
"Dayum!"
"Yeah. He's pals with Clinton. Suge Knight. Mayors, business people, criminals. He's done work for the CIA. He's nasty."
James looked at her solemnly. "He's why you're so secretive, why you're such a data junkie ..."
"He's not the only reason, but he's one of the reasons, yes," she admitted, looking away.
"Tonya ... did you ever think, oh, I dunno ... why don't you ask somebody you love to smoke his ass?"
"I thought about it, a few times. A lot after Tsang Hu. Maybe once it coulda happened. He's too dangerous now. He's ... he's just too much to deal with now. He hasn't seen me for more than 900 years, and I'm doing OK."
"What's his name?"
Tonya looked at James coldly. "You aren't going after him."
"No, of course not, I'm just ..."
"James, you are NOT going to go anywhere near him!"
"Okay, I wasn't gonna anyway, I was ..."
"Stop it! No! I just found you, and I'm not gonna lose you already! No!"
"Baby, baby, okay ..." James finally got his arms around her, held her close despite some signs of struggle. "I'm not. I'm a journalist. I was curious, I'm sorry."
"Promise me," she said into his neck. "Promise me you'll never go looking for him, you'll never ever do anything involving him. He'd track me back through you. Promise, James. Promise me that you'll never do anything to bring him back into my life."
James froze, his expression fearful. He loved Tonya, he would love to free her from this ancient terror that hung over so much of her life. But how could he kill this immortal man, a killer three thousand years of experience?
"I promise, baby," he managed, his mouth dry, realizing the danger he almost put himself in. "I'll never seek him out, I'll never try to get anywhere near him."
"I'm already trusting you with my life, James," Tonya said, her head resting on his chest. "You could betray me, you could surprise me before I had a chance to think. This is bigger than that. I'm going to trust you to keep your promise, because I love you, and breaking that promise would easily shatter the bond between us. Okay?"
James nodded quietly, burying his face in her braids.
"His name," she said softly, "is Damian Dare."
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