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fiction: serial fiction
the crown, book one: chapter 10
A single beam of sunlight drifted lazily up Tonya's torso, taking the distance slowly, like a sightseer anxious not to miss anything. She slept, mouth hanging slightly open, as if her breath was too sweet and full for her lips to contain. It was early afternoon, and the sound of nesting birds, daytime television and tires on asphalt provided a soothing backdrop to her slumber.
The sunlight timidly made its way over her left breast, full and lazy, resting on her arm as though it just needed a moment to catch its breath. As illumination crept onto her chin, Tonya shifted slightly, slowly waking. She sat up, the sunlight forlornly sliding past her on to the couch, and looked around. James' chair sat empty, facing the open window and its mesh screen. CD cases stood, open and parallel like a line of soldiers, atop the Aiwa stereo, and the Panasonic TV reflected Tonya's image and the ramshackle brown couch with a dark gray finality.
"James?" she called, gazing around. The pale green tiles of the kitchen, barely visible from the couch through the hall's zigzag, lay still and quiet. The door stood locked, and Tonya's hastily assembled techno-magical wards remained securely in place, a trio of coconuts surrounding a small jackal-shaped wooden figurine and a motion detector, its crimson beam standing silent sentinel. Tonya stood up and walked to the window, looking down at the flattened grass of the courtyard, glancing past towards Leimert Boulevard's wide expanse. No one was around, not even the quartet of mischievous kids who lived in front, often seen scampering and shouting along the sidewalk.
Frowning, she walked towards the back -- she glanced into the kitchen and saw she'd left a cup of water sitting on the tiny kitchen table. She walked the glass to the sink and then reached over to check the locks on the barred windows. Closed, secure. She bit her lip and pondered.
Another moment found her at the bedroom door, slightly ajar. She glanced over her shoulder at the bathroom and saw the stack of magazines, the floral pattern on the clear shower curtain, the faux-woodgrain toilet seat sitting serenely closed. She cautiously pushed at the door with her foot, determined not to get grabbed if someone was behind the door, and let the door creak open on the room. Jimi Hendrix stared meaningfully at her from a poster in the corner, and the walls were as covered with James' photography as every other surface in the apartment. She breathed a sigh of relief when, setting a foot inside, she saw James' familiar shape, hunched over his iBook, headphones on, staring intently at something he'd written.
Tonya's face erupted in a smile -- James was so diligent about his writing, making time for it even when he was worried sick, even when they were going out every night. His discipline was endearing, especially since her own routines were so abruptly terminated, leaving her with time on her hands. She mentally debated rubbing his shoulders, but with the rumpled quilt on the bed so close, it'd be too easy to distract him. Plus, he'd gone as far as putting on his headphones, trying not to disturb her sleep. Quietly, slowly, she pulled the door back to its previous position and walked back out to the living room.
The tedium was starting to make her antsy, so she figured it was time for some meditation. "Nothing like a few hours communing with spirit to set you straight," her old instructor at Het Ka Inpu used to say. She sat down on the floor, her back to the door, always ready for surprises, and crossed her legs in a lotus position, something that was as familiar to her as standing up. The tips of her thumbs and index fingers touched as her palms paralleled the ceiling. She began to be somewhere else ...
Attaining communion with the spirit plane was much more of a toggle switch for Tonya than it was for the average person, since she'd been doing it for longer than there had been a Roman Empire, let alone an American one. One moment she'd be sitting, eyes closed, and the next she'd be ... somewhere else. Mostly she'd float above herself, but sometimes it'd be another plane entirely, sometimes she'd sit down with people she'd known, or spirits she'd been inspired by.
So, seconds after closing her eyes, Tonya found herself standing, alone, over a vast black plain under a solid gray sky ... maybe it was a ceiling, it was too far off for her to be able to tell. She turned around in a circle and saw the same -- black ground, like one single shiny tile, and gray sky, all the way to the horizon. She frowned a bit, thinking to herself, "hell, this is gonna be an abstract one, I hate figuring these ones out."
"It need not be that hard to understand, Kayet ... Ma'at Het Heru ... or do you prefer Tonya now?" a voice called, softly, from a distance she could not perceive. Tonya looked to her right and saw a single white presence -- no more than a line, at this distance, but probably a person, and definitely coming towards her.
"Set-Djed," she said coldly. She uttered a quick stream of Khepera chants to insulate her spiritual self, confident he'd not surpassed her skill in the intervening years.
"Don't worry," the voice said, surely, calmly, "I can't find you from this place. Your mystical abilities were always superior to mine, which is one of the reasons I value you so much."
"Value me?" Tonya bit out. "You nearly killed me!"
"I was ... young ... and completely out of line, I'll admit," Dare's voice agreed. "That was several thousand years ago, Tonya. I've changed a great deal."
"You're no different," Tonya noted, curling herself into a fetal position, a reflexive action. "I know about what you did in Harlem during prohibition. I know about the drugs today, the guns, the control. You're every warlord that they used to send you against."
"On the contrary," Dare responded playfully, "I could roll over any army I've ever faced in history with less than a fifth of what I have here. I have enough people in my employ who are in the armed services of this country that I could give a coup a serious run. That's not what I'm about anymore."
"What are you about now, Set-Djed?"
"I'm about security," Dare purred. "I keep myself and those important to me safe. These are dangerous times. My interest in you, Tonya, is merely to insure both of our security."
Tonya looked at the figure, approaching, and wondered. "You're lying."
"I'm not. I know, now, that you will probably never give me the Crown. That's all right. I want you and that incredibly fortunate mortal you love to come work for me."
Tonya opened her mouth as if she was going to reply, but was shocked into closing it again. She furrowed her brow, unable to comprehend what she was hearing.
"As you probably guessed, I patched things up with Nigel," Dare said smoothly. "It'll probably surprise you to find that I've made amends with Selene, and even Hiroki is willing to have tea with me. Despite that rather charming surprise you left for me in San Pedro, I bear you no ill will."
Tonya frowned, realizing the gallery trap had failed, as she knew it would, deep down. "Why do I have a hard time believing you, Set-Djed?"
Dare chuckled, a thick, rolling sound filled with hidden layers. "I'm not Set-Djed, the angry young soldier, any more than you're still Kayet, that timid, wide-eyed girl from Nubia. Believe me, don't believe me. I'm staying at the Four Seasons in ... well, it's in some endlessly expensive part of this town. Call, check up on me, whatever. I simply want you and your beloved mortal to come work for me -- no strings. I'll be in town a few weeks, and I would like to not have any bad blood between us anymore."
"I won't be your hired killer, and neither will he," Tonya spat out angrily, her eyes defiant.
"With the power at your command," Dare's voice said lazily, "having you kill people would be a gross misuse of resources. You'd be much more useful as illustrations of possibility. I'm sure you're convinced I'm more than capable of taking care of any killing I need to do. Tonya, I've made bridges towards every immortal in the world but you, all of us are at least on speaking terms again for the first time in centuries. Make some calls. Check up on me. You'll find what I'm about."
Doubt filled Tonya like a carafe of juice. Set-Djed had been the shadow at her heels for hundreds of years. To be free from that fear ...
"Set-Djed ..." she started, then caught herself, "Damian ... the things you work for have an edge to them, a kind of wickedness that I can't be a part of. It's your shai. You've always known that."
Dare chuckled. "Do you know I haven't heard that word for 'destiny' said in perhaps two hundred years? You, more than anyone else, remind me that I'm from somewhere. I know I can't get you to frighten mafia kingpins or train prostitutes. You look at everything so unidimensionally. You don't see the possibility I could sit you in front of the National Endowment for the Arts committee, or have you and that wonderfully persuasive lover of yours do consulting at museums where so many of our dear departed kindred's remains ended up. Take some time, think about it, as my attention is required elsewhere, but please, let's talk soon."
The white line on the horizon began moving away from her, until finally she was once again alone under the gray sky on the black plain. Tonya concentrated her energy, trying to squeeze any last insights from this encounter, but there was nothing else.
Tonya eased herself back into traditional consciousness more slowly than necessary, her mind spinning at the idea of a life free from the dogged pursuit of Set-Djed. She opened her eyes and saw James' leg, returning silently to his bedroom, probably a snack in hand. She frowned, stood up, and walked in.
He was just sitting down on the worn Aeron chair as she walked through the pockmarked doorway. He took his headphones off and smiled at her, his expression throwing a blanket around her emotions, holding her close and warm.
"Hey love," he said amiably. "I hope I didn't wake you, I saw you meditating and didn't wanna mess with you."
"Baby," Tonya said, taking a deep breath, "we have to talk ..."
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