“I like having hope,” Latsoh told her. “If I was in trouble and the Black Angel couldn’t save me, I’d totally understand. He’s not a god. He can’t watch over all of us. It makes me happy, though, to know that he’s out there saving people.”
“Me too,” Erfce agreed.
Ceceta was about to respond when she saw Latsoh’s eyes widen. She opened her mouth to ask Latsoh if everything was okay but stopped when she caught sight of Latsoh’s hand. Erfce had positioned himself so his hand was touching Latsoh’s. Ceceta smiled at the sight of them. They were ridiculously cute, standing there like statues, with their hands touching.
“Sorry to be such a downer,” Ceceta said, trying to change the subject. “I’ve been wondering about the Black Angel a lot lately. Now that Surpen’s under control and Rhen’s healthy again, I guess I don’t have anything else to think about.”
Tgfhi reached out to touch Ceceta’s arm. When she turned to look at him, he said, “As you know, I worry about the Black Angel more than most people. I wish I knew where he was, so I could tell him how much we miss him. I want to thank him for everything he’s done.”
“I’m sure he knows, Tgfhi,” Ceceta said.
“I don’t say this lightly, Ceceta,” Tgfhi continued. “We need the Black Angel to return. The Universe is a frightening place. The Black Angel helps us sleep at night. The constant fear of invasion from the Zorthans, Vivists, Rasacks and Surpens is weighing us all…”
Ceceta laughed and punched Tgfhi on the arm. “You’re too funny. It’s a little late for you to be worried about the Surpens invading.”
Tgfhi grinned at his joke. He loved the fact that Surpen owned Tgarus. They’d been keeping his planet safe for years. “I was serious about the other stuff. We need the Black Angel. I hope you and Rhen will rejoin the Black Angel Club this year. We’d love to hear your thoughts on how to convince the Black Angel to return.”
Ceceta smiled. It’d be funny to hear Rhen’s thoughts on how to get the Black Angel to return. “You can count on it,” she told him. “We’ll definitely join your Club this semester.”
“Great!” Tgfhi turned to the others in the room. “Of course, you guys have to join or I’ll kick your butts.”
Crystam snorted. She’d like to see Tgfhi try. Before she could come up with a pithy response to his comment, Latsoh said, “And how do you expect to do that, Tgfhi? You don’t have any skills. You can’t control your water powers and you never even finished Rhen’s fight class.”
Tgfhi growled and lunged towards Latsoh, making her shriek and jump back. Erfce automatically stepped forward between the two of them in a protective gesture.
Latsoh felt a tightness in her chest at the sight of Erfce, stepping forward to protect her. He was so damn handsome. She couldn’t believe he’d touched her hand. She smiled remembering the shivers that had run up her arm at their contact. She couldn’t wait for him to make his next move.
Ceceta found herself yawning. “Sorry, but I’m exhausted. I think I’ll head home. Thank you for showing us your pictures, Crystam. They were fantastic. I’d love to have a copy of them.”
“Sure,” Crystam said, as Tgfhi scooped her up into his arms.
When Tgfhi lowered a giggling Crystam down onto her bed, Erfce and Latsoh realized it was time for them to go as well.
After dropping Latsoh off at her dorm room, Erfce walked Ceceta back to her apartment in the Teacher’s Residence Hall. They walked up the cement stairs to the second floor, stopping outside the first apartment on the left. Ceceta opened the door and Erfce followed her down the hallway, past the small kitchen on the right. He hovered by the chairs in the center of the living room area while Ceceta threw her bag into her bedroom on the left. Ceceta walked back into her living room and plopped down onto the old, blue sofa against the wall on the right side of the room. Once she was seated, Erfce sat down on one of the plush, brown chairs across from her.
“So,” Ceceta asked. “What is it?”
Erfce appeared surprised. “How’d you know I wanted to talk to you about something?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Ceceta said teasingly while tilting her head. “Just a hunch?”
Erfce smiled and moved over to sit down on the couch beside her. He wasn’t sure how to begin. “It’ll be nice to have Rhen back in our group.”
“Because he was such a good conversationalist?” Ceceta asked.
Erfce laughed at her joke. “Right,” he agreed, remembering how long it’d taken for Rhen to warm up to them. He leaned back against the couch, wondering how to start. He hadn’t had any specific visions concerning Rhen, but lately, he’d been feeling uneasy about something. Unfortunately, he had no idea what was wrong.
They sat in silence for a few minutes until Ceceta began to feel awkward. Rising, she went into her kitchen. “Do you want something to eat or drink?” she called out through the open half wall between the two rooms.
“No, thanks.”
Ceceta picked up a package of cookies that Crystam had left in her cupboard and walked back into her living room. She sat down on the chair across from Erfce, opened the package and took out a handful of the cookies then tossed the package onto the banged-up wooden coffee table between them.
“Ceceta,” Erfce said. “I think you need to hire a guard to keep an eye on Rhen while he’s here at school.”
“Why?” she asked, rolling the taste of the buttery sugar cookie around in her mouth.
“Well, you know, he’s become very famous. Between his music and his solar systems, there isn’t anyone in the Universe who hasn’t heard of him. I’m worried that he’s not going to be safe here at school. I think you should convince him to have a few of his elite guardsmen watch over him while you’re here.” Erfce reached out to take one of the cookies from the package as Ceceta considered his words.
“Erfce, have you had a vision? Is he in danger? Please tell me if he is. You have no idea how important it is that we keep him safe.”
“No, I haven’t had any visions. It's just a feeling. I sense something unfortunate might happen to him. As if something bad is coming. You know?” He broke one of the square cookies in two then popped one of the pieces into his mouth. He’d found himself eating more these days, because Ceceta was always raving about everything she ate. She made everything sound so delicious that he couldn’t pass anything up.
“Yes,” Ceceta said softly. She rose to her feet and walked over to look out the window, the cookies in her hand forgotten. “I know all about having a sense of dread.” After a few minutes of silence, she turned back to Erfce. “Thank you for your warning.”
“I hope it helps.”
Ceceta was about to respond, when she remembered she was holding cookies. She opened her hand and found a pile of gooey mush in her palm. “Yuck!”
Erfce chuckled. “That happens sometimes.” He stood up and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, then offered it to Ceceta. “Put them in here.”
“Thanks,” Ceceta told him, wiping the moist crumbs off her hand onto the cotton cloth.
“A bit of advice from an experienced eater,” Erfce said, folding the napkin over multiple times to capture every scrap within it. “Don’t ever hold chocolate in your hand, unless your hands are cold or you’re outside in the winter.”
“Duly noted,” Ceceta told him. She watched Erfce put the handkerchief in his pants pocket and hoped he wouldn’t forget it was there.
“Good night, Ceceta,” he said with a wave, while walking towards the door.
When he opened the apartment door, Ceceta called out, “Erfce, it’s really important that tell me if you ever have any visions concerning Rhen. Okay?”
“Of course.” When Ceceta didn’t respond, he added, “I promise I’ll tell you if I ever have any visions of him.”
“Good and bad,” Ceceta said.
“What? You want the good? I thought you only wanted to hear about the bad stuff?”
Ceceta smiled and waved goodnight as Erfce close
d the door behind him.
“He’s good, isn’t he?” a male voice said beside her.
Ceceta was used to their comings and goings, so she wasn’t startled when she turned around to find Thellis' glowing, green body floating beside her. She was, however, annoyed.
“What do you want, Thellis?” Why was Thellis here while Rhen was off working? The Genisters were so lazy.
“You shouldn’t have shown the mortals our mapping lines,” he said.
Oh, yeah, Ceceta thought. She’d forgotten about that. “It was an accident. Rhen got caught up in the moment. He felt guilty about it afterwards.”
“He has to maintain more control…” Thellis began.
“Go easy on him, Thellis,” Ceceta warned. “You don’t want him to refuse to help you.”
Thellis grunted. He wished he knew the identities of some of the other Genisters who were reliving their lives. Rhen was always so prickly when Thellis asked him for help. Floating sideways across the room, he said, “After your husband helped those mortals, Thamber took him to Universe 5, because she was having trouble with something. He probably won’t be back tonight.”
“Okay,” Ceceta said with a shrug. There wasn’t any point in arguing with Thellis about Rhen’s schedule. She knew she couldn’t do anything about it.
“How’s he feeling these days?” Thellis was curious if Rhen was having any side effects from the antivirus.
“Fine.”
Thellis nodded his glowing, green head and hovered over the coffee table. He stroked his ghostly goatee as he gazed at Ceceta’s cookies longingly. “I heard Rhen took away your bloodworms. Did he use his full powers?”
“No, there was a flash of white light. That’s all.”
“Good.”
“He told me that you showed him how to do it.”
“I showed him how to do it, but I was afraid he might slip and use his full powers, which would’ve been bad. He would’ve fried you into ash.”
Ceceta’s eyes widened. Holy Hell! “Well, then, I guess it’s a good thing he didn’t use his full powers.” She wanted to scream at Thellis, but it wouldn’t do any good. “By the way,” she told him, trying to keep the anger from her voice, “I would’ve been fine with the bloodworms if the alternative was death.”
Thellis shrugged his ghostly shoulders. “It ended up fine.”
Since Thellis didn’t seem to realize that she was angry with him, Ceceta decided there was no point in continuing the conversation. Changing the subject, she said, “Thellis, in your visions of the future, do you see something bad happening to Rhen? Should I be concerned?”
Thellis lifted his eyes from the cookies. “You know it’s hard for us to foresee the future of one of our own kind. It changes too rapidly. I can’t see anything. It’d be best for you to trust in Erfce’s visions. He’s both distant and close to Rhen. His predictions would probably be more accurate.”
Ceceta nodded, turning a paler blue. She’d been afraid of that.
“Rhen seems to be enjoying his life as a mortal this time around,” Thellis said. He floated lower over the coffee table. “It’s good that he locked his memories away so Therol and Thaster can’t attack him.”
“I’m surprised they’re actually following the rules of the Genister Code Book.”
“They have to. When Themrock made the Book, he forced all of us to sign it. He promised to kill any Genister who broke the rules. No one will attack your husband, because they don’t want Themrock to kill them.”
“Yet they continue to try to find a way around the rules. They keep hoping to trick Rhen into remembering he’s a Genister.”
“True,” Thellis agreed. “When Themrock returns, he’ll punish them for interfering in Rhen’s life.”
“I hope he does. It’s been horrible.” Ceceta watched Thellis sniff at the cookies on her table. “By the way, Rhen told me he smelled Loreth on Te and Yfetb. Is he turning the Neptians against us or Thestran?”
Thellis’s head jerked up. “What? How long ago did he mention this? You should’ve told us right away. We need to know if Loreth is plotting again.”
Ceceta was surprised that Rhen hadn’t told Thellis. “I thought you knew,” she said. “Will you check into it? I’d like to know if I have to watch my back around the Neptians.”
Thellis flicked his fingers making a green swirling vortex of lights appear. “I’ll check into it at once,” he told her, before his ethereal body floated into the vortex and disappeared.
Chapter 22
Bosternd’s Office – Surpen Military Headquarters
Bosternd pulled off his metal wrist cuffs and tossed them onto one of the many stacks of paper that lined the wall of his office. He plopped down onto the wooden swivel chair at his desk and ran his fingers through his short black hair, massaging his scalp. His desk had been clean this morning, but now it was full of work.
"Want some?" someone asked from the doorway.
Glancing up, Bosternd found Nk’s large head peering at him from around the edge of the stone doorframe. Nk waved the Tgarian cigarette he was smoking in the air. After Surpen had conquered Tgarus, the soldiers had been left on the planet for too long with nothing to do. In their boredom, they’d tried Tgarus weed and had immediately taken a liking to it, since they couldn’t drink alcohol because of their bloodworms. Tgarus had made a fortune off of Surpen’s soldiers since the war.
"No, I have too much to do. I can't relax, yet."
“It’d take the stress out of your work,” Nk told him, placing the cigarette into his mouth while stepping into the doorway.
Bosternd watched Nk lean his enormous shoulder against the doorframe. Everything about Nk was huge, his head, his body, his hands, his nose.
"You seem upset,” Nk said, breaking into Bosternd’s thoughts. “What’s the matter?" He inhaled deeply on his cigarette then held his breath, waiting for Bosternd to answer.
"Rhen might have a problem at the Elfin University."
"Problem?" Nk asked, exhaling through clenched teeth. He reached up to scratch the tip of his broad nose with his pinky finger.
"The students at the University attacked him."
That had Nk’s attention. "Seriously? The students attacked Rhen? Are they dead?" Nk put his cigarette back into his mouth.
"No, not a violent attack. They swarmed him during lunch on the first day back and tried to touch him." Bosternd could smell the sweet Tgarian weed. He wondered if he should join Nk.
"Are they dead?" Nk asked again.
Bosternd smiled and leaned back in his chair, making it squeak. "No. The Headmaster stopped it from getting out of hand. He told the students that if they followed, touched, watched or even hung around Rhen, he’d personally notify their parents that they were bothering the Surpen Emperor."
Nk chuckled at the thought of the parents’ reactions to that call. Nobody would want to upset the Surpen Emperor. He wished he knew which students had touched Rhen. He would’ve enjoyed showing up on their parents’ doorsteps with a battalion of soldiers just to make them sweat.
“By the way, Rhen is teaching that fight class again."
"Telling our secrets, is he?" Nk asked.
"Ha, ha,” Bosternd replied sarcastically. They both knew that the Thestrans would never be able to compete against the Surpens. Rhen could teach the University’s students their whole lives, but they’d never be able to win a fight against a Surpen soldier.
“Seems like a waste of time to me. Don’t they have their own armies? Why would those fancy kids want to know how to fight?”
Bosternd shrugged. Most Surpens joined the military because they didn’t have a choice. Their laws declared that a family’s possessions be passed to the first-born male child. Surpen culture revered large families, so all those extra boys had to find jobs somewhere else in order to support themselves. Becoming a soldier was the only way most Surpen men would ever make enough to start their own family.
“Ceceta’s teaching her Surpen class again, to
o,” Bosternd told Nk, “and the Headmaster has asked Rhen to spend a little time with him each day, correcting their Astronomy textbook."
"What?" Nk asked. “That’s a weird request.” He inhaled on his cigarette.
"It appears the Elfin University had the wrong facts about the Universe.”
Nk laughed. “The Thestrans had the wrong facts? That’s rich.”
“Yeah. Rhen’s helping them clear it up, though.” Bosternd wasn’t sure how the other Convention members would feel about that and he hoped they wouldn’t find out. “Speaking of students, isn’t your oldest starting at the Academy this year?”
“Right after the spring,” Nk said, exhaling a cloud of smoke.
“Congratulations. How’s your wife doing with it?”
“She’s fine. Rhen changed the curriculum. Combat training doesn’t start until their fourth year. She knows he’ll be safe until he’s 18.”
“It’s a little weird to think that the younger kids won’t be attacking each other with knives until they’re older. I’ll never forget my first knife fight,” Bosternd reminisced. “My opponent thought I’d be an easy kill, because I’m small. He guessed wrong.”
“Stupid move on his part.” Nk tapped the scar that ran across his nose with his index finger. “I hated my first fight. The whole idea that we should weed out the weakest kids. It was stupid. Rhen’s system is better. The kids will have full training beforehand and won’t start with killing weapons until they can handle them. I could barely lift the sword they gave me on my first fight.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Bosternd said. “How do you feel about the fact that women can join the military now?”
Nk ran a beefy hand through his short black hair, his grey eyes narrowing in thought. “I’m not sure. I know, traditionally, our women were treated equally, but it’s been so long since that time. These changes seem like the right thing to do, but it’s…”
The Surpen King_Part 1_Return of the Gods Page 16