Of Blood and Angels (The Two Moons of Rehnor, Book 3)

by J. Naomi Ay

  “Possibly,” Senya mumbled.

  He and Katie had finished their meal and Senya was smoking again. Behind his dark glasses, I could see flashes of silver light. On top of that, he was beginning to look quite agitated.

  “Let's go,” he said, jumping up from the table.

  “What about dessert?” Gina cried.

  The waitress came over. Senya tossed her a couple of hundred dollar notes before she could ask if we wanted anything more. He grabbed his and Katie’s coats off the peg.

  “Come on, Kate,” he said urgently.

  “But,” Katie started to protest.

  “Now!” Senya snapped. His hands were visibly shaking. A clap of thunder sounded overhead which shocked everyone in the restaurant into silence since this was Rozari where it never ever rained.

  “Move!” I yelled at Luci. “Get out of the way!” Katie had stood up and was fumbling with her jacket while Senya was starting to sway. “Come on, Thad!” I practically climbed over my wife and shoved Katie aside.

  “Kari-fa,” Senya gasped and staggered to the door. Thad and I bolted after him, catching up as he collapsed in a spasm and then we dragged him outside where the sky has turned into a viscous swirl of yellow and purple clouds. Bolts of lightning streaked out of the clouds, hitting the decorative spires and fountains in the open courtyard of the Fashion Mall. People around us were running for cover, desperate to get away from this wicked electrical storm. Senya convulsed while Thad and I pinned him down against the concrete floor.

  “What the hell is going on?” Katie cried, throwing herself on Senya too.

  “Let me see,” Gina shouted, trying to push us aside. “I'm the doctor.”

  Hailstones started to plummet down upon us, rattling against the cement like gunshots and then the howling wind began to roar and great swirls of clouds gathered and circled above our heads. The wind sucked plants and benches from the courtyard. Shopping bags and cartons of food went flying past us.

  “Cut him,” Katie screamed. “He's got to bleed it out.” She reached for his wrist though it was flopping about wildly. Holding it flat against the pavement, she pointed at the long scar. “Here. Quickly.”

  “Gina cut him,” Thad ordered, extracting a pen knife from his pocket.

  “Are you sure?” Gina cried.

  “Yes,” Katie screamed. “Do it!”

  Gina sliced Senya’s wrist. It welled with blood and then began to gush out onto the pavement. The tornado circling overhead dissipated. A moment later, Senya stopped convulsing. The odd colored clouds cleared away and the people came back out in the courtyard from their hiding places.

  “Is this enough?” Katie choked as the cut continued to spill.

  “I would think so,” Gina replied and reaching into her bag, she pulled out some sealant and gauze. “I'm going to close it.”

  “No,” Senya mumbled, starting to wake up. “Just tie it tightly.”

  “No sealant?” Gina protested. “I cut it pretty deep. You’re going to need sealant.”

  “No,” Senya repeated and put his left hand across the cut. A moment later when he removed his hand, the wound was nearly sealed. It oozed only a little.

  Gina gasped. “How did you do that?”

  “Come on, Gina,” Thad said, taking the roll of gauze and wrapping it around Senya’s wrist like a pro. “We’ll just finish this up and get out of here.”

  I helped Senya up to a sitting position. He leaned forward and pressed his thumbs into his closed eyes

  “You weren't kidding about the weather.” Katie knelt down beside him. “Migraine?”

  "Kari-fa,” he nodded. “I waited too long.”

  “Did we do the right thing?” she asked.

  “Ay yah. I did not kill anybody, did I?”

  “I don't think so,” I replied, glancing around the mall. Nobody was screaming or calling for medics.

  Katie put her hands on his face. “You might have frightened some people to death but it doesn’t look like anyone was zapped by lightning or carried off by the tornado. Are you going to be okay, Baby?”

  He nodded. “In a moment.” He took a couple of deep breaths and started to stand up.

  “Infidel!” someone screamed. We all turned around and looked at the Rozarian man storming up to us, madly gesturing. “You are the Infidel reborn, Sehron de Kudisha, and your presence on this Rozari is a crime against the goodly people of the Saint. Never had there been storms on Rozari until you arrived in our midst. Your presence angers the Saint.”

  “Dr. Markoff?” Gina shouted. “What do you think you are doing here?”

  “I was shopping until the terrible perils of a storm descended upon us. Now I am declaring for all to hear that this man, Sehron de Kudisha is a criminal and an abomination. He should be arrested and banished from this Rozari for all time. He is an evil presence on our planet and he like his ancestors will be the death of Rozari and we must get rid of him now!” Markoff raised his arms and spun about in a circle, announcing this to the crowd that was beginning to gather around us. Markoff was further encouraged by this and began to shout even louder. “Do you know whom this man is? He is the son of Karukan the Infidel, the one who turned this planet into the radioactive desert wasteland it is today.” A couple of security men wandered over and look at the pool of blood on the concrete floor. “Arrest him,” Markoff hollered. "Take him before the Rozarian council and they will banish him back to the heathen planet he has come from.”

  “Ach, fuck off, Markoff,” Senya said, rubbing his temples. “Shut up before I hurt you.”

  “What happened here?” one of the security men asked.

  “A medical emergency,” Gina replied, taking out her ID. “Everything is alright now.”

  “He threatened me,” Markoff shouted at the security men. “He threatens all of us goodly and Saintly people.”

  “Are you hurt, sir?” the other security man asked Markoff.

  “We are all hurt. Rozari is hurt and he means to harm us more.” Markoff gestured wildly.

  “Markoff,” Senya sighed and raised his good arm, pointing a finger.

  “No, you don't!” Katie grabbed Senya’s hand and pulled it back down. “You've done enough damage here already.”

  “She's right, Ron,” Thad agreed. “It’s probably not a good idea to send Markoff flying around the mall even if he is crazy.”

  “Son of the Devil, Infidel Karukan,” Markoff shouted, waving his arms to the crowd.

  “Yes, but he's also the son of the Saint,” Luci piped up all of a sudden, emerging from the doorway she had been hiding in.

  Markoff looked at my wife with surprise as she stormed right up into his face.

  “I am a goodly and Saintly person too,” she declared, fists planted in her hips as she did when she got angry. “And I can tell you that in fact, Sehron de Kudisha is also directly descended from the Blessed Saint, Markiis Kalila through his son Mishka Kalila who settled our Rehnor. In fact, his mother's name was Lydia Kalila and she was a goodly and Saintly woman too, Saint rest her beloved soul. So there you are.”

  “But,” Markoff protested, obviously confused by this new information.

  “But what?” Luci retorted, her face as red as her wild hair. “I can't see where he has done anything to harm this poor planet. In fact, as far as I can tell, he's done quite a lot to make it better. Much better than you Rozarians have done in the last thousand years. How many nice lakes and forests have you got outside of Kalika-hahr and Takira-hahr that Dr. de Kudisha didn't reclaim all by himself? How many people is Dr. de Kudisha employing right now?”

  “Of course he's harmed this planet. Did you not just see that tornado?” Markoff demanded, pointing at the now calm sky.

  “Nobody was hurt by it,” Luci declared. “If you had gone through all the terrible things that he has gone through and had this powerful force within you that sometimes just pops out, you'd be lucky to control a tornado too.”

  Markoff scratched his beard and looked te
rribly confused. “Beg pardon?”

  “Maybe you're just jealous because he hasn't given you a job?” Luci suggested. “Is that it?”

  “I don't need a job from him,” Markoff replied haughtily. “I am the head of the Neurology department at the Rozarian Science Institute.”

  “Oh I see,” Luci replied doubtfully.

  “I'm not jealous,” Markoff stated, his face turning purple. He stomped a foot. The crowd and the security men lost interest and drifted off.

  “Who is this guy?” Katie asked.

  “He's the surgeon who was just about to drill a hole in your head when Ron stopped him a few years ago,” Gina whispered.

  “Let's go get some dessert,” Thad suggested. “Anybody want cheesecake?”

  “I think, Dr. Markoff,” Luci concluded. “That you are in need of some medication. You have an irrational dislike for Dr. de Kudisha that can only be attributed to a medical condition. If you like, I'm sure Thad will arrange for you to see one of our psychiatrists tomorrow for an evaluation.”

  “Well,” Dr. Markoff exclaimed. “I have never been so insulted in my life.” Quickly, he turned around and practically ran across the mall. We all watched him go.

  “Wow!” Katie said. “You were something, Luci.”

  “Well, I…” she blushed furiously.

  “Damn, I could use you on my ship!”

  “Oh no, not on your ship, Madame,” Luci pleaded. “I wish to work in your household.”

  “My what?”

  “Luci,” Senya said and as red as Luci was a moment earlier, now she had gone pale. She looked at Senya and dropped to her knees in obeisance.

  “Thank you, Luci.” he said and waved his hand. The pavement upon which Luci knelt was stained with Senya's blood and began to crack. Green stalks emerged from the cracks, surrounding Luci.

  “What's going on?” Gina asked.

  The stalks sprouted leaves and then burst into flowers.

  “Poppies!” Luci cried. “Red poppies!”

  “And asters and cosmos and look at those zinnias,” Katie pointed. We were surrounded by flowers in a thousand different colors. “Very pretty. You must rate really high, Luci.”

  “This is for me?” Luci gasped.

  “What the heck is going on?” Gina demanded loudly. “Where did these flowers come from?”

  “You know, I'm really hungry for some cheesecake.” Thad stretched and put his arm around Gina. “How about you, Hon?”

  Gina looked at Thad as if he was insane and backed away from his embrace.

  “Cheesecake sounds good to me,” Katie replied loudly.

  “It's amazing how things grow in radioactive dirt,” Thad smiled.

  “But… I don't get it…” Gina protested.

  “Let's go back to our house and sit on the deck,” Katie announced. “Have coffee and cheesecake. I think I've got one in the freezer. Would that be okay, Sweetheart?”

  “Okay,” Senya shrugged, taking Katie's hand.

  “We'll see you in a bit then.” She waved at us as they walked away.

  “Awesome!” Thad cried. “Put on some tunes, lie on the deck and look at the stars, go skinny dipping in the ocean.”

  “Sorry, Thad,” I said. “Nobody wants to see you naked.”

  “Ok,” Thad took Gina's arm. “How about just the girls go skinny dipping then.”

  “I just don't get it,” Gina said as they left for their speeder.

  “Oh, Berkie,” Luci exclaimed, picking an armful flowers. “I can't believe what happened tonight.”

  “Which part of tonight?” I asked as we walked to our own speeder, a loaner from the SdK fleet.

  “Everything!” she gasped. “I can't believe I finally met him! He's amazing! I had no idea that he was so shy though.”

  “Shy, Senya?”

  “Absolutely,” Luci declared. “You probably don't realize it because you've known him for so long but I saw it right away. I'm quite a good observer.”

  “I know you are.”

  “He's very insecure.”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely. If you didn’t know any better, you would think he was arrogant but it’s really that he has low self-esteem. You would too, Berkie if your entire life someone was constantly threatening you and telling you how evil you are. Did you see how he clings to her?”

  “He had to,” I replied, starting up the speeder. “He wasn't wearing his glasses and she is trying to get him to stay out of our heads.”

  “What does that mean?” Luci looked at me strangely. I pulled out of the underground parking garage and pointed the speeder into the evening sky which was an interesting shade of purple. The Rozarian moon shone nearly as bright as the Rozarian star did during the day.

  “It means, she's trying to get him to give up that nasty habit of reading our minds so he can see. If he's not going to wear his sensory lenses, then he has to hang on to her. Right?”

  “He can't see?” Luci gasped.

  “You didn't know that? Oh,” I realized. “I guess that isn't public information.”

  “Blessed Saint,” she breathed as we come upon the estate and I entered the code to release the security shield. We parked outside next to Thad's jaguar. Luci didn’t move.

  “What?” I asked, climbing out of my seat. “Aren't you coming?”

  “Blessed Saint, Berkie,” she gazed at me with her big green eyes. “What is he? He can't be mortal!”

  “Come on, Luci,” I said and headed toward the house. “Just act like he's normal. He’s just one of our friends.”

  Chapter 4

  Caroline

  I joined Spaceforce because they paid my tuition through nursing school. I was right smack in the middle of fourteen kids, number seven, and there was hardly enough money to eat let alone go to college. Don't ask me why my parents were breeding like rabbits in that day and age but they did, and I was ever so happy to get out of that house and share a room with two other girls instead of eight.

  After graduation, I was assigned to the SS Discovery. I wasn't all that excited to be in space. I was actually hoping to get a position at a land-based VA hospital but space was where I was needed so off I went.

  My doctor was Jerry Waldman who was cute as a bug's ear. He was about the same height as me with curly brown hair and big old glasses that made his wide brown eyes seem enormous.

  Our sickbay was relatively quiet, most everything we saw was space sickness or flu. I had a lot of time to browse the internet and ready cheesy romance novels which were about the only kind of book that I could manage to finish. I swallowed them like water.

  Within two weeks of boarding the Discovery, I developed space sickness myself which was pretty lame considering I was there to take care of the people who got it. I had no idea how quickly it would set in and how nasty it was. For about three weeks, there wasn't anything I could do but lie around and let the machines massage my muscles while I read my books. Jerry tried to keep me entertained in his free time but without a nurse, he ended up doing just about everything while I watched helplessly.

  During that time period, a new ensign came into our sickbay and announced she was there to inventory. Her name was Katie Golden and she too was as cute as a bug's ear. She had curly blonde hair and deep blue eyes and was about half a head shorter than Dr. Jerry. Well even I could see from my perch in bed that Dr. Jerry fell head over heels, hopelessly in love with her. He got all flustered and his face turned bright red anytime she spoke to him. He followed her around and dashed frantically whenever she questioned where something was.

  “He's stuck on you like a junebug on a sow's ear,” I said to her one afternoon when Jerry rushed off to the store room to find a missing caliper.

  “That's silly,” she replied when she had finished counting thermometers. “I'm Katie Golden, by the way. How much longer are you stuck in bed?”

  “Probably another two weeks,” I said. “I'm Caroline Adamson. How long you been aboard?”

  “A
bout two months.” She sat down next to my bed. “I didn't get space sickness though.”

  “You work out every day?”

  “Yeah,” she replied and brushed some of her curls out of her eyes. “I decided to do mixed martial arts. I have always wanted to have a black belt.”

  “I got about four black belts in my closet but I don't think any of them would fit your tiny little waist.”

  She blushed all over just like Dr. Jerry. What a cute little couple they would make.

  After Katie finished the inventory and moved on to another area, she still came by to visit me while I remained in bed. Poor old Jerry thought she was coming to visit him.

  “You like him?” I'd ask as soon as he got busy and stopped listening to our conversation.

  “He's a nice guy,” she replied. “But I'm not interested in him if that's what you're asking.”

  “You got another boyfriend?”

  “No…well…”

  “Well?”

  She blushed.

  “You do!” I exclaimed. “You got yourself some little honeypot lover back home?”

  “Well…not exactly…”

  That's about all I could ever get out of her. We became fine friends anyway and just about every time we had a few hours shore leave, Katie and I would head out to the base and grab lunch and do a bit of shopping. Jerry often tagged along and sometimes, I had a guy of my own to balance all wheels on our little wagon.

  Over the next few years, Katie rose through the ranks of command just about faster than anyone could possibly rise. She even won herself a medal for saving the ship after some darn thing on the engineering deck caught on fire and nearly blew up. Katie happened to be in the right place at the right time to hotwire the fire extinguishing system but took a nasty blow to the head for doing it. Next thing you know, we're down on Rozari waiting for her to come out of surgery and Jerry was confessing all of his unrequited emotions to me. I was rolling my eyes and thinking this boy has got it bad and that wasn’t good because it turned out, the Rozarian doctor had got it worse and Jerry didn’t stand a chance.

  Now if I were just anybody, I'd have been plenty jealous of Katie. Like I said, bad enough she is super Spaceforce girl, but somehow she roped in the guy that left the rest of us standing with our tongues hanging out. I don't need to tell you how good Dr. Ron looked or how rich he was because none of that really mattered. What mattered was the way he stared at her whenever she was in the room. He didn't stare with his eyes of course. No matter what he was doing, no matter who he was talking to, Katie came along and that's where his attention went. He focused on her like a little old puppy dog waiting for her to throw him a bone. Lordy, I wish someone had loved me like that.