Dad Panther (Alien Guardians of Earth Book 3) Read online

  Gina lifted a hand in Lake’s direction as she looked at Sugar. “Do you see why I detest him?”

  “Lake has a one-track mind. Earth males his age are all like that,” Sugar said with a headshake. “It will change over time. I promise.”

  Gina turned to glare at Lake. “The female with breasts is a Pleiadian from what humans call the Sirius constellation. Pleiadians, in appearance and genetics, are the most physically similar species to Earth humans. The consensus among Lyrans is that the Pleiadians chose the final genetic code for humanity.”

  The holographic female began to talk. Sugar felt uncomfortable with every word the image spoke, but she did not understand why. Lake looked ready to throw up. She doubted Junior knew what was wrong either.

  “Do you know what she’s saying?” Sugar asked.

  Gina shook her head. “I don’t speak Pleiadian, but I recognize it. My translator isn’t programmed for their language because it’s so complex. I might be able to clone a translator and convince it to learn Pleiadian, but it would take a lot of time.”

  “There are plenty of ancient alien theories about Earth origins coming out of Pleiades constellation of stars and planets.”

  “Pleiadians are one of the original species who evolved in our universe. They are forthcoming with information to all who seek it so no one bothers with their language or history. They hold the highest four seats on the council who assigned the Lyrans to Earth as guardians.”

  Sugar’s whole body relaxed as Gina extracted the frequencies in reverse order. Soon the artifact was a flat, metal plate once more. “I wonder how many things we found in that cave are sound activated.”

  “That is a reasonable thing to wonder. Why would the Pleiadians store holographic messages among Aztec gold and had them guarded by the priests of those people? There was another set of metal plates found in an underground cave near the Amazon River, which turned out to be Pleiadian. Perhaps there are Pleiadian artifacts all over Earth.”

  Sugar’s mind starting chewing on another theory. “What if Athena the Ancient was Pleiadian? What if some of the plates are the stories of the blades and their creation?”

  Gina stopped and stared in shock. “It could be possible. Earth only recently learned about the power of sound. For Lyrans, sound has long been an efficient and effective way to apply security to valuable content. Someone programmed this metal. The holographic energy projecting the Pleiadian is its truer form. The blades you carry seem to function in much the same way. They have their own form when not merged with a host.”

  Sugar nodded. “There are at least fifty more of those plates. If you can get your translator to work, I’ll be able to read what’s on them.”

  Lake rubbed his mid-section, relieved as the pain continued to pass away without further nausea. “It’s probably another origin story about a group of people who aren’t around anymore. I’ve never understood how anyone could love history so much.”

  Sugar turned to glare at him. “If I hadn’t studied all I could find about the sentient blades, I wouldn’t have had any idea about what had happened to me—or you. That would have been bad because my blade has had to work very hard to keep me alive. History teaches us about the present by showing us what the past contained.”

  Gina shrugged to cover up her true feelings. She needed to discuss it with her mother before she revealed it to the blade hosts. “As grievous as I find it to do so, I must agree with Lake on this matter.”

  “Wait… you agree with me again?” Lake asked in surprise.

  “I’m having a strange day,” Gina said through gritted teeth.

  Laughing at both of them, Sugar pointed at the metal plate. “Is it safe to leave the metal plate with you?”

  “No. Mother prefers we keep all artifacts safely put away unless they are being used for study. Take the metal plate back to the library with you,” Gina ordered. “I’ll come to get it when I have time to work on it.”

  Lake narrowed his eyes as he studied Gina. “Did anyone ever point out to you how bossy you are?”

  “Yes. Command has always been expected of me. I am a Lyran princess and second in line for my mother’s throne. It is not a weakness that I have a keen grasp on the need to follow rules which were made for the good of all.”

  Sugar chuckled and turned to Lake who lifted a hand and walked out of the lab.

  “He rejects all my truths. I do not understand him,” Gina mumbled.

  “Lake doesn’t understand himself. Like most males, he’s grasping for answers instead of asking questions and listening,” Sugar replied, patting Axel’s confused sister on the shoulder before she trailed after her fellow blade host.

  2

  In Cambodia, at the Angkor Wat temple complex…

  “I sure wish you could see this, Hank. It’s every bit as awesome as you thought it would be,” Reva whispered, hoping her husband’s spirit would hear her wherever he was.

  Hank’s death seven months ago from a massive stroke had come as a total shock. Then a month ago she’d gotten an email on his old account and discovered her wonderfully thoughtful husband had booked this trip to celebrate what would have been their twenty-eighth anniversary.

  Reva stared at the hundreds of Apsaras carved on the stone walls. The smiling females were dancing in a ceremony the Hindus called Churning of the Ocean of Milk. The enormous carving depicted gods and goddesses rubbing a snake to get the animal to give up the elixir of life. The scene looked very sexual to her. Hank would have laughed when she told him her thoughts, which made her miss him even more. This trip just wasn’t the same without him.

  Tears threatened to flow but then Reva remembered another theory—one of Hank’s silly ancient alien ideas—one which said the snake represented the Milky Way. The thousand years of the churning would have been the time it took for the celestial beings Earthlings called gods to make Earth a planet that could sustain the human life they planned to create on it.

  Rolling her eyes over the idea of aliens, Reva tried to pull her imagination back from the edge. “If you nixed the aliens, this could be where they got the Garden of Eden story. All that’s missing from these carvings is the apple.”

  Science dated Angkor Wat to the twelfth century. Reva found it hard to believe that the jungle had encroached so hard on the stone structures and all but swallowed parts of the temple complex in a few thousands years. She stooped and retrieved a leaf shed by one of the massive trees. Being an avid botanist, she felt the utmost reverence for a tree she easily would have estimated as being over twenty thousand years old. More than one of the massive roots were larger than the structures they hid.

  Following the brochure she carried, Reva moved into an area referred to as the Hall of Echoes. Discovering she was alone, she went to the location indicated and put a hand over her heart before whispering, “I still miss you, Hank.”

  Her heart ached as the words were multiplied and repeated many times before fading off. How did anyone ever move on from losing his or her soul mate? She and Hank could not have children. Both her parents were gone. Because of Hank’s allergies, they hadn’t even had pets. Mostly all they’d had over the years was each other. Losing Hank had redefined the word alone for her.

  “Reva…”

  Startled, Reva jerked to full awareness as she heard her name echoing back through the hall. It couldn’t be Hank trying to reach beyond death to talk to her once more. Not that she believed in that sort of thing anyway, but the voice calling her name was definitely female.

  “Reva…”

  Her whipped from side-to-side but she refused to freak completely out. Grief had made her absent-minded, but that was all. She moved through most days on autopilot, but this trip had been a reality check to remind her that life really was still going on around her.

  “Reva…”

  “Not listening to you,” she said to the voice saying her name. This was crazy. No one was in the space but her. It was a trick of sound.

  When Hank was alive
, he was always reading about this kind of woo-woo stuff. She, on the other hand, was always reading about plants and the downside of genetic manipulation of food sources. They couldn’t have been more different, but that had made for a rich and wonderful relationship.

  “The tour guide is male,” Reva said aloud to reassure herself. “I haven’t introduced myself to any of the others on the tour because I didn’t want to explain about Hank and the reason I’m here.”

  She hurried back down the hall the way she’d come. When she didn’t see any other people, Reva realized she must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.

  Her head swiveled when she heard a crackling noise that sounded like rocks grinding against each other. She gasped in shock when one of the wall depictions turned its stone head toward her.

  She squealed and swore as twin beams of light burst from the statue’s eyes and hit a spot on the temple floor three feet from where she stood. Something swirled within the light, and then a visage of a robed woman appeared there. The woman turned in her direction as if seeing her. A frisson of dread traveled up Reva’s spine but her feet refused to obey her order to run.

  “Greetings, Reva Hunter.”

  “What?” Reva asked, putting a hand over her heart. “How do you know who I am?”

  “All is known about you.”

  “What’s happening here? Who are you? Is someone recording this?” Reva demanded, searching for a hidden camera.

  The woman lifted both hands in entreaty. “At the beginning of human time, I was an entity named Athena. Now I serve as the life source of the sentient blade known as the Creator. I have chosen you to host me. Do you accept my request for us to merge?”

  The urge to escape grew, but her feet only moved mere inches across the floor. It was like some strange energy had hold of her and wouldn’t turn loose.

  “I… I… I…” Reva stopped trying to get away and turned her head. She could hear several people talking excitedly from the Hall of Echoes. Their angry, harsh words were being multiplied by the acoustics there. What filtered to her were garbled commands in a language she didn’t speak.

  “Decide quickly, Reva Hunter. Those coming seek to possess the blade. I will not allow this to happen. Their lives will be forfeit if they try.”

  “What’s that got to do with me… me… me?” Stammering harder, Reva swallowed and felt her heart banging a frightened beat against her rib cage. She looked back at the woman in the image. “You’ve got the wrong person. I’m old and afraid.”

  “The blade will keep you safe,” the woman promised.

  “How do you know? You’re a statue come to life,” Reva exclaimed looking back up at the rock wall and the massive stone head that had loosened itself from it.

  “No, Reva Hunter. I am not a statue. I am the fourth and final sentient blade. With your help, I can awake and serve the Earth.”

  “I can’t help you. I just lost my husband. I’m only here because this is a trip he planned for our anniversary. I’m sorry I came now—trust me.” Reva stopped and swallowed. That had been too rude. “What I mean is that I can’t do what you want.”

  “Life is about making choices. It is the education of each human’s will. I will honor your decision,” the woman said, bowing her resigned head. “I cannot return to hiding in the stone. May I ask that you at least transport me to the others?”

  “Others?” Reva asked in a squeak.

  “The other sentient blades are awake. They await my arrival. The world needs us.”

  Reva saw bands of green metal rising out of the stone. It looked like liquid as it came to the surface. She didn’t know what to think about her hallucination much less what to do to snap out of it.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” she whispered.

  “I understand your confusion. Please take me to the others. The Protectors will know what to do.”

  “Protectors?” Reva asked.

  Words got stuck on their way out of her mouth when the liquid green metal from the statue suddenly sprung free of the rock and attacked her. Her hands went to her throat and felt a metal choker forming there. Her mind screamed that she was living one of the alien invasion scenes from the crazy Sci-Fi movies Hank had made her watch with him.

  The rest of the liquid metal sprung from the rock and wrapped around her wrists. The gleaming changed from green to gold and caught her eyes. She pulled her wrists away from her throat and stared at them. The metal vibrated lightly. As she watched, it turned itself into a close-fitting cuff bracelet on each arm.

  “Thank you for saving me, Reva Hunter. No harm will come to you.”

  “Harm from what?” Reva asked, but soon realized she was talking to air.

  The image of the woman faded rapidly into nothing but dots, and as it did, the eye beams retracted until the stone statue's eyes went flat. Defying all logic she knew, and the laws of science, the statue’s face turned back to the side and resumed its regular stony silhouette.

  Before she could step forward and lift her hand to feel the rock wall, several Cambodian men in military gear instantly appeared in the room’s doorway. They first spoke to her in their own language. One of them finally spoke in English and asked if she had seen anyone strange coming or going in the last few minutes.

  “No,” Reva answered, numbly shaking her head. She was in a strange country and alone. No way was she telling the guys with guns that the statue on the wall came alive and spoke to her. “What’s happening? Am I in any danger?”

  “No danger,” the man said abruptly before quickly disappearing along with the others.

  Reva touched the metal at her throat and her wrists. It vibrated gently in return to her touch. There were symbols on the metal around her wrists. Was the band around her throat decorated with them as well?

  She had no mirror to check. The symbols on the bracelets looked a little like Egyptian hieroglyphics to her.

  The language is the language of my original people. It is Pleiadian, a voice announced in her head.

  “Pleiadian? Like from the Pleiades?” Reva whispered the question in shock.

  Affirmative, the voice in her head answered.

  Reva stared at the rock wall before her gaze returned to her wrists. What was it the woman had asked her to do? She couldn’t remember.

  Be brave, Reva Hunter. Take me out of the sacred temple. I will ask the Protectors to collect me.

  Reva adjusted the small hanging purse she’d brought along and turned to walk out of the room. The exit from the Hall of Echoes was clear. How had she missed it before? Her first instinct was to blame the voice in her head. What was this thing doing to her?

  Hosts are sacred. Reva Hunter is a sacred human.

  Reva wondered if the voice in her head would go away if she left Cambodia. She was sure ready to find out.

  She hustled back to the tour bus and saw that several of her fellow travelers were already seated on it. She looked around and saw the temples now swarmed with armed men looking for something—or someone.

  Reva climbed onto the bus and found a seat. She discreetly slipped the passport and some money from her purse, tucking both into hidden pockets she’d sewn onto the underside of the camisole she was wearing under her shirt. At the time she’d sewn the pockets there, she’d felt crazy for giving into fear and taking such a strange precaution. Now she was grateful. She felt like if she had to run to save her life, she could.

  “Crazy. Crazy. Crazy,” Reva chanted to herself quietly.

  She leaned back in her seat and stared out the bus window, which had been lowered to let the heat escape. What would happen if those armed men figured out she’d removed a valuable artifact from the temple? Technically, she was a breaking a law in a foreign country to go along with this madness.

  I am worthy of rescue, and you are worthy of wielding my power. Your refusal does not alter the truth of those statements. I ask only what is possible for you to do.

  Her gut agreed with that defense, so Reva nodded slightly, but she
didn’t speak aloud.

  Instead, she started praying, which seemed a better use of time than talking to herself.

  3

  Three days later…

  “The babies are nearly ready to deliver. Shall I make arrangements for their birth?” Marta asked.

  The medical table Sugar reclined on for Marta’s examination was uncomfortable for her back, so she rose to a seated position. The artifact kept adjusting her sense of balance. If not, she might have tipped over with the twins making her so huge.

  “What kind of arrangements have to be made?” Sugar asked.

  “I will need to prepare a surgery room for birthing. My recommendation is to move the children from your womb to Lyran gestation units for their final two weeks. We do this to let the mother recuperate from carrying children before she assumes full-time care.”

  “Gestation units? Sounds like what Earth doctors do for premature babies.”

  Marta nodded. “Very similar. With such long life spans, Lyrans don’t have children often. We take extraordinary care of both parents and newborns.”

  “Will I have any normal labor and delivery? I guess I’m talking about a human kind of birth.”

  Marta’s face wrinkled in thought. Her delicate cat whiskers twitched. “I’m not sure how to answer you. What I suggest is completely normal by Lyran standards. We’ve been doing it for many millennia.”

  Sugar shrugged. “Guess that’s a good point,” she said as she worked to let go her fears about the next step in her mothering journey.

  “There are arrangements other than medical ones to make as well. Mother will arrange a Lyran welcome ceremony since your children are Lyran royalty. As the next in line to rule, my brother’s offspring should be properly greeted when they make their appearance into our society.”

  “Right,” Sugar answered with a chuckle. She smiled at Marta. “Whatever you think is fine with me. I wasn’t looking forward to giving birth the human way even with the artifact’s help. Let’s do a C-section and get it over with.”