Nyomi growled in displeasure. “We could easily turn our backs and leave the blade’s host to her fate, but do you want her being corrupted by those seeking to control the weapon? Do you want to fight the blade’s host as an enemy one day or fight at her side as her ally? She is no doubt frightened by what has happened to her. I promise you that someone will manage to get close to her if we do not.”
Axel nodded. “Again, I concede to your greater wisdom. Not being a fool, of course, I would prefer the host of the sentient blade to be an ally.”
“Good. I want you to at least try to befriend the woman. Teach her to save herself if you can. That sort of benefaction is not something a human will ever forget. If we are lucky, your friendship may align her with our more noble causes in protecting this planet.”
That hadn’t crossed his mind, but his mother was probably right. Axel bowed his head in respect. “I will do as you ask, my queen. I will train the woman if she agrees.”
“Of course, you will,” Nyomi purred.
She walked back to where her son stood stoically yet mildly annoyed with her still. She lifted a hand to his handsome feline face and watched it change under her fingers to its other natural form. It was nearly a mirror image of the only human male she’d ever managed to love in all her time on Earth. His father was also the single male of any race who’d ever held her heart.
“The other children of Rodu are not like you, Axel. Your siblings were born either feline or human, but not both. Your ability to morph among the two is a great gift. I was over a thousand years old before I could shift my form. I hope one day you understand just how blessed you are to have had the ability since birth.”
“If I am blessed, it is to be Queen Nyomi’s beloved son. That is all I need to appreciate my happy existence.”
She laughed as her hand dropped away.
“Oh, if only those words were true and not just something you incorrectly assume I want to hear. I wish you’d gotten a little more of your father’s irreverence.”
“Weren’t you chastising me for that very thing just moments ago?”
Nyomi chuckled. “When Rodu says anything to me, at least I know his words are completely sincere. To this day, I find his directness quite refreshing. Why do you think I keep insisting he extend his human life? Your father keeps saying humans aren’t meant to be so old, but it’s not like I leave him old. After regenerating, he looks as young as you.”
She smiled at her pleasant thoughts of Rodu as she moved away from her eldest child. “Guard the new Protector until she comes into her own, Axel. Doing so is a better use of your time than torturing that poor wolf.”
Axel nodded. “Minding the wolf is merely something to keep me from being bored. I trust your judgment about the blade’s host and will heed it. To the best of my ability, I will do what you have asked.”
Nyomi felt her face lift in joy at his words. “Thank you, my son. May happiness find you until we see each other again.”
“May happiness find you as well, Mother.”
Axel lifted a hand to wave as his mother created a ball of molecular energy around herself and lifted from the ground. Only fully ascended felines possessed the gift of transporting in that manner, but such power over the elements didn’t manifest until a Lyran was over three thousand years old.
As he watched her leave, it suddenly occurred to him that he actually didn’t know how old his mother was. He wondered if his father knew. Come to think of it, he didn’t know how old his human father was either. Their actual ages weren’t something he'd ever concerned himself with knowing. His parents were, well, just his parents.
The idea of being with one person for more than a week or two alarmed him. He couldn’t imagine spending several hundred years, much less a millennium, bedding only one female.
He looked down as something hit his foot. It was Max dropping the long-forgotten stick across his shoe. The wolf sat at his feet stoically with his large wolf eyes were full of concern.
Axel shrugged in answer before he spoke. “Looks like I have another human pain in the ass to babysit which means you do too, Maxwell. Come on. Let’s go collect her before those do-gooders at Psych Central get too involved.”
4
Nine months after Sugar found the artifact…
“Dr. Jennings, I understand the gravity of your situation but…”
“If this is about money, I promise I can pay your fees. I don’t have a lot these days, but I’m willing to spend all I have left for help. Dead women can’t buy things anyway.”
Sugar stopped begging to bite her lip. Money promises were having no effect. What the hell was she supposed to offer? There had to be something that would appeal to them.
“Look, Eva… may I call you Eva?
“Of course,” Eva replied.
Sugar learned forward and assumed the most severe look she could. “I know my dilemma seems rather unbelievable when you first hear it, but I assure you every word I’ve said to you is absolutely the truth.”
Her potential savior, the woman who ran Psych Central, put her hands on her desk and peered at Sugar over them. Two large men stood behind Eva listening to her make her pitch. At least Sugar was reasonably sure they were men—or were men at some point in their paranormal life cycle.
Both gray-skinned creatures were massive and intimidating. Each one could pass for a building needing its own address. So far, they hadn’t blinked, responded, or even commented on her story, but Sugar could tell they listened carefully to every word she spoke while they stood guard.
She bet no one ever bothered those massive men or Eva. And they both so obviously adored her. Her mind ran off on a tangent as she wondered how in the world she could draw an adoring guard to her side.
Would the artifact allow her to have a relationship?
And what about sex? Sex was something she missed sorely, even the half-hearted kind she’d been indulging in with fellow archaeologists since her divorce. She definitely couldn't scratch her sexual itch now until she had her artifact situation under far better control.
Eva cleared her throat and drew everyone’s attention to her. “So far, you’ve mentioned the PCA, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, Interpol, the British Marines, every Native American and aboriginal tribe across our planet, plus about a hundred other more secretive global security organizations whose names I’m afraid to say out loud a second time in my office. Is there anyone who’s not wanting to kidnap or kill you?”
Sighing in resignation, Sugar moved her head slowly from right to left and back to right again as she pondered the question.
“It’s not actually me they’re wanting, but it’s impossible to hand over the artifact to them, even if I wanted to. The last time I was captured, which was by a group calling themselves the Intergalactic Investigation Service, the artifact turned each of the scientists working on me into a pool of human liquid with eyeballs and other stray body parts floating in it. I can’t let this thing in me keep on killing people in such a gross manner, no matter how bad their intentions. All those gruesome deaths make me ill.”
“Yes, well, I’ve seen vampires and demons do some foul things to normal humans, but what I don’t see is how Psych Central can possibly help you with your problem. There’s no one on our payroll who could keep all your enemies away. I’m not even sure the combination of all our people could do it.”
“Eva, I’m here because I’m officially caught between a rock and a hard place.”
Eva snorted. “You should be so lucky, Dr. Jennings.”
Sugar smiled when the men behind Eva both chuckled in deep low voices. Though she’d never felt the need for more than one male at a time, the intimacy between the three people in the office was enviable.
She found the masculine laughter of Eva’s guards far better than their stony silence.
“So, you truly can’t produce your artifact for me to study?” Eva asked again.
“No,” Sugar said as she pulled the collar of her t-shirt down
until the barest point of one golden trident tip showed.
A painful vibration started the moment light hit the golden object buried in her chest. It was the same vibration she’d felt in her hand the moment she’d lifted the blade from its resting place. Like some kind of living metal, the artifact appeared to have a life of its own. She had no idea why it needed her body to host it.
Sugar let the collar of her shirt fall back into place before the pain robbed her of mindfulness. What happened alongside the vibrations was too scary to risk happening here. She needed these people’s help. She certainly didn’t want to hurt them.
“The artifact hates the light. I don’t know why. When it joined with me, the blinding light is the last thing I remember. Hours after I found it, I woke up on a cave floor with my chest vibrating. Gold covers me like a shield that wraps across and around my rib cage and up between my breasts. The top of the design looks like Poseidon’s three-pronged trident. When I found the artifact, it was the size and shape of a witch’s athame and was lying in a box. The inscription on it was only in symbols. I should never have touched it, but it was incredibly beautiful in its original form.”
Sugar knew better than to say she’d gone looking for the damn thing—which she definitely had. The head of Psych Central probably wouldn’t bother to help her at all if she ever discovered that Sugar had planned on living off the fame and glory of such an incredible archaeological find.
“And you haven’t manifested any paranormal abilities from your joining with the artifact?”
“I’m able to run faster, but that’s all I know about myself,” Sugar explained. “It seems to make all defensive decisions totally without my input. When vibrations from it reach a certain level, I experience a mental blackout. Later when I come back to myself, I usually find several dead bodies littering the floor around me. I never remember the episode of killing them, but I have no doubt they die at the hands of the artifact working through me.”
“You’re right about that being hard to believe,” Eva said, leaning back in her seat. “So, I must ask this question again. What exactly do you think we can do to help you?”
Sugar sighed. “I originally thought maybe you could recommend a scientist or magical surgeon. When they found the three scientists dead who tried to separate it from me, the remaining scientists simply unlocked the operating room door and let me leave.”
“That’s rather odd behavior, don’t you think?” Eva said, thinking it was more than odd. It was unheard of.
Sugar shrugged. “It was actually through leaving that I discovered I’m not bulletproof. Someone shot me in the back as I left the grounds. While I didn’t die after being shot, I did have an extended blackout episode. When I came back to myself at that time, I realized it had taken the artifact nearly a week to push the incredibly large bullet out of my body. I don’t even know where I was while I was healing. I have no memory of that week.”
“So, it can choose to keep you from dying and from being aware as well,” Eva said thinking about it. “Do you know if its actions are offensive or just defensive? From what you’ve explained, it seems to me that it only wants to kill people trying to steal the artifact from you. That seems like self-defense in my opinion.”
Sugar pondered that particular truth. She hadn’t concluded anything herself. “My training as an archaeologist didn’t cover killing anything but bats, rats, and the occasional snake. I never went back to the facility where I’d been kept, so I have no idea what happened to my shooter, but the incident did show me that I won’t be able to die without someone putting some real effort into it. Hey, maybe one of your people can kill me paranormally before the bad guys manage to do it. Got anyone on your payroll who can throw a lightning bolt?”
“No.” Eva snorted with laughter over the request. “We don’t kill humans, Dr. Jennings. In fact, I’ve never turned away a human with a paranormal problem though you might become my first. Curses I can handle. Shifter turnings can sometimes be undone. At the very least, I can refer humans to someone who will help them adjust to their altered life. But separating a magical artifact from its host? I’m afraid that’s outside Psych Central’s skillset.”
Sugar nodded. She understood the woman’s reluctance even to try. How could she not?
But in case she came up dead one day, at least one other person should know the origin of the artifact’s existence. If she was correct in her research, there were three other blades somewhere in the world. One day those blades would probably call someone like her to them as well. Or at least that’s what she’d come to believe every time the artifact activated itself and took over her body. They needed a host to live.
Sugar stared back at the woman staring at her. “The artifact’s not magical. It’s ancient technology. I’m sure when its creator walked this earth, there was a process by which the artifact and its host were matched. After having it in me for several months now, I feel like it was meant to be something only the most talented of warriors received. I have no scientific proof of that—just a gut feeling.”
“Do you think the artifact might possibly be alien in origin?”
Sugar shook her head. This debate was familiar ground for her. She could talk about this all day. “Not really—although the ancient alien theory does try to explain advanced technology when it shows up in caves and other places. Given the ornate box I recall the blade stored in, which disappeared during the fusion process, and the cave where I located it being inside a glacier for ten thousand years, it’s far more likely that someone from one of Earth’s own ancient civilizations created it. Modern research into the discoveries at locations like Gobekli Tepe is backing that up these days.”
“Earth’s ancient civilizations? Are you talking about Atlantis?” Eva asked with a short laugh.
Sugar sighed. It was always so hard to explain to those not in the field. “I’m actually talking about a highly technological time in Earth’s pre-history which is at least twenty thousand years before historians started keeping track of our current time. It predates the global flood.”
Eva snickered. “I have heard of the flood. Do I get points for that?”
Sugar wanted to roll her eyes but didn’t. “The unexplainable technology we find carbon dating back that far seems based on organics rather than manufactured materials. There is little evidence pointing to wars back then, but some evidence points to the Earth being attacked from forces greater than humanity.”
“Forces greater than humans were attacking us?”
“Yes. Now I am referring to aliens, but not just little green men. I’m not convinced, but some think there are a vast number of friendly alien cultures visiting the Earth and getting involved with us. One theory is this is how humanity survived the global flood.”
“Hmm…” Eva said, pondering the possibility of alien involvement in Earth’s past. “I’ve read some ancient archaeology.”
“But more about ancient magic, I would wager.” Sugar glanced over Eva’s shoulder and nodded with her chin. “My theory is that it’s all the same in intent. A process created your living stone guards that few know about today, so people tend to think of it as ‘magic’ rather than science. You and I were born from human mating which is its own miraculous process. I don’t see any difference between those two. That’s why I delved so deeply into Ancient History instead of just studying magic.”
“Dr. Jennings, I…”
But Sugar was on a roll now and wanted to get the whole thing said. “Werewolves didn’t evolve without someone’s creative intervention between humans and wolves. Perhaps one could explain dragons as being natural like dinosaurs, but what of vampires? Demons? Other creatures of the night? Darwin’s theory of evolution only answers about ten percent of most people’s questions. Yet here we all are living alongside each other despite those who wish to argue that paranormals don’t exist.”
Eva nodded in agreement. “If what you say is true about the artifact’s ancient origin, what happened to the people
who created it? With such great power at their disposal, why didn’t they survive?”
“Modern human technology is based in alchemy and metallurgy. The idea of starting with those processes most likely came from whatever left-over scientific-minded genes got passed down through human mating after the last ice age finally passed. And why do we believe only certain humans and a few species of animals survived the ice age? That’s bullshit thinking because lots of creatures survived the ice age. Dragons have survived every age.”
“How can you say that with such certainty? Do you actually know any dragons?” Eva asked with a smirk.
“No. I didn’t believe in the paranormal at all before finding the artifact. Since joining with it, I’ve become aware of many things. I see the true origins of people I pass on the street.” Sugar waved over Eva’s head again. “Just as I see what your companions are at a molecular level. Do I understand their existence or how they came to be? Of course not. Do I believe they are as real as you or me? I believe my eyes which see them standing there listening to us. They might not be completely human anymore, but they do have sentience and a soul. I think the artifact I carry does as well.”
Eva cleared her throat. “I’m sorry I interrupted your theory about Ancient Earth. Please finish what you were saying about that.”
“You asked me what happened to the creators of the artifact. As for the demise of those ancient people, it was the same as what will no doubt be the ultimate end of us one day. I’m talking paranormal, human, hybrids—every creature you can name. Mother Nature, Gaia, or whatever term you give the unstoppable force of this planet will one day wipe us all away just as she did Earth’s highly technological ancestors outside the ones that survived to propagate us. It’s also likely that some future society will one day find all the inventions current humans leave behind just as I found the sentient blade. Hell, they may even find the blade. I just don’t want them to find me still connected to it.”
“Sounds like you have a death wish,” Eva observed.
Bad Panther (Alien Guardians of Earth Book 1) Page 3