Alien's Concubine, The (11 page)

His gaze zeroed in on the movement,
his eyes smoldering with heat. “I have given it a great deal of
thought and I have decided that I am ready for procreation,” he
announced calmly. “I am here because I have chosen you to bear my
child.”

Chapter Six

Gaby felt her jaw slide to half mast.
She decided after a moment, though, that she couldn’t have heard
him correctly. “What?”

He frowned. Turning away, he began to
pace the tiled floor thoughtfully. “Unfortunately, even I cannot
manifest the seed that it would require to impregnate you without
the … ah … use of one of your kind. I had not expected you would be
so resistant to the use of the male I chose. You are certain he did
not appeal?”

Despite the doubts that had been
nagging at her, Gaby stared at him as if he was insane when he
finally paused and turned to look at her questioningly. “Your …
your … arrogance is not to be believed!” she managed to gasp out
after several failed attempts at finding her voice.

His dark brows rose. “You believe I
have an over inflated opinion of myself?” he demanded in disbelief.
“I am Anka!”

Gaby blinked at the threatening growl
of anger in his voice. “And?”

He planted his hands on his hips,
glaring at her for several moments. Finally, he lifted one hand and
waved it in the air as if imitating the flight of a chopper
overhead. A crack of thunder rumbled over the building hard enough
the sound vibrated through the floor.

Gaby’s jaw slackened. Whirling, she
dashed to the window and peered through it. “Damn it! I left my
windows down!”

Anka looked distinctly irritated and
more than a little disconcerted when she turned to glance at him
distractedly. “Look! Do me a favor and just … stay out of my head,
ok? I’ve got serious work to take care of. I don’t have time to
play house. And even if I did, and I was agreeable to this insane
idea you’ve gotten, you aren’t real. And even if you were real, I
can’t have children. So you’ll just have to look for someone else,
ok?”

It had stopped raining by the time
Gaby dashed to her car to put the windows up and the car was
already wet. After debating whether she wanted it to steam dry in
the Miami heat or air dry, she decided just to leave it.

“
Freak storm,” she
muttered, heading back inside and rushing back to the examination
room.

Everyone glared at her when she
returned. Deciding it would be best just to ignore them, she moved
to the counter where she kept sterile gloves, drew on another pair,
and moved back to the table. This time, determinedly ignoring her
quivering belly, Gaby picked up the scalpel and carefully cut
through the first layer of … whatever it was. As she gently tugged
it free, she peered at the material. It was something woven. The
gloves prevented her from feeling the texture, but she could see
the weave. It reminded her strongly of papyrus, but of course the
flora of South America, even so far in the past, would have been
vastly different. Certainly some sort of plant had been processed
and the fibers woven—another indication of a very advanced
civilization.

“
Their primitive minds
were as clay.”

Gaby went rigid. The voice was
becoming disturbingly familiar, and the arrogance of the statement
was a clincher. Slowly she lifted her head. Anka was standing
directly in front of her, half in and half out of her assistant,
who had a peculiar look on his face as if he’d just felt something
crawling up his pants leg.

“
Yours is unable to
believe anything at all unless it …,” he paused, seemed to be
struggling for words and finally finished, “bites you in the ass.
That is not an improvement.”

“
Learning the local slang,
I see,” Gaby murmured under her breath.

“
I am not a figment of
your imagination,” he growled.

“
Yes, you are. Now go
away. I’m busy.” When she glanced up again, he was gone. Relief
filled her … for all of two seconds. The heat of a body pressed
against her back. A hand settled on her belly and slowly glided
downward. Gaby’s eyes widened as she felt his palm cup her mound
and then his fingers stroked lightly between her legs.

She swallowed with an effort, cleared
her throat. Surreptitiously, she dug her elbow backwards into …
nothing. His heated breath caressed her ear. “Does that not feel
real to you, Moonflower?”

“
If you’re real, then show
yourself.”

“
I have.”

“
To them!”

“
For what
purpose?”

“
So they’ll stop looking
at me like I’m crazy for talking to myself!”

“
This will please
you?”

“
Infinitely.”

“
So be it!”

Gaby lifted her head to look at the
people standing on the opposite side of the table. They were
staring fixedly at her, or rather a point behind her. As she
watched, the color drained from their faces. Finally, almost
collectively, they blinked, and then exchanged uncomfortable
glances with one another.

They didn’t believe they’d seen him.
She could see that.

“
Something more dramatic?”
Anka purred against her ear.

“
Why not?” Gaby tried to
say flippantly, though her voice quivered, ruining the
effect.

The mummy sat up on the table. Anka
materialized out of it and the mummy fell back on the table with a
dull thud as he stepped from it as if shedding an
overcoat.

Gaby staggered back, pressing a hand
against her heart as it lurched painfully. The Hispanic woman and
two of the men in the room screamed and dashed toward the exit.
Anka cut them off, appearing in all his regal glory. “I am Anka!
How dare you desecrate my temple!” he roared furiously. “I will lay
waste to your lands. Your crops and animals will wither and die!
Your man roots will shrivel. Your women will bear no fruit of their
wombs!”

For several moments, everyone seemed
frozen. Abruptly, pandemonium broke out and everyone began to
shriek and run around and around in circles as if seeking escape.
Finally, after colliding with one another repeatedly, they turned
in mass and ran to the far corner of the room to cower.

Anka, Gaby saw when she finally
managed to drag her gaze from her cowering co-workers and guests,
looked immensely pleased with himself. He sauntered over to her,
grasped her, and pulled her forcefully against his length. “You are
pleased now, my treasure?” he asked smugly.

It took Gaby several moments to gather
her wits. “You scared the shit out of everybody!” she said
accusingly.

He turned and looked the huddled group
over, sniffing disdainfully. “Not quite.”

“
It’s an expression!” Gaby
snapped testily.

He grinned cockily. “I know. I have
gained an excellent grasp of your language and culture. Very
interesting.”

“
My god!” Gaby gasped as
it slowly sank into her that they really had seen him, heard him
utter his dramatic ‘god’ speech. Maybe she hadn’t lost her
mind?

“
Yes?”

“
What?” she asked
distractedly.

“
You said, my
god?”

Gaby glared at him. “I didn’t mean
you.”

He glanced around. “There is none
other here.”

“
You are not a
god!”

He tilted his head curiously, but she
could see amusement dancing in his eyes. “The Brias believed I
was.”

The people of the city who’d built the
temple to him? “Because you made them believe you were.”

He shrugged. “Primitive
minds.”

Horror dawned. “God! You have no idea
what you’ve done. They’ll tell everyone.”

“
And everyone will believe
that they are mad,” he responded dismissively.

“
What if they don’t? What
if … what if they’re believed? You’ll have news people swarming all
over you! You have no idea what that’s like. I have no idea, but
I’ve seen it.”

“
It matters not,” he said
indifferently. “If they annoy me I will … make them regret it,” he
finished at the look she gave him.

“
But what about
me?”

“
If they annoy you,
Moonflower, you need only say so and I will make them regret that
also.”

Gaby shuddered, wondering exactly what
he was capable of.

“
Pretty much
anything.”

“
You read my mind!” she
exclaimed, aghast, realizing finally that he had seemed to know
what she was thinking several times before.

“
It is a beautiful mind,”
he said caressingly.

“
Well! You weren’t invited
in, damn it!” She shoved at him. Finally, with a great show of
reluctance, he released her.

“
You are damnably
difficult to please!” he muttered irritably.

“
I am impossible to
please!” Gaby snapped. “And now that you’ve figured that out, go
away!”

Liar! Anka whispered inside her mind,
giving her a look that made her redden and long to slap his face.
He folded his arms over his chest, studying her with a mixture of
annoyance and amusement. “I cannot help but notice that you do not
seem properly appreciative of the honor I have offered to bestow
upon you.”

“
Don’t start with that
procreation thing again! Yes, I am deeply honored, of course, but I
can’t. You’ll have to find someone else to bestow the honors
on.”

“
I chose you,” he
responded implacably.

“
And I’m flattered,” Gaby
said testily. “But I’m also sterile, so you’ll have to look
elsewhere.”

“
You are not.”

“
Not what?”

“
Sterile.”

“
The doctors said ….” She
stopped, abruptly remembering he’d told her that night in the
temple that he would give her what she believed she couldn’t have.
But he couldn’t mean that! Even supposing he could do such a thing,
how would he have known how desperately she had wanted it when she
had so determinedly ignored the desire to have a child of her
own?

Unless he’d been inside her mind
before? “You’re telling me that dream I had was real?”

“
You know it was not a
dream.”

Gaby stared at him, but she simply
couldn’t credit what he was telling her. Whatever he was—and she
still wasn’t entirely convinced that he wasn’t a ghost, whatever he
said to the contrary, maybe believed himself—he was just a little
bit off his rocker. “My head hurts,” she said plaintively. “I don’t
understand any of this and I’m not sure I want to. Just … go away,
please.”

His lips tightened, but after a moment
he shrugged and turned to survey the group in the corner
thoughtfully. He stalked across the room toward them purposefully.
His body simply faded halfway there and in his place was a thin
stream of dancing blue light. It moved toward them, passed through
them one by one and finally vanished altogether.

Her assistant, Paul, was the first to
recover. Looking thoroughly confused, he glanced at the people
huddled around him and shifted away from them. Everyone else,
looking equally dazed and befuddled, straightened, looked curiously
at the person next them and finally crossed the room to where she
was waiting.

They didn’t remember what had
happened, Gaby realized after studying their expressions for
several moments. She was sure that was a good thing, and yet, at
the same time, it brought new doubts to the surface, made her
wonder if she’d imagined everything that had just
happened.

Clearing her throat uncomfortably, she
returned her attention to her work and began to carefully remove
the cloths that had been soaked in something to help protect the
remains. The body beneath was amazingly well preserved and still
horribly desiccated because she could see the body was his, the
beautiful shell that had once housed the spirit that seemed
determined to plague the life out of her.

She felt like weeping. She’d known she
would. In all the years that she had studied bones, they had been
nothing more than bones. She’d never met, never known the life
force that had made them a human being. That part of them had been
long gone before they came to her, allowing a detachment she’d
never considered callous.

How did she even know that Anka had
ever looked as he appeared to her, she chastised
herself?

If her own perceptions were to be
believed, he’d taken control of the man who’d been in her apartment
the night before. Maybe what he said was true and he wasn’t a
spirit at all? Had never had a body? And these remains, this body
that made her feel as if she’d lost someone important was only some
primitive man he’d chosen to house him for whatever
reason?

Which was harder to believe, she
wondered? Ghosts? Or some being not human but dwelling among
humans? Using them … for what? To amuse themselves? Because they
liked playing god?

And was he the only one? Or was he
from a race of beings that had become deified because they were
capable of things no human was capable of?