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Book 4: Time Walker
Part 1b
Chapter 9 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tabatha watched while Lisa sat on the floor with Ethan. At the ripe old age of four, Lisa was only a year older than Tabatha’s son. But she wasn’t the same species. The vampire species evidently matured, at least physically, at around five years of age. Lisa looked (and acted) like a bratty fifteen-year-old girl.

Tabatha had figured out how to get Béla’s daughter to behave while she babysat her. She’d bring Ethan with her and just let Lisa take care of him. Lisa loved little Ethan like he was her favorite doll or something. Right now, Lisa was mind-linked with Ethan, teaching him numbers.

There was a sound upstairs. Tabatha cast out with her mind.

‘Béla? Is that you?’

‘Yes! Keep the kids downstairs!’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I have Tanya with me. She's been hurt!’

‘I’m coming up!’

“Lisa,” Tabatha said, trying to remain calm. “Watch Ethan for me, will you? Guard him. I’ll be back in a minute.”

‘You think I can’t hear you two talk? Mom’s not that good at focusing her thoughts…’

‘Stay here with Ethan. Please?’

Lisa paused.

‘Please? I worry about him.’

‘Okay,’ Lisa thought into Tabatha’s mind, putting a lot of sullen attitude into that simple thought.

Tabatha closed her eyes and vanished, teleporting directly to Jake and Béla’s bedroom instead of taking the time to run her body up the staircase. Holding her body in the teleportation zone for a second, she quickly scanned the room to make sure she didn’t materialize where Béla or Tanya might be. Then she was there.

“Holy K-rap! What happened to her?” Tabatha whispered, staring down at Tanya.

Tanya was lying naked on the bed. There was dried blood between her legs and a partially healed gash in the top of her shoulder right next to her neck. The image appeared directly from Tanya’s subconscious mind of what had made it. Tanya seemed to think the rod was still in there.

“How did it change direction like that?” Tabatha asked, looking at the image in Tanya’s unconscious mind and at the damage inside her body.

“I changed it,” Béla told her. “It would’ve gone right up through her neck and out the top of her head, otherwise. It happened so fast that she didn’t even realize she was being killed. I’m making some changes in her anatomy so that if something like this happens again and I’m not around, it won’t kill her.”

“What kind of changes?” Tabatha wanted to know.

“Well, the main change I’m making is in that big artery that goes up the center of her body. When that gets sliced open, you can die rather quickly. Tanya’s managed to damage hers twice, now. I’m ‘rerouting’ her a little bit so it won’t happen again.”

“What a way to go,” Tabatha mused. “She seems to be healing all right. I’d better get back downstairs to the kids before I start thinking of trying that skewer-bot thing myself.”

She went down the staircase taking the steps two at a time. Lisa looked up and watched her come down.

Tabatha stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

‘What! I didn’t do anything!’ Lisa broadcast at her.

“I didn’t say you did,” Tabatha replied, out loud. Silently, she added, ‘I know you snooped. It’s okay.’

“I know why she did it,” Lisa said, cryptically.

“Why who did what?” Tabatha asked, momentarily confused.

“Tanya,” Lisa clarified. “She wanted that thing between her legs.”

‘Whoa! She's growing up way too fast!’ Tabatha realized, fearfully astonished.

“Ooo-kay,” Tabatha replied carefully. “Do you have any questions about that?”

‘That’s not fair! I shouldn’t have to instruct Béla’s child about sex!’ she thought to herself. ‘Christ! She's only four!’

Feeling relieved, she watched Lisa shake her head. Then she was suddenly more anxious that before when she heard Lisa’s thoughts.

‘I usually skewer myself on the bedpost. It doesn’t go as deep as what Tanya was humping, but it’s safer…’

Tabatha stared wide-eyed at Lisa. Lisa was looking at her with absolutely no expression on her face at all. Surprisingly, Tabatha realized that her own numbed mind wasn’t broadcasting right now, either.

Béla’s appearance at the top of the stairs seemed to cause time to start moving again.

“Well, Tanya’ll be fine by tomorrow night,” Béla said as she came down the stairs. “I teleported her home to her own bed. She’ll rest more comfortably there.

“Thanks for coming over. I owe you one,” she grinned at Tabatha, not seeming to notice her friend’s numbed state of mind.

“Uh, sure, no problem,” Tabatha said, her body suddenly working again.

She picked up Ethan and started for the door.

“I want to stay,” Ethan told her. “We aren’t done yet.”

“We have to go now,” Tabatha told him. “Daddy’s waiting for us.”

Ethan started to protest, then Tabatha heard Lisa in her mind, talking to Ethan in his head.

‘Go ahead, sweetie. Go with your Mommy. I’ll see you again.’

“Thanks,” Tabatha told her, surprised that Lisa’s surly teenage attitude was suddenly so civil.

Béla hugged her goodbye and kissed her on the cheek. As Tabatha turned away, Lisa was suddenly there, hugging her, too. She kissed Tabatha directly on the mouth and broadcast an image of them naked together into her mind. Tabatha felt her body respond strongly.

‘Don’t do that!’ Tabatha admonished her, shocked. ‘Your Mom will notice!’

‘She won’t notice; we’re shielded. I remember you! I think about you when I’m in my room…’

Then she was gone back into the room with her mom, leaving Tabatha on the walkway by herself, holding Ethan. As she rode it down the street toward the bus stop, she tried to understand what had happened in the last few minutes.

‘What does she mean, ‘She remembers me’? Were we lovers or something in a past life? Jeez, she gives me the willies sometimes.’

The bus landed with an exuberant blast of heated air and flying grit, and extended its vacant seats. She sat down on one and strapped herself and Nathan in. Then the bus retracted its seats and blasted into the air toward the next stop. Three mores stops and a short ride on the walkway brought her home.

As she walked in the door, Jake, her husband greeted her, grinned at Ethan and lifted him out of her arms.

“I’m glad you’re home,” he said, kissing her lightly on the lips. “We have company.”

She followed her husband into the greeting room. She recognized her mother-in-law, and…

‘Who are you? You look familiar…’

“I know you,” Tabatha said, feeling a little confused and suddenly dizzy.

A name came into her mind from more than a thousand years ago.

“Jackie?” Tabatha asked, not understanding why her eyes were tearing.

“You’re right, Mom,” Jackie said to Alicia. “It is her.”

Jackie and Tabatha hugged each other.

“I’m glad you’re back,” Jackie told her. “I really missed you.”

“Me, too,” Tabatha lied.

‘How can I tell her I barely remember her name?’ thought Tabatha. ‘Were we close once? My mind’s not working right – too many confusing images…’

Frank Junior came into the room from the kitchen.

“You guys don’t have much to eat in there,” he exclaimed. Then he said “Hi, Bug, how ya been?”

“Fine, Frankfurter,” Tabatha said automatically.

She looked around the room, surprised that the whole family was here.

“What’re you guys all doing here?” she asked, animatedly. “Not that I’m not glad to see you… I’m just… surprised! Are we having a family forum or something? D… Gramps should be here.”

‘How did I know that?’

“I am,” Frank said cheerfully, following his son into the room from the kitchen.

“Well, I guess I should order some…” Tabatha began.

“It’s okay,” her husband said. “I made reservations. We have the Troubadour Room all to ourselves tonight.”

Tabatha blinked several times, trying to wrap her mind around an impromptu Tabor family reunion.

‘What could be that important? Usually these things are planned months in advance. Everyone here is at least the head of one corporation – that is, except for me and Hot Dog…’

“Aren’t we going to wait for Mom?” Alicia asked as everyone prepared to leave.

“No, sweetheart, we’re not,” explained Frank. “She had a bit of an accident at the some convention this afternoon, and she’s resting at home.”

“Really?” Frank Junior said. “What could hurt Mom? She's, like, invincible!”

“Well,” Frank grinned helplessly, “She met her match, today…”

He didn’t explain it any further than that. It was, he decided, none of the kids’ damned business.

Dinner was lobster, filet mignon, and a very tender butterflied flank with baked potato shells filled with whipped potato and cream, chives and soft bits of flavored pork – not bacon, the maitre-de insisted as Tabatha displayed her lack of high-class table manners. In addition, there was creamed corn, creamed spinach, and green beans with thin slices of tasty little nuts that Tabatha had never seen before. There were other things she didn’t recognize and she didn’t try them.

Surprisingly, there was no bread. Tabatha almost asked for some garlic toast to go with her lobster, but decided it would somehow be improper.

“I ate too much,” Tabatha groaned after the plates were taken away.

She sat with her odd family as they sipped red or white wine, depending on whether they had lobster or steak. To play it safe, she drank water. The lemon ruined it, but she drank it anyway, and tried not to grimace.

She wasn’t about to try that jiggly, sweet-smelling thing in the middle of the table. The last time she was with her husband at some high-class event and she tried something that looked like that, it tasted like the most god-awful creamed liver and she impulsively spit it out. She was still embarrassed about that, and much more careful about what she put in her mouth in public, now.

She saw her husband motion to one of the men standing around each entrance to the Troubadour Room. She recognized Jake’s personal bodyguard from Tomlin Security, but had no idea who the others were.

‘Everyone here probably has his or her own bodyguard. Jeez! I wonder how Ethan’s doing. I suppose it would be improper to teleport home to see…’

The man to whom Jake had signaled finished his casual walk around the room. He had something hidden in the palm of his hand that Tabatha couldn’t see. She was pretty sure that it was some sort of electronic detection device to snoop out bugs. She’d used them herself on occasion.

The man came over and whispered in Jake’s ear. Jake nodded to Frank.

“Well, it’s good to see all of you again,” Frank said, addressing his son, Alicia and the two children of Alicia’s that were present.

“This is the first time that we’ve included you and your wife, Jake, and you, Jackie, in one of our family get-togethers,” he grinned. “I’m sorry Tanya couldn’t make it, but she’ll see you all tomorrow, I hope.”

He smiled and closed his eyes, concentrating on the form of the single other invited person who hadn’t arrived yet.

‘Béla, are you coming?’ he thought as hard as he could.

He wasn’t much of a telepath. His abilities were pretty much limited to how much amperage the person he was trying to contact could generate. Béla was at the top of that list.

Suddenly she was standing there next to Frank. She sat down in the empty chair that Tanya would have been sitting in if she were there.

“Sorry I’m late,” Béla apologized. “My daughter had some trouble going to sleep.”

She looked around at the group seated around the table.

‘Why is she looking at me like that?’ Tabatha thought, self-conscious and feeling a little paranoid. ‘I didn’t do anything…’

“Well, I guess everyone who’s going to be here is here, now,” Frank announced.

He was, of course, referring to the absence of his wife and his youngest daughter, Katie, whom several at this table believed had popped back into their lives as Tabatha.

Frank recognized that Tabatha had a few of Katie’s mannerisms, and her eyes were very much like those of his lost daughter’s, but he was much more comfortable thinking of her as Tabatha and not as his dead daughter come back to life in another body. Aside from the fact that they were both female, they didn’t look much alike. And Katie hadn’t had that ‘oh-so-friendly’ Aussie accent. She had been much brattier at Tabatha’s age. Frank smiled to himself as he remembered.

‘At least thinking about her doesn’t make me tear up, anymore,’ he realized.

That had happened when he realized that Tabatha probably was Katie, after all.

“So, what’s the ‘big’, Dad?” Frank Junior asked.

“Well, that’s for your sister to tell us,” Frank said, giving the floor to his remaining daughter, Alicia.

“Okay, here is what I want to discuss,” Alicia told them. “My nephew Jake got married and his wife… pardon me for talking about you in the third person, Tabatha. His wife was initiated into the family shortly afterward. There wasn’t even a family forum called to decide on it.”

She stopped and looked around at her family members.

“May I answer that?” Béla spoke up.

Alicia nodded.

“Tabatha is a very special woman whom I personally took under my protection,” Béla explained. “She has mental abilities that should be preserved. She is the only member of your species who can walk through time. I didn’t initiate her into ‘your’ family. I initiated her into mine! She just happens to be married to your son.”

‘I can time travel?’ Tabatha thought to herself, surprised. ‘I wonder how far…’

‘You promised!’ Béla thundered into her mind. ‘This entire family exists today because you time-walked! Don’t go back and mess this up! My favorite sister died time-walking from the future to get this information to me!’

“I understand your point,” Alicia said, unaware of the private mental conversation between Tabatha and Béla. “I have a point to make, too.

“Béla wasn’t here when I first got married,” Alicia continued. “Jackie’s stepfather, Andy Burke, died almost fifty years ago. There was nothing I could do to prevent that. Jake’s stepfather, Ethan, died six years ago. I couldn’t prevent that, either. I loved both of those men very much, and it was hard to let them go.”

Alicia looked pale, almost unhealthy. She was, after all, almost ninety-two, but, like the rest of her family, she looked twenty. Her physiology was stabilized at that age. She, like the rest of them, would live several hundred more years before they began to age. But right now, that didn’t stop her from feeling old.

“Please, Jackie,” Alicia said, her voice unsteady.

She sat down. Everyone looked at Alicia’s first-born as Jacqueline Burke stood up.

“There is a problem,” Jackie began. “I don’t know exactly how to address it, and there doesn’t seem to be a solution. But I’ll try to explain it as best I can.

“Mankind, as we know it, is going to become extinct,” she said, sounding more dramatic than she intended. “The scientists at Camden Research have all reached the same conclusion. The sun is going to burn mankind off this planet in less than two hundred years. There will be no survivors except for our own descendants because of our family’s regenerative abilities, which we owe to Béla.

“Already, the Normals are being to feel the effects,” Jackie continued. “Strange new cancers are suddenly appearing. The increased radiation from the sun has already sterilized a considerable percentage of the population. In a hundred years, we estimate that there will be no new births at all.

“The Northern Lights – you’ve all seen them – will soon cover the entire night sky, from pole to pole in only a few more years. They will be visible even at the equator. But by then, there will be no one at the equator to look at them. The radiation there will be too intense to support life. Human life, I mean.”

“Your turn, Mom,” Jackie said, sitting back down.

“Two years ago, when Jackie told me about this,” Alicia began, “I started looking around for a hole for humanity to hide in until the sun returns to normal. I found a pretty good one. Illegally using my husband’s resources and funds, I purchased an abandoned underground air base that was built in Colorado back in 2026.

“For the last two years, Solaris Construction has been cleaning out the facility and putting in modern housing. Solar collectors on the surface will supply the power for the city they’re building. I’ve also arranged to begin stockpiling tons of canned goods and the best hybrid grains that are resistant to radiation and drought when it is closer to the time to go underground.

“But, according to our calculations, what I’ve done won’t be enough. We can’t stockpile enough food and grain to feed enough people to restart the race when the sun settles down. We won’t last more than a hundred years underground before we all starve.”

“You called us here to tell us that?” Frank asked. “What do you expect us to do?”

“Dad, I don’t expect us to do anything,” Alicia admitted. “From our conversations, I understand that there are off-planet resources available. I was hoping Béla would help.”

“Then why didn’t you just ask Béla?” Frank asked, not understanding.

“Because,” Alicia said, her voice a little uneven and her eyes shining with unshed tears, “part of what I need Béla’s help for needs to be discussed with you – my family.

“My… husband… has one of these new cancers that Jackie talked about. He won’t live more than a few months. His body monitor caught it early – early enough for a normal cancer – but this one just ignores all the modern treatments.

“He’s dying, Dad,” Alicia cried, forcing her voice to stay as steady as she could make it. “And I’m tired of my men dying!

Unable to remain standing, Alicia sat down again.

“I don’t want to lose another husband,” she said, her voice almost normal. “I was hoping that… that he could become a member of our family. If he agrees, of course.”

“Have you talked to him about us?” Frank asked.

Alicia shook her head.

“He doesn’t know anything about us,” she told him. “I came to you first.”

“What happens if you tell him about us and he decides not to join,” Frank surmised, “or even worse, what if he thinks we’re dangerous?”

“I… I don’t know,” Alicia said. “I simply don’t know.”

She sat and stared at a crumb on the table, not even realizing she was doing that.

‘I never thought I’d see the day when Alicia didn’t know what to do,’ Frank thought to himself, emotionally distraught for the second time that day. ‘My daughter’s been broken. And I don’t know how to fix her…’

‘I can fix her,’ Frank heard Béla’s voice in his head. ‘Let her stay with me tonight…’

“I think, on this note,” Frank announced, “we’ll adjourn ’til tomorrow after breakfast. Alicia, I want you to stay with Béla. The rest of you work out your own sleeping arrangements. The townhouse Tanya and I have here in Boston is a lot smaller than the one we had in Bozeman, so don’t everybody think of crashing there.”

He got up from the table. Everybody else stood up, too. Tabatha stood up with the others. She felt strangely numb. She couldn’t even begin to grasp the idea of a scorched planet with no people on it. It was just too horrible to be believed.

Chapter 10 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Where have you been?” Jake yelled as his wife and Alicia walked through the front door.

“Well, I love you, too,” Béla admonished him.

“Don’t give me that!” Jake exclaimed. “I just now came home and I heard a shot upstairs! I ran up and Lisa was…”

He suddenly noticed that Alicia was standing there, looking very interested in what he was saying. He decided to go non-verbal, letting Béla see what was in his mind.

He raced upstairs and burst into Lisa’s room. His daughter was naked, curled up on the bed and fiercely holding her stomach. She was groaning, shaking and bleeding between her legs. There was no gun there, but he could smell that unmistakable smoke. Lisa snarled at him and mentally shoved him out of her room. The door slammed in his face. She was evidently holding it closed with her mind, as he couldn’t get open again.

He realized that Lisa had probably teleported the gun out of the room when she heard him bounding up the stairs. He went down to check his rifle. It was still there, but it was hot and the end of the barrel was wet. Some of the wetness was fresh blood. It hadn’t even begun to clot, yet.

He let Béla know what the end of the barrel smelled like, in addition to the gunpowder.

“I needed you and you weren’t here!” Jake whined. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. All day! Where have you been?”

“Ah, there are two emergencies, then?” Béla asked politely, raising her eyebrows.

She was surprised, but not too concerned, that her daughter shot herself between her legs. Despite the fact that Lisa didn’t remember much about being Beth, she was still the same person. She just thought of herself as Lisa, now. She would, naturally, have similar drives and desires.

But, Jake had been searching madly for her before his discovery of Lisa’s little sin.

He looked at her now, not understanding her question.

“Why were you looking for me?” Béla asked, simplifying it for his human mind.

Jake glanced at Alicia. He formed his misadventure with Foxy in his mind, then showed it to Béla.

“Oh, god!” Béla said, disgusted.

She closed her eyes for a moment. She opened them again and looked at her husband.

‘He’s really worried about her…’

“The fair’s still going, but she's not there right now,” Béla said, trying to comfort him. “I’ll check again in the morning. If she’s there, I’ll bring her here. No one should be treated like that!”

“Well, you two seem to be getting along really well,” Alicia said, now that everyone was back on a verbal level.

She’d heard that Béla was telepathic, but it was really annoying to not be able to hear a conversation that was occurring right in front of you.

“I apologize,” Béla said, picking up her thought. “It was simply too private. I’ll try not to let it happen again.”

“So,” Alicia said, trying to start a conversation she could be a part of. “Am I to understand that your daughter is playing with guns? How old is she, now? Three? Four?”

“She's four – the same age as your own son,” Béla admitted, smiling at her guest, “but you’re in for a big surprise when you meet her.”

Jake sighed, feeling an odd relief and kissed his wife ‘hello’.

‘That’s more the greeting I was expecting, darling,’ Béla thought into his mind.

She radiated ‘calm’ at him. He was really distressed over how that strange girl with the sexy name was being treated. What was bothering him the most was what he had done to her. Béla let him see how he was hiding that from himself. After that little surprise, he seemed much more composed.

Their kiss only lasted five or six seconds. Alicia never even realized that, in that small amount of time, Béla had reached into Jake’s mind and helped him unravel his true feelings about Foxy.

Their kiss ended and Béla gazed into his eyes for a moment.

‘I understand why you feel that way about her. But I’m curious – What was it that made you want to take me under your wing?’

Jake grinned. He remembered only too well.

‘Your soul was hurting,’ he confessed to her. ‘You’d been alone too long. I made you happy again.’

‘Do you really think you can help this girl?’ Béla asked. ‘If we free her, she’ll simply find someone else to subjugate her. You showed me that you know this. Do you want to be the one who owns her?’

Jake blinked, surprised at what he almost admitted.

‘Well?’ she asked.

But Béla already knew. She saw it in the instant before he closed his mind to her. Then he connected with her again.

‘Yes! I want to own her!’ Jake silently admitted. ‘I want to protect her!’

‘Then I will find her for you, my love,’ Béla assured him. ‘But she won’t want your protection. She’ll only want to be your slave… And if you aren’t a harsh enough taskmaster, she’ll probably kill you for betraying her. I’ve been a slave and I know these things.’

“You’re doing it again,” Alicia complained quietly. “Can you at least point me to where I’m going to sleep?”

“No. Sorry,” Béla told her. “You’re going to sleep with me…”

There was a loud thump at the top of the stairs. Everyone looked up at the sound. Lisa was standing there in a nightgown looking furious.

“Mom!” she screeched. “Keep Dad out of my room!”

To emphasize her adolescent demand, she stomped her foot again and created a curtain of white fire around her. Then she vanished, along with the fire. They heard an angry, furious teenage screech from around the corner, then her door slammed shut, shaking the entire house.

They all stared, mouths open wide, at where Lisa had been standing at the top of the stairs.

‘Praetor! Explain what just happened!’ Béla demanded in her mind.

‘Processing. Please wait. I have a possible hypothesis. It concerns the hypothetical nuclear destruction of Albuquerque. Are you…’

‘Continue!’

The Praetor was still obviously upset about Béla pulling rank and forcing it to upgrade its historical knowledge so that it matched the data stored in the Praetor database in New Eden.

‘As you command, Carte Blanch. According to the data, which I supposedly transmitted to New Eden, the following incidents occurred:

‘The princess Beth, with the help of her companion, Katie, returned to the time of the nuclear blast and somehow moved the source of the explosion into the teleportation zone, which exists outside of the physical universe.

‘The teleportation zone contains no lateral space, but exists everywhere at the same time. It does, however, contain length. It stretches forward and backward through time.

‘Katie escaped annihilation by fleeing backwards through time. Forward motion is more difficult, as it is always necessary to visualize an exit point. Since no future exit points exist in the present, there are no records of forward motion in time having been accomplished.’

‘Get to the point, please! I have a guest!’

‘The princess Beth also attempted to flee the explosion by jumping into the teleportation zone. The nuclear source of the explosion, which she herself had placed in the teleportation zone, was behind her in time. She couldn’t flee backward. She didn’t know how to go forward. Her body was vaporized. She somehow managed to contain the forward moving part of the blast with her mind, but the force of the blast cast her lifeforce back out of the teleportation zone.’

Béla suddenly remembered!

The eerie glow on the horizon! The fiery ball of terror that attacked her and set fire to the living room in Jake’s cabin!

‘That was Beth! Horribly dead, terrified and desperately seeking me for help!’

“Béla?” Alicia asked, concerned. “Are you all right?”

“She's still carrying that thing in her head!” Béla exclaimed out loud.

‘That seems to be correct,’ the Praetor responded.

‘That would explain why she kept her mind shielded for so long after she was born.’ Béla thought as understanding flooding through her. ‘She was protecting the rest of us. What if she loses control of it?’

‘Then several square miles of Boston would cease to exist. But she seems to be handling it very well.’

“What thing? Whose head?” Alicia and Jake both asked, not understanding or even hearing the conversation that Béla was having with her Praetor.

“The Second Phoenix… The Fire Bird!” Béla murmured as the revelation opened up in her mind. “I understand now.”

“What are you talking about?” Jake wanted to know.

“Was that Lisa?” Alicia asked. “How’d she get so big?”

“What?” Béla asked, confused.

There were too many things happening around her. She needed time to reflect – time to reach a better understanding…

“Oh,” Béla murmured, her eyes focusing on Alicia.

‘I have to help Alicia first. She thinks she knows about the sun. She hasn’t even begun to comprehend what’s really going to happen. Concentrate! Focus! Take one thing at a time! Forget about the rest until you get to it and everything will work itself out!’

Alicia relaxed as she noticed Béla seem to come out of her trance. At least, she looked more cognizant.

“Yes,” Béla said. “That, was Lisa. She looks human like me. But, also like me, she’s a hybrid.”

“Yeah,” Jake added, grinning. “Her species grows up in five years, then they live for another thousand.”

“Such a deal!” exclaimed Alicia. “Where do I sign up?”

“You’re getting your thousand years,” Béla informed her haughtily. “And you’re already grown up!”

Then she smiled, letting her know that she wasn’t serious.

“Did you grow up in five years?” Alicia wanted to know.

This was an area of knowledge that Alicia was completely ignorant about – Alien physiology.

Béla smiled, looking a little sad. “No, Actually, I believe I was the first of my kind. I was born as an adult, in a vat in my father’s laboratory.”

“There’s still another alien species involved?” Alicia asked, surprised by Béla’s forthright answers.

Béla grinned at her. “We need a serious session together. I will put to rest all your questions. Then together, we will come to an understanding of how you can help some of the humans survive the coming holocaust. You’ve already made a fine beginning.”

“You’re going to sleep with her tonight?” Jake asked, disbelieving that his wife would choose his old lover over him.

‘Especially a selfish bitch like Alicia!’ Jake silently informed her.

Béla looked at him, fed up with his indecisive whining. The world around Jake vanished. He cried out in terror. Then he was standing in the desert looking at the setting sun. He looked around, surprised that he knew where he was.

‘This is where we fell in love,’ he realized.

Suddenly startled, he jumped as his camping equipment materialized and dropped to the ground next to him. Then he heard Béla in his mind.

‘This will give you solitude and the time you need to reflect on what you’re going to do with your Foxy when I bring her to you. Goodnight, my love. I’ll miss you terribly…’

Jake sank to his knees, stunned by her words and the memories they evoked.

How many times in the last hundred years had he stood here, in this very spot, longing for her touch – wishing she were still alive and they were together.

How many times had she come to him in his dreams, only to part with him again with those heart-rending words – ‘Goodnight, my love. I miss you terribly…’

His anguished memories of those terrible years separated from her flooded over him. He sank to his knees and sobbed, realizing the hurt he had done to her tonight. It was hours before he moved to set up his tent.

Chapter 11 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tabatha quietly closed the door to Ethan’s bedroom and turned around.

“Thanks, Cathy,” she said to the girl who’d sat for Ethan tonight.

The teenaged girl facing her smiled and held out her credit pad. Grinning, remembering her own babysitting adventures of a dozen years ago, Tabatha punched in her code.

‘It’s a lot easier to get paid, now,’ she thought as she and Cathy walked toward the door.

“What?” Cathy said, noticing the smile on her employer’s face.

“Oh, I was just remembering a time when I was babysitting,” Tabatha replied. “The father tried to pay me with the ugliest little green statue off his bookshelf ’cause he’d been robbed and didn’t have any money. I flat-out refused and stormed out of the house. I brought my uncle back with me the next day and he made the guy pay me what he owed me.”

“Is that it?” Cathy asked, beginning to feel annoyed that she had to listen to such a pointless tale.

“No, actually,” Tabatha told the girl. “I found out later that the statue was Jade. It was worth a lot more than what I settled for.”

“That’s…” Cathy thought for a moment, trying to be polite. “Cute. Goodnight, Mrs. Hedron.”

‘Yawn!’ Cathy thought to herself as she trotted down the steps. A small sports flitter magically appeared above her and landed. She hopped in.

“Hi, Davie,” Tabatha heard her say cheerfully.

Then the little Astro blasted noisily into the night sky, totally oblivious to the speed limit.

Tabatha turned and went back inside. The door closed and the alarms set automatically as she walked by.

Her husband, Jake, was in the bedroom. She walked in and watched him as he prepared for bed.

“What is it, darling?” Jake asked, hearing her sigh.

He looked at her. She was beautiful, as always. Her face looked…

‘Unanimated,’ he decided was the best way to describe it. ‘Numb.’

“Listen, sweetheart,” he said, trying to help her deal with the night’s events, “I didn’t know about any of this, either. It’s as much a shock to me as it is to you.”

He pulled off a sock and threw it toward the closet. The clothes hamper reached out quietly and grabbed it off the floor.

“Come ’ere,” he said, patting the bed beside him.

Tabatha walked her body over and sat it down next to him. He began unlacing the back of her gown.

“You know,” he began, “I have the greatest grandfather in the world. If there’s anything that can be done – he’ll figure it out. And then the rest of us will wonder how we missed such a simple solution.”

He smiled at her and touched her cheek. Tabatha smiled gently and turned toward him.

“I suppose you’re right,” she admitted. “It’s interesting to notice how young he looks yet how old he seems when I talk to him.

“Do you know what happened when Béla initiated me?” she asked, seeming to change the subject completely.

Caught off guard, Jake could only blink. He looked at her, waiting.

“Béla cut her wrist, and made me lick the blood off,” Tabatha told him. “It was such an incredible turn-on. Every cell in my body began tingling!”

She sat for a moment, silent under her husband’s quiet gaze.

“After Frank… Junior, I mean, left the room with Ethan, Béla and I… well, we made love,” Tabatha confessed. “She made me feel so wonderful that I couldn’t stop myself. It was rough, and violent. I felt this sensual – need – to test out my new body.

“Béla encouraged it, I think,” she continued. “She bit me on my breasts and neck. It hurt at first. She drew blood. Then it felt so fantastic that I started biting her. I tore into her neck like one of those vampires in an underground Tri-d. Then we wrestled on the bed, humping each other and sucking each other’s blood. Then she let me into her mind, let me share her sensations like I let you share mine, only I could see images, too.

“Her home is on another world, Jake,” she told him, becoming more animated, now. “There are already humans from earth populating that place. She's here, with… your father… She stays because she loves him. But she’s terribly homesick. She hides it from herself pretty well, but I saw it.

“There’s a ship coming for her in a few more years,” she continued. “Béla plans to take us all with her and abandon earth. I never understood why until now. She managed to hide that from me when our minds were merged together.”

“That’s amazing,” Jake said, dumbfounded. “So, I guess we don’t have to worry about what’s going to happen here. Béla’s already solved the problem of mankind’s continuation.”

“You don’t mind leaving Earth?” Tabatha asked, astounded by his complacence.

“No,” admitted Jake. “I can live anywhere, so long as I’m with you.”

He said it very simply, not intending to put any special romantic meaning into it. It was simply a fact.

Tabatha smiled. She could see in his mind that what he said was true. She realized she felt the same. But…

“I love Earth, Jake,” she said softly. “In my five years of working at OCI, I traveled all over the world. I was kind’ve… looking forward to spending a few hundred years discovering how many beautiful, romantic, exotic places you and I could make love in. I don’t imagine that will happen, now.”

“Sweetheart, I’m sure there are beautiful, romantic and exotic places on Béla’s home world, too.”

He smiled at her, trying to cheer her up.

“Home world?” Tabatha asked, surprised. “No. She doesn’t know where her home world is, or even the name of her species. The place she wants to take us to is just a really big space station out by Jupiter somewhere. Inside, it’s the same all over – mostly farmland and small communities. Béla’s homesick for her sisters and the alien being she thinks of as her father.

“Also, she revered as a goddess there,” she added as an afterthought. “It’s like she’s their queen or something… She misses that too, but she’d never confess to it.”

“Queen Béla, huh?” Jake asked, amused. “Well, she is special. If it weren’t for her, our entire family probably wouldn’t even exist. If Gramps somehow met Grams, anyway, they would be old and gray by now.”

“My parents are dead,” Tabatha admitted. “I don’t even remember them. I don’t remember a single event – a birthday, a holiday – anything we did together as a family. It’s like nothing happened before they died.

“It’s really weird, suddenly having a huge family around me after being raised by just my uncle,” she continued. “But I like it. It feels… normal.”

She smiled and pulled him down on the bed, landing softly next to him.

“I guess wherever we go,” she whispered, “we’ll go together.”

She kissed him and pulled herself up alongside him so the lengths of their bodies were touching.

‘Would you like to see what making love to Béla is like?’ she asked softly in his mind. ‘She showed me how to project images, too.’

“You tore her neck open like that?” Jake asked, suddenly seeing Tabatha and Béla wrapped around each other, sucking on each other’s jugular.

“She did to me, too,” Tabatha admitted. “It felt wonderful, exchanging our body fluids like that. It’s been a long time since I had a blood-sister.”

“Tabatha,” Jake began…

“Cat,” Tabatha said quietly.

“What?” Jake asked.

“She used to call me ‘Cat’,” Tabatha said, clarifying herself. “My first blood-sister, I mean.”

“Where is she now?” Jake asked, interested in finding out something new about his still mysterious wife.

“She… died,” Tabatha told him.

“I’m sorry,” Jake said softly.

Tabatha smiled. It was a sad smile. “I blocked her death out for years. I only remembered it again after the raid on those South American drug runners. She was the only person I ever allowed to give me that nickname.”

“Cat?” Jake asked.

Tabatha nodded.

“I loved it. I felt like it was my real name,” Tabatha explained. “My secret name.”

“You loved her, too,” Jake said, “I would be able to see that, even if we weren’t mind-linked.”

“Oh, yes! Mind-linked!” Tabatha said, suddenly brightening up. “I was going to show you what vampire sex is like while we make love.”

“You’re not going to bite my neck, are you?” Jake asked, trying not to show any fear of his own wife.

“No, silly,” she grinned. “I’ll just let you wallow in my lesbian images of humping against Béla’s leg while we sucked each other’s blood. And while you’re getting your perverted little rocks off, I’m going to impale myself on your beautiful cock and ride you to heaven…”

‘Anywhere I can go to escape this terrible calamity…’

“Sounds wonderful,” Jake grinned back at her. “Just don’t flood me with those images so heavily that I can’t watch you take that magnificent ride…”

She rolled over on him and began kissing and licking his chest and neck. Somehow, her gown came off. She merged her mind with his, always surprised at how her taut, but otherwise unremarkable body aroused him.

For the first time ever, she let him see the images that made up her thoughts, her mind, and made her who she was. He was shocked and saddened when he found Lorraine. He was terrified along with her as he watched the cable car plunge a thousand meters down into that Spanish canyon. He shared her fear, her fever, and her loneliness as she huddled against her dead parent’s bodies, shivering, trembling, and trying to keep warm, wondering fearfully what would become of her.

Tabatha gently guided him away from her heartbreaks and on to her ‘second’ awakening – her initiation and blood exchange with her new blood-sister, Béla.

‘Béla really is a vampire,’ Jake realized as he watched them exchanging their life-blood, joyfully sacrificing themselves to each other.

He could feel Tabatha’s body awaken to its immortality, suddenly feeling fresh and new again. He shared his wife’s astonishment at the new sensitivity her body was suddenly capable of, realizing his own body usually felt that way already. He was just so used to that state of ‘aliveness’ that it felt normal to him.

Her felt her joy at her first vampiric orgasm and her disappointment mixed with new loneliness when her initiation was finished and Béla’s thousand-year-old mind separated from hers.

Tabatha radiated her joy down through his body and mind as she sank down onto his cock. Jake could feel the stretching, the excitement, the penetration of letting him into her body – of sharing the center of her lust with him, the center of her body, and right now, the center of her universe.

He realized she was sharing her soul with him as she rode slowly up and down, her eyes closed, her body writhing gently against his hands holding onto her hips and waist. He could feel her deep desire for her onrushing orgasm to carry her away from all the troubles of the world that she’d learned about tonight.

As her orgasm approached, he sped up their gentle thrusting, trying to help her come, but she clamped down on him and locked her legs against his hips, preventing him from moving at all. She arched her back and pressed her clitoris against his pelvic bone. As the sensation of her orgasm increased, she pressed harder against him and began grinding her pelvis against his. She was so close to orgasm that the muscles in her pussy were actually fluttering.

He could feel in his mind that she needed more sensation in her breasts. She wanted them bitten, but, sitting on him, she was too far away. Jake reached up with his hands and began rolling her nipples in his fingers. She pressed her breasts harder against his hands, wanting him to maul them. He grabbed them and pressed his fingers in hard. Then she was crushing his hard dick with her cunt muscles and crying out, throwing her whole weight against his hands clenching her breasts. He could feel her squirting against his cock deep inside her – feel her mind as her orgasm swirled around, carrying her away.

As Tabatha relaxed, her juices began flowing down his dick and his balls, wetting the sheets beneath them.

Jake was so entranced with her performance that, when she moved slightly upward again, his cock sprang back to life, letting him know that it wasn’t finished yet. Feeling him in her mind, Tabatha realized it too, and began moving up and down on him, once again. It only took a moment for them both to realize that his cock, seeming to have a mind of its own, wasn’t going to be happy with anything less than another mind-rending orgasm.

In less than a minute, Tabatha came again. Then she collapsed, lying down on top of him. Jake realized she was exhausted, drenched inside and already completely satisfied. He rolled her off so that they were lying side by side with him still inside her. Moving one leg over her outside hip, he let her lie with her legs together while he slowly moved in and out, letting her rest, letting her almost fall asleep, letting her love flow over them both and carry them away.

After almost twenty minutes, he felt her pussy twitch as it began to respond to his gentle, but not insistent, movements. She moaned deep in her throat – a soft, quiet, sexy animal sound – and gently began to move her hips in rhythm with his.

Her mind was still open to him, but it wasn’t doing anything. There were no images, no verbal thoughts – just a wide expanse of clouds and a feeling of sated contentment. At the base of that contentment, he found himself. She had made him the center of her life. If he did anything to hurt her now, it would kill her.

Her vulnerability to him brought tears to his eyes. He wiped his face on her cheek and kissed her neck. The sticky feeling of their bodies lying together for so long was more arousing than annoying. He prayed that her body would never start to feel annoying to him.

Tabatha forced her arm under his rib cage so she could hug him closer to her. She smiled as the scent of their sex and their sweat assaulted her nostrils stronger than before, awakening her more. She kissed the edge of his eyes, his temple and his hair, wondering why her face was wet.

‘I must have come so hard I cried,’ she decided.

She hugged him closer, luxuriating in the wonderful way he was waking her up. She mind-linked with him again and suddenly realized that he was still in the last lovemaking session.

‘Good grief! I went to sleep on him!’ Tabatha realized, embarrassed.

She had never trusted anyone enough to go to sleep while they were still making love to her. Jake grinned, seeing her upset, feeling it in her mind.

‘Relax,’ he thought at her.

She smiled at him, hearing his thought, feeling his contentment with her that surrounded the word as it floated through her mind.

‘Where are we?’ she asked in his mind as she looked around.

They seemed to be floating in the air. The ground was a great distance away. The closest thing to them was the bed, turning slowly beneath them as the mattress and bed frame separated.

‘I don’t know,’ Jake admitted. ‘I found this place in your mind. It must be what you believe to be heaven.’

Tabatha looked around, suddenly realizing that the ground was above them, too. Startled, she started to pull away from Jake.

“What is it?” Jake asked, out loud. Then he opened his eyes. They were actually floating in air! It wasn’t just his imagination!

“What the hell!” he exclaimed.

They were surrounded by… Nothing!

His mind started racing, trying to determine what was happening. His hands, acting independently, held tightly onto Tabatha’s hips, making sure they didn’t float apart.

Tabatha stared at him, her mouth open in amazement. They were now at right angles to each other, but still connected where it counted the most. He was still buried deep inside her. Despite each one’s astonishment at where they found themselves floating and what was happening around them, each wanted to continue their lovemaking.

He was close to orgasm now. He pulled her hips harder against him as he spurted deep inside her. He felt her respond with a small orgasm of her own.

Their minds still connected, they began to float apart. As Jake looked around, feeling lost and bewildered, he realized that Tabatha didn’t feel the same.

‘You know where we are!’ he suddenly realized. Then he could see it in her mind. ‘This is Béla’s world!’

“How did we get here?” he asked, still astonished.

He looked more closely at his wife. She looked thinner – too thin.

“Have you lost weight?” he asked.

When they were making love, he’d thought her hips felt a little bony, but now, she seemed to be just skin and bones. And she was getting thinner as he watched.

She looked at him with pain in her eyes, the anguish of her starved body making itself known to her. She took a ragged breath, then her eyes closed and her head rolled back as she floated. Jake couldn’t feel her mind anymore.

‘She’s fainted,’ he realized.

Jake cried out suddenly as an enormous bird suddenly appeared right in front of him. Focusing his startled eyes, he found himself gazing at the naked body of an incredibly beautiful blond angel. Huge velvety wings, each at least three meters long extended from where her arms should have been.

A second later, another angel, this one with short-cropped dark hair, but just as stunningly and beautifully naked as the first, appeared. He could hear them talking to each other in his head.

‘I thought you said there were strangers dream-walking up here!’

‘They were, Elaine! They must have teleported here from Earth.’

‘They’re humans, Annalisa. Humans don’t teleport! Besides, there aren’t any humans left on Earth. They’re all dead!’

‘Maybe they’re from the mining colony on Io…’

“What?” Jake asked, stunned. “What do you mean, all dead? There are billions of people on Earth!”

He grimaced as he felt the blond angel sweep through his mind with hers. She stared at him, her eyes suddenly very wide.

“Do you know who this is?” she asked her sister, so surprised she said it out loud.

Elaine looked over at the unconscious, dark-haired, too-thin girl floating next to her. Images passed between the two angels too quickly for Jake to follow.

The other angel, evidently Annalisa, gasped.

“Then she must be…” Annalisa said out loud, remembering her history lessons from the Praetor, all those centuries ago.

‘The Time-walker!’

Chapter 12 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Frank arrived home by himself, pleased that Alicia’s daughter, Jackie, and his son, Frank Junior, had decided to stay at the Boston Ramada-Hilton, the same hotel that harbored the Troubadour Room where they’d all had dinner. The Troubadour Room boasted a fantastic breakfast buffet, and uncle and niece decided they wanted to try it.

Frank knew, of course, that they hadn’t imposed on him because of Tanya’s accident, even though he had refused to even discuss the accident with them.

“What are you doing up?” he asked, trying to sound angry with Tanya for not staying in bed until she was completely healed.

“I was hungry,” Tanya replied.

She sounded normal. When she moved, however, she still moved slowly, as she forced a tube of stiff scar tissue running up through her body to bend in the proper directions as she moved.

“Well, sit down and I’ll fix you something,” Frank said, noticing how painfully she was moving around the kitchen.

“I’d rather stand, if you don’t mind,” Tanya said, her voice a little weaker now that she had someone around who would sympathize with her.

She stood, leaning against a counter and watched him.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I was going to fix some eggs,” she told him. “They’re starting to get old and I wanted to use them up.”

“Eggs, it is!” Frank replied, thankful that she asked for something that he knew how to cook.

He broke the first yoke when he cracked it too deeply. He broke the second one, too, trying to move it around in the pan so that the white on top would get done without cooking the bottom too hard.

“Scrambled?” he asked.

He heard Tanya chuckle. It was pleasant hearing a happy sound coming from her.

“So, how’d the forum go?” she asked as he dumped the egg mess onto a plate for her.

She could tell he was terribly preoccupied with something. Whatever it was, it was bothering him a lot.

“Well, Alicia dropped a little bomb on us,” Frank said, not sure that he wanted to dump on Tanya while she was still in this weakened state. “It’s not important. I can tell you later.”

“Oh, okay,” Tanya said, sounding a little disappointed. “I thought some of Alicia’s clan might stay with us… Evidently they found somewhere else, huh?”

She took a bite of egg and swallowed it without paying much attention to it. After eating for a moment, she tried talking to Frank again.

“They’re staying somewhere else because of me?” she asked. It wasn’t really a question.

“They’re staying somewhere else because I asked them to,” Frank replied.

“What’s bothering you?” Tanya asked. “I don’t want to quarrel with you, but you’re acting really weird. Tell me what happened at the forum. Please?”

Frank took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

“You remember Jackie, I’m sure,” he said.

“Yes. Of course I do,” she responded, sounding a little curt. “A grandmother doesn’t forget her first grandchild. I know she was supposed to be there, too. Did something happen to her?”

“No,” Frank said, hesitating. “It’s what she said…”

He told her about the unpleasant discoveries that her researchers had uncovered. He also told her that Alicia wanted to bring her husband into the family. She wanted Béla to initiate him like she had her son’s wife, Tabatha.

“Well, that’s up to Béla, isn’t it?” Tanya asked. “Is that the reason she called the family forum?”

“Well, it was that and a lot of other stuff,” Frank said. “She's been using funds from one of her husband’s companies to bankroll an underground city so that some of us will survive. She's nearly bankrupted her husband and it’s only a matter of time before he finds out.

“I think that the real reason she wants to bring him into our family is so that he won’t confiscate everything she has to repay what she’s embezzled,” he declared.

“She's trying to help!” Tanya insisted. “We should support her for that.”

“Yes. Well,” he sighed. “I’m letting Béla handle it right now. We’re going to meet again tomorrow after breakfast.”

“Where?” Tanya asked. “Here?”

Frank laughed. “I forgot to tell them where!”

Tanya laughed, too. She looked at her plate.

“What wine goes with cold eggs?” she asked, trying to be humorous.

“Orange juice,” Frank replied without any hesitation. He got up and got her some. “Drink that, and let’s get you back to bed. I want you healed!”

“Part of me’s healed already,” Tanya said, taking the glass from him.

“Oh yeah? What part?” he asked. He looked at her when she didn’t answer.

She was gazing at him over the top of her glass as she downed her juice. She had that look in her eyes.

“Oh, no!” Frank exclaimed. “No sex until you’re ready!”

“I’m ready,” Tanya said, agreeably. “That part’s healed… and…

“Guess what grew back… again…” she grinned at him.

Forcing her body to move fluidly, she walked across the kitchen and, taking his face in both hands, kissed him delicately on his lips.

“It’s waiting…” she whispered.

Then she disengaged from him and walked out of the room, forcing her hips into a sexy sway as she walked. She was glad she was facing away from him so he couldn’t see her grimace and clench her teeth in pain at her sultry walk to the bedroom.

She got to the bedroom and put both her hands out, one on each side of the door as she passed through, using the sturdy doorframe to remain standing upright. Once through, she turned around and met her husband, face to face. She leaned on the doorframe with both hands, one on each side, breathing heavily and trembling in exhaustion from the short journey down the hallway.

She forced a smile onto her face and kissed Frank as he almost walked into her. She put her arms around him and let him walk her, backwards, to the bed while she leaned sexily against him. When she felt the bed against the back of her legs, she let go and sat down quickly.

The scar tissue inside her body felt like it was tearing loose or something. Tanya rolled over quickly so he wouldn’t see the tears that the incredible pain brought to her eyes.

Frank looked down at her for a moment, expecting her to slough off her nightgown while he got undressed. When she didn’t move again, he reached down and touched her arm. Her skin was cold and damp. Suddenly more concerned, he pulled her onto her back. She was unconscious.

He straightened back up and got undressed.

‘Little faker!’ He thought to himself, mildly amused. ‘She's more scared of worrying me than she is of hurting herself further.’

He actually was concerned that she may have hurt herself again. But with Béla’s blood in her veins, that would heal, too. He finished undressing and crawled into bed with her, curling his body protectively against hers as she lay, taking up the middle of the bed.

‘Her new-grown cherry can wait until morning,’ he thought to himself.

In moments, he was asleep.

Chapter 13 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The air around Jake’s face felt too cool. He kept his eyes closed, not wanting to wake Béla as she slept next to him. The piercing cry of a faraway hunting bird snapped his mind awake.

Then he remembered that he was alone, cast out of his house by Béla and camping on the desert mesa where she had revealed her vampiric secrets to him a century earlier. He moaned, almost under his breath, not wanting to get up and face a day without her.

A sigh from close by caused Jake to open his eyes. They focused on Béla, sitting quietly in the tent with him. She’d been watching him sleep. He looked closer. She’d been crying.

“Hi, babe,” Jake said quietly. “I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?”

He could see she was upset. Plus, she didn’t answer him.

‘Wow! She's really ticked off at me this time!’

While neither Béla nor Jake had paid much attention to the idea that two people could be sexually faithful to each other for centuries at a time, this was the first time that he had ever asked her if he could move someone in with them. He’d thought of using Beth as a defense, since Beth and Béla had been lovers. But he’d fucked Beth, too. And, from what he understood, they were stepsisters or something, so that made her ‘family.’ And besides, using Béla’s sister as an excuse seemed rather unfair, now that she was dead.

“Listen, um,” Jake began. “If you don’t want to let Foxy move in…”

Béla held up her hand, stopping him. She shook her head sadly; her eyes beginning to tear again.

“Oh, no,” Jake murmured, realizing what Béla didn’t want to tell him.

Foxy was dead.

After a moment, Jake looked up at Béla, questions in his eyes. She didn’t wait for him to ask.

“They arrested her… boyfriend… a couple of hours ago,” she told him quietly. “But he may not be prosecuted. It isn’t illegal to murder someone who agrees to be killed.”