Chapter 3

Béla looked around the crowded, pleasantly noisy lounge. There were three times as many customers as usual, mostly due to their hot new star attraction, Tantalizing Tanya.

True to her word, Tanya was the most sensual and graceful stripper Béla had seen for a long time. Local girls she’d hired were stiff-backed and nervous about performing nearly naked on stage, even when they’d done it for a while.

Béla slowly scanned the crowd, feeling for the tension that people near the edge of their sanity often exhibited. It was easy to scan for upset minds at night. In the daytime, it seemed something roared in her head, blinding her ability to sense others thoughts and emotions.

Tanya finished her Midnight show and stepped down off the stage onto the main floor. There were several guys waiting, money in hand for her next lap dance. She picked one and led him away. The others went back to their drinks and waited.

‘I want to play, too, ‘ Béla decided. ‘There’s no reason for Tanya to have all the fun!’

Disappearing into the changing room behind the stage, Béla quickly stripped off her clothes, wiped down her private parts, checked her makeup and slipped into a blue G-string. She looked around, not finding the matching top (oh, I remember what happened to that... ), and finally put on a filmy silk vest with Western fringe that simply hung off her shoulders and fastened with a cord in the front. She left it open so that her perky (and tiny, she sighed) breasts played peek a-boo when she moved. She finished off her costume with black fishnet stockings and clear plastic five-inch heels.

She clopped back out into the bar, nearly naked and teetering on her heels, her stomach taut with anticipation, anxious to display herself in front of a roomful of men with hard, horny cocks. She scanned over the room again, hoping for someone who may have noticed her stepping out onto the floor. After her favorite pastime (actually having sex), she liked pretend sex, where she got to play the wanton harlot, teasing the hell out of the guy until he came in his pants. Since she was ‘on duty’ for the next couple of hours, pretend sex was what she was looking for right now.

‘Instant relief? You bet! Sopping wet G-string? God, I hope so! It’s playtime!’

Suddenly her mind was struck with a murderous intent. It was coming from a young-looking cowboy to whom Jessica, one of Frank’s bar girls, was serving a drink. Béla had noticed him nervously trying to cover up his hard-on when Tanya was performing earlier, but she hadn’t noticed anything evil about him, then.

As she approached the young man, he looked up at her. The feeling disappeared. Béla walked up to him, sensuously swaying her hips. Although she still looked the part of the sensuous exotic, her mind was all business, now, her playful mood forgotten.

“Can I dance for you?” she asked, easily faking a friendly smile.

“Sorry, miss, I gave all my money to Miss Tanya. I got six bucks, but that’s fer the waitress.” His voice sounded sweet and sincere. His eyes kept moving nervously between her face and her open vest.

“Well, I guess I’ll have to give you one for free, then,” Béla cooed, and began to sway in front of him.

She gazed into his eyes as she danced, heating up the moment with undelivered promises. He gazed back, swallowing, and watched her filmy vest moving back and forth playing peek a-boo with her pert nipples as she danced. She straddled him with her legs and sat down on the hard-on that was straining the fabric of his jeans.

“Oo. Is that for me?” she asked coyly, smiling into his embarrassed face. ‘What a sweet boy!’ she thought, trying not to giggle. ‘If he could flee right now, he’d run as though his life depended on it!’

“Relax,” she whispered into his ear. “I don’t bite.” Well, usually I don’t bite...

She sat on his lap, slowly moving her pelvis back and forth, touching his face lightly with her cheek while pressing her lips against the front of his ear, almost kissing him. Even in this close proximity, she couldn’t feel anything emanating from him except nervous sexual excitement and the pleasure he was getting from actually touching her soft, but lean, bare midriff.

‘Could I have been mistaken?’ she wondered, then decided to run her favorite bad boy scene through his naughty little mind, determined to trigger his hidden perversions.

“If we were completely alone,” she whispered to him, “what would you like to do to me?”

Startled, she felt his hands on her sides, gently pushing her away. She sat up and looked into his eyes.

‘Still nothing! What’s going on? I’m not usually that wrong!’

“Please,” he said quietly, looking desperate, “I’ve got a date later.”

Béla smiled at him, kissed her index finger and pressed it against his lips, then backed off his lap and swiveled her hips in a way that told him she knew moves he hadn’t even dreamed of.

“I’ve never seen that move before,” Tanya’s voice came from behind her. “Where did you learn to sway like that?”

The cowboy nodded dumbly and said, “Yeah. That,” before gulping in a deep lungful of air, just now realizing he hadn’t been breathing for the last few minutes.

“Oh, it’s an old Sum ... an old Egyptian dance,” Béla replied, tossing her hair. “I learned it when I was young.” She corrected herself again, remembering how old she appeared to be. “Younger.”

“Well, I could use it on stage, if you don’t mind,” Tanya replied.

“Fine, suit yourself,” Béla replied with a smile... ‘But I don’t think your hips move that way, darling – it took me years and the kiss of my master’s whip to learn how to be that supple... ‘

Bored once again, Béla wandered over to the bar to chat with Frank. “Hi, Frank. Business is good tonight, huh?” Frank looked at her in a way that she couldn’t figure out. ‘Maybe it’s my costume, ‘ she thought, unsettled by the weirdness of the evening. ‘But, he’s seen me like this hundreds of times, before.’

She could find out in an instant if she wanted – just brush gently against his mind and she would know his innermost thoughts. But she’d made an agreement with him years before that she wouldn’t raid his mind without his permission. She sighed, more frustrated, now.

Frank rang the bell on the wall. “Fifteen minutes,” he called out.

As people began leaving, he asked Béla, “No Target Club tonight?”

“No,” she replied, “everyone left early. I guess they all came in their pants watching Tanya. I would’ve if I could’ve ... she’s really hot!”

Frank finished cleaning up the bar, filling a couple of last-minute drinks orders for the waitress.

While she was waiting, Jessica looked at Béla and nervously asked, “Can you cover for my clean-up period, tonight? I have to leave as soon as we close.”

Béla smiled at her. “Jessica, isn’t it?”

A nervous nod confirmed her identity.

“Sure, Frank and I will finish up here,” Béla told her. “Have a good time. Don’t get into trouble.”

Jessica excitedly took Béla’s hands in hers and gushed out the words, “Oh, thank you! I really appreciate it. I promise I’ll make up the time.” She pranced lightly away, carrying her drink order with her.

“Why did she ask me?” Béla asked Frank. “I thought your girls answered to you.”

“They do,” Frank replied. “But she has a date with your cowboy friend, and you seemed more than a little curious about him, so I told her it was up to you.”

“Hum,” Béla replied, thoughtfully.

“I went down to police headquarters this afternoon while you girls were out shopping,” Frank said, changing the subject.

He began wiping down the bar. After a moment, he knew Béla wasn’t going to bite on his bait, or volunteer anything, either. From the pensive look on her face, she definitely wanted to keep what she knew to herself.

“I offered my services,” he continued, “in helping them to identify the missing victim of that guy they found. They found a coat in an abandoned stolen car, and some bloody scraps of clothing they thought belonged to the victim, but that was all. No ID, and the prints they found weren’t on file.”

He had her attention, now. He waited, hoping to make her feel anxious. He succeeded. Finally he said, “I told them I didn’t know who the coat belonged to,” then turned around and went into the kitchen.

Béla followed him, suspecting he wanted to continue this one-sided conversation in a more private setting and hoping he wouldn’t. Frank stopped and spun around, surprising her. She stepped back involuntarily.

“It was your coat!” he spat the words at her, his face filled with unreadable emotion. “You didn’t wear your coat this morning, despite how cold it was outside. That’s because you lost it, right?”

“Friday night, you left through the back door. You never leave through the back door. You were gone ‘til this morning. The blue costume you wore that night and your coat aren’t here. I looked for them when I got back from the police station, hoping to God I would find them! But I didn’t, because that detective guy has them down at the police station!

“When you showed up here this morning with blood all over you,” Frank continued, his voice strained with fear and distress, “I feared something like this had happened. You killed that man, Béla! You sucked him dry. For God’s sake, Béla! Why would you do that? Is that what sex is to you, now?”

“Frank, please,” Béla pleaded, her voice shaking as she spoke. “Please believe me he was a murdering butcher. He cut one of my girls up into little pieces! He even bragged to me about how Angela screamed while he cut her up! Who knows how many others he killed! He needed to die! Please trust me that I did what needed to be done.”

“Trust you!” Frank exclaimed. “Sometimes I think I don’t know who or, or what you are! I’m crazy about you, but even after all these years, sometimes I’m still terrified of you. And ... and for you. For what someone might do to you if they find out what you really are, I mean. Jesus, Béla – What’s happened to you? How can you be so careless?”

“I can explain what happened, Frank. Please, but not now,” she begged. “Please believe I’ll explain everything when I can. As ... as soon as we’re finished here, okay?”

“Explain?” Frank grabbed her arm, jerking her off balance. “How do you explain being supernatural? You don’t even know who or what you are! You can’t explain why you don’t age! You can’t explain why you kill people!”

Béla yelped and looked down at where Frank was gripping her arm. He’d been so angry with her that he’d forgotten to put down the paring knife he’d been holding from slicing fruit and its tip had cut into her arm. She trembled with the effort to hold still in his tight grip as Frank glared at the blood welling out of the shallow wound.

Frank put the knife down, then wiped off the little round dome of blood just as it began to drip down the side of her arm. He sighed with disappointment as he saw what he knew he would find. The cut was completely gone.

“How do you do that?” he asked softly, anguish obvious in his voice. “Do you even know why that doesn’t hurt you?”

Frank stared into Béla’s frightened eyes as she slowly shook her head. She couldn’t explain herself. She didn’t know what she was.

“Oh ... My ... God.” whispered Tanya from the doorway.

Startled, Béla brushed against Tanya’s mind with hers. ‘Oh, fuck!’ she thought, suddenly realizing that her secret was out. ‘She heard the whole thing!’

“Don’t hurt her!” Frank growled, the side of his cheek pressed against Béla’s ear, then, glaring at Tanya, he snarled, “Leave her be,” his voice low and threatening. “It’s not her fault she’s the way she is...”

“I ... I just,” Tanya tried to say. “I just wanted to know if you needed help cleaning up.”

Frank relaxed and nodded his head, finally releasing Béla’s arm. Béla and Tanya stared at each other for a moment, each wishing they didn’t know what they’d just learned about the other.

Then the three of them exited to clean up the bar, using the simple mundane actions to help quiet their jumbled thoughts.

Béla knew with a sick certainty that she’d stayed too long. She never stayed in one location for more than ten years, and mostly because of Frank, she’d stayed here almost fifteen. And now a hunter had come, seeking her out, putting her friends in danger.

‘Damn Frank, anyway!’ Béla thought to herself, continually blinking tears out of her eyes so she could see what she was doing. ‘Why does he have to follow me everywhere I go? Why can’t he let me go? God, I hate this!

‘As soon as I can get away, I’ll leave! I can cash out my accounts in the morning and go somewhere where he’ll never find me this time ... I should’ve left years ago! I should never, never expect others to understand!’

Then, all in agreement that Béla would tell them everything, they all traipsed upstairs to her room – the room she’d given Tanya, her hunter. Perhaps this time, if she made everything clear enough, they would leave her alone.

“I knew who he was the instant I saw him,” Béla was saying. “It was like I could see the evil in his mind. I could feel him hiding in the alley, ready to butcher whoever came through that door, so I went out to meet him. When I got the chance, I killed him.”

She didn’t tell anyone, especially Tanya, about the violence she needed in order to feel complete, or about how she restored herself by sucking other people’s blood.

“But he stabbed you,” Tanya said, earnestly. “That detective told us the victim had lost so much blood, he didn’t believe she, I mean you, could have survived.”

“I think, maybe,” Béla said thoughtfully, “he was exaggerating some. Probably most of the blood was from the killer from when that animal tore his throat out.”

“No, actually, it wasn’t.” Frank stated, disgusted with her lying to him yet again. “You were there. You should know.”

Please, Frank, please let it be...

“What do you mean?” Béla asked, hoping he would not announce even more damning evidence in front of this woman who had been sent to kill her.

“Well, Detective Mike said it was really strange,” said Frank, puzzled, “that with all the blood splattered all over the room, none of it was the killer’s.”

“What?” exclaimed Tanya, incredulous.

Gods, Frank, don’t drive me away! Don’t make me flee from you!

“What Detective Mike said was that the killer’s blood had been drained completely. There wasn’t any,” Frank confirmed.

“Wow! How would you explain that?” Tanya asked, eyes wide open.

Béla shrugged, unable to hide her upset and embarrassment from either of them. “I don’t know – I can’t explain it. Maybe rats?” She stared down at the rumpled sheet she was sitting on, unable to look either Frank or Tanya in the eye.

Frank looked disgusted at her. “Here we go with the lies, again,” he said, folding his arms and pouting.

Oh, Enchi! You’re going to do it, aren’t you? Damn you, damn you, damn you!

“This isn’t the first time, is it?” Frank said, reasoning things out for the first time. “That night when I had to carry you up the stairs – there was no late night Target Club meeting. Instead, you were prowling that night and you killed someone, didn’t you? I got blood on my shirt when I picked you up!”

Frank stared at her, his face unreadable. Béla stayed out of his mind, knowing that when he was like this, he could tell when she was there. It didn’t matter anyway; in the morning, she’d be gone.

“It was right after that when the burglaries and murders stopped.” Frank was still figuring it out. “The next spring, they found a local guy outside of town, in a field. The newspaper said he’d been attacked by wolves, or something.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” Frank asked, a desperate pleading sound in his voice.

Why are you asking me like that? Don’t you still care? Don’t you still love me?

“But you still love me, right?” Béla whimpered, leaning forward to caress his arms and back.

The shoulder of her silky vest somehow had slipped down her slim, rounded shoulder. Frank unfolded his arms and grabbed Béla by both wrists, holding her away to prevent her from pressing her naked breast against him. He couldn’t avoid gazing at her slender, sexy body from that position and he knew she was working him for all she was worth.

“God! You’re impossible!” Frank whispered, his voice hoarse as he strained to look up and into her face.

She was, of course, just as hypnotically alluring as ever. Levering herself up with her seized wrists, she kissed him lightly on his cheek.

“Frank, you made me this bed with your own two hands. We’ve had some good times on it,” she pleaded. “I’m still the same person I was the first time we did it. I haven’t changed.”

“You kill people,” Frank said, accusingly, still gripping her wrists, holding her off-balance in front of him.

“Only when they need killing.” Béla made her face look as soft and appealing as she could. “I’m not a murderer.”

She shrugged her shoulders and the vest fell the rest of the way down her arm, exposing both breasts. She hoped it made her look more helpless and appealing.

“It sounds to me like you’re an avenging angel,” Tanya quipped from the edge of the bed.

Frank and Béla both jumped at the sound of her voice as it shattered the hypnotic trance Béla was creating.

Béla sat back and leaned against the headboard. Then she curled her legs up in front of her and wrapped her arms around them, watching her hunter carefully. Strangely enough, Tanya didn’t seem to want this any more than she did. Perhaps she could be convinced, after all...

“I’m not the perpetrator here!” Béla exclaimed defensively. “I was abducted, beaten and raped! I was tortured and stabbed! I was lucky to get away!”

She was doing her best to sound angry. She hoped it sounded convincing, After all, she’d had a few dozen lifetimes of practice deceiving people into believing she was normal. Usually she only ran into trouble when she violated her ‘ten year’ rule, like she had now, with Frank.

“All right! All right!” Frank exclaimed, trying to calm her down. “It’s okay! We’re not going to rat you out. Okay?” Frank looked at Tanya. “Right?”

Tanya looked surprised. “What? No, of course not!” and got up, escaping toward the bathroom.

Béla nearly shouted out at her astonishing victory and was barely able to sit still. Tanya had thrown in the towel, changing her mind completely. As far as she was concerned, this hunt was over; her target already eliminated.

Frank took Béla in his arms and cradled her against his shoulder. She smiled to herself, turning her face to kiss his shoulder. She felt his body immediately tense up.

“I’m not going to bite you!” Béla quietly promised. “I haven’t evolved into some psycho nut-case who needs to kill in order to have an orgasm.”

“No,” Frank replied softly, “But you hunt those who do...”

“I’m not the only hunter here, tonight,” Béla murmured, looking toward the bathroom.

“I know,” Frank said. “She told me this morning she was looking for you.”

“You knew that?” Béla asked, astonished twice in five minutes. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“There wasn’t time, this morning,” Frank tried to explain. “And then all this other stuff happened...”

Béla sighed, realizing that it wasn’t any easier for him than it was for her.

“It’s alright. She’s not hunting me now. The person she really wanted is already dead.”

“You are so strange, tonight,” Frank said, staring into her eyes. “Are you hunter, or prey?”

“I was both, but right now, I’m neither, I think.” She moved her hands against his chest, plucking at hairs as she caressed him, wanting to make love to him one last time before she vanished forever. “It’s been awhile since we’ve been together...” she suggested, coyly.

Frank buried his face in her soft, black hair and kissed his way down to her shoulder. Then he began kissing his way back up her neck to her cheek.

“Hmm,” he grunted, his lips continuing the path along her cheek toward her inviting mouth.

Béla could feel that Frank’s soul had been wounded by his own accusations of her. He had made up his mind years earlier, the first time she’d left him, that he would never question her supernatural nature that she tried so hard to keep hidden. He had broken that promise to himself tonight, and worse, he had exposed her to an outsider.

Béla had left him twice before when small oddities began to be questioned, and Frank understood that fleeing was her way of surviving in a world that wasn’t ready, or even willing, to understand and accept her.

He could feel in his heart that she was saying goodbye, once again. She was preparing to flee in order to protect herself and, most likely, him, from the mad persecution of mankind against anything different than themselves.

Chapter 4 »