Chapter 1

2069 a.d.

Life Force

The images faded away into a dull gray nothing. Both Maria and Melinda cried out in fear, their bodies once again separated.

"Who are you?" the Lady Melinda demanded. "How did you bring me here? Are you a witch?"

They glared into each other's frightened, angry eyes. "I know you! You're that Puta Raul was with! I gave you to the General to play with. How did you get away from him?"

"You're my sister?" Maria asked, completely confusing her antagonist, her eyes widening in triumph as she realized what had finally happened.

"Sister? What are you talking about, you demented slut?" Melinda snarled. She tried to strike at the naked girl, but found that she couldn't move in this strange absence of... everything!

"Listen to me!" Maria/Béla demanded. "You're dreaming! This isn't real! The Praetor took you! Do you remember that?"

"The Praetor?" the Lady Melinda cried out, frightened now. "No! Let me go!"

"This is a dream!" Béla insisted. "Surely you must remember! Stop fighting and think!"

"A dream?" Melinda asked, wanting to believe there was a reason behind this madness.

"Yes, now just relax," Béla said, more quietly now. "You don't want to attract the Praetor's attention."

Béla didn't know if they could attract the Praetor's attention, but she now had this so-called sister's attention.

"I remember now," Melinda replied, awed at what was happening. "The Praetor trapped me in a ray of light, then I was inside it, somehow. There are others here, trapped like me!"

"Yes!" Béla exclaimed, happy to have finally broken the spell. "We have to wake them and find a way out!"

"There is no way out," Melinda replied mournfully. "I remember trying to escape when I was brought here. My body is gone. The Praetor made me watch as it was burned into ashes."

"My body was burned up, also," Béla replied. "But I don't know if the Praetor did that. My car exploded and caught on fire. I was strapped inside, trapped."

"The Praetor told me that I couldn't survive outside," Melinda told her new friend. "I would just evaporate into nothing and ... cease."

"That might not be true," Béla said, thoughtfully. "I was outside my body for a time after my body burned up, before I was taken in by the Praetor. I didn't feel like I was evaporating. In fact, my senses at the time were very sharp and clear. I could even see in the dark!"

"Really?" Melinda asked. "That's fascinating! But, how did you ... Why would the Praetor be interested in you? You're just a whore that distracted my concubine."

"We have the same father," Béla explained. "Do you remember when you arrived here? On earth, I mean?"

"I think so," Melinda replied. "It was so long ago..."

"It was a long time ago for me, too," Béla told her. "I've lived for thousands of years. You probably have, too."

"Yes..."

"The hunter with the Praetor told me, after he hunted me down, that I was the last one," Béla told her. "All the others, you and my other sisters, were already ... Well, I thought he'd killed all of you. I didn't know about this artificial world inside the Praetor. I've been trying to get someone's attention, like, forever! I think you were the only one who ever crossed paths with me. I could only enter your vision where I was present. I had to wait until our life-dreams coincided."

"When I came to reclaim my Raul, you mean?" Melinda asked, sounding a little superior.

"Yes," Béla said, her voice sounding a little unfriendly, as well. "I remember when you set Raul on fire and burned him alive."

"Yet you're willing to help me now?" Melinda asked, not trusting this little Puta who claimed to be her sister.

"You are the only one whose dream I was able to break into," Béla replied. "I never met any of my other sisters in real life."

"I had a sister in Rumania, fifty years before I ever laid eyes on you," Melinda replied haughtily. "Her name was Elisabeta. She was a princess, and I, her handmaiden. But we were lovers, as well, for she preferred a feminine touch..."

"Great!" Béla exclaimed enthusiastically. "Maybe we can find her! Think about the time you two were together! We can break into her life-dream and dispel the Praetor's power over her!"

"Yes!" Melinda agreed wholeheartedly. "This is a good idea you have!"

She closed her eyes and thought about her sister. A slowly growing frown on her face indicated that she was trying harder and harder as the minutes passed. Finally, a shimmering of multi-colored light appeared around the two trapped in the Praetor, then Béla found herself standing in a room. She was still naked, but Melinda was now dressed in some kind of dark red velvet.

Elisabeta jumped and cried out. The image of the room wavered for an instant, then resolidified. Béla found that she could move inside this imagined world her sister had created inside the Praetor.

"We're probably safe from the Praetor in here," Béla ventured, speaking almost in a whisper. "It will think we're still dreaming."

"Who are you?" Elisabeta demanded, definitely not whispering! "Talitha, who is this strumpet who parades around without any dressing?"

"Sister," Melinda/Talitha replied. "This is another sister! She is here to help us! Her name is ... What is your name, Puta?"

"Béla," Béla replied. "But father named me Hethemtima."

"I've never heard of you!" Elisabeta replied haughtily. "Are you Egyptian, too?"

Béla smiled. "Well, yes, I guess. Does it matter? Before we were in Egypt, we were all from the same place – father's laboratory."

"Father?" Elisabeta said, her voice almost an octave higher. "How old are you, girl?"

"At least four thousand," Béla replied, sounding bored, now. "Let me show you something..."

Concentrating hard, she evaporated the room around them. The three sisters floated in the bluish gray void Béla and Melinda had found themselves in earlier.

"Eeeek!" Elisabeta shrieked. "What have you done?"

"I stopped your dream," Béla explained. "Do you remember the Praetor taking you?"

She got pretty much the same reaction from Melinda's sister that she'd gotten from Melinda, earlier.

"We need to find another to awaken," Béla said as she finished her explanation of what she was trying to accomplish. "Did either of you ever meet any others like us?"

Melinda shrugged and shook her head, "No, Elisabeta was the only one. She showed me how to make others immortal with my blood."

"Yeah!" Béla replied and made a disagreeable face. "I met Torquemada, thank you. He nearly killed me!"

"Well, he does that very well," Melinda smiled. "That's what attracted me to him in the first place. All that delicious blood..."

"Yes," Elisabeta replied, smiling to herself. "I knew one like that, too. We had several wonderful years together ... Hey! I was just getting to the good part when you showed up and ruined my life!"

"Never mind that! It was just a dream!" Béla insisted, intent on finding a way to escape. "I need to know if you knew anyone even remotely like us! Think hard, okay? Was there anyone like me or the two of you?"

"No," Elisabeta replied, shaking her head. "I never met anyone like me except Talitha."

Béla sighed. "Then it looks like there's just the three of us ... Sisters, I mean."

"But ... there was a man – a prophet who showed me that we were kin to each other!" Elisabeta exclaimed. "His blood could make others immortal, too. In fact, he was the one who demonstrated the power of our blood to heal his followers. He also taught me how to fly!"

"You can fly?" Melinda/Talitha asked, incredulous. "Have you ever heard of such a thing, Puta?"

"You mean you can't?" Béla asked, sounding surprised and pretending to be bored. She was also getting a little tired of being called a whore by this mass murderess.

Béla was actually pretty annoyed at the both of them. Elisabeta had discovered she could fly hundreds and maybe thousands of years before Béla did. She wondered how many others of her sisters had known how. Maybe they were the true beginnings of the vampire legends she'd heard after fleeing north from Rome and its bloody coliseum.

"The Praetor mentioned that I had a brother," Béla continued. "You knew him?"

"Yes!" Elisabeta replied. "Everyone knows of him – he is the blessed one – the Christ!"

"Jesus Christ!" Béla exclaimed, swearing.

"That's right, "Elisabeta replied, surprised. "That was his name – Jesus."

"You knew Jesus?" Béla asked, not believing her.

"I told you, yes!" Elisabeta said, her voice cold at Béla's suggestion that she might be lying.

Béla sighed, "All right, I believe you, I guess. I was never certain that he ever actually existed. I went to Rome to meet him, but he had already been hanged before I arrived."

"Think about him!" Melinda said, anxiously. "For me to bring this Puta – Maria? – to you, I had to think about when you and I were together. If you think about when you and ... He ... were together, then we should arrive where he was when you two were together."

"A time when we were together. Okay, I'll try that," Elisabeta said. She closed her eyes and concentrated. "I'm thinking about the time we first met – He and I." She smiled as she remembered.

The hot dryness of a desert town suddenly surrounded them, along with the stench that the lack of plumbing insured. Elisabeta was dressed in a different style, now – a much lighter robe of colorful linen. She was backing away from several angry people.

Béla recognized a language that she hadn't heard for thousands of years. They were yelling at Elisabeta in Aramaic, calling her a whore and a fallen woman. Then they began throwing rocks at her.

Another man, looking no different than any of the other townspeople, grabbed the arm of an older woman who was about the throw another rock at Elisabeta.

"Hold!" he cried out, then walked out toward Elisabeta and her two sisters and raised his arms to address the mob. "Who are you to judge this woman? Do you deem yourselves higher than her because your sins have not yet been discovered? Let he who has no sin cast the next stone!"

Béla could see he was different than anyone she'd ever met before. He glowed! She wondered how he did that. Then he noticed her.

"Who are you? You don't belong here!" Jesus exclaimed. "Where is your robe?"

Once again, Béla concentrated and pulled him out of his life-dream and into what she now considered her little blue sanctuary.

"Mary, what is happening?" Jesus cried out to Elisabeta, sounding alarmed.

"These are my sisters, My Lord," Mary/Elisabeta replied.

"I've told you not to call me that," Jesus admonished her. "I have only the power that others give me. Does no one understand?"

"You're really Jesus?" Béla asked, staring wide eyed and open mouthed at the scrawny little man with the strange glow.

"That's my name," Jesus replied, sounding annoyed. "Where have you heard it?"

Béla laughed. Her two sisters joined her. In a moment, the three of them were laughing hysterically. Jesus frowned at them, feigning indifference to their obvious insanity.

"I'm sorry, Lord," Béla gasped when she could speak again. "But you obviously have no idea what you started..."

Then she burst into laughter again, spraying her lord with spittle. Embarrassed, she tried to wipe down his gray, undyed robe with her hands.

The three sisters spent the next several hours floating in Béla's little blue void talking to their father's son and bringing him up to date, discussing the exaggerated stories people still told of his exploits all those centuries ago. Jesus was astounded as he came to realize that he was the center of the single biggest misunderstanding in the last two thousand years.

Béla was telling him the tale about the wine jugs that refilled themselves and the baskets of bread and fish that never emptied.

"Well, actually," he interrupted, "that story about the bread and the wine is true. I was teaching philosophy to a group of students on a hillside one afternoon and they got hungry. Only a few had thought to bring food, and I had just learned how to teleport small objects..."

"What? Wait!" Béla interrupted him, suddenly excited. "What exactly does that mean, to 'teleport'?"

Jesus thought about how it was done. As he was thinking, an image appeared in front of them, then was absorbed into the sisters' minds.

"Can you teleport me outside the Praetor?" Béla asked, astounded as this sudden avenue of escape presented itself.