Chapter 3

The night before:

Jake had disappeared somewhere after a private little conversation with his wife, who was leading Alicia upstairs.

"Where's Jake going to sleep?" Alicia wanted to know.

"Don't worry about Jake," Béla said, non-commentally. "He'll be fine."

They reached the top of the stairs and went right – the opposite direction from where the wild-looking, flaming young girl had appeared from and vanished into. A faint smell of scorched cotton came from that other direction.

Béla opened her bedroom door and, smiling, invited Alicia in.

"Do you have any luggage?" Béla asked, "Clothing, accessories?"

"I packed a bag," Alicia told her. "It's at my folk's house." 'Why would she wait until she's getting ready for bed before asking a silly question like that? Does she expect me to go get it?'

"Make a picture of your luggage in your mind," Béla suggested. "Include its location – where you think it might be."

"What?" Alicia asked, not understanding.

"Where's your bag?" Béla asked. "Is it still packed?"

"Well, no," Alicia said, trying to remember where it was the last time she saw it. Béla watched while Alicia remembered. Then the bag was on the bed in front of her.

"Well!" Alicia said, surprised. "That's a neat trick!"

Béla smiled at the complement. "You need anything that's not in the bag?"

Alicia thought for a moment, then remembered stuff she'd put in her mom's bathroom. It was suddenly on the bed next to her bag.

"You're hired!" Alicia said, grinning. "Come with me back to the Hub! I've got plenty you can do there!"

"No, thanks," Béla replied, grinning back. "I have a job, here – raising the flaming tornado down the hall."

"Yes! That's amazing what she can do!" Alicia said, animatedly. "How do you control her?"

"Control? Her?" Béla asked, raising her eyebrows. "You're kidding, right?"

"Why? Is she that difficult?" Alicia asked.

"Well, not really," Béla admitted. "Not after we started communicating with each other. But she could teleport the day she was born. In fact, I actually didn't have her – she came out on her own and landed right in the middle of the floor."

"God!" Alicia exclaimed. "I've had nine children, but I've never had one that did that!"

"Creating a vacuum like that, right in the middle of my tummy, just about killed me," Béla admitted. "But, luckily, your brother was there to help."

"Yes, we're lucky that he decided to become a doctor," Alicia admitted. "That way, our little family secret stays secret!

"So, where do you want me?" Alicia asked, walking toward the bed. "You said I was sleeping with you, and that seemed to upset Jake. Is there something ... um, sexual... that you're expecting?"

"What?" Béla asked, surprised. "No, it doesn't have to be sexual ... Although, regardless of the gender of the person I'm merging my mind with, it often becomes sexual. We are all sexual creatures, after all." By this time, Béla was completely undressed – that is to say – naked. She walked toward the bathroom.

"Would you like to share the Jacuzzi with me?" Béla asked. "We can talk some more, if you like." 'Relax, will you?' she thought into Alicia's unsettled mind.

Alicia hesitated. She wanted desperately to know everything that was in Béla's mind, and get Béla to help her as much as possible. But, she wasn't really interested in sharing anything with another female, especially her body. It was bad enough that Béla had Jake. "Ah ... okay," Alicia agreed, reluctantly. "We can talk some more..."

She shed her gown and carefully hung it on the rack the closet presented to her, and tossed her undies into the hamper. It actually seemed annoyed that someone hit it and made a sound like it was shredding her undergarments.

Alicia found it surprisingly easy to make light conversation with Béla in the Jacuzzi, telling her a little about the work she did, and the underground city she was having constructed in Colorado – nothing that Béla wouldn't have found out anyway when they merged later that night.

Finally, unable to put it off any longer, she crawled into bed with the strange, dark-haired alien girl that had stolen her first love's heart before Alicia had even been born.

"How do you want me?" Alicia asked nervously.

"Well, it helps if we're in full body contact," Béla instructed, "but you can leave your nightie on if you're more comfortable that way."

Alicia smiled in gratitude. Although she usually slept nude – especially on nights that her husband was home. This night, she left it on.

Béla's body felt uncomfortably warm against her skin, especially after the Jacuzzi. Béla, noticing the claustrophobic, clammy feelings emanating from her guest, had the room's air circulator, normally retracted behind its ceiling panels, lower itself and begin ionizing the room with its slow, silent air currents. Within a minute, she noticed Alicia relaxing.

'Hello, darling, ' Béla said into Alicia's head.

Alicia blinked, startled, then stared into Béla's eyes. 'Did you just say that?' Alicia thought back.

'Yes, ' Béla admitted. 'Has anyone ever talked to you this way before?'

'I think we may have met like this before, ' Alicia thought back, trying to remember, 'but I don't know where, or when... '

'Déjà vu, ' Béla thought at her. 'There are other realities besides ours. You think of time as an absolute, but it's not. Let me show you... '

Images appeared in Alicia's mind – the nightmare that she sometimes had of her son, Jake, dying in a nuclear accident that destroyed a city – of her meeting with her family for his wake in his father's cabin and finding her son still alive.

"How did you know about that dream?" Alicia demanded, half sitting up in bed and breaking the mental contact.

"Because I was there, too," Béla said. "It really happened – in another reality. But that reality was written over by the one we remember with our conscious minds. Different people lived and different people died each time. The first time, your sister lived, and your son died. This time, your son lived, but we both lost a sister."

"And the city in my dream – the one in the Painted Desert – it's still there?" Alicia said, finishing the thought.

"Yes," agreed Béla. "I suppose a sister is a small price to pay for a whole city."

"Speak for yourself," Alicia said, sounding a little upset. "I'd rather have my sister back – and I don't mean Bratty Tabby!"

Béla smiled at that, not having decided who she preferred – her sister and lover, Beth – or her wild, but completely lovable fire breathing daughter, Lisa; not that her preference would matter...

"Come back to bed," Béla said quietly. "There's more I would show you."

"I'm not really certain we should do this," Alicia said nervously. "I'll confess something to you. I'm not really keen on someone sorting through my mind, learning all my little secrets – even when it's you."

"You asked for my help," Béla replied gently, sitting up beside Alicia. "The only help I can give you is knowledge. I know what's going to happen here. You need to know, too."

"What do you mean, 'going to happen'?" Alicia asked, more upset, now.

"Come to bed," Béla implored her. "You will learn what you need to know. I'm not interested in your secrets. I have too many of my own." The idea that Alicia might learn some of Béla's secrets convinced her to lay back down.

'Ready?' Béla asked in her mind.

'What should I expect?' Alicia wanted to know.

'An adventure, perhaps, or a nightmare, ' Béla replied frankly. 'Maybe both.'

Alicia sat up, terrified and stunned, breaking mental contact with her tormentor once again.

"That's your plan?" she cried, accusingly. "An artificial moon?" She looked at the strange, alien woman in bed with her.

"We don't have time to build something like that!" Alicia cried out. "We don't have the resources, the money, the technology ... Wait! That's what you wanted to let me know! You have the technology to build something like that!"

"No," Béla said quietly. "Not anymore. But it doesn't matter. It already exists. It took my father's people four thousand years – but it's already been built."

Alicia laughed, sounding a little delirious. "So we just have to ... Who's going to ... What? I can't even comprehend..." She finally just stared at Béla.

"My father's ship is coming in, oh, maybe ten, fifteen years," Béla said quietly. "They're coming to take me away. It's a huge ship, and it will be almost empty. It can hold several hundred people. I plan to take everyone I know with me, and anyone they want to bring."

"Everyone you know?" Alicia asked, incredulously. "I have three, no! Four families! What about them?"

"They can all come," Béla said, inviting them all. "There's plenty of room."

"If others find out," Alicia told her, "there won't be enough room. The whole planet will want to go."

"That's not possible," Béla told her. "There's only enough fuel for one, maybe two more trips. Besides, New Eden isn't large enough to support more than a few thousand humans."

Immensely relieved, Alicia leaned over and hugged Béla. She was surprised to actually feel tears in her eyes at the emotion she felt. Then she remembered.

"What about my husband, Walter?" Alicia said, suddenly a little more distraught. "He's dying. You can save him – like you did Mom, before."

"I don't know if my blood can cure cancer, darling," Béla admitted. "What my blood does to human cells is make them grow faster. A cancer is nothing more than human cells that have forgotten where they're supposed to grow. By offering him my life-blood, I could be worsening his condition. The cancer could consume him in mere hours. I don't know what he might grow into."

"But you have to help him!" Alicia cried.

Watching Béla gaze up at her with her dark, regal eyes, Alicia realized that Béla didn't have to do anything. She tensed as Béla gently reached out her hand and stroked Alicia's cheek. An incredible calm flooded through her mind at the vampire's touch, and she realized that Béla was drawing off the fear and the anger she felt – discharging it like she was simply an energy cell and her overwhelming emotion was simply energy that could be drawn off and grounded out.

"I'm sorry," Alicia whispered. Alicia had apologized for something she did maybe three times in the last century. This was the first time she'd ever meant it. Béla smiled at her, recognizing what it took for Alicia to say those simple words.

"Go talk to your brother tomorrow and work out what I tell you," Béla suggested. "Have your husband see him – call Doctor Frank some kind of cancer specialist if you want, but get your husband to go. Your brother has samples of my blood. He's been running tests; trying to discover what makes cells heal. If Doctor Frank decides that my blood can help, he can administer it himself as a 'experimental' test of a new cancer treatment. If your husband agrees, of course.

"That way, the secret of our longevity is still safe," Béla told her. "When and if your husband begins to notice that his own life-span in increased, you may tell him then – or not. Depends on how you feel about it then."

"Béla, you're wonderful!" Alicia exclaimed, hugging her host tightly. Then suddenly stiffened up as she realized she was becoming aroused in the presence of this seductive, alien creature.

She held Béla away at arm's length, staring into her soft, dark eyes and hoping that she wouldn't be offended by her rejection.

Béla smiled and tossed a shoulder. "It's all right. Just go to sleep. Tomorrow, everything will work itself out."

"Thank you," Alicia replied, grateful that she wasn't going to have to make love to her main competition for Jake's affection. She also realized that Béla had made it possible for Walter to be saved without spending a night with Béla while she initiated him into their family. 'No wonder Dad admires her so much. She always seems to have the right answer for everything.'

Then she was asleep. When she woke up, it was daylight again, and the other half of the bed was cold and empty. Béla had left hours earlier to handle other things... 'Perhaps she's gone to make amends with Jake for not being with him last night. I really shouldn't be jealous – they are married, after all... '