The Once-Dead Girl

by Laer Carroll

  ·

  Bethany returned home just before sunup. The rain clouds had mostly passed away to the east and the broken clouds let in the blue of sky and early golden glow of the sun. Another beautiful southern California day was in the offing.

  This did present a problem. There were no convenient shadowed spots to come down to the earth within a few blocks of her home.

  After a moment’s thought she remembered one in her backyard, where an edge of the house cut off the backyard night-light. The invisible shapechanger eased her bubble down into that shadow, turned it off, and plunked down on the sidewalk there. Prepared this time for such a landing, she flexed her legs easily to cushion the one-foot fall. The gate to the front yard was only a step away.

  ·

  It was the middle of the week. It felt strange to become another ordinary 17-year-old at school who walked, biked, or rode everywhere after being a superbeing who could fly .

  That lasted only until she passed Gerard going in the opposite direction in the hallway and high-fived him. He grinned at her and was gone in the crowd.

  Trust her dear pouf to bring her back to earth!

  Her second class, World History, also helped. She came across a footnote in her text which just might refer to a shapechanger like herself.

  The Prussians in the mid-1800s had been a somewhat disorganized bunch. Like most countries of that time the leaders of the militaries were mostly nobles. They had an archaic idea of warfare. But a Spanish mercenary general had reformed the army into one of professional soldiers, who studied war, spent their entire life as soldiers, and figured ways to improve the art and practice of war.

  This soldier was not only brainy and charismatic but a ferocious soldier. Early in his career in one engagement with an African tribe he had waded into an attacking horde with just two swords taken from fallen comrades and decimated the attackers. At the end he was completely covered in blood, none of it his own. Estimates of his death toll ran into the hundreds, though historians gauged the count to be only a dozen.

  Bethany wondered, though, if the fantastic estimates were closer to the truth. She herself could have done the same with just her bare hands, much less swords or guns.

  Of course she wouldn’t bother to use weapons made of matter when she could incinerate an entire army with her lightning bolts and laser beams.

  After cheer practice at the end of the day she passed up a chance to go with her friends to the mall, as they often did, pleading a homework assignment. Instead she walked through a bank parking lot rather than to a bus stop. Angling across it she passed between a big truck and a delivery van. So hidden she switched on her bubble and soared invisible upward.

  Exhilaration filled Bethany as she shed the bonds of gravity. She shot upward like a wrong-way meteor. Behind her a sonic boom pounded the cityscape she’d left behind.

  Notice , her robotic servant said. Sonic booms and stealth shields are contradictory. Do you want me to stay below the speed of sound when accelerating?

  Yes.

  Her meteoric ascent slowed but she was still going hundreds of miles per hour. Already the whole Los Angeles area spread itself below her, the San Gabriel Mountains to the east and the Santa MonicaRange to the west visible and all the tapestry of the metroplex in between. And still she rose.

  Warning. I have only three hours of atmosphere sequestered so far.

  Thank you.

  Though why she was saying thank you to a robot Bethany was not sure. Maybe because it referred to itself as I ?

  Now the curvature of the earth revealed itself. Bethany stopped her ever-increasing rate of rise, which must be thousands of miles an hour since she was at the very edge of the atmosphere.

  For a time the shapechanger just looked around her. The earth was bathed in blue. The clouds were white as snow from up here, though she knew that the sky was grey below the cold front now washing over eastern California and western Nevada and Arizona. Further to the east night was spreading darkness upon the land.

  To the west the mighty Pacific wrapped the Earth in water. It was also blue, though a darker blue except a huge area which reflected the sun, now about an hour from setting.

  Bethany enjoyed the sights. At the same time she wondered at the awesome power she’d—inherited? She was only 17. What could she do with it? What SHOULD she do with it?

  Ken’s superhero comics and the movies made from them gave her no help. In them there was always some supervillain for the superheroes to fight. In real life there were none. Not at least obvious ones. Shapechangers like herself would hide themselves away.

  Instead there were millions of everyday villains, of all kinds. And not just the gangs and criminals from major to the way-more-numerous minor criminals. There were crooked politicians and dictators and terrorists. And just plain bad or hate-full ordinary people.

  What could she do about all those?

  Nothing.

  Or not much.

  She reminded herself that she had already done some good, like helping Stella with her father, and during the hostage situation. And she’d improved the health of almost everyone with whom she came in contact.

  She also reminded herself that she was only 17. Just a junior in high school. Years lay ahead of her, maybe hundreds or thousands of years. And she had dozens of lifetimes behind her, in the fragmentary memories of the people and aliens who were her—ancestors?

  Her heart eased Bethany relaxed into enjoyment of the beauty below her.

  The sun sank slowly. Time passed.

  Then hunger touched her. Time for dinner.

  Ah. But where?

  An image came to her. A restaurant in San Francisco. Four or five hours by car or train, an hour or two by plane.

  But she was in a spaceship.

  At several thousand miles an hour it was—what?

  Ten minutes, it turned out.

  ·

  The rest of November Bethany tested and practiced her powers.

  Atop a snowy mountain crest in Montana she blasted huge boulders to dust. She could do so from close-up. Her shield let her bolts and lances out but shed the hugest chunks of debris as if they were mist.

  Her reservoir of energy continued to grow. It turned out her robot could measure it and tap into it, though there was no need since it had its own infinite source of “unbent space” to power it. Her air reservoir likewise filled. It turned out that her robot worked whether the bubble was on or off. At one point it told her they could travel to Mars and spend several hours before returning home. She passed up the chance.

  She flew to Shanghai one morning at 4:00 am and walked its streets as the sun departed the sky on this opposite side of the world. The neon jungle of the night life was strange and beautiful, the people strange and beautiful in her eyes.

  She had a moment of surprised recognition of a girl who could have been Lihua’s sister and almost smiled at her and spoke to her .

  Then she had breakfast in New York. Late evening in Shanghai was mid-morning there. And she still set down in her own back yard for hot chocolate and an omelet before taking the bus to school. Her bike gathered dust in the garage.

  Her Thanksgiving was the usual busy day, as her “village” gathered to celebrate it. The next day she visited Lee’s home for a celebrity-filled late dinner. On Saturday Naomi’s home was visited by celebrities also, but from the financial and political world. Brigitte’s home that evening was filled with the horsy set and the absolute upper crust of southern California society. And on Sunday she visited Gerard as his girl friend and sat with head bowed as he said Grace in that austere house-hold. Then she sat and listened attentively to his father discuss religious subjects. Opposite her Gerard’s eyes glistened with unshed tears of mixed gratitude and heartbreak.

  ·

  The first Saturday night in December Bethany dropped down out of the sky in San Diego to dance the Argentine tango at a milonga there. By now she was an expert dancer, at least of the basic moves.

&n
bsp; She had been building the night’s persona for weeks now. Her body was still the lithe one she wore at home. But for a year she’d been building up the fat in her body and compressing it to act as combination body armor and energy reservoir. Now she’d augmented her usual curves by some of that fat.

  Her face also had wider cheekbones, or so a bit of judicious fat management made it seem. Her eyes had a slight slant, the color was violet not her usual blue. Her lips were full and cherry red. Her skin was pale, her cheeks flushed an almost nonexistent pink. Her hair was as black as the night from which she walked.

  Her dress was red also and fit as if poured on. The cleavage was modest but a slit ran up one leg high enough that the right circumstances would reveal black panties. Her hose were black but the web-work patterning it was so delicate it seemed like smoke. Her shoes were red stilettos so tall they would have tortured an ordinary human but were perfectly comfortable for a shapechanger.

  The shoes seemed to have no effect on how she walked. She could have been a werepanther. She flowed across the floor to the ticket seller, bought a ticket, and sought a tiny round table on the far side of the dance ballroom. She more floated to rest than sat.

  She turned to the woman who shared the miniscule table and extended a hand.

  “Hello. I’m Sheila.”

  The lean woman with grey hair, dressed all in glittery black, smiled at her. “You certainly are.”

  “Sheila” lifted delicately arched brows a millimeter.

  The handshake revealed healthy post-menstrual health and a warm disposition. The shapechanger boosted the woman’s health, not that it needed much.

  “A ‘sheila’ is an Irishism for ‘girl.’ But it has a connotation of beautiful and seductive. Also, pardon me, sometimes ‘slut.’”

  Sheila laughed. “Anyone who acts on that last will regret it. If I let them live long enough.”

  Her companion chuckled. “I’m Margaret. I almost believe you.”

  “I can break a man in two with these two hands. Or pull his heart from his chest with one.” Which of course was literally true, but more importantly it fit the part she was playing.

  Sheila turned the subject. “You seem to have an impressive vocabulary.”

  “I’m a professor of linguistics and literature at UC San Diego.”

  “So I guessed right. I thought to detect a scholarly air.”

  “Oh, God, I hope not. Do you know how much that turns men off? No, you wouldn’t.

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m a vampire.” Which was also literally true if you thought of the air and energy she was constantly absorbing from her surroundings as life blood.

  “I can almost believe it.” Margaret looked her up and down.

  Sheila laughed. “I’m a financier and investor. Those who’ve tried to get the best of me sometimes have called me that. Notwithstanding that that is exactly what they were trying to do to me.

  “Now tell me a little bit about the San Diego tango scene. I’ve never been here before.”

  Margaret shrugged. “Not a lot to tell if you’re familiar with other scenes. We’re smaller than LA and San Francisco, but the dynamics are the same.”

  “I’m new to tango but not to dance. I know the tango basics. And I follow really well. But I don’t know a lot of specifics.”

  Her new friend began to point out different personalities as they came in, found friends and seats, and got refreshments from the snack table, which was heavy on veggies, dips, and various kinds of crackers and cookies. Some made do with just soft drinks to act as mixers for the wine they brought with them.

  Part way through the briefing a young woman came in who was a younger version of Margaret. She sat in the chair which that woman had saved for her with a coat thrown over it. She hugged the older woman one armed and kissed her cheek.

  “My daughter Sybil. Darling, this is Sheila. ”

  Sybil was dressed in a burgundy red dress with matching shoes. She wore heels too but on dance shoes with a blocky heel.

  The two women shook hands. The shapechanger fixed a serious problem but otherwise left the woman’s body alone.

  “I was just telling Sheila about things here. She’s new to San Diego.”

  “New to tango here but not San Diego. I sometimes visit here on business.” Actually to visit her sister Helen.

  The briefing continued till a man near Margaret’s age came to ask her for a dance. She smiled at him and rose into his arms. They fit together as if they belonged together.

  “He likes her,” her daughter said, “but she won’t go out with him. She’s lost all confidence in relationships.”

  Sheila looked at the two dancing together. “There’s something about him…. I judge he’d be good for her. Notice the way he protects her from all the reckless ones. How he gives her chances to shine. He loves her. Or could.” There was much more evident to her supersenses. But this was all she could say.

  Sybil laughed. “I wish I could be sure of that. But Mom has to work this out for herself.”

  Sheila looked at the young woman thoughtfully. “You tell a stranger a lot. Should you be revealing all this intimate detail?”

  “What good are strangers for but to say the things you’d never say to anyone close.”

  “We might misuse the information.”

  Now it was Sybil’s turn to measure her companion. “We’ll never see each other again. There is no advantage for you to using this information.”

  “How can you be so sure? ”

  “I see your distance from us. You have no interest in us, no desire to victimize us.”

  That was true. This trip was for fun, but it was more to test her ability to impersonate someone.

  Confiding in strangers…. The shapechanger sometimes felt her distance from even those closest to her as a sharp pain in her heart. Sometimes she desperately needed to share her hidden side to someone.

  Well, here goes…

  “I’m a vampire. For real. I can read people better than others. To better feed on them. Take what I say about whats-his-name for truth.”

  Sybil’s look was skeptical.

  “You have cancer. Inoperable. It will kill you within two years. Or it would have. I’ve cured it.”

  “I’ve not even told—! How do you know that? What scam are you pulling?”

  “Give your doctor a couple of months. Then tell him you want another exam. Be pushy. They’ll find you’re in remission.”

  The other woman looked at her narrow-eyed. “I don’t believe in vampires.”

  Neither did Bethany. But aliens existed, and shapechangers. One in particular, herself, had superpowers. How could she be sure about vampires?

  And if they existed— What would they be like?

  A man approached them. He was looking at Sheila.

  “Dance?”

  She smiled at him. “Wait one minute and I’ll come to you.”

  He left, unsure (to her senses) if she was being honest.

  “We’re nothing like the scary stories. We never kill those we feed off of. That would be as stupid as a dairyman killing his milkers for food. We enhance their health, in fact. As I did just now to you.” She smiled, making it a bit wicked.

  Sybil said, “Just for the sake of argument— Ranchers sell beef cows to butchers.”

  “And if a vampire does the same, a hundred of us hunt him down and kill him in a most horrible way. All those deliciously scary stories are created by humans based on human fears, not the reality.

  “Now pardon me. I see a patient man who deserves a reward.”

  She got up to dance.

  At the end of an evening which she much enjoyed she encountered the mother and daughter outside the club. They offered to walk her to her car. She agreed.

  Two blocks away Sheila stopped and faced the two women.

  “Sybil, tell your mother everything you told me. And tell her everything I told you.”

  And a wind whirled dust and a scrap of pap
er into the air. The vampire was gone.

  ·

  Christmas season was now upon them. Time seemed to both speed up and slow down. Bethany bought presents, everyone else bought presents. Parties were given. Bethany quit her explorations for a time and went to all of them. She needed the closeness of the people she cared for.

  She grew restless after the New Years. She traveled all over the planet. Invisible she watched people.

  ·

  Once high in the air she passed near a hotel window and saw a man and a woman inside having sex. She stopped to spy on them. Her transgression horrified her, but she was frozen, unable to pass on. Worse, she stayed not only to watch to the end, but beyond. They recovered from their exertions, lying side by side, their sex wetly exposed to her eyes.

  This was not like the porn she had come across on the InterWeb and watched, a bit bewildered and a bit turned on. They weren’t actors who didn’t mind strangers watching them. The were not movie good-looking. They were older, overweight, wrinkled.

  But something had caught her attention and kept it. It showed again now as they twined hands. As he lifted them and kissed her hand. Love. They shared not only lust but love.

  Her heart felt as if were being twisted. She was so lonely and alone. How could a superhuman have that kind of love? How could she open her heart to a mortal man?

  She fled into the sky.

  ·

  Three times she intervened in crimes, either with lightning bolts from the sky or laser darts from her hand.

  A fourth time she was walking near an alleyway in a rundown part of Mexico City and heard a woman weeping in it.

  And several voices, of men, laughing and goading each other on. Looking down the alley she saw five men. Two were watching, two more were holding a woman by her arms, pulling them back and immobilizing her. Another man stood in front of her. He tore away her blouse, ripped off her bra, fondled her breasts so hard that she cried out.

  Then he released her and pulled down his pants, revealing his swollen member. He grabbed her head and pulled it toward it. She resisted and he struck her in the belly, hard.