Blood Therapy (Kismet Knight, Ph.D., Vampire Psychologist) (15 page)

Since the bleak winter day had been overcast—several inches of snow had fallen in the last twenty-four hours—darkness began creeping in by late afternoon. I checked the clock and arranged chairs in a circle. My Fear of Fangs group members would be popping in soon for our third meeting. I never would’ve suspected so many vampires had biting issues.

Sitting behind my desk, I breathed deeply to prepare myself for the increasing fear level and waited for the participants to arrive. Only four members would be attending. The other two regulars were taking the night off. One of the no-shows, Betty, a former actress and current histrionic bipolar, had called and said she wouldn’t be leaving her coffin this evening due to having difficulty breathing. Apparently being dead wasn’t enough of a clue that breathing was optional. And the other, Medina, a suicidal two-century-old blood-drinker with depression, kept using the same methods she’d used as a human to try to kill herself. She knew none of the familiar approaches would work, but she couldn’t break the pattern. According to her roommate, she’d jumped off a skyscraper again and would be incapacitated until she healed.

Should I send a get-well card? A regenerate-your-limbs-soon card? My night-walking clients are nothing if not creative.

Chain arrived first. True to his name, he wore chains around his neck, through his belt loops to hold up his baggy blue jeans, wrapped around his biker boots, and encircling his wrists. Tall and thin with long, stringy black hair and dull gray eyes, he was wearing his well-loved Harley jacket. Swaggering over to my desk, he hitched a hip on the corner and said, “Hey, doll. Let the party begin.”

To the casual observer, Chain appeared to be one tough bloodsucker.

Looks can be deceiving.

“Hello, Chain. Remember we talked about you calling me by my professional title? You’re practicing being respectful, right?”

“Sure, doll—I mean, Doctor Knight. Whatever you say.”

“Thanks, Chain. Go ahead and take a chair.”

Lucille silently appeared. “Hello, Doctor Knight. I hope I’m not
late.”

“Hello, Lucille. As usual, you’re right on time. Please find your seat.”

“Well, if it ain’t Mother Superior, come to join the sinners,” Chain said, referring to the fact that Lucille, who usually came to group wearing tight, revealing clothing with big hair, tonight sported a floor-length nun’s habit, complete with veil and a long rose quartz rosary around her neck. Her vivid green eyes sparkled in her pale face. A wisp of brown hair peeked from the white coif on her head. Like many schizophrenics, Lucille experienced religious hallucinations as part of her illness.

“Chain? Is that respectful?” I asked.

He slouched down in his chair, sulking. Chain’s diagnosis was antisocial personality disorder, mediated by extreme anxiety. While he had strong psychopathic tendencies that would normally preclude him from participating in the group, his urges were held in check by his profound fear. He’d told us he liked torturing and killing animals when he was a human child, but after every incident he hid in his closet for hours, terrified, waiting for the ghost of the dead creature to take its revenge.

“I forgive him, Doctor Knight,” Lucille said, crossing herself. “He can’t help it.”

Something must have escalated her anxiety to account for the clothing choice.

Partners in every way, the last two members appeared together, as they often did. Medium height, with brown hair and eyes, they even looked alike.

“Hi, Doctor Knight,” they said in unison.

“Hello, Walter, Dennis. Nice to see you. Go ahead and sit and we’ll get started.”

“Hey! Bummer and Downer are here. Let the whining begin!” Chain teased.

“Chain? We had this discussion. Walter and Dennis prefer to go by their real names.”

“Yeah.” He pouted. “But you’re the only one who calls them that, so you shouldn’t just yell at me. Everybody knows how they are.”

Well then, should I call you Psycho?

But Chain was right. They’d earned their vampire nicknames due to their negative outlooks; they’d elevated pessimism to an art form. No matter how many silver linings were offered, they could always find the dark cloud.

Gathering my notebook, pen, and water bottle, I joined them.

“Let’s go around the circle and check in. How did your week go? Any success to report? Lucille, would you like to begin?”

She burst into tears. “Oh, Doctor Knight. I tried what you suggested. I stood in front of the mirror and tried to appreciate my fangs, to think good thoughts about them, but the longer I looked at them, the sharper they seemed to get, until I was so scared I pulled them out of my mouth again. Like before. I tried to collect the blood from the holes in my gums so I could drink it, and not have to feed, but it clotted too fast. And drinking my own blood doesn’t work anyway.” She covered her face with her hands and sobbed for a few seconds before plucking a tissue from the box and wiping her nose. “When the fangs grew back in, I tried to drink from one of my regular humans, but I was so clumsy pushing my teeth into his neck that I ripped him up. He screamed, and I screamed. It was horrible. He finally agreed to cut his wrist and drip the blood into a cup for me. I’m such a failure.”

“You got that right,” Chain said.

I gave him a look, and he shifted his gaze to the carpet.

There definitely wasn’t a Love Your Fangs class in graduate school.

“Did pulling your fangs out relieve your anxiety, Lucille? Did it make you feel better?”

“Yeah, for a few minutes. But then I felt worse.”

“That’s what usually happens,” I explained. “When we hurt ourselves, we distract from the real problem but nothing gets any better. What could you do instead?”

She thought for a few seconds.

“I know! I know!” Dennis said, bouncing in the chair, his hand raised.

“Hold on a minute, Dennis. Let’s give Lucille a chance to figure it out.”

Lucille shifted her eyes from Dennis back to me. “Like you taught us, I could try to ride out the anxiety, switch to thinking about something that makes me feel better, and wait until the urge passes.”

“That’s exactly right, Lucille. Are you willing to try that?”

She wrapped her hands around the rosary beads. “Yes. I’ll try.”

Since his hand was still waving in the air, I turned to Dennis. “What would you like to say, Dennis?”

“Everyone’s talking about the Master getting his ass kicked by that Lucifer guy. Ever since me and Walter heard that, we’ve been afraid. We thought the Master would protect everyone in his coven, that he was like the vampire Superman. But what if he can’t?” He leaped out of his chair and paced, twisting his hands, his eyes wide. “What if that bad vampire and other monsters come to kill us?”

“Yeah,” Walter said, bouncing up to join Dennis, “who’s going to keep us safe? If we’re all truly dead, then it doesn’t matter if we’re afraid of our fangs. We’ll be gone!” He jumped up and down in place, smacking himself on the sides of his head with his hands. Dennis imitated him.

Uh-oh. The Mad Hatter Vampire’s tea party.

“Jesus,” Chain said. “The fags are freakin’ out.” He stood and tugged the chain from around his waist. “Here, Doctor Knight—you can use this to tie them up.”

His expression was so sincere I almost smiled. “Thank you, Chain, but I don’t think that’ll be necessary. You can put your … belt … back on. And please don’t use that hateful word in group.”

“What word?” he asked, frowning.

“Fags. We’ve also talked about
that
before. Please think before you speak.”

I rose and approached the two frantic bloodsuckers slowly, then spoke very quietly. “Come on, you two, sit down. Everything’s okay. You raised good questions—let’s all calm down, and we can discuss them.”

They looked at me for a few seconds, then at each other, before they sat.

I guess we have a new topic for the meeting tonight. What the hell am I supposed to say now?

“Is it okay with you, Lucille and Chain, if we talk about this subject? This is your group as well—we all have to be on the same page.”

Lucille wrapped her arms around herself and swayed in the chair. “I guess I’ve been afraid, too, Doctor Knight. I don’t really want to talk about it, but I do want to know what’s going on. I don’t want Lucifer to get me. I’ve been having nightmares that he will.”

“Chain?” I asked. He’d become unusually quiet.

“I don’t give a fuck,” he said, trying for bravado, but his voice cracked. “I don’t need anyone to protect me. You can talk about whatever you want.” He pulled his jacket over his head.

Okay, then. They’re all afraid. Let’s address the bloody elephant in the room.

“Dennis, you raised the issue, so why don’t you tell us more about your fear of not being protected?”

He stood and scanned the group. “The whole vampire community is scared. Nobody wants to say anything bad about the Master, but we’re worried. We heard Lucifer just pounded on him, that the Master didn’t even put up a fight.” His voice caught. “We heard he begged for mercy.”

Should I give them the facts or just do therapy? I can’t have Devereux’s reputation ruined by lies.

“No!” I said firmly, “none of that’s true.”

Walter jumped up again. “But it
is
true—everybody’s saying it.”

“Sit down, please.”

They sat.

Lucille was crying quietly, and Chain had burrowed deeper into his coat. Dennis and Walter stared at me with bug-eyes.

Would Devereux be upset if I discussed his private business with
lesser
vampires? How much difference would it actually make to the rumor machine if I told these four clients the truth? After all, it was only my word against a juicy story. Who’d believe the Master’s girlfriend—or whatever I was now? No doubt Devereux’s enemies were reveling in his expected downfall. No matter how conflicted I felt about him now, Devereux and I had been lovers. More importantly, we’d been emotionally intimate. I didn’t want to see him hurt.

After a few seconds of mental debate, I decided to throw caution to the wind and share what I’d seen.

Determined, I took a deep breath, set my pad and pen on the floor, and crossed my legs. “Devereux didn’t beg for mercy—he’d never do that. He was ambushed, and he fought brilliantly.”

“How do
you
know?” Walter asked.

Chain threw off his coat and lunged at Walter. “Because she was
there
, asshole. Everybody knows that. She’s the Master’s woman!”

Walter squealed in fear and grabbed onto Dennis.

“Chain, please,” I said, “go back to your seat.”

Scowling, he reclaimed his chair, but he didn’t cover his head with his coat again.

“As Chain said, I was there.” I couldn’t sit still anymore, so I stood up and paced around the outside of the circle. “It wasn’t Lucifer who bested Devereux. Nobody
kicked his ass
—it was the blood-fueled death-magic ritual that temporarily incapacitated him. The magic was astoundingly powerful. Without that, Lucifer wouldn’t have had a snowball’s chance in hell of subduing Devereux. Even the intensity of the spell couldn’t keep Devereux from returning. He is, and will always be, someone you can count on to protect you.”

I hope that’s true.

Dennis turned in his chair to speak to me as I passed behind him. “But why can’t Devereux catch Lucifer? I thought nothing was beyond the Master’s powers. Is he afraid of Lucifer?”

“Yeah,” Walter said, “that’s what we heard.”

Lucille began touching her beads, reciting the rosary out loud.

“No, he isn’t afraid of Lucifer—and he’s very eager to find him. Lots of Devereux’s vampires are looking for the maniac. But there’s something strange about Lucifer, something that makes him difficult to track.”

“What’s that?” Chain asked, his voice quivering as he rubbed his arms. “Is he some kind of major bad dude with extra powers Devereux doesn’t have?”

“No,” I said, “there’s something wrong with his brain.”

“His brain? What do you mean?” Dennis asked.

“He’s severely mentally ill. Whatever happened to cause the split in his personality took away the unique signal every brain has. There’s an empty space where his pattern should be.”

“Signal?” Lucille asked and sucked in a breath. “You mean like we’re being controlled by aliens?”

Oh, geez. Beam me up, Scotty.

“No, no aliens. Lucifer’s brain is broken. He isn’t
normal
like you.”

Normal. Vampires. What’s wrong with this picture?

“Devereux can’t get a fix on Lucifer’s brain because there’s no energy to detect, no personalized frequency. Nothing,” I continued. “That’s the only reason he’s still at large. And Lucifer isn’t going to hurt you—he focuses on humans.”

Dennis wiped his face with a tissue and puffed out a breath. “Well, that’s good,” he said, then looked at me and remembered I fell into that category. “Er, I mean, not good that he hunts humans, but I’m relieved he isn’t interested in us.” Worry still shadowed his face. “Is he going to come after you, Doctor Knight?”

How much truth is too much?

Before I could decide whether that was something they didn’t need to know, Chain said, “Fuck. You guys are dense. It’s common knowledge Lucifer’s after Doctor K. He only wanted Devereux out of the way so he could have the Doc. Don’t you know
anything
?”

Actually, Bryce wanted Devereux for himself. I don’t think Lucifer cared one way or the other about him. The madman was too screwed up to consider him a threat.

Lucille cracked her knuckles loudly. “Oh no, Doctor Knight. I’ve been so afraid for myself that I didn’t think about you. What will I do if he hurts you? Who will be my therapist? How will I survive?”

First rule of narcissism: it’s all about me.

They all started talking at once, the collective anxiety escalating. Then the tension level in the room spiked, and, as if an invisible switch had been thrown, everyone went berserk. Walter slouched out of his seat, dropped to his hands and knees, and crawled frantically around the room, smashing his head repeatedly into walls. Dennis climbed onto the chair, jumped up and down, and screamed, “We’re gonna die!” Lucille tore off her beads, sending them ricocheting off every surface in the room, before she stripped out of her nun’s outfit, exposing her nude body. Then she ran in circles as Chain chased her, laughing hysterically.