Blood Therapy (Kismet Knight, Ph.D., Vampire Psychologist) (19 page)

I grinned. “Happy to. And I’m fine without an eye mask.”

Ham was a delightful character. I hoped he was as skilled at hypnosis as he was at putting clients at ease.

“All right. Go ahead and close your eyes,” he said, speaking softly and slowly, with pauses between each sentence. “Turn your attention inward, and just notice your breathing. Become aware of the air flowing in and out of your nostrils, giving yourself the suggestion that you are becoming more relaxed with every breath.”

I struggled to shut off my mental chatter and took some deep breaths. Even if I wasn’t able to go into a deep state of hypnosis today, the relaxation would be worth the time I devoted to the session. And so far I really liked Ham.

“Imagine yourself counting backward from one hundred.”

I followed his request.

“At some point, and I don’t know exactly when it will happen, the next number and all the remaining numbers will simply vanish. And when the numbers vanish, you will drop down ten times as deep inside. … Just counting backward from one hundred now.”

That was the last thing I remembered until I cracked one eye and found Ham standing over me, patting my hand and saying, his voice stern, “Please come back, Doctor Knight. Return to full consciousness now. I will count up from one to five again, and when I get to five you will be fully back in the room. Fully aware. Fully awake. One—”

My eyes popped open.

He sank into the chair next to me. “Oh, thank heavens.” He fanned himself, which did nothing to relieve the sweat pooling on his forehead. “I’ve never experienced anything like that before. I was starting to think I’d have to pull you into the shower and turn on the cold water.”

“What happened?” I licked my dry lips and glanced at the clock on the wall in front of me. An hour had passed.

He looked at me with a worried expression. “Oh, my dear, I’m afraid you won’t have to concern yourself about the things you said you couldn’t tell me. You told me everything. Every horrible detail. You poor thing.”

Terror tackled me. “What are you talking about? I didn’t tell you anything.”

“I’m afraid you did,” he said, eyes wide. “Devereux and Lucifer and working with real vampires and murdering therapists and finding out your brain has been compromised … Oh my God—what a mess!”

I stiffened in dismay.
Surely
I hadn’t told all my secrets to a total stranger? If I had, I was obviously more messed up than I thought. My mind spun. What should I do? I’d have to ask Devereux to visit Ham and erase his memories. Or I could tell him the things I’d said were part of a novel I was writing. After all, if Alan could write one, why not me?

“No, you don’t understand,” I said, trying to sound convincing. “Those are characters from a novel I’m writing—I obviously wove quite a tale for you. And you know we humans can lie even under hypnosis. I’m glad you recorded me—maybe I can use some of the details for plot points in the book.” I pressed down with my feet on the bottom of the chair, and it clicked upright. “If you could just make a CD of the session for me I’ll be on my way. I have clients …”

He watched me with compassionate eyes. “You don’t have to be afraid. I won’t tell anyone. In fact, why don’t you sit back and relax for a moment, and I’ll share something with you. Something that pertains.”

I couldn’t believe I’d told him about the vampires. What was wrong with me? And he wasn’t buying my novel story. No surprise there. “I really need to get going. I appreciate your time and it’s been great meeting you—” I started to get up again, and he gently grasped my wrist.

“Please. I’ve never had anyone I could tell this to, and you’ll see that we have more in common than you think. Please.”

I sat back in the chair, still wary. He obviously wasn’t going to let me leave without listening to him. “Okay, I can stay for a minute.” Was he going to tell me more about his transformation into a female, or was there something else?

“Remember I told you I had a client who insisted he was a real vampire?”

I nodded.

“His name was Martin. He came to me for evening sessions, saying he wanted to remember what it was like to be human. He claimed he hadn’t been alive for more than two hundred years. We were actually successful at regressing him back to his childhood and exploring his memories.”

“You’re obviously used to working with delusional clients. What made you think he was the real thing?”

“He proved it.”

“How?”

“He read my mind and found my most painful memory of being beaten by my father as a child for dressing in my sister’s clothes. He also discovered that my father left us because he was ashamed to have a son like me. I hadn’t seen my father since I was ten, and I’ve carried the burden of being the cause of him abandoning his family ever since.” He sat back and smoothed the fabric of his skirt. “Martin also picked up information about the private detective I hired to find my father and the results of that search. My father is—was—an alcoholic living on the streets in Baltimore.”

“How do you know he read all those things from your mind? Just because he told you he did?”

“No. One night he came for his session and said he had a gift for me. He said he was grateful for all the work we’d done, and he wanted to repay me in a more valuable way than just giving me money. He picked me up like a child, and the next thing I knew, we were standing under a highway overpass in the middle of a homeless camp. I was flabbergasted when I realized I’d been with a real vampire all that time and had just soared through space. My mind couldn’t grasp it. Martin set me on my feet and pointed to a large cardboard box. He said my father was inside.” Ham got up, walked to the window, and stared out.

Knowing vampires, my stomach tightened at the thought of where his story was going.

“Was he inside?”

Ham turned to me. “Yes. Martin literally shredded the box, pulled my father out, and dropped him at my feet. I barely recognized him. He was filthy and he’d lost his hair, but it was him. Of course, he didn’t know me—he was too drunk even to realize what was happening. My heart broke for his miserable life and how he’d ended up. I was just about to ask if there was anything I could do for him when Martin twisted his head to the side and snapped his neck.” Ham looked horrified, his eyes glassy and his skin pale. His hands shook.

“I’m so sorry, Ham,” I said softly. “That had to be awful for you. Vampires have their own rules. They don’t pay any attention to our ethics or laws. In fact, they find them to be ridiculous.”

“So I learned. After he killed my father, he brought me back to my office and expected me to have a session as usual. He couldn’t understand why I was devastated. He said he’d just gotten rid of someone who’d hurt me and that he’d expected me to like his gift and be appreciative. He said I’d been a big disappointment—not much different from my father’s words years before. Martin left, and I’ve never seen him again.” Ham dropped into the chair next to me. “But now I know they exist.” He stared into my eyes. “How do you deal with it?”

“One day at a time. It took a while for me to accept it, even being inundated with evidence. We both know there are plenty of humans sick enough to give a convincing performance as a vampire. Now I can’t deny the existence of the undead, but as I obviously told you under hypnosis, there are layers of problems. Vampires actually affect the human brain physiologically. If I’m going to keep seeing them as a therapist, I have to find a way to protect myself.”

“I can’t imagine how you’d be able to protect yourself from something that powerful. But you did say something about a vampire named Zephyr who could cast a spell to help you. Are you saying that magic is real, too?”

Judging by his lost expression, I didn’t think Ham could take much more reality at that moment, so I patted him reassuringly on the arm. “Let’s save that discussion for the next time we get together, and I’ll try to break it all to you gently. You’ve already got a lot on your emotional plate. But you have to tell me what you did to make me tell you everything. That’s just not like me.”

“I didn’t really do anything. It was you. You apparently counted yourself down then began speaking. I’ve never seen anyone go that deep so quickly. Your mind is truly unique.”

“Yeah, so I hear. Maybe it’s due to all the vampire influence. Or maybe I’m well and truly broken.”

He took my hand. “I don’t think so. You talked about your vampire lover Devereux, and your mixed emotions about him. What’s it like to be with such an astounding individual? How do you keep up?”

I laughed. “I don’t. In his presence, my brain is often mush. He doesn’t mean to hurt me, but he does. Except for now—did I mention the reprieve another vampire gave me?”

“You did—but I wasn’t sure you were telling the truth about that part because you said it was the historical Anne Boleyn who cleared the vampire influence from your mind. Surely you were just embellishing?” He looked hopeful.

“You could believe all the other things, but Anne Boleyn was too much? It’s all true. But who knows how long this reprieve will last. Despite everything, I have to say that clinically it’s been the most fascinating thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“I’d love to talk to you about all your experiences. I imagine you don’t have too many humans you can confide in—maybe just the one FBI agent you mentioned. I’d be pleased to act as a sounding board for you, if it would help.”

“It would definitely help. I’d enjoy getting together with you regularly—let’s stay in touch. I’d like to come back and work on the issues I originally mentioned, especially now that I’m apparently such a wiz at hypnosis!” I smiled. “But I really do need to get that CD and head over to my office now.”

He jumped up and went to the computer sitting on the nearby desk. After a couple of minutes, he carried the disk over to me. “Here. If you have any questions, please call me.”

“Thank you, Ham. Can you bill me for today?”

He held out a hand to help me up from the recliner. “No charge, Doctor Knight. Believe me, I gained as much from our time together as you did. In fact, I’m not sure what you gained, but I hope being able to share your story with someone was beneficial.”

I lifted my coat from where he’d hung it on a wall peg and slipped into it as I walked toward the waiting room. “Just meeting you was worth the time. I look forward to seeing you again soon.”

He accompanied me to the outer door and watched while I navigated the icy sidewalk and headed to my car.

I tucked the CD into my pocket and wondered how much stranger things could possibly get.

A
fter my session with Ham, the rest of the day was filled with client sessions, case notes, and making sure all the arrangements had been made to cover my practice while I’d be at the conference.

My therapist, Nancy, had agreed to be on-call for my clients in case of emergency. She occasionally attended the yearly gathering with me, but this time she didn’t want to travel out of town because her youngest daughter was pregnant and approaching her due date.

Since the conference started early on Thursday morning, I’d arranged to arrive in New York the night before and would be flying out tonight. The weather cooperated, and my flight hadn’t been delayed.

I’d dressed in my newest pair of jeans, a light-blue turtleneck sweater, and flat-heeled black leather boots. It felt great to be out of my professional clothes for a while. The cross and pentagram necklaces rode against my skin. Relaxing in a window seat, I studied the lecture notes I’d jotted down on a pad while giving half my attention to the flight attendant’s demonstration of what to do in the event of a water landing. Since there wasn’t any significant water between Denver and New York, I didn’t think the issue would arise, and I’d heard the talk so many times I had it memorized.

Flying was such a miraculous thing to me. I understood the science of flight, but the idea of a huge cylinder with wings hurtling through the air still boggled my mind. It was the closest thing to magic that most people experienced.

After we got the all-clear to turn on our electronics, I set my laptop on the tray table in front of me and added my handwritten notes to my official presentation.

“Excuse me.”

Distracted, I turned my head toward the voice, suddenly aware of the man sitting on the aisle. The middle seat was vacant. Had he been there all along?

Attractive, probably in his early thirties, he had amber eyes and dark-brown hair just long enough to brush his shoulders, tousled in that haphazard-by-design style. He wore a denim shirt tucked into jeans.

“Yes?”

“I know this is terribly rude”—he bent toward me and lowered his voice—“but I couldn’t help noticing on your computer screen that you’re writing about people who want to be vampires.”

Shit.

I angled the screen away, blocking his view, and met his gaze. He blinked slowly and smiled.

Perfect. A nosey, chatty seatmate. The last thing I wanted to do was talk about vampires with a stranger. Was this his attempt to pick me up? Well, I didn’t want any of that, either. My cup of men was full, and my track record awful. But why hadn’t he made me nervous like all the other good-looking non-colleague men always did? Had my phobia evaporated? “You’re right. It was rude.”

He straightened, eyebrows raised. He probably couldn’t remember the last time his charming overtures were rebuffed. “Sorry. Shouldn’t have blurted that out—I know better. Let’s start over.” He held out his hand. “Hello. I’m Michael Parker.”

“Mr. Parker—”

“Doctor Parker. I’m a psychologist.” He continued quickly. “That’s why I noticed what you were typing—the psychological terms caught my eye. I’m on my way to the APA Conference. Is it safe to assume that’s your destination as well?”

Now it was my turn to be surprised, but that explained my lack of anxiety. I must have intuited he wasn’t just another pretty face. “That’s
exactly
where I’m going.”
Nicely played, Doctor Parker. You skillfully shifted my perception and took control.

“And might I also speculate that you’re giving a presentation and would really like to get back to working on it, if only the obnoxious passenger next to you would mind his own business and stop bothering you?” The charming grin was back.