Blood Therapy (Kismet Knight, Ph.D., Vampire Psychologist) (9 page)

He released me and pressed his palm against my chest, worry etched across his features. “I have never heard your heart beat so quickly. This cannot be healthy. Come. We will leave now. I will take you home.”

Just then an unusually pale robed vampire glided through the rooms, striking a gong. The sound reverberated off the walls and vibrated the pyramid of champagne glasses stacked on the buffet table. Without a word, everyone followed him.

Anne winked at me over her shoulder before stepping away.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“The ceremony is about to begin. We are being escorted to the ritual site.” Devereux gave me a hard look. “I am concerned about the state of fear in your body. Despite what Anne said, someone has done something to cause your reaction. We do not need to attend the ritual if you are not up to it. Just say the word, and we will leave.”

He watched me, waiting for an answer. Part of me wanted to go home, to curl up in my favorite chair in my pink robe, and give serious thought to my future. But the rest of me wanted to discover as much about Devereux and the other vampires as possible, to sort out whether anything I’d experienced in the last three months had been true. To see if I could trust him to keep his word.

Anne had said the effects of her clearing wouldn’t last long. I felt in charge of myself at that moment and wanted to memorize the feeling. I was aware of Devereux’s mystical vibe, but it didn’t influence me.

“We can go to the wedding. I’m much better already.” The fear remained steady but manageable, as if my instinct-brain remembered being prey.

“Yes.” He brushed a finger along my cheek. “You do seem to be recovering. Very well.” He extended an arm, and we followed the throngs through a long, empty narrow room that opened into a vivid hallucination.

A full-size replica of Stonehenge—except it looked as it must have when first constructed—stretched out impossibly on a vast expanse of green grass. Somehow the illusion of a star-lit sky had been projected overhead. Beautiful medieval music floated on the air.

Three naked figures—presumably the bride and groom plus an official-looking woman—were waiting in the center of the stone ring, clustered around a small altar decorated with astrological symbols.

Devereux and I joined the other guests pressed tightly into concentric circles. Even the donors attended. They huddled in a group directly across from me. Suddenly the background music stopped and all was silent except for the steady rhythm of the gong.

Being in physical contact with the vampires inflamed my fear. I breathed deeply to calm the impending panic attack, thinking I must have been outrageously entranced by Devereux since I’d met him for me to have been unaware of this level of constant terror.

At that moment, I knew my involvement with the vampires would never be the same. Even Devereux’s physical charms weren’t enough to balance the scales. Nothing could undo the events of the last half hour.

I practiced self-hypnosis and riveted my focus onto the happy couple center stage, refusing to allow my acute dread to keep me from witnessing the unique event.

At some invisible signal, the nighttime sky overhead morphed into a brilliant sunrise and a collective gasp rose from the crowd as everyone looked up. My eyes tracked the faces, some of which held such expressions of yearning that I almost felt as if I was intruding on a private moment. A keen reminder that this was the only kind of sunrise they would ever see.

Hundreds of tiny floating balls of light materialized, illuminating the scene with a soft glow. Devereux squeezed my hand, and I shifted my gaze to his face in time to see him staring up at the mock sunrise with wonder.

At that moment, I felt fortunate. No matter what powers vampires could command, there were equally profound losses.

My attention was drawn to the bride, whose exceptionally long bright-green hair flowed down her body like neon seaweed, curving around the mounds of her very large serpent-tattooed breasts. She smiled at her intended, displaying impressive fangs. The groom turned out to be the tall bald fellow I’d watched feed from the donor when we first arrived. Since he wasn’t naked then, I hadn’t noticed the intricate tattoo on his chest that matched his soon-to-be wife’s. Joy radiated from his face. I wondered what kind of vampire royalty they were to rate this kind of turnout.

I was happy for them, but couldn’t concentrate. Despite using my most potent visualization techniques, fear crashed against my mental defenses, rendering them useless. I scanned the crowd again, seeking to reassure myself that it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that the monsters sensed my panic and would devour me at any moment. Devereux wasn’t reacting to my intensity. Whatever Anne had done appeared to be effective. She caught my eye and gave an amused grin. I didn’t know if I was grateful to her for the painful reality check or angry because she’d destroyed all my comfortable delusions. Delusions I hadn’t known were there.

Counting backward to soothe myself, I thought about the fact that I had an entire career to restructure. A whole life to reconsider.
I’m in charge of my choices. I don’t
have
to do anything!

The official woman—priestess?—at the altar began speaking in a soft voice, flailing an amethyst wand through the air. The wand created a vortex of sparkling gold energy around the couple like something out of a Disney movie. I strained to hear but couldn’t make out anything she said. After a few seconds, I finally caught a couple of words and realized the ritual was being conducted in German.

Perfect. Even if I had any clue about what vampire wedding vows might be like, now it was useless to pretend to have a grip. But focusing on the ceremony kept my panic at a tolerable level.

Every so often the official raised both her hands in the air and sang a word that drew affirmative responses from the spectators.

A chalice appeared out of nowhere and was passed from the priestess to the bride and groom. Having seen such a cup before when Devereux created the ritual for me around Halloween, I knew what it held. What else would vampires drink, anyway? The couple traded the chalice back and forth until it was empty.

After a few minutes of the participants talking to each other, probably saying all the appropriate “I do”s, the couple held out their wrists and the priestess bound them together with a red cloth.

Just as the groom bent forward for the traditional biting-of-the-wife’s-neck, a familiar disgusting odor filled the air and a tall, emaciated male in a filthy long black coat materialized in the middle of the celebrants, knocking the three participants and the altar to the grass. Coal-black eyes in his bald, malformed, veiny head turned slowly toward me. He sneered, showing brown teeth and fangs, pointed a finger in my direction, then lunged at me.

Everyone started yelling at once, and what looked like a million vampire eyes turned toward me.

Devereux clutched my arm so hard I yelped in pain, then he pushed in front of me.

My fear level, already off the charts, went stratospheric, and my stomach clenched so tight I could barely breathe. I recognized that foul maniac: Lucifer, Brother Luther’s serial killer personality. The animal who’d terrorized mortals and vampires alike. The walking nightmare who’d stalked me.

With a roar, Devereux released me, his sudden movement thrusting me backward into several guests, already sent tumbling in the chaos, and who were now struggling to stand. I scrambled to my feet in time to see Devereux leap toward Lucifer as the uninvited fiend grabbed two donors by their necks before all three of them vanished.

Devereux followed.

The last thing I remembered was Anne lifting me into her arms and her voice saying, “Oh, great. Once again, Anne has to clean up the leftovers.”

No!” I screamed, and sprang up into a sitting position. Heart pounding, sweat beading on my chest, I surveyed my environ-ment, relieved to discover myself on my own couch, still wearing the silver dress, the sun flowing in through the living-room windows.

Daytime. No vampires.

I sniffed tentatively, anticipating Lucifer’s foul calling card. Instead, all I smelled was the breakdown of my own deodorant.

It took a few seconds for my pulse to calm and my breathing to slow.

Memory fragments of the night before swam into my consciousness in disjointed pieces. My hands shook, and I eased myself up against the cushions, staring down at the cross and pentagram around my neck. I lifted the cross, expecting to feel heat, but it was cool.

What did that mean? Had something happened to Devereux again? No matter how confused I was about our relationship, I didn’t want any harm to come to him. He’d become important to me, even if it turned out we couldn’t be together anymore.

The enormity of my situation rolled over me like a psychic avalanche. I hadn’t meant to make bad choices—shit! I simply hadn’t acquired enough information about anything during the last three months to make any rational decisions. But I had to face the fact that both my current options stank.

How could I possibly have known the degree to which my brain was being physically changed and controlled by vampire energy? Even Devereux didn’t know. I’d just thought my headaches were due to normal human reasons, like stress. I shivered, thinking about being a guinea pig in my own experiment. Dr. Frankenstein ingested his concoctions on purpose. I’d thrown my brain into the undead blender without a qualm.

But what if Anne was manipulating me, and her claims about my brain were lies?

What if they weren’t?

I guess I’ll find out eventually.

Okay, get a grip, Kismet. Options.

If I did what I wanted to—closed down my bloodsucking private practice, stopped work on the vampire-wannabe book, and stayed away from Devereux—it was only a matter of time until Brother Luther’s even more repulsive and evil personality Lucifer swooped in to carry me off. For some unknown reason, the fiend was obsessed with me, and that kind of sick connection was almost impossible to extinguish even in humans. As a vampire, his ability to move through time and space made me unsafe everywhere. So, result of option one? Quick death. At least, I hoped it would be quick.

Option one definitely sucked.

Option two? If Devereux survived whatever happened when he and Lucifer vanished last night, I could stay with him. Let him turn me into his obedient human slave, his fast-food snack, his destined mate. I couldn’t deny that I behaved strangely when I was with him. He might even deign to tell me his real agenda one day, why he
really
wanted me around. Of course, he’d be a kind master—he’d treat his pet well. But soon the physiological effects on my brain would simply stop me from trying to have any independent thoughts, behaviors, or feelings. I’d just wait for instructions. He could dress me up like his goth Barbie doll. But I’d be safe. Sort of alive.

Fuck that.

My mind spun as I tried to figure out the best thing to do. The most rational decision. All my feelings about vampires in general and Devereux in particular had been upended. I didn’t know what was real and what could be written off to brainwashing. According to Anne, I only had about a week to drive my own mental bus, and I wanted to make good use of it.

I picked up the TV remote and clicked it on to check the time: 2:20 p.m., Sunday. CNN ran a replay of last night’s New Year’s Eve ball-drop in Times Square. I tapped my fingernail on the coffee table and watched the crowd celebrate. The blissfully ignorant humans who had no idea vampires really existed. The partying hordes of normals who would wake in the morning only missing brain cells they’d chosen to destroy in the name of fun.

Why couldn’t I remember what happened after I left the wedding? Had Anne delivered me home? Or someone else? The scope of the possibilities made the hairs on my arms rise and my stomach roil.

The bloodsucker-free part of the day was dwindling. There was no more time to waste. I needed help.

Alan.

Regardless of any unfinished business between us, I had to call him. No matter what sticky issues we had, being two of the small number of humans aware of the existence of the undead created a bond deeper than our ridiculous personality dramas.

I was just about to click off the TV when a
Breaking News
alert flashed across the screen, and the scene shifted to a reporter standing on a narrow, steep street featuring the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. “Breaking news: not many details yet, but a source close to a police investigation tells us they’re hunting for a serial killer here in San Francisco. The governor is demanding swift action. Stay tuned and we’ll bring you updates as they’re available.”

Suddenly, three images flashed through my mind: a screaming dark-haired woman standing in an office, someone wearing a hooded raincoat lying in a wet parking lot next to a car, then a shadowy figure running down an empty street. What the hell? Why was I seeing these things?

Chilled by the horrible news and the visions, I rubbed my arms. Another serial killer?
What the hell’s wrong with humans? Why do we insist on killing one another?
I tried to imagine the horror that would ensue if the world discovered the existence of even worse predators.

Guiltily grateful that the deaths hadn’t occurred in Denver, I turned off the remote, heaved myself up from the couch, then stepped toward my desk before noticing my stiletto sandals were missing. When had they disappeared? I looked around to see if I’d kicked them under the furniture but didn’t find them.

Deciding that mystery was low on the priority scale, I headed upstairs for a quick shower and a change of clothes. Since today was a holiday, I had no clients of any kind, so I could make a new game plan.

Figure out a way to stay alive.