Perhaps it was the difference in the fonts.
"You say that you passed out while driving because you had been forced to give a blood transfusion to Count Dracula . . ."
"Prince."
She looked up. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Prince," I corrected, "not 'count.' Now you're the one confusing monster movies with reality. Vlad Dracul the Fifth of the Bassarab line was never a count. Back during the fifteenth century he was the prince of Walachia. Some of the more popular sources identify him as Vlad III: there's a bit of historical confusion over the Bassarab Vlads II through V—which was 'Tepes' and which was 'Tsepesh'; Daddy 'Drakul' and progeny '-ula.' In terms of his own position in the family line, he invokes 'the fifth.' But, whatever the number, he was a prince. And I can assure you that he takes umbrage whenever the popular entertainments demote him."
Umbrage. They were getting sloppy with the pharmaceuticals: the medication was definitely wearing off.
Her smile was small and sad. "Again, Mr. Cséjthe, take a mental step back and try to consider your own words from anyone else's perspective." Her eyes flicked down to the transcript of our previous session. "You say that the virus that turns the living into the undead is actually a—" she stumbled a little here "—combinant supervirus. That this supervirus is made up of two lesser viruses."
I nodded. "One resides in the blood of a vampire, the other in the saliva. Each has its own effects on the human host. Stoker chronicled some of the effects on those victims who were initially bitten but not immediately drained or killed. He did not, however—nor did anyone else that I know of—document the effects of the blood-borne virus without the combinant effect of the salivary pathogens. We know that a vampire makes another like himself by infecting his victim with both viruses through the bite and the commingling of blood."
She shook her head. "Bram Stoker wrote novels. Fiction. Entertainments. Though I must say, Mr. Cséjthe, your imagination would serve you very well if you turned it to inventing stories for readers of a certain bent. Alas, it does not serve you by redrawing your own perceptions of reality, it only does you harm.
"But—" she held up her hand as I opened my mouth again "—let me continue. You believe that, as a result of this transfusion, your blood is now infected with one of the two viruses and this makes you allergic to sunlight and garlic but gives you increased strength and speed and the ability to heal faster than normal people." She looked up. "Did you notice your own words, here? Normal people. You acknowledge that what you are describing falls outside of the boundaries of normalcy. Of reality."
My inner English major joined hands with my stubborn streak. "The words 'normal' and 'real' are not interchangeable, Doctor. Something can be real without being normal."
"You have no fangs," she continued, ignoring me. "You claim to have met other creatures of myth and fable since the accident. You believe that your lover, the mother of your newborn son, is a werewolf. That a three-thousand-year-old Egyptian sorcerer resurrected the bodies of your deceased wife and daughter and possessed them with demonic spirits. That the four-hundred-year-old countess—" she glanced up to see if I would correct her use of titles "—Elizabeth Báthory, tried to bind the spirits of the voodoo gods and bring about the end of the world."
"Actually," I corrected, "it was the demoness Lilith, masquerading as Erzsébet Báthory. And the voudon spirits are properly referred to as loa, not gods."
She made a little noise and returned to her reading. "You now believe that you can talk to the dead. That your blood is now further infected with mummy serum—"
"Tanna leaf extract . . ."
"Mmm hmm. And, in addition to human blood you say you've tasted the blood of a werewolf, an angel, and a demon—"
"Actually, it was the blood of a human host who was possessed by a demon at that particular moment and I'll just stop talking now," I said as she gave me a look over the top of her printout.
"—and that the infamous Nazi doctor, Josef Mengele," she continued, "or his clones—injected you with thousands of tiny machines called nane—nun—"
"Nanites. And we're probably talking millions, now."
"—microscopic machines that infect your preternatural flesh in new, mysterious and unknown ways. That you have died and lived as a ghost for a couple of days. That you are able to bloodwalk—" She looked up. "How does that work, again?"
"The Wendigo taught me how to enter another vessel through a chakra-point and possess their body for a time."
She nodded. "The Wendigo. I see. How about a demonstration, then? Prove it by possessing me." She smiled another sad smile. "Go ahead."
I exhaled and shook my head. "The chakra entry only works on lower forms of animal life. Well, I've only used the chakra technique with a wolf, actually. To possess a higher life-form, I have to enter the host through their blood. That's why it's called bloodwalking."
Her smile grew sadder. "Mr. Cséjthe, if you think I'm going to injure myself to provide blood for your delusional claims, you are sadly mistaken." She returned to the paper. You count among your friends, some zombies that live—" she glanced up but I didn't say anything, "—in the graveyard next to your former residence, a fortune-teller whom you claim to be the 'real deal,' another woman who now runs the detective agency that you started up a year or so back. Which would sound normal except that you claim that her dead nephew also works for the both of you. Then there's an ancient, Central American bat-headed demon—"
"Camazotz," I said, nodding. "Though I wouldn't call him a friend, exactly. More of a stalker/would-be disciple."
"I suppose that would be difficult: maintaining a friendship with a demon and an angel," she said archly.
"Who? Mikey? To tell the truth, I'm not sure whose team he plays for or whether he's a free agent. Most days I suspect it doesn't really matter."
Apparently Dr. Fand didn't think it mattered, either. "And a two-headed woman," she finished as if I hadn't spoken at all.
I cleared my throat. "You left out Billy Bob Montrose and J.D."
"Another vampire and the ghost of yet another one." She sighed. "What would be the point?"
"Just trying to keep the record as accurate as possible. So, I guess I should also point out that Deirdre isn't technically a two-headed woman. She is a woman who has temporarily acquired a second head."
Dr. Fand's eyes widened but retained a weary cast as she asked, "And the distinction being?"
I shrugged beneath the confines of my straightjacket. "A 'two-headed' woman implies that both heads are actually hers to begin with."
Dr. Fand tossed the sheet of paper aside and it, too, wafted down to the floor. The second page still looked like paper while the first page still looked like parchment. Maybe it wasn't the drugs, after all.
"I had hoped that the antipsychotics that we've administered would give you some moments of clarity. Can you not see how ridiculous your version of the past two years sounds? Vampires, zombies, demons, cloned Nazis? No judge is going to grant you custody of a child that you have no legal claims to. You had not cohabited with Ms. Garou even long enough to meet the definitions of a common-law union." She got up and reached down for the parchment on the floor near my feet. "So, do what's best for your son, Mr. Cséjthe. Sign the papers that will ensure a good foster home for your son. Don't send him off to a state orphanage."
I twitched my right foot as she picked up the form in question and she was back and out of reach in the blink of an eye.
"Why do you care, Doctor?" I asked slowly. "What is my son to you?"
"I'm human," she answered. "Is it so strange that I should care as to what happens to an innocent child? And you are my patient. I don't think that we can properly start your treatment and recovery while you are tied to outside problems and presumed obligations. So, let's get you back on the road to sanity, Mr. Cséjthe. Sign the paper."
I smiled a crooked grin. "'Sign, sign, sign!' they said. 'Sign, King John, or resign instead!'"
Her hand flutt
ered to her chest. "I beg your pardon?"
"Look, Doc—may I call you 'Doc'?—I realize that a crazy person isn't going to think too rationally, especially when loaded up on drugs that turn one's head into a Chia planter. So, it's no wonder that I'm having trouble figuring a couple of things out, here. Maybe, if you could help me sort them out, it would make sense to do your Magna Carta thing."
"Well—"
"First of all, you say I'm having a psychotic break, designed to substitute a kinder, gentler reality for the big, bad, real world. If true, wouldn't I come up with something more pleasant than being infected with a necrotic virus that is slowly turning me into a monster?"
"Well, I—"
"And wouldn't I construct better fates for my family than to have their bodies desecrated and possessed by the dark sorceries?"
"That—well—"
"You see, I just don't understand how this 'coping mechanism,' as you describe it, would set me up with a perceived reality, populated with monsters and such, when that is far worse than what you say is the normal reality. In this so-called protective fantasy, my wife and daughter are still dead, I'm a monster, and the world is a far worse place than I ever imagined before. So, I have to wonder, Dr. Fand. Where did you get your training? 'Psychiatry for Dummies'?"
Her violet eyes flashed fire and she drew herself up to a height that did not seem possible for her diminutive frame. "There's no need to insult my intelligence!"
"Why not? You're insulting mine!"
"The science of the human mind is not a simple matter and I hardly expect you to understand the complexities of your own case in a few short sessions, Mr. Cséjthe!"
"In other words, you're the doctor so shut up and do as you say." I shook my head. "Are you a lawyer, too, Doc? See, the other thing that bothers me is how you're so keen for me to sign over my son. Never mind the fact that you've raised the threat of state orphanages—an institution rendered extinct by family services and the foster care system nearly a century ago. No, you see, the signing of a paper presupposes some sort of transfer of rights—yet you've just told me that I have no legal claim on my son. If no judge will recognize my relationship with my son's mother, how will signing a paper serve any purpose? Especially by a guy who's not in his right mind. I believe the phrase is non compos mentis and we're not talking the 'Freshmaker mints' here." My eyes flicked from hers to the parchment in her clenched fingers. "So what is the point of paperwork if we're operating outside of the courts? And I gotta ask myself: why would a shrink traffic in black market babies?"
She stared back at me, her face colorless. "You must realize that you are quite mad."
"Mad? Lady, I'm so pissed it's going to take years of anger management sessions to dial me back down to moderately hostile! The drugs were pretty effective at first but my metabolism has had time to adjust. I've been able to think a little more clearly of late. And—while I wish to God the past two years really were a delusion or a dream—your One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest performance just doesn't convince."
"You question my credentials? You're not a psychiatrist!"
"No. I'm an English teacher." Was an English teacher. Who gave exams. And time for her to take one of mine . . .
"American and World Lit," I babbled on. "Not so much a scholar of Jung and Maslow. More a scholar of Shakespeare. A very savvy shrink, the Bard. Wrote this little treatise called Hamlet. Now I know what you're going to say: When B.F. Skinner talks, people listen. But if you listen to the depressed Dane, brooding around Elsinore castle, he comes up with some very effective self-therapy."
"I don't know what you're babbling about!" she said irritably.
I sat back and stared at her. "Time's up. Put down your pencil and close your booklet."
"What?"
"The test's over. You flunk."
She arched a wispy eyebrow but I could tell her temper was starting to fray badly. Even if she'd had the training, she would have lacked the discipline. "I don't think you're qualified to administer state psychiatric boards, Mr. Cséjthe."
I arched right back at her. "Bet I could fake it better than you, though."
Her smile showed more teeth than tolerance. "What would be the point of such a bet?"
I leaned forward. "How about this bet? I'm betting the sum total of your credentials as a Freudian are a couple of wet dreams and a soggy cigar."
Her face went white. The crumpling parchment in her fist looked positively ethnic in contrast. "Churl!" Her hair began to stand away from her head like a static cloud. "You dare to speak vulgarities—"
I had her, now. Just another little push or two . . .
"Wanna hear my analysis, Doc? If I should call you 'Doc.' I think you're some kind of schizo-ceramic. That's shrink terminology for 'crackpot.'"
The parchment in her hand suddenly burst into flame and her violet eyes began to glow with an unearthly light.
"Um," I said, feeling the overheated parts of my brain go cold, "I was betting on you being FBI. Maybe Homeland Security. Guess I was wrong. Wasn't last year's tax audit after all, huh?"
"If you will not give me what I want, then I shall simply take it when I will!" She floated up off the floor, a nimbus of lavender light flickering around her. "Then you will come to us, begging to do our will!"
I got up, too, though a little less elegantly and a lot less otherworldly. "Why wait?" I growled. "Let's negotiate now!" I ran at her and head-butted her into the padded door. Which flew open and the two of us continued our momentum across the hall and into a less-yielding wall.
She appeared to be doubly surprised: first, that I would do such a thing and second, that I could do such a thing. That she could appear surprised at all and not totally unconscious from the dent she made in the wall was not a good thing. Women who levitate and glow and cause things to spontaneously combust are not to be messed with. You take them down and out immediately or the amount of living-to-regret-it may be short-time and intense.
She threw out her hand in a gesture and uttered something in an unintelligible language. There was no misinterpreting the echo-chamber quality in her voice, though. A wind sprang up and I felt tingly all over.
Other than that, nothing.
And that seemed to surprise her all the more.
In any kind of a fight it's those half-second hesitations that can make all of the difference. I pushed up against her and grabbed her ear with my teeth. "Any chance you watched The Silence of the Lambs for your homework, Doc?" I mumbled around and into her ear. "Unless you want me to go all Hannibal Lector, I suggest you start unbuckling me!"
Then I noticed something as she squirmed against me . . .
No, not that.
Not those, either.
I'd gotten my incisors through her tresses and latched onto the upper crest of her ear. I eased my tongue out to verify the configuration as she bellowed: "Setanta!"
Crap! Assuming the other side was a match, she had pointed ears!
"Setanta!" she shrieked. The next shriek was less intelligible as she twisted and my tongue slipped, giving her a full-bore wet willie.
I broke my "hold" and we exchanged looks of horror.
A huge guy wearing leather and a baroque, oversized mullet appeared at one end of the hall. He took one look and started to run toward us.
I whirled and ran in the same direction—away from him, that is.
I wasn't going to get very far. Major Mullet had longer legs and the thews of an Olympic decathlete. ("Thews"? Had to be the drugs . . . ) I, on the other hand, had no clue regarding the layout. And the faster I tried to run while wearing a straightjacket, the more likely I was going to end up body-surfing on a waxed floor.
And again, there was the handicap of the drugs.
But I was short on options so I ran . . .
Sheet-rocked corridors gave way to flag-stoned floors and rock-faced tunnels. Glowing patches of lichen and phosphorescent fungi replaced fluorescent tubes. I had to slow my pace as the hallway became an earthen tunnel
with odd bits of root and stone projecting out into my path.
Okay. I was underground.
Add in pyrokinesis, pointed ears, and levitating ladies and it wasn't a total leap to figure I was inside a faerie mound. Except: one, I had no idea what the inside of a faerie mound was supposed to look like. And: two, there were no such things as faeries.
Or vampires or werewolves, right?
A human woman could still have exotic, upturned eyes and even pointed ears—if the genetic mutations parsed just right. But levitation, psychokinesis, and creating purple glows out of thin air? Too bad I was a total white belt in the dojo of elf-defense.
I staggered against a wall, spun around the bend, and fell to my knees. Except my knees never quite touched the ground. The Mullet had me by one of the leather straps across the back of my laughing jacket.
"The time grows too short for such nonsense," he hissed, jerking me back so that I slammed into the brick wall. The leather-clad brick wall that was his chest, that is. He spun me around and seized my throat, lifting me off the ground.
My lungs immediately went into overdrive but there was no more air coming or going. And not a lot of blood, either. My eyes went into screen-saver mode and my brain began the shutdown sequence to hard-drive hibernation. I tried kicking but my legs seemed weak and unresponsive. My arms and hands spasmed painfully and, far away, I heard a distant oath.
And felt the floor.
Against my face.
My vision blurred back from reddish black enough to see the goon "Doctor" Fand had sicced on me. He was standing a few steps back and looking back at me with a frown that was two parts speculation and one part consternation.
I pushed myself up from the floor. It would have been nice to lie there a little longer—just until the tidal wave of nausea washed back out to sea—but this Setanta guy didn't look like the type to give extended time-outs. I flattened my hands like blades of flesh and struck a tai chi pose hoping my opponent had seen just enough kung fu flicks to be intimidated.
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