by Hunter
“No one suspects the days to be gods. ”
— Emerson
Half-way through the session, she tiredly mumbled “shining moment”, then pressed back into the headrest of the leather couch and stretched her thin neck against the curls of her black hair. As she released, she began to tell, with the certainty that comes only after long internal deliberation, of her final conclusions.
“For as long as I can remember, I’ve believed there would come a moment when I could finally take a clear step back from my life and really see the pieces. It would be like this filthy glass had been removed from between my eyes and the world. Things would be clear, unambiguous. I’d finally understand why things happened to me, absolutely know what was in my control, what wasn’t. And then, with the knowledge in my grasp, I could just rearrange the pieces, put them in some kind of order, make this response to that, feel this about that. Finally, finally, finally. ”
“Go on. ”
“I guess I’ve always been afraid the moment would come when I was dying. That’s what kept me from killing myself. Because it would be silly, wouldn’t it? To realize exactly what had been wrong only when it was too late? ”
She lowered her head to look at him. Did he understand? Was she understandable? She looked away, at the table, the lamp, the family photo and some sort of glass knick-knack that seemed to glow from an inner light.
She was just about to ask what it was when he said, “And now? ”
“Now I know, beyond words, that this depression is the only clarity I’ll ever experience. Even you’ve run out of tricks to keep me going. ” she said. She paused, then added, “Haven’t you? ” When there was no immediate answer, a tear welled in her eye. It grew to the limit of surface tension, then trickled down the side of her cheek. Quietly, Dr. Stuart Eberhardt breached his own etiquette and glided out of his chair to sit next to her. Weakly, she leaned towards him. Knowing he shouldn’t, he pet her shoulder. She pressed her head into his chest and nuzzled against him.
He really was out of tricks. They’d tried Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft, even a few special brews, not to mention the years of therapy that only seemed to uncover layer upon layer of sadness. There was no effect, no improvement. And only one thing left to try.
He touched his index finger to her forehead and gently pushed her head back, exposing her face and neck. Staring into her helpless eyes, he parted his lips as if to speak or kiss, but instead drove the sharp points of his canines deep into her jugular.
She started a bit as the cutting tingle spread through her body, but then, with a sigh, her beleaguered mind began to relax. Tension slipped from her muscles. Her life had suddenly morphed into a surreal, cliche, horror-show dream and she, having no reason to do otherwise, gave in to it. The blood flowed sweet and easy.
But just as the sanguine warmth spread along his stomach, some tick, some slight sense of happiness or contentment, or perhaps just a glimmer of pride at having existed at all, surged and surfaced. Her body stiffened, her eyes opened wide. She tried to scream but only gurgled. Ready to fight, she tried to pull away. She wanted to live. She really did. In spite of it all, she wanted to live.
“Too late for that, ” Eberhardt thought, folding his arm around her. Helpless against him, she struggled, pulled and moaned for what seemed a terribly long time. As her strength drained in waves, unable to see the clock from his current position, he guessed it might have been as long as ten minutes. Then, the little spark in her eyes, that some might have likened to her soul, diminished and died.
“Well, that was annoying! ” Eberhardt said, letting go. “You try to do someone a favor and look what happens. ”
The body listed to the side. Unbalanced, its limp, hanging arm pivoted freely in the shoulder and swept the end table, sending both photo and knick-knack towards the floor. The photo was little more than a prop, but the orb was a gift from the Giovanni. It was a trophy for his research on Hunters, the so-called “imbued” humans who actively sought to exterminate the Kindred, and were forever increasing in number. Through knowledge, Eberhardt had made himself invaluable among the ranks of the night’s children. The orb contained, so they said, the soul of the first of two Hunters he’d “treated. ”
In half a second, well before it hit the floor, it was safely in his hands. As an after-thought, he caught the photo, inches from the ground, between the thumb and forefinger.
After gently setting the orb back on its stand, he glanced at the photo, the shadow of a shadow-life, a sunny day on the beach, playing in the sand. He did not miss his wife, having always resented the fact that, since they were two people, there were gaps between them he could never bridge. The children, though, there was a time when he had felt at one with them. The memory sent a vague ripple through the crenellations of his undead mind. He tossed the frame back on the table.
Hissing, he swatted at the body as he would an errant shoe. It fell to the ground, achieving a position years of Yoga practice would never allow. He briefly told himself he’d been trying to do her a favor, but with fresh blood sating him, he knew it was a lie. The simple fact was that he should never see a patient while he was hungry. If he waited too long between feedings, everything started looking good. Thankfully, this had only happened twice during his three and a half years of night hours.
He looked at the time and gritted his teeth. His 7: 30 would be arriving soon. A new patient. A special case. There were plenty of neurotic workaholics delighted by his evening hours, but they were inconvenient for a child. Her parents, upon hearing he was the city’s preeminent specialist in delusional psychosis had sought him out as a House of Last Resort. It certainly wouldn’t do to have the little one be greeted by a corpse on her first visit. There was time enough for that later. So he hefted the thing and thrust it into the supply closet. Glancing at the couch and the floor, he was pleased to see there was not so much as a drop of blood visible. Even before his Embrace, Dr. Eberhardt was nothing if not precise.
A few minutes later, the buzzer rang. Straightening his clothes, he walked across the office and through the small waiting room. He paused to straighten the Monet print (a final gift from his hurt, confused ex), pulled open the heavy white door and tried his best to smile the way he thought a human would.
It was no surprise when Mark and Sheila Simon, who’d been talking with hushed anxiety in the hall, fell silent when they saw him. They were, after all, terrified that their daughter was mad, and this was the place where that determination would be made. He could have looked like an angel and their reaction would have been the same. At 5’8”, with an average build, curly black hair and blue eyes, he was paler than most, but didn’t quite look like a vampire, either.
“Dr. Eberhardt, ” Mark said, offering his hand. “Call me Stuart. Please, ” he said. To avoid contact, he waved them through the door. “Mark, Sheila, Jessica, come in, come in. ”
Bundled in a red over-size jacket, her arms nearly immobile in its puffy sleeves, the expressionless child turned her Yoda-like eyes up at him, then back to her parents before she followed them inside. She wanted to warn them, but knew what their response would be.
Coats met hooks. Small hands wriggled little arms to freedom. No one noticed the Monet.
“Well, ” Eberhardt said, clasping his own hands with a nonchalant little rub he imagined was a pleasant, reassuring gesture, “there’s plenty of magazines and some cable TV here to keep mom and dad entertained. ”
Turning to the short creature, he smiled widely and said, “I’d like to speak with Jessica alone for a while now — if that’s all right with you, Jessica? ”
The answer was quick and simple — “No. ” Mother smiled, but Eberhardt saw the fear in her eyes, “Go ahead honey, we’ll be right out here… ”
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br /> “You’ll stay? ”
Dad, pointing to the office door, jumped in with his own insincere grin, “Anytime you want, you can open that door and see us. ”
“I won’t lock it, ” Eberhardt said.
As he held open the door, she toddled under his arm, careful not to make physical contact, and peered around inside. He nodded to Mark and Sheila then gently closed the door. At the click of the latch, she froze, terrified. Then a look of conscious control made its way along her features, and she bravely turned to face him. He motioned pleasantly to the couch. And as she clambered onto it, he wondered just how to begin.
A child, a child - how does one speak to a child? Especially one who can really see you? Too sharp, too adult, you frighten her. Too soft, too slow, she’ll smell the lie. Children naturally know disingenuousness, he mused, a knack often lost to mortal adults as a consequence of engaging in their own. And in this one, that sense might be even more heightened. The two Hunters he’d examined previously enjoyed a general increase to their perception of 25% or more as compared to their previous life — most likely a result of actually having to pay attention to the world. Start simple. Let her set the pace.
“Do you know why you’re here? ”
“My mommy and daddy are worried about me. ” “Yes. Yes they are. Do you know why? ” “They don’t see the bad eyes. ”
Eyes. It was skin pallor, visible veins, or an aura that gave them away to the other two, coupled with a general sense that the being they confronted just was not alive. What was it about the eyes for this one? A reflection of her own? “But you do see them? ”
“Yes. ”
“Does anyone else? ”
“They see each other, ” she said hesitantly, then added, bravely, “You know. ”
Eberhardt decided to reward her.
“Because I’m one of them? ”
She scrunched up her brow.
“Yes. ”
“And you’re afraid of them? Of me? “
“Yes. ”
“Why? ”
“You hurt people. ”
“You’re afraid we’ll hurt you? ”
A nod, then, “Or my mommy or my daddy. ” “Well, what if I promised not to hurt you? ” She looked at him, full of suspicion.
“Why? ”
“Because I really do want to help you. ” “What about later? If you get angry or scared or hungry? ”
He really did smile at that.
“Yes, well, we all get angry or scared or hungry sometimes. That can make us forget our promises. But you know, there’s a special promise among some of us bad eyes that we can’t ever break. It’s called a Blood Oath. ”
“A Blood Oath? ” she perked up, keenly interested. As a child, her experience was inherently limited. Here was an excellent opportunity to learn how much knowledge, even in a neo-linguistic, structural form, was given to Hunters in the moment they acquired their strange, predatory status, the so-called imbuing. Perhaps this was even a chance to determine if the imbuing was an outside force, as both of his previous subjects suspected, or something they were born with that simply, somehow, activated at some point in their life.
“What if I made a Blood Oath not to hurt you? ” She eyed him warily, so he added, “Just for tonight? ”
“And my mommy and daddy? ”
“Of course! ” Eberhardt said. With that, he knew he’d won the first round.
“All right, ” she said solemnly.
“Then it’s done. ”
“Don’t you have to use blood? “
“Do you want me to? ”
“No. ”
“Then I won’t. ”
He had to be careful about what he said next. She could be a great ally in his quest for truth, if he kept things honest. So the answer was obvious, he said nothing.
Slapping his hands to his thighs, he stood, saying, “I think that’s enough for tonight, Jessica. I do want to see you again in a few days, and I hope you’ll feel a little more comfortable and we can talk some more. ”
“Will we have another Blood Oath? ” she asked, climbing off the couch.
“Of course, ” he said. “Would you wait here a minute? I want to talk to your mommy and daddy for a second. ”
His words to them were quick and reassuring: “It’s natural, to an extent, for a four year old to have, well I hesitate to call it trouble, but let’s say a permeable boundary between reality and fantasy. Jessica may be going through little more than an extreme version of that. I would like to continue seeing her, a few times a week, to try to learn what emotions her fantasies are enabling her to play out. As part of the therapy, I’m playing along with her, so don’t be surprised if she tells you I’ve admitted to being a ‘bad eye. ’ It will help me determine what that means to her. ” Mark Simon braced himself and asked the question foremost on their mind, “Stuart, we brought her here because you’ve been, well, pre-eminent in treating this sort of thing. We heard about the patient who attacked you. Is it the same? ”
Eberhardt shrugged good-naturedly, “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it at this point. The fullblown psychoses I’ve treated are more closely related to a fairly common schizophrenic delusional structure, where the person believes a loved one has been replaced by some identical, yet somehow evil, entity. I don’t think that’s what we’re dealing with here. ”
The Simons visibly relaxed.
“Then what are we dealing with? ” Sheila asked, “Sometimes we’ll be walking down the street and she’ll just start screaming and pointing at someone, insisting they’re some kind of horrible creature! ”
“It’s way too early for me to say, but we might just be dealing with, well, childhood, ” he answered. She seemed to accept this, and it was clear she desperately wanted to. The more of Jessica’s behavior he could get them to accept as normal, the easier time he’d have studying her.
Further relieved that he didn’t plan to offer any medication, Eberhardt noted with pleasure the first vague signs that they were beginning to trust him. He called Jessica in and they made ready to leave.
As her parents put on their coats, Jessica pulled Dr. Eberhardt down for a whisper.
“She forgives you. ”
“Who? ” Eberhardt said, genuinely confused.
She leaned forward and spoke even more softly, “The lady in the closet. ”
A little taken aback, he nodded. She must have looked in the closet. Lightning-like, he rattled off the possibilities in his mind and concluded that even if she did tell her parents about it, they wouldn’t believe her.
As Eberhardt watched from the open door, the small family passed through the pools of light shed from the hallway sconces and soon vanished into gray. Once satisfied they were gone, he returned to his office and spoke to an empty comer.
“You can come out now, Garth. I know you’re here. ”
With a little laugh, some shadows in a corner of the room congealed into the long lean form of Garth Warburton, Eberhardt’s liaison with the powers that be, of quite high standing himself. He was the city’s Keeper, who answered directly to the prince. The fact that Garth visited Eberhardt personally was a great compliment to the psychiatrist’s work, an honor in itself. Over time they’d become something akin to friends.
“How long? ” Eberhardt asked.
“Just after you closed the door to the waiting room, ” he said.
As if continuing the same sentence, he pointed a long bony finger toward the orb on the end table. “You’re keeping the saiwala, in plain site, where the humans can see it. ”
Eberhardt heard the implied criticism, but knew it would be silly to respond directly. Garth never gave an opinion, he simply described events in such a way that his opinion seemed a simple matter of fact.
“It amuses me, ” Eberhardt said, “to hide in plain sight. I find it liberating. ”
“I doubt the Giovanni would be so amused. ”
Eberhardt shrugged.
“What did she whisper
to you, as she left? ” Garth asked.
“That the lady in the closet forgave me. I had a uh., lapse of judgement with my last patient, ” he answered, without hesitation. There was, after all, no way of knowing when the Keeper had really arrived.
“Yes, I know all about it! ” Garth said, grinning. “I have to admit I’m pleased to see you indulging a bit! It’s good to know you’re not quite so tightly wrapped. But the interesting thing is that the child knew. Could she already have some hunter abilities, even be a sort of clan member? ” Eberhardt waved the thought off with a smile, “You’ve read my work too closely. I once suggested they might have something akin to the clans, with different capabilities based on breeding. But while we share blood, I haven’t found any similar physical link among the Hunters. More likely she wants to be one of the Rugrats or Power Puff Girls. ”
Garth furrowed his brow, confused by the references. Then his mouth formed a small “o” as he recalled, “You were a father, yes? ”
Eberhardt nodded, “Three girls. Did you… ever have children? ”
“Once…, ” Garth began, almost sadly, “with a light cream sauce. Not unlike veal. ”
Eberhardt laughed, “Every single bit of available data, my studies combined with what we’ve heard, indicates that hunter abilities are predicated on the basis of adult preferences. They’re not innate. ”
“But adult preferences could be innate, couldn’t they? ”
Dr. Eberhardt smiled, “Nature, nurture - let’s not go there again, shall we? ”
Garth gave a little bow.
“What would you like me to tell the primogen and the prince? ”
“That we have here a wonderful opportunity to study a hunter without medication. ”
Garth raised an eyebrow, “Really? That’s surprising. I know how much you enjoy the pills. ” “Oh, absolutely, but she’s barely four. She’s no danger to us physically, and no one will believe her. Why not? ”
“Well, what if someone does believe her? Or one of those dreadful abilities surfaces early? ” This part, Eberhardt knew, was just a game. Garth had already decided what recommendation he would make. Now he only wanted to hear the obvious.