The Vampire Shrink kk-1

by Lynda Hilburn

  He walked me over to my desk, bent down so I could pick up my briefcase and my purse, and we left to find my car.

  I must have fallen asleep on the ride to my house because the next thing I knew, we were there and he was lifting me out of the passenger side of my car.

  As he carried me up to my front door I asked, ‘How did you know where to go? I didn’t give you directions to my house.’

  ‘I performed my “little parlour trick”. I can do the same with your alarm code if you wish, or you may simply punch in the numbers.’

  I gazed up at his face, decided I didn’t have the energy to argue, entered the code and unlocked my door. We stepped into my living room and I blurted, ‘Hey, I thought vampires could only come in if they were invited.’

  The moment I said it, I couldn’t believe it had come out of my mouth. Embarrassment warmed my cheeks. I must have had some kind of head injury or something because I’d never make light of someone’s delusion if I was in my right mind. I’d just flunked Being a Therapist 101.

  ‘I’m sorry. That was very thoughtless of me.’

  He laughed. ‘I am pleased you are getting into the spirit of things. But that particular bit of vampire lore is false – we can come and go as we desire. Where is your bedroom?’

  I tensed. ‘My bedroom? Why do you want to know where my bedroom is?’

  He stared down at me, the warmth in his eyes replaced by something remote and cold. ‘Yes, it is wise for you to be afraid. No matter how much some of us might wish to pretend, we are not human and we do not live by human rules. We are not humans with fangs. But for tonight, allow me to put your mind at ease. As delightful as it would be to take you to your bedroom and make love to you, I am offering only to carry you to the comfort of your bed. I would be lying, however, if I said I do not hope for an invitation in the future.’

  ‘Er, thanks?’

  He carried me upstairs to my bedroom, held me easily with one arm while he pulled back the bedclothes and laid me down. Then he removed my shoes, covered me with the blankets and gazed into my eyes. The last thing I remember was that wonderful voice saying, ‘Sleep.’

  CHAPTER 6

  The ground slips from beneath me and I’m falling, tumbling into surreal unconsciousness where there’s no air, no life, and I can’t breathe. My entire body contracts in terror as I plummet down into something I’m certain will be beyond my ability to withstand. The void pulls me into a darkness so complete there’s no comprehension of it. Still falling and falling, with no sense of speed or location, just the continuous, ever-building dread. I’m enclosed, spiralling down some long tube, dense with stifling-hot, thick air. Then, without notice, I’m expelled out into an empty, cold, desolate nothing. My very essence fragmenting in all directions as death whispers to me. The descent lasts for ever as a distant voice shrieks horrible-sounding words I can’t understand, echoing in oblivion. The voice crawls over me and through me, penetrating my skin like hundreds of carnivorous insects, and I scream in the darkness, flailing my arms and legs. Is there something even worse than death? Then the shock of crashing down into warm liquid. Blood—sticky, thick, coppery-scented and old – very old. The intensity of the harsh landing keeps me afloat for only seconds before I discover there’s nothing underneath me. No foundation, nothing to hold me, no one. I go under, still screaming, gasping and swallowing blood. I’m drowning in the blood and the overwhelming hopelessness . . . terror larger than I can hold, and someone is laughing.

  ‘No!’ I screamed. A shrill ringing startled me and my eyes flew open. I bolted up, heart beating fast and hard. Shaking, I leaned back against the headboard and noticed all the blankets and pillows from my bed were on the floor. Fragments of the dream swam back into my awareness, and the feeling of terror intensified. I knew I was safe in my bed, but the memory of spiralling down into that darkness pressed against my chest and I struggled to slow my breathing. Rivers of sweat snaked down my face and pooled between my breasts. I distantly observed that I was still wearing the clothes I’d worn yesterday.

  The annoying sound continued to intrude, louder now. A headache that had started as a dull throb over my left eye now infiltrated my entire brain and beat a strong cadence of its own, rivalling what I finally worked out was the telephone ringing. I took some deep breaths, pushed the wet hair back from my face, and cleared my throat. Rolling over towards the nightstand, I fumbled for the phone.

  ‘Yes?’ I croaked.

  ‘Dr Knight? This is Special Agent Stevens. We met at the hospital yesterday. I’m sorry, did I wake you?’

  ‘Who?’ My brain stubbornly refused to connect the dots, and the inside of my upper lip had become hermetically sealed to my teeth.

  ‘The FBI guy from the emergency room. Special Agent Stevens.’

  I ran my tongue over my teeth in a vain attempt at hydration and wound up making dry, smacking noises with my lips. ‘Special Agent Stevens? Uh, yes. Okay, I remember. I recognise your voice.’

  Idiot. You let the phone ring a thousand times. Of course you woke me. And you’ll never know how grateful I am that you did.

  Groggy, I squinted over at the clock to see if it really was as ungodly an hour as I imagined it to be, and it was.

  I sucked in another deep breath, held on to the solid reality of the phone and forced myself to calm down. I cleared my throat again. ‘Why are you calling me at 5 a.m., Special Agent Stevens? And how did you get my home phone number? It’s unlisted.’

  ‘I work for the FBI – enough said?’

  ‘So why are you calling?’ I reached for my blanket on the floor and spread it across my legs.

  ‘I want to find out if you’ve heard from your client, Emerald Addison, the one you brought to the hospital?’

  ‘What do you mean? She’s still in intensive care, isn’t she?’

  ‘Well, that answers my question. No. She isn’t still in intensive care. Sometime between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. she went missing.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I barked, the pain in my head slam-dancing in heavy shoes. I pressed the palm of my hand against my forehead as if that would keep my skull from exploding. ‘The last time I saw Emerald, she was in no condition to do anything. There’s just no way she could have got up and walked out of the hospital. What are you doing about it?’

  His voice held the verbal equivalent of a smirk. ‘It sounds like we’re a little cranky when we don’t get our beauty sleep, Doc. Even though you’re being testy, I’ll answer your question anyway. This case is being treated as an abduction or a missing person. Each of those categories has its own protocol, and the local cops are in charge. Since your client was attacked in the same manner as the other cases I’m investigating, I’m being included in the information loop. So far we have zip. I’m hoping you can tell me something that’ll give us a lead.’

  Okay. He gets points for pulling me out of that nightmare, but cute cop or not, there’s no way I’m sharing client information. Even if I knew anything.

  I took a deep breath, pushed ‘play’ on the ‘I’m a Professional’ tape in my mental repertoire, and began speaking in my therapist voice. ‘As I mentioned yesterday, I’m not at liberty to tell you anything about anyone. If there’s something general I can help you with, as a psychologist, I’d be willing to do that.’

  ‘Great. I’ll be right there. Put on some coffee, okay?’

  ‘What?’ I sat up. The pushy bastard. I didn’t expect him to take me up on it – and certainly not immediately. ‘Wait a minute! I need to shower and get dressed. You can’t come over now!’

  ‘How much time do you need?’

  There was that cocky tone again, the tone that said he assumed I’d be spending hours primping in front of the mirror.

  ‘Give me half an hour.’

  ‘Half an hour. Will do.’

  ‘Hey, hold on – don’t you need me to give you directions to my house?’

  He chuckled. ‘FBI, remember? We’ve got all those handy little records. See you in t
hirty.’

  I hung up the phone and rolled out of my comfortable bed, still on automatic pilot. Then I stumbled around and turned on the light. I managed to remove all the damp sheets, threw them into the laundry hamper and headed to the shower. It took ten minutes of standing like a statue under the hot spray before the sensation of something crawling on my skin receded, and I felt somewhat normal again.

  I stood with my arms braced against the tile walls enclosing the bathtub, willing the hot water to wash away the fearful residue from the nightmare. The sound of the hideous laughter still echoed through my inner world, reverberating like a ghostly memory.

  I picked up a bar of soap and revelled in the sensation of it gliding over my skin and began to feel renewed – to come back to myself. I slid the bar over one side of my neck, kneading gently, and when I lathered the other side I was startled by a sharp jolt of pain. Instinctively, I dropped the soap, which hit the bottom of the tub with a loud thud as I explored the tender skin with my fingers.

  ‘Shit!’ I stepped away from the water and gingerly slid my finger over the painful area, mentally shaking off another layer of drowsiness.

  Touching the wound on my neck brought the horrible events of the previous evening back to me in living colour: some demented maniac had broken into my office and punctured my neck with his teeth.

  His teeth! What movie was it where the psycho put on his grandmother’s sharpened dentures and chewed on his victims? How the hell did they get into my office? What a miserable night. First the psychopaths, then the dream. Oh yes – and let’s not forget cocky FBI agents, although I guess this didn’t qualify as ‘night’ any more.

  That nightmare was off the charts. I couldn’t remember ever having such a vivid, terrifying dream before – all that blood and existential emptiness. Maybe those assholes coming to my office last night had frightened me even more than I realised. The dream was probably a reaction to their threats and my feelings of mortality. The standard death dream. Or an indication that my brain was turning into scrambled eggs. Well, whatever it was, I’d have to sort it out later.

  I hadn’t even begun to think about whether or not I should report the attack to the police. There was the confidentiality issue to consider. Bryce was connected to Midnight, and I couldn’t involve her, but if I pressed charges, she’d probably be dragged in.

  It was definitely time to move my office to a building with security – cameras, doormen, the whole deal. No more uninvited visitors.

  My shower completed, I stepped out and wrapped myself in a thick extra-large towel. Enjoying the warm feeling, I went over to the mirror, wiped away a patch of fog and checked out the wound on my neck.

  ‘Damn! What the hell?’

  I stared at the carnage. There were two blatant, swollen holes surrounded by a sea of red with purple and yellow blotches. It looked as if I’d been ravaged by a wild dog or something. I opened the medicine cabinet, rummaged around for my antiseptic salve, and read the label to see if it said anything about being an effective defence against human germs. I remembered reading something about the germs in a human’s mouth being worse than anything else. I hoped that wasn’t true.

  Antibacterial? Well, I guessed that would be better than nothing. Was there any such thing as an anti-vampire-wannabe medicine? An analgesic to ward off those pesky undead cooties? I’d probably need to get a tetanus shot, at the very least. Yeah. There I was, thinking about this weird situation as if it was just another day at the office . . .

  I dotted some of the medicine on the wound and held an inner debate about the merits of covering it versus letting it breathe. Breathing won. For now.

  Touching the bite mark reminded me of Devereux’s tongue sliding over my neck and I had a pleasant body rush. Then I remembered the feel of his lips and noticed my nipples were hard and the area between my thighs was growing warm and wet. I took a quick ride down Possibility Lane as I imagined how it would be to feel his hand there.

  The human mind really is resilient. What was I thinking about while patching up the leftovers of my very own psychotic Bela Lugosi’s munch-fest on my neck? Sex. Sex with Devereux. I definitely didn’t get enough sleep.

  Still tingling from the mental afterglow, I towelled my hair, sprayed it with a super anti-tangle concoction, and flipped my head over so that my hair hung down in a thick curtain in front of me. I picked through it with my wide-tooth comb, snarling as I struggled with the clumps of hair that refused to play nice.

  I stopped when a simple realisation washed over me. It finally penetrated my sleep-clogged brain that I could have told Agent Stevens I was unavailable and would see him at my office later. I could have continued snoozing in my bed. I definitely knew better than to make any decisions before I’d had my caffeine fix. Apparently the events of the previous night plus the demonic nightmare caused me to have an even more intense case of fuzz-brain. The annoyance of my obvious act of stupidity made me fling my head back up with such momentum that the weight of my hair almost gave me a whiplash.

  ‘Ouch! Shit!’

  I strode into my bedroom and tugged open the door to my walk-in closet, knocking a picture of the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park off the wall.

  Okay, temper tantrum accomplished. Next?

  I climbed into my favourite baggy jeans and a University of Colorado T-shirt and headed down to the kitchen, fantasising about that first cup of nirvana.

  After I started the Mr Coffee, I checked my office voice-mail to see if Emerald had left a message. She hadn’t.

  I was pouring my first cup of coffee when Agent Stevens knocked on my door. I didn’t usually get up that early, but every time I did, I was reminded of how much I loved watching the sun come up. There’s that wonderful feeling of a new beginning, of endless possibilities. This morning in particular I appreciated the beauty, light, and warmth of the dawn.

  I let him in, then stood for a moment in the open doorway, watching the light reclaim the sky and enjoying the crisp fall breeze.

  ‘Hey, Earth to Dr Knight – where do you keep your coffee mugs?’

  I jumped when he spoke and glared at my visitor, who was making himself quite at home. He wandered around the kitchen, opened every cupboard and drawer, and then parked himself in front of my open refrigerator. ‘Holy cow! There’s nothing in here but take-away food. Don’t you know how to cook? There isn’t even any milk for my coffee.’

  Is this guy for real?

  Waking me up before the crack of dawn was bad enough, but inviting himself over and having an opinion about the state of my refrigerator was over the top. My head pounded and I simply had no patience for dealing with this arrogant cop. If it hadn’t been for my concern about Emerald, I’d have kicked his tight little butt right out the door.

  The longer I studied him, the more my anger dwindled. He looked exhausted, as if he hadn’t been to bed yet. He was either wearing the same clothes I’d seen him in at the hospital, or he had a collection of jeans and rumpled white T-shirts. His eyelids drooped, the purple-blue of his eyes looked less vibrant, and his hair was a monument to what happens when you use your fingers as a comb.

  Come on, Kismet. Don’t go getting all warm and gooey now because the guy’s worn out. This is a professional consultation. No caretaking allowed.

  ‘Sit down, Special Agent Stevens.’ He eased his long frame into one of my kitchen chairs. I poured him a mug of coffee, carried it over to the table, and joined him.

  ‘You can call me Alan, Doc.’

  I pulled another clump of my hair over my shoulder, making sure it still covered the ghastly souvenir on my neck. ‘Well, Alan, how can I help you?’

  ‘Why are you counselling vampires? Don’t you know how dangerous that is?’

  And to think that for the past thirty years I doubt if I’ve heard the word ‘vampire’ more than ten times, and now everyone I talk to seems obsessed with it.

  I shook my head. ‘Dangerous? What’s dangerous about helping people free themselves from a destructive del
usion? It’s my job to uncover faulty thinking.’

  He paused and raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s the second time you’ve said something that leads me to believe you don’t know what kind of tiger you’ve got by the tail. Are you seriously telling me you think vampires are delusions? You really don’t see the big picture?’

  Oh, please. I’m not awake enough for this. I can’t believe an FBI guy is talking about vampires.

  ‘Can I see your identification again, Agent Stevens?’

  He pulled his picture ID out of his pocket and handed it to me. ‘You think there’s something fishy about an FBI agent discussing vampires?’

  I inspected the ID. It appeared authentic, but I really had no way of knowing.

  ‘You read my mind, Agent Stevens.’

  ‘No, I read your face, Dr Knight.’

  I handed his ID back to him. ‘Don’t FBI agents usually work in pairs? Where’s your partner, Agent Stevens?’

  ‘I’m temporarily between partners.’ He grinned. ‘I seem to be an acquired taste – my partners keep asking for transfers. If you’re nervous about whether I’m who I say I am, you can call the local police. They know all about me and what I’m doing here. So, will you answer my question now? Why are you working with vampires?’

  My neck throbbed, and my patience was gone. The good feeling I’d gained from the hot shower was retreating at the speed of light.

  ‘Special Agent Stevens, I didn’t get up this early to discuss fairy tales or cartoon characters, so unless there is some aspect of psychology that I can help you with, I think we’re finished.’

  ‘Wow,’ he said, slapping his palms on his thighs, ‘you really don’t know. I figured when I saw your ad in the paper that you knew what you were dealing with, but you’re flying blind. You’re messing with things you don’t understand, and somebody needs to enlighten you. It might as well be me.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s necessary.’ I sighed and stood.

  ‘Wait.’ He grabbed my wrist.

  My breath caught. I instinctively jerked my arm out of his grip and took a step back. Nobody else was going to put his hands on me uninvited. I glared at him. ‘Don’t touch me.’