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

by Hilburn, Lynda

  “I forgive him, Doctor Knight,” Lucille said, crossing herself. “He can’t help it.”

  Something must have escalated her anxiety to account for the clothing choice.

  Partners in every way, the last two members appeared together, as they often did. Medium height, with brown hair and eyes, they even looked alike.

  “Hi, Doctor Knight,” they said in unison.

  “Hello, Walter, Dennis. Nice to see you. Go ahead and sit and we’ll get started.”

  “Hey! Bummer and Downer are here. Let the whining begin!” Chain teased.

  “Chain? We had this discussion. Walter and Dennis prefer to go by their real names.”

  “Yeah.” He pouted. “But you’re the only one who calls them that, so you shouldn’t just yell at me. Everybody knows how they are.”

  Well then, should I call you Psycho?

  But Chain was right. They’d earned their vampire nicknames due to their negative outlooks; they’d elevated pessimism to an art form. No matter how many silver linings were offered, they could always find the dark cloud.

  Gathering my notebook, pen, and water bottle, I joined them.

  “Let’s go around the circle and check in. How did your week go? Any success to report? Lucille, would you like to begin?”

  She burst into tears. “Oh, Doctor Knight. I tried what you suggested. I stood in front of the mirror and tried to appreciate my fangs, to think good thoughts about them, but the longer I looked at them, the sharper they seemed to get, until I was so scared I pulled them out of my mouth again. Like before. I tried to collect the blood from the holes in my gums so I could drink it, and not have to feed, but it clotted too fast. And drinking my own blood doesn’t work anyway.” She covered her face with her hands and sobbed for a few seconds before plucking a tissue from the box and wiping her nose. “When the fangs grew back in, I tried to drink from one of my regular humans, but I was so clumsy pushing my teeth into his neck that I ripped him up. He screamed, and I screamed. It was horrible. He finally agreed to cut his wrist and drip the blood into a cup for me. I’m such a failure.”

  “You got that right,” Chain said.

  I gave him a look, and he shifted his gaze to the carpet.

  There definitely wasn’t a Love Your Fangs class in graduate school.

  “Did pulling your fangs out relieve your anxiety, Lucille? Did it make you feel better?”

  “Yeah, for a few minutes. But then I felt worse.”

  “That’s what usually happens,” I explained. “When we hurt ourselves, we distract from the real problem but nothing gets any better. What could you do instead?”

  She thought for a few seconds.

  “I know! I know!” Dennis said, bouncing in the chair, his hand raised.

  “Hold on a minute, Dennis. Let’s give Lucille a chance to figure it out.”

  Lucille shifted her eyes from Dennis back to me. “Like you taught us, I could try to ride out the anxiety, switch to thinking about something that makes me feel better, and wait until the urge passes.”

  “That’s exactly right, Lucille. Are you willing to try that?”

  She wrapped her hands around the rosary beads. “Yes. I’ll try.”

  Since his hand was still waving in the air, I turned to Dennis. “What would you like to say, Dennis?”

  “Everyone’s talking about the Master getting his ass kicked by that Lucifer guy. Ever since me and Walter heard that, we’ve been afraid. We thought the Master would protect everyone in his coven, that he was like the vampire Superman. But what if he can’t?” He leaped out of his chair and paced, twisting his hands, his eyes wide. “What if that bad vampire and other monsters come to kill us?”

  “Yeah,” Walter said, bouncing up to join Dennis, “who’s going to keep us safe? If we’re all truly dead, then it doesn’t matter if we’re afraid of our fangs. We’ll be gone!” He jumped up and down in place, smacking himself on the sides of his head with his hands. Dennis imitated him.

  Uh-oh. The Mad Hatter Vampire’s tea party.

  “Jesus,” Chain said. “The fags are freakin’ out.” He stood and tugged the chain from around his waist. “Here, Doctor Knight—you can use this to tie them up.”

  His expression was so sincere I almost smiled. “Thank you, Chain, but I don’t think that’ll be necessary. You can put your … belt … back on. And please don’t use that hateful word in group.”

  “What word?” he asked, frowning.

  “Fags. We’ve also talked about that before. Please think before you speak.”

  I rose and approached the two frantic bloodsuckers slowly, then spoke very quietly. “Come on, you two, sit down. Everything’s okay. You raised good questions—let’s all calm down, and we can discuss them.”

  They looked at me for a few seconds, then at each other, before they sat.

  I guess we have a new topic for the meeting tonight. What the hell am I supposed to say now?

  “Is it okay with you, Lucille and Chain, if we talk about this subject? This is your group as well—we all have to be on the same page.”

  Lucille wrapped her arms around herself and swayed in the chair. “I guess I’ve been afraid, too, Doctor Knight. I don’t really want to talk about it, but I do want to know what’s going on. I don’t want Lucifer to get me. I’ve been having nightmares that he will.”

  “Chain?” I asked. He’d become unusually quiet.

  “I don’t give a fuck,” he said, trying for bravado, but his voice cracked. “I don’t need anyone to protect me. You can talk about whatever you want.” He pulled his jacket over his head.

  Okay, then. They’re all afraid. Let’s address the bloody elephant in the room.

  “Dennis, you raised the issue, so why don’t you tell us more about your fear of not being protected?”

  He stood and scanned the group. “The whole vampire community is scared. Nobody wants to say anything bad about the Master, but we’re worried. We heard Lucifer just pounded on him, that the Master didn’t even put up a fight.” His voice caught. “We heard he begged for mercy.”

  Should I give them the facts or just do therapy? I can’t have Devereux’s reputation ruined by lies.

  “No!” I said firmly, “none of that’s true.”

  Walter jumped up again. “But it is true—everybody’s saying it.”

  “Sit down, please.”

  They sat.

  Lucille was crying quietly, and Chain had burrowed deeper into his coat. Dennis and Walter stared at me with bug-eyes.

  Would Devereux be upset if I discussed his private business with lesser vampires? How much difference would it actually make to the rumor machine if I told these four clients the truth? After all, it was only my word against a juicy story. Who’d believe the Master’s girlfriend—or whatever I was now? No doubt Devereux’s enemies were reveling in his expected downfall. No matter how conflicted I felt about him now, Devereux and I had been lovers. More importantly, we’d been emotionally intimate. I didn’t want to see him hurt.

  After a few seconds of mental debate, I decided to throw caution to the wind and share what I’d seen.

  Determined, I took a deep breath, set my pad and pen on the floor, and crossed my legs. “Devereux didn’t beg for mercy—he’d never do that. He was ambushed, and he fought brilliantly.”

  “How do you know?” Walter asked.

  Chain threw off his coat and lunged at Walter. “Because she was there, asshole. Everybody knows that. She’s the Master’s woman!”

  Walter squealed in fear and grabbed onto Dennis.

  “Chain, please,” I said, “go back to your seat.”

  Scowling, he reclaimed his chair, but he didn’t cover his head with his coat again.

  “As Chain said, I was there.” I couldn’t sit still anymore, so I stood up and paced around the outside of the circle. “It wasn’t Lucifer who bested Devereux. Nobody kicked his ass—it was the blood-fueled death-magic ritual that temporarily incapacitated him. The magic was astoun
dingly powerful. Without that, Lucifer wouldn’t have had a snowball’s chance in hell of subduing Devereux. Even the intensity of the spell couldn’t keep Devereux from returning. He is, and will always be, someone you can count on to protect you.”

  I hope that’s true.

  Dennis turned in his chair to speak to me as I passed behind him. “But why can’t Devereux catch Lucifer? I thought nothing was beyond the Master’s powers. Is he afraid of Lucifer?”

  “Yeah,” Walter said, “that’s what we heard.”

  Lucille began touching her beads, reciting the rosary out loud.

  “No, he isn’t afraid of Lucifer—and he’s very eager to find him. Lots of Devereux’s vampires are looking for the maniac. But there’s something strange about Lucifer, something that makes him difficult to track.”

  “What’s that?” Chain asked, his voice quivering as he rubbed his arms. “Is he some kind of major bad dude with extra powers Devereux doesn’t have?”

  “No,” I said, “there’s something wrong with his brain.”

  “His brain? What do you mean?” Dennis asked.

  “He’s severely mentally ill. Whatever happened to cause the split in his personality took away the unique signal every brain has. There’s an empty space where his pattern should be.”

  “Signal?” Lucille asked and sucked in a breath. “You mean like we’re being controlled by aliens?”

  Oh, geez. Beam me up, Scotty.

  “No, no aliens. Lucifer’s brain is broken. He isn’t normal like you.”

  Normal. Vampires. What’s wrong with this picture?

  “Devereux can’t get a fix on Lucifer’s brain because there’s no energy to detect, no personalized frequency. Nothing,” I continued. “That’s the only reason he’s still at large. And Lucifer isn’t going to hurt you—he focuses on humans.”

  Dennis wiped his face with a tissue and puffed out a breath. “Well, that’s good,” he said, then looked at me and remembered I fell into that category. “Er, I mean, not good that he hunts humans, but I’m relieved he isn’t interested in us.” Worry still shadowed his face. “Is he going to come after you, Doctor Knight?”

  How much truth is too much?

  Before I could decide whether that was something they didn’t need to know, Chain said, “Fuck. You guys are dense. It’s common knowledge Lucifer’s after Doctor K. He only wanted Devereux out of the way so he could have the Doc. Don’t you know anything?”

  Actually, Bryce wanted Devereux for himself. I don’t think Lucifer cared one way or the other about him. The madman was too screwed up to consider him a threat.

  Lucille cracked her knuckles loudly. “Oh no, Doctor Knight. I’ve been so afraid for myself that I didn’t think about you. What will I do if he hurts you? Who will be my therapist? How will I survive?”

  First rule of narcissism: it’s all about me.

  They all started talking at once, the collective anxiety escalating. Then the tension level in the room spiked, and, as if an invisible switch had been thrown, everyone went berserk. Walter slouched out of his seat, dropped to his hands and knees, and crawled frantically around the room, smashing his head repeatedly into walls. Dennis climbed onto the chair, jumped up and down, and screamed, “We’re gonna die!” Lucille tore off her beads, sending them ricocheting off every surface in the room, before she stripped out of her nun’s outfit, exposing her nude body. Then she ran in circles as Chain chased her, laughing hysterically.

  Holy shit. Here we go again.

  Acting out like this was their way of not dealing with the real issue: sublimation at its most bizarre.

  Chain wrestled Lucille down and sank his fangs into one of her breasts. I didn’t know whether to chastise him because he’d assaulted her or congratulate him for getting past the fear of using his fangs.

  But because I’d been there and done this, I knew what to do. I climbed up on my desk, pulled from my pocket the whistle I’d tucked away earlier, and blew it as loud as I could.

  “Stop!”

  They all froze.

  I pointed to the circle of chairs. “Go back to your seats. Now!”

  With sheepish expressions they all complied.

  I hopped down from the desk, grabbed a jacket someone had left hanging on my coat rack, and tossed it to Lucille. She draped it around her shoulders instead of covering herself.

  Quick as a snake, Chain pinched one of Lucille’s nipples.

  Lucille giggled.

  “Chain! We never touch someone without their permission. And we don’t bite without an invitation. Apologize to Lucille, and keep your hands to yourself.”

  “Apologize? For what? She’s naked, Doctor Knight. What’s a guy supposed to do? And she lets me do a lot more than that outside of

  group.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” I said. And thanks for that disturbing visual. “You know the rules: no physical contact with any of the other members or with me. So go on—apologize. And congratulations on using your fangs, by the way.”

  Everyone clapped.

  Chain looked at Lucille, stuck his tongue out, then said in a sarcastic voice, “I’m sorry.”

  Undead preschool.

  Dennis and Walter were sitting rigidly, trying not to look in Lucille’s direction.

  “Okay. Anyone still worried about whether or not Devereux can protect his coven?”

  “No,” they chorused.

  “Anyone still afraid Lucifer will get you?”

  That elicited a less enthusiastic, “No.”

  None of them sounded convinced, but at least I’d given them something to think about.

  “All right, that’s it for tonight. Good job, everyone. Practice thinking positively about your fangs and take a courageous risk—bite someone who wants you to. See you next week, same time, same place.”

  They all popped out amid a flurry of good-byes, leaving me in glorious silence.

  Bite someone who wants you to? I’m becoming as bizarre as they are.

  After group I sat at my desk, writing notes. I’d just completed the last paragraph when my cell phone rang. I tensed. Lucifer’s Brother Luther personality usually left messages on my business voice mail number, but I couldn’t take anything for granted. There was nothing to keep him from calling my cell.

  I checked the caller ID and let out the breath I’d been holding. I couldn’t deny the little rush of pleasure I experienced when I read the name. Alan. But then I wondered, Why am I pleased? Because I’m attracted to him? Or because he’s human and can’t mess with my head in any non-normal way?

  “Alan? Is everything okay? We just spoke yesterday—you’re usually way too busy to spend much time on the phone.”

  “No. Everything’s not okay,” he said, his voice strained. “Hold onto your hat.”

  His tone tightened my stomach as much as his words. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “I just found out the three bodies the cops have here are Lucifer’s work. Add them to the six I already knew about, and he’s killed nine so far.”

  “Oh, Alan! That’s terrible. We’ve got to find—”

  “Wait. There’s more.”

  “More?” A wave of nausea washed through me.

  “Four of the drained bodies we already knew about plus the three new victims had something in common: something the cops just put together.”

  My body trembled. Whatever he was about to say was bad. I could feel the negative tendrils of energy crawling along the phone lines. “What did they have in common?” I remembered the quick vision flashes of people I’d seen during the TV report.

  “They’re all psychologists.”

  “Holy bat-shit, Robin,” I blurted, reverting to my favorite junior high expression. “Lucifer’s murdering therapists?”

  “Uh-huh. Dark-haired female psychologists.”

  My mouth went dry. “He’s symbolically killing me over and over? But why, Alan? Why would he do that? Why is he so fixated on me?” Even as I asked the questions I knew the
re wouldn’t be any logical answers.

  “Your guess is as good as mine. I had to tell you so you can protect yourself accordingly. We both know he’ll eventually lose interest in offing people who represent you, and then he’ll go right for the source. His madness has escalated. The cops haven’t released the link between the victims to the media yet, but they will—and soon.”

  “Oh. My. God. What am I supposed to do about this, Alan? And I’m going to a conference full of psychologists.” I knew I was in denial, but I had to ask anyway, “Do you think that might draw him?”

  “I’d say there’s a good chance he’ll show up, but as we discussed before, there’s no way of knowing for sure where he is or where he’ll go. Maybe he’s back in Denver right now.”

  “Damn.” My stomach clenched. “I hope he’s not here. But for all I know, he could be right outside my window.” That idea startled me so much that I walked over to convince myself he wasn’t lurking on my windowsill. Devereux had so many magical protections on the office building—and on my home—that it was harder for Lucifer to simply show up in those places. But there was nothing to prevent him from attacking me in my car—or anywhere else, for that matter. Great.

  “Should we warn the conference organizers?” I wondered aloud. “Let them know there’s possible danger?”

  “Sounds good in theory, but what the hell would we say? How would we explain having access to such information?”

  “I could tell them I heard it from you, Mr. FBI—that you told me there’s a crazed serial killer tracking psychologists.”

  “Yeah, and then I’d have to deny saying any such thing, you’d look like a fool, and the FBI would fire my ass.”

  “Well, shit.”

  “But maybe we can think of something we can do.”

  “We?” I suddenly realized that “you” had become “we” a while ago.

  “Yeah. I’ve decided to go to the conference with you. Officially. There’s no way I’m letting you go alone now. If he’s targeting therapists, and he’s fixated on you, this psychologist smorgasbord is probably too juicy for him to pass up. We might have a real chance of catching him there.”