I glanced at the clock on the wall behind the bank of chairs. Already ten minutes past the hour. “Give me a five-minute warning before my ten o’clock arrives, okay?”
“You got it.” Julie saluted.
I picked up my laptop bag and slung it over my shoulder, scanning more of Byron Alexander Davenport’s case history on the short jaunt across the room to my heavy wood office door. In the Sex column, Julie had written: looks like he’d be REALLY good at it.
“Dr. Schmidt?” Julie called.
“Yes?”
“Don’t forget your package.”
*****
Byron Alexander Davenport worked on his melancholy the way some people worked on their tans. His elegant, sprawled posture on the long leather couch in my office was the visual representation of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, and would have been a key item on the syllabus for Languishing 101. Right before Heavy Sighs and Regretful Glances.
I shrugged out of my coat and hung it on the rack by the door, pausing to sprinkle a few flakes on the bubbling surface of my goldfish, Sigmund Freud’s aquarium.
Clicking the lamps on my desk banished some of the shadowy smudges clinging beneath Byron’s eyes and sharp cheekbones. Orange juice hadn’t been especially kind, from the looks of it.
“Do you mind if I…” I gestured to the dark wooden blinds. I assumed since Byron was out and about during the day, my opening them shouldn’t be a problem, but if my work with non-human clientele had taught me anything so far, it was to ask plenty of questions. A simple “How likely is a leprechaun to smite me to death while in the throes of his St. Patrick personality?” would have saved me plenty of trouble.
“Please.”
The blinds opened onto a rainy day of early fall. The tops of trees had been dipped in autumn’s palette of reds and golds, and had just begun littering the streets with their brightly-hued confetti of leaves. The first raindrops skidded across the window, leaving long comets’ tails across the glass.
I cracked the window an inch to let the rain’s perfume mingle with the lemony furniture polish Julie used on my broad oak desk and rows of bookshelves. The heavy hardback tomes lining their shelves covered everything from anxiety to xenophobia and felt like a protective wall around the perimeter.
Pad and pen in hand, I settled into the familiar comfort of my brass-studded leather armchair and jotted his name and the date at the top of the page. “So, Byron. Why don’t you tell me what brings you here today?”
“First,” he said, his long, pale fingers steepled under his chin, “I want to thank you for agreeing to see me on such short notice. I was most distraught when I was unable to procure an appointment with the psychiatrist I was recommended to.”
“Psychiatrist?” I looked up over the rims of my glasses. “Whom were you referred to?”
“Dr. Cinammon Barbier, of course. Crixus recommended her most highly, you see. And I—”
“What?” My pen froze in its trajectory halfway through the name Cin. “Crixus referred you to someone else?”
“Of course. The same Dr. Barbier who has been seeing all of his assignments as of late. But when she was unavailable, I—”
“Cinnamon Barbie?” I repeated, purposefully leaving the “R” off the surname. “What kind of name is that for a doctor? A thousand dollars says she bought that title from a shoddy foreign institution. In fact, I’ll bet she got it by correspondence. How much would you bet me?”
“I believe she was educated at Yale, or so he said.”
Yale.
A gasp escaped me as I clutched a hand to my heart, feeling as though it had been stabbed through. My own proud procession of diplomas from NYU shrank before me on the wall.
“Probably slept her way to that degree.” I was up, pacing the length of my office. My heels sank into the carpet, producing nothing like the loud, irritated echoes the situation clearly called for. I would have to talk to my landlord about getting hardwoods installed. “Crixus referred you to someone named Cinnamon Barbier over me? Who the hell does he think he is?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. But—”
“A first-class, bed-hopping asshole. That’s who he is. And her,” I snorted. “She’s a blonde, isn’t she?” Already, I had started piecing her together in my head like the plastic doll her name suggested. Long legs, short skirts, blouses gapping tackily over her large—no, disproportionately huge, fake breasts.
“A ginger. And a rather lovely one at that, if her advertisements are at all accurate.”
“Ad-vertis-ments?” I mimicked his Anglo-centric pronunciation of the word. “She has ad-vertis-ments?” I didn’t have ad-vertis-ments. In fact, I barely had a client list owing to all the last-minute cancelations and uncertainty working with Crixus had brought me. And now he was taking even the paranormal clients elsewhere?
“I say, should you like me to reschedule? I can see that I’ve upset you.”
“Upset?” The word sounded a good deal more shrill than I had hoped. “I’m not upset. I am perfectly fine. Absolutely calm. Completely collected.”
“Would you mind awfully putting that letter opener down then? Reminds me of a rather unfortunate incident I suffered in the Swing Riots of 1830.”
I looked down, surprised to see the glint of silver jutting from my hand. Pain registered in the flesh of my palm. When had I picked that up? Dropping it brought me back to myself. Back to my office, where my client had been listening to me rant for the last five minutes.
“I apologize,” I said, smoothing my skirt. “It’s just that your news was…unexpected.”
“As was the news of their engagement,” Byron agreed. “I myself didn’t see Crixus as the marrying kind. But rumor has it Dr. Barbier might be in an indelicate way,” he said, miming a domed belly near his abdominal area.
It was a stroke of luck that I was within arm’s reach of my chair. Otherwise, my ass would have crashed to the floor when my knees failed me. The air was evicted from my lungs in a whoosh as my full weight came into contact with the chair’s rigid back. “Knocked up?” I choked. “No. Crixus would never let that happen. He couldn’t. Could he?”
“Heavens, I’ve done it again, haven’t I?” Byron ran a hand through his raven locks. “Forgive me, Doctor. I assumed everyone in our world was aware. It has been all the rage with the gossips as of late.”
Arranging my face into some semblance of a neutral expression proved to be impossible. I had no more control over the muscles than I would have over slabs of roast beef stapled to my skull. I felt dumb and powerless.
“Yes, well. Of course I knew. It must have just…slipped my mind.” And with that, I did the only thing available to a fully actualized adult and mental health professional like myself: I pretended this wasn’t happening. “Let’s get back to our discussion, shall we?”
“Only if you feel able to continue.” Byron turned his emerald-green gaze to me with a gentleness that demonstrated his might be one of the more insightful consultations I faced today.
“I am able.” Saying this felt like a salve. A balm across my aching heart. The first beam in a bridge spanning the professional distance between therapist and patient. “Let’s begin again, if you don’t mind. You mentioned the Swing Riots. Why don’t you tell me a little more about that?”
He cleared his throat. “It was during the Swing Riots that it happened. That I became what I am.”
“A vampire, you mean?”
He nodded. “Are you familiar with the Swing Riots?”
“I’m afraid not.” I found myself wanting to slip into his easy, aristocratic parlance, to let my words be polished by its cool remove after my emotive histrionics.
“In general, it was an uprising of agricultural workers in Kent, so named because of certain letters sent to the magistrates by a one Captain Swing.”
“And you wouldn’t happen to be Captain Swing, would you?”
“At your service.” He tipped an imaginary top hat in my direction. “I was an honest far
mer in those days. I had a wife. A son.” Shadow fell across his face as the film of some past horror unfolded behind his eyes. “A son near to starving when the advent of the threshing machine put us out of work.”
The mere sound of those words, threshing machine, brought to mind the image of amber wheat yielding to the deadly swing of glinting blades. The turning of blunt and dangerous wheels capable of crushing bone, and unprotected by the safety standards that had since been implemented to prevent such maiming.
“Yes,” Byron said, seeming to sense where my mind had gone. “We had engaged in the usual methods of protest available to the economically disadvantaged at that time. We burned a few barns, threw rocks at a few windows.
“One of the local magistrates thought that showing us what these machines were truly capable of would be the best way to end our little rebellion.”
“Go on,” I urged, when he had fallen silent.
“They put my son through first so my wife could watch. Then it was her turn. Then it was mine.” He paused, lifting his eyes to me. “Have you ever heard the sound of bones breaking?”
My heart had climbed into my throat. I could taste metallic fear. “I haven’t.”
“I hope you never have occasion to.”
“They were killed? Your wife and son?”
“As should I have been. Only, someone was watching that evening. Something. And as I lay dying, he offered me a chance to live. To seek my revenge. I took it.”
“I can understand why you would want to do that.” I meant it honestly. My years as a therapist had brought many such revelations to my couch. The often unforeseen and frequently horrific trauma human beings inflicted upon themselves and each other had long ago ceased to shock me, as had the dysfunctional behaviors my clients developed in response. Supernatural beings had proved to be no different. We were all of us governed by the mysterious force that held all life in its curious web of actions and reactions.
“Can you?” he asked.
“I personally haven’t suffered anything like that, but I can understand how someone in that situation would have reacted the way you did.” This was the part of my job I found most rewarding. The curious then relieved look on the face of a client when they felt—maybe for the first time—known. Accepted. Understood.
“I took my revenge. But when I learned what I had become…that I couldn’t die and be with my wife and son again…”
“So you were unaware at the time you made the choice to be transformed what being a vampire would mean?’
“How could I? I didn’t even know how to read.” He bent forward, elbows resting on his knees, hands dug into his thick hair, cupping his scalp. “Then the hunger came. Gods,” he growled. “The hunger.”
A little squiggle of fear sent my hand up to the collar of my blouse. I tugged both sides tighter against my neck. “The hunger for blood, I am assuming?”
“Yes.”
“And do you still hunger for it? Despite your…reaction to it?”
“I do.” Abject lust seasoned his pronunciation. “I fought it as long as I could. I still do. But when it takes me, and I hunt…I hear their screams. I taste their death on the air. I am no better than the fiends who murdered them.”
“I don’t think that’s true. You obviously have a conscience. A desire not to harm others. Otherwise, why would you fight against those impulses?”
“I suppose you have a point.”
“When the hunger, as you call it, takes you. Can you describe for me what usually happens?”
“Of course. I can derive some level of sustenance from other liquids. Anything that has a component of what might be found in human blood.”
“Vitamins, iron, protein,” I supplied.
“Yes. But just as someone getting less than their required intake to sustain life, I find myself on the brink of starvation. Constantly.”
“I’m sure that’s uncomfortable.”
“Incredibly. When I’ve survived as long as I can on other means and the hunger overtakes me, I black out. The last thing I usually remember is that first sweet taste rushing across my tongue, and then I lose consciousness.”
“Is it only the taste of blood that has this effect? Or the sight of it as well?”
“The sight, the smell. Any of it.”
“Interesting,” I mumbled, scribbling notes on the paper.
“So, what do you think, Doctor? Are you willing to provide help to a monster such as myself?”
“First,” I said, “I don’t think you’re a monster. Second, I absolutely think we can work on some of the problematic feelings you have surrounding your hematophobia.”
He scooted to the edge of his seat. “How would you go about doing that, exactly?”
“I’m thinking a combined course of cognitive behavioral therapy to work on rewiring some of your associations combined with a plan of exposure therapy to desensitize you to the stimulus.”
“Expose me to more blood, you mean?”
“In a simplified sort of fashion, yes. We would start with maybe some pictures of blood in situations you find non-threatening, then gradually work towards in-person exposure. For example, we might try having you interact with something that has blood’s distinctive color, or perhaps the aroma of wet iron. Or maybe we would have you experiment with touching liquids of a similar viscosity, or body—”
“Stop,” he hissed. In a blink, he was no longer seated on the couch across the table, but leaning over me, his hands gripping the arms of the chair at either side. His movement hadn’t so much as stirred a breeze.
His breath was deep and slow, his nostrils flaring in the manner of predators the world over when scenting prey. His pupils had dilated, leaving only the faintest trace of pale green rings where his irises had been.
He leaned in close enough to chill the skin on my neck as his cold lips whispered over the pulsing jugular vein beneath my skin. “Should we begin the therapy now, Doctor?”
My heart hammered against my ribs, and I was certain he could hear it, could see it, could smell it, if he chose.
Screaming would alert Julie, who would doubtless dash into the office and offer herself up as an even easier target. Physical violence would be unlikely to affect him if he had any measure of the immortal strength that allowed Crixus to toss a full-grown werebear through a plate glass window.
“Byron, please take your seat,” I said as calmly as my rioting nerves would allow. “I want you to pay attention to what you’re feeling right now.”
But he wasn’t looking at me anymore. Something else had caught his attention. Something swimming around in the glass aquarium behind me. The pearly tips of his fangs became visible against his lower lip.
“Well he’s a fine…fat little fellow. Isn’t he?” Byron’s red tongue darted out to catch a glistening jewel of saliva forming on his lower lip.
Fear sent ice water through my veins. “Listen to me, Byron. I know you don’t want to hurt anyone. If you’ll just sit back down, we’ll talk through this. Sigmund would hardly be a satisfying—”
My chair fell over backwards as Byron launched himself off it at the credenza, springing with a super-human dexterity.
Startled, I could no longer hold back the shriek I had been swallowing. I collided with the ground and rolled out of my chair just in time to see Byron’s marble-white fist smash through the glass of Sigmund’s aquarium. “No!” I yelped. “Not again!”
“Meet your reckoning, mon petit hors d’oeuvre!” Byron’s hand closed over the little gold body, bringing it to his open mouth despite my flailing attempts to wrest Sigmund away.
In the end, circumstance delivered what all my pleading could not.
A brilliant arc of blood spurted from the flesh of Byron’s wrist—cut by broken glass.
“It’s the human juice!” Byron shrieked. “Get a tourniquet! Put some pressure—oh, bollocks. I’m out then.” His eyes rolled back in his head. The vampire went down in a long, dark puddle, passed out cold on the floo
r, the unbitten Sigmund flopping next to his outstretched arm.
*****
“This never happens to the heroines in my books.” Julie marched in place on a towel, sopping up the last of the water while I put the finishing touches on Sigmund’s fourth aquarium in eight months. Liam’s contention that treating supernatural clients had made a complete shit show of my life was looking more solid all the time. Of course, he had been responsible for shooting the first tank.
“In my books,” Julie continued, “it’s mostly lots of longing and brooding. And sex. Lots of that too.”
“That’s why they’re called fiction. Can you imagine what it would be like to share your bathroom with a werewolf in real life?” I shuddered. “Think of the clogged drains.”
“I can’t believe Byron just disappeared without saying goodbye.”
“You saw how embarrassed he was. How many times did the man say ‘terribly sorry’?”
“Thirteen,” Julie said wistfully.
“I must confess, I don’t understand this obsession.” I lowered the plastic sandwich bag holding Sigmund and as much water from his previous tank as I could salvage into his new home, and secured it in place with the lid. I’d let him acclimate to the temperature before releasing him.
After having replaced his tank roughly every other month since I started seeing paranormal clients, the process felt familiar enough to be called practiced. Each time, guilt prodded me into buy a tank slightly larger than the last. At this rate, I’d have to look into additional office space to house a wall-sized aquarium.
“Vampires are just so…so…” Julie searched the ceiling like the perfect word might be hanging from the eves like a bat.
“Squeamish?” I tossed the paper towel stained by the blood I’d mopped up at the garbage bin under my desk and peeled the latex gloves from my hands. This was the other chief disadvantage of Crixus’s absence. There was no one to magic away the messes.
“Otherworldly,” she finished. “Powerful. To think of someone who could do whatever he wanted to you, whenever he wanted.”
“Call me crazy—actually, don’t, because that’s a hideously stereotypical word. Call me delusional, but doesn’t that sound like a bad thing?”
Undeadly: The Case Files of Matilda Schmidt, Paranormal Psychologist (The Case Files of Dr. Matilda Schmidt, Paranormal Psychologist Book 6) Page 2