The Vampire Shrink (41 page)

My trip to the police station had been the second in as many days, and I could say with complete certainty that I'd rather be sucked on by vampires than return there again. Well, one vampire, anyway.

The chief hadn't intervened this time. As soon as we reached her office, Lieutenant Bullock snagged a passing officer, pointed to my pants, and ordered, “Get Dr. Knight some clean pants and shoes, show her where to change, bag what she's wearing, then bring her back here.”

I caught Alan's trademark smirk as the officer guided me down the hallway.

When I returned to her office in my neon pants, Lieutenant Bullock and Alan were in the middle of a shouting match, precipitated, I gathered, by her disclosure about his notebook. They stood nose to nose, enjoying the verbal equivalent of a pissing contest.

After they zipped up and called a truce, I recounted everything I could remember about Brother Luther's telephone calls, then forwarded copies of the toxic harangues to Lieutenant Bullock's voice mail. The preliminary lab report came back verifying that the blood in my office didn't belong to Eric. As before, its origin couldn't be identified.

We argued for and against various theories and hypotheses, going nowhere fast, until it was obvious that we'd exhausted the productive possibilities for the day, and we were all tired and hungry.

Lieutenant Bullock waved us out and said she'd be in touch. Alan walked me to my car.

“Well, you've had a crappy couple of weeks, wouldn't you say?”

I shrugged, not sure if he was kidding or attempting to be supportive. “I guess the dead people have had a crappier time than me.”

He grunted some variant of “huh” or “hmmm.”

I retrieved my keys from my purse and toyed with them, checking out the asphalt near my right foot.

“So can I come home with you?”

“What?” I was sure my face clearly indicated I hadn't seen that coming. “Why do you want to come home with me?”

“I think we have stuff to talk about.” He grinned and stepped closer. “Things to clarify. Questions to be answered. You know, the usual. Maybe you'd like to have your back scrubbed in the shower. Or maybe your front.”

I laughed and shook my head. “I can't really blame you for running hot and cold, because you probably think that's what I did. And I can't say I don't find you attractive, in an obsessive-compulsive sort of way, because I do. But I spent four years with a man who kept me very low on his priority list, and something about you reminds me of him. Been there, done that.”

His sapphire eyes darkened, and he wrapped his arms around me and planted his very soft, warm lips on mine.

I kept my arms at my sides but felt my lips opening for his tongue as my mouth welcomed the pressure of his. My body responded to the unexpected move by putting out the chemical welcome mat. I moaned softly.

After a few seconds, he released me and stepped back, leaning against the car next to mine. “I've known lots of women in my life. I seem to be the kind of guy women make up stories about, attributing my loner tendencies to some kind of yearning that only they can heal. They think if they have sex with me I'll suddenly be different, not as work-obsessed, not as crazy. But they all find out quickly that what you see is what you get. So I've managed to have lots of experience with women, but zero success with relationships. I just don't know how to do them. I'm not even from Mars.” He laughed ruefully. “There's no name for the planet I'm from.”

He studied me as if he was waiting for something, and I found myself doing the “therapist nod”—the gentle, slow, up-and-down head motion, not unlike one of those toy dogs you see in the back windows of cars, that most counselors unconsciously perform while listening to someone's story.

“I'm not sure why you're telling me this.”

“You confuse me.” He sighed. “Sometimes I think I've blown it, and that you're unavailable, so I back off. Then other times I get the idea that our attraction is mutual, like the way you just responded to my kiss, so I take a chance. Now I'm just asking, flat out: do I have a chance with you?”

I decided to be as honest as I could. “I don't know. Right now, I feel emotionally connected to Devereux, though I'm not sure if that's because I really care about him, or if he's zapping me with vampire juju and I'm a puppet on his string. The truth is that I met Devereux before I ran into you at the hospital. I don't know why I didn't tell you. Maybe it was because I thought the whole vampire thing was bullshit and Devereux and you and all my wannabe clients were deluded and confused. It wasn't until all the insanity at the Crypt that I actually forced myself to accept what my eyes were telling me. I was already interested in him before I met you, but it's also true that I'm very attracted to you. But I've had such poor experiences with men that all this attention has thrown me for a loop. I suck at everything about relationships. So I guess I can't tell you anything helpful. I simply don't know.”

He pulled me into his arms again and whispered into my hair above my ear, “I'll play my hunch, then.” He kissed my cheek and said, “Cover your back, Dr. Knight.”

By the time I reversed my car out of the space and turned to wave good-bye, he was already gone.

I tuned in to the local evening news on TV for the company, poured a glass of wine, and sat at my desk. It was time to make a new plan.

Even if the building manager didn't evict me, it would be quite a while before the police would let me back inside my office, and even longer for the space to be repaired. I'd have to check online for cleaning companies that specialized in bloodstains. Was there such a thing?

In the meantime, I needed to find a place to meet with my clients. Having a home office wasn't appealing at the best of times, and I certainly wasn't going to give a blanket invitation to every vampire in Denver. Even if Devereux said the needing-to-be-invited-in thing was a myth, I wasn't taking any chances. Just because Devereux could come and go as he pleased didn't mean that other vampires could. He seemed to be the Grand Pooh-Bah.

Hearing my name mentioned on the news jarred me out of my thoughts. I picked up the remote control and turned up the volume. The station was airing a story about the body found in my office. They replayed a video clip from my last trip to the police station while the voice-over speculated about my “alleged vampire clientele.” At the end of the story, the reporter gave us his best stern expression and said, “This reporter wonders how Dr. Knight always appears to be involved in these murders. Maybe the police should be checking her alibi.” His lips spread in a lopsided horse smile. “Wes Carter, live in Denver. Back to you in the studio, Bob.”

“Thanks, Wes. It sounds like there's more to Dr. Knight than meets the eye. We'll be following the story twenty-four/seven until we get to the truth.”

If you find out the truth about me, I hope you'll tell me.

I jumped up and made sure all the doors and windows were locked and the blinds and curtains tightly closed. The police had been great about keeping the media at bay, but what would happen if something more pressing occurred and they had to leave?

Just then somebody pounded on the door between my garage and kitchen. “Shit! Did some reporter sneak in?” I said, wishing my trusty intuition had put in its two cents a bit earlier. I hurried over. “Who is it?” My midsection tingled.

“Oh, get over yourself. Open the door.”

The voice was familiar. I unlocked the door and cracked it just enough to see X-rated Luna standing in the garage, unaccompanied by reporters, cameras, or microphones. The light in the garage was motion sensitive, so I could view her in all her vampiric glory.

“Luna?” I swung the door open. “This is a surprise.”

She was dressed in a low-cut black top, tight black jeans, and pointy-toed black high-heeled boots. Vampire dominatrix. The dramatic makeup artistry on her pale skin was even more striking than the first time I saw her. Her silver eyes were embellished with Cleopatra-like wings. Very exotic.

“Yeah, well, don't count on it ever happening again. The sooner he tires of you, the better. But I told him I'd come to your house and that I wouldn't just pop into your living room, so here I am. He can't give me any more grief about you. It was a pain in the ass avoiding all those humans cluttering up your street. I'll never get why anyone would be interested in you.”

Luna's distaste for humans, and me in particular, was easy to read, even without my intuition.

“And to what do I owe this honor?”

“You've got that right. I have a message from the Master. He has serious business he must attend to tonight and he won't be able to see you, but he said he'll visit your dreams and explain. He said I had to tell you that you're in danger and not to let anyone remove your protective necklace.”

“What does he mean, I'm in danger?”

“Hey, I just deliver the messages; I don't explain them. But I will tell you that something's up—vampires are swarming into Denver in droves, and some of them make even us tough vamps nervous. Something dark and heavy is in the air, so to speak.”

“Where's Devereux?” I asked.

She glared at me. “Not that it's any of your miserable human business, but he's off on some kind of interdimensional rescue mission. He's always saving somebody.” She pursed her lips and brought her face closer to mine. “He simply can't resist a hard-luck case.” She stepped back. “I'm guessing it has to be something big for him to tear himself away from his human plaything.” Her lips relaxed into a wicked smile, displaying fully descended fangs. “But who knows? You might get snatched away by the dark one again, and I won't have to hear about you anymore. Wouldn't that be great?”

With that, she laughed and vanished.

I wasn't sure what to make of her attitude toward me. Clearly she didn't have much use for me, but I knew she'd follow Devereux's orders. I was sure she wouldn't hurt me. Probably.

Leave it to Devereux to choose a pissed-off beauty queen for his personal assistant. No bug-eating, rotted-tooth Renfield for him.

I relocked the door and returned to my desk.

The next task on my list was to contact all my clients, cancel or reschedule any appointments set for the next couple of days, and assure them that I'd be functioning again as quickly as possible. I spoke with all but a handful and left general messages for the ones I hadn't reached, asking them to contact me.

Tired, I rubbed the back of my neck to ease the tight muscles. I shuffled over to my comfortable chair, found the remote control, and clicked through the channels, searching for mindless entertainment.

I landed on a well-known national discussion program. The show's host was an abrasive, politically dogmatic, argumentative bully who had guests only to give him someone to shout over. I usually didn't have much time for television, and this show was particularly worth avoiding, but something about the topic caught my attention.

A diverse panel was talking about the end of the world. Normally, discussions about that topic have a decidedly religious flavor and don't appeal to me, but this group appeared to be comprised of all kinds of people—scientists, psychics, spiritual leaders, law enforcement officials, and politicians—quite an unexpected amalgam of opinions.

An old white-haired woman on the panel moved to the podium and spoke. “The world is being contaminated by a growing darkness, a cumulative negative energy so strong that it's eliciting the worst from all the Earth's inhabitants. The idea that thoughts and emotions hold certain vibrations is no longer speculation. According to the Law of Attraction, like attracts like, and we are witnessing clear evidence of that all over the world today.”

Where had I heard that before? It sounded so familiar. Then I remembered—Cerridwyn the tarot reader had said almost exactly the same thing. I hadn't realized the end of the world had become such a hot topic.

The speakers droned on, and I listened to the panel's discussion, waiting for the voices of ridicule and condescension that usually follow such proclamations, but none came. Everyone on the panel had a unique angle on this “growing darkness” to share.

My ears perked up when they mentioned Denver as one of the cities on the leading edge of the escalating negativity. According to a dark-skinned man wearing a turban, unexplained deaths and all forms of violence had increased in these cities at a higher rate than the national average. They devoted the next few minutes to comparing ideas about why those particular cities and areas of the country had become the focus of evil, and decided it had something to do with a psychic buildup of toxic human emotions: hate, fear, blame, guilt, rage, shame—conditions that prepared the ground for increased violence, manipulation, intolerance, control, and destruction.

The white-haired woman explained, “People's focus on fear, hatred, and violence has caused a greater vibrational accumulation of those emotions in places across the country where there are powerful concentrations of hopeful, optimistic, and enlightening energy. In other words, everything and its opposite exists equally—and in these locations, they are
both
increasing.