6

The psychiatrist’s office was in the basement of an old Edwardian home in the Nob Hill area of San Francisco, a fancy neighborhood nestled on a hill. Up there, peekaboo views revealed themselves, showcasing the beauty of the city, particularly at night. Corridors of light became visible whenever John turned a corner and glanced down the streets leading into the shopping district, the financial district, or the neighborhoods leading to the Bay.

But John didn’t take the time to enjoy the views. He was already late. No legal parking spot was available, so he parked in front of the shrink’s driveway, blocking it. The good doctor wouldn’t mind.

He let himself in by the tradesmen’s entrance, not bothering to knock. He knew the drill. Inside the basement with the low ceilings, harsh light greeted him. The white waiting room was empty. In fact, he wasn’t sure why there was a waiting room at all. John had never seen anybody waiting here. Anybody other than the person who was joining him for these sessions.

With a click, the door eased shut behind him, and the receptionist finally lifted her head from her paperwork behind the equally white counter.

“Mr. Grant,” she purred, adjusting her utterly skimpy pink top that stretched so tightly over her breasts that he wanted to take cover in case a button popped off and took out his eye.

Her platinum blonde hair was styled like Marilyn Monroe’s, and her makeup also mimicked the movie star’s face, her lips a deep red, her skin as pale as porcelain, her lashes black and long. The perfect pinup. He’d never bothered to memorize her name, in fact, he couldn’t even remember if he’d ever asked for her name. So in his mind he always called her Marilyn.

Marilyn ran her gaze over him in a leisurely fashion, not concealing her interest in the least bit. He assumed she treated each male client—he refused to call himself a patient—in the same manner. A vampire woman, she was different from human females, less docile, more demanding, and clearly not shy when it came to letting a man know what she wanted. However, he wasn’t biting. Literally or figuratively.

John pointed to one of the other doors. “Doc in?”

“They’ve both been waiting for you for ten minutes,” she said, a light scold in her high-pitched voice.

“I bet.” His protégée was always punctual. And the doc charged by the hour and made sure not a single minute of his time was wasted. They’d probably been bitching about him for the past ten minutes, discussing all the ways he wasn’t performing his duties as a maker.

Without another word or a knock, he entered the doctor’s office, letting the door slide shut behind him.

This was the fourth time he’d come here, and he didn’t like it any more than the first time. He still hated the tasteless black coffin-couch that looked like it belonged in a cheesy horror movie rather than a physician’s office. Just as he abhorred the fake gothic window murals—for the room didn’t actually have windows—which looked like they’d been copied from the set of the Addams Family. The stone floor could just as easily have been found in a crypt, and the filing cabinets sported handles that looked like stakes. Perhaps so a patient fed up with the doctor’s annoying questions could stab himself—or the doctor.

At least Dr. Drake, the only vampire shrink in San Francisco, dressed like a doctor: white lab coat, a white shirt, black pants, and black dress shoes. He was a tall, skinny vampire, and apparently many of John’s colleagues had consulted him at one time or another. Many voluntarily. Not so John. He’d been mandated to attend these sessions. He and his protégée, Deirdre.

She was sitting in the chair opposite Drake’s, drinking from a bottle with a straw. He recognized the label. She’d gotten herself a drink from the vending machine in Drake’s waiting room. Well, at least that meant she wasn’t as squeamish about drinking human blood as she’d been just after he’d turned her.

“John, so nice of you to finally join us,” Drake said with a good dose of sarcasm.

“Some of us have jobs,” John replied and slunk into the armchair next to Deirdre. “Hey, Deirdre.”

She tossed him a quick look. “John.”

The greeting was frosty with a side of ice storm. Great. Not that he’d expected anything different. After all, Deirdre was pissed at him. Actually, she was pissed at the whole world.

“Well, then let’s get started.” As usual, Drake’s jovial words grated on John, but he swallowed his distaste.

“Yes, let’s.”

“Tell me what’s been going on in your lives since I saw you both last,” Drake demanded. “Deirdre, why don’t you start?”

She set aside the half-empty bottle of blood and sat up straighter. She tossed her long light-brown hair over her shoulder, revealing more of her face. She was an attractive woman, but there were hard lines in her face, lines that attested to the battles she’d fought, the vast experience she’d gathered over several centuries, centuries she’d spent as a Stealth Guardian.

The immortal warriors were a race sworn to protect the humans from the demons of fear, a evil preternatural force that fed on the fear of humans and thrived during times of war and conflict. Over the centuries, the Stealth Guardians had developed invaluable skills to fight the demons, one being invisibility, the other teleportation. Yet, the fight against the demons was taking on new proportions, and thus they’d formed an alliance with Scanguards. Scanguards could draw on their skills when needed, and the Stealth Guardians used the vampires’ sense of smell to identify demons, who unlike other preternatural creature didn’t have a tell-tale aura by which they could be identified.

Deirdre had been a leader of her race, but she’d made decisions that had led to her race punishing her for treason. They had stripped her of all her supernatural powers during a prolonged incarceration in a lead cell, an act that had turned her human. Later, circumstances had led to her being turned into a vampire, turned by John.

“What is there to say?” she started. “I sleep during the day. I’m awake at night. I drink human blood. I don’t see the sun. I feel like a caged animal.”

“Hmm.” The doctor cast his eyes at John. “Would you care to comment, John?”

Careful not to aggravate Deirdre’s already explosive mood, he said, “At the beginning it’s an adjustment. I know it wasn’t your choice to be turned into a vampire, but had I not done it, you would have died.” He shrugged. “I know it’s hard to accept what you are, considering where you came from, what you were…” A creature more powerful than a vampire, with less vulnerabilities.

“It’s not about that!” Deirdre blurted. “I’ve accepted what I am. What you made me.” She glared at him. “But what now? What do I do now?”

John exchanged a look with the shrink.

“What do you mean by your question?” Drake asked.

Deirdre jumped up. “Do I speak Greek?” She marched to the fake window, then turned and leaned against the mural. “You don’t get it, do you?” She huffed. “I was a warrior. I was useful. I was a leader of my race. I made life and death decisions.”

“Well, things change,” Drake said. “We all go through changes in life. We adapt. Just like you’ll adapt to your new circumstances.”

Deirdre grunted and glared at the shrink. But before she could let out the barrage of insults that clearly sat on her lips, John spoke. “You’re looking for a purpose in life.”

She spun her head in his direction, surprise flashing in her eyes. She didn’t say anything, but he knew he’d hit on the cause of her dissatisfaction.

Drake cleared his throat. “That’s all well and good, but as a new vampire, barely out of diapers”—he chuckled to himself at his tasteless joke—“you have to learn to walk before you can run. You’re not yet fully in control of all your—”

“Shut up, doc,” John hissed. “Can’t you see that you’re only making things worse?”

He looked at Deirdre who was shooting a poisonous look at the shrink.

John directed his gaze back at Drake. “What makes you think that Deirdre can’t handle being a vampire? Just because her turning happened only a few months ago? That might be true for a human who’s been suddenly thrust into our world. But Deirdre was already part of this world. She was a preternatural creature for many centuries. All that’s changed for her is that she’s a member of a different preternatural race now. Still immortal, still powerful. We’ve done it your way for the last three sessions, and nothing came of it. You said we needed to take it slowly, one step at a time. And I followed your advice. But I’m done with it. We’re doing it my way now.”

When his eyes locked with Deirdre’s, he saw gratitude in them for the first time.

“You want to be useful to your new species; make your mark in this new life. I should have seen it earlier.” With a sideways glance at the shrink, he added, “I shouldn’t have listened to other people telling me it’s too early to get you to think about what you want to do with your new life.” But he’d never been a maker, never had responsibility for another vampire, one who needed guidance. “I can help you with that.”

“John, with all due respect,” Drake interrupted, “this is not how this works. The mind of a new vampire is a fragile thing. You can’t just bulldoze your way over it and pretend there aren’t any underlying issues of guilt and resentment between the two of you. Let’s talk about that.”

Leave it up to the shrink to kick up some shit. John grunted to himself.

“You feel guilty for having turned Deirdre, because she was in no condition to give her consent. Tell us about that guilt, John.”

John glared at the doctor. “Well, look at you, stirring up shit again! Ever heard of letting sleeping lions lie?”

“It comes with the profession.”

“Does it?”

One side of the doctor’s mouth curled up. Sadistic bastard!

“I sense a lot of resentment between the two of you. You hate the fact that you’re responsible for her, and you, Deirdre, hate it that he has power over you as your maker.”

Deirdre narrowed her eyes and pushed away from the mural. “You know nothing about me or about John. And frankly, I find these mandated couples sessions useless. Who came up with this harebrained idea?”

Drake lifted his chin, giving an air of superiority. “The vampire council prescribes these sessions for new vampires and their makers these days. And if you must know, I suggested it to them after seeing all kinds of suppressed issues crop up years later. It’s best to nip these things in the bud.”

“Yeah, I know what I’d like to nip in the bud,” Deirdre murmured under her breath.

John had to suppress a grin. He hadn’t realized that his protégée had a sense of humor.

“Be that as it may,” Drake said, undeterred, “you have no choice but to attend these sessions.”

“Attend maybe,” Deirdre hedged, then winked at John, “but nobody can make me say anything I don’t want to say.”

Before Drake could respond, John added, “She’s got a point, doc. Last time I checked we weren’t in Scanguards’ interrogation room. I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with what Deirdre and I are willing to share. True, we have to be here for what—five sessions, maybe ten? But stay the crap out of my head. And out of Deirdre’s. Just because you were able to convince the vampire council to mandate these sessions, doesn’t mean somebody else can’t convince them that they’re useless and make them drop them just as quickly.”

“How dare you—”

John rose, cutting him off. “You’re not the only one who knows people in high places. I’m sure you’re aware that I worked for the vampire king of Louisiana for many years. And that we’re friends. I believe he has great influence with the council. I’m sure the vampire council dropping mandatory counseling sessions will cut into your income, won’t it?”

When Drake glared at him, John motioned to his protégée. “I think we’re done here. Do you need a ride, Deirdre?”

She smiled at him, the first genuine smile he’d ever seen her display. “Actually, I do.”

Together, they marched out of the doctor’s office, past fake Marilyn, who stared at the clock on the wall, perplexed, but silent.

John turned his head to Deirdre as they walked toward the end of the driveway. “Where can I drop you?”

“I don’t actually need a ride. I just said it to piss Drake off and walk out with you.”

John chuckled. “So you didn’t like him much, huh?”

She tossed him a get-real look. “The guy is a pompous ass with a mail-order degree from a third-grade university. I’m just surprised you stuck it out as long as you did.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I felt it was my duty as your maker to—”

“Yeah, let’s get over that shit. I really don’t give a damn if you feel guilty or whatever.” She shrugged. “All I want to know is if you meant what you said earlier, you know, that you’re willing to help me.”

“I stand by my word.”

“Good.”

They stopped next to John’s Mercedes. “Then tell me how I can help you.”

“I want to be part of Scanguards.”

“In what capacity?”

She laughed. “I’m not interested in being a grunt. As a Stealth Guardian I was a warrior for several centuries, before I became a member of the Council of Nine. I paid my dues. I’m not going to pay them a second time.”

“I’m afraid the top management positions are taken.” Besides, his rank at Scanguards wasn’t high enough to recommend anybody for a management position. Those were given out by merit, and by merit alone.

“You think I’m talking about being in management?” She shook her head vehemently. “How boring! Don’t you get it? I want to feel adrenaline charge through my veins again. I want to fight.”

He froze. “Fight?”

“Yes, I want you to get me a position at Scanguards that deals with the worst criminals, the most dangerous situations.”

“You’re crazy.”

“No, not crazy. But I need a challenge. I need to prove that I can still do it.” She pounded her fist against her chest. “That what’s in here hasn’t changed just because my body has changed.”

“Is this about the actions that caused the Stealth Guardians to exile you? Because if it is, then I’m gonna tell you right now, you paid for that with your life. You paid for that on the battlefield when you took a dagger for Virginia.”

Virginia, a Stealth Guardian, who was now the wife of Scanguards’ resident witch, Wesley, had nearly lost her life in a battle with demons, had Deirdre not thrown herself into the path of the dagger meant for Virginia. Mortally wounded, Deirdre would have died, but Virginia had begged John to save her life by turning her into a vampire. Deirdre hadn’t had a choice in the matter, and John kept wondering whether he’d done the right thing, or whether it would have been more merciful letting Deirdre die on the battlefield. It would have been an honorable death in her eyes.

“You’ve redeemed yourself,” he added.

Deirdre shook her head. “Maybe in your eyes, maybe even in my brother’s eyes. My standards are higher.”

“Don’t you appreciate that you’ve been given a second chance? Why risk this new life you’ve been given?”

“That’s funny, coming from you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t you do the same every day? Risk your life because you think you’ve got nothing worth living for anymore? You of all people should understand where I’m coming from.”

He’d never talked about his own heartbreak. There was no way Deirdre could know. “You don’t know anything.”

“No, you’re right. I don’t know what exactly it is that makes you think you’ve got nothing to live for, but every time I see you I can sense it. It’s all around you. So don’t deny me what you do every day. I need this.”

John took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the cool night air, and sighed. “Very well, if that’s what you want.”

“I do.”

“I’ll talk to Samson.”

“Thank you.”