by J. T. Bock
“Kill him! Kill him now!” The red that surged up the sorcerer’s neck and into his face did nothing for his façade of toughness. “Kill him, then eat him.”
I made my way toward the door, dragging the bagged guy behind me. “Dry rub? Or perhaps some red-wine vinaigrette and herbs? I could pick up a nice Chianti to accompany my meal.”
A shadow moved behind the statue of a praying angel. I edged my way past, pausing to face the sorcerer behind me. “Do you want to join me? I’m not a bad cook, and with the proper seasoning, this guy should be rather tender.”
The bindings tightened further. “You are commanded to kill from the list, one human each night for seven nights. Kill him.”
I eyed the swaying angel statue, grateful that the sorcerer was far too incensed to notice the movement. “I’ll get to it. Don’t rush me, dude. I’ve been watching the cooking channel and I want to try a few things out.”
The sorcerer drew an amulet from his pocket and raised it in the air. “Cesaham dolor—”
The statue toppled, knocking the sorcerer to the ground and the amulet from his grasp. He screamed and struggled, pinned beneath seven-hundred pounds of concrete, as red pooled from beneath him. I observed, unable to finish the guy off. Conveniently, nothing in the magical binding said I couldn’t watch him bleed out and keep other humans from rendering aid.
It didn’t take as long as I thought it would. Bob sprang out from behind the pedestal and jumped up and down on the statue, quickly crushing the sorcerer beneath it.
“That was very satisfying.” He brushed his hands on the baggy jeans and gave the dead sorcerer one last look.
“Yeah, and I truly appreciate your intervention. Unfortunately, killing him means you’ve lost your immunity. You’ll need to get out of here fast before my angel comes back and sees you.”
“Too late.”
Why, oh why did Gregory have such a damnable sense of timing?
Bob quivered, eyes darting around for an alternate exit.
“Can you just say that I killed him?” I pleaded with Gregory. “I’ll do the fucking report and face the punishment. Please? Let Bob go and I’ll owe you a favor.”
I’d lost track of all the favors I owed this angel. Not that I usually denied him anything he requested.
“I will accept the favor, Cockroach, although there will be no need for reports. So unfortunate how this upstanding human was accidently killed by a falling statue.”
I bit back a smile. How far my angel had come in the last few years – lying, consuming food and beverages, sinning with a demon. I was so proud.
“You,” Gregory turned a stern eye on Bob. “I want you out of town and through the nearest gate by sunrise. If I see you again before the New Year, I’ll kill you myself.”
Bob darted around me and dashed down the street, his ill-fitting clothes flapping in the chill breeze.
“What about this guy?” I waved at the still figure at my feet. Had he suffocated? Perhaps Bob had killed him with the bible.
“Leave him. He’s just sleeping. Humans are annoyingly unpredictable. I wanted to make sure he didn’t interfere.”
My mouth dropped open. “You planned this whole thing? You sneaky devil!”
“Not yet,” he drawled, taking my arm and steering me out the door. “And I didn’t plan anything; I just set certain events in motion and sat back to watch.”
Faint flakes of snow swirled in the air as we made our way through silent streets toward the inn. Once again, people were holed up in their homes, safe from a Krampus who had been brazen enough to take a victim in their own church. I wondered how long it would be before someone found the dead sorcerer and put two and two together?
My thoughts quickly shifted as I felt Gregory’s spirit-self brush against mine with seductive promise.
“Still up for the hot tub and alcoholic beverages, Cockroach?”
I caressed him back, leaning my face against his shoulder as we walked. “Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.”
It wasn’t wild horses, but the front desk clerk and a mob of angry townspeople that kept us away from our evening’s activities. The residents of Karmish-Partenkirten might have been afraid of having their names on the naughty list, but they welcomed the trade-off for a crime-free town. There was no hot tub and vodka for us that night. I even had to leave my clothing and toiletries behind and have Gregory transport us before the furious mob took our heads off.
“A very exciting holiday.” Gregory seemed rather pleased with the events of the day. I, on the other hand, was a bit pissed about pre-paying for a week at an inn that I hadn’t even stayed one night at. I wondered if I could protest the credit-card charge.
“You think that was fun? Just wait until Valentine’s Day.”
Read more about Sam and Gregory’s adventures in the Imp Series at Amazon and other e-retailers. You can also visit Debra at her website or sign up for her mailing list here.
The Biting Cold
An Athanate Short Story
by
Mark Henwick
Published by Marque
Chapter 1
“And how does being a vampire make you feel, Mr. Scott?”
Not the most surreal patient interview I’d ever conducted. Not by a long shot. In fact, a surprisingly common enough delusion that there were established pathways for me to follow, even if the cliché opening made me cringe inside.
He settled his shoulders comfortably in the depths of the armchair and looked up at the ceiling. I don’t use a couch. I don’t wear tweed jackets, bow ties or turtlenecks and I don’t have a beard either. It just wouldn’t work with the blonde hair pulled back in the bun, the gray eyes behind the serious glasses, the subdued makeup, the effort to look subliminally professional.
As I watched, Mr. Scott’s dark eyes tracked lazily upward and to the right as he considered the question.
Visualizing, possibly accessing memories and emotions. Less likely to be lying.
Or he’s read the same NLP books I have, and he’s faking it. Some do, just to get the attention.
Without falling prey to stereotyping my patients from their appearances and overt behavior, I thought he didn’t look like the type who just wanted someone to pay attention.
I believed he wasn’t lying. And my instincts on whether someone was lying were unusually good. Which left me two alternatives: either he was a vampire, or he believed he was. The first option wasn’t possible. So. Great. The guy really thought he was a vampire.
“Being a…vampire makes you feel conflicted,” he said. He frowned, and then his eyes came back down and held mine. “Can we not say vampire?”
Now that’s interesting. Where’s this going?
“Okay,” I said. “What term would you prefer?”
He hesitated, and for the first time since I’d met him twenty minutes ago, he was the one to break the eye contact. His eyes slid away to the left.
“Immortals.”
He’d been about to say something else. My left hand flexed on my tiny chorded keyboard and automatically entered the questions to return to later—What name does he use for vampire? Why didn’t he tell me? My ability to type my notes one-handed, almost subconsciously and without needing a display, has been a subject of debate among my partners. Around half of them think it’s an indication of dissociation and want to study me with a view to submitting a paper to the Journal of Psychiatry. I’m pretty sure one thinks I’m possessed, though he keeps that quiet, naturally. And the one who aspires to write novels in her spare time wants to amputate my arm and graft it onto her shoulder.
“So, immortals feel conflicted,” I said. “They’re confused, or have incompatible needs. That’s interesting, but can you tell me more about why they do?”
“For everything they desire, there is a corresponding fear.”
Why does he talk about them in the third person?
That was something I had to follow, but I knew it was too early to press. Another question in my
notes.
“Could you give me an example?” I said.
“They want to be loved...” He stopped and shook his head. “It sounds so pathetic when you say it like that, doesn’t it? ‘Poor immortals, they only want to be loved.’”
“I don’t think that’s pathetic at all,” I said. “In fact, it’s very healthy to want to love and be loved. But what’s the corresponding fear you spoke about?”
“To be loved you must be attractive, and yet, to be attractive is to attract attention. And that is dangerous.”
Fascinating. He’s equating physical attraction with love, and then with danger. Why does he think attention is dangerous? Was he abused as a child? Or is this all just about him being scared of losing his looks as he gets older?
I estimated Mr. Edward Fortescue Scott was in his thirties, though we hadn’t confirmed his age. He was tall and had an outdoor complexion. His health seemed fine, he certainly looked like he was in good shape, and he’d admitted to no physical infirmities, illnesses or medication. He sat without fidgeting in my patients’ armchair, his strong arms draped along the arm rests, his long legs crossed.
Buried beneath a placeless accent was a hint of old England. His clothes whispered money and yet were old-fashioned. He’d kept his jacket on when I’d suggested he make himself comfortable and sit, but that didn’t make him seem stuffy.
The face? Darcy? No, more Lord Byron, or Heathcliff. There was a romantic wave of black hair breaking over his forehead like a dark sea on a pale shore, the almost arrogant set of his lips…that aloof, almost aristocratic air.
Yeah, that tragic, sensitive, ‘poor me,’ poetic shit. Concentrate, Amanda.
There was a hint of a frown line between his dark eyebrows, and I had the feeling he could brood for the major leagues. But underneath the studied exterior, I sensed anger. Real slow burn.
He was also somehow familiar. Something nagged at the back of my mind.
Have I see you before? Are you an actor?
“Immortals spend most of their life avoiding attention,” he said, breaking my train of thought. “They fear it.”
The pathways of this conversation were becoming more complex very quickly. I needed to concentrate.
“Tell me why attention would be dangerous,” I said.
A smile frosted his lips. “Despite Hollywood’s best efforts, an immortal is a deeply frightening thing for most humans, and most humans would react negatively, out of their fear.”
“But not all humans?”
“No. Not all.” He settled further back and closed his eyes.
“I see. So, do you feel uncomfortable as the center of attention?”
“Sometimes. It all depends from whom the attention comes.”
Oh, Lord. From whom. Better watch my grammar.
“Don’t most people want attention only from the friends they choose?”
He nodded slightly.
“Then immortals are very much like humans,” I said.
“Yes, they are. Much more than you’d think. That’s why they can hide in plain sight most of the time. They’ve nothing to fear from sunlight or churches, holy water or garlic.”
“How would you characterize what makes an immortal, then?”
“Living forever. That’s always satisfied the criteria for me.” He smiled. It started from the corners of his eyes and spread slowly across his face. The sort of smile that promised laughter to follow. But then he sat up and became serious again. “Forgive me, that’s not what you were asking. Blood is the answer to your question. What makes an immortal different? Immortals need Blood.”
The way he said it emphasized that there was everyday blood that circulated in all mammals and there was Blood, and Blood was important.
“That part the myths have right,” he said.
“And they get Blood through biting people?” I tried to match his intonation, to make him feel he could open up more to me. Not that he was being difficult to communicate with, just obscure.
He nodded.
“And what about them? What do you think they feel about being bitten?”
His eyes came to rest on me and he was quiet for a long time.
I felt oddly aware of the weight of my bun at the back of my head. I reached back and touched it. Just to make sure it hadn’t started to come loose.
Goodness’ sake, woman! Stop preening. He’s a patient. Potential patient. Not even my potential patient.
“It’s a sacred act,” he said, his voice so low I had to lean forward to hear. “Entirely as intimate and fulfilling as sex between lovers can be, in the right circumstances.”
Ooh. Damn, he was good. That voice and that lovely image of vampire sex.
I cleared my throat and sat back, mentally slapping my face. Left, right, left. Concentrate.
Back in the security of my professional capacity, I had no doubt he believed everything he was saying to me. He was…purely as a potential patient…beguiling.
And it left me in a quandary. I wasn’t supposed to be moving forward with him. That was, I wasn’t supposed to be moving forward professionally with him. The reactions of my body, well, that was out too. More mental slapping of face required.
I questioned him for another fifteen minutes, probing deeper into his beliefs about taking Blood from humans. He wasn’t completely evasive—he spoke clearly about the mechanisms, in a detached way. He was also definitive on the moral issues of consent from humans providing Blood.
It was interesting to note that though he evaded some questions, he didn’t grow upset or defensive under questioning. That could indicate that he was unlikely to decompensate if his delusion were threatened, but it also might mean that it was so firmly embedded that he would be impossible to treat.
I kept up the questioning longer than was usual. This was supposed to be a preliminary assessment, prior to my turning him over to one of the other therapists in the practice. I wasn’t taking new patients. It was only because he’d come in specifically asking for me that I’d agreed to do the preliminary. However, if I was doing the preliminary, then dammit, I was going to do a good job.
“Those conflicts you spoke about, Mr. Scott. Would it be fair to say that they’ve made you angry?”
“Yes.”
I was surprised at the quick agreement. Patients like that were usually striving for approval and I didn’t feel he was in that category. The alternative, of course, was that it was something he’d thought a great deal about. More notes.
“Does acting on the anger help release it?” I asked.
“Sometimes. It depends on the source of the conflict.”
“Do you find yourself increasingly angry?”
“No. Perhaps more angry about fewer things.”
We progressed, my left hand busily entering questions to come back to.
No. To pass on to whoever is going to pick this one up.
What a choice of words. This definitely wasn’t about ‘picking him up.’ I had never blurred the lines between professional and social relationships before, and I’d had some real hotties sitting in that chair: sportsmen, rock stars and silky-smooth executives.
He was a puzzle. For a supposed angry immortal, his answers were well-balanced, sane and consistent, if you ignored the fundamental problem with believing yourself to be a vampire.
Whenever I’d done a preliminary before, I’d come up with a much clearer idea of the underlying situation by this point in the process. I was good at getting beneath the patient’s story. But from his answers, his delusion wasn’t damaging his life or distressing him. It was something he obviously thought about a lot, but I didn’t get any feeling he wanted to be cured of it. Why come to me, then?
Puzzling. I felt I’d barely scratched the surface. Under normal circumstances, I would have been up for the challenge, but I had another appointment, one I couldn’t break.
I needed to bring this to an end.
“And, just for the notes, what age range are you in, Mr. Scott?” I aske
d. “Thirty to forty, or forty to fifty?”
“I’m over two hundred years old,” he replied calmly.
And he believed that absolutely too.
I sighed. What a wonderful invitation to more questions. However…
“I’m at a bit of a loss, Mr. Scott. This is just a preliminary. You’re fundamentally healthy. Like all of us, I’m sure you could do with more good friends, better diet, more exercise, regular sound sleep and a million dollars more in the bank. There’s little of that which therapy can directly help with. In fact, we might adversely affect the last of that wish list. Yes, you have a firmly imprinted belief that you’re an immortal, but as far as I can tell, you’re not unwell.”
His smile was small, somehow intimate, as if we shared a secret. “You don’t think being an immortal and needing Blood is sick?”
“Not in itself.” I stirred uneasily. I was making assumptions here. He’d claimed he wasn’t taking Blood from humans at the moment, so he wasn’t an active ‘vampire’. Yet, under questioning, he sounded sane, certainly saner than many people walking around in the city today.
But his picture of the sacred act of giving and taking Blood, as he put it, might be absolutely in accordance with what he thought was happening. For the person giving blood it might be a terrifying nightmare culminating in their painful death. That was mental illness—the holding of that delusional subjective impression at the objective expense of others.
I tried one of my standard bits of verbal judo.
“So, what do you think you need, Mr. Scott?”
“I need to talk to you.”
Whoa.
“I’m not sure that’s appropriate.” I put my keypad down and made a show of looking at my watch. “I have another appointment, so I’m going to have to wrap this up.”
He didn’t object. He stood easily, and we walked out into the lobby.
I was watching his body language. He didn’t offer a hand to shake and he didn’t angle his body to say goodbye. He was standing directly facing me, a confident and intimate pose. A slight smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, as if he knew I was watching him closely.
