Dark Harvest Page 3

  Okay. I didn’t want to be interviewed, but I couldn’t help turning the tables on Maxie. Once a therapist, always a therapist. Lift up the rock and see what’s underneath, that’s my motto. I’ve never been good at small talk.

  She stared off for a few seconds, then turned serious eyes back to me. “Amazing good. Maybe I’ll tell you about it after we get to know each other better.”

  Hmmm. Secrets. Did she know that offering that kind of tantalizing interpersonal tidbit was like waving a red cape at a bull? I was just about to find a way to sneak into her psychic side door when she scooted her chair closer to the table.

  “So, do you believe in vampires?” Maxie fixed her eyes on mine, her lips spreading in a Cheshire-cat smile. “Strictly off the record, of course.”

  Talk about a quick change of subject. Maxie was probably a very good reporter, and I smiled in appreciation of her tactics. But I definitely didn’t want to discuss vampires, and the wheels in my brain were spinning, kicking up mental dust, as I tried to think of something innocuous to say. I’m sure my inner struggle was apparent, because I felt various emotions surf across my face.

  I must have hesitated long enough that she thought she’d better try something different, because she said, “Okay, I’ll go first. No interview. Honest. A simple conversation. Just two ordinary businesswomen talking about their daily lives. A couple of regular professionals, discussing alien abductions, vampires, werewolves, reincarnation, demonic possession, and other everyday occurrences. Regular, run-of-the-mill rock-and-roll.” Her voice picked up speed and volume as she spoke.

  “I’ve been writing for this magazine for five years and I’ve heard every preposterous story you can imagine. I think I could surprise even you. But in all that time, as I’ve investigated each bizarre allegation thoroughly, I’ve never come across anything that could be even remotely considered paranormal. Not one real vampire. No werewolves. No aliens. No demons. Just a lot of sick, weird, fucked-up humans looking for attention or behaving very badly. I now know for a fact that what you see is what you get. There is no magic. There is no Wizard of Oz. Just the demented little man behind the curtain, pulling the levers.”

  She flopped back in her chair, breathless.

  Her passionate diatribe had captured the attention of everyone in the coffee shop, and the room was so quiet you could hear a vampire fang descend.

  Noticing she was center stage, Maxie smiled, stood, and spread her arms wide, acknowledging one side of the room, then the other. Her long veil of hair swayed as she moved. “Thank you, America. Thank you for this honor. They like me! They really like me!” she said, imitating an old Academy Awards acceptance speech.

  “Give ’em hell, Maxie!” yelled a young male wearing a backward baseball cap. He thrust his fist into the air. The other customers applauded.

  She bowed dramatically, lifted her hair out of the way, and dropped into her chair.

  “If I hadn’t found fame and fortune as a magazine reporter, I woulda gone into acting. And who knows? If this job doesn’t pan out, I still might.” She slapped her thigh with her palm, threw back her head, and howled.

  Either Maxie was a certifiable candidate for a rubber room, or she was the most free-spirited person I’d met in a long time. Maybe ever.

  The other Starbucks customers applauded again, some howling back at her. Apparently, they were used to her theatrics. I’d thoroughly enjoyed the performance and clapped along with the rest of the audience. I found myself laughing uninhibitedly. When I realized it had been a while since I’d done that, I was surprised by how good it felt.

  “Wow,” I said. “You’re passionate about your skepticism. No fence sitting for you, eh?”

  “Yeah, that’s me. The Opinionated Cynic. The Know-It-All Pessimist. The Been-There, Done-That-And-Found-It-Boring Mocker. So, what about you? Are you a skeptic, or do you really buy all the stuff your clients try to sell?”

  That was a tricky question. If she’d asked me six months ago, I’d have been able to honestly say that I agreed with her assessment completely. That vampires, wizards, witches, ghosts, and various other preternatural phenomena were all imaginary—or delusional. No rational person could believe in fairy-tale or horror-movie creatures of the night. No reasonable, sane person would give credibility to nocturnal creepy-crawlies.

  But in the last half year I’d looked under the bed and found the monsters. There really was a vampire tapping at my window. Hell, forget tapping. He didn’t bother with a window. He just materialized wherever he wanted and dazzled me with his platinum hair and turquoise eyes. Skepticism was no longer an option.

  Unless, of course, I’d gone completely bonkers, and all my experiences could be explained away by a brain aneurysm or epileptic seizures. I took the possibility of medically caused insanity very seriously. A while back I’d actually gone so far as to have myself tested, just to rule out those probabilities. The scientific part of me simply stubbornly refused to acknowledge what seemed to be happening. As glad as I was to find myself aneurysm-free, that meant the simplest explanations were probably true. To paraphrase Occam’s razor, “When analyzing a complicated situation, after you remove all the unnecessary elements, whatever is left—no matter how weird—must be true.” Not being able to blame the vampires on a brain disorder meant that the simple fact—that vampires exist—must be true. But just because I understood that twisted reality didn’t mean I’d totally made peace with it. No matter how many vampire clients I had.

  Maxie waved her hand in front of my face and I jumped, my gaze reconnecting with hers.

  “Shit, Doc. That was another long pause there. You must drive your clients nuts with that silent, staring thing. I’ve never understood how you shrinks do that. Should I go Freudian and read something into it? Are you avoiding the topic?” She smiled with her mouth, but her eyes were serious—calculating.

  What was going on? My brain had obviously skipped a groove again. Was I having some kind of reaction to all the stress over the last few months? Hallucinations and an inability to focus couldn’t be good for business.

  Suck it up, Kismet.

  “No. I’m not avoiding the topic.” I straightened in my chair, ignoring the questions I saw in her eyes. “I’m just thinking about how much I want to say about it. No matter what my personal opinion might be about vampires, I do have clients who either believe they’re bloodsuckers or who want to become one. If I say that I don’t believe in the undead, that could crush the trust I’m building with my clients. If they think I’m humoring them, they’ll feel betrayed and our progress will stop. Even if you aren’t interviewing me right now, it’s possible you might be tempted to use what I tell you in a future article, and I can’t take the chance that my clients might be harmed. So, I can truthfully say that I’m keeping an open mind about whether or not vampires exist.”

  Not bad. Sounds plausible. I’m actually keeping more than my mind open to the idea.

  Maxie took a breath, maybe getting ready to ask a question, but I was on a roll.

  “But I will say that I’ve seen things that shake my notions of what’s real and what isn’t. Even in my non-vampire-wannabe clients, the mind is capable of creating astounding things. Think about all the horrors humans have caused throughout the ages. It raises the question of who really are the monsters.”

  “Yeah, you’ll get no argument from me there. People definitely suck. Monsters are everywhere. And I get what you’re saying about your clients, so I’ll respectfully stop talking about vampires. But this whole discussion has given me a terrific idea.” She clicked her spoon on the side of her coffee mug and absently ran her tongue over her front teeth for a few seconds. Her eyes were still riveted on mine, but she was obviously deep in thought. “Are you free this evening?”

  My eyebrows tiptoed up my forehead. I hadn’t seen that question coming. But despite my intention to respond in my habitual way—giving my standard “I’m already committed” speech—I surprised myself by saying something
totally different.

  “Maybe. My plans are flexible. What’s going on this evening?”

  I guess I really was willing to make some changes—step outside my rigid social comfort zone. Whaddya know? Therapist, heal thyself.

  She smiled wide. “I’ve been invited to a vampire staking. Wanna come?”

  Chapter Three

  A vampire staking.

  I stared at Maxie with my mouth hanging open.

  Of course. How silly of me to assume she’d suggest something totally inappropriate like meeting for dinner, going to a lecture, or maybe listening to a local jazz band. What was I thinking? That would’ve been the height of boredom. The epitome of the mundane. So pitifully human.

  Why settle for routine, when we could watch vampires be killed?

  No, thanks. I’ve already seen that movie.

  I closed my mouth and cleared my throat. “Run that by me again?”

  She threw back her head and laughed. “Wow. I wish I could read minds right now because I’d pay money to know what just flashed through your brain. You should’ve seen your face! You looked like I kicked your puppy. Or you thought the topic was serious.”

  “You mean you were kidding about being invited to a vampire staking?”

  “Oh, hell no. I get invited to weird shit all the time. Vampire stakings, werewolf hunts, devil-worshiping ceremonies, exorcisms, witch burnings—any and every bizarre thing you can imagine. Welcome to my sick little world. But it’s all bullshit. Blatant cries for attention from the sickos and deviants who populate my journalistic universe.”

  “So, you’re covering the event for your magazine?”

  “I am, indeed. And I’ve got to admit that sometimes the costumes and fake monster props are worth the price of admission. I know you’re dedicated to helping the terminally confused, but in my line of work, the mentally ill can be downright entertaining. I thought you’d enjoy exploring another aspect of the vampire wannabe community. Wouldn’t the Vampire Psychologist want to understand as much as possible about her potential clientele? Who knows? Some of these folks might end up on your couch.”

  If she knew how crowded my couch already was, and who—or what—regularly came to sit on it, she’d be in yellow-journalism heaven. As much as I wanted to make some new friends, I had the uncomfortable feeling that Maxie’s idea of fun dangled a little farther over the abyss than mine.

  But she did have a point. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt me to explore the twisted layers of the vampire community—wannabe and otherwise. I couldn’t always just wait for the lost souls to show up at my office. After all, I still had a book to write. I wasn’t willing to completely ignore the scholarly requirements of the academic portion of my professional responsibilities, and a chapter about an alleged vampire staking could reenergize my muse.

  Or not.

  Now that I’d considered the possibility, even thinking about going to some vampire-inspired event with a reporter made my head hurt. I knew I was asking for trouble, even without my radar flashing.

  Nope. Definitely need to stay home and wash my hair tonight.

  I opened my mouth to decline the invitation, and was interrupted by a small, rodent-like bald man, who bounded into the coffee shop and scurried over to our table.

  “Hey, Maxie. Boss wants ya, pronto. Deadline, ya know? Chop-chop.”

  He reversed direction and sprinted out as quickly as he’d entered.

  “Yeah, thanks, Dave,” Maxie shouted at his retreating form.

  “How did he know you were here?” I asked.

  “I hide here as often as possible.”

  “Why didn’t they just call you?” I didn’t see a phone, but she could have it in her pocket.

  “What’s the good of sneaking off somewhere if I’m going to carry my cell phone with me? That sort of defeats the ‘hiding’ part, doesn’t it?” She gave an exaggerated sigh and tapped the tip of her index finger against the end of her nose. “Officially putting nose back to grindstone now. I’ll see you tonight.” She stood in a fluid motion, beamed a mischievous smile, and danced gracefully to the exit.

  “Maxie, wait!” I leaped up out of my chair. “I don’t want to go to a vampire staking!”

  The room went still.

  I heard Maxie laugh as she reached the exit. She raised one hand in the air, waving good-bye. “No chickening out now, Doc. I’ll leave directions to the vampire deal on your answering machine. See you there at 10 P.M. Hey. Nice ta meetcha.” Her last words were muffled by the closing door.

  “Dammit to hell!” I slammed my palm down on the table, sending a spoon clattering to the floor. The metallic sound echoed in the silence.

  Immediately embarrassed by my theatrical overreaction, I eased down into my chair, folded my arms across my chest, and scanned the sea of raised eyebrows. It was as if a cosmic pause button had been pushed. Everyone in the room posed, frozen in place, staring at me. Maybe they were waiting to see what other temperamental outbursts I had up my sleeve. Too bad I couldn’t make my head spin all the way around or levitate off my chair.

  But, as far as I was concerned, the show was over. Elvis had definitely left the building.

  The silence persisted for a few seconds longer and then, as if an invisible switch had been thrown, the noise volume resumed its normal level of controlled chaos.

  I lifted my half-full coffee mug and took a healthy swig before discovering it had gone cold. I glared at the cup like it was the cause of my meltdown. What the hell had I gotten so angry about? The radio show with Carson was irritating, but I’d handled worse before without losing my cool. What was it? I was definitely behaving strangely.

  A possible answer floated into my mind.

  It had recently occurred to me that my professional training had a downside. All my therapeutic reserve and ability to remain silent while integrating client information was great in the clinical setting, but it sucked big-time in interpersonal situations. I’d let Maxie manipulate me, and it pissed me off, though I was angrier with myself than at her.

  Of course I wasn’t going to some pathetic gathering of attention-seeking occultists and rebellious goth teenagers. It didn’t matter what Maxie thought was going to happen. I didn’t owe her anything, and I’d made my decision blatantly clear.

  I slid the coffee mug to the center of the table, gathered my things, and strode to the door, grumbling under my breath.

  In the hallway, the elevator doors popped open as soon as I pressed the down button. Carson’s voice rasping, “Take it off! Take it all off!” blasted from the speakers.

  Cringing while I listened to him, I was reminded that no matter what kinds of paranormal monsters might be hiding in the closet, we humans were capable of spewing our fair share of ugliness into the world.

  I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature.

  * * *

  The downtown skyscraper housing the radio station was only a few blocks from my new office. The thick fog and overcast skies of the morning had magically transformed into another of Denver’s famous sunny, clear masterpieces. I rolled down my car window, trailed my hand through the brisk air, and allowed the tight muscles in my neck and shoulders to relax. I hadn’t realized how stressed out and tense I’d been. Evidently, fighting off a brain-dead radio host and discovering the existence of a self-proclaimed, day-walking vampire punched the needle on my weirdness meter higher than usual.

  But what a glorious day. Springtime in the Rockies was as unpredictable as an adolescent’s mood. The blizzard that had paralyzed the area a few days ago, blanketing the Mile High City in several feet of snow, had retreated east. We were left with an already melting winter wonderland, much-needed moisture, and postcard-perfect mountain scenery.

  Days like this reminded me why I chose to live here.

  I pulled through the underground parking lot and cruised into my very own space. A smile eased across my lips. Even the garage was immaculate. I’d had my doubts about moving into Devereux’s building when he
offered—after all, who knew how long my relationship with the gorgeous vampire would last?—but so far things had worked out well. Better than well, actually. Everything about my new arrangement—the architecture, furnishings, location—was a perfect reflection of Devereux’s style and elegance.

  Thinking about the scary, humiliating circumstances surrounding the move flipped my smile into a frown. I’d actually been kicked out of my last office. Not something I’d add to my curriculum vitae anytime soon. Discovering the dead body and blood-covered walls and carpets, a parting gift from a violent and mentally ill bloodsucker named Brother Luther, had left a bad taste in the building manager’s mouth. I couldn’t really blame him. I hadn’t forgiven myself for completely misreading the cues about the emotionally disturbed vampire. Of course, back then I hadn’t even accepted the possibility—much less the reality—of vampires. Denial can be such a comfortable place to hide.

  Soft Celtic music caressed the airwaves during the elevator ride to the main level of the building. The doors parted without a sound, ushering me into an architectural marvel. Five months in residence hadn’t dulled my appreciation of the breathtaking beauty of the gold and marble lobby. Devereux had spared no expense in creating the stunning space, which he’d filled with exquisite furniture and incredible artwork, including his own. The fancy address was headquarters for most of his business enterprises. Apparently, my counseling practice was the only “outside” company allowed. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about getting such special treatment. I knew the “reasonable” rent he charged me was a mere fraction of the market value. As I said, denial is my friend.

  I walked across the large area, listening to the echoing clicks of my heels on the imported marble tiles, as I made a beeline for the office manager. Victoria Essex waved a hand in greeting and beamed a wide smile from behind her ornate desk. Of all the positive aspects of my new office, meeting Victoria had definitely been one of the highlights.