The Vampire Shrink(14)
Author: Lynda Hilburn

Feeling rather excited about the evening, I came down the stairs and joined them in the living room.

"Wow, you look great," Alan said. "Positively edible. And you smell wonderful."

"Yes, you really do," echoed Tom.

I said a silent "thank you" to the helpful sales clerk who'd talked me into buying some bright colors and current fash­ions. Maybe it was time for me to go visit her again.

I hadn't known what to wear to a dance club because I hadn't been to one in years, but I figured jeans would prob­ably work. I had an expensive pair that I'd bought a few months back and hadn't worn yet, and the length was great for the high heels on my favorite black boots. I'd be even taller than usual tonight, but I felt like taking up space.

It was great to have an excuse to wear one of my new shirts. It was the color of a summer sky, form-fitting, and low-cut. I'd had to buy a special bra for this top because none of my regular undergarments were skimpy enough. I'd briefly considered getting a Wonder Bra, but found that the extra padding and lift were overkill.

Going out gave me a chance to put on the beautiful azure, Victorian drop necklace and earring set that I'd bought for myself as a birthday present last year. They matched my eyes perfectly and made me feel feminine. An unfamiliar feeling.

I felt pretty good, and I had to admit I was enjoying the appreciative expressions on their faces. It had been a long time since I'd dressed up on purpose. It was nice to see that my efforts had paid off. Hell. It had been a long time since I'd had two handsome men paying attention to me. A long time? Try never.

Alan continued staring at me, and I frowned. "What?"

He laughed. "I'm just amazed by the transformation. I came to pick up Kismet Knight, Ph.D., conservative scien­tist, and instead I find Xena, Warrior Princess. Not that I'm complaining."

I laughed, too, feeling surprisingly light-hearted. Evi­dently, kicking Tom's metaphorical butt had perked me right up. "You don't know me yet. Who can say what other per­sonalities might be hiding in here?"

"I'm looking forward to finding out." His eyes moved down my body.

I could swear I physically felt the movement of his eyes. Oh, my. Either the wine is going to my head, or my pilot light just got turned up.

"Ahem," Tom said, drawing my attention back to him. "I'm surprised, Kismet. It used to be worse than pulling teeth to get you to attend a dance club with me. You never enjoyed them. What's special about this one?"

Well well. Dr. Cliche is jealous.

"'We're doing some research. Alan is also a psycholo­gist, and he's introducing me to a subculture I'm interested in writing about."

"Hey, that's terrific. Can I go?" Tom asked.

I turned my head to Alan and he shrugged his shoulders. "It's okay with me."

What are you up to, Tom?

"Are you sure, Tom? Because it will probably be field study—just observation—and I remember how you felt about that in grad school. You thought it was boring."

But I could almost see the wheels turning in his mind as he imagined the sweet, young, scantily dressed subjects he'd be observing. No. Not boring at all.

"I'm sure it will be fun," Tom asserted, flashing another of his game show host smiles. He ran his fingers through his abundant hair and wiggled his eyebrows at me.

"Okay," I sighed. "Who wants to drive?"

Chapter Ten

We wound up taking Alan's Jeep Cherokee because Tom and I had already sampled the fruit of the vine.

On the drive over Tom queried from the back seat, his tone disdainful, "What kind of subculture is it that we're ob­serving tonight?"

Alan and I glanced at each other, smiled and voiced in unison, "Vampires."

Tom fumbled madly with the clasp of his seatbelt, making a frenzied effort to extricate himself from the restraining de­vice. The fastener apparently put up great resistance, because he snorted, swore and made grunting sounds as he proceeded to pound the offending hardware into submission.

Tom always did have a short fuse.

I'm shallow enough to admit that I loved hearing every pitiful, Three Stooges second of it.

Go ahead and struggle with it, you moron. Come to think of it, you never did have much finesse with any hands-on activities, did you? Maybe someday you'll grow up and figure out the benefits of a tender touch.

Either my thought burrowed its way into his brain, or he simply exhausted his temper tantrum, because after a few seconds of quiet, I heard the "snick" of the clasp opening. He scooted forward and hurled himself against the front seat.

"Excuse me? Vampires?"

I had to give Alan points for keeping his eyes on the road and not laughing in Tom's face.

I half turned within the confines of my seatbelt, fixed my eyes on Tom and gave him my best blank face. "Yes. Vampires."

He rested his hand on my shoulder. "Please tell me you're not serious."

My tone of voice raised its chin, and I shook off his hand. "I've stumbled across a group of people who believe they're vampires, and I'm going to write about them. I think it's a valid topic for research."

I sounded way more defensive than I meant to. As if I dared him to contradict me. I didn't know why I felt the need to explain my work to Tom, but I did. Or maybe it was me I was trying to convince.

Tom shook his head slowly, exaggerating the theatrical back and forth motion, his lips tightly compressed.

"Kismet, Kismet. You had so much potential. You could have gone to California with me and shared the lime­light. You could have been interviewed by Leno. You could have taken a meeting with Dr. Phil. But here you are, study­ing pathetic fringe elements in Cow Town. I had no idea my breaking up with you would hit you so hard."

I straightened rigidly in my seat, kept my eyes riveted directly in front of me and took a deep breath. My hands automatically fisted in my lap and I bit my lower lip to hold back the avalanche of words gathering there. I wasn't going to allow the only female psychologist in the group to have a public meltdown. I wouldn't let him push me over the edge.

The arrogant jerk. The self-centered, obnoxious, smarmy a**hole. No amount of making him jealous is worth listening to this pompous drivel Once again, his brain is caught in his zipper.

My muscles tensed and moisture dampened my armpits. It was all I could do to keep myself buckled into my seat, be­cause I was seriously fantasizing about diving into the back and pummeling a little color into Dr. California's face with my knuckles. Maybe give him youthfully puffy lips without him having to go visit his plastic surgeon. Of course, he might have to check in with his dentist afterward. It was so thought­ful of him to remind me he hadn't invited me to accompany him to the West Coast, and that he was now a big shot.

Alan studied me with raised eyebrows, his tongue push­ing against the side of his face from inside his mouth. "Tom," he quickly interjected, obviously catching my hostile inten­tions. "Do you remember a series of murders in Los Angeles a while back? They got a lot of media coverage. Several bod­ies found, drained of blood? I'm searching for those killers, and I'll find them in the vampire subculture."

Alan sounded a lot more formal than I'd ever heard him. Psychologists are a competitive lot and we never miss an op­portunity to puff ourselves up for each other. Or, maybe it was Tom's hyper-pomposity that brought out the pretentious­ness in everyone. But, regardless, he did give me a moment to rein myself in. Lucky for Tom.

Oblivious, Tom droned on. "So, what are you? A foren­sic psychologist? What are you going to do with the killers after you find them?

Alan ignored the superior attitude Tom displayed in his over-pronunciation of the words "forensic psychologist," but I heard him sigh.

"I work for the FBI. I'm an expert on serial killers, in addi­tion to other things, and I'm the agent assigned to the case." How did Kismet get involved in all this?" She's the Vampire Psychologist," Alan said, grinning. "Here we are."

Our heads pivoted toward the window as we passed The Crypt, cruising for a place to park. Milling about in front of the main entrance were large groups of 20-somethings: Goths, vampire wannabes, heavy metal gods and goddesses, Britney Spears pretenders, androgynous individuals covered in body art and piercings, and some reincarnated hippies.

"It appears we're going to be the oldest people there," Tom noted, with a hint of annoyance in his voice.

"Especially you," I teased, smiling sweetly. Okay. Just because I'm a psychologist doesn't mean I can't be as nasty as anyone else. I knew Tom was sensitive about his age and that he'd avail himself of every plastic surgery procedure possible in order to stave off the ravages of time. Not that I was above a little nip and tuck myself in the future.

We finally found a place to park several blocks away, and walked back to The Crypt. It was huge, taking up almost the same space in square feet as it did in height.

The building had its own personality. The closer we got to it, the more ominously powerful it seemed. I could hear music throbbing on the airwaves.

The first thing I noticed about the building was its eyes—the stained glass windows that filled half of each wall. Extraordinary colors and shapes formed pictures and ab­stract patterns in each window. There were images of angels, demons, religious symbols, Celtic crosses, and spirits rising from graves. I could imagine how amazing they'd look with the sun pouring through them.

The windows were brightly lit and the colors splashed down onto the dark sidewalk like rainbows of light, bathing everyone standing there in etheric hues.

The building was gothic in design, with ornate towers and archways. The upper level had many nooks and crannies, and standing guard at various outposts were large gargoyles.

As we approached the crowd gathered in front of the main entrance, the smell of marijuana permeated the air, and I felt a heavy, pulsating rhythm moving in through the soles of my feet.

We climbed up the stairs leading to the entrance and passed through the massive double doors, which were made of heavy wood with beautiful carvings. A wall of sound hit me when the doors opened and the intensity of the vibra­tion took my breath away. At the far end of the club a rock band commanded the aural landscape with screaming gui­tars, booming bass notes and primitive rhythms. Musicians cavorted wildly on the large, multi-level stage, and the acous­tics were such that the sound exploded as it poured out of the mounted speakers.

A smoke machine pumped out a continuous layer of fog that hovered near the floor and had a life of its own, curling and twisting like a ghostly serpent.

A bouncer stood inside the door, blocking our entrance to the rest of the club. He was extremely tall, very thin, and deathly white. He didn't seem to give much credence to the idea of personal space, because he bent down very close.

"Welcome to The Crypt. ID please."

His breath was hot with an odd, sweet scent. He reached out a hand with long, dirty fingernails and I jumped back, without even thinking, stepping behind Alan while I re­trieved my driver's license from the pocket of my jeans. It'd been a long time since anyone carded me.

Apparently not offended by my reaction to his hygiene, he smiled—showing discolored fangs—and waved us inside with a sweep of his arm. "Enjoy."

Tom tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at the bouncer, his expression telegraphing distaste. "Is he one of your clients? It appears he could use a little help."

I glared at him. "'Very funny. I just might give him one of my business cards. He could be a perfect case study for my book."

Down girl. I don't have to justify myself to Tom or anyone else. This is starting to feel like a nasty little case of sibling rivalry—not that I have any idea how sibling anything would feel.

"Hey, you two. Check it out." Alan pointed to the inte­rior of the club.

The entire place was decorated like a cross between a graveyard and Dracula's castle, and it was big enough to hold hundreds of people, most of whom had already arrived.

We manoeuvred our way over to the main bar, which ran along an entire wall, and was shaped to resemble a long, wooden sarcophagus. Standing there, waiting to catch the at­tention of the bartender, Alan leaned toward me and shouted in my ear, "I forgot to tell you. Never look vampires in the eyes. They'll entrance you."

I was going to say something about that being ridiculous, but that was too many words to scream over the music so I nodded and mouthed "okay."

Judging by the expression on his face, Tom was already in lecher heaven, scrutinizing the nubile, bouncing female body parts on the dance floor. I didn't think a grin could get any wider. He started to remind me of the "Joker" character in one of the Batman movies. He turned back to the bar to put in his order and caught sight of the bartender. "Holy shit."

She was spectacular. A leather fantasy right out of the centerfold of a men's magazine. Her hair was cut short and it stood up in stubby little spikes all over her head. It was hard to tell under the dim lights, but the color appeared to be pink—or maybe orange. Her eyes were almond-shaped blue orbs. She leaned over the bar and plopped her considerable assets in front of Tom. "What's your pleasure?"

After a few seconds, he finally raised his eyes up to hers and stared, his mouth slowly relaxing and hanging open.

Alan shook Tom's shoulder and snapped his fingers in front of his face. "Wake up!"

Tom came back to himself with a start, shook his head from side to side and peered at Alan. "What happened?"

Alan explained, "Never look a vampire in the eyes."