Blood Therapy (Kismet Knight, Ph.D., Vampire Psychologist) by Lynda Hilburn Page A

center stage, refusing to allow my acute dread to keep me from witnessing the unique event.
    At some invisible signal, the nighttime sky overhead morphed into a brilliant sunrise and a collective gasp rose from the crowd as everyone looked up. My eyes tracked the faces, some of which held such expressions of yearning that I almost felt as if I was intruding on a private moment. A keen reminder that this was the only kind of sunrise they would ever see.
    Hundreds of tiny floating balls of light materialized, illuminating the scene with a soft glow. Devereux squeezed my hand, and I shifted my gaze to his face in time to see him staring up at the mock sunrise with wonder.
    At that moment, I felt fortunate. No matter what powers vampires could command, there were equally profound losses.
    My attention was drawn to the bride, whose exceptionally long bright-green hair flowed down her body like neon seaweed, curving around the mounds of her very large serpent-tattooed breasts. She smiled at her intended, displaying impressive fangs. The groom turned out to be the tall bald fellow I’d watched feed from the donor when we first arrived. Since he wasn’t naked then, I hadn’t noticed the intricate tattoo on his chest that matched his soon-to-be wife’s. Joy radiated from his face. I wondered what kind of vampire royalty they were to rate this kind of turnout.
    I was happy for them, but couldn’t concentrate. Despite using my most potent visualization techniques, fear crashed against my mental defenses, rendering them useless. I scanned the crowd again, seeking to reassure myself that it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that the monsters sensed my panic and would devour me at any moment. Devereux wasn’t reacting to my intensity. Whatever Anne had done appeared to be effective. She caught my eye and gave an amused grin. I didn’t know if I was grateful to her for the painful reality check or angry because she’d destroyed all my comfortable delusions. Delusions I hadn’t known were there.
    Counting backward to soothe myself, I thought about the fact that I had an entire career to restructure. A whole life to reconsider.
I’m in charge of my choices. I don’t
have
to do anything!
    The official woman—priestess?—at the altar began speaking in a soft voice, flailing an amethyst wand through the air. The wand created a vortex of sparkling gold energy around the couple like something out of a Disney movie. I strained to hear but couldn’t make out anything she said. After a few seconds, I finally caught a couple of words and realized the ritual was being conducted in German.
    Perfect. Even if I had any clue about what vampire wedding vows might be like, now it was useless to pretend to have a grip. But focusing on the ceremony kept my panic at a tolerable level.
    Every so often the official raised both her hands in the air and sang a word that drew affirmative responses from the spectators.
    A chalice appeared out of nowhere and was passed from the priestess to the bride and groom. Having seen such a cup before when Devereux created the ritual for me around Halloween, I knew what it held. What else would vampires drink, anyway? The couple traded the chalice back and forth until it was empty.
    After a few minutes of the participants talking to each other, probably saying all the appropriate “I do”s, the couple held out their wrists and the priestess bound them together with a red cloth.
    Just as the groom bent forward for the traditional biting-of-the-wife’s-neck, a familiar disgusting odor filled the air and a tall, emaciated male in a filthy long black coat materialized in the middle of the celebrants, knocking the three participants and the altar to the grass. Coal-black eyes in his bald, malformed, veiny head turned slowly toward me. He sneered, showing brown teeth and fangs, pointed a finger in my direction, then lunged at me.
    Everyone started yelling at once, and what looked like a million vampire eyes turned toward