should have known years ago,” the boy told her. “I stay up all night.”
“So I understand. And it makes it very difficult for you to get to school.”
He waved a hand in the air. “School is for mortals.”
“Mr. Peterson—”
“Jake. Just call me Jake.”
“Jake, let’s say you are a vampire. Even vampires have to make a living.”
He frowned, startled. “Vampires…have to make a living?”
She leaned forward. “Jake, there are diseases that create a physiological desire to drink blood.”
“I don’t deserve blood, I need it.”
“You need blood, or you’ve convinced yourself you need blood?” she asked.
“I’m not the only one,” he said defensively. “Not the only one who needs blood.”
“I’m not sure I’m the person you should be seeing. I’m a psychologist. If you really need blood, we should be looking at a number of physical tests.”
He shook his head. “They—I—no.”
“Why not?”
“They won’t find anything.” He scowled again. “Don’t you understand? I’m a vampire.”
She lowered her head, hiding her sigh. She had had this very conversation so often. Too many people came to this part of the country because they thought they were vampires, or because they wanted to rebel and become part of a cult. Some had even committed murders, so convinced were they of their own supernatural tendencies.
She thought back to the horror she had seen in Transylvania. Perpetuated by men, or by pure evil?
“I am a vampire,” Jake said.
“When did you first realize you were a vampire?” she asked.
“You believe me?”
She put down her notebook and uncrossed her legs, leaning forward. “Jake, listen, you’re in a lot of trouble. I just want to help you, but I can only do that if you’ll tell what’s really going on with you. Okay?”
He nodded and leaned back against the sofa, looking tired. Much better than before, when his attitude had reeked of sheer hostility.
Jake started to talk. As she had expected, he started off with esoteric words, trying to make her see a different world, one in which he wanted to exist. But once he started talking, his words flowed with very little encouragement from her. It became clear that Jake’s case was very similar to several she had dealt with before. After all, this was New Orleans, city of voodoo and vampires.
Jake was a brilliant kid, nice-looking, if a little thin. But he was shy and didn’t speak to girls easily. He was great with a computer. He’d read extensively.
And everything he had read he had skewed in a certain direction.
“You said there are others like you,” she said softly. “That you feel the urge for blood most often during nights when there’s a full moon. And that you walk frequently during those nights. So…where do you walk? What do you do?”
He flushed a beet red suddenly. “Um, well, once…I paid for it.”
Jessica frowned. “Paid for…it? Do you mean sex?”
“Yeah, well, that…and blood.”
That was New Orleans, too. Most diversions could be found somewhere—if you had the money to pay for them.
“I see. You just wound up at a peep show, or…someone solicited you on the street, or…?”
She was startled when she saw that her question had left him seriously perplexed.
“Jake?” she prodded gently.
“I—I don’t remember.” He stared at her, still looking lost and confused. “I mean…I knew that I had drunk blood. But now that you ask…”
“Were you alone?” she asked him.
The confusion was gone. There was a hard mask in its place. “I can’t tell you who I was with. I won’t tell you who I was with. You can’t make me.”
“I’m not forcing you to do anything,” she said with a shrug. “Tell me what you want, but I hope you’ll learn to speak freely.”
“There are others. Many others. And more are coming,” he said.
“Oh?”
Once again he appeared confused. Her heartbeat quickened. This was worrying.
“I’m not the only one,” he said.
“I’m concerned about you, Jake,” she told him. “And since I can’t make you tell me anything, I’ll tell you what I think, and we’ll leave it at that. You have friends who feel as you do, and you were out with one or more of them. I don’t think you had a particular destination in mind, and you wandered into a bad area, where you were accosted. Don’t take offense—you were easy prey. And when you left, you were probably minus every cent you had in your wallets, and maybe a nice watch or some jewelry, as well.”
His hand instantly went to his throat, though he wasn’t wearing any kind of medallion. His lips tightened, and she could tell that she had hit on the truth.
“Jake, I want you to do a couple of things for me. First, we’ll rule nothing out, okay? So I’m going to have you go to your primary-care physician and get a complete physical, all right?”
“Look, I’m fine. I just—”
“Then, because it would be good for you, you’re going to see a nutritionist and start on an exercise program.” Before he could start complaining, she added, “Jake, I know you’re extremely intelligent and can slide right through all your schoolwork, and that part of the reason you don’t care if you make it to class is that you’re way ahead of most of the work going on. That may mean you need to skip ahead, or start adding some university classes onto your schedule. We have a long way to go to get to the root of your unhappiness.”
“I’m not unhappy.”
“You’re not?”
He flushed again, looking down. “I just don’t belong.”
“Then we’ll find out where you do belong. And where you want to go.”
“Games,” he said.
“What?”
“I’d like to design computer games. I think I could do it. I think I’d be good at it.”
“I’ll bet you would be,” she assured him. “Next week, same time. And I’ll give your parents a call to—”
“I thought you couldn’t repeat anything I said here,” he demanded angrily.
“I’m not going to repeat anything. I just want them to get you set up with the right professionals. Now, if you want to say anything else, if you think we haven’t covered anything, we still have a few minutes,” she told him.
She was startled when he stood and took a step that brought him right in front of her chair. His eyes were alight; he was tense, excited. “I heard you were there,” he told her. “In Transylvania. I read about it in the paper. I heard you blew the whistle on the vampires, that you were the one who called the police.”
Oh, God, this again!
But she didn’t intend to be secretive and feed into his fantasies. She stared at him levelly.
“I met some students over there. One of them left me a note, and I passed it on to the police,” she said.
She was startled again when he set his hands