Any more conversation was impossible as Father Joseph hung up the phone with a mutter and moved back to Dwayne’s side.
“There’s an emergency at the shelter,” he announced. “I have to get back, so we’d best get this done.” The priest hesitated, seeming to be at a loss as to how to go about starting, then sighed and raised his gun.
“Wait,” Greg said as Father Joseph pointed the weapon at her. “Father, what if you’re wrong?”
“About what?” he asked warily. “She
is
a vampire.”
“Is she?” he asked. “Are you sure?”
He nodded with firm certainty.
“What about the garlic, the crosses, the holy water, and the sun? You were pretty sure about them, too, weren’t you? But they had no effect on her. Doesn’t that tell you something?”
Father Joseph frowned, and for a moment Lissianna was sure Greg had saved them as she saw uncertainty flicker on his face, then he shook his head. “Yes, it tells me the movies and books are all wrong about how to deal with vampires.”
“What if they aren’t wrong? What if you’re the one who’s wrong?” he asked urgently.
The priest shook his head grimly. “Dwayne staked her, and yet she’s still alive. She
has
to be a vampire.”
“Yes, Dwayne did
try
to stake her,” Greg said patiently. “But Father Joseph, it takes a lot of force to get through the muscle and bone of the chest and—thankfully—he didn’t hit her hard enough to do much damage. The stake hit the collarbone and stopped.”
“Her collarbone!” Dwayne cried with disbelief.
Lissianna managed to contain her own surprise at Greg’s claim. The stake had gone nowhere near her collarbone, Dwayne’s aim had been good, he’d barely missed her heart.
“It was dark,” Greg pointed out to the younger man. “And fortunately that must have thrown your aim off. As I say, you pierced the skin and hit her collarbone. There was a lot of blood, but very little real damage.”
“Could this be true?” The priest stared at Dwayne in amazement, but when he just stood there looking uncertain, he turned to Lissianna, and asked, “Is it?”
“It’s true.” Lissianna grabbed on to Greg’s lie and embellished on it. “I was at emergency most of the night, but then they finally gave me a couple of Tylenol, put in two
stitches, and sent me home. I’d have come to work last night, but when I woke up I had to go to the police station to fill out a report, and that took just as long as the emergency visit.”
“But, I’m sure I hit—I felt it go in,” Dwayne argued.
“I had a couple of blankets over me,” Lissianna said, knowing it had been dark and he couldn’t possibly know she’d only been covered by the afghan. “They buffered the blow. It went through them, but just pierced me a bit.”
Dwayne shook his head, confusion covering his features.
“She isn’t a vampire, Father,” Greg said firmly. “Neither am I. I’m a psychologist.”
“You’re her psychologist?” Father Joseph asked with bewilderment.
Lissianna saw Greg smile and knew he’d just come up with a plan. She hoped it worked. He was really starting to look poorly.
“Yes. I’m Lissianna’s psychologist. You can check my ID if you like.” He pulled his wallet from his pocket and tossed it on the floor in front of the two men.
Dwayne bent to pick up the wallet, keeping the gun trained on them the whole while, then juggling it about as he searched through the wallet’s contents. Lisianna held her breath and waited, positive the idiot would accidentally shoot one of them before he was through. She sincerely hoped it was her the man shot; she’d just pass out at the sight of blood if Greg was shot anyway. But, in the end she supposed it didn’t really matter, Father Joseph still had them in his sights.
“Dr. Gregory Hewitt,” Dwayne read aloud and then frowned. “That name sounds familiar.”
“There was an article about you in the paper a couple weeks ago,” Father Joseph recalled.
“Yes,” Greg said solemnly.
“Oh yeah, I read that,” Dwayne nodded. “You’re that specialist in phobias.”
“Phobias are my specialty,” he allowed. “But I also work with other disorders, and Lissianna’s mother contacted me because she was concerned about her. Lissianna suffers from…” He hesitated, then asked, “Have you ever heard of lycanthropy?”
“Oh, hey, yeah,” Dwayne said when Father Joseph just stared. “That’s when people think they’re werewolves, right?”
“Right.” Greg nodded. “Well, Lissianna suffers from a similar ailment, only she
thinks
she’s a vampire.”
Both men turned to peer at Lissianna, and she hoped that none of her surprise was showing. She hadn’t expected the tale Greg was coming up with, but it might work if they believed him.
“But she
is
a vampire,” Father Joseph protested. “She bit Dwayne and she’s bitten others at the shelter.”
“Open your mouth, Lissianna,” Greg ordered.
“What?” She stared at him blankly, confused by the sudden order.
“Show them your teeth,” he said meaningfully, then moved to her side and caught her face, explaining, “She’s resistant because she hasn’t got her fake teeth in.”
Realizing what he was up to, Lissianna relaxed, allowing him to open her mouth.
“See? No fangs.” Greg gently used one finger to lift her upper lip on one side, then the other. It was a quick action, just long enough for them to see that her canines didn’t extend past her other teeth, but not long enough for them to notice that the tips were pointed.
Father Joseph and Dwayne took a step forward, then stopped. Both men were frowning.
Greg released Lissianna and turned to face them fully
as he continued, “She has ceramic teeth that she glues over her real canines when she goes out to bars to find someone to bite. Lissianna works nights because, of course, vampires can not be out in daylight. She follows all the vampire laws, shunning garlic and religious symbols.”
“She ate the mashed garlic I gave her at the shelter,” Father Joseph pointed out. “And she didn’t react at all to the crosses in her office. If she believes she’s a vampire, shouldn’t she have at least reacted to them?”
Lissianna glanced at Greg, wondering how he’d explain that.
He hesitated, then said, “She wasn’t in her vampire persona then.”
“Her vampire
persona?
” Dwayne asked. “Are you saying she’s like a multiple personality or something?”
Greg hesitated again, then tossed an apologetic look her way, and said, “Yes. She’s disassociated with two distinct personalities. One is just—” He shrugged. “Lissianna. The other thinks she is a two-hundred-year-old vampire who walks the night.”
“But—” Father Joseph broke off with a curse when his phone rang again. Pulling it from his pocket, he growled, “Yes?”
Lissianna glanced toward Greg, noting that aside from his pallor, telltale beads of sweat were gathering on his forehead. He was really suffering. Turning back to their would-be killers, she concentrated on Dwayne. Of the two, she suspected his belief that they were vampires was the more shaken by the tale Greg had come up with. Father Joseph was resisting because if it was true that they weren’t vampires, then he would have to accept that he’d tried to stake an innocent woman. He’d rather believe that he was on a mission for God.
Her attempt to slip into Dwayne’s presently confused
mind came to an abrupt end when Father Joseph said sharply, “It doesn’t matter where I am. I’m on my way right now. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
He shut off his phone with disgust and turned his attention back to them. “We have to finish this. I have to get back now. There is no more time for discussion.”
“Then you should let us go.” Greg took a step forward as he spoke, then froze as a gunshot exploded in the room.
“Oh Jesus,” Dwayne breathed. “I didn’t mean to do that. Why did he move? I didn’t mean…”
Lissianna peered from him to Greg with confusion.
“What—?” she began, then paused as Greg turned slowly toward her and she saw the blood spreading on his chest.
Aware of the sudden roaring in her ears, Lissianna focused on the bright red patch and noted that the longer she stared, the darker and larger it seemed to get. Soon her vision was filled with it, then she experienced a falling sensation and realized she was fainting.
“Don’t open your eyes, you might
faint again.”
Those were the first words Lissianna heard. Her eyes had been fluttering in preparation of opening as she regained consciousness, but she squeezed them tightly closed and took a slow breath. “Greg?”
“Yes.”
“You’re on my right?” Lissianna asked, though she could tell he was from the direction his voice was coming. She asked the question simply to make him speak again. She hadn’t been quite awake when he’d first spoken, and the word “yes” was nothing to judge by, but Lissianna thought his voice sounded a little odd.
“Yes. I guess that makes me your right-hand man.” The words were followed by a forced chuckle. By her guess the sound was coming through his teeth, as was his speech. The man had his teeth clenched, telling her he was in horrible pain.
She turned her head to the left, opened her eyes and found herself staring out on a sunny backyard. There was no sign of either Father Joseph or Dwayne, and Lissianna
was sure that she and Greg were presently alone in the glassed-in sunporch.
When she turned her head just a little more, Lissianna was able to see that she was seated, leaning against the only nonglass wall in the sunroom. Her arms were drawn up over her head, hanging by chains attached to her wrists. She was chained to the wall.
“Shades of medieval England,” she muttered, then asked Greg, “Are you chained to the wall as well?”
“Yes.”
Lissianna nodded. “What happened? Why didn’t they kill us?”
“Well, your fainting at the sight of blood rather confused them since it doesn’t fit with their image of a big bad vampire,” he said with derision. “Now they don’t know what to think. Father Joseph was in a state. He didn’t know what to do, but he had to go and couldn’t give it the time he felt it deserved at the moment, so they decided to chain us up until he deals with this emergency at the shelter.”
“You mean they don’t believe we’re vampires anymore and still just took off and left you wounded and bleeding?” Lissianna asked with amazement.
“Yeah, well that’s the thing,” Greg said, and Lissianna was now positive he was talking through gritted teeth. “Your Father Joe rushed forward to help me after you fainted. He opened my shirt and started mopping up the blood, then he and Dwayne got into an argument about whether to call for an ambulance or not. Father Joseph was insisting they should, I think he was falling for the story after all. Dwayne didn’t want to—he was afraid he’d go to jail for shooting me. Father Joseph finally convinced him to call, then turned back to tend my wound again and noticed it had gotten smaller. He told Dwayne to hang up.”
“Oh dear,” Lissianna murmured.
“Yeah,” Greg agreed on a weary sigh. “He was upset that the silver bullet didn’t kill me…speaking of which, the bullet came out while they were arguing. How did it—?”
“The nanos would consider it a foreign body and work to get it out.”
“Incredible.” He sighed.
“Not really, the body does the same thing naturally with slivers and such.” She glanced up at the chains again. “So they plan to take care of us when Father Joseph gets back?”
“Yes.” He gave a breathless laugh. “The good news is, Father Joseph brought in the wood he mentioned and Dwayne is fashioning a stake from it even as we speak, so there will be no waiting. We can be staked together if that’s what they decide in the end.”
“Damn,” Lissianna breathed.
“My sentiments exactly,” Greg agreed. He fell silent, and she thought she heard the beginning of a groan before he silenced it. Concern eating at her, she closed her eyes, turned her head to the right, tipped it back, and opened her eyes. Lissianna let her breath out on a little sigh when she found herself staring at the wall and the glass ceiling that came out over them. Taking another deep breath, she slowly lowered her gaze until the top of his head came into view…then his forehead, his eyes, his nose, his mouth. Lissianna paused once his whole face was in view, knowing that if she caught a glimpse of even a droplet of blood she’d faint again.
Now that she could see him, she was almost sorry she’d looked. Between his wound and the sun, Greg was in a bad way. He leaned against the wall as she did, but with his head tipped back as if he found it too heavy to hold upright. His eyes were closed and his face so pale it
was almost gray. It was also tight with pain. Greg was in desperate need of blood and suffering horribly.
Unaware that Lissianna was looking at him, he took a slow deep breath and managed a steady voice, as he said, “Maybe not. They might just stake me and not you. When he left, Father Joseph didn’t know what to think. They believe I’m a vampire, but aren’t sure what to make of you. They considered that you might be a very new vampire, and that’s why you fainted when you saw the blood. Father Joe mentioned that if that was the case, you might return to your normal state if I was vanquished.”
“Oh.” Lissianna felt her heart squeeze as he stopped speaking and bit his lip against the pain. The stupid man was trying to be brave and not let her know how he was suffering. If it had been she, she’d have been screaming her head off and whiny as hell. Lissianna wasn’t a huge fan of pain.
Deciding she had to get him out of there, she peered up and gave an experimental tug at the chains holding her arms to the wall as she said, “I’m surprised Dwayne didn’t stay here and stand guard.”
“He did, for a while,” Greg said. “He sat here, grinning and carving his damned stake for about half an hour, but then he got kind of freaked out and took off. I think he’s carving his stake out front while he waits for Father Joseph to return.”
“He got kind of freaked out?” Lissianna asked.
Greg gave a short harsh laugh. “It maybe had something to do with my threatening to rip his heart out of his chest and eat it.”