Dangerous Games

02: Chapter Two

Chapter Two

My job was further south in Woodbridge. The building, known to everyone as only the Facility, rose like a cold white fortress at the end of a winding private road. Tall fences had been placed to protect those inside from the overzealous protesters that stood outside every day, in defiance to the No Trespassing signs posted all along the road. Save Our Souls picketed our building because we harbored monsters. We're All People protested that keeping new 'thropes and Strigoi segregated from general public for up to seven years was inhumane. Their hatred for the Facility was the only thing these groups admitted to having in common.

By the time I maneuvered my car through the throng of protesters and found my parking spot, I was late. I ran into the building and nearly bowled over my associate, John. Short and middle-aged with a pot belly and thinning red hair, he was the very picture of a mild mousy assistant. Clutched in his hands were the folders for today's work. Thank God it was Thursday.

“Allie, there you are! It's a madhouse in here today,” John said as he followed me. “I've gone through the files left for you from yesterday and I have your top priorities right here.”

What do we have,” I asked, shoving open the door to my office. I was a psychologist, trained to help the Newly Fanged and Terminally Furry. I was highly successful in my field, having several papers published in prestigious medical journals worldwide. Though, a part of me worried if my success was not of my making, but from my marriage to Stefan.

“We have a new client for you. Amy, age ten as of yesterday, just hit stage three of her change. She was transferred here from Massachutes during stage two because her father got a job offer. Just as well, the reports in her file indicate that her parents are royal pains in the neck that we have just inherited. I heard the Vii held a party last night after dropping the file off at your door.”

I looked up from my computer, waiting for it to finished logging in. “She's ten now? Let's see, stage three means she's been a Strigoi for two years. She was only eight when she died?”

John nodded. “Car accident. Drunk driver.”

“That is so sad.”

“Yeah, well, it was a shock to the parents. After Amy's death, the telltale signs of stage one showed up. Strange poltergeist activity in the house, the energy signature that alerted the Vii that a new Strigoi was awakening. The family was surprised since they claimed to not have a single recorded Strigoi on either side of the family.”

I sighed. When a human became a Strigoi, very precise steps were followed. The old body died, naturally or by accident. The conscious energy was still active and it spent the first year of existence hanging around family members and loved ones, drifting in a sea of confusion and sadness as the bodiless mist couldn't communicate with the grieving family. The Vii, mentors and mystics of the Strigoi, were trained to find these ghosts and bottle them up to bring them to a safe place. Otherwise, when stage two hit, the family would find themselves in grave danger.

“Anyone else at the top of the pile,” I asked, eying the small stack in John's arms.

With a sour look, he handed me a bright red folder. Without looking at the name, I knew whose it was. I had seen this file far too much, a patient that I was called in on almost every day.

“Jamie is back from the hospital. They brought him in last night,” John said. “You should talk to him, Allie. This is his third suicide attempt. If he keeps this up, he won't be ready to leave when his seven years are up.”

I sighed, my head in my hands. Jamie was a problem. I grabbed his file and took off for his room. On one hand, that boy would give me gray hairs before my next birthday. On the other hand, his stunts had kept me from breaking down and crying too much over the past month.

Jamie's mentor was waiting for me at the door of his room. The Vii were nobility unto themselves, though they had no known title. Tall and gaunt, they all looked like the love child between the Grim Reaper and Nosferatu.

“He's not eating,” the Vii said as I reached for the handle.

“I'll talk to him,” I said and entered the room. The room was barely bigger then a prison cell with stark white walls and small cot shoved in one corner. A cheap dresser rested at the foot of the cot with a measly black-and-white tv sitting on top. Laying on the cot, his back to me, was the forlorn Jamie.

“Hey, Jamie. How are you feeling today,” I said, letting him know that it was me. “I heard you got back last night.”

“Hey Doc.” Jamie didn't turn to greet me and his voice was hallow. This was not starting off well.

“Jamie, I respect you too much to beat around the bush. You have to stop fighting fate and accept that you are now a Strigoi. This isn't something we can cure.”

“I just can't Doc,” he said mournfully. “I can't compromise my values for this life.”

I sighed and sat on the bed, patting his legs. Jamie had been a regular nineteen year old boy with regular nineteen year old boy worries. Tall and thin with a model's physic, he was very popular. His shyness and glasses gave him that vulnerability that made girls melt. His open and helpful nature won him many friends. After the night of his first wild party to celebrate getting into the college of his choice, he had the misfortune of walking into Seven-Eleven just seconds before it was robbed. He was the only fatality of the night. It took the Vii, the Strigoi in charge of caring for the newly awakened vampires, almost a year to find him. Jamie did not stay close to his loved ones and try the usual methods of communication. Instead, he haunted the man who shot him, using every trick his bodiless conscious could come up with until the man called the police to confess. Luckily, the Vii found him after that and had him safely in the walls of the Facility for when he entered stage two of being a Strigoi.

“Jamie, you have to drink blood. You'll only make yourself sick if you don't. Look at your last three visits to the hospital. These hunger strikes are going to kill you.”

He sat up and leaned towards me. “That's just it, Doc. I can't drink blood. Put me in that plasma program your husband was always going on about. I will not harm another living creature for as long as I live.”

“We've tried everything,” I reminded him. “You can't take blood intravenously, it just won't work. It has to be oral. And the plasma program is still in its infancy. We don't even know if it will work.”

That was Jamie's real problem. Before his death, he was a vegan. Now that he's finally regained his memories of the first two stages of becoming a Stigoi, he hates himself for what he had to do to survive. In stage two, the physical body reforms and needs nourishment. In an animalistic fury, they tear apart any living creature that is unfortunate to get in their way. Only the Vii can control them. Jamie was not different. He needed blood several times a day and gnawed his way through several rabbits and mice until he could learn to control himself.

If Jamie could just survive until he reached his seventh year, he would learn the control and ability to go for days without blood and could be reintroduced into society. Some Strigoi even regained the ability to eat human food. He was a mere four years away from his goal.

“Jamie, you need blood. You know this. I can't say it enough times,” I told him. “I know you wish it were otherwise, but it's true We've set you up with human donors. That should help put your mind at ease.”

That did help a little bit. “Humans? No more fluffy bunnies?”

“Humans. With the ability to say no.” I smiled, an idea coming to mind. “Listen, Jamie, I'm going to talk to my superiors and see if I can't schedule you a little field trip. If you're under watch, I see no reason why you can't go to the donation room and meet some of the people that come in to give blood. It's like giving to the Red Cross, painless and voluntary.”

He grinned, looking so much like the young man he had been before his death. “That would be great, Doc.”

“In the mean time, drink the blood packets you're given. I'll also put your name in consideration for the plasma program. I won't have the same pull I had when Stefan was alive, but I'll see what I can do.”

“Thanks Doc. You're the best.”

I smiled and left. The Vii was still waiting outside. He followed me as I walked away.

“A field trip to the donation room?”

I shrugged. “It sounded like a good idea. If it gets him to eat, then try it.”

“I will schedule it for next week. Have a good day, Mrs. Petrov.”

I waved, not noticing that John had sidled up to me. He carried the rest of my emergency clients for the morning in his arms.

“Mrs. Petrov? Just last week it was Duchess this and Duchess that,” John said.

“That's expected,” I told him. “Tonight, I get to meet with Marquis Brohimir and receive the official order from His Most Royal Excellency, King Ivan of the Strigoi, that I am no longer a Duchess but a human. After tonight, I will just be plain Allie Petrov.”

“You're keeping his name?”

“Yes, why wouldn't I. Stefan and I were married for eleven years.”

John merely shrugged and handed me the next folder. I thanked him and started down the hall to meet Amy when he stopped me.

“Oh, before I forget, here,” he said, handing me a form.

“What's this?”

“I want to be transferred to Florida, to help out. I've been sitting on this for a while now, but with the Boogeyman in the news more often, I just can't stay here.”

The Boogeyman was a serial killer who preyed on kids. For nearly twelve years now, he's been a menace to Northern Virginia. There was no set cycle on when he'd strike or how long he'd keep a child. He'd just snatch the unsuspecting victim from his or her bed and eventually call the police with the location of the body. Locked doors and alarms did not hinder him.

John's own sons had been among the first known victims. He was in the police station, being questioned on the murder of his oldest son when his youngest was taken. It was a great embarrassment since the little boy was just down the hall from him, playing peek-a-boo with one of the officers. Sometime between “where are you” and “Peek-a-boo, I see you” the boy was taken.

“I understand,” I told him. It hurt John to read about other families that were feeling the same lose he had. Leaving to help out with a sudden influx of 'thropes in Florida would keep his mind off the Boogeyman for a while. “I'll fill this out and put in for your transfer by the end of today.”

I spent the rest of my day meeting with my patients and then with the Vii. Amy's case would have been very simple, but her parents wanted to be included on every step. When the word reached them that I had met with Amy without them, they called me and took turns chewing me out. I tried to explain that I always have the initial meeting alone. All I asked were simple questions and spent about five minutes with her. They refused to listen to me until I pointed out that when she was admitted here, they signed a contract stating that she was now in the care and custody of the Facility, and as such, I could speak to her at any given time now that she was in my care. They could sit in on further meetings, but she would receive around the clock care for remainder of her years here.

“What about school,” her mother protested. “She can't miss seven years of school!”

“We provide tutors. To get her to catch up, she'll have lessons every day. Every single one of our patients has passed their exams with flying colors. Those who entered as children always leave here with the ability to be at the head of the class. She'll learn the basics in school, and the histories and cultures of the Strigoi.”

“What if we don't want her learning about the Strigoi? What if we just want her to leave that place?”

“Government regulations,” I told them. “It takes seven years for the change to be complete. At the moment, if Amy were to walk outside, she'd burst into flames. Her body needs nourishment and to be around other Strigoi. After she has completed the change, she can leave here and begin her new life.”

They had a few more questions, and a few problems with how their daughter could be a Strigoi. Neither parent was one, and neither parent believed it was from his or her side of the family. I soon learned that they had recently divorced, blaming the other for carrying the gene, and yet, neither wanted to go through the testing to see whom it was.

I put down a note to have a child psychiatrist visit with Amy as well. For a child that young, she'd blame herself for her parents' divorce. I didn't need two young vampires on suicide watch in my ward.

“Oh, John, one more thing,” I said as I was getting ready to leave. My head was pounding from my conversation with Amy's parents. “I won't be in tomorrow. I know it's on the board, but I thought I should let you know.”

“Got plans?”

“Sort of,” I said. “I'm moving and need to find a new home.”

“Moving? Why?”

“My home is owned by the Court of Strigoi. Without Stefan, I'm there illegally. They gave me sixty days to move out, and I spent almost a whole month of that just getting my affairs in order.”

John turned off his computer. “Sixty days,” he mused. “Not much time with today's market.”

I nodded. “Well, if worse comes to worse, I can probably stay with Zoran or Evan.” I thought that over for a few seconds, and added, “Okay, not Zoran. He's too far out of my way. Maybe Evan.”

“Good to have a back up plan. You would need a miracle to get a house in under thirty days. My neighbors are trying to sell their home, and it's been on the market for almost a year.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” I said and grabbed my purse. “But, since my home can only be sold to a Strigoi or a member of the 'Thrope Alliance, I think I'll have an easier time. If it's not sold and I'm kicked out, I think it just becomes property of the Court.”

And in my mind it was, all the way home. What if I couldn't find a new house in the alloted time? What would I do about living arrangements? What about Cassy and her school? What about Liam?

“If I don't stop this, I'm going to go gray before I eat dinner,” I muttered to myself.

I went to pick up Cassy from her sitter's. As I got there, I was surprised to see a very angry mother picking up her child. When Mrs. Helmer came
running out with a sobbing Cassy and started telling me, in a rather bumbling way, that she was not aware of how much trouble this would cause and that she didn't agree with the mother of the little boy, I was confused.

“What happened?” I asked Cassy as we drove away.

“That boy kept calling me a coffin-whore and stuff like that. His mom threw a fit when she found out who I was,” Cassy sniffled. “They said that daddy deserved to die.”

“Cassy, he didn't deserve to die,” I said softly. “No one does. You shouldn't listen to people like that.”

I got her home and Liam took over trying to comfort her while I fixed dinner. Liam was still angry about this morning, but he let it slide long enough to take care of Cassy. When she sat down to watch television, I stepped out of the room to change for my meeting.

“Are you sure you want to wear that,” Liam asked, looking at the black and silver dress I had picked. “Black is not your color.”

“I know,” I said. “Stefan hated it on me, but I can't show up in something less somber. It would be an insult.”

Liam stood behind me and braided my hair. The first time he tugged too hard, I thought it was a mistake. By the fifth time, I knew he was doing it on purpose.

“Okay, I'm sorry I used Stefan against Cassy this morning. It was the only way I could think to get her out of that dress,” I said. “I won't do it again.”

Liam pulled harshly on my braid. “See that you don't. It was horrible, Alastrina. You never use the memory of a loved one like that.”

“I know. I'm sorry.”

“You're a better person then that.”

“I know.”

He finished my hair and walked away. I heard him in with Cassy, commenting on what she was watching. He must have changed the channel because I heard her protesting. I smiled, remembering all the times Liam would change the channel on me, wanting me to watch something 'wholesome' instead. Now that he's discovered the History channel and Animal Planet, he won't watch anything else.

“I'll be back later tonight,” I said as I walked out. “Cassy, you behave for Liam.”

“Okay,” Cassy said. “You look pretty. Tell Poppa Zoran that I love him.”

“I will.”