Still puzzled, Roger nipped her fingertip. She allowed him to lick a single drop before she touched the center of the cross and dabbed it with her blood. Then she clasped his hand. "Now you."

Realizing what she had in mind, he bit his own finger and anointed the cross with a token drop of his blood. "You see," Britt said, "now it's not just a piece of jewelry you bought. It contains a part of both of us. If psychic emanations stick to material objects, it's carrying a charge."

"Yes, I see what you mean," he said, lifting her hand to his lips to taste the blood welling from the tiny cut. "I don't know whether that's objectively true or sentimental drivel, but it can't hurt." Seized by a sudden rush of desire, he enfolded her in his arms and kissed her with ravenous intensity. When they came up for air, he said unsteadily, "I'm almost glad you're going out of town Thanksgiving week. The break will be good for us. I want you-so terribly-G.o.d, sometimes I'm afraid I'll devour you!"

"Didn't I tell you to trust yourself?" She tilted her head, gazing into his eyes. "I've made you hungry, haven't I?"

"How did you guess, colleague?"

Laughing softly, she said, "Then I'd better do something about it."

TWENTY YEARS ago I'd have been trying to "cure" him,Roger thought, watching his last patient preparing to leave at noon on the day before Thanksgiving. Now psychotherapists no longer cla.s.sified h.o.m.os.e.xuality as an illness, and Roger's job was to help the young man live with his situation. Lately the patient had been wrestling with the problem of whether to reveal the truth to his parents. Recalling how difficult it had been to conceal his true nature from Britt, Roger sympathized.

"See you next Wednesday, Doctor," said the patient on the way out. "Too chilly for golf today?"

Roger summoned up a dutiful smile for the feeble joke. He didn't use his Wednesday afternoons for anything except catching up on sleep. Not that he expected to rest very well, as tense as he was with Britt visiting her sister in southern California. Sunday evening Britt would come home, thank Heaven. Only four more empty nights. He exchanged an automatic "Happy Thanksgiving" with the patient and prepared to lock up.Happy? Not without Britt.

Adrift in his reverie, Roger turned with a start when Marcia stepped up behind him to say goodbye. "Good afternoon," he said curtly, hoping his jumpiness didn't show too much. The frustration of Britt's absence made him short-tempered.

And I thought the separation would be good for us!Good for her, at any rate. Driving through the glaringly bright November afternoon, he smiled at the memory of how Britt had fought his suggestion that she was becoming borderline anemic. She hadn't trusted Roger's perception of the altered taste of her blood and the shade of her aura. Finally they'd borrowed a friend's lab equipment to test her hematocrit, and she'd had to concede.

Aside from considerations of her physical health, the perspective of distance could only benefit their relationship. He hadn't mentioned one more factor, that he felt relieved to have her out of Sandor's range, if only temporarily.

However, he had taken too lightly the problem of lengthy abstinence. Of course he had gone without human blood for two weeks on many past occasions-but those had been before he'd become conditioned to feeding every weekend.

And before he'd learned what real satisfaction could be! Knowing what he was missing made hunger doubly acute. Despite his fatigue and the eyestrain caused by the sun's glare on the Severn, he felt an erotic frisson at the memory of his last night with Britt, the Friday before Something else he'd overlooked, he reflected as he turned right on the Severna Park side of the bridge, was how strongly he'd come to depend on Brittbetween weekends. Daily contact with her fed his psychic hunger, equally as important as the physical need. During her vacation they had talked on the telephone several times. Hearing her voice without feeling the touch of her mind frustrated him almost beyond bearing-but not enough to make him give up that tenuous contact.

Four more nights. I can stand anything that long.

At home he took a quarter pound of ground sirloin out of the refrigerator and blended it with undiluted canned beef broth. He'd run out of frozen blood and would have to stock up at a butcher shop in Baltimore or Washington soon. He sat in the dim living room to drink his concoction, grimacing at the flat taste.

I'll have to hunt again tonight.He'd fed on live animals every night from Sunday on, and the craving had rebounded sooner and harder each time.

No doubt about it, I'm thoroughly spoiled. He chugged the rest of the drink. Maybe he could manage a decent few hours of sleep before sunset. More likely, he'd suffer through famished dreams of Britt all afternoon.

Just as he was turning the bed covers down, the phone rang. Stifling a curse, he made himself answer in a politely neutral tone.

"Dr. Darvell, this is Anna Kovak. Alice-I don't know what's gotten into her-she locked herself in, and she says-" Roger heard the woman swallowing sobs between phrases.

Oh, Lord, not Alice again!Over the past month, Roger had convinced himself he'd noted signs of improvement in her depression.

"Slow down, please, Mrs. Kovak, and try to speak calmly. What is Alice doing right now?"

A voice in the background rumbled, "Let me talk to him, why dontcha?"

Mrs. Kovak said, "No, no, I can explain it to him. Doctor, Alice is locked in her bedroom with my bottle of Valium. She took one pill, and she said-she says she'll take them all if we try to get in. She won't talk to anybody but you."

The background voice, who Roger suspected was Alice's father, put in, "Knew that shrink would be a waste of money."

Mrs. Kovak, her voice shrill but controlled, said, "Can you come over right away, Doctor?"

Roger suppressed a sigh.There goes the afternoon. "Very well." While he doubted Alice sincerely meant to kill herself-she'd chosen too inefficient a method-ignoring her cry for attention might lead to a more serious attempt.

Shielded by his broad-brimmed hat and lightweight gray coat, Roger drove back across the Severn and through Annapolis, then across the South River to Edgewater. The area was still largely rural, and the Kovaks' home sat on a wooded waterfront lot almost a mile from the nearest neighbor. They lived in a rambling, elderly house they had converted into two separate units.

Seeing it for the first time, freshly painted, with wrought iron grills covering all doors and windows, Roger reflected that Mr. Kovak's auto body shop must be thriving. He knew from listening to Alice that she lived in one half of the house with her parents, who rented the other side to their grown son, Peter. Farther back on the lot stood a detached garage, and three partially dismantled cars crowded the side yard. Through the trees Roger glimpsed the river, a couple of hundred yards away.

When he got out of the Citroen, a young man wearing a blue work shirt with the body shop's logo trotted up to him. "You the doc?

I'm Pete Kovak. About time you showed up."

Peter was a lanky twenty-six-year-old whose black hair curled greasily down his neck. Roger didn't need ESP to guess that the boy shared the elder Mr. Kovak's opinion of "shrinks." With Peter trailing him into the house, Roger greeted Mr. and Mrs. Kovak, whom he'd met once before.

"Any change since you called me?"

Mrs. Kovak, whose faded blonde hair suggested that as a girl she might have looked like Alice, began a reply, to be cut off by her husband. "No, she's still in there. I still think none of this woulda happened if-"

Having no patience for a wrangle about Alice's treatment, Roger interrupted, "Then I'll go right in and talk to her. Where's the bedroom?" He could have found the girl by the noise of her breathing but could hardly advertise that power.

Mrs. Kovak waved vaguely toward the hall. "It's at the very end."

Roger strode to the bedroom door and knocked. "Alice, it's Dr. Darvell. May I come in?"

"Just you. n.o.body else." He heard her walk over to unlock the door, then cross the room again.

When he entered, she said in a voice hoa.r.s.e with suppressed tears, "Lock it." He did. Alice sat on the bed with her legs curled under her, holding the open bottle of capsules.

Roger gave the room a quick once-over. Tidy, even to the stack of books on the floor beside the hutch whose shelves they overflowed. Alice's twin bed was covered with a patchwork quilt that, along with the Rackham fairy tale prints on the walls, contributed to the childlike ambience of her refuge. He didn't risk alarming her by stepping closer right away. "Alice, can you tell me what brought this on?"

"Nothing-everything. I don't know-I went to the mall this morning, because Mamma keeps bugging me about getting out more. I was watching the kids hanging out, shopping with their friends, and it all seemed so hopeless. Doctor, I'm so lonely!" The word ended on a sob.

The popular prescription of busy-ness and sociability for a depressive sometimes backfired, Roger mused. "Let me tell you a secret." Her eyes actually widened with interest at that. No, she wasn't ready to die just yet. "Everyone is lonely sometimes.

Controlling your depression will not guarantee perfect happiness. No therapist can guarantee that. Loneliness is a permanent part of the human condition."

And there I go, lecturing a patient-exercise in futility. Yet Alice's eyes did spark with response for a second, before she answered in the flat tone of someone stating an axiom, "Easy for you to say. You don't know how I feel."

"Oh, but I do." He could never tell his patients how true that claim was, how his empathic talent picked up every nuance of their emotions. "That's what I was just saying. We all know how loneliness feels." He took advantage of her communicative mood to ease closer to the bed. "Will you give me that bottle?" His eyes enticed and trapped hers.

"I'll give it toyou." She put the cap on and held the container out to him.

Roger plucked it from her fingers, slipped it into his pocket, and sat beside her. "How many have you taken?"

"Just one. Just to show them I was serious." "Were you?" he said evenly. "Do you really want to die?"

"I don't know. If there's another world after death, it's probably as-nothingas this one. Anyway, I don't much want to live. I'm scared, Doctor. He calls me-at night-and I dream I'm going to him. Or maybe it's not a dream. He's close by. I know it!"

"He? The man who attacked you?" She nodded. Roger examined her aura, seeking a trace of a vampire's shadow on her. Was she suffering from a delusion? Or could Sandor actually be returning to her over and over, draining her? That gradual approach would be atypical of him. Yet Alice looked pale and weak enough to support that a.s.sumption.

She clasped Roger's hand. "You're the only person who makes me want to live. n.o.body else understands me."

"We've been over this before. You mustn't make me into more than I am." He increased his subtle pressure on her mind. "And keep your voice down. We aren't in the office now. You'll upset your parents."

"Oh, them." The dragged-out weariness in her voice lightened as she said, "I want to talk about you and me. I just couldn't wait for our next session." She rose onto her knees to sway toward him, wrapping an arm around his neck. "You know I-I've got a thing for you. I've told you enough times. Why won't you listen?"

"I do listen. That is my role, not what you're suggesting." He became aware of the rapid flutter of her pulse. Though thin to the point of emaciation-she wasn't one of those women who dealt with depression by overeating-she adhered fanatically to a lacto- vegetarian, high-fiber diet that kept her blood clean. Even now, in her washed-out condition, she would taste good.

"But you'renot listening," she said petulantly. "You won't believe my feelings for you are real. I hate that!" She delivered the last remark in a vehement whisper, obeying his demand for quiet.

"I believe that you think they're real." True, Alice's overture was an attempt to manipulate him, yet on one level her l.u.s.t for him was unfeigned. The mounting excitement she radiated mocked Roger's self-control. He caught himself salivating. I have to make her stop!"Lie down, Alice, and let's run through your relaxation exercises." She obeyed, half entranced by the mesmeric influence he couldn't keep himself from exerting.

Dropping his voice to a level she could barely hear, he cupped her face between her hands and drew his fingers lightly down her temples and jawline to her neck. "Follow my hands, Alice, and as I touch each part of your body, feel the tension flowing out, warmth and healing flowing in...." Conditioned by long practice, she yielded and grew pliant, muscle by muscle, along the path he traced. The treatment wasn't working as Roger had hoped, though. The relaxation drill didn't erase Alice's s.e.xual excitement, but only made it more dreamy and sensual.

Probably because I don't really want to cool her off.When he consciously tried to stop arousing her, tension knotted his hands and stirred Alice out of her languor. "I have to go, now that you're feeling better," he said, afraid to make matters worse by continuing the exercise.

"No, please don't," she whispered. Her hands slid up his arms. "My folks won't try to come in here-they're too scared of what I might do. Make love to me."

"That's out of the question. Aside from the ethics, you're a virgin."

She said with a bitter smile, "Right, a twenty-year-old virgin. A freak. That needs fixing, and I want you to do it."

"That isn't a sound motive for s.e.xual experimentation." He hardly heard the words himself, and he knew very well that his hypnotic gaze was telling her the opposite. Against all reason, he reached out to stroke her temples again. "You will remember nothing of this except the relaxation exercises. You will not attempt suicide again. When you awaken, you will be serene, content, at peace."

Would the suggestion take? Probably not, considering her past record, but it might calm her down for a few weeks. As for the command to forget, that would work-and did it mean he'd decided to accept what she offered?

I can't! I promised Britt.

His animal nature snarled,Well, Britt isn't here, and I'm starving! Alice had taken one Valium, not enough to affect Roger. He sensed her health wasn't up to par, as if she might be sickening for a viral infection. At this early stage, though, it wouldn't spoil the flavor of her blood. And he wouldn't take enough to hurt the girl, no more than he had the first time.

As he bent over her, shifting his ma.s.sage to her neck and shoulders, she embraced him again. The liquid rhythm of her blood, like waves lapping on a sheltered beach, eroded his resistance. Without his conscious will, his hand drifted over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and abdomen to the juncture of her thighs. She thrust against his delicate probe, moaned softly, and went limp.

Her release pushed him over the edge. He drank, watching himself with cold contempt, while his famished senses wallowed in the heat of her blood and her desire. After several minutes he realized Alice was growing weak, though still clinging to him with ravenous l.u.s.t, and yet he felt no infusion of energy.

I'm overdoing it-got to stop!

Shuddering with the effort, he unfastened his mouth from her throat. Alice clutched at him, murmuring, "No, don't stop!" He surrendered. After all, he was giving her pleasure, more than any merely human male could.

Is that the best rationalization you can dream up? You sound like those vermin who seduce patients on the pretext of curing their inhibitions.But he kept drinking.

Several minutes later he realized that, although gorged to the point of satiety, he didn't feel satisfied. Her blood tasted little more piquant than a racc.o.o.n's or deer's. Whatever he'd grown to expect from the feast wasn't there.

Disengaging, he pressed his handkerchief to the incision until the bleeding stopped. Alice lay entranced, heavy-lidded. Her pale aura screamed Roger's indiscretion.

Thank Heaven her parents can't see it.Did the girl need a transfusion? Scanning her aura more deeply and listening to her heart, Roger decided she would recover without one. "Sleep now," he whispered. "Sleep and be well."

In the living room he handed the Valium bottle to Mrs. Kovak. "I suggest you lock these up, or, better yet, get rid of them." She clutched the bottle and nodded meekly. "Alice is resting. When she wakes up, try to persuade her to eat and drink something, but don't badger her. Understand?" He gazed sternly at both the girl's parents in turn. Peter seemed to have retreated to his side of the house, Roger was glad to see.

"Sure, we got it," said Mr. Kovak. "I know she's had a rough time. I'm not about to push her around."

So Mrs. Kovak had somehow managed to calm down her husband. "One more thing," Roger said. "She may still be a danger to herself. I strongly urge you to have her committed for a brief period of observation."

"Put her in a mental inst.i.tution?" Mr. Kovak said. "No way!"

"But if the doctor thinks-" his wife began.

"Only a three-day period of observation," said Roger.

"I said no! She's not crazy."

Since it was obvious that pursuing the argument would only worsen Mr. Kovak's hostility, Roger turned his attention to smoothing the atmosphere all over again. After delivering the ritual rea.s.surances the couple expected from a physician, he made his escape.

On the drive home the glare of the afternoon sun nauseated him. Rolling down the windows didn't help. By the time he reached his townhouse, his stomach was churning. He dashed inside to the bathroom and disgorged everything he'd drunk.

Afterward, weak with shame as well as nausea, he stood under a cold shower for ten minutes.What have I done? Risked exposure and broken my word-for nothing ! Good G.o.d, had he actually ravished a patient with her parents waiting a few rooms away? But why the violent physical rejection? That had to be more than sun-sickness. Nor could a single Valium upset his system that way.

Addiction!So Volnar hadn't been talking about a mere emotional habituation; he meant true biochemical dependence. Roger physically required his lover's blood.

That night he dined only on warm milk, afraid to insult his body even with animal blood. For the first time, he was pro-foundly grateful to receive no long-distance call from Britt.

Chapter 17

WHEN THE phone rang after 11 p.m. on Thursday, he expected and dreaded to hear Britt's voice. Instead, the caller turned out to be Mr. Kovak.

"We're at the hospital with Alice. She wants to see you-d.a.m.ned if I know why."

Roger didn't take the man's surly tone as a hint that he suspected Roger's misdeed. Mr. Kovak seemed the type who would entertain suspicions of any counselor's motives and competence. "What's wrong with Alice?" He went cold at the thought that she might have collapsed from exsanguination.

"They say pneumonia. She's in intensive care. You coming or not?"

"Yes, I'll be right over." Roger hung up without a goodbye and rushed out.

Pneumonia. Not anemia, thank Heaven, but no less Roger's fault. He'd noticed her less than vibrant condition and had taken her anyway. Weakening her immune system had probably led to the infection. And in her slightly undernourished state, she might die of it.

At the red brick community hospital downtown, in a residential district just off Duke of Gloucester Street, Roger hurried up to the ICU and found all three Kovaks waiting in the lounge. Mrs. Kovak clasped his hand and thanked him for coming. Alice's father and brother looked as if they wanted to blame Roger for the girl's illness but couldn't think of a plausible reason. "h.e.l.l of a way to spend Thanksgiving night," Mr. Kovak growled.

Buzzing the intercom, Roger was admitted to the ward and introduced to Dr. Harlow, the resident on duty, a trim young black man whose coffee-and-cream face showed lines of strain. He earnestly delivered an encyclopedic account of Alice's condition, the convoluted technical terminology boiling down to "stable."Was I ever that young? Roger mused, keeping his face impa.s.sive to hide the weight that instantly lifted from his mind.