New Patient

The appointment said 4:00 PM.

It was now 4:47.

I'd learned, over seven years of supernatural practice, that punctuality meant different things to different species. Werewolves ran early, anxious energy needed somewhere to go. Witches usually hit the mark exactly. Ghosts had no concept of time anymore, which was understandable.

Vampires, in my experience, ran late because they believed the world should wait for them.

I checked the intake form again. Caspian Voss. Age: declined to state. Presenting concern: court-mandated anger management following destruction of property.

The Vampire Council had sent the referral. That alone told me this wouldn't be simple.

At 4:52, the door opened.

He was tall. Dark hair that looked casually disheveled but probably took an hour. A grey-blue gaze that swept the room like he was cataloguing everything in it, including me.

He was also wearing a burgundy velvet coat. In May. The kind of outfit that only works if you genuinely don't care what anyone thinks.

"You must be Dr. Liu."

"And you must be almost an hour late."

Something flickered in his expression. Surprise, maybe. He wasn't used to being called out.

"Traffic."

"You don't drive."

"The concept of traffic, then. The metaphorical weight of modernity pressing down on..."

"Please sit down, Mr. Voss."

He sat. Gracefully, like even basic movements required an audience.

I picked up my notepad. "You were referred by the Vampire Council following an incident at a nightclub. Would you like to tell me about that?"

"Would I like to? No." He crossed one leg over the other, casual as a cat. "Will I, because someone has apparently decided I have no choice? That remains to be seen."

"The Council's mandate suggests you're here for six months of therapy, minimum. Progress reports due monthly." I held his gaze. "You can spend that time actually working on whatever led to that incident, or you can spend it deflecting and wasting both our time. Your choice."

He stared at me.

I held the gaze. Vampires liked eye contact as a dominance move. I'd stopped flinching from it three years into my practice.

"You're not afraid of me," he said finally.

"No."

"Everyone is afraid of me."

"Then your social circle needs expansion." I clicked my pen. "Let's start with the nightclub. What happened?"

A muscle in his jaw twitched. "Someone insulted my coat."

I waited.

"This coat, specifically." He gestured to the burgundy monstrosity. "A 1920s original, tailored in Prague by a man who understood fabric as few mortals do. Some twenty-year-old with unfortunate facial hair called it 'vintage try-hard.'"

"And you destroyed the nightclub."

"I destroyed part of the nightclub. The media exaggerates."

"Did destroying part of the nightclub make you feel better?"

"Momentarily."

"And after?"

He didn't answer.

"Mr. Voss..."

"Caspian. If we're going to spend six months together, formality seems tedious."

"Caspian, then. After you destroyed part of the nightclub, how did you feel?"

Silence. His fingers tapped once against his knee, then stilled.

"Empty," he said. "The same as always."

I wrote that down.

"That's our starting point, then."

He watched me write, something almost vulnerable crossing his face before the mask slid back.

"You're going to analyze me."

"That's the job."

"And you think you can... what? Fix five hundred years of accumulated personality in six months?"

"I think you're sitting in my office because some part of you wants something to change." I set down the pen. "Otherwise, you'd have compelled your way out of the Council's mandate. You have the power for that."

His stillness was absolute. Vampiric. Unsettling.

"You know what I am."

"I specialize in supernatural clients. You're not my first vampire."

"But I am your most difficult, I suspect."

"That remains to be seen." I stood, crossed to my desk, retrieved an intake packet. "Homework for next week. I want you to complete these assessments. And I want you to journal, one page, minimum, about a time you felt a genuine emotion. Not anger. Not boredom. Something real."

He took the packet like I'd handed him a dead fish.

"Journaling."

"Yes."

"I'm five hundred and twelve years old."

"Congratulations. You can write about that if you want. One page. Due next Tuesday."

He stood, towering over me, clearly trying to be intimidating.

I looked up at him, unimpressed.

"This is going to be a long six months," he said.

"Probably."

Something almost like a smile touched his mouth.

"I'll see you Tuesday, Dr. Liu."

He swept out, coat dramatic behind him.

I sat back down, looked at my notes, and realized my hand was shaking slightly.

Not from fear.

He was going to be a problem.

I'd known it the moment he walked in, the kind of problem I wasn't equipped for. The kind with a grey-blue gaze and centuries of unprocessed trauma and a presence that filled my small office like it was made for him.

I put down the pen.

Professional distance, I reminded myself. That's what you do. That's all you do.

Six months.

How hard could it be?