Personal Demons

Chapter 4

The Outpatient Center was tucked behind the main hospital building and accessed by a tidy little path through landscaped lawns. Even the small, brightly illuminated parking lot had the incredibly clean and even look of a child's playset, the ones with gas stations and helicopter pads right next to each other on a smooth plastic street.

Megan parked and crossed the lot, shivering in the early autumn breeze. They were due for a cold snap, the first of the season, and she wished she'd brought a jacket. As it was she was dressed down, in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, with her favorite tennis shoes. She did not want to look like she was here for professional reasons. Neat, adult, and competent, yes. Ready to join the group and start working with clients, no.

Not that she couldn't use the work. The partners she worked with had certainly made their feelings clear, in a meeting that morning. Megan's show and its attendant publicity damaged their practices. Any further problems and she'd be out. For now, in order to protect their patients from further invasions of privacy, she was to hire her own receptionist and arrange additional soundproofing for the offices. They'd hired a locum to take her patients until she complied. She was officially on leave.

The doors were locked and the receptionist's desk was empty. Megan hit the after-hours buzzer.

"Yes?"

"I'm Megan Chase," she said into the tiny grill of the microphone. "I'm here to see—"

"Megan!" It was Art. "I'm glad you could come."

The lock gave a low hum and a click. Megan opened the door and entered the building.

The spacious lobby smelled like hospital, which was to be expected, but on top of it was a different scent, one that made Megan think of dorm rooms and New Age shops before she realized it was incense. Incense? It wasn't anywhere near as pleasant as the smell of the restaurant where Brian had taken her to dinner earlier. Of course, the fragrance had been one of the only good things about that meal. Brian wasn't a bad guy, but the questions about her background and childhood made her uncomfortable. She'd moved to the city to get away from all of that. Even giving him a carefully censored version hadn't helped. Silently she crossed the tile floor, past the shabby, lonely-looking blue chairs of the waiting area.

"Hi there!" The lone fluorescent fixture in the hallway gave Art Bellingham a pale greenish cast and glinted off his glasses, hiding his eyes. The unnatural light did nothing to improve the multiple hues of Art's cheap tie or the fit of his too-short, too-tight slacks.

"Hi."

"I was hoping you would take me up on my offer," he enthused, pumping her hand.

"I'm not—" she started, but Kevin entered the hall and she broke off.

"Dr. Chase," he said, walking towards her with his hand offered. His eagerness trapped her.

The two men led her into the meeting room. This was the source of the incense—four or five sticks burned in various places. The furniture hugged the walls, leaving a space in the center of the floor which was covered with blue gymnastics mats.

Art followed her gaze. "We sit on the floor, generally. That way if anyone wants to lie down or be held, it's easier."

Megan nodded. "And the chairs?" There were two comfortable-looking armchairs, each placed at opposite ends of the mats.

Art smiled. "One for me and, tonight, one for you."

"I see." Megan didn't like this set-up at all. It wasn't the idea of clients sitting on the floor, it was the idea that, for whatever reason, Art didn't think he should be on the floor with them.

Perhaps her plan to ask Art pointblank what he wanted should be forgotten. She generally tried not to read people unless she felt she might be in some kind of danger, but she opened herself a little bit, feeling for his mind with her own. It never took her long to get what she needed, but she was always cautious.

Sometimes people knew, like she'd suspected Dante had two nights before. They didn't know, but they sensed something. Better to be careful. She'd learned that lesson as a child, when she'd gained an unwanted reputation as "the creepy girl" because she hadn't been able to control her abilities.

Art didn't seem to notice. He kept talking, explaining the group's philosophy, but she stopped listening.

Something went through her mind, disappearing before she could make sense of it. It was so cold, so ... empty. Blackness filled her vision, and for a moment she couldn't breathe. Her stomach lurched. All the while the cold seeped into her, filling her mind, her body.

Megan.

The voice came from everywhere, from inside her head, low-pitched and unctuous. She bit her lip to keep from crying out while Art continued speaking to her, his thin face glowing with pride.

She cut him off with a gasp as the darkness left. The lights brightened as if someone had removed a filter. The feeling of sickness disappeared, leaving her wondering if it had been real, or if she'd imagined it.

"Megan? Are you okay?"

She swallowed a mouthful of saliva and tried to smile. The muscles in her face protested so much she expected an audible creak. "I'm fine," she said. "Just—impressed."

"You haven't heard the best part yet." Art took her hand and led her to a chair. She sat. She didn't have the strength to do what she wanted to do—turn and run away as fast as she could—and, she suspected, even that wouldn't dissuade Art from pursuing her.

Of course, she could be seriously disturbed. Nothing said counselors never had problems. Her powers could be fizzling out. She could be seeing the darkness of her own soul. Certainly that had happened before. That was why she became a counselor to start with—because of what happened when she was fifteen.

It made a more likely explanation than the idea that Art was some evil creature bent on eating her soul. The man couldn't even afford decent slacks.

"What's the best part?" she asked.

"Our clients!" Art said with the same twittering high-pitched laugh she'd heard the day before. He sounded like a little old lady. "They're such a special group of people, and if I'm not mistaken—" the buzzer for the door sounded "—that's them now. Stay here with Kevin, I'll go let them in."

Kevin smiled. "I hope you didn't mind me calling you at home. Mr. Art gave me the number."

She nodded. "I assumed." Assumed he'd taken it from her hospital file, the creep. "It's okay, Kevin."

"I won't do it again," he said, twisting his hands at waist level. "I promise."

"Kevin, don't worry," she said. "How are you feeling?"

"Much better," he said, "now that Mr. Art isn't—" Raised voices sounded in the hallways, a woman's footsteps echoing beneath them.

"Isn't what, Kevin?" Megan leaned forward. "Now that Mr. Art isn't what?"

But Kevin only shook his head. "Never mind. It's not important."

The rest of the Fearbusters group entered the room, moving together but oddly apart. They talked to each other, even smiled, but what Megan felt in the air was disconnection. These people were terribly wrapped up in themselves, huddling into their bodies like threatened mollusks pulling into their shells. They didn't relate to each other at all.

Perhaps she'd judged Art too harshly. Maybe with a group like this the best thing to do was get them together on the floor and try to make them touch each other, pull each other out of themselves.

She'd have to see.

One by one, they introduced themselves, with varying degrees of welcome and suspicion. There was Bob, a glowering giant of a man who must have been at least six and a half feet tall, with thick black hair cut in a military buzz. Hanna gazed at Megan from under long light-brown bangs and through owlish pink glasses. Her entire body was encased in shades of drab, topped with a dress that looked like something a Laura Ingalls Wilder character had discarded.

Joe, chubby and smiling, radiated a nervousness Megan felt even with her shields up. Last was Grant, barely out of his teens, with dyed black hair, a pierced eyebrow, and black-enameled fingernails.

Art closed the door behind them and turned off the overhead lights. Megan hadn't noticed the candles earlier, but they glowed on the windowsills and tables by the walls, giving the room a low, intimate ambience. Some of the clients’ tensions eased as they settled themselves onto the mats, but to Megan the whole set-up felt more like a séance than therapy.

"Okay," Art said, clasping his hands and sitting in the chair on the other side of the mats. "You've all introduced yourselves to Dr. Megan Chase." He nodded across their heads indicating Megan. "Megan has her own practice for individual counseling, but she's accepted my offer to come and help us out at Fearbusters."

"I didn't—" Megan started, but stopped. These people were paying for a session. She wouldn't waste their time arguing with Art.

"Now, yesterday we discussed some of the feelings we get before we're afraid, right?" Art's voice lowered. "What we see or hear right before we notice the fear."

The group murmured assent. Kevin's hands were clenched tight.

"Let's talk about that," Art said. "Hanna, what do you see, hear or feel before you notice you're afraid?"

Hanna's voice wavered. "I hear a voice. It whispers in my ear. It tells me something bad is going to happen."

"Doesn't it only feel like it's whispering in your ear?"

"No."

"It's just a voice in your head, Hanna."

"No!"

Megan leaned forward, trying to understand why Art was arguing with the poor girl and why she was fighting back. "It's a whisper in my ear. Sometimes I feel its breath."

"I hear them, too," Grant said. "Just like that."

"No, you don't," snapped Joe. Megan had been right about his nerves and dislike of the group. "You say whatever Hanna says, you always do."

"I don't!" Grant said.

"Okay, guys," Art said. "Let's not argue. Let's get back to Hanna. It's her turn. Hanna, what does the voice tell you?"

Megan's discomfort grew as Hanna continued speaking.

"It tells me I'm a terrible person. Or that other people are terrible and I should hurt them. Like the other day at work it told me to erase one of my boss's files when he wasn't looking."

Bob laughed. "That's your own subconscious anger."

"Bob," Art said. He sounded ... pleased. Like this was what he wanted to hear. "Remember who the therapist is here. You're not a mentor yet."

"I want to hear more from Hanna," Grant said. At least, Megan thought it was Grant. It was difficult to know exactly who was talking. Her eyes didn't seem to be adjusting to the light anymore. In fact, the room seemed to be getting darker, even though she could still see the candles burning.

"That's all," Hanna said. "I'm cursed. I hear the voice, and it's like I have to believe it and do what it says or it won't stop talking. It won't leave me alone."