No sooner had Kylie shut the door behind her than Ian sat up in bed and tossed back the blanket that had covered him from the waist down. He hadn’t even glanced underneath before he shucked his covers. Good thing he was still wearing pants.
Yasha stepped in front of the door.
I joined him. “And what, pray tell, do you think you’re doing?”
“Leaving.” Ian looked around for his shoes. “I’ve got work to do.”
“You’re not leaving this room, mister. Not until Dr. Stephens says you can.”
The door opened, or at least someone on the other side tried to open it, but a six-foot-eight Russian made for one heck of a doorstop.
“Excuse me, is someone not decent in there?” Dr. Tierney asked.
“We’re all decent,” I told him. “And we even have clothes on.”
Yasha stepped away from the door, and Tierney opened it the rest of the way. “I was blocking the door.”
Tierney had to look up—way up—to look Yasha in the eye. “And a fine job you were doing. I take it Dr. Stephens’s patient is losing his patience?”
Ian swung his long legs over the side of the bed. “You take it right.”
Dr. Stephens came in and he didn’t look happy. He began unhooking Ian’s monitors. So much for the cause of the frown; he was losing his lab rat.
“Finally,” Ian said. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” Stephens said. “And you might not want to thank Noel here, either.”
Dr. Tierney gave Ian an apologetic smile that didn’t look all that remorseful. “You’re going from Mike’s end of the hall to mine.”
• • •
Dr. Tierney wanted to talk to Ian. Ian needed to talk to Dr. Tierney. My opinion, not his.
I was Ian’s partner, and had been at the site of the first robbery/murder, and had met the ghoul myself on two occasions, so Ian wasn’t the only one Dr. Tierney wanted to talk to.
His office was down the hall from the infirmary and medical offices, near a main stairwell. He knew that some of SPI’s agents would only come to see him if they could do so privately. His office placement was intentional.
As a psychometric, Dr. Tierney got psychic vibes from objects, even furniture, especially antique furniture. As a psychiatrist, he needed to keep his concentration on his patients. That explained why all of his office furniture came from Ikea. He even assembled it himself so that the frustration of the people who had to put it together didn’t sink into the wood and fabric. I’d heard there’d been a lot of Zen meditation and burning incense involved while Dr. Tierney had assembled the desk, chairs, and bookcases. As a result, his office was a psychic neutral zone, a center of calm for himself and his patients.
On our way to his office, Ian gave Dr. Tierney the shortened version of his dream. Needless to say, with everything that’d happened this afternoon plus the dream as the cherry on top, Tierney cleared his schedule for Ian.
Noel Tierney had furnished his office to put his patients at ease. Low lighting, tabletop water feature, soothing colors, strategically placed boxes of Kleenex, and an honest-to-God crackling and popping fireplace—all to make people feel warm and fuzzy and comforted.
Ian was none of the above.
He was former military, ex-cop, and presently wound tighter than a spring.
“Ian and Mac, go on in,” Dr. Tierney said from down the hall. “I’ll be right there.”
SPI headquarters was completely underground. Dr. Tierney loved plants. Plants loved sunlight. Not to be deterred, he had brought in glow lights. It didn’t help. Bless his environmental-loving, nurturing heart, but the man had a black thumb. The only thriving plants were in his drawings that he’d decorated his office with. But to his credit, he never gave up on his plants, and he extended that same determination to his patients.
“Please be seated and make yourselves comfortable,” Dr. Tierney said, closing the door behind us.
Ian and I chose chairs. Dr. Tierney sat next to me and across from Ian, leaving the chair between them empty.
Good move.
I half raised my hand. “Dr. Tierney, I have a question.”
“You can ask it on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“Call me Noel, both of you. Dr. Tierney is my mother.”
I smiled. “Done.” I inclined my head toward the fireplace. “That. How the heck?”
“The flames are an illusion. One of our mages set it up for me. While it doesn’t put off any heat, it also doesn’t make any mess or require tending.”
“I feel cheated. Our conference room only has folding chairs and a whiteboard.”
I was trying to help Ian relax. It was obvious he felt uncomfortable, even though Noel didn’t have a notepad, pen, or a file with Ian’s psychological profile in front of him.
Noel leaned forward, his hands lightly clasped in front of him.
“Before we discuss the dreams that have been bothering you, tell me more about this creature.”
“Where would you like me to start?” Ian asked.
“The beginning is usually a good place.”
Ian snorted. “Not for me.”
“I understand,” Noel said. “What would be helpful for me is whether you recognized this creature—on any level—when you first saw him. A fleeting sense of familiarity, perhaps?”
“Should I have?”
“That is for you to tell me. Did you sense that he knew you?”