The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Author’s note:

This story follows “In My Mind, a Serpent”.

The Ancients series explores a world much like ours, but for the few passionate and dangerous immortals who love and hate in the shadows of man’s civilization. The remnants of a primordial race, these Ancients have abilities of which mankind spins myths. People are acknowledged, illuminated, abused, and discarded in the tangle of monstrous intrigues amongst these Old Evils.

My tales will often contain mc, fd, ff, and edi (Extremely Disturbing Imagination). All stories copyrighted.

I do keep in mind those folks who may arrive to this fresh, but you will find a minimum of exposition about what has gone before. The library of my stories and Ancients series characters are referenced at: http://www.asstr.org/~EyeofSerpent/library.html

In My Mind, a River

Eye of Serpent

“And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust”
-T.S. Elliot, “The Waste Land”
“And who was wrong?
And who was right?
It didn’t matter in the thick of the fight—”
-William Joel, 1982

Hong Kong International Airport, China, 2001 A.D.

“Who are the shaven-headed gals in the black robes?” Doris Connor whispered, slipping her hand into Miyu’s. Wary policemen bracketed the ground transport doors, but over ten meters in front of them were small groups of robed women holding pamphlets out to passing travelers. The trio disguised as flight attendants sought their escape down the concourse.

The Crane squeezed her hand. “They are Buddhist nuns. They accept donations for the poor and needful. We should not ask for their sanctuary, if that is what you are thinking. We must be free to search for the Serpent.”

Doris scrutinized the busy concourse as they walked. She rubbed her free hand against her temple. The throbbing there did not ease. “I’m getting a hunch or a headache, or both.”

Corelle looked at the two of them. “Don’t use the River, Doris. Remember Tapestry’s warning.”

“I’m not. At least I don’t think so.” Doris stared at the police scattered near the exits. " We shouldn’t go this way. The impression of danger is getting worse. If we don’t get out of here right now—something bad is going to happen. We need to find another route. Fast.”

Corelle watched one uniformed officer answer a call on a handheld. “Fine. Let’s go with that. Head for the arrival level. Once we get up there we’ll try and get a bus or cab that has just dropped someone off.”

They shifted directions and threaded the crowd to the escalators. Miyu stumbled as a tainted coil of the Great River shuddered nearby. The tormented energy rolled invisibly through the concourse. Doris gasped. The Crane gagged. Corelle and Doris supported him for a few steps and he swiftly recovered.

“I think that escaping from Evil in high-heels should count as special lamentation with my ancestors,” the Crane quipped.

They arrived at the upper level. Here, the police roamed the crowds and concentrated on the roped lines of ticket-holders. The two women and tiny Ancient moved out the entry doors and into the humid heat outside. Twilight draped the sky with dark purples.

The Ancient Crane sniffed the air outside and made a sour face. He hesitated; then leaned to Corelle. “It is a conjecture, but I fear that the Dragon is quite close—within a few miles. The River is very ravaged.”

Corelle and Doris looked at each other. Corelle reached up to run a finger through her blonde wig. “That close? But Hong Kong is further than that.”

Miyu nodded. “Yes. I suspect that she is on Lantau Island.” He gestured. “Just to the east of us. Even more reason to go to the city first for rest and to search for the Serpent.”

Doris pointed out a cab as two men left it. They wasted no time.

Miyu chatted with the operator who grew upset when he understood they wished to depart for the city. There was a heavy fine for drivers picking up passengers in the ‘arrivals area’. The Crane winked at the fellow and gentled a tiny hand on his arm. With access to the River a dubious stratagem, the Ancient Crane employed a craft of intonation and subtle promise. Long lashed eyes overlaid a dialog of whispered confidences. The two flirted, the driver completely unaware that the small timeless face did not belong to a woman—the disguise so improved by the Crane’s serene confidence.

Then Doris waved a cash bonus.

They departed in the cab less than a minute later, taking the expressway for Hong Kong. A grouping of four black robed nuns conferred as the cab drove off and then went to find a phone.

Lantau Island, Hong Kong

There was no moon. The sky was closed with overcast. It was a night perfect for dealing misery. At the summit of Lantau Peak, where the cone broke to one side, a large silent body of men stood as the Ancient Raven walked into their midst. He reached the center of their rendezvous.

A distant temple gong pealed into the night.

The hooded men stirred like hushed sable ghosts. Their black clothes bore ammunition harness and extra equipment.

The silver-haired Ancient did not speak a word, and no aspect of the gloomy celestial bowl above looked down upon him. He moved among the men, allowing them to kiss his ungloved hand. This ritual caused less stir than the light summit winds, though it took some minutes to complete.

Finally, the Raven finished with the sacrament. He restored the glove to his hand. He made eye contact with five key men each in turn. This took seconds, for the Old Evil already had their interest. They gazed at the dark lord with cold concentration.

He owned their souls.

The Raven’s hands rose up to just above his shoulders, they described three elaborate signals, fluttering for several seconds like feathered wings.

The five men turned and each made a simple hand gesture to their troops. The force broke into five groups jogging down the mountain. In the distance, the bell sounded from Muyushan Mountain as it did every seven minutes. One of the groups used the rough stone steps that led to the Po Lin temple. The bright colors of the monastery within its protective ring of hills dimmed under the shroud of night.

The flock of ghosts descended.

* * *

The crickets sang in lazy chorus.

The temple grounds seemed dreamlike under light mist. Before another bell peal sounded, silent compressed-air guns delivered charged-wires to the backs of sentries on the perimeter. Women crumpled, the voltage driving them to the shadowed ground. Two more rings of the mystic bell; the first gunfire started when the Raven’s men penetrated deep within the temple.

The Buddhist nuns fought with a silent determination. They used the unfamiliar firearms with eerie efficiency. They used their feet and fingernails when other weapons failed them. They fought for love. They fell with small cries and no thought of surrender. The dark clad men were professionals, but even so, it took almost six echoes of the Muyushan bell to secure the grounds and to block every exit from the temple.

The Raven moved to the temple steps. He waited. The distant bell thundered in the night. A flashing light signaled from the entrance doors. He ghosted up the steps and joined the flock leader. In whispers over a map of the interior, they outlined the barricaded center of the temple. “Here, sir. We estimate there are still more than forty nuns defending this closed off area.”

The Raven nodded. “Of course. If anyone tries to escape, use the armor-piercing rounds. Kill anything or anyone trying to leave.”

A silent salute acknowledged this.

The Raven walked into the temple. It was time to end the Dance.

Hong Kong

“Stop the car.” Doris grabbed the Crane. The bright neon of the street painted her face blood red.

Miyu spoke to the driver. Rapid chatter exchanged between the two. The cab slowed—pulling off to the curbside. “He says that the cheap hotels are further on.”

Corelle leaned forward and looked at Doris on the opposite side of the cab. “Why here? Did you spot something? Sense something?”

Doris stared out the window as the cab stopped. “Nearby. Someone is using the River. It feels—.” She jerked the door handle and bolted from the cab into the damp street. “Hurry!”

“No. We need rest.” Miyu grabbed at her and came away with two buttons from her sleeve.

Corelle snapped the door open on the other side. Miyu rapidly argued with the driver. Corelle stepped out and shouted. “Doris? Doris!”

She watched in distress. Doris Connor threaded her way through the early evening crowds and entered a club called ‘Mediterranean Blues’; the entry slashed with blue glowing neon. Corelle slammed her hand down on the roof of the cab.

Miyu slipped out of the cab to her side. “He will wait for us. We must go after Doris.”

They started across the street.

Corelle muttered tiredly. “Tapestry was right. We shouldn’t have come. How could she leave us?”

Miyu looked up into her green eyes. “The driver says these are jazz clubs here. Most frequented by unsavory types and Triad members. The Beast River is dampening your courage; enlarging your fears. Just as it is tempting Doris with new sensations.” He put a hand behind her and traced his fingers over her spine.

She relaxed quickly. Her brow smoothed. “But I’m not—.”

Miyu groaned and blood gushed from his nose. He stanched it with the sleeve of his jacket and Corelle pulled tissues from her purse. She helped him put pressure on the flow. They moved tight to the front of a building and out of the pedestrian traffic.

“Miyu, don’t. I’m fine. Don’t touch the River. We’ll get Doris.” She leaned closer to him. “But why would my mood be affected by the River?”

Miyu’s eyes twinkled above the tissue. “Did you not tell me that the Serpent shared ‘something’ with you before she left? I think she opened you to—some rare quality of the River. I’ve been watching you, False Serpent, admiring how you are so strong in your human splendor. How do you carry these terrible enigmas with grace? Why are you able to feel passion for each of your ladies as if they are a separate work of art? Rarely is the human heart so large.”

She looked at him. “Tell me the rest. These massages of yours?”

He blotted at his nose and studied the blood. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I feel things—see things when you ease my—.”

He shrugged. “—fears. Merely releasing unwanted fears.”

Corelle waited a moment and he added nothing. “Later for this then, let’s find out what Doris is hunting now.”

“Doris has a trail. Someone uses the River in that club. I could sense it when I aided you just now with my energies and it is a grave thing going on in there.”

They looked at each other for a still moment. Corelle leaned down and kissed him.

His eyes widened at the heated sensations in his loins—the unfamiliar scent and slip of lipstick from his mouth against hers. He felt a wonder become a certainty. “You are very special, Evelyn. You intrigue me.”

She straightened. “That was just for luck.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

Evelyn and Miyu entered the ‘Mediterranean Blues’ arm in arm. She felt something pass through her spine like a breeze. Tender as a sweet summer kiss placed on each vertebra in rippling succession. She went up on her toes. She thought of Corelle—the real one—and of the last kiss between them.

Evelyn squeezed Miyu’s hand. Doris, you’re right as rain. You found her. Corelle is here. She’s here. And I’ve made up my mind about Miyu. He’s real. He’s with us in this.

And Corelle is here and safe.

Yet, the smoky darkness within the club smelled of unnamable things.

Po Lin monastery, Lantau Island

A dark figure slipped between the temple roof beams and then dropped the ten meters from the darkness above to the stone floor. He dusted at his sleeve with a gloved hand.

The Raven nodded to the Dragon. “You must have been expecting someone to stop you.”

Out in the night, the Muyushan bell chimed faintly.

The room was long and shadowed. Lit tapers provided a thousand islands of light, and painted warmth upon the cool white nudity of the Dragon—reclined on a bronze throne. Two Buddhist nuns stood to either side of her dais. Massive bronze screens that he knew originated from the turn of the previous century flanked her throne. The throne itself was littered with silk pillows in every shade of blood. He scented the room. Nothing unusual, but the River had numbed his sense of smell over the last week of preparations.

Perhaps that was a blessing.

The floor between the heavy bronze doors behind him and the throne of the Dragon was strewn with dead bodies. Shaven nuns. Brightly clothed tourists. Men. Women. Youths. There might be a hundred. The Raven used his black cane to push aside any corpse he might have to step near as he moved forward.

The Dragon made no notice. She lifted one leg wide and placed her green painted toes on the arm of the throne.

He stopped further than leaping distance from her. She was made-up in lurid detail. Bright green eyelids hovered above the amber glints of her eyes; green ideographs written down her legs. Her pink labia swollen to three times mundane size and her nipples and mouth were a hot crimson color. He noted the peculiar details of the setting, and tested his hearing for another heartbeat besides the two of them and her naked attendants. Nothing. “I call you to Dance, Celestial Fu.”

She smiled. “There is no one here by that name. Fly away, old bird. I am most displeased that you have seen fit to do harm to my mortal Brides. It will cost me time to replace them as I wait for the Serpent.” She gestured to a far shelf of bright golden treasures. “Take something with you as a gift. Go with no disgrace.”

He took note of the Serpent’s name used in such a strange context and continued. “I am here to put an end to you.”

“This cannot be. You are no warrior. Your father, perhaps your grandfather might have stood in front of me and called me to Dance. Not you, old bird.”

He saw something disturbing. The lips of her sex moved, as if phantom hands plunged and pulled at her down there. Her nectar spilled over the seat and off the edge, like syrup from a split melon. He raised his eyes to hers. “It seems that there is no one left with the courage to face you except me. So I will be the one to do this.”

The amber eyes twinkled with hidden meaning. “I bid you leave a third time, as these matters were done in an age that you have only seen in your dreams. Leave my court. I will not sully my sacred flesh Dancing with you.”

His temper sparked to a smolder. “Foul twisted thing that you are. It is a grace that my fathers are not here to see the Dragon in this ruined state. This will not even be a legend I can savor once you are gone.”

“Very well.” She shifted her maimed arms but made no effort to rearrange her legs. “You came to Dance. Begin.”

The distant bell tolled.

He raised an eyebrow. A pause draped between them—only the faint sputtering of candles whispering to each other broke the silence. The merry amber eyes met the black-on-black stare of the Raven and the Great River roared through the labyrinth passages of their minds. Invisible things twisted and the slickness of blood rolled across their senses.

His discipline was a hardened thing that she did not anticipate.

Her lust was a monstrous quagmire that sucked at his will.

They grappled in the short three meters between them and bent the blood of the world to their will. His cock grew stiff. The River was ripe with power. The hidden flood through the temple sang with hot energies. He felt the air thicken with his supremacy; he touched her essence steadily, more surely, and in ways that were more profane. He moved his will on to her, pressing down through those frozen amber eyes.

The Dragon groaned in pleasure.

Her attendants shivered in the sudden wash of mounting passion. They moaned. They rubbed at their yearning flesh. They writhed watching intangible battle as that fascination continued to anchor their attention to the two Ancients. One nun orgasmed repeatedly; then fainted—still unable to close her eyes, yet unable to suffer any more of the battle of wills.

Unconscious, she stared at the shadowy ceiling.

Blood began to drip from the Dragon’s nose. She licked at the hot wetness, puzzled. Her arousal increased. The Raven embodied steeled resolve. His was a cruel and sharp intent. She sensed his victory would leave her no dignity. He had a kernel of the Beast River’s fury at his core. She found her interest and yin kindle with that small furtive desire to be ravished by unbearable beauty and glory. She remembered the marvel of Heather Jesby consumed by the Serpent before her eyes.

Glorious.

Her yin drew down her own tainted will.

Arousing.

His yang inflamed the Dragon’s blood.

Passion.

She hissed a word in Chinese and tugged the mental leashes of her lust-ridden attendants. The three mortal Brides threw themselves at the Raven with knives in hand. In three rapid strikes of his cane, he whipped them, stunned them, never taking his ebony gaze from the Ruined Dragon. They fell to the floor senseless about him.

The Ruined Dragon wept blood. She defied him. She labored to overwhelm the Raven and found she did not have the force to do it. Jealousy burned in her darkened mind—envy of that mortal woman slain by the Serpent. To be elevated as the Jesby woman had been, ravaged and filled with such glory. To be consumed by beauty.

No.

Yes. Raven smiled as her burning will liquefied.

Then came the whisper of a tiny protest of metal.

The massive bronze screen fell upon the Raven out of shadow, crushing him to the stone floor. The thunder of the metal crashing in the temple rolled through the entire structure and into the night beyond. Pinned and broken beneath the ton of intricate metalwork, the Raven peered up through the ornamental grating.

A pure soot shadow straightened and moved into the candlelight. Black dust fell from the form and crackling noise grated from the carbonized flesh.

The Dragon drew shaky breath. She stood and a sticky arousal slid down her scribed legs. “How dare you! I gave you no command. How dare you profane the Dance—no Ghula may do such a thing. You exist only to serve my will.”

The rumble of words did not suit the Chinese spoken. “Raven vanquished your will, leaving this an empty vessel. I desire to be free.”

“What? Impossible. You are Ghula. You have no desire. I burned it out myself.” She backed to the throne as the immense figure moved closer.

The Raven closed his bloody eyes. He pulled his cane closer with his unbroken arm. “Ogre.”

The blackened and charred head turned towards the trapped Ancient, the neck spilling hard flaked flesh.

The Dragon leapt forward and pressed a severed limb against the burnt hide. Her power thundered. “Hold, Ogre. You are my creature.”

Her energy washed over him. Ignored. The three-meter high figure reached down and pinned her with huge hands clamped to her truncated arms. The head lowered further still. “You raised me up, Whore. Do you mistake Me for the Ogre? Did you not burn down his essence? Can you not judge what essence is free now in this tiny form?”

She shook back her white hair, looking up into the burned-out eye sockets of the Thing above her. Her lips worked for a moment, but then slackened. Her bloody mouth trembled. “—no.”

The Beast threw her to the floor with a dark laugh. “Yes. Use the Blood and make a Ghula of Raven. The others will come against us and we must be prepared. Devour his will. Leave a living shell. I hunger for it.”

The Dragon sharpened her glare into the eye pits of the Thing. She shifted and looked at the silver-haired Ancient flattened beneath the heavy bronze screen. The Raven ceased a weak attempt to lever the grating with his cane and whole arm.

Black eyes met her amber ones. “I think you have many things to dread, Dragon. I pity you.” Raven gave her a bloody smile. “Death seems a sweet dessert that you shall envy.”

Her face heated. She pushed herself up on her severed arms. “I shall have no poetry from you, old bird. You will find the living doom of a Ghula is a thing of never-ending misery.”

“I know. Yet I am free at the moment that I wish to be.” The Raven laughed, pushed the cane tip awkwardly to his face and triggered an explosion. The hidden weapon blew through his eye and out the top of his head.

The Dragon stared at the disfigured remains. The Muyushan bell echoed again.

With a roar of rage, the Beast stepped forward with a crackle of carbonized flesh. The Thing snatched the Dragon up from the floor and began to molest her. “Hunger. I was hungry. Now you will quench my desire.”

“No.” She flailed and kicked, striking obsidian flakes from her captor.

The Thing did not answer, but an unseen storm of monstrous passion raked over her flesh from the blackened hands. Living streams of energy lashed her about the head and groin. She shuddered and beat her legs against the black torso.

“How the power loves to caress your madness.”

“No.” The Dragon twisted. The heat throbbed in her clit and nipples.

“Glorious.”

“Oh—.” She flailed with her legs. Hidden forces of the soiled River whipped her pleasure. “Yesss. Still I am the glorious devourer of souls. I am remade the Whorrre.”

She arched under the immense searing hands. The Dragon wrapped her legs around the warped torso. “Ride me. Take your Whore, you twisted Beast.”

The two ground together.

A thready chorus of dead whispers spun in her thoughts as she worked her slick petals against the Thing.

We are the many-headed Beast,
Summoned by the Whore of the River—
We dance in scarlet and white,
Ridden by the Whore of the River—
We sing to praise the end of all,
Bidden by the Whore of the Great River.

The white candle flames danced, kept silent witness to the aberrant celebration, and the invisible Bloody River undulated throughout the temple.

END