The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

One More Last Shot

Chapter 3

I drive off and leave the scene to the sounds of sirens and the sights of flashing lights in my review mirror. I don’t want to go back to my office. The old force is probably waiting for me to show up there. They might be corrupt. They might be incompetent. But they don’t overlook people fleeing two different murder scenes on the same day. Dead as I might be, I’d prefer to avoid a scuffle in the office, might break my last glass.

The cheap motel on the outskirts of town makes a good place to lie low and get my thoughts into order. There’s a girl working the curb as I slide my Mercury into a spot outside the front office. I check into a random room on an hourly basis and the guy behind the desk gives me a knowing smile. Too bad he doesn’t know anything.

Leaving my car where it is, I walk down to the room the clerk gave me. The hooker follows me down there and propositions me outside the room. If I’d been alive, I might have been game even though she’s not my type. I’m dead though, and so’s my wife. I’m not buying.

There’s something off about her though. My head’s too scrambled, too confused to make sense of what I don’t like about her. I take her by the arm and pull her into the room with me.

Like the Joe at the front desk, she’s got the wrong idea. She lays down on the bed and starts naming her prices. I open up the mini bar and take several of the small bottles of booze. I sit on the one remaining, dilapidated chair and pour the contents of one bottle down my throat. The liquid soaks into the seat under me.

The hooch has no flavor. I don’t think anything ever will again, not after the kiss my ex gave me. That’d overpower anything. Just to make sure, I down another bottle. The chair’s already reached its saturation point and the liquid flows to the edge and Niagaras over.

That’s right. Nothing had flavor.

I shake my head. I need to get things straight. I’m dead. My wife’s dead. What’s the point of going on? Because I’d already given up once. Because I owed it to her to go on. Because I’d already failed her three times and couldn’t bear to make it four.

An annoying buzz fills my ears, like I’d stuck my head in a swarm of gnats doing battle with a beehive and a bunch of mosquitoes come in for a surprise attack. Oh yeah, the tramp. She’s making all kinds of noises, trying to get my attention.

“Hey, mister? We gonna fuck or what?”

I put my finger to my lips to silence her and then hold it up, gesturing wait a second, and nod. She gets it and lays down.

Slimy was telling the truth about all the garbage about shifters, seers and slimers. Why lie to a man you’re about to off? But he was wrong. I can change people.

There are clues in everything he said. I was walking an associate of the collector and I’m just now realizing it. I put my head in my left hand and rub my eyebrows between my thumb and forefinger. It helps me think.

Why did he hire Harry to find me? Wouldn’t the collector know where I was? Slimy told me that the collector wanted me alive, even though both the collector and I know I’m very dead. But if he wants me far away and alive, that means the collector is scared of me for some reason.

If what Slimy told me was true about the collector using me to take out the salesman, nothing made sense. After seeing the perfection that the collector made of my ex, I can understand the hatred he’d have for the slapshod work of the salesman.

I have the sense that I have enough to put it all together, but I can’t. The walker is getting antsy again.

“What, yous just gonna dump booze on the seat for an hour? Even if yous ain’t do nothing with me, I’m gonna charge yous like yous did.”

Needing to think and sort through the confusion, bringing this whore in here was as helpful as using a jackhammer to open walnuts. I look up and shoot her down with scorn from my eyes. That’s when I finally see the chain wrapped around her. I’d been so wrapped up in my problems that I’d blinded myself to hers.

Until now, I’d only seen the work of two shifters and one was the disciple of the other. Even the salesman would have been abhorred by the low quality work done to the girl. His lines were complete. The holes were left in the product, the connection itself was sound.

This girl shakes in her chains. She fights and struggles for her freedom. The shifter is too sloppy to even be able to close his connection to her. It means he’s nearby. I grab her bonds and they’re hot to my touch. He can feel me holding them. I can feel his shock.

I see the poor girl stopping to check in. She’s just passing through on her way to bigger and better things when he snares her. This joint doesn’t get enough business to stay running, so the clerk uses his powers to rope girls like this one into turning tricks for him. He’s so bad he can’t transform them. He can’t change their past, only their present.

The girl feels me now, too. Sitting on the bed, she pleads at me with her eyes. She raises her hands as if they’re cuffed together. Were I to break them, she’d be free. She’d revert to her old self, emotionally dead and physically scarred by a year of prostitution.

The clerk isn’t strong enough to change her, but I am. I follow his link down into her and fix her. I remove the blemishes and stretching. I steal the painful shock and memories of rapes and beatings. She deserves more than just being sent back to square one. So I use the access point I have to her mind and find out about her.

I shape her into her ideal woman, filling her lanky frame out. Her now lushly padded body curves in subtle ways that would please any man. I fill in the missing year of her life with memories of living in a health spa, working herself into a regimen that first produced and now maintains her new body.

She’d dreamed of being a doctor. I remove her fears of pain and wooziness at the sight of blood. I clear the clouds from her mind, allowing her access to her full intelligence. The only thing stopping her now is the lack of financing. I know how to fix that as well. I plant one more thought in her mind.

Done with the connection, I break it off. It fades and falls. Since I’d used her dreams and desires to change her, not even I can find the telltale sign that she’d been changed. She was born this way.

I look at my first reclamation project not associated with the collector. Even he would be proud of my work. She’s not outlandishly proportioned, those caricature are the product of men’s dreams. Her breasts are on the large size, but rather than imitating two volleyballs crudely stuffed on a woman, they approach two softballs that appear to have grown in naturally. They sit proudly on her chest. Her dress squishes them together to create twin globes that any astronomer would be content to study for the rest of his life.

Her poodle skirt stops mid thigh and flares out around two legs so smooth, long and curved that small children could amuse themselves on for hours by sliding down them and climbing back up for more. The line of kids would be doubled by their fathers waiting in line with them, wanting their turn as well.

Intelligence sparkles in her eyes. No memory of her days of prostitution remain, only the ambition and desire to fulfill her dreams remain in her head.

Leading her out of the room, we head to the front office. The clerk is on his way out with a suitcase filled with cash. I push him back into the office and he drops the bag. Stumbling back, he trips over his feet. He falls and lands slumped against the front desk.

The young med student picks up what I told her to believe was her suitcase and waits for me to toss her the clerk’s car keys. She thanks me for helping her check out and leaves to begin her new life.

That leaves me alone with the clerk. He’s on his feet now and his face is white with panic. Hurt and being incompetent, he lashes out with a clumsy attempt to shift me. I’m caught off guard, his chain hits me, but there’s already a connection there. A much stronger connection. His miserable attempt slides off me and he’s even more confused.

My wife’s words come back to me. Find my line. Why hadn’t I looked earlier? It’s right there. I’m connected to something, someone. Distracted, I don’t notice the clerk muster his next attack.

He puts his full strength and soul into it. It’s massive and it will suffocate me. There is no dodging. There is no blocking. There’s only one thing. I draw my gun and fire.

The bullet shatters his chains. They splinter and crumble. There’s nothing for me to grab a hold of and try to save him. A large ball of smoke escapes from his lifeless mouth and he falls to the ground.

Shifters. I’d outdone myself with their name. Changing reality around them to fit their whims. A bunch of shiftless lowlifes, the lot of them.

I check him for a pulse. Nothing. I hadn’t shot him. I finger the hole my bullet made in the corrugated plywood desk. I hadn’t come close to hitting him. But he’s still dead all the same.

Another murder scene. It’s my third in one day. I think it’s starting to become a habit, and unlike my boozing and woman habits, it’s not a good one. I know it’s only going to get worse before the day ends. I’ve found my lead. Hopping in my Mercury, I make tail out of there. I drive out into the countryside, away from the noise, away from the people.

Almost too scared to look, like it might have vanished in the time it took me to check again, I search for the thread coming out of me. It’s still there. Gingerly, I hold it in my hands. I’m not ready to know what it will tell me yet. But I have to.

Checking the line, I can see how it formed. Slimy was right. The collector hates seers, only hate isn’t strong enough of a word. Saying the collector merely hates seers is like saying an alcoholic who’s been dry for five days is disappointed by sitting down at a bar and ordering a cocktail, only to have the tender serve him a Shirley Temple. He destroys seers. He unwinds them thread by thread from existence.

The collector seeks us out. He sniffs us out with plants and ploys. The couple that got me killed and my ex changed were one of them. My mistake was taking the case. To the collector, only a seer would believe them.

At the time, I don’t know what I am. The collector does. He uses my ex as another ploy to distract me, then tries to erase me. He isn’t fast enough. I grab the threads of my existence and his controls and bind us together. He can’t kill me without killing himself as well. He’s scared of me now, but curious. I can control others through him. He knows this. But I’m a seer, I can’t make new connections. I can only affect the ones I see.

He can’t kill me, but he can’t afford to keep me around. He wants to use the salesman to lure me far away from him, but I work too quick and find the salesman before he’s ready. He sends my ex in to try to stop me, to distract me, but she gets there too late. I’ve already finished his favorite disciple.

His next hope was to chase me off with Slimy and my ex. He sent them to find me, but things fell apart when I traveled down his connection and freed my wife. She betrayed him. She got Slimy to betray him.

I can feel him looking at me searching our interwoven lives. I can feel his horror. I can feel his terror.

Having seen enough, I drop the line. I check my gun. I don’t really need to. Simple math tells me there’s only one bullet left and my eyes confirm it. It’s enough. I’ve only got one person left to shoot. He’s worthy of my last shot.

My car roars to life with the turn of the key and I floor it out of there. I don’t have much time. The collector knows I’m coming. He’s not going to want to stick around forever. I don’t worry about speed.

The space for my office is filled. I double park behind the black Seville I know so well. Shakes, my loving partner from my days on the force is waiting up there for me. Of course framing me and destroying me isn’t enough for him. He’s got to be the one to bring the loose cannon in.

Events from my past all come together and start making sense, knowing what I know now. All the bribes and shakedowns he took. All the underhanded petty things he got away with. I had always thought it was proof of the rot gnawing away at the force from the inside. Knowing about shifters now, it makes sense that Shakes could do all that he did.

How else would he be able to get people to believe his cover up and then to pin it on me? Even with all the proof my wife had of my innocence, it led nowhere. It would be nice to think that I became a shiftless bum because he made me that way, but I know better. I did it to myself.

Now, in the eyes of the law, he has the right to finish me off. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction. I’m not going to my office. The collector isn’t there. I’ll deal with whether or not Shakes is a shifter later.

Heading over to a building a block away, I run up the stairs and burst through the once welcoming door. Harry is grabbing something off his desk. He turns around and looks at me, sticking whatever it was in his belt behind his back. There’s no surprise on his face, but there is a giant new welt, right in the spot where my ex hit me with the pipe.

“Tracer, what can I do for you?”

I don’t waste time with words. He knows why I’m here. I draw my gun and take bead on him. I take several steps forward, making sure to keep myself between him and the door. In the small space of his office, there’s no place for him to hide. His only option is to flee out the door behind me.

“You wouldn’t shoot an old friend, now would you?” He stretches his arms out wide in a welcoming gesture.

I pull back the hammer. There’s no need for hesitation. There’s only one way to stop him.

His false smile turns into a genuine sneer. He reaches behind him and pulls out a pair of scissors and slams his right hand down on the desk. He shoves the scissors down after it, stabbing his own hand. Pain sears through my right hand and my gun falls from my grip. It clatters onto the floor.

Without missing a beat, he charges me. I fight back. Taking a step back, my foot kicks my gun away from me, towards the door. I take a step forward and use my momentum against his. My fist lands with full force just below his eye. I feel the contact in my hand a split second before I feel the explosion in my face.

The scissors go flying out of Harry’s hand and fall to the floor. They slide over and come to a stop under his desk. He lays out on top of it. I stagger back in pain. But he hadn’t hit me.

As the stars are swirling about my head, it dawns on me. The identical bruises. The scissors and the gun. The punch. I’m only alive because of my attachment to him. Whatever happens to him, happens to me. Whatever happens to me, happens to him.

It doesn’t explain how my ex was able to hit me. To kiss me. I can only guess she was able to do it through the mutual connection to Harry, the collector. She’s dead now, so it doesn’t really matter.

Harry recovers and lunges at me. He tackles me to the floor and pins me between the sofa and the coffee table. There’s not much room to move, but he uses what little space there is to punch my gut in the side. Once. Twice. I see him wince in pain as he feels his own blows. The third one doesn’t land with as near as much force.

I see my gun lying just out of reach above my head. I know what I have to do to get out from under him. I don’t want to, but it’s my only choice. I brace myself and knee him in the crotch.

We both grunt out in pain, but I knew it was coming. I shove him off me and into the coffee table. I crawl over to the piece I didn’t just cause serious pain to and pick it up. I level it on my former friend and keep it steady with both hands, just in case.

The collector stands up panting. He looks at me and shrugs. “Go ahead. Shoot me. Just know that if you do, you die with me.”

“What do I have to live for?” I pull the hammer back again.

Sweat soaks Harry’s suit. He raises his hand to stop me. “Your wife! Your wife.”

“She’s dead.”

“No, she’s still alive! Why would I let my only chip I have over you die? Look!”

He holds out a line for me to see and gives me enough time to tell that he’s not lying. The bullet goes flying through me and punctures her chest. Harry uses his connection to her to keep her from dying until the paramedics show.

I follow the line so I can find her, to see where she is, but he stops me. Harry shoves thousands of cords at me, his entire collection. Every single one of them has been changed. They’ve all been made to look like my wife. He’s ruined years of work just to hide my wife from me.

“See. They all think they’re her. You won’t be able to tell which one really is her. You’ll never find her without me.”

My aim’s never once wavered from the one line that matters, the one line that counts. “I’ll take my chances.”

I fire at the line that connects us. It tears apart as my last bullet pierces it. I feel like my being is tearing apart.

It’s not like when I shot the connection between Angel’s husband and the salesman. They weren’t dependant on each other to live. They weren’t joined like Harry and I are joined. Once again Lucky was lucky and he came through just fine. He didn’t have to experience what I am.

The smell of smoke wells up in my lungs, my throat, and nostrils. It burns my tongue with its acrid taste. Desperately, I grasp at the fading strand. I catch it and hold on to it. I tie it off and that stops the fraying. The smoke settles back inside of me. I’m alive.

Harry still has a look of shock on his face. The smoke inside of him billows out of his mouth and nose. It can’t escape fast enough and starts seeping out of his pores. Instead of falling over, his body starts to evaporate with the smoke. He’s following out the end that he planned out for me. He’s disappearing from existence. His stunned look is the last thing to vanish. The collector is dead.

I walk over to his liqueur cabinet and pour myself a drink. Being dead, Harry can’t complain about me filling it too full and splashing some of his most expensive bourbon on the counter. I toss my head and the glass back and the rich hooch washes the burning taste of smoke away with a burn of its own. Reaching the conclusion of its journey, the booze kindly settles in my stomach. I am alive.

My first and last shot. I toss the glass up and catch it. Then I throw it into the corner, smashing it into pieces. I’ve got too much to do to waste time being drunk.

There’s hundreds of shifters out there, thinking they can get away with anything. Mankind lives by laws and they need to learn they aren’t above it. From my old partner, Shakes, to so many more I haven’t found yet.

There’s fixing the collector’s subjects. Thousands of people out there were changed to look like and believe that they are my wife. Someone has to change the back, and I’m the only one who can.

Most importantly, there’s finding my true love and making amends.