The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The Ohio River separates Ohio from Kentucky, West Virginia, and a small section of Pennsylvania. The name Ohio is derived from the Seneca word meaning ‘good river.’ For part of the country’s early history the river was a thoroughfare for pioneers moving west. It made the trip easier from Western Pennsylvania through to Illinois.

The water flow along the river’s edge in Hurricane was steady, its width a bit under a third of a mile across at the widest part by the city. Elsewhere the river is much wider, and the flow faster, but not here really. The depth of the river wasn’t much, all of about a dozen or so feet. Without much rain the depth drops often to around six or so feet and with heavy rains it rises to about sixteen feet, achieving flood levels around seventeen feet.

The docks along the waterfront had seen traffic from the early years of pioneering to the civil war, to well after when coal was shipped along the river. The pilings were still there, and there were a couple small marinas with slips which people rented regularly, some individuals living on their boats.

While it wasn’t common to have homicide victims turn up along the waterfront, it wasn’t rare either. So finding a body along the shore of the river didn’t exactly shock the officers patrolling along the waterfront. Finding two of them together in water so shallow they couldn’t have been carried by the current was though.

When it turned out both victims had large hunks of their heads blown off, Mathers and Thorn had been called to advise them of another drop. It seemed their killer had escalated to more than one victim at a time. The forensics team advised the damage to the skulls indicated there was no spent bullets to work with.

They stood next to their cars after looking at the shallows where the bodies turned up.

“Have we got anything at all to tied these two to any of the other killings?” asked Thorn.

Detective Bulliosta looked through his notes, shaking his head.

“We don’t even have anything to tie these two together. One old codger named Abernathy and a young fella named Ungar. The old man lives to the north side, the kid had an apartment down in the pub district.”

“You guys have a pub district?” asked Mathers.

“Yeah, haven’t you heard about it. It’s like a smaller version of Germantown. A handful of little breweries.”

“Microbreweries?” she said.

“I guess. I don’t know anything more than they do make a variety of good one off beers.”

“Can we get back to the two dead guys? They had nothing in common at all?” asked Thorn.

“Naw. We really haven’t found anything to connect them. They obviously weren’t killed here either, this is a dump site. If I had to guess right off, someone shot them from an angle above where they were standing.”

Thorn looked around a bit. “Nothing here they’d to that from but trees, unless the person was an expert marksman in one of those buildings. So yeah, I get your point about it not being here.”

“If this is just one killer, they seem to be all over the place with their MO. What can they escalate to next? Bombs?” asked Mathers.

“I don’t know.” Thorn pulled his cell phone out and started to go through the list of pictures. “Uh.”

“Don’t tell me. They’re both on Nathan’s list.”

“Yes. This is starting to seem more and more like we need his help to narrow down possible suspects.”

“Who is Nathan and what’s this list you’re talking about?” asked the detective.

“The CDC has a couple people here looking into a serious run of amnesia victims here. They have a watch list of some kind and our killer seems to be picking people off the list. What they have in common the CDC thinks make it necessary to watch them for, I don’t know,” Thorn lying was not a big deal to Mathers, she sure as hell didn’t want to explain the abnormal circumstances involved. “So far though, his list is starting to read like a hit list. The source of the list isn’t available either.”

“We could at least go looking for the people on the list and put a few men on them to protect against the killer.” The detective scratched his chin.

“Our team is already on it. It is interesting how the ones we know about don’t want to be found. When we need your help, I’ll let you know. Meanwhile, we’d like to know who keeps trying to cover this crap up in the HPD. You understand, right, that I don’t want to hand over the list to someone who has possibly been participating in the killings?”

“Yes, I get that. I’ve got a few guys working the question of why cases got swept under the rug. I drew them from a different department. No need to have the potentially guilty investigate themselves.”

“While that’s good and all,” said Mathers, “You do realize one of those cases was yours, right?”

“Yes, and I’m not thrilled we pulled in the wrong guy. More so that he confessed so we simply believed him. It went well but not so well to make me suspicious at the time. So I can only offer up a mea culpa. I don’t know why I didn’t see beyond the confessing suspect.”

“I get that. But we have to be careful. We haven’t been part of any of those tainted cases. So we watch ourselves too.”

“So do these CDC people have any motive to go with this list of theirs? Is the group maybe doing human trafficking, selling drugs, maybe I should be talking to the organized crime people at the state level?” the detective asked.

“The trafficking thing might be it since we’re getting victims at the hospital who seem to be throwaways.”

“The amnesia thing?”

“Yes, that,” said Thorn. “It’s hard to understand why and how they’d do the amnesia effect if they’d just kill when they want. It’s unreal.”

“Unreal,” said Mathers, “yes. Unreal is a good word to apply. I agree it will sound better than paranormal, which is what I’ve keep thinking.”

“Sheesh. I know, I know,” said Thorn.

Edward was trying to work out how to find the redheaded Jill in the club even though he’d never met her. The building across from the Fire Eaters ended up with an awful lot of traffic lately too, he thought. He saw the bullet damage to the mirror downstairs and it was apparent someone else had traipsed through there since Sandi and Bart had their little encounter.

He’d thought about how well the second identity protected Sandi from casual scanning. On the way here, he’d started to build a second identity visible on top of his own to shield himself. He set up a little imaginary carpenter who did a lot of cabinet building and installation. It wouldn’t explain why he was down here, but at least it wouldn’t look like a snooping strange telepath was wandering around.

He thought it would be better if he was invisible. He didn’t know how to make himself vanish completely from telepaths. He only knew it had been mentioned by either Bart or Aunt Polly. He idly wondered if Polly was stronger than Samuel when it came to using psionics. He’d always had the impression they were pretty much equal in every sense. Samuel just seemed a lot more laid back than his wife.

Climbing the stairs to the floor they’d originally used to watch the club’s front door from, the binoculars dangling from his neck on the strap kept bouncing with each step. Those he had taken from the display case featuring bird watching guides. They seemed to work fine. He’d also taken time before leaving the bookstore to strap on the hunting knife from the office. He didn’t know who it had belonged to, but now if he needed it, he’d brought it.

Edward didn’t think he knew what he was doing. But someone important to Lexi had been taken and he damn well meant to get her back with minimum of harm. When he reached the window he just looked across the street a moment.

The front door seemed so obvious. They also had the photo of him. He wondered if he could bluff through somehow to look for Jill. He’d seen her picture on Lexi’s phone so he had some idea who he was looking for. He picked up the binoculars and tried to look for anything useful there. Edward hadn’t any clue what to look for that would help.

While he was looking he felt something. Rather than turn and look, he just kept doing his visual inventory of the part of the building he could see. He felt a little touch of psi, but nothing worth panicking about.

“You might as well come join me, whoever you are,” said Edward, “It’s not like I’m armed and you certainly do not seem to be one of the people I’m looking for.”

“Who might you be, young man,” came the male voice behind him. “I expected to find someone else here.”

The movements ceased when the man stood beside him. There was some kind of furry miniature boa, or may, no, it looked like a very tiny monkey on the man’s shoulder. It seemed pretty skittish at the moment.

“I’m looking to get someone away from kidnappers who are over in that building. I’m not sure you need to know who I am. Interesting pet, by the way.”

“Hubert? Oh, he’s my special charm. He gets the attention and I get to meet people without being rude.”

Edward sensed the little bit of psi much better now. The little monkey named Hubert was twitching nervously on the man’s neck. Ah, Edward realized. The little monkey was the source of the psi energy, not the man. With extreme caution from concern he not hurt it, he touched the psi of the monkey. He made a very gentle contact only to feel an overwhelming black bolt of energy glance off his protective mental construct. Most people it should have put on the floor and either out cold or dead it was so strong.

The man noticed the sudden hard glare from the monkey at Edward. Edward realized the man was aware of people with psi ability and had the little guy to protect him. It was a reasoned conclusion and one he felt comfortable with.

“There, there, Hubert. This man is probably a friend. We don’t want to zap everyone we meet.”

“Cool little guy. Now I know how you can feel safe wandering close to the nest of vipers across the street. I wonder what kinds of thoughts miniature monkeys have.”

“We call them pocket sloths. Mostly he thinks of his treats, speaking of which,” he fished a grape out of a pocket and handed it to Hubert. Hubert quickly took up a major interest in gnawing on the grape, “and sleep. He’s a fine companion for me.”

“Who are you?” Edward wasn’t offering much more info than he had already.

“Me? I’m Nathan. You want my favorite movie line? I have a good favorite movie line and love to use it.”

“Seriously? With a woman kidnapped you’re going to quote flicks at me?”

“Okay. Never mind. So what are we looking for and how may I help?

“Uh...” Edward looked at Nathan and shook his head for a second. “I guess with your little protector you might be able to help. I’m not sure though. Since your monk? Hubert will blast anyone using psi on you, you might actually be secure for a bit. Though. I think I could get through him if I try hard enough.”

“I’m not sure Hubert would like it if he has to do a lot of protecting me. My understanding is there’s a couple dozen, give or take a few in there who are telepaths.”

Edward let out a low groan. He already knew the estimated number but didn’t want to be reminded how many threats were involved. He couldn’t back out. Lexi was counting on him to find her friend Jill.

“Ever have a time you really didn’t want to do something. Dreaded it awfully, but knew you had to do it anyway?”

“Yes, all the time. It’s not my idea of fun but someone has to do it.”

“Who sent you and what are you doing here anyway?”

“Oh. That. Officially I’m from the CDC. At the moment anyway.”

“The CDC looks into telepaths?”

“No, the United States Psychology Service looks into telepaths, but we can’t be telling the public that, now can we?”

Edward looked at Nathan again, putting down the binoculars.

“No. No we can’t. Are you one of the people Bart knows?”

“Yes, but I’m more familiar with him under the name Wyatt Earp.”

“What the hell is it with you guys and gunslingers? Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp? Really?”

Nathan stifled a laugh. He didn’t want it to carry out the window.

“He never used that ID. It was a joke. I’m used to him going by Robert though.”

Edward relaxed a bit.

“I guess I’m satisfied you know Bart. You’re one of the spooks then. Alphabet soup.”

“huh? Oh yeah, kind of. It really doesn’t sound threatening if you used the acronym. USPS makes me sound like a letter carrier, right?”

Edward tilted his head and looked disgusted.

“You guys are worse than I am.”

“Have you thought about checking their loading dock?” Nathan asked.

“It’s next up. It would help if I knew they had a bolt hole they used for escaping with. Like an old speakeasy would.”

“Ah, the twenty-three skidoo alarms abound?”

“I’ve only ever come across that phrase used in old murder mysteries. Are you that old?”

“No, I do hang out with a lot of guys from the dark ages though. Let’s go look at the loading dock. If I do nothing else, I can always be a distraction.”

“That might be help, it really might.” Edward nodded.

“What’re you knitting?” Lexi asked Elaine. She was looking over Elaine’s shoulder, almost resting her chin there.

“Baby booties.”

“What!?” said Prudence. She’d stopped what she was doing to look at Ellie in shock.

“It’s meant to prank Edward. It’s not a real thing. He knows I’ve got an implant good for another two years. At least, he should. He’s read my mind.”

“Fine. You get a baby. I want a cat,” Prudence said out of the blue.

“A cat? In here? This is like,” said Lexi, “a sub-sub-basement. The poor thing would have claustrophobia.”

“No, I don’t really want a cat. I’m just testing it as a prank as well.”

“I thought...”

Elaine cut herself short as the door to the vestibule clattered open. In just a few moments, hugs were being passed around between the girls and Polly. Samuel was his usual smug looking self but slipped through the door to the kitchen, or pantry, or whatever.

“I know there’s a bar here somewhere,” said Bart. “There was last time I was here.”

“Exactly when was last time you were here?” asked Polly.

Bart started to shake a finger at her. “Stop that. I know what you’re doing.”

“Where is Edward?” asked Polly.

“Lexi called her roommate to check in,” Prudence frowned, “only some stranger had Jill and were taking her somewhere. Ominous threats were made about you guys turning yourselves over to them. He went out to get Jill back.”

“WHAT!?” Polly grabbed at her things again, “SAMUEL! EDWARD IS DOING SOMETHING STUPID! WE...”

“I can hear you dear,” Samuel said at the doorway, “please don’t shout.”

“He can’t go into the lion’s den by himself! He has no idea what they’re capable of!!” she continued.

Lexi suddenly looked far more worried. She’d been thinking there was nothing Edward couldn’t handle. It was the usual outlook for her lately.

“I really think he only went to see if he could discover where they had her,” said Elaine. “I don’t think he meant to act on it all by himself.”

“Polly, honey,” Samuel soothed her, “He’s smarter than that. Calm down.”

“If they were all like the two I got rid of earlier, I wouldn’t worry. You know they won’t be though. Some of them will be older, tougher, more experienced and dangerous!”

Bart had already opened the door. “I have a couple ideas where to find him. You try to relax here. Sam is right. Edward isn’t stupid. He wouldn’t go in their place alone.”

Polly still had the look of shock on her face. Samuel had wrapped her up in his arms. He made cooing sounds to her as she clung to him. He was glad to be married to her. She was tough as nails for some things and others ripped into her very heart spring. If anything happened to Edward, the chances of any of those wild talents surviving was slim.

“Kid has no idea people care about him,” he told her.

Prudence came over to join in the hug. Soon, the other two women did too.

“He’s ours, dammit,” said Lexi. “Now you have me worried.”

“You’ve known Bart a while?” asked Connie.

“Yep. He came to New York for a call at one point. I met him through another telepath there.”

“You might make a nice couple,” Connie batted her eyelashes suggestively.

“No. Nope. I don’t know him nearly well enough. He came to help people where I am. It just turns out I get to do some helping out too.”

“Do you use telepathy a lot in therapy?”

“I’d been doing it without even knowing. I now know when I’m doing it. I now find I have to be more careful than when I didn’t know.” Alison looked at Connie. “Are you asking if I’ve been using it on you? No, I haven’t. Your situation is somewhat unique. I don’t want to do harm by accident.”

“Oh. I guess. Would you normally?”

“Yes, probably. I don’t think I’ve ever run into anyone like you and your sister before. There’s a lot of material on the subject but it’s not entirely clear how my talent can help. It’s not like you’re putty to be molded. You’re a person.”

Connie beamed. “I’ve had another odd problem that started up recently. I didn’t want to talk about it with other people around.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve been horny as hell. Not for someone else, but for myself. I see myself naked in the mirror and I get all hot and bothered.”

“Interesting. When did this start?” Alison asked.

“I only noticed it last week. I’d be getting dressed to leave my home when suddenly a need would creep up on me.”

“Ah. I see. It could be a side effect of one of the telepaths your sister stopped.” Alison wondered if she could clean that out for Connie or if it was more complex than her usual subjects.

“My sister’s been around a lot recently.”

“She’s not usually around?”

“No. She usually only shows up when she thinks I have to be protected. I’ve tried to let her know I’m ready to find a nice guy and settle down.”

“What was the first thing your sister ever did to protect you?”

“uh. I’m not sure. It may have been in eight grade. I think one of the boys took my back pack and she beat on him. It got me in trouble and she snuck away. I covered for her. Everyone thought I’d done it.”

“What else was going on during the year you were in eighth grade?”

“Uh. Dad had us to attend a taekwondo class. He was teaching us how to shoot. He and mom started fighting a lot. I kind of liked the time he spent with me.”

“So it was good, but mom was, doing what?”

“Mom kept getting mad at him because sometimes I’d fall asleep in his lap.”

“At thirteen to fourteen years of age, it’s still not a big deal. It does happen. Fathers do tend to be proud of their daughters.”

“Mom said. I forget what she said. She used a few long words and a lot of foul ones with him. Often the day after he tucked me in bed too. Sandi was jealous he spent time with me. I think her being rough was just acting out because dad liked me more.”

“Did Sandi have any hobbies of her own?”

Connie seemed to go quiet. She looked out the window to the hotel room.

“Sandi looks out for me.” Her voice had gotten softer, quieter.

“Didn’t she do things though without you, you know, things she enjoyed?”

“I enjoyed killing those men,” the voice had changed. Sandi was back.

“I heard one was a woman too,” said Alison without skipping a beat.

“She wanted Connie to do perverse things with her too,” came Sandi’s voice. “The people at that club need to go. I bet there’s more like them too.”

“I don’t disagree. I think it’s methods we differ on,” Alison opened her bag and had sorted out a change of blouse and blazer. “You realize you’re going to have to stop when we clear out this set.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Robert might be able to get you targets sometimes. I understand his group on occasion has a need for a good sniper,” Alison wasn’t really flexible with her idea of killing people. She just felt it important to start redirecting the need to be violent. If she had it her way they’d find a way to merge the two personalities.

“I can find them. I don’t know that I need help finding them.”

“Yes. But you might want to know if they are the same kind of telepaths as those at Fire Eaters.“

“I might want to be sure none...” thunk. For Alison, the world had suddenly turned off darkly. Sandi had slipped up behind her and used a light punch her father had taught her.

Sandi caught Alison as she fell. She checked the woman’s pulse. Sandi didn’t want to hurt Dr Moore. She did want her out of the way for a while.

“I’m sorry Dr Moore. My work isn’t done. If Bart helps and removes some of them his way, that’s great. I can’t count on it.”

She took care putting Alison on the hotel bed. After a moment of thought she loosened the clothing on Alison so she wouldn’t be too uncomfortable. She really liked the Doc. She liked Bart too. The jury was out on Edward, despite testimonials from the women who clung to him.

Looking around she grinned. They’d brought her rifle and her handgun too. How nice of them. She thought about it and realized, Bart wanted to make sure he gave her no reason to distrust him.

She did a quick check, loaded the pistol and put it back in her purse. Lifting the case with the rifle she turned to look again to see Alison was unconscious still.

The door clicked shut behind her.

Jacob and Jonathan were at a small pub in the artsy part of town for lunch and a chance to talk away from everyone else. They had a fair amount of privacy, the table they were seated at was tucked well to the rear and away from the hallway leading to the rooms for returning used liquids.

“Jon,” said Jake, “We keep losing people.”

“I don’t know why. I see the same things you do. What do you expect me to do?”

“I think we have someone inside helping whoever is outside. It would account for both the killings and the mental damages.”

Jonathan frowned. “Like who? I mean, seriously, who would give us up to be just killed off?”

“I thought Melody might, but she really is on our side. Who spends a lot of time away? Maybe it’s someone setting up a rival group?”

Jonathan mentally started ticking off in his head whether his absences might have been noticed and Jake was trying to just feel him out about them.

“No one is always there. Some of us have hobbies with our toys at home. You know that. If you have someone specific in mind, who would it be?”

“You for one,” Jake said. Jonathan was expecting it so all he did was narrow his eyes. “Though you do have a different agenda than anyone else would. It doesn’t involve groups of telepaths. So it’s not likely to be you. And your agenda calls for you to have a safe bolt hole with friendly telepaths, not confrontational ones.”

“What do you mean about my agenda?” asked Jonathan.

“I’m pretty sure you’ve been experimenting to find out how the telepathy affects minds and how to use it more effectively. I’m pretty sure you’ve been the one dropping off the young men totally devoid of memory. I don’t know what you’re shooting for as a specific, but you’re doing experiments of some kind and would like the status quo to be maintained.”

Jonathan was a bit surprised. He supposed he shouldn’t be. Jacob was a smart man. He had a lot of lightly controlled people he let wander around and report things to him. Sometimes they had no idea they were doing it too. Like the people at the hospital who periodically called.

“All right. Granted, I’ve been leaving amnesia types wiped clean though I wouldn’t have to if I could safely ship them elsewhere before wiping the last few bits.” Confessing Jake was right would not hurt anything. It might make him open up more about his agenda anyway. “But I didn’t do the pregnant bitch from Hal who ended up at the hospital. I think it’s damn clear I didn’t do the Fergie wipe. Or Hal. Nor the two new ones who were out looking for the man and women in the surveillance photo.”

“It’s also highly unlikely you’d let yourself be in the line of fire if you were in league with someone. The two shot on our doorstep, you or I would have been in the sights next.”

“True. Besides, killing people with a gun ain’t my style.”

“Not mine either, but I got one. You might want to pick one up and learn how to shoot too. It could come down to shooting rather than using telepathy. Have an edge.”

“Okay. It’s a good suggestion. I wouldn’t bother but you’re right. It could be the best option in a pinch.”

“Oh. Before I forget to mention it. Melody called. It seems they found one of the women’s apartment. A woman called the roommate while Melody and Peter were there.”

“Is that a good thing? Does it get us any closer to the people who are zapping our members?”

“Maybe. Maybe. Melody took a hostage there,” he paused, “correction, Peter claimed the redheaded roommate as a toy. Melody took advantage of the sounds. She told the caller they needed to do an exchange. Peter likes having found a redhead. He’s having a lot of fun. The longer he has her, I suspect, the sooner their telepath will either come to us or come at us.”

“I’d be betting on the latter.”

“I told everyone to be leery of strangers right now. Anyone different who comes to the club is suspect. Melody did good.”

“So what are you and I doing while they’re encamped at the club waiting for our visitors?”

“Since we identified Dean’s little marionette we learned she had a close personal friend who lived nearby. You and I are going to go looking at her apartment. I doubt anyone is there. I have the address,” he patted his cell, “so if we find anyone, maybe we get another hostage, or maybe we find our threat. Maybe we just learn more about who we’re after.”

“You selected us to do this because?”

“You and I are the strongest telepaths in the club. Other than perhaps the third person I selected to come with us.”

“Vannie is coming? She’s not that strong.”

“No. The young Miss Abernathy. She’s got a lot of power under that sexy exterior of hers. Don’t you even think of trying to mess with her either. I don’t want to lose either of you from foolishness.

Paul Sotheby was sitting on the back loading dock for the building. He wasn’t paying much attention to anything at the moment other than his pocket. He had a large roll of hundreds and it delighted him to have so much cash in his pocket at one time. He kept collecting them and would stash them with others later.

It was his four hour stint to keep an eye out the back for the approach of strangers and unwanted visitors to the club. Nothing was likely to happen, he figured. All the action happened either elsewhere or out front to date. He supposed he could take off and make a niche for himself somewhere he wouldn’t have to worry about people shooting at him. Jake made it clear if he did so then Jake himself would track him down.

He resented being told what to do but knew the one time he had gotten pushy with Jake the older man had handed him one of the biggest headaches he’d ever had. It wasn’t worthwhile yet to flee. He had a household of six slaves he found enjoyable, one of them with him at the club at the moment who was getting him a drink.

He’d seen the redhead Peter’d brought back when he and Melody came in from their little scouting trip. She had so many freckles and pretty green eyes. Those boobs were great too. Maybe when Peter got tired then he could borrow her for a few rides. Just thinking about it brought sounds to his mind of the slut getting off.

While he was thinking about these things, a thin tentacle of Edward’s thoughts insinuated itself into his mind. Paul thought he had a solid mental shield. He really had only made the effort to create one after meeting other members at the club. That was when he’d been tested by others taking his girls. At first he didn’t do so well but eventually he was able to give as good as he got. Still, it wasn’t as solid as he thought.

Edward was watching from down the alleyway with the binoculars. He and Nathan stopped next to a downspout and slightly concealing bump in the wall. His initial impulse on seeing Paul was to just walk up and slam him hard. Deciding such an impulse would not be practical, nor tactically advisable, he just reached out with as feather light a scan as possible until he’d pinpointed Paul sitting on one of dozens of empty kegs.

The man’s shield was clearly what he imagined to be a ball. It was instead made up of about eight distinct parts for some reason, each of which abutted the others. Edward found himself wondering why the odd geometric configuration but it didn’t matter much at the moment. The impression Edward had was this man didn’t have any nuance to what he did. The man was used to having a shield to protect himself from the easy stuff, possibly even just the normal thoughts of strangers passing by. Doing a little work allowed Edward to insinuate himself through the seams. He tried to imagine his probe being like water, seeking the unsealed openings.

It took patience to learn a new means of infiltrating another person’s mind. Edward wanted to gain control of this man and get past to look around inside the club. It wasn’t going to be easy and even when he had control, it sure looked like if this guy went inside for anything other than an emergency it would create suspicion. So once he got this guy, he’d have to take his chances at first. Slowly though, he had found little places to wrap himself around that took away Paul’s self determining abilities. It allowed him to sense the man’s own psi ability.

Edward felt glad this man hadn’t enough ambition to fully explore his abilities because the mess of his talent inside his head was far stronger than he seemed to exert. The man was his own downfall from laziness. With a little bit of effort he created the little structures to restrain the man to obeying him. Some of those structures he’d learned about by taking apart the similar things inside Elaine.

Thinking about Elaine while he did this gave him a small smile to go with the smile of satisfaction in succeeding. Having the man under control meant now he could take a few moments to connect through his hearing and vision. That too proved not as difficult as he thought it would. The man was just lazy. No internal self protection.

Edward made one of those little mental reminders to himself to spend more time in self examination to improve his own defenses. This was almost too simple. Easy, no, simple, yes.

He nodded to Nathan.

“I’m going at least that far,” he pointed to the elevated loading space, “how much further I go depends on what I find.”

Indicating the pocket sloth with his thumb he said, “I’m not sure if you want him too close just now. The blast he fires off at psi talented targets is like a fuckin’ siren.”

Nathan chuckled.

“What I’ll do for now is stay back here. If you go inside, I’ll move to the loading dock. But if you don’t come out in a reasonable amount of time I’m calling Bart, oh,” he paused, “you still haven’t told me your name...”

“You’re right, I haven’t.” Edward was starting to understand a little where Bart’s stubborn side towards questions he didn’t want to answer came from. He chuckled briefly to himself. “I’m sure you’ll be able to convey who I am to Bart if you feel a need to call him.”

He started strolling leisurely towards the club. Paul waved to him absently as though he were expected. A young woman came out of the door but Edward was expecting her. She had a mimosa for Paul. She was displaying her legs to full effect including stiletto heels, wearing a tight panty like pair of shorts and a tied up shirt top. Her hair in a pony tail she stood by the newly controlled man to whom she was bound.

Edward didn’t particularly like doing it, but he left her as she was. Not immediately releasing her reminded him of the little diatribe from Bart when he first showed up. The word pragmatic came to mind and he shook his head.

When he had climbed up onto the platform, he looked back to Nathan, who popped out of concealment just long enough to let Edward know he was still there.

The door in was a heavy metal thing, clearly intended to deter break-ins. With someone out here on watch, the door wasn’t locked at the moment though. The heavy rolling door they would open if a truck pulled up to unload was latched firmly in place.

He peered inside the two story tall storage bay to see if there was anyone within. Seeing no one, he stepped through the door, leaving Paul and his young slave to be quietly self entertaining.

The bay was cluttered with boxes and kegs at the moment. Out of curiosity he checked one stack of boxes to find it was mostly cases of champagne, hard liquor, and other bar supplies. He shook his head. He knew they did other stuff in this place. It used to be a BDSM club. They should have chains, leather, floggers, masks, and so on. Maybe inside the dungeon spaces?

He’d get there soon enough, but didn’t want to rush. One side had a rickety looking set of wooden stairs leading to a door next to a large plate glass window. Suddenly he had a slight discomfort, worrying someone behind the window might give off an alarm. Acting the best he could to walk as though he belonged there he went to the stairs. He looked down at his right hand a moment.

He was shaking. Just enough to notice. If he noticed someone else might. He had to stop the shaking from persisting. Instead of the shaking, he focused on the stairs and wondered how often they saw use. Putting a foot on the bottom step, it seemed sturdy enough, so he started his ascent.

Opening the door and simply stepping inside the room at the top as if he owned the place, he was glad to find it wasn’t in use. There was an old desk with a lame little stiff legged chair sitting in front of it by the window. To the other side was a filing cabinet. There were a few stacks of old invoices to one side.

He picked up one of the invoices. It was apparently an order from one of the breweries shipped to here. The date on it was in the nineties. He doubted the room had been in use at all for a long time. The other door out was closed with a sliding latch to lock it.

Undoing the latch he felt more confident. If the place had been locked off to prevent people from the inside from going this way, it wasn’t likely they’d be looking for anyone to enter the club from here. The hall outside led past a number of doors, several of which were open.

Looking inside the open doors in this hall just demonstrated the club had more space than it was using. The rooms contained mattresses, as a minimum. He started to notice there were also rings embedded in the ceiling and walls, and lift up connections on the floors too. There didn’t appear to be any specific gear in the rooms other than that.

Two rooms at the end of the hall had noises coming from them. In one, someone was being flogged if he had to guess. The other one sounded as if someone was being slapped. He tilted his head and wondered if he could probe through to see whether there were psionic individuals in these rooms without being noticed for his activity. He could feel a fair level of psionic energy in use in the entire building but whether specific actions were noticeable or not? He thought it within the realm of possibility.

Without doing an active probe he could feel two people in the room with the flogging. One definitely had psionic ability. Doing something akin to what he’d done with the guard out on the loading dock, he asserted control over this telepath too. Then he opened the door to look in one what was happening.

There was a woman dangling from the ceiling by her hands. A chain hooked the wrist cuffs she wore to the ceiling ring. They must have been at this for quite some time. Her back looked more than red from welts. The flogger this guy must have been using had left more than a few open cuts. Edward frowned. Was this another circumstance to apply pragmatism? He didn’t know but he could not leave an active telepath he didn’t control in his likely retreat route.

He had them both get dressed. The guy was a scrawny older man with a slightly balding pate. The woman would have been more attractive if she didn’t look so badly used.

“You two sit down, relax. I’ll be back soon. Don’t go anywhere.”

“Yes master,” the woman said, which somehow stung because he hadn’t done a thing to her and he worried about people claiming he controlled them. The man sat down and looked more like a zombie than a person at the moment. Edward didn’t much care. He doubted the woman volunteered for the treatment she’d received at his hands.

Checking the other room, he found a similar situation. He once more asserted control over the psi in there and looked in. It turned out the man had been spanking the woman who was with him. Edward wondered if this was going to turn into a pattern. At least this woman wasn’t bleeding.

“Get dressed, sit down. Don’t leave or go anywhere. I’ll be back soon.”

“Yes sir,” the girl said. Her tits were heavy and large, also red with welts from having been slapped or beaten. Edward shook his head. If this had been consensual, he wouldn’t care. This woman had been through the wringer and he could feel the control constructs. She’d tried to fight back at some point and her mind had indications pieces had been disconnected painfully.

The man struggled though and Edward had to tighten up the bindings on him. This guy was younger, had tattoos just about everywhere, and had stud earrings in his earlobes. His sympathy towards this telepath was low.

He changed his mind. He did what he could right away to burn away the man’s telepathic ability. It took some effort and energy but the man was more docile afterwards.

“After you’re dressed, take her down the hall, out through the office there, and to the loading dock. When you get there, sit on one of the empty kegs or something and wait for me there. You will let her sit down to rest there too.”

“Yes.”

“In your case, you call me Lord. I don’t like you much.”

“Yes, Lord.” The girl was almost dressed.

Edward really hadn’t intended to get this involved with any of them before he found Jill but the damage in the woman’s head pissed him off. He tried to get that under control. When he was a teen and dad had been teaching him about fighting he’d said to avoid being angry. He told Edward that anger clouds the mind and leads to mistakes.

He didn’t want any blunders.

“Let’s see what we have here,” he said quietly to himself as he peered out the door leading to a larger atrium space. Above was a glass dome to let in sunlight and keep out rain. There was a fancy balcony around the entire space at the floor he was on, and looking up there was another. It didn’t appear there were doors or windows on the section toward the front of the building. There, there were a set of stairs between floors. He thought perhaps there was another area of rooms forward of the atrium.

It wasn’t a large atrium in terms of square footage below. He could easily see the people below as well. If they bothered to look up, they would see him. He was concerned. There was little chance he could reconnoiter the entire building for Jill without being caught. It wasn’t likely he could keep taking over members and controlling them without being noticed then attacked.

One by one he was doing fine with these guys so far. He didn’t like the idea of tangling with a bunch of them together. Even if he could hold them off mentally, someone would do something physical. He wasn’t convinced he’d last long mentally either.

While he didn’t want to expose himself he figured he’d have to do a general scan of the area trying to recognize someone having seen Jill. There was little chance he’d find her by going in and out of rooms personally.

He stepped back into the hall he’d come onto the balcony from. At a minimum it made him less visible.

In his internal visualization what he did was like letting a light fog emanate from where he stood. Each person it passed near gave him a slight sense of an object in the way. Keeping it to as light a touch as he could manage he tried to capture any of the unintentional drifting thoughts with images. Images specifically including something similar to his memory of the picture Lexi showed him.

Had he been counting, he would realize his fog of scanning was giving him a large number of people, over a couple hundred. Avoiding the ones appeared to be telepathic, he gathered visual information from the ones that weren’t. Doing this wasn’t easy.

He started to find people who had caught glimpses of her coming in with a man and woman. The man took her somewhere else and the woman stayed in the common area below. The man took Jill to the stairs and that’s where people stopped having images of her. It did mean she was either on this floor or up one more.

Narrowing his scan, giving him some sense of relief because it shouldn’t be touching anyone below, he looked at the level he was on. It worried him a bit to find there were six more telepaths on the floor he was on at the moment. In order to stay away from them, he had to work around their control of their slaves, piggyback without being noticed, and check the slave’s visualization of themselves.

To his dismay he’d have to go up another floor. Indeed, she was in a room up one more floor. Where were the stairs again? He’d have to cross the balcony a ways and be visible to those downstairs while doing so. He didn’t want to delay so he opened the door purposefully and moved as best he could without looking down at all. Somehow he wanted to be sure he appeared as casual as everyone else.

He got to the top of the stairs and realized he had two hallways to choose from opposite him. There were also four rooms to either side of the atrium they could be on. He tried to hone his efforts to a direction most likely, following it by walking to the far side and opening the door to one of the hallways. He’d heard no one shouting below so he had to assume he had yet to be spotted.

Once he was in the hallway he took a deep breath. His heart was pounding. He realized he was scared. He had to suppress the fear. There wasn’t time for fear to be in charge. Stupid courage he did not have, but he couldn’t let himself stay so scared.

She was in the room behind the third door on the left. It took a few moments but he caught the telepath in there unaware and started the process to attain control of him. Damn ass was in the middle of fucking Jill from behind. He was a bit enraged but realized every slave in this place was being used without consent to pleasure the controlling telepaths.

It took him a bit longer to clamp down control because of the effort to remain unnoticed. Once this guy Paul was taken, he stepped in the room. He made Paul get off Jill, pushing him over with his foot.

“Get dressed.”

“Yes sir,” said Jill. She looked delightfully freckled but he wasn’t going to let her nudity distract him. Paul was sitting there numbly.

“I said get dressed.”

Paul moved in a zombie like manner getting himself dressed. Edward could not have Paul moving slow this way with him. It wasn’t going to work out well unless he was able to be stealthy. Good grief he thought.

Edward decided then and there the right thing to do with Paul was to burn out his telepathic ability. This was probably true for the other two telepaths he suborned but left intact so far. This Paul guy had wouldn’t understand Edward’s reaction. Nor did he intend to explain it to him. He just needed a more reasonable behavior. Yet he couldn’t get anywhere with the resistance the man was putting up.

In incremental little actions in Paul’s mind, he started to burn out the ability to function telepathically. The man started acting more functional. Once he was finished, Paul still had his memories of having telepathy, but no longer could attempt to call on the ability at all.

Edward looked back into the hallway. While doing so he slipped a few commands into Jill to obey him and do what he wanted, mostly to remove hesitations and delays. He wanted so much to get the hell out of the place, now. The hallway looked clear. He knew it might not stay so for long.

Looking at Jill, he knew her hair would make it impossible for the people below not to recognize her. He couldn’t think of a thing he could do to conceal her hair to get her out. He knew he had to think of some means of getting her out of the building. He’d come this far.

There had to be a way.

When Edward had vanished out of sight into the building Nathan pulled out his cell phone. He dialed Bart’s burner number.

“What’s up Nathan?”

“You got a kid, mid twenties, about six foot, dark hair, kind of tepid green eyes, with an attitude in your group of locals?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I’m down at the Fire Eaters club and he’s insisted on going in to rescue someone. I’m outside and going to be going in soon if he doesn’t come out. If for no other reason, to make a distraction. He’s got some nuts going in alone.“

“I’m already in transit trying to find him. Where are you? Across the street where we watch the building?”

“No, I’m around back, at the loading dock. He went in from back here. He must be pretty good, he shut down their back door guard without a hitch or a hiccup.”

“Up against their average members he’s probably fine. It’s in numbers or their stronger members I worry about. I should be about ten minutes yet. I’ll meet you at the loading dock?”

“Okay, I’ll wait another ten minutes for you to show up.”

Sandi looked up the street to see if anyone would notice her. Then she crossed and slipped into the building across from the Fire Eaters. It seemed unlikely anyone noticed but she watched out the door for a couple minutes before tackling the stairway. This time she headed to the roof.

It was likely, she reasoned, alarms would be set up in the room she’d used before or at least, someone was watching those windows below. She’d noticed during one of her visits to the roof some of the storm drain openings along the bottom edge of the roof were like perfect little concealment ports. Just wide enough and tall enough she could use her scope.

Looking up at the sky, she wondered about being seen from above. She’d brought a blanket to lie on while on the roof, but hadn’t thought what it would look like if a traffic or police helicopter flew over.

She’d just have to risk it, she decided. She wanted to get more of the scum and she doubted the little gray man or his friends were likely to let her loose so easily again. She laid out the blanket by the drainage opening she’d chosen. After setting down the rifle case she folded herself into a lotus sitting position to assemble the weapon.

Trying to figure out how to manage the weapon with it angled so sharply downward was another matter. She finally propped the back of the gun up on the case and put a drop cloth she found bunched up in a spot behind it so she could be steadier.

Something else wanted her attention. She took a moment to look around the roof top. She found a number of chunks of two-by-four. With careful searching she was able pick one with ragged ends about four feet long. She strolled back to the rooftop door and wedged the length of wood in a position under the door handle and against the roof such as to prevent the door from just opening quietly. Once levered into position she checked. The door would be particularly hard to open without the brace being removed.

Setting her Smith & Wesson within easy reach of where she was settling in was just another little precaution. She wouldn’t shoot Bart if he showed up, but she couldn’t be sure he was the only one who would be looking for her. Looking through the scope gave her a view of the door, the windows across the way, or the sidewalk to the curb outside the club. Now she just needed suitable targets.

She was prepared to be patient.