The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Her left arm wouldn’t move.

She had lain there a short time. She had heard the shot which rocked her off her feet into the mess in the alleyway. She had felt the sudden impact when her shoulder was struck, between the joint and her neck.

Her eyes did not close.

Hearing the other woman’s feet walk away, she gathered her thoughts. Severe pain started. She was used to pain. She liked pain normally. Normally it aroused her a lot. Not this pain. This was a searing and sharp jolt through her unlike the good pain.

This was bad pain.

Her right arm worked. As she finally got to her feet, Mia had been unable to do much more than stumble back and forth as she tried to stand. She needed something. As she touched her shoulder where the pain was, she felt a murky wetness to it. She knew what she would see but she looked anyway.

Yes, it was her blood.

She needed a doctor. First she needed some means to staunch the bleeding. Fuzzily the world around her had narrowed to a tunnel focusing in the direction she turned her head. It almost felt as though the tunnel she was walking in was doing rotations as well. When she settled on a direction, her feet started the process of moving her forward.

The problem she had at first was she wasn’t seeing objects her feet struck sometimes. Her feet caught on some object or another, or a pit in the pavement caught them. She fell down a time or two. Each time she insisted to herself there was no one around to help.

The clouds overhead were darker.

She could only tell the world was a bit darker. If the skies opened up on her, she’d still be walking. She made it to a corner to come out of the alley. There was a man walking by in a rain coat. No, it was a? it was a coat. Whatever. She didn’t want her shoulder exposed and saw this guy.

Instinctively her ability forced him to turn to her. He shrugged the coat over his shoulders, pulling it off, helping her to put it on. She had him turn up the collar. In her hurry to move along, her power pushed him into somnolence against the nearest wall.

It didn’t occur to her for two blocks he might have been able to help her walk.

She was plodding along, stumbling. Climbing curbs at corners were difficult. She had completely lost any trace of where she had in mind to go. Now she was simply stumbling forward as if it had become a habit. Mia couldn’t even be sure what was going on at all, only considering a need to get somewhere.

It must be imperative, since she’d started this walk. Somewhere she was going was important.

A male voice was calling to her.

“Get in. Where were you going?” the man asked.

He looked familiar. Someone she knew. Yeah. The face was one she’d seen before. She stopped and looked at him.

“Was looking for something.”

She wasn’t sure where she was going. With a little struggle she got through the door into the passenger seat and sat back. She tried to focus on who he was but it didn’t seem to be working well.

She felt an inner twitch as subconsciously her ability guarded her from intrusion.

“Mia, we’re going to the hospital.” The man just started driving and she watched the rush of the street and buildings zoom past in a dizzying way. She kept walking in her mind, she was going somewhere. It was going to help somehow.

She felt the hands lift her out of the car to a gurney. She could sense Jonathan was still there for a little bit. The doctor had some ridiculous idea of taking pain away from her. She tried to decline the morphine. Before she knew it though, she was sleeping.

Jonathan looked at her. Other than her being a member of the club and someone who he knew to be a telepath, and damn attractive other than the damage to her shoulder at the moment? He had no reason to be concerned about her.

He had thought of her as a potential for his experiments but the fact she had such good subconscious barriers made it unlikely he would have time or energy to try. She also was not the right gender. Even with her in her present weakened state.

She did not see him depart.

She woke a couple hours later with stitches. Remembering what had happened during the encounter with the killer who shot her, she wanted to leave. Somehow the killer would trace her to the hospital once the woman learned she wasn’t dead. She was certain of it. How to travel quickly in this condition was a challenge.

Groggy from pain medication, she was still more alert now. No one would be sedating her again. Pain at this level was easily managed. She recalled Jonathan had brought her here. Had he stayed around or not? She tried to cast about but her energy level was so low she could only affect people she could touch.

Finding a doctor who could come up with an excuse to have her relocated took a couple hours because she couldn’t do a lot without exhausting herself. She did find one eventually. He managed to bring their chief of surgery within range. The chief of surgery signed off on having her sent to major hospital in the capital. It would be one step in getting out of the building.

As her fuzziness eased, the pain helped her sharpen her own thoughts. She’d thrown the entire limit of her power at the woman who shot her. She may have flinched but it didn’t do a thing. To top it off, the gun still ended up pointed at Mia and going off. She seriously wondered if there was another reason she was still alive though.

One reason did occur to her. The woman chose not to kill her. Pondering her fate another thought floated around. Maybe the woman hadn’t been the shooter herself. Maybe she lured Mia away from the shooter. Anyone good enough to be doing all the recent killing shouldn’t have missed critical bits at that close range.

Mia realized anyone could have done the double tap to her head once she’d fallen. It made it more likely the woman turned away from killing her on purpose. Was it because she was a woman? No, that couldn’t be. Jessie had been nailed by the killer, presumed to be this woman. Something else happened.

She may have killed people herself, but that didn’t make her stupid. Something was going on she was overlooking. Others in the club, Jacob in particular, might have thoughts on the matter. The number of actually smart individuals in there were few as far as she was concerned. The conclusion had to be the entire club thing was a really awful mistake on Mia’s part. She like everyone else in there, took for granted they had the power to rule anyone they wanted to.

Everyone else be damned. She really owed no one anything. Jacob was trying to use her to get the shooter, and even knowing she hadn’t cared..

Before.

Her own mortality came down on her hard with little reason to feel others could have any concern about her. She felt no debt to them at all. The other club members never even knew she was one of them really.

She felt a little debt to Jonathan for getting her to the hospital and a good surgeon. It probably saved her from an even worse scar. Had he stepped in front of the bullet in the first place she might feel actual indebtedness. Probably he’d want something in return at some point.

She could slowly feel the strength in her ability creeping back from being abolished by injury. Conserving as much power as she could, she kept activities minimal to ensure she’d be able to keep control over her travel. Mostly trying to find someone who could authorize her departure without being questioned.

She drew in any wisp of her own ability she could and tried to conceal it just now. Any of the power she’d need to be able to leave this place and get to somewhere more secure. She wanted to stay out of the path of other telepaths.

Mia always had trust issues. They simply just became more severe now.

Trees were whispering. Light breezes were moving leaves around creating a soft swish, dancing in waves as the air moved through them. The lake below responded with small wavelets as well, little caps periodically becoming white tipped. Above there were no clouds, just a clear blue heaven.

Grass clipped to a level suitable for people to walk barefooted stretched out and beyond sight to either side on this side of the lake. Across the water there was a wall of trees visible, also with passing waves as the lighter side of the leaves were turned to be exposed by the wind, only to drift back to the position they’d been, displaying their darker green.

They sat on an old dark green army blanket they brought for the picnic. From the blanket the view was a comfort and peace to both of them. They’d eaten their fill and now his wife was reading a book, some peculiarly titled romance with a bare chested hunk’s image on the cover.

Samuel let himself feel the contented sensations his wife gave him just nuzzling against his side. He remembered this picnic well. They snuggled without saying or doing anything for almost two hours. He could feel the way her thoughts were joyful just being in a relaxing place together. She felt him too, he knew. He could touch the warmth with his own mind and was just as bared to her so they were effectively more together as one than individuals apart.

They both could be contented here a very long time. But she shifted her thoughts. Before he knew it, they were both holding hands outside a Justice of the Peace’s office.

Dorothy had agreed to marry him and they’d slipped off a few weeks before this picnic, getting wed by a man and wife team in West Virginia who also shared a mental bond. It had been an unplanned event, yet somehow her sister got wind of it. May had dragged Don with her. After they turned up, shortly May’s and Dorothy’s parents showed up. Cousin Earnest and his soul mate Jerry showed within a few minutes of May and Don. It wasn’t long before people just close by who were of the family turned out too.

It seemed people had gathered nearby the couple in anticipation they’d do the full on plunge to becoming wed. The word had gone out it was close. Any good excuse for a family gathering drew people from distant states. A joyful event far more than the difficult ones such as funerals.

They’d ended up holding off the ceremony until there were over eighty people who had found out about their nuptials happening. Telepaths all. Members of the families. There were even a few from some of the other families who had seats at the council. It was just the kind of thing the relatives tended to do when they were close enough.

The gathering looked like a rag tag bunch though well enough attired to be out and about. They just dropped everything they’d been doing and rushed out to witness and celebrate the union. Someone arranged for a dozen or two kegs of beer, a case of champagne, a couple quick pop up tents and tables, and the meal was a wide assortment of pizza choices. Cousin Ginny brought her guitar and Uncle Al had his sax with him.

There was a bit of dancing going on. The only people who coordinated in their dancing movements were the paired up couples, so it looked like no two individuals otherwise could actually get the same beat of the music into their movements. It was entertaining to watch but very loving too. He remembered wondering at the time if psis were just odd about music.

Devon from California had shown up too. No one knew he was nearby at the time. The Families’ Historian was a joy to have around, especially around those handful of children who were with their parents. The mysterious past of the families always entranced the youngsters.

The families all celebrated life and the integral part of being interrelated. No longer isolating themselves in fear of accidentally becoming known and hunted as witches, they were able to rejoice fully in bonding together. Samuel adored his new wife and the rest of them shared the love they had as well.

Samuel and Dorothy intended to have children. If they had, Edward would have been raised with cousins as siblings. Something was wrong with one them in their reproduction anatomy. So they were pretty much infertile. There was no simple reason but it wasn’t a tragedy either. They were very happy together. When they went back to the park like this in their attuned unity, it normally was about contentment, not wistfully sad because they’d thought there would be offspring eventually.

This had all happened before Samuel picked up May’s habit of calling her sister Polly. It had been a time with less complication, without the world coming between them, a time with heartfelt joy for both of them. Since then they served family as representatives in situations one would describe as hazardous, but they were always together.

As far as they were concerned it was better they do so than other couples. Since there weren’t children to worry about they had no objection to being helpful. The families still lost someone on occasion when trying to deal with wild talents out there. Everyone in the families would hear about it. There was a severe sense of loss for everyone when one of the families died. Often the wild talents would turn out to be distant cousins who lost their connection and simply could not be brought back into the fold.

The emotions were not completely raw. The ties were cultured and nourished between Polly and Samuel. The effect held their souls intact when it turned out they could not successfully conceive. Pain from that dream’s loss was diminished by Edward’s need when May passed away.

The intimacy of peaceful dreams together kept Polly from feeling isolated. It was more than simply giving her help in overcoming helplessness. She could feel it in her bones. It was healing in a way doctors could not do, removing any emptiness due to being alone during recovery.

Neither of them took note as Mia and Jonathan whisked into the ER. Nor did they sense when Jonathan slipped away again. Jonathan was distracted enough not to pick up anything from their covering concealment. Mia was too weak to do anything but hide and look for ways to get to a safer hideaway.

For being so dangerously close in proximity to each other, the complete ignorance of the presence of their enemies was more a result of vulnerabilities than vigilance failure. So the night passed without a clash between them.

Edward was winded from climbing stairs. He shouldn’t be.

But he’d been pushing himself a bit and rushed up to see if this was a reasonable idea at all. The evening darkness gave an eerie sense of the rooftops nearby, particularly the one with the Fire Eaters club in it. He could make out four dark shapes on the rooftop with them. When he got closer to the officers he saw they were all bearing automatic weapons, with helmets, with belts fitted with an assortment of other tools or weapons.

Bart was just a few steps behind him. Edward though had his bells and whistles from his personal internal sensing giving him a serious warning at the moment. It wasn’t that he could vaguely sense three or four telepaths on the floor under the roof over there.

A couple of the officers were focused on the other two officers. The first two were clearly touched recently by another telepath. If he simply did a deep scan on them, he figured he’d know pretty soon what the other telepath had been looking for. Perhaps. This close to hostile telepaths he didn’t feel an immediate need to read them. He was pretty sure these guys had fingers from those wild talents in the building holding their minds. Little wire like controls on them bouncing these two around like marionettes.

He didn’t need to say anything. A quick image of what he was picking up was all Bart needed to alert him. Bart already knew though.

“What did you want to do?” Bart had his own thoughts in the matter but was willing to listen to Edward. The younger man had been inside the building once already.

“If we clear them of the intrusion it will alert the men inside,” Edward sent back. “We need to make it seem they still are controlled and seeing what we want them to see.”

“Like what?” Bart waited to see what kind of idea Edward had come up with.

“Ever see a spy thriller where they loop a security camera tape so it looks as though nothing is happening?”

“I see. Only with human minds on an infinite loop. Which one do you want to work on?”

“I’ve got,” using an image of what he could see to identify which of the two men he would work on, “that one. Please do the same on the other.”

They had to physically stop Nathan and motion him to silence. Setting off the little psi bomb in his pocket by trying to communicate telepathically was not what they wanted to happen.

“What is it?” asked Nathan. A chill ran down Nathan’s spine as Hubert crept out of his hiding place, climbing up to cling to the collar there. His little furry tail curled around the back of Nathan’s neck.

The officers were SWAT. They had their own individual skills and situational awareness. Edward and Bart realized if they called any of them by name it would crank up suspicions and waste time. The two not being re-set by Edward and Bart turned swiftly towards the company they had. It took only a moment to see the three were unarmed before the muzzles pointed away from the three men.

Edward set his man in a mental repeat pattern before Bart did, but not by much. Bart was impressed when he found Edward concluded his part first. The human brain, not being a machine, would not allow the visual repeat to run long though. Programming could be altered to change any of a number of things, but the sensory organs would eventually sample their environment again until they overcame the false images.

Bart turned to Nathan, “You should call our FBI friends. Ask them if they can request these men to only cover us while we go in.”

He hadn’t kept his voice low, intending the officers to hear their conversation so there was no reason to question what was being said.

“Excuse me,” Nathan answered, “won’t we need firepower inside when we get in there?”

“If we do, we’ll find it inside. These four men are somewhat vulnerable to hostile telepaths, so they may be turned at any time in the building. The only reason you can come is sitting on your shoulder,” Bart answered. “One other thing, I’d like not to be killing anyone even accidentally.”

The officer listening looked at them questioningly. He could tell they believed they had reason to be present, but the talk of telepaths was nuts. The hesitancy of the officers started to bring their weapons back into a position they might be used.

Sergeant Trent had seen stage performers claim to be mind readers but everyone knew there was a trick involved. None of the SWAT team were so ignorant as to think otherwise. There came a momentary distraction from the small primate on Nathan’s shoulder though, leaving him wondering what the hell they’d done to make a monkey so small.

Nathan displayed his federal badge, clearly not FBI. Trent hadn’t seen this specific one before but it did appear to be one of the other agencies with police powers. Edward was curious himself what was on the badge. He didn’t ask to look. It did register to him the need to give the impression he was here in an official capacity. Like Bart, he did not have authorization documents to display. They relied on Nathan to provide that.

Unless they chose to impose mentally on the officers there had been badges shown to them. Avoiding doing so seemed a good idea but if it became necessary he was prepared.

The other officer looked at the little primate on Nathan’s shoulder. The remaining two were unmoving. The men did not appear to welcome their presence, yet sometimes they had to work with other law enforcement agencies. Whether the newcomers fit in the category or not, they didn’t know.

“Aw, Hubert, are these guys intimidating you?” Nathan spoke to his little furry pet. “Officer, may I make a call? Without giving you reason to assume I’m getting a gun or something?”

Someone more distant must have seen them approaching the men. Clearly the officer in charge here, Sergeant Trent, was paying a bit of attention to radioed instructions, whispering into a microphone. He turned to look back at the roof of the club a moment.

The other unfrozen SWAT member held a finger to his lips to hush them. The Sergeant watched the roof hatch a moment longer then paused. He then turned towards them again and nodded. He and his partner kept an eye on them, though the rigid immobility of their team members had not yet brought a reaction.

Nathan drew out his cell phone. After a few moments of speaking on it the phone went back in his pocket. “Now we need Agent Thorn to do his part.”

The hall acquired a certain solemn air mirroring the emotional reactions of the telepaths.

Sean was a third of the way into the hall to the front door. He was eager with anticipation of playing with the gun he was given. Jake had planted the belief he was going to shoot at a rival gang who disguised as cops. Truth? His truth now was so subjective to Jake’s whims it didn’t much matter if he ever had an independent thought of his own. He couldn’t be a better minion at all.

Melody’s eyes swept the room from the back of the place. All this would do was buy time. Not a lot of time either. The authorities would sweep in with their own guns, shooting at anyone who appeared to be putting up resistance. Some of the other telepaths were likely to turn cops on each other, and once uncontrolled ones realized the people in the hall were doing something to control them, everyone would be shot.

It would be a huge blood bath. She might not get out alive if armed police came inside the building. Ordinarily she would have scoffed at the idea they couldn’t control the cops by telepathic means. The number of cops out there left her certain they couldn’t control enough to stop them.

Even if they did, what then?

They would have to start expanding their control through the city government which would draw in state and federal agencies, and not in a good way. Then the real powers-that-be would come after them. Even if others didn’t realize it, she did.

Jacob did too. He prepped her with the information he did have a last gasp plan for himself. He said she was included in that plan. She wasn’t sure she liked the idea he was doing any planning for her. She was pretty sure she could go toe to toe with him in a telepathic clash if she was prepared for it. Instead he was treating her as a peer, something she really had little experience with. Everyone was either used or a user in her world view. He was a user type. Male, powerful, it went without say he wanted to be in charge and dominant.

He was off with other telepaths in the room, lining them by experience along either side of the entryway to the room. He was giving instructions likely to bring on exactly the kind of blood bath she figured was likely to happen. They in turn were forming up their slaves as unwitting shields to spare them if someone started shooting at them.

It amazed her he was able to get these self important telepaths to cooperate with this. Normal behavior would have them rushing off in every direction on their own. Like scattering cockroaches. It was her instinctive reaction too, to flee. This was such a cluster-fuck.

Where in all this had Vanessa gotten to, she wondered. That bitch was hornier than a dog in heat, always. She couldn’t spot the other woman anywhere. Vanessa’s current favored bitch was in the huddle of slaves providing shield positions. As were Melody’s footstools.

Melody had little patience for the bitch herself. She was on par with Melody with her talent though. Melody had never seen Vanessa act like someone capable of doing much other than raunchy displays and constant slutty behavior. The idea she was independently doing something not involving a woman between her thighs was hard to swallow.

Jacob was headed back to her.

“I’ve let them know we’re going to check the other entrances.”

“Fine, where’s Vannie?”

“She’s expecting to split the minute anything starts. So, I told her she could wait near my special exit tunnel.”

“It seemed likely you had one,” she said. “Are we going there now?”

“I think it’s time. I can trigger Sean from there and let hell break loose while we leave.”

“Do you have a long enough range you could trigger him after we leave?”

“Good idea. It might give us a little extra time.”

He led her through the kitchen. From there they went down the stairs to the basement. They worked their way down even further to his special room. The place he sometimes disappeared to. The one for taking the slaves he used most brutally. She looked around at the place, noting the various implements he had on the racks for tormenting his toys, the rack intended to hold women in place, and the drain in the middle with a bit of blood stain still around the edges.

“I knew you had this room but never came down here,” she said. Some of the wooden racks were covered with a bit of blood too. Drawing blood from someone during any of the things she enjoyed never had appealed to her. Hurting her slaves she didn’t care about. Messy blood stains were a decided unpleasantness to her.

“Yes, it’s a favorite of mine. Reasons should be apparent.”

“Where is Vanessa?” she looked around. “I thought you said you sent her ahead to wait for you.”

He smiled at her. “Vanessa is an ass and not worth saving.”

“So I’m unique to you somehow?” Her suspicions grew a bit.

“Oddly, yes. It is no use trying to save Vanessa. She won’t do anything to restrain her powers. Without a group for her to hide among, she’ll be uncovered and dead fast. I don’t care to be dragged down with her, do you?”

“uh, no,” she looked around. “The way out must be well hidden. I don’t see anything hinting at a secret door.”

“That’s the point of a secret door. I’m hoping they won’t find it at all. I sent Vanessa to my rooms. There’s a remote chance they’ll kill her and conclude she was in charge. I doubt it but hell, it’s worth a try. She’s going to panic when I don’t turn up though with her slutty behavior, she probably took someone with her to keep her busy while she waited.”

Melody rolled her eyes. Much as she hated men, she couldn’t stand women who were simply stupid, which fit Vanessa to a ‘T’. She tried to work her way around the edges of the room looking for a way out. She wasn’t finding anything but the door they came in through.

“Okay, I give. Where is it?”

“Over here,” he led to the corner where the tools were. He pulled on three different hooks so they came out about a quarter inch. If you didn’t know what was going on you could take it for a loose fitting. Then he pushed against the wall which started to swivel at the middle a bit. It created enough of a gap for a person to slip through. Because of the slight slope of the floor towards the drain the wall did not scrape against the floor.

“Wow. I never would have guessed the entire wall.”

“Yeah. It works.” Just inside the corridor were a couple shelves with large flashlights. He handed her one. “Once we’re out of here,” he motioned her into the tunnel, “we need to talk about what we both do next.”

“Oh? I have been wondering if you are leaving everyone else behind why you brought me.”

He pushed the door closed behind them. He took a wooden wedge off one of the shelves and slipped it into a metal loop that was partially embedded in the closed wall. He did so to prevent anyone from pulling the matching hook on the other side. It would lock the secret door behind him. He planned to do anything to keep people from being able to follow.

“Well my hope is to have them believe they’ve gotten all of us when they clean out the club upstairs. There might be someone looking for additional members. But if they find none, they’ll close out their case. The only thing we’ll have to worry about after that will be the shooter and the couple members who weren’t here.”

“You’re not answering me. I hate that shit,” she rasped out at him. “Answer my question, I thought you hate women, why are you bringing me?” She was fully prepared for an onslaught from him at any instant.

“Relax. I love women. I just have peculiar kinks and tastes in what I want to do with my toys. Just as you do things with yours.”

“Well I hate men, so we’re not exactly in a meeting of the minds yet. You know I hate men. You happen to be one. So why would you take me out knowing that?”

“If you think about it, you’ve always made an exception for me. You don’t have to like me but unlike most of the other members, we have been able to trust each other. I think I’ve respected you enough to see trust is possible. You may have been aloof from me all this time, but you respected me with the usual amount of suspicion.”

“Yeah. Okay, you go that right. I never fully trusted you but getting out of here with you is a closer step than any other man I’ve been around.”

“It appears to me,” he said, “you don’t actually hate me specifically. You also aren’t terribly fond of other women I’ve noticed.”

“No, the bitches in the club are just that, bitches, some are butch bitches but they’re still fucking morons, the lot of them.”

“We should get going, can we discuss plans after we get out of here?”

The nurse’s desk had a small group gossiping. One of the men was in white and had a stethoscope around his neck with the chestpiece tucked in a breast pocket. The nurses behind the desk were smiling and friendly towards him.

“Doctor Heims, what should we expect?” asked the older nurse who wore glasses with a pink frame and looked as though she had tattoos all over her visible parts. Her neck was covered with them, her arms were covered, and who knows what tats she had under the scrubs.

“I don’t know. I just wanted to give you a heads up in case we get a call. The woman up here was at the site they have activity going on. They’ve prepped three ambulances there already and asked us to send a couple doctors to help out if something escalates. I assume that means they expect a lot of casualties.”

“My god,” said a taller nurse with her hair done up behind her head in a ball. “Is there a terrorist event going on? I have only caught a glimpse of the news and they’ve got helicopters being chased away by the police.”

“I don’t know. The TV news has a better idea than I do what’s actually happening there. I do know they’re convinced there will be a lot more shooting going on.”

“Is it true we have another shooting victim down in the ER?” asked a third nurse.

“Yes, a woman who was shot in her shoulder. But I don’t know if she had anything to do with this craziness. She brought herself in. I’m thinking we might have more customers than we did in the old Woolworth building fire though. But let me see the chart on...”

Elaine had heard enough and turned away, heading towards the waiting area near Polly’s room. She walked in, waving hello to the others while she picked up the remote, tuning it to the local news station. Immediately she was rewarded with a camera view down the street where spotlights lit the front of a building. They were in a part of town showing a bit of recovery from the economic decline, though boarded up buildings were evident.

“You don’t really want to watch that, do you?” asked Lexi. “Edward is down there. Aren’t you nervous enough about his safety already?”

“I just wanted to be sure where it was. To get some idea of what people know,” replied Ellie.

“You don’t think we’ll find out anything new this way, do you?” asked Jill.

“All I know is Edward put himself in danger again. I’m terrified,” said Prudence.

“It seems to me there’s a lot of risk to what he’s doing but I have to believe he’ll come back. I have to,” said Elaine, “If I don’t, I’ll go nuts.”

“What’s going on?” came the male voice from the hallway. Samuel stood by the door with a somber expression.

“How’s Polly doing?” Prudence asked immediately.

Samuel worked up a smile as he looked at Prudence and the anxious expressions on the other women. Jill was the one he didn’t know but he could see there was honest concern there.

“She’s going to be fine. She fell asleep and her dreams seem to be good ones,” he looked around the room, “I thought I’d come out and find some coffee.”

“I’ll get it for you,” said Lexi, “Just relax a moment.”

“What’s all this on the news?” he asked. “It looks like the police may have cordoned off the club. I think the guy who shot Polly ran in there, but I stopped paying attention. I had other concerns.”

“As I understand,” Elaine responded, “they haven’t gone in because they haven’t gone in. Yes, I know. Bart called and Edward went down there to help.”

“What the hell was he thinking, leaving you here without ?” Samuel rubbed his chin. “I guess we’ve got some unusual problems in the city at the moment. “His responsibility meter is running overtime.”

“Yeah, we think so too.” Prudence smiled at him sweetly. He gave her a quick hug.

“Don’t worry. He’ll be back soon. I’m thankful Polly is getting some drug free sleep now.”

“Good,” said Elaine, “now you need to as well.”

“Sure, tell him that while I’m handing him coffee,” said Lexi. “Fat lot of help you are.”

“Well he should. He has to help Polly when she wakes up again.”

“Nice idea but I think I’ll have my coffee and just sit up with her,” he took the Styrofoam cup from Lexi and winked at her. “I’ll probably be back for more.”

“When you can, we want to see her. She’s our aunt now too,” said Elaine.

He looked at the women in the room.

“Oh, don’t look at me,” said Jill with a grin, “I haven’t adopted her,” she paused to look at the other three women. “Yet.”

The three of them turned towards her menacingly. She wondered if maybe should should hide for a few minutes. Samuel laughed, which broke the odd sense of tension.

Edward was focused on trying to separate the minds of telepaths he detected near by. The ones right under the rooftop trap door were almost blended together by proximity. If he was to work on one of them at a time, he’d have to sort them out better than the blob they seemed like from the lightest scan he’d done.

Bart acquiesced to Edward’s request to keep attention on them for some kind of flight while he did the needle work of sewing up their minds. He’d sat down on the roof they were on and crossed his legs in a lotus like position. His legs did not fully cooperate but he got comfortable while he was doing this.

The three telepaths down there were full on in defensive state with their mental shields. They weren’t expecting anyone from the outside, he would find. It was common for them to poke at each other from time to time to find weaknesses. This set in particular seemed to keep prodding each other even while he was working through the seams in their shell like barriers.

It did have the advantage of keeping a constant energy level going concealing some of his own energy as he pried in the cracks. Trying to identify them one at a time to find how they were watching the roof through the eyes of the SWAT team members. There was a little tracking going on from one of them.

He’d managed to work out which man had put the controls on the two cops, deciding working on him first was key. If the two SWAT officers started to see through the illusion, this man would be the one who noticed.

It was harder than he anticipated for him to do the minor but important alterations in the man’s skull. Mostly because he had to avoid triggering something from the tracking of the cops. This guy’s name was Terry, it seemed. He was awfully full of himself for having manipulated two police officers. Pride, a common aspect of the guys he’d run into who were wild talents. It was as if they believed they invented telepathy on their own. They all seemed to have large egos.

Once he managed to get a thread through the man’s awareness to be able to alter him, the first thing he did was reduce awareness of other telepaths. He’d like nothing more than to burn out Terry’s telepathy but didn’t dare while the other two were so actively messing around.

There were a number of things for him to clamp down on to control Terry so he could no longer act independently. It wasn’t a long time, but while he was doing so, it felt like an eternity with the other two telepaths there.

He took a breath and looked up at Bart. Bart nodded to him, silently acknowledging no one had yet been alerted to the activities. He started to thread his thin thought probes through the seams in the nest man’s shields. It was no easier this time than with Terry. This one was younger, a man named Ben. He too was full of himself. He took his time, he thought, withdrawing Ben’s own cognitive controls.

Shortly he turned his attention to the last telepath. From the minds of the other two he thought this one was a guy. It wasn’t. He wasn’t horribly surprised to find women among the club members. He was already aware they were there. This one though had gone to great lengths to alter her external appearance, at least at the club. He couldn’t say why she’d done so. It wasn’t relevant at all either.

What mattered was Brett was another hostile telepath. When she was finally devoid of her independence he let out a sigh of relief and signaled to Bart.

“You clear the bad stuff out of the officers, I’m going to go look down in there. Follow when you’re ready,” he sent to Bart.

With a little effort he got up and heaved a leg over the roof wall between the buildings. One of the officers looked at him with his brows knit.

“Where are you going?” he said, “we’ve orders to stay here.”

“I just cleared out the hostile telepaths inside who had control of someone out here. I’m going in to start clearing the building.”

“What the hell is this telepaths thing? Are you guys,” he stopped talking as he realized his arms were doing airplane prop spins with his rifle. “Oh shit.”

“Yeah, and I’m on your side. So imagine what it would be like to walk in there where you won’t have any help.”

The sergeant tried to point his weapon at Edward and found himself raising the aim at the sky. The other two were pretty much frozen in place as Bart worked on them.

“You’re just showing off now,” said Nathan. “You can probably let them go. I think they may understand who you are protecting now.”

Propeller officer let his gun down to a resting position, letting out a sigh of relief after having his weapon not under his own control. The sergeant looked very confused, a bit irritated, and giving it some thought suddenly seemed nervous.

“This,” he said, “Telepathy? I mean. I thought telepathy was just supposed to be mental talking.”

“Yes, telepaths can manipulate your mind,” Nathan said. “You haven’t already gone in because no one wants to risk our men being controlled. There are a number of telepaths in there.”

“Can’t we just shoot them from a distance?” asked Sergeant Trent.

“Can you tell which are pawns and who is controlling them?”

“You mean they’ll have other people attacking us.”

“Not just other people,” Bart said, “Just think. What happens if one of our guys is under their control and shoots another of our guys, then what? How would you even prove it in court? Even if you had video?”

“If you’re telling the truth,” said the officer, “everyone in there is a threat.”

“They are. That’s why I’m going in,” Edward said.

“Don’t worry,” said Bart, “I’m going with him. You might have to update your two friends. The ones who were temporarily under the control of one of the guys in there.”

Sergeant Trent realized two of his men were acting oddly quiet and immobile now. His focus was on suspects and threats without realizing his own could become the risk.

“Not everyone has to be in line of sight to use their telepathy,” said Edward.

The enigmatic way Bart and Nathan grinned, left the sergeant wondering if maybe they should just withdraw further. Edward was halfway to the trap door when Bart and Nathan started to clear the separating wall between the two buildings.

“Hey wait, do the brass know about this?” the sergeant asked.

Nathan paused and turned back a moment.

“I work for the feds. You only know now because you need to. You should understand the less you know, the safer you are,” he looked meaningfully at the others, “I’m betting you’ll find out you’re unable to talk about it to anyone who doesn’t already know, too. Even surreptitiously.”

Edward was cracking the trap door open. “You coming with?” he called back to Nathan.

“Yeah,” he eyed the officer’s gun a moment, thinking better of the idea of commandeering it. As Bart pointed out, they’d do better going in without arms.

The ladder led Edward down to a room mostly used for janitorial purposes but it was larger than a closet by enough to do more than simply stretch his arms. The three people in it when he came down weren’t taking up even a third of the open space. He nodded to them.

“Cover for me?” he asked Bart.

“What were you thinking of doing?”

“Reduction of threat on a long term basis.”

“Do we have time for that?”

“How many of them do you think we still face?”

“After these three? I’m not sure. It could be as many as two dozen or as few as eight. It’s hard to say. We have no idea if they’re all here or not.”

“I’m not letting anything slide by again if I can help it. None of these are armed by the way.”

Terry, Brett, and Ben were self consciously looking away. They were pretty much incapable of anything other than standing there. Edward started with Terry, burning out the telepathy first. All he really had to do was turn the energy those cells drew on against themselves. It didn’t take a lot of effort anymore for him since he learned how to turn off the ability of his earlier captives.

Bart nodded reluctantly. Instead of going on lookout though, he started to clear the ability from Ben’s head. It was a pain to do so for Bart. He’d done so many times, to him it was as if he was cutting off someone’s limb.

He remembered when he first found he was gifted with the ability. He still remembered how long it took for him to stop seeing other people as inferior, get his own inflated ego under control. Admittedly, it was only a small fraction of his life, but he felt guilt over it even now.

Edward started to clear away the ability from Brett when a voice came down the ladder opening.

“Are you nearby?” It was officer Trent. Nathan walked back to the ladder.

“You and one of your men could probably come this far and take these three into temporary custody.”

“Are they among the telepaths?”

“They were. Not any more.”

“Oh? Oh never mind. I’m coming down.”

Bart had the door open and was looking through the crack of the opening. The balcony seemed clear. No one else appeared to be out there. Not on this floor anyway.

“Bart?” came from Edward. He was still trying to grapple with how many enemies they faced.

“Yes?”

“How many of them did we conclude there were total?”

“Less than fifty but more than thirty-ish,” he responded absently while trying to crack the door enough to look down into the chamber below.

“I really hate these odds.”

“I know,” Bart paused. “I’ve lost count. Honestly. At least we’re not dropping corpses around us.”

“A dozen or more versus the two of us?” Edward shook his head. “Maybe we could wait for Samuel to help us out?”

“Well,” Nathan spoke up, “if you keep picking them off two or three at a time there won’t be a lot left if it came to a showdown.”

“That’s my goal,” Bart opened the door a bit wider, so he could look down to the next floor’s balcony. “There’s nothing I’d rather do avoid a showdown altogether.”

“You betcha,” said Edward. “There’s two corridors to your left that lead towards the back of the place. They have rooms set up for privacy to either side of the corridors. At the back of one is a door to a stairwell down their kitchen.”

“You think we should go down that way?”

“I was thinking we should make a pass in the hallways to make sure we’re not leaving someone behind us,” he looked at Bart’s expression. “I don’t want to have someone come up unexpected on my backside.”

“I think we can do that,” the older man said, “What about it Nathan, any ideas you might have?”

“Definitely need to clear those rooms,” Sergeant Trent said. The three of them looked at the sergeant.

“You need to take these guys out of here,” said Nathan, “and keep the roof secure. You really represent a serious threat to us being in here with us.”

The officer frowned. He did not like being taken out of the action. He understood the logic, but it bothered him to have people he considered civilians taking charge of doing what he saw as his job.

“You know I’m right,” said Nathan. “I want you safe but it’s my ass I’m worried about.”

Grudgingly the two officers who climbed down the ladder started leading the three prisoners back to the exit. One of the officers went first, followed by the three sadly confused individuals who had previously been such a risk.

“You want to go first, or should I,” asked Bart.

“I get the impression your cowardly religion is kicking in,” responded Edward.

“Damn straight it is.”

“Oh for?” Nathan pushed past to the balcony, walking as though he owned the place, heading to the left.

“For the record,” Edward said to Bart, “I am so going to beat up my cousins for not coming to help too.”

“How many cousins do you have now?” Bart asked.

“Enough this could have been even odds.”

“Oh.” Bart looked at the stairs on the side of the balcony towards the front of the building, “if it makes you feel any better, I believe there’s a huge problem in LA at the moment. They might be there.”

“Sure, any excuse.”

“Hssst!” Nathan hissed at them. “Are you two going to stay in there all night?”