The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Nyx silently glared at me as I fastened the irons around her wrists. The chain between them was heavy, and the irons themselves were covered in ornate patterns and symbols. They clashed with the death net emblem on the robe that was draped over her form—the iron’s symbols looking more like Viking runes—but I was fairly certain it wouldn’t matter. Crow watched on, box in her lap, lips curled into a smile.

“Where did you find these?” I asked my ‘captive’.

Nyx offered no answer, handing me a similarly decorated iron collar, letting the six-foot chain leash drop to the ground.

“They’re kind of beautiful,” Nancy offered, hoping it would lend the demon some measure of consolation. “Did you decorate them yourself, or did you find them like that?”

Nyx replied in my head, and my head alone. “Let’s just get this done.”

“That’s no way to talk to your captor,” I thought back, lips pulled into a playful grin.

Her eyes burned brighter as I clicked the latch around her neck and pulled the hood over, careful to drape it over her face in a way that at least somewhat obscured her horns.

“This will take a while,” I told Nancy. “When Calypso wakes up, let her know that we’re done with telepathy—she’s got a day or two to herself before we start with something else.”

Nancy nodded as I took a hold of the iron leash. “Off to see the wizard,” I said.

The redhead from last time met us at the gate, accompanied with two familiar faces (one of which had a new fresh scar down the left side of his face) and two new companions. The redhead was still clearly leading the others, leading me to wonder she was always tasked with guarding the ass-end of the northern bus. None of them seemed like soldiers in the typical sense—no crew cuts, no uniforms, no jarhead physiques—just scars here and there and a horror-hardened demeanor… but so did everyone these days. How did King think to put them on permanent guard duty? They were too young to have fought to defend the hospital in the early days. Did they prove themselves battle-worthy somewhere else? Or was this just an arbitrary assignment?

The redhead’s eyes were narrowed, but her and her friends’ weapons were lowered—which was a good sign; it meant King already trusted me. “No piggyback ride this time?” she asked with a cautious smile.

“I really don’t think that would be a good idea. I have a present for King.”

The redhead sighed and shook her head. “When I heard you were a slaver, I didn’t actually believe it.”

She heard? It took me a moment of thought to remember the nurse in recovery. Word spreads fast in King country. “It’s not like that,” I told her.

The red-haired girl shook her head. “I’m sure it isn’t. Look, if we bring you to the hospital, we can set your ‘gift’ free, pretend they were a drifter you sent our way, and make no mention of slavery, but you really don’t want to take him to King in shackles. Trust me.”

I smiled. “It’s a her, and again, I don’t think that would be the best idea.”

I gave the chain a downward tug, mentally asking Nyx in the most polite voice I could muster to please bear with me a little longer and kneel. She replied with a feeling—an urge to grab me by the face and burn the flesh from my skull—but she complied.

I slowly lifted the hood from Nyx’ face, careful not to pull it so far back that the sharpshooters would see. The only way this was going to work was to make sure the only people who saw her did so in context—and, even then, I gave it a one in five chance that they’d blow us both away on the spot, just to be safe.

The redhead’s gun fell to the ground as she stared into Nyx’ eyes, still burning with uncomfortable rage. The companions simply stared, completely frozen, not a single one of them capable of lifting their weapon. Terror wafted out of their minds like a stink, intrusive and unpleasant.

“You don’t have to worry,” I told them. “The irons are suppressing all of her more nasty powers.”

“How…” was all the girl managed before trailing off.

“Some cherub managed to get her,” I said. “Don’t know how the little bastard managed to do it—but when I found them, the irons were already on.”

The redhead slowly extended a hand, cautiously inching towards Nyx’ face.

I snatched her hand out of the air, pulling it to the side. “I wouldn’t do that,” I said. “She can still kill you with a touch. What do you think happened to the cherub?”

The girl nodded slowly as I lowered the hood. Even after Nyx’ face was covered, the guard detail continued to stare at where the glowing sockets glared at them through the thick fabric.

“So do I have my audience?”

King stared as I guided Nyx to a chair set up in the corner of the specimen room, pulling the hood from her head.

“She’s through that door,” I thought to her. “The metal one on the north wall.”

“That’s east,” Nyx said. “And I can’t feel anything in there.”

“Can you feel anything outside the room?”

She thought for a moment. “I don’t like this.”

“Incredible,” King said, his voice almost a whisper.

“I have to be honest with you,” I told him. “The story I gave your guards was bullshit.”

I watched King carefully for a reaction, but he still seemed lost in awe at the sight of Nyx.

“She isn’t actually a captive.” As I said this, Nyx’ shoulders shrugged as though she were breathing a sigh of relief. She reached to her neck and yanked off her collar, more in tired agitation than the flourish I’d hoped for.

King took a half-step back, opening his mouth to object when I continued.

“She’s a volunteer.”

King finally looked back to me, brows furrowed.

“She’s not like most of the other demons out there,” I told him. “She’s rational. Calm. Just like a human—albeit maybe not the most empathetic one.”

“How is that even possible?”

“She’s younger,” I answered with a guess. “She hadn’t been alone in isolation with her guilt for long enough to twist herself like the others. She didn’t have time to completely lose her humanity before she came back.”

I glanced over to Nyx to see if she was willing to play along with my theory, but what I felt in her eyes wasn’t agreement, but genuine surprise. Evidently I’d hit the nail right on the head.

“She came to Limbo looking for her sister,” I continued.

“Her sister?”

I pointed to the door to Gabrielle’s cell.

King looked to Nyx, then the cell, then me, then back to Nyx.

“I told her you’re interested in studying her powers, and she’s agreed to cooperate with you for two weeks in exchange for the angel’s freedom.”

King went silent for a moment, rubbing his chin in thought.

“Should we show him a sample?” I asked her aloud. “Show me what you can do with the lightning,” I mentally added, hoping that her new trick wouldn’t be as terrifying as some of her deadlier tools.

Nyx nodded and tossed the collar to the ground in the middle of the room, holding her thumb and index finger like a gun. With a fierce pop, a blinding arc shot across to the shackle, sending it flying into the air. She let loose three more bolts, conjured way quicker than I even thought possible, each arc meeting the thick ornate metal, bouncing it off the far wall over and over again.

She turned to King, staring at him expectantly. We could both tell he was excited, but he was still lost in thought, and I didn’t want to win this one by hijacking his free will.

“Two weeks is an awful short time,” King finally said. “You’re asking me to give her up forever.”

Now it was my turn to scratch my chin, deep in thought. “Are you willing to stay a full month?” I mentally asked Nyx.

Nyx answered negative. “You have no idea how much it has pained me to agree to two weeks,” she said. “I’ll sooner raze this building to the ground than make it three.”

“Is there something else?” King asked, noticing my thoughtful state.

I nodded. “Something I can show you, but showing you is kind of all there is to it.”

King narrowed his eyes. “Something to do with your demon?”

“Nyx,” I told him.

“Hm?”

“Her name. She isn’t my demon. She’s free—a friend. But—“ I trailed off.

“Is this some sort of sales trick?” King asked. “Like cheap mystery toy meant to sell children substandard cereal?”

Being glib was getting me nowhere. Time for a gamble. “How about this: If you agree to two weeks, and you think the ‘something else’ isn’t worth showing you, you get Nyx for a month. If it is worth it, though, I get as many medical books from your library as I can carry.”

King cocked his head to the side. “Going for your MCATs, are you?”

“I have my reasons. Now, do you agree?”

King smiled and nodded.

I walked across the room and pulled Nyx’ collar back to the centre by the chain. Nyx’ bolts had actually managed to generate so much heat that the iron had started to melt, the runes sagging beneath the scorched metal where the bolts hit. On one hand it was scary how quickly she’d learned my trick so well—but, on the other hand, it really wasn’t surprising.

I walked back to where I had stood and cocked my finger like a gun, just as Nyx had.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw King’s mouth open. “No,” he muttered to himself.

I found I couldn’t draw energy through the soles of my shoes, so I kicked them off and then readjusted myself.

“No way,” King muttered as I felt the energy build in my fingertip.

I found I was barely able to reach the collar through the floor, and it took everything I had to switch its charge—but I managed it, and with a pop embarrassingly less spectacular than Nyx’, the collar slid a few feet, grinding to a halt half way to the wall.

“I’m kind off new at that,” I said. “Still, the point is, it’s possible for humans to do at least some of what they do.”

King walked over to a phone that hung from the wall and tapped a couple of numbers. “Expect Novak this afternoon,” he said. “He’s allowed to take whatever he needs.”

“Nolan,” I told King.

“What?”

“My name. It’s—changed.”

King shrugged. “Yes, Novak. The name should be on file.” He hung up the phone and added, “Tell the visitor’s desk your address before you leave. We might have some… employment opportunities for you at some point down the line.”

“I’m thrilled about your new library,” Nyx impatiently told me, “but need I remind you why you’re here?”

Gabrielle’s eyes snapped open the moment the seal on the door was broken. She leapt to her feet, fists clenched before her, ready to tear through her shackles.

“Gabby?” came a voice that shouldn’t exist.

Gabrielle’s arms lowered slightly before her resolve kicked in. This had to be a dream—but she hadn’t dreamed in years. Could it be a human trick? No, the essence that came from the door was dark. Otherworldly.

When the door swung open, Gabrielle gnashed her teeth and once again got into a fighting stance. The chains the humans used to bind her ran along either side of the door—when the creature approached she could rip out the pulleys and use them to her advantage.

The figure didn’t come towards her, though. It stood there, eyes flickering warmly, giving the impression that, were it physically possible, they’d be crying.

‘No, Gabrielle. It’s trying to trick you.’ “What do you want, monster?” the angel asked.

The incandescent halogen tubes on the ceiling buzzed to life, lighting the creature. She knew the eyes and armor well—before capture, her squadron had come across a few of these creatures. Each one was incredibly dangerous, and the aura of this one seemed—endowed, in some way. It had a power within it that was absent in most of the monstrosities she’d vanquished. Did the humans send it to kill her?

“Gabby? Don’t you recognize me?” the creature asked.

Why did it keep saying Gabby? She didn’t go by that name since she was a child. “Don’t call me that, beast,” Gabrielle snapped.

“You don’t recognize my voice?” the creature asked.

The voice. It was so incredibly offputting, but she couldn’t tell why. She’d heard psychic creatures using all sorts of manipulations to attempt to make their inner voices terrifying, but this was the first one that truly scared her. But why? It just sounded like a regular female. Was that it? Did it sound famil—

“No,” Gabrielle muttered. She’d meant to scream her next words, to shout them loud enough to shatter the bricks of her prison, but they had only come out as a defeated mewl. “How dare you, devil?”

The creature’s eyes went black. The sheet of armor covering her face cracked and slowly parted, the glowing eye sockets filling in. As the mask slowly retracted, she could see features, much like her own, only slightly rougher, and in flesh of deep red.

“You can’t—“ she muttered.

“Gabby,” the succubus said, voice whispering and cracking as though she hadn’t used it in ages.

“Oh my god, Nicole? It can’t be you.”

Nicole nodded slowly, eyes finally free to well up and leak down her cheeks. “I’m so glad to see you.”

Gabrielle started shaking her head. “This is a lie. Nicole is good. She isn’t a monster. Not like you.”

The demon shook her head. “You know that’s not true. Everything I did to keep you safe, to keep them busy.”

“Bullshit. The real Nicole did that for me. She wouldn’t be punished for that.”

“It’s not a question of whether an old bearded man with a list forgives you,” the demon said. “It’s a question of whether or not you can forgive yourself.”

Gabrielle dropped to her knees, arms dropping to her sides. She knew damn well that what the creature said was true; her squad was a mishmash of various denominations, many of whom thought the others should have gone to hell. “If this is a lie, just kill me. I’ve already disgraced myself. I’ve been waiting to die for a long time now. There’s no point in torturing me further.”

The succubus slowly walked towards the kneeling angel and dropped down to meet her, taking her gently by the chin and pressing her dark red lips against Gabrielle’s.

God, it even kisses like Nicole.

The kiss continued for several long moments, more out of longing than passion. When it broke, the succubus smiled the familiar, impish grin.

There was no longer any doubt in Gabrielle’s mind. This was Nicole.

“How did you find me?” the angel asked.

“Like I told you when we were kids, you’re my little sister,” Nicole smiled, caressing Gabrielle’s cheek. “Neither heaven nor hell can keep me from you.”

Gabrielle smiled, nodding, remembering her past for the first time since her death. “Brat radar,” she remembered.

“I agreed to stay here and pull a rabbit out of a hat for this guy. In exchange, he’s gonna let you go. If you go back to stay with my—human friends, I’ll join you in two weeks.”

The smile melted off Gabrielle’s face. “This is too good to be true. There’s a catch.”

Nicole leaned in and gave Gabrielle a passionate kiss, taking her time, feeling the sensation of her sister’s lips. “People won’t like us being together,” she said as she pulled away. “But I don’t think that’s anything new.”

Gabrielle felt her heart beating faster, her breaths growing shallow. She could feel her sister’s love radiating from her—from the extra source of power behind her dark aura of her being.

“I missed you so much,” Nicole said, planting one final kiss on her little sister’s forehead before her mask closed back around her face, hiding her features, eyes once again becoming hollows that glowed with her familiar soul.

With Nicole’s help, Gabrielle slowly raised to her feet. With a smile of relief, the angel gave the metal cuff on either hand a quick jerk, effortlessly ripping them from her body, and stepped outside the room for the first time in years.

“Nicole?” I asked Nyx aloud. “Adorable.”

“Shut up,” she replied.

“One more thing,” Nyx broadcast to Gabrielle and I. “I’ve been teaching him to use some of my powers. He’s quite an adept student for a human; do you think you could teach him meditation while I’m gone?”

Gabrielle looked to me and smiled.

Now, I’ve seen some incredible sights in my life. I’ve seen clifftop views of boreal landscapes gently kissed by a setting sun. I’ve seen a structurally perfect woman splayed out naked by fireside, beckoning me to join her. But nothing I’ve seen was anywhere near as amazing as an angel’s smile.

It took me a moment to realize that it was probably something inherent to angels. As the body of a succubus seemed to inspire lust in everyone, Gabrielle’s smile inspired a sublime serenity. As I thought of this, it struck me as strange that I didn’t feel anything like that when I’d seen her bound and depressed.

“I’m sure they want to get started,” I told her aloud. I started towards the door when a thought occurred to me, and I turned to King and added, “Do you think you could spare Nyx for a moment to blink us home, so we’re not shot as escapees on the way out?”

King smiled and shook his head as he reached for the phone. “Not a chance. I’ll send word to the guards, but for the next two weeks, Nyx doesn’t leave this floor. I trust you, and everything, but—you understand.”

“Once we leave this room, I’ll be able to teleport us to an old rendez-vous point just outside of town,” Gabrielle assured me.

Walking down a country road alongside a full-winged angel wasn’t the best way to keep a low profile, but walking alongside a full-winged angel down a street full of people whose friends and family she killed wasn’t exactly a viable alternative. “Uh… great. Just let me grab some stuff from the library.”

With a flash of gentle light, Gabrielle and I found ourselves in a barn, our arms full of various books on anatomy, neurology, surgery, and one on disease, just in case. For a rally point for a holy army, it seemed remarkably plain—there were no weapons aside from rusted-out farm tools, and no religious symbols at all.

“How far out of town are we?” I asked.

Gabrielle responded by throwing her arms around me, hugging me tight. “I can’t believe you found her,” she whispered.

“She sort of found me,” I muttered, stiff and awkward, unsure what sort of propriety to show in returning the gesture. Sure, she was Nyx’ sister, but she was also an angel, and they kind of had a reputation for going apeshit over displays of affection.

Gabrielle didn’t let up, pressing her perfect body up against me as she continued. “Do you and Nyx live with alone, or in a group?”

“There are six of us. Well, seven now, including you: Nyx, a nature spirit, myself, a student I’ve picked up, and a pair of sisters.” I wormed my way out of the embrace before continuing. “There’s something you should know, though: There’s a bit of a weird dynamic there. Most of them are Nyx’ thralls.”

The radiant smile sunk slightly. “Thralls?”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s people we’ve helped out, who pledged their lives to her in return.”

Gabrielle turned around, head sinking low. “She’s collecting souls?”

I placed my hand on her shoulder. “Not souls. Followers. She and I provide for them, and they help us out however they can.”

“And what did these unfortunate followers buy with their souls?” I could tell by her warbling voice that the news of her sister’s proclivity for slave gathering had her on the verge of tears.

“I told you. Not souls.”

“Lives, then.”

“We’ve saved them. We stopped a creature that had destroyed the spirit’s lands and threatened to keep spreading. And Nyx rescued the sisters from—well, it sounds like the same thing she rescued you from. The student is a girl we rescued from a pack of imps.”

Gabrielle turned back towards me, her eyes glaring into the core of my being. I couldn’t feel her digging around in my mind, like I did when digging for truth; instead, she seemed to be scanning something deeper. Finally, she nodded, and the smile crept back onto her face. “It’s two hours to town.”

“Is that including the time we spend dodging monsters and bullets?”

The right side of her mouth curled a little higher. “That won’t be an issue. But if you don’t mind, this would be an excellent place for our first lesson.”

I shrugged, setting the books on the rotting wooden floorboards. “Why not. Meditation, she said, right?”

Gabrielle nodded. “It’s harder than it looks, but easier than it seems. We used to do this when we were girls, to find inner peace whenever—whenever things got stressful.” She sat down cross-legged, and I followed suit.

“It’s all about ignoring your physical senses, and perceiving with your soul.”

I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. I could hear a breeze passing through a tiny window up in the loft. I could smell the dust and rotting wood of the barn competing with the aloe-scented hand soap we’d been using for laundry. I could feel my forearm twitching against the urge to scratch an itch I could barely tell was there. Ignoring one sense is easy—but ignoring them all seemed downright impossible.

“Can I guide you?” I heard her voice in my head.

“Please.”

Her influence was completely different to what I learned. She wasn’t making me do anything—she gently dimmed my focus, making me completely aware of what she doing, in a way that I knew full-well I could easily resist.

The ‘perceiving with your mind’ came slowly, but it was incredible. Every single particle of everything around me slowly came into my sphere of awareness. If I focused on the head of a shovel that was leaning against the far wall, I could feel the rust creeping along the metal tip, bubbling outwards and slowly spreading like an infection, corrupting the metal beneath it.

Well, okay, she could feel it; I was about as far from the driver’s seat as possible when this was accomplished.

When I tried to shift my focus to my surroundings, she helped me sense absolutely everything around me—all at once, I was aware of every single dust mite crawling along the walls, the cloud of black flies just outside the window, and the old maple tree behind the barn, half-burned and outwardly withering, but still clinging to life and struggling to sprout new branches through its charred bark.

When I tried to focus on her, she hesitated, but ultimately helped me truly see her. What I saw in her was more than just the components—there was a light about her; the brightness of her soul, I suppose It was, kind and pure-intentioned, but with a dark sense of guilt looming within it.

I opened my eyes. “King said you were with the group that raided the hospital in the second wave.”

Gabrielle kept her eyes shut, but her head sunk. “I didn’t know there were innocents inside.”

“Why would you think there weren’t?”

“Ezekiel.”

I struggled through what little I knew of the bible, but couldn’t recall anything about Ezekiel except ‘some cold shit to say before you bust a cap in someone’, as Pulp Fiction put it.

“He was our commander. Some Baptist from the 1800s who said he was chosen to lead us through Armageddon. He told us that the rapture had already taken all the good souls away.”

I watched as her wings drooped slightly, their glow actually seeming to fade.

“I think a lot of angels were thinking that way,” I offered

“That doesn’t make what I’ve done any less wrong. I don’t deserve to be rescued.”

I reached forward and took her by the chin, pulling her eyes to mine. “You were lied to,” I told her. “The one who deserves to be locked up is Ezekiel.”

“He was cut down at the hospital. For all his skills as a preacher, he was thoroughly unskilled as a fighter.”

I sighed. “That’s a shame. I’d imagine the chance to confront him would have been cathartic.”

She smiled. “Thank you.”

I lost myself in the draw of her smile, and found myself leaning in, planting a gentle kiss upon her lips. She let me linger for a moment before she slowly withdrew and shook her head.

“Sorry. I wanted to comfort you. I should’ve just hugged.”

“It’s fine. I’m just about ready to leave. But first, can I show you one more thing?”

I nodded and closed my eyes, eager to forget about my faux-pas. She took my mind back to the soul-perception state, and pulled me back to where I could see everything around us.

Then, bit by bit, it faded. The tree, the black flies, the shovel; everything except for her, myself, and the area between us.

“Something’s wrong. I can’t see anything.”

I could tell she was still assisting me, but everything was blank—it was like everything more than two feet away from us simply ceased to exist.

“This is what will keep us safe on the walk home,” she said.

I opened my eyes, and was surprised that I could still see everything perfectly clear. “So we’re invisible?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Unperceivable. Nothing will see us, hear us, smell us, or feel us.” She thought a moment, then added, “I suppose that last one isn’t entirely true. It will feel like a large area of absolute nothing. But unless something is searching for us, I doubt that will be a concern.”

I smiled. “Is that something you can teach me?”

She shrugged. “I suppose we’ll have to find out.”