The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“I know there’s a convergence of names, dear,” said Flora, “but I’m not actually anyone’s fairy godmother. That was just a Disney movie...and not one of their best, either. If you know someone named Fauna or Merryweather, they might have a magic wand they can wave to make people appear out of thin air. I, however, do not.”

Carly sighed. Even though Flora’s voice sounded tinny on the cell phone, it had lost none of its acid wit. The last thing Carly wanted right now was acid wit. “I don’t need you to find Abby,” she said, trying hard not to sound as desperate as she felt. “I know exactly where she is.” Oh, she knew, even though there was nothing she could take to the police—absolutely no proof at all, not even the evidence of her own senses. But Carly knew what an empty laundry hamper and a switched-off cell phone and a cold, empty space in the bed where her wife had been added up to: that fucking bitch Dalila. She’d done something to Abby. Not murder, but something...stranger. Carly’s mind pushed against the fog shrouding her memories of Flora’s party, but she couldn’t gain any traction. She couldn’t stop picturing Abby in that fog, either, wandering around Dalila’s apartment in a drugged-out haze while the other woman—

Furious, Carly banished the mental image. She couldn’t share that idea with Flora, much less the cops. It sounded too crazy to anyone who hadn’t lived through the last few days. But there was no way Abby would just vanish from her life without so much as an “It’s not you, it’s me.” Not the woman Carly married. She knew Abby too well. She didn’t have enough evidence to convince another living soul, but she had more than enough to convince herself.

“Then why not just go there?” Flora reasoned. “I realize we’re not long-time friends, Carly, but I could tell from the moment we met that you’re an exceedingly direct individual. If Abby’s wandered off into the arms of some eccentric fashion model, why don’t you just barge in after her and rearrange Dalila’s face into something less photogenic? It’s not what I’d do, but I can certainly see you doing it...and myself enjoying the gossip afterwards.”

Carly grimaced. She’d actually tried that, but.... “I couldn’t get in, Flora. She’s got a whole staff of stone-faced goons guarding the door. Well, okay, only two were guarding the door, but I knew the rest of them were back there somewhere. You saw how many of them she brought to the party.” She pressed a tired hand to her eyes. “Anyway, they said Dalila wasn’t home and they hadn’t seen Abby, and then they just clammed up. Completely. I left a message at the door, but I’m sure the bitch never saw it.”

“Hmm, I suppose you’re probably right.” Flora paused a moment, then spoke again with a sly new tone to her voice. “Well then, you’ll need some other excuse to get into Dalila’s apartment. After all, without my help, you’d be forced to resort to breaking and entering. And I’d hate to think I led you into a life of crime.”

Carly resisted the urge to pump her fist. “Thank you, Flora,” she sighed, then collapsed in a chair. She was too worried and heartbroken to feel true excitement, but this was the best news she could hope for, under the circumstances. If anyone could get her into a rich person’s house, it was Flora Weinstein.

“Oh, I’m glad to help,” Flora answered. Carly could almost picture her rubbing her hands now. “Anything to keep life interesting. And I do enjoy a bit of intrigue. There’s so much less opportunity for that than for parties.”

Hanspeter leaned on his cane and reached for the bell with a groan. The words popped out of Carly’s mouth before she even had a chance to consider them. “Want me to get that for you?” she asked, then mentally kicked herself.

Herr Goedde shot her a scornful look, then leaned a little further and mashed the buzzer himself. He might not be able to carry his own equipment, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t push a simple button. After all, he was a photographer. The kind Abby only dreamed of becoming.

Carly wouldn’t have planted her foot so deep in her mouth if her nerves weren’t stretched to the snapping point. She hadn’t been able to prepare for this, and that made an already-dicey situation even dicier. First there was Hanspeter, who became available only on short notice. Then there was the fact that Carly had no idea what would happen when Dalila’s goons caught sight of her. If they didn’t toss her out of the building immediately, that might mean something nastier waited for her upstairs. But even if it didn’t, Carly wasn’t dumb enough to think she’d find Abby just lounging on a divan, eating bonbons and waiting to be rescued. Then there was the biggest question of all: how to get Abby out, once she’d found her. If Dalila were alone, Carly felt sure she could take her, but there was that whole pack of goons to consider.

It was too much to think about at once, so Carly didn’t. She just let her nerves bear the load, fiddling and twitching until the speaker clicked. “Ah, Herr Goedde!” Dalila’s voice trilled out like a cuckoo from a clock. “I’m so happy you to see you! Please come up.” Carly heard the latch snap and took a deep breath. Then she shrugged the camera bag further up her shoulder and followed Hanspeter inside.

When they reached the elevator, the operator’s eyes flicked over her for less than a second. Carly couldn’t tell whether he recognized her or not, only that he didn’t care if he did. He delivered his charges to the penthouse in silence, then returned to his little cage—like a dog shuffling back into its doghouse, Carly thought. She toyed briefly with the notion that he might live in there. Then the door of Dalila’s apartment opened, and there stood Abby’s kidnapper herself, darkly radiant. “Herr Goedde, I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you that I decided to answer the door my—oh.”

Dalila’s expression shifted from cheerfulness to startled distaste, then shifted again, and again, until Carly was completely unable to interpret it. “And Ms. D’Antonio. What a pleasant surprise to see you again. You’ve proved surprisingly resourceful, haven’t you? Jumping in to carry dear Herr Goedde’s bags, I mean.”

Carly showed her teeth. “Well, I didn’t have anything else to do, did I? But don’t worry, I’m an expert at taking care of Abby. Setting up shoots, I mean.”

“I’d have expected no less,” Dalila smiled. Then she cocked her head. “You know, I really should have noticed this earlier, but you remind me of someone. Dear Dr. Coen was such a clever man, and so amusing...for a while, at least.” She looked suddenly impish. “Please do come in, Ms. D’Antonio; I’ll give you the grand tour. Oh, and you, Hanspeter, why don’t you have a seat while I let my staff bring you some tea? You do like tea, don’t you?”

The photographer opened his mouth to protest, but Dalila had already pressed him gently onto a sofa and chucked him under the chin. “There, dear, I’m sure you could use a rest after your tiring trip across town. Isn’t that right?” Baffled, Goedde nodded and subsided.

Carly stared at him a moment, then let Dalila head her off down the hall. “It’s a bijou sort of place,” said the model, scattering the words behind her like rose petals. “But I do like it. I’ve spent quite a long time getting it just the way I want it. A place for everything and everything knows its place, you understand.”

Carly trailed behind her, fists clenching and unclenching as she tried to decide whether the razors behind Dalila’s words were real or imaginary. She’d expected lies from Dalila, or anger, or a kick straight out the door. Anything but this, really. If Carly had listed the top twenty ways she thought their confrontation might go, this wouldn’t even have been number twenty-one.

Dalila led Carly through a bewildering profusion of rooms, babbling delightedly about every piece of art from tiny figurines to life-sized statues to Ming vases large enough to bathe in. Carly didn’t even try to hold onto everything Dalila told her; there was just too much of it. The place was just one posh, gigantic maze . She tried to imagine how much time and money it had taken to turn an entire block of buildings into a single home, but she couldn’t do it. She just kept thinking about Renata’s description of Dalila, one of the few bits of the party she could remember: “She is always hungry for more.” By now, Carly could only make her fists unclench by reaching for a cigarette. She didn’t think to ask if Dalila minded, but then again, she probably wouldn’t have asked even if she had thought about it.

It didn’t matter anyway. She’d barely got the thing lit before a butler appeared and whisked it silently from her fingers.

Dalila didn’t seem to notice. “And this, of course, is my pride and joy,” she said, ushering Carly into a room that didn’t look much different from any of the others: rich, fancy, and full of weird-ass art. But Dalila obviously thought it was special, and she was bursting at the seams to tell Carly why. “I wouldn’t have the nerve to display my work publicly, but if you can’t show your art in your own home, where can you show it?”

Carly looked again, a little closer. This room was full of costumed dress-maker’s dummies, each of them radiating the eerie, sinister aura you get with things that look almost, but not quite, human. Carly tried to focus on the costumes—Dalila was chattering about which outfit she’d worn to what shoot, and who had designed it—but for some reason, her attention kept shifting back to the dummies’ heads. They were just featureless cloth masks, but something about them put her on edge so badly that it was all she could do not to scream. “They’re, um...interesting,” she muttered, even though they weren’t. Scary, yes; interesting, no. In fact, Carly didn’t even understand how Dalila could call this shit her “work.” It was just dresses on dummies. If that was art, then every Macy’s window was a fucking Picasso. She pulled out another cigarette, hoping to take the edge off with a nicotine fix, but she hadn’t even lit the thing before another butler nabbed it from her.

This time, Dalila deigned to notice. “You should probably quit anyway,” she said. “Filthy habit. I’m sure it’s cost you a girlfriend or two.”

That was almost it right there. Carly could picture her hands wrapping around Dalila’s throat so clearly that she felt like she’d already done it. She could even feel the bitch’s windpipe giving way beneath her grip. It felt so sweet...but she had to calm down. Carly reminded herself that Dalila’s goons would pry her off before she did much damage, that she’d be lucky to get off with a swift kick out the door, and that then she’d never find out what had happened to Abby. But the vision of bruises blossoming on that paper-pale throat crowded every other thought from Carly’s head. Her vision reddened around the edges, and she had to take several deep breaths just to clear it.

Dalila pretended not to notice. “This is my newest piece,” she said, her voice ringing shrilly now in Carly’s ears. “I just know you’ll love it.” Carly couldn’t even look at her by this point; everything about the woman was a homicidal rage trigger. Out of sheer desperation, she followed Dalila’s finger toward the dummy in question. Anything was better than looking at Dalila herself, anything at—

Carly felt like she’d been thrown into an icebox, her rage crystallizing into terror so suddenly that she could almost cut herself on the edges. This is what it feels like to walk into a horror novel, she thought. Her mental voice was calm, but that was only because it was frozen inside a block of ice.

The dummy was just one of a dozen or so, with nothing to distinguish it in the eyes of a casual observer. It was dressed in a bronze and black flapper’s dress, but they all had different costumes, and the uniqueness of each gave them all a paradoxical sameness. To anyone else, this would just be another stylish outfit on another uninteresting mannequin.

But Carly had run her hands over those hips a thousand times. She’d kissed every hollow of that neck, caressed those breasts, known that body so intimately that no amount of fabric could ever disguise it. The body had the stillness of death; Carly couldn’t see the chest rise and fall with even the whisper of a breath, but there was no mistaking it. That was Abby under there.

The idea was absurd, impossible; and just for a moment, Carly checked herself. Sure, she thought, it looked like Abby, but...maybe it was a mannequin made to look like Abby? She took another look. Maybe...and maybe Carly was a refugee from Mars. Nervously, she reached for the mannequin’s arm, which was cocked at a stiffly dramatic angle. It had a firm, fleshy feel, nothing at all like the limb of a stuffed dummy. And it was cool. Not cold, but cool, like skin that had been exposed to winter air for a few minutes. Fighting a shudder, Carly slid her fingers down to the “mannequin’s” wrist and around, feeling for the pulse-point. She couldn’t find it.

Her stomach clenched like a fist. She hadn’t though Dalila would murder Abby, but she had—and then she’d stuffed her like a doll! But no, even as Carly thought it, she caught the faintest glimpse of movement from a higher point on Abby’s body. Beneath the dummy costume, Abby’s nipples were tenting. Tenting, as though at Carly’s touch. She wasn’t moving, she wasn’t even fucking breathing, but Abby was turned on.

Carly dropped the wrist like it was a snake. She wanted to turn around and scream—whether in anger or fear she wasn’t sure—but before she could say anything, common sense caught up with her. Whatever the hell Dalila had done to Abby, it wasn’t normal, not even drug-and-kidnap normal. This was some kind of—oh fuck, just go ahead and think it—some kind of freaky voodoo-zombie shit. She turned to look at Dalila, and now at last she saw the truth behind the blatantly insincere gaze. Dalila hadn’t just been mocking her; she’d used the whole tour as an excuse to steer Carly into this particular room. She didn’t want Carly to wonder where Abby was; she wanted her to know—and to know how helpless she was to do anything about it.

At that thought, Carly’s rage flared back to life; but now she knew better now than to reveal it. It wouldn’t just get her kicked out the door, or arrested, or even killed. Dalila had worse threats up her sleeve than death itself. That didn’t quench Carly’s determination to save Abby, but it did make her rethink her strategy. She’d have to bank her rage for the moment, hiding it deep behind the shattered walls of her heart...and letting it build. Slowly. Carefully. Until she found just the right way to channel it.

Carly dropped her eyes and forced her shoulders to slump. “I feel sick,” she mumbled. “I think I’d better leave now.”

“Oh, poor thing,” Dalila cooed. She pouted prettily and stepped aside. “It’s funny, but this room does take people that way from time to time. I don’t know what it is about dummies; they’re just things, after all. Ah, well, let me get someone to show you the way out.” She gestured, and one of the interchangeable goons stepped in between them, cutting Dalila off from Carly’s view.

Right up until the moment she stepped out on the sidewalk, Carly wasn’t sure she’d really be allowed to leave. After that, all she wanted was to get back in.

What do you bring to a fight with a voodoo priestess and a horde of bland-faced zombies? Carly wasn’t sure, but she hoped it wouldn’t matter. If everything went as planned, she’d be able to sneak in, grab Abby, and sneak out again with no one the wiser. But that was a really huge “if,” and Carly was no dummy. She’d brought along the expandable tactical baton from her bouncer days, just in case. She was comfortable using it, and she didn’t have to worry about accidentally shooting herself in the foot with the damn thing.

Besides, the baton should work just as well as a gun against Dalila. Just because she was (apparently) a zombie voodoo priestess, that didn’t make her an actual monster. There were drugs that could do what had been done to Abby; Carly had seen The Serpent and the Rainbow, and she knew it was based on a true story....Okay, it was based pretty loosely on a true story. The point was that Abby’s captors were just as human as Carly, so they were just as vulnerable to clobbering with a heavy steel rod—which, again, she hoped she wouldn’t have to use.

Fortunately, someone had left a stack of crates and trashcans in the alley next to Dalila’s building. Scrambling up the pile, Carly found herself almost at armpit-level with the fire escape. A couple of the crates sagged alarmingly under her weight, but she pulled herself onto the ladder before they could break. Then she climbed the rungs as quickly and as quietly as she could, looking for a way inside.

It turned out to be almost ridiculously easy. At the penthouse level, the window next to the fire escape had been broken and taped over with a sheet of plastic-pretty recently, Carly thought. Privately she thanked the inefficiency of New York City contractors. All the modeling money in the world won’t bump you up past “sometime this month,” bitch, she thought, and grinned to herself. She pulled out the scissors she’d brought to free Abby from the dummy costume and used them to cut through the plastic. After that, it took only a moment to find the latch and let herself inside.

Carly found herself in a dark, silent loft dotted with a few low pieces of furniture. She didn’t see or hear anyone, and there was nothing here to pique her interest, so she crept on into the central hallway. Dalila hadn’t shown her this section during the tour, but Carly recognized the style well enough. The hall was scattered with artwork and branched every few feet like some kind of freakish modern-day labyrinth. In fact, some of the statues actually had bull heads.

Carly passed those as quickly as she could, keeping her flashlight trained low to minimize the risk of discovery. It took her several minutes to find the mannequin room, but she didn’t run across a single goon along the way. That was hardly reassuring, considering how many other things she’d found to make her jump—everything from a creaky floorboard to an unexplained breeze—and it was definitely weird. Dalila had plenty of resources to guard her home top to bottom—and plenty of valuables to make it worth guarding. So why didn’t she? Something was wrong here.

Even as she thought it, something creaked behind her. Carly jumped and whirled, stabbing her flashlight beam into the blind white eyes of a statue. A perfectly ordinary, inanimate statue. She shuddered, then turned back to the entrance of the mannequin room.

Abby was easy enough to pick out, even by flashlight. Carly had traced every line of that body in darkness as well as light. She knew Abby’s curves like she knew her own. Better, perhaps. She crept softly to the foot of her wife’s platform, then reached up and patted her cheek. Abby didn’t stir. In fact, she didn’t even appear to breathe. Carly was heartsick but unsurprised. Clamping the flashlight between her teeth, she took the scissors in one hand and pinched the fabric away from Abby’s face with the other.

The cloth was looser than she expected. All this time she’d assumed Abby must be sewn into the costume, but the headpiece pulled free as easily as a Halloween mask. Just for a moment, Carly’s mind tossed out a warped image of herself in a Scooby-doo episode, but she didn’t even have time to think of laughing. There was no ordinary human being under this mask; Abby’s skin was even paler than the fabric had been. She was as pale as milk, as pale as marble. Even her hair was colorless, giving her an air of antiquity that was belied by her smooth, pale skin. Her sightless eyes stared straight over Carly’s head, their pupils mere pinpricks in the depths of ghost-white irises.

Carly choked and fell backwards, catching herself just in time and almost swallowing the flashlight. Her voice mumbled around the metal cylinder, incoherent garbles of horror that had started in her head as, “What did she do to you?”

If Abby understood, she had no answer. She just kept staring over Carly’s shoulder, unseeing, unhearing, uncaring. Like one of the guards at Buckingham Palace, Carly thought: not moving until she got the right kind of order. Dalila’s order. Suddenly the bottom fell out of Carly’s stomach. This wasn’t voodoo. This wasn’t drugs. This wasn’t anything normal or sane or real or rational or oh God, oh fuck oh God oh fuck Abby was a living statue and Dalila had done it to her—

Something clattered behind Carly, loud as a gunshot in the silent room. She spun, the flashlight still clenched between her teeth, and spotted a decorative fan on the floor some thirty feet away. The last time she’d seen it, just a minute ago, it had been clenched in the hands of a kimono-wearing dressmaker’s dummy. A dummy that wasn’t there anymore. It had moved.

In that first moment of terror, when time slowed to a glacial pace, Carly came to several important realizations. She understood that all the dummies were people, just like Abby. She noticed that another couple of platforms were empty now, and that two white-clad figures stood in the doorway, blocking her escape from the room. She saw that Abby was beginning to move, too, so slowly and silently that Carly knew exactly what was happening all around her, with every damn one of the dozen-plus dummies in the room. And she knew that even though these things had been people, they weren’t people anymore. Dalila had done something to them...and now they were going to do something to Carly.

She wheeled around to protect her back, and then she came to one final conclusion: There was a reason why nobody ever held flashlights in their mouths. It was way too easy to bump the switch with your tongue.

The next few seconds passed in a blur of panic and darkness. Carly spat the flashlight into her hand, but it was slick with saliva and rolled through her fingers before she could catch it. She heard the clatter of metal on hardwood, then her own involuntary yelp. Frantically she fished out her lighter, jammed in a tight rear pocket, and tried to summon the flame. And all the while, her imagination filled the darkness with silent, faceless figures that converged on her with arms outstretched. It made her fingers tremble so badly that it took forever to spark the light. At last she succeeded.

Abby was closest to her. Terrifyingly close. Vague recognition flickered in her eyes, but behind that raged a vast, inhuman hunger. She reached for Carly and clamped the lid shut on her lighter.

Carly flung herself backwards, re-igniting the flame as fast as she could. This time she saw five or six more mannequins behind Abby, watching her eyelessly through their fabric masks. One of them reached for her again, and Carly almost stepped back again until some sixth sense warned her to go sideways instead. From the corner of her eye, she saw white hands grasping for the space she’d just vacated. Then something found the lighter again and the room dropped back into darkness.

They don’t need to see, Carly told herself, flailing and stumbling away from the creatures. But they know I do. When she thought she’d put a little distance between herself and the—whatever the hell they were—she flicked the wheel and the room sprang back into view. Carly was further from the door now than she had been before. They were herding her toward a corner, and when they got her there, they’d...they’d...Carly didn’t know, but she suddenly pictured herself with white skin and hair, posing mindlessly under a mask. Another mannequin reached for her lighter, and the flame wavered alarmingly as she snatched it clear.

“Stop fucking doing that!” Carly screamed. And suddenly something snapped in her, something that had been building up with every petty slight and every veiled insult and every tiny assault on her dignity that Dalila had perpetrated since they’d met. “Fine,” she muttered, a shade more calmly. They wanted to keep putting out her fire? Well then, she’d just have to give them one that would take a little longer. Carly spun again, found the most expensive wall hanging in reach, and held her flame to the tassels.

The ancient material went up with a fwoosh, a brilliant light, and a heat so intense that Carly had to throw herself sideways, even though she risked bumping into one of them. She didn’t, though. She didn’t even bump into Abby, who’d been close enough a moment ago to eat her face. Every ex-mannequin in the room, including Carly’s wife, was tearing off its costume and beating it against the tapestry.

The flames died slowly, and with it, a little of Carly’s terror. She was onto something here. These...things...were so obsessed with putting out the fire that they’d totally forgotten about her. Come to think of it, they’d snatched her cigarettes just as quickly, when she’d been here before. It was almost as if.... Carly scooted backwards to another hanging, set it alight, and grinned mirthlessly as half the pack peeled away to deal with this new threat. Maybe they were just really protective of Dalila’s treasures, but maybe it was something more.

It was definitely something more. One of the creatures—it wasn’t Abby, thank God it wasn’t Abby—got too close to the flame. The fire sprang up his arm and across his chest with terrifying speed. He let out a high, whistling hiss like a teakettle boiling over, a sound loud enough to bring tears to Carly’s eyes. Then he collapsed to the floor, and it consumed him as he thrashed in silent agony. It was like he’d been made of dry newspaper; in moments, there was nothing left of him but ash.

Carly’s smile grew wider, more merciless. These things could die. She could destroy them, torch them all except for Abby, and leave the place burning with Dalila still inside. That would get rid of the whole lot of them—

She came to her senses when five more of the things stepped into the room. Carly wasn’t ready to take them all on, not with just a cigarette lighter and a (now ridiculous) expandable baton. She’d have to run again. But it would be the last time she ran; when she came back, she’d be better prepared. She’d be fucking loaded for bear.

Abby was still fighting the first blaze, and it almost tore Carly apart to leave her at the mercy of the flames—and the mercy of Dalila. But Dalila had no mercy, and whatever she’d planned to do to Abby had already been done. If Carly had hope of rescuing her wife, she’d have to rescue herself first.

Carly backed out into the hallway. She could see the near end clearly now, in the light of the twin blazes, and she was sure there’d been a lot more statues out there before. Oh. Wait. Oh, fuck. Carly practically threw herself at the nearest table and set the runner alight. Immediately half a dozen ghosts, some still wearing their bull heads, materialized from the darkness and converged on the blazing table. They’d been planning to ambush her, Carly thought; and with so many bodies in such a narrow space, they would damn well have succeeded. She actually had to squeeze between them to get out, had to feel their too-cool bodies and powerful muscles bunch against her skin. Fortunately, she was less afraid now than she had been. She’d learned their secret, and she just kept lighting fires all the way down the hall to the fire escape.

Carly lost count of all the blazes she’d set before she was even halfway to safety. She never bothered trying to count the minions in the first place.

Renata answered the door herself, not wincing even a little at the bright winter sun. Of course, Carly hadn’t really expected her to be allergic to daylight. If none of the rest of it was true, then why should that be? It wasn’t important, anyway. Only two things mattered to Carly. One, Renata was the same kind of creature as Dalila; anything else would have been even more improbable than the truth. And two, Renata was nothing at all like Dalila. They clearly hated each other, and Renata hadn’t made any move against Carly or Abby—or anyone else Carly knew about, not that that meant much. Anyway, as far as Carly was concerned, Renata was the closest thing she was going to find to an ally. Not that that meant much, either.

“Ms. D’Antonio,” said Renata, blocking the doorway with a strategically placed arm. “I remember you. I didn’t expect to see you again, though.”

“You should have,” Carly told her. She moved in closer, deliberately crowding Renata’s space. “You knew what would happen when you left me and Abby alone with Dalila.”

Surprise, understanding, and perhaps the slightest hint of appreciation flickered across Renata’s face. “Ms. Weinstein gave you my address.”

“How else could I have found you?” Carly flashed a chilly smile, then brought out her lighter and tossed it in her palm. “Now, are you going to let me inside before or after the threats?”

The lighter had barely passed its zenith when Renata snatched it from the air. “Come in,” she answered blandly, then turned without a second glance. She held the lighter up over her shoulder as she stepped back into her home. “I might even give this back to you before you leave.”

Carly followed Renata into a townhouse apartment painted in muted earth tones. It couldn’t have been any more different from Dalila’s warren: there were no expensive works of art here, no antiques from bygone ages, and certainly no minions disguised as inanimate objects. This could have been anybody’s home, except...Carly noticed it, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. The closest she could come was that it felt almost ostentatiously humble. She looked around, trying to figure out what was nagging her subconscious.

At last it came to her: Renata’s home was completely empty of decoration. No knick-knacks on the mantel, no pictures on the wall, no vases on the table. Everyone had something they put up, even if it was just a five-dollar picture of dogs playing poker. Everyone had something they were proud of. But not Renata. She deliberately avoided any sign of pride, even house-pride. “You’re mortifying yourself,” Carly realized.

Renata turned and met her gaze without flinching. “I have much to atone for.”

Thinking of Dalila’s coterie, Carly couldn’t help but agree. She remembered Renata talking about ancient Rome, back at the party. She’d spoken of it like she’d been there. And if she had, then how many feasts would that make for her, over the course of two thousand years? How many monsters had she created? “I can imagine,” she said, not bother to hide her disgust.

“No,” Renata answered simply. “You can’t.” She sat down, gesturing to Carly to do the same. When Carly didn’t move, she shrugged and continued. “There are no words for what we are. Some myths come close; different people have spoken of us as vampires, succubi, jiang shi...but nothing expresses our nature precisely. I prefer the term ‘Ageless,’ but each of us calls ourselves something different. That is important to understand, Ms D’Antonio. We are not kin.”

Carly didn’t have time for a speech. “Look, Renata,” she said, “I don’t care what you call yourself. I know what you are, and what Dalila is—”

“No, you don’t. And you need to.” Carly had never seen a stare that direct and open; it made her want to flinch, but at the same time, she couldn’t look away from the incongruous black eyes in that ghostly face. Abby’s face had been ghostly, too, Carly remembered; and that almost brought a question to mind. Then Renata spoke again, and between the look on her face and the tone in her voice, Carly couldn’t help but listen. Her train of thought was completely derailed.

“I know you don’t remember what happened,” said Renata, “the night Dalila drank from you. You forgot it because she commanded you to forget. That is part of what she takes—” her face twisted, and she practically spat the next words—“what we all can take. You notice the loss of color, if we let you; but paleness is only the symptom of a much more serious theft.”

She took a deep breath, as if she were steeling herself for something she hadn’t confessed in years—centuries, perhaps. Even as impatient as Carly felt, she still found herself hooked. “We drink vitality,” Renata told her. “Passion. Everything that makes people people. Their bodies remain, but only as empty vessels. We hold the spark of their wills. And with that in our control, they become our puppets, our pets. Our playthings to do with as we please.” Her eyes flickered. “It is a heady power to wield, even for the best of us. And Dalila is not the best of us.”

Carly shivered, understanding at last all that had been done to Abby—and some of what had been done to her, as well. It took her several seconds to find her voice. “But I...Dalila doesn’t control me,” she said, hoping it was the truth. “She took from me, and I’m not a, a...I’m not like Abby.”

“The will is a powerful thing,” Renata answered. “It renews itself, if left alone. To drain it past the point of recovery, to make more creatures like ourselves, requires time and a determined effort. Dalila does that, with people she wishes to own. With others, she takes as much or as little as the occasion requires. You, she drained only once—and only to reach your wife.”

Carly’s emotions were whiplashing all over the place. She was horrified, desperate, disgusted—and yes, insulted, too. She needed Renata’s help, but she hated her, too. Especially now. “So, who do you drain?” she demanded, too angry and impatient to stop herself.

Renata sat very still. “No one, any longer. Neither Dalila nor I need to feed, to live....But you cannot understand what it feels like, to hold a person’s essence in your hand. You can not.“ Just for a moment, her composure slipped and Carly caught a glimpse of the longing she’d tried to bury. Then the mask dropped back into place. “I will not apologize for my weakness, Ms. D’Antonio. Nor will I boast of my strength. I am not the creature I was. Let that be enough for you.”

Carly knew she should be frightened out of her mind, but she must be so far past that point that she couldn’t even remember how it felt. Unbidden, a memory from the party popped back into her head. “That was why she invited you,” she guessed. “She was teasing you.”

“Oh, yes,” Renata nodded. Her face was calm, but her voice was bitter. “Dalila refuses to believe that anyone could give up this power. My existence mocks her claim that morality is meaningless to our kind. She wants to see me debase myself. She wants me to drink, deep.”

That statement brought Abby back to the forefront of Carly’s mind. “But you don’t,” she said quickly, desperately. “You know it’s wrong. And that means you have to help—”

Renata held up a hand to cut her off, but then she paused so long that Carly had to try again. “I need—” she began, but Renata shook her head almost violently.

“You need what you cannot have. Abby is gone. She will never be the person she was before. You cannot revive the dead. You can only kill yourself trying.”

“There has to be—”

Renata leapt to her feet so quickly that Carly gasped. “Leave now, Carla D’Antonio, and forget your lover ever existed. It was a mistake for me ever to have let you inside.”

Carly stood her ground with effort, her eyes welling. “No,” she whispered, then said it again more loudly. “No. I won’t accept that. Abby is my—” She struggled to find words, any words, that would adequately convey all that her beloved had been to her: wife, lover, best friend, confidante, and a thousand other things no language could express. “She’s my everything. I can’t just leave her there.”

“Then you will die.”

Carly raised her chin. “I’d rather die for someone I love than live the rest of my life knowing I didn’t try to save her.” It was strange, hearing herself say something like that and realizing she meant it.

Renata seemed to think it was strange, too. Her fury evaporated, and just for a moment, she looked ready to join Carly in her tears. “Dalila is a fool,” she muttered at last, “to ignore treasure like this, even when she has it in her grasp.”

Suddenly she was right next to Carly, stroking her cheek like a lover. “Be still,” she murmured before Carly could even think of trying to escape, “One taste is all I ask. One taste, before it’s all gone.”

Carly didn’t know whether it was fear or the first stirrings of Renata’s control that made her nod. All she knew was that she couldn’t refuse the request...if you could even call it that. Too late, Carly realized she’d never been safe here at all. Renata was just too fast, too clever. She could drain Carly all the way down to a husk, and Carly had gone and made herself irresistible to her. Now all she could hope was that Renata had enough self control to keep her word and stop with a “taste.”

Then Carly stopped hoping even for that.

Carly was pretty sure the only reason she heard Dalila coming was that Dalila wanted Carly to hear her. After all, she was a monster, right? She could do all kinds of freaky shit. Yep, she wanted Carly to know she was there...and that meant it’d be pretty rude for Carly to ignore her. “Hi!” she chirped, grinning so widely it felt like the top of her head might fall off. She gestured around the bar with a half-filled glass of Stoli, almost spilling it on the bartop before she recovered. The room already stank of booze, and she couldn’t stand to waste another drop. “I broke into your place again, figured you wouldn’t mind.” She looked down at her glass again, taking a moment to find her focus. “Oh, and I stole some of your liquor. You’ve got some damn good shit, you know that?”

“Yes, I do,” Dalila murmured. Carly couldn’t read her true feelings, but she didn’t think Dalila would be too happy that she’d trespassed on her a second time. Still, she looked pretty polite, for a monster. “And no, I don’t. Mind, that is.” Suddenly she was right across the bar, perching casually on a stool and smiling like a well-fed cat. Shit. She moved just as fast as Renata.

“I hope you don’t mind that it’s just the two of us,” said Dalila. “You left a bit of work for my pets on your last visit...I know I should install a sprinkler system, but I’m irrational that way. I just can’t stand the thought of all my furniture getting soaked. I prefer to use my personal team and a healthy dose of caution. Not letting pyromaniacs into my house, that sort of thing. In any event, they’re off cleaning up after you and I don’t want to interrupt their labors. Besides....I thought you might not want Abby to see you like this. Really, Carly, you don’t look at all well. I say that as a friend. You seem dizzy, pale, unkempt. As though you’ve had perhaps a bit too much of my...damn good shit.”

Carly brushed her off with a sloppy wave. “Oh, that’s not the booze. I stopped by an old friend of ours, you know? Well, mine. You don’t really have any friends, do you? Just things you own and people you haven’t killed yet.” Dalila’s smile tightened and her eyes narrowed, but Carly didn’t give a fuck. That was the upside of knowing you were about to die. You didn’t care who you pissed off. “Anyhoo, she said I should just give up on Abby. Oh, and she said I should kill you, I think....I dunno, things got a little hazy there at the end.”

Dalila’s smile broadened and her eyes filled with savage joy. Carly thought it was the first genuine emotion she’d ever seen from the bitch. “She drank from you!” Dalila crowed. “Two hundred years of shoving her morality down my throat, and at last she breaks her vows—for you! Oh, I knew there was a reason I hadn’t killed you yet!” Her laugh was musical, but there was so much cruelty behind it that Carly had to fight not to retch. Fortunately, she wouldn’t have long to worry about it.

“But not anymore, right?” Carly said. Her voice was harsh, raw. She’d heard drunks talk like that, right before they pulled a knife and tried to stab the bouncer. “You took...you took everything from me. It’s like you killed me and left me alive to watch. You ripped out my heart, and now you’re just watching the body twitch because you think it’s funny. I...I want you dead so badly.” She choked back a sob. “I came here to kill you, you utter fucking bitch.”

Dalila didn’t seem the slightest bit scared. Actually, she looked like a chess master who’d just taken her opponent’s queen. “Oh, really? You got completely blind stinking drunk, wandered in here barely able to stand, and then downed even more liquor once you got here...because you came to kill me?” She put her elbows on the bar and leaned in, like a lover whispering sweet nothings. “I don’t think so, Carly. I think we both know what you came here to do. The vodka just gave you the courage to ask for it.”

For a long moment, Carly did nothing but gape. Then her shoulders dropped and she began to nudge her glass back and forth, not looking at Dalila. “No,” she said sadly, “I really did come here to kill you. I just got kind of...lost...on the way. Thinking about, about—”

“Abby.”

“Abby.” Carly sighed. “See, killing you would be a hell of a great thing. Right up there with blowing up....oh, fuck, I don’t know. The shark. The Death Star. The Ark of the Covenant. Anyway, say I did it. Say I killed you. Then what? Abby’s still a zombie, and I’m still alone. Forever, or until I decide to kill myself. ”

Dalila pretended to sound sympathetic. “But there’s another option, isn’t there? One that will let you be together again.”

Carly still refused to meet her gaze. “I didn’t think there was, at first. But Renata told me I was a treasure. Not Abby. Me. She said you didn’t see it before, and you were a fool. But...maybe...do you see it now?” At last she raised her eyes, and the look on Dalila’s face dropped Carly’s heart straight through the floorboards.

Dalila smiled around her hunger. “Well, one thing I can say for Renata: she enjoys only the finest vintages. I must have been incredibly jaded, not to appreciate yours before now. Come here, darling. Let me taste you again.” She reached across the bar.

“Hang on!” Carly squeaked, stepping backwards so fast she half-sprawled against the back of the bar. She fumbled for the Stolichnaya. “We have to toast first!” Carly noticed herself smiling that smile again, but now she felt tears running down her cheeks, too. “You know, to...to stuff.”

At last she found the bottle. It was almost empty, but that didn’t matter much. She plopped two glasses on the bar and sloshed the last of the vodka into them. Dalila picked hers up and gave a mocking salute.

Carly copied her. “A toast,” she said, “to the three most important things!” Then she sucked down the booze in a single gulp.

Dalila’s lip curled. She was clearly hungry, but she was having fun, too. She’d hold off a little longer, if Carly just kept being amusing. “And those things are...?”

Carly pulled out her lighter. “One, I really did come here to kill you.” She flicked it to life, savoring the sudden fear in Dalila’s eyes. “Two, bartenders know how to fake being drunk really well.” She tossed the lighter on the bar and Dalila flinched backwards. It might have been her first mistake in a thousand years of immortal life; it was certainly her last. “And three, vodka makes the best Molotov cocktails.”

The fire caught fast. 100-proof liquor tended to do that, and Carly had spread it all across the bar...and the floor in front of the bar...and the barstools...and everywhere else the bitch was likely to stand. As fast as she was, Dalila couldn’t make it out the door in time. First her dress caught fire; then she caught fire.

Dalila burned slower than the others had, more like thick cloth than old paper. Carly had time to watch her beat helplessly at the flames before that final realization: being immortal didn’t mean you could never die. It would have been nice if she’d screamed, but all Carly got was that teakettle hiss. It would have to be enough.

Carly let Dalila burn for almost two full minutes, only using the extinguisher to keep the fire from spreading to the rest of the bar. When there was nothing left but ash, Carly took another three minutes dousing that. Then she spent about five more making sure the bitch wasn’t going to rise from the dead. When she was finally satisfied, she set out to find Abby.

The coterie were no threat to Carly this time around. She could tell Dalila had called for help when she realized she was dying, but she’d taken too long to realize it, and her “range” must have been fading by then. Or maybe panic had weakened it. Anyway, Carly found about a dozen zombies in the area around the bar, standing slack-faced and motionless with fire extinguishers dangling from their fingers. Then, once she’d shouldered past them, she found the rest of the pack standing or sitting or posing, as oblivious to their Mistress’ death as the statues they sometimes mimicked.

And would they die, too, if no one like Carly came to rescue them? She wondered, and she pitied them, but she had no help to offer. Carly was here for one person alone.

She walked right past Abby the first time because she’d expected to find her in the room of mannequins. Of course, Carly had torched that the last time she’d been here; but even though she wasn’t really drunk, that didn’t mean she was in the clearest frame of mind.

Besides, Abby was almost unrecognizable in her alcove. She was twined like a nymph around a marble tree trunk, her own skin marbleized by some skillful painter. Another of the coterie, Carly guessed. Just because they’d lost their wills, that didn’t mean they’d lost their talents. Maybe they could use them at Dalila’s command even after being drained.

Carly lifted Abby from the plinth and settled her on the floor, cradling her head in Carly’s lap. Abby’s eyes were closed, her limbs firm but not too rigid to rearrange. Carly pulled her arms up around her neck. Then she bent to kiss her wife’s cold, motionless lips.

Was it just her imagination, or did she feel the hint of a sigh against her cheek? She pulled back just a little, then brushed her fingers across Abby’s nipples. They stiffened instantly. “That’s my girl,” Carly whispered. She leaned in for another kiss, then brought one of Abby’s arms down to her own breast—as bare as her wife’s, since she’d left her clothes in the bar. She knew how this was supposed to work. Renata had told her.

Soon Abby’s hand began to caress Carly’s breast on its own, and then her eyes opened. Her pupils were pinpricks, her irises almost indistinguishable from the sclera. But somewhere, deep within those pinpricks, a hunger was stirring.

Carly leaned in, slipping a hand between Abby’s legs to tickle her swelling clit.

Pain bloomed suddenly across her breast, making her gasp, but she didn’t stop her motions. Renata had told her to expect this. Carly knew that if she looked down, she’d see a jagged streak of white; but she didn’t dare look down.

Abby’s other hand dropped between Carly’s legs and slipped inside her, questing deeper than it ever had before. That hurt, too, but less than her breast; and it also felt good in a way. Carly groaned, even as Abby’s pupils began to widen. Pale color flooded her irises, and she blinked. “C-Carly?”

“That’s right sweetheart,” Carly murmured, smiling as best she could. “I’m here. Here to—uh!—save you.”

Abby’s eyes darkened a little and she squirmed weakly in Carly’s grasp. “No,” she whispered, but her hands never stopped their work. Carly could feel it now, her will washing away under a tide of blind arousal. It felt really good now, and soon it would feel even better; she knew that from experience. Renata had left Carly’s memory intact, so she knew the pleasure of surrendering her will. But after all, Renata had been merely an acquaintance. There was a limit to what they could share. Abby, on the other hand, was the love of Carly’s life. Carly was—and would be—the love of Abby’s. The memory of that bond was strong enough to give Abby the will to feed; and that love, flowing into her, would restore her. In a way.

“No,” Abby moaned again. She’d come back enough, now, to understand what Carly was doing; and ironically, that made it harder for them to complete the process. Abby didn’t want what Carly was offering. But Carly had known she wouldn’t want it, and she was determined to give it to Abby anyway. She just had keep giving long enough to be sure it took. If she failed, Abby would return to the same deathlike trance as the rest of Dalila’s coterie. If she succeeded, something worse would happen.

Renata hadn’t lied to Carly, but she hadn’t told her the whole truth, either. Not at first. She wanted to keep Carly alive and whole, miserable though she might be, but Carly wouldn’t allow it. One way or another, she was going back for Abby; so the least Renata could do was make her sacrifice count for something. That was how she rationalized it to Carly, just before explaining how she’d come to be what she was. She and Dalila and all their kind had started out as slaves, drained dry by some other immortal. They’d had no more will than Abby, and when they drained a victim’s will, they retained it no more than a sieve retains water. The inertia of will-lessness held them bound to their makers.

There was just one way out of that trap, a way so difficult and horrifying that creatures like Dalila tried not to think about it...and creatures like Renata never forgave themselves for it. Each of them, at some point in their slavery, had drained a victim with whom they shared such passion that it burst the bonds of passivity forever. It restored their freedom—but at the cost of someone else’s. Someone they loved.

Carly could only save Abby by sacrificing herself; and she’d do it gladly, even though she knew the cost. There’d be no restoration for her, no other source of passion to reignite her will. Abby was her light and life, and she possessed no other. But she’d give that light and life back to Abby, if she could.

The problem was that Carly’s resolve was withering by the second and Abby’s was growing. It was like they were racing, only in opposite directions. Abby didn’t want to hurt her, and if she gained enough will to stop herself before Carly lost enough will to stop pushing her, all this would be for nothing. Carly had to keep going, keep tempting. As best she could, she cradled the half-struggling form beneath her and pressed their bodies together.

Abby whined, but her fingers began to squeeze and pump. She’d spent years learning all the right moves with Carly; and now she had no choice but to use them. That, combined with the draining, hurled Carly into a fog of passive ecstasy. She writhed and moaned, but gently, since that was all she could manage now. One by one, her every thought and desire trickled out of her and into Abby. She sagged against her wife’s face and sighed.

Rich, dark color bloomed in Abby’s eyes, and her face began to twist. “No,” she whimpered, “No, Carly, I won’t. I can’t. I can’t do this to you.”

By now, the essential Carly was just a quivering nub with space for a single thought. That thought, though, was important enough to hold onto even when she’d surrendered everything else: Abby had the will to resist her now, really resist, but she wasn’t fully restored. If she had been, Carly would be too far gone to notice. She couldn’t give in yet.

It was almost impossible to raise her hand, but she managed because she had to. Her fingers circled Abby’s wrist and drew her, almost languidly, another half inch inside herself. The drain intensified; it was just reflexive—as was Carly’s response. Her muscles clenched and she let out a final involuntary moan, then dropped her hand.

Abby screamed.

Sometime later, Abby sat on the floor of Dalila’s penthouse and cradled the limp, white form of her wife. “Oh, Carly,” she sobbed, “I’m so sorry. I never, ever wanted this.”

But the silent shape beneath her wanted nothing more.