Taken. Part II.
Somebody had taped “Buzzer fixed” above the buzzer button when Ceri wheeled up to the door, an hour later precisely. She pressed the button, the voice com clicked.
“Hello, who is it?” said Mallory’s voice, slightly distorted by the com.
“It’s me, Ceri.”
“Come on up.”
A loud electric fizzle signalled Ceri to open the white door. She swung it open into an open corridor and saw a single flight of stairs ascending. She hefted her bike frame onto her right shoulder and carried it up the stairs.
“Hello, so pleased to meet you,” said Mallory, standing in the doorway opening at the top of the steps. Mallory’s raven hair and dark glasses framed fiercely blue eyes, which darted over Ceri’s taut body. Ceri felt a tingle run down her spine, and adjusted the bike on her shoulder, suddenly conscious of her clinging bike gear.
“It’s lovely to meet you too,” said Ceri.
Mallory beckoned her into the studio. Mallory had very pale skin that made Ceri think of porcelain. She put her bike down beside the door as Mallory closed it.
“Please watch your feet, my son came round yesterday and we’re still recovering,” laughed Mallory.
Beautiful wooden planes, cars and trucks lay scattered across the wooden floor. The studio had a high ceiling with heavy brown curtains hanging down to cut off one half of the space from view.
“Coffee?”
“Oh, thanks. Black, please.”
A small kitchen space ran against one wall, an old circular table and chairs sat in the corner by the high studio windows. Ceri crossed to look outside, she could see red brick warehouses and the turn of the river, noted the folded up double bed against the other wall. Thoughts of Mallory’s pale skin slithered through her head before she could smack them down.
“What’s your son’s name?” said Ceri, sitting and smiling at Mallory as she set a cup of coffee down. Mallory had pretty fingers. The treacherous tingle ran down her spine again. It lingered pleasantly between her thighs.
“Bobby, he’s five. I make him the toys.”
“That’s great,” said Ceri, sipping her coffee.
“So you do freelance software security?”
“Oh, yeah, I do.” She sat up a little, she knew she had a good shoulders and maybe Mallory might be the kind of woman who liked that. That would be sweet. Her eyebrows knit slightly, “How’d you know?”
“Wendy told me,” laughed Mallory. Ceri felt her cheeks burn. “I’ll fetch her, she’s lying down at the moment.”
Mallory got up, moving with easy grace. Watching Mallory disappear behind the curtains, Ceri liked the way Mallory’s black jeans clung to her ass.
What the fuck is wrong with me!
Wendy’s. Girlfriend. And I’m wondering what she’s like in bed.
Stop it, you idiot.
God, she’s sexy.
She heard Mallory talking on the other side of the curtain, “Wendy, time to get up, Ceri is here.”
“Ceri?”
Ceri’s heart skipped.
Wendy sounded a little confused as if she’d been woken up from a deep sleep. Ceri mentally put a line through the sexual gymnastics she’d been embarrassed to imagine on the double bed. Clearly the curtains closed off the real sleeping quarters. Made sense.
“Mmhmm. She called on your phone earlier, she saw us outside.”
“Oh! Ceri!” Sounds of movement drifted through the partition.
Ceri smiled.
Wendy appeared through the curtains, she’d thrown on a white bathrobe that did nothing to conceal her delicious curves. Her hair had been cut into a short bob, giving Wendy a sex kittenish look that came as quite a contrast to the old long blonde curls.
I suppose short hair is what a straight girl thinks she’s meant to do. Kinda wish she hadn’t.
“You look great!” said Ceri, hugging. “I love what you did with your hair.”
“Mallory chose it,” said Wendy. Up close, Ceri thought Wendy looked a little glazed. For a moment it passed, Wendy leaned in close and whispered, “She got me some piercings too!”
“Come and sit down, Wendy,” said Mallory, pulling a chair out at the table. Wendy straightened and walked to her seat.
Mallory got you some piercings!? And you look out of it. . . . She’s not on something is she?
“So you two met in college?” Mallory beamed at Ceri. Mallory had full lips that curled upwards in a way that made Ceri feel like they shared a secret.
A sexy, naughty secret.
“Yeah, same dorm, freshman year.”
“Wow, so you really are old friends! Wendy said you played basketball, I can see that—you’re really tall.”
Ceri flexed. The tingle between her thighs came back something fierce. “Eh, six one isn’t really tall for basketball. Our team captain back then, Rebecca, she’s just over six five. She’s tall, she could’ve been a pro.”
Rebecca with her red hair and incredible height and those weird green eyes. Something chimed in Ceri’s mind, but the way Wendy sat beside Mallory made her push it off. Wendy stared forward, blinking into space, as if struggling with something.
“Wendy, are you feeling, okay?”
Wendy looked confused. Trembling slightly, she shook her head. “I . . . no. This feels . . . something weird.”
Ceri’s stomach lurched. She’s said that to me before. . . . She said it in the dream.
“Oh! Poor darling!” Mallory held a hand against Wendy’s forehead. “Oh, that’s a fever. I think you need to go back to lying down, I should never have got you up.”
Wendy’s eyes looked glassy, “Yes, I need that.” She started to get up. Mallory took Wendy by the hand.
“Come on,” said Mallory. “You’ll feel more comfortable once you’re back in place.”
“Um, can I help?” said Ceri. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. The studio walls seemed to bend inwards, the space suddenly constricted. Ceri had a primal urge to grab Wendy and run.
“No, thanks, Ceri! I’ve got it!” said Mallory, her smile made Ceri’s pussy warm. “Wave goodbye to Ceri, Wendy.”
Wendy’s right hand waved as Mallory pulled her through the curtains, she didn’t turn her head.
“Um . . . ,” Ceri stared at the curtains. She glanced at her bike by the door. The urge to run warred with the realization that she and Mallory could keep talking together.
Just the two of them.
Alone. With the double bed.
While Wendy slept.
I have to leave.
Ceri called out, “I better go!”
Mallory popped back through the curtains, “Oh, but you haven’t finished your coffee and I feel like we haven’t really gotten to know each other. Such a good friend of Wendy’s, I want to know so much about you.”
Mallory’s sexy, kissable mouth turned down. Ceri wanted to glide over and start doing things to make it better.
“No, I, uh, should leave you to it. And I’m all sweaty from my bike ride anyway, I need to shower.”
“Well, then,” said Mallory, “Let me give you my card.” She flourished a business card from out of her back pocket at Ceri. It had “Mallory” in an elegant black font and a number underneath. “I do sculpture. That’s what Wendy and I are actually doing. I met Wendy at the farmer’s market and thought she’d make an ideal subject. I’m sculpting her.”
“Wait,” said Ceri, her eyebrows knit, “So you’re not her girlfriend?”
Mallory’s seductive lips carried all kinds of promises direct to Ceri’s pussy, “Call me. I think I could make a great sculpture of you too.”
Ceri picked up her bike, “Thanks, I will.” She fled.
Back in her apartment, Ceri leaned her head against the shower tiles as the spray massaged the back of her neck and scalp. The thought of posing for Mallory teased her pussy. Mallory’s voice telling her to arch just so, doing it, spreading her thighs just a little bit more than asked. She licked her lips and her left hand eased downwards, sliding over her taut ab’s and in between her legs.
Her right hand turned hard on the shower lever, “Yiiiii!”
She leaped back and hastily yanked open the shower door. The ice-cold flecks of water splashing off the floor raised instant goose bumps on her skin.
“Gah,” she reached in around the spray and turned the cold water off. I will not think about Mallory.
She toweled herself and padded naked to bed. She pulled the old duvet up around her neck, and thought about college days instead.
Ceri knew she’d dream tonight.
So many dreams since college, almost the whole basketball squad in them. And also Wendy. Sorority girls. Couple of older, hot, female professors. Even some boys. Ugh. Everybody, but one person. Everybody, but Rebecca.
What does that mean? Why is Rebecca different? Apart from being the Queen of Darkness?
She stared up at the Fifties pulp novel cover hanging on her wall. A busty blonde in a very tight, white blouse, sat struggling weakly while a glowing metal helmet lowered on her head. A curly brunette with tight jeans and a very superior smile looked on. “Strange Conversion!” screamed the title in glorious, jagged gold script. “How young women today are being converted to perverse and unnatural lusts by sultry predators!” promised the blurb. Ceri always thought the blonde looked a bit like Wendy if you squinted sideways at the poster, although she’d never mentioned that to Wendy. Perish the thought.
Wendy said the same things she said to me in the dream. She’s finally dumped Martin after all this time. For a girlfriend who’s bossing her around and getting her piercings. Piercings! Wendy! What the fuck!?
What does it mean?
Do the math.
A lurking idea refused to let itself be suppressed any longer.
Rebecca. Sex with Wendy in college. Mistress. Mind control.
Mallory. Wendy turns gay. Same words. Mind control.
That’s insane, stop thinking that.
“Ridiculous,” said Ceri to the busty blonde on the wall. She went to sleep and started to dream.
They were in Rebecca’s dorm room. The three of them. Ceri, Wendy and Mistress. Like all the basketball scholarships, Rebecca got a single room of her own, free cable, her own shower, a view of the campus park and a nice, big bed. A basketball hoop hung on the back of the locked brown door. Bookshelves stacked with Rebecca’s criminology and forensic science books ran around the other walls; pictures of various family members in fire and police department uniforms staring down from the tops of the shelves.
Mistress sat in a wicker chair watching Wendy and Ceri on the bed.
The air smelled of sex.
They’d both done as told. Wendy bending forward across two pillows to raise her curvy ass up for fucking. Ceri locking Wendy’s wrists and ankles into cuffs and placing the ball gag in Wendy’s mouth. Wendy lay bent on the bed into a handcuffed hogtie. A delicious, curvy feast for the eye. Ceri took exquisite care in getting Wendy ready for the strap-on, although Ceri didn’t care about any of that any more. She only cared about the wet slap of flesh on flesh, Wendy’s curvy asscheeks smacking her thighs, her clit tingling as her black rubber cock pushed deeper inside Wendy’s slick ass.
Wendy drooled into the red ball gag, head shaking gently, long, blonde curls obscuring her face. A high pitched moan in time to each thrust.
“Use the finger vibe, Ceri,” said Mistress. Her voice husked, one impossibly long leg raised over the side of her chair, elegant fingers stroking her pussy as she watched the show. She’d kept her purple college tee on, her long, red hair breaking from its braid, half-loose around her shoulders.
Sweat dripped from Ceri onto Wendy’s back as she leaned forward, working the little vibe on her middle finger underneath Wendy’s hip. Wendy moved sympathetically, little huffs of excitement coming though her nostrils.
Ceri stilled her thrusting and found the hood of Wendy’s swollen clit. She didn’t press the vibe against it. Instead, she circled, teasing with the vibrations, but never letting Wendy feel them directly. Holding herself still as the shivering built in Wendy’s body, making her own clit sing. She started to grind, she couldn’t help it. And then Wendy bucked and bucked and Ceri fell forward, hard nipples pressed against Wendy’s back.
She opened her mouth and bit into Wendy’s shoulder.
“That’s enough, Ceri! Time to get spanked!”
Wendy’s muffled protests gave Ceri a warm glow as she pulled away. She hated the way her pussy juiced at the thought of being spanked. After all this time, being brought to orgasm across Mistress’s knee still mortified her. She undid the strap-on and crawled the short distance to Mistress on hands and knees.
She started to get into position, but Mistress placed a hand on Ceri’s forehead, stopping her in place on her knees.
“You know, you two make a cute couple,” said Mistress. “You’re seriously sweet on her, aren’t you?”
“I love her,” said Ceri.
Mistress’s weird green eyes lit up, “Great! So, how about I get her to drop that guy, what’s his name, Marvin?”
“Martin”
“Yeah, Martin. Whatever. And I’ll hook her up with you? That sound pretty cool?”
“No.”
Mistress smiled for a second, and then her eyebrows knit, “What!? Why not!?”
“I love her. I want her to be with somebody she chooses to be with, not somebody you choose her to be with.”
Mistress’s mouth formed a perfect circle, “Wha . . . .”
Ceri shrugged, “That’s how it works if you love someone.”
Mistress looked up at the ceiling then sat back in the chair, both hands over her face, “Oh, godddddd, . . . . why am I such. A. Fucking. Sociopath?”
She got up and started grabbing her jeans off the floor, scrambling them on, “I have to go outside! And think!” The door slammed, leaving Ceri still on her knees by the chair.
A sound came from the bed, “Mmmph, mmmmm, hmmmph, hm, hm.”
Ceri turned her head. Wendy waggled her eyebrows at Ceri through a curtain of blonde curls.
“Oh, sorry,” said Ceri. She jumped up and unclasped the ballgag.
“Gahh-hahh,” said Wendy. “Hehe, thanks, where’d Mistress go?”
“I think she realized she’s a colossal mind controlling psycho-bitch.”
“Ha!” Wendy grinned up at Ceri. “Don’t say that, I wouldn’t know how much fun sex with you is if it wasn’t for her. Heh! Don’t undo the cuffs! I want to eat you out.”
Ceri sighed, “Only because she’s told you too.” She moved to undo the cuffs again, but Wendy leaned away.
Her big, blue eyes looked up at Ceri from the bed, smiling, “You really are clueless, Ceridwen Jones.”
“Yes,” said Mallory, “You are.” Sitting in Mistress’ chair.
“AH!”
Ceri clutched the duvet, sitting upright in bed. Part of her half-expected to see Mallory sitting in a wicker chair, watching.
“Fuck,” said Ceri. She swung herself out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen. It took a a couple of seconds to wrestle a glass out of the pile-up in the sink, but she succeeded and then switched the tap on. She gulped the water down. “Fucking nightmare.”
She put the glass down on the counter and massaged her temples with both hands. The thoughts refused to give up, pressing forward to the front of her mind.
Go on then, say it out loud.
“Mallory is mind controlling Wendy.”
Oh, yeah, riiiiiight. And you know this because?
“Rebecca mind controlled us both in college. It’s the same thing happening again.”
You’re a super-genius! Have you thought of booking into a nice lunatic asylum?
She placed her hands, knuckles down on the kitchen counter. The idea wouldn’t quit.
So, what do I do? Do I confront Mallory? How does that go?
“Hi, Mallory, I think you’re an insidious lesbian mind controller who’s taken over Wendy’s mind and turned her gay. Please stop. I’m her gay best friend and if anybody is going to turn Wendy gay it’ll be me, the old-fashioned way. Thanks.”
What could possibly go wrong?
She remembered some of the stories on the website she liked to frequent. Confronting an insidious lesbian mind controller never ended well.
So, then—who do I know who could help?
Who might know how to confront a mind controller because she is a mind controller?
Assuming I am not just a deranged crazy person. Which I probably am.
“Rebecca,” said Ceri. She had the contact information on the alumni network. “Oh, shit, I’ve got to get a plane.” Thankfully, the last encryption job had paid off well. “Thanks, Zuckerberg,” she muttered as she went into her den and started to look up the next flight leaving that night.
Ceri looked up at the basketball game going on on the big flatscreens behind the pub’s long wooden bar. The part of her that didn’t obsess over sports regretted the modern intrusion on the worn and pitted decor. It seemed like a pretty nice old neighborhood place, although it obviously didn’t do any lunch business. Shamrocks swirled around the name “O’Donoho’s” in the window. The shelves behind the bar were filled with tiers of whisky bottles. A yellow flag with a cross and a red hand hung prominently over the little dining area at the back.
“Can I help yeh, darling?” said the bartender. He had curly grey hair, an impressively round belly hanging over his black slacks.
“Uh, I’m waiting to meet somebody. She texted me to meet her here.”
The bartender nodded, “No problem, take a seat. Want to see a menu?”
“Do you have any vegan options?” Ceri shifted her feet.
The bartender did his absolute best not to raise his eyebrows, sadly failed, “Um, I’ll have to ask the kitchen. How about a beer?”
“Do you have sparkling water, please?”
The bartender looked relieved, “Aye, hold on. I’ll open a tab.”
Ceri took her drink and left a buck on the counter top. She got a seat at a round dining table, set for two, with a view of the door. She noticed pictures of police bands lining the walls around the back of the pub. She stowed her holdall under her chair. She’d travelled light, sleeping in the same hoodie and jeans on the plane. Rebecca had replied to Ceri’s text just as she’d been looking for a cab outside the terminal. It had been a relief that she’d been willing to meet so quickly.
The pub door swung open right on time.
Rebecca hadn’t changed. Just over six feet five. Red hair falling in a long, tight braid down over her left shoulder. Intense, to the point of being slightly freaky, green eyes. The business suit and crisp white shirt, open at the neck, were different from college, but otherwise, same old Rebecca.
“Hi Rebecca, darling!” called the bartender. “What’s the occasion?”
“Meeting somebody,” said Rebecca. She nodded at Ceri. The bartender gave Ceri a smile and turned to polishing pint glasses.
Ceri rose.
“Rebecca.”
“Ceri.”
“Good to see you.”
“Yes.”
They held out a hand to shake at the same time. Hands paused for a second in mid-air, then clasped. Formalities dispensed with they sat down.
“So,” said Rebecca, she swiped a menu off a neighboring table and studied it as she talked. “Your text said you needed to see me about something very important that happened in college. Something personal.”
Ceri’s mouth went dry. This had seemed like a much better idea in the small hours of the morning on the other side of the country. A trickle of sweat ran down her spine.
Rebecca looked up from the menu, her lips curled slightly, “Not eating? They do a very good cheeseburger.”
That got Ceri over the hump. “No, still vegan. Just like in college.”
“Wow, still after all this time. O’Donoho’s doesn’t do vegan, I’m afraid.”
“Uh-huh. Okay, let’s talk.”
Rebecca put the menu back on the neighboring table and leaned back in her chair. “Go ahead.”
“I’ve had dreams. For years now. They started after graduation and they’re always about things that happened in college, except they didn’t happen, but it feels—it really feels—in the dreams that the things happening are memories.”
Rebecca shifted slightly in her chair, her face didn’t move a muscle. Ceri took a deep breath.
“In the dreams or memories, it seems like, well, there are, stuff . . . happens to me. To the rest of the team. To Wendy—you remember her? My best friend?”
Rebecca nodded, she’d sat up straight. Ceri had a sensation of riding a tobaggon down a steep, slippery slope with no way to stop.
“She’s there, I’m there. I’m fucking her, but that never happened. Other girls too. Professors. Guys in the football team. Opposing teams we played. We’re all doing what our Mistress tells us and I know who she is, we all do, but in the dreams I could never see her at all, it just kept slipping away.”
Rebecca’s lips pressed against each other. Ceri took one last breath and plunged for the finish line.
“And then the last dream I had I finally figured out who our Mistress is, because it’s the one girl who is never getting fucked and it’s you. It’s you, Rebecca McCandliss. You mind controlled us all. You. Evil. Bitch!”
Ceri wanted the earth to swallow her up. That has to be the most stupid thing i have ever said and I had to say it to Rebecca F’ing McCandliss. Oh, just shoot me now.
Rebecca folded her arms and leaned on the table edge. Her mouth turned down.
“Yes,” said Rebecca. “I’m really so very sorry.”
The air seemed to be whistling past Ceri’s ears. She tried to speak, “Wha. . . . You’re . . . You’re not denying it!?”
Rebecca tucked a stray strand of red hair behind her ear, “No, the first step to curing a problem, is recognizing you’ve got one. I’m on the wagon these days, but back in college . . . . I did things I’m not proud of, I can’t justify them to you.” She frowned. “But you shouldn’t have been dreaming about it, I fixed . . . um, I tried to, ah, make sure that nobody had any ill effects.”
The air still rushed past Ceri’s ears, but now the temperature had hit just north of boiling. Her right index finger jabbed in Rebecca’s face.
“You used to spank me! You made me like it! You . . . wait, did you just say you tried to fix us?”
“Uh, nothing bad, just trying to not have people remember the . . . stuff.”
“WHAt the fuck,” Ceri dropped her voice to a hiss as she saw the bartender’s head raise, “did you do? Take away our memories!?”
Rebecca bit her lip, “Yeah, but just the bad ones.”
“You’re a psycho!” A thought from the alumni network page occurred to Ceri, “Aren’t you a police officer now? How the fuck did that happen?”
“FBI wouldn’t let me do special investigations. Got bored catching serial killers, so got a post back here.”
Ceri closed her eyes. She sucked in a breath and counted down from ten. Rebecca had the good sense to stay quiet.
Ceri laid her hands palm down on the table. “You know, I have a mind control fetish. Thanks to you I have written stories about the things that you did. On the Internet.”
Rebecca looked at the table, “Yeah, that’s common for female survivors. It’s the subconsciousness’s way of processing.”
“What!?”
“Yeah. Especially the Hive authors. Pretty much all spent their early twenties in a thong bikini, walking metal corridors, answering to a number code instead of their name.”
Ceri peered at Rebecca through her fingers. “This is a lot to process.”
“I’m really sorry. I wish I could make it up to you.”
Ceri lowered her hands back down, “You can. Wendy is being mind controlled right now. I want you to rescue her.”
Rebecca’s mouth opened, then closed. She turned her head slightly, “Come again?”
“Wendy is being mind controlled. She dumped Martin—remember Martin?” Rebecca shrugged, Ceri carried on. “And she’s seeing this woman, and Wendy’s not lesbian, she’s straight. And now she’s cut her hair and this woman has got her to get piercings and Wendy’s moved in with her and I went to see them and the woman, Mallory, she’s really attractive, like I couldn’t think of anythingelse hardly when I was there and then Wendy was doing what Mallory told her and. . . .”
Ceri looked at Rebecca’s face. “Oh, god, I’m crazy, aren’t I?”
Rebecca shook her head and placed her hands over Ceri’s, “No, not at all, but you have just had a horrible psychic trauma surface and I’m responsible.”
“But Wendy . . . I feel so sure.”
“People fall in love with people of the same gender, Ceri, you know that. Even if they’ve been straight before. They cut their hair. They move in. They try new things because the new person excites them. It’s normal. Not mind control.” Rebecca sighed. “And your reading mind control into it, is totally understandable given . . . the circumstances. It’s all my fault. But it’s a projection.” She squeezed Ceri’s hands.
Ceri’s shoulders slumped, “Yeah, I guess. Could you do one thing though?”
“Of course, anything.”
“Could you run a police check on Mallory?”
Rebecca pursed her lips, then nodded, “Okay, but only if you promise you let me pay for some therapy sessions for you.”
Ceri picked her holdall up, “I have Mallory’s business card. I don’t actually have any more information on her, but it has her number. I figure you must be able to do something with that.”
Rebecca shrugged, “That’s something.”
Ceri unzipped the side compartment and fished the card out from where it had been carefully stored. She put the bag down and held the card over the table to Rebecca, “Do you want to just write the number down? I want to keep the card.”
Rebecca’s chair scraped slightly as she pushed it back. Her green eyes flicked from the card to Ceri’s face. “Put the card down on the table please, Ceri.”
“Huh?”
Rebecca smiled tightly, “Please put the card down on the table, Ceri.”
Ceri’s tongue pressed up against her teeth, her eyebrows knit. “What are you doing?”
Rebecca kept smiling, “I’m taking you very seriously. Put the card down on the table please.”
“Ohhh-kaaay,” Ceri put the business card down dead center. The black letters with Mallory’s name and the phone number on the upside, facing Rebecca. She thought she saw Rebecca exhale.
“Just sit where you are. I’ll be back in a moment,” Rebecca got up towards the bar. She swung back suddenly, “Don’t touch the card.”
Ceri watched open mouthed as Rebecca slid over to the bartender. She leaned over the bartop and started whispering.
“Ah! FECK!” The bartender looked sharply over at Ceri. He turned back to Rebecca, “Do I need to call Father Flynn?”
Rebecca shook her head and started whispering again. The bartender went searching beneath the bar for something. Ceri looked at the card. She thought she should probably put it back in the holdall. No need for it to be sitting out like that. She didn’t want to lose it. She started to reach for it.
“Don’t touch the card please,” said Rebecca sitting back down. She set an ashtray, a napkin and a wallet of matches down on the table.
“Why not?”
“Somethings, you’re actually safer the less you know about them.”
Rebecca used the napkin to pry up the corner of the card and lift it into the air. She held it up and over the ashtray, while she pried loose a match and struck it on the table surface. The yellow flame flickered back and forth as if in a breeze.
“HEH!” Ceri made a grab for the card as Rebecca held the flame to a corner.
—Sit back.
Something invisible pinned Ceri to the back of her seat. A cold sweat broke out over her skin. “What are you doing!? What did you just do to me!?”
The flame went out, Rebecca cursed and lit another. The card didn’t seem to want to burn. Finally, it caught and she lowered it into the ashtray.
“I’m going to get Father Flynn!” called the bartender.
“Alright, Pat!” shouted Rebecca. She dropped a couple of lit matches onto the remains of the card in the ashtray. “Probably best to be on the safe side.”
Ceri felt like her limbs could move again, “Who’s Father Flynn?”
“Local exorcist.”
“Exor-wuh?”
Rebecca stared at the shrivelled up black ash that remained of the card, resting her chin on her fists.
“Wendy is in extraordinary danger,” she said, her weird green eyes looked over at Ceri. “And I don’t think I can do anything about it.”
Ceri ran her fingers through her cropped brown hair, she clasped the back of her head.
“Why not? Don’t you have . . . I mean, you just did something to me, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but I shouldn’t have,” said Rebecca, “Think of it like I’m an alcoholic, just one sip is bad, I can turn into a whole other person, and believe me, you don’t want to meet her.” She grimaced. “I’m going to have to put myself in psychic detox for a week after today.”
Ceri gripped the edge of the table, “Okay, but you must know other people who can do what you do, right? You can tell them about Mallory, right?”
“Yes, I know people,” said Rebecca, she folded her arms on the table, nodded. “And they are going to be made very aware of this individual—you should avoid using her name—but they’re in law enforcement. The best they can do is surveillance at this point, there’s no cause for an arrest or a warrant, it’s one thing knowing somebody is a mind controller, it’s very different getting enough evidence to prove it. By the time they might get something, it’ll be too late for Wendy.”
“We can warn Wendy though!”
Rebecca shook her head, “You could try, but if Wendy is already living with this individual, she’s already enthralled. It won’t make any difference. And worst case scenario—the controller spooks and cuts bait and you find out Wendy jumped off a bridge. Same thing could happen if you try to just snatch her, she could have a suicide command buried in her head.”
“Oh, god,” said Ceri. She put her head in her hands. “There has to be something.”
“You need another controller to make an approach,” said Rebecca. “Somebody who can reach out and make an offer.”
Ceri’s eyes narrowed, she stared at Rebecca, “Go on.”
“I know a woman, she came a couple of times to my, uh, underground bondage scene—it’s very tasteful—but I banned her when I found out she works with a controller. They run a business offering custom-tailored mind control fantasies to women with a taste for that sort of thing.”
Ceri’s tongue wet her lips, “Really?”
“Don’t get any ideas. Their clients are slaves, just because they book scheduled appointments and pay a fee, doesn’t alter that fact.”
“You think she’ll help me? The controller?”
“No, Ceri, I think she’ll mind control you. But she’s the only option you’ve got.”
“Hiya, who’s there?”
“Um, hi, is that Mike? My name is Ceridwen Jones, and, uh, Rebecca McCandliss gave me your number, she said you and Madame Lin could help me with a problem my friend has.”
“Rebecca McCandliss, huh? Ya with the police?”
“Oh, no! Not at all! I, uh, know her from college, she said that you could help me with my friend, she’s in trouble with a mind controller you see and . . . .”
“Ahhhhh, ya’re friend is in trouble with a mind controller, okay, got it! Makes sense she sent ya to us then, let me get ya’re details. Hold on, where’s a pen. When ya want to visit?”
“Um, soon as possible, I can get a rental and drive to you Rebecca said.”
“Hmm, we’re kinda booked, but I don’t like to turn down a referral from Die Polizei. Let me give ya a club ya can meet us at. No guarantees though, Lin is the one that decides if ya’re a good fit for us.”
“Oh, thank you! It’s not for me though, it’s for my friend.”
“Ya, of course. Here’s the address . . . .”