The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Shadowdarke: Twilight—Beckons

((note: this is story #3 in the Shadowdarke: Twilight series. If you wish to really understand this story, I’d suggest reading Twilight Enigma and Twilight Dance first. Either way, hope you like it!—J. Darksong))

The Past.

New York. Late July, 1798. it was the end of my fifth week with her, and though I was much more relaxed in her company now than before, even with her strength and vitality half restored, I knew that the time to withdraw and slip back into the shadows had come. I stretched from my position in the bed, glancing at the two warm bodies next to me. It had been a close thing, all of it, but I felt that they would help each other survive now without my interference. Quietly, I slipped out of the bed, moving in complete silence, not even the sliding fabric of the sheets making a sound. It was part of my gift, my talent, to come and go like the wind, to move as silent as the shadows, wrapping myself in a cloak of darkness and hiding from the prying eyes of the world. Stepping into the next room, I quickly dressed, and with one last look at the bedroom, I sighed and turned to leave.

“So you leave without a word?” she asked softly from behind me.

Turning, I saw that even Shadowdarke could not depart unnoticed from this sharp young woman. “You should be asleep, Jeanette,” I said softly. There was no anger in her face, or her tone, at my leaving, only...a strange sadness. It confused me. But many feelings I felt confused me, thanks to my dubious mother’s heritage. Seeing no need to try and dodge the truth, I sighed and nodded. “Yes. I’m leaving. It’s time for me to move on, now, Jeanette. You’re strong enough now to make it, to survive in this strange new world emerging. It’s time for me to go on, to move further away. To sink back into the shadows again.”

“Without a goodbye,” she said softly, hand to her hip. A bit of anger and accusation DID creep into her voice this time and I took her by the hand and walked down the hallway to another room, to keep from awakening Martha.

“Jeanette,” I said, trying to order my thoughts. “It was not my intention even to SAVE you at all. When I saw you in the gutter, passed out on the street, I had reacted as any doctor of this place would, I moved to examine you. When I Touched you and found out that you were an Ancient One, I jerked away, ready to flee, or perhaps strike you dead myself on the spot.”

She flinched slightly at this small revelation, and it again caused a strange pain inside me to see it, but I continued. “As you now know, I am a Healer, one of the cursed, the doomed, the hunted. No Ancient knowing that I live would suffer me to do so for very long, simply because of what I could do. And even though we have come to know each other, it’s in our natures to be as we are...you, the Serpent and me, the Healer.” Or at least for all practical purposes. Even knowing what I knew of her, I still thought of her AS the Serpent. It somehow fit her.

“My duty as a Healer to your lost Clan led me to help you, to guide you with my Power to this place, this sanctuary. I knew of Martha’s loss, and of her kind and caring soul, a rarity in this modern jungle of brutish barbarian men. I feared you, yet I guided you here with my Power, to help save your life, even as I once aided your clan-sisters long ago. I had meant to see to your hurts and then Change Martha, that she would look after you and see to your needs. But you surprised me. Weak, dizzy, holding to your life by the barest of threads, somehow you managed to tap the Great River, to send your Power through your burning gaze, into me, into Martha.”

I licked dry lips at the memory. If there was truly a heaven and a hell, both were within that scarlet gaze. Her Eye had focused and defined her will, her dreams, her needs, empowered by the River, and magnified them a million fold. I could still feel the Eye’s compelling draw, even though the patch shielded it from my gaze. I wanted to see it again, or touch it with my soul. My mind had recovered from the experience, my Healing repairing MOST of the damage after a while. Martha, however, had not been so lucky. Warped beyond repair, her mind now saw and heard Jeanette as her love, her dead Husband Henry, reborn.

“I don’t remember doing it,” Jeanette said in a small sad voice. Then she lifted her chin and some small spark of command glimmered in her green eye. “But I take you at your word. I was desperate.”

I nodded again, squeezing one of her pale hands gently.

“People see things within my gaze, James. I don’t always know what they will see. I never know how they will react to it. The weak die, the strong grow. I would not have desired any harm to Martha. Or you. It was instinct, pure survival instinct. But you recovered, James. There’s no need to leave, no need to fear me!”

“It’s not that,” I said, glancing away at the full moon shining in the window. “It’s not that I fear your Power.” Then I knew she sensed the lie. Sigh. “Though I DO fear and respect it. No...you see, you DID affect me, Jeanette. Just a tiny bit, a small wrinkle in my mind that I can’t quite iron out. It’s like a mote in your eye, you know it’s there and you feel it, but you can’t quite extract it.” Sigh. “There is now a bond between us. A connection. I don’t know how strong it is, or what it will mean in the future, but I know that the path I walk I must walk alone. I need to put distance between us, Jeanette, and not because I am repudiating you, but because Others will come for me once they know I am here. For both our sakes, we must separate and hide, to Heal and grow strong again.” I didn’t have to say that, like her, I was trying to recover my own losses. She knew. My Clan had been hunted nearly to extinction, and in the end, a Healer, one of our own, had turned against us, and killed my sister. I avenged her death, and put the rogue down, but the shock and despair of my own actions had left me empty, and haunted. By helping D’Amber, I had helped reclaim a part of myself.

“You say it is for BOTH our sakes,” she said, leveling her one-eyed gaze on me. “But if you leave...if you run, you will undercut the wonder of discovering others who know something more than killing. That is the best news that I’ve had since my—” She stopped and took a breath.

“Since my sisters were all Hunted down and beheaded.” She let the words hang in the air. Again I found I could not meet her gaze. The picture of my own Clan’s devastation was clear and sharp in my own mind.

“The horrors of my capture by humans, the menagerie, the strange uses that men have asked of me. Why even the dangers of discovering the Salamander standing behind the King of France are things I can bear better than this, James. The nightmare of France burning around me and the trials that brought me here to you are eased by finding you here at journey’s end. How can you say leaving me will be for the best?”

She had grown more passionate with her run of words. I opened my mouth to refute any destiny the two of us might share. She must have seen it in my eyes. Her hand moved up to snatch her eye patch, but I moved faster, catching her hand. I closed my eyes and let my Touch envelop her...

—sensations, feelings, traveling up my arm, across my body...so hot so terribly hot! across my nipples, enlarged, engorged, tingling, mmmmm—my love, my passion, reaching my own possible—sadness washing away- burning away- vaporizing in the flame, the HEAT of passion, kisses, licks soft moans escaping me- my cleft- god oh god I’m drowning wet! falling deeper, deeper into the hot wetness, oh oh oh DEEPER! oh feels so good! Surrender! SO GOOD! MMMMMM! Oh, the River! HARDER, PLEASE HARDER! My mind falling further—UNRAVELLING—DEEPER- HARDER! FEELS SO GOOD! The memories fall away—are going! ERASING! MY! MEMOIRES! NO! PLEASE NO! NO! yes- NO! yes-yes- YES. YES. Yesyesyesyes. MORE! IT BURNS! Burn them ALL! SO GOOD! SOhorribly GOOD! TINGLESohgodsMYHOTWETKITTY!! OHYESYESYESLICKINGLICKING! LICKINGMYMIND CLEAN... WIPINGmymemoriesAWAYWITHYOURHOTTONGUE!!!! Oohhohh. CLEAN! HOT! NAKEDmind! OHHHOHHHOHHHHH!! YEESSSSS!!—

And I sat there, cuddling her naked body against mine, tears running down my cheeks. The second time I remember crying in my life, the first time, at the brutal senseless death of my sister.

Carrying Jeanette carefully back to the bedroom, I lay her beside Martha, who immediately snuggled up next to the warm body. I Touched her as well, likewise removing my presence, my existence, from her memories. It pained me to hide my very presence from two people that I cared for, perhaps the only living people that cared for me. Perhaps my tears had been for Jeanette, who would have to struggle and claw her way through life, starting over from scratch. Or maybe they had been for me, for the way I was forced to abandon her for her own sake, depriving myself of one last point of contact with my past. At any rate, I felt moved to Touch Jeanette one last time, changing my reprogramming slightly, such that she would not know me, but would remember me in time, if ever we again met face to face, triggering the complete release of her memories. Kissing her softly on the lips, I again donned my clothes and left the house...

* * *

The Present.

I awoke to pain. The lights were on. The power should have been down for hours, the lines destroyed. There was a metal collar around my neck. I was sprawled on the floor. Lifting my head, I saw a rubbery cable stretching from the collar to an odd plug in the floor under her desk. Some sort of heavy duty locking plug.

Damn! No wonder I’ve felt so many black thoughts about all this. She’s changed. She’s a Hunter now too. I know about her little skirmish with the Horror; the backlash and damage from that attack was what brought me here. Could what happened to her have changed her THIS much? Did she use the bond with me just to draw me here to kill me?

I forced myself to sit up. My fingers dripped blood and I Healed them, closing the split burnt ends of my broken fingernails. I looked up at her across the room.

Strangely, Corelle lifted a tiny megaphone and spoke to me. “Hello. Mind telling me who sent you and why you should live?” Her muffled voice was cool. Too cool.

Have I lost my hearing? I stared at her, checking my hearing at the same time. It seemed fine. This didn’t make sense. Her memories should have been restored as soon as she saw my face. She looked back at me with a hard green eye. Perhaps she hated me for taking away her memories of me. I didn’t know. But something was definitely wrong here.

Yet she still hadn’t used the Glance That Kills.

I licked my lips and tasted blood. “Good evening. I’m here to help you. It was YOU that called me here.”

She watched me. Cold. Like her namesake. I remembered her warm touch and her frail form from so long ago. This was a different Jeanette. Maybe I had done my work too well. I had taken too much of the memory from her, overestimated the need. This woman—Suddenly I froze. My blood ran cold.

I stared.

She stared back.

I tiny suspicion rang like a warning bell in the back of my mind. She wants to kill me. But I’m alive. Carefully, without any outward signs, I extended my awareness, concentrating, letting my inhuman senses reach out across the room to D’Amber. “Why did you spare me, Jeanette?” I sighed.

She stared.

I ran my power lightly over my injuries, pushing small amounts of Health back into my tortured frame. She pushed a button in response. For just a millisecond, electronic fury jumped through my blood again. Then it left just as quickly. I shivered with dread. “Yes. All right, I won’t touch the River.”

“Good.” She smiled. “Answer my questions or I will have to kill you. As you told Doris, I really don’t intend to harm you. You’ll live, and this will be a lesson for you.”

I growled with sudden anger that she should use my generous words on me this way.

She smiled. “Who sent you?”

“I told you. You called me here. Your pain. Through our bond. As I once told you.”

“So I should let you live to help me, then?”

“If you want help. I wonder that you do,” I said tiredly.

She eyed him coolly. “Of course, you may be right. You made poor choices in your approach.” She picked up the telephone. “See this? It is called a telephone. If you call someone, you may get invited to visit.”

“Oh yes how silly of me! I’m SURE that if I called you up, calmly explained that I was an old friend, an Ancient like yourself, in town for a visit, and that I’d come to assault your defenses and pick through your mind, to HELP you, that you would welcome me with open arms!”

She was being arrogant and surly. I felt my own anger rising as well. She was pushing me, taunting me, and with my overuse of the Great River, I could feel the darkness within my mind bubbling, hidden just below the surface, ready to erupt. I bit down on my anger forcing it back. “You wouldn’t have remembered me. I needed to get close enough for you to see me, for me to speak to you before you tried to defend yourself.”

“I see.” She put the phone down.

I looked up at her. My whole body ached. My sense of smell was getting nothing, but I could hear her heart beating, could see the fine beads of sweat on her brow. She was still nervous despite her control of the situation. I focused on my senses again as I spoke to her, trying now to confirm my suspicions. “What kind of death trap is this? And how could you stand it?”

She reached out and rapped against the air. “Bullet-guard plastic. Acts as an EM insulator, also. You are in your section of the room all alone, my mysterious friend. What is your name? The one I knew you by?”

Sketi. She still didn’t recognize me. Something was different about her, I just couldn’t put my finger on it. Then, the words of the song came floating back to my mind. Look into my Eyes and tell me what it is you See in me...

I squinted my eyes in the limited light. Looking at her, listening to her, her breathing, her heartbeat. thum-thump...thum-thump “You called me James. Or can’t you remember?”

She stared at him. A look of cool appraisal, of disbelief, and of... restrained jealousy? Suddenly the pieces fell into place.

“Well, that’s an unpleasant look,” I murmured softly.

She picked up a small device. “Doris?”

There was a sharp crackle. “Yes!”

“He’s down. Don’t hit any targets.”

“Fantastic! Understood, standing by.”

She set the device down. “James, you are a strange Ancient or a nostalgic lovesick fool.”

My face colored.

“If I let you go, I want your word you will not attack this house or PolyCorp or any of my people ever again.”

I wondered that she didn’t include herself. I took a deep breath. It didn’t really change what I might do, but it did tie my hands if I couldn’t do anything but confront her directly. I turned the idea over in my mind. I might still have a chance to touch her yet tonight if I acquiesced. I had a lot of questions, and she had the answers. “Agreed.”

She pushed another button, the locking plug in the floor popped. “I’ve unlocked the monitor cable. I still have the scramble generators online.”

I nodded and reached up releasing the collar. That cinched my guess, she had known when I was touching the River by this device.

“Thank you.” Ms. Flaumel. I’m very impressed with you.

Her nod was the only response I got.

I like to give credit where credit was due. This mortal woman had done something tonight that I guessed had no precedent in history. She faced an Ancient and won the day. Or night, as the case may be. Now, her mask dropped a bit. She smiled a tight little smile that would have done the Serpent proud. I laughed inwardly.

I nodded at the room, “This is something you’ve had ready a long time? It wasn’t put in here just for me.”

“No, James. It’s something that had been ready quite a while.”

I nodded. “I admit I didn’t expect this sort of thing. More the Salamander’s style, no offense meant.”

“None taken.”

Yes. The Serpent doesn’t need devices to monitor the Great River, or to See me cloaked. Her Eye is both sensor and executioner enough without this hardware. Of course, its not enough to suspect, by itself. Jeanette might have merely been overcautious. But there were also OTHER things. Not knowing who I was, and repeatedly asking my name. Jeanette D’Amber would know me instantly, even if the memories were a bit fuzzy at first. And I knew her intimately. I knew her smell, her scent, her taste. I have held her in my arms, and clutched her to me. I trusted that I would know her heartbeat and her breathing like my own, and even though this damned plastic barrier hid some of that from my senses—my heart told me you were not she, Evelyn Flaumel.

I sighed inwardly. Maybe I WAS a nostalgic lovesick fool, after all. It made me smile.

She wasn’t smiling. “Let’s get back to business. What is your Ancient name?”

A little rude, but all things considered, she was entitled. She had beaten me fairly. She had held my life in her hands and given it back. I bowed to her. “ShadowDarke. And I would ask that you do not share that.”

She nodded. “We have an understanding then. Get out and don’t return.”

There was still the matter of my tending to the real Serpent. But sharing that information with this mortal was only likely to complicate things. But I would leave her with something to think about. She might become an ally if I managed this correctly. And I wasn’t sure that I wouldn’t need one.

I quickly added, “Whether or not you choose to believe me in this, I WAS called here by the pain, the need to help. I know about ‘your’ run-in with Celestial Fu. I know the Serpent was corrupted by the Dance of Golden Needles. I also know that Evelyn and Doris saved The Serpent, rescued from the Horror’s clutches. This fact much impresses me, for not many, Ancient or otherwise, slip the Horror’s grasp once she has her claws sunk in them. I salute your people. They must be amazing. But I believe the damage done by Fu still lingers, gnawing at the MIND, slowly eroding the delicate balance, bit by bit. If I do not act soon, that mind may be irreparably damaged.”

I waited hoping I hadn’t said too much. We both knew that she was NOT Corelle. Yet, I had not called her out about it, in so many words. The pretense was safe, and I was choosing not to expose it. She was a shrewd young woman. I knew she would get the hint.

The False Serpent tightened her cool smile until it looked more like pain. After a long pause, she spoke again. “I’ll be blunt. Given my history with other Ancients, and the way you forced your way in here, I am not enamoured of your point of view. Still, Doris said that she sensed that you were not a threat and that you had come here to help. As you say, I have amazing people and I trust them. I don’t know that I trust your motives in this. I will think about what you have told me.”

I nodded. What else could she say? Obviously I was going to get no more clues, no hard information from her.

Sketi!! When an Ancient decides to hide, to go to ground, no one can find them. Unless they want to be found. Suddenly, my nightmares and dreams made sense again. Going on a long trip. Searching for Jeanette. No doubt the other Ancients would be hot on my trail soon as well if they discovered this. The shadowy figures in the background. I would have to search for her, following the beacon of her mind, crying out to me through our bond. A search that could well end before I found her, if the Others found me first.

One more try with Flaumel.

“Very well. I will remove myself. There is one thing you should remember, however.” I paused, knowing her distrust in me, and braced myself for her reaction. “I am not giving up. I cannot. I came here to help the Serpent and that is what I will do despite any obstacle. I cannot force you to accept my help, or me in particular. But the time will come when you will be in need of allies, and that time may come soon. You may not acknowledge me as an ally—yet. But if you are in need, I will return.”

Her face was a frozen mask of determination. Of course, another irony. I was the enemy and she was in a position even worse than mine. I could slip through the shadows, staying one step ahead of other Ancients. She would remain here and defend her coven.

I sighed. “Very well. With that said, I thank you for your hospitality. I now go to follow my destiny in this, and I leave you to yours.” I turned to leave then, preparing to pick up Ahmaed and head back to my hotel. I had much to do, and far to go. I would have to swing by the police station and square things for the cabby, then contact my network and let them know about the change in plans. Then the hunt for D’Amber would begin in earnest. She had taken the Flaumel identity. She would change again, and quickly, but it was a starting point.

One final surprise was left.

Evelyn stopped me with her whisper. “And if you hurt ‘my people’, I’ll find out and rip your balls off and eat them while you watch.”

My message had gotten through! I didn’t think it was bravado or merely stating the obvious. She was telling me I could leave with my guesses. And despite the insane logic that had put us on opposite sides in this room, she was already thinking about what I had said.

And she was leaving me to be about it.

I nodded and left quietly, taking Ahmaed with me. Outside the house, I let my pain and fatigue show, and the brawny man helped me gently into the car.

Once in the car, I held the pain back until off the estate and then I started the Healing. It seemed my real work was going to be harder than I had imagined. Much harder. But as always, I was on a path, a single path, and I could not stray from it. My journey had now truly begun.

END