by Alana Melos
As I sifted through the thread, I saw a lot of other emotions there as well, all heightened. Yeah, I had been jealous of her, but that looked to be the same level as before. A sliver of lust, which had bloomed into something more, wound its way through the main thread, diving in and out of it. All of those things which made up my admiration and jealousy of her were there, but the positive emotions were heightened with the negative ones left alone. That was interesting. The vampire blood didn’t create emotion. They built on what was there to begin with, making the victim more pliable. I snatched one of the fibres and pulled gently. It tugged on my mind, then snapped free. Triumphantly, I grinned… until I saw it had been replaced. It was as I surmised before. Since the mind control was a physical based substance, my body would have to burn through it before the effects were gone.
Then, why did I have such a strong reaction to Nosferatu? Was it because he was older? Was it because I knew him better? Was it because I wanted it? How much of that had been there before? I shook my head and got up. There were other alien feelings to deal with. I turned towards the one vexing me the most: fear.
I had only ever felt other people’s fear before, usually while I was closing in to kill them or while torturing them, drawing out the experience to make it more pleasurable. I moved to the main yellow ribbon and was happy to see it was pale, wispy, and mostly insubstantial. It could have been so much more intense. It lay near my courage and arrogance. Each of those weakened it as they wove around in the tapestry which was my mind. Untouched by the vampire blood and so thin and weak, I knew I would be able to pull it out and root this filthy thing from me.
Once I wrapped my mental hands around it, I saw a flash of darkness and fire. I closed my mental eyes to concentrate on the source. Buried memories had been plaguing me and I had no idea when they’d been created. I thought they had to be from when I was very young, something which had made an impression. My lip curled up as I sneered; my mother must have repressed it when she put in the block. The fear as well as the flashes grew in intensity, becoming sharper. Fire and fear… but not fear of the fire. Darkness, I couldn’t see where I was. I felt small, weak, and then… that was it. It tied into the self-loathing I’d identified before and the guilt, which was a much stronger thread. Whatever had caused both of those started with this fear.
I began to rip it out, but caution told me to go slow. Like taffy, I pulled and it grew longer and longer. The fear lessened in my mind as I began to remove it… then the pain started. I stopped pulling and the pain eased. Steeling myself, I tried again. The pain built at an exponential rate and I let go of it, frustrated. Maybe I had to have another telepath fix it, or maybe I just didn’t know the technique. I wanted to change my mind and... that could just be painful anyway. Change never came easy, not even when a person wanted it.
Shaking my head, I looked around at the mess my head had become. It wasn’t just the want and the fear. I saw anxiety lying in wait and compassion lurking in the shadows. When I hunted around for my feelings for Rory, I saw the faint blue of sadness, as well as a few shades of lust and longing. Whatever dam had broken in my head, it had let a small flood of unwanted emotion. But where was it coming from?
Instead of altering them, I shuffled them around and organized them, so they lay nice and neat. It probably wouldn’t stay this way long, but for now I knew where everything was. That done, I turned my attention to the squishy matter I walked on beneath me, the basic core of my self. It contained my knowledge, skills, automatic functions, and other such things which weren’t immediately apparent. Past my telepathic skills and active defenses, the net of my emotions were my secondary defense against invasion. Perhaps weak, it was still better than nothing. I didn’t know many telepaths, but I knew Gerard well, and he had defenses upon defenses upon defenses. Idly, I wonder if it had to do with how he was programmed in his home dimension, or if it was merely just time and skill.
I sank through the surface and floated in the nether space, looking around at myself. Areas of colored fog told me which parts were which, but I ignored them. The emotions couldn’t be coming from me… unless they were coming from behind the block. When I hit the red wall, I stopped, looking at it. I’d never paid much attention to it before after my first failed attempt to break through it. It had rebuffed me easily and I’d passed out. I might be confident, but I knew when I was overmatched and thus my drive for power, power to break through the unbreakable.
Looking at the block now, I frowned. The dark blood red color of it made me think of battle. As I watched, the wall rippled as if it were liquid, but I knew from experience it wasn’t. A face peeked out at me, there and gone in a blink. I put my hand on it and floated as I stretched out with my senses. What was on the other side? Was it the rest of my power, abilities my mother had locked away for fear I would misuse them? Or was it something else?
For a second, I thought I might have a split personality, but surely such a powerful telepath--the most powerful in the world as far as I’d ever been told--would have been able to eliminate that? I put my hands on the block and allowed myself to feel, to experience anything and everything it emanated. It pulsed beneath my hands. The wall of blood rippled outwards from where I touched it. Guilt and self-hatred lay just beneath my fingers. I allowed myself to feel them and tried to clear the memories which lay behind them. Darkness, all around me. Fog, or smoke perhaps, obscured my vision. Maybe it was a fire? There was fire around, but I didn’t get the impression of anything being on fire. The skull… the skull… I shook my head, but bit my lip. That didn’t make much sense, unless it had been my father. When he used his powers, he shed his skin. The metas who changed tended to be much more powerful than the ones who didn’t. No one even approached his level of power, not these days.
If It was my father, then it would have meant at some point he had been either attacking someone or under attack. That would make sense then… the fire and darkness. I’d never seen him transform in person. Retired and in luxurious hiding, he had no reason to reveal his grinning skull. He had to change to access the hellfire and darkness he manipulated and, at home, he had no reason to.
I turned away from the vision aspect of it, and concentrated on the guilt. It wasn’t mine, I knew that. It was my mother’s. She had done something to me, changed me somehow when I was very young. Her guilt shaded with that pale yellow fear, with the black self-loathing. Putting the pieces together, I figured maybe they had been attacked or ambushed at their home before they retired. In repelling this attack, my mother could have psychically hurt me by accident. If that were true, it would account for a lot. It’d be the cause for my damaged mind and my personality disorder. It would also explain blocking off my strength. Even criminals had a code and until I learned it, I wouldn’t be trustworthy. It all fit.
I looked back at the wall and bared my teeth at it. I wanted to try and attack it. It had been years since I last tried and I was stronger now, more knowledgeable. I stared, but didn’t make a move. Fear rooted me. It’d hurt so badly last time and I couldn’t afford to being knocked cold right now. Shame flooded me an instant after I thought that. I’d just lied to myself, said something so I could indulge this fear without hurting my ego.
In anger and disgust, I turned away and floated back up to my emotions. I sorted through the threads, digging through them and under them, determined. Deep underneath all of these more recent ones I found what I was looking for… a bright yellow ribbon of fear, tied in with echoes of red pain which had attached itself to me concerning the block. Buried and forgotten, this thread was why I had never tried again. I buried it so deep, then willfully forgotten about it. This one had to go.
I grabbed it and pulled. Pain exploded in my head and the thread pulled itself back, almost out of my grasp. Anger, hot and thick, washed over me and I fought through my pain, tugging on the thread, trying to make it move. Stubbornly, it stayed put. The only thing I did was give myself a screaming headache trying to remove it. Angry, I let go and sc
reamed inside my head, letting my anger flow free.
“God damn you!” I swore. “I refuse to be manipulated by my own mind!”
Renewed by the hot wash of rage, I grabbed the thread with both hands and pulled as hard as I could. Pain kept going through me, electrifying everything around me until my mind was a disorganized maelstrom of colors and emotions, but I didn’t let go. The fear pulled back, as if trying to sink deeper into my brain. I refused to let it. It became hard and razor thin, slicing my mental hands. I felt pain register in my body and hissed in annoyance. My mind made it real using my teke. I didn’t care. I pulled on that mother fucker as hard as I could. I channeled all of my rage and anger into it until it felt as though I burst into flames, so consumed was I.
“You are coming out now,” I grunted.
It gave ground. Sliding out of the wet brain matter I envisioned for my mind, I saw it was tainted, rooted in deep with fibres as living tendrils. Disgusted at such a deeply rooted fear, I challenged it, confronted it the only way I knew how. Not for me the gentle acceptance and long transitions to handle emotions. No… no, I faced it head on. It was time for me to stop this shit and to get to the bottom of all of this. I wanted that fucking wall down now. This was the first step. I was going to do this.
My determination won out. The thread came loose and I fell backwards, not ready for the sudden shift. A bloody hole stood where the thread had been, deep and dark. I heard voices call to me from down there. I shuddered as I looked back at the thread. It dissipated in my hand, turning into ether. As it disappeared, I felt my fear about facing the block fade as well. I had successfully changed myself. My anger had been hot and fierce, but with the elimination of the offending thread, it vanished as well. I shook with unspent adrenalin. My head pounded with pain. My hands throbbed in time with the headache and when I licked my lips in real time, I tasted blood. In taking out the thread, something had ruptured.
Even though I longed to go straight back to the block, I willed myself to the topside and opened my eyes. Looking down, I saw my palms had been sliced open, down to the bone. When I put my fingertips to my nose, they came back red in addition to the blood seeping from my palms. My whole head hurt. It wasn’t just a headache at my temple or behind my eyes. Everywhere hurt, but especially my frontal lobe. I couldn’t break the block down now. I would have to wait until I was strong again.
I heaved a sigh and got up to get into the bathroom. When I flicked on the light, I blinked at the sight of me. My skin looked chalky and pale, with dots of hectic color on my cheeks. Blood coated my lips and chin and I noted it had dripped into my cleavage as well. My hands were the worst and I’d trailed blood from the bed to here. I tore a towel in half and wrapped them around my palms to soak up the worst of the blood. Bandages had to be around here somewhere.
The price had been too high. I did it the wrong way. This sort of mental manipulation was beyond me, even on my own mind. Mind control was a slippery thing. Over time, it built up. If you told someone over and over again what you wanted, they would believe it. If you gave them a suggestion and their mind picked it up, they’d think it was their idea. Brute force manipulation, which is what I had just tried to do to myself, was like using a butcher’s knife as a sewing needle. It didn’t work with good results. I thought since it was my own mind and I wanted the changes it would be different. Now I knew better.
As I washed my hands and inspected the cuts, I thought about Gerard. He knew how to break a mind without killing himself--or the victim--doing it. There had to be a trick, a technique I had never been taught or figured out on my own. I found some gauze and bandaged my hands while I pondered the situation. If I couldn’t tear them out of my head, maybe I could do what I did initially with the invading feelings and block them out, dull them down so I could think more clearly. Once I finished with my hands, I cleaned the rest of me off and splashed some water in my face, trying to get some color back into it. It didn’t work, but at least it felt refreshing.
Ready for round two, I went and sat back down on the bed. I closed my eyes, turning inward once more. As I saw my mindscape stretch out before me, I concentrated on the threads of my personality, of my feelings. Instead of cutting them off from myself--which took an enormous amount of energy and concentration--I laid a thick buffer layer over them, like a smothering blanket. It wouldn’t prevent me from feeling them, but the intensity would be dimmed and manageable. When I was done, the threads looked fat, thick, and ungainly, like they were wrapped in insulation, which I supposed that’s exactly what they were.
I allowed myself to dwell on Nosferatu, letting my mind fill with thoughts of him. A bit of regret, a lot of lust, and longing filled me, but not to overflowing as it had before. Still much more than I was used to, but less than the overwhelming emotions of before, I decided I could handle it like this. Some of my concentration was still needed, but not nearly as much.
I opened my eyes and checked myself over physically. Most of my bumps, scrapes, and bruises from the fights I’d been in had healed, thanks to Adira’s blood. Exhaustion had begun to set in. Most of the blood had been burned through because of this night and my exertions. Looking back now, I saw how much of a fool I’d been thinking it was the blood which had carried my longing for Nos. With that big battle to get to the portal? It should have been gone by the end of it, yet I’d practically begged him to come with us.
And I missed him.
Terribly.
That longing echoing within still, I pushed it aside. That was neither here nor there. I had to rescue Gerard, even if it wasn’t to help Rebekah. I had to get him back because he was the only telepath I knew who understood the inner workings of the mind and how to change it, and I needed that knowledge. Just knowing I was going after him for a selfish reason made me feel a lot better. For a while, I had actually started to think I might have considered Rebekah a friend.
Chapter Twelve
Cleaned up and as refreshed as I could get, I headed back downstairs to meet with the other two. We had the location and now it was time to scout it out and see what we could see. Alistair probably wouldn’t help us with that, but he seemed amenable to helping the Siren, so anything was possible. I flexed my hands. They hurt, but I could still wield my sword. My head pounded, but it had subsided in the half hour or so I’d taken to pull myself together. I glanced at a grandfather clock Alistair had by the staircase and it read four thirty. Had it gotten so late already? Then again, I shouldn’t have been surprised. This night was one long nightmare from which we had yet to wake.
When I turned the corner, I stopped in my tracks. Rarely, did anyone surprise me. I kept up a light telepathic scan on the area I was in to ensure people wouldn’t sneak up on me And sure, sometimes enemies would get the drop on me. Yeah, of course, Harry-the-bastard had double-crossed me because I’d erred in not delving deeply to look for deception… but on the average? Very rarely, and not things like this.
Rebekah and Alistair were having sex in the sitting room.
While I admired boldness, and hey, if the mood struck me right someone might get a show if I decided to fuck in a public place at some point. But these two? Here? Knowing I was coming down at any minute? Hell, the mage could have put up an early warning beacon or an illusion or something.
They sat on the couch, Rebekah on top straddling him. I watched out of curiosity more than anything else. Porn had never done it for me. I preferred to have sex than watch it, but watching the act made a person’s body react on some level to the primal scene. I was no exception. Although she was naked, he still had his shirt and vest on, though unbuttoned and open showing the chest I knew so well. I examined the curve of Rebekah’s back and thought to find it smooth and flawless, but instead it was covered with scars of different types. Some were older, thin and long as if she’d been lashed or cut. Others I identified as bullet scars, having had a couple of those myself. There were a mish mash of others over her arms and legs not so easily identified.
A p
ang of sympathy for remembered pain ran through me and I quashed it back under the blanket of not-feeling easily. If I hadn’t been to the Doctor so many times, I probably would be scarred like that. In that moment, the realization hit home she hadn’t had an easy life. Ripped away from her mother at an early age, put through who knew how many tests and experiments, and then to be forced to kill to live. It was a wonder she was so sane. Hell, probably out of all the people I knew, I had probably the least crazy upbringing even if I was raised by two super villains. I hadn’t had to fight to simply survive, nor did I have a terribly tragic background as so many others. I was scarred, yes, but on the inside where it didn’t show.
I continued to watch as I pondered. They moved more or less together and I could tell from what I saw Rebekah was inexperienced. I smirked to myself wondering how she’d like it if she knew Alistair liked to be beaten, to be whipped, and put in his place. He’d explained it to me once as a kind of balance, but I didn’t care. He and I didn’t share the same kinks, so in the end it was business for me and something a little more than business for him. Would it shock her? Would she be into it? I had no way of knowing, nor was it any of my business.
Yet as I watched, another couple of emotions stirred, rising to the surface of my mind. I was both a little jealous--after all, I had been there first!--and a little envious. It was the opposite of Rory and Adira. They cared for each other and expressed it physically. Here, something which may have started out as just fooling around began to blossom in front of me. They connected on a physical level, which was leading into that something more which some of my lovers had wanted with me. The way they looked at each other grew more intense, sharper the longer they embraced. When he ran his hand up her bare shoulder, she turned to kiss it. In turn, he cupped her cheek and brought her closer to him for a proper kiss, passionate, yet tender at the same time. Infatuation, limerence, a crush… whatever you wanted to call it, it bloomed between them. I didn’t have to be a psychic to see that.