Dreamwidth Vamptober writing prompt: @meli_writes — Vampire who can’t thrall your mind, but can thrall your body
“The raw advantages of the vampire,” Hunter Pasquale says, picking up a bone china teacup, “are undeniable. All I’m saying is that modernity, modernity’s stockpile of knowledge and understanding, offset them somewhat.”
Moonlight shimmers on steaming tea as Heléne laughs. “Ooh, modernity,” she says, with mocking deference. “Science. What’s a poor helpless creature to do, with only, let’s see, greater strength and greater speed, the ability to withstand greater injury, the ability to mesmerise—”
“Ah, well, that last one,” Pasquale says diffidently. She sips. “There was a series of interesting papers about a particular pathway in the visual cortex, which led to certain quiet and privately-funded research by the Transylvanian Outreach Committee, about a decade back—”
“Hunter Pasquale,” Heléne says, eyes dancing, “do you mean to tell me you’ve spoiled the taste of this lovely tea for yourself with that terrible formula? Five drops under the tongue, tastes like compost? And now you’ll turn up the corners of your mouth in a little smile and tell me I can’t compel you.”
“Well, can you?” Pasqale says calmly. “Tell me to put my cup down, then. Tell me to stand. Tell me to kneel.”
Heléne’s smile drops away. “Dearest,” she says softly, “do you think you’re the only ones who can fund neuroscience? The elder from the north had a little science city set up in Malaysia, where his little team discovered an entirely unrelated and previously unknown cognitive exploit. No more relying on suggestibility or eye contact.”
“No?” Pasquale says, and arches a brow.
“It entirely bypasses the vagaries of the conscious mind,” Heléne says. “No battle of wills. No swearing on your deepest passions that you must…resist! A direct finger on the scales of your motor impulse control.” She closes her eyes, looking weary, sips her own tea. “Put your cup down, Pasquale,” she adds softly, and Pasquale jerks back in astonishment as her hand, without her volition, places it down and opens its grip.
“That’s why, in the box I’ve taken the liberty of adding to the luggage in your room,” Heléne says, “you’ll find the severed head of the elder from the north. His research team is no more, and their research is known now solely to me.” She opens her eyes. “The world does not need this particular arms race, Pasquale,” she warns quietly, and Pasquale flexes her hand, once, twice, steels herself, and gingerly picks her tea back up.
“When I report this,” she says, “I do not — I do not think things will remain as cordial as they have been. I think it might spell the end of our talks over tea. This is not a technique that…forgive me; I do not trust even you with it.” She eyes her own arm. “I could not even tell.”
“No,” Heléne says. “No, you couldn’t. I didn’t have to warn you, Pasquale, that was goodwill; I could simply have ordered you, and you’d have — rationalised it, however it occurred to you to do so, if I had said: stand, Pasquale. Kneel for me, Pasquale.”
Pasquale takes a mouthful of tea, its taste quite ruined by the anti-mesmeric, to provide deniability for the way she swallows.
