The Cursed Blood, стр. 24
As an answer Manx’s head rose from between his paws and he let out a long low growl as he fixed the now unsettled “The Doctor” with a black look that put him back on his high heeled boots as the Witchound slowly rose from its spot, heckles rising as he padded to a spot between him and myself.
“That is most unusual,” Madam Maxine Del’Cove muttered with an arched brow as her glass refilled itself. “Witchounds never show such loyalty to any other than the one soul they bond with at the pairing… Curious, and troubling.”
“Manx,” Gramps sharply stated. “Down, boy.” To his shock and irritation, the Witchound’s heckles only grew as he bared his teeth and continued growling. A deadly simple warning in his big, watery black eyes that caused Gramps to pale and take a step back as the huge, shaggy, floppy eared head swiveled to him and let out a heart shuddering bark.
“Well I’ll be…,” Gramps gasped as he backed away another step under his dog’s protective scrutiny. He once disclosed years later that never before had he been on the receiving end and felt that look from his hunting dog. Always on the hunts it had been their prey that felt it, but now he understood the terror they had on their faces when the beast caught up to them much, much better.
“Indeed,” Madam Maxine Del’Cove nodded seriously as she studied the dangerous dog with obvious curiosity tempered with a healthy respect for what the brute of a dog was capable of. The breed isn’t called a Witchound for nothing after all. “Perhaps if we asked the boy’s permission…”
I just nodded my uneasy agreement and patted the couch cushion on which I was lying, not wanting things to go from bad to worse. Manx peered over his shoulder at me, pink droolly tongue lolling from his mouth as he whined, padded over, and hopped onto the couch. Again, with a pronounced HARUMPH laying down with his head between his paws.
“Well, I’m certainly not going to do it.” Madam Maxine giggled as she continued to eye Manx from under arched brows. Nervously, she sipped at her noxious looking drink and puffed on her long-stemmed cigarette holder, ruby ringed pinky high in the air.
“Oh, very well,” the Countess sighed as she let her elbow slip from the mantle and, hips swaying, sauntered to the couch, and sat at its edge, Manx eyeing her carefully.
I remember she smelled like fresh tilled earth, flowers, and something else that was sickly sweet and decomposing that made the mind fuzzy as she smiled down at me from behind her red beaded fishnet veil. She traced a finger through my hair then cast a startled look at Gramps who seemed supremely unhappy. (Later that night while brushing my teeth I noticed a shock of silver running through my hair that Gramps stalwartly refused to explain past a growled “Don’t worry about it,” accompanied by a troubled look that made me very much worry about it).
She nodded to herself as if accepting something distasteful then fixed me with a brightly pleasant purring smile, full of very white straight teeth. Doing a remarkably good (but not entirely convincing) impression of something not quite human trying to be as unthreatening, reassuring, and soothing as possible.
Manx let out a low whine that told us both he too wasn’t entirely convinced but reassured me he was watching and had my back. She eyed the big, watery eyed dog then returned her alluring, sense befuddling attentions back to me.
“Relax,” she assured as she ran the back of her gloved (but still icy cold) hand along my jawline, sending my blood into a thundering frenzy as a bit of panic began to build.
“This won’t hurt a bit, love,” she promised in a soothing purr. “Everything will be fine,” she reaffirmed almost tenderly, my belly cramping as I instinctively flinched away. For all the good it did, she gently but with incredible strength clamped my jaw with her other hand and held me still, as she pressed a large sapphire ringed finger to my forehead.
I’ve seen this done more than a few times over the years since then, and while I don’t remember much of my own pre-Ascension Day experiences beyond the initial feeling of rushing air, the world spinning and a flash of blinding light. I do, however, recall enough to conclude its impossible to fight if the will applying it is powerful enough in both mind and magic.
I can tell you from my own observations that the eyes roll into the back of one’s head. One shakes and drools a lot, at times losing control of one’s bowels and bladder. And, if you’re stupid enough to fight it, it goes much worse for you.
Once, I saw it leave a formidable and particularly foul (but stunningly pretty) evil witch a mind scrambled twitching vegetable on the floor. So yes, it’s an unpleasant, invasive, at times violating but undeniably effective tool in the arcane empoweree’s arsenal. Peeling the truth out of a mind, willing or not, like the skin of a fruit being shed to reveal the juicy flesh beneath.
Thankfully, Darklings become immune to it after they turn eighteen. As more than a few of my enemies over the years would have been chomping at the bit and likely would have sold (or murdered) their own mothers to take a peek into my head.
I came awake I don’t know how much later and found only Gramps and Manx in the lodge, and somehow, I just knew the others were long gone. Leaving behind them a fading not so nice feeling that perfumed the air unpleasantly.
But, as luck would have it, Gramps had