Chapter Twenty-Four #2
The space was altogether cramped, costumes and props in every corner. It didn’t have the same warmth as Thea’s chaos, though, and the finery was for show, not for truth.
Raphael pulled a pile of silver pieces from his pocket and set them on a low cabinet. “Your time and discretion.”
She arched a brow, the only hair on her head save her lashes. “That’s never all it is. I’ll tell you now, you three will get no blood from me.”
“Of course not,” I interjected. “That’s not why we’re here.”
It couldn’t be, right?
“Good, because I’m prone to anemia, and perform atrociously after any blood loss, including my monthly.” She turned back to the mirror and added a bright red smear to her lips before finally rising to face us. “Then why are you here?”
“My fledgling is going to thrall you, or at least attempt it.”
I jolted. That was nearly worse than blood drinking. “Raphael,” I hissed.
“You can decline,” Raphael said after glancing at me. “My guard will give his word to intercede on your behalf if anything untoward were to occur.”
Demos’s role became clearer. Raphael had mentioned the fledgling bond compelled him to aid in my survival. It must be a known thing, hence the import of a third party.
Of course, I couldn’t imagine Raphael expected trouble, and truthfully I doubted Demos could stand against him. But the actress didn’t know that.
Raphael hadn’t identified himself as a king, and we blended well enough with the crowd. This might be a standard method for training vampires for all I knew.
“Do you agree to this?” The question was directed at the actress, but I forced myself to consider.
It’s a violation. The gut instinct to reject anything related to being a vampire was strong.
But I bit my tongue. I’d promised to embrace these efforts.
Besides, a calculating part of me considered that learning how to thrall a human might be the first step to learning how to use the ability on vampires. The two seemed similar enough.
I didn’t have a witch teacher, but perhaps a vampire would do.
“You get an hour, my discretion, and that pile of silver had better double by the time you leave.”
“Agreed,” Raphael said.
Thankfully, the woman wasn’t a vampire, so I didn’t have to watch Raphael kiss her.
She stuck her hand at me. “My name’s Flo.”
I shook it, keeping my press gentle. “My name—”
“Eh-hem.” Demos cleared his throat, not so subtly.
Well, discretion or not, it was rude not to give Flo something to call me, especially if I was supposed to violate her free will.
“You can call me Samantha,” I settled on. It wasn’t my name, but she could call me it, so it wasn’t a lie.
“Nice to meet you, Samantha.” She arched a brow, looking between the two vampires flanking me. “I won’t bother asking for introductions from your sire or Mr. Tall, Pale, and Grumpy since you’re paying for discretion and all. So, what do you want?”
Raphael studied me. “We’ll start simple. You will endeavor to stand still, while Sam”—he almost never shortened my name, so it felt rather pointed—“orders you to perform simple functions.”
“Easy enough,” Flo agreed.
He turned to me. “Eye contact is essential. You must look into a mortal’s eyes to thrall them. Then give them the order.”
I met Flo’s green eyes for half a second before turning back to Raphael.
“What if they’re blind?” I asked. “Or they can’t see you in the dark?”
“That’s why vampire eyes glow slightly when thralling, so they can be seen. Even individuals with extremely limited sight can be affected, but true blindness, no.”
“What if you don’t speak a language they understand?”
“It doesn’t matter—the intent is what carries the compulsion, not the understanding, though the wording does matter,” Raphael patiently explained.
“What if they’re deaf?”
“The thrall will still hold.”
“What if—”
“What if they’re stalling?” Flo grumbled.
“Samantha, look, I know something about stage fright. First performance I had, I damn near froze before the curtain rose, missed my mark, stammered my lines. I tried to say I had the pox ten minutes before the curtain parted and nearly vomited over my costume. But the time came and the curtain opened, and there was nothing to do but run off the stage or perform. I performed. You can too.”
Okay, perhaps my questions hadn’t been purely about curiosity. “Raise your hand.”
Flo’s hands stayed crossed at her chest.
I focused on the black pupils at the center of her eyes. “Raise your right hand.” Perhaps I hadn’t been specific enough.
Nothing.
“Raise your left hand.”
“You’re not very good at this,” Flo observed. “I can see why you have to pay for it.”
“I haven’t really practiced violating people’s free will,” I groused.
Raphael and Demos had settled on either side of the carriage. “Don’t think of it like that,” Raphael said. “It’s not about taking someone’s free will. It’s about making your will theirs.”
Semantics, I wanted to say. But that was the same petulant part of me that wanted to throw down the practice sword when I was sloppy at sparring and Raphael had knocked me on my back.
I shut my eyes for a second, trying to quickly analyze my past experiences with the vampires.
I hadn’t known what I was doing, just that I wanted something—the librarian to stop attacking, or Demos to leave me alone. I’d just… wanted.
Right now, I was so focused on the fact that I was making Flo do something she didn’t want. I was making it about her when it should be about me.
This was absolutely opposite my mother’s teachings. Telling someone what you want is the quickest way to ensure you never have it.
I tried telling Flo to lift her knee. Nothing happened.
I cast Raphael an exasperated look.
He didn’t move from his spot.
In the arena, he gave me no quarter. This was perhaps the same in a different way.
He gave me no out, no excuse to focus on him instead of the woman in front of me.
“Your will is more than a simple action. Right now, you don’t care if she lifts a finger or a leg.
Focus on the greater goal you have and what it means to you. ”
In my mind’s eye, I didn’t see Flo. I saw the vampire that had ripped apart my mother.
I imagined having the power to stop it, ordering him to leave my mother alone, the same words I’d cried out uselessly in the arena. This wasn’t the same, but… the feeling of relief in having my orders executed? At being in control? At having a chance of mastering this power within myself?
I wanted that.
“Raise your right hand.”
Slowly, unsteadily, as though she fought it every moment, her right hand rose.
Flo grinned at me. “I was beginning to wonder if you had it in you.”
She seemed more excited than me, but as she’d been standing there the last ten minutes doing nothing, I imagined any excitement would do.
I refocused on Raphael. “Will her hand stay there forever?”
Raphael shook his head. “This is where intent matters. You left the order open-ended, but I imagine you weren’t thinking you wanted Flo’s arm extended for the rest of her life. Without a clear release, the order will weaken until it feels fulfilled.”
“So you want to be as precise as possible in thralling someone?”
Raphael shook his head. “It’s impossible to think of all contingencies.
That’s why intent matters. If you don’t know exactly what you need, keeping instructions open-ended will allow the person to fill in the gaps in a logical way.
Like if you thrall someone not to recognize you, they won’t suddenly do so in an hour.
Once you leave, this specific thrall would likely wear off unless the intent is different. ”
That didn’t fully make sense. I had a number of questions, but we had limited time for me to practice, and I didn’t want to have to go through this all again if Raphael decided I needed more practice.
“You can let your arm down,” I told Flo.
Her arm dropped. From there, it was suddenly easy. Her right arm rose again, then her left joined it.
We went through several more exercises. Rise onto tiptoes, hop on a foot. Point to where she kept her favorite shoes. The worst was asking her questions while she tried to resist. I could see her bite her cheek, trying to keep from answering, but her answers came all the same.
It was nothing overly personal. How long she’d been an actress, what her favorite role had been.
It made me feel dirty.
“Are we done?” I asked, exhausted.
“Yes.” Raphael pressed off the side of the wall to come by my side.
“You picked up on that surprisingly quickly,” Demos said, almost begrudging. A dozen coins from Demos’s pocket joined the existing pile.
Flo gave me a wide grin. “I guess I’m a lucky charm.”
I failed to return it, and her playful expression turned serious.
“Chin up, Sam. Hardly the worst role I’ve played. One time, I spent a whole season as a little orphan in a musical. I was thirty-three.”
I gave a tight nod, and Flo returned it. She went and pocketed the pile of silver before turning to the door. “Are we all set, then?”
“One last thing.” Raphael stepped in front of Flo.
“You will forget that we came here and why. Instead, you will think you have been recuperating in your room this entire time and dozed off. If anyone brings up the fact they saw us enter, you’ll only vaguely recall discussing praise for your performance.
By neither word nor deed will you tell anyone the nature of training performed here. ”