Mental Parasite Reveals The Truth

It wasn’t until after I got off and was all the way home that my day really went to shit. It started positively enough, a text from Asa, telling me to use Mental Parasite on her. That seemed like a lot of fun and a pleasant end to an unpleasant day.

And it started like that too, as I looked out through Asa’s eyes, I saw…lovely things.

And heard shitty club music. But the sights more than made up for that. Nice, but we’ve got hotter in the App.

_They might be fun for a night though. _Asa’s eyes ran over the other women’s curves with open lust.

I laughed in her mind. Eh, I’ll never say no to another clean one-night stand, but we’ve got a lot--

I stopped bantering as I caught sight of where Asa was heading. Or rather, the name over the bar she was heading towards.

The Iceberg Lounge.

Panic surged through me. What are you doing there? Don’t you know--

Of course, I do, silly, that’s the whole point. You can’t come here, but I can. A new influencer, partying at the hottest club in Gotham is not suspicious, at all. Relax.

You aren’t a spy!

_And I’m not trying to be. All I need to do, is brush one of them while you’re here. _She glanced up at the office, where all three of the Songbirds were visible in the massive glass office that hung above the dance floor, where Penguin lorded it over his domain.

You can’t go up there!

_Watch it, Eli, _she warned at that order. That’s not the plan. They’ll come down, at least one of them will. If nothing else, they’ve got to go through the club to get out.

My brain raced, We aren’t ready!

To add them to the App? Sure we are. There’s still three open spots.

One of those is for Diamond’s target!

She agreed this was better. Besides, we can always buy more slots.

I don’t think--

You would never actually move, babe. I love you, but seriously, ever major move has been made by someone else and you’ve been **** to react.

A hand on her ass distracted us for a moment, but Asa squirmed away and headed for the bar. My mind was spinning. I could order her to leave. She would have to obey…but what would that do to us? Nothing good.

If you guys wanted to do this, I could have just arranged for Kat to meet with one of them again and hitched a ride with her!

And that would have been safe? Seriously?

For you!

Seriously, Eli?

I didn’t have a great answer to that, so I changed the subject.

If you see Bridgette…

I’ll bail. But she’s hardly going to hang out here. Admit it, you’ve driven past this place and pinged it.

Dammit, she knew me real well. Okay, fine, but be careful.

Always, she thought and I felt her spin between two men, elbow one out of the way and get the bartender’s attention, easily, grabbing a drink paid for by the man next to her as she smiled and flirted…

I thought for a moment and a Helpful Hint popped up.

Yes, indeed, Drop Dead’s radius is focused on where your mind is, so when using Mental Parasite you can use it at that location.

Well, at least I had some backup plan. Asa danced with a friend, as she wasn’t dumb enough to go alone, which was…weird to see from Asa’s perspective. I didn’t know the friend, it was some other influencer, who kept posing for selfies and recording them. Which wasn’t great, but probably reduced the odds that they’d have any problems.

Not that those were high, Penguin was a vicious criminal, but he wasn’t stupid, if people regularly disappeared from his club, they would stop going and the cops would have to investigate, regardless of the bribes they’d been given.

The big concern wasn’t what would happen in the club, if Penguin was pissed, someone would follow you home and you’d disappear there, or die in a ‘home invasion gone wrong’ or whatever…I kept my eyes open and spotted bouncers and a couple of heavy boys who’d probably done some more illegal muscle work.

But none seemed to be paying attention to Asa. Well, once I adapted to the average amount of attention she got. Which wasn’t actually massively high. She and the influencer buddy were both hot, no doubt, but the club was full of hot women and the muscle knew better than to stare. That made women uncomfortable, which was bad for business and anything bad for business was bad for a Penguin employee causing it…

Lark started down, which I could see out of the corner of Asa’s eye. Despite my concerns, I did warn her and Asa slid gracefully over and casually bumped into the criminal lieutenant…