The Mesmerizer reveals herself

Jazmine finished slurping her milkshake. She lifted her head and locked eyes with me. Her gaze had changed. She no longer looked at me like an innocent little doe, but more like a mischievous cat about to pounce on her prey.

“You know what I learned when I started experimenting with the arcane? It’s fun to see other people suffer the same way as you did. Cathartic even. I’ve been doing this for quite a while now. Remember a few years back? The string of models found naked and delirious in laundromats on the West Side? I was the one who bewitched them to strip.”

“I heard about that during my time on the ****. Unfortunately, I was assigned to holdups in credit unions, so I couldn’t investigate,” I said. Huh, it seemed like we peeled Jazmine’s mask off. Not sure that’s a good thing.

”Yes, I honed my craft quite a bit over the years. Created my own discipline. Vooderism. A mix between Voodoo and Hypnotism. Neat, huh?”

“Isn’t Voodoo a religion?” Annie asked. “I feel like we are using that word very incorrectly and inappropriately.”

“Whatever you learned, your tricks won’t work on us,” I winked at Jazmine across my sunglasses, but I don’t think she noticed. “We did our homework. You don’t have direct eyesight to hypnotize us, nor do you have anything of ours to take possession of us.”

“Nothing, detective? I don’t need much, a bit of saliva or even a stray hair is enough.” I looked down. While we were talking, Jazmine switched our plates. Annie’s plate had a little red hair, while my cup was stained with my lipstick. “I also did my homework.” Jazmine pulled out two dolls that looked remarkably like me and Annie.

Crap. This was bad. I tried to run away, but my legs refused to move. Annie also had a panicked expression, the freckles around her cheeks wrinkling with her nose. It seemed she couldn’t move anything else.

“Well, seems I got myself a couple of new dolls. How should I play with you?”