soulgaze evelyn

"Evelyn Derek," I said in a firm, authoritative voice. "Look at me."
She flinched closer to the wall, shaking her head.
I knelt in front of her. Then I reached out to touch her chin, and gently lifted her face to mine. "Evelyn Derek," I said in a gentler voice. "Look at me."
The woman lifted her dark green eyes to mine and I held her gaze for the space of a long breath before the soulgaze began.
If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then wizards are the souls' voyeurs. When a wizard looks into another person's eyes, we get to see something of that person, a vision of the very core of their being. We each go through the experience a little differently, but it amounts to the same thing-a look into another person's eyes gives you an insight into the most vital portions of their character.
Evelyn Derek's deep green eyes almost seemed to expand around me, and then I found myself staring at a room that was, if anything, almost identical to the woman's office. The furniture was beautiful and minimalistic. Ms. Derek, it seemed, was not the kind of person to overly burden her soul with the care and mementos most people collect over the course of a lifetime. She had devoted her life to her mind, to the order and discipline of her thoughts, and she had never left herself much room for personal entanglements.
But as I stared at the room, I saw Ms. Derek herself. I would have expected her in her business clothing, or perhaps in student's attire. Instead, she was wearing...
Well. She was wearing very expensive, very minimalistic black lingerie. Stockings, garters, panties, and bra, all black. She wore them, ahem, very well. She was kneeling on the floor, her knees apart, her hands held behind the small of her back. She faced me with her lips parted, her breath coming in quickened pants. I was able to change my viewpoint slightly, as if walking around her, and those green eyes followed me, pupils wide with desire, her hips shifting in little yearning rolls with every tiny correction of her balance.
Her wrists were bound behind her back with a long, slender ribbon of white silk.
I caught a motion in the corner of my eye, and I snapped my gaze up, to see a slender, feminine form vanish into the corridors of Evelyn Derek's memory, showing me nothing more than a flash of pale skin-
-and a gleam of silver eyes.
Son of a bitch.
Someone had bound up Ms. Derek's thoughts, all right, and woven those restraints together with her natural sexual desire, to give them permanence and strength. The method and the glimpses I'd seen of the perpetrator, flashes of memory that had managed to remain in her thoughts, perhaps, gave strong indicators as to who was responsible.
A vampire of the White Court.
And then there was a wrenching sensation and I was kneeling over Evelyn Derek. Her eyes were wide, her expression a mixture of terror and awe as she stared up at me.
Oh, yeah. That was the thing about a soulgaze. Whoever you look at gets a look back at you. They get to see you in just as much detail as you see them. I've never had anyone soulgaze me who didn't seem... disconcerted by the experience.
Evelyn Derek stared at me and whispered, "Who are you?"
I said, "Harry Dresden."
She blinked slowly and said, her voice dazed, "She ran from you." Tears started forming in her eyes. "What is happening to me?"


Turn Coat Chapter 22, page 202-204