There is a woman at the bar. She's drinking some sort of coffee beverage, and grading papers.
She is accompanied by a very buff Native American looking fellow who obviously considers his companion to be the center of the universe. His mind would be notably unusual too, if he were standing next to anyone else - there's some multitasking and latent telepathy of his own that he isn't using right now.
"Um, that depends on what you're sensing. I'm a half-vampire, but you might just be getting a strong magical sense from my witchcraft. Even non-magical people get that. And I'm also carrying extremely detailed life histories of a large number of other people."
"I might not be getting that last thing, I don't typically read minds without permission. And it's...the truthy thing is separate from the thing I'm thinking of. If I were going to try to describe it using synaesthetic terminology I might say big or bright or something."
"Okay, then you're probably detecting the fact that I'm a half vampire and this has brain effects. My witchcraft, on the other hand, pitches a fit if I tell lies. I used to be able to get away with it if I was talking to people who'd never heard me tell the truth, but that's gotten harder over time."
"Even if I don't say anything, or state anything, there are facts about myself that are communicated through body language, or for that matter choosing to be silent - goes the theory. It's not especially scientific theory, as there's only one of me. Jake's a werewolf, and when he and other wolves in his pack are in wolf shape they're telepathic with one another. Doesn't do anything when he's shaped like so."
It's like every other mind in (range) the world is a (bright/solid/Obviously There) point. There are obvious things about each one--Elspeth receives a comparison between hers, Jake's, an averaged "composite human" and a composite of another category of person that presumably exists in Edie's world but which she doesn't happen to name.
Not reading minds isn't effortful, exactly, but it's not a standard default anymore than keeping your eyes closed is. She's in the habit of keeping her metaphorical eyes closed, now, but the sense of not-quite-natural remains.
Minds are easy to reach out and (touch). To read (surface thoughts or projected transmissions or one delicate thing), or to transmit to, or to (wraparound/guard/protect).
"I don't mind if you read my mind. Jake prefers to reserve same for pack and in principle me. That having been said, I contain the unabridged memories of a lot of other people, some of whom are alive to object, and while keeping those genuinely private is a lost cause by now it'd on the whole be better if you didn't look at any memories that aren't mine in the first person."
"Right." (He's her wolf, he loves/trusts/needs her with a devotion that is quite beyond reason, this is complicated but for them the complications are long enough ago to have settled into the background, it is quite unlikely that there are any forms of intimacy-with-her that he would not want.)
"Hmm. My telepathy is genetic, and I have it because of genes other than the one that activates it--" '(impression of how the X-Gene works, granting powers according to the information in seemingly useless and unrelated genes)' "--and I really do not even a little want to risk losing it."
"In addition to 'Princess'," Jake puts in.
"Yes. She's dead. Although Mama's general dislike of things that remind her of Chelsea might make her unfavorably disposed if you did apply to be turned, so I definitely can't guarantee results. It doesn't help that you're from another world and would probably wind up outside her jurisdiction eventually."
"I understand. And she has exceptions. My father reads minds less voluntarily than you do; she's careful about making sure no one is in his range without being okay with that, outside of extreme circumstances. But she might decide you'd make a dangerous vampire she'd have no hope of containing if it came to the necessity. You're much stronger and more general and longer-ranged than Chelsea was, and you don't work by witchcraft so Mama's immunity might or might not cover you."
"I bring home other things too, but if I overdo it I don't get new doors for longer than usual, so I try to keep it to the essentials - yes golden bubbly and interesting feats of materials engineering, no parts for spaceships that break the speed of light."
"I brought home some stuff on limb regeneration once. Turning into a vampire can't do that. But things that turning into a vampire can fix are less the focus - Mama approves of public health measures and I've brought vaccines and the like before but I haven't found anything that will do proper immortality besides vampirism and we're already doing that as fast as we can."
"It doesn't. So now we have expensive, hard-to-maintain extradimensional tech to handle re-replacing those hips with bone. And it has to be a genetic match, not because they'd have time to reject the bone but because if the hipbone turns with the rest of the person and it's different it'll generate different vampire venom and that will create mildly uncomfortable scar tissue."
"Pale. If you're already pale for a human when you turn you wind up almost pure white; people who were darker stop getting paler only just short of that. Eye color changes, depending on recency of turning and diet. Thirsty. Volatile for the first while, although that shortens and attenuates considerably when people know what they're getting into ahead of time. Very strong, tough, fast, precise. Perfect recall. Turning symmetrizes and smooths out, so many people like their looks better afterwards. Vampires don't sleep. It often improves or sometimes even adds de novo witchcraft. Vampires can completely heal from any injury without scarring as long as the injury wasn't inflicted by another vampire's teeth, all the pieces can be found, and they're brought into contact with their missing parts soon enough that they haven't completely dried out. They smell bad to werewolves, and vice-versa. Female vampires can't bear children. And they're about room-temperature, a little colder."