Rebecca’s face brightened. “That’s one way of looking at it.” She reached out and took Lydia’s hand. Immediately her mother found it easier to breathe. She took a deep breath and felt better than she had in days. Gratefully, she sank into the seat across the aisle from her daughter, still holding her hand.
“I contacted Washington and asked them to do a database search. They found who’s working on the dolphin problem,” Brenna told Rebecca. “I told Callie to send them a million dollars. I’m going to talk to Carlos about funneling money into the parliaments in Ecuador and Peru to try and shut down that fishing practice. I guess they do it in Mexico, too. I contacted Todd and told him to put someone to working on it in Mexico City.”
“Is this going to be a new crusade?”
“They’re intelligent, Rebecca. Far more so than any animal I’ve met, maybe more than some of the people I’ve known. It’s murder for profit. Consider it my charity work. I know I can be pretty shallow sometimes, but with the money I have, my personal money, I can afford to spend some on something more important than a new dress.”
“I’ll bet those calls cost a fortune,” Lydia spoke up. “I thought about calling a friend in San Francisco who’s been here before, but the rates at that hotel were incredible.”
“Oh, I didn’t use the phone. The woman I contacted seemed a little surprised, though. I guess I should have asked Collin to tell her do the search for me.”
Aine, Lydia sent to her daughter, do you suppose you could give me a quick briefing sometime on your and Brenna’s capabilities? I hate to feel like a yokel with my mouth hanging open all the time.
Rebecca moved Lydia over to the window and sat next to her, mentally starting to explain Brenna.
Aine, start with you, please. Brenna is intriguing, but believe it or not, some people are more interested in you.
A warm glow flowed through Rebecca, making her smile, and she told her mother about where she was in her training, what she had learned about her Gifts and what she could do. As she went into more depth, and Lydia asked her questions, she became more excited, pride infusing some of her explanations. The empathic feedback from her mother was also filled with pride, and with love.
~~~
The bus wound through the Sacred Valley. Boarding a train, they rode to the base of Machu Picchu where a short walk from the train station brought them to a unique hotel secluded on an estate. The hotel advertised that it provided a vacation paradise, and Brenna thought she had never seen a marketing claim that was more true. It was laid out in the traditional Andean village style with a natural sauna and an exquisite restaurant overlooking the river below. The individual luxury cottages had an Incan motif with stone paths leading through the gardens and natural fountains.
It was a beautiful evening with the moon bright overhead, and Brenna felt the romance of the evening. It was chilly at nine thousand feet, but after dinner, she took a blanket from her room and led Carlos’ brother Jorge to a grassy spot near the restaurant where they could see the river. Using her Cryokinetic Gift to warm them, they made slow, gentle love in the beautiful surroundings.
Lying in each other’s arms watching the moon, she stroked his face, “You’re going to make some woman very happy, sweet man. Promise to invite me to dance at your wedding.”
He smiled at her, and touched her in a way that made her eyes roll back in her head. “Perhaps when I dance at your wedding I shall meet her,” he said with a sparkle in his eyes. “I think that might be true.” Then he did a couple of more things that made her glad he was not married yet.
~~~
They awoke early to avoid the crowds at the great Incan citadel. During the morning, a private guide walked them through the details of Machu Picchu’s construction and explained how a city survived perched atop the mountain. That afternoon, they continued to explore the ruins on their own. They would stay another night at the hotel at the base of the mountain before taking a train back to Cuzco and flying from there back to Quito.
Their party was on the outskirts of the ruins when a man stepped out from between two buildings about thirty feet ahead of them. He carried a rifle and had a pistol holstered on his hip. Two more men followed him and spread out to flank them.
“Give me Brenna O’Donnell,” he shouted in Spanish. “We have you surrounded, and there is no need for anyone to die. But I will leave here with her and keep her until you return my daughter.”
“Don Rodrigo Hernandez, I assume?” Brenna softly asked Carlos.
“Yes, the devil himself.”
“How many?” Rebecca asked. “I count thirty total.”
“Me too,” Brenna said.
“Why is it always thirty? Is that some kind of magic number or something?” Rebecca mused. “Oh well. Carlos, pull your people in close to our Protectors. We can’t cover them if they wander.”
“It would make sense to scatter and not give them easy shots,” the general muttered.
“But so much more difficult to cover with our air shields,” his fiancée answered.
A gunshot rang out and kicked up dust between their party and the Argentine Don.
“Carlos, I’m not bluffing,” Hernandez called. “Give me the girl.”
“The problem is the Rivera Gift,” Brenna said. “I’m the only one who can cover us all.”
“That Gift is fairly common in South America,” Carlos said. “It accounted for a lot of the casualties in the war.”
“Are we ready?” Rebecca asked.
“Yeah. We have everyone covered, right?” Brenna answered.
Show time. Rebecca sent to the O’Donnell Protectors. Several of them added their air shields. Pulling her mother close, she said, “Get down and stay down.”
Brenna motioned to Donny Doyle. “Cover Lydia,” she said. He moved to Rebecca’s side.
Rebecca disappeared and Don Rodrigo screamed, holding his head and reeling. Brenna had shattered his shields and seized control of his mind.
Several shots rang out, but the bullets were deflected by the shields over their party. Small groups of O’Donnell Protectors sprinted toward cover, bullets bouncing off the air shields covering them.
Materializing behind a man with a rifle lying on a ridge above her party, Rebecca leaned forward and touched him, giving him a short, weak shot of neural energy. It disrupted his nervous system and sent him into convulsions, but wasn’t enough to do any permanent damage. She grabbed the man’s rifle and then ducked behind a rock as a bullet ricocheted off her air shield.
They’re spread out, and some of them are fairly far away, she told Brenna. I’m going to have to bounce around to get them all.
Just be careful, okay? Brenna sent.
Spears of irresistible mental force penetrated the shields of Don Rodrigo’s men as Brenna identified and isolated them. Screams of pain echoed from the hills and ruins.
From her vantage point, Rebecca took aim and shot a man on the other side of the valley, then reformed her air shield. A hail of bullets hit around her. The world disappeared and reformed.
The startled man Rebecca landed next to fired his rifle at her. Involuntarily, she ducked but the bullet bounced off her air shield. Brenna shattered the man’s shields and grabbed control of his mind. More bullets hit Rebecca’s air shield. She felt herself being teleported again.
In the valley, one of Don Rodrigo’s men let loose a stream of neural energy and one of the Vargas men fell to the ground, twitching and drooling, his nervous system burned out.
Whirling, Brenna located two men hiding behind the ruins near them. Pushing her hands in front of her, she unleashed a stream of flame in that direction. Stunned at Brenna’s power, Rebecca saw the stones start to melt.
Brenna, calm down, dial it back, Rebecca sent, releasing a stream of her own neural energy at an attacker sprinting toward shelter in the ruins. She missed him, but the man following him fell.
Get that guy, Rebe
cca sent Brenna a mental picture of the man disappearing between two stone walls.
Brenna shattered his shields and seized his mind. She turned to look around and saw another man stumble and fall, hit by neural energy from Donny.
A bullet bounced off Donny’s shield. Brenna looked up and saw a man over a hundred yards away with a rifle pointed toward them. She reached out and shattered his shields. He screamed and fell off the wall he was standing on. It was the farthest she had tried to attack someone.
The O’Donnell and Vargas Protectors who had separated from the main group now had disabled or killed several of their attackers. Silence fell over the valley.
Are there any more? Brenna sent to Rebecca.
After doing a quick check with her team, Rebecca sent, I think we got them all.
Carlos stared at Don Rodrigo, writhing on the ground before him. Rebecca appeared by his side, startling him. His lover walked toward the Argentine Clan head, picked up his rifle, and pulled his pistol from its holster.
“Good God, Rebecca,” Carlos exclaimed, standing over the Argentine Don. “What did you do?”
“I haven’t done anything to him yet. Brenna has captured their minds. Now we need to figure out what to do with them.”
He turned and looked at the young woman standing behind him, her black hair floating in the wind. She held a rifle in her hands.
“All of them?”
“Huh?” Rebecca followed his eyes. “Oh, yeah, she has all of them that still have minds. She wasn’t sure if she could take thirty at once, and she was worried about the distance.” Rebecca checked with Brenna mentally.
“She says she has seventeen captured. That’s fewer casualties than Paris. I still get sick to my stomach when I remember that disaster. We weren’t trained as well then, and we were younger.”
Donny walked over to Brenna and she handed him the rifle.
“Whew,” Rebecca breathed a sigh of relief. “Try to keep loaded firearms out of her hands. She’s the worst shot in the world. If you think she needs a weapon, give her a frying pan.”
Brenna walked over and stood at Rebecca’s side.
“What should we do with them?” Rebecca asked.
Brenna’s face was set in hard lines. “I’m going to burn out the Gifts of the men I captured. I’m tired of people trying to kill me.” She leaned down and placed a finger on Don Rodrigo’s temple. The man jerked, his body convulsed, and then he lay quiet. He was still breathing. Rebecca and Carlos each reached out to his mind. His shields were gone. He still had the ordered nine-level mind of a telepath, but there was no evidence of telepathic activity.
“Could you take care of his other problem?” Brenna asked.
Rebecca leaned down and put her hand between the Don’s legs. He jerked, his back arching, then lay still again.
She turned bleak eyes on Carlos. “I have a thing about rapists, especially men who abuse children. Carlotta wasn’t his only victim. Do you have any problem with that?”
Shaking his head, Carlos followed her to the next man. “Show me what you’re doing. I have the Rivera Gift, I can help.”
Rebecca studied his face, then stood on her tiptoes and gave him a quick kiss. Bending down to the man on the ground, she opened her mind to her lover and showed him how to burn out a telepath’s Gifts. They left the Argentines where they had fallen. In less than an hour, with the help of some of the Protectors, two of Carlos’ security team and Jorge, the survivors of the attacking force were left head blind forever.
Their own casualties were one dead from a gunshot, one burned out from the Rivera Gift, one with a sprained ankle, and two with minor neural damage from the Rivera Gift.
Carlos’ men brought a truck as close as they could, and the party carried all the guns and their wounded down to it, occasionally having to blur the minds of people they met. The trip down the mountain to their hotel was somber.
“I’ve been involved in our operations for over twenty years, but I’ve never been on the front line before,” Lydia said quietly to Brenna and Rebecca.
Rebecca hugged her. “Remember how excited I was when I started Protector training? The reality isn’t very exciting, just scary and sickening.”
That evening, Brenna was very quiet at dinner, drinking heavily. She went to the lounge afterward and shortly disappeared with a young man. She came back an hour later with a Glow and quickly seduced another man. Then she picked up a couple and went to their room with them.
“What’s she doing?” Carlos asked.
“Self-medicating. She’ll be better in the morning,” Rebecca told him. “That actually sounds like a good idea. Why don’t you take me to bed and make me forget today?”
Their lovemaking was often passionate, but Carlos had never seen her as fierce as she was that night. As soon as they reached the room, she placed her hand on his cheek and kissed him, devouring his mouth while fumbling with his pants with her other hand. He caught her passion and returned it.
Rebecca felt fire coursing through her veins, and her breath sounded loud in her ears as Carlos kissed down her throat. Cupping her buttocks in his hands, he buried his face in her cleavage. She grabbed her blouse and ripped it open, buttons popping off, and pushed her breasts into his face, needing to feel his hot breath on her skin. His mouth found a nipple and she arched against him. Plunging her hand down his hard stomach into his pants, she found what she needed awaiting her.
He picked her up and carried her to the bed. Her pants came off, and holding her feet in the air, he pushed into her. As she felt him fill her, she cried out and gripped the covers with her hands.
“More. Harder. Oh God, harder, Carlos.” she urged him on, writhing beneath him, matching his rhythm and trying to take him deeper. The world blurred and she lost herself. Reaching out for his soul, she buried herself in him with the same fierce passion as he entered her body. The heat between her legs built into a raging furnace, lightning shooting from their union to her brain and molten passion poured through their link, spurring him to increase his pace. A volcano erupted deep inside her and she clenched him inside her. He gasped her name, grinding against her, and spilled deep within her. She exploded, pulling his mind into her orgasm, feeding him the raw pleasure that burst through every nerve in her body.
It was the last thing either of them remembered until morning.
~~~
CHAPTER 24
Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared. – Niccolo Machiavelli
A month after returning from Ecuador, Rebecca rushed into the DC compound, shooting a spear thread to Brenna, Where are you? There’s been a coup in Argentina.
Rebecca had spent the night with Carlos and the news had reached him through the Ecuadorian embassy early that morning. Pushing into Brenna’s room, she found her sister turning the TV to CNN.
“No, not a government coup. Don Rodrigo’s son has taken control of the Clan and exiled his father.”
Brenna turned off the TV. “No shit? Where did he exile him to?”
“Spain, and he exiled that bitch Carlotta also.”
“Wow. Does Carlos have any idea how it’s going to play out? I mean, is the son friendly? Are we back to where we started or are things going to be okay?” Brenna felt totally ignorant of what this turn of events might mean.
“Carlos doesn’t know. Don Rodrigo ran his Clan with an iron hand, and evidently no one in Quito has a feel for the son, Don Fernando.”
Brenna contacted Seamus, who had already heard the news from Todd in Mexico, but they didn’t have any better idea of what the situation was in Argentina, or what it might mean to O’Donnell and Vargas.
For the next few days, the situation remained muddled. Slowly a picture emerged. Don Fernando and the Argentines did a lot of business with Germany, but had no interest in trying to dom
inate the other Clans in South America. He extended an olive branch to Vargas, but made no promises. Collin sent additional operatives to Buenos Aires to monitor Clan activities and attempt to infiltrate the Hernandez Clan.
~~~
Brenna was at the O’Donnell Development offices in DC on business. Leaving OD’s offices, she waited while her limo pulled up and three Protectors deployed to watch for threats. Brenna started to get in the car, then stopped when she saw her friend Marie de la Tour walking toward her, evidently returning to the office from lunch. Brenna smiled and walked a few steps toward Marie to greet her.
Brenna lurched sideways as something slammed into her right side, throwing her to the sidewalk. In shock, she realized she’d been shot, her awareness going to her abdomen. She was appalled at the damage she found. Pain exploded through her nervous system.
As the companion to the most powerful telepath in the world, Rebecca always tended to look to Brenna in dangerous situations, but she herself had fifteen Gifts, and an uncommon amount of power. Her Dominance Gift wasn’t as strong or spectacular as the O’Donnell Gift that enabled Brenna or Seamus to shatter another telepath’s shields like thin glass, but her O’Byrne Gift of Dominance could beat down the shields of anyone except a person with the triple-strength shields of the O’Neill Gift.
At the sound of the shot, she scanned the street and found a shielded telepath standing across the street, a grin of triumph on his face. It took less than a second for her to send nine bursts of power, destroying his shields and capturing his mind. She ripped his soul from him and shoved it into a fifth level construct in her mind. Vaguely, she saw a pistol drop from his hand to the sidewalk.
Leaping toward Brenna, she caught her sister’s head in one hand before it hit the sidewalk. Brenna’s hands were holding her abdomen and Rebecca pressed her other hand there. Blood welled between Brenna’s fingers.
“The son of a bitch shot me in the uterus,” Brenna murmured, her eyes wide with shock.
Call Seamus, Rebecca sent to her team, we need a healer now!
“Rebecca?” Brenna whispered. “The bullet is next to my spine. Be careful how you move me.”
Succubus Rising, An Urban Fantasy (The Telepathic Clans Saga) Page 25
