Succubus Rising, An Urban Fantasy (The Telepathic Clans Saga)

by BR Kingsolver

  As soon as the police were safely out of the building, Morrighan hopped out of bed and went down to see Brenna. Irina was happy to see her. She jumped up to hug Morrighan, then stopped.

  “Oh my God. What happened to you?” Irina exclaimed, eyeing the bloody bandage on Morrighan’s head.

  “Makeup for the police,” her friend replied with a grin. “I’ve been playing Brenna for the past half hour. How’s our girl doing?” She went to the bed and reached out to touch her niece’s face. Brenna's eyes fluttered open.

  “Morrighan?”

  “Yes, honey. How are you feeling?”

  “I hurt. What happened to you?”

  Morrighan gave her a quick update mentally on events since she had been shot. Brenna managed a small smile.

  ~~~

  Seamus and Rebecca materialized in Seamus’ bedroom. “Let’s go see those books in the library,” he told her.

  “Most of them are in languages I can’t read,” Rebecca said. “That’s part of the reason I never looked at them.”

  “Granddaughter, if I can’t read them, I can find someone who can.”

  Two hours later, Rebecca asked him in awe, “How many languages do you understand?”

  “A couple of dozen. I don’t know what the native speakers would think of my pronunciation, but I can read them.” They were looking at a book in Old French, and Seamus was translating for her into modern French.

  References to a Soul Thief could be found in over a dozen books in the library, none written after the eighteenth century.

  Seamus chuckled, “That’s probably why you, Brenna and I get along so well. I’m basically what you’d call a nerd, just like you two. I can happily spend days in this room.”

  “Shhh, don’t tell anyone,” Rebecca smiled, “you’ll destroy the personas we’ve worked so hard to project. Who ever heard of a succubus nerd or a dangerous soldier nerd?”

  “I promise not to tell.”

  “Well, none of these references really help, though,” Rebecca lamented. “We know I’m not a demon stealing souls for the devil. A lot of these references are to succubi, and we know they don’t steal souls either.”

  Seamus closed the book and pulled another to him. It was written in Latin in the twelfth century. They consulted the notes Maureen O’Donnell had made and opened it to the pages she cited. Rebecca had taken two years of Latin in high school and brushed up on it when she became the Clan’s librarian.

  “Damn, this is what we’ve been looking for,” Rebecca exclaimed. “Holy crap.”

  Almost twenty pages were devoted to the explanation of how a soul could be stolen, transferred or retrieved. It explained the technique and that it was an extremely rare Gift. The Soul Thief could capture someone’s soul, and either implant it in another person, or cast it free on the ether. The act killed the person whose soul was stolen, though reinstating the soul in the body, or another dead body within a few hours of death, would reanimate the body.

  It recounted how a lover, having died from disease, was recreated. A Soul Thief captured the woman’s soul at the moment of death and then, purging the soul from a beautiful serving girl, transplanted the noble woman’s soul into the serving girl’s body. Thus, the grieving duke was able to reclaim his dead love.

  “Wow, that’s gruesome,” Rebecca’s stomach wanted to rebel. “I wonder how much black that caused in their souls. No wonder it’s associated with demons.”

  “The problem is, assuming this is true, we need a body for you to implant the shooter’s soul into so we can interrogate him,” Seamus looked almost as sick at the idea as Rebecca felt.

  “I wonder if we could get access to his body,” Rebecca mused. “If I could restore it, then maybe we could bring him back to life and capture his mind in a more conventional way. It doesn’t say how long you can wait before the body can’t be reanimated.”

  “Are you sure you can restore it?” Seamus asked.

  “Yeah, I’ve done it before,” Rebecca said.

  “You have?”

  “When we ran that op at the UN. I pulled Johan Karlson’s soul out of his body, but when he died, I put it back. Brenna stimulated his heart and he came back to life.”

  “I don’t remember seeing that in your report.”

  Rebecca hunched her shoulders, refusing to meet Seamus’ eyes. “We didn’t tell anyone,” she said in a soft voice.

  She stared at the page, “You know, I think I know how Brenna felt when we told her she was a succubus. I always thought that discovering I had another Gift would be exciting, but I can’t think of how I’d ever want to use this.”

  Seamus sent a spear thought to Mike Riley. Mike, is there any way you can get us access to the shooter’s body?

  It’s in the morgue, Seamus. Why?

  How much damage did it suffer?

  Donny and Kristen both hit him with their Rivera Gift. No obvious damage, but I’m sure his neural network is burned out. That wouldn’t show on autopsy though.

  “I don’t think it would work, Rebecca.” Seamus explained why.

  “It wouldn’t have to be his body,” Rebecca mused, “anyone who died very recently would probably work.”

  Seamus contacted Charles Farrell, the Clan’s inside man at the FBI. Two days later, Farrell sent a spear thread telling Seamus of a teenage girl who had been smothered by an attacker during a home invasion. The girl had called 911 and police arrived within minutes of her death. The body was being taken to a hospital in Fairfax County, just outside DC.

  Rebecca and several other Clan members arrived at the hospital as the unfortunate girl was being loaded into an ambulance to be transported to the morgue. The O’Donnell team took control of the personnel from the morgue and the hospital, and Rebecca was given access to the body.

  Controlling her revulsion, Rebecca retrieved the shooter’s soul and pushed it into the corpse. A healer started the heart and lungs and the girl took a breath, color returning to her cheeks as blood started to flow through her body. Immediately, Rebecca and Kallen entered the shooter’s mind and found the information they sought. As soon as they had what they needed, Rebecca pulled the man’s soul out of the girl’s body and it faltered, a death rattle issued from her lungs, and the body once again died.

  Stumbling out of the ambulance, Rebecca was violently sick. Seamus held her and when she finished heaving, folded her into his arms, stroking her hair. His face held a look of profound pity.

  “Don Rodrigo sent him,” Kallen announced as their small troop made its way back to their vehicles. “Brenna’s mercy came back to bite her.”

  ~~~

  CHAPTER 26

  The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. – Dorothy Parker

  To no one’s surprise, Brenna was a terrible patient. After the first three days of her convalescence, she was bored, grouchy, and generally a pain in the ass. Although the infirmary staff and her friends might have been intimidated by her threats when she didn’t get things she asked for, they were far more intimidated by a healthy Rebecca, who threatened bodily harm to anyone who violated the restrictions the doctors laid on the patient.

  When Brenna asked for her laptop on the fourth day after her surgery, Rebecca handed her an electronic book reader. This led to a shouting match, which Rebecca ultimately won by simply leaving the room. Brenna’s morals prevented her from using Compulsion to get what she wanted, and her attempts to use Influence were cut off by either Rebecca or Collin, who felt it through their links to her and came on the run.

  Brenna won the second shouting match. Rebecca wanted to go to Spain and kill Don Rodrigo. Brenna absolutely forbade it and threatened to control Rebecca’s mind to prevent it. At the end of their argument, she sent a spear to Kallen O’Reilly.

  Kallen came to her room that evening. Afraid someone might overhear them, Brenna spoke to him on a spear thread.

  Kallen, I hate to ask this of you, but I’m not in shape to take care of it myself. Rebecca wants to go to Sp
ain.

  Well, we can’t let her do that, he answered. Do you know where he is?

  I can have someone try to find out.

  That would be good. I can be in Madrid the day after tomorrow. Stay in touch.

  Brenna contacted Sean McDermott, a detective who worked for her, and sent him to Spain to seek out Don Rodrigo. Kallen flew to London the next day and disappeared.

  ~~~

  After a week, they moved Brenna to the Baltimore house, which was quieter. She was convinced it was a calculated effort to drive her out of her mind.

  Irina walked into Brenna’s room the second day she was in Baltimore and dropped two books on her bed. “Here, put some of that vaunted intellect to work. I’ve told everyone to stop speaking English to you, and not to listen if you speak English to them. Hasta la vista, darling,” she said with an evil grin. The books were beginning and intermediate Spanish texts.

  Gathering up Brenna’s electronic reader and turning the TV to a Spanish language station, Irina turned and walked out of the room, using the remote to disable the manual controls and taking the remote with her. Brenna couldn’t change the channel and she couldn’t turn it off. She didn’t know enough about electronics to do it telekinetically.

  ~~~

  Two days later, Brenna contacted Sean and the Scottish private investigator reported he had located Carlotta Hernandez. Brenna sent a spear thread to Kallen. Two days after that, Kallen reported that her ‘irritation’ had been ‘resolved’ and he was coming home.

  She contacted Sean and thanked him, asking how much money to transfer. Sean told her what his expenses had been, but refused to take a fee for his time. He gave her the full report on the Hernandez ‘resolution’.

  Don Rodrigo and his daughter were discovered yesterday by his housekeeper. They were nude, hanged on opposite ends of the same rope thrown over a rafter in his home, Sean reported.

  Thanks, Sean, Brenna sent.

  ~~~

  It was decided to transfer Brenna to West Virginia to continue her convalescence. The ride to the airport and the two-hour flight to the small airfield just outside the valley completely wore her out. Weak as a newborn kitten, she gratefully crawled into her bed and slept until supper, roused enough to eat what Collin brought her, and went back to sleep.

  As her health and strength returned, she wanted to resume having sex with Collin. It seemed like forever since she’d been intimate with him. It was difficult to want him and see him every day but not be able to love him the way she wanted. He had gently held and cuddled her as she regained her strength, but it was frustrating as well.

  It was so much harder because she could feel him through their link every time he made love to someone else. She couldn’t ask him not to. It would drive him slowly mad if he couldn’t rebalance his energies. She knew that, and it had never bothered her before, but being in the same building with him, and her not being able to feed her own needs made it difficult. She refused to consider it jealousy. She hated the entire concept of jealousy, but she wished she was the one with her legs wrapped around him instead of the other woman.

  The day Dorothy told her she could resume having sex, “Gently, Brenna, don’t get too rambunctious,” Brenna immediately went to Collin’s office.

  “Hi, lover. Can you spare me an hour?”

  “Of course, Brenna, what do you need?”

  She took him by the hand and led him to the elevator. Pulling him into their room and kicking the door shut, she practically tore her clothes off. “Strip.”

  Eyes wide with delight, he complied.

  “Lie down, and don’t do anything that Dorothy would consider ‘rambunctious’,” she laughed.

  With a lascivious grin, he lay back, stretching his hands above his head, his eyes following her every move. The sweet smell of her arousal had him hard even before she gave him a puff of her pheromones.

  Her eyes feasted on his body, broad shoulders, hard chest, trim waist, and his hard erection. She crawled onto the bed and took him in hand. Sliding his foreskin back, she licked him like an ice cream cone, feeling him swell. A small burst of pheromones glazed his eyes and she smiled in delight. Her inner thighs warmed as her moisture flooded over them.

  Straddling him, she slid her moistness over his erection. Her nipples hardened as they touched his hard, flat stomach, tightening even more as they scraped over the hair of his chest. Finding his mouth, she nipped his lower lip and then covered it with her own. Her tongue pushed into him and then she almost lost control, pillaging his mouth. His hands slid over her, down her sides, leaving trails of flame on her skin.

  She broke the kiss and slid back down his body, slowly wriggling as her sex passed over his erection. He gasped. Taking him in hand, she rose up on her knees and guided him into the raging inferno between her thighs. Slowly, savoring every millimeter, she sank onto him. Oh. My. God. So deliciously full.

  She wanted more, and though he was so beautiful to watch, she closed her eyes and gave herself over to sensation, giving him a massive burst of pheromones. He grew even larger inside her.

  “Don’t move. Don’t move at all. Let me do it all,” she whispered. Grinding down on his hips, she started milking him with her inner muscles, squeezing him and rippling the bands of muscle in her vagina that make sex with a succubus so unique. She moved very little, just enough to stimulate her clitoris, reveling in the pulsing rod of fire she held inside her. Her breath came quicker, anxious moans of pleasure escaping her lips.

  Rocking slowly back and forth, holding him deeply within her, she wanted this to last forever. An orgasm shook her, fire rushing from between her legs to explode in her brain. She held herself rigid, fighting the urge to piston herself on him.

  “My God. You’re glorious,” he breathed.

  Hard on the heels of her first orgasm, another one built and skyrockets shot through her nerves again. She managed to keep control until the next one hit. Shuddering, she rose up from him and shoved down hard, jolting both of them. With a cry, he spilled inside her, pulsing uncontrollably. She triggered the feedback loop that would return his life energy to him, and fell forward with her head on his chest, her fingers digging into his chest. It had been so long.

  ~~~

  That afternoon, she bathed and carefully dressed in a thin white tank top, no bra, and a denim miniskirt with a pair of split-crotch panties. She pushed open the door to his office just after five o’clock.

  “Are you just about through for the day?” she asked.

  “Just finishing up. My, you look good. I like that outfit.”

  “I dressed just for you,” she purred, walking around his desk and pushing his chair away from the desk.

  She bent down and unzipped his jeans, filling the office with her pheromones. Freeing his sudden erection, she crawled up into his chair astride him and sheathed him inside her, pushing her chest into his face.

  He pulled her tank top up and took her breasts in his hands, his mouth finding a nipple, tongue flicking over it and then over the other before sucking it in. As before, she didn’t try to ride him, just ground against him and milked him with her muscles. Her hands entwined in his hair, she closed her eyes and held his mouth to her breast. Time slipped away, and she lost herself in their union. His climax took her by surprise, triggering her orgasm. Forgetting that she was supposed to be careful, she rode him hard and fast. The jarring motion caused sharp pains inside her abdomen, but she didn’t care.

  Lying on him, her head under his chin, her hands clenched in his shirt, she sighed. “God, I missed you. It feels so good to have you in me.”

  In the morning, she was awakened in a way she had missed. Smiling in pleasure, she threw the covers off and ran her hands through his hair that was brushing her surgical scar. He soon brought her to orgasm, his talented tongue knowing exactly what she wanted.

  Pulling him up to her mouth, she kissed him and with one hand guided him into her. “Gently, Collin, okay?”

  “Are you sure you want t
his position?”

  “Oh, yes. Just … Oh God. You feel so good. Just be gentle.”

  He was, gentle and slow and oh, so good. Feeling him stroke into her was heavenly.

  ~~~

  As Brenna’s strength returned, she resumed many of her responsibilities. Analysis of financial reports from O’Donnell Group’s far-flung empire and her own businesses, reports on the corporate reorganization, sitting in on conference calls with various regional managers.

  Rebecca took advantage of Brenna’s recuperation and spent much of her time in DC with Carlos. Irina was in New York most of the time with occasional trips to Europe. Brenna hadn’t had as much time alone with Collin since they had first become lovers, and now she was thoroughly enjoying their time together.

  The morning that Dorothy cleared her to resume all activities, she teleported down to the stables and took her horse Succubus out for a ride. The sunshine warming her face and the wind blowing through her hair, they rode out to the farthest west guard station and back. Arriving back at the manor around noon, she went looking for Collin, thinking to share the good news in a particularly intimate way.

  Though she had discussed it with no one, the scars from the shooting and surgery bothered her. Her body had been perfect, and now she had two very ugly scars. She’d been working on them with her Healing Gift, and Dorothy told her they would fade to almost nothing. But to her, they stood out like massive disfigurations. She needed affirmation from Collin that she was still desirable.

  She found him in his office. She locked the door and stalked around his desk. “I went for a ride this morning, and it didn’t hurt,” she told him. She was completely unprepared for his reaction.

  Surging out of his chair, he gathered her in his arms and lifted her onto his desk. Pulling her shirt over her head, he stripped off her bra and pants in record time. Gathering her hair in his hands, he kissed her hard and deep, and with no foreplay or warning, entered her. The wooden desk bit into her buttocks. Wild need overwhelmed her.