Succubus Ascendant: An Urban Fantasy (The Telepathic Clans Saga Book 4)

by BR Kingsolver

  Donny stood in the doorway overseeing their search. Rhiannon stood behind him, craning her neck to look around him.

  “You’re going to have to treat this as a hostile setting,” Jeremy told Donny. “You can’t relax here like you do at O’Donnell.”

  Red-faced, Donny nodded.

  The dog stopped in the middle of the bedroom and whined at the ceiling, then started to bark. Everyone’s attention went to the animal, and then to the light fixture in the middle of the ceiling above him.

  One of the Protectors, looking back over his shoulder at the dog, opened the door from the bedroom to the bathroom.

  A massive explosion sent fire roiling through the bedroom and sitting room and out into the hall. Donny and Rhiannon were blown out of the doorway and across the hall, the team leader landing on top of her. Everyone in the hallway was knocked off their feet.

  Someone threw an air shield over the doorway, containing the fire and smoke in the suite. The hall was already full of smoke and everyone was coughing.

  Brenna crawled to where Donny and Rhiannon lay. Both were unconscious. Donny’s clothing was burned away from his body, and the revealed skin was black with open red wounds. She peeled his pants away from his leg and found normal skin on the back of his calf. Placing her hand there, she began pouring healing energy into him even as she cast her mind into his body to diagnose his injuries.

  The healers from her security team and Morrighan’s found their way to them and began adding their efforts to hers. Then Rebecca was beside her, gently lifting Donny’s body off Rhiannon and pulling the woman out from under him.

  Rhiannon’s hair was singed almost to her scalp in the front, her face and left hand burned bright red, but she mostly had been shielded from the blast by Donny’s body.

  “Can you take him and I’ll see to her?” Brenna asked the healers.

  “Keep feeding him energy,” one replied. “He’s going to need everything we can give him.”

  Morrighan crawled up.

  “I can feed you,” she said to the healer.

  The healer nodded, and Brenna turned to Rhiannon. She sent her mind into her cousin’s body. Quickly, she determined that the woman’s injuries weren’t serious, though she did have a concussion. Her burns were superficial. Brenna began to heal the bruising in Rhiannon’s brain.

  Additional Protectors, both O’Neill and O’Donnell, poured into the hallway, adding to the chaos of the scene.

  “Get a fire hose through the window into that room!” someone shouted in an Irish accent. “Clear out the wounded, and clear the hall. Get this damn scene under control!”

  ~~~

  Hours later, Brenna sat on the bed in Corwin’s bedroom. After some debate, it had been decided to move her there as the safest place in the house. It had taken a small army of housekeepers to clean his clothes and personal effects out and change all the linens and towels. But that was after the Protectors declared it safe. Rebecca took a bedroom next to Brenna’s in the suite, and Corwin’s grieving companion was moved into a room in another wing.

  A second bedroom, which had been used by Corwin’s valet, was given to Rhiannon, and she was resting there with a healer monitoring her. Rebecca and Morrighan sat with Brenna, sharing a glass of whiskey before going to bed.

  “Donny is stable,” Rebecca reported, running her fingers through her hair. “The healers tell me that he’s looking at a long recovery and rehabilitation. The four Protectors that were in the room are dead.”

  She looked at the ceiling and took a long shuddering breath. “He’s blind. They say there isn’t anything they can do for that.” Her voice broke at the end and she bit her lip, forcing back tears.

  “Exactly what happened?” Brenna asked.

  Rebecca squared her shoulders and assumed a straight-backed military posture. “Jeremy said there was a thermite bomb inside the ceiling. The light fixture was removed. They planted the bomb, then replaced the fixture. The trigger was wired to the bathroom door. When the door was opened, it went off. I think they wanted to make sure you were in the room, and they expected that you, or I, would be the one to open that door.”

  “Any idea who ‘they’ were?”

  “No, though Finnian and his followers are the obvious suspects. Suspiciously, though, as soon as people found out that you had survived, Hugh and several hundred Protectors pulled out.”

  “Huh? Pulled out?” Brenna shook her head. “What the hell is going on?”

  “They took a convoy of lorries and other vehicles and left.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “Took the road to Derry. Not all of them arrived, but Hugh commandeered several aircraft there and flew out. To where, we’re not sure.”

  In all their planning, they had always considered Finnian to be the dangerous one. His father, Hugh, was dismissed as weak and uninterested in the succession.

  “If they didn’t all arrive in Derry, I guess we have some insurgents to worry about,” Brenna said.

  “So we assume.”

  “Hugh has the O’Neill Gift,” Brenna said. “He’s been hiding behind his shields, and possibly a construct, for years.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking, too,” Rebecca said. “He wasn’t strong enough to take out Corwin, so he bided his time. I wonder if he was the brains behind Finnian’s rebellion.”

  “I want to screen everyone,” Brenna said. “I want to meet everyone in the Clan. Until I approve people, no one should be considered safe.”

  Rebecca nodded. “That’s going to take a long time. There are over thirty thousand people in the O’Neill Clan.”

  “Better that than leaving a snake in our midst.”

  “Can you read the aura of someone who’s wearing a construct?” Morrighan asked from her chair across the room.

  “Yes. A construct masks the mind. What I see is the soul. No one can mask what’s in their soul.” Brenna took a deep breath. “What’s the word from O’Byrne? Has there been any trouble there?”

  “A couple of minor incidents,” Morrighan said. “Jared and Devlin think Andrew left the country. No one has seen him since Corwin’s death was announced.” Andrew O’Byrne was the oldest of Lord O’Byrne’s surviving children. Unstable and a sadistic bully, he was generally disliked by those who knew him, and hated by his siblings. His was the only voice raised in opposition when Brenna was named the O’Byrne heir.

  “So, at this point, our intelligence is that Andrew, Finnian and Hugh are all out of the country, but we don’t know for sure. Sounds more like guesswork than intelligence.”

  “That’s basically it,” Rebecca said. She downed her whiskey. “I’m going to bed, unless my lady has further need of my services.”

  “No, and thanks. Morrighan, have they found a bed for you?”

  “Yes, although it’s a bit tight. They’ve cleared the entire wing where your old room was. Fire damage to several rooms, especially on the floor above, and smoke damage throughout. But I usually don’t have any difficulty finding a place to sleep.” Morrighan winked at Brenna and made her way out.

  ~~~

  Chapter 5

  Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. - George Bernard Shaw

  During the next week, Brenna spent ten hours a day screening a constant stream of people. First the Protectors, then the rest of the adults living on or around the O’Neill estate. Those people whose auras didn’t look right were told to drop their shields and submit to a scan. If they didn’t, Brenna smashed through their shields.

  Seventy-three of the Protectors had their Gifts burned out and then they were exiled. Twenty-three were spies for Finnian, the rest for Hugh. Another two hundred sixty people were exiled for treason, and forty people were remanded to the Protectors for previously undetected crimes.

  When she was finished with those people who lived close, she toured the Clan’s facilities throughout the rest of Northern Ireland. For the time being, it would
have to be enough. Finnian was rumored to be in Scotland, and her security team didn’t want her traveling there.

  Hugh had also surfaced in Scotland. Three days after he left the O’Neill estate in Tyrone, Hugh walked into the Clan’s Glasgow shipyard and announced his open rebellion. The majority of the fifteen hundred workers there had pledged him their support.

  As soon as the healers had given their permission, Brenna teleported Rhiannon to the O’Byrne estate in Wicklow to complete her recovery. She was well known and respected in Wicklow and had many friends there. It seemed a safer place for someone who had been prescribed rest and quiet.

  The healers told Brenna that Donny was stable, but needed better care than they could provide at the small infirmary on the estate. They recommended transporting him by helicopter to a Clan hospital in Derry. Checking with healers she knew and trusted in West Virginia, she decided the facilities in the States were a better option.

  Brenna teleported Donny directly to the burn ward at St. Brigid’s, the O’Donnell hospital in Charleston, West Virginia. The doctors and nurses put him in a special burn bed. He was dosed to the gills with painkillers and neural blocked by the healers. Brenna stood looking down at him, tears running down her cheeks. He had protected her for four years, giving scant regard to his own safety. More than that, he was a close friend, Collin’s cousin, and a frequent guest for dinner when she and Collin entertained.

  Donny told her telepathically, *It’s not so bad being blind as a telepath. I can use other people’s eyes.*

  *I’ll find out who did this, and they’ll pay,* Brenna answered.

  *That I don’t doubt, knowing you. Has Clarice arrived yet?* Clarice was his long-time lover. She had driven to the hospital from the O’Donnell estate.

  *Yes, she got here a few minutes ago.*

  Donnie took a deep breath. *Do I look really bad?*

  Brenna projected an image to him. He was nude, covered head to toe in white cream. Gross fluids leaked through cracks in the cream.

  *Can you convince her not to come in?* he asked.

  *Yes, I’ll have the doctors tell her the risk of infection is too high and you’re too weak. I’ll tell her she can visit you telepathically until you’re ready to receive visitors.*

  *Thanks, Brenna.* He drifted off to sleep.

  Collin had arrived in Tyrone with the first five hundred O’Donnell Protectors. Another five hundred Protectors bolstered security in Donegal, the traditional O’Donnell homeland, and five hundred more were sent to Wicklow. After Hugh’s treason was discovered, a thousand Protectors were dispatched to Edinburgh to bolster O’Donnell’s hold on eastern Scotland.

  For Brenna, having Collin there provided all the rest and calm that she needed. It seemed as though it had been months since she’d shared a bed with him, and she relished having him there, both personally and professionally.

  Collin calmly took over coordination of the security forces. Brenna teleported to Wicklow and returned with Jared Wilkins, Brenna’s and Rebecca’s cousin, and Devlin O’Conner, O’Byrne’s head of security. Almost immediately, Collin convened a council of war.

  “We’ve received word that about three hundred workers at the Glasgow shipyards have abandoned Hugh,” Thomas O’Neill was saying as Brenna entered the room. “We’ve recruited about thirty, all former Protectors, to stay inside as intelligence assets. All told, it appears Hugh has about a thousand Protectors, and of course, the other five thousand people who have declared for him have Clan training. We’re rounding up as many as we can identify and find.”

  Beginning at puberty, when a person’s Gifts manifested, the Irish Clans trained all of their children in basic Protector skills, as well as in their Gifts. Brenna knew that O’Donnell required at least five Gifts for a person applying to the Protectors, including Aerokinesis, but most people didn’t qualify. Many young people worked as Protectors after college for thirty to fifty years, then retired and pursued other endeavors. It was a great way to see the world and extend their educations.

  “How many Protectors does O’Neill have?” Brenna asked.

  “About three thousand, after the defections to Hugh and Finnian,” Thomas said.

  “And O’Byrne?” she asked, turning to Devlin.

  “About two thousand,” he answered.

  She looked at Collin, raising one eyebrow in question.

  “We have three thousand normally stationed in the British Isles,” he said. “We’ve added two thousand more in the past two weeks.”

  “Jesus,” she breathed. “How many do we have total?”

  Collin sent her a spear thread, *We don’t normally let those numbers out.*

  *Collin, the people sitting here are ‘we’. These are my people now.*

  Collin looked around, then said, “I’ve just been reminded that essentially we’re all the same Clan now. O’Donnell currently has about fifteen thousand Protectors spread across the globe.”

  “That’s almost a quarter of the Clan,” Brenna said.

  “No,” Collin said. “The Clan is over eighty thousand, with another thirty thousand people affiliated with us.”

  Brenna blinked at him, attempting to assimilate that. While she had held the title of Vice Chairman of the Board of O’Donnell Group for the past four years, most of her time was spent with the Clan’s business side. She left security and Clan organization issues to Rebecca. “What do you mean by affiliates?” she finally asked.

  “People that we consider as friends, that we can call on if need be, and to whom we extend our protection if they need it,” Devlin answered. “RB and her family fall into that category at O’Byrne,” Devlin answered her.

  “RB is Clan now,” Rebecca said. “Brenna, the three Clans have about two hundred thousand members and affiliates. If you add in our allies, you, Lord O’Byrne, and Seamus are responsible for over three hundred and fifty thousand people.”

  “And we’re going to protect them with twenty thousand Protectors? That doesn’t seem like enough,” Brenna said.

  “If we called a general mobilization, we could quadruple that,” Collin said. “That would include all of the retirees under a hundred twenty years old, and probably a lot of older ones. That means people like Jeremy who officially aren’t Protectors any longer.”

  “And we’ve got five thousand renegades in Scotland and Northern Ireland,” Brenna said. “What are we going to do about them?”

  “We can’t just stage a frontal assault,” Thomas said. “The shipyards are right on the River Clyde in Glasgow. Any kind of military operation would be much too public. We need to draw Hugh out and overwhelm him.”

  “And he knows that and has no reason to come out and fight on our ground,” Collin said. “For now, he has the upper hand.”

  “Blockade it,” Rebecca suggested. “No one in, no one out. Surround him and bombard the people inside with propaganda. Let them know they’re trapped and their families are under our control.”

  “That would assume we controlled Glasgow,” Thomas said, “which we don’t.”

  “How many Protectors would it require to take the city?” Brenna asked.

  “To totally control the city? Probably between three and five thousand,” Devlin answered.

  “The majority of the people who work at the shipyards live in Dunallen, a small town on the outskirts of Glasgow,” Thomas said. “It’s an O’Neill town. The government and constabulary are all telepaths. We can take control of it and the workers’ families.”

  Brenna was silent for several minutes, then looked at Collin. “Do it. Shut off the shipyards and evacuate all of their families to Edinburgh. Mobilize all the retirees in the British Isles from all three Clans. I’ve checked with Fergus, and he’s given me the authority, subject to Devlin’s veto on any plans that might make O’Byrne less secure. Set up internment camps for the mutineers’ families. I’m not going to play their damned game. I want peace restored and I want it done as soon as we possibly can.”

  “You can orde
r a mobilization of O’Neill,” Collin said. “You don’t have the authority to mobilize O’Donnell without Seamus’s approval.”

  “That’s what I was just doing. A three-way with Seamus and Fergus. Do it,” she said, rising to her feet. “I want to see a plan to cut off Hugh’s rebellion by this time tomorrow. And don’t forget Finnian and Andrew. Find them. I want them shut down, too.”

  Immediately, all communications in or out of the shipyard were cut off. Customers and suppliers were notified that routine maintenance originally scheduled for two months hence had been moved up, and the production lines would be idle for a month.

  ~~~

  Chapter 6

  We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future. - George Bernard Shaw

  That night when they were alone, Collin told Brenna, “I think there’s a critical piece of knowledge you haven’t been told about the O’Donnell Clan. The statistics Callie has compiled about how Gifts are distributed don’t accurately reflect the Irish Clans, and especially not O’Donnell.”

  “Statistics? I don’t understand what you mean,” Brenna said.

  “Worldwide, about fifty percent of all telepaths have only one Gift. Remember that statistic? Another twenty-five percent have only two Gifts?”

  “Yes, that’s what I was told.”

  “Well, that doesn’t apply to the Irish Clans. When Seamus immigrated to the States, the people who went with him were among the strongest telepaths who were sworn to him. They were a small group, and that’s why we’re so aware of the need to avoid inbreeding. In the O’Donnell Clan in the U.S., only about ten percent have a single Gift. About seventy-five percent have five or more. That’s why we can field such a large Protector force.”

  “You said those statistics don’t reflect the reality in all the Irish Clans.”

  “That’s correct. Telepaths in Ireland also are much stronger than those in the rest of Europe. From what we know about Africa, it’s rare to find people with as many as five Gifts. Look at Carlos. He’s strong enough to be a Clan Chief in South America, but he isn’t strong enough to be considered for the O’Donnell Protector force,” Collin said, referring to Rebecca’s husband.