Succubus Ascendant: An Urban Fantasy (The Telepathic Clans Saga Book 4) (33 page)

“We can’t leave him here,” Rhiannon said. “We have to take him with us.”

Brenna nodded. “Can you wrap him in an air shield and bring him? I can if you want me to.”

Rhiannon shook her head. “I can do it.”

“We have to hurry,” Brenna said, rising to her feet and tugging on Rhiannon’s arm.

Rhiannon still had Brian in her lap, her arms wrapped around him. Brenna reached out with Telekinesis and floated his body enough for Rhiannon to stand.

Rhiannon staggered, and Brenna fed her some of the energy she had drained from Andrew’s men. Wrapping Brian’s body in an air shield, Rhiannon lifted it with her Telekinesis. Brenna picked up two of the flashlights and the two women ventured out into the halls.

*
Can’t we just teleport out?*
Rhiannon asked.

*We can’t leave the building the way it is. We can’t let any of Andrew’s men fall into the hands of the authorities,*
Brenna answered. *
You know they won’t go easy. They’ll fight and there will be more casualties. Besides, this is my mess. I need to clean it up.*

*
So where are we going?*

*To the basement.*

When they reached the third floor landing, a group of Andrew’s men opened the door on the floor below them and started up the stairs. Brenna released the electrical energy she had been holding and followed it with a fireball. Bullets from a burst of automatic weapons fire rattled against the stairs beneath their feet, and she dropped another fireball. Screams of pain and horror echoed up to them.

*
Into the hall,*
Rhiannon sent. *
We’ll use different stairs.*

Brenna pushed the door open and let Rhiannon go past her, pulling her grisly burden behind her. Brenna loosed another fireball down the stairs and followed.

It seemed to take a long time to reach the basement, cautiously threading their way through the dark and trying to avoid the bodies they found on every floor. They came out into a large room near the front of the building.

“Now what?” Rhiannon asked.

“Do you think we can flood the building with Neural Disruption and keep it all in the building?” Brenna asked. Rhiannon was twelve years older and had more experience in using her Gifts.

“The whole building?”

“Yes. The floors won’t stop it. I’m just worried about it bleeding out the walls and harming innocents.”

Rhiannon thought for a moment.

“If we stand opposite each other at the outer walls,” she said slowly, “and aim straight up, then gradually shift our aim toward the center, we should be able to cover the whole building. There shouldn’t be any bleed out behind us.”

Brenna nodded. “Sounds good to me.” She handed Rhiannon a flashlight and headed down a hallway toward the other end of the basement.

*
I’ve reached the back wall,*
Brenna sent.

*
Okay. Just be sure of where you’re aiming,*
Rhiannon answered.
*It’s better to be too narrow. If we miss anyone, we’ll know it and we can do a second sweep.*

*I’ve never killed this many people at once,*
Brenna said. *
I won’t even see their faces.*

*Just think of the people they’ve killed tonight,*
Rhiannon sent.
*There are no innocents here, only cold-blooded murderers.*

Brenna raised her hands into the air and prepared to trigger her Gift. Then a thought struck her.

*
Wait! Are there any helicopters above us?*

Both women probed with their minds, seeking minds above the building.

*
No. No one is above the building. Now!*
Rhiannon sent.

Brenna discharged a full-strength stream of Neural Disruption and then slowly swept her hands forward until they pointed at the center of the ceiling.

*
Hold!*
Rhiannon sent. Both of them probed the building, but it was silent of any mental activity.

Brenna trotted back to where Rhiannon stood.

“Now what?” Rhiannon asked.

“We set the building on fire,” Brenna answered, sending a sheet of flame at the ceiling. The walls were stone, but the floors were wood. She was pretty sure that setting the first floor ablaze would ignite the floors above.

Rhiannon added her own steady stream of flame, and the beams above them began to burn.

“Rhiannon, you need to dissolve the air shield,” Brenna said, gesturing toward Brian.

“Why?”

“Because I need to touch both of you to transport us. If he’s separated from me, I’ll leave him behind.”

Rhiannon lowered Brian’s body to the floor and knelt by him. Tears began running down her cheeks again.

“I murdered Andrew,” Rhiannon whispered. “I pinned him to the chair using Telekinesis, then I smashed his shields and captured his mind. I felt his terror as I pressed the pistol to his forehead and I enjoyed it. Goddess help me, I reveled in it.”

*
Jared?*
Brenna sent.

*Brenna! Where are you?*

*Is there anyone in my room? In Lord O’Byrne’s room?*

*No.*

*Then look for me there.*

Brenna knelt and put her hand on Brian’s leg. Taking hold of Rhiannon’s thigh with her other hand, she teleported.

~~~

Rebecca pelted out of the hotel room with Carlos hot on her heels. Two blocks to the Metro and then waiting for the next train strained her patience to the limit. When a train finally came, she climbed onto the first car and took control of the operator’s mind. The train pulled out of the station and then raced through the next three stops without slowing. Carlos watched as passengers became increasingly anxious. After a while, he decided he needed to do something and used Empathic Projection to broadcast a calming feeling over the people in their car.

When they reached the station where they had to transfer trains, they sprinted to the platform they needed, blurring everyone’s minds to their presence. Rebecca repeated her performance on the next driver.

Emerging from the Arts et Metiers station, they ran until they encountered streets blocked by gendarmes, ambulances and television news crews. It took them some time after that to reach the O’Byrne offices and find Edwin.

*
What’s going on?*
Rebecca sent.

*There was a lot of gunfire right after RB and her clone entered the building, but we haven’t heard anything for the last five minutes,*
Edwin replied. *
Your range is better than mine. Can you contact anyone in there?*

Rebecca reached out with her mind, searching for the spark of living minds in the building. She found over a hundred men but only two women. She breathed a sigh of relief as she recognized them.

Edwin turned to her. “The gendarmes are getting ready to storm the building. I wonder if I can find a uniform that fits.”

Looking up at his six-feet-seven-inch height, Rebecca doubted it.

*Brenna, what’s going on? Are you okay?*
she sent.

*I’m a little busy right now,*
Brenna answered.

*
What are you doing?*

*Setting up a mass execution.*

*The gendarmes are getting ready to storm the building,*
Rebecca sent.

*Have the Protectors influence them to wait fifteen minutes.*
Brenna broke the connection.

Rebecca looked at her watch. It was a little more than an hour since the first bomb had gone off.

“We need to give RB and Brenna time. Can we influence the gendarmes to wait fifteen minutes?”

Edwin nodded. “Taken care of.” He gestured toward the gendarme command post fifty feet away.

“Casualties?” she asked Edwin.

“One hundred forty-two dead, thirteen wounded,” he answered. “The norms took some casualties, too. Thirty-two dead and over a hundred wounded. That’s assuming all of our people in the building are dead.”

She shot him a look. “Why are you assuming that?”

“Because the last communication I received from Brian was that they were losing. Then he cut off and I can’t reach him.”

Edwin’s face was stony, but the emotions pouring from him were so painful that Rebecca wanted to break into tears.

“You and Brian are close?” she asked.

“He was my half-brother. I felt him die. If RB doesn’t kill Andrew, Davin and I will.”

They waited. Twice they heard gunfire inside the building, and once a ball of fire shot down a hallway, lighting each of the windows facing them on the second floor as it passed.

And then a wave of psychic energy rolled out of the building, stunning every telepath within a half mile. Even the normal humans in the area seemed disoriented.

“Holy shit!” Rebecca exclaimed.

“What was that?” Carlos asked of no one in particular.

“Neural Disruption,” Rebecca answered. Everyone turned to look at her. “That’s the same kind of psychic backlash I felt when RB cut loose in Scotland,” she explained. “Only this was a hell of a lot stronger.”

“Brenna wasn’t with her in Scotland,” Carlos said.

Rebecca sent her mind into the building, searching. “There’re only two minds left in there. Brenna and RB. Goddess, they killed them all.”

A couple of minutes later, she pronounced, “They’re gone. The building’s empty.”

“Where did they go?” Edwin asked.

“I have no idea. If Andrew wasn’t inside, then I think he’ll get a couple of unexpected visitors. If not, I have no idea. They could be anywhere in the world.”

“Is that smoke?” Carlos asked, pointing at the open front doors. As they watched, the smoke became thicker, and then suddenly boiled out into the street. A red glow could be seen inside the building.

“Containment,” Rebecca said. “Edwin, we need to delay the gendarmes more. And have your men delay any fire trucks that show up. Brenna’s destroying the evidence. They set the building on fire before they teleported out.”

They stood long into the night watching the building burn. By the morning, only the stone shell remained.

~~~

Chapter 24

And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. - Khalil Gibran

Rhiannon constructed a burial mound such as the ancient clans used to bury their chieftains. A bronze plaque listing the dead of what was already being called the “Battle of Le Marais” was fixed next to the mound. Brian had been well liked, and almost every family in the O’Byrne Clan had been touched in some way by the losses. Lord and Lady O’Byrne and Brian’s mother were devastated. Morrighan conducted the funeral ceremony, and afterward Brenna made a short speech.

The mood was somber for days, but eventually, as people went about their daily business, a feeling of normality began to return.

For Brenna, Rebecca and Rhiannon, the demands of cleaning up the dislocations at O’Neill and O’Byrne occupied their attentions. Brenna sent Rhiannon back to Russia. She would work on helping Irina and Galina consolidate their seats. Rebecca worked with Devlin and Thomas to integrate the command structures of the Protectors.

Brenna and Michael O’Byrne worked with Jeremy to integrate the O’Neill and O’Byrne accounting and financial systems.

Nigel Richardson, director of O’Donnell’s European regional office in London, took the lead in the containment and public relations efforts to downplay the battles in Scotland and Paris and the bombing in Wales. Every effort was made to sweep the incidents under the rug. With constant pressure on the police and news media, the wars faded from memory as new crises and stories arose around the world.

~~~

Standing with Collin’s arm around her shoulders on top of a hill overlooking Dunany, the Irish Sea glistening in the sunlight in the distance, Brenna surveyed the area she had chosen for her headquarters. Her mother’s horse farm, the original holdings she had inherited, lay before her to her left. It was much the way she had originally seen it, but the expansion of her mother’s ‘country cottage’ currently underway would triple the size of the dwelling.

Closer to them, to the south of the farm, a massive project was underway. Three commercial office buildings in various stages of construction were there, with workmen and heavy machinery bustling about. The complex would hold the communication and computing center for all three Irish Clans. The original thirty acres of the estate had been supplemented by purchasing as much of the surrounding land as she could, adding another seven hundred acres. Negotiations to add even more were in progress.

Brenna had called a ‘council of consolidation’, or alternately ‘a plan for the 21st century’. The Clan councils hadn’t been invited. This was a high-level brainstorming session for those at the very top of the Clan structures. Her intention was for everyone to get to know each other, share their ideas, their plans, and their dreams.