“Well, let’s go see him. Adele, I may be back, if not tonight then tomorrow. I’m going to take the computer with me, but I want to go through all of Myrna’s things. Do you have an extra key?” She rummaged through a drawer and gave one to me.
As we were leaving, Adele pulled at my sleeve. “Please, find her and bring her back safe.”
I gave her a quick hug. “I’ll do my best. Thanks for your help.”
~~~
“So what’s the deal with Adele?” Morrighan asked as we walked to the car.
“Jealousy. Guilt. She hasn’t done anything wrong. Let’s go see Meara, and then if you can get me in to O’Driscoll, that would be nice.”
“O’Driscoll will be a problem. Especially if he had anything to do with Myrna’s disappearance. He’s never been very friendly toward me or O’Byrne.”
“How strong a telepath is he?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. I’m probably stronger than he is, but I don’t think I could force his shields. We need to be careful with him. He has a lot of political power and influence. We can’t just go after him as if he were a private citizen.”
Great. I was fairly certain I could force his shields if I had to. Only someone with the rare Gift of Super Shielding could resist me. But it could get messy, and no matter how powerful a telepath I am, I can still get killed by a knife or a gun. I also lack any special Gift that would get me out of a jail cell.
“I think it would be better if we talked to O’Driscoll outside of his office,” Morrighan said. “I can find out where he goes after hours.”
“Tell me about Meara,” I said as we reached the car.
“She’s the daughter of one of my half-sisters, Fiona. She’s twenty-one and has a flat off campus. Myrna goes hunting with her sometimes.”
“Damn, how many succubi, I mean Druids, do you have in your family?”
Morrighan shrugged, “A lot. Lord and Lady O’Byrne are both carriers. My Lady doesn’t have any bastards, but my Lord has a lot, and he claims all of us. Maureen, Aoife and I are the three daughters who are Druids. Maureen and Aoife are dead, and I’m the youngest. The other daughters are carriers.”
“Are Druids that common in Ireland?”
“We weren’t persecuted here as long or as hard as on the Continent,” Morrighan said. “Goddess worship lasted here until the seventeenth century, when the English finished subduing the Lords. There might be more Druids in Ireland than in all of Western Europe. The Inquisition didn’t reach the British Isles.”
Meara welcomed us into her flat and offered us tea. We didn’t spend a long time with her, though. Morrighan asked her to drop her shields and let me in. Meara opened up to me with no questions or protestations. What she showed me surprised me. As much as she knew about Myrna, she didn’t know about O’Driscoll. Myrna had kept her MP a close secret.
Something she did know was that Myrna had started having some money. Lord O’Byrne provides a living stipend for the kids he sends to university, but Myrna was buying clothes, shoes, and jewelry that should have been beyond her means. Three things came to mind. Either she was stealing, selling herself, or she was getting pillow gifts. Boys her age don’t give pillow gifts. I also doubt they would have enough under the mattress to make it worth her while to rip them off.
Theft is something the Clans discourage, but I’d seen enough of it. A couple of the girls I knew at Oxford felt entitled. They would walk into Harrods in London and walk out with shopping bags full of whatever they felt like taking. They didn’t even worry about the security cameras. Just take the merchandise to a salesgirl, ask her to bag it up, get a receipt, and implant the act of paying in her mind. My Mum would have had my skin if she’d ever heard I was doing such things. Her ethics were rather situational, though. She had no problem using her Gifts to even the odds in a casino.
But as for Myrna, why would a telepathic MP be giving a young university student money? From everything I’d learned about her so far, including the email exchanges with O’Driscoll, she’d give him anything he wanted for free. I wondered exactly what it was he wanted.
“Morrighan said you and Myrna hunted together sometimes,” I said to Meara.
“Usually once, sometimes twice a week,” she answered.
“Where did you go?”
“Mostly nightclubs, sometimes hotels. The men in the hotels are usually older,” she wrinkled her nose, “but Myrna likes them older. She also used to go up to Leinster House and hang around sometimes. There’s a park next to the government offices and she’d take men out for a walk.”
I wrote down the names of the bars and hotels. “It sounds as though she was pretty active.”
“Very active,” Meara said. “She’s from a small village and she went a bit crazy here in Dublin. That’s not uncommon, is it?”
I shook my head. “No, it isn’t. A lot of girls go through spells like that, not just succubi. But she’s been here a year. It doesn’t sound as though she’s slowed down any.”
“Not at all. I thought once she got into her studies she’d slack off, but she’s so damned smart she really doesn’t have to study much.”
There was something else, something she wanted to say, but stopped.
“What is it, Meara?” I prompted.
“Well, I don’t like to be judgmental, but even for a succubus, she’s been rather extreme. It seems like she needs to keep a Glow on all the time. And she, well, she isn’t very picky or very discreet.”
“Morrighan,” I said as we left Meara’s place, “can you get O’Driscoll’s schedule? Not just the official one, but where he actually was?”
“For when? The day she disappeared? The day after?”
“Let me get into that computer again and I’ll give you the dates I need.”
“What are you thinking?” Morrighan stopped walking, forcing me to stop and answer her.
“The gifts, the money. I’m wondering if O’Driscoll was actually shagging her. I can’t imagine an English MP paying for it. There are too many groupies willing to do it for free. If an Irish MP was, we can look at the times she went to meet him and see if there’s a record of him being in public the next three days.”
“And if he was in public?” her brows drew together as she tried to figure out where I was going.
“Then he’s not shagging her and she’s getting the money somewhere else. He’s introducing her to the men who are paying her.”
“Shit.” Morrighan finally got it, and I could tell she didn’t like it any better than I did.
Telepaths have a very tolerant view toward what norms call prostitution. My aunt makes a very nice seven figure yearly income as a courtesan. And no taxes. What we don’t like are pimps. Myrna had at least nine telepathic Gifts. All succubi do. Even at such a young age, that would make her powerful enough to take on a small army. She wouldn’t need someone to take care of her or set her dates. A succubus can seduce a vicar and arouse a corpse.
Morrighan dropped me off at Adele’s on her way to Leinster House. I planned to work on the computer and search through Myrna’s closet and bureau while Morrighan tried to get her hands on O’Driscoll’s schedule.
Looking through Myrna’s closet, I found at least a half-dozen dresses that were way out of the price range of a typical student. Also, shoes, including some designer brands, and seven handbags. The jewelry I found should have been completely beyond her means. She was definitely taking money and gifts.
I made a list of her assignations with O’Driscoll and found two other older men she’d met with. A banker and the vice president of a brokerage weren’t typical student dates. As far as I could tell, both had contacted her by email out of the blue, saying that O’Driscoll had given them her address.
I made a couple of calls, but my sources in London had never heard of either of them. If they were telepaths, they were very low profile. My contacts did know O’Driscoll though, and told me of another Irish MP who was a telepath. I suspected the financial executives were norms,
but I’d check that with Morrighan. I assumed she knew the telepathic community in Dublin better than most people would. In her position, she’d have to.
Morrighan returned late in the afternoon, and we went out to dinner. She had O’Driscoll’s schedule for the past two months, and had marked it up to show any discrepancies in his actual activities.
“O’Driscoll’s secretary is a norm,” she told me. “I just walked into his office and asked her to print out his schedule, then had her mark it up.”
“And she happily went along with it?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow and trying to look skeptical.
Morrighan laughed. “Of course she did, darling. But she doesn’t remember any of it. It’s surprising that he doesn’t have a single telepath in his office. At least he didn’t today.”
Over a very decent lamb stew and a couple of pints, I compared his schedule with the dates he’d had with Myrna. According to his secretary, he had inexplicably missed all of his appointments, indeed had not called or come to the office, the four days following his first date with Myrna. On one other occasion, a month later, he had cancelled all appointments in advance for the three days after they were scheduled to meet. But the email stream showed Myrna had met him at least nine times.
I showed my analysis to Morrighan along with the email streams from the broker and banker.
She grimly nodded. “I guess I was wrong when I said she didn’t have any patrons.”
“I also found a couple of outfits in a bag in the back of her closet,” I said, pulling out another piece of paper. Due to the quality of the printer, the picture wasn’t very clear, but it definitely showed Myrna. “She sent this to the men she arranged to meet.”
Her hair in pigtails, Myrna wore a short, frilly pink and white checked dress, complete with white knee socks and saddle oxfords. No one older than eight should be wearing something like that. Telepaths age slowly, and a nineteen year old such as Myrna usually looks about fourteen or fifteen.
“Oh, my God,” Morrighan said, her eyes wide. She shuddered, looking away.
“I think the girl knows what sells,” I said.
~~~
Chapter 5
I wanted to check out the hunting spots Meara had told us about. I pulled my dresses from my suitcase and looked at them. If I wore the green one-shoulder outfit again, Morrighan would probably haul me off to a dress shop. The woman was obsessed with clothes. I hung the green dress in the closet and donned the silver halter dress. Even though I was in Ireland, it was summer and I hoped I wouldn’t freeze.
Sleeveless, backless, and sideless, the dress was definitely less. There was no place to hide a bra, so I fluffed the pleated halter straps over my assets and made sure my navel didn’t show at the bottom of the V. When I came out, Morrighan stood in her living room waiting on me. The blue dress she wore did the same thing for her eyes that the green usually did for mine. She looked me over from head to foot and back again.
“Have you ever been arrested in that?” she asked with a grin.
“No, and it’s not as revealing as what you’re wearing,” I retorted.
“I’ve got a lot less to reveal,” she said.
“Look,” I said, “I’ve had to deal with that kind of snide comment all my life. I sure as hell don’t need it from a succubus.”
Her face flamed, and she stared at her shoes. “I’m sorry.” She raised her eyes to meet mine. “I should know better. I’ve had to deal with that kind of crap my whole life. Even when I smile, it hurts. Women can be so catty, and here I’m doing it, too.”
I walked over to her and pulled her into a hug. Smiling at her, I drew back. “Shall we go see what kind of trouble we can stir up tonight?”
“Yeah, but first I need you to link to the head of my protection team. If something happens to me, you’ll need to be able to contact him.”
I shook my head, “I don’t need an army following me around.”
“It’s not my call. Lord O’Byrne has ordered security for both of us, and they don’t have a choice. He’ll skin them alive if they don’t come. You didn’t see or feel them today, did you? They know how to keep their distance.”
She was right. Other than being faintly aware that other telepaths were in the area, I hadn’t seen any Protectors all day.
“Okay, link us,” I said.
She opened her first level to me and I entered her mind. Another mind met me there. We touched, and I received an awareness of Peter. We flowed through Morrighan’s mind and into each other’s minds. I took a taste of his mind and he did the same with mine. We withdrew. For the rest of our lives, unless one of us consciously broke the link, I would feel him if he was close enough. I had an instant connection to him if I needed it, and if something happened to me, he’d know.
It was a first-level link and not very intimate. Lovers often linked at the third level or even lower. A mother’s link to her child was often at eighth level, though this was usually raised as a child grew older. By the time I was a teenager, I’d pushed my link to my mother out to third level. I liked my mother, but I didn’t need her knowing my most private feelings.
Telepaths have very ordered minds with nine levels. We are taught to erect shields at each level. In a telepathic community, it’s common to leave your first level open to facilitate communication. As a result, most of us store nothing private at that level. Gifts and their triggers are located at different levels. For instance, Aerokinesis and Pyrokinesis are triggered on the third level. Neural Disruption is triggered at the fifth level. Telekinesis is triggered at the seventh level. Assuming a person has those Gifts, of course. The ninth level contains the soul. I hadn’t allowed anyone into my ninth level since I was three years old.
We drove off in the Cooper, leaving the Protectors to follow in their van. On the way to our first stop, I said, “Under the assumption that someone managed to coerce a Druid, even a young one, we should know what to expect from each other. I have fifteen Gifts, including Power Shielding, Dominance, Electrokinesis, Pyrokinesis, Neural Disruption and Air Shielding.”
“Impressive,” Morrighan said. “I have the normal nine and Power Shielding.”
Most telepaths have between one and three Gifts, Telepathy, Charisma and Empathy. The more Gifts the more power. The Gifts aren’t completely distinct. They interact and supplement each other, and the Talents each Gift manifests might change depending on the combination of Gifts a person has. Succubi are powerful and dangerous, and not just because they’re sexually insatiable. Their ability to manipulate energy flows is unsurpassed, and being able to channel lightning as a weapon is pretty scary.
The first three clubs we hit made me feel like a cradle robber. I read the minds of the bartenders, managers and wait staff and then we got the hell out as quickly as possible. People at all three remembered Myrna, the beautiful young girl who could hold her liquor and had all the boys stepping on their tongues. But we didn’t pick up anything that would help us find her.
The fourth club catered to an older clientele, mid-twenties to early thirties. We started scanning minds. Again, people remembered her, but as an older, more sophisticated woman. It seemed she had approached this place differently.
A high roller had spent a lot of time and money on the girl, and she’d met up with him several times over the past few months. I described him to a waitress based on the mental images I’d seen, and she told me she expected him in later that evening. We grabbed a table and waited.
“You do a lot of this, don’t you?” Morrighan asked.
“Waiting? Yeah.”
“You don’t seem like a patient person.”
I gave her a thin smile. “I’m learning.”
An hour later, the man we’d seen in the waitress’s mind wandered in. Good looking, a bit over six feet, with brown hair and blue eyes. Typically Irish. Typically telepath. He was casually but expensively dressed, with a large gold chain around his neck and a diamond stud in one ear. I figured he was around Morrighan’s age of f
orty. He didn’t stand out in this crowd since he could easily pass for mid to late twenties.
Although Meara, Myrna and the guy we were watching frequented the pub, I hadn’t detected any other telepaths. I mentioned it to Morrighan.
“The girls were hunting,” she said. “That’s also what he’s doing. Men fancy themselves as hunters, you know.” The feral smile on her face as she watched him sent a brief chill through me. I imagined a lioness watching a tabby cat play with its kill.
He bought a drink at the bar and began influencing women. He was so sure of his telepathic abilities that he didn’t even try to act interested in what he was doing.
Of course, the influence men can project is quite different from a succubus’s Influence, less subtle and more intrusive. It wouldn’t work on another telepath unless he added compulsion. I doubted that would work on Myrna anyway, but it was working on the norms. Within minutes, he was surrounded by five pretty women, flirting and laughing, reaching out to touch him, rubbing against him. A pretty pathetic display of ego enhancement.
Very carefully, I brushed against his shields, evaluating them, looking for leaks or weak spots. He’d had good training, but I got the impression he didn’t have one of the special shielding Gifts. That meant I could break him down if I needed to. But without a good reason, it would be a shocking breach of civility to do so.
“I think he needs a dose of his own medicine,” I told Morrighan.
She smiled, focusing her Influence on him. Gradually, she increased the strength, and he started scanning the crowd, losing interest in the women crowded around him.
*Give him a touch of Glam,* I told Morrighan. She began to glow subtly, her beauty taking on a radiant quality. The glow from a succubus’s Glamor at full strength enhances her appearance to a Goddess-like radiance. She wouldn’t use that much in that situation. Everyone in the place would be bowing before her.
He finally focused on Morrighan, and to the consternation of his fan club, began moving toward us. He glanced at me and dismissed me. Morrighan had him completely captivated. He drifted over and sat down.
Broken Dolls: An Urban Fantasy (The Telepathic Clans Saga Book 3) Page 4