A blinding flash of light was followed by a shockwave that knocked me on my butt. Stunned, I lay there for a minute, my ears ringing. Rolling to my feet, I staggered toward where I had been kneeling.
A ball of fire ascended into the cloudless sky from where the manor house had been only a moment before. It was so bright that it was impossible to look at it directly. The sound of the blast reverberated through the valley, bouncing off the low hills. I felt as though the world had gone into slow motion.
It seemed like an eternity, but gradually black smoke joined the fireball rising from the house. When the white spots faded from my vision and I was able fully to focus my sight, I could see bodies on the ground all around the house. The people I had been watching were all lying still.
I trained my binoculars on the bodies. None of them moved. I could see that their clothing was blackened, and what flesh I could see was also black. The house itself was fully engulfed in flame.
I scanned farther out. Some of the out buildings appeared to be damaged, including walls blown in. The bodies that littered the ground farther away weren’t burned, but I saw little movement from any of them. I took a chance and extended my awareness, searching for living minds. At that distance, I can easily read most people’s minds, let alone be able to identify a living person. I found only a dozen people still alive within the main compound, and perhaps another dozen inside the out buildings. Beyond, protected from the blast concussion by the out buildings, there were a lot of dazed Guardians.
I figured I should get the hell out of there.
~~~
That evening, back at my flat, I tuned into the BBC.
“… it is believed that Lord Gordon was in the house. Witnesses say that he had arrived shortly before and his party was in the house only a short time when the explosion occurred. Authorities have not given any reason for the massive explosion, but the smell of natural gas is strong in the area, and until the leaking gas is controlled, fire authorities are not sending any personnel into the home.”
The telly showed the manor house on fire. The film had obviously been taken after I fled the scene, as there wasn’t much left and the fire was much smaller than the last time I’d seen it. The official body count was one hundred seventy, and the authorities hadn’t touched the house yet. I’d counted at least twenty people entering the house, and no one knew how many were inside at the time of the explosion.
I made a mental note not to do anything to make Seamus O’Donnell angry. So much for the war. So much for any chance of talking to Gordon or his closest lieutenants.
Gordon’s younger son worked at the company’s offices in Paris and had issued a noncommittal statement through a spokesman. His daughter worked at CBW headquarters in Berlin and declined an invitation to speak with the BBC.
Having an eidetic memory is handy. I started sorting through what I’d gleaned from the files Richardson gave me, while hooking the copy of Carpenter’s hard drive to my computer. I figured the place to start would be the people he had negotiated with for Myrna’s sale. I noticed a number of other emails that came from people with Gordon’s company addresses.
While I did that, I reached out to Nigel Richardson. He had tried to warn me to stay away from Gordon, but I was a little irked that he hadn’t made his warning stronger. Something like ‘don’t get within a mile of Gordon because we’re going to blow him up’ might have gotten my attention a little better.
*Miss Kendrick? What a pleasant surprise,* he sent in response to my probe.
*Surprise? You didn’t think I’d be contacting you after the little show you put on out at Windsor today?*
*That wasn’t us,* he sent.
I sent a mental expression of disbelief. *Are you also going to try to sell me a unicorn?*
I received a mental chuckle. *I think those are only available to virgins.*
*Arsehole. You have such a way with women.*
The chuckle turned into laughter. *Seriously, that wasn’t O’Donnell. The word we’ve received is that some of Gordon’s CBW allies decided he was a liability. They took Gordon out as a show of good faith to Seamus. They asked him to call off our Protectors and promised there wouldn’t be any more attacks on our people.*
*Did they promise to return all the girls he’d kidnapped?* I asked.
The flavor of his mental transmission sobered. *No, not that I’m aware of. Where are you? Are you available for a meeting?*
I considered. There are advantages to mental communication, but a person can still lie to you. Especially a telepath as powerful as Richardson. In person, I’d be able to use my Empathy, and having telepathy doesn’t change a person’s body language. I sent him the address of a pub near my flat, and he said he’d meet me in an hour.
~~~
Chapter 13
I walked into my local about twenty minutes later. I recognized most of the regulars, and smiled and said hello to several people. Snagging a pint at the bar, I walked over to the two telepaths sitting at a table in an out-of-the-way corner.
I put my hands on their table and leaned over. Their eyes traveled down to my chest. I waited until they looked back at my face and I smiled.
“In fifteen minutes, I’m going to kill every telepath within two hundred yards of this pub,” I said. “Every man, woman and child, whether they’re connected to O’Donnell or not. Do you understand me?”
Both immediately pushed against my shields. In return, I hammered them, breaking through to their third levels. *Tell Nigel Richardson that I’ll meet him alone or not at all,* I said inside their minds. *Now get the hell out of here and clear the area.* I withdrew from their minds.
They immediately staggered to their feet and headed for the door. One had the presence of mind to stop at the bar and pay their tab. I sat down at their table. My hands were shaking. I’m not normally a bully. I hate bullies. But the events of the day and this case were taking their toll. I had no earthly idea what I would do if they called my bluff. I didn’t have any way of killing anyone two hundred yards away except maybe with a rifle. And I’d have to buy one first.
I signaled to a barmaid and ordered a shot of scotch. When she brought it, I downed it, and as it burned its way down to my stomach, I felt a bit calmer. I waited five minutes and then scanned the area. Only one telepath remained within two hundred yards.
Most telepaths have at most a two hundred to four hundred yard range. The Krasevec Gift of Distance Communication isn’t considered one of the rare Gifts, but it isn’t common. Lord O’Byrne once told me that I was one of only a few hundred people in the world with fifteen Gifts. With the Krasevec being one of them, that put me in the company of a few dozen people.
I had watched one of the people more powerful than I was die that day. Power didn’t make you invulnerable.
I reached out and scanned the telepath watching the pub from across the street. It took a few minutes to find a vulnerability in his shields. He was an operative of Clan Gordon. I hammered through the rest of his shields without using any finesse and seized control of his mind.
When Nigel walked into the pub, he stopped and stared at me and my companion for a minute, then resumed walking toward my table. I gestured for him to take a seat.
“I’d like you to meet Eric Woolsey,” I said. “He’s an inept operative employed by the Gordon Clan.”
Nigel studied Eric’s face. Eric stared into space.
“Your attention to this pub drew him here. He followed your Protectors,” I told Nigel. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”
Nigel attempted to project chagrin. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
I wasn’t buying it. “You know, I’m used to living my life relatively anonymously,” I said. “If you remember, I asked you not to have me shadowed. I appreciate the help you’ve given me, and I promised to let you know if I find anything I think might be of interest to you. But I’m beginning to wonder if my trust was misplaced.”
“I apologize,” he said. “But afte
r today, you have to understand that we feel we have to be cautious.”
“Yeah. Your caution could get me killed. Leave me the hell alone unless I ask for your help. Okay?”
“Understood. But Rhiannon, things are uncertain at present. We don’t know what’s going to happen after Gordon’s death. We’re not even sure who’s in charge of his Clan right now.”
“The name is RB. Or Miss Kendrick. We don’t know each other well enough for you to use my given name.” I made an effort to show him how angry I was.
He shot me a look that seemed to show a little hurt. I didn’t care.
“Do you want Eric?” I asked. “If you don’t, I’m going to wipe his memories of tonight and set him free.”
“We’ll take him,” Nigel said quickly.
“Fine. He’s yours. His shields are down.”
I let Nigel take control of him. Eric then stood and walked out the door.
“Can you control him until someone can pick him up?” I asked. It would give me a feeling of Richardson’s power if he could control someone up to two hundred yards away.
“Yes, I can deliver him outside the boundaries you set,” he said.
The waitress came and took his order. I waited until she brought him a pint and retreated behind the bar.
“Okay, what the hell is going on?” I asked.
“I warned you that O’Donnell had declared war on Gordon. Von Ebersberg was included in that. We’ve moved thousands of Protectors into England and Europe, and CBW got nervous. We assume they took out Gordon to try to placate us,” Nigel said.
“Are you placated?”
“Not entirely. But while we’re not happy with von Ebersberg’s activities, Gordon was responsible for all of the direct action taken against us.”
“Downtown London was a scary place to be this morning,” I said.
“It’s a scarier place tonight.” He took a sip of his beer. “We’re in the process of taking possession of Gordon’s building.”
He was as calm as a man waiting for a bus. I drew a shuddering breath and stared at him. I opened my mouth, but couldn’t figure out what I wanted to say so I shut it again.
“Seamus is determined to consolidate the British Isles,” Richardson continued.
“You’re fighting a battle in downtown London?” I whispered.
Then his last statement filtered through my shock. “What do you mean ‘consolidate the British Isles’? What about O’Byrne and O’Neill?”
It was his turn to take a deep breath. “I left something out of the dossiers I gave you,” he said. “The three Irish Clans have agreed to merge. They’ve named a common heir, Seamus’s granddaughter. She was the object of the attack in Paris.”
“Also Lord O’Byrne’s granddaughter,” I said, remembering his telling me a bit about her.
“And Lord O’Neill’s grandniece,” Nigel said. “Corwin has only one descendant in the direct line of inheritance who is qualified and capable of holding the seat, and he refuses to acknowledge her. Brenna was closest in a non-direct line.”
“A succubus. I mean Druid.”
He chuckled. “Yes. Seamus’s fiancée was also kidnapped and almost killed in Washington last year. He’s decided to take a more active approach to protecting them.”
I finally understood the motivation behind what was going on. I started to shift back to the immediate problem, but then his statement about inheritance wormed its way through my thick brain.
“The direct line? What the bloody hell ...” I felt as though he’d hit me with a brick. I fell back in my chair and stared at him. My mind was going a mile a minute.
“You bloody bastard!”
I don’t remember standing up. When my mind reengaged, I found myself standing over him. My right hand stung, and his left cheek was turning bright red. You literally could have heard a pin drop. Everyone in the pub was frozen, staring at us. Nigel didn’t move, and his facial expression hadn’t changed.
Embarrassed, I dropped back into my chair. I took a deep breath. I took several deep breaths, my mind spinning in confusion.
“Powerful telepath, my arse. You’re monitoring me because you’re afraid I might press my claim and upset Seamus’s plans for his granddaughter.” The idea was so absurd I wanted to laugh.
“Actually, we’ve been hoping that you would. O’Donnell and O’Byrne would have backed you. Corwin only recently was convinced to name Brenna. The thought of Hugh or his halfwit son trying to play Clan Chief was more than unsettling.”
“You’re mad.”
“No, and neither is Lord O’Donnell or Lord O’Byrne. But unless you come to your senses soon, it will be too late. Corwin is dying. He has another year or two, not more.”
“I don’t want anything to do with Clan O’Neill.” Thinking about my father’s Clan always made me so angry I could scream.
“Then it doesn’t affect you, does it?”
I stared at him, my stomach churning. I’d spent my life denying my heritage, hating my father. And there Nigel Richardson was tossing everything I’d tried to avoid thinking about on the table, as though it was trivial. Damn him!
I turned my mind away from the Clans’ dynastic games. They didn’t concern me. They never had.
“Is there going to be a great smoking crater on the South Bank in the morning?” I asked.
“I certainly hope not,” he said, shaking his head. “We won’t be blowing anything up, or using artillery, but we can’t be sure about Gordon’s lot. We’re hoping they’re in disarray and won’t fight too hard. We don’t want any publicity.”
“I’ll check the telly in the morning to see how successful you are.”
It was his turn to shudder.
~~~
The morning news was quiet. Someone had stolen some chickens in Kent. The train north of London was delayed. A Member of Parliament denied shagging the daughter of another Member. The normal stuff.
I sent a spear thread to Davin. *Any news this morning?*
*The O’Donnell operation was successful,* he replied. *They captured several hundred Gordon Clan members, but didn’t find any kidnapped girls. I assume they keep their inventory elsewhere.*
I didn’t like hearing women referred to as inventory, but understood what he meant.
As I ate my breakfast, I shifted through my memory, isolating the Gordon personnel that O’Donnell’s documents associated with the sex trade. Several of them had addresses in or near Oxford. I decided to drive up there and snoop around.
~~~
I started with Donald Carpenter, brother of the late David. He wasn’t home, but a neighbor across the road was out puttering in his garden.
“Hello,” I said, leaning over his wall. “I’m looking for Donald Carpenter. Do you know if he’s around?”
“Haven’t seen him today,” the old man told me. “His car would be parked in the drive if he was home.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
He gave me a skeptical look. “And why would you be asking?”
I flashed my ID quickly, not giving him a good look. “I’m with an insurance company. His brother is recently deceased, and Donald is the beneficiary.”
It works better if you tell people you’re trying to hand out money, rather than snoop into their affairs. His face changed.
“David is dead?” he asked.
“Did you know David?”
“Yes, he visited quite often. He was here just a week or so ago. Had a very pretty girl with him.”
“Really? What did she look like? We think there might have been a girl with him when he died, but we haven’t been able to locate her.”
“Brown hair, great figure. I thought she might be a relative or something.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Well,” he said reluctantly, “she looked terribly young, and the way he kept his arm wrapped around her ...”
“Yes?”
“Well, I don’t like to think ill of someone. I’d rath
er think she was a relative than that he was messing with a girl too young for him.”
Yes, to a norm Myrna would look under age. I tapped into his mind and saw the image of the girl. It was Myrna.
I decided to check the other people on my list and come back to check out Carpenter’s place after dark.
~~~
None of the other men I was looking for were home either. It figured. With Lord Gordon dead and the O’Donnell Clan on the rampage, I’d find a safe, quiet place if I were in their shoes. Preferably on another continent.
I parked a couple of streets away from Carpenter’s house and walked through alleys, putting out a psychic energy that would blur my presence. I picked the locks on the back door, all three of them, and pushed the door open. Covering myself in a tight air shield, I crept into the house. I couldn’t detect any people, so I created a small fireball and held it before me for light.
I didn’t find anything interesting on the main floor, but the basement door was reinforced and bolted like a vault. Or a prison. Some of the locks were simple bolts, but two were combination locks that took a while to decipher.
I was extremely paranoid about booby traps, but didn’t find any. The basement was partitioned into twelve small rooms, six on either side of a narrow hallway. Each room had a bed and a small closet. I searched, but couldn’t find anything that would indicate who the occupants might have been.
I visited a couple of the other houses I had checked out that day, but with no better results. Their basements revealed no secrets or odd dormitories.
~~~
My flat is in an area of west London that’s a mix of upper-middle class homes and apartment buildings. The major attractions are the garage next to the building, a 24-hour bus line, and a Tube stop only two blocks away. I stowed the car and walked around to the front entrance of the building.
A movement in the dark caused me to hesitate between one step and the next. That probably saved my life, as the bullet passed a few inches in front of my face. I dropped to the ground, covering myself with an air shield. The next bullet ricocheted off the shield.
Broken Dolls: An Urban Fantasy (The Telepathic Clans Saga Book 3) Page 11