As we walked, I finally got my bearings and veered toward the nearest metro stop. But when we were about two blocks away, I started picking up several telepaths ahead of us. Casting my mind in a sweep, I discovered we were being surrounded. I didn’t know who they were, but I wasn’t in a receptive mood for company.
I steered Myrna into an alley with two-story townhouses on both sides. Taking her in my arms and using Telekinesis, I pushed off from the pavement. We slowly rose into the air. I can levitate by picking myself up and pushing against the ground. It isn’t really flying. To move laterally, I need to have something, such as a building, to push against.
*Rhiannon. Where are you?* It was Lorenzo.
I had so many things going on at once that he broke my concentration and I lost hold of Myrna’s mind. She started fighting me, caught me in the jaw with a roundhouse punch, and wriggled out of my grasp, falling about eight feet to the ground.
Before I could react, I saw two men run into the alley. I hesitated a moment. Two more men rounded the corner. Time to regroup and see who they were. I could always take them later if they didn’t get more reinforcements. I pushed hard and rose to the rooftops.
By the time I was able to look around, there were six men surrounding Myrna. She was talking with one of them and didn’t seem to be concerned. Their voices were too low for me to hear. Then they looked up. One of them tossed a fireball at me, but I blocked it using an air shield. If she hadn’t been down there, I would have returned the favor.
Another man, dressed in a business suit, strolled into the alley. When he was about ten feet from the group, he stopped and said something. The only word I understood was “Myrna.”
She turned to look at him, then she screamed. Before anyone could react, she flooded the alley with Neural Disruption energy. All of the men fell to the ground, twitching and convulsing. She scampered out of the alley as if her tail was on fire.
I followed her to the edge of the roof overlooking the street. She turned right and then took another right at the next intersection. I started to jump off the roof to follow her, but movement in the alley caught my attention. One of the men, the one who had scared her, was slowly crawling, using only his arms and dragging his legs.
I hesitated. I’d been in Myrna’s mind and would forever be able to recognize her. I could track her later. But I was very curious about why she was so afraid of the man below. Her attack had completely blown his shields away, so I had no difficulty entering his mind. He couldn’t feel anything below his waist. The neurons in his body were either firing wildly out of control, or were dead. The damage was getting progressively worse, but his heart and lungs still worked.
Reading his mind, I found out that his name was Dr. John Brockington. He was a Healer, a trained doctor of psychiatry, and a construct artist. He had worked for Lord Gordon and had been in Ireland when Gordon was killed. Although he knew Brendan O’Driscoll, they weren’t currently working together. He was working with Brandt.
Brandt had ordered Brockington to implant a construct in Myrna, but she disappeared that night. That confirmed something I suspected after being in her mind. I wouldn’t be able to detect a construct, but what little I had read in her mind indicated that her memories of before she disappeared in Ireland were intact.
Trying to figure out what was going on made my head spin. It seemed that Gordon’s death had disrupted the entire trafficking network. Brandt had broken with von Ebersberg. O’Driscoll had helped Myrna escape from the Palais. None of the villains trusted each other. And all of them wanted Myrna. There was something special about her, something some people wanted to use, and others to destroy.
I picked up several other important facts. Brockington had recently returned from von Ebersberg’s estate in Bavaria. Brandt had left for Berlin the morning before O’Donnell raided the Palais. O’Driscoll had plans for taking over Gordon’s business. A woman named Miranda was the mole inside O’Donnell, but Brockington didn’t know what name she was using. I’m sure I could have gleaned a lot more interesting information before his brain got scrambled. None of it tied together.
*Rhiannon, where the hell are you? Are you all right?*
*Yes, Lorenzo, I’m all right. I’m sitting on a roof trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Where’s O’Driscoll?*
*Who?*
*The man who was with Myrna.*
*I don’t know. You didn’t tell me to capture him. Where’s the girl?*
*Gone to the wind. She killed a bunch of people and escaped.*
After a long moment, he sent, *Where are you?*
I gave him my approximate location. Brockington was still trying to crawl out of the alley. I was tempted to finish him off. The man was evil, without any conscience. In lieu of committing murder, I used Telekinesis to roll a couple of large rubbish bins in front of him, blocking his path out of the alley. Petty, but it gave me some satisfaction.
I floated down to the street and waited for Lorenzo.
~~~
Chapter 17
Lorenzo walked down the street toward me. Seeing that he was alone, I stepped out of the shadows.
“I wish you’d captured O’Driscoll, or at least had him followed,” I said. “I’m very curious as to his relationship with Myrna.”
“Who is he?”
“The man who originally kidnapped and sold her. Or so I thought. I discovered tonight that she’s not under any compulsion.”
“But who is he?”
“An associate of Lord Gordon. He’s the one who sold her to Gordon.”
“Who sold her to Brandt,” Lorenzo said. “And then you say that he stole her from Brandt? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I noticed that.”
“So how did she get away from you? Who were these people she killed?”
I pointed. “Two alleys down. Six men were tracking us. I don’t know who they were. She escaped when I was distracted and ran directly to them. She acted as though she knew them. Then she got spooked and burned them all out.”
“So now we’re back to where we started,” he said.
“Not entirely. I was in her mind, so I planted a tracker. I can find her again.”
He studied me silently. I began to get a bit uncomfortable when he didn’t say anything. Then, with a deep sigh, he said, “I’m sorry to hear that. I had hoped to spirit her out of the city and let you continue thrashing about seeking her in Paris. But now I guess we’ll have to go back to Plan A.”
A black car came around the corner behind him and approached us. I turned and saw another car coming from the other direction.
“And what is Plan A?”
“I’ve grown rather fond of you, lovely Rhiannon. But your persistence tells me that you won’t drop this. I’m afraid I’m going to have to send you to Siegfried von Ebersberg, along with Myrna. You aren’t as valuable as she is, but you’ll fetch a good price in Japan.”
I tried to move and discovered he had covered me in a very tight air shield. From his point of view, all he had to do was wait until the oxygen inside with me ran out. I guess his intelligence didn’t cover all of my Gifts. I slammed into his mental shields. As hard as I battered them, I didn’t make any progress at all. He didn’t even fight back, just stood smirking at me. His shields were at least as strong as mine. Being affected by the succubi at the club had been a ruse.
The two cars pulled up and six men got out.
“You’re working for von Ebersberg?” I asked, trying to get as much information as I could before I acted.
“Yes. For over twenty years. And I’m not a traitor like Brandt.”
“What’s so special about Myrna Kavanagh? It seems everyone wants that little girl.”
He started to tell me, but I noticed the air was getting a little stale. If I waited too long, I’d pass out.
I gathered my energy and pulled Myrna’s trick. I broadcast Neural Disruption in all directions. At nineteen and just coming into her power, Myrna wasn’t very strong. At thirty-
five, I had completely matured. All six of the men and the drivers still in the cars immediately died. Lorenzo, however, merely flinched, then dived behind one of the cars.
I couldn’t move because of the air shield, but I could move me with the air shield. I didn’t wait around to analyze the situation. I pushed as hard as I could with Telekinesis, rising rapidly into the air. When I rose above the roof of the building next to me, I pushed hard against the car Lorenzo was hiding behind. That moved me sideways and over the roof. I pushed so hard that I also tipped the car over. I saw him roll clear, but his air shield broke and I was free.
The buildings were built tightly together, and I sprinted across several roofs. At the end of the block, I jumped, using Telekinesis to slow my fall as I neared the ground. I scanned the area and found at least twenty telepaths in the immediate vicinity. This was going to be interesting. I ran across the street into an alley, then stopped and waited. Those who moved in this direction would be Lorenzo’s men. Anyone else ... well, who knew?
One thing I did know was that Lorenzo was virtually invulnerable. An air shield will block any attack except Neural Disruption. Only the O’Neill Gift, sometimes called Super Shielding, can block ND. Obviously, he was an O’Neill, with triple-strength mental shields. That sucked. I’m the one with O’Neill blood, but I have the lesser Kilpatrick Gift. The O’Neill Gift provided such strong shielding that he could make himself invisible, even in broad daylight. Even a telepath of my abilities wouldn’t be able to detect him. I should have stuck a knife in his ribs when I had the chance.
A dozen people were headed toward me. Another half dozen were stationary between me and the nearest metro stop. Covered in an air shield, I had my pistol in one hand and the knife in the other. My hands were shaking so hard I was afraid I’d drop my weapons. Oh, Goddess, Rhi, you’ve stepped in it big time. They’re going to wipe your mind and turn you into a blow-up doll.
Flashes of that terrible night in Prague when Harry was killed ran through my mind. Running with a bullet in my lung, slowly bleeding out with nowhere to turn for help.
I leaned against the building and had to make an effort to take deep breaths and try to calm myself. I pulled up a metro map in my head and then hurried in the direction that seemed to offer the best chance of slipping through.
~~~
I spent as much time as I could on the rooftops, but that wasn’t always possible. Going up and down was more draining than simply walking or running. I’d used my Gifts so much that my energy levels were down significantly.
I was sneaking through an ally, hoping I’d lost my pursuers, when one of them caught up to me. A metro stop was only one street over. Something hit the brick wall next to me, sending splinters of brick flying around. A man stood at the end of the alley, pointing at me. I dived to the ground and heard the pop of a bullet flying past. I released my air shield and pointed back at him. Electricity is readily available in any city, and I had filled my reserves with all I could hold. Lightning shot from my fingertips, and he dropped in a heap to the ground.
I bypassed that metro stop and headed to the next. Another man found me while I walked down a quiet street. He stepped out from between two buildings and threw an air shield around me. I rewarded his well-executed ambush with Neural Disruption.
Two hours and six kilometers after I’d started my run, I thought I’d finally lost everyone. Close to exhaustion, I scanned the area around the metro stop across the street. I didn’t feel any telepaths. I waited about fifteen minutes, but nothing seemed out of place. I moved from where I was hiding and walked quickly toward the stairs to the metro. I was so drained that I was having trouble maintaining the air shield around me. If I was attacked, I would have to rely on my pistol and knife, hidden in the pockets of my jacket.
Just as I reached the stairs, a hand grabbed my arm and spun me about. There was no one there. I lunged forward, extending the knife. It hit something solid, then sank into flesh. Abruptly, Lorenzo became visible in front of me. In his arrogance, he hadn’t covered himself in an air shield. Or maybe he only feared my mental weapons and knew his O’Neill mental shields were protection from those. I’d never told him I was armed.
He stared at my hand, holding the knife. The blade had sunk to the hilt into his abdomen, just below his ribs. I pushed harder and twisted.
“Holy Mary,” he breathed in Italian. His eyes rose to meet mine, filled with pain and shock. Those lovely eyes that had melted my heart.
I drew the knife out half way, then pushed it in again, angling higher. He grunted.
“You sorry son of a bitch,” I said in English. “You messed with the wrong girl this time.”
He dropped my right arm. I raised the pistol and pressed the barrel under his chin. His eyes widened. I hesitated, a part of me horrified at what I was doing. I was killing a man I had slept with. A man who had been tender and loving. A man who had briefly made me feel less alone. A man who planned to wipe my mind and enslave me. I pulled the trigger.
His body fell backward. I stood there with blood covering my left hand and dripping onto the sidewalk. The gunshot echoed off the buildings around me. I tried to find some sadness inside me for the man I’d just killed, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t even angry, only so tired I wanted to lie down and sleep. I scanned the area. No telepaths, but two norms had witnessed our struggle. Reaching into their minds, I blurred their memories. And then I was running again.
~~~
I contacted Mum after I went to ground in a low-end hotel a few metro stops from her flat. I explained what had happened, and told her I was afraid to go to her place. I was sure Lorenzo’s people were watching it. I washed my hair three times and got most of the temporary black dye out of it. It looked really weird.
She called my mobile an hour later, something I’d told her not to do. I was sure the people who were hunting me would be monitoring my phone.
“Rhi, now don’t get angry. There will be a Protector team from O’Byrne in front of your hotel in about two minutes. The passcode they will use to identify themselves is the name of Morrighan’s oldest sister. Do you know who that is?”
“Yes, I know.” You can’t just Google a Clan genealogy. Most people would think immediately of Maureen. But their eldest sister had died at eighteen, before the turn of the twentieth century.
“Good. They just came for me. I’ll see you soon. I love you.”
She hung up. I went to the window and saw two black vans pull up in front. Several black-clad men carrying assault rifles jumped out. Leaving my room, I crossed to the room across the hall and entered it. I’d broken into it hours before because its window opened on the alley. I jammed a chair under the doorknob and opened the window.
I could hear people moving quietly in the hall. Someone knocked on the room I had rented. Then a voice said in a deep Irish brogue, “Aoife, I have a message for you.”
Covering myself in an air shield, I opened the door. Immediately, five rifles pointed toward me.
I couldn’t control my smile. “Please don’t shoot me, Edwin.”
~~~
Chapter 18
I hadn’t seen Brian O’Byrne in seventeen years. He’d been my biggest crush as a teenager. The memory of that last encounter still caused me to blush. I had attempted to seduce him at my eighteenth birthday party.
“Nay lass,” he’d said. “It’s not that I’m not attracted, but it’s too close to incest. And besides, watching you blow out the candles reminded me of you doing that when you were twelve. I just couldn’t do it.”
Nothing like being told someone still thought of you as a little girl. I’d cried myself to sleep that night.
He really hadn’t changed. He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. The jet-black hair, sapphire-blue eyes and high cheekbones were still the same. When I was fourteen, I’d seen him working out without a shirt. He could have been the model for Michelangelo’s David, and I was forever smitten. He resembled Morrighan and Maureen more than the rest of Fergu
s’s children.
He welcomed Mum and me into his office. We sat on a couch, and he brought us tea.
“Morwyn, are you sure her father wasn’t an O’Donnell?” he joked with my Mum. “She and Seamus have this city in an uproar.”
Mum laughed. “No, although if I’d had a chance to bed Seamus O’Donnell, I’d have taken it. Hell, I’d still take it. I’m young enough to have another brat.”
My mother.
“Are you all right, Rhiannon?” he asked, his demeanor sobering. “From what Morwyn told me, you’ve had a rough time.”
“It wasn’t a pleasant night. Scared the hell out of me.”
Mum leaned over and drew me into a hug.
“Can you tell me about it?” he asked. “There are bodies all over Paris. I’m sure most of those are due to O’Donnell, but ...”
“Hell,” I snorted. “Most of them are probably due to me. I killed at least eleven, and Myrna Kavanagh killed seven more.”
Eleven souls. Gone. It hit me and I started shaking. Mum hugged me close again. Brian got up and went to a sideboard. When he returned, he handed me a glass half-full of brown liquid. I gratefully took the whiskey. My hands were shaking so much I had to hold it with both hands. I downed it, and it helped. At least my hands stopped shaking enough that I could pick up the teacup. There wasn’t enough whiskey to stop the faces of dead men from flashing through my mind, though. Goddess, it could be me lying in a filthy alley, staring at the sky forever.
I told them what I had learned about the trafficking and the steps I had taken trying to find Myrna. I left out spending the night with Lorenzo. When I got to the last couple of days, Brian leaned forward, paying special attention. He stopped me at several points, wanting to know exactly where the events occurred. He was especially interested in where Lorenzo and the other two men who had managed to track me had died.
Broken Dolls: An Urban Fantasy (The Telepathic Clans Saga Book 3) Page 15