Succubus Rising, An Urban Fantasy (The Telepathic Clans Saga)

by BR Kingsolver

  “You don’t have a license anymore. You’re not allowed to drive.”

  “I don’t care. No one’s going to stop us, and if they do I’ll get out of it. Let me drive. Please?” There was an almost desperate whine in her voice and naked desire in her eyes.

  Rebecca relented and pulled off the road, switching places with her friend.

  A few minutes later, Rebecca asked, “Do you always drive this fast?”

  “This isn’t fast. I’m holding it down so you don’t yell at me.”

  Watching a speed limit sign blur past as Brenna took a curve with the tires squealing, Rebecca looked over at the speedometer. They were going thirty over.

  “Well, I’m glad I’m a moderating influence.”

  “God, I love to drive,” Brenna announced.

  After they turned around, the trip back took twenty minutes longer with Rebecca driving. Brenna was in a great mood, more relaxed and happier than Rebecca had seen her in a long time.

  “Thanks, Rebecca. I promise, I won’t ask that too often. But it feels so good to have some control over my own life, if only for a few minutes.”

  ~~~

  Carlos rode down to Washington with Brenna, Irina and Rebecca. Irina was headed back to New York. During the trip, he continued working on Rebecca, trying to convince her to visit Ecuador and meet his family.

  “Brenna, can you help me?” he finally pleaded.

  “Sure, I’d be very happy to meet your family. On the other hand, I’m not planning to marry you, so I won’t feel any pressure.”

  “I’m not planning on marrying him either, but he won’t listen,” Rebecca groused. “What’s wrong with being a mistress? I always wanted to be a rich man’s mistress. It’s kind of romantic.”

  “I’ll marry you,” Irina volunteered cheerfully.

  “Irina,” Rebecca exclaimed, her eyes wide.

  Irina shrugged. “Historically, lots of wives never slept with their husbands. I don’t mind being cuckolded. Is Ecuador a community property state?”

  Carlos roared with laughter.

  “He’s worried that your children won’t inherit,” Brenna said seriously.

  “Huh?” Rebecca looked puzzled.

  “Can a bastard inherit?” Brenna asked Carlos. “The Clans in Ireland won’t let an illegitimate offspring inherit unless there are no legitimate living children.”

  Looking very uncomfortable, Carlos allowed, “It isn’t customary, but we haven’t had that situation.”

  “O’Donnell is going to adopt matrilineal inheritance. Completely do away with all that crap,” Brenna pronounced.

  “When was that announced?” Rebecca was having a lot of trouble getting her mind around this conversation.

  “I just did. I won’t have any so-called legitimate children. It’s a hangover of a patriarchal system imposed by the church, and we’re the Goddess’ children. There’s no reason for us to protect men. Women know who the father is, and if they don’t, then it’s irrelevant.”

  “You’re not getting married? Ever?” Carlos was shocked.

  “I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Marriage is a binding of women as property. I don’t like it. I don’t want to do it.”

  ~~~

  “Does it bother you that you’re not going to be in on the action?” Brenna asked Rebecca as they returned from seeing Carlos off to Ecuador at the airport.

  “What do you mean?”

  “When we first met, you told me you were training to be an operative. Mata Hari, James Bond, travel the world, lots of excitement. But as my shadow, you aren’t in the plans. I mean, dark hair, fluent in Spanish, if not for me, you’d be on your way to South America.”

  “Brenna, I was younger and more naïve then. I’d never seen anyone die, never killed anyone. Battle is a hell of an adrenaline rush, but so is jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. Yeah, I’d probably be tagged for this operation. But when I think of seeing my friends come home in coffins, or like vegetables with their minds burned out, it just makes me sick. I feel a little guilty that they’re going and I’ll be sitting safe at home, but the guilt is mostly because I’m relieved I don’t have to go.”

  She cast a sideways look at Brenna, “You know Irina is being re-posted to London, don’t you?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Brenna was surprised.

  “She’s much too blonde for South America. But with Siobhan gone, they want to be able to deploy someone into Europe if necessary. She volunteered.”

  “She’s so young,” Brenna said, suddenly afraid. Thinking of her friend going into danger seemed to make the whole mess more immediate.

  “They were concerned about that, but both Siobhan and Antonia said she could handle it. Antonia’s going with her. She volunteered too.”

  “I thought that Antonia’s contract exempted her from engaging in hostilities.”

  “The contract says it’s her choice. But if we go to war, Clan Federicci is committed to supporting us. I think she’s worried about Irina, but Antonia’s a hell of a weapon, and the Europeans know what she can do. She might provide a deterrent.” During the Silent War in the 1950s, Antonia Federicci had gained notoriety as a Storm Queen, a succubus able to channel lightning as a weapon.

  “God, it seems so unreal.”

  ~~~

  CHAPTER 18

  The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him. ― G.K. Chesterton

  Kallen stepped off the plane and looked up at the mountain looming over Quito. It had been at least fifteen years since he’d been here, and it was even more beautiful than he remembered. The air was thinner, too. He used his Aerokinetic Gift to concentrate the atmosphere in his immediate vicinity and took a deep breath. Better.

  His troops filed off and began helping the Vargas men to load their equipment on the waiting trucks. Dan Moran, the leader of the initial force O’Donnell had sent south, walked up and the two men shook hands.

  “How are things going?” Kallen asked.

  “Pretty good, actually,” Dan answered. “The Vargas men are far better trained than I would have expected from a small Clan. They require their Protectors to serve a stint in the Ecuadorian military. Some of them, like Carlos, are still in. Overall, their people don’t have the telepathic strength ours do, but they’re disciplined and know how to use their Gifts.”

  Kallen felt himself relax. “Any hostile action?”

  “Depends on what you call hostile,” Dan said. “No one’s shot at us yet, if that’s what you mean. There are Argentine and German troops all over Ecuador, Venezuela and Columbia. Their spies are all over the city.”

  ~~~

  Wandering around Quito late in the evening, Kallen smiled at the amount of attention he attracted. He’d counted at least five men shadowing him. Turning a corner, he stepped into an alley and melted into the shadows. Locking down his shields, he waited.

  A man cautiously walked across the alley entrance, looking all around him, trying to figure out where Kallen had gone. Kallen’s arm shot out, his hand closing around the man’s throat and pulling him into the alley. A small shot of Neural Disruption energy paralyzed the man’s vocal chords, and Kallen battered down his shields, capturing his mind.

  Using his captive, Kallen sent messages to each of the other four men who had been following him. One by one, they stepped into the alley.

  “Fidel? Where are you?” the first said. Kallen clapped a hand over his mouth and slid a knife between his ribs.

  The scenario played itself out three more times. With the information he’d gleaned from their minds, Kallen walked away from the alley leaving the five bodies arranged in a circle. O’Donnell had come to town, and Kallen wanted the Argentines and Germans to know it.

  ~~~

  Collin had never liked Mexico City. Standing on the sidewalk, he looked around at the hordes of people rushing past. The air and the streets were filthy, and the city was overcrowded. Limos drove past shabbily
dressed people selling food on the street. He wasn’t really a city boy, feeling far more comfortable with the quiet and peace of the West Virginia mountains. But this was the closest place to Quito where O’Donnell had major facilities.

  He had taken a late lunch with Juan Gomez, O’Donnell’s security chief for the Dallas office, and they were walking back to their command center in the basement of an import-export business owned by the Clan.

  As they crossed the street, a Mercedes gunned its engine and aimed straight for them, running a red light. Juan started to run, but the car was too close, and Collin saw there was no way they would be able to escape. He reached out with his mind and grabbed the car using his Telekinesis.

  The car stopped, its tires still spinning and sending white smoke into the air. The driver and his companion didn’t stop, however, crashing through the windshield and rolling into the street. Collin walked from the street to the sidewalk, then released the car. The tires were already starting to slow with no driver pressing the accelerator, but its kinetic energy was enough that it shot forward, running over the two men in the street and crashing into a line of parked cars.

  “I had hoped we could keep this war civilized,” Collin said, shaking his head.

  “There’s no such thing as a civilized war, my young friend,” Juan said. “Seamus’ insistence that we fight a defensive war, rather than attack them in Argentina, is futile. They’ve already demonstrated that they’re going to come after us.”

  “Didn’t you say that Hernandez has an office near here?” Collin asked.

  “Their Mexican operations are headquartered a few blocks away,” Juan answered.

  “How far?”

  “About a fifteen minute walk,” Juan said.

  Collin pulled out his cell phone and tapped on the screen for a bit. “Here, tell whoever answers the phone that a bomb is going to go off in fifteen minutes,” Collin said, handing Juan the phone.

  Juan gave him a questioning look.

  “Your accent is better than mine,” Collin said.

  Juan chuckled, took the phone, and delivered the message to the woman who answered. Handing the phone back, he said, “They’ll be able to trace the call.”

  “To a switchboard in Lithuania, then to a home in Buenos Aires owned by a member of the Hernandez clan,” Collin said with a smile. “Let’s go see the action.”

  While they walked, they talked tactics. When they arrived, with their shields locked down as tight as possible, they saw a couple of hundred people standing around watching the five-story building housing the Argentine operation.

  When twenty minutes had passed since the phone call, a few men cautiously entered the building. Ten minutes later, more went in.

  Standing on opposite sides of the building, Collin and Juan began throwing compact projectiles formed by Aerokinesis against the building. At the same time, Collin used his Telekinesis to pull and push at the building in various places. Nothing was apparent to any observers for several minutes, then the building started to shake. A section of wall high on one side fell away from the building into the parking lot. Shortly thereafter, the roof collapsed, and the building crumbled.

  People ran in all directions, screaming and calling “earthquake.” More people erupted from buildings all over the area. Mexico City is subject to frequent quakes, some of them very large, and the inhabitants of the city understand the consequences of being trapped inside a collapsing building.

  “Damn, Collin,” Juan laughed, clapping his boss on the back, “that’s a hell of a show.”

  Collin admired his handiwork. “I think that will mess with their communications and logistics in this area for a while. Send out our people to track their fighters down and take them out,” he said. “Thirsty work, though, don’t you think? I could use a beer.”

  ~~~

  Kallen and Carlos together with fifty soldiers rode from the Vargas Clan’s ranch to Quito thirty miles away. The supply trucks were flanked by armored personnel carriers on loan from the Ecuadorian army. A truck loaded with cattle had been ambushed in that area the week before, and Carlos wasn’t going to take any more chances.

  “We have company,” Kallen said, sitting beside Carlos in the lead armored personnel carrier. “Slow down.”

  Carlos reached out with his mind to the driver, and the vehicle slowed.

  Kallen, the O’Donnell scout sent, it looks like an ambush. There are about forty or fifty men waiting about a mile ahead of you.

  Kallen told Carlos, “It looks like an ambush ahead.” Sending back to his men, he asked, Can you describe their setup?

  Yeah, a couple of machine guns on both sides of the road to set up a crossfire. But I don’t understand why they’ve set up in a place where you should be able to escape fairly easily.

  “Do you think the Argentines would use land mines?” Kallen asked Carlos.

  “I don’t know,” Carlos answered. “We really haven’t had a major war down here. Do you think the Germans would use mines?”

  Tommy, are any of the ambushers blond?

  Yeah, it’s a mixture of Germans and Argentines, Tommy answered, showing Kallen an image of the scene he and his men had scouted.

  “Carlos, let’s leave the trucks here with a small force, protect them with air shields, and ambush our ambushers,” Kallen said.

  Carlos looked out at the rain with distaste. “I thought I was done slogging through the mud when I became a general.”

  Kallen laughed. “You can stay here with the trucks.”

  “And have you tell Rebecca that I’m a coward?” Carlos said, donning a rain poncho. “Besides, I don’t have Aerokinesis. We need to leave someone to protect these trucks, and I’m not the best qualified.”

  Kallen nodded. He’d come to respect the Vargas heir. Carlos played the South American general very well, strutting around in public and acting as Ecuadorians expected a general to act. But the private Carlos, the one his own Clan saw, was a serious, intelligent man who put the welfare of his family and Clan above his own. If anything, Kallen thought to himself, Carlos and Rebecca might have too much common sense between them.

  They trudged down the road for another half mile, then split their force and continued by swinging far off the road. Kallen positioned his team behind the ambushers and waited for Tommy and Carlos to tell him their men were ready.

  Carlos is here, Tommy sent, how do you want to do this?

  Flame them, Kallen ordered. Hold those with the Rivera Gift in reserve for anyone behind an air shield.

  Kallen hurled a ball of fire at the men crouching behind a machine gun on a tripod forty yards in front of him. Immediately, fireballs and tongues of flame descended on the erstwhile ambushers. Gunfire erupted from both sides. In the chaos that ensued, an errant fireball fell on the road between the two machine guns. A massive explosion cratered the road as the buried landmine exposed the rest of the ambush plan.

  An hour after the battle began, Kallen sat down next to Carlos on a fallen log and looked at the smoldering jungle around him. The rain still fell as they waited for the trucks to come forward and get them and their seven prisoners.

  Casualties? Kallen sent to Tommy.

  One of Vargas’ men is dead, six wounded, three of them ours. One of the wounded might die.

  “I hate war,” Kallen said.

  Carlos nodded. “You’ve seen combat before, haven’t you?”

  “I’m old enough to have been in the Silent War,” Kallen answered. “Fifty years isn’t long enough to forget. Tommy says we lost one of yours and another might not survive.”

  “Yes, I know. This is the sixth skirmish like this we’ve fought the past two weeks. I’m beginning to wonder if we should think about a counter attack.”

  “We’re stretching their supply and communication lines,” Kallen replied. “The situation would be reversed if we were in Argentina.”

  “All the same, this kind of warfare isn’t getting us anywhere.”

  The trucks arrived an
d they clambered aboard, glad to get out of the rain.

  ~~~

  Brenna sat silently while Rebecca studied the reports from South America. A large map with colored pins hung on the wall of the conference room in Washington. Eventually, Rebecca turned from her computer.

  “I feel like a ghoul reading casualty reports,” she said.

  “Anyone I know?” Brenna asked quietly.

  “Joel Breeson and Jamie McKinley,” Rebecca said. “There’s a dozen more injured badly enough that they’re coming home.”

  After a month of fighting, O’Donnell had lost seven dead and forty injured or wounded. The hospital in Charleston was full of war casualties. The toll on Vargas was higher.

  “One of our teams ambushed a German force in Venezuela,” Rebecca said. “Siobhan reports the Germans in Brazil are warning the Consortium to commit more forces. The Brazilians are at odds with the Argentines.”

  “Siobhan seems to be getting great intelligence,” Brenna said.

  Rebecca snorted a short laugh. “She’s sleeping with a younger son of the Gonsalves family in Rio de Janeiro. She’s living in their damn house. We have a Protector with the Krasevec Gift follow her around and transfer what she feeds him. We asked if she could update what’s going on in Buenos Aires, and she said she’d have Paolo take her to visit Hernandez next week. The amount we know about their operations is incredible.”

  ~~~

  Kallen stood on top of a hill, surveying the surrounding country through a pair of binoculars. Carlos stood nearby, talking with several of Vargas’ long-range scouts. After two months, the war was a standoff. The Consortium and its CBW allies kept up constant pressure with small attacks and ambushes, and Vargas with its O’Donnell allies continued to resist.

  “I have a new report from our scouts. They say there are about seven hundred men within five miles of where we stand,” Carlos said, turning to Kallen. “Five hundred are Germans.”

  Nodding, Kallen said, “Someone is running out of patience. War is an expensive enterprise with little return on investment. Seamus and Rory predicted that if we waited them out, they’d make a big move to try and end things quickly.”