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

by BR Kingsolver

  “Rebecca?”

  “She has the same affliction you do. I think that’s what you’re trying to tell me. You have an uncontrollable need to have sex with men, and without it, you start going crazy.”

  Teresa stared at her, eyes wide and her face turning red.

  “We think it’s because your sexual energy, something that all adults have, gets out of balance. What we haven’t figured out is how to balance it without the bedroom solution. We’re working on it, however. We know that a woman’s urges are reduced by her pregnancy, and some of the old healers tell us the urges diminish after having children. Rebecca has started taking birth control pills hoping they might help.”

  “It could be that simple?”

  “We don’t know, and probably won’t know for months. For sure, we won’t learn anything while she’s spending twenty-four hours a day with Carlos.”

  For the first time, Teresa smiled. “No, I don’t imagine we will.”

  “We know it affects people differently. I’ve known a woman who needed relief every three to four hours, and others who are fine with once a day. How bad is it?

  “I’m all right for about five or six hours, then I start feeling uneasy, and within an hour or two I start to lose focus, I can’t concentrate, and if I don’t do something about it …,” she blushed scarlet, “I’ve tried to seduce men in public places. They had to take me out of high school when they caught me with the janitor. The nuns were livid.”

  Brenna choked, then just had to laugh. “I’m sorry, Teresa, I know it’s not funny to you, but I wish I could have seen their faces.”

  Teresa relaxed a bit, a slight smile twitching her lips, “Looking back on it, that part was pretty funny. They kept ordering us to stop, and I couldn’t. They were afraid to touch us. But that poor man lost his job.”

  “What do you do now?”

  “I recognize the symptoms, and the security guards my father has assigned to me will take care of me if we’re out. They find a private place. But I’m fifty years old, Brenna. I want a husband and a family. Who would have me?” Noel Campbell’s face flashed into Brenna’s mind, taking her off guard. It took her a minute to remember what they were talking about.

  “A man who deserves you, a man like Carlos.”

  “He knows about Rebecca?” she seemed surprised.

  “She told him at the beginning, when they fell in love. She told me he said, ‘the two most wonderful women I know have this problem.’”

  “Carlito was always such a good boy, so sweet and loving,” her eyes filled. “Do you think there is someone out there for me?”

  “You won’t know if you keep yourself shut away in your own private convent.”

  Teresa fought for a smile, “You’re the second person to tell me that.”

  “Who was the other one?”

  “Our priest.”

  ~~~

  Carlos and Teresa took their American guests for a drive through the foothills to the massive snow-topped volcano looming above the city. It was drizzling as they left the hacienda and the rain increased as they climbed higher toward the mountains. But it still was beautiful. They ate a picnic lunch under a shelter just off the road. Wearing rain-protective ponchos, they took a walk through the forest.

  That evening they went out to dinner at a trendy international restaurant with paintings and sculptures everywhere. Small discreet price tags hung on many of the pieces. After dinner, they visited the city’s hottest discoteca, a bit of a misnomer to Americans as there was a live band. Lydia had traveled in Latin America before and didn’t have to be cautioned about the cultural stigma against homosexuality. “You two act like I just crawled out of the womb. I’m really not a bomb throwing anarchist or going to burn my bra in front of the Basilica. Goddess, give me some credit.”

  They danced, drank, laughed and generally had a good time. Brenna was tempted to scratch an itch with one of the darkly handsome young men in tight pants. But the senses-blurring techniques she employed while hunting wouldn’t work on telepaths, and she didn’t want to shock any of her hosts.

  ~~~

  CHAPTER 23

  I see my path, but I don't know where it leads. Not knowing where I'm going is what inspires me to travel it. - Rosalia de Castro

  The next morning, Brenna was leaning against the railing outside her room, drinking coffee and enjoying the courtyard when Lydia came out of the room next to her.

  “Enjoy yourself last night?” Lydia asked.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “I got bored and left early.”

  “I noticed,” Brenna smiled. “Did you find a new friend?”

  “Yes, a very sweet young friend,” Lydia smiled. About that time, Jesus wandered out of her room, barefoot and his dress shirt from the night before unbuttoned. Lydia smiled at him. “Well, Brenna, see you after a while. I’m going to go take a shower.” A smiling Jesus followed her back into the room.

  At a knock on her door, Brenna turned from the balcony back into her room. It was Carlos’ younger brother Jorge bringing her breakfast.

  “I was planning on taking a shower before eating,” she told him.

  “This is fruit and pastries, nothing that will get cold,” he answered.

  She let her robe slide from her shoulders and drop to the floor. “Would you mind washing my back?”

  “Not at all.” Smiling and unbuttoning his shirt, he followed her into the bathroom.

  ~~~

  Brenna was finishing her breakfast, feeling quite good, when Rebecca showed up. “Hey, hurry up and get ready so we can go to the beach.”

  The most direct route to the coast from Quito is about two hundred fifty kilometers, and Brenna was looking forward to a long ride during which she could see the countryside. When they were directed out the back of the hacienda and down a path, she expected to find the vans O’Donnell commonly used, or possibly a bus. Instead, she discovered three military helicopters, her Protectors loading on one, Vargas security on another, and Carlos standing by a third beckoning them to board.

  “Taking advantage of your position, General?” Rebecca asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Do you ever apologize for using limousines in the interests of security?” he answered. “Not only am I the heir, but as you say, I’m a general. And not only are my security team all Vargas telepaths, they are also legitimate members of the Ecuadorian army.” He smiled and kissed her. “And yes, I’m taking advantage of my position to take my mistress along with me. Any objections?”

  Carlos was good for her. The bright smile Rebecca displayed at his words made Brenna feel so happy.

  “I’m not convinced that Don Rodrigo Hernandez isn’t plotting something,” Carlos said as they boarded. “He opposed the peace treaty we signed with the Consortium, and we’re still negotiating the return of his daughter.”

  Sitting next to Carlos as they lifted off the ground, Rebecca leaned close to him, speaking into his ear over the noise of the helicopter engines. Brenna wasn’t privy to what she said, but a look of delighted surprise lit his face. He turned to her, gathered her in a hug that lifted her out of her seat and kissed her as if he would never stop.

  What? Brenna sent Rebecca. She received no answer, just a bright-eyed smile.

  They landed at an army base outside the city of Esmeraldes and took vans and a limo to the resort town of Atacames. Checking into their hotel, Carlos escorted Rebecca to their room. When they were alone, he took her in his arms and told her, “You have made me the happiest man in the world.”

  What she had told him in the helicopter was, “I’ve changed my mind. I want to be more than a mistress.”

  “Carlos, I want to be very clear about this. I’m never going to enter a church in a white dress and ask a priest to give me permission to fuck you and have your babies. You might have noticed I’m not a conventional woman.”

  Carlos chuckled.

  “There’s an old Celtic tradition called handfasting. A priestess of the Goddess binds t
wo people in a promise to each other, and they are considered husband and wife. It can be for life, or until they decide to part. If you can accept that commitment from me, then I will handfast you.”

  In answer, he reached in his pocket and pulled out a small box. He opened it to display a ring with a large brilliant-cut diamond surrounded by small marquis-cut emeralds. He slipped it on her finger. It fit perfectly.

  Struggling to contain the tears that were blurring her vision, she smiled, “It’s truly beautiful. God, I never thought I’d see a ring like this on my finger. Carlos, I’ll wear it until we can get the stones reset, okay? I’m a Protector, and this is much too dainty and fragile. Let’s design something together that’s more practical. Is that all right? I want to wear your ring all the time, but I’m afraid I’ll destroy this.”

  His heart close to bursting, he smiled, “That sounds like fun. I’d enjoy that.”

  “How did you know the size?” she asked, holding her hand before her and admiring it.

  “Brenna, of course. I’ve been carrying it around for two months.”

  After balancing Rebecca’s energies, they changed clothes and got ready to go to the beach. They knocked on Brenna’s door, and when she called out, they entered to find her nude, slathering SPF70 sunscreen all over her body. Three more large tubes sat next to her bag on the bed.

  “Afraid of sunburn?” Carlos teased.

  “Lobster red is not my color,” she answered. “I’m Irish, Carlos. Any melanin in Ireland was imported. You couldn’t get a sunburn there if you lay on the beach nude for a week.”

  He was somewhat disappointed when she donned a rather conservative one-piece swimming suit, though it was skintight and showed off her curves. Rebecca chuckled at him watching her. “Put your eyes back in your head, boyo.”

  Brenna slipped a sundress over her head and put on a pair of sandals. She gathered what she needed in a large woven bag she had bought in Quito’s market and declared herself ready to go. Then she caught a flash of light when Rebecca moved her hand.

  “Hey, what’s that?” She grabbed Rebecca’s hand and inspected the ring. “Oh, Rebecca, I’m so happy for you.” She hugged her sister and gave her a quick kiss. “What kind of dress do I get to wear?”

  “No dress, just a long, white woolen robe.”

  “Huh? What kind of bridesmaid dress is that?”

  “You’re not going to be my bridesmaid, Brenna. You’re going to perform the ceremony.”

  Brenna looked from her face to Carlos, who nodded.

  “I can’t perform … Goddess?” Understanding hit her. “Me?”

  “There are books in the library. We’re going to pledge in a handfasting,” Rebecca told her.

  They walked down to the beach, which was filled with beautiful Latin women in skimpy bikinis and handsome Latin men trying to attract the women’s attention. Finding an empty section of sand, they spread out beach towels. Brenna carefully arranged all of their bags, coolers, and other belongings around the edges of her blanket, then pulled off her sundress and kicked off her sandals.

  “The Galapagos are that way?” she asked Carlos, pointing out to sea.

  “Yes.”

  “Ok, see you later. She walked down to the water and started swimming straight out from the beach.”

  “Is she a strong swimmer?” Carlos asked.

  “Oh, yeah, she’ll be all right,” Rebecca said in a distracted, not-really-paying-attention sort of way.

  “She’s just swimming straight out to sea,” he said.

  “Yeah, you said the Galapagos were that direction.”

  “Rebecca, they’re over six hundred miles away.”

  “Oh, well, when she gets tired, she’ll come back.”

  “She could drown.”

  “The sun could decide not to come up in the morning. I don’t worry about planets colliding or pigs flying, either.”

  He stepped over her and started to sit on Brenna’s towel.

  “Hey. You can’t sit there. Come on over here and sit on the other side of me,” Rebecca was suddenly animated.

  “You don’t care if your sister drowns, but you don’t want me to sit on her towel?”

  “Carlos, come here and I’ll tell you a secret.” He bent down and she whispered in his ear, “If she gets in trouble, or gets tired, or a shark attacks her, you don’t want to be on that towel when she teleports in.”

  He looked at the clear space on the towel, large enough for a woman’s body.

  “You never did tell me what Gifts she has.”

  “Come sit here and kiss me.” He did as she asked. “Carlos, promise me, on your love, that what I tell you goes no farther.”

  “I promise. You make it sound like a state secret,” he smiled.

  “It is. No one outside the family knows this, and just as I don’t need to know everything Vargas does, there’s a line I can’t cross as far as O’Donnell’s business. Carlos, she has twenty-seven Gifts. That many have manifested anyway. She’s only twenty-four, so we’re not sure how many more she might have.”

  He gave her an exasperated look, “I thought you would be honest with me. Don’t you trust me?”

  “Of course I do, my love. If I didn’t trust you, I would have told you that she only has twenty-five.”

  He looked into her eyes and saw no humor there. “Madre de Dios. You’re serious.”

  “She’s the Chosen of the Goddess, Carlos. That young girl is the most powerful telepath on the planet, and she’s still at least ten years from coming into her full power. That’s what you’re getting when you marry me. I’m bonded to her, even more strongly than I am to you. My life is hers, and you get everything, everything Carlos, that is left over. I love you, please don’t ever doubt that.”

  He sat for several minutes staring out at the ocean. “You don’t really think she’s going to try and swim to the Galapagos, do you?”

  Rebecca laughed, “No, I don’t expect that, but she is still swimming straight out, she hasn’t paused or stopped. I used to worry, but after a while, you just have to take the attitude that she’s meaner and tougher than anything she might encounter out there. I think what she’s doing is looking for dolphins.”

  “Dolphins? Why?”

  “So she can play with them.”

  Two hours later Brenna suddenly materialized on her towel, water streaming off her. The look on her face made Rebecca’s blood run cold.

  “What happened? Brenna, what did you do?”

  Brenna just shook her head. She was quiet the rest of the afternoon and through dinner. Late that night, she came to Carlos and Rebecca’s room.

  “Carlos, is there an organization that works to help the dolphins? One that opposes the fishermen using them to catch tuna?”

  Surprised, he said, “I don’t know. I’m sure I can find out.”

  “I want to provide funding for them.”

  “Brenna, what happened out there?” Rebecca asked. “What did you see?”

  “The fishing boats, they attach nets to dolphins and use them to catch tuna. But the dolphins get caught in the nets, too, and they drown. I can’t sink all of the boats, there’s too many.”

  She turned and walked out of the room.

  Carlos looked at Rebecca. “I don’t know,” she said in answer to his silent question. “I think there’s probably a bunch of men floating around out there in life boats. She wouldn’t have killed them. No matter how angry she was, she wouldn’t do that.”

  The next day’s news had a story about a fishing boat that came apart, its seams bursting and sending the crew scurrying to their lifeboats.

  “How could she do that?” Carlos said, watching the TV.

  “My guess is she set an air shield inside the hull and then expanded it until the boat couldn’t stand the strain. That’s what I’d do, anyway.”

  Something in her voice froze him. He turned to her. “You could do that?”

  “Yes. I don’t have her power, but you don’t have to blow up
the whole boat, just over-stress the weak points. Once the water started coming in …”

  “Fifteen Gifts, Rebecca. Only two people in Vargas’ history had fifteen Gifts.”

  She shrugged. “Our father and Brenna’s mother had fifteen. Seamus has fifteen, as does your mother’s friend Antonia. I know a lot of people with nine or more, including all the succubi. I guess I’m used to being around people with a lot of power.”

  ~~~

  From Atacames, they drove to Lima, Peru, and then to the ancient Incan capitol of Cuzco. At eleven thousand five hundred feet above sea level, the Americans discovered that even a casual stroll left them short of breath. They spent two days exploring Cuzco and seeing the sights while they attempted to acclimate.

  Carlos and the other Ecuadorians didn’t notice the altitude. Born and growing up in Quito, this wasn’t that much of a change for them, but with less than a quarter of the oxygen in the atmosphere than at sea level, the Americans went to bed early each night, completely exhausted.

  In the morning, they took a bus to Ollantaytambo, stopping at the Pisac Mercado on the way. Hillsides terraced by the Inca and Incan ruins provided an awe-inspiring journey. Brenna and Rebecca sat together in the back, their heads together.

  “What are you two doing back here?” Lydia stood over them. “It makes me nervous when you start conspiring.”

  Rebecca looked up at her mother, her brow furrowed. “We’re trying to figure out how to use our Gift to breathe. Aerokinesis has to be good for something other than building a shield. We’ve figured out how to concentrate the atmosphere around us, but we still don’t understand how to project it to you and maintain it. Until we do, you’re just going to have to hold my hand like a little girl.”

  Tears stung Lydia’s eyes. “Well, you said I was going to make up for things we missed. I guess that’s one of them.”