The Telepathic Clans (The Telepathic Clans Saga, Books 1 and 2)

by Kingsolver, BR

  Brenna gave her questions a thorough examination. “How did you feel when you did that operation? I mean, that’s basically what you did, right? Take a man to bed, drain him, and then go back to being yourself the next day.”

  “It was a little strange, different, especially since he wasn’t someone I would ever sleep with normally. But Brenna, I’m not you. I pick up men in bars all the time. I haven’t been celibate for years at a time,” Rebecca said.

  She moved to sit close to Brenna and looking her friend directly in the eyes said, “I’m telling you, the residual effects of wearing a construct like this, and doing what this operation requires, will either turn you into a true succubus, or make you sick to your stomach. It won’t leave you untouched. I’ve worn a construct, and although you’re someone else, you really are still yourself. If you have moral or ethical issues with anything you do on the operation, they’ll haunt you afterward.”

  They presented the plan to Seamus, along with Kallen’s protection coverage for her, and he approved it with one additional requirement. Two women, Darcy and Aine O’Neill, would be flown in from Ulster to provide shielding for Kallen’s forces. They were twins who had the O’Neill Gift, and Seamus wanted them to cover the Protectors so they could provide closer protection for Brenna.

  ~~~

  Rachel MacAlister drove in that afternoon. Brenna and Rebecca helped her unload her car. They set up her portable beauty salon in one of the unused bedrooms. She immediately sat Brenna under a set of bright lights and looked her over, then had her strip and looked her over again. She took photos of her face from every angle. Brenna felt like a prize horse being evaluated for sale.

  Finally, Rachel decided she had seen enough. “The hair will have to be darker than Cindy’s. It would totally wreck it to lighten it enough to get her shade. We’ll go with an auburn, or cherry red, or chestnut, they’re doable over black hair. We have to do all of your hair, not just what’s on your head. That means arms and down there. We’ll wax your legs and underarms, which will hurt like hell, as well as your patch. I hope you’re up for it. Rebecca, you might get a bottle of whiskey for her when we do this.”

  Brenna’s head was spinning. The woman was a whirlwind.

  “Now, for the really difficult decision, how much of your hair can I cut off?”

  “Cut my hair?”

  “If you want a different style, then yes, we need to cut at least six to eight inches, preferably a foot.”

  “I usually cut about six inches twice a year. I’m not trying to grow it longer. If you need to take off a foot, be my guest, it’ll grow back.”

  Rachel relaxed and smiled. “Thank you. Women with really long hair are usually difficult. Are you going to give me a hard time about some thinning? Not a lot, but a little?”

  “Rachel, I volunteered for this. You’re the professional. Hair grows, and mine grows fast. Heck, I might decide I like it,” she smiled.

  Three hours later she stared at a stranger in the mirror.

  “We’ll do a second dye job the end of the week. I didn’t think I’d get the color on the first round, considering how dark your hair is. Thank God you didn’t try for blonde,” Rachel commented, standing back and admiring her handiwork.

  Gone were her ink black, thick, wavy locks. Her hair was a very dark auburn, straighter, thinner and lighter, though still quite thick. It was parted far on the side rather than in the middle, subtly changing the shape of her face. It fell to the bottom of her rib cage. Her eyebrows matched her hair, as did the hair on her arms and her pubic patch.

  “Rebecca, she’s all yours for a couple of days. I’ll be doing her makeup in the mornings, and again in the evenings, experimenting a bit, but otherwise I’m done for now. Brenna, we’ll be doing two things with your makeup. First, we’ll be experimenting to see how to most effectively alter your appearance, and second we’ll be teaching you how to put makeup on. It’s obvious you were never taught properly.”

  Rebecca snorted, “As if she needed makeup. Other than a little eye shadow and lipstick, what’s she going to enhance?”

  “Yes,” Rachel said, pursing her lips, “there’s that. Hard to improve on perfection.”

  Brenna looked at Rebecca, who was staring at her wearing a slightly bemused smile. “Surely it’s too late to start on the construct today,” Brenna suggested hopefully.

  “Actually not,” Rebecca dashed her hopes. “I want to import the framework before you go to sleep, but that won’t take too long.” She smiled, “Then you can have a beer.”

  They went to Rebecca’s room. “Open yourself to the ninth level, okay?”

  She felt Rebecca enter her mind, and then pull a thought package in behind her. Depositing it at her ninth level, she triggered it and Brenna felt the construct framework expand outward, parts of it implanting on every level from nine up through one. Rebecca made some adjustments then backed out of her mind. “Tomorrow we’ll start building the construct with base memories. Shall we get that beer and some dinner?”

  When they walked into the dining room, conversations, both verbal and mental, ground to a halt and everyone stared at her. She had taken Rachel’s suggestion and assumed a very low-level Glamour. She stopped, did a pirouette so people could see her hair, then stopped and made a slight curtsy. “Ta-da. What do you think?”

  “Who are you, and what have you done with Brenna?” Collin laughed. He turned to Rachel, “That’s pretty amazing, and you say there’s more to go? I can hardly wait to see the end result.”

  For the first time in days, Seamus smiled. “My, my, that is different. This crazy plan just might work.”

  The next morning, Rebecca began pulling Brenna’s memories, altering them a bit, and using them to flesh out the construct. Rebecca worked for about six hours then decided that was enough for the day. Lydia was due in at Dulles at six in the evening, and Rebecca wanted to go and meet her. Brenna, however, was restricted from setting foot outside. No one wanted the new redhead seen until the operation actually launched.

  Brenna had never met Lydia McCarthy before, although Rebecca had talked about her. She was the Clan member who discovered Rebecca on the street in San Francisco, and the construct artist who had trained her in the Lindstrom Gift. Rebecca told her that although Lydia was somewhat bisexual, she was mostly attracted to women. Her first impression definitely pointed in that direction.

  Lydia was tall and thin with short brown hair and brown eyes, wearing jeans, sneakers and a t-shirt declaring ‘I’M NOT GAY, BUT MY GIRLFRIEND IS’. She crossed the room and gave Brenna a firm handshake, “I’m glad to meet you. Rebecca has told me so much about you. It’s good to finally spend some time with you, even if it is to change you into someone else,” she laughed.

  She stood, hand on one hip and her head cocked to the side. “It’s too bad I didn’t get here a bit earlier. I was so looking forward to seeing the ‘remarkable resemblance’ between you and Maureen everyone talks about. I can see it, but if you really do look like her, then they’ve done a hell of a job altering you.”

  “I hardly recognize myself, at the moment,” Brenna replied. “I’ve heard a lot about you too.” She leaned forward and in a stage whisper with a pointed look at Rebecca, “She sure gossips a lot, huh?”

  Lydia erupted in laughter, and Rebecca turned red. “I think we’ll get along fine.” She crossed to Rebecca, put her arm around the younger woman’s shoulder, and said, “I think she knows who she can be indiscreet with. I’m rather proud of the way she’s turning out.” She planted a kiss on Rebecca’s cheek.

  For a moment, Brenna had a disorienting flash, seeing Lydia morph into someone younger, her hair longer, and she and Rebecca looked almost like twins, though Lydia was still wearing that pink t-shirt. Then it was gone. Wow, that was weird.

  Lydia wanted to start work immediately, checking the construct framework and the work Rebecca had done that day. As she went through Brenna’s mind, she made a few adjustments, explaining what she was doing and why. Br
enna was impressed with how good a teacher she was and saw why Rebecca was so fond of her.

  Lydia reached into the area of her mind where she stored her constructs, pulled one out, and told Rebecca to watch closely. She extracted a large portion of the detail from the package, and then pulled it into Brenna’s mind and expanded it. Amazed, Brenna saw the level of detail of her construct expand and deepen, filling in almost half of the framework.

  “God, what was that?” Rebecca breathed.

  “A construct I did for Maureen. If you have something similar to what you need to do, you can pull the detail from one framework and inject it into another. In this case, we need details for the memories, emotions, motivations, and attitudes of a succubus, right? I have all of those stored in another construct, so I just pulled them out.

  “I got these details the same way. Maureen built these into a construct she did for a courtesan in France in the 1960s. The woman wanted to scam a rich German with an obsession with succubi. Maureen built this construct for a hundred thousand dollars.”

  “My mother made money helping scammers?” Brenna asked.

  “I can make that kind of money building constructs?” Rebecca asked at the same time.

  Lydia looked at them and started laughing. “My, such different reactions to the same information. Yes, and yes.

  “Brenna, your mother was an independent woman making her living from her Talents. In our world, she had an entirely respectable occupation. She was welcome in the best houses, dined with the Queen of England, the President of France, and it’s rumored had dinner alone with the Pope one night. I didn’t say she scammed anyone. She took a commission for a work of art and delivered the product. It’s a beautiful construct, meticulously done.”

  ~~~

  The following day around noon, Collin sent a broadcast throughout the compound and both office buildings. Cindy is awake and talking to Dorothy.

  Cheers erupted throughout the complex. Brenna was told later that hurried explanations had to be made to clients in both office buildings.

  After they finished their work on the construct for the day, she went to Collin. “I don’t care what you have to do, or what kind of disguise I have to wear, but I need to go see her. I know you’re trying to keep me under wraps, but figure it out.”

  Half an hour later, he sent her a spear thread. Meet me at the loading dock. We’ll smuggle you out of here and into the hospital. You can stay there an hour at most, okay?

  Thank you, Collin .

  Wearing a hooded rain coat, she walked into Cindy’s room. Bruised and bandaged, arms and legs in casts, her head shaved and bandaged, Cindy was sitting up in bed with Moira feeding her jello.

  God, isn’t it bad enough that I have to put up with bedpans, but now someone’s let a damn succubus into my room. Oh, the indignities never cease.

  Moira turned to look, and their eyes flew wide when Brenna brushed back the hood and they saw her new look.

  “Oh my God, what happened to your hair?” Moira said.

  “I’m changing my identity to go monster hunting. Let me introduce you to Samantha Nelson, Cindy’s younger sister.”

  Cindy’s eyes widened even farther, then she started to laugh, then to cough. She gave Moira a look, and the psychiatrist pushed a button on a small box next to the bed.

  God, I knew it would be trouble when they told me you were coming. Brenna, it hurts to laugh. Either you have to shut the hell up, stop being you, or stay away until my ribs heal.

  “Good to see you’ve still got your sense of humor,” Brenna told her. “God, it’s good to see you, period. Cindy, I was so scared.” She sat in the chair on the other side from Moira. “I was here every day until they put me under quarantine. You’re going to be okay, everyone says so. You’re going to be,” Brenna broke down and started crying. “Oh, thank God you’re okay.”

  Hey, I thought you were here to cheer me up.

  You told me not to make you laugh. Brenna wiped her eyes. I guess I need to find a happy medium, huh?

  “They aren’t going to let me stay very long, but I needed to see you. When they finish my transformation, I’ll be back as your sister. Get well, Cindy, I don’t have so many friends that I can spare any.”

  Siobhan and the O’Neill twins flew in the next day. Darcy and Aine O’Neill were fifty year old identical twins. A bit shorter than Brenna, they had red hair and a million freckles. Their sunny dispositions charmed everyone. They finished each other’s sentences, and when talking to each other had a maddening habit of switching between speech and mindspeak seemingly at random. Brenna learned they were her cousins, sharing their great-grandmother. They each had nine Gifts, including Telekinesis and Healing.

  With Siobhan there, the training in her Kashani Talents that Cindy had begun now moved from the theoretical to actual practice. Siobhan wanted her to start seducing men immediately, and not being allowed out in public, the only men available were those of the Clan inside the compound or clients who were visiting.

  Brenna went to see Collin. She entered his office, turned and locked the door, then walked around his desk and sat on it.

  “You drive me crazy, you know,” she began. “Sometimes I want to kill you, or at least beat you soundly about the head and shoulders, but even then I want you to hold me, kiss me, and love me. I think it may take several decades before you grow up enough to truly be able to give me what I need in terms of a relationship, but Collin I love you, and I’m willing to wait that long if necessary.”

  His eyes misted over and he tried to smile. “I’m sorry, Brenna. I tried to make a joke and it didn’t come out right.”

  She took a deep breath. “Yeah, well, don’t quit your day job. Collin, I need to know how you feel about me, about this operation, about me being a succubus. Everybody is telling me that once I assume this construct, once I actually become a succubus in actions, feelings, motivations, it will take me over an edge. Rebecca says I’ll be changed even after the construct is dismantled.

  “Cindy has been telling me for months that I can only deny my nature for so long and eventually I’ll have to accept it. People tell me that, other than entering a convent, there has never been a succubus who has not, how shall I put it, practiced her trade?”

  Whirling away from him, she started to pace around the room. “They all tell me I’m a genetic whore and there’s nothing I can do about it.” She stopped pacing, her eyes locked on his face. “Do you love me, Collin? Will you love me no matter what? Can you live with a woman who drains your life and screws the world? I need to know, before we trigger the construct, if you’re going to be here for me when I come back.”

  Pushing out of his chair, he strode across the room and took her in his arms. “Brenna, I love you. I know sometimes I piss you off, but I do love you. This operation worries me sick, but not because of what you might do with other men. As far as you being a succubus, there’s nothing either of us can do to change that. In my experience, and from what others have told me, yes, your innate nature will sooner or later express itself. I’ve known that all along and it doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

  He leaned down and kissed her, deeply, passionately, holding her tight, opening his mind to her and inviting her in. She merged with him, lost in the kiss, in his love.

  With a quivering smile, her eyes bright as she fought back tears, she said, “Thank you.”

  She rested her forehead on his chest. “Siobhan wants me to start seducing men in the halls right now. I’m supposed to ask you for a list of all non-critical personnel who won’t be missed for a few days and target them, start getting into my new role.”

  “Are you okay with this?” he asked gently.

  “I think so. I’ll let you know in a few hours. But if I’m not, you’ll take me back?”

  “I’m not letting you go, my love. I’ll be here for you whether you come back tonight or in ten years.”

  Sometime later, she walked through the halls with the list of ex
pendable men in her hand. Siobhan was hitchhiking in her mind. She came to an office in the corporate building, checked the name on the door against her list then knocked. Being invited to enter, she kicked her Glam up to medium, walked in and gave the man behind the desk a short burst of pheromones.

  It took her less than five minutes to seduce him and he took her on his desk, her legs in the air and her panties dangling from one ankle. After his climax triggered her orgasm, his energy flooded into her and he fell back into his chair, pants around his knees, his dignity in shreds. She put her clothes back in order and left, sending a spear thread to Collin so someone could come and see to her victim.

  Three hours and four men later, she complained to Siobhan that she was hungry. She had an incredible Glow on. In fact, she’d never felt better in her life. She felt full to bursting with the amount of life energy she was carrying. She wasn’t sure if the point of this exercise was desensitization training, trying to get her addicted to the Glow, or both, but she definitely had a different attitude toward what she was doing than when she’d started out that afternoon.

  As she headed to the corporate cafeteria for a very late lunch, she realized she’d had sex with almost as many men in one afternoon as in her entire previous twenty-three years. Before she went to bed that night she’d exceeded her previous total.

  ~~~

  Chapter 1-18

  When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that person is crazy. - Dave Barry

  Samantha looked at herself in the full-length mirror, admiring the new dress from New York. Turning to Rebecca, she asked, “Well, what do you think? I like it.”

  Rebecca regarded her soberly. She had triggered and gelled the construct that morning, completing Brenna’s transition to Samantha.