The Telepathic Clans Omnibus
Page 25
She went to see Cindy at the hospital again that evening, then out to dinner and then to a club. She picked up a traveling businessman in the hotel bar, went to his room with him and drained him, then back to her room to sleep.
Over the next week, she spent some time on Capitol Hill talking to people Cindy knew and worked with, as well as visiting restaurants, shops, and clubs that Cindy frequented. She played the succubus to the max, bagging a Congressman in his office, and keeping a nice Glow on by using the techniques Siobhan had taught her when she went to the clubs. She assumed the O’Neill sisters were doing their jobs, as her protection was totally invisible. She knew she wasn’t alone, though, as she could always contact Kallen any time of the day or night and anywhere she went.
Don’t you ever sleep? She asked him once.
About as much as you do, and I double your security when I do.
How is Irina doing?
Rebecca tells me she’s doing fine. They’re at the estate working on her shields. She’s too leaky to keep in the city, but evidently she’s enjoying telepathic society. From what I hear, she’s totally enchanted the people in West Virginia.
Although her protection was invisible, she was amazed at the number of telepaths she encountered on Capitol Hill. The place was awash in them, as well as the restaurants and clubs she visited. Occasionally, she picked up a telepath with a dark, uncomfortable feel and she reported these.
She was leaving a club late one night with a serious Glow on, having seduced three men inside, when everything fell apart. Walking to the corner to hail a cab, she was confronted by a man she had seen in Cindy’s mind as one of her kidnappers. She sent a spear thread to Kallen.
Two more men approach her from behind, and then all hell broke loose. Several Protectors converged on them, and Gless stepped around the corner. She felt him trigger his O’Donnell Gift, and almost too late she threw her O’Neill shield around Kallen. The O’Donnell spear hit Kallen and he fell. A tall, blonde woman stepped up and shot him with a pistol. Samantha felt a sting on her shoulder, just below her neck. She triggered her Rivera Gift and burned out the man who held her.
The scene dissolved in chaos, Protectors falling to the ground, and her perceptions blurred as the drug with which she’d been injected took effect. The last thing she was aware of was being picked up and thrown into the back of a van.
Jeremy called Collin. “They overpowered us. Two dead and seven injured, including Kallen. They got her, driving north in a green van. I can confirm two things, Gless is definitely an O’Donnell, and Helga Fuchs is with him.”
Collin’s answer was a string of curses. “Do we have her tracers? Get people out after that damn van.”
“Yes, we have all three of the tracers.” Mike Riley answered him. “We have two vans trailing them, and they report they have the tracers locked in. I’m directing everyone to that area, and we should be able to set up ahead of them, no matter what direction they take.”
For the next hour, the van eluded them. One of the tracers stopped moving and a team found her purse on the side of the road. Twenty minutes later another tracer stopped and they found her clothes in a dumpster behind a shopping center. The final tracer, the one hidden in her hair, showed the van on the beltway, headed north into Maryland. That tracer stopped in the Spencerville area for about half an hour and the Protectors converged on it. It started moving again, and then stopped sending.
Several teams converged on the area where the tracer had shown her location for that half hour near Spencerville. The area was heavily wooded with a maze of small country roads and the exact location was difficult to pinpoint. They didn’t find the green van. An hour after the tracer ceased to work, they found the van abandoned in a Wal-Mart parking lot twenty miles away. The smashed tracer was on the ground next to the van. It was a rental, and when they checked with the rental company, the identification and hotel address Helga had given were fictitious.
They had lost her.
~~~
Samantha began swimming back to consciousness. She felt sick, her stomach churning and queasy, and she hurt everywhere, especially inside her abdomen. Naked and cold, her scalp felt as though it was on fire. It took her a couple of minutes to understand her full weight was hanging by her hair. Her wrists and ankles were shackled to the wall, the restraints painfully spreading her arms and legs.
As her thoughts cleared, she scanned her body. Painful bruises covered her torso. She had a black eye, and her jaw was sore.
Looking around the room she recognized the basement where Cindy had been held. There were no windows and only one door. A narrow padded table sat in the middle of the room. Restraints for wrists and ankles were attached to it and it was stained with old blood. In a corner, she saw a length of steel pipe and the leg from a table, square and tapering to its foot, the top of it splintered as if it had been broken. It was covered in dried blood. She thought this was probably a good time to panic, but the remnants of the drug kept her strangely calm.
She hung there for some time, then a door opened to her left. She turned her head in that direction, but that was the swollen eye and she couldn’t see clearly. Gless walked into her line of sight, nude.
“Ah, my pretty succubus, you’re awake finally. That is good. You were fun while you slept, but it’s so much more satisfying to have you join in our games.”
He went to the corner and picked up the steel pipe. “Aren’t you going to say anything? Your sister talked a lot. I so enjoyed her begging, almost as much as her screams.”
Deep in her mind, Brenna triggered her O’Donnell Gift, preparing the howitzer.
Without warning, Gless hurled his O’Donnell spear, smashing her shields and reaching for her soul. She screamed, her head feeling as though it was exploding. And then she felt his confusion. He couldn’t find her soul. Cautiously, he began to search her mind, venturing deeper into her ninth level.
Brenna slammed the trap shut. Gotcha, you son of a bitch.
She saw his body stop, standing in front of her with the pipe in his hand. He was silent, and then inside her mind he screamed. She collapsed the construct, and stored it away in her mind. Goodbye, Samantha. You did very well.
Heaving a deep sigh of relief, she concentrated on the corner where the table leg still leaned against the wall. She teleported there, giving herself plenty of cushion because she still felt so weak and fuzzy. She fell six inches to the floor, landing on her back and hips.
Need to ask Seamus if there’s a way to reorient yourself, she thought to herself. Landing like this is not the most graceful way to make an entrance.
She used the wall to pull herself to her feet and turned to survey the room. Gless still stood in the same position, and his screaming filled her mind. She picked up the table leg, shuddering as she looked at it, remembering Cindy’s memories of having it shoved inside her.
Holding it like a baseball bat, she staggered across the room and swung it at Gless’ head. He went down, rolling onto his back with his arms and legs spread, the pipe ringing as it fell to the floor. She raised the table leg above her head, and brought it down on his genitals.
Her arms were getting tired. She came back to herself, leaning on the table leg, staring at the bloody mess that had been Gless’ groin. The table leg was covered with fresh blood. She had no idea how many times she had hit him. Filled with horror, she bent over and retched. She didn’t have anything in her stomach to throw up, but the spasms continued, and she fell to the floor, continuing to retch, curling into a ball.
Eventually the spasms subsided, and she crawled to the door, hauling herself to her feet using the door knob for support. She listened, but couldn’t hear anything. Cautiously she opened the door, peering through a crack and seeing stairs leading up. Still hearing no sounds, she half-crawled up the stairs.
A
t the top, there was a small landing and a door to her left. Again she listened, and thought maybe she could hear a TV in the distance. Knowing she was going to need a weapon, she began pulling the electricity in the walls into her. She felt for two-twenty, but couldn’t find any. Probably have a gas dryer then felt a bubble of hysterical laughter at the absurdity of the thought.
She cracked the door, but couldn’t see anyone from that angle. She did see windows and through them that it was raining outside. From what she could see, it looked as though she was in a house rather than an apartment or commercial building. She opened the door wider, and braced herself against the door jamb.
Two men sat at the dining room table playing cards and she could hear the TV coming from another room. She continued to pull electricity into her, and the light above the table dimmed. One of the men frowned and looked up, then catching sight of her from the corner of his eye turned in astonishment. “What the hell are you doing up here?” he exclaimed in German.
Both men jumped up from the table, one upsetting his chair. She saw a tall, blonde woman in a blue bodysuit stride around the wall separating that room from the next, the woman who had shot Kallen.
Electrical energy crackled between her fingertips, but she wasn’t sure if common household current was enough for a weapon. Lightning crashed outside in the yard. Reaching for it, she channeled the lightning bolt into her.
Her body felt as though it was being flooded with molten lava, every nerve burning. Shit, that was stupid. Screaming in pain, she let the energy go, pushing it out of her in a desperate attempt to save herself from burning out.
There was a blinding flash and an explosion hurled her backward, hitting a wall and sliding to the floor.
She was blind, lightning burned into her retinas, and deaf from the crash of thunder in the enclosed space. It took several minutes for her sight and hearing to return. It was quiet except for the rain on the roof. No one came to recapture her. She was sitting on the landing, and turning to her left she looked down the stairs. She shuddered, remembering the man who had fallen in her row house.
I don’t think the human body was meant to hold that kind of power. Note to self, leave the fucking lightning bolts alone.
It took her three tries to pull herself to her feet, bracing her back against the wall behind her and using her arm on the wall to her right. She staggered forward and holding onto the door jamb looked out into the house. The room was in shambles. A hole with scorched edges in the wall before her was large enough to drive a truck through. Beyond, a smaller hole, still large enough for her to walk through, showed the rain falling in the yard outside.
The heavy dining room table was lying on its side, and the two men lay amid the debris with their eyes open and blank. She picked up a cell phone lying there, but it was dead and wouldn’t turn on. Carefully staggering across the room, she saw that their hair and eyebrows were singed, and any exposed skin was a bright red. Beyond them the blonde woman lay, her eyes also open and staring, a look of startled surprise on her face.
She carefully went into the next room, trying to keep from cutting her bare feet on the debris. Another man lay there. It was impossible to determine if the electricity had killed him or the shrapnel from the exploding wall. He was covered in blood, and one side of his face was gone. She looked around the room, and the TV was a smoking box with a shattered screen. She picked her way to the phone sitting on a table next to the hole in the wall, but it was dead. She realized she couldn’t feel any electricity in the entire house.
Shivering, she looked around and then ventured into a bedroom that opened off a hall from the living room. There were two twin beds, and opening a closet she found men’s clothes. In the next bedroom she found women’s clothing. The bra was too large, but it still provided some support. Bruises covered her breasts, and the nipples were raw and oozing blood.
She opened the closet and tried to put on a pair of jeans she found there, but couldn’t get them over her hips. Shit, all these people trying to tell me I’m not a fat ass. Woman is six four with a forty double D bust, and I can’t get her pants on. Eventually she found a pair of sweat pants with a drawstring waist. Shoes were out of the question, but she put on two layers of sweat socks and found a pair of rubber shower sandals. She pulled on a coat that was much too large, and finally began to feel warm.
Shuffling back to the living room, she opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. She was in a wooded area. There was a house through the trees to her right, and a carport with a gold Mercedes to her left. She turned and looked at the scorched hole in the outside wall of the house. She didn’t feel like answering any questions about that, so ruled out going to any neighbors for help.
The keys weren’t in the car, but she eventually found the keys in the pocket of one of the men in the dining room. She drove until she saw a convenience store and gas station at a crossroads. A plump woman with dark hair sat behind the counter reading a celebrity gossip magazine. Looking up and seeing Brenna walk in, she jumped to her feet. “My God, what happened to you?”
“A man kidnapped me. Can I use your phone? I need to call my husband.” Her voice sounded weak and rusty. She realized that her mouth was extremely dry.
The woman came out and took her by the shoulders, hustling her around the counter and sitting her on a stool. “I think we should call the police,” she said.
Brenna shook her head. “Please, just call my husband, he’ll take care of everything.”
She gave the woman Collin’s cell phone number and she dialed it.
“Hello?”
“I have a young woman here who says she’s your wife. She’s not in very good shape,” and then she handed the phone to Brenna.
“Collin?” She started to cry, “Collin, can you come get me? I want to go home.”
“Brenna? Where are you? Good God, I’ve been worried sick. Are you all right?”
“Not really. I don’t know, I don’t know where I am, a gas station somewhere.”
“Brenna, hand the phone back to the woman who called me, we’ll come get you, baby.”
She handed the phone back to the woman who gave him the address and directions to get there. “She said she was kidnapped. I think we should call the police.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll call them. We’ve been searching for her for two days, and they need to know she’s been found. Does she look like she needs an ambulance?”
“She’s walking, though slowly. She looks like she’s been beaten up. Honey,” she said, leaning close to Brenna, “are you bleeding anywhere?”
Brenna shook her head, “I just want Collin, I want to go home.”
Collin told the woman he was about forty-five minutes to an hour away and hung up. Brenna asked for some water, and the woman gave her a bottle of juice, and when that was gone a cup of coffee. She sat cradling it in both hands, enjoying the warmth and taking an occasional sip.
Twenty minutes later a Maryland State Trooper car pulled up. Two policemen got out and came inside. Brenna could tell immediately they were telepaths.
The taller, older one came around the counter and squatted down in front of her. “Miss O’Donnell? Are you all right?” She shook her head. “Do you need an ambulance?” Again she shook her head.
One of our healers can take care of me. I just want to go home. Is Collin coming?
Yes, he’s coming. Do you know where the people are who did this to you?
She shook her head. In a house, two or three miles from here, I don’t know if I could find it again, but it doesn’t matter, they’re all dead.
You got the bastards? The ones who did that to Cindy Nelson?
She nodded, and saw a look of satisfaction on his face. He put a hand lightly on top of her head and stroked her hair.
Half an hour later, three vans pulled into the gas station and Protectors poured out of them, securing the area. Collin jumped out of the lead van and strode into the store. Coming around the counter, he squatted down
in front of her. Searching her face, he felt his body go numb.
Her face was a picture of misery, streaked with tears and soot and dirt. She was bruised, her left eye swollen almost closed. Her hair was disheveled, with loose strands in clumps that came away in his hand when he attempted to brush them flat. She held a styrofoam cup of coffee in both hands and was wearing a coat that was much too large for her, pink rubber slippers on her feet.
“Collin, take me home. Please? I just want to go home.”
“We’re going to take you home, baby.” He put his arm under her knees, preparing to pick her up.
“I don’t have any money,” she said. He stopped and looked at her in puzzled surprise. “The woman gave me some juice and some coffee. I don’t have any money to pay her.”
The woman’s mouth fell open in astonishment, “That’s all right, don’t you worry about any of that.”
Collin stood, reached in his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He took out a hundred dollar bill and handed it to her. “Thank you, thank you for everything. Keep the change.”
Then he took the coffee and put it on the counter, picked up Brenna, and carried her out to the van. He sat in the back with her on his lap, cradling her against him.
“Collin? The car, the gold one? I stole it. You shouldn’t leave it here. If someone comes looking for me, I don’t want her to get in any trouble.”
He looked out the window at the Mercedes. “I’ll have someone dispose of it.” Then the van lurched into motion.
“The trooper said the people who took you are all dead?” It was a question, not a statement.
“Almost all. Hilda and the other men are dead, but Gless isn’t dead yet. You need to get what you need from him before he bleeds to death, though. How, how long does it take to bleed to death when,” she shuddered, “when someone, cuts your balls off?”
His eyes bulged, “You cut his balls off?”
“Not exactly, beat them off I guess is more accurate. I, I guess I kind of lost it, and, I hit him, with the table leg he used on Cindy. I don’t know how many times, I don’t know how many times I hit him, but he was bleeding, a lot.”