Succubus Ascendant: An Urban Fantasy (The Telepathic Clans Saga Book 4)

by BR Kingsolver

  They waited. Twice they heard gunfire inside the building, and once a ball of fire shot down a hallway, lighting each of the windows facing them on the second floor as it passed.

  And then a wave of psychic energy rolled out of the building, stunning every telepath within a half mile. Even the normal humans in the area seemed disoriented.

  “Holy shit!” Rebecca exclaimed.

  “What was that?” Carlos asked of no one in particular.

  “Neural Disruption,” Rebecca answered. Everyone turned to look at her. “That’s the same kind of psychic backlash I felt when RB cut loose in Scotland,” she explained. “Only this was a hell of a lot stronger.”

  “Brenna wasn’t with her in Scotland,” Carlos said.

  Rebecca sent her mind into the building, searching. “There’re only two minds left in there. Brenna and RB. Goddess, they killed them all.”

  A couple of minutes later, she pronounced, “They’re gone. The building’s empty.”

  “Where did they go?” Edwin asked.

  “I have no idea. If Andrew wasn’t inside, then I think he’ll get a couple of unexpected visitors. If not, I have no idea. They could be anywhere in the world.”

  “Is that smoke?” Carlos asked, pointing at the open front doors. As they watched, the smoke became thicker, and then suddenly boiled out into the street. A red glow could be seen inside the building.

  “Containment,” Rebecca said. “Edwin, we need to delay the gendarmes more. And have your men delay any fire trucks that show up. Brenna’s destroying the evidence. They set the building on fire before they teleported out.”

  They stood long into the night watching the building burn. By the morning, only the stone shell remained.

  ~~~

  Chapter 24

  And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. - Khalil Gibran

  Rhiannon constructed a burial mound such as the ancient clans used to bury their chieftains. A bronze plaque listing the dead of what was already being called the “Battle of Le Marais” was fixed next to the mound. Brian had been well liked, and almost every family in the O’Byrne Clan had been touched in some way by the losses. Lord and Lady O’Byrne and Brian’s mother were devastated. Morrighan conducted the funeral ceremony, and afterward Brenna made a short speech.

  The mood was somber for days, but eventually, as people went about their daily business, a feeling of normality began to return.

  For Brenna, Rebecca and Rhiannon, the demands of cleaning up the dislocations at O’Neill and O’Byrne occupied their attentions. Brenna sent Rhiannon back to Russia. She would work on helping Irina and Galina consolidate their seats. Rebecca worked with Devlin and Thomas to integrate the command structures of the Protectors.

  Brenna and Michael O’Byrne worked with Jeremy to integrate the O’Neill and O’Byrne accounting and financial systems.

  Nigel Richardson, director of O’Donnell’s European regional office in London, took the lead in the containment and public relations efforts to downplay the battles in Scotland and Paris and the bombing in Wales. Every effort was made to sweep the incidents under the rug. With constant pressure on the police and news media, the wars faded from memory as new crises and stories arose around the world.

  ~~~

  Standing with Collin’s arm around her shoulders on top of a hill overlooking Dunany, the Irish Sea glistening in the sunlight in the distance, Brenna surveyed the area she had chosen for her headquarters. Her mother’s horse farm, the original holdings she had inherited, lay before her to her left. It was much the way she had originally seen it, but the expansion of her mother’s ‘country cottage’ currently underway would triple the size of the dwelling.

  Closer to them, to the south of the farm, a massive project was underway. Three commercial office buildings in various stages of construction were there, with workmen and heavy machinery bustling about. The complex would hold the communication and computing center for all three Irish Clans. The original thirty acres of the estate had been supplemented by purchasing as much of the surrounding land as she could, adding another seven hundred acres. Negotiations to add even more were in progress.

  Brenna had called a ‘council of consolidation’, or alternately ‘a plan for the 21st century’. The Clan councils hadn’t been invited. This was a high-level brainstorming session for those at the very top of the Clan structures. Her intention was for everyone to get to know each other, share their ideas, their plans, and their dreams.

  Irina, Rhiannon, Jill and Galina had teleported in from Russia. Morrighan and Michael from O’Byrne were there, and Seamus and Callie had come in from the States, bringing Cindy and baby Samantha. Along with Collin, Rebecca, and Carlos, they had met for two days already. Today, the group rode horses into the hills west of Dunany for a picnic.

  “It’s incredible to consider that we’re talking about mapping a path for the next two hundred years,” Brenna said. “A few years ago, I couldn’t conceive of thinking that far ahead.”

  “Realizing that you’ll live that long sort of changes your perspective, doesn’t it?” Collin said with a grin.

  “Yes. Realizing that you have this kind of responsibility does, too.”

  She looked back at her friends and her fellow Clan Chiefs, a few yards away, sitting on blankets or on some of the large rocks that dotted the hillside. Eating, drinking wine, chatting and laughing, they appeared to be a group of mostly young people out for a lark.

  “Hey, you two,” Rhiannon called. “Are you being anti-social? No going off on your own to play kissy-face when the rest of us are flying solo. I already had to tell Rebecca and Carlos to be more discreet about their public displays of affection.”

  Brenna turned with a smile and responded, “Rhi, you are turning into such a sour old lady. You need to get laid more.”

  Pulling Collin with her, she began walking the few yards back to the gathering. “How’s that handsome man from O’Neill doing? Have you finally succumbed to his charms?”

  Jill and Irina laughed. “She keeps insisting that they’re just friends,” Irina said. “It’s an interesting relationship. He follows her around with big cow eyes, and she abuses him. Eventually, they get in a fight, he loses, then mopes around while she abuses him some more. Then when his back is turned, she stares at his ass and licks her lips. I think she gets some kind of perverted pleasure out of self-denial.”

  Rhiannon blushed scarlet. “That’s not true,” she protested. “He really is the most infuriating man I’ve ever met. Why would I want to get involved with him? All we ever do is fight.”

  “That’s a good start,” Morrighan said with a grin. “Making up can be so much fun. And if you fight a lot, that’s a whole lot of opportunities to make up.”

  “My intelligence sources have included some pretty juicy gossip in some of their reports,” Collin said. “Since Brenna has said our intelligence should be shared among all of our allied Clan Chiefs, would you like to hear the latest?”

  The following silence, with every eye turned expectantly toward him, caused his grin to grow.

  “I had a report out of Helsinki that a certain red-headed operative held extensive consultations with the O’Neill regional director at his home there. The consultations are reported to have taken almost three days, during which neither of them left the premises.” He shrugged. “Not particularly noteworthy, except that he lives in a one-bedroom flat.”

  “You son of a bitch!” Rhiannon cried. “That’s not fair!”

  The group greeted this with gales of laughter.

  “I also heard a rumor,” he said, “that the Clan Chief in St. Petersburg was keeping company with an O’Donnell Protector, and that the relationship wasn’t entirely professional. Galina, please, dispel that rumor. I would hate to think that the Russian ice queen was melting.”

  Galina turned a beaming smile on him. “I can neither confirm nor deny such a report. Russian inscrutability prevents me from commenting o
n unfounded rumors.”

  When everyone again laughed, Galina simply winked at them.

  “I’ve also heard that the Moscow Clan Chief is being particularly selfish with her favors,” Rebecca said. “It truly is a scandal when a succubus starts acting monogamously. I’m sure it’s simply slanderous gossip, but I fear her reputation is in serious jeopardy.”

  Laughing gaily, Irina said, “Sometimes a pretty boy can turn my head for a month or two. Give it some time. If I bring him to the Solstice Ball, then you can tease me.”

  “As long as we’re sharing salacious rumors,” Rhiannon said. “During my side trip to O’Byrne earlier this week, I stumbled across evidence of a succubus deliberately planning a pregnancy that will produce an s-gene carrier. In fact, the evidence is fairly strong that she’s already pregnant.”

  Everyone turned to look at Morrighan. Her daughter had recently turned two. She had never revealed the father of her baby succubus, but Rhiannon and Rebecca were fairly sure she was in love with the team leader of her security team.

  “Guilty as charged,” she said with a smile. “Peter and I are going to have a baby, a boy. I’m about two months along.”

  “Is Peter a carrier?” Collin asked.

  “Is that an attempt to identify Seana’s father?” Morrighan asked in return. “For the last time, I’m standing by my story that I was visited in my dreams by an incubus. The dastardly creature impregnated me and abandoned me, a poor, despoiled woman, left alone in the world to raise her wee bairne by herself. Fortunately for me, Peter has taken great pity on me, and vowed to raise the little bastard as if she were his own.” Batting her eyelashes, she grinned at Collin as if daring him to dispute her. “However, with my Lady Brenna’s vow that a child’s legitimacy shall be decided only by her matrilineal inheritance, I guess she’s not a bastard after all, is she?”

  “Nor you, or Rhiannon, or Rebecca,” Brenna said. “Goddess, what a load of patriarchal crap. Half the damned so-called legitimate children probably couldn’t pass a paternity test. At least we can prove whether a baby came out of a woman’s womb.”

  That evening after dinner, the group sat in the living room of the cottage, some sipping cordials, and others coffee or tea. Seamus cleared his throat, and everyone turned to him.

  “As much as I’m enjoying the pleasant company, there is something about this get-together that bothers me,” he said. “It seems as though there’s an undercurrent, an understanding or agreement that I haven’t been informed of.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” Brenna said. “I called the meeting to discuss our plans for the future. How we should set goals and coordinate our efforts going forward. There has been a lot of change over the past year.”

  “Yes,” Seamus said, “but in my experience, and looking back through my inherited memories, there are aspects of this meeting that are unprecedented. Corwin and Fergus and I were always fairly good friends, but we never got together for a meeting like this without a small army of advisors hanging off our coattails. Here we have the leaders of five Clans, six if we include Carlos as heir to Vargas, and none of the Clan councils know about it.”

  Several people shifted uncomfortably in their seats, and numerous glances were exchanged.

  “I think I can explain,” Irina said. “I may be Gorbachev Clan Chief, but I swore fealty to O’Donnell years ago, and I have no intention of renouncing that fealty.”

  Seamus eyebrows rose in surprise.

  “Brenna will be uniting the Irish Clans,” Irina continued. “Galina and I have signed a pact, and it’s a lot more than simply a contract, to unite our two Clans. In practice, if not yet formally, she plans to also swear fealty to O’Donnell.”

  Now Seamus sat up straight in his chair. Carefully setting his coffee on the table, he looked at Galina. “Is this true?”

  She nodded. “Yes. I have to consolidate my control, and then Irina and I must successfully merge our Clans. But once that is done, I shall formally follow her lead and swear to O’Donnell. I don’t know how long that will take, possibly decades. But the world is a far more dangerous place than it’s ever been. The Clans can’t continue to pretend we’re still in a fragmented feudal world. For all of our survival, we must unite. And there is only one person all of us feel has the strength to lead us.”

  “Yes, there is only one logical person who can unite us and hold us together,” Carlos quietly said. “I have discussed some of these issues with Michel de la Tour. We are friends, and since I moved to Paris, our friendship has strengthened. We have a lot in common. We had dinner with Karl Lindstrom one evening, and he seems to be thinking along the same lines.”

  “We don’t agree with CBW’s philosophy,” Rebecca said, “but we can’t deny that humans are dangerous. Without guidance, they could destroy themselves, and take us down with them. They’re destroying the environment and continuing a state of constant warfare among themselves. You would think they would have gained some wisdom, but with all their technological advances and modern communication capabilities, they steadfastly continue to ignore the lessons of history.”

  Brenna said, “We can’t continue to keep a hands-off stance toward human affairs. In two countries, we have the ability to influence the path of governments far more than we have in the past.” She motioned toward Morrighan. “She would make a fine Irish President. Galina and Irina can move toward taking over the Russian government within the next two decades. Vargas has almost full control of Ecuador. Some of the lessons they’ve learned should help us.”

  Smiling at Cindy, Brenna continued, “We've decided that Cindy, Maggie, and Karen need to map out how to create a stronger presence in determining the direction of the U.S. government. Those fools in Washington may be the most dangerous madmen on the planet. We have the capabilities to covertly steer what humans do. We don’t have to enslave them, or try to rule them, in order to establish some degree of rational thought among them. It’s not a matter of power, but of survival.”

  “But we have to ensure we have an organized, coherent plan of action,” Rhiannon said. “We have to agree on our goals and our methods. We have to have a firm understanding, not just a vague idea, of what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. That means everyone needs to agree as to who is in charge. And we need to agree as to the breadth and scope of her mandate, as well as its limits. We’ve been talking in generalities for a while. This meeting is to get everyone in the same room so that we all have our say, and everyone hears the same things.”

  She smiled fondly at Brenna. “Something I have come to understand, quite forcefully, is just how strong of a tendency toward being a tyrant she has. All of you know how headstrong she is, how stubborn. But at most, you can only read her mind, and see how her personality manifests. To truly understand another person’s personality, to understand how they feel and see the world, you have to share their mind. And just as only she truly knows both the fragile, whimpering insecurity, and the overwhelming, indestructible arrogance—those are her words, not mine—that are the foundation of Rhiannon, only I know how much of a tyrannical, self-righteous bitch she really is. Just as only I know exactly how deeply the need to nurture and comfort and protect guides everything she does.”

  Standing, Rhiannon walked over to Brenna and sat on the arm of her chair. Throwing her arm around her cousin, she said, “But she’s our self-righteous, tyrannical bitch, and we love her.”

  “So, you’re planning on taking over the world, turning it into a matriarchy, and making Brenna queen?” Seamus said.

  “That’s a fairly good summation,” Jill said.

  “Any objections, Father?” Callie asked.

  “Hell no,” he said. “Count me in. Brenna, where’s your Middleton’s? You’ve been pinching my booze for years. Now that you have your own house, it’s my turn.”

  ###

  If you enjoyed Succubus Ascendant, we hope you’ll take a few moments to leave a brief review on the site where you purchased your copy to share your exp
erience with other readers. Potential readers depend on comments from people like you to help guide their purchasing decisions. Thank you for your time!

  This is the final book in the story of Brenna and Rebecca O’Donnell. There may be other books set in this world, but none are planned at the current time.

  Also look for Broken Dolls, a paranormal mystery/thriller with RB Kendrick, Private Investigator, set in the world of the Telepathic Clans.

  ~~~

  The Telepathic Gifts

  (* Rare Gift)

  (# Part of Succubus Complex)

  Gift: Telepathy

  Common label: Telepathy

  Read minds, project thoughts into the minds of others, shield their thoughts from others - telepaths have additional awareness and ability to understand their own minds and bodies and the minds and bodies of others. Telepaths can, for example, detect and eliminate pathogens, poisons, and other foreign substances in their own bodies. An example is the ability to detoxify alcohol. Telepaths mature and age very slowly. Average physical maturity occurs in the early 20s, but mental development isn't complete until the mid-30s. Complete development and command of their Talents is not complete until then. Natural life expectancy is 160 - 220 years. Mental acuity and Talent don't begin to decline until the person is in their last 10 - 15 years of life.

  ~~~

  Gift: Charisma #

  Common label: Charisma

  Influence others, project an impression of a person so that others’ perceptions of the person are enhanced. A very short-range projection, i.e. "wrapping" oneself in Charisma, can simulate the Succubus talent of Glamour. Part of the Succubus complex.

  ~~~

  Gift: Empathy #

  Common label: Empathy

  Feel the emotions of others. The person with the Talent can feel other people’s anger, joy, fear, hope, anxiety, etc.

  ~~~

  Gift: Bernard #

  Common Label: Empathic Projection

  Project emotions into the minds of others. Change the way people feel and manipulate their emotions.