Succubus Ascendant: An Urban Fantasy (The Telepathic Clans Saga Book 4) (16 page)

Their first day, Roman, head of O’Donnell’s St. Petersburg operatives, toured them around the city and patiently accompanied them as they shopped. At Rhiannon’s insistence, Irina had packed light. Rhiannon wanted to shop for clothes after they arrived in Russia, intending to ensure their wardrobes reflected current fashion and that the clothing would be of a quality and cut that wouldn’t call undue attention.

The following two days were spent at the Hermitage, the great art museum, and Peterhof, the palace of Peter the Great outside of the city. Rhiannon and Roman agreed that keeping a low profile was critical, so they avoided the upper-scale restaurants and nightclubs. She expected some resistance to this from Irina, but was relieved to discover the young succubus agreed with them.

Roman paid the tab and they rose to leave the restaurant. Ivan, the other Protector eating with them, preceded Rhiannon out to the street. The rest of their team floated toward them from the stations they had taken outside the restaurant.

They had walked about half a block when Rhiannon heard the characteristic spit of a silenced pistol and Ivan crumpled. She turned and saw a man step from the shadow of a doorway toward Roman and Irina. He shoved his hand toward Roman, and Rhiannon heard three more spitting sounds in rapid succession. Roman clutched his side and went down. The man grabbed Irina as more men emerged from an alley and from around the corner.

Covering herself with an air shield, Rhiannon moved toward Irina, extending the shield to try to cover the younger woman also.

The man who had grabbed Irina jerked and stumbled away as the succubus spun toward him. Two other men leaped toward her and she cut them down with Neural Disruption. Rhiannon saw a flicker of light from the syringe held by another man. He grabbed Irina’s hair, plunging the syringe into her shoulder. Then he jerked and fell on top of Irina as she slumped to the ground. Springing to Irina’s side, Rhiannon pulled the syringe out of her and saw that it was empty.

A curse in Russian and the sounds of blows from behind her caused Rhiannon to glance over her shoulder. A few feet away, one assailant was on top of a face-down O’Donnell Protector, beating him, while another was standing and kicking him.

Rhiannon couldn’t use neural energy without also hitting the Protector. Dropping her air shield, she reached into her blouse and pulled her pistol. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she shot one man and then the other. Beyond them, she saw that her team was badly outnumbered but were holding their own.

As suddenly as they had appeared, the attackers melted away. Spinning around, Rhiannon stared in horror at where Irina had lain. The little succubus was gone.

~~~

*I lost her,*
Rhiannon reported to Brenna.

*Lost her? Like you left her on a bus? She wandered off when you were shopping for souvenirs? What do you mean, you lost her?*
Brenna didn’t have to ask who the ‘her’ was.

*We were attacked. Badly outnumbered. They drugged her and we couldn’t stop them.*

*How did Gorbachev even know she was in the country? What the hell is Derek thinking? There’s a leak somewhere, and I want an accounting. Show me a landing spot. I’ll ream his ass nine ways from Sunday.*
Derek was Roman’s real name.

*Derek is dead. We lost three of his team and four more are wounded. If you feel the need to come here and do something, I’m sure Spencer could use your help.*
Spencer, aka Boris, was the team’s Healer.

Through the link, Rhiannon felt Brenna hesitate, her anger diminishing and tinged with sorrow.

*It wasn’t Gorbachev,*
Rhiannon sent. *
We captured one of them. He’s from the Romanov Clan. Unfortunately, he’s just muscle. He doesn’t know a damned thing except they were told to snatch the blonde girl.*
 

Rhiannon let a bit of her weariness and frustration leak through the link.
*Brenna, what’s so damned special about Irina that every Russian Clan seems to want her?*

*I don’t know,*
Brenna answered. *
We don’t have a clue why they want her. You said she was drugged?*

*Yeah. I can feel her when I try, but I can’t make contact. She burned out four men, but I saw one of them inject her with something. She went down like Sleeping Beauty biting the apple. If she comes out of it, we’ll find her, but after the performance she put on here and the one in London, I wouldn’t count on her kidnappers giving her the chance to do anything.*

*I’ve been drugged before,*
Brenna said. *
The stuff the slavers use is a complex cocktail that’s meant to make it difficult to decipher. You can’t detoxify it quickly enough to prevent it knocking you out. Damn! I can’t believe you exposed her like that.*

Rhiannon caught herself before she reacted and took a deep breath.
*Well, too late to worry about what we should or shouldn’t have done,*
Rhiannon sent. She had Brenna’s memories from the kidnapping that had landed Brenna in the hands of a homicidal sadist.
*Can you let Moscow know what’s happened, and ask them for reinforcements? We have about forty-five operatives here in St. Pete. I could use a couple of hundred if we’re going to find her and get her back.*

*I’ll see what I can do. Are you safe for right now?*

*I think so. I doubt anyone will bother us. We lost people, but their losses were greater. Even if they know where we are, I don’t think Romanov would be very anxious to tangle with us again.*

*Okay. Hang tight and let me see what I can do about getting you some help.*

~~~

O’Donnell Protectors flooded into St. Petersburg from Moscow and other Russian cities, along with a contingent of O’Neill Protectors from Helsinki.

“Andrei Galkin,” the head of O’Donnell’s operatives in Moscow introduced himself. *
I’m Jerome Murphy, District Manager of O’Donnell Russian operations.*

“Ekaterina Kuznetsova,” Rhiannon replied. *
RB Kendrick. Brenna O’Donnell’s representative on this mission.*

Murphy’s hair was iron-gray but he carried himself with the grace of a trained fighter. RB conducted him to a small parlor. Over cups of strong Russian tea, she filled him in on the disaster the operation had become. After some discussion of the overall mission, and his status update on the situation in Moscow, the talk turned more personal.

“Collin said you’d been in Russia a long time,” Rhiannon ventured.

“Almost sixty years. I came here with Seamus during the Silent War.”

“Were you ...”

Andrei sighed. “Yes, I was at the Battle of Leningrad. Everyone asks.” He smiled. “A lot of the current situation has roots back to that battle. I assume you’ve either read the history or heard the stories. What is important for this situation is that the Russian Clans were decimated. Over ten thousand dead while our losses were a couple of hundred with a few hundred wounded. We decapitated their leadership structure. The top seven Romanovs were killed. The Clan Chief of Gorbachev, along with his two brothers and three oldest sons, were killed. Sergei was holding down the fort in the south and inherited by default.”

“The numbers have always seemed staggering to me,” Rhiannon said. “It’s difficult to wrap my mind around a battle that lopsided.”

“Picture the battle at Ayr on a grander scale,” Andrei said, watching her carefully.

She jerked, spilling her tea. Setting the cup down, she reached for a napkin and mopped up the small mess. Not looking at him, she asked, “What have you heard about Ayr?”

“The official report, and a conversation with Collin before you came to Russia,” he answered. “The battle here was kind of like that. It lasted three days, and we were outnumbered, but man for man, we had superior strength. We also had Seamus and Jack. The first night, Seamus found the enemy commanders, and in the early hours of the morning, he killed them all. And yes, the legends are true. Their camps were between one and three miles away.”

He caught her eyes. “The difference in power from one telepath to another isn’t just a minor difference. If Jack’s O’Donnell Gift was a bazooka, Seamus’s Gift was a howitzer. And my power is that of a musket. I have twelve Gifts, and there are few men I fear, but the kind of power you wielded at Ayr is truly unique.”

Rhiannon picked up her teacup and took a sip to hide her embarrassment. “You were saying about how that battle influences our issues here?”

“Yes, well, you know that the distribution of Gifts isn’t uniform. I’ve never heard of a Russian having one of the Rare Gifts, or a Russian succubus. Sergei used to have one, but she ran away.”

“Irina’s mother,” Rhiannon said. “But she was born in Ireland.”

Andrei nodded. “He’s been buying them recently.” It was Rhiannon’s turn to nod. “Anyway,” Andrei continued, “the Russian Clans rode out the Bolshevik Revolution and had an alliance with the German Clans until the Nazis invaded Russia. That fight was costly to both sides. And then the battle here crushed them. Alexander was a third son, and the weakest, but he was the only one left to inherit.”

“Like Sergei,” Rhiannon said.

“Exactly. They’ve built up their numbers since then, but the gene pool is thin. If I could pick our ground, I wouldn’t be afraid of taking on either Romanov or Gorbachev at five to one odds.”

He leaned forward, waiting until he was sure he had her full attention. “Rhiannon, what are we going to do if we do kill Sergei? He’s never named an heir, and I don’t blame him. There’s no one to name. I could have taken him out several times over the years, but the thought of who might succeed him stopped me. It’s a topic that’s above my pay grade, but you should discuss it with Brenna and Seamus. And with Fergus, I suppose. There’s going to be a civil war here at Romanov. Is that what we want at Gorbachev? It could have some nasty repercussions.”

She thought about it. “I’ll talk with Brenna. You never did tell me why you’re still in Russia. No offense, but you’re a little old to still be a Protector.”

He chuckled. “My title is Director of Russian Operations. You gave me an excuse to get back in the field for a while. But the answer to your question is that after the battle, I was part of the units that Seamus detailed to keep an eye on the retreating Russian forces. One night in Pskov, I took advantage of a pretty young Russian girl. A year later, I asked her to marry me. A couple of years after that, I began to question who took advantage of whom. That was fifty-five years ago. We have three grown children, and a new one in the oven. I’ve never regretted a minute of it.”

~~~

Donald O’Conner, operational name Vladimir, was a few years older than Rhiannon. O’Neill’s Chief of Operations in Finland, he and his team had taken the ferry in from Helsinki. Tall and powerfully built with dark blond hair and pale blue eyes, he stopped a few feet away from her and gave a slight bow.

"Lady Rhiannon, I'm Donald O’Conner. Lady O'Neill asked us to lend you any assistance you may require," he said. His body language struck her as almost too casual for his words. For some reason, he put her off stride, as though he was mocking her.

"Thank you for coming," she said, trying to regain her balance. "Andrei is out right now, but I can brief you and then we can discuss strategy when he gets back."

She led him into the office she'd appropriated. It had been Roman's. O’Conner’s shields were very good, shutting off almost all emotional output, but she still sensed amusement from him, and that he was diligently studying her ass as he followed her. Sitting behind Roman's desk, she gestured to a chair and he took a seat. 

Leaning forward, she began filling him in on the events leading up to Irina's disappearance. He didn't even glance at her breasts. Not once. Not even when she took an unusually deep breath. Not even when she arched her back and stretched and leaned back in her chair. His eyes never left her face.

And why the hell does that matter? 
she asked herself. 
Why is that suddenly so important?
 It normally bothered her when men focused on her body, treating her like a sex object. Here she was practically begging this guy to do it, and it irritated her that he didn’t.

As they talked, she found herself overly conscious of his broad chest and shoulders, the high cheekbones and straight, narrow nose. And his eyes. While his face showed complete seriousness, his eyes made her think he was secretly laughing at her. She tried to work up some indignation, some anger, but the effort was a complete failure.

“You know that Gorbachev has the Rivera Gift, don’t you?” he asked.

“I’m aware of his Gifts,” she said. “She’s a succubus, and I’m here to make sure she succeeds.”

“Yes, and she’s only twenty-five years old, still a little girl. Do you have the O’Neill Gift?”

Rhiannon shook her head.

“Well, if you manage to find him, I don’t even want to be in the neighborhood when they cut loose on each other.”

“Andrei will provide the support we need,” Rhiannon said, irritated at O’Conner’s attitude. “We just need your manpower to help us find her, then you can go back to Helsinki and do whatever it is that you do there.”

He stood up. “Miss Kendrick, Lady O’Neill said that you’re in charge here. The only thing I have to say is that you’d better get your shit together. It appears this has been a pretty slipshod operation so far. I won’t put my men in danger for you and some succubus with delusions of grandeur.”