Reunion (43 page)

Annad paled and turned to Pete. "Dear God, is that ..."

"No," Pete lied. "Of course not."

Logan's eyes lit up at the sight of the morbid talisman. "That means we have a way out of here. We can open a rift."

"Not here in Dublin, we can't" Pete reminded him. "We'd have to get to London or one of the other circles the
Matrarchaí
has built in the Enchanted Sphere. That thing won't work at ground level. There's no magic."

"Details," Logan scoffed with a grin. "Point is, we have a way out of here."

Trása stifled a yawn, adding, "Wonderful. Maybe when we leave here we can find somewhere safe enough to sleep. I'm exhausted. We've been up all night and I was dead yesterday. I don't think I'm over that yet, either."

"I know how that feels," Annad remarked sourly. "Are you people planning to sleep at all?"

"I'd love to get some -" Logan began, but Nika cut him off.

"Did you say Darragh was in Portlaoise?"

They all turned to look at her. "Why?"

"There is something about it on the television."

Annad's tea forgotten, they jumped up from the table and clustered around the TV set while Nika tried to work out which button on the remote increased the volume. Logan snatched if from her after a few seconds and pointed it at the TV where a reporter was talking to the camera, standing in the rain outside Portlaoise Prison. As the volume increased, the reporter glanced over her shoulder at the high, razor wire-topped walls, saying, "... are refusing to confirm or deny that an escape or an escape attempt took place here yesterday, although multiple reports of shots being heard coming from the prison have been received by local media outlets. Authorities are only admitting, at this stage, that an incident took place and there was one casualty, a prisoner named ..." She stopped and glanced at the notepad she was holding. "... Ciarán mac Connacht, serving a term for armed robbery."

"That's not possible," Trása said. She couldn't believe it.
Not Ciarán. Not here. Not in this realm.

"What's not possible?" Pete asked, as the others shushed him so they could hear the rest of the report.

She turned to Pete, shaking her head in bewilderment, and said in a low voice, "Ciarán mac Connacht. That's the name of the Druid warrior who is ... was Darragh's guardian and protector in our reality. He's not here in this realm."

"Coincidence?" Pete asked, not quite as ready to accept that there was something odd in the name. "I mean, aren't all realities connected in some way? Don't the same people keep cropping up in the same places, over and over?"

"Not in a reality that's as diverged from ours as this one. I mean, they do, and Ciarán mac Connacht's
eileféin
is almost certainly in this realm, but he'd have a different name, and wherever he is, Ciarán's
eileféin
is
not
in jail for armed robbery. There is no more honest or honorable man alive in any realm."

"Can you please be quiet?" Annad hissed. They turned to look at him and realized he was on the phone to someone. Logan muted the TV as Trása began looking about for the nearest exit. She didn't know this man. He didn't really act like a friend. Was he calling someone, even now, to tell them what he knew? Was he ringing another one of Pete's old workmates in the Gardaí to tell them ...

What? That his house was full of travellers from another reality?

"... no, I just saw it on the news," Annad was saying to whoever was on the other end of the telephone. "Yes ... no ... of course ..."

Trása wanted to snatch the phone from him and find out what he was being told. Pete must have guessed her intentions. He placed a hand on her arm and shook his head when she looked at him.

"... if I hear anything," Annad assured whoever we was talking to. "I've had limited contact with him these past few years. I don't know that he'd try to contact me." He stopped to listen for a moment and then added, "No ... no ... I don't think it's necessary to send a car here. I'm leaving for work soon, and truly, he probably doesn't even remember my name. Who is the treating psychologist? ... Then he'd be a much more likely prospect if he's going to make contact ... yes ... of course ... if I hear anything at all."

Annad hung up the phone and turned to face his expectant audience.

"Darragh escaped from Portlaoise yesterday morning," he said. "His cellmate, a man named Ciarán mac Connacht was killed covering his escape. The nurse who witnessed the escape claims Darragh walked into the medical unit with mac Connacht, disappeared into the room he should have been confined to, came out with another version of himself and then vanished into thin air. She's being treated for post-traumatic shock. They're not sure they'll ever get the 'real' story out of her." He stared at the four of them for a moment. "Only she didn't imagine it, did she?"

None of them answered him.

It was Pete who broke the silence. "I guess he managed to pull it off."

"So where are they?" Logan asked. "If Ren actually succeeded in waning out of the prison with Darragh, where did he go?"

"Why not send the pixie to find out?" Annad said.

It shouldn't be so easy to take a life.

Darragh pondered that thought as he watched Rónán approach the cradle rocking gently in the center of the room that was somehow different from before. The room was no longer warm or candlelit. It was dark and the walls were glistening in the moonlight seeping through a sliver in the closed curtains.

There was no sign of the nurse. Darragh wondered if she'd run away or if her fate had been the same as everyone else who'd approached this nightmare.

He watched Rónán step up to the cradle and stop to study it for a moment. The oak cradle was carved with elaborate Celtic knotwork, inlaid with softly glowing mother-of-pearl, just is it always was, but even from his vantage here in the shadows, he could see the mother-of-pearl was smeared with something that smelled like fresh blood.

Dear God, is he really going to do this? Am I going to allow it? Am I going to stand back and do nothing while he kills my children?

Rónán glanced down at the blade he carried. Darragh wondered if it would be enough. The
airgead sídhe
caught the light in odd places, illuminating the engraving on the blade. He hefted the razor-sharp weapon in his hand. Faerie silver was useless in battle, but for this task, no other would suffice.

She'd been very clear on that. Before she died.

The twins must be asleep - Rónán would not have been able to approach otherwise. If they had been awake, would they recognize the danger that hovered over them?

Maybe they would. Whatever made my children what they were, must give them some inkling of approaching danger.

They really couldn't just exist to destroy. Could they? They seemed so innocent. So human.

"You can't seriously mean to do this."

Rónán glanced over his shoulder and saw Darragh standing in the shadows by the door.

"It has to be done, Darragh. You know that."

He shook his head and took a step further into the room, filled with doubt and anguish. Rónán's face was calm and resigned to what must be done.

"They are innocent."

"How can you say that? You saw what they did."

"They didn't know. Didn't understand ..."

"They are death, Darragh. The death of billions upon billions more."

He shook his head. "I can't believe ..." He didn't finish the sentence. He couldn't.

Rónán didn't respond, turning back to stare down at the twin girls he had come to murder.

Darragh took another step closer. "I won't let you do it. You don't have to do it. You're not a tool of the
Matrarchaí
. Neither of us is.
We don't have to do her bidding."

"Even if she's right?"

"She's dead. What difference does it make now?"

"I will end this."

"I won't let you."

"How will you stop me?" Rónán asked as he raised the blade.

"I'll kill you if I have to, Rónán, to stop this."

Rónán stared down at the twins, dismissing the empty threat. "Even if you could get across this room before the deed was done, Darragh, you can't kill me without killing yourself, which would achieve precisely what I am here to prevent."

He moved the blade a little, repositioning his grip. There was a drawn-out silence as he played the light across the blade. Behind him, Darragh remained motionless. There was no point in him trying to attack. They were two sides of the same coin. Neither man could so much as form the intent to attack without the other knowing about it.

The girls would be dead before anybody could reach the cradle to stop him.

"There must be another way." There was note of defeat in the statement; a glimmer of acceptance.

"I wouldn't be here if there was," Ren replied, still staring down at the baby he was destined to kill. "You know that," he added, glancing over his shoulder. "You're just not willing to accept the truth of it yet."

Darragh held out his hand, as if he expected the blade to be handed over, and for this night to be forgotten, somehow. Put behind them like a foolish disagreement they'd been wise enough to settle like men. "They're just babies ..."

"They are Partition and all the destruction that -"

"Hey, wake up."

Darragh jerked awake to find Rónán standing over him, shaking him by the shoulder. "What? What is it?"

"You were talking in your sleep," Rónán told him softly. "Something about partitioning. I can hear them moving about downstairs. We need to be quiet."

Darragh sat up and glanced around the unfamiliar room, a little unsure of where he was, not entirely certain this wasn't the dream and what he'd just been seeing was reality. Perhaps neither of them was real. Perhaps he was still in his cell in Portlaoise and Rónán waking him from his nightmare was just wishful thinking ...

And then Darragh remembered Rónán coming for him, and Ciarán dying and realized it wasn't a dream. This was Rónán's old room. There were in Kiva Kavanaugh's house.

Rónán had finally come for him.

"What time is it?" Darragh asked.

"Just on dawn," Rónán said, sitting on the bed beside him. "Kiva must have an early call. She's not normally up this early."

"Did you get some sleep?"

Rónán shook his head. "Someone needed to keep watch."

Darragh pushed himself up on his elbows, surprised at how awkward this soft bed with its down comforter felt. He was used to the hard foam mattress of his cell. This luxury made him uncomfortable. "I thought you said we were safe here."

"We are," he said softly, "but not if we're discovered. You're a dangerous escapee, remember."

Darragh didn't want to think about that. In fact, if he never spared Portlaoise another thought as long as he lived, it would suit him just fine.

"How's your head?" Rónán asked. "You were pretty out of it yesterday."

"Better. How are you feeling?"

"None the worse for wear," his brother assured him. "I think all the jewels are out, from one end or the other. Were you having the dream?"

Rónán didn't need to elaborate. Darragh knew what he meant. He nodded. "I haven't had that nightmare in years. It's different now, though."

"Let me guess. Now it's set in this realm, not yours?"

Darragh searched Rónán's face in the gloom. His brother was not betraying any visible emotion. But his question told Darragh a great deal more than the few simple words it took to ask it.

"What do you think has happened to change it?"

"The Hag told me it changes as it gets nearer. The closer it gets the more accurate it gets."

"That's been my experience with the Sight," Darragh agreed, certain he needed to get the full story of how Rónán came to be discussing such matters with the Brethren. "But I don't see how it can be true. I've been in prison for the past decade. I've sired no progeny." He smiled thinly. "Despite the attempts of several inmates to make me their bitch."

Rónán must have lost his sense of humor these last years. He didn't so much as crack a smile. "So is my dream just confused? Are the children yours?"

Rónán shook his head. "I'm pretty sure they're yours. They always are in my nightmares, anyway."

"Then we have nothing to worry about. At least not for a while yet. Even if I meet someone and impregnate her in the next day or two, we have a minimum of nine months to figure out a way to avoid this dreadful thing."

"Sure we have," Rónán said with a smile, but he seemed unconvinced.

"Odd though," Darragh said, "that after all this time the nightmare should come back."

"Yeah ... weird." Rónán stood up and walked to the window. He pulled the curtain back a fraction, revealing the soft post-dawn light outside. The faint sound of tyres on gravel reached them, rapidly fading as the car pulled away from the house. "Looks like Patrick is driving Kiva today. I'm going to risk going downstairs to see if we're alone. Do you know if Jack is still living next door?"

Darragh stared at Rónán for a moment, surprised by the question. It drove home to him how long they had been divided. How little they knew of each other's lives. "Of course, you wouldn't have heard."

Rónán let the curtain fall and turned back to look at him. In the gloom it was hard to make out his expression. "Heard what?"

He tossed back the covers and sat on the edge of the bed. "Jack was gaoled for his part in Hayley Boyle's kidnapping, Rónán. He was in Portlaoise with me."

Despite the dimness, his shock was clearly evident. "Jesus ... is he all right?"

"He died about three years ago," Darragh told him. "Had a stroke. Collapsed right in the middle of the exercise yard. Dead before he hit the ground, they say."

Rónán was silent. "That's too bad," he said eventually. "Are you still in touch with Sorcha?"

"She died too, Rónán," he said, his brother's ignorance driving home the vast gulf between their experiences this past decade. "The lack of magic in this realm killed her. Aged her into an old woman in a matter of days."