Reunion (48 page)

Tell her to come back.
Teagan let out a yelp as the thought filled her mind and she realized it had come from one of the babies. They were both staring up at her with creepy, disconcerting, blue on blue eyes.

"Did you say something, dear?"

Teagan shook her head, transfixed by the babies in the cradle.
Tell our mother to come back.

Teagan broke away from the glamouring effect of the babies' stare and fled the room almost as fast as Brydie had done, more frightened by those eyes and the tiny voices in her head than by anything she had ever before experienced in her entire life.

Ren woke to the familiar, and unwelcome,
Brionglóid Gorm
headache. For a time he kept his eyes closed, knowing that the pain of forcing them open and facing the light would be intense. But then he heard someone groaning and remembered Darragh, and knew he was going to have to open his eyes eventually, and that without magic, the headache would take a long, long time to fade.

He blinked painfully as he manoeuvred himself into a sitting position - no mean feat with his hands tied behind him - and discovered Darragh was lying opposite him on the floor of an empty room, just coming to. His face was powdered with the telltale blue dust of the
Brionglóid Gorm
. Ren supposed he must look the same.

There were tall, diamond-paned windows on one wall with no curtains. Daylight streamed through the windows onto the polished floorboards, taking the chill off the air. Ren glanced around, trying to determine where they were, but other than high ceilings, cream walls and a boarded-up fireplace, there was nothing in this room that gave him any obvious hint as to where they were being held.

The only thing he knew for certain was that they were still in a realm without magic and that Hayley had betrayed them.

He should have known something was wrong when she appeared in the kitchen window of Kiva's house, waving and smiling. Hayley looked exactly the same as she had when he'd last seen her a decade ago. It made him feel old to realize she was still a child and he was a grown man, a decade full of dark and unwelcome memories creating an unbridgeable gulf between them.

Hayley had let herself in and began chatting away as if there was nothing the least bit odd about Ren - who'd been missing for a decade - and Darragh, the escaped convict, having breakfast in Kiva's kitchen. In hindsight, he realized she wasn't chatting to them ... she was babbling. She asked how they were, what they'd been up to, but didn't draw breath long enough for them to get a word in, and kept up the conversation for so long Darragh had thrown him a look that Ren just knew meant:
Seriously ... we gave up the last ten years of our lives for
this
girl.

There had been a reason for Hayley's nervousness. She was stalling. Ren realized that too late. By then the
Matrarchaí
were at the door and someone was blowing
Brionglóid Gorm
in his face and then he woke up here, tied hand and foot, with no idea how he was going to get himself or his brother out of this predicament and back to their own realm.

Not that their own realm was really the place for them, either. In their own realm the Hag was waiting for him to murder a couple of innocent children. Besides, the Druids believed he and Darragh were dead and would likely kill them if they turned up out of the blue, and destroyed everything they believed about magic by still being alive when they should have died ten years ago.

"How's your head?"

Darragh groaned in response, summing up exactly how Ren felt. He managed to get himself upright and looked about the room, frowning. "Any idea where we are?"

Ren shook his head and instantly regretted the movement. "There's no magic. I'm pretty sure we're still in my old realm." He glanced around the room, wishing it would give him some hint as to where they were. "I'm guessing it's the
Matrarchaí
."

He'd had time to explain some of what he know about the
Matrarchaí
to his brother, but not all of it.

"How did they find us?"

"Kiva told them. Maybe Kerry. Maybe we weren't as clever as we thought we were, hiding in Kiva's house."

Darragh nodded slowly, obviously suffering from a headache similar to Ren's. "I have to admit, I did think hiding out in your mother's place was somewhat ... risky."

Ren gave his brother a thin smile. "Nice of you to say risky, when I know you really want to say insane."

"I've learned to be tactful, these past few years. It was something of a survival strategy in prison."

Ren didn't want to think about what Darragh had suffered in prison. Particularly as it was his fault. Better to change the subject. They could talk about what Darragh had had to do to survive some other time. If they survived this latest calamity. "Why didn't they kill us, do you suppose?"

"Do the
Matrarchaí
usually kill people? I thought you said they were only targeting the
sídhe
races."

"We are
sídhe
."

"We are Druid."

"No, actually we're
sídhe
," Ren said, as he realized how much he needed to tell his brother. "Almost pure, believe it or not."

Darragh shook his head with a grimace. "We look nothing like the
sídhe
."

"Selective breeding. That's why the
Matrarchaí
are midwives, you know. They mix the right bloodlines and then they're on hand to smother any babe with a hint of
sídhe
features. Eventually, if you do that for long enough, you get almost pure
sídhe
that look human."

Darragh was not convinced. "But our mother was a Druid. Our father was -"

"Marcroy Tarth."

"Was
who
?"

"Marcroy Tarth. He's our father."

"Did you hit your head when they knocked us out?"

Ren smiled. "Don't worry. It took me a while to get my head around the idea, too."

"But ... but ... are you
serious
?
Marcroy
? The same Marcroy ..."

"The one and only."

Darragh's disbelief might have been comical, had not the pain in Ren's head robbed him almost entirely of his sense of humor.

"Does he know?"

"Oh, yes. But I think he only found out recently and if it's any consolation, he's no happier about it than you are." Ren recalled Marcroy's haughty disdain, adding, "In fact, I think he's quite horrified by the notion. Of course, he doesn't realize we're not half-blood mongrels, we're almost all
sídhe
. Or that our mother, despite looking quite human and belonging to the Druids, was almost as
Tuatha Dé Danann
as he was."

Darragh closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall. "That's why we can wane. Why we survived the power transfer. We weren't ever really given any power. We had it all along. It was innate."

"So when they branded the new heirs, we didn't lose anything."

"God ... it's almost too much to take in. And yet it makes perfect sense. Who else knows what we are?"

"Just about everyone in the ninja reality."

"The
what
?"

Ren smiled a little. It sounded quite ridiculous when he said it out loud. "It's the nickname we gave the reality where we were dumped after the rift collapsed on us. I told you about it last night."

"You never mentioned anything about ninjas."

Ren shrugged. "Don't know how it happened exactly, but the Japanese pretty much rule the world in that realm. The
Leipreachán
have taken to dressing like ninjas, hence -"

"Ninja reality," Darragh finished for him. "I think I'd like to visit this ninja reality of yours, Rónán."

"We'd be there right now except for, well, the whole abduction thing."

"There is much you should have told me, I suspect," Darragh said, as if he knew Ren didn't know where to begin.

"More than you'll ever know."

"Give me the highlights, then," Darragh suggested. "We can fill in the details later."

Ren nodded, wondering if he could summarise things any better than trying to explain it in full. "Okay ... how about this. The
Matrarchaí
have been plundering all the realities they can get control of. They decimate the
sídhe
, destroy their homes, make it impossible for them to stay. Sometimes they do it by deception, occasionally they do it with an all-out war. What they're aiming for, are worlds full of magic and no
sídhe
."

"I'm not sure which question bothers me the most," Darragh admitted. "Why the
Matrarchaí
are doing this, or how you know so much about it. Do you know what they hope to achieve by ridding these realms of
sídhe
? It seems a bit extreme if all they want is not to share magic."

"The Hag has a theory about that."

Darragh sighed. "God, even if I could think straight from this headache, I can't imagine any reality where the Hag sits down for a chat with one of the Undivided."

Before Ren could answer that, the door opened. They turned to find a middle-aged woman with a pleasant face and what looked like a couple of dinner suits on coat hangers draped over her arm. She smiled at them, acting as if there was nothing out of the ordinary about two men bound hand and foot sitting on the floor of this large, empty room.

"Ah," she said, "you're awake. Do you want something for your headache? I imagine you both feel like you've been hit by a truck."

"Thanks," Darragh said, "but I'm not sure I'd trust anything the
Matrarchaí
served up in the guise of a headache cure."

"Suit yourself," she said, walking over the mantel and the empty fireplace. She hung the two suits on the edge of it and turned to look at them. "I am going to untie you now. I realize your first instinct will be to try to overwhelm me and escape, so I have been asked to give you a message."

"By whom?" Ren asked. Clearly this was not the woman in charge, just one of her minions, if she was being asked to deliver messages.

"You'll find that out at dinner," she said.

"What's the message?" Darragh asked.

"I've been asked to remind you that all of Europe is on the lookout for you, the dangerous escaped prisoner who looks just like your brother, so neither of you is safe beyond these walls and we will do nothing to discourage your apprehension by the authorities of this realm if you choose to leave. You might decide escape is still worth the risk, so let us make the decision easier for you. If either of you attempts to escape, commit any act of violence, or do anything other than exactly what you are told to do, we will order Kiva Kavanaugh, Kerry and Patrick Boyle and your young friend, Hayley Boyle, killed within the hour." The woman smiled pleasantly. "How's that for an incentive to behave?"

Darragh glanced at Ren and then back at the woman. There really wasn't much to say. "I give you our word as the Undivided that we will behave."

"You've no need to give me your word, dear," she said, removing a small knife from the pocket of her cardigan. "Just trust that ours is exactly what we say it is. Oh, one other thing. We dress for dinner here."

"Seriously? You want us to wear those?" Ren asked.

"There is nothing wrong with being civilized," the woman said.

"That's not civilized. It's ridiculous and anachronistic."

"Be sure to tell Mother that when you meet her at dinner," the woman replied, in a tone that spoke much of what she thought the reaction would be if they mentioned it. She approached Darragh first and sliced through the cable ties holding his feet together, then asked him to lean forward and sliced through the bindings around his wrists. She did the same for Ren and headed for the door as he rubbed the circulation back into his hands.

"Someone will be along presently to escort you to dinner," she said, before closing the door behind her. A moment later they heard the key turning in the lock.

Ren looked at Darragh and smiled dourly. "We have to dress in a tux for dinner. Do you suppose the mysterious Mother will be waiting for us, stroking a fluffy white cat?"

Darragh smiled. "One can only hope."

"Do you think they're going to kill us?"

"No. But I might know the reason we're being dressed up for dinner like a couple of prize fools, and why they haven't killed us yet."

Ren climbed to his feet and rotated his shoulders to loosen them. The headache was starting to fade - thank God - and he was feeling a little more like himself, something he hadn't felt since swallowing those wretched rubies. Outside, the sun was beginning to set. He glanced out the window, but could glean nothing of their location other than an expanse of carefully manicured gardens. "You mean there's another reason other than a perverse need to act like a villain out of an Austin Powers movie?"

He held out his hand to Darragh and helped him to his feet.

"One of us is going to sire the children in our nightmare. The children the Hag spoke of," Darragh reminded him. "Don't know about you, but I haven't really had an opportunity to sire anything these past few years."

"What's your point?"

"I think we're still alive, because we haven't done the job yet. I'll wager dinner involves a bevy of selected beauties designated the right bloodline to bear the
Matrarchaí
's version of twin saviors."

"Could be," Ren agreed, hoping that was the case. The only potential mother of Darragh's children was safely locked away inside a jewel in another realm, but he'd not mentioned Brydie and didn't intend to. Unless he was forced to share the
Comhroinn
with his brother, he planned to keep her predicament to himself. The resurgence of the prophetic dreams he kept having - and which Darragh was obviously having too - must be something to do with being back in this realm. It had to be. "Or Mother, whoever she is, has just seen too many movies."

"Either way, we'll know soon enough," Darragh said.

The voices wouldn't leave Brydie alone. They called to her. They beckoned and cajoled by turn, one minute filled with sweetness and light, the next with horror and darkness.

She lay in bed, the covers pulled over her head, trying to block them out.