Reunion (31 page)

Pete frowned. "You and I are going to have a long talk about this when we get home."

Ren flashed him a quick grin - a glimpse of a younger, less serious Ren that Pete had not seen a sign of for a very long time - and said, "Yes, Dad."

"I meant it," he said. "You're a fucking idiot."

Ren didn't bother to answer, although he seemed amused by Pete's irritation, rather than bothered by it. They waited in silence for the rift to resolve itself and a few moments later were looking through the lightning at Logan on the other side, framed by the setting sun behind him. Plunkett was through the rift and had vanished with his half-chewed bacon before either Ren or Pete could stop him. Not that it mattered. They knew his true name. They could call him back anytime they wanted.

Pete stepped through the rift with Ren close on his heels. As soon as Ren was through, the rift collapsed, in anticipation - Pete assumed - of opening the next rift back to the ninja realm, where Nika waited for him, and where Ren planned to soak the rubies in his pocket in the intoxicating waters of the Pool of Tranquillity.

It was only then that Pete realized there was something wrong with Logan. He was standing rigidly in front of the closed rift and made no attempt to open another. Pete stared at him for a moment and then realized he had the same frozen stance Abbán had been forced into when Nika bound him with her magic to bring him through the rift.

He didn't get a chance to do anything - not warn Ren it was an ambush, or do anything to help his brother before Pete found himself similarly bound. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Ren had been trapped too. He fell to his knees as the invisible magical bindings threw him off balance. A moment later a figure stepped out from behind Logan. He was
Tuatha Dé
Danann
, complete with billowing white cloak, thigh boots, white trousers and a gossamer shirt surely meant to entrance any mere human he happened across.

By the look on Ren's face, he knew who their captor was. Pete guessed it a moment later. They were, after all, standing in his realm.

"So," the
Tuatha Dé Danann
prince announced, his gaze fixed on Ren as if Logan and Pete didn't even exist, "the Undivided returns divided."

Ren was still standing, but his mouth must have been covered by the bindings because he could only make a stifled sound that Pete couldn't understand. He turned his eyes to check on Logan, who was frozen in place, unable to do anything more than roll his eyes to let Pete know he was okay.

Jesus, how did Marcroy find us so quickly?
They'd been gone about ten hours at most and wouldn't have spent more than a few minutes in this realm. Had Logan stayed here, instead of returning to the ninja realm to wait, as they'd planned? Is that how Marcroy found them?

"And you have come alone," Marcroy added with a sigh, looking disappointed. "Pity."

Marcroy glanced at Pete then and shook his head. His cat-slit eyes were disconcerting. He reminded Pete of Stiofán, that arrogant
sídhe
lord who liked to give Trása so much trouble. "These two, I suspect, are your
eileféin
," he added with a frown. "They cannot stay in this realm."

Pete had heard Trása talk of the punishment awaiting anybody in her realm who deliberately brought a person's
eileféin
through a rift, but she never mentioned the specific details. Pete had always privately considered it a bit of a bluff because, by definition, if you were crossing realities then another one of you probably existed in the world you were visiting somewhere, and you were, simply by being a rift runner, breaking the rules.

Faerie logic, however, seemed to be a fluid thing that often made allowances for the circumstances. A
Tuatha Dé Danann
couldn't break their own rules, Pete had observed, but they were fairly creative at bending them around any obstacles that appeared in their way.

Without any further discussion Marcroy opened his hand to reveal the large ruby they had so recently stolen from Abbán and brought to the ninja realm.

Shit
, Pete thought.
Abbán must have scried him out from the Pool of Tranquillity and told him where he was.
The merman hadn't been as drunk on the pool's magic as they thought.

Too late now to do anything about it, he realized, as another rift opened behind him, the air crackling with magic and red lightning. As soon as the rift was stable Marcroy turned to Pete and Logan, opened his arms wide and lifted them off the ground. With a short, sharp, flick of his wrists, he tossed the brothers through the rift to the reality beyond.

As they landed hard on the stony ground beyond the lightning, their magical bonds dissolved in the magic-less air around them. They rolled to a stop against the tall, moss-covered standing stones as the rift closed behind them, cutting them off from Ren and Marcroy.

Bruised, and more than a little stunned by how quickly everything had happened, Pete climbed painfully to his feet, wondering where he was.

Logan did the same, shaking his head. "Where are we?"

He looked around at the ancient stones, worn away to almost nothing, the low bushes shaded by tall trees. The sun had set so it was hard to tell what was beyond the tress, but there was a smell in the air that was hauntingly familiar and in the distance he could hear something he knew all too well.

"Listen," he told Logan.

His brother cocked his head for a moment and then turned to Pete.

"Traffic," he said, recognizing the sound immediately.

"And no magic," Pete added, breathing in air that seemed barren and dead for the lack of it.

"We're home," Logan concluded, sounding more than a little surprised. "The bastard threw us back into realm you just came from."

Although he would have died before admitting it, at first glance Marcroy was rather pleased with the way his sons had turned out. He still wasn't quite reconciled to the notion that he had sired a couple of half-human brats, but if he had to lay claim to any mongrel get, then as mongrels went, they had grown into handsome young men with more than a touch of their
Tuatha Dé Danann
father's looks and presence.

And more than their fair share of his power, too, Marcroy guessed, as he debated the advisability of releasing Rónán before he delivered him to the Hag. Rónán radiated power as he struggled against the bonds in which Marcroy had contained him, almost to the point where the
Tuatha Dé Danann
lord debated strengthening them for fear the young man would break through. That should not have been possible. Rónán, for all that he looked entirely human, had the strength of a pure
sídhe
prince, something that Marcroy would not have believed possible had he not been confronted with the evidence in person.

But then, RónánDarragh should never have survived the transfer of their Undivided power to BrocCairbre, in the first place. Whatever it was about these young men - whether it was their paternity or some unimaginable forces of Destiny at work, Rónán and his brother Darragh were special and Marcroy was beginning to understand why the Hag was having visions about them.

Not prepared to risk releasing him completely, Marcroy loosened the binding around his mouth, so that Rónán could speak.

"You look like your brother."

"Imagine that," Rónán replied with almost as much disdainful scorn as Marcroy himself could muster when he chose. "What do you want from me?"

Marcroy stared at the young man for a moment, trying figure out what it was about him that he found so disturbing, and then it came to him. "You are not afraid."

"What's to be afraid of?" Rónán asked. "If you were going to kill me, you'd have done it as I was coming through the rift. Better yet, instead of throwing me through a rift when I was a toddler, you could have killed me back then and rid yourself of the problem that is me and my brother, twenty-five odd years ago."

"Do you know who I am?"

"Don't you mean to ask if I know
what
you are ...
Dad
?" He spat out the word like it had a foul taste.

Gods above and below, am I the only one who didn't know about these boys?

"Who told you I am your father?"

"The
Matrarchaí
. Who told
you
?"

This was getting him nowhere. Marcroy had expected shock, even a little awe from his son at discovering his lofty parentage, not disrespect. He certainly hadn't expected either of the boys to
know
who had fathered them. That moment should have been his to reveal, in a time and place of his choosing. One would have thought that on learning of their royal parentage, they might have sought him out, availed themselves of his wisdom and largesse - that he would have vehemently denied owning any mongrel get and refused to have anything to do with either of them before the Hag had ordered it so, was really beside the point. RónánDarragh should be much more impressed by who had given them life.

"The Brethren wish to speak with you," Marcroy said, deciding nothing further was to be gained by engaging this brash young pup in conversation. "I have taken it upon myself to deliver you to them. But I need both of you. Where is your brother?"

"Somewhere you'll never find him."

"The Hag demands to see him."

"Bully for her."

Marcroy found himself at a loss for words, and at a loss about what to do next. Darragh was, he suspected, back in the reality Rónán had just appeared from - a barren, magic-less desert that Marcroy could not enter without dying. He could send Rónán back for Darragh, but it was certain he would never lay eyes on either of them again if he let Rónán loose in a realm where he could not follow.

But he'd been ordered to bring both boys to the Hag. Marcroy was not sure what her reaction would be to him turning up with just one of them.

Better that though
, he reasoned,
than trying to explain how I had one in my grasp and let him get away.

"You will not be so defiant when confronted by the Hag," Marcroy warned.

"The Hag can kiss my ass," Rónán replied with such a complete lack of respect for the Brethren it left Marcroy gasping.

"It is not possible you could be the fruit of my loins," he said, shaking his head. "No child of mine would be so ... so ... ill-mannered."

"Really?" Rónán asked in mock disbelief. "And here I was thinking I was a just regular chip off the old block. Where's this old hag who wants to see me, anyway?"

"This old hag?" Marcroy found himself having trouble keeping up.

"The old girl who wants to talk to me. When does she get here?"

"One is summoned by the Hag, you impudent mongrel. One does not summon her."

"Then let's go,
Dad
. This 'impudent' mongrel's in a bit of a hurry, so if we could get this done with."

"The Hag does not care about your plans."

Even though Rónán could only move his eyes and his mouth, he still managed to convey a level of disdain that even Marcroy would have struggled to achieve. "I beg to differ," Rónán said. "I'll bet your shiny Faerie kingdom that she is
very
interested in my plans, and that is
exactly
why she wants to see me."

Much as he might want to, Marcroy couldn't argue with his son's logic. The Hag was obviously deeply invested in what this man and his brother had in mind. She was having visions about it.

And she was impatient. It was more than likely she already knew Rónán was here. The lesser
sídhe
would not hesitate to report back to the Hag ... she had no doubt set them to watching him. Prevaricating might anger her. Marcroy did not want to anger the Hag.

"I will take you to her," he said, stepping closer, quite appalled at the prospect of embracing Rónán in order to transport him to the Hag.

"No need for that," a voice croaked behind him.

Marcroy jumped with fright and spun around to discover the Hag standing behind him leaning on a gnarly staff, wearing a ragged cloak. Her eyes were cloudy and, with her appearance the mist began to gather on the cliff top, cutting off the wind and replacing the darkness with an eerie white light that seemed to be emanating from everywhere and nowhere. The sounds of the night faded into nothing, all sound muffled by the white fog.

"My lady," Marcroy said, dropping to one knee. Rónán, of course, bound in place by the magical bonds in which he was wrapped, could do nothing.

"You may go, Marcroy," the Hag informed him unceremoniously. "I will call for you when I need you again." She waved her arm. Marcroy found himself standing on the hills overlooking Temair, surrounded by a small flock of shaggy, black-faced sheep.

The sheep looked up from their grazing for a moment, perhaps wondering at the sudden appearance of this
Tuatha Dé Danann
interloper, and then went back to contentedly chewing the grass.

Marcroy could do nothing but quietly fume at the Hag's exclusion of him from what he suspected was a pivotal moment in all their lives, perhaps significant in their very history. And then he realized there
was
something that required his attention.

If he couldn't do anything about RónánDarragh, he could certainly do something about his errant niece, Trása.

The Hag released the bonds on Ren a few moments after Marcroy disappeared. By then the mist had completely enveloped them, cutting off the outside world. He couldn't even make out the standing stones on the edge of the stone circle. The world was silent and the only two people in it were himself and the Hag.

He turned to find the haggard, wizened old woman gone, a much taller, younger and more attractive blonde woman standing in her place. Were it not for the ragged cloak and the gnarly staff, he would never have known it was the same creature. She looked familiar, but Ren couldn't quite place who he reminded him of.

"What did Marcroy do with Pete and Logan?"

"Who are Pete and Logan?"

He didn't know if she was pretending ignorance, or if she really didn't know what had happened to them. Ren wondered if Marcroy had tossed them back into the other realm. Not that he had time to worry about them now. He had the Hag to deal with first.