The Undivided

There are some real places in this story (obviously), including the Castle Golf Club in Dublin. While I’m sure they’ll forgive me for carving up their fairways with an imaginary car chase, the stone circle hidden in the rough on the ninth hole does not exist (that I know of), nor does St Christopher’s Visual Rehabilitation Centre, something you might have figured out if you realised why I called it St Christopher’s.

If my Gaelic is correct, then it is thanks to the awesome talents and advice of the lovely Josephine Walsh. If it’s wrong, it’s my fault. Thanks also to Gillian Pollack for her advice regarding Druids, bards and ancient Celtic locations, as well as to Lyn Tranter, Mark Timmony, Sharyn Lilley and my daughter TJ, for their incisive advice and proofreading.

As for the Druids and the
Tuatha Dé Danann
, I don’t doubt for a moment there are many readers out there who are preparing to email me as we speak, telling me how wrong I got them. Please don’t. This is a story of alternate realities and, more importantly, a story about how things are distorted over time. Of course, things have changed over the past 2000 years. Even in a reality where the people cling desperately to the status quo, the very act of clinging will force changes on them they could not anticipate.

If, however, you actually know a genuine member of the
Tuatha Dé Danann
, by all means drop me a line. I’d truly love to meet them.

Jennifer Fallon

Oxford, New Zealand 2010

PROLOGUE

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

The assassin pondered that thought as he approached the cradle rocking gently in the centre of the warm, candle-lit chamber. Their mother would have set the cradle in motion to soothe the twins before she left the room, trusting their visitor so profoundly that it would never occur to her the children might be in danger.

He reached the cradle and stopped to study it for a moment. The oak crib was carved with elaborate Celtic knot-work, inlaid with softly glowing mother-of-pearl brought up from the very depths of the ocean by the magical Walrus People, the
marra-warra
. It had been a gift from Queen Orlagh, centuries ago, and had rocked generations of twins to sleep since then.

Generations that would end now. Tonight. By his hand.

He glanced down at the blade he carried. The
airgead sídhe
caught the candlelight 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, nothing else would suffice.

Warmed by the fire crackling in the fire pit in the centre of the large round chamber, the twins slept peacefully, curled together like soft, precious petals, the left one sucking her
thumb, the other making soft suckling motions with her mouth, unconsciously mirroring her sister. The girls were sated and content, blissfully ignorant of their approaching death. Even if they had been awake, it was unlikely they would recognise the danger that hovered over them. The man wielding the blade above their cradle — the man who had come to take their lives — was a friend, a dependable presence they trusted to keep them safe.

‘You can’t seriously mean to do this.’

He glanced over his shoulder. A figure stood in the shadows by the door, a presence that was both alien and familiar. A presence so like himself it may have been nothing more than a corporeal manifestation of his own conscience.

‘It has to be done. You know that.’

The figure by the door shook his head and took a step further into the room. The assassin found himself staring at a mirror image of himself, except the face of his reflection was filled with doubt and anguish, while his own was calm and resigned to what must be done.

‘They are innocent,’ the anguished manifestation of his guilt announced.

‘They are our death.’

‘If preventing our death requires the death of innocent children, then perhaps we deserve to die.’

The assassin didn’t answer, turning back to stare down at the twin girls he had come to murder. It wasn’t
who
they were, but
what
, that made their deaths so necessary.

Why am I the only one who sees that clearly?

His conscience took another step closer. ‘I won’t let you do it.’ ‘How will you stop me?’ he asked as he raised the blade. One of the girls was stirring — they were too alike to tell which was which. She opened her eyes to smile up at him, her face framed
by soft dark curls. Her sister remained asleep, still peacefully sucking her thumb.

Which will be harder?
he wondered idly.
Killing the one who is asleep and ignorant of her fate, or the one staring up at me with that sleepy, contented smile?

‘I’ll kill
you
if I have to, to stop this.’

The assassin smiled down at the twins, dismissing the empty threat. ‘Even if you could get across this room before the deed is done, 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. The candlelight danced across its engraved surface, mesmerising the baby. He was happy to entertain her with the pretty lights for a few moments. His mission was to kill her and her sister, after all, not to make her suffer.

There was a drawn-out silence as he played the light across the blade. Behind him, the presence that was both his conscience and his other half remained motionless. There was no point in his 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 a note of defeat in the statement, a glimmer of acceptance.

‘I wouldn’t be here if there was,’ the assassin replied, still staring down at the baby he had come to kill. ‘You know that,’ he added, glancing over his shoulder. ‘You’re just not willing to accept the truth of it.’

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

‘They are our death and the death of much more besides.’

‘But they’re innocents …’

The assassin shook his head. ‘Only because they lack the capacity yet to act on what they were bred to manifest. Once they are grown …’

‘Dammit … they’re your own flesh and blood!’

The assassin gripped the blade tighter and turned back to the cradle, steeling his resolve with a conscious act of will. It didn’t matter who they were. It’s
what
they were. That was the important thing.

It was the reason they had to die.

‘They are abominations, bred to cause chaos and strife.’

‘What we’ve seen in other realms may not come to pass.’

‘Of course it will,’ he said, growing impatient with an argument he considered long resolved. He reached into the cradle with his left hand to pull back the furs covering the children. The twin who was awake grabbed his finger. Her blue eyes smiling, she squeezed it gently. Behind him, his other half watched, too appalled to allow this, too afraid to stop it.

‘Help me, or leave,’ the assassin said, feeling the accusing eyes of his companion boring into his back. ‘Just don’t stand there feigning disgust, as if you had no part in bringing us to this pass.’

His nemesis wasn’t ready to give up just yet. ‘Perhaps what we’ve seen won’t happen here …’

‘I’m not prepared to take that risk.’

‘But you’re prepared to have the blood of innocents on your hands?’

‘Better the blood of two children than the blood of the thousands who don’t deserve to die.’ The assassin was still a little amazed he felt so calm. It was as if all the anguish, all the guilt, all the fear and remorse, all the normal human emotions a man should be battling at a time like this were a burden carried by someone else, leaving him free to act, unhindered by doubt.

If that wasn’t a sign of the rightness of this deed, he couldn’t think of anything else that might be.

He extracted his finger from the soft, determined grip of the baby girl, her skin so supple and warm, her gaze so trusting and serene it was heartbreaking.

But not heartbreaking enough to stay his hand. He raised the blade, transfixed by the guileless blue eyes staring up at him. And then he brought it down sharply, slicing through the swaddling and her fragile ribs into her tiny heart without remorse or regret.

He was quick and, he hoped, merciful, but the link between the sisters was quicker.

Before he could extract the blade from one tiny heart and plunge it into another, her twin sister jerked with pain and began to scream.

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