The Undivided (38 page)

‘The danger of those boys.’ He held up his hand to stop Brógán interrupting him, even though he was quite sure the Druid hadn’t been going to say a thing. ‘I know. You’re going to tell me there’s been bad Undivided before and you’ve managed just fine. But these boys … Amergin would never admit it, but he thought the boys responsible for the deaths of LonHarian.’

‘That’s absurd,’ Brógán said. ‘They died when the boys were not yet three. Lon fell from his horse.’

‘Think about that,’ Marcroy said. ‘What are the chances one of the Undivided would break his neck in a riding accident and be without a guardian or a
Liaig
to aid him? Think about the absurdity of Lon falling from his horse at all. Not only was he a master horseman, he was a Druid. He spoke to the animal directly. It would not have thrown him unless compelled to do so, by forces beyond Lon’s ken. And, when you think about it, who other than a Druid with the power of the Undivided could wield those forces?’

‘The
Daoine sídhe
,’ Ciarán answered from the floor. ‘Don’t listen to his Faerie tales, Brógán. He’s spinning you a yarn made of lies and spider webs.’

‘Am I?’ Marcroy asked, looking over his shoulder at Ciarán. The warrior was too injured to do anything other than argue. ‘What would you know, you magically gifted thug? You wield magic with all the finesse with which you wield a sword in battle. Amergin knew the danger these boys represented. He also knew the only way to save the Treaty of
Tír Na nÓg
, preserve the power of the Druids and their relationship with the
Tuatha
, was to ensure the unbroken line of the Undivided remained intact. He found a way to do that, and instead of hailing him a hero, you all condemn him for it.’

‘He aided you in tossing one of the Undivided through a rift,’ Ciarán reminded him, attempting to sit up — no mean feat with
two dislocated shoulders. ‘How is that … helping to preserve the unbroken line of the Undivided?’

‘He kept Rónán and Darragh apart,’ Marcroy said. ‘But the magic stayed intact. All you had to do was find the new heirs and transfer the power to them, and everything would have been fine. Darragh and his missing twin would have faded into history as a quirk, soon replaced by heirs who were worthy of the mantle of the Undivided, and not just waiting for an opportunity to destroy everything.’

Marcroy turned back to Brógán. Arguing with Ciarán was a foolish idea, but if Ciarán was going to be a part of the conversation, Marcroy needed the Druids to hear a few unfortunate truths. Truths were not normally something he would contemplate sharing, but in this case, truth was probably the only thing that would sway either man to his way of thinking.

‘You lie, Marcroy,’ Ciarán said, lowering his head back on the muddy floor. He was in too much pain to do anything but lie there. Still, the man’s courage was the stuff of legend. He might eventually find a way through the pain. Marcroy waved a hand over the warrior’s broken body, tying him to the floor with the same invisible bonds he used to secure Brógán to his stool.

‘I’ve no need for deception,’ he informed them, rising to his feet. With an audience of two, he needed to be in a position to read both their faces. ‘I wish only to mitigate the damage you two have done by letting the Undivided go rift running.’

‘Ignore him, lad,’ Ciarán said. ‘Ignore him and his silver-tongued stories. They’re all lies and trickeries.’

Brógán nodded, Ciarán’s courage bolstering the lad’s resolve.

No matter
. He turned to Brógán. ‘Tell Ciarán of the technology-ridden reality where you found Rónán of the Undivided, lad,’ Marcroy said.

Confused, Brógán looked up at him. ‘Tell him
what
about it, exactly?’

‘Nothing,’ Ciarán insisted from the floor, gritting his teeth against the pain. ‘Don’t … listen to him. Tell me nothing.’

‘Tell him of the man you found Rónán with,’ Marcroy said, pacing between his two captives. ‘About his father.’

Brógán was looking very confused. For a moment, Marcroy wondered if he’d been mistaken. Perhaps he should have interrogated Trása a bit more closely about Rónán’s familial arrangements in the other realm before condemning her to avian form. ‘Was the boy not in the company of a dark-haired man of middling height? A man who saved him from drowning as a child, and then raised the boy as his own?’

The young Druid shook his head. ‘He was adopted by a woman. A famous woman, in her realm …’

‘Who was the man?’ Ciarán asked despite himself.

‘The only man Amergin trusted in the other realm to take care of Rónán,’ Marcroy told him, squatting down to regard Ciarán’s swollen, battered face. ‘Himself.’

‘She’s an in-patient at St Christopher’s Visual Rehabilitation Centre,’ Jack told them, when he rang later that morning. ‘Room four-three-two.’

‘You managed to get her
room
number?’ Ren was impressed.

‘I rang Kerry and told her I wanted to send Hayley some chocolates to cheer her up.’

‘And she believed you?’

‘Why wouldn’t she?’ There was a pause on the line, before Jack asked, ‘You gonna be okay, lad?’

‘Yeah, Jack, I’ll be fine. Thanks for this.’

‘Least I can do.’

‘That, and taking care of Warren,’ Ren reminded him, glad the Audi’s owner was no longer their problem. Jack had promised to keep him occupied for the next few hours, which hopefully was all they would need to find Hayley and get her back to the stone circle at the Castle Golf Club. Warren had made a few token protests, but Ren suspected it was for show. Since informing Warren that his captivity for the next few hours would be taking place in a massage parlour, he had become remarkably co-operative. He’d left with Jack and they’d not had to spare him a thought since. ‘Is he behaving himself?’

‘Taking his punishment like a man,’ Jack chuckled. ‘You toss that cell phone you’re on as soon as you’re in the clear, won’t you?’

‘Sure. I owe you one, Jack.’

‘Laddie, you owe me more than one. I hope we both live long enough for me to collect some day.’

Ren ended the call and leaned forward in the driver’s seat, studying the entrance to the small antique shop where Trása and Darragh were currently hunting for a crystal bowl.

‘Any sign of them yet?’ asked Sorcha.

When Darragh told Ren he needed to contact Brógán to let him know when Ciarán should open the rift again, Trása announced they’d only be able to make the call using a scrying bowl. They couldn’t use a plastic bowl, she’d said. It needed to be crystal. Something with a trace of lead in it.

Worried a shopping centre might have cameras and security, Ren had spied this cluttered little store on the side of the road as they drove past. It was the kind of place likely to have an inexpensive crystal bowl, and they had enough cash left over from Warren’s wallet not to have to use his credit card.

But they seemed to be taking an inordinately long time.

‘What’s taking them so long?’ Sorcha asked.

‘Maybe they can’t find the right sort of bowl,’ he suggested.

‘Or the half-
Beansídhe
bitch has run off with the money.’

Ren looked at Sorcha with a frown.

‘She is nothing but trouble,
Leath tiarna
,’ she said. ‘You would do well to remember that.’

‘I haven’t forgotten. She’s the reason I’m wanted by the cops.’

‘A plan her monstrous uncle put her up to,’ Sorcha said with complete certainty, and a surprising amount of venom. Sorcha had something of a history with Trása’s ‘monstrous uncle’, Ren guessed.

‘That’s Marcroy Tarth, right?’ he asked, rifling through the muddied memories he’d acquired from his brother. ‘What’s his problem?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, why’s he trying to mess with the Undivided?’

‘
Mess
with?’

‘This is the guy who chucked me through the rift, right? Isn’t there some sort of treaty you guys have that’s supposed to prevent stuff like that?’

‘You speak of the Treaty of
Tír Na nÓg
,’ Sorcha said. ‘It was drawn up nearly two thousand years ago, to turn back the Roman invasion of Britain. It bestows power on the Druids through you and your brother, but I doubt there’s anything specific in it preventing Marcroy from trying to sunder the Undivided, although I believe there are specific clauses preventing the
Tuatha
from killing you.’

‘What a comfort,’ Ren said, turning to look at her. ‘So the Druids and the Faerie did a deal and kicked Caesar’s arse —’

‘Claudius,’ she corrected. ‘Julius Caesar tried and failed to invade Albion years before Claudius sent his army across the
Oceanus Britannicus
.’

‘So how come you needed Faerie help? I thought the Celts were big hairy dudes who could fight like demons.’ Then he added, ‘Not unlike Ciarán, now I come to think of it.’

Sorcha apparently didn’t think that was funny. ‘It’s obvious why we needed help,’ she said. ‘In this realm — without it — the Druids lost.’

‘Fair point,’ Ren said, the conversation bringing more and more of Darragh’s knowledge to the fore. ‘So, what happens next? The Romans are coming, you’re all shitting yourselves, and the
Tuatha
offer to help?’

‘The
Tuatha
were at even more risk than the Druids,’ Sorcha explained. ‘The Romans are fond of innovation and technology.
Allowing them to expand their empire would eventually lead to a realm like this — full of machines and empty of magic.’

‘They couldn’t have
known
that.’

Sorcha looked at Ren oddly. ‘Of course we could
know
it. You think rift running is a recent thing? The
Tuatha
have been aware of the consequences of allowing technology to flourish for thousands of years.’

Ren hadn’t considered that.

‘In the Druids,’ Sorcha said, sounding much more like the eighty-five-year-old she was than the young woman she looked like, ‘the
Tuatha
found a human civilisation that shared many of their beliefs and worshipped the same gods.’

‘But the trouble was, humans who could wield
sídhe
magic weren’t exactly common,’ Ren said. The knowledge was in his mind, once he knew to look for it. ‘And they needed an army of magicians to defeat the Romans. Hence the tattoos.’ He held up his hand to examine the triskalion.

‘Psychic twins proved the most susceptible to the magic,’ Sorcha told him, although Ren already knew it. ‘The Undivided are the gateway for the magic. The Druids all have the same triskalion mark tattooed in magically infused ink, usually above their hearts. It enables those who have the … predisposition … to tap into the
sídhe
magic. The tattoos allow the flow of the magic.’

‘So what happens while we’re gone?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean Darragh and me are both here in this reality. Does that mean the Druids are screwed until we get back? Actually,’ he added with a frown, ‘if the magic isn’t flowing, can we even
get
back?’

‘The magic still works,’ Sorcha assured him.

‘Are you sure?’

She nodded. ‘Were you not harmed by
airgead sídhe
any number of times in this realm, even with the rift closed?’

‘I guess,’ he said, frowning, a little worried now that they would try calling up the other reality, only to find they were stuck here forever. Ren might not have minded, under normal circumstances, but now the cops were after him, and staying here in this reality wasn’t likely to be much fun if they found him.

Trása and Darragh appeared in the entrance of the antique shop. Darragh was carrying a plastic supermarket bag with a Superquinn logo that had obviously been recycled by the store’s owner.

‘Finally!’ Ren exclaimed.

He gunned the engine to life as Trása and Darragh got into the car, pulling away from the kerb before Trása had fully closed the back door.

Ren glanced at the bag in Darragh’s lap. ‘Did you get what you needed?’

‘I hope so.’

‘Now we need rainwater and somewhere private,’ Trása said, buckling up her seatbelt.

‘Why?’ Sorcha asked.

‘The scrying bowl won’t work otherwise,’ she said.

Sorcha scoffed. ‘Why should we believe anything you tell us,
Beansídhe
?’

‘I don’t think she’s lying, Sorcha,’ Ren said. He remembered the first time he’d seen Trása on Jack’s terrace, astride the marble garden seat, stark naked and talking into a bowl.

‘I’m not lying,’ Trása said, giving him a grateful look. ‘It’s something to do with the chemicals that permeate everything in this world. I was here for nearly six months. It took me four of them to find a way to contact home, and I only managed it then because —’ She abruptly stopped talking.

‘Because why?’ Ren asked.

Trása was biting her bottom lip, as if she was afraid. She hesitated and then let out a heavy sigh. ‘I had a triskalion
pendant with me. I brought it from our realm. It had enough magic in it to enable me to link with home.’

‘And, of course, you don’t have one with you now,’ Sorcha said, glaring at her.

‘I
flew
here,’ Trása reminded the warrior. ‘Remember?’

‘So we can’t phone home and get them to open the door? Is that what you’re saying?’ Ren asked.

‘Not without a triskalion,’ Trása said, folding her arms and slumping into her seat.

‘Okay. No problem. You can buy Celtic jewellery everywhere around here,’ Ren pointed out. ‘The souvenir shops are full of it.’

‘It would have to be a triskalion infused with trace magic from our realm,’ Darragh said, frowning.

‘How did Brógán and Niamh contact you then?’ Ren asked, wracking his brain for a solution. ‘They must have had a way of calling home to let you know they’d found me?’

Darragh shook his head. ‘We set a schedule of openings,’ he said. ‘Every full moon for the better part of a year, Ciarán took a fishing boat out from Breaga with a stone circle concealed in the hold, opened the rift and waited.’

Ren almost missed a red light. He slammed the brakes on, wishing someone had mentioned this
before
they left the other reality. He glanced at the clock on the dash. It was almost five and the traffic was bumper to bumper again.

At this rate, they’d never get to Hayley. Every time Ren thought of her, blinded and alone, his heart lurched, mostly with guilt. He couldn’t shake the belief it was his fault she’d been injured. Murray Symes might have run her down, but the only reason she’d been trying to cross the road was because he was on the other side of it. With Trása. The half-
Beansídhe
who had been sent here to keep him from his true reality by framing him for murder.

There was so much traffic at the intersection, there was no point moving forward. Filled with frustration, he slammed his open palms onto the Audi’s steering wheel. It hurt more than he expected it to. He glanced down at his stinging palms for a moment then held up his left hand.

‘Is
this
triskalion still infused with trace magic from your realm?’

Darragh stared at Ren’s tattoo and then opened his own hand. He nodded slowly. ‘It might be. Our link survived crossing the rift. There might be enough there … perhaps if we both —’

‘You’ll have to do it naked,’ Trása cut in.

‘What?’ Ren asked, turning to stare at her.

‘You’ll have to take your clothes off,’ she said. ‘There’re too many artificial fibres in the clothes of this realm. They interfere with the link. The light’s green.’

Ren discovered Trása was correct. He eased the car forward and glanced at Darragh. ‘Is she right?’

He shrugged. ‘Probably.’

‘Great,’ Ren sighed. ‘We’d better find somewhere secluded, then. They have laws in this reality, about getting your kit off in public.’

‘The more trees the better, too,’ Trása added from the back seat.

‘Of course,’ Ren said, rolling his eyes. Why was nothing ever easy?
What’s the point of magic, if it’s going to be so frigging complicated?
‘Anything else?’

‘No,’ Trása said, either ignoring his tone or not getting it. ‘That should do it.’

Ren looked at the clock again. It was 5:13. He figured they had until about eight o’clock before they could no longer just walk into St Christopher’s Visual Rehabilitation Centre pretending to be visitors. After that, they’d either have to break in to the facility or abandon their rescue attempt until tomorrow.

The trouble was, any minute now, Warren would arrive home. Whatever happened between him and his wife, whatever she believed or didn’t believe about his wild tale, the fact was, his car was missing.

One way or another, at some point in the next few hours, the Audi they were driving was probably going to be reported stolen.