The Undivided (36 page)

‘But how do we get him in the car?’ Trása asked. ‘You knocked him out.’

‘He won’t be unconscious for long,’ said Sorcha.

Darragh and Rónán exchanged a glance as a world of unspoken communication passed between them.

‘Fine,’ Rónán said. ‘We locate the rehab place where Hayley is staying, load Warren into the car and get the hell outta Dodge before his wife gets back. Best guess is we have about an hour and forty-five minutes to be gone from here.’

‘Time enough for our warrior princess here to get changed into something more feminine,’ Trása reminded them, with a smile designed to needle Sorcha.

‘And I
will
need to change,’ Sorcha agreed pleasantly, unsheathing her blade as she stepped toward the
sídhe
. ‘These clothes are going to be covered in blood, shortly.’

‘Hey!’ Darragh and Rónán shouted in unison, stepping between Sorcha and Trása.

‘Enough!’ Darragh exclaimed. ‘I won’t stand for this! Trása, mind your tongue! Sorcha, remember who you are!’

It irked Sorcha to have Darragh reprimand her, but he was right. She was a Druid warrior. It was unbecoming to allow a halfling mongrel
Beansídhe
to incite her to rage. She was better than that.

And there would be plenty of time, later on, when they returned to their own realm, to deal with the problem of Trása Ni’Amergin.

Ren drove carefully, acutely aware that time was not on his side. He scanned the road constantly for Gardaí cars, obeyed all the traffic rules so as not to draw attention, and wished he could think of somewhere safe to hole up while he found Hayley. Warren, still hungover and semi-conscious, was locked in the trunk of the car.

The article in
OK! Magazine
said that Hayley was blind. He tried to imagine what that must be like for her, but couldn’t. Hayley was such an active, sporty person. She played soccer in winter, camogie in the off-season, skated, and danced. She could whip his arse in
World of Warcraft
. It seemed a cruel blow to rob her of her sight. He owed Hayley the chance to be whole again, if not in this reality, then certainly in Darragh’s.

Ren felt a sudden wave of guilt. Darragh was going to be in serious trouble for coming to this realm, Ren realised that now. It was one thing to be thrown into another reality against one’s will, as Ren had been. But it was quite another to do it deliberately, when the rules of Darragh’s world were very clear about the consequences for the Undivided endangering the Treaty of
Tír Na nÓg
by leaving the world where he belonged to go adventuring. This was an ill-conceived idea at best, Ren knew, and he was sure — knowing what he did of his brother
now thanks to the
Comhroinn
— that had Darragh thought this through, they would not be here. They would still be in Darragh’s reality, toeing the line like good Druids.

He still didn’t think of the other reality as home. This world of motorways and traffic lights and long hot showers was his home, and now he was back in it, Ren wasn’t sure he should be considering leaving it behind.

But it was a decision he didn’t have to make yet. First, he had to find Hayley.

‘Do you think you can read English, or just speak it?’ Ren asked his twin. The others were in the back seat.

Darragh turned from staring, open-mouthed in wonder, at the city. ‘I see some things and they make sense. Others mean nothing to me. I suspect if the words are words you use a lot, then I’m more likely to understand them.’

‘Cool. Can you look out for an internet cafe?’

‘Internet cafe,’ Darragh repeated, as if testing the words. ‘That is a place with many computers, is it not? Where one can access the “net”?’

Ren smiled. ‘You’ve got it, dude.’

Darragh returned his smile ruefully. ‘I know what to look for, Rónán, but I really have no idea what a computer does.’

‘Well, just so long as we find one. Warren’s computer had passwords. We’d still be trying to get online if we’d stayed at his place. A cafe should have better speed. And it’ll be harder to trace us.’

‘Then I will try to find one for you,’ Darragh promised. ‘Even if you do sound as if you’re speaking in tongues.’

‘I know what an internet cafe is,’ Trása announced from the back seat behind Darragh. ‘If you let me sit up front, I could be looking for you.’

‘Yeah … well you didn’t call
shotgun
,’ Ren told her.

She let that pass, perhaps because she didn’t know what he meant, and turned to the others. ‘Am I the only one who’s hungry?’

‘Can we risk stopping for food?’ Darragh asked.

‘So we’re just going to starve, then?’ said Trása.

‘We need to keep moving,’ Ren said.

‘The
sídhe
has a point though,’ Sorcha remarked, albeit a little reluctantly. ‘We must eat.’

‘And nobody really knows where we’re going, if I’m not mistaken. Hence the need for an internet cafe.’

‘We’re not stopping,’ Ren told them, slowing the car as the lights turned amber. Admittedly, other than cereal, there had been slim pickings in Warren’s house. His wife’s suspicion that he had eaten at the club every night was well founded. But they should have eaten something before they left the house.

‘There’s a McDonald’s up the road with a drive-thru,’ Trása pointed out.

‘What are we going to use for money?’

She held up a black leather wallet and leaned forward to show it to Ren. ‘Warren’s paying.’

‘Perhaps someone there will know where the nearest internet cafe is located,’ Darragh suggested.

Ren glanced at his brother. ‘What do you think?’

Darragh shrugged. ‘I think this is your world, Rónán. Only you know if we can risk it.’

Ren glanced around. It was a Thursday morning and the traffic was heavy with commuters heading into the city. The traffic lights were about to change, which meant he had only seconds to decide if they were going to turn into the McDonald’s car park. Then a loud thump from the trunk rocked the vehicle, followed by a muffled yell.

‘Warren’s awake,’ Trása said, quite unnecessarily.

That decided him. As soon as the light turned green, Ren slammed his foot down, surging ahead of the traffic, and dived
across three lanes to swerve into the McDonald’s entrance. He swung the car sharply as he entered the parking lot. Rather than heading into the queue lined up at the drive-thru, he parked the car at the end of the lot, as far from the restaurant as possible.

He turned the engine off, and twisted in his seat to face the others. ‘You two can go fetch us food. I don’t care what it is, just pay cash for it, so whatever Warren has in his wallet, that’s all you can afford.’

‘What about you and Darragh?’ Sorcha asked, not at all pleased to be sent off with Trása. She obviously considered it her job to protect the Undivided.

The car rocked with another thump and more muffled shouts.

‘Darragh and I are going to have a chat with Warren.’

With some reluctance, Sorcha followed Trása to the restaurant. Ren watched them leave and then turned to his brother. ‘Can you check the glove box?’

Darragh looked at him blankly. ‘The what?’

‘In here,’ he explained, leaning across in front of his brother to open it. As Ren hoped it would be, the glove compartment was filled with the vehicle’s logbooks and the general clutter that seemed to collect in every car, including, Ren was delighted to discover, an unopened roll of duct tape.

‘Bingo,’ he said, snatching up the tape and slapping the glove box shut. Another thump and shout came from the trunk. ‘Time to explain the situation to our friend in the trunk, don’t you think?’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Shut him up, for starters,’ said Ren, climbing out of the car.

He glanced around as they made their way to the rear of the car. Nobody seemed to be taking any notice of them. There were cars parked closer to the building, and a steady line in the drive-thru and, of course, the road was packed with the last of the morning’s peak hour.

Ren grabbed Darragh and made him stand beside him facing the back of the car, which blocked the view of the car’s trunk from the restaurant. ‘Stay right there,’ he told him.

‘Why?’

‘There might be security cameras.’ He popped the trunk with the remote control, and quickly grabbed Warren by the throat as he tried to sit up, pushing him back down as hard as he could. ‘Not a word!’ he hissed. ‘Or you’re gonna regret it!’

Warren must have believed him. He went limp under Ren’s choking grip, staring up at the twins with fear-filled eyes.

‘That’s better,’ Ren said, relieved he hadn’t had to back up his threat. He didn’t have the faintest idea how to knock somebody out by squeezing their arteries, so he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to make Warren regret anything. ‘Here’s the deal, Warren. We don’t want to hurt you. We’re not
going
to hurt you. We just need your car for a bit and then we’ll let you go and you can call the cops and scream all about us to the high heavens, and we won’t care because we’ll be long gone.’

‘I … I … won’t say a thing …’ Warren stammered. ‘You can let me go. Take the car … it’s insured … just don’t hurt me … please … I have a family.’

‘I know you do,’ Ren told him sympathetically. ‘Unfortunately, I don’t trust you not to run straight to the nearest phone if I let you go.’

‘I give you my word …’

‘And you probably mean it. Right up until we drive off.’ Ren tore a strip off the roll of tape long enough to cover Warren’s mouth. ‘Sorry, dude. We’ll let you go when it’s safe. For us. In the meantime, think of what a hero you’re gonna be at the golf club when you’re telling them all about this a couple of days from now. Shit, you’ll dine out on this for years.’

He plastered Warren’s mouth shut and then secured his hands and feet, taping them together enough to restrain him,
but not enough to cut off the circulation. Another of the many tricks he’d picked up while getting under the feet of the stunt crew on one movie set or another. Once he was satisfied that Warren was contained for the time being, he closed the boot and glanced back at the restaurant. All seemed well. At least there was nobody standing in the window, pointing at them or yelling for help.

‘Let’s wait in the car,’ he suggested, acutely aware that there might be cameras and that his face was among the most wanted in Europe. Darragh’s face too, come to think of it.

I wonder what they’ll think if a camera picks us up somewhere and they see two of us.

Darragh climbed into the front passenger seat of the car and slammed the door. He turned to his brother as Ren secured his seat-belt. He had no intention of being pulled over by the cops and getting himself arrested, over something as minor as a traffic infringement.

‘This is a very strange realm, Rónán.’

Ren smiled. ‘You know, I can remember thinking that when I woke up in your world.’

‘I miss the magic. I feel lost without it.’

‘Yeah, well, you can’t miss what you’ve never known,’ Ren pointed out, wondering if he would ever be able to discuss using magic and not have to stifle a grin at the absurdity of the notion. He glanced in the rear-view mirror, but there was still no sign of the girls. Warren was also silent, thankfully. ‘You know, at some point, you and I are going to have to sit down while you explain a whole lot of shit to me, brother.’

‘We have shared the
Comhroinn
, Rónán. You know what I know.’

‘Yeah … but it doesn’t make sense to me. Just like you
know
what an internet cafe is now, but you’ve no idea why or how it works. I suddenly have all this knowledge in my head, but it
doesn’t have any context. I know how to open a rift. If I think of it, I really do. But that’s not the same as being able to do it.’

‘It will come with time, Rónán,’ Darragh assured him.

‘Which is something we don’t have a lot of. Damn, I wish I knew where they’d taken Hayley.’

‘If the pictures in the magazine are accurate, except for the blindness, she appears to be otherwise well.’

‘Which is way easier than sneaking her out of an ICU, I’ll grant you, but …’ Ren stopped and looked at Darragh curiously. ‘Dude, how
are
we getting back?’

‘To our realm? Ciarán will open a rift for us.’

‘When?’

‘As soon as I let him know we’re ready.’

‘You can contact him?’

‘Not easily, but —’ He stopped abruptly as he spied Trása and Sorcha hurrying across the car park, clutching several brown paper bags. Trása was balancing a tray of drinks. ‘They’re back.’

A moment later the girls piled into the car. Ren turned the key in the ignition and shifted the vehicle into reverse. He turned to look out the back window, but was stopped by Trása who handed him a cell phone.

He slammed his foot on the brake, evoking a muffled grunt from the trunk. ‘Where did you get that?’

‘The man in front of us left it on the counter.’

‘You
stole
it?’

‘Of course I stole it,’ she said.

‘Why?’

‘You said we couldn’t use Warren’s cell phone last night because the Gardaí might be able to … what did you call it? Triangle our position?’

‘Triangulate,’ he corrected.

‘Well, they don’t know who owns this phone, do they?’ she said. ‘You can use it to find Hayley.’

He appreciated the gesture, but it was pointless. He took the phone from her. ‘Sure, Trása, I’ll just ring Kerry … or better yet, my mother, and ask her where Hayley is, shall I? There’s a plan.’

‘Not your mother, silly,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘Ring old Jack. He’ll know where they’ve taken her. And if I’m not mistaken, he’s unlikely to report your call to the Gardaí.’

Ren stared at her for a moment. ‘You know … that’s actually a good idea.’

Trása leaned back in her seat and smiled at Sorcha. The car was filled with the smell of hot French fries and burgers, that made Ren faintly nauseous.

‘Told you so,’ she said.

‘You still stole something in broad daylight,’ Sorcha reminded her.

‘Good point,’ Ren said, taking his foot off the brake. ‘So let’s get out of here and find somewhere quiet to stop for a bit.’ He reversed the car, straightened the wheel, and slipped it into drive. ‘I have a call to make.’