The Undivided (44 page)

‘Because he was a vain, self-centred fool as well as a traitor?’

‘He knew his oath would transcend realms,’ Darragh whispered, certain of the truth of it. He knew Amergin better than Sorcha.

‘Then you might want to consider something else,’ Sorcha told him, clearly unhappy with him. ‘If the man who just locked us in this pitch black box, with a vague promise of release, is the
eileféin
of your good friend and loyal traitor, Amergin, then his daughter — the girl you and your brother just sent through the rift — is Trása’s
eileféin
.’

Darragh hadn’t thought of that. ‘I suppose you’re right. Why?’

‘Because if she is, and the
Tuatha
ever discover what you’ve done,
Leath tiarna
,’ she informed him, ‘then the Treaty of
Tír Na nÓg
is dead and you and your brother, with your foolish notions of heroism and chivalry — for the sake of a traitor’s daughter, I might add — may have destroyed the Druids in our realm forever.’

‘God … what happened?’

Ren had landed hard on his shoulder in the explosion. His ears were still ringing, his eyes blinded by dancing lights.

‘I … I don’t know.’

He pushed himself up unto his hands and knees, surprised it was Trása who’d answered him. ‘Trása? Where’s Hayley?’

‘She’s not here.’

Worried by the realisation, Ren rubbed his eyes and looked around. They were in a stone circle, but it was nothing like the one in Dublin. That had been weathered away to almost nothing. This looked new and was engraved with characters he didn’t recognise.

‘Where are we?’ he asked, pushing himself painfully to his feet. His palms and knees were raw, his shoulder aching and he could taste blood.

‘I don’t know, but we’re not in my realm,’ Trása announced with certainty as she sat up, rubbing the bump on her head. She was on the ground a few feet away, still wet and bedraggled from the rain of the other realm.

Ren scanned the moonlit circle, with no way of telling where they were, other than that it was warmer here and was no longer raining. ‘How can you tell?’

‘I am still human,’ she said, holding out her hands in front of her, as if checking to be sure she wasn’t mistaken. She looked at him and shrugged. ‘Unless you thoughtfully decided to lift the curse on me as we stepped into the rift, then I’m still bound by it. In my realm, I would turn instantly back into an owl the moment I stepped through the rift, and I’d have to stay in that form until you or Darragh chose to free me.’ She closed her eyes for a moment and the bruise on her forehead slowly faded to nothing. ‘But I can still heal myself,’ she added. ‘It’s like we’re home … but not.’

Ren turned a full circle, trying to figure out where he was. This stone circle didn’t look like the one in Dublin, nor the circle from which they’d left Darragh’s realm, in Drombeg. ‘I can feel the magic,’ he said.

Ren could feel it in a way he’d never have expected to before the
Comhroinn.
He could feel the difference in the air, the difference in the way he perceived the world. It wasn’t just the difference between a world of trees and hand-drawn ploughs and a city blanketed in petrochemical fumes. It was something that resonated in his bones. He’d felt the same thing when he woke up in the shepherd’s hut in Darragh’s reality, but back then, without the benefit of what his twin brother knew, he hadn’t recognised it for what it was.

Ren closed his eyes for a moment, trying to find Darragh’s memory of healing. It turned out not to be an instructive memory so much as a
knowing
. He just had to make it happen.

Concentrating on his scraped knees first, Ren willed the pain away and the skin to heal. He was rewarded with exactly that. Opening his eyes, he looked down at the clear pink flesh showing through the wet denim of his torn jeans and grinned like an idiot. ‘Cool.’

‘I’m so pleased you find it entertaining,’ Trása said, climbing to her feet. ‘What happened to the rift?’

‘You’re asking
me
?’

‘That explosion …’ she said, looking around with a frown. ‘I’ve never seen anything like that before.’

‘Could something have happened to Ciarán?’ he asked. He was the one who had supposedly been opening the rift. A sudden, awful thought occurred to him. ‘There were bullets flying around back there. Suppose one of them got through the rift?’

Trása thought on that for a moment and then nodded. ‘It’s possible.’

‘That might explain why the rift shut down like that,’ Ren said. ‘And why we’re apparently not in Kansas anymore, Toto.’

‘Are you saying we’ve been thrown into a completely different realm?’ she asked, looking at him oddly.

‘You tell me. You’re the one who jumps through realities and messes up people’s lives for a living.’

Trása didn’t appear keen on committing to anything. ‘Do you have any idea where we are?’

He looked at her askance. ‘Can’t
you
tell?’

‘How am I supposed to know?’

‘I can count the number of times Darragh and I have crossed realities on the fingers of one hand. You’re a rift runner. Don’t
you
have some way of knowing?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Then how do you know where you’re going when you open a rift?’ he asked. ‘If there’s a gazillion realities out there, how do you know you’re jumping into the right one?’

‘That’s what the jewels are for,’ Trása said, squatting down to study the symbols on the nearest standing stone. In the bright clear moonlight, Ren could see they were shorter than the ones in Dublin, and the standing stones in Darragh’s realm. The circle itself was much larger, too.

As Trása spoke of the jewels, Darragh’s memories filled in the details for Ren. The jewels were engraved with the symbol
of each realm. He also realised now how Darragh had known where to look for him. His brother had received the information from the traitorous Vate, Amergin, on the old man’s deathbed.

It all seemed to make sense now. From his own recollections, Ren remembered Darragh tossing something to Ciarán as they opened the rift one time.

Well, that proved a spectacularly unsuccessful endeavour, given I’m standing here in this lost place with Marcroy’s spy, while my brother and the girl we’d hoped to rescue are missing …

The jewel he had tossed to Ciarán was Amergin’s jewel — the same jewel the traitor had used to open the rift to send Ren into another world as a child — where Patrick Boyle just happened to be on set that day.

Ren had a fleeting thought that there might have been something coincidental in that, but didn’t dwell on it. He had other, more immediate concerns. Like where was Darragh? And Sorcha? And Hayley?

It was still dark, so he couldn’t tell much about where they were, other than inside a large stone circle surrounded by trees.

‘Darragh and Sorcha are still in my reality,’ he said, recalling Sorcha’s shouted instruction to come back for them. Why had she done that? Was Darragh injured when he jumped from the moving car? Ren wanted to go back right now and find out.

‘Almost certainly they’re still there,’ Trása agreed.

‘Shit.’

‘That’s helpful,’ Trása remarked.

‘What happens if they get caught?’

‘Then we’ll have to go back and rescue them, won’t we?’ she said, cocking her head as she examined the strange symbols on the stones. ‘As worlds go, Rónán, yours isn’t that bad. I mean, even if they catch him and think he’s you, they’re not going to kill him, are they?’

‘No,’ Ren agreed, a little uncertainly. If Darragh tried to
run from the cops, he could be shot, but Darragh should know that. As Ren now carried his brother’s knowledge of his reality, so Darragh carried knowledge of Ren’s. ‘Probably not … but still …’

Trása rose to her feet and turned to look at him. ‘First we have to find out where we are, then we have to figure out how to get back to your reality, then we have to find your brother —’

‘And Sorcha,’ Ren reminded her.

‘If we must,’ she agreed with some reluctance. ‘And once we’ve done that, we have to find a way from your old world back to the one where you both belong, preferably before
Lughnasadh
, because that’s when the Druid Council is going to transfer the power to the new heirs.’

Trása had summed up their predicament concisely. It wasn’t a very encouraging assessment.

‘So how long have we got?’

She shrugged. ‘I dunno. A couple of weeks, maybe.’

‘No pressure, then.’

‘Hey,’ Trása said, frowning. ‘It wasn’t my bright idea to go rift running to save your little friend. I’m just trying to help.’

‘Ah, that’s right. You didn’t have anything to do with the fact that if they catch Darragh in my realm and think he’s me, they’re going to throw him in the slammer for twenty-five to life for murdering someone you killed, did you?’

‘And kidnapping someone
you
decided to kidnap,’ she reminded him. ‘This mess isn’t my fault, Rónán. If you’d just left well enough alone, Hayley would still be fine — blind, perhaps, but still fine — and you and your crazy brother would be doing what you’re supposed to do, which is being the Undivided and keeping the peace with the
Tuatha Dé Danann.
And for the record,’ she added, ‘Darragh isn’t going to be stuck in gaol. He’ll be dead. Just like you.
Lughnasadh
is only a couple of weeks away.’

Ren couldn’t argue with that logic, so he turned from Trása and bent down to look at the strange symbols on the nearest stone. There was no sign of the triskalion or any other recognisable Celtic symbol.

He did recognise them, however. ‘This looks Japanese,’ he said pointing to the nearest stone.

Trása stared at it for a moment and then shook her head. ‘It can’t be.’

‘Are you saying it’s impossible?’

‘Well … no … It’s just the
Youkai
… they don’t have the ability to open rifts.’

‘Apparently, in this world, they do. Who are the
Youkai
, anyway?’

Trása turned in a circle, studying the carved symbols with a very puzzled expression. ‘I suppose you could call them the Japanese
Tuatha Dé Danann
.’

‘Wonderful!’ Ren said. ‘Ninja Faeries. I wonder if they’re as much fun to deal with as your lot?’

She turned on him angrily. ‘For your information —’

Trása’s words were cut short by an arrow slicing the space between them. It shattered on the stone behind them, leaving a black-fletched stub and a scattering of splinters on the ground at their feet.

‘Bloody hell!’ Ren exclaimed. He grabbed Trása and pushed her to the ground as another arrow speared through the space where his head had been only moments before, this time sailing over the stones to thunk solidly into a nearby tree. He landed almost on top of Trása.

‘I guess that answers the question about ninja Faeries,’ he hissed, daring a look around, but he could see nothing in the dark.

‘You don’t know it’s the
Youkai
shooting at us,’ Trása said in low voice. ‘Can you tell where it’s coming from?’

‘Over there,’ Ren whispered, pointing to the right. ‘If I —’

‘There are horses coming,’ she warned, as she lay stretched out flat on the ground.

‘How can you tell?’

‘Feel the ground.’

Ren placed his ear against the singed dirt of the stone circle. Sure enough, he could feel the ground vibrating with the approach of oncoming horsemen. And they were moving fast. Even he could tell that.

‘How many?’ he asked softly.

‘Who cares?’ she snapped back in a whisper. ‘
One
is too many!’

‘We have to get out of here.’

‘And go where?’ she asked.

‘That way,’ he said, for no other reason than there seemed to be slightly more trees in that direction, which meant slightly more cover. ‘Come on!’ He scrambled to his feet, wishing it were a cloudy night. The moon was shining like a stadium light.

Why couldn’t it have been raining in this reality, too?

He ran low and crouched across the burned ground with Trása at his heels, diving past the perimeter of the circle as soon as they reached it. He scrambled to a duck behind the nearest stone with Trása taking cover behind the one next to him. The trees were another few yards away, but he and Trása were protected, temporarily, by the stones.

‘Now what?’ Trása asked, flinching as another arrow slammed into the stone behind which she was crouched.

‘Can you fly?’

‘
What?
’

‘If you can change into a bird, you could fly over there and find out what we’re dealing with,’ he said, ducking lower as another arrow shattered a few inches from his head.

‘And be stuck in bird form again the moment I change,’ she replied. ‘Sorry, but I’m human right now and I’m staying that way until we’re back in my reality and you’ve officially broken Marcroy’s curse.’

Aerial surveillance had been a nice idea, Ren thought, but he couldn’t blame her for not wanting to be stuck as a bird. Annoying and untrustworthy as she was, he needed Trása whole and able to communicate in a language that consisted of more than tweets and whistles, if he was ever going to get home — wherever home might be. Darragh needed him, and God knows what had happened to Hayley.

And they only had a couple of weeks before they were dead, if they hadn’t found a way home by then.

Was Ciarán or Brógán explaining the concept of alternate realities to Hayley back in the other world, even as Ren tried to avoid being somebody’s target practice in this one?

Or had she also been thrown into some bizarre alternate reality by the same explosion that sent Trása and him to this strange place where unseen assassins took pot shots at strangers appearing in their stone circles.

‘Fine,’ he told Trása impatiently, trying to judge how many seconds they would be in the open before they reached the trees. They couldn’t risk it for long. He could hear the horses clearly now. ‘When I say go, run for the trees. But don’t run in a straight line.’

She nodded, sparing him a smile that made him fear she thought this was fun. ‘Ready when you are.’

Another arrow cracked against the standing stones.

‘Go!’ he hissed, guessing it would take the sniper a few seconds to reload his bow. He took off in the direction he’d figured was the safest, just as the horsemen burst out of the trees ahead of them. They carried flaming torches and the riders wore heavy samurai armour. They also brandished katanas that
would slice them to pieces in seconds if they resisted. Trása ran straight into them.

‘
Kosan! Kosan!
’ Ren shouted, throwing his hands up to show he was unarmed as the soldiers bore down on them, grateful for the whim that had made him decide to study Japanese at school last year. ‘Say
kosan
!’ he shouted to Trása. ‘It means you surrender!’

‘
Kosan! Kosan!
’ she cried as she was knocked to the ground.

One of the samurai must have heard them because someone yelled, ‘
Yamero! Yamero!
’

The samurai ceased their attack, but immediately dismounted and rushed to overwhelm them, grabbing both Ren and Trása and pulling them to their feet. The leader of the troop, the one who’d ordered the others to stop, approached them on horseback. He stared at Ren for a moment and then at Trása.