‘Excuse me?’
‘The bullet?’ Brógán asked, gingerly feeling around the edges of the bullet wound. ‘How deeply would it have penetrated, do you think?’
‘I don’t know … Oh God … oh no!’ Hayley exclaimed, jumping to her feet and taking a step back. ‘You’re not seriously going to …’
But he did. Without so much as stopping to think about it, Brógán plunged the fingers of his right hand into the hole in Marcroy’s chest and began fishing around for the bullet. Hayley backed away from them, gasping in horror, fearing she was going to vomit, as the wounded youth’s back arched with the pain. Brógán — bloody to the wrist — felt about for the lead pellet that had torn Marcroy’s chest asunder.
‘Stop it! You’re killing him!’ she cried, hoping this really was a nightmare. It had to be. On the face of it, there was no other reasonable conclusion.
‘Not as fast as this bullet is killing him,’ Brógán replied, closing his eyes to concentrate on feeling for it. ‘I’ll not be the one made to answer to Queen Orlagh when she asks how her envoy died.’
Hayley cast about for a weapon. Maybe there was a branch or a rock nearby she could use to disable this madman before he killed this poor dying boy and then probably her, straight afterward. Before she could find a weapon, however, Brógán let out a yelp of triumph and pulled his fingers out of Marcroy’s chest, clutching the bloody bullet that had almost killed him — and likely would kill him yet, given the brutal way Brógán had removed it.
‘You’re insane!’ she cried, backing away from him even further.
The young man who’d been shot cried out in agony, and then, inexplicably, almost as soon as Brógán’s fingers cleared his chest, the bleeding seemed to stop of its own accord. Hayley watched in astonishment as the jagged bullet hole began to shrink.
Within moments, it was completely gone.
‘No freaking way.’
Marcroy blinked a few times, as if trying to remember where he was. He stared at Hayley. ‘Trása?’
‘Why does everybody keep asking me that?’ she said. ‘My name is Hayley.’
The young man pushed himself up on his elbows and glanced around before looking at Brógán with a concerned expression. ‘Where are they?’
He asked the question in the language that sounded like Gaelige, but this time, she understood it. Perhaps she really was in a coma. She’d heard of people who went into a coma speaking one language and came out speaking another. It was the only explanation that made sense. Unlike Ren, who had been known to speak a language like a native after only a couple of weeks of hearing it spoken consistently, Hayley struggled with them. But she understood every word of what Marcroy was saying, as though it was her native tongue.
Brógán was shaking his head, looking very worried. ‘I don’t know, tiarna,’ he said in his own language. ‘There was a great deal of confusion. This girl came through the rift first. Rónán and Trása were stepping through when you were wounded by one of the weapons from the other realm.’ He opened his palm to show Marcroy the bloody bullet he’d just pulled from his chest. Marcroy reached for it but snatched his hand back when Brógán added, ‘Be careful. It’s of the magicless realm.’
‘Did the Undivided make it back?’
Brógán shrugged uncertainly. ‘When you collapsed, the rift imploded. I don’t know what happened to them. Or your niece.’
The young man was silent for a moment, pondering the news. Hayley had a million questions, but couldn’t figure out which one to ask first.
‘You are Rónán’s friend?’ Marcroy asked her, climbing to his feet as if nothing was wrong with him. Were it not for his bloodied shirt, and the fact that Hayley had witnessed his injury for herself, she would never have believed that this young man with the strangely pointed ears had lain dying on the ground only minutes ago. ‘You are the one he and Darragh returned to the other realm to find?’
Hayley nodded, a little apprehensively, trying to process what her eyes were telling her. Nowhere could she find an explanation for his disconcerting eyes or his small, sharply pointed teeth.
‘Where is Ren?’ She asked it in English and then realised she knew the words in his language, so she repeated them. ‘Cá bhfuil Ren?’
‘That’s an interesting question,’ Marcroy said, cocking his head to one side. ‘You are the daughter of one Patrick Boyle, are you not?’
Hayley wasn’t expecting that. ‘You know my father?’ she asked, replying in the same language, a part of her fascinated by the fact that she could.
‘I know of him,’ Marcroy said with a shrug. He studied her curiously for a moment and then smiled. ‘Trása’s eileféin. How fascinating. You certainly bear a resemblance to her, although one has to be looking for it. Perhaps it’s the hair.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ Hayley said, feeling uncomfortable with the way he was staring at her. ‘What happened to Ren and his brother?’
‘They’re still alive,’ Brógán assured her.
‘How can you be sure about that?’
‘I healed you,’ he told her. ‘If the Undivided were dead, the magic would stop flowing to the Druids and you would still be blind and unable to comprehend us.’
Although she understood his words, for Hayley, not a single thing about that sentence made sense. She glanced at Brógán, trying to get her head around everything she’d witnessed in the past few moments. ‘How did you do that, by the way? Some of the best specialists in Europe said my brain damage was likely to be permanent. You slapped me on the forehead like some crazy TV evangelist and I was cured.’
Marcroy smiled at her, stepping a little closer. ‘You have no idea where you are, do you?’
‘Stuck in a bizarre hallucination brought on by falling back into a coma, I suspect.’ Even as she said it, Hayley knew if this was a coma, she probably wouldn’t be dreaming she was in it. This place was real. Improbable, but real.
‘You have crossed into another realm,’ Marcroy explained. ‘Realities, you might call them. Here you are in the realm of the Tuatha Dé Danann.’
Hayley smiled at that, certain she must be delusional. ‘The land of the Faerie?’
‘You don’t believe it?’ he asked. ‘How curious. Look about you, Hayley Boyle. The world you know has vanished in an instant, replaced by this world, where nothing is as it was. You stand here after stepping through a veil in the very fabric of the universe itself, having witnessed several miracles in as many minutes and yet you deny the evidence of your own eyes? Eyes that can now see as a result of one of those miracles.’ He stepped so close to her she could see his alien eyes with their vertical, cat-like irises. ‘Tell me, Trása’s eileféin. Do I look human to you?’
Hayley shook her head mutely.
‘Do you see anything of your world here?’
Again, Hayley shook her head, mesmerised by his hypnotic gaze.
‘Do you believe in magic?’
‘No … maybe …’
Marcroy smiled, and took Hayley’s hands in his. His touch was electric.
‘Then you have a treat in store, my sweet. Let me take you to Tír Na nÓg. I will show you magic, the likes of which you cannot imagine. And given you are Trása’s eileféin, who knows? Perhaps you have the same ability to wield it.’
‘My lord?’ Brógán said nervously.
Marcroy glanced over his shoulder at the young man. ‘You dare question me?’
‘No … I mean … it’s just … well … I agreed to help you because you said that if we aided the Undivided in bringing Trása’s eileféin back, then the treaty would be destroyed.’
‘And I was right.’
‘You said you could help stop a catastrophe.’ He sounded very upset.
‘And I have stopped it,’ Marcroy said, smiling at Hayley. ‘Trása’s eileféin is only Trása’s eileféin if Trása is here with her. She has not returned, so we have no conflict.’
‘But you gave me your word!’ Brógán cried. ‘I betrayed the Druids for y
ou! I betrayed Ciarán! You said you would preserve the treaty.’
‘And have I not done exactly that? The Treaty of Tír Na nÓg remains intact. The Undivided live on and the Druids still have their power. How have I not kept my word?’
Brógán looked on the verge of tears. ‘But they’re missing! The rift collapsed. We have to find them. We have to get the Undivided back!’
‘Well why don’t you speak to Ciarán about that?’ Marcroy suggested, raising Hayley’s hand to his lips. Her fears, her doubts, even her inhibitions fell away at the touch of his magical lips on her fingers. She found herself utterly enchanted by the Tuatha lord; so enchanted the unsettling conversation he was having with Brógán faded to a minor irritation.
Still holding her hand, Marcroy glanced over his shoulder at the Druid. ‘If you get back to him in time, Ciarán may still be alive. He’ll open another rift for you … assuming he doesn’t run you through the moment you heal his wounds. And if he doesn’t live … well, I’m sure if you go to the Druid Council and explain that you, a lowly Liaig, and their great hero, Ciarán mac Connacht, facilitated the Undivided jumping through a rift into a world without magic so they could break the Tuatha law against bringing an eileféin back to this world, they’ll understand.’ Marcroy turned back to Hayley and smiled at her with devastating charm. ‘Did you want to see the magic of Tír Na nÓg, my lady?’
Hayley nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
Marcroy put his arm around her waist. ‘Then hold on, sweet Hayley Boyle, and let me show you the wonders of my world.’
Putting her arms around the sídhe, Hayley closed her eyes, and a moment later, the stone circle disappeared with the fading echo of Brógán’s cry of protest.
Hayley didn’t care any longer. If this was a dream, she just hoped that this time she wouldn’t wake from it for a long, long time.
CHAPTER 65
By dawn, Darragh was in agony. He was chilled to the bone, his ankle throbbed mercilessly, and he was cramped by the awkward position he’d maintained all night. He didn’t think Sorcha had fared much better, but she was stoic by nature — or perhaps just pigheaded. If she was suffering, she did not intend to complain about it.
They had waited in vain for the crowd around the stone circle to dissipate. There seemed to be a great deal of confusion down there about what had happened to Rónán and Hayley. When Darragh accessed Rónán’s memories of her, they left him feeling just as protective of her, just as anxious to see her safe.
What he hadn’t bargained on was that the Gardaí were now treating a large part of the golf course as a crime scene. The authorities of this realm had no explanation for the disappearance of Rónán, Hayley and Trása and it seemed they weren’t going to leave without one. All through the night, working under portable lights bright enough to blind anybody foolish enough to look directly at them, the Gardaí had scoured the area around the crash site and the old stone circle with its inexplicable burn marks, trying to figure out the answer to the mystery.
The strip of rough separating the fairways where Darragh and Sorcha were concealed was just outside the perimeter of the area cordoned off by the Gardaí. Unless Darragh and Sorcha drew attention to themselves, they were safe for the time being. Unfortunately, they couldn’t go anywhere. They might — if the Gardaí were distracted — be able to get down out of the branches. They were a good fifty paces from the other strip of rough where the old stone circle lay. But with Darragh barely able to walk, it didn’t matter. They couldn’t go anywhere until the Gardaí and all their equipment and assorted hangers-on had left.
Despite the drizzling rain, which hadn’t let up all night, the Gardaí looked like they were settling in for a good long stay.
Still, it had been entertaining to watch the shenanigans going on below them, which was useful, because if either of them fell asleep, they risked falling out of the tree. Although they’d only caught fleeting snatches of conversations, Darragh soon concluded the Gardaí were at a loss to explain what had happened. That amused him. All this so-called technology and they didn’t have the first clue about rift running.
He was bothered by the tone of their conversations, however. They seemed convinced that Rónán, with Trása as his accomplice, had kidnapped Hayley and had some nefarious purpose in mind for her. Their discussions often repeated the fear that the first forty-eight hours were critical if they hoped to find Hayley alive.
As daylight crept over the city, increasing their risk of discovery, the full extent of the carnage they’d wrought over the golf course became apparent. The fairways were scoured with deep tyre ruts, the greens gouged out by spinning wheels, the damage compounded further by the many other vehicles driving on to the course bringing Gardaí, search teams and the media, who’d set up a veritable war camp in the car park, waiting for news.
Just on dawn, a newcomer arrived. He climbed out of a Gardaí car that pulled up a few paces away from their tree. As soon as the woman who seemed to be directing the other Gardaí spied him, she waved, finished her conversation with another Gardaí officer wearing white overalls, and came toward them. She walked across the rough, almost directly under Darragh’s feet, and stopped just inside the tree line and the meagre shelter it offered from the patchy rain.
‘What are you doing out of hospital?’ she asked the man. Darragh recognised him immediately. It was the Gardaí detective Rónán had called ‘Detective Pete’.
‘I’m fine, Inspector Duggan,’ he said. ‘It’s just a concussion.’
She frowned at him. ‘Then come back to work when you’re not concussed,’ she suggested, a little impatiently. The Gardaí inspector turned to walk away.
‘There were two of them!’ Pete said.
She stopped and looked at Pete. ‘We know. We caught him on CCTV at St Christopher’s. He had that girl with him. The one claiming to be Jack O’Righin’s granddaughter.’ The older woman frowned. ‘Now go home, Pete. You’re no good to me in your current condition and we’re going to need all hands on deck to save Hayley Boyle from these lunatics.’
‘I’m not talking about the girl. There were two Ren Kavanaughs.’
The inspector walked back beneath the trees to where Pete was standing and put a motherly hand on his shoulder. ‘Pete,’ she said, ‘it’s been a long night, and it’s not your fault he got away again. Go home, lad. Get some rest. We’ll keep you posted.’
‘I wasn’t seeing things, Inspector Duggan. Ren has a brother. An identical twin brother.’
‘You saw this alleged identical twin brother?’
Pete nodded. ‘Of course I saw him! He was driving the car they stole from me!’
‘Is he the one who knocked you out?’
‘No. That was the little bitch who popped up out of nowhere in the front seat and knocked me for six. But I swear, Inspector, I’m not delusional. There’re two of them out there. We have to find them.’
The inspector nodded in agreement and then raised her hand and beckoned another Gardaí officer to her — the driver who had brought Pete to the golf course. When he hurried forward to see what she wanted, she turned to address him. ‘Take Detective Doherty home, please.’
‘But ma’am!’ Pete objected. ‘I’m not seeing things. You have to believe me! There are two of them!’
Inspector Duggan kept walking across the fairway to the stone circle, where she resumed giving orders to the Gardaí. Beneath the trees, Pete cursed angrily, but allowed his driver to escort him back to the car.
Darragh glanced at Sorcha, who’d watched the exchange with interest. ‘They don’t believe I exist,’ he whispered, smiling.
‘Excellent!’ Sorcha whispered back grumpily. ‘Then we can just jump down from here and walk away. They won’t see you if you don’t exist.’
Darragh understood Sorcha’s frustration. They would be here for a long while yet. He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to push away the pain. He could ignore the cold and the cramping, but his ankle was pounding. What a terrible
world this was where one could suffer so, and not have the ability to heal or be healed, by magic.
Not long after Pete was driven off, another car bounced across the fairway. This wasn’t a Gardaí car. Darragh recognised it from Rónán’s memories.
It was Kiva Kavanaugh’s Bentley.
Darragh signalled silently to Sorcha, who shifted slightly to get a better look. The appearance of the Bentley caused a frenzy among the waiting press, but the Gardaí charged with holding them back kept things under control. The car pulled up directly beneath the tree, as Pete’s car had. A uniformed man hurried out from the driver’s side of the car and opened the passenger door. A moment later a slight woman wearing a tailored pants suit and wrapped in a luscious white fur coat emerged.
‘Who is that?’ Sorcha mouthed silently at Darragh.
‘Rónán’s adopted mother,’ he whispered back.
The woman turned to the uniformed man before they left the car, and hugged him briefly.
‘You wait here, Patrick,’ she ordered, clutching the man’s shoulder comfortingly. ‘I’ll speak to them. They’ll just stonewall you and tell you everything is fine.’
The chauffeur nodded and closed the door as Kiva marched across the wet ground. Darragh watched the woman with interest, his own observations overlaid by Rónán’s confused emotions.
Rónán’s feelings were a mishmash of affection and frustration, fondness and irritation for this woman. Kiva Kavanaugh was a generous and giving woman, but easily distracted, easily influenced, self-centred and she spent far too much of her time worrying about what the gossip magazines were writing about her.
Their real mother was nothing more than a vague memory, even for Darragh, so he was fascinated by this pseudo-mother he now shared with Rónán through their memories. Is she the way out of this mess? he wondered. He watched her gesticulate as she demanded answers from Inspector Duggan, who seemed rather put out that the actress had been allowed through the police barricades and onto the golf course.
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