Hayley didn't know what to say.
"They use magic in the realm I come from too, Hayley," she said, as if she understood Hayley's astonishment. "When the Gardaí interviewed Darragh after you and Ren disappeared, he was quite open about coming from another reality. He swore that's where they'd sent you to have your eyesight healed. Everyone thought he was mad."
"Except you."
She nodded. "Kerry knew the truth too, but what were we supposed to do? Tell the Gardaí Darragh was right? That you probably were in another reality having your sight healed by magic? They'd have locked us up alongside Darragh."
"Kerry knows about this?"
Kiva shrugged.
"She and dad were trying to have me declared dead."
"You'd been gone ten years, pet. We figured you liked it where you were and decided to stay, just as I decided to stay in this reality. It was your father, not Kerry, who wanted the matter settled. He doesn't know about any of this ... well nothing but what Darragh may have told him. He was just doing what one does a decade after one's child has been kidnapped and never seen again."
"Why hasn't Kerry said anything to me if she knows the truth?"
Kiva took another sip of the coffee and grimaced. Hayley figured it must be cold by now. "That gets us back to what I said earlier, I suppose ... she doesn't want me telling you any of this. Kerry has tried very hard to put her previous life behind her, Hayley. She doesn't want to go back to it. She doesn't want anything to do with it. Telling you the truth means opening up a lot of old wounds she thought healed over long ago."
"You don't seem to have that problem."
That made Kiva smile. "I'm not the pragmatist your stepmother is, pet. I know it's probably best to pretend ignorance. I know I should probably try to convince you that you've imagined it all. Or that you've just lost your memory for the past decade. But that won't alter what's happened to you, Hayley. Even worse, once word gets out to the press that you've reappeared, you'll become a freak show. Being an object of public scrutiny is not a life I would thrust upon my worst enemy. If I'd known when I was younger what I know now about the high price of fame, I sometimes wonder if I wouldn't have chosen differently, myself."
Hayley thought that highly unlikely. Kiva loved being famous. "What am I supposed to do?"
"That's why I'm here, darling. To ask if you want me to petition the Matrarchaí to send you back."
"Send me back to what?" Hayley asked, angry she would even suggest such a thing. "I was gone a week, Kiva. I don't have a fabulous new life in another reality like you do, waiting for my return. I was gone a few days, and then they kicked me out and sent me home."
Kiva pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I thought Ren sent you to Darragh's friends to be healed."
"Some friends! I was met by a handsome Faerie prince, spirited away to Tír Na nÓg, dumped on his sister, tolerated until they got bored having me there and then sent home by a merman. I don't want to go back to that reality. I hate the Faerie." It took until that moment for Hayley to realize hate was exactly what she was feeling. That's what her tears were for. Not for her lost life, not for her missing years, but her betrayal by the Faerie who never warned her of the dangers of accepting their hospitality.
"Well then, darling, you'll fit right in with the Matrarchaí. Did you want me to arrange a meeting for you?"
Hayley was about to say yes, when another thought occurred to her. "Why is Ren back?"
"What do you mean?"
"You said you spoke to Ren in London. But he's been gone as long as I have. Why is he back now?"
She shrugged. "He didn't say, but if I had to guess, I'd say he's come looking for Darragh. I've always thought it strange he left him here in prison for so long."
"Then he'll have to come here. To Dublin."
"I suppose. Are you expecting him to look you up?"
Why would he? Hayley thought. He abandoned me to the Faerie and hasn't tried to find me in ten years.
"I guess not."
"Shall I talk to the Matrarchaí for you then?"
Hayley couldn't decide, partly because she still didn't completely trust Kiva, and partly because she wasn't sure she wanted anything to do with any organization that dealt with magic and realities full of Faerie.
Magic and realities full of Faerie had brought her nothing but pain, so far.
"I don't know, Kiva."
"I understand," Kiva said, with a sympathetic nod. "I really do." She opened her purse and pulled out a card, sliding it across the kitchen table. "If you change your mind, give them a call."
Hayley looked at the elegant silver card and frowned. "This is for a modeling agency."
"I know. Tell them I told you to call. Ask for Mother. She'll understand."
Kiva closed her purse and rose to her feet. She smiled down at Hayley. "I know you think I'm a bit of a fruit-loop, Hayley. I probably am and you were always such a smart girl. I may not be as clever as you, but I was given a chance at a different life and I was smart enough to grab it. Don't let the same chance slip away, just because it's me that's bringing you the opportunity." She shouldered her purse and glanced at her watch. "God, is that the time? I'm supposed to be meeting Jon and Eunice for lunch. Be a pet and don't mention our little chat to Kerry, will you?"
"If you want."
"And don't fret about Ren," she added, mistaking Hayley's silence for something it wasn't. "He'll be okay. He has powerful magic and I think he's learned a thing or two about how to use it these past few years."
"Will he come back through the same rift, do you think?"
"I suppose. It's easier than finding new rifts, I believe. Not that I ever had the ability to open a rift. Why?"
"Just wondering."
Kiva slipped on her large sunglasses and began to cover her hair with the scarf. "Well, don't wonder too long. And put that card somewhere safe."
"I will."
Hayley saw her to the door, closing it carefully after Kiva kissed her on the cheek and slipped outside, looking about dramatically before she ran to her Lexus and climbed inside.
As the car backed out of the drive, Hayley leaned on the closed front door for a moment, and then glanced down at the card Kiva had given her, before slipping it into the pocket of her jeans. She wasn't interested in Kiva's modeling agency. She had other plans.
Ren was coming for Darragh. Kiva said he would probably come through the same rift, which meant that sooner or later, Ren had to appear at the ruined stone circle in the rough at the Castle Golf Club, and when he stepped through the rift she would be waiting for him.
Chapter 36
"Now what?" Pete asked as he looked about, wondering where they were. He had a sneaking suspicion he knew the location, and it would make sense if it turned out to be the place he thought it was. Marcroy had tossed them through a rift with very little forethought. Logically, he would send them to a location to which he'd previously opened a rift.
"We wait, I suppose," Logan suggested, brushing dried twigs from his shirt.
"For what, exactly?"
"The rift to open again?"
"There's a well thought out plan."
"I'm serious, Pete. Ren has to come back for Darragh. Count on it. We just need to be here when it happens. Unless of course, you want to stay in this reality."
Pete shook his head. That decision was long made. And Logan's logic didn't really work for Pete. "Ren just got ambushed by Marcroy Tarth. He could be dead by now."
His brother shook his head. "Marcroy doesn't want to kill him. He needs him to save the world, or something."
"When did he tell you that?"
"When he ambushed me coming back through the rift into our realm."
Pete smiled. "Our realm? You mean the ninja reality? I thought this was our realm?"
Logan thought on that for a moment and then shrugged. "I guess we've moved way beyond that now."
"Ironic, don't you think, that after a decade of searching, we arrive at this momentous conclu
sion a few minutes after we get dumped here with no way back."
"We have a way back," Logan reminded him. "If worst comes to worst, we just need to get to one of the Matrarchaí's stone circles in the Enchanted Sphere."
"Not without a talisman to open a rift. Should we try scrying Trása or Nika out on the puddle phone?"
Logan shook his head. "Echo told me Marcroy was holding Trása prisoner. She didn't know what had happened to Nika. And we don't have anything magical to fire up the puddle phone with in any case."
"Christ ... you mean we're left with waiting for Ren?"
"Looks like." Logan glanced about and frowned. "We're at the golf club, aren't we?"
"I think so."
"Not a very good place to wait."
"And no guarantee Ren will come back through this rift anyway," Pete agreed. "How do we find him when he gets here?"
"We don't. We need to be where he's going to be when he comes back." Logan rubbed his forearms with his hands to ward off the cold. The wind had picked up. Although they were reasonably sheltered here, it was not going to be a fun place to spend the night. "Fancy yourself a seer, little brother? We're going to need one to work that out."
"Portlaoise Prison."
"What?"
"Darragh is an inmate in Portlaoise Prison."
Logan nodded, and began to look about for somewhere to sit. "Off you go then. I'll be waiting here when you get back."
"Very funny."
"If Darragh is in Portlaoise Prison, Pete, I am not going anywhere near the place. It's full of cameras, for one thing, and you and I have been disappeared for a decade. And I sure as hell am not going to do anything to get myself inside as an inmate on the off chance Ren might turn up to rescue me someday."
"Fair enough, but that's where Ren will have to go to get Darragh."
Logan didn't seem all that impressed. "How?"
Pete wasn't sure if he should share Ren's idea with Logan. Without a Leipreachán around to agree with him, it sounded more than a little insane. "He had some harebrained scheme underway to wane in and out of there using rubies soaked in magic."
"Oh ... what could go possibly wrong with a plan like that?
"I know it sounds crazy, but it might be his best chance. And ours, if we want to get out of here."
Logan sighed. "Sadly, I have to agree. But if we can't go near the prison ourselves, we need someone who can get in to see Darragh for us. Any suggestions as to who this Angel of Mercy might be?"
It was a very good question. Given their own doubtful history, everybody associated with their previous lives - their grandmother, their cousin, Kelly, and any of their other "uncles" or "aunts" - was suspect. All those people had to be part of the Matrarchaí to have been part of the deception that was their life before they left this reality. Any friendships they had had before the disappearance were long forgotten, too.
"What if we try Ren's cousin, Hayley?" Logan suggested after a few moments. "She's back in this realm and she's a friend of Ren's."
"I suspect making contact with her will bring down more trouble than it's worth," Pete said. "If Hayley has been gone as long as we have, she'll be getting a lot of attention right now - the sort of attention we don't want to attract."
"Any old work colleagues you can think of? Anybody I contact will report our reappearance in a heartbeat, if only to grab the lead story on the six o'clock news, so they're not much use. Pity your mates are all cops. I doubt they're going to help us bust someone out of Portlaoise."
Maybe not all of them would, Pete thought, as a name occurred to him. Perhaps a bit of patient-doctor confidentiality might protect us.
"Annad Semaj," Pete said.
Logan frowned. "Isn't he a police shrink, or something?"
Pete nodded. "I think he's about to acquire two new patients."
His brother smiled as he realized the reason for what Pete was suggesting. "Which means he can't turn us in. That's so clever I could have thought of it myself."
"You didn't, though."
"I like to let you have the glory now and then, little brother. Do you think Ren will be okay with Marcroy?"
"Unless Marcroy's killed him already."
"That would be a shame. He kind of grows on you after a while." Logan walked to the edge of the circle. It was too dark to see much across the fairway, but the traffic noise had not let up since they arrived.
"So does fungus," Pete pointed out, pushing past Logan to pick his way through the rough to the fairway. Enough of this hanging about talking. They had a name and even if their plan was nothing more than a vague idea, it was something. He was cold, hungry and bruised from his abrupt arrival here, and they were on a tight schedule. He didn't know what Marcroy wanted of Ren, but he didn't doubt for a moment that Ren would be coming for Darragh soon. If they wanted to get back to the other reality - if he was ever going to see Nika again - they needed to be there when he arrived.
Their only alternative was Logan's suggestion that they find a way into one of the Matrarchaí's high-rise stone circles in the Enchanted Sphere, and even that escape route was no good to them without some sort of magical talisman to open the rift and the knowledge of how to open it. As the Matrarchaí tended not to leave such things lying about, that meant doing this the hard way.
It seemed to Pete that, lately, the hard way was the only way they ever did things.
* * *
They used one of the credit cards Plunkett had stolen to get a cab to Annad's house. The cab driver looked up the good doctor's address on his iPhone and then drove them to his neat little suburban house using GPS. Pete tried not to be impressed. Technology hadn't taken a giant leap forward in their absence - both cell phones and GPS's had existed in the world he left behind - so much as a giant embrace by everyone. It seemed every person was connected to something digital. Everywhere he looked, every time he saw people, some of them standing, often walking, head down, thumbs tapping away, so focused on the device in their hands they didn't seem to notice the world around them.
There were lights on in Annad's house when they arrived, but only one car parked in the drive. As the cab pulled away, it occurred to Pete that he didn't know if Annad was married and if he was, his wife might be home, which could complicate matters. Too late to worry about that now, he supposed.
"Let me do the talking," he told Logan as they walked up the neat path to the front door.
Logan was looking around to see if anybody was watching them. The neighbourhood seemed quiet. At this hour most law-abiding people would be eating supper, taking in the late news or getting ready for bed.
"Okay."
"I mean it."
"I heard you."
They reached the door. Pete hesitated for a fraction of a second and then lifted the brass knocker and rapped three times. The sound echoed through the silent neighbourhood, prompting a dog a few doors down to start barking. Moments later they heard footsteps in the hall and the door opened.
Annad had greyed a little at the temples, Pete noted, but he hadn't changed much. He looked at Pete and Logan for a moment and then, as if a light had come on in his head, his eyes widened. "Oh, my God."
"Can we come in, Annad?"
"Oh, my God."
"Yeah, you said that, already," Logan said, pushing the door open. He shoved Annad back, grabbed Pete by the sleeve, dragged him inside and slammed the door.
"Logan! I said I would do the talking!"
"Which leaves me to do the shoving. Is there anybody else here?"
Annad shook his head, his eyes wide with shock.
"Anybody expected home?"
He shook his head again. "My wife was called into the hospital for an emergency caesar. She won't be back for hours. I have two kids, but they're at boarding school."
Pete pushed Logan away from the doctor. He was no threat to them and Logan was just making things worse. "Your wife is a doctor?"
Annad nodded. "An obstetrician. What are you doing here, Pete? Where have you
been?"
"Long story. This is my brother, Logan."
"I gathered as much. What's going on?"
"You got any decent whiskey?"
"Of course."
"Then why don't you pour us a drink, old friend, and we'll tell you all about it."
Chapter 37
It shouldn't be so easy to take a life.
Ren pondered that thought as he approached the cradle rocking gently in the center of the room. He was overcome by a sense of having been here before, and yet it was different somehow. The room was no longer warm or candlelit. It was dark and the walls were glistening in the moonlight seeping through a sliver in the closed curtains.
There was no sign of the nurse. Ren wondered if she'd run away or if her fate had been the same as everyone else who'd approached this nightmare.
He reached the cradle and stopped to study it for a moment. The oak cradle was carved with elaborate Celtic knotwork and inlaid with softly glowing mother-of-pearl, just as it always was, but the mother-of-pearl was splattered with something that smelled like fresh blood.
Ren glanced down at the blade he carried and wondered if it would be enough. The airgead sídhe caught the light 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, no other would suffice.
The twins slept peacefully - he'd not have been able to approach otherwise - curled together like soft, deadly petals, the one on the left 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.
If they had been awake, would they recognize the danger that hovered over them? Ren wondered.
Maybe they would. Whatever made these children what they were, must give them some inkling of approaching danger.
They couldn't just exist to destroy. Could they?
They looked so innocent. So human.
"Are you sure you can do this?"
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