Reunion

by Jennifer Fallon

  Logan turned to Annad. "Do you have any Christmas decorations left?"

  "Why?" Annad asked. "Are we expecting Santa Claus next?"

  "Echo likes tinsel. It'll keep her happy when she gets back."

  "By all means, we must keep the pixie happy."

  "Annad! What's going on?"

  They turned to find a woman in her early forties standing in the doorway. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she wore a warm, puffy, down jacket over a set of dark blue scrubs.

  This, Pete guessed, was Stella Semaj.

  "Stella!"

  "It's almost three in the morning. Don't you have to work tomorrow?"

  "Ah ..." Annad said, behaving exactly like a man caught doing something he shouldn't have been doing. "This is Pete ... and his brother, Logan. They're ... they're old friends of mine from university."

  "Hello," she said as she eyed them curiously. "Identical twins, aren't you? I don't remember Annad being friends with identical twins."

  "That's because he didn't want us meeting you, Stella," Logan said, as smooth as he ever was when dazzling a woman with his charm. "He knew we'd fight you for him."

  She smiled, not immune to Logan's winning smile, but not falling for it, either. "That's sweet of you, but neither of you look old enough to have been at university with Annad."

  "We were freshmen," Pete explained, not realizing until now that their Tuatha Dé Danann heritage meant they'd not aged since they'd left this realm. "Was it a boy or a girl?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "You're an obstetrician, aren't you? Annad said you were called out to an emergency. I was just wondering how it went. Was it a boy or a girl?"

  "Girls," Stella said. "Plural. It was twins."

  "I didn't know you had any patients with twins due," Annad said, obviously glad for the change of subject that had, for the moment, taken the focus off him.

  "Wasn't my patient," Stella said. "Will you boys be leaving soon?" she added, looking pointedly at the clock on the wall.

  "Annad kindly offered us a bed for the night," Pete said, before she could ever so politely kick them out. He'd just given Nika this address. They couldn't leave now.

  "Well, that was nice of him, wasn't it?" she said, throwing her husband a look that spoke of a brewing "discussion' to come when they didn't have guests. "Then he can make up the kid's bedrooms for you. You know where the sheets are, don't you, dear?"

  "We'll be no trouble, Doctor Semaj," Logan promised.

  "Actually, I'm Doctor Delaney," she said. "I kept my maiden name after we married." She glared at Annad and said, "I think I'm beginning to realize why." With that, Stella turned on her heel and left.

  They waited until they heard her footsteps on the stairs and the door closing upstairs before they dared utter another word.

  "Sorry if we got you into trouble," Pete said.

  Annad shrugged. "She's not really mad. She just doesn't like surprises."

  "That could be awkward," Logan said.

  "Why?" Pete asked."

  "If she doesn't like surprises, what's she going to do when a half-beansídhe, a Merlin and a pixie turn up for breakfast?"

  Chapter 41

  Ciarán stood in the center of the exercise yard of Portlaoise Prison, looking up at the windows overlooking the yard, trying to figure which one was the room currently occupied by Darragh. It was raining gently and most of the prisoners were standing in small groups, hunkered down inside their jackets. It was cold, but a chance to be outside, even in this soulless place, was not to be scoffed at because of a bit of water falling out of the sky.

  He'd not seen Darragh since the Warden sent for him several days ago, and subsequently ordered him to the prison nurse for a checkup and discovered the words "get me out" scrawled across his belly in bloody, four-inch-tall letters.

  Since then, Darragh had been confined to the psych ward for self-harming and Ciarán hadn't been allowed to speak to him.

  Ciarán was desperately worried about what they might be doing to him up there. They had doctors who could mess with a man's mind in this realm. They fed you drugs that made a man doubt himself; counseled men into believing their own reality was wrong and the reality the prison authorities preferred was the right one.

  Ciarán couldn't protect Darragh in there.

  He'd done his best to protect him since coming to this realm, but Ciarán wasn't sure if he'd done all he could. Since he'd decided - as they led him from the courtroom after condemning him to life in prison a decade ago - that rather than return to his own reality, he should stay to protect Darragh, things had not really gone to plan. He remembered optimistically believing Rónán would arrive any day to rescue his brother. It was a given, he'd believed back then. All he had to do was wait for the inevitable return of Darragh's brother, who would use his knowledge of this realm to free Darragh, and they would all go home.

  I need his knowledge of this world, Ciarán remembered thinking with a naivety he now considered breathtaking.

  What a stupid, optimistic and utterly useless plan that turned out to be, Ciarán thought as he stared up at the razor wire encircling the grey, oppressive walls of Portlaoise.

  Rónán and Darragh may be strong enough to survive the transfer, Marcroy had warned him, before sending him to this realm to find Darragh and his brother. If that happens you must bring them home. Protect them both. As you are sworn to do.

  Marcroy had proved to be right about that - Darragh had survived the transfer - but what good had it done any of them? Rónán had not been seen in a decade. The coward had probably hunkered down somewhere, safe and sound, and left his brother to rot.

  And Darragh was rotting here, Ciarán feared. They both were. He couldn't shake the guilt he felt at Darragh's most recent confinement in the psych ward, either.

  It's my fault he did this.

  Ciarán had goaded Darragh the other night, when he learned he had the means to contact his brother. He'd been so anxious to be gone from this place, he'd ignored Darragh's warning about the cost. "It's liable to have me back in that psych ward I mentioned, if they notice what I'm doing," he'd told him, but Ciarán was too excited by the prospect of escaping this place to really pay attention to what he was saying. "I learned my lesson the last time. I'm not fond of tranquilizers, straightjackets, large doses of antidepressants or padded cells."

  "Then do it," Ciarán had foolishly ordered. He wished he'd understood what he was asking. He realized now what Darragh meant by tranquilizers and padded cells.

  Ciarán's culpability over that conversation was eating him up and now they wouldn't let him see Darragh. The Warden had even questioned the advisability of allowing Ciarán and Darragh to share a cell any longer. He was suggesting Ciarán should have known what Darragh was doing and either stopped him or reported him.

  Gods alone knew what the Warden would do if he realized Ciarán had suggested it.

  Ignoring the gentle rain, Ciarán scanned the windows again, no more enlightened than when he had started this quest to locate Darragh's room. He just felt worse each time, because he blamed himself for him being there.

  It is time to accept the truth, Ciarán told himself sternly. Rónán was never coming for them. If he cared anything for his brother, he'd have been back to this realm a decade ago and brought Darragh home.

  It wasn't going to happen. It seemed Rónán was not made of the same stuff as his twin, despite them being identical.

  Ciarán glanced at the gate and noticed Officer Connors was on duty this morning, staying back out of the wet even though he was swaddled in his service-issue raincoat. Maybe it would be better to talk to one of the guards. Some, like Connors, were more gossipy than others. Assuming they knew anything about Darragh, or his treatment, of course. Or how long the doctors were planning to hold him in isolation.

  Ciarán turned back to his futile window-guessing quest ... Just in time to see Darragh appear in the courtyard not ten feet from where he was standing.

 
The young man looked around furtively, and Ciarán realized it wasn't Darragh at all. It was - finally- his twin brother, Rónán.

  It took a moment or two for the significance of his sudden arrival to sink in. A few of the prisoners had noticed Rónán. One of them was scratching his head, staring at the young man as if he'd just appeared out of thin air - unable to comprehend that that was exactly what had happened - thinking, as Ciarán had at first, that it was Darragh.

  After waiting for so long, after counting the days they'd been stuck in this realm, Ciarán had thought he knew exactly how he would respond to Rónán. He was wrong. He was too stunned for a moment to react at all, and then he realized that if Rónán had somehow magically found a way in here, then he probably had a way out.

  They needed to get to Darragh.

  And they needed to do it before anybody realized what was going on.

  Rónán was dressed in jeans and a sports coat, which made him stand out among the raincoated prisoners who'd noticed the new arrival, but couldn't conceive of how this newcomer suddenly appeared in their midst.

  As casually as he could manage without breaking into a run and drawing any undue attention to Rónán, Ciarán covered the short distance between them, grabbed Rónán by the arm and turned him around to face him.

  "I am Ciarán mac Connacht," he said in a low voice in the language of his own realm, figuring that was the quickest way to establish his credentials with Rónán, a young man he'd only briefly met, years ago, when they first located him and brought him home. Three weeks of weapons training in a hidden raith was not likely to be remembered, and Rónán certainly wouldn't be expecting to find anybody else from his realm here in this godforsaken place.

  Rónán stared at him for a moment, dealing with his own shock and surprise at finding Ciarán here, but he recovered quickly. "Where is Darragh?"

  "The psych ward."

  "Can you take me to him?"

  "Or die trying," Ciarán promised, looking around. Men were starting to look and point at Rónán. They assumed he was Darragh, naturally enough, but his appearance in street clothes, without warning, in the middle of the exercise yard was unusual enough to raise comment. "We need to get out of here. Some of these men saw you wane in. The only thing keeping them quiet is that they don't believe what they just saw."

  "You believe it."

  "Not entirely," Ciaran admitted. "Come with me."

  Rónán followed him to the gate that led back into the building. As they approached, it occurred to Ciarán that there were a lot of locked doors between here and the psych ward. "Did you bring a weapon?"

  Rónán shook his head. "Other than magic, no."

  "How is that possible?"

  "It's a long story. Suffice to say it has a time limit. We need to find Darragh soon, or we'll all be stuck here." Ciarán stopped walking, and pulled Rónán to a stop beside him to prevent him moving any closer.

  "If they realize you're not Darragh," he said in a low, urgent voice, "they'll go into lockdown. If that happens, you'll not get near your brother. Understand?"

  Rónán nodded.

  "Then follow me, keep your head down, and don't say anything. The guards here all know Darragh on sight. If they realize you're not him ..."

  "I get it, Ciarán," Rónán said, a little impatiently. "Can we go? We don't have much time."

  Ciarán nodded and resumed walking toward the door where, fortunately, the garrulous and friendly Officer Connors was on duty.

  "Hey, Mac," the prison officer said with a smile as they approached. "Had enough of this shite weather?" He squinted through the rain to study Rónán for a moment. "Darragh ... didn't realize they'd let you out of the loony bin."

  "Before he was ready for it, I guess," Ciarán explained. "He's really not doing well, Officer Connors. Can I take him back to see the nurse?"

  Connors glanced over his shoulder. He wasn't allowed to leave his post. But he didn't want a patient fresh out of the psych ward going off on his watch, either.

  "Take him through to the next checkpoint," Connors ordered, opening the gate to let them out of the yard. "I'll phone through and tell Mr Fyffe I said it was okay."

  "Thanks." Ciarán took Rónán by the arm. As ordered, he was keeping his head down, and looking suitably miserable. Ciarán led him through the gate, and then turned and walked into the main building, out of the rain, not letting go of him until they were out of sight of the yard gate, and not yet in sight of the next checkpoint.

  As soon as he was sure they were unobserved, he stopped and jerked Rónán around to face him.

  "Why have you taken so long to get here?" he demanded. "Do you know how long we've been trapped in this realm?"

  "Yes, and I'm terribly sorry," Rónán said, rather insincerely, Ciarán thought. "But truly, Ciarán, you can bawl me out about it later. We need to find Darragh while there's still a chance I can wane him out of here. This magic isn't going to last much longer."

  "How much longer?"

  "A couple more hours at best."

  "How are you doing it?"

  "I swallowed about thirty rubies the Brethren supercharged with magic."

  Ciarán stared at him, not sure what surprised him most: the method Rónán had found for bringing his magical powers into this world, or that the Brethren had helped him do it.

  "You're mad."

  "I'm mad? What are you doing here?"

  "I am protecting your brother. Waiting for you to come for us. Walk casually. There are cameras here. They will get suspicious if we run."

  "I get that," Rónán said as he fell into step beside Ciarán. "What I don't get is how you ended up in here."

  "My first thought was to join the prison service as a guard," Ciarán explained as they walked along the linoleum corridor, hoping that if Connors had phoned ahead to the next checkpoint, nobody would bother to call the medical center to check if Darragh had actually been discharged. "An option I discarded when I realized how much documentation I would have to produce to even get through the initial recruitment process."

  "I can see how that ..." Rónán stopped for a moment as if he was having trouble speaking, and then he finished his sentence: "might be a problem."

  "Are you okay?"

  "At the moment. What did you do to get in here?"

  "I was at a loss to find a way to protect your brother until fate smiled on me a few days after he was sentenced - for your crimes, I might point out. I chanced upon a television program that gave me the idea. In truth, I was idly flicking through the channels trying to frame my explanation to Marcroy about how the Undivided twins the sídhe so desperately needed, to save them from the Matrarchaí, had survived the power transfer as the Brethren had hoped. Unfortunately, I had no idea where one of the twins was, no way of protecting the other, and at anytime one of these saviors might be knifed in the ribs by some tattooed hoodlum wanting to make the young man his bitch. The words Prison Break caught my eye."

  "Excuse me?"

  "The television program that gave me the idea. It was called Prison Break."

  Rónán looked appalled. "Tell me you didn't try to break him out of here based on an idea you got off a TV show?"

  Ciarán shook his head and glanced up at the cameras. There were no alarms being raised, nothing out of the ordinary. So far they were getting away with their ruse of Rónán being Darragh on his way back to medical.

  Ciarán kept walking at the same pace he normally did. Not so fast it looked threatening. Not so slow it seemed suspicious. "The protagonist in the program robbed a bank to get himself sent to the same prison as his brother so he could help him escape," he explained, as if he and Darragh were simply chatting about the weather. Someone would be watching their progress from the control room. It was important they seem to be doing nothing out of the ordinary. "I decided I could do the same." He cast a scowl at Rónán, adding, "Unfortunately, I foolishly believed there would be no need for me to help Darragh escape as you would come for your brother any day -
of that we were both certain."

  "There is a reason it has taken so long, you know." Rónán didn't seem very apologetic for all that he was claiming he was sorry.

  "And I'm sure you think it's a grand one. Now stop talking. We're coming up on the next checkpoint. I'm not sure how many more gates we can pretend you're Darragh, by the way. Eventually, we may have to use either some of your magic or find a weapon."

  "Let's just see how far we get," Rónán said. He seemed quite pale.

  Ciarán led him up the wide hall toward the gate.

  Much to his relief, the same story he used on Connors worked at the next two gates they had to pass through. Ciarán supposed it was easier for the guards to believe that Darragh had been returned to the general population and they hadn't been informed, than consider the idea that his identical twin had just appeared in the courtyard by magic and was working his way through the prison to locate his brother. None of the prison officers had objected to him returning to the medical ward - prisoners were allowed to seek medical attention whenever they wanted - but Ciarán kept waiting for one of them to tell him he couldn't go any further with Darragh.

  Their luck held, however, and the officers continued to let them through. Perhaps they were short-staffed, today. Even the best run prisons had slip-ups.

  Whatever the reason, they were within sight of the medical ward, and Darragh, before someone tried to stop them.

  They were always going to run into trouble when they reached the medical center. Darragh was confined here, and they certainly knew he was tucked up safely in his cell.

  Although the guard let them through, the nurse on duty took one look at Rónán and hit the alarm.

  The air was suddenly filled with the sound of sirens, and the clang of doors throughout the prison automatically slamming shut and locking. The guard on the gate came charging in, baton in hand. Before Ciarán could react Rónán raised his arm and the guard flew backward across the room, slamming into the bars with a bone-crunching thud, and then falling to the floor in an unconscious heap. Ciarán ran to him to arm himself with the baton - the officers didn't carry firearms against exactly this situation - although it wouldn't be long, he knew, before the soldiers got here.