The Dark Divide

by Jennifer Fallon

  ‘Darragh?’ Pete asked. ‘There’s nothing you can do for him now, Trása. He’s going to be in prison for a very long time. Where is Ren?’

  They’d only been gone from that reality a couple of weeks. She couldn’t imagine what Darragh had done in that short time to get himself thrown in gaol. ‘Ren is busy. Why is Darragh going to prison? What did he do?’

  ‘What didn’t he do? Murder, kidnapping … where is Hayley Boyle, by the way? Is she here, too?’

  Trása shook her head. ‘She made it home to my reality. I think. Who did Darragh murder?’

  ‘Warren Maher. The bloke whose car you stole from the golf club.’

  ‘That would have been Sorcha, not Darragh,’ she said, shaking her head. Trása was sad Warren was dead, but she hadn’t known him long enough for it to cause her lasting grief. She cocked her head sideways, as a thought occurred to her that changed everything. ‘Will Darragh be in prison long?’

  ‘Twenty or more years at the very least,’ Pete told her. ‘It’s a mandatory life sentence for murder.’

  The prospect didn’t worry her nearly as much as Pete might imagine. A few weeks ago, that had been the plan she worked out with Plunkett to keep Rónán safe.

  Maybe she didn’t need to worry about Darragh at all. If he was in prison for the next twenty-odd years, he was safe.

  Understanding that lifted a huge weight from Trása’s shoulders. If Darragh was safe, then her path was clear. She had to help the Youkai of this realm, which meant letting the ambush at the Tanabe compound go ahead as planned. Delphine must die.

  The Matrarchaí sorceress had a crystal wand that allowed her to open a rift back to the world from where she had come. It might take some time to figure out how to use it, but oddly enough, time was the one thing Rónán and Darragh had, although they probably didn’t appreciate that yet. Thanks to the interference of the Matrarchaí, Undivided twins were almost pure sídhe. They were long-lived. Now Darragh had survived the Lughnasadh power transfer, a few years in a Dublin gaol in Rónán’s realm where there were rules about the humane treatment of prisoners was not so bad. If it took them the whole twenty years to find that reality again, in a lifespan liable to encompass centuries, it barely mattered at all. Better yet, they would know where to find Darragh when they got there. They wouldn’t have to scour the world looking for him the way they did when they went looking for Rónán in the same reality.

  Trása looked at Pete and Logan and realised the same applied to them. They were Undivided. They would live for centuries.

  And they were part-sídhe, which meant the magical time-dilating effects of Tír Na nÓg would not bother them.

  Of course, they knew nothing about who they were or what they were. That was going to take some explaining, and Trása didn’t really know where to begin.

  Perhaps it would be easier to just show them. She could take them back to Tír Na nÓg, hide them there until Delphine was taken care of and let the lesser Youkai of this realm show these men what she didn’t have the words to explain.

  ‘That’s all very nice,’ Logan said, looking about impatiently, ‘you two catching up and all, but are you going to tell us what is going on? What happened to our moth … to Delphine? And Tiffany? How come a few minutes ago, you were a dog? And how the fuck did we wind up here, anyway?’

  Trása nodded. ‘I’ll explain everything, all in good time,’ she said. ‘But right now, if you want to avoid Delphine taking you prisoner again, you need to come with me.’

  ‘To where?’ Pete asked, full of suspicion and doubt.

  ‘Home,’ Trása said in the language of the Faerie, figuring it was both the truth and the one thing that she didn’t need to explain. ‘There is nothing to be afraid of, LogánPeadar of the Undivided. I am taking you home.’

  CHAPTER 62

  By Danu, the djinni was right. The Undivided are still alive.

  Ciarán gasped when they brought Darragh in and sat him in the dock of the Dublin Criminal Court beside a uniformed prison officer who looked as if the task of guarding such a heinous prisoner was keeping him awake. He actually yawned as he took his seat, and then crossed his arms and lowered his head, probably so nobody would notice if he dozed off.

  Until this moment, Ciarán had not believed that Darragh could have survived the Lughnasadh power transfer. To see him standing there now, alive and well — although in a great deal of serious trouble — left the Druid doubting everything he thought he knew about his own realm, and his loyalties.

  Although he was shackled, someone had given Darragh a bright orange coverall and his hair had been trimmed. He looked like Rónán had looked, when they first brought him back through the rift to his own reality. The lad paid no attention to the public seating. Ciarán pulled the baseball cap he was wearing down a little, to avoid being recognised. He had not decided how he was going to extract Darragh from this reality yet. Until he did, it might be better if Darragh didn’t start building up false hope of rescue.

  Ciarán still wasn’t sure he believed his eyes. Was Marcroy playing another trick on him? Did that wretched djinni, Jamaspa, have a hand in this?

  It was only a few weeks ago that Ciarán had been lying in a crude hut in his own realm, battered and broken following his torture for information about where Darragh and Rónán were hiding. Ciarán had sworn he would die before betraying the young men he was pledged to protect, an oath he had been very close to fulfilling. He had been resigned to his death — resigned to the knowledge he would never see either Rónán or Darragh again, and that in dying, he had saved them from the evil of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

  Marcroy had released Brogan by then, to answer the scrying message from Darragh and arrange to open the rift. They’d left him lying there, alone and in agony, waiting for death or perhaps a wild pack of weremen, to find him.

  Locked in magical bindings placed on him by Marcroy Tarth, unable to heal himself or escape from something so powerful, Ciarán was waiting to die when the djinni turned up and set him free.

  ‘The Brethren have need,’ Jamaspa said, as Ciarán drank deeply from a pitcher of ale the djinni magicked up for him, ‘of a champion.’

  ‘Hope you find you one,’ Ciarán had told the djinni, wiping the foam from his lips. He put the pitcher down and glanced out of the door at the setting sun. Now he was healed and his thirst quenched, it was time he was gone from here. Lughnasadh wasn’t far away and he needed to stop the transfer from happening, or the boys he was sworn to protect would die.

  ‘I believe I have found him,’ Jamaspa said, looking at the warrior expectantly.

  Ciarán shook his head. ‘I appreciate you letting me out of Marcroy’s bindings,’ he’d said, ‘but that’s all you’re going to get from me, Jamaspa. My gratitude.’

  ‘My aid costs more than a mere thank you,’ Jamaspa said.

  ‘Then tie me down again and leave me to die, djinni, because that’s all I have for you. My allegiance is already sworn, and that’s where I’m going. To save the Undivided.’

  ‘Then your purpose and the Brethren’s coincide.’

  Ciarán turned for the door. ‘I find that unlikely.’

  ‘Perhaps you should hear me out, before you make such a hasty judgment.’ The djinni shimmered across the hut to block the door. ‘You owe me that much, at least.’

  Much as he disliked admitting it, Jamaspa had a point. ‘Talk fast then, djinni. I don’t have much time, and what little I do have, I don’t wish to waste listening to nonsense from you.’

  Jamaspa, oddly enough, didn’t take offence at Ciarán’s brusque manner. Instead, he shrank down to a smaller, better-formed blue cloud, with arms decorated with gold bangles and a discernible expression on his face. ‘You have travelled to many other realms in your time, have you not?’ the djinni began.

  Ciarán nodded, folding his arms across his chest. ‘So?’

  ‘Then you have heard of Emperor twins?’

  ‘Only rumours,’ Ciarán said, frowning. It was a long
time since he’d gone rift running. The thrill tended to fade as one acquired years and common sense. What Jamaspa spoke of was something akin to legend, but a legend feared beyond reason by the Tuatha Dé Danann. The legend of Undivided twins inexplicably powerful and beholden to nothing and nobody.

  ‘The rumours are more than rumours,’ Jamaspa told him. ‘There are realms — a growing number of them — where the Undivided have been created from Emperor twins and they have achieved Partition.’

  Ciarán knew the djinni wasn’t referring to the vociferous but mostly harmless Partitionist movement who wanted humanity cut free of their bonds to the Tuatha Dé Danann, by destroying the Treaty of Tír Na nÓg and returning to lives without magic or the need for it. Jamaspa spoke of true Partition, where the Undivided were powerful enough to take what magic they wanted without any help from the sídhe races. The Brethren’s fear, Ciarán didn’t doubt for a moment, was that in such a world, once humans had no need for the sídhe, they would decide to be rid of them, or enslave them or exploit them, which is what humans did to all the other creatures they came into contact with. They did it to their own kind too.

  ‘And why do I care for these rumours?’ he asked.

  ‘Because there are other rumours that hint at a foe capable of defeating Emperor twins before they have a chance to mature.’

  ‘Then you don’t need me,’ Ciarán said. ‘Your champions are already out there somewhere.’

  ‘In every realm where the Undivided have achieved Partition, they have turned on the sídhe and set out to destroy them, Ciarán,’ Jamaspa said. ‘We cannot ignore the chance to find a solution to that problem.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Ciarán said. ‘Good luck in your endeavours. Can I go now?’

  Jamaspa swelled in size, blocking the entrance. ‘Rumour has it Emperor twins can be destroyed by the rare Undivided who didn’t perish during the transfer of power from one generation of Undivided to the next.’

  That gave Ciarán pause. ‘Are you saying RónánDarragh might survive the transfer?’

  ‘They are unusually strong,’ the djinni said.

  ‘Legend says they have to be of royal blood.’

  Jamaspa nodded, which made him bob up and down in the air. ‘We believe they are of royal blood.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. Whose …?’ Ciarán stopped, his jaw dropping as he realised what Jamaspa was implying. There was only one Tuatha Dé Danann of royal blood who spent any time among humans since Amergin brought his muse, Elimyer, to court. That had irked the Druids, but Amergin and his royal Leanan Sídhe had only ever produced one daughter. There were no psychically linked twins to worry about.

  ‘By Danú … do you mean their father is —’

  ‘Lucky the Brethren haven’t extinguished him permanently,’ Jamaspa finished for him with a scowl. ‘Only the possibility that RónánDarragh might one day prove the salvation of our kind, maybe in this realm, but certainly in many others who need our help, has stayed the Brethren’s hand.’

  ‘Does he know?’ Ciarán asked, still a little gobsmacked by Jamaspa’s revelation.

  ‘He would never have helped Amergin throw Rónán through a rift to another world if he had known,’ Jamaspa said. ‘We assume he doesn’t.’

  This news changed everything. ‘Do you know for sure that the boys will survive the transfer?’ Ciarán had asked, trying not to look too hopeful, too excited by what the djinni was telling him.

  Jamaspa shook his head. ‘We won’t know until the power transfer at Lughnasadh takes place. If Rónán and Darragh survive it, we have our answer. And maybe our weapon. If that happens, to protect this realm, we need to bring them home.’

  Ciarán nodded, beginning to understand the problem. ‘And you don’t know where Rónán and Darragh are, or you would have arranged your own rift runners to bring them back.’

  ‘We know where they are. But they crossed into a realm without magic,’ Jamaspa reminded him. ‘We cannot follow them there. We need a part-human rift runner. Someone with experience dealing with this sort of thing.’

  ‘Why not send Brogan?’ Ciarán asked, thinking of the young man who had been tricked by Marcroy into betraying the location of Rónán and Darragh, and exposing them to all sorts of charges by implying they were bringing eileféin through the rift. ‘He’s clearly on the side of the sídhe these days.’

  ‘Brogan is Marcroy’s creature now. For obvious reasons, we can’t tell him anything about this.’

  ‘You’ll get no argument from me on that,’ Ciarán agreed. ‘But even if what you say is true, give me one good reason why I should help you? There are no Emperor twins in this realm. How do I know you’re not making up all this about RónánDarragh? Setting me up to betray the boys I’m sworn to protect, the same way Marcroy subverted Brogan?’

  ‘We have no Emperor twins in this realm — yet,’ Jamaspa agreed, his size reducing to a more manageable shape. Ciarán had been grateful for that. It was hard to look a djinni in the eyes when you couldn’t see both of them at the same time.

  ‘Yet?’

  ‘As soon as they got word we were planning to transfer the power from RónánDarragh to the new heirs, the Matrarchaí were throwing fertile young women at Darragh — the only twin they could get their hands on — in order to preserve his bloodline and perhaps get themselves a set of Emperor twins.’

  ‘The Matrarchaí?’ Ciarán scoffed. ‘Seriously? That’s the boogieman the Brethren fear? A bunch of gossipy old midwives?’

  ‘What you think of our fears is irrelevant, Ciarán. What you seem to be missing here is that Rónán and Darragh may be strong enough to survive the transfer. If that happens you must bring them home. Protect them. As you are sworn to do.’

  There had been no arguing with that.

  Ciarán forced his attention back to the present, as the tipstaff ordered everyone to rise. A moment later, a dark-haired woman entered the court from the door behind the highest desk in the room. She was dressed in a long black robe with a stiff white tie at her neck and a ridiculous wig that fitted her very badly, as did the wigs sitting on the heads of the two men facing the judge.

  As the judge took her seat, Ciarán glanced at the pamphlet he’d picked up outside the court, which offered a simple explanation of the proceedings, a description of the court and who did what. The tipstaff informed the people in the court they could sit. Ciarán glanced down at the brochure as he sat down, identifying the man who rose next as the Registrar. The list of charges against Darragh the man read out was long.

  Darragh had been busy the few short weeks he’d been residing in Rónán’s reality.

  They were charging him with conspiracy to commit murder, grand larceny, kidnapping, conspiracy to kidnap, assaulting an officer of the Gardaí, and a score of minor charges that hardly seemed worth the effort after the main charges were detailed. Darragh remained still and passive throughout the reading, as if he wasn’t bothered in the slightest by the damning indictments.

  All the while a young blonde woman sat beside the Registrar, tapping away on a machine Ciarán assumed was to keep a record of the proceedings. There were no bards in this world to remember the words spoken here, verbatim. They had to rely on mechanical means.

  The jury box to Ciarán’s right was empty. He didn’t know if that was because they hadn’t called the jury yet, or didn’t intend to use one.

  Eventually, the Registrar came to the end of the list and looked directly at Darragh and asked, ‘How do you plead?’

  Darragh rose to his feet and looked at the judge. His gaze was serene and unflinching. ‘Guilty,’ he said in a clear voice that rang out across the courtroom.

  Ciarán got the feeling he was the only one in the room who was surprised.

  The judge nodded, as if she was expecting as much. ‘Do you understand what it means to plead guilty?’ she asked.

  Darragh nodded. ‘Yes, your honour.’

  The judge glanced down at her desk and turned some papers over, read
through them for a few moments and then looked up and spoke to Darragh again. ‘It is my understanding that despite being willing to plead guilty to these offences, young man, you are not willing to divulge the location of the kidnap victim or your accomplices to her abduction or any details regarding the murder of Mr Warren Maher. Is that correct?’

  ‘I have given the authorities all the information I have, your honour,’ Darragh replied calmly. ‘They simply refuse to believe me.’

  The judge turned her attention to Darragh’s barrister. Ciarán could not see his face, because he was facing the judge, but he was hard-pressed to imagine Darragh was receiving adequate counsel from any man wearing such a ridiculous wig. ‘My client insists Hayley Boyle, the kidnap victim, and his accomplices, Chelan Kavanaugh, Trása Ni’Amergin and the woman known only as Sorcha, have gone through a rift to another reality, your honour,’ the barrister explained as he rose to his feet. ‘For this reason, we ask that her honour considers a sentence in an appropriate mental facility, where this young man’s obvious psychiatric issues can be treated accordingly.’

  The judge pursed her lips, unconvinced. ‘Yes, I read your sentencing submission, Mr Gallagher,’ she said. ‘I also read the report from Doctor Semaj, who believes this young man is quite sane and trying to fake insanity for exactly that purpose.’

  ‘Our own psychologist disagrees with that assessment, your honour.’

  ‘Your psychologist is paid to disagree with it, Mr Gallagher,’ the judge pointed out unsympathetically. ‘I am also bothered by your client’s lack of remorse, and his unwillingness to take responsibility for his crimes.’

  ‘The Probation Report recommends the maximum sentence possible in this case, your honour,’ the prosecuting barrister pointed out, rising to his feet to stand beside Gallagher. ‘The offender doesn’t believe he has committed any crime.’

  ‘Hence the reason we feel a secure mental institution would be the most appropriate place for him at this time,’ Gallagher responded, glancing at the prosecutor with a frown.