Reunion (22 page)

"Actually, one sociopath and another twin who's easily led would probably suffice," Pete said, after taking a swig of ale to wash down his lamb. He wiped his greasy hands on his trousers - something he would never have dreamed of doing ten years ago - and pushed away his empty plate, adding, "A description I wouldn't hesitate to apply to Teagan and Isleen, by the way."

Ren was silent for a moment, swirling the ale around in his wooden tankard before he looked at Pete and asked, "Do you really think only one of the twins needs to be a sociopath for them to qualify as Emperor twins?"

"Why?" Logan asked with a laugh. "You afraid Darragh's a psychopath? Is that why you're not in any hurry to find him and bring him home?"

Ren didn't even crack a smile, which bothered Pete for no reason he could readily put a finger on.

"Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm the evil twin."

Okay ... where did
that
come from?

"Let me ask you a question," Pete said, wondering if fear of being as evil as those they were trying to defeat was the reason for Ren's increasingly dark demeanour lately. "Suppose you leave home to go on a yearlong trip around the world. You've been planning it for ages and it's cost you a fortune. Just as they announce your first flight, you realize you accidentally locked the cat inside the house with no food or water. There's nobody you can call to let her out, so you either miss your flight and your dream trip, or hope the cat will be okay and go on the trip anyway? What do you do?"

Ren didn't hesitate. "I'd miss the flight."

"There," Logan said, "you're not a sociopath." He emptied his tankard with a swallow and grinned at Ren. "Why don't you get the next round to celebrate?"

Pete shook his head, ignoring Logan. "Actually, it doesn't prove he's not a sociopath. The question is
why
would he miss the flight?"

Again, Ren didn't hesitate to answer; although it was obvious he couldn't see the point of the question. "The poor cat would starve to death or dehydrate and die of thirst, or both. Nobody could leave an animal trapped like that and enjoy a holiday. That's a horrible way to die."

"And
that
, my friend, is empathy," Pete explained, leaning back against the wall behind him. "A sociopath might miss the flight too, but he'd be missing it because he didn't want the place stinking of dead cat when he got back. He may even do it because he wanted to be
seen
doing the right thing. A smart psycho knows doing something selfless is a great way to hide the fact that you couldn't give a flying fuck if the cat died or not. You, however, said "poor cat". You said "horrible way to die". You empathise with another living creature.
Ergo
, you are not a sociopath." He finished his ale and added with a smile, "Now, Logan, on the other hand ..."

Logan laughed and elbowed him. Hard. His brother had taken to this strange life so much more easily than Pete had. He'd been awed to discover he was a part, if not mostly, Faerie. He even seemed not to miss their former lives that much - perhaps because instead of a steady stream of model-slash-actresses to date, he found himself with multiple realities full of stunning Faerie women to keep him company with no inhibitions to speak of. Pete was enchanted with his new life too, and he tried very hard not to wonder too much about what would happen between him and Nika if he ever found his way home, but he missed matching knives and forks, internal plumbing, hot showers and - however mistaken he had been about it - knowing who he was.

Ren's brow furrowed as he thought on Pete's explanation.

What's he getting up to on those trips he keeps making into other realities to gather intelligence
, Pete wondered,
to make him worry he's a psychopath?

"That would explain why the
Matrarchaí
is willing to go to such lengths," Ren said, nodding, "to nurture the ones they do find to maturity."

"I think they're pretty good at spotting them," Pete agreed. "I think that's why Delphine took Logan and me out of a magical world and into a depleted one. We weren't the right stuff, but she didn't want to lose our line. Take us to a world without magic, let us lead normal lives, get married, have kids ... she keeps the bloodline, but doesn't have to worry about us turning on her someday with magic. Creeps me out when I think how often she used to nag us about grandchildren."

"That's ridiculous, Pete," Logan said. "How could Delphine know we weren't going to cut it in the psycho-genocidal-megalomaniac stakes? We were babies when she took us from our real mother. Toddlers at best, or we'd remember something of our lives before Dublin." He turned to Ren then, as an idea occurred to him that seemed so obvious, Pete was wondering why they hadn't thought of it either. "Why can't we unearth the reason she stole us, in the memories you shared with Delphine?"

Ren shrugged. "Maybe she didn't know."

"That's bullshit," Pete said, watching Ren closely, unable to tell if he was lying. "Of course she knew. She raised us like her own kids."

"What can I say?" Ren replied apologetically. "Other than a vague memory of your real mother defying her, there's nothing specific about you two I've been able to uncover. All her memories of you seem to be of your lives
after
she took you, not before."

It was a plausible explanation, Pete supposed, but that didn't make it true.

"She had the power to erase your early memories and replace them with others," Ren reminded them, directing his comments to Pete. He'd explained this before, more than once, but Pete wasn't buying it.

"You think that's why Delphine shared the
Comhroinn
with Teagan and Isleen when they were younger?" he asked, watching Ren closely.

The young man nodded. "I think she didn't plan to unlock the information until they were old enough to appreciate what she was giving them, and therefore why she wanted to get rid of Wakiko. Like your mother must have been planning to do, their mother was trying to teach them some values. I don't know how much of being a sociopath is nature and how much is nurture, but I'm pretty sure it's better for the cause if your Angels of Death aren't struggling with the notion of right and wrong."

"So what does that make Isleen?" Logan asked.

"Confused, I'd say," Pete said, impressed by the skilful way Ren had turned the conversation away from how much of Delphine's memories he was holding back. "Only time will tell if she's the raw material the
Matrarchaí
are looking for," he added, realizing there was no point in confronting Ren head on about this.

"So, if either one of the girls has a conscience, eventually she'll come home?" Logan asked, intrigued enough with the subject not to have noticed how expertly he'd been steered away from the real issue. "
That's
your solution to what we should do about the powerful magician who has just run off to join her sister and our enemies so she can blab everything she knows about us? I feel so much better now." He shoved his empty tankard across the rough-hewn table to Ren. "I'd drink to it, too, if the person supposed to be shouting the next round would get a move on."

"At this moment in time," Ren said, ignoring Logan's unsubtle hint, "there is no point in agonizing over what Isleen may or may not be up to. She'll be looking for Teagan and the
Matrarchaí
but they're not that easy to find. The knowledge she's unlocked is more than a decade old. She won't find much in the realms she'll visit, to lead her to their bosom."

Ren seemed very sure of that, which worried Pete a little.

"Isleen is a distraction, anyway. We have something more important to do." Ren reached into his vest and pulled out the ruby they'd taken from Abbán and placed it on the table between them.

Pete stared at it for a moment and then smiled as he realized why Ren had asked to meet with them here, and not back in
Tír Na nÓg
where Trása would want to be involved in the discussion. "It's time to go home?"

Ren nodded. "Let's go get Darragh."

What's brought this on? He's been making excuses to avoid going back for a decade.

"You don't want to tell Trása about this?"

"Last time she was in our realm, Trása, among other things, got me framed for murder, Logan," Ren reminded them. "Her latest effort has landed us with a merman and the inimitable Plunkett O'Bannon. I'm not giving her any more opportunities to
help
. Besides, we three are the only ones who can move about in that realm with ease."

"So ... you're just going to waltz into our reality, grab Darragh and leave?"

"Sort of."

Pete shook his head. "Is that your plan?
Sort of
?"

Ren shrugged. "It's a bit more detailed than that, but essentially, yes, that's the plan."

"Do tell," Logan asked with mock enthusiasm and a pointed look at his empty tankard.

"I'll need help when we get back, both to find Darragh and to get him out. I was thinking of taking Plunkett so we've got someone who can acquire things we need there without suspicion."

"You want to take a
Leipreachán
?" Pete asked, rolling his eyes. "To our reality?"

"Trása survived in there for six months thanks to a
Leipreachán
," Ren reminded him.

"Fair point, but I would like to point out that she's not going to be happy about being excluded from something as big as this." That was something of an understatement given the trouble she'd gone to in order to procure Marcroy's gem and Plunkett O'Bannon in the first place. "Are you expecting us to come back with you?"

Ren hesitated, as if he wasn't sure what their reaction would be to his answer. Over in the corner, another two young men were signing another lewd song to a melody that sounded disturbingly like the "Londonderry Air".

"That's entirely up to you, I suppose. If you think you can go back to your old lives after what you've seen and done here for the past decade ... I can't stop you."

"I take you're not planning to stay in that reality long?" Logan asked.

Ren shook his head. "I don't belong there. I never did."

His answer didn't surprise Pete. What did surprise him was his own reaction to Ren's suggestion they go home. All this time he'd thought it was a no-brainer. If he had the chance to get back to his own world he'd jump at it. Now, confronted with the opportunity, he wasn't nearly so sure.

"I need to let Nika know I'll be gone for a while," Pete said, wondering what her reaction would be to his destination.

Ren removed the problem for him. "Absolutely not," he said, shaking his head. "The first thing she'll do is tell Trása."

He was right about that much. "I'm not going to lie to her, Ren."

"I'm not asking you to. She simply doesn't need to know. I, on the other hand, need to know if you two are going to make this a one-way trip."

"Why?" Logan asked.

"Because I need someone to stay in Darragh's reality to open the rift when we come back," Ren said.

Ren had thought this through, Pete realized. He hadn't come up with this plan in the last few hours.

"Why not just open the rift from here?" he asked, deciding to put aside his own conflicting emotions about returning home for the time being. He could examine them - and what he was going to do about Nika - later when he had time to reflect, somewhere quieter than this rowdy tavern.

"Because this jewel has only ever opened a rift between Marcroy's reality and ours," Ren reminded him. "And from Marcroy's reality to this one. There's no way to go directly to the reality we think of as home from here."

"I thought you wanted to keep a low profile," Pete said. "Isn't stepping into your reality to use it as a waystation just asking for trouble?"

"Can't be helped, I'm afraid. The only talisman capable of opening a direct link between our reality and this one was the crystal wand Delphine used to get here and that broke the day I killed her. We'll be able to come back here from there, because we know this one. But, as I said, to get there we'll be using Marcroy's jewel, which opens a rift to this world and to the reality we think of as home, but only via the reality it came from. Hence the question I have for you two ... do you want to do this, and when we get back to our reality, are you planning to stay there?"

Neither Pete nor Logan answered immediately.

Pete wasn't sure what to say.
Is it possible to go back?
Even with the prospect of decent cutlery, did he
want
to go back? He glanced at his brother.
Did Logan?
The life they'd had in that reality was based on a lie, but it hadn't been a bad life ...

"I don't want to go back," Logan announced with hardly any hesitation, surprising Pete. "Not to stay."

"Really?" Pete asked. "You sound very certain of that."

Logan nodded. "It all seems so trite and insignificant now. Compared to this place, anyway."

"You had a career, Logan, a life there."

"Here I have magic," his brother said. "That's pretty hard to top."

Logan had a point, but Pete was still surprised by how easy the decision had been for him.
Why am I having trouble with the decision to stay or go? I have a life here, a beautiful woman who loves me ...

Ren seemed to accept Logan's decision without surprise. He fixed his expectant gaze on Pete.

"What about you?"

"To be honest, I haven't decided," he said.

"Does Nika know that?" Logan asked pointedly.

Pete didn't answer him.

"Will you at least help me bring Darragh and Sorcha home before you make up your mind? You can stay behind when we close the rift, if that's what you really want."

Pete nodded. It seemed a fair compromise and he genuinely didn't know what he might eventually decide. "What about Trása? Are you sure you don't want to involve her in this?"

"I'm working on the same principle she's so fond of," Ren said. "It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission."

"Fair enough," Logan chuckled. "I'll stay and mind the door. You and Pete can go back and do the hero thing."

Pete was still surprised at how quickly Logan volunteered to stay behind. "Are you sure?"