The Dark Divide (50 page)

Am I really that jealous of Logan?
he asked himself, trying to find some trace of the emotion within himself, even a whisper of it — anything to explain the awful nightmare that kept replaying itself in his mind like a looped video tape. The nonsense about fairies and genies he dismissed as simply his mind populating his dream landscape with information it had on hand. He’d been reading the transcripts of Annad’s interviews with Darragh, whose tortured mind was filled with mythical beasts that roamed his imaginary alternate reality at will, so it was easy enough to guess the source of that part of the dream. But the rest of it … where the hell did slitting babies’ throats come from? In what dark part of his psyche was that lurking in, waiting to ambush him at the first sign of trouble? Was it jealousy of Logan? Was it simply jealousy of his three-minute-older brother, or some deep-seated guilt about signing that pro-choice petition someone was handing around the pub a few months ago, manifesting itself into a horror movie in his head because they’d been talking about Tiffany getting on a plane to have the problem ‘dealt with’?

He’d certainly dealt with the problem in his nightmare.
What sort of sick, twisted monster does that make me?

The phone rang before he could answer the question. He picked it up, knowing who it was without even glancing at the number. ‘Logan.’

‘The phone barely even rang,’ Logan remarked, not bothering with a hello. ‘It’s after three in the morning. What? Were you sitting on it?’

‘I’m not the one calling at three in the morning,’ Pete pointed out, sure his brother could sense the lingering guilt from his nightmare even across the phone. ‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing … I just had a feeling, that’s all.’

Another time, Pete may have laughed off Logan’s fey feelings, but not tonight. ‘What sort of feeling?’
Like I might murder your kids some day?

There was a long pause on the phone before Logan answered. ‘You remember the time you got stabbed chasing down that drug dealer in Killbarrick?’

Pete remembered it well. It wasn’t much more than a flesh wound, really, but Logan had been on the phone to him within minutes of it happening. ‘Yeah, I remember.’

‘It was that sort of feeling.’

‘You’re imagining things,’ Pete told him. ‘I’m at home. Safe and sound, tucked up in my bed.’

‘Answering the phone at three in the morning.’

‘Only because I have this idiot brother who insists on calling me at three in the morning.’

There was another pause. Logan had something else he needed to get off his chest, Pete sensed. He waited, knowing there was no point in pushing his brother to speak faster than he wanted.

‘Hey, Pete …’

Here it comes. ‘Yeah?’

‘Do you think I’d make a good dad?’

Christ. He wants to talk about his kid.
‘Sure. Why wouldn’t you be a good dad?’

‘I dunno … I mean … you’ve studied that shit, haven’t you? Cops deal with that sort of crap all the time. You don’t think I’d ever hurt them, do you?’

Pete suddenly couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t speak. There was a long painful silence between the brothers, until Logan broke the silence with a sarcastic, ‘Way to go there, little brother, with the quick but confident reassurance. Nice to know you think so highly of me.’

Oh, for chrissakes.
‘I … no … I mean … I didn’t answer you, because I can’t believe you’d even ask me something so insane. Christ, Logan, what sort of question is that? Why would you even think that way?’

Logan was silent for a long moment, and then he forced a laugh. ‘No reason. Just a silly notion. You sure you’re not lying in a gutter bleeding to death?’

‘Positive. Go back to sleep, Logan. And stop worrying about stupid things.’

‘’night, Pete.’

‘’night, Logan.’

The phone went dead. With a heavy sigh, he placed it on the side table and lay down again, but sleep eluded him.

Pete lay awake until dawn, certain that Logan had experienced the same nightmare he had, and that for some inexplicable reason, both of them were dreaming about killing Logan’s unborn children.

CHAPTER 51

All hell broke loose with Rónán’s collapse, a situation not helped at all by Trása morphing back into human form beside him, as Chishihero pushed her way forward to take charge.

‘It’s the
Youkai
!’ the
Konketsu
magician screamed, as Trása fell to her knees beside Rónán.

Trása didn’t know what to do. Rónán was so pale it was as if all the blood had been drained from his body. His eyes were rolled up into his head and he was barely breathing.

Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die
, she repeated over and over to herself as she tried to cradle his head in her arms.
If Rónán dies
, she told herself,
then Darragh will die too.
She didn’t want either of them dead.

‘Kill the
Youkai
!’ Chishihero was screaming behind her. ‘Kill her! Now!’

Trása ignored her. She let go of his head and grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking Rónán as if he was simply in a heavy sleep and that’s all it would take to rouse him. That it was sunset here and in another realm the magic had been torn from him and his brother to be passed on to the new Undivided, mattered little to her. It couldn’t happen like this. It couldn’t end like this.

She would not allow it to end like this, stuck here in a realm where she was the only one of her kind left except for Rónán,
although she still hadn’t gotten her head around the idea that Rónán and Darragh were more
sídhe
than she was.

Rónán mustn’t die
, she caught herself thinking, a little surprised by the thought, because it was Darragh she loved. Darragh she yearned for. Darragh she wanted to be with.

‘Wait!’ someone called behind her. ‘You don’t have to kill her. We know her true name.’

Trása ignored them. She rolled Rónán onto his side so he wouldn’t choke on his tongue — something she learned watching
Rescue 911
repeats in his reality — and tried to think what else she could do to keep him alive.

What’s happening to Darragh?
she wondered.
Is the same thing happening to him in Rónán’s realm? Is someone with him? How will they know what’s wrong with him?

Trása had seen the medical wizardry of Rónán’s realm first-hand. She’d considered it clumsy and inelegant and no substitute for magical healing at all. But she knew they had machines there which could artificially sustain life.
When Darragh collapsed, has someone thought to intervene? Is he somewhere he can get help? Will they sustain his life with their incomprehensible machines and will that, because of the link between the twins, sustain Rónán in this realm as well?

The questions flashed through Trása’s mind so quickly, she was unaware of the discussion going on above her, as Chishihero tried to have her killed and the Empresses tried to prevent it.

‘We can control her, I tell you,’ one of the little girls said impatiently, and then Trása felt a hand on her shoulder. ‘Tinkerbell, take your hands off Renkavana this instant!’

Tinkerbell? Oh, for pity’s sake, she’s talking to me!
Trása had only a split second to decide how to respond to the command. If she defied it, they would know Rónán had lied to them. If she obeyed it, on the other hand, the Empresses would think they had control of her and she might be allowed to stay with him.
At the very least, Chishihero would not be allowed to have her summarily executed.

She snatched her hand back from Rónán and sat back on her heels, acutely aware that she was naked. Nudity didn’t bother her normally, but here, amid so many unfriendly and accusing stares, she felt her vulnerability keenly.

‘Yes, mistress,’ she replied meekly, keeping her eyes downcast and her tone resentful. She had seen Marcroy deal with enough
sídhe
whose names he commanded to know that invoking one’s true name produced obedience, but a great deal of resentment, too. If she was to convince these humans they controlled her, she would have to behave like any other trapped and annoyed Faerie, forced to do someone else’s bidding against her will.

‘See!’ the Empress who had commanded her announced. ‘I told you so.’

‘You cannot trust it,
Jotei
,’ Chishihero insisted. ‘Even if you know its real name.’

‘It seems to be working just fine,’ the other Empress said.

‘Roll over, Tinkerbell,’ the first little girl said. ‘And shake your hands and feet in the air.’

Sadistic little bitch
, Trása said silently, as she did what the little girl commanded. She rolled on to her back and wiggled her arms and legs about — to the great amusement of everyone gathered in the
akunoya
— grateful she did not have to prove her obedience to anybody else. Teagan and Isleen were children, and what entertained them was far less onerous than any test someone like Chishihero could devise.

Isleen or Teagan — who could tell? — laughed delightedly and clapped her hands. ‘Oh, this is going to be so much fun.’

‘But what about Renkavana?’ the other girl asked, looking down at Rónán’s rigid body with concern. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

Although they hadn’t invoked her name, Trása used the question as an excuse to stop her ridiculous waving about. She quickly rolled back onto her knees and bowed low to the Empresses, glancing at Rónán with concern as she did.
Danú
, she asked the goddess silently,
is he even breathing?
‘Something has happened in the realm from which Renkavana originates,
Jotei
,’ she told them.

‘Is he going to die from it?’

Trása glanced at Rónán again and was inclined to tell the truth, but that might mean the end of both of them. She had to stall for time. Perhaps, against all the odds, Rónán and Darragh might live. If not, she didn’t want to hasten his demise. ‘I don’t think so,
Jotei
,’ she said meekly.

‘Can
you
heal him, Chishihero?’ the twin on the left asked. Trása had decided that was Isleen. She seemed the more sensible of the two.

‘I do not know what is wrong with him,’ the
Konketsu
woman replied. Trása couldn’t see her face. Still kneeling, all she saw was a forest of stockinged feet, with an odd gap between the toes to fit the straps of the
geta
lined up outside the
akunoya.
‘I cannot fold a healing spell unless I know what it is we are dealing with.’

‘We could try fixing him ourselves,’ Teagan suggested.

Trása wasn’t sure that was a good idea, but she didn’t know how to explain that. Telling these little monsters who had rid themselves of their own Undivided — their own father to boot — that Rónán was one half of the Undivided from another realm, might cause them to kill him, rather than save him. She wasn’t sure magic was the answer here, either. Rónán had just had the magic ripped from him. The tattoo on his hand was gone. Trying to heal a magical wound so deep with more magic was, Trása suspected, akin to treating a serious burn with more fire. That Rónán was even still alive was a miracle.
What is happening to Darragh in the magic-less realm? Is Rónán still breathing because Darragh is too?

Or maybe it was just wishful thinking. Maybe Darragh was already dead and any minute now, Rónán will be, too.

‘I don’t know if it would help,
Jotei
,’ Trása said, trying to sound obsequious and angry at the same time. ‘What ails Renkavana comes from another realm. The magic you wield here may have no effect.’

‘The
Youkai
could be right,’ Chishihero conceded. ‘But I am happy to attempt a general healing fold, to see if that will help.’

‘It can’t do any harm, I suppose,’ Isleen agreed. ‘I wish I could remember more of what Lady Delphine taught us about healing magic.’

‘It must be frustrating,
Jotei
,’ Chishihero said in a voice that to Trása’s ear seemed laden with barely disguised contempt, ‘having all that amazing knowledge and not being able to use it.’

‘It is frustrating, Chishihero. So you’d better find a way to fix Lady Delphine’s envoy,’ Teagan warned. ‘We can’t do everything expected of us, if the person sent to unlock our power is dead, can we?’

Trása tried not to give the impression that she was listening intently, but the little girl’s words intrigued her. Toyoda had warned Trása that Delphine had shared the
Comhroinn
with these children, but he said nothing about blocking their power afterwards.
Did the mysterious Delphine understand how dangerous such power would be in the hands of spoiled children, or did she have her own nefarious reasons for her actions?

‘Should we contact her, Issy?’ Teagan asked. ‘Maybe she knows the way to fix him?’

‘I don’t know,’ her sister replied. ‘What do you think, Wakiko?’

Interesting that they don’t call her ‘mother’
, Trása thought, as she waited for the normally silent Wakiko to respond.
And that they still ask her for advice.

‘If this young man is important to the
Matrarchaí
and he is in danger, then I would be contacting Lady Delphine,
Jotei
. She should know there is a problem. And that it is not of our making.’

‘It’s not of our making, is it?’ Isleen asked worriedly. ‘I mean … you heard the
Youkai
. He has been felled by something that happened in another realm. She wouldn’t blame us for it, would she?’

There was an awkward silence for a moment. Trása wondered what the rest of the guests were thinking about this odd conversation. It was sensitive information to be blabbing in front of relative strangers. Would the Empresses do something to the Ikushima to make them forget afterwards?

Or was their plan simply to eradicate them before they left
Shin Bungo
?

That would please Chishihero. Particularly if any plan to destroy the Ikushima involved the Empresses levelling the fireworks factory located squarely in the middle of her valuable forest.