Reunion

by Jennifer Fallon

  "Is there a problem?" Mick asked.

  "He doesn't think it's me."

  Mick held out his hand for the phone. "Not surprising, lass, given how long Hayley Boyle's been missing."

  Hayley stared at the old man in surprise. "How do you know I've been missing?" She closed her eyes. "Oh god, it's been on the news, hasn't it? Kiva's probably holding daily press conferences. How much trouble is Ren in?"

  "Mick's a retired cop," Lionel informed her with a smile, glancing over his shoulder. "The Hayley Boyle case was big news back in his day."

  "Back in his day? Back when?" Hayley asked, thinking Lionel looked younger, but he was apparently the more senile of the two. "I haven't been gone that long."

  "Hayley Boyle was blind, as I recall," Mick reminded her, turning in his seat to watch her closely.

  "I know that," she said. "I'm Hayley Boyle."

  "And yet ... you seem to see just fine."

  "I was cured."

  "Convenient," the retired cop said in a tone Hayley didn't much care for. "How old are you supposed to be?"

  "Seventeen."

  "Yeah ... that's where your story falls down, lass."

  Hayley was starting to get angry. First her father didn't believe she was on the phone and now these two old men - complete strangers, both of them - were trying to tell her she wasn't herself.

  "I'm not telling a story. I'm Hayley Boyle. Call the Gardaí if you don't believe me. Call my dad. Ask Kerry, my stepmother. My brother, Neil. Ask the great Kiva Kavanaugh. I practically grew up at her place." She leaned back and crossed her arms, looking away from the unsettling scrutiny of the old men in the front seat of the cart. The clubhouse appeared out of the mist in the distance. It wouldn't be long now and she could call a cab and go home and confront her father in person.

  Then he'd know she wasn't some prank caller looking for a bit of a lark.

  "Be interesting to see what they have to say," Mick Murphy said, although Hayley still refused to look at him, "because if she was still alive, Hayley Boyle would be twenty-seven years old by now."

  That got her attention. "You're kidding me? What are you talking about? I've been gone a frigging week!"

  "Hayley Boyle disappeared ten years ago, as I'm sure you know. It's been all over the news again, now that her family are about to have her declared legally dead. Not sure what your game is, my girl, but you are most definitely not Hayley Boyle, and you're not going to win any friends around here trying to pretend you are."

  The man's words made no sense. "Twenty-seven? That's ridiculous. I know who I am. I'm not playing any games. I ..."

  She didn't bother finishing because the retired cop was no longer looking at her; he was making another call. This time he was talking to someone in the Gardaí, she guessed, because he was talking about bringing her in.

  Let them, Hayley decided as Lionel bounced the cart toward the clubhouse. I don't know what's going on here, but Dad will know me as soon as he sees me. Jesus, Ren, what sort of a mess have you got me into this time? I should know better than to listen to you.

  But she had listened to him. That's how she got her sight back ...

  And then another thought occurred to Hayley. If her own father didn't even believe she was his daughter, perhaps it might be prudent to keep the news about having her sight healed by magic in another reality, populated by Faerie, to herself.

  Chapter 22

  "I hate the idea of destiny, but I have a bad feeling circumstances are conspiring against me," Ren announced, taking a seat on the long bench by the table where Pete and Logan were eating their dinner. The table was tucked into the dark corner of a small, cosy pub in the bustling village of Draffaugh, several hundred miles from Tír Na nÓg. There was a stone circle on the edge of town so it was easy enough to get to, and being on a major trade route meant there were enough strangers coming and going in the town that their presence attracted little or no attention. It helped that the local gossips believed the great sorcerers who aided and advised their beloved Empress were wizened old Asian men. Pete and Logan, and occasionally Ren, came here when they needed to feel like ordinary humans for a while, and because nobody had the faintest idea who they were they were invariably left in peace.

  For a cop and a journalist, the news they were magically gifted part-sídhe princes was something they still had trouble coming to terms with at times, even with a decade to get used to the idea. Even with everything Pete had seen and done since Delphine knocked him and Logan out with Brionglóid Gorm and brought them through the rift at the top of the Sears Tower in Chicago, he still struggled some days, certain he wasn't tripping through alternate realities as much as, well, just tripping.

  Ren took a swig of his ale and grimaced. He didn't really like the flavor, but the wine here tasted even worse, like sewage effluent. And nobody in their right mind would touch the water they served in these low-tech realities; the ale at least had the advantage of being alcoholic and therefore far less likely to infect them with something dire, although it was probably wreaking havoc on their brain cells while it numbed their taste buds on the way down.

  The pub was crowded with merchants, here for the monthly wool market, which gave their discussion a certain amount of privacy as the ambient noise level precluded anybody from listening in. The raucous group in the opposite corner struck up another bawdy song celebrating what seemed to be the youngest of them losing his virginity. Pete glanced around as the harried serving girl unloaded their meals onto the table and hurried off to tend her other customers, then raised his wooden tankard in Ren's general direction. "Sláinte!"

  "To destiny!" Ren responded, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, which Pete thought odd because it had been Ren's idea for them to slip away from Tír Na nÓg and its attendant dramas for a "boy's night out" here in Draffaugh and he had brought up the whole topic of destiny in the first place.

  "You're troubled about Isleen, I take it?" Pete asked, as he began to tuck into a juicy, roast lamb shank. The food in this pub was great. Pity they'd not seen the need to invent forks in this reality. Even though chopsticks were the utensil of choice in the more civilized establishments, down here among the peasants, hands were considered good enough. Eating everything with his knife and his fingers was something Pete had become used to over time, but of all the things he missed about the reality they'd left behind, civilized tableware was in the top ten.

  "What makes you think I'm troubled about Isleen?"

  Pete was never quite sure what Ren was thinking or, for that matter, what he was doing. He couldn't avoid the feeling that Ren had his own agenda, and while it might run parallel to Pete and Logan's ambition to discover why Delphine had raised them in a reality without magic when they so obviously originated from one that was steeped in it, Ren still wasn't after quite the same thing.

  "You seem upset."

  "Upset?" Ren shook his head. "Pissed off, actually. And not at Isleen. At myself for not seeing this coming."

  "How could anybody see it coming?"

  "I should have known. There's probably something tucked away in Delphine's memories about it."

  Logan laughed at the very idea. He'd ordered the stew and was slurping it up with relish. "Seriously? You think Delphine planted some secret ability to break the bonds in her mind and you couldn't see it?"

  "Maybe."

  "You don't allow for the possibility that Isleen's just a curious young woman with lots of power and a sister who's been missing for seven years who she misses desperately and that she'll not turn to the dark side just because?" Logan asked.

  "The Matrarchaí bred her for the dark side," Ren pointed out. He pushed his own bowl of stew away, as if he'd lost his appetite. "I was a fool for thinking we could circumvent the inevitable."

  "They're not breeding Undivided twins for the dark side," Pete corrected. He sucked the last of the tender lamb from the shank and took a mouthful of ale. What does it say about me that I'm actually starting to like this stuff? "They're
breeding sociopaths."

  Logan smiled, breaking a chunk off a crusty loaf to soak up the gravy in his stew. "Can't let the science go, can you, little brother? Ten years we've been here. Ten years where we haven't aged a day, can wield magic with a wave of our hands - or a bit of origami. You're sleeping with a frigging Merlin, for god's sake and yet you're still clinging to the notion of a scientific explanation for everything."

  Pete shook his head. "Not everything, just what the Matrarchaí are up to. It's what Empress and Emperor twins are, you know - sociopaths. No empathy. No conscience. That's what they're breeding them for. Anything less won't cut the mustard."

  "Can't commit genocide, I suppose," Ren said, "if you're going to agonise over it afterwards. Or - even more inconveniently - beforehand."

  "How do the Matrarchaí even know what a sociopath is?" Logan scoffed, not convinced.

  "I imagine they don't have a clue," Pete said with a shrug. "Not to start with, at any rate. They might now, given they seem to be headquartered in our reality. But you don't need a degree in criminal psychology to spot a sociopath. One in twenty-five people - at least was the statistic they were throwing about when I was doing my Masters."

  Funny how we all still refer to it as "our reality". Or that it matters a rat's arse, any longer, that I have a Masters degree in anything.

  Ren looked thoughtful, not nearly as skeptical of his theory as Logan. "Do you really think the Matrarchaí go rift running across realities just so they can fiddle with the Undivided bloodlines to get the most powerful and sociopathic twins they can breed?"

  "And then what?" Logan asked. "When they find a set that happens to be the one in twenty-five ... what? Jackpot?"

  "Pretty much," Pete agreed. "I figure they get as much sídhe blood into the mix as they can safely conceal first. It's why they murder any babies with even a sniff of sídhe characteristics - to hide what they're up to. So much as a hint of a pointy ear or a cat-slit pupil and they're culled."

  Ren nodded. "It's true. They breed Undivided twins to be as powerful as possible and still look human. That way the sídhe are none the wiser."

  Pete nodded in agreement. "Sociopathy is a uniquely human trait. You need a human mother with the right credentials in the mix if you hope to score with the next generation so you can start your next killing spree."

  "Why a mother?" Logan asked. "Why not a father?"

  "Mothers are easier to trace, easier to control. The matrilineal line is much cleaner, and this is an organization run predominantly by women."

  "Fair enough," Logan said with a shrug. "So why were we preserved for the breeding pool and not given a whole reality full of sídhe to eradicate?"

  "We have a conscience."

  "Are you sure about that?" Ren asked, so darkly, it made Pete wonder if there was more to the question than a simple reassurance.

  "Still, what's the point?" Logan said before Pete could answer Ren's question. "The Matrarchaí can't seriously expect to rid every reality of the sídhe."

  "They appear to be giving it a damn good try."

  "And why keep breeding psycho twins? Why not just find a few that work and have them leap from reality to reality to do what needs to be done? I mean, their way is nuts."

  "There's an infinite number of realities," Ren reminded Logan. " I suspect a few that work won't cut the mustard."

  "But how would you know if you've scored a win? You can't tell a psychopath until they've grown up and turned into a killer. And you'd need two of them to make it work if they're using twins. The chances of that are infinitesimal."

  "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 a
n 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."