"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?"
Logan shrugged. "You're itching to get back, Pete, for no reason I can imagine. But I like it here. You go. Save Darragh from whatever terrible fate has befallen him in our reality as the coddled only child of a major movie star. " He smiled and turned to Ren. "Have you considered that your brother might not want to come back with you?"
"Trust me, he wants out," Ren said, with such utter certainty that Pete knew there was something else going on.
"How do you know that?" he asked.
Ren hesitated, glanced around, and then stood up. He unlaced the ties at his waist and pushed his trousers down a short way. His abdomen was wrapped in a crude bandage and there was a little blood seeping through, which was very strange because Ren had the power to heal himself with a thought. Pete grimaced as Ren pulled the ragged end out and slowly unwound the bloody bandage. Once it was off, he moved his hand so they could see the wound.
Pete and Logan both gasped. Carved into his flesh in painstaking letters in were the words, get me out.
Chapter 23
"Please, can I just call my dad?" Hayley wasn't feeling well. She wasn't physically ill, but the
re was a knot forming in her stomach; a sense of something terribly wrong and being stuck here in the Gardaí station was only making it worse.
It felt like she'd been here for hours. They'd loaned her some clothes that didn't fit very well and offered her a greasy breakfast from McDonalds, but they wouldn't let her call anyone and they'd fingerprinted her like a common criminal.
It was mid-morning now, and nothing much had changed. She was still stuck here. Nobody would call her father. And nobody believed her when she claimed she didn't know where she'd been, only that she'd woken up on the golf course and was able to see. It was a stupid story. Hayley could hear how ridiculous it sounded every time she repeated it. And she could tell they knew she was lying.
What they couldn't understand was why.
The woman on the other side of the desk looked up from her computer. She was a brusque woman in her fifties, Hayley guessed, and pretty high up the chain of command in the Gardaí because she had her own office. The name on the door said Superintendent Brendá Duggan.
Hayley didn't know why someone so important was taking her statement, or even why she needed to make one. She just wanted to phone her dad so he could take her home.
"We still have some details to sort out yet," Duggan said. "There are a few ... inconsistencies in your statement."
"Like what?"
Duggan glared at her over the rim of her glasses. "Let's start with the fact you're claiming to be Hayley Boyle."
Oh God, we're back to that again. "It's the truth."
They'd been denying who she was all morning.
You can't be Hayley Boyle.
She's blind.
She's a grown woman.
Hayley felt as if she'd been sent back to the wrong world, but there was nobody she could explain that to, because if she tried, she'd never get out of here. "Please, I just want to go home."
"All in good time," the superintendent said. "We'll get your fingerprints back soon enough. Then we'll know who you really are, where home actually is and we can be rid of this Hayley Boyle nonsense. Whatever your name, I'm guessing you'll be in the system. What brought this on? A foster home you didn't like? Or did you think this way you'll get to meet a movie star?" The superintendent smiled and adopted a much more sympathetic tone. "I can help you if you're in trouble, lass, but not if you keep lying to me."
Hayley wanted to scream with frustration. "I'm not lying to anyone!"
It didn't seem to matter how many times she said it. Surely her photo was around here somewhere? After all, she'd been missing for days. She pulled up the sleeves of her borrowed shirt and crossed her arms belligerently. "I am Hayley Boyle."
"Really?" Brendá Duggan leaned back in her chair. "If that's true, where have you been all this time, Hayley Boyle?"
Hayley opened her mouth and then clammed it shut, unable to bring herself to say "In Tír Na nÓg with the Faeries". I'll sound like a lunatic if I say that.
Duggan smiled at her obvious reluctance to answer. "There ... you see, that's my problem. Right there. That bit where you open your mouth to speak and nothing comes out."
Hayley shook her head. "I'd like to tell you where I've been, I truly would, but you wouldn't believe me."
"Try me," the superintendent said. "I've been doing this job a long time, my girl. I've pretty much heard it all."
A knock on the door saved Hayley from having to prove her wrong on that point. "Come."
"A moment, ma'am?" the clean-cut young man at the door asked. He was another one of her detectives, she supposed. Or some sort of clerk. He wasn't wearing a uniform so it was hard to say. He was holding a manila folder, but he didn't offer it to his boss.
Brendá let out a sigh and pushed herself up. She walked to the door and pulled it closed until there was a sliver left open for her to keep an eye on her guest. Hayley glanced around the office wondering where the Gardaí got the money for expensive flat-screen computers. Kiva had been talking of buying one for Ren before the accident, but even she had balked at the cost. Every desk in this place had one, and everybody she'd seen using them also seemed to have one of those neat little cell phones.
Hayley watched the superintendent and the detective talk. Eventually, the young man showed the superintendent the file and spoke to her in a low but urgent voice. Duggan turned and glanced at Hayley thoughtfully for a few seconds and then ordered the detective to do something Hayley couldn't quite catch. Then she opened the door and came back into the room.
"So ... we have your prints back," the superintendent said, as she resumed her seat, placing the manila folder unopened on the desk. She studied Hayley for a long time before she took a deep breath and said, "According to your fingerprints, you are Hayley Boyle."
Relief flooded through Hayley, although why they hadn't just taken her word for it hours ago and let her call her father, she couldn't figure out. "So can I please go home now?"
"I have someone calling your dad as we speak, sweetie. Can I get you anything?"
Hayley shook her head. With confirmation of her identity, funny how she'd gone from What are you playing at, you horrible delinquent? to Can I get you anything, sweetie? "I just want to go home."
"I'm sure you do," Duggan said, "but we need to get you checked over first."
"Checked over? Why?"
"You've been missing quite a while, Hayley. It's routine procedure when someone is kidnapped to give them a thorough medical and given the miraculous return of your eyesight, it's doubly important. I've arranged to have your parents meet us at the hospital."
"Fine," Hayley said, jumping to her feet, glad this would soon be over and she could get back to her real life - the life she had before Ren met Trása, before she was wiped out by Murray Symes's car. Before she lost her sight.
Before she spent a week in Tír Na nÓg with the Faeries. "Let's go, then."
Brendá Duggan didn't get up immediately. She was watching Hayley like she was some sort of alien creature just unearthed from under a rock in the back garden. It was quite unnerving.
"Do you know the date, Hayley?"
The question was alarmingly similar to the ludicrous suggestion the retired cop and his brother-in-law were making on the golf course about her disappearing ten years ago. She'd not seen anything with the date on it, since she got to the Balbriggan Gardaí Station on Drogheda Road, to confirm or dispel that alarming notion.
"I don't know. I'm not even sure what day it is. It's September something, isn't it? I've kind of lost track of the exact date."
"It's February, actually."
"No way," Hayley said, shaking her head. "I was gone a week, tops."
"Is that what you really think?
"Of course it's what I really think."
Was that their problem? She'd been gone for months? That would explain a few things about the odd looks and their attitude. She couldn't image how it could be. She could have sworn she'd been in Tír Na nÓg little more than a week. "Are we going to the hospital, or what?"
Brendá nodded and rose to her feet. "Sure we are. Ever ridden in a squad car?"
"No."
"Well, perhaps, if we ask nicely," she said, coming around the desk to open the door for Hayley, "I can get the driver to turn the siren on for you."
"I'm not a child."
"No, you're most definitely not," Brendá agreed. "Shall we?"
Hayley followed the superintendent out into the hall, past several glass-walled offices where the occupants stopped and stared at her as she passed, leaning across to say something to their workmates, undoubtedly about her.
They're wondering what happened to me, she realized. They think Ren abducted me and that I've been raped or something. God, they're not going to give me an internal examination, are they, to see if they can prove that?
Hayley had seen enough police TV shows to figure it must be a fairly routine test on all kidnap victims.
But I wasn't kidnapped. I went willingly. And nobody hurt me.
Quite the oppos
ite. I had a ball and they gave me my sight back.
Her protests remained silent ones, however. She followed Brendá and kept her gaze fixed on the back of the superintendent's tweed jacket, certain she knew what the owners of all those curious eyes were thinking, resigned to the fact that she could say nothing to correct them.
It didn't matter, anyway. She'd be home soon and then she could put this craziness behind her.
Chapter 24
Twelve years ago, a good two years before Delphine stepped through the rift into this reality with Logan and Pete, bound and unconscious - intending to dispose of them now that one of them had fathered a child - the Matrarchaí doyen had signed a lease on a building in London, one not even built yet. Designed by Italian architect Rienzo Piano, when completed it would be the European Union's tallest building. Piano's vision was for a new concept for the twenty-first century: a "vertical city" in the heart of a great metropolis, and even before the foundations were dug, people were calling it the Shard.
The elongated glass pyramid, built over a train station in a less than salubrious neighbourhood near the Thames on London Bridge Street, would tower over London. Construction had been scheduled to start in 2009 and with 87 floors, it was funded by the insanely wealthy royal family of Qatar, making it almost immune from whatever economic turmoil might befall the world in the time it took to complete. Delphine was well pleased with her arrangements. The Matrarchaí planned to use it as their European headquarters.
Although they had had an office in New York, in the now-destroyed World Trade Centre, and a backup stone circle located at the top of the Sears Tower in Chicago, as well as another circle in Asia's tallest building in Taipei, they had hankered for one closer to Delphine's base in Dublin. The Shard was ideal and Delphine had secured the very top floors while the building was still nothing but blueprints and a grand idea, even prevailing upon the architect to mark the floors she was leasing as "plant rooms". There were 44 lifts in the Shard; nobody would question why, out of the 87 floors of the building, only 72 were habitable.
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