The Dark Divide

by Jennifer Fallon

  Nothing happened. Not that she’d expected it to have an immediate result. While Trása hoped it wouldn’t take much time or effort to catch a Leipreachán, the more pragmatic part of her knew better. So after a few moments of silence, the forest disturbed by nothing more than the local wildlife, Trása sat herself down at the base of a large oak tree to wait.

  A few moments of the rain dripping on her made her shiver, so she morphed back into her feline form — better something with a fur coat in this weather — and then clawed her way nimbly up the trunk to the nearest broad branch where it was reasonably dry. Then she settled down under the shelter of the leafy canopy, amidst leaves just starting to turn gold with the oncoming autumn, waiting for the right Leipreachán to happen by.

  Trása had dozed off, her paws tucked under her chest for warmth, when she was woken by the infuriated protestations of a creature caught in her trap. She stared down at it for a moment, her feline curiosity piqued, her human awareness not yet fully engaged. After a moment or two she remembered why she was sitting up in the tree. She rose to her feet, arched her back for a moment, stretching elegantly and luxuriously, and then made her way down the trunk. Not until she reached the trap, and the outrageously dressed creature trapped inside it, did she transform back into human form.

  ‘Ye gods!’ the Leipreachán cried when he saw her, cowering in the corner of the trap. ‘I be sorry, mistress. I be so sorry …’

  ‘What have you to be sorry for?’ Trása asked, peering through the twig bars of the trap, relieved he’d spoken to her in the language of the Tuatha Dé Danann. It didn’t seem to matter which reality she was in, the sídhe spoke the same language, wherever they were. ‘And why are you dressed like that?’

  She was expecting the Leipreachán to look just like Plunkett with his little suit and his jaunty cap, given Plunkett’s true name had trapped him here, making him almost certainly Plunkett’s eileféin. This Leipreachán was bearded, and ginger-haired, but he was dressed like a very short, rather portly ninja.

  ‘Does it offend ye, mistress?’ he asked, wringing his hands. ‘I can change into something less offensive if it offends thee.’

  ‘It doesn’t offend me,’ she assured him. ‘What’s your name?’

  She knew his secret name, but it would have been the worst breach of protocol imaginable for her to call him by that name where others might overhear.

  ‘I be known as Toyoda Mulrayn,’ he told her.

  ‘Toyoda? Really? Who gave you that name?’

  ‘’Twas the name I be given by the Konketsu.’ He peered at her through the twigs. ‘You not be Konketsu.’

  ‘I’m Beansídhe,’ she said. ‘Well … half-Beansídhe, at any rate. I’m going to let you out now, but remember, Toyoda, I know your true name. Don’t make me use it.’

  The Leipreachán nodded meekly as Trása lifted the twig trap off him. He sat there in the rain, looking at her for a moment, his bottom lip quivering. ‘Are ye truly Beansídhe, mistress?’

  ‘Yes, I truly am.’

  ‘Not Konketsu?’

  ‘No, I’m not Konketsu.’

  ‘And ye came through the rifuto from another realm to help us?’

  ‘If you mean the stone circle through a reality rift, then yes, that’s where I came from, and I suppose, if you need my help …’

  The Leipreachán burst into tears and flew into her arms, blubbering like a broken-hearted child.

  ‘Hey there!’ Trása said, not sure how to react. The little sídhe sobbed in her arms as if a dam had burst after a spring flood. She didn’t know what to do; Trása didn’t even realise Leipreacháns could cry. She’d never seen anything like it in her own reality.

  She patted the little man’s back awkwardly. ‘There … there … Toyoda, it’s all right, I’m here now.’

  ‘It’s so good to have ye here, mistress,’ Toyoda sobbed, drenching her shoulder with his tears. She’d not had time to dress since he’d sprung her trap, but his tears were warm on her damp skin compared to the gentle rain falling on them in the clearing. ‘We’ve missed ye kind so much, mistress. We hide whenever the Konketsu come looking for us, but it’s been so hard just waiting and waiting and waiting, all the time.’

  ‘We?’ Trása asked, as she realised he wasn’t talking about missing her, so much as the whole Daoine sídhe race. ‘There are more of you about?’

  He nodded and leaned back in her arms, staring up at her with adoring eyes. ‘A few of us. The numbers get smaller every year. We been waiting, mistress. We knew ye couldn’t all be dead. And since the other night when the rift opened, we hoped ye’d come back, and now ye and ye mate be here, and we can take back this realm, and —’

  ‘Whoa there, little man!’ Trása cried in alarm. ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. How many of you are there left?’

  Toyoda shrugged. ‘I not be sure of the exact number.’

  ‘And there are no Youkai left in this reality at all?’

  He shook his head, sniffing loudly. ‘Ye and ye mate are the first to be seen in years.’

  ‘My mate? Oh, you mean Rónán?’ she asked, gently pushing the little man away so she could get dressed. ‘He’s not Daoine sídhe, Toyoda. He’s human. And for the record, he’s not my mate, either.’

  The Leipreachán cocked his head to one side, looking very puzzled as she pulled on the linen coat-like garment she’d borrowed from the Ikushima compound. ‘He canna be human,’ the little man said. ‘He be able to wane like a sídhe.’

  ‘No, he can’t,’ she said, looking down at him as she tied off the belt at her waist. ‘Why would you think that?’

  ‘There be wee wood sprites hiding in the kozo forest around the stone circle keeping watch,’ he explained. ‘They be chattering about nothing else since ye got here. First, they say, ye changed into an owl to get away when Chishihero tried to be rid of ye, and then ye mate waned himself into the forest when she tried to kill him, too.’

  ‘Hang on … let’s just get something straight here,’ Trása said, astonished by the information. ‘When you say “waning” you mean the same thing it means in my reality, don’t you? Translocation? Vanishing from one spot and reappearing somewhere else?’

  ‘Aye,’ Toyoda agreed, wiping his eyes now his tears seemed to be under control. ‘What did ye think I be meaning?’

  ‘That’s not possible,’ she said. ‘Rónán is human.’

  ‘He may look human on the outside, mistress, but he be more sídhe than ye, if he can wane and ye can’t.’

  Trása sat down on the damp ground, confused and more than a little unsettled by the news that Rónán had escaped the Tanabe compound by performing a feat no creature not almost pure Faerie should be able to perform. It explained why he’d been so vague on how he got away. The implications were quite terrifying.

  And right now she didn’t have time to ponder what they meant. She needed to know what had happened to the rest of her people in this realm.

  ‘What happened to the Tuatha Dé Danann?’

  ‘They be dead.’

  ‘They can’t all be dead.’

  ‘The Konketsu hunted them down and killed them,’ Toyoda told her, as he rearranged his belt with its array of tiny weapons that all appeared to be of Japanese rather than Celtic origin. ‘The rest of them they herded up like sheep and drove them through the rift into realms with no magic. Most of them be dead before they took more than a dozen steps into the other magic-less realms they be pushed into.’ He sniffed away the last of his tears and added, ‘When the Futagono Kizuna went through the rift to meet with the envoy from the Matrarchaí, they told us to wait for them. They said the Empresses were safe in Tír Na nÓg.’

  He’d said the Futagono Kizuna. If her translation was correct, he meant the bonded twins. That could only mean this reality’s version of the Undivided. ‘So the Youkai shared their magic in this reality with humans, too?’ She didn’t know why the Undivided had left their realm to meet with the Matrarchaí. It seemed an odd thing to do,
but no more odd than the reason Darragh and Rónán had left their realm to go rift running.

  Toyoda nodded. ‘I hear that be the same for many realms,’ he said. ‘And we be fine here until the Empresses met with Lady Delphine. After that, they not be needing the Youkai for their power. They be strong enough to channel it without any help from our kind.’

  ‘Who is Lady Delphine?’

  ‘She be the envoy from the Matrarchaí.’

  Trása studied the little man for a moment, wondering if he was telling the truth or spinning a fanciful yarn to make his cowardice seem more acceptable. ‘And the Konketsu are human?’

  ‘Not completely. Turns out ye need some Youkai blood in ye, and ye have to produce enough washi from the kozo trees, but once ye do, then ye can wield all the magic ye want with ori mahou and ye don’t need the Youkai at all.’

  ‘So they discovered folding magic in this realm and then just killed all the Faerie? That’s monstrous!’

  ‘It didn’t happen quickly,’ he told her, shaking his head. ‘It be quite insidious-like. And it be too late before the Futagono Kizuna realised what be happening. By then the Empresses be born — although they weren’t the Empresses back then. Once the Futagono Kizuna were gone, the Konketsu got a taste for Youkai blood, and it be all downhill from there.’ He sniffed and wiped his runny nose on his sleeve. ‘Now the Konketsu fear Youkai from other realms will come through the stone circles and see what they have done here. They destroyed most of the gampi bushes needed to fold the ori mahou to open the rift, which be why ye and ye mate were supposed to be killed on sight. Chishihero would figure if ye can travel through a rift, ye be a danger to the Empresses.’

  ‘Didn’t you say the Empresses were supposed to be safe in Tír Na nÓg?’

  His bottom lip began to quiver again. ‘The Futagono Kizuna were betrayed by the man they trusted like a father. That’s how the Empresses escaped. Soon as they were free and they realised the Futagono Kizuna weren’t here to stop them, they ordered the rest of the Youkai killed.’

  Trása’s eyes narrowed. ‘The Undivided in this realm were betrayed?’

  ‘Aye,’ the little ninja-Leipreachán said. ‘It be a very bad time for all Youkai the day that happened.’

  The parallels between the worlds were a coincidence, Trása told herself. This was nothing like her reality. Even less like the reality she had just come from. It was not unusual for a magical reality to have Undivided — or in this reality the Futagono Kizuna — who aided sharing the magic with humans. And sometimes events seemed to occur in a similar fashion, no matter the realm. Rift runners from Trása’s reality were not the only Faerie to jump between realms. She had been to worlds where alternate realities traded with each other on a regular basis. Whole economies were built around the stone circles. She’d known other realities where the Undivided — or their equivalent — were betrayed. But she had never seen a reality where the Undivided had turned on their Faerie allies and set out to eliminate them once they’d found a way to wield magic without their help.

  Toyoda sighed dramatically. ‘The wood sprites keep watch over the stone circles now, and we wait …’ He began to choke up again.

  Trása reached over and patted his shoulder gently, hoping the comfort was enough to forestall his tears. She wasn’t sure she could handle too much more sobbing Leipreachán.

  ‘But didn’t you say the Konketsu are part-Youkai themselves?’

  Toyoda nodded. ‘They be very precious about the bloodlines, to keep the magic going, but they be in trouble. The lines be weakening. If the Konketsu had known ye mate was Youkai, Chishihero wouldn’t have tried to kill him, mistress, she’d have tried to steal his seed from him.’ He straightened his rather ridiculous black hood and added sorrowfully, ‘If the Ikushima be showing ye mate a good time while he be a guest in Shin Bungo, ye can bet they be after the same thing.’

  CHAPTER 28

  ‘He’s killed Hayley Boyle and probably his brother and our mystery girl, Trása, as well,’ Pete said. ‘He all but admitted it.’

  ‘Pity you’d turned the tape off by then,’ Brendá said. The inspector leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, stifling a yawn. It was past midnight, but nobody was going to sleep this night. The whole world had turned upside down in the past day and people didn’t seem to know what to do with themselves, so they stayed at work where every office had a TV set on, with clusters of stunned people standing around them watching as the madness in America unfolded on CNN and left everyone wondering what would happen next.

  ‘God … what a day.’ She opened her eyes again and stared at Pete for a moment. ‘At least you’re not gloating about being right.’

  The proof Pete needed was sitting in an open file on Brendá Duggan’s desk. It was the report comparing Ren Kavanaugh’s fingerprints to those taken from the young man claiming to come from another reality. They were different. Similar in many ways, but different enough that they could not be the same kid. Between Logan’s photos, Patrick Boyle’s confession, his own eyewitness testimony, Darragh’s admission that he was Ren’s twin and the fingerprint evidence, Pete no longer appeared insane. Now he just looked like a good detective.

  The insanity honour firmly belonged to Ren’s twin brother, Darragh, with his insistence that he had come from another reality and that he’d sent Hayley back there to have her sight healed.

  There was no sign of his accomplices — Trása and the woman who had cold-cocked Pete in the car who Darragh had identified as Sorcha — or his twin brother, Ren. Darragh kept insisting they had returned to the other reality with Hayley. Pete knew he was lying but hadn’t been able to figure out a way to make Darragh admit it.

  ‘What do you want me to do with him?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ the inspector said, shaking her head. ‘Nothing we can do tonight. But we can’t hold him for long unless we charge him with something.’

  ‘We can charge him with Hayley’s murder,’ Pete suggested. As far as he was concerned I’ve sent her to another reality was simply a euphemism for I killed her.

  Unfortunately, euphemisms weren’t evidence.

  ‘Not going to be easy to prove that without a body.’

  ‘We can get him for stealing a car, can’t we? I mean, he pissed off with a patrol car from St Christopher’s.’ Pete smiled thinly and pointed to his two black eyes that had faded somewhat around the edges to an ugly shade of dark yellow. ‘I’d kind of like to add assaulting an officer to the charge list, while we’re at it.’

  Brendá smiled. ‘I’m sure you would.’

  ‘Have you told Kiva Kavanaugh yet?’

  ‘I didn’t have to, thank God,’ Brendá said, shaking her head. ‘Eunice Ravenel had already broken the news before I got to speak with her. She’s at home, probably composing a press release, as we speak.’

  ‘What was her reaction to the news that her son has an identical twin she knew nothing about?’

  ‘Shock,’ Brendá said. ‘And vast relief. Although given what Eunice Ravenel’s firm charges for her services, that might have been for the legal bill she won’t have to pay, rather than the welcome news she’s not going to be arrested for harbouring a fugitive.’

  ‘Even though she was? And so was Patrick Boyle, for that matter. And Jack O’Righin, too, if you want to include everyone who helped them get away from the golf course.’

  ‘Technically, they weren’t doing anything wrong, as the lovely Ms Ravenel went to great pains to point out. Ren was the one on the run. His brother Darragh was not a fugitive at that point. We didn’t even know he existed until a couple of days ago, and he wasn’t involved in Ren’s earlier troubles, so he did nothing wrong. Much as it pains me to agree with a single word that comes out of that smug little bitch’s mouth, I fear Eunice has the right of it.’

  Pete knew she was probably right too. Still, it didn’t seem fair that all of them could just walk away from this, scot-free. ‘Did Darragh say anything useful to Kiva?’

  ‘I gather
not. He was trying to convince her he was Ren. He managed to do it too. She was clueless.’

  That bothered Pete. Ren had grown up far from his brother. They should know barely anything about each other, and yet Darragh had known enough of Ren’s life to keep his mother fooled for nearly forty-eight hours. Kiva Kavanaugh was a self-centred woman, but surely she wasn’t so wrapped up in herself that she didn’t notice the difference between her son and the brother posing as him, if he was just winging it. ‘I’d like to talk to Darragh again. There’s a few discrepancies in his story I want to clear up.’

  Brendá smiled wearily. ‘Which one? The one about him coming from an alternate reality? Yes, by all means, let’s iron out that minor inconsistency.’

  ‘I mean how he managed to fool Kiva for as long as he did. And this woman, Sorcha,’ he said. ‘Boyle says he helped two of them get away from the golf course. He says she was at Jack O’Righin’s house. Darragh claims she went through the rift with Ren, Hayley and Trása.’

  ‘On balance, I’d be going with Patrick Boyle’s statement on the matter,’ the inspector said. ‘Unless, of course, you’re buying the alternate-reality thing?’

  Brendá Duggan was joking. At least Pete hoped she was. ‘Yeah,’ Pete said with a thin smile. ‘That would be it.’

  Brendá closed the file and handed it to Pete. ‘Talk to him then. If you think you need help, see if Annad Semaj is feeling well enough to have a go at him. Eunice Ravenel isn’t representing him any longer, but remember he’s still a minor. If you get anything useful out of him, I want to be able to use it in court.’

  ‘I have to ask you if you want a lawyer,’ Pete informed Darragh when they resumed their discussion some time later. Symes was gone and so was Eunice Ravenel. Although the shrink had wanted to stick around, Duggan had politely but firmly informed him his assistance was no longer required.