The Dark Divide

by Jennifer Fallon

  ‘Oh that … I glamoured him, that’s all.’

  ‘You can do that? Just make people do what you want?’

  ‘Yes …’

  He stared at her, not sure if what he was feeling was amazement or despair. ‘And you only thought to mention this rather useful trick now?’

  ‘It’s not as useful as you might imagine,’ she said, rolling her eyes as she put her hands on her hips, which distracted Ren from the discussion, because she still wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing. ‘It only works if you can get close enough to someone so they’re totally focussed on you. That’s really the first time I’ve had a chance to do it.’

  Things had been hectic lately, he had to concede. Still …

  ‘By the way, who the hell is Wayne?’

  ‘Not who, what,’ she said, folding her arms crossly. ‘It’s how you escaped the Tanabe, remember?’

  ‘How did you know about that?’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you could wane?’

  ‘Waning? Is that what you call it?’ The word caused a whole world of interesting information to crowd the forefront of his mind as he realised what it meant. It made sense now. No wonder he hadn’t been able to find any information in Darragh’s memories. He’d been searching for teleporting, or vanishing, or disappearing. None of those words triggered a damn thing. Waning was the word he’d been looking for, and suddenly Ren discovered he knew exactly how to do it.

  Not that the knowledge did him any good. If he waned out of here Aoi would have to commit jigai.

  ‘Oh, so now you remember?’ She shook her head as she noticed the dawning comprehension in his eyes. ‘It would have been a bit more useful if you could have had this epiphany out in the compound just now.’

  She had a point, but he didn’t feel he deserved to be spoken to like that by someone wearing nothing but her birthday suit. ‘You do realise you’re not wearing any clothes, don’t you?’

  Trása let out an exasperated sigh and snatched up the blanket from the futon. She wrapped it around herself impatiently and tied it off. ‘Better?’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, and then shook his head. ‘And I didn’t say anything out in the compound because I didn’t know what it was called. Oh, and I can’t go anywhere. Aoi took an oath. If I try to leave here she has to kill herself.’

  ‘Well, here’s hoping she doesn’t make too much mess when she falls on her sword,’ Trása said with a complete lack of sympathy. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘No,’ he insisted, shaking his head. ‘I’m not going to be responsible for killing someone.’

  ‘You’re not responsible,’ she said. ‘Did you make her take an oath?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Then she’s not your problem.’

  ‘Besides,’ another rather cranky and impatient voice interjected behind him, ‘these be the Empresses’ minions and they be the people that killed all of our people. Who cares if one dies?’

  Ren spun around to find the strangest sight behind him. Standing there was a tiny, ginger-haired ninja, no taller than his knee, with a pointy ginger goatee and a belt full of tiny weapons made from ebony and airgead sídhe. Ren turned to Trása. ‘What is that?’

  ‘A Leipreachán,’ she said. ‘What do you think it is?’

  ‘It’s like no Leipreachán I’ve seen before.’

  ‘And you’ve seen so many of them, haven’t you? This is Toyoda Mulrayn. I think he’s Plunkett’s eileféin.’

  ‘Toyoda? Seriously?’

  Trása ignored the question. ‘Toyoda, this is Rónán. In my reality, believe it or not, he’s one of the Futagano Kizuna.’

  ‘The Futagano Kizuna be Youkai in your realm too then?’ he asked, stepping a little closer to examine Ren with a critical eye.

  ‘I’m not Youkai,’ Ren said. He turned back to Trása, starting to get a little annoyed by this. ‘Why the sudden insistence that I’m one of you?’

  ‘Because ye are,’ Toyoda said. ‘Can we go now?’

  ‘I told you, I’m not leaving.’

  Trása threw her hands up. ‘Do you know why they want you here, Rónán?’

  Ren felt himself blushing unexpectedly. ‘I was kinda getting an idea about that when you arrived. I knocked back Aoi, and “every nubile female in the compound” thank you very much. They even offered me a girl. A kid!’

  The Leipreachán didn’t seem surprised. ‘The Ikushima want children from ye because they have no family member in the Konketsu,’ Toyoda told him. ‘They be hoping ye will give them a magically gifted child, before they run ye through and offer ye head to the Empresses as proof they be loyal. ’Twould raise their family’s social standing considerably.’

  But Trása smiled, inexplicably. ‘You rejected Aoi?’

  ‘Of course I did. What do you take me for?’

  ‘She’s very pretty.’

  ‘She’s a lunatic. Like everyone else around here. Have you found out how to open a rift yet?’

  ‘Ye need a folding spell,’ Toyoda answered for her.

  ‘Great, where do we get one?’

  ‘Ye don’t just get one,’ the little ninja-Leipreachán said. ‘Ye learn it. It takes years and years of study to master the folding magic. Only the most dedicated and highly trained mahou tsukaino sensei can open rifts.’

  ‘So we need one of these mahou tsukaino sensei who can fold the spell and we’re good, yeah?’

  ‘Tell him the rest of it, Toyoda,’ Trása said with a heavy sigh. She’d obviously been told the bad news already, by her expression.

  ‘Even if ye know the spell, regular washi paper won’t do,’ Toyoda explained. ‘It needs gampi paper for ye to fold the spell to open a rift between realms.’

  ‘Where do we get gampi paper from then?’ Ren asked.

  ‘That’s the catch,’ Trása explained. ‘These Empresses everyone talks about? They are the daughters of the last Undivided. They took over this realm, banished or killed their father and uncle — there’s something of a debate going on between the lesser Youkai about which it was. Then they killed all the pure Youkai, by driving them through rifts into magic-less worlds, and kept the mixed-blood Konketsu to wield the limited amount of magic they allow them … and then … they destroyed all the gampi bushes except those in the Imperial Palace.’

  Why was everything to do with magic so damned complicated? ‘So, what you’re saying is, we’re screwed.’

  ‘Pretty much,’ Trása agreed with a shrug.

  ‘Lughnasadh is only a few days away. They’re going to transfer the power to the new twins and Darragh and I are going to die.’

  ‘Maybe you should have taken Namito up on his offer of all those nubile females, then,’ Toyoda suggested. ‘Be one way to pass the time until ye inevitable demise.’

  Ren glared at the Leipreachán. ‘You’re a big help.’

  ‘I just be offering me wisdom on the matter. We Leipreachán not be as dumb as ye think we be …’

  ‘Then how about using all that awesome Leipreachán intellect to come up with a real plan.’

  ‘Actually, Rónán,’ Trása said. ‘He already has. At least we have kind of a plan.’ She smiled at Ren, obviously pleased with herself. ‘We may just have figured out how to save you, if we can’t get out of this realm in time for the equinox.’

  ‘Excellent. What about Darragh?’

  Trása’s smug look wavered a little. ‘What about him?’

  ‘We’re psychically linked, Trása. If one of us dies, the other will follow in a matter of days. You know that better than I do. I appreciate that you’ve come up with a plan to save me, but it’s a waste of energy if you haven’t thought up a way to save my brother at the same time.’

  CHAPTER 33

  Once it was clear they weren’t dealing with Chelan Aquarius Kavanaugh but his previously unknown identical twin, Murray Symes no longer had a stake in the case. He tried to stick around, claiming some nonsense about knowing Ren and therefore being in a better position to judge his twin; Inspector
Duggan thanked him for his help, dispensed with his services, and sent him on his way.

  Then Pete had sat down with Darragh to interrogate him again and got nothing more than a repeat of this story about alternate realities, fairies and Druids.

  The following day, with nobody able to shake his story, Brendá Duggan ordered Pete to call in their own shrink, Annad Semaj, to assess Darragh and decide if he was sane, if he knew where Hayley Boyle had been taken, or indeed, if he knew whether or not she was still alive.

  Dr Semaj was the son of South African Indian parents who had come to the Republic of Ireland to study during the apartheid years. As ‘coloureds’, they couldn’t attend university in their own country and had chosen the University of Dublin for their medical studies. They’d never returned home. Annad, despite his name, had never stepped foot in the homeland of his ancestors and didn’t speak a word of Hindi, or Zulu either. He’d been raised in Dublin and spoke with an educated Irish accent that always unsettled the criminals he was assessing, because they’d judged him before he opened his mouth, and when he spoke, his soft Irish brogue was so unexpected they were at a disadvantage right from the get-go.

  Pete stayed in the observation room on the other side of the two-way mirror and watched him talking to Darragh. If anybody was going to get to the bottom of this kid’s delusions and decide if they were real or not, Pete figured Annad would.

  Darragh sat in the interview room, calm and composed. That bothered Pete. Most nut-jobs who claimed they were from another planet — or another reality as Darragh was insisting — tended to fidget. Most of them could barely sit still. This lad had a zen-like serenity about him that Pete found more unsettling than some of the violently agitated criminals he’d had to deal with.

  Once they were past the pleasantries and formalities for the benefit of the recording equipment, Annad smiled, blew his nose and apologised for still having the flu. He studied Darragh for a long time in silence, taking note of his demeanour, Pete guessed.

  What usually happened, Pete knew, was that the suspect would grow uncomfortable with the silence and start the conversation up themselves.

  Darragh didn’t. He waited Annad out.

  ‘You have an interesting tale to tell, I hear,’ the doctor said eventually, which Pete found very interesting. Annad didn’t often lose the ‘let’s see who speaks first’ game. ‘Tell me how you and your brother came to be separated as children.’

  Darragh nodded. ‘We were betrayed.’

  ‘I see,’ Annad said in a non-committal tone, wiping his nose again. Pete was starting to feel guilty that he’d dragged Annad out of his sickbed. ‘Do you often feel as if people are plotting to betray you?’

  ‘It is the nature of the beast, I fear,’ Darragh replied with a shrug. ‘The Partitionists actively call for our removal, but only because they don’t understand the consequences.’ Darragh clasped his hands in front of him on the table. ‘Amergin’s betrayal was particularly painful. He was like a father to us.’

  ‘To you and Ren?’

  ‘My brother’s name is Rónán.’

  ‘Ah, yes … Rónán. Does he remember this life you had in … what do you call it?’ Annad consulted his notes for a moment. ‘The other realm?’

  ‘He wasn’t even four years old,’ Darragh said. ‘He remembers nothing.’

  ‘Does that bother you? That he won’t believe your tale?’

  Darragh cocked his head to one side. ‘He doesn’t need to believe it, Doctor. He’s been there.’

  ‘So … Ren … I mean, Rónán, can hear and see the same things you see and hear? The same voices? The same instructions?’

  ‘Of course he can,’ Darragh said, and then he leaned back in his seat and nodded. ‘I’m not sure what you mean by instruct … oh, I see. You believe I am making this up.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘If I were, would I admit it?’

  ‘You might,’ Annad said, ‘if you were trying to fake insanity and discovered you can’t keep it up. It’s harder to pretend crazy than it looks.’

  ‘What reason would I have to pretend insanity?’ Darragh asked. Pete thought he seemed genuinely puzzled by the notion.

  ‘You’re facing some serious charges, lad,’ the psychiatrist pointed out. ‘You might prefer a nice padded cell to a prison one.’

  Darragh shook his head. ‘Neither bothers me, Doctor Semaj, because sooner or later they will come for me. Some discomfort in the meantime is tolerable. I won’t be here long enough for it to be much more than an inconvenience.’ He smiled then, as if he’d just recalled something amusing. ‘It couldn’t be any worse than sitting through a banquet in Sí an Bhrú with Torcán for company.’

  ‘Torcán?’ Annad asked. ‘Is he one of your friends from the other reality?’

  ‘A reluctant ally, perhaps. Hardly a friend.’

  ‘He’s from the reality where you sent Hayley Boyle?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  Annad stopped to blow his nose again, and to consult his notes. When he looked up, he changed the line of questioning. He was getting nowhere trying to trip Darragh up on the details of his imaginary world.

  ‘What was Hayley’s reaction to your intention to send her through to another reality?’

  Darragh shrugged. ‘She was sceptical, I’m sure, but she trusts Rónán, or she would not have voluntarily gone with him. Truth is, I hardly spoke to her, so I couldn’t say what her feelings were, one way or the other.’

  ‘How did she get away from St Christopher’s?’

  ‘Trása drove her back to the stone circle in Warren’s car.’

  ‘Trása?’ Annad consulted his notes again for a moment. ‘That’s the girl claiming to be Jack O’Righin’s granddaughter?’

  ‘Trása lied about that to gain access to Rónán through his neighbour,’ Darragh said. ‘She has no family in this realm. She’s half-Beansídhe. She is Amergin’s daughter.’

  Pete heard the door open behind him, and saw Brendá Duggan’s reflection coming toward him in the glass wall separating him from the interview.

  ‘How’s it going?’ she asked softly, not that they could hear or see them in the other room.

  ‘He’s talkative enough,’ Pete said. ‘But he’s really not telling us anything.’

  Brendá stared at Darragh and Dr Semaj for a moment before asking, ‘You’ve studied psychology. Do you think he’s crazy?’

  Pete shrugged. ‘There’s a way to go yet. He fits some of the criteria for paranoid schizophrenia. He seems to believe things about reality and the world around him nobody else believes. He claims he has magical powers in the other reality, and that he’s been betrayed by people plotting to remove him. But he’s lucid enough, and he doesn’t seem to have any trouble making himself understood, nor does he seem particularly bothered if we don’t believe him.’

  ‘What does Annad think?’

  ‘Don’t know yet. He’s only just started.’ Pete turned back to the interview to watch, with the inspector by his side.

  ‘Do you sometimes feel others are controlling what you think, what you feel?’ Annad was asking Darragh in the other room.

  The young man smiled as the doctor pulled another tissue from the box to blow his nose again. ‘I may not control my destiny, Doctor, but my will is my own. That I am here talking to you is proof of that.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘If others were controlling me, I would never have left my own realm,’ he said. ‘The Undivided really aren’t encouraged to go rift running.’

  ‘The Undivided?’ Brendá Duggan asked beside Pete. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s the title he claims to share with his twin brother.’

  ‘He has a title?’ she asked, raising her brow slightly. ‘Delusions of grandeur, too, eh? You’d better make certain he can’t wiggle out of this by pleading insanity, Pete.’

  ‘That’s what Annad’s doing here,’ Pete reminded her. ‘Don’t worry; if and when we charge him, we’ll make it stick.’
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br />   ‘Do you feel treated unfairly because others are jealous of your special abilities?’ Annad was asking Darragh in the interview room. Pete hadn’t heard the question before that because he was talking to Brendá. He’d have to check the recording later, to see what he missed.

  ‘See that you do,’ Brendá said, turning for the door. ‘Oh, before I forget, Logan just called me to ask if you could have the rest of the day off.’

  Pete turned to look at her. ‘Why?’

  ‘Not sure. He wants you to meet him at your grandmother’s place. I told him you would and that I wasn’t your secretary.’

  He smiled briefly. ‘Thanks, boss.’

  Duggan didn’t seem to want or need his thanks. ‘Just get this mess sorted before you go,’ she said with a scowl, pointing toward the interview room. ‘And as soon as he’s finished, send Annad back home and tell him I said not to come back until he’s well again. He’s going to give everyone in the building that wretched lurgy if he hangs about sneezing on everyone.’ With that unsympathetic decree she left the observation room, leaving Pete to continue watching Annad Semaj interviewing Darragh, curious about what his brother wanted, and why he hadn’t simply contacted him directly.

  God, he thought, with a sudden stab of despair. He’s not going to get engaged to that model is he?

  It was bad enough not being as visibly successful as his brother. He’d never hear the end of it if Logan got married first. Particularly if he married somebody their mother had set him up with.

  Whatever Logan wanted, it could wait. Right now, he had other problems and they all began and ended with Darragh of the Undivided.

  ‘Do you sometimes find it difficult to express yourself in words that others can understand?’ Annad was asking the young man.

  Darragh shook his head. ‘Quite the opposite. Like all Druids, I have a gift for languages. And language.’

  ‘So you’re a Druid?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Do you ever worry you can’t trust what you’re thinking because you don’t know if it’s real or not?’