The Dark Divide

by Jennifer Fallon

  ‘For not notifying us immediately,’ Teagan added, ‘of the arrival of the Matrarchaí envoy — for trying to hide their presence and gain personal advantage from an envoy to the Imperial court, Namito of the Ikushima is required to publicly commit Seppuku, upon which time, and with his blood, he will wash away this dreadful stain on his family’s honour. Do you willingly offer your life to us, Daimyo of the Ikushima clan?’

  Before Rónán could say anything, Delphine leaned forward and asked Teagan something he couldn’t hear. The little girl nodded and then glanced around. ‘Where is our honoured envoy?’

  The twins had obviously not been informed that Rónán and Trása were imposters.

  Nobody answered the little Empress. She glanced at her sister and then at Delphine. ‘Perhaps Renkavana is waiting for you at the rifuto stones, my lady?’

  Delphine’s expression, when she heard Ren’s name, was quite unexpected. She looked genuinely surprised. ‘Ren Kavanaugh? Did you say the envoy’s name was Ren Kavanaugh?’

  ‘Surely you know that?’ Isleen said, looking confused.

  Delphine looked up, her eyes scanning the crowd. She knows my name, Rónán realised, wondering how that could be. She’s heard of Ren Kavanaugh.

  It was the last thing Rónán expected. Was it possible that Delphine came from, or had passed through, the reality he’d just left?

  And if she knew the way back there, perhaps it wasn’t such a bright idea to kill her.

  No sooner than the thought occurred to Rónán than the matter was taken out of his hands as a horse galloped down the corridor formed by the two lines of torch-bearing samurai. Rónán turned to find Namito bearing down on him, katana waving, shouting something about defiling the honour of the Ikushima.

  Chaos erupted as the samurai lining the path realised their Daimyo was not standing before the Empresses on the podium, ready to restore their honour with his life, but galloping past them, dressed in his undergarments. The Tanabe samurai reacted predictably enough to the fury of the Ikushima troops, mistaking Namito’s mad dash toward the podium as an attack on the Empresses. Realising that whatever the lesser Youkai had done to secure Namito, it hadn’t been sufficient, Rónán turned back to face Delphine as the metallic ringing of scores of swords were unsheathed behind him. The Matrarchaí doyen took barely a fraction of a second to realise what was going on and turned her attention to Rónán.

  Figuring his disguise was pointless now, he tore the heavy kabuto from his head and tossed it on the ground, just as Delphine hit him in the centre of his chest with an invisible sledgehammer blow. Rónán was thrown backwards and almost trampled under the hooves of Namito’s mount who was dancing about, riderless now, trying to get free of the mêlée.

  Rónán struggled to sit up as Delphine stepped down from the podium. Behind her, Wakiko was gathering up her daughters and hurrying them out of harm’s way. The tall blonde woman accompanying Delphine moved to block her way.

  Without so much as blinking, Wakiko pulled an ebony-hilted kaiken from her obi and slashed it across the woman’s throat in a spray of blood that spattered her daughters and set them to screaming as the woman collapsed at their feet. When Chishihero tried to stop her, she stabbed the Konketsu magician as well, just as efficiently and remorselessly. Rónán didn’t see what happened to either Wakiko or the Empresses after that, because Delphine was blocking his view.

  She raised her hand and slammed Rónán into the ground again with another magical blow that drove the air from his lungs. ‘This is what I get for a moment of compassion,’ she said, staring down at him.

  ‘Wha …?’ Rónán gasped, wondering why he’d ever been stupid enough to think he could take this woman on. He tried to gather his strength, to marshal his power, but he couldn’t breathe, let alone challenge this woman to a magical battle.

  ‘I should have let you drown,’ she said, looking down at him with disgust. ‘And clearly, I should never have left you in the care of such an incompetent guardian.’

  Rónán had no idea what she was talking about. He assumed it was something to do with his arrival in the other realm when he was a toddler — the only time in his life he had come close to drowning. Did this woman have something to do with Kiva? Pushing himself up on his elbows, he wondered if he could even get to his feet without her slamming him into the nearest wall.

  ‘Who … the fuck … are you … lady?’ he asked, as he managed to sit up. The air rang with the sound of blade on blade but Delphine filled his vision. And his thoughts. He knew the Ikushima and the Tanabe warriors were trying to kill each other all around them, but he had no chance to worry about it.

  ‘Someone you are foolish beyond reasoning to think you could challenge,’ she informed him, apparently not threatened at all by the battle going on about them. ‘Even if you did survive Lughnasadh.’

  How does she know that?

  ‘Wakiko is a fool,’ Delphine continued, sounding annoyed rather than angry as she stepped even closer. ‘And you are a fool for listening to her.’

  Still trying to drag air into his lungs, Rónán scuttled along the ground backwards, hoping to escape her, certain beyond doubt that she was about to kill him and then turn her irritation upon everyone else in the compound.

  ‘What did she tell you?’ Delphine asked, her voice laden with scorn. ‘That I was evil incarnate? Did she mention the good the Matrarchaí have done? The worlds we have cleansed of the stinking sídhe so that humanity may have access to the magic the filthy Faerie hoard so selfishly to themselves?’

  Delphine raised her hand again to deliver what Rónán was sure must be the killing blow. The movement gave him time, however, to grab the kaiken he carried at his waist. Smiling, Delphine looked down at the pitiful weapon he carried, stepping so close she was standing over him. ‘Is that the best you can do, little man?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Rónán said, as he stabbed the blade into her foot so hard it went right through and buried the tip in the wooden geta she was wearing, ‘less is more.’

  Delphine screamed as the blade pierced her foot, but it wasn’t the pain of a relatively minor stab wound that tore the agonising bellow from her. She went rigid, and so did Rónán, as the airgead sídhe blade with its wrought-silver hilt connected them as if the magical metal closed a circuit between them.

  With a rush so intense Rónán could barely contain his own agonising screams, the blade created an identical sensation to the Comhroinn he had shared with his brother. But this was no controlled sharing of memories and knowledge — this was darkness and horror. It was a sudden rush of memories and secrets of a woman whose life was being forcibly drained from her. Rónán clung to the blade with grim determination. Although it had only gone through her foot, the link between them was complete. He hadn’t known it beforehand, but he realised now that he must see this to the bitter end. He couldn’t let go.

  The magical link shredded his soul, buffeted his senses, tore at his very core, but he hung on until he felt Delphine’s life force inexorably fading. He hung on until he felt the light in her flicker and die and she collapsed on the ground beside him, her open eyes staring into the distance, as if she was looking into the afterlife and didn’t particularly like what she saw there.

  Only then, with a head full of Delphine’s knowledge and memories, did Rónán release his grip on the airgead sídhe blade, so he could let the darkness embrace him and take away the pain.

  CHAPTER 61

  Trása waited until she could no longer hear the horses before she turned her attention back to the prisoners Kiba had been set to guard. They were beginning to regain consciousness and becoming aware, she guessed, of just exactly how unpleasant a Brionglóid Gorm headache could be. She studied them for a time, curious. Delphine had said they were Undivided raised unaware of their power. That made them just like Rónán.

  What will happen, she wondered, when they realise what they’re capable of, here in this realm drenched in magic?

  ‘Logan …’ the man
wearing the jeans, leather jacket and the Nikes groaned, as his eyes — the only part of him besides his mouth that Delphine’s magical bond had left him free to move — fixed on the dog standing guard over them. ‘You okay?’

  ‘Some bastard’s … buried an axe … in my skull,’ the one named Logan moaned. He was marginally better dressed than his brother, with a sports jacket over his jeans and expensive boots. ‘But I can’t … move a muscle. How about you, Pete?’

  The one named Pete didn’t seem to be able to take his eyes off Kiba. ‘I can’t move either,’ he said. ‘And ditto on the headache. You think that dog’s going to kill us?’

  ‘Only if we move.’

  ‘Well, that’s not a problem then.’

  ‘Jesus … my head is splitting.’

  Trása wondered if she should do something about that. With a thought, she could resume her true form and cure their headaches. For that matter, she could release them, too. But she didn’t know enough about these strange men to know if that was a smart move or the dumbest thing she might ever contemplate.

  ‘Are we tripping on something?’ Pete asked. ‘Last thing I remember, we were in Chicago, in Mum’s office in the Sears Tower, going through her files.’

  ‘Turns out she’s not our mother,’ Logan replied. ‘I remember that much.’

  Trása sat down, deciding to do nothing for the time being. While the brothers thought they were alone, they would talk freely. She figured she’d learn more about them this way than releasing them and giving them the opportunity to lie about who they were and where they came from.

  ‘We’re tripping on something,’ Pete concluded. ‘This has to be a bad dream. All this bullshit about alternate realities and the Undivided … that’s my subconscious playing tricks on me after reading too many transcripts of Darragh talking with Annad.’

  ‘Yeah?’ his brother asked, unconvinced. ‘So how come I’m sharing the same trip?’

  Pete was silent for a moment and then said, ‘I’m still working on that bit.’

  Trása dropped to her haunches, intrigued by these young men. They were in their late twenties, perhaps thirty at a pinch. If they were the eileféin of Rónán and Darragh, they shared little in the way of physical characteristics, other than the same dark hair and blue eyes. She didn’t think she was looking at exact copies though, maybe a somewhat older version of the youths she knew. Given the infinite number of realities and the bloodlines the Matrarchaí had obviously been fostering, it was unlikely they shared similar blood.

  But they were Undivided. They just didn’t know it yet.

  ‘You got any bright ideas about getting us out of this mess, little brother?’ Logan asked, his eyes closing as he spoke, as if it hurt to even mouth the words. ‘I’d help with a plan, but I think my brains have leaked out of my skull — no functioning brain could possibly hurt this fucking much.’

  ‘I can’t think either …’ Pete agreed. ‘Christ. Whatever it was we’ve been hit with, this is one seriously bad trip.’

  Trása was getting annoyed by Pete’s insistence he was caught in a drug-induced nightmare. It was not an uncommon reaction among those inadvertently dragged across realities they previously didn’t realise existed, but until the brothers overcame that pointless rationalisation, they couldn’t begin to come to grips with the new reality in which they now found themselves.

  ‘Maybe we’re not tripping,’ Logan suggested. ‘Maybe this is real.’

  There you go, Trása said, although it came out as a short sharp bark. That’s the spirit!

  ‘That beast looks awfully hungry,’ Pete said, his eyes still fixed on Kiba. ‘Do you suppose they feed it on small children while they’re training it?’

  ‘That beast is the least of our problems,’ Logan groaned. ‘Do you think if we asked nicely, it’d kill me? At least then I’d be rid of this fucking headache.’

  It must have been Kiba’s canine instincts overruling her compassion, but Trása felt herself drawn to Pete rather than Logan. He seemed to be the stronger one. He was the one complaining the least, at any rate.

  As the rising moon bathed the stone circle in moonlight, Trása turned to Pete, eyeing him closely for the first time. When she got a really good look at him for the first time, she realised, with a jolt so sharp she inadvertently resumed her true form, that she knew this man. She’d seen him before.

  It was the cop who’d chased Rónán all over St Christopher’s Visual Rehabilitation Centre.

  Both Pete and Logan let out a yell of surprise as, without warning, the mastiff guarding them morphed into a naked girl. Trása didn’t notice or particularly care. These men came from the realm they’d left Darragh in, which meant Delphine, when she returned through the rift, would be opening a doorway into the very realm they needed.

  Without that knowledge, even with a jewel or an ori mahou spell, they might spend years trying to find the right reality again.

  And right now, Delphine was riding into an ambush, from which Wakiko was determined she would not survive.

  They had a way home. But only if Delphine lived and could be prevailed upon to return to it.

  Trása glanced up at the sky. The moon was almost at its zenith. Back at the Tanabe compound, Delphine would be arriving with Chishihero and Trephina. Rónán, disguised in Namito’s full samurai regalia was waiting, katana in hand, to give the signal which would set the Ikushima onto the Tanabe troops.

  The plan was to kill Delphine, the unsuspecting Trephina and hopefully Chishihero in the ensuing mêlée. With the Matrarchaí cut off from this realm, Wakiko would then be free to take her daughters in hand and steer them away from the moral precipice Delphine was driving them toward. There would be no unlocking of the Comhroinn. No more mass-murdering of the Youkai in this realm. With their mother guiding them, instead of the Empresses creating a magical world free of any Faerie, the girls could set things to rights. Even with most of the Youkai gone, there were still the lesser Youkai to protect. As one of the Tuatha Dé Danann, Trása was as compelled to protect them — even in another reality — as much as she would have been if they were lesser sídhe in her own reality.

  It had seemed like such a good idea when Wakiko’s plan was the only way out of here. Never, even for a fleeting moment, did it occur to Rónán or Trása that Delphine would cross into this reality from the one they had just left.

  Trása was torn, not knowing whether to morph into the fastest bird she could imagine so she could fly to the Tanabe compound to warn Rónán he must keep Delphine alive, because through her, they might have a way to rescue Darragh, or to do nothing and let the ambush play out as it was meant to, thereby saving the remaining Youkai of this realm.

  ‘Trása!’ Pete shouted, as she dragged her attention back to the immediate problem of what to do with Rónán and Darragh’s eileféin. ‘Oh, my God! You’re Trása, right? Jack O’Righin’s granddaughter?’

  She looked at him oddly for a moment, wondering why he would call her that, and then realised that in his world, her imaginary relationship to the old man who lived next door to Rónán was all he knew about her. She nodded and squatted down between the brothers.

  ‘I can make your pain go away,’ she said. ‘And then, if you promise not to do anything stupid, rash or … violent, I will release you.’

  ‘Sweetheart, if you can make this headache go away,’ Logan groaned, ‘you can have my firstborn child.’

  Trása frowned. ‘Lucky I know you’re joking,’ she said, placing a hand on his forehead. ‘I’ve met the firstborn of some Undivided and they’re no fun, let me tell you.’

  Logan’s face relaxed as his headache vanished. He sighed blissfully. ‘Whoever said there is no more euphoric feeling than the sudden cessation of great pain, knew what he was talking about.’

  She repeated the same gesture on Pete, drawing the pain of his Brionglóid Gorm headache away. He stared at her the whole time, his eyes full of suspicion. ‘How did you do that?’

  ‘Magic, of course,’
she said. ‘How else?’

  ‘That’s bullshit.’

  ‘Suit yourself. It’s not like Santa Claus. You don’t have to believe in it, for it to work.’

  Pete scowled at her. He really was a suspicious, untrusting sort of fellow. ‘Can you really free us from this … this …’

  ‘Go on,’ she prompted. ‘Say it.’

  ‘Magic spell holding us down,’ Logan said, not waiting for his brother. ‘Let us up. Please.’

  Trása smiled briefly at Logan and then rose to her feet. ‘Your brother has better manners than you do,’ she said to Pete, and then, taking a step back, she waved her arm, releasing the magical bonds that held the two men down.

  Free of Delphine’s magical bindings, they scrambled to their feet and looked about them, uncertain about what to do next.

  ‘Where are we?’ Pete asked, taking in the stone circle and the trees beyond with a disbelieving glare.

  ‘Do you mean geographically, or in what reality?’

  ‘There’s a difference?’ Logan asked, looking around. His gaze finally settled on Trása and he slipped off his jacket, holding it out to her. ‘Aren’t you cold?’

  Trása had been too busy to notice the crisp night air, but now Logan mentioned it, she was cold. She was also aware he was probably offering her the jacket because she was naked. The men from Rónán’s reality were oddly shy when unexpectedly confronted with a naked Faerie.

  She smiled her thanks. ‘Of course there’s a difference,’ she said, slipping the jacket on, grateful for its warmth, ‘but right now, I don’t have time to explain it to you. I have to decide between saving the lesser Youkai of this realm, or Darragh in the realm you just came from.’ She glanced up at the moon. ‘I may already be too late.’