Authors: Jennifer Fallon
Brydie wasn’t sure if Torcán appreciated what his mother was telling him, but she did. This power transfer taking place on
Lughnasadh
with one and perhaps both of the Undivided missing might fail, and if it did, then the Treaty of
Tír Na nÓg
would be void and that could mean more than the end of the Druids.
Could there be a way to circumvent the treaty, and the obligations that went with it, yet still retain the magic?
Is that what the
Matrarchaí
was working toward?
Is
that
why you sent me to Darragh’s bed, Álmhath?
It was all very intriguing, Brydie decided, although the irony of having such a bird’s-eye view of the inner circle of Álmhath’s court only because she had been cursed while carrying out the orders of her queen was not lost on Brydie.
She sat down and crossed her legs. If she was going to witness the schemes and manoeuvrings of Álmhath’s court she might as well get comfortable.
There was, after all, nothing else for her to do.
As she lay in wait for Warren to appear in the backyard of his home bordering the Castle Golf Club, Sorcha pondered the matter of whether or not to thank the goddess for her bounty. Had she been hiding in this tree, waiting for a hind or hare to happen along, she would not have questioned the need to thank the goddess. But she wasn’t going to kill Warren for food so there was no point in thanking
Danú
for her bounty. She was not going to kill him in battle, so there would be nothing noble or heroic about his death. She would kill him for one reason only — to fulfil her oath to Ciarán to protect Rónán of the Undivided — difficult now that Rónán was no longer even in this realm, but still needed her protection.
Rónán was gone, but Darragh remained. The people of this realm would not understand that Darragh was not his brother and Rónán’s crimes would be blamed on him. If he were caught in this realm, he would be punished for them.
Sorcha did not share Darragh’s blind faith in his twin. The Rónán she had observed was a conflicted, confused and spoiled young man. Having been in the realm where he was raised for almost a week now, Sorcha was beginning to understand how he got that way, but she wasn’t convinced he was as reliable or as honourable as Darragh believed. If
he was, they would be gone from here by now. If Rónán was even half the man his brother believed him to be, why hadn’t he opened a rift for them immediately after the other rift had closed so unexpectedly? Or ordered Ciarán to do it for him, if he didn’t know how?
For that matter, if Ciarán was able to open a rift, why hadn’t he done it himself? He didn’t need Rónán’s permission. He was strong enough, and had the required jewel to open it. There was no reason for him not to do it.
Rónán was alive, obviously. Darragh still lived, which meant somewhere in their own realm, Rónán was still drawing breath. Was he incapacitated in some way? A prisoner, perhaps? Was Ciarán also a prisoner?
Had Rónán taken the opportunity to seize the power of the Undivided for himself?
Eighty-five years had taught Sorcha to believe the worst of men, rather than be disappointed by expecting them to do the right thing. She had no way of knowing if she and Darragh had been stranded here because of fair deeds or foul, so she had to do the only thing she could. Protect Rónán and his brother, Darragh, until she knew for certain — one way or another — that Rónán had betrayed her.
To do that, she needed to act. She needed to eliminate all threats to the young men she had sworn to protect.
Right now, that meant killing the man whose car they had stolen from the Castle Golf Club when they arrived in this realm. The man in whose house they had sheltered. The man who could identify Jack O’Righin as the one who had aided them in their quest to find Hayley Boyle, and through him, lead the authorities to Darragh.
And if it turned out that in their own reality, Rónán had betrayed her and his brother? Well, she would take care of that problem when she got home.
If he
had
betrayed them, Rónán would regret it some day soon. Sorcha would see to that.
Sorcha shifted a little in her perch. The bark of the tree pressed into her face, making it itch a little. It annoyed her that she was itching. There was a time she could have lain along a branch waiting for her quarry like this for days without being bothered in the slightest, but since coming to this world, she seemed to be losing her battle fitness. Her joints ached. Her muscles felt as if they were wasting. In the chilly darkness, as she watched Warren and his family through the window having dinner in the kitchen of their home, she wondered whether it was the polluted air in this reality or the lack of magic making her feel so … old.
Warren and his family were seated at the counter eating food out of cardboard containers with chopsticks, laughing at something on the wall-mounted television that was out of Sorcha’s line of sight. She knew they were watching the television. Their attention was locked on that corner of the room and the reflected flickering light from the screen painted interesting shadows on the windows. His wife was a tall, thin woman, his daughter in the first blush of womanhood and his son — a sullen young man with unnaturally black hair — was more interested in some device he was holding in his hands than in the rest of the family.
Further along the street, the lights were coming on in the neighbouring houses, where other families were settling down for their evening meal. Behind Sorcha lay the vast dark expanse of the golf course, silent and pristine here at this end away from the carnage Rónán and his companions had wreaked a couple of nights ago. Even the lights from the clubhouse were not visible from here. In the houses either side of Warren’s house, there were no lights on upstairs yet, which meant it was likely there was nobody in those rooms overlooking this house, and therefore nobody looking down into Warren’s backyard.
Sorcha turned back to study the family. She hoped she wouldn’t have to kill them all. Warren was the only one she needed to silence, perhaps the wife if he’d said anything to her. Sorcha was guessing he hadn’t. There seemed to be little or no tension between the couple. She would have expected them to be behaving in a rather more strained and uneasy manner if he’d just confessed he’d allowed a naked
Beansídhe
to take his car and sleep in his home, harboured a wanted man and spent an afternoon in a massage parlour with an infamous terrorist.
She needed Warren to come out into the yard, although she was not sure how she was going to coax him out of the house. If he didn’t come out soon, she would have to go in after him. Every time the telephone rang, it might be somebody asking about his car. Without her even knowing about it, someone might be arriving any moment at the front door, to ask Warren what he knew about the people who had stolen his car. Time was Sorcha’s enemy and she knew she had to act soon, or not at all.
If it came to ‘not at all’ then everything would be lost.
But just as she was ready to despair that Warren was never going to leave the house, he climbed to his feet and tossed his cardboard food containers into a drawstring plastic bag that his wife had retrieved from a container in the corner with a lid that cleverly opened when she pressed on a pedal at the base. His wife tied the bag off and handed it to her husband. With a grimace, Warren pushed himself off his seat and headed for the back door.
Finally!
Sorcha swung forward and lowered herself silently to the ground. She landed and dropped into a crouch, stunned by how much her knees jarred on impact. She bit back a cry of surprised pain, hoping her stillness and the shadows under the tree would render her invisible. Warren opened the door, closed it and walked to a tall plastic bin on wheels lined up against the back wall of the house.
Sorcha shadowed him, easing the long-bladed kitchen carving knife from the side of her boot. She’d found the weapon in Jack’s kitchen drawer, and was impressed by the strength of the metal and the keenness of the blade. One slice would be all it needed to slit Warren’s throat.
Warren disposed of the plastic bag then glanced over his shoulder toward the kitchen, checking he was unobserved. Curious, Sorcha waited for a moment as he moved out of the light of the kitchen windows and leaned against the wall. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He took a cigarette from the pack and a match flared, lighting his face momentarily.
His wife doesn’t know he does this
, Sorcha realised, smiling to herself. Warren had more than his fair share of guilty secrets.
He drew on the cigarette until the tip glowed red, and sighed contentedly, leaned back and closed his eyes as he inhaled the smoke.
That was the chance Sorcha was waiting for. Silent as the smoke curling from the tip of his cigarette, she ran the short distance from the shadow of the tree to the shadow of the house where Warren was enjoying his guilty pleasure. She was on him before he opened his eyes, not giving him a chance to cry out before she slashed the blade across his prominent Adam’s apple. A spray of warm blood drenched Sorcha as she caught the body and quietly eased it to the ground so he made no noise when he fell. The cigarette hissed, and was extinguished in his blood. Warren’s eyes were wide with shock and recognition as he realised who it was who had attacked him and a moment later, the life in his eyes was extinguished.
Sorcha glanced over her shoulder toward the kitchen. Nothing was amiss. Warren’s wife was moving about, the children out of sight from this angle. Warren probably hadn’t been gone long enough for his wife to notice he was missing.
It was time to be gone from here, but Sorcha was soaked in Warren’s blood. She could not move about in this realm like that. She quickly peeled off the clothes she was wearing until she was naked, ignoring the bitter chill of the evening. She dropped the clothes beside the body, wondering what the authorities would make of them, given they had been stolen from his son’s wardrobe. She fled, at a crouching run, toward the house next door. There was washing on the clothesline and an ornamental fishpond in the yard next door where she could wash off the blood. She had to be quick as someone might come looking for Warren any minute. If she was discovered, there was no explanation she could offer. She could say nothing that wouldn’t make things infinitely worse.
The clothes from the house next door were too big for her, but they would have to do. The dress she stole was floral and meant for someone much older, and there’d been a ratty knitted cardigan on the line next to the dress, so she took that against the chill, even though it was already damp with the falling dew. She slipped out of the yard and down the driveway of the next house where she emerged onto the street, just in time to hear a high-pitched scream of horror as someone — Warren’s wife or daughter — discovered the body.
Danú
take your soul, Warren
, she prayed silently as she walked away from the house as if nothing was amiss.
May your sacrifice be worthy of the cost. May Arawn find you a cosy place in hell.
Warren was taken care of. Now Sorcha needed to make certain Darragh returned home, so that his death was not wasted.
If it had been up to some of Pete’s older colleagues in the NBCI, half an hour alone in a small room with Ren Kavanaugh’s twin would have given them all the information they needed. Pete didn’t actually disagree with that. He was quite sure someone like old Frank Murphy, the longest serving member of the squad, would have emerged with the location of Hayley Boyle in no time at all, if nobody was really worried about the condition the boy would be in, once he had it.
Fortunately for the young man in question, there were rules against that sort of thing, and for anybody who’d bothered to look at the stats, they knew it didn’t work anyway. There would be no police brutality in Brendá Duggan’s squad. Not only had she forbidden Frank Murphy and everyone else — including Pete — to question the boy, she’d brought in a civilian to do it for them. One Dr Murray Symes, the shrink who’d been treating Ren for most of his teens.
The same guy who ran Hayley Boyle down in the first place.
Frank shook his head and muttered to himself about the foolishness of it all. Pete was in complete agreement — the first time he and Frank had ever agreed on anything. He was livid. It was, to his mind, the stupidest idea he’d ever heard of.
‘Symes knows Ren Kavanaugh intimately,’ Brendá Duggan informed Pete when he charged into her office to object.
‘That kid is
not
Ren Kavanaugh,’ Pete said.
‘You can’t prove he isn’t, Pete.’
‘The tattoo is on the wrong hand.’
‘His mother swears that boy is her son. I’m afraid her opinion trumps your concussion.’
Pete was fighting a losing battle on that point, so he abandoned it for the moment. ‘You’re not seriously going to let Symes talk to the kid, are you? You’re handing them an insanity plea on a platter.’
Duggan didn’t seem to be in the mood to discuss it. ‘Hayley Boyle has been missing for five days. You know the stats, Pete. If we don’t find her soon we’re not going to find her at all. In case you hadn’t noticed, the world is going to hell in a hand basket right about now. I’m going to lose half my manpower to anti-terrorist units by the end of the day. I’ve already had the commissioner on the phone about it. We don’t have the time to coax the truth out of this kid, and I’m not ready to let Frank Murphy beat it out of him. Symes can tell when the boy is lying. He knows how to push the kid’s buttons. He’ll get the truth faster than we will and time is of the essence.’
‘How can he be impartial? Is it even legal? Does Ren’s mother know about this? And what about her lawyer? Surely she isn’t going to allow it?’
‘His mother
suggested
it,’ Duggan told him. ‘Can’t say I blame her, either. Kiva Kavanaugh is in damage control. If Hayley Boyle turns up dead, we could go her as an accessory after the fact for hiding the boy. She’s in the mood to be very cooperative, and I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.’