Reunion Read online

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 6

  Part 2

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 16

  Part 3

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 38

  Part 4

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 50

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  Prologue

  Pete wasn't expecting his home reality to be so ... white.

  He'd imagined any number of scenes when they finally found this realm: the rolling green hills of Ireland were what he'd been expecting, but not necessarily the Ireland he knew. Perhaps a world where faerie roamed free and the air sang with magic, like it did in the reality they'd just come from - an odd reality where the rulers of Ireland were feudal Japanese lords answerable to a couple of precocious ten-year-old girls who seemed more Scandinavian than Oriental.

  He wasn't expecting snow and ice, as far as the eye could see. "Where are we, exactly?"

  Logan shrugged, looking about in bewilderment. Pete turned to the young man who'd brought them here. He was dressed in a loose cotton yabagin, the marrow-freezing cold not touching him through the magical shield of warmth he had, in fact, woven around the three of them.

  Ren's expression was grim as he studied the barren snowscape. "I think it's Hawaii."

  "That's a glacier over there."

  "Clearly they're not having problems with global warming, then," Logan quipped, flashing his brother a quick grin. "There's magic here, though. I can feel it."

  "It's fading," Ren said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Magic needs living things to sustain it. This world is dead."

  "We don't know that for certain."

  "This is the fourth stone circle we've tried, Logan. They've all been the same. No sun, no life, just snow and ice."

  "Maybe there are other, warmer places ..."

  "We're virtually standing on the Equator. Where do you suppose it's going to be any warmer?"

  "What did this?" Pete asked. He directed the question at Ren and it wasn't rhetorical. This was the world from which Delphine had stolen Pete and his twin brother as babies. She had planned to use them as breeding stock for the Matrarchaí, while ensuring they were ignorant of their heritage. She thought they would never learn that they were powerful sorcerers in their own right, because they were Undivided. They only lacked the magical tattoo on their palms which would make them capable of sharing their magic with other human sorcerers, as well as wielding it themselves.

  Then Ren and Darragh had happened along, and nobody's life had been the same since. Especially now that Ren had all of Delphine's memories, so he had the answers the others wanted. Ren had shared some of her surface memories through the Comhroinn, but the really meaty stuff that Pete and Logan were interested in was hoarded almost jealously by Ren. He claimed Delphine's memories were too hard to sort out, therefore too hard to isolate and reveal in the Comhroinn, the Druid magic mind sharing that was more art than magic.

  Pete knew that some things Ren learned from his Comhroinn with Delphine were near the surface and so could be easily accessed and shared. Other things were hidden, requiring Ren to delve far deeper. His reluctance to do so annoyed Pete, who believed the answers to all their questions were hidden in Ren's mind. It was selfish of Ren to deny them answers, just because the memories were unwanted and he was afraid of a little bit of a headache.

  "Hey, did you hear me?"

  Ren was staring off into space. There was a blank look on his face suggesting he was either bored, or lost in the memories he'd accessed to bring them to this place.

  "Kavanaugh?" Logan looked at Ren with concern. When Ren didn't answer he turned to Pete. "Is he usually this annoying?"

  "Yes," Pete said. He stepped up to Ren and snapped his fingers in front of the young man's face. "Hey! Wizard boy! Snap out of it!"

  Ren blinked and fixed his gaze on Pete. "You should be dead."

  "Yeah, pity about that. Now why don't you -"

  "You should both be dead," Ren said, casting his eyes over Logan as if Pete hadn't spoken. "I cannot permit you to live, knowing what you are. You were never meant to gain this self-knowledge."

  "Ren?" Pete said.

  "I don't think that's Ren any longer," Logan said, as the air about them suddenly chilled. Ren - or whoever it was - had dropped the warming shield.

  "Delphine?" Pete's breath frosted as he asked the question, afraid he already knew the answer. This was what Ren had feared. He wasn't skilled enough to hold back the memories he carried. Pete shivered, and not entirely because of the cold.

  "I was prepared to let you live ordinary lives," Ren said, although it was clear the words were not his. This was Delphine, just before she died. Before Ren killed her. The Delphine who was able to justify the murder of two men she had raised as her own sons. "But you just couldn't help poking your nose in where it wasn't needed, could you? I told you I was safe. You should have left it at that."

  With the preternatural instincts of identical twins, Pete knew that if he could distract Ren long enough, Logan would be able to get around behind him. Pete didn't know what it would take to shake Delphine loose from Ren's mind, but he was pretty sure that neither he nor Logan understood their newfound magical abilities enough to counter someone as powerful as Ren - souped up as he was with Delphine's centuries of knowledge about how to use that power.

  "Who'd have thought some mundane little terrorist attack that had nothing to do with the Matrarchaí would interfere with your plans to rule the world?"

  Ren raised his hand and Pete started to choke, as if his windpipe was being crushed by an invisible hand. "How dare you mock me? After all I've done for you. And for your information, the Matrarchaí has much bigger plans than just ruling one world."

  Pete couldn't breathe. He collapsed to his knees, wondering where Logan was. He didn't have much time, he knew, before the memories of Delphine that were possessing Ren crushed the very life out of him.

  "Ren ..." he gasped with his last breath, appealing to the young man who owned this power crushing the life from him. Surely Ren could fight back? He wouldn't have surrendered willingly ...

  And Logan ... where was Logan?

  In answer to his question, he saw his brother fly past him and land heavily aga
inst the bole of a dead, snow-covered palm tree. Pete couldn't tell if he was unconscious or dead. He just knew there'd be no help coming from that direction.

  If he was going to survive this, he needed to get Ren back. But he was already starting to black out. Desperately, he groped around on the snow-covered ground until his hands closed over the closest thing he had to a weapon. The rock he found was rough and cold. Pete scooped it up and smashed it down onto Ren's foot, the only part of him he could still focus on.

  Ren cried out in pain and the pressure eased on Pete's throat. He staggered to his feet and lurched at Ren, driving his fist into his solar plexus with the full weight of his body behind him. They crashed to the ground. Pete landed on top on Ren and raised the rock, ready to crush Ren's skull if that's what it was going to take to shake Delphine loose from his mind.

  "No! Pete! It's me!"

  Pete hesitated, the rock still raised above his head. He sat astride Ren, who was staring up at him with genuine fear. The arrogance of Delphine was gone.

  "How do I know it's you?"

  "Delphine wouldn't be talking to you. She'd go back to killing you."

  Cautiously, Pete lowered the rock. "Are you sure she's gone?"

  Ren nodded.

  "What happened?"

  "I did what you asked, Pete. I tried to access her memories. Next thing I know, I was Delphine. Are you going to let me up?"

  "Maybe." Pete glanced across the snow-covered stone circle to where Logan lay, relieved see him groaning as he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. He turned back to Ren. "Can you stop her doing that again?"

  Ren shrugged. "I think so. Darragh knew how to do it. I'd have to lock down her memories, though, and everything she knows will get locked down with it."

  "Small price to pay if it means you're not going to go postal on us without warning."

  Logan staggered over to them, studying his brother - sitting astride Ren and still clutching the rock - with a puzzled expression. "Is that Ren?"

  "For the moment," Pete assured his brother and then turned back to Ren. "Do it."

  "Now?"

  "You ever want to leave this realm?"

  Ren nodded and closed his eyes. Pete could feel him drawing from the faded magic of this world and then, after a few moments, he opened his eyes. "It's done."

  "How can we be sure?" Logan asked.

  "Because as soon as we get back to the ninja reality, we're going to hand him over to Trása and she can make sure it's done."

  "Do you trust Trása to do that?"

  "I trust her to want her boyfriend to stay alive," Pete said, climbing to his feet, "because if he goes Delphine on us again, we're going to have to kill him." He reached down and offered Ren his hand. "You okay with that?"

  Ren nodded as Pete pulled him to his feet. "You're not staying here, then? This realm is your home."

  "What's to stay for?" Logan asked, looking around.

  "Besides," Pete said, "Delphine said the Matrarchaí has much bigger plans than ruling the world. I think we need to find out what she meant by that."

  Chapter 1

  The would-be bank robber entered the bank, stopping to look up at the security camera long enough for his image to be captured clearly. He wanted no mistake made about his identity. It was important the authorities knew who he was, important there be no question of his guilt.

  The wickedly sharp boning knife he'd stolen from a hardware store yesterday remained concealed by the long sleeve of his jacket, the hilt firmly in his grasp. The guard on the entrance - a young man in his thirties with a paunch and a neatly trimmed ginger beard - barely glanced at him as he walked through the door, assuming, like everybody else, he was just another customer.

  A flicker of doubt made the robber pause for a moment, although to the casual observer he probably appeared to be deciding nothing more important than where he needed to go in order to take care of his banking business.

  Is there another way?

  Is this really what it has come to?

  He had other options. He could return home, back to his own realm. He had a magic-infused talisman tucked in the pocket of his jacket that would allow him to scry out someone in his own reality and arrange for them to open a rift.

  But he hadn't taken that option in more than three years.

  What would he tell the Tuatha Dé Danann Brethren?

  No, this is the better way.

  Unfortunately, to be convicted of a crime serious enough to be sent to Portlaoise, a simple bank robbery would not be enough. There must be violence involved, although he balked at the idea of a cold-blooded killing just to serve his own ends, no matter how noble he believed those ends to be. He'd realized some time ago it would serve his purposes to maim a few people. There was no need for unnecessary death.

  There was another quirk of this realm that he had often puzzled over - the bizarre concept of a war on terror. The phrase made no sense to him, but he soon figured out that while it was absurd to declare war on an idea or a feeling, the notion would serve his purpose well. When they arrested him for robbing the bank, he intended to inform the Gardaí that he was raising funds for Al Qaeda.

  He only had the barest notion of what an Al Qaeda was, but it seemed to occupy the minds of many politicians and much of the news media in this realm, and - so he'd gathered from watching television - it was an insidious enough force that he would be roundly condemned for supporting it and, almost certainly, sent to prison if he was in any way associated with it.

  But first, he had to rob this bank, something else he'd been researching on television.

  He glanced around again, but nobody spared him as much as a glance. The people here were all intent on their own business. The tellers were busy serving their customers. The guard by the front door seemed to be counting the minutes until his lunch break. Near the counter a mother waited in line with a fussy toddler who was in no mood to wait for anything, and many of the bank's customers were glaring at the woman as if their silent disapproval would somehow spur her to greater efforts in controlling her unruly two-year-old. Others were ignoring the loud child, talking into cell phones or doing inexplicable things with their thumbs on the small devices. But one man did more than glare. As the robber studied the layout of the bank, the annoyed man lowered his cell phone, turned to the mother of the toddler and asked loudly, "Can't you keep that brat under control?"

  The woman looked mortified. She gathered her child to her, but the youngster ignored her attempts to quiet him, squirming and crying even more loudly. With an angry glare, the man resumed his call, while others just looked away, embarrassed for the woman and her child.

  The bank robber owned no cell phone nor saw the need for one. There was nobody in this realm he wanted to call.

  Glancing over his shoulder, he noticed another guard had joined the first one by the door - it was lunchtime and for a short while there would be two guards on duty. This was what he needed. Two men were more likely than one to take him on once he declared his intention to rob the bank, and hopefully they would feel there was safety in numbers and be less inclined to shoot him. That was the theory, at any rate. If he was wrong and they shot him ... well, at least he would die while trying to protect those he was sworn to safeguard.

  A warrior could ask for no better end than that.

  He moved his arm, easing the eight-inch long boning knife from his sleeve. He focused on the mother and her toddler. He'd been hoping there would be a small child in the bank, gambling on the guards being even less inclined to shoot if they risked hurting a child. Not that there was much risk to any innocent bystander. He intended to surrender the moment he was called upon to do so.

  He shook the knife down a little further and turned it so he had a sound grip on the yellow plastic hilt - a color he had chosen deliberately for high visibility. Let there be no mistaking that he was armed.

  For a long moment, although he was standing in the middle of a busy bank at lunchtime holding a wicked-looki
ng boning knife, nobody registered it. It was one of the guards on the door who noticed him first and alerted the second guard. He didn't even get time to call out his prepared speech: Everybody put your hands up! which seemed to be the traditional announcement of an armed robbery in this realm.

  The two guards didn't call out to him either. They signaled to one another and split up, walking carefully toward him, loosening the clips on their holstered weapons as they approached from either side, making it difficult to keep both of them in his line of sight.

  "Whoa there, big fella," the red-bearded guard said softly as he approached. "Whatcha got in mind, lad, that needs a carving knife?"

  The bank robber frowned as his head swiveled between the approaching guards. This wouldn't do at all. If they arrested him before he had a chance to announce his intentions, he'd be charged with little more than a misdemeanor. He'd not get anywhere near Portlaoise Prison. Given he was carrying a weapon in a bank, he would no doubt get some jail time, but it would probably be in some other less secure prison and, far from being able to help those he was charged to protect, he would be incapable of doing anything at all to assist them.

  The warrior from another reality had only a few seconds to make his decision. There was a scream from somewhere behind him as a bank patron noticed the knife and realized the security guards were closing in on a robber in an effort to disarm him.

  "No need for a fuss," the bearded guard crooned. He still hadn't drawn his weapon, obviously convinced he could talk down this knife-wielding patron who had yet to do anything more threatening than produce a kitchen implement.

  "I intend to rob this bank," he announced loudly, deciding it was important to establish that at the outset. He raised the knife, holding it out so everyone could see it. "I will kill anybody who tries to stop me."