Had he not knifed that stupid skinhead with a shank ...
He should never have gotten involved with that particular fight - the fight which resulted in him being sent here to Portlaoise. It had nothing to do with him. The guards would have got there eventually and broken it up ... a few heads would have been broken, but nobody would have died.
Only it wasn't a fight, as much as a massacre. Four against one wasn't even close to being a fight, certainly not a fair one. The kid he'd stepped in to assist was a Traveller named Tyson Sheedy, and - as if to highlight the foolishness of intervention - he'd not been in the least bit grateful to Darragh. Worse, it had cost Darragh the last of his remission and brought him here to Portlaoise, the most heavily guarded prison in Europe.
He'd arrived with a clutch of other prisoners: some were transfers like him, others newly sentenced. He'd suffered the indignity of admission, which included a full body search, and then spent a week in solitary confinement, while the prison authorities decided where to place him.
A week of breakfast in his cell, an hour in the morning to use the gym on his own, back to his cell for a time, then out into a yard measuring 64 paces by 18 paces, more solitary time in the tiny cell, lunch, boredom, half an hour in the poolroom before dinner and then a long night waiting for the morning to come and the same routine to be repeated.
After more than a week of pondering the question, the Warden had ordered Darragh placed in the general population. He was - in this realm, at least - no better or worse than any other man convicted of kidnapping and conspiracy to murder. There was nothing about him that warranted special consideration. Far from it. His refusal to accept responsibility for his crimes was seen as proof of his recidivist nature.
Portlaoise wasn't a stop on the way to somewhere more suitable. This was where they believed he belonged. Darragh Aquitania was a lost cause. There was no point in trying to rehabilitate someone who refused to take responsibility for his actions.
Finally, eight days after he arrived, they'd let him out into the yard on this cold, misty morning to discover his new home.
Darragh stopped and looked around, not so much at the other prisoners milling about in their own private groups, but at the oppressive razor wire circling the narrow yard. For a fleeting moment of time, he found himself almost overwhelmed by the pervasive gloom that seemed to seep from the very walls of this grim and unappealing place.
Still, it was better than solitary confinement in the Alcatraz wing - a name whose significance was known to him only because he had his brother's memories to call upon.
Rónán had no memories of ever being in prison, however; for that, Darragh needed to rely on his own sources. The information he gleaned about this place was mostly from the guards and inmates of St Patrick's Institution for Juveniles, where he'd been previously. Portlaoise - so they'd been quick to inform him when they heard about his imminent transfer - could accommodate nearly four hundred prisoners. It usually housed well below that number, he was somewhat relieved to discover, although in the end it probably made little difference to the degree of danger for Darragh.
After the first half-dozen or so
, he figured,
whether it's one hundred or four hundred stir-crazy, gang-affiliated murderers, terrorists, child molesters and rapists looking for a fight doesn't really matter
.
There was a company of Irish Defence Forces' soldiers armed with assault rifles and anti-aircraft machine guns guarding the inmates, his remarkably well-informed cellmates at St Patrick's informed him, making it one of the most secure prisons in Europe. That would make getting him out somewhat problematic for Rónán - even after three years stranded in this realm, Darragh had not lost hope that any day now, his brother would appear, escape plan well in hand, and they could both return to the reality where they belonged.
Darragh did not doubt Rónán would come for him and would figure out how to get past the high walls, the razor wire, the cameras, sensors, the air exclusion zone and the acres of tank traps around the perimeter.
"Well, looky what we have here."
Darragh forced himself not to glance in the direction of the man who'd spoken, aware that appearing concerned or vulnerable was fatal in such a place. He focused on looking up, as if examining the exercise yard walls for a possible escape route and not in the least bit interested or bothered by the small group of men closing in on him.
"Face that pretty is just askin' to be messed up," another man laughed as they moved nearer.
"You can mess him up, Liam," somebody else joked, "but you won't be looking at his face!"
"You're the nut job they just transferred from St Paddy's, aren't you?"
The man who posed the question was blocking Darragh's way. There was no possible chance of avoiding him or the question. Darragh slowly and quite deliberately met the man's eyes. He was a slender, dark-haired fellow with a swastika tattooed on the left side of his neck, an intricate Celtic cross on the other side, intertwined with a four-leaf clover with the initials IRA below the cross on the other - a political conundrum he doubted the man was astute enough to appreciate. Behind Liam stood another three men, all similarly marked, all equally threatening.
Darragh knew his survival might depend on quickly acquiring membership of a prison gang, and that nothing announced which gang one belonged to louder than an illegally-acquired prison tattoo designed to inspire fear and respect in anyone who saw it. Darragh wished he'd known about that before being sent to St Patrick's three years ago and, in hindsight, perhaps a few well-chosen gang emblems tattooed somewhere obvious before he left the juvenile facility might have made life a lot safer here in Portlaoise.
Or maybe not
. Being caught wearing a gang's emblem fraudulently could just as easily get you killed.
"I suppose I must be," he replied as inoffensively as possible, wondering what had happened to the guards. It wouldn't do to look around for help. That was a sign of weakness. A man who knew how to survive in this place had eyes in the back of his head.
"I hear you've a liking for them gypsy boys," Liam said, as one of the others moved around behind him, effectively blocking him in and, more importantly, blocking the guards' view of what they were doing.
What? Are they going to try to rape me out here in the middle of the yard?
"You a gyppo, too, pretty boy?"
That was a loaded question. Darragh had no ethnic ties to the Travellers. His only connection to them was foolishly stepping in to help one a couple of weeks ago in another prison. For a moment, he debated claiming he was a gyppo and proud of it. But he had not an ounce of Romany blood in him and the Travellers knew it. Even if there were gypsies here who had heard about the incident at St Patrick's and appreciated his interference on behalf of one of their number, there was a vast gulf between gratitude and returning the favor.
"No."
The man behind him was so close now that Darragh could feel his warm moist breath on his neck.
"What are you then?" the man named Liam asked, examining Darragh closely for any tattoos that might identify his allegiance. For a fleeting moment, Darragh wished he still had the triskalion tattoo of the Undivided on the palm of his hand. He could have invented his own gang.
"Fresh meat," the big man on the left announced, leering at Darragh with a broken-toothed smile.
Two large hands gripped Darragh by the shoulders as he was jerked backward, almost losing his footing. Liam moved even closer. He could feel the hard-muscled bodies of the inmates pressed against his, had nowhere to go and no way of getting out of this potentially fatal encounter. It was no secret that prisoners were stabbed, beaten or brutalized in some manner on a daily basis here. Darragh knew that if he couldn't find a way out of this in the next few moments, he would become today's statistic.
"What do you say, pretty gyppo boy?" Liam said, so close now they were sharing the same breath. "You gonna be
my
fresh meat?"
Darragh responded by bringing his knee up sharply into Liam's groin. The man dropped like a sack of wheat. Before the others had time to react, he drove his elbow backward into the solar plexus of the man holding him by the shoulders, ducking as he did so to avoid the punch thrown by the big man with the broken teeth. The punch connected with the man behind who grunted and let him go, doubled over with pain, his nose bloodied. Liam was writhing on the ground clutching his groin, swearing and screaming with pain. The broken-toothed man overbalanced with the force of his punch, but when he righted himself, he came at Darragh again, only this time, clutched in his right hand, was a short-bladed shank.
Darragh had only a split second to recognize the danger before the man was on him, holding the shank high, aiming to slash at his face or perhaps take out an eye. Still off balance himself, he stumbled backward into the arms of another prisoner. The man grabbed him and held him fast. Darragh struggled wildly to get free, but he was trapped. There was no way to avoid being slashed with the wickedly sharp sliver of metal. Everything was happening so quickly. The broken-toothed man lunged at him. Darragh fought against the man holding him, but the man had him in a crushing bear hug, trapping his arms against his body. He could see nothing but the shank coming for him, wondering if that would be the last thing he would ever see ...
And then the shank went flying as another prisoner slammed into the broken-toothed man. Darragh had no idea who his rescuer was or time to thank him. He wriggled his right arm enough to grab a chunk of fleshy thing on the inside leg of the man holding him and twisted savagely. The man let go with a yell. His heart pounding, Darragh staggered clear and looked around. There were a dozen or more men surrounding him now.
Is this how it ends? I'm sorry, Rónán ...
But his tormentors seemed suddenly reluctant to continue the fight as they picked themselves up, which Darragh figured meant the new spectators were a different gang to those who'd singled him out. In the background he could hear the guards running toward them to break up the fight.
The man who'd stopped the broken-toothed man from taking Darragh's eye climbed to his feet, glared at Liam's cohorts and then turned to Darragh.
He almost fainted from shock when he realized who it was who'd come to his rescue.
"
Ciarán
?"
Before Ciarán could answer, the guards arrived. Everyone stood back as if they were entirely innocent of anything more than standing around chatting about the weather. The shank had miraculously disappeared.
"All right, break it up," they yelled, batons in hand. "Come on ... what's going on here?"
"Donny slipped and fell, Mr Hughes," another man announced. Darragh turned to look at him and realized with shock that it was Jack O'Righin, Rónán's erstwhile friend and neighbor in this realm who was, without a doubt, back behind bars because of his involvement with Darragh and the disappearance of Hayley Boyle.
"Is that a fact?" Hughes said skeptically, as the other guards arrived to stop the fight. There must have been a dozen of them, not quite, but almost, outnumbering the prisoners gathered about. Hughes pointed to Liam, who was still writhing on the ground, tears running down his face. "What happened to that one?"
"Cramp," Jack replied with a perfectly straight face.
Hughes seemed to debate the advisability of calling Jack out in his obvious lie. He glanced at the other guards, none of whom seemed to be in the mood to provoke a confrontation. Then he nodded slowly, pointed to Darragh and asked, "This lad one of yours?"
Jack stared at Darragh thoughtfully for a moment and then nodded. "Aye. I'll keep an eye on him."
"See that you do," the guard said. "I've got plans tonight. If he gets himself killed, we'll have to stay back to fill out the paperwork. You really don't want any of us that pissed at you, O'Righin." The guard turned and found himself face to face with the man whose nose had been bloodied in the fight. "Watch where you're walking next time, bozo," Hughes said. "You keep tripping up like that you might get hurt."
Nobody said anything while the guards departed, until they were out of earshot. By then, someone had helped Liam to his feet. The man was still bent double, but the fight had gone out of him. He ignored Darragh, and looked at Jack. "Sorry, Mr O'Righin. Didn't know he was one of ours."
"That's because you're a first-class fuckwit, Liam," Jack informed him pleasantly. "Now get out of here before I decide you're pissing me off."
"Sorry, Mr O'Righin," Liam said, and he and his friends skulked away quickly without looking back, finding another place in the yard to nurse their wounds.
Darragh was astounded. Jack O'Righin was a little old man compared to these thugs, and yet he commanded their obedience as if they were schoolboys.
But that was not the biggest puzzle here.
That
puzzle was how Ciarán mac Connaught, Celtic warrior, Druid sorcerer and guardian of the Undivided, came to be here, in this realm, in this place ...
"You okay?" Jack asked.
Darragh nodded. Other than a heart pounding so hard it felt like it might burst out of his chest, he was unharmed.
"Let's find somewhere we can talk in private, then," Ciarán said. "And I'll explain what's going on."
An insistent knock on the door of Trása's room in the
hommaru
woke her during the night. She glanced at the incense clock as she threw back the covers and climbed off the futon. It was almost midnight. The
Youkai
who had come through the rift with her were nowhere to be found. Neither was Toyoda, her frequent
Leipreachán
companion. She wondered what mischief they were getting up to in the palace and how much she'd have to apologize for in the morning.
As she stumbled to the door, she couldn't imagine who'd be visiting at this hour and wasn't in the mood to entertain. After the events of the past day, Trása had lain awake for hours going over everything in her head, wondering if there was something she could have done. Something she
should
have done ...