He looked very refined, mannered, like a gentleman. As he came closer inside, stepping confidently along the foyer, finally reaching the Commons Area, Eva noticed how much he looked exactly like Devin. They could’ve been twins, if this man wasn’t so ceremonious and rigid to Devin’s tousled and laid-back style. The only other differences were of course, the clothes, and Devin’s face, all battered and bruised.
She thought of Muirgen and how similar they looked. This couldn’t be a coincidence. What was equally curious was the fact that this stranger had the same lure over her as Devin. She loved this man, as she loved Devin, and it terrified her.
“I’m sorry,” he announced loudly in a polished voice. He gestured with his thumb at the entrance doors. “I should have knocked.” He smiled, as if he wasn’t sorry at all. Then he turned his head to Eva and smiled, winking.
She felt desirous and wanted to run to him, so he could hold her and kiss her. But Devin was her love, her only love. She remained by his side, despite the stronger magnetic force that this mystery man was giving off.
Corrine gasped. “Wait…doesn’t he look like—”
“Who are you?” the headmaster interrupted. He stepped into a protective stance before his students, nervous of this unexpected newcomer arriving in the dead of night, following a mysterious tremble from below the ground.
The man peeled his eyes away from Eva, turned to the headmaster, and grinned. “Glad someone finally asked. I’m Cormac, or as you may know me, the Father of the Leprechauns, bastard son of the witch Saoirse, and currently King of the Underworld, having just recently slaughtered my father, the warlock Cianan, in a coup, and took his place on the throne. I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance.” He tipped an imaginary hat.
There were gasps all around and Eva squeezed Devin’s hand tighter. He squeezed back. She couldn’t love this man. He was evil. And really old.
“That’s…impossible,” the headmaster said in almost a whisper. “You’re-you’re supposed to be dead. Long ago.”
Cormac smiled. “My dear headmaster, how ignorant you really are.”
The headmaster looked shocked and…afraid.
But she was surprised when he took another step forward, and demanded in an even voice, “What are you doing here?!”
Cormac turned to Eva, smiling. She felt the same way about him, as she did about Devin—that they were long lost loves. He tilted his black cane to her. “I’ve come for her,” he answered, and then pulled his cane back to his side.
“I don’t think so,” Devin said with an edge to his voice, clenching her hand so tight it hurt.
Cormac laughed, throwing his back. “My sons! Just like me! So impulsive! Ready to fight!” He turned to the others. “Well, we all witnessed the infamous bout between our Devin here”—he waved at Devin—“and Lucas. Quite a match, if I say so myself.” He looked at the headmaster. “Where is Lucas by the way? Recovering? I hope I didn’t cause him any harm when I severed the connection to his mind,” he said in mock sympathy.
Eva gasped along with everyone else. Cormac, the Father of the Leprechauns, had been inside Lucas’ mind! He had been controlling him all this time! Her mind raced: Lucas’ ability to enter her mind, his declaration of love, his kisses, and his fight with Devin. How much of it was Cormac? How much of it was Lucas?
The headmaster’s face froze with shock, but then he declared, “That’s none of your damn business!”
Cormac smiled. “Everything is my business, especially,”—he turned his full body to Eva—“when it concerns that lovely creature over there.”
Suddenly, the chandeliers in the room dimmed and everyone vanished. It was only Cormac and her, in the semi-dark—a romantically-created setting. In the blink of an eye, he closed the gap between them, and stood behind her, pressing his chest against her back.
His lips brushed against her ear. “You look so beautiful,” he said softly.
She trembled at his touch, his words. Then the chandelier lights grew bright, everyone reappeared, and Cormac resumed his earlier position near the foyer. He smirked at her as if they had just gotten away with something very naughty. She felt violated and desirous at the same time.
“Ugh! Why does everyone fall for her?” Bree asked, crossing her arms against her chest, modestly dressed in neon pink flannels.
Cormac turned to Bree and smiled. “Cheer up, Bree! There are plenty of fish in the sea.” He laughed.
Eva couldn’t take it anymore. She grew bold and stepped forward with Devin still clenching her hand, refusing to let her go. “What do you want with me?”
“Ah! She speaks to me!” Cormac held his hand over his heart, smiling in a joking sort of way. “Can this be love?”
Devin stepped forward, in front of Eva, and said in a steady voice, “You’ll have to go through me.”
Cormac laughed, throwing his head back again. “As if you were a challenge.”
He raised his cane with the green jewel like a weapon, and pointed it at Devin, who was torn from Eva’s hand, flying high to the ceiling.
“NO!” Eva screamed.
There were loud gasps, screams, and shouts from all around the room.
Devin was frightened, kicking his legs, waving his arms, as if he could will himself to sprout wings and fly to safety.
Eva turned to Cormac, who still had his cane, his weapon, pointed at Devin.
“Let him go!” she pleaded.
Cormac grinned, as if she had said the funniest thing. “Well, I could just…‘let him go,’…but you didn’t say the magic word, and that word my lovely is what will keep your sweetheart from falling to the floor in a bloody mess.”
Eva’s mind raced. What was the magic word?
“Safely!” she shouted.
He furrowed his brow, as if disappointed, but then he smiled, and said, “I will…if you leave with me.”
“W-where?” she stammered.
He lowered his weapon, but Devin still remained high in the air. Eva wondered if he needed the cane at all—that it was just for show. Cormac banged the knotted wooden tip twice on the hardwood floor. The sound echoed all around.
“Below,” he answered.
“To…Hell?” Meg asked, clutching her hand tightly with Finn’s.
Cormac turned to the scared redhead. “Hell is such a…dirty word. I prefer Underworld. Has a less…hellish ring to it.” He laughed at his own lame joke. No one else did.
Eva didn’t have a choice. She had to go. She had to save Devin. And everyone else.
“If you safely put Devin down, and leave everyone else alone, then yes, I’ll go with you.”
“NO!” Several shouted in unison, but the loudest came from Devin up high. “NO! NO!” Devin pleaded again. “NO, EVA!”
She looked up at him, trying to hold back her tears. “I have to. I’m sorry. I love you, Devin.”
She heard a sharp intake of breath and turned to Cormac. He was smiling, his emerald eyes sparkling, as if he had just heard the most wonderful news, but she didn’t ponder long about his unexplained reaction. He was impossible to decipher, except for the obvious fact that he wanted her.
That was the unknown. Why did he want her?
But it would have to stay a mystery for now.
She took one step, and then another, until she was a foot away from Cormac, who resembled Devin in looks, yet so different in personality. Even though she loved Devin, Cormac was pulling her in, despite his desire to inflict harm. She didn’t know what was wrong with her.
He smiled at her. “Wise choice my sweet.”
Then he nodded in the direction above her head, and she turned to see Devin, slowly descending. Once his feet touched the floor, he immediately ran to Eva, but Cormac raised his weapon, and a green-tinted barrier pushed him back, causing him to fall to the floor. Eva watched in horror as Cormac moved the cane to everyone else, extending the barrier, bathing them in an eerie green glow.
He lowered his weapon, but kept the green jewel targeted on
everyone. “Now no one will stop us.” He leaned in, close to Eva’s face, smelling of cologne and tobacco. It was intoxicating, just like Devin. “As if anyone could stop me,” he whispered in her ear. Then he pulled away, winked, and flashed a pearly white smile. She had to resist the urge to kiss him and felt ashamed for even thinking it.
She turned to Devin. He was pounding his fists against the red barrier. His pleas were unheard, but she could read his lips: EVA! EVA! DON’T!
“I have to,” she said softly, desperately holding back her tears, trying to be strong.
She hoped that if he didn’t hear her, he had read her lips, and saw the pain on her face. He kept pounding away at the barrier in silent shouts: EVA! EVA! EVA!
“Well, time is flying!” Cormac exclaimed with a flourish. She turned back to him, and noticed that he was holding a silver pocket watch, inlaid with green jewels, in the form of a spiral. “We must be off! Are you ready my dear?” He secured the watch on the inside of his coat pocket.
No, she wasn’t.
She nodded. “Yes, I’m ready.”
“Excellent. Say goodbye to your friends.” He gestured to the shocked faces behind the green barrier.
“I’m never coming back?” she asked, afraid to hear the answer.
He waved his hand in the air. “Of course, you will return,” he said to her shock. “I just need some…time with you.”
“How long?” she asked in almost a whisper.
He shrugged. “I don’t know, but not long. Don’t worry my pet. You’ll see your friends again and…your lover boy.” He nodded to Devin who kept shouting, unheard, beating his fists against the barrier, with his wounded face distorted by the red sheen. “However,”—Cormac leaned down, brushing his lips against her ear, sensuous—“I know you can do better.” He pulled back, smiling sweetly, blushing.
For a second, she saw Devin, safe with a boyish charm. But he wasn’t Devin. He was the King of Hell. And she was drawn to him like a moth to a flame.
“Well, let’s go! Chop-chop!” He held out his arm, impatient.
She hesitated, but then took it, and looped her arm around his, confused by a mixture of reluctance and willingness.
She scanned the room. Meg was crying, holding onto a distraught Finn. It was the same for Corrine and Liam. Bree looked surprisingly worried, but Eva didn’t know if it was from her sudden departure with Cormac, or the barrier that kept the students back. Maybe both. Headmaster Quinn’s eyes were wide with shock. Colin was beating against the barrier too, shouting unheard, his lips forming her name.
Finally, she turned to Devin. He had given up his assault against the barrier. Now instead of shouting her name, he was crying, on his knees, sliding his hands up and down the barrier, attempting to find a way through. She wanted to wrench the cane from Cormac’s hand, undo whatever he did, but even when he turned it away from everyone, the barrier still remained.
Cormac, the King of the Underworld, was dangerous, cunning, and powerful. Eva had no doubt as to his dark designs—his dark plan—for her.
She wondered if Muirgen and Aghamora were nearby, watching all of this drama unfold. Eva wanted them to swoop in and save the day, save her. But they were silent, like everyone else in the room, their cries suppressed by the mystical red barrier.
She turned from Devin, from her friends, from everyone, and held back her tears, her sorrow, as Cormac took her away.
21
No Rest for the Wicked
It was dark outside, and so very, very cold.
“You’re shivering,” said Cormac. He took off his coat and placed it around her shoulders.
She shook it off, letting it fall to the ground. “I’d rather freeze to death.”
She knew that she was on dangerous ground. Cormac was not to be trifled with—yet she couldn’t help biting back when the opportunity arose.
Cormac clicked his tongue and shook his head. “My dear,” he said.
Magically—for Cormac was a warlock, after all—a new coat appeared, and fitted him well—very well. The coat that had been on the ground had vanished. She was still shivering. He reclaimed her arm and pushed her forward, and away from Green Clover.
“Where are we going?”
“Near and far.”
“Huh?”
“The Underworld doesn’t operate within the same set of rules as above.”
“Oh…what-what are you going to do with me?”
He halted, and she had to stop with him, unable to pull free and flee.
His lips lifted in a half smile, devious thoughts running through his mind. “Okay, I’ll divulge.”
Surprisingly, he let her go. Eva assumed that he knew she wouldn’t flee, or else if she tried, he’d catch her before she even took her first step. And then, she’d be in a shitload of trouble.
He tapped his cane against the ground; chips of earth were disturbed. His magical cane provided illumination as the split in the earth started to get bigger and bigger. Soon, a nice round hole was formed. Eva dared to take a look. All she saw was blackness. The not seeing scared her more than if she’d seen anything at all.
“I’m going to resurrect my mother.”
Eva gasped. “What?”
Cormac nodded. “Saoirse, yes.” Eva noticed a tender look on his face, as if he loved and dearly missed his mother.
“But…but…she’s evil.”
Eva’s heart constricted. She couldn’t believe that she’d called his mother “evil” even though it was the truth. She feared Cormac’s retribution for her slip of the tongue.
But it didn’t come.
He simply said, “It’s not evil to avenge the death of a loved one.”
“Why? Why do you want to bring her back?”
“Because I miss her. Because she never got to live the life she should have. My…father…he killed my mother, did you know that?”
Eva shook her head, but was unable to offer any condolences—or praise.
“No, I should think you wouldn’t,” he said thoughtfully. “Cianan found out about me, all those centuries ago. He wanted to raise me to be like him, to rule without consequences, to mold me into someone like him, and to keep me by his side, forever, in the Underworld, where we’d never age, never die.
“My mother, Saoirse, kept me away from him, hidden, but it was only a matter of time before he discovered me. There was a great battle, I remember, from long ago. My mother and father, fighting, over me.” Cormac seemed more human in this moment, recalling to Eva about his life, but she had to remember who he was, and what sort of dark designs he had for her. “As you can guess, my father won. He killed my mother before my very eyes, and left her there to rot. I was unable to return to give her a proper burial. Years and years, I dwelled with my father below”—he tapped his cane at the black hole in the ground—“biding my time, waiting to make my move.”
“Why now?” Eva interrupted.
Cormac stared into her eyes. “I had discovered his secret. He didn’t leave my mother’s body to rot away. He had been keeping it, below, all this time.”
Eva was shocked. “Why?”
“I thought, at first that he’d regretted what he’d done, but that was not the case. My father never regretted any of his actions. He kept my mother’s bones because they were powerful—powerful enough to even be used against him. And so, once I discovered this, I awakened my mother’s spirit, and in so doing, she helped me kill my father, revenge for what he’d done.”
“And an added bonus of your ascension to the throne,” Eva said, piercing his eyes with her own.
Cormac’s lips lifted into that half smile that he favored. “Yes, an added bonus.”
Eva was trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. “So, you’ve awakened her spirit, but her spirit needs a body, correct?”
Cormac kept smiling.
Eva was confused—until everything became crystal clear. “No! NO! I won’t let you!”
“You don’t have a choice, my sweet.”
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“But you said that I could go back to my friends, back to Devin.”
Cormac spread out his hands. “You can. Your appearance won’t change. You’ll still be Eva Nolan.”
“But with your dead mother’s spirit inside of me!”
Cormac nodded. “Correct.”
“But-but she’ll control me.”
“Oh, I’m hoping,” he said, smiling.
“Then it won’t be me!” Eva argued. “I’ll be lost—forever.”
Eva was trembling and it wasn’t just from the cold. She’d never been more scared in her entire life as she was in this moment.
“You won’t be harmed,” Cormac said, sounding sympathetic.
Eva shook her head. “I don’t understand. If I’m going to play host to your mother what about the attraction between us?”
She gasped at what she’d just said—her thoughts out in the open.
“I’m not attracted to you,” she said quickly. “You-you look like Devin, that’s all.”
Cormac smiled. “Oedipus,” he said, and only that one word. Then he continued, “I know what I’m doing, Eva. And I know what I want. I want my mother back.”
“But why me?”
“She’s chosen you,” he said simply.
“She knows about me?” Eva looked around in the dark. “Is she…here?”
“No, below, but she felt your presence. We waited until you arrived here, at the school.”
“Why?”
Cormac did that smile of his again. “Well, for one, taking you away from this school, and making that grand entrance as I did, wouldn’t have been very exciting if I’d done it at that hospital you were at—and two, you needed to accept who you are, and what your destiny is.”
“Which is?”
“To rule by my side, of course,” he said, as if she should’ve known that.
“How does your resurrected mother fit in to this?”
Cormac laughed. “Well, you wouldn’t have done it on your own, Eva.”
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