3. Cormac
Cormac
W hy was it that in the evolution of culture over the past nine hundred years, humans still couldn’t find a better place than a pub for a clandestine meeting? I placed my beer on the dark-stained wooden bar. I didn’t want the beer but had to do something to fill the time. Ever since Declan found his mate, he was late for every meeting. Maybe I didn’t want to know why he was late. I smirked because perhaps I already knew.
A myriad of conversations swirled in the overstuffed room around me. Families. Couples. Singles who were hoping to become couples. A gentleman behind me—I use the word gentleman loosely—was muttering more than sweet nothings into his partner’s ear. Her nervous laughter punctuated the conversation, and I could smell her arousal, but the erratic pounding of her heartbeat betrayed how unsure she was about the list of activities. I’d never understand why some men wanted to make their women suffer.
It was a trait I equated with the wolves. I never understood their penchant for hierarchy, dominance, and blind loyalty. It felt like politics to the extreme and a world I did not want any part of. Their packs were an intricate part of who they all were, even being able to communicate in each other’s minds.
In my family, we were just that—family. Not some mindless pack drawn together, but a family held together through a genuine bond of love. My mother was indisputably the matriarch, and my father, our provider, devoted his life to her in every sense. The hierarchy was not formal, not fought for, just ingrained, as with humans—a connection to our humanity. And as the eldest, the unwavering protector who ensured the unity of my brothers, my family was the reason I sat here.
For the most part, we vampires wanted to be left alone and do our own thing in smaller factions—found families that watched out for each other but also left the individual members to indulge in their own vices. Even though the cruel and sadistic reputations of some of my kind preceded them, they existed as a side effect of the bloodlust and not their actual nature. For my brother Aiden, being the walking embodiment of evil was simply what he had become.
And what Aiden had become was a problem. Hence this meeting.
Even those smaller vampire factions were different from my family. My family. Each of us had our own faction—our own set of friends—but we were family first; they came second. My parents were a mated vampire and human; my three brothers and I were their offspring in a world where few dhampirs, half-human, half-vampire children, survive beyond their first breath. It made us different, powerful, and kept us out of the usual immortal politics because no one knew what to make of us. But the vampires—the whole supernatural community—knew Aiden was causing a problem by disrupting the way the factions work, and they wanted it to end. If I didn’t handle it, they would. Permanently.
The stool next to me rattled. “Cormac O’Cillian, fancy meeting you here,” said Declan, sliding into the seat that matched the bar. Declan—my brother Aiden’s right-hand man. My informant. He took quite a risk to be here. I glanced at him, taking in his countenance with a slight smile, an internal comfort spreading through me as I sat next to someone in my family.
Declan Moore, our one adopted family member, with all the emotional burdens and obligations of being a blood-born O’Cillian. Unlike our factions, which were bound by convenient alliances and the need to stay alive—those bonds were broken without a care or consequence when the desire struck. When he and Aiden became inseparable during the American Civil War, we decided as a family to turn Declan. Mother called a meeting, and we were each given assignments to ease his transition in our clan and our way of life. We all surrounded him as he took his last human breath and cheered for him when he sipped the human blood my mother provided in a crystal goblet.
“Fancy indeed,” I nearly growled, not even looking at him. I picked up my drink and raised my eyebrows. “I’ve been waiting far longer than you should have kept me.”
“You’re right. I was… busy.” His lopsided smile that I caught from the corner of my eye told me everything I didn’t want to know about the activities that had kept him. The fading red of his sclera and return of his hazel irises through the current ash color indicated it had involved him feeding.
I chuckled. “Of course you were. How is Isla?” I had met his human mate when Declan had finally returned from Ireland. Her eyes brimmed with love for him, her trust paramount. And it needed to be. Isla was the only person he cared to feed from, careful to take only what he needed or to pleasure her, and not a drop more. She also fed from him, his blood repairing her body daily to its current state so she could stay with him, as a human, for as long as she chose.
“Isla’s fine. She sends her regards and regrets. She needed a nap before continuing her day.” I could hear the innuendo, and even without looking, I knew his eyes were sparkling at the memory.
“I’m sure.” It astounded me that a vampire mate took the first step to becoming one of us each day by allowing our blood to heal them. Should she die, she would have twenty-four hours to drink the blood of a living being and join our kind or pick out her final resting place. I took a drink and set my glass down to make a point before I finally looked at him. “How is my brother?”
A shadow fell over the bar. I looked up at the bartender standing between us and the brightly lit wooden shelves that rose high along the wall behind him. “Hi, can I get you anything?” He pointed at Declan’s empty hands.
“Midleton, double, neat.”
“Sure thing.” He looked over at me. “You good?”
“I’ll have the same.”
He nodded and turned to the wall behind him. A plethora of bottles filled the shelves, the light shining through liquids of almost every color. Gliding the library ladder along the wall, he climbed up a few rungs and strained to reach for a bottle. When he returned, bottle in hand, he slipped two glasses onto the bar from underneath and poured the drinks.
He slid a glass to each of us and glanced between us. “Put it on my tab,” I told him gruffly.
“Sure thing. Let me know if you need anything else.”
I nodded, indicating that this conversation was private and we no longer required his help. I could see him shiver. He probably didn’t even know why. It was an effect vampires had on humans who looked at us for too long.
“Aiden is… Charleston...” Declan ran a hand through his blond hair. “It’s bad, Cormac. He’s got them. The factions… The wolves… He’s gotten them all.”
A cheer went up among the humans—no doubt triggered by the activities on the television. I ignored the sound, pushing it to the back of my mind. This couldn’t be happening.
I struggled to keep my composure as fear constricted my chest. “To what end? Please tell me the fae are staying far out of it.”
I hoped with all my heart the fae were staying out of it. The fae were the opposite of the vampires. Whereas our undead blood was pure darkness and our existence an abomination of nature, their connection to the natural elements made their blood pure light. My mother taught us they were benevolent, but you needed to pay close attention when dealing with the fae. They prided themselves on being hospitable, bound by rules of decorum and grand oaths. Only sometimes you found out too late they were tricksters, and the oath might not mean what you expected. Many kinds of fae walk our world, some more prevalent than others, but each one is bound to nature.
When Aiden started down this path, it seemed like a child’s game, the end goal to inflate his insatiable ego. But now, without his family at his side, he was out of control. If it were any other vampire, my family would walk the other way together and let the immortals handle the issue. But this was my brother. He was drawing attention to himself—and to us. He had to be stopped before he started a supernatural war.
He walked out on me a hundred years ago, realizing he would never win me to his side of immortal domination. My brother could have gone to New Orleans or Savannah; well- run harbors of paranormal activity where mortal and immortal worked together for the good of both sides. He had even stood a reasonable chance of unseating the immortal powers in those cities had he gone there. But no, he’d gone to Charleston. In Charleston, the creatures of the night and humans were still finding ways to co-exist, which made it a perfect place to wreak havoc. Or kill those who opposed you on any level.
Declan sighed as his glass clinked on the counter. “So far, it’s only the vampires and the wolves. He’s given the wolves in the Low Country access to the city and James Island, in particular, but the island vampires didn’t even balk at Aiden’s demands. Of course, everyone is afraid of dying. A few witches stayed in the French Quarter, but most ran, headed for Savannah. They still don’t think Aiden brings anything to the table, and they think that with his particular brand of rule, humans will never take him seriously. They will just keep ignoring his proposals on how to share the city. And, of course, killing too many humans risks exposure, and your brother isn’t even that stupid.” He took a sip of his drink, his eyes hollow. “But I hear the powers in New Orleans have taken notice and are preparing to defend their territory if he heads in that direction.”
The news about the New Orleans vampires was bad but not unexpected. They’d had a good thing going for quite some time in their city, and no one messed with it.
But for the witches to only leave a few in the city? It didn’t surprise me the witches saw right through my brother. Witches played all sides—good, evil, and every shade of gray in between. They were the one supernatural being my parents had taught us to fear—in the same manner the stags of our native Ireland feared the long-extinct lynx. I could still hear my father’s instructions. “Keep your distance, stay together, blend in with the humans, and only attack if you’re cornered.” I feared I knew why the witches went to Savannah.
I sighed. “He cannot be allowed to move outside of Charleston. It’ll be the end of us all. We need to stop him and bring our family back together as it should be. Although with one fewer brother if it must.”
“Are you sure about this?” Declan’s words were hesitant, and I wasn’t sure why.
I remembered each detail of the day he came to me twenty-five years ago, his hands trembling as he told me about the torture and execution of anyone who defied Aiden or showed the slightest hint of disloyalty, as defined by his whims. Aiden had commanded the particularly gruesome deaths of two of Declan’s friends. The vampires had sworn loyalty to my brother before they found their mate bond with each other. Aiden saw this as a betrayal and sentenced them to desiccation. They were entombed in brick walls, each with one arm free, capable of brushing the fingers of the other if they struggled to reach out. There, their bodies would dehydrate and turn to stone from a lack of blood. But vampires are strong and don’t die easily. After a year, Aiden revived them, instructing them to look into the other’s eyes as he beheaded them in front of his meager band of followers.
That was Declan’s tipping point. When he knew my brother’s ambition had turned to madness—an evil that even he couldn’t support.
I turned to him and looked hard into his eyes. “Do I have to remind you it has been over a hundred years since my brother walked away from me, away from his family, and started on this ridiculous path to domination, endangering us all?”
Declan smiled. “In his defense, sometimes I’d like to walk away from you, too.”
I pressed my teeth together in anger and gripped my drink. Declan’s place as part of my family was well solidified, and he was one of the few who could speak to me this way. “Forgive me if I just want Aiden to maintain the decency he was born with.”
Declan set his hand on my arm. “Look, I get it. He was never the same after that hunter shot him.”
“Never the same” was only the tip of it.
The memory of their voices rang in my head. Declan and Aiden ran into our home in Ireland, both soaked in sweat, and a hole in Aiden’s shirt over his heart. The two of them prattled so quickly it was difficult for my family to make out the story.
“I jumped in front of the arrow to save Declan,” exclaimed Aiden, pointing at the hole. “It hit me and went straight into my heart. But here I am, alive. Not even a stake to the heart can kill me.”
His confused smile captured us all—except my mother, who turned white and grasped at my father’s hand. That was the day our family began to evolve from brothers to rivals as Aiden insisted we defer to him because of his unique power.
Aiden challenged my father, demanding that he be the patriarch of our family, deciding how to wield our influence because he was the most powerful. It didn’t take long for my parents to leave. They charged me with holding our family together, intimating they wouldn’t be gone long. They were going to look for a way to help Aiden. That was almost one hundred and twenty years ago, and I had failed them spectacularly.
Lorcan had been the next to go. Unable to deal with our brother’s gloating and conceit, he disappeared in the middle of the night in 1910. Days before, he had transferred enough money to build another home, but he had not accessed our family’s wealth since then, making it impossible for us to know where he was.
Our youngest brother, Conall, held on the longest. I still didn’t know the details of what happened, but I knew the outcome. Aiden convinced Conall to go out hunting. At the end of that night in 1915, the vampire left in charge of the Waterford faction, Charles, was dead, and our ability to stay in the city was in jeopardy. The next day, fearful of revenge, Conall ran. I spent years attempting to rebuild the trust between our family and the faction leader, Runa, the Dearg Dur.
As for Aiden, he went from being a respectable gentleman to one obsessed with immortal politics and power. It didn’t take him long to figure out that the hunters couldn’t kill him from afar or that none of them dared engage us hand to hand. And so he roamed the world, killing freely and upsetting the way of our kind, before settling on Charleston.
Declan grabbed my arm, drawing my attention back to the here and now. “My question is about you and your brothers. You don’t know if there is a way to cure his imperviousness to the usual methods of slaying a vampire. And if you do find one, you know destroying him will change your world forever. And how do you know it wouldn’t kill you as well?”
I shook Declan’s hand from my arm, picked up my drink, and savored the burn of the alcohol on my tongue before I swallowed.
“Maybe a world without any O’Cillians wouldn’t be so bad.” I clenched my jaw, a sign this conversation was concluded.
Declan glanced around and took a deep breath. He lowered his voice, allowing the conversations of the humans around us to drown out anything we were saying, though we still heard each other perfectly. “You never told me what you know about Runa—why you sent me to Waterford to find her when you already knew her. How did you know she would have useful information?”
My parents had ensured Declan never met Runa at all, a strategy I adhered to after they left. Declan hadn’t been by Aiden’s side when Aiden beheaded Charles—a vampire we recently found out was not only Runa’s second-in-command but her lover as well. The depth of her outrage made more sense when I learned that. Tensions had always been high between my family and her even though she was the one who turned my father. After spending the past twenty-five years searching, I failed to find anything to help me rein in my brother and reunite my family. With my parents nowhere to be found, I took my chances. I suspected there was more to their story, and Runa was the only witness to be found. If she was hiding something on their behalf, she would never tell me.
It had been shitty of me to send Declan into the middle of a feud without fully explaining to him what the rules were. But I needed someone who could provoke her into talking, someone who angered her, and Declan could handle himself. Yet there was still another unanswered question. “And you never told me where Michael is.”
Declan stiffened at the mention of my confidant, whom I had sent to Ireland with him.
“You know he was a younger vampire, but I trusted him implicitly, just as I do you.”
Declan glared at me. “And what would you like me to tell you?”
“That he’s just lost finding his way home. That my suspicions that someone killed him are completely unfounded.”
“And what if someone did? Isn’t that what we are—killers?” Declan glanced at the bar and clenched his teeth before raising his glass to his lips, refusing to meet my eyes.
“Not all of us. I recall teaching you how to feed without killing because you begged to know how I did it. Have the years with Aiden changed you that much?” I sipped my drink to give my question time to settle on him.
Declan stared at his hands. “We do what we must in order to protect our family, right?”
My eyes narrowed, and I focused on the wall of bottles, my chest tightening as he threw one of my own mantras against me. “And what was his crime, Declan? Who made you Michael’s executioner?”
“I did,” he growled. “He was getting sloppy.”
“How so?” My head snapped in his direction.
“There are five dead joggers all buried in a park because he decided he was hungry one morning. Five! Was I supposed to allow him to continue to kill that way? It was as bad as your brother.” He threw his hand in the air, anger permeating his voice and eyes.
I pressed my lips together. I wanted to kill Declan for betraying me and taking my man’s life. He never should have done so without speaking to me first. But he had been like a brother to us for one hundred and fifty years, so he knew the rules. I clenched my jaw one last time and retreated from the anger.
I glanced around to ensure the humans hadn’t heard us, but they continued to scoop food into their mouths, eyes glued to the enormous televisions, oblivious to our conversation. “I see. Not that I’m completely above killing—at times. You do recall that?” I smiled, thinking back to the meals Declan and I had shared. Sometimes humanity was marvelous, and sometimes we saw the worst of it.
“I know. And I’m sorry I lost my temper with Michael. Would you like me to make it up to you? Find another person to turn for you?”
I rolled my eyes. “No. I’m not building an army. We’ve never required force or to be part of politics, and I don’t want those things now. We’ve always risen above them just because of who we are.”
“You mean what you are.” Declan paused while staring straight ahead, still avoiding my gaze.
He took a drink before he turned toward me. “So again, why did you send me to find a vampire you already knew?”
I considered my words before answering. “Runa and my parents have a long, complicated relationship. I needed to know her side of the story, and thanks to you, now I do. She wanted my father to suffer the same consequences she did, so she turned him into a vampire.”
“Speaking of your father. Where are Kieran and Aine?”
I spun my glass on the bar before picking it up. “I haven’t heard from my parents in almost thirty years, and when I did, they were distant—evasive.” There was no masking the sadness in my voice. I missed them. “The only way I’m getting my family back together is figuring out what happened with Aiden and sorting it out.”
Declan took a deep breath, then cleared his throat. “Do you think the only reason Runa protects Dún Na Farraige is so she can stay a day walker?”
I couldn’t help but smile as images of the grand Irish manor, the fort by the sea, flashed through my mind. Our family home, built to keep us all together, usually sat empty, with only one of us sending people there at a time lest a battle break out. “I’d love to ask my father about that.”
“But the flasks…”
“You’re sure the flasks in her cell had the O’Cillian knot on them?”
He pulled a metallic flask from his pocket; on the front was my family’s crest, a seal rising from a Celtic knotwork heart adorned with deer antlers. “Every single flask looked like this. But the taste was slightly off, sweeter than I’m used to drinking from you or Aiden.”
“I trust you can identify our blood by taste at this point. Plus, no other blood I’m aware of allows a vampire to walk in the sunlight,” I said with a shrug, acknowledging the peculiarity I share with my brothers. Any vampire with our blood in their system can walk unharmed in the daylight. Over the years, my father implied we had inherited this from Runa, but someone supplied her with flasks of our blood. I wish I knew who.
“And what about the Cure she mentioned? Do you think it’s what’s needed against Aiden? Tell me I didn’t destroy all those flasks for nothing,” said Declan.
I tilted my head. “You didn’t just ask Isla?” His mate studied Irish folklore and was sure to know this answer.
Declan grinned. “Maybe I’m just verifying her story.”
“According to Irish folklore, any seventh son of a seventh son is said to hold the cure to an ailment. With each one, it’s different. It could even be something as mundane as the hiccups. My grandfather’s youngest son had seven sons, and his youngest son also had seven sons. Those subsequent seventh sons have always been known as the Cure. I never paid attention to them because they appeared a generation too late to be associated with the vampire curse. At least that is what I thought until Runa told Isla about my father’s older brother. If what Runa said is correct, my youngest uncle is the seventh son, and each seventh son continued to have seven sons through to the present times. I suspect the Cure in my family knows something no one wants to tell us about how and why we are different.”
Declan raised an eyebrow. “Do you think he knows the cure for vampirism?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think vampirism can be cured. Ultimately, the only cure is death.”
“So what’s your plan now?”
I bit my lip, uncertain how to answer. I didn’t want to kill Aiden, but if I didn’t stop him, someone else would. In that case, the rest of us may not survive. And the only hint I had at how to stop him were the cryptic ramblings of a vampire hell-bent on revenge. “His invulnerability has gone to his head. If he expands his reign outside of the Charleston area, then what? If there is a war, my entire family, including you, is at risk.”
I stared at the bar. Images of my brothers and me as youngsters playing in the fields invaded my mind, causing fresh turmoil in my chest. I clenched my jaw. What I wanted was my family back, and if Aiden stood in the way of that, then yes, he must die, but I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t admit I would kill one brother for the sake of two. “I must find the Cure. I have to find out if he put Aiden on this path or if he can pull Aiden off it. Even if not, he knows something about us, something hidden from my brothers and me for centuries. It is imperative I learn it so I can reunite my family—or protect them from it if I must.”
I sipped my drink, my path resolute. “Has Isla learned anything new?”
Declan nodded. “Yeah, she hasn’t found the Cure himself, but a clue to find him.”
“Why don’t you go get it?” I looked at him from the corner of my eye.
He smirked and shook his head. “Here, I thought only one of you was that demanding,” Declan said before sipping his drink.
We were going to play this game.
“Go on. Please,” I said by way of an apology.
“Isla is slowly making her way through all the papers in your father’s study at the manor. She found a map of the cave system near where I was born in Kentucky. She said to tell you there was an ailm on the map, but she wouldn’t tell me what it meant. Care to elaborate?”
I pressed my lips together before inhaling. How many times had I seen an ailm growing up? “An ailm is the ancient symbol of health and purity. It is the perfect symbol for a Cure. Can you make it to the caves? Show Isla where you were born?”
Declan shook his head. “Aiden is getting annoyed by my travels.”
“Your mate is a human who travels extensively for work. You can’t leave her for longer than a flask will hold out,” I said with a shrug. “He should know. Our parents were never apart for more than a day. Mother liked Father’s blood better from the vein.”
“Isla prefers to drink from the vein too, but she’s perfected the length of time she can survive from a flask. I don’t trust that he won’t kill her, so I don’t keep her with me when I’m in Charleston. I spend a week with her, then two with him. I’m headed back tomorrow.” He let out a sigh.
I turned to him, the patrons around the bar briefly distracting me before I laid a hand on his shoulder. “He loves you. You are a brother to us all. And the last one standing with him.”
Declan nodded as his eyes fell. “We want to marry, to be together. I wish I could trust him.”
I squeezed his shoulder before removing my hand and turning back to the bar. “You know, I remember those caves. My brothers and I would explore them like children even after seven hundred years on the planet.”
“You probably had an easier time of it than most spelunkers.” Declan laughed. “I remember a game of hide-and-seek.”
“Yes, being able to see in the dark and not needing ropes gave us all a certain advantage.” I smiled and finished my drink. “Did Isla send the map?”
“Not to me. We didn’t want Aiden to find it if he needed my phone. She said she put a picture on the shared drive for you.”
“It looks like it is time for me to explore again,” I said as I slid off the stool. “Make sure you close my tab.”