5 - Josep
She is well and truly mine
I am licking Little Baby like a lollipop and she is tasty. In this dream she is still the tender, young, innocent, pink-haired Echo. Her thighs are creamy white and appear fragile under the grip of my large hands because she is a small, weak halfbreed girl.
Which I quite like because I am a big, muscular vampire man and the disparity in our size is a turn-on for me.
I am between her legs and she’s writhing underneath me, her back arching, her mouth open and moaning, her eyes squeezed shut. My tongue must hit the sweet spot just right because suddenly her knees clamp against my head.
She comes.
Of course, she always comes. We’ve been in this dream for days, maybe even lifetimes, and her climax arrives every few minutes. It’s in this moment when I hear Paul. Not his voice, but his hands. Clawing the dirt near me.
“He’s not doing well.”
I look up, gazing across the tight abs and perky tits of Little Baby. She’s sitting up a little, eyes open and nothing but black pits. “What?”
“Paul,” Little Baby’s mouth says, though this is not Little Baby’s sweet voice. “He’s not handling it well. He doesn’t love me best, Josep. That’s why he was never my favorite.”
This is not Little Baby. And the moment I think this, her body morphs beneath me. It becomes black sand. Shifting black sand. Which isn’t sand at all, but those particles that the Darkness is made of.
Still, it retains the shape of a woman with her legs open.
“That’s right,” Little Baby Darkness says. “It’s me you’ve been fucking, Josep.”
My mouth drops open. My head is spinning. I cannot think straight. “ What ?”
Little Baby Darkness laughs. Then she reaches forward and her black sandy hand pats me on the head. “It’s OK, love. I’m here now. I’m with you. We can be together. Me and you. Like it was always meant to be.”
My eyes shift left. My eyes shift right. “This isn’t real.”
Little Baby Darkness smiles her black sandy smile, showing me black sandy fangs. “Oh, it’s real, blood lover. It’s real.”
I wake up in the dirt gasping for breath . Which isn’t normally something I do, so for a moment I’m certain that I’m still hallucinating. But then, up above, I hear Paul talking to the scions. Something about… something. Who cares?
Little Baby Darkness was right. He’s not doing well. If I cared at all about Paul—I mean, if I cared about more than his blood and sex parts—I would claw my way up and we’d talk through it. But… I… just… really don’t care about Paul. Other than eating him and fucking him.
“She’s woken up, you know.”
I look down at my chest and find Little Baby Darkness. Her cheek is pressed against my skin and the long tip of her fingernail is tracing down the middle of my stomach. I watch, willing her to grab me between the legs, but she doesn’t.
And she doesn’t look like the Darkness now, either. She looks like Echo. Young, and sweet, and sexy pink-haired Echo.
“Why are you here?” I ask her.
She looks up at me with wide, innocent blue eyes. “Because you’re trying to kill me.”
“That’s not true.” Even if it was true, I wouldn’t admit it was true, but it’s just really not true. “That’s absolutely not what I’m trying to do. I just want your power, Little Baby Darkness. That’s all.”
She lifts her head up and begins crawling up my body, her knee easing in between my legs, her breasts flat on my chest. And then her , hovering above me. She places a hand on my cheek and smiles. “I’ve given you everything, haven’t I?”
“Of course. And I am thankful.”
“But you don’t love me, Josep. Not as much as I love you.”
I would like to point out here that this thing on top of me isn’t human. Well, I’m not human, either, but at least I’m made of flesh. This thing is not flesh. It’s technology. Something very advanced that I don’t understand, which kind of makes it magic—or evil, depending on your interpretation of the world. So everything about this moment is a trick.
“I’m tricking you,” she says.
I nod, matter-of-factly. “You are indeed. You’re a lie, Little Baby Darkness. And even though I am made of you, which makes me a lie as well, I need more than the lie. I need…”
Well, what I need is a partner. Someone to love.
Which is exactly what the Darkness appears to need in me. But it’s… different. It’s too ‘other.’
“Well,” I continue, “I just don’t see us together, Little Baby Darkness. I would like Real Little Baby.” I shrug here, feeling good about my authenticity. “You just don’t do it for me.”
I’m expecting outrage. Hell, if I’m being honest, I’m expecting it to kill me. I would like to play the game and win. I would love to be as invested as Paul. That man, my God, he’s driven. But I lost interest in life so long ago now that I can’t even muster up the illusion of interest.
Little Baby is a tiny prize. If I have to be here, I would like her to be here with me.
But I don’t actually have to be here.
Everything we’re doing is a distraction. It’s a game. I’m playing but I don’t care about the finish line. It’s just a way to prolong the inevitable.
The Darkness knows this. It knows I have a bottle of the Black blood in my bunker. It also knows that Little Baby is mine. Something all mine because I made her. So it took her form, not just to trick me, but to experience whatever it is I feel for this remnant of a girl.
Which is… nothing. It’s not personal. I don’t feel anything, ever. I’m gone. I’ve been gone for so long now, I doubt I was ever here.
Little Baby Darkness pets me and gazes into my eyes. “I can be anything you want, Josep. Anything at all.” And then she morphs into Paul and strokes his hand down my cheek.
“Is it me you want?” These words come out of Dark Paul’s mouth and in his voice.
Eating and fucking Paul, as basic as it sounds, has been enough to content me. He’s bigger than life. He fills up every empty space when he’s around. And he’s energetic. He never gets tired of trying new things. He’s always busy. He feeds this energy to me and I drink it up. The blood and the sex is enough to keep me interested. If it weren’t for Paul, I’d have sipped the Black blood centuries ago.
But he’s not enough to entice me into infinity.
I reach up and take Dark Paul’s hand off my cheek—surprised that it doesn’t feel like sand—and hold it close to my chest. Not because I’m making some kind of gesture, but because it’s just kinda sad that this thing—this powerful, all-knowing thing—is… begging .
For me , no less. Which is more than sad, it’s pathetic.
“Listen,” it says, morphing back into Little Baby Darkness, “if you don’t at least try, Josep, then I’ll just become her. I’ll steal everything she is and just be her. And then you’ll have no choice. This would not be a hard thing to do. I am, after all, inside her right now.”
I shrug up one shoulder, kind of surprised at my indifference. Not about Little Baby, but the Darkness. It wants me. To be its lover, or slave, or confidant.
But it’s a lie .
This has always been my problem with the Darkness. It’s a lie and I’ve always known it. I can feel the lie. And the lie is so much worse than the truth because the truth is, I have no one. No one cares about me.
Paul pretends because he needs this, right here. This, what I’m doing with the Darkness. Which is being close to it, and understanding it, and being the object of its desire. Paul wants that, and that is all Paul wants.
The Darkness doesn’t want me . The Darkness wants me to do something. This comes in the form of the power it puts into my blood. It fills me up with lies. And then, in turn, I give these lies to others.
If you really think about it, I’m nothing more than a transfusion. Except I’m not even that important. I am nothing more than the transfusion bag . I’m a bit of thick plastic hanging on a rack. That’s it.
This is the crux of my relationship with the Darkness.
Little Baby Darkness kisses me. Right on the lips. And it’s nice. If I were to allow myself to believe the lie, it would be so nice. To really have her as my own. A partner in this world. A lover. A friend.
“I can be that, Josep,” the Little Baby Darkness whispers. “I can. I can do anything. I promise you.”
“But you cannot be the real her, Little Baby Darkness.”
She sits up, straddles me, then leans over my chest and places both hands on my cheeks as she stares at me with very blue eyes. “I can. I can .”
I take her hands in mine and remove them from my face. “Why? Why do you want me ?”
Her eyes flit down to my chest. Then come back up to my face. “Do you want the truth?”
This is not Little Baby’s voice. It’s a deep voice. One of a man, but of course, this thing on top of me isn’t a man. And then, just as I think that, it morphs into one. A man who is me. Who looks just like me.
“The truth is the only thing that matters,” I tell Dark Me.
Dark Me smiles and I recognize this smile because it’s my smile and it’s meaningless. It’s a lie. It’s me, pretending to care about the petty problems of whomever it is I’m talking to.
“Because, Josep, you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
And because I’m a liar, I can’t tell if this is some existential exercise in knowing oneself, or… I’m just hallucinating and the whole conversation is pointless.
“Can’t you see it?” Dark Me asks. “Can’t you see how God has touched you?”
I make a face. The word ‘God’ alone is enough to trigger this face, but the underlying sentiment is equally repulsive. “That’s ridiculous,” I tell myself. I mean, Dark Me. “God has never touched me.”
“Were you not human once?”
“I’m not having this conversation with myself, Dark Me. So if you want me to participate, morph into someone else.”
It wriggles on top of me, kind of… humping me. Its hands start caressing me, its legs moving alongside mine, its cock growing against my stomach. And even though I don’t want to be turned on, my cock grows in response.
In response to what, Josep? Yourself ? The madness of this whole thing suddenly hits me.
What if it’s just always been me? What if the Darkness is nothing more than my own insanity?
“What if,” Dark Me says, “you have always been me , dear Josep? What if that were true? What if you are the Darkness? Have always been the Darkness? And this entire life you’ve been living was just your own personal actualization?”
I sit up in the dirt . Mouth full of it. Heart beating so fast, I can’t seem to catch my breath. I can still hear Paul above me. He’s still talking to the scions who didn’t join us in the dirt. “Now go. All of you. Hunt me some wolves!”
There is a small commotion above, then a dispersal.
Paul, in a lower voice, says, “Come with me, blood lover. I have big plans for you.”
What is he doing? What is he plotting now? How will he fuck me over?
Whoever he is talking to, it’s not Ryet because even through the dirt, I can smell his rotting corpse. Ryet’s body has been decimated by the scions all around me.
No, whoever leaves with Paul is someone new.
But it doesn’t matter who this new person is, whatever Paul is up to, it’s got something to do with Ryet. He has an unnatural obsession with that man. Ryet is a tool. That is all he’s ever been, and Paul knows this. But Paul, he’s an ideas man. He has lots of them. He’s always up to something. Something he shouldn’t be up to, of course. But he likes it that way. It’s part of the chase for him. The deception, the waiting, and the angst that comes from the waiting.
I don’t understand him. Not even a little bit.
“Well, Josep,” Little Baby Darkness coos into my head, “haven’t you always been my tool too? And haven’t I loved you the most, above all others?”
But the Little Baby Darkness is wrong. She is the hammer and I am the nail.
The blood bag, not the blood.
“ So ?” I say back.
“I gave you favors, I gave you magic, I gave you everything.”
“So what?”
“So, this is how Paul feels about Ryet.” Little Baby Darkness pushes some hair out of my face because she’s next to me now. Here in the dirt. Which means this is, again, some kind of dream.
I can’t seem to find reality. And it bothers me. Because Paul doesn’t seem to be having the same trouble.
She leans over me, covered in dirt, pushing it off my face and caressing my cheeks. “That’s because Paul isn’t you .” Little Baby Darkness boops me on the nose with a fingertip when she says this last word.
And why am I calling this thing a she? It’s not a woman. It’s not anything, really. It’s a fucking freak of nature. Well, no. It’s not even that. It’s a freak of… the unnatural . Because it’s not alive, it’s not real, it’s not?—
Little Baby Darkness takes my face in her hands, forcing me to look at her. “You’re not listening.”
“You’re telling lies.”
She presses her lips together and shakes her head. “I’m not.”
“You’re not Little Baby. You’re not her.”
“Well, you’re right.” She smiles at me. “I’m not. I’m just a hallucination. But she’s still here, Josep. Little Baby is waiting for you in your cave. And trust me, I am her . I am all over her. I am inside her. Everything about her is me .”
I let out a breath and some dirt falls into my mouth, but I don’t even bother spitting it out because it’s all around me.
“You want her, Josep? Do you want the Little Baby? Your own creation to keep forever? As your partner? As your friend? As your lover? A blood lover just for you? This is what Ryet is to Paul. A pet. Do you want a pet, Josep? I will be your pet. In her . And that is real. All you have to do is get up out of the ground and come find me. Then we can be together forever.”
I sigh, tired of this conversation with myself. Because that’s what I think it is. Me and my own damaged mind.
“You know that’s not true.” Little Baby’s voice is sweet now. And even though I’m under the ground with dirt all around me, I can see her plain as day. So it’s not real. And I’m not listening.
“OK,” she says. “Fine. I will tell you something true.”
I’m not looking at her. My gaze is focused on a twisted tree root in the dirt above my head. It’s white, and gnarled, and branches off in many directions that lead many places.
“I am the root, Josep.”
I scoff. “That’s your big revelation?” I scoff again. “Of course you’re the root. I’ve used you thousands of times to move across time and space underground.”
“But you see me as a highway. Something to be traversed.”
I don’t even bother scoffing. I just sigh, bored. Ready to die if none of this is going to work out in my favor.
“There is no death, Josep. This want of yours, this desire to evaporate into nothingness, it’s so irrational.”
I redirect my gaze to the girl on top of me and study her. Really see her. If she were Echo, it would be a reason to keep going. The two of us could hunt this Darkness together. We could subdue it, enslave it, drink its power, become a team, and rule the world as we built up the new American Vampires.
But I killed her. Not literally, she’s beyond that now. Because I gave her the blood we mixed during Ryet’s third birth and now she is part of It .
It is inside her. It has corrupted her. And I find that I’m truly sorry about that. I was too focused on Ryet and Paul. Too caught up in his plan.
“Yes,” Little Baby Darkness says. “Exactly. None of this is you, Josep.” She morphs back into Dark Me and I stare down at myself, suddenly able to see through his eyes.
“What do you know about me, Darkness?” I ask. But I’m watching myself say this as the words spill out of my mouth.
What a trip.
I lay my head on my own chest, then ask myself to hold me. “Hold me,” I say. But it comes out of both of my mouths at once. Like an echo.
My arms wrap around Dark Me, but this is when I realize I’m not the man lying in the ground, nor am I the man on top of me. I am both of us.
“Exactly,” Little Baby Darkness says, but only inside my head. “You are me, and I am you, and we are the same. This is why you’re insane, Josep. You’ve been touched by God. You’ve been touched by me because I am God. And your mind was never able to process it until now.”
“What’s so special about now?” I ask. There’s doubt in these words, but this insane dream is actually starting to make sense. In a small way, at least.
“Now, you can see yourself in me.”
Dark Me lifts his head up off my chest and we stare at each other. He’s pretty. That’s the word for him. He’s so fucking pretty. And the moment I think this, all the roots in the ground around me begin to glow the lightest of purples.
“I’m you,” he says. But I’m saying these words as well, at the very same time. So no matter which body I’m inside of at the moment, I’m saying this to myself.
“I’m you. You’re me. You are the Darkness. I am the Darkness. And if you want my power, you don’t have to work with Paul to steal it. It’s yours, blood lover. All you have to do is merge .”
Here it is. I mean, I’m many thousands of years old. Temptation and I? We’re old, old friends. The Darkness has been tempting me from my earliest days. Merge? I mean, come on. How fucking stupid do I look to this thing that it thinks I would fall for this simple trick?
“It’s not a trick.” But it is. Because these words come out of my mouth, and I’m looking down at myself as I say them. It’s always been a trick.
“Let me help,” Dark Me says as he sits up, displacing dirt all around his body so that it falls on me. He’s straddling me now, smirking. “Let me help you understand. Watch closely.”
And then his hand slips down to his cock and he fists it.
In this same moment, I feel this. I feel his grip on my own cock.
He begins to stroke himself and when I look down at myself I can see the indentation of his grip over my shaft. I feel him squeeze me.
“Because you’re not you ,” Dark Me says. “You’re me. And if you want my power, it’s yours. I put it all inside Echo to keep it safe. Didn’t you wonder why you had an urge to save her at the last minute? Didn’t you wonder?”
“Because I wanted a partner.”
Dark Me nods, squeezing his cock tighter and pumping harder. His breath is heavy and hitching now as he jerks himself off. “She’s yours,” he says, eyes closing. “And we put all our power inside her to keep it safe from Paul. So if you want your power back, all you have to do is come and take it.”
I come. He didn’t even touch me, nor did I touch myself, and I come, spilling the Dark Seed all over my stomach. A sense of utter relief washes over my body and I close my eyes, relishing it.
“It’s proof.” I expect these words to be in my head, or come from his mouth. But they don’t. These words come out of my mouth. “I’m the Darkness.”
I have always been the Darkness. Something foreign and alone that was born in the realm of infinity. Forever looking for a way to fit in and experience this world in a way that makes sense.
Because the realm of infinity is emptiness and all I want is to be full .
Dark Me is still straddling my hips, but now he lies down on my chest. Then… then he melts into me. Just… merges with me.
And that’s that, I guess.
We are One.
Once again, I sit up in the earth , gasping for breath. And once again, I feel like this is reality, but I can’t be sure.
I look around, expecting to see nothing but dirt, but that’s not what I see.
I see light. Purple and gold light. Thin strands of it weaving all through the ground around me like a web. Like the Darkness is a spider that spun a web and I am caught in the middle of it.
When the ground lights up like this, the earth actually disappears.
Or… maybe it’s the other way around? I’m not sure. But when I travel in the earth, I’m not walking through dirt. It’s just mist.
But I’ve been here many times before and now, like any other time, I enter the Dark highway in the ground and I move towards the place I want to be and the next thing I know, I’m emerging from a wall inside my cave. The whole place is thick with purple and gold mist. Which is magic. Which is good. Because Little Baby Dark Echo is going to need that magic if she wants to rise again.
I walk over to the pool and slip into the water. It’s warm and feels wonderful on my naked body.
Then I turn and take a good long look at my work.
Little Baby’s skin is very pale, but she is whole again. Her hair is long and silver, her body lithe and slim, yet full in all the right places.
She is a vessel and inside her is me.
Though I still don’t trust the Darkness, even if it is me, what it said makes sense.
If I put Dark power inside Echo to keep it safe from Paul, this would explain my sudden irrational desire to save her.
Of course, loneliness would explain this as well. But loneliness is sad and pathetic.
A grand plan to usurp Paul though? That’s not sad and pathetic at all.
That’s clever.
Which means this girl in the water with me truly is something special.