6 - Echo
I want him to eat me all night and day.
He is crooning in my ear when I wake. “I love you, Little Baby.”
And Lucia is gone.
Was she ever here?
Was I dreaming?
Oh, please, God. I beg of you, let this all be a nightmare. Let me wake up in my parents’ house in Spokane. Let me be in my childhood bedroom wearing layers upon layers of black eyeliner. Let me be wearing that tattered Offspring t-shirt, and my black velvet bell-bottoms, and my Docs, and let me be in my lumpy twin bed that I’ve been sleeping in since I was four. Let my parents be downstairs, fighting. Screaming at each other. Drunk and high. Let me be there. I would give anything to just go back .
“Welcome, my Little Baby. Welcome back to your new life.”
I begin to sob, my whole body shaking.
His arms are around me, and I’m in the pool, and I want to pray for my own soul, which I am now very sure exists and has been sold with my full consent.
But before I can do that, his lips touch mine and a drop of blood slips into my mouth. And then… then the fight is over.
I am the definition of lost.
That’s all it takes. Just one drop. Because in this drop lives everything I could ever want.
I close my eyes and go limp in his arms, letting the rhythm of his chest, moving up and down under my body, lull me into a half-waking slumber.
Be careful .
The words in my head aren’t mine, they’re Lucia’s. It’s a warning. That I should not let this monster overtake me.
You know what’s happening here, Echo .
“I’m not Echo.” To my surprise, my words come flowing right out of my mouth. Well, they don’t exactly flow, they are more of a croak. But it startles me because for a moment there I think I forgot I existed.
It’s the blood, darling . And again, it’s Lucia’s voice in my head. It will always be your weakness and you will always want it. There’s no getting around that, Little Echo .
“Little Baby?” Josep says. His voice is so low and rumbly. So soothing and calm.
He’s a complete psychopath , Lucia coos. But do you know, even psychopaths have weaknesses? He left me alone for centuries. Do you want to know how I got him to do that ?
Josep is petting my head now, kissing my cheek. “Little Baby, can you hear me? Come back to me, Little Baby. It’s all right now. You’re all better. I made you all better.”
“Tell me,” I say.
“What should I tell you, Little Baby?”
But it’s not Josep I’m talking to. It’s Lucia. “Tell me.”
Josep kisses my lips, nicking the upper one with his sharp teeth. He starts licking me, his tongue sliding in and out of my mouth. “You taste so good. Is that what you want to hear?” He kisses me, hard. Like we’re lovers who have been separated for months. Who haven’t seen each other. Lovers who only want one thing.
Not sex, though I see that coming.
But blood.
Blood lovers.
His weakness , Lucia continues, is his vanity. Fall in love with him, Little Echo. Give yourself to him. Utterly and completely .
“That doesn’t sound like a very good solution,” I mumble.
“What?” Josep pulls back, but not very much. An inch, maybe. I force myself to open my eyes and his are right there. Red. Blood red. He smiles at me. He’s much too close for me to see that smile, but the outer corners of his eyes turn up, giving it away. “It’s OK,” he says. “I’m here, Little Baby. You’re mine now.”
Give yourself to him and he will love you, Little Echo. And Josep’s love is that of the Darkness, which flows inside you, just like it does me. It is favor. It is privilege. It is… immunity. Tell him he’s yours. Quick. Right now! Do it! Say it !
“No, my lord.” I swallow hard and choke out the next few words, looking him in the eyes. He’s frowning at my rejection. “You.” I say this word with firm resolve because I can see rage in those eyes. I can see his fury and imagine his wrath if this were all there was to my statement. So quickly, I finish. “You, my lord, are mine .”
He relaxes. Smiles. Holds me tighter.
See ? Lucia is standing in a dark corner of the cave now, holding her own decapitated head in her hands, just staring at me with black pits for eyes. His weakness is his vanity. If you just love him, Little Echo, he will give you anything you want. So love him. Let him do anything he wants with you. She turns her body away from me when she says this part, like she doesn’t want to think about this, but it’s just a fleeting gesture. Nothing but a moment of recollection. She is thinking about the past. About what she let him do to her. Then her resolve is back. You won’t regret it, I promise .
Which is a lie, I think. Because while I can no longer see her regret, I can feel it.
“That’s right,” Josep says, interrupting my thoughts. He lets out a long breath, holding me to his chest, rocking back and forth like I really am a baby. “I’m yours, and you are mine, and together, Little Baby, we will be the new Darkness together. I am the master now.” He pulls back and with one clawed hand he rips open his throat. Blood comes gushing out.
Instantly, I have the urge to catch it all in my mouth. To lick up every drop. But I don’t even have to move because Josep lowers his neck down to me, right over my mouth, and gives himself to me without hesitation.
“Drink,” he says, eyes closed and moaning, like giving me his blood is better than sex. “Drink, Little Baby. Take every bit you can.”
And I do. I let his blood gush into my mouth and slide down my throat. I take it all, and then he feeds on me, taking it all back. When he is done, I drink him again.
I know we’ve done this before. I can’t remember where, or how many times, or what happened after, but I know we’ve shared the drink like this.
This time though, it’s different. Because I’m awake. I’m aware. And the longer it goes on—and it goes on for a long time—the more I like it.
And the more I like it, the more I like him.
So when, finally, the drink is over and the two of us are spent and sprawled out on the wet cave floor, completely naked and tangled together in each other’s arms and legs, I smile.
I am… maybe not happy. But I’m not sure happy is better than content.
And that’s what I am.
Content.
When I wake up I’m in a bed . A very nice bed that is not inside the cave.
I sit up, looking around, trying to figure out where I am because I’ve seen every nook and cranny of the Montana compound and I’ve never seen this room.
This is when I hear the traffic outside.
I throw the covers off, get out of bed—completely naked—and walk over to the window, pulling the sheer curtains aside.
It’s a city.
“You’re awake.” I turn and find Josep behind me. He’s wearing loose pants and no shirt. And my God, is he a god? Because he’s got the body of one. And the face—which is perfectly symmetrical, like it was meant to display those blue eyes of his like art. His hair is long and blond and a bit wavy. He looks like a… well, god really is the right word.
I blink. “I’m awake. Where are we?”
Josep smiles. “In my dream, of course. I don’t like to leave the cave. And why should I? I can go anywhere I want without ever leaving home.”
I look around, trying to see the blurry edges that might reveal the truth that this place is a lie, but I can’t find them. “It looks so real. It feels so real.”
“Reality,” he says, “is dysfunctional, Little Baby. It comes and goes. It’s all very here and there.”
I frown, pretty sure that this is not my definition of reality. “Shouldn’t reality be… like… you know, not very here and there but just one or the other?”
Josep laughs, crossing the room, coming right at me. I have an urge to back up. To get away. Because he’s a monster. I know this.
But he’s smiling at me, and reaching for me, and there’s really no time to get away, or anywhere to go, since I’m caught in some kind of trap. So there’s a moment here where my anxiety is through the roof.
It’s a very short moment, though. Because his hand comes up to my cheek and I feel his love. It relaxes me.
A trick. I try and make those words form in my head in Lucia’s voice. Because if she says it, it’s true, isn’t it?
But Lucia is definitely not here. Not even in my head. And the words are just me, looking for a reason to doubt him.
My maker.
My god.
“My Little Baby,” Josep says, looking down at me with adoration. His eyes flash purple. “What is going through that head of yours?”
Be his , my own inner voice says. Be his and he will give you everything .
I blink. Relax. Breathe. Smile. Then I bow my head, drop to my knees, and press my lips to the tops of his feet.
Which surprises me, because I don’t even know where this comes from.
“Oh, that is cute, Little Baby. What god doesn’t like adoration? We all do. It’s flattering.” But he’s leaning down. Far enough to gently grab my arm and pull me to my feet. “But all that is over now. You’re already mine. You made the promise when you drank me. And I made a promise back when I drank you.”
I frown, still looking down. Because his promise feels a little bit like marriage. Did I marry this monster when I drank his blood?
I can’t look at him. If I do, I might scream, and if I scream, he’ll know. He’ll figure out that this is a lie, that I’m using him, that I hate him. That I think he’s a demon from Hell and that I have no desire to be his plaything.
But there’s no reprieve for me because his finger is tipping my chin up. My eyes follow—reluctantly—until I am staring straight into his soul.
Or lack of one. A pit of evil might be a better way to describe what’s beyond those eyes of his. They are absolutely purple now. No doubt about it. “Do you need more blood?”
I exhale loudly. “Need, my lord?”
He laughs, and, to my surprise, so do I. “Do you want more blood, Little Baby?” His hand comes up to my cheek, caressing it like I’m his most cherished possession.
I do. I want to suck on him for the rest of my life. But I have questions. “If this isn’t real”—I pan my hand around the room—“am I really drinking?”
“Come,” he says, taking my hand. “You’ve earned a little baby peek.”
“A peek?” I don’t understand. I feel like I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole and all around me is a sparkling, shining, glittering, blood-covered Wonderland.
But Josep is pulling me now. Across the room, through a door, and then… it’s dark. There is nothing beyond this door but emptiness.
Josep stops in the middle of this emptiness then maneuvers me in front of him, his hands on my shoulders, his hips pressing up against my lower back, his hardness very evident. “Concentrate,” he says. “Look into the emptiness, Little Baby, and see what’s there.”
I lean forward a little, squinting, trying to do what he says. And I’m just about to say it’s not working when the space shimmers and a kind of fog appears.
A gasp comes out of my mouth. And at the same time Josep’s hands slide off my shoulders and down the front of me. His fingers fondle my breasts as the image in the fog resolves.
It’s us. We are on the floor of the cave all tangled together.
Which makes sense, because I knew this. I remember this.
Our naked bodies are covered in blood. It is smeared all over us. I’m on top of him, leaning down into his neck, drinking. His hands are caressing me, rubbing up and down my legs and over my back. His eyes are closed, his head tipped up to give me easy access to his jugular, and he is moaning. Every time I draw his blood out of him, he moans. Like we’re fucking.
Except we’re not.
“Not yet,” Josep says, still fondling my breasts on this side of things. “Sex is… well, a bonus. It’s the drink I want, Little Baby. It’s the drink I will take whether you agree or not. Sex is something else. Sex is something you must take from me.”
I can’t move. I can’t speak. I don’t have anywhere to go and I have no idea what to say back to that.
“I am not Paul,” Josep says. “I will not use it the way he does. Even though you are my Ryet, I will not force you to be my Ryet. I will not chase you through time, practically begging for your love. I will not wait for it, either.” His hands come back up to my shoulders and he gently turns me around until we’re facing each other. “You will take it from me, Little Baby. Or it will never happen. And if it never happens, I’ll get it somewhere else.”
And this is when I figure it out.
This is when I understand.
“Lucia didn’t take it, did she? She didn’t fuck you.”
Josep laughs. “She’s inside your head, isn’t she? Telling you all sorts of things.” He doesn’t give me time to deny it, so I don’t bother. “No. She never did. But she was nothing compared to you, Little Baby. She is weak, and stupid, and nothing but a low-class trashy bitch.” His hand comes up to my cheek again. “You are my princess, Little Baby. She was nothing but a slave. And I never wanted her in my bed, so I never gave her any encouragement. You, however…” He pauses here to smile. “Oh, if you deny me? If you want to play hard to get? I’ll just tempt you, my Little Baby Darkness. I’ll tempt you like this…”
He leans down, pressing his lips to mine. I expect him to bite his lip and give me blood, but he doesn’t. He just… kisses me. Not hard and demanding, but softly and with tenderness. His arms wrap around me in an embrace, our bodies pressed together.
Everything is slow now. Like the chaos across that fog—the blood lust—isn’t happening. Like this moment here is entirely ours.
When he pulls away, I suddenly miss him. Ache for him. So I look him in the eyes. “I will take your blood,” he says. “Any time I want. But I will not take your body unless you give it.”
Then he turns and steps into the fog.
“Wait!” I panic. “Where are you going? What am I supposed to do?”
His body is only marginally there, like he just became part of the fog. But he looks over his shoulder one last time. “Do whatever you want. Live here.” He nods his head behind me. “Stay in the hotel. Go out into the city. Spend money. Buy pretty dresses. Meet people. Fall in love, Little Baby. You can live your whole life here and it will be a good one.”
“A dream,” I say. “This place is nothing but a dream.”
“They’re all dreams, Little Baby. They’re all dreams.” He grins. “But I am hoping that you, like me, want reality. And if that’s the case, then come along.” He turns away and takes a step, and then he’s… well, he’s just him on the other side of the fog. Josep, on the floor of his cave. Covered in blood. Me on top of him. Drinking. His hands caressing my naked, blood-covered body as he feeds.
He made this place for me. A place all my own where I can live forever inside a delusion. And that cave on the other side of the fog, that’s what he made for himself. A world where I am his and he is mine and probably all we do is fuck and drink.
We can live—if that’s even the correct word—we can live separately and still get what we want. But it won’t be real. It’s just a dream. So it will never be enough.
And no matter what I choose right now, I am his. There is no possible way back from this now.
“Choose him.” Lucia is standing at my left shoulder. Close enough to me so that I feel her shrug. “I’ve already traveled that other road. You might as well just… be his. Wholly and completely. Because trust me when I say this”—she turns her head to look at me—“it’s as good as it gets.”
Then she’s gone. Like she was never here.
I let out a breath, feeling completely crazy. I mean, being a halfbreed was insane enough. I only ended up here because Lucia was attracted to my boyfriend. I was a tagalong. He was killed years back now. I don’t even remember his name, actually. He died, I stayed.
It’s not that I was invisible. I had pink hair, after all. People saw me, but no one took any notice of me.
Not until Paul came up from the ground and made me his.
Not until Josep came up from the bunker and made me his.
In the foggy cave Josep suddenly opens his eyes. They are so bright and purple, they light up the darkness on this side of things. “ I see you,” he says. Then he smiles, shoves me off his neck, and presses his mouth into my throat.
I feel the bite. On this side of things, I feel it.
And it feels good.
The pull. It’s glorious. I want him to eat me all night and day. For eternity.
And I don’t even have a choice in that. He’s going to take it, he already told me.
So… why not take something for myself?
Why not take him back?
As soon as I think this, I’m out of the dream and back in my body in the cave. On top of him. Covered in blood. Lusting for it.
But not just the blood. I am lusting for this god of a monster beneath me.
I reach down, grab his hard cock, and put it inside me.
He pulls back from my neck, teeth dripping with blood, and laughs.
He did it.
He tricked me.
I gave in.
And it was my choice.
But I don’t regret it.
I don’t regret anything.