11 - Echo
If this is as good as it gets, I’ll take it.
When I open my eyes all I see is purple. All around me is nothing but purple. It’s blurry, and misty, and magical. But as the seconds tick off, my eyes begin to focus and the fuzzy haze condenses into something recognizable.
Lines. Squiggly lines of glowing purple. Like a neon sign might glow.
“They’re roots, Little Baby.” Josep speaks these words directly into my ear. “The Tree of Life.” He laughs softly and this laugh sends a chill through my body that makes the little hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up.
Not in a bad way, either. It’s… a shiver. But the good kind.
This realization almost sends me into a panic because?—
“Little Baby?” He interrupts my thoughts.
“What?”
“Don’t overthink it. Just… enjoy. Enjoy everything. I’m sorry for waking you up earlier without the proper preparations. I made a mistake. But I’ve since course-corrected. Forget about everything that came before this moment right now because none of that matters.”
I can’t say I agree with him. I can’t say I disagree with him either, of course, because he’s…
“Insane?”
He knows what I’m thinking? He can read my mind? This is like the abusive relationship from hell.
Josep chuckles. “I’m not reading your thoughts, Little Baby. I’m part of them. I’m part of you. I’m inside you. Both as the Darkness and as the Seed.” His hand, I realize, is caressing my stomach.
This is when I remember what happened earlier and what he said. We’re expecting a Dark Baby, Little Baby .
Immediately, my heart begins to thump inside my chest and I start sucking in air in short frenzied gasps.
“Shhhh,” he says, petting my head as he continues to caress my stomach. “Don’t panic. I’m going to show you what this all means and how beautiful it is. And then we’re going to drink, and fuck, and sleep, and grow old together.” He laughs again. “Well, we won’t grow old. Ever. We will be the same pretty demons we are right now in a thousand years. Because you are the Dark Mother, Echo.”
When he says my real name, something inside me changes. Some little part of me—the part that was dying—starts to come alive again.
“ Echo .” He repeats my name right into my ear, causing another inexplicable shiver of delight. “You’re my Dark Queen, Echo. You’re my Dark Mother. But first and foremost, you’re my Little Baby. My one and only. Forever and ever. For all infinite eternity.”
Despite the fact that I know better—that I understand what this thing is and what it has done to me—I relax and begin to feel… safe. I guess.
I must be drugged. Because the one thing I am not is safe. Not with him.
“I understand your misgivings, Little Baby. I am quite a spectacular creature, after all. But look around. Look at what we’re a part of.”
I let out a sigh and refocus on the roots all around me as they glow the gentlest of purples.
“Are you looking?”
“Yes.”
“And what do you think?”
“It’s… pretty?”
“It is. I really like being in the earth. It’s so soothing, isn’t it?”
I want to deny this, but I can’t. He’s right. The glowing roots are soothing. It’s something out of a fantasy. Like a fairy realm in a movie.
“Do you know what they do?”
“The roots?” I ask.
“Yes. The roots.”
“Well… they… feed the tree? I’m really not a science geek, OK? I dropped out in eleventh grade. I failed biology, so?—”
Josep’s laugh is loud and it startles me into silence. “No. Forget about the trees. These roots aren’t part of the trees. Well, they are, in a sense. But these are the roots of time, Little Baby. And for us, they are a highway to go places.”
“What? What are you talking about?” I’m so confused.
“The Tree of Life, Little Baby, isn’t a tree. It’s a timeline. We can use the roots to go anywhere we want. Just like we use the purple to conjure up new realities.”
“Purple?” What he just said did not enlighten me in any way. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of course not. You were born a human. This is what I’m trying to explain. Humans are… boring, and powerless, and limited. You can’t see the purple mist that surrounds your pathetic and contained reality, so you can’t use it to conjure up a new one. But you, my dear Dark Mother, are no longer human. When you took my blood, you took my magic. And this is what you’re looking at. The magic is purple and showing you how to use it properly is my birthday gift to you. Come.”
The moment he says ‘come’, we’re somewhere else. A dark and empty place with no light at all. No roots, no earth, no purple. It’s—awful and even though I can’t sense any movement at all, I feel this dark emptiness pushing in on me. Encroaching. And then suddenly, I remember that I was in a place like this before I woke up.
“Yes,” Josep says. “I put you in the Dark Place so you could understand. We are part of that Darkness, Little Baby. It is us and we are it. And in this Dark Place there is no time. And if there is no time, there is nothing but…” I wave my hand at the emptiness all around us, but of course she can’t see this because we are the Darkness now. “There is nothing. It is insanity for a sentient being. Which we are, obviously. Because we are still communicating.
“In order to bring sanity back, and with it a clarity of vision,” Josep continues, “we must have time. Because the Darkness is the eternal infinity. Or infinite eternal, if you prefer. Darkness, Little Baby, is… well, nothingness. And it’s quite boring. In fact, if we stay here too long we’ll get lost in the insanity. Because if there is no time in the eternal infinity, then there is no existence. Do you see?”
I’m shaking my head through all of that. “No. I can’t see shit.”
He laughs. And to my surprise, so do I. “Of course not. I didn’t mean literally. Do you understand that if there is no time there is no… living ? There are no experiences here, Little Baby. You are nothing but a bit of purple mist. Reach down and touch yourself.”
“What?”
“Anywhere. Your arm, your stomach where my Dark Baby lives. Anywhere.”
“This is a real thing? You want me to touch myself.”
“I do.”
I let out a breath and reach down to my stomach. I don’t want to because the thought of that baby being inside me is…
There’s nothing there. There’s just air. I wave my hand in the air, trying to find myself, but I am not here! “What the hell is going on? I’m invisible!”
“No,” Josep says, in that calm, deep voice of his. “You’re not invisible, you simply don’t exist.”
“But that’s impossible! I’m thinking thoughts, so obviously I have a brain!”
“Not a brain, Little Baby. A consciousness. Weren’t you listening? You are nothing but a consciousness. That’s what it means to live in the Darkness. You are nothing but ideas. And while it can be fun for a short period of time, it will drive you insane. You see, when we are nothing but Darkness, we don’t exist. We can’t feel anything. We can’t express ourselves. And we certainly can’t drink blood and fuck, which… I mean, that’s pretty much the best part of having a body, don’t you agree?”
“Well… I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Sure.” I sigh. “Yeah. Blood-drinking is pretty fun. And so is fucking. So. All right. I’ll give you this point.”
“We don’t want to live here in the Darkness, do we?”
“ No . I completely agree. I do not want to stay here one moment longer than I have to. In fact, I want to leave right now.”
“Of course you do. We crave existence. Everything does, really.”
“So how do I get out?”
“In the beginning, before I thought it through, I was planning on leaving you here. Forcing you to find your power and all that growth bullshit humans like to brag about. But that’s not a gift. That would be making you work for it and a gift is something you give freely. So I’m going to teach you, Little Baby. And I want you to know that I have never told a single other soul how to do these things.”
“Not even Paul?”
He laughs. “Paul doesn’t wait for explanations. Paul is a force. He plows forward like a bull, crashing his horns into anything and everything that gets in his way. He never needed my help. But no, even if he did, I wouldn’t have obliged. Power isn’t something you teach, it’s something you learn.”
“Well, you just said you’re going to teach me, so…”
“I’m going to teach you the ‘what,’ not the ‘how.’ But you don’t need the ‘how’ because you’re with me. I’m your ‘how,’ Little Baby.”
I blow out a breath that only happens in my mind. But I understand what he’s not saying just as well as I do what he is. He wants me to know him through his power. This is a very typical thing in a controlling relationship. And I’ve been in quite a few of those, so I’m on guard here. He wants me to need him. So no, he’s not going to teach me how to get out of the Darkness. He’s going to take me . So I am in debt to him.
But, of course, I don’t say any of that out loud. He can read my thoughts, anyway. “So… are you trying to tell me that I’m special?”
“Yes.” And even though he hasn’t got a face and I don’t have to see it, I hear him smiling. “I understand—at least, I’m trying to understand—that what happened to you… what I did to you… it was…”
“Unconscionable? Abusive? Evil ?”
“No. It was careless. And I care for you, Little Baby. So I’m going to make up for my misguided actions when you took my Darkness into yourself.”
If I had eyebrows, they’d be hiked up on my forehead right now. “Misguided actions? And did you just blame me for what you did?”
“Did I?”
“ Yes ! That was a rhetorical question. Look.” I sigh. “I get it. You’re in control. You’re the big, powerful Darkness. You’re the insane vampire. And I’m a high school dropout with pink hair who gave up my eternal soul because Lucia wanted to fuck my boyfriend and make him drink her and I was so insecure, and my self-image so damaged, that I would rather get in on that and follow him to a vampire’s lair into the pit of Hell, Montana, and become a halfbreed than be alone . But I”—I point to myself. Well, I would, if I had hands and a body—“I am not responsible for what you put me through. And if you think I don’t remember? And I’ll just forgive and forget because I’m carrying your stupid Dark Baby? Well.” I huff out some air. “You’re mistaken, mister. I might be a coward, and a dropout, and a pathetic example of an empowered woman—but you know what else I am ? A grudge holder. And you’re not getting out of this that easy. I’m damaged! Damaged ! And I… hate you.”
There. I said it.
What he does with this outburst is his business. He might torture me. Or leave me here. Or… something worse. Because it can always get worse. But I don’t care. I said what I said and I mean it.
So I say it again. “I hate you.” And then I just let it all spill out. “I will never love you. I will never love this baby. I’m going to trick you into… I dunno. I’m gonna kill you, I think. And this baby. And then myself. Because… you’re… you’re… inhuman ! And I’m going to blame you for everything that has ever gone wrong in my life and I’m gonna feel pretty fucking good about that. I’m gonna absolve myself of all responsibility and?—”
He’s laughing.
And I’m fuming. “What’s so fuckin’ funny? There’s nothing funny happening here! I am literally pregnant with a demon’s offspring, I live on blood and sex, and I’m standing in the dark pit of Hell itself. There is nothing funny happening here !”
But instead of answering me, he hugs me. His arms wrap around me, and he pulls me close, and I can feel him, so we’re real now. I can feel his body against mine and it’s… nice.
It’s really nice. This hug, it’s a genius move on his part. Like 5D chess move, or whatever. Because it works. I like it. And I never want him to let me go. Because no one has ever loved me. Ever. And even though he’s a demon, and he’s evil, and he’s not even human, even though he’s given me demon blood and put a demon baby inside me… I don’t care right now.
I want this hug. I need this hug. And if I could make it last forever, I would.
“Open your eyes, Little Baby.”
“Why? There’s nothing to see but Darkness.”
“Open them.”
So I do. And I’m wrong, of course. Because I’m never right about anything. We’re still in the Darkness, but there’s a purple mist now. Not a thick one, but it’s enough to give meaning to the endless eternal infinity of emptiness.
“Where would you like to go, Little Baby? On Earth, I mean.”
“A real place?”
“A real place.”
“Like… Machu Picchu?”
“Machu Picchu?” He chuckles and this makes his chest vibrate.
And since he’s hugging me, this vibration resonates. Like it actually enters me, and calms me, and so I sigh. “I’ve always wanted to go there and see those ruins. It’s dumb, but you asked.”
“Well, if that’s where you want to go, let’s go. Take me there. Let’s explore it together.”
“Take you there, how?”
“In the purple. The Tree of Time, remember? Imagine it, and then take a step forward. Keep hold of my hand and I’ll come with you. Let go of it, and you’ll leave me behind.”
Is he giving me a choice? To bring him along or go alone? “Why bother leaving you behind? You’ll just follow me.”
“No. I won’t. You have to come back to me. You need blood and sex, remember? So why should I chase you if you want to be alone? I’m not insecure. Do you want to see Machu Picchu alone?”
“Why would anyone go anywhere alone? It’s only fun to do exciting things if you can share it with someone.”
“And that’s why I want to be with you. So we can share. Because I’m alone too, Echo.”
Again, he uses my real name. And this is his way of letting me know that he sees me. I am his Little Baby, his pet. And he’s serious about that. But he’s not delusional. He knows I’m something else too.
“I do not have to force you to do anything. You will come to me whether you want to or not because you need blood and sex. But don’t you want more than blood or sex? Because I do.”
I close my eyes and let out a deep breath. Then I press my face into his chest, listening to his heart beat. Which is stupid. Because we’re not even here. We’re not even real.
“It keeps time,” Josep says. “That’s how it works.”
I look up at him now. At his beautiful face. “How what works?”
“Everything. The heart, it keeps time. And all you need to make a place real is time, Little Baby Echo. Something to tick it off. So listen to my heart and make something real. Let’s go to Machu Picchu and look at all the ruins. Take me there.”
But I don’t want to go there. Not now. I’m too tired. I’m exhausted. And I’m… sad. I just want to go to bed. But I don’t want to go to bed alone and I don’t want to leave this hug, so instead of imaging the mountains of Peru, I picture a bedroom. Not the hotel room we were at, but something all brand new.
My own bedroom. A dream bedroom.
And the moment I think this, we’re in a bed. And his arms are still around me, and he’s kissing me, and holding me, and I realize he’s a very good abusive partner because… I like this. And it’s crazy. Because he took me to the pit of Hell, and carved up my body with his claws, and put evil symbols all over me, and then turned me with a long drink, and then used me to poison the halfbreeds.
They tore me to shreds. I remember it. I remember every moment of it.
And still, his attention is enough.
This little bit of kindness—which isn’t kindness at all, I understand this—it’s enough. I won’t forget, but I will forgive.
Because I’m not about to give this up.
I will never love him, and I might throw up just thinking about what’s growing inside me, but if he will hold me, and feed me, and fuck me like this? Whether his love is real or not, it’s more than I ever had as a human.
It’s more than I ever thought I deserved.
I roll over in the bed, looking straight into his purple eyes as I climb on top of him and straddle his hips. I place my hands flat on his chest and lower myself down until we’re so close, we could kiss. Then I reach down, grab his hard cock, and gently slip it inside me as I lift my hips.
He almost closes his eyes, which I interpret as pleasure. And then we smile, and kiss, and fuck. And after the fucking… we feed.
Much later , though I am not paying attention to the ticking of time so I have no idea how much later, Lucia shows up in my head.
Josep and I are cuddled up together under the luxurious comforter, his arms around me and his leg hiked over my hip in a possessive embrace.
“I want to say this is brilliant,” she says. “But I’m concerned, Echo, that you might be buying into his lie.”
I mentally swat her away. Not because she’s wrong. She’s not wrong.
I am buying into this lie.
But if I’m buying into it, is it a lie?
“You need to find the Black blood, Echo. He’s got a vial of it hidden in that cave. That’s how you kill him. You feed him that and?—”
But I’m not listening. In fact, I banish her from my thoughts. And then I turn, press my face into Josep’s muscled chest, and let him hug me harder.
It’s not a lie.
I like this.
And if this is as good as it gets, I’ll take it.