Echoes

by Michelle Rowen

  “You want to trap her? Not kill her?”

  He shook his head. “Upyri can’t be killed. It’s thanks to a very old curse, the same one that burned away our original bodies a long time ago—we live forever whether we want to or not. But we can be trapped in that wraith-like state. And...” The silence hung in the air for a long, heavy moment. “It takes a revenant to trap an Upyr. That’s what Frank was able to do the last time. The original Frank.”

  I absorbed this shocking new piece of information like a slap. “So if I’m revenant, too, that means I can trap them.”

  He nodded. “You can help us stop the queen once and for all.” He shook his head. “Or you can help Frank stop her. When I come back, I might be different. I might try to stop you.”

  “Where are you—?” I was going to ask him where he was going, but I remembered. The smoke. The heat. The pained edge to every word he spoke. He was in agony right now, bracing himself against the wall so he didn’t crumple into a heap to the floor.

  And then he’d be gone. Ethan would be gone.

  The monster hiding deep inside of him would still exist, but the boy who’d just told me he was madly, passionately, desperately in love with me…

  “I wish it could be different,” he said. “And I’m so sorry for lying to you. I didn’t see any other way.”

  My mouth felt dry, so dry. “Why didn’t you attack me earlier? You had the knife. You could have cut me, drank from me...”

  “I could have. You have no idea how tempting it was.” His gaze slid over me slowly before returning to my face. “But then I would have proven once and for all that I’m every bit the monster you think I am.”

  “If you don’t drink blood right now...you’re gone.”

  “There’s no other way this could have ended. I see that now. Go back to Frank. I swear he doesn’t mean you any harm. Help him. He thinks it’s going to happen tonight, so there’s no time to waste.”

  My stomach lurched. “Tonight?”

  He nodded. “It’s exactly one hundred years from when we were imprisoned. There’s power in a number like that. Enough that the queen can use it to release the others en masse and at full strength. It’s what we’ve been waiting for. What she’s been waiting for. And tonight’s the absolute perfect night for something like this. She couldn’t have planned it better if she’d tried.”

  “Perfect how?”

  He swallowed. “The school. The dance. Frank thinks she’s planning to lead the released wraiths there. At full strength they’ll be able to kill and steal any body they want.”

  “The prom,” I whispered with horror.

  He nodded. “So go, get out of here. And tell Frank I’m sorry.”

  I didn’t speak for a few long, tense moments. The queen—the Upyri queen—wanted to introduce her friends to my friends. Let them have the pick of new bodies. And they’d be strong enough to kill who they wanted instead of waiting for them to die first.

  I let out a long, shuddery breath. “Tell Frank you’re sorry yourself.”

  His eyes snapped to mine. “What?”

  “I said—” I gritted my teeth and forced myself to draw the sharp edge of the knife over my forearm. It hurt like hell. Red blood, dark in the shadowy room, welled up. “Tell him yourself.”

  His attention moved to my arm and locked there, but he remained frozen in place.

  I walked up to him. “Don’t make me regret this.”

  He was breathing hard, his chest moving in and out. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “I know. But I’m doing it anyway.”

  He didn’t have any more resistance in him. I held up my arm, and he grabbed hold of it, tightly, his grip like fire, and he lowered his mouth to it. His lips were a hot caress against my skin as he began to drink my blood. The knife finally fell from my grip and clattered to the ground and Ethan collapsed to his knees in front of me as if he didn’t have the strength to remain standing anymore.

  The moment he’d touched his mouth to my arm, the deep, stinging pain from the cut had vanished. Maybe he couldn’t influence me to forget about this, but whatever he was doing didn’t hurt. It felt good.

  His high body temperature swiftly began to lower as he drank. The smoke rising from his skin disappeared. Finally, he looked up at me, his dark hair partially obscuring his copper-colored eyes, his expression haunted, like he still didn’t believe I’d let him do this after everything he’d told me.

  He finally let go of me and pushed himself back up to his feet. He wasn’t looking in my eyes now. I glanced down at my arm, surprised to see that he’d been telling the truth earlier. It wasn’t a deep cut anymore. It was more like a light scratch that wouldn’t take more than a few days to heal completely.

  I wondered how many people noticed scratches like this on themselves, not remembering how they got them in the first place. What would they think if they found out it was because a vampire had drank their blood and then made them forget?

  “Thank you,” he said gruffly, his attention on the floor. “Now we need to go and see Frank. There’s no time to waste.”

  He brushed past me toward the door, buttoning up the front of his shirt as he went. He came close enough that I could feel the extra warmth still emanating from his body.

  I stood there for a moment, still stunned. I’d come here to watch him die, to grill him for answers that would help me figure things out.

  He’d kept the truth away from me, going so far as to brainwash Bree so she’d forget about the journal. All to save himself.

  And I’d saved him. I wanted to believe I’d done that because I needed his help. That he still had information I needed. That the town needed.

  But I knew the truth. I’d done it because I hadn’t wanted to lose him.

  After I’d grabbed the backpack from the table, we left the warehouse, and Ethan headed directly for the McGavin. We didn’t speak, only walked. Fast.

  Joe and Goliath were outside again and they eyed me as Ethan slipped in through the front doors.

  “Everything okay, Olivia?” Joe asked.

  I just nodded. “Yeah, thanks.”

  Still lying, even now.

  I went inside the bar, right on Ethan’s heels.

  Frank hadn’t gone anywhere. I wondered what Joe and Goliath had said to him earlier, if anything. It hadn’t been enough to make him leave. But maybe he had nowhere else to go.

  Frank watched our approach in the mirror and I didn’t see any surprise fill his gaze at the sight of Ethan.

  “Thought so,” he mumbled. “Didn’t think she would’ve really killed you.”

  “She told you she killed me?” Ethan asked.

  “Yeah. Interesting relationship the two of you have. Teenagers. So adorable I could puke.”

  “Thanks for your opinion.”

  “You look like you’ve been through hell, kid.”

  “Something like that.”

  “You wanna fill me in?”

  “Not particularly. Let’s just say it’s better now.”

  “Same shell. Pale, but breathing. Guess she likes you after all.”

  Ethan glanced at me before his attention returned to Frank. “Not convinced about that, but it doesn’t change anything. Tonight’s the night.”

  Frank looked at me in the reflection. He hadn’t bothered to turn around and face us. “You okay with all this, little girl?”

  My hands were clenched at my sides. “I swear, if you call me little girl one more time I’m going to…to…”

  “What?” He grinned. “Kitten has claws. Good, because tonight you’re going to need them.” He looked at Ethan. “You know the plan. It holds.”

  “Right.”

  “What plan?” Again I was feeling out of the loop and we’d only just begun the next round.

  Ethan met my gaze, which seemed as if it took him some effort. “I’m convinced the queen is using the shell of Ms. Carlson so she can keep an eye on you.”

  I gasped. “Our English teach
er? The one who’s madly in love with William Shakespeare?”

  He nodded. “She’s spent too much time staring off in the distance in class the last few days. And she talks to you a lot. More than a teacher should. It’s like she’s testing you, assessing you.”

  “She’s a teacher. That’s what teachers do.”

  He looked uncomfortable, but determined. “We...well, it’s almost impossible for us to sense each other once we’re in a new shell. But the signs are there. Pale skin that looks healthy and tanned again after a feeding. An intensity. A feel. It’s her, I know it is. I would have given her some sort of signal to let her know that I’m...well, that I was there. But I didn’t want her to know who I am.”

  “Signals? Like what, a special handshake?”

  “No. We have words we use. Phrases.”

  “It’s like some sort of secret society.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  I thought about that. “The Upyr two days ago...he rambled about shadows and day and night. Was that the signal to have you say something specific back to him?”

  He gave me a reluctant nod.

  I took a deep breath. “Is that how you found Frank?”

  “Frank’s been the same since the last time,” Ethan said. “Looks the same. I managed to find him quickly.”

  “You’ve been here for a hundred years?”

  “No. I left right after what happened last time—left everybody since it was better that way, for them. For me. They thought Frank Margolis was dead. But I came back a decade ago as Frank Kaplan.”

  “What about the queen? Has she found you too, Frank?”

  “If she has, she hasn’t bothered to make contact.” Frank slid his index finger around the rim of one of the many empty glasses in front of him. “Knows I’m a dead end, anyway. After what happened last time, she’s probably trying to avoid me while I’m in this body.”

  I waited for more details. “You mean, because Frank’s the one who trapped her?”

  Frank flicked a glance at Ethan. “How much do you want to share with your little girlfriend here?”

  “Everything.”

  “Generous.”

  “She needs to know because of what she is.”

  “Alrighty.” Frank finally stood up from his stool and without another word he headed toward the booth we’d used the last time, beckoning for us to join him there.

  I sat across from the two of them, nervous about being there. Nervous about everything that I’d had to process in the last hour, last day, last week, but I was doing my best not to fall apart. Falling apart could wait till later.

  “So talk,” I prompted when neither spoke.

  “You died when you were just a kid, right?” Frank asked.

  I nodded. “A truck hit me. The paramedics revived me. They said I was lucky.”

  “You were officially dead for a few minutes.”

  “Give or take.”

  “A few seconds, wouldn’t matter. A few minutes, that’s a whole different thing. Those minutes, they changed you. Made it so you can control certain things—dead things. Most revenants never realize they have this ability. They feel normal, just with a story to tell about them almost dying once. When people say they die and see the light at the end of the tunnel—it’s not a destination. It’s a thing. That light is what goes into you to make you revenant.”

  I shook my head. “I have some sort of light in me?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What is the light?”

  “Death.”

  My eyes snapped to his. “I have death inside of me.”

  “Yep. It arrived, but it wasn’t successful in taking you away. So some of it stuck around.”

  “And it’s a light.” I repressed a nervous laugh, feeling slightly hysterical now. “I would have expected darkness.”

  “Nope. It’s definitely sparkly.”

  I exhaled shakily. “So what happens with this deathlight? How can I use it to kill—or trap—these Upyri?”

  “Upyri are sensitive to the abilities of a revenant because in their bodiless state they are wraiths—incorporeal creatures of death. They can only truly be alive if something else dies first. It’s the main human source of life—blood—that helps keep that death energy at a distance so they can continue living and breathing.”

  I nodded to indicate I was still listening, trying hard to understand, but I couldn’t find my voice to speak anymore.

  “I was...or rather”—he frowned—”Frank Margolis was revenant. He knew it, too. He’d been trained to deal with Upyri both in corporeal and wraith form. Just as we have our secret society, as you called it, so do humans.”

  “Hunters.” I thought about what Bree said about her family, a long line of hunters since Frank who’d recently not had anything to hunt.

  “Of a sort.” His gaze moved to a couple men who entered the dimly lit bar and moved toward the pool table in the back. “Humans who know about Upyr saw us as a threat to their continuing survival. And a few of those humans knew of one thing that can make an Upyr mortal.”

  “What?”

  Frank grimaced. “Once an Upyr takes over a revenant shell, they’re more powerful, stronger than ever before, and they have the ability to live forever—but if they’re killed in that body, that’s it. There’s no going back and finding another one.”

  “So if somebody kills you...” I began.

  Frank nodded. “No repeat performance. I’m gone for good.”

  “Luckily alcohol poisoning isn’t enough to do it,” Ethan said dryly.

  Frank snorted. “Screw you, kid. It’s been a long wait for you all to return.”

  “All that history.” I frowned. “You have so much in your heads. What you used to be, the lives you lived. How do you separate that from who you are now?”

  Ethan looked down at his hands clasped together on top of the table. “It’s not like that. I’m here, now. Like I said, I am Ethan Cole—nobody else. Anything that happened before for me is blurred while these new memories are crystal clear.”

  Frank nodded. “The booze helps.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  I twisted my finger around the long chain of my locket as I sorted through everything they’d just told me. “You’re saying that this queen wants my shell so she becomes super strong and more powerful than she already is, and she’ll also stay the same age as I am now indefinitely. But if she’s in my body, then that would make her vulnerable to a permanent death.”

  “That’s right,” Ethan said. “That’s the only downside for her.”

  “Did you think of letting her—” My mouth felt dry and my heart picked up its pace as a thought occurred to me. “Wait a minute. That was your plan, wasn’t it? Letting her take over my body and then killing me.”

  “My plan,” Frank said. “Yeah, that was originally it. But Ethan here decided to go with Plan B instead.”

  I looked at Ethan but he didn’t meet my gaze.

  “Ethan Cole.” Frank mouthed the name as if it tasted bad. “Good looking kid, bashful as all hell, and complicated as they come on the inside. Threw a monkey wrench into the plan because he chose to save the girl instead of sacrificing her for the greater good. And here we are.”

  Ethan looked embarrassed by Frank’s tirade. “She can’t have you. I won’t let her. We’re going to the dance tonight. We’re going to find Ms. Carlson. If I’m right about her, we’ll release her wraith from that body and you’ll help trap it.”

  “I’m supposed to trap it.”

  “Yes.”

  “And this is happening tonight. Were you going to tell me the truth about everything or keep stringing me along, trying to make me believe you two were just a couple of mismatched vampire hunters?”

  Ethan’s jaw looked tense. “If it were up to me, you never would have found out the truth.”

  Frank eyed him. “Ashamed?”

  “I know how it looks to someone who doesn’t understand.”

  I t
ried to breathe normally. “And this is the night you think the queen wants to free the others. All because they were trapped exactly one hundred years ago.”

  Frank nodded. “You got it, kid. This night has magic in it.”

  “Then why hasn’t she taken my shell before this?”

  “Just because she managed to squeak out a little early doesn’t mean she had all her strength back. She had to wait, bide her time. Until tonight. Now all bets are off and she’ll be coming for you...personally.”

  The other Upyri were trying to gain favor with a queen whom they might not have even made contact with yet. Trying to earn brownie points by grabbing me and holding me somewhere, alive or dead, for her to come get me when the time was right.

  But if she was really using Ms. Carlson’s shell, she would have been able to keep an eye on me every day at school.

  Waiting. Watching. Until her strength increased and the time was right.

  “We need to stop her,” I said firmly. “You just need to tell me how exactly I’m supposed to do that.”

  Frank grinned. “That’s the spirit! I think this calls for another round.” He motioned toward the bartender.

  “No more drinking,” Ethan said. “Your head needs to be clear tonight.”

  “As clear as yours is, Romeo?”

  Ethan gave him a look sharp enough to wound.

  I realized I was clutching the side of the table because my knuckles were now white. “Tell me how to trap an Upyri wraith.”

  “That deathlight inside of you.” Frank directed his attention fully to me. “It works like sticky flypaper. It’ll pull them toward whatever vessel you’ve chosen to contain them—it has to be something silver. Then we bury the vessel somewhere deep where it can’t be found again.”

  I knew Ms. Carlson had mentioned in passing yesterday that she’d see us all at the dance. She was going to be one of the chaperones.

  Ms. Carlson was an Upyri queen who’d been laying in wait for tonight, a night of power for her and the rest of the trapped wraiths.

  “I don’t get it,” I said after a moment. “You’re just like her. Why are you trying to stop her? I would think you’d be trying to help her.”

  “Wrong,” Frank said firmly.

  I looked into his pale, watery eyes. “Ethan said something about a code. You have a code, too?”