Echoes

  My mother, it was her all this time. The Upyr queen was using her shell. She’d fallen down the stairs and broken her neck when she came back to grab some jewelry and disappear into the night.

  She’d never meant to come back for real. And she’d never felt guilty for leaving us.

  Everything had been a lie.

  I’d grieved my mother’s loss when she’d left us as if she was truly dead and gone. Now she really was.

  A choking sob escaped my throat.

  “This one, though.” She flicked her head toward the trunk of the car. “He’s just a minion, no real power, which is why he had no restraint in taking over this body too quickly and bonding with its former spirit. Sad, really, that he picked such an unworthy shell.” She reached down to pat his head.

  “Don’t hurt him,” I snarled.

  “That will entirely depend on you, won’t it?”

  “What do you want?”

  “What I’ve wanted since I first escaped, Olivia. I want your shell. Your young and beautiful, if scarred, revenant shell. Do you have any idea what power it will give me?”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Get in the car, kid,” Frank growled.

  I glared at him. “Ethan trusted you.”

  “That’s his problem, not mine.” He grabbed my arm and shoved me toward the back seat. I banged my head hard as he forced me inside. The pain made me see white for a second. “This can go much worse if you don’t behave yourself.”

  My mother got in the back seat next to me, and Frank got in the driver’s side.

  “So where are we going, Denise?” he asked.

  He used my mother’s real name. It made my skin crawl.

  It was over. We’d lost before we’d even begun. Frank had been working against us—against Ethan—all along.

  “Just drive and I’ll tell you when we get there.”

  “You still don’t trust me?”

  “You’ve proven yourself, Frank. I trust you. Just humor me for a bit longer. It’s very important that everything goes perfectly now.”

  “You got the revenant kid and the insurance in the trunk that she doesn’t act up—”

  “You’d sacrifice him?” I managed. “He’s an Upyr, just like you.”

  “No, he’s not just like us,” my mother said. “He betrayed me, all for you. And if you don’t want to see him suffer then you’ll behave yourself.”

  I cast a hate-filled look at the monster seated next to me in its familiar body. “Why did you even bother breaking up with my father tonight? Did it amuse you to hurt him again?”

  She shrugged. “When this is all over, there will be people who’ve seen Denise Hawthorn in town for two weeks. If she just vanishes without a trace there will be consequences; police, questions, missing person reports, and potential murder investigations. I don’t need that hassle or any additional complications. I’ll still be here, after all.”

  “I hate you.”

  “Words I’ve also heard many times from you before. Nothing new there, Olivia.”

  I remembered what Ethan told me about the echoes. Maybe I could use that, maybe it could help me find some sort of weakness here.

  “You have her memories,” I said. “You’re her right now. Why would you do this? Why would my own mother want to kill me?”

  She made a sour expression. “You make it sound so unpleasant. To put it bluntly, you have something I want and I’m going to take it. The strong survive and the weak perish. It’s the way of the world and it’s been that way since the dawn of time.”

  I wanted to grab hold of the door handle and fling myself out of this car, but I knew that wouldn’t stop anything from happening. I had to wait. I had to see what happened next. I had to try to stop this.

  And I had to save Ethan. Despite everything I now knew about him, he’d protected me from the beginning. Without him, I’d already be dead. I couldn’t just abandon him now.

  The queen might not realize I knew being revenant meant I had some kind of power over her—even though it was a power I had no idea how to harness. One thing I knew for sure—this was going to end very soon, one way or the other.

  I caught a glimpse of something in the rearview mirror as we left the school parking lot. It was Bree running after the car looking horribly confused that I was leaving without her.

  She’d promised to watch my back, but I’d insisted on walking away from her to talk to Peter and to deal with my mother.

  She had no idea where I was going.

  I was officially on my own now.

  Chapter 21

  “Take the next left into that wooded area up ahead,” my mother said to Frank. “And park the car.”

  I still thought of her as my mother. I couldn’t wrap my head around the truth—not yet. If I thought about it too long it would sink in and then I was going to completely lose it.

  My mother got out of the back seat and waited for Frank to drag me out of the car, hanging tightly onto my upper arm.

  “Don’t bruise her,” she snapped.

  “I’m not.”

  “Where are we?” I asked. From the looks of this desolate place I doubted that anyone would hear me if I started screaming.

  I tried to focus on that deathlight Frank had told me was somewhere inside of me. That magic I allegedly had at my fingertips that I’d never known existed.

  Had he been lying about that too?

  I didn’t feel a fraction differently than I’d always felt. I was totally powerless, just a normal teenager in a fancy dress and heels, scared to death.

  My mother didn’t answer my question and instead wandered off. There was a small clearing with a few thick bushes and foliage. She grabbed something hidden under the branches and leaves and brought it back.

  “So that’s where you hid it,” Frank said.

  It was a silver container about the size of a shoebox.

  I’d seen it before. It had been in one of the pictures in Frank’s journal that Bree had scanned in.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “A prison,” my mother said, looking at it, her expression shifting to something cold and unpleasant, “which burns my hands just by holding it. A reminder of how horrible it was to be trapped inside for so many years.”

  “Frank made that box himself,” Frank said. That he was speaking about himself in third person was unnerving. “Forged it out of silver. Welded it together. He was proud of it. The initials etched into the lid are his wife’s. Symbolic, since he fought against our kind because of her death.”

  “You mean her murder,” I corrected icily.

  He eyed me. “Whatever, kid.”

  My mother’s hands appeared to be smoking but she didn’t loosen her grip. Silver affected an Upyr, hurt them, and trapped them.

  This was happening way too fast. I needed more time to prepare, to learn. I was going to fail and there was nothing I could do to stop her.

  “What are you going to do to Ethan when this is over?” I cast a worried look toward the car trunk.

  “When it’s all over,” she said, “and there’s nothing he can do to stop me he’ll be released. What he chooses to do then is entirely up to him.”

  My eyes again flicked to the trunk and I hugged my arms around myself to try to keep from shaking. “Maybe he’ll try to kill you.”

  She looked at me patiently. “I don’t think so. I think our dearest Ethan is so taken with you that the thought of harming your lovely body would be the last thing on his mind. Besides, with your echoes in my head, perhaps he and I can work things out. At least I wouldn’t judge him for what he really is. I’d celebrate it.”

  Work things out. She meant that they could be together—like boyfriend and girlfriend when she’d stolen my body. “You’re sick.”

  She gazed at the box that imprisoned the rest of the Upyri. “My minions all saw me as the strongest of our kind and they chose me as their leader so I could make decisions on their behalf. Survival is a very strong driving force.
Humans don’t feel that way. They’re top of the food chain, after all. So many of them, so few of us.”

  “You’re monsters,” I spat.

  “Your own kind can be fairly monstrous, but you’ve been sheltered from that for the most part living in this safe, dreary little town.” She glanced around the wooded area with distaste before her attention returned to me. “If you thought your mother was horrible for leaving you, you have no idea of the true evils found in the world. I do. I’ve seen them, experienced them, and survived solely because I am immortal.”

  She placed the silver box on the ground. Her palms were red, as if they’d been badly burned, but the color quickly returned to normal. I watched with disbelief as she healed before my eyes.

  “Silver is the only way we can be contained,” Frank said, his attention on the box. “When we’re in our wraith form, we’re drawn to it like a moth to a flame. It traps us like sticky fly paper. Can’t get away, but it takes a special energy to make us stay stuck. Revenant energy, we can’t fight it. It can free us or it can imprison us.”

  I stayed silent, but my attention was now fully fixed on him. My mother didn’t seem to notice, but that was important information he’d just given me. Did he even realize what he’d said out loud?

  I jumped when I heard the noise cut through the silence. A loud bang. It came from the trunk of the car.

  Ethan.

  Frank looked at my mother. “He’s awake. What do you want me to do?”

  “Nothing at all,” she replied.

  I held my breath. They didn’t move, didn’t react as the trunk flew open. Ethan’s expression was filled with fury as he crawled out. A trickle of blood slid down his temple from where Frank must have hit him earlier.

  When he saw Frank, his rage increased.

  “How could you do this?” he snarled.

  “I can’t believe you,” Frank said smoothly. “You trust too easily in that faulty shell. You feel too much. It’s going to be your downfall, kid.”

  “You know what she’s planning to do tonight, Frank. They’re just kids. It’ll be a mass murder of innocents. I thought you stuck to the same code I did.”

  Frank’s jaw tensed. “In war, sometimes innocents need to die. It’s called collateral damage.”

  “Yes, exactly.” My mother nodded and Ethan’s gaze shot to her and widened as if he was seeing her for the first time.

  “No...” His brows drew together. “You...it can’t be. That shell...”

  “Old.” She shrugged. “Wrinkled, jaded and defeated by life, but so very close to Olivia. The moment I escaped I was drawn to her revenant magic and knew it had to be mine.”

  He glanced at me. “I’m so sorry.”

  Just those three words, the sincerity in them was enough to make me know for sure that he’d had no idea what had happened to my mother.

  “I need to stop this,” Ethan said under his breath, “once and for all.”

  He stormed at my mother as if by sheer will alone he could defeat her.

  “I don’t think so,” she replied.

  Nothing else changed, but Ethan fell to his knees, his face convulsing in pain.

  “What are you doing to him?” I demanded.

  “I am putting him in his place. An errant knight should kneel before his queen and beg for forgiveness.”

  Frank had told me that while the others slept all of these years, she had been awake, planning and plotting.

  I hadn’t questioned at the time how he would have known something like that.

  Now I knew. He’d already been in contact with her. She remembered what he looked like. What shell he’d taken a century ago. And at her first opportunity, she’d sought him out.

  They’d made their plans at the same time that he was making plans with Ethan. He’d been playing for both sides like some kind of double agent.

  Smoke began to rise from Ethan’s skin and the sight of it terrified me. “You’re hurting him! Stop it!”

  She shook her head. “Ethan needs to know that I still have power over him. That I have power over all of them and it is at my whim they will be released or remain imprisoned. That I know all, see all, and am the only chance they have for a true future. I can pull Ethan’s wraith right from this shell if I so desire. And my power will only increase when tonight is over and I have exactly what I wanted. I’ll be young and powerful forever.”

  “I need that box,” Frank said bluntly. “We need to prepare to release the others after you take Olivia’s shell. It’s time to get that power for you now.”

  Her attention slid to him. “You’re right. We must begin.”

  I was frozen in place and not sure what to do next, how to act or what to say to make all of this better. I needed direction, guidance, some sort of clue to help me. But there was nothing.

  Frank might have given me a clue when he talked about the silver box, but it wasn’t enough. I needed more. How was I supposed to tap into the power inside myself that I’d never even known I had? Power that I couldn’t even feel?

  Ethan’s pained gaze met mine and what he was thinking was written all over his face.

  I’m sorry I failed you.

  But he hadn’t. He’d proven to me that he really was different from the others and that I could trust him no matter what.

  The queen had power over him. As strong as I knew Ethan was, he couldn’t fight against this.

  The silver box containing all the other imprisoned Upyri wraiths was by my mother’s feet. Frank approached her and she rested her hand against his chest.

  “You’ve been so patient for so many years, Frank.”

  “I’ve tried.”

  “All for tonight.”

  “You need to take your permanent shell. And then, with the power that will give you, you can release the others.”

  She nodded. “Give me your knife.”

  He pulled a knife out of the sheath on his belt and handed it to her.

  Ethan looked at me, his expression tense.

  My mother took the knife from Frank and gazed down at it in her hand. “Where are the others, Frank?”

  “Pardon me?”

  She didn’t glance up at him, her gaze remained fixed on the silver blade. “The others who escaped with me. Apart from Ethan, they’re missing.”

  “I don’t know. Never seen ‘em.”

  She was quiet for a moment before her cool gaze finally raised to meet his. “You trapped them again, didn’t you?”

  His stony expression didn’t flinch. “Of course not.”

  “You can’t lie to me. You destroyed their shells and used what revenant ability you have left to trap them again. And you stand before me trying to convince me you’re on my side. Foolish, Frank, so very foolish. I’d hoped for better from you.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t know?” she asked casually, as if they were discussing nothing more important than the weather. “Of course I knew. I know how powerful the echoes are, how distracting. They are even for me. We’ve seen what they can do to weaken us.” She cast a pitying look toward Ethan. “But I thought you were stronger than that—than him. I thought you could still be an asset to me.”

  His mouth thinned. “Then I guess you thought wrong. This ends tonight once and for all, you heinous bitch.”

  “I completely agree.” Her lips curved. “Good-bye Frank.”

  She drove the blade into his chest a millisecond after he began twisting away from her. He grunted in pain as the blade sank into his chest right up to the hilt.

  I screamed and clamped my hand over my mouth.

  Frank staggered and fell to the ground, staring at the knife in his chest, although not with surprise like I would have expected. With anger and resignation, as if he’d always expected this outcome.

  He looked at me. “Don’t let her take you. You can stop her, only you now, Olivia.”

  I waited for him to go up in flames, but he didn’t.

  He looked as surprised
by this as I did.

  The knife hadn’t found his heart. Disappointment registered in the queen’s gaze.

  “I’ll deal with you later.” She flicked a glance at him and his eyes rolled back into his head. He fell to the ground unconscious.

  Her head whipped in my direction. “Now let’s proceed.”

  I shook my head and held my hands up as she drew closer. “Mom, please. You’re in there. You have the same memories. You’re my mother—you might have left me, but you wouldn’t do this to me. That’s why you’ve been putting it off all this time. You could have killed me already whenever you wanted, but you didn’t. You’ve had plenty of opportunities. That’s got to mean something. It means that part of you doesn’t want to do this. Part of you doesn’t want to hurt me.”

  Her expression didn’t change or soften. “You’re right. The echoes are what made me put this off as long as I could, even this morning when I was very tempted. She would have wanted you to have a long, happy and healthy life, even if she never cared enough to see you again in person. And that part of me is sorry for this, Olivia. Sorry I hurt you when I left to follow my own selfish pursuits. Sorry I wasn’t watching you the day you ran in front of that truck. Sorry I wasn’t strong enough to be a better wife and mother. But I’m strong enough to push aside those echoes and do what must be done.”

  The hope I’d tried to grasp hold of began slipping away from me. “Don’t do this to me.”

  She tilted her head. “Don’t you understand? This isn’t about you. This isn’t about Ethan, or your father, or Frank. This is about me and the survival of the Upyri race. Nothing matters more than that.”

  My throat was so thick it hurt to speak. “I can’t let you do this.”

  “You don’t have a choice. Not anymore.”