The Soul Seeker: Echo Part 4

"You're crazy!" Dace roars, oblivious to the continuous trail of blood that streams to his wrist, over his fingers, before mixing with the dirt at his feet. "You're a freak!"

He lunges again, but Cade shakes his head and shoves his palm square in the middle of Dace's chest. Holding him off with only one hand in a show of unexpected brute strength that sets me on edge. With a final drag of his cigarette, he flicks it to his feet and gives Dace a backward shove, saying, "No, brother, you're wrong. I'm well beyond labels. I transcend anything your small mind can conceive. I'm simply superior-to you and everyone else-as I've already explained."

Dace stares hard at his brother, as Coyote stares hard at him, ready to attack at the first sign from Cade.

"Though that's not to say I'm not glad you enjoyed your little lovefest." Cade grins in a way that comes off looking creepy, obscene. "In my own way, I guess you could say I enjoyed it too. There's just so much positivity and love in the air it's as though I'm completely transformed!"

His eyes level on mine. Those icy-blue irises banded by gold appearing nearly identical to his twin's. Though unlike Dace's kaleidoscope gaze that reflects everything in its vicinity-Cade's eyes are empty. Nonreflective. A fathomless abyss absorbing the essence of all that it sees.

And now they're absorbing me.

Tugging on my soul.

Siphoning my energy.

Determined to drain me, while hinting at something far too horrible to speak.

His gaze deepens, features lifting in triumph, as he says, "Oh yes, Santos, I'm afraid it's all true. While you think you can refuse to work with me-while you think you can refuse the generous offer I've made you-what you fail to realize is that you've been working for me all along. Since well before you arrived in Enchantment. Dace and I are two halves of a whole. Connected. Intertwined. Which means the love you feel for him-in thought, deed, even in your dreams-it all serves to strengthen me. I'm the beneficiary of every kind and loving emotion you have toward each other. Same goes for the s.e.xy thoughts too."

The pendulum!

Paloma was right. They're connected so deeply, the pendulum sees them as one. My subconscious mind already accepting the horrible truth my heart fought to refuse.

"There's no avoiding it," Cade taunts. "No way to undo what's already done. You two are destined. Fated. And now, the prophecy has begun. In other words"-his gaze slants to his brother-"the s...o...b..ll's headed for h.e.l.l and there's no way to stop it."

Dace's features sharpen with rage. Despite his wounded arm, despite all he just learned, he refuses to fold. Refuses to be cowed by his freak of a brother. "I always knew you were crazy-but now you've reached a whole new level," he says. "You stay away from us. And don't even think about going near Daire!"

He reaches for me with his good arm, tries to pull me away, but I'm frozen in place. Sickened by everything Cade just revealed, but even more disturbed by the words that repeat in my head: Thanks to a little smoke and mirrors on my part, a little tweak in your perception ...

Reminded of what Paloma told me about El Coyote's ability to change people's perception. Remembering how Cade and Leandro toyed with mine during my first visit to the Rabbit Hole-making it seem as though the ceiling was dropping, the walls caving in. How they stood back and watched-father and son-enjoying my breakdown, my split with reality.

Though once I discovered the true physical difference between Dace and Cade, realized how their eyes are nothing alike-something Paloma claims no one else has been able to discern-I was sure I was immune to his tricks. Sure he couldn't mess with me. Yet there's no denying the tug I felt just a moment ago when he fixed his gaze right on mine.

The way he yanked hard on my soul.

I drop Dace's hand and bolt for the spring, gasping in horror when I see that what I once thought was healed, returned to its former enchanted glory, was anything but.

"Not quite the paradise you took it for, is it?" Cade's laugh creeps up from behind. Teasing. Taunting. As I gape at the canopy of blooms I once viewed as vibrant, budding with life-now turned to a snarl of blackened dead vines infested with rats, left to droop over a horrible, putrid, rotting cesspool of a spring that smells just like death.

Even the lawn of green velvet where Dace and I shared our love is nothing more than a burned-out rug swarming with insects.

And the wounds I thought healed are now back-my finger once again throbbing, swollen, and red-my feet covered in seeping blisters that stick to my shoes.

Dace lets loose a long stream of curses and yanks hard on my hand. Urging me to leave, to run, to get out while we can. But I can't go just yet. There's something still left to see.

I whirl around, horrified by the monstrous sight that confronts me.

My stifled cry of anguish cause Dace to turn. His eyes widen in disbelief when he sees the Cade from my nightmares. The one with gleaming red eyes, an open gash of a mouth, and the swarm of two-headed, soul-stealing snakes shooting out from the place where his tongue ought to be.

But unlike the Cade from my dreams, this one swiftly expands as though molded and stretched by unseen hands. His flesh adopting a strange scaly texture, emitting an odd reddish glow-as his torso lengthens, his limbs bulk up and widen with thick corded muscles-while his clothes, no longer able to contain him, shred and disintegrate, falling like feathers to his enormous clawed feet. Leaving him ma.s.sive and naked and looming before us, with his faithful coyote inflating right along with him-two sets of eyes glowering an identical red.

Without a word, Dace drags me toward Horse. His good arm circling my waist, about to heave me onto his back when Horse gallops away and Raven soars with him. Leaving us with no choice but to race through a dying land that grows bleaker with each pa.s.sing step.

Our exodus mocked by Cade's taunting voice, calling, "Run, brother! Run all you want. But you'll never escape me. I'm your Echo-always with you-always watching."

eight.

"How long have you known?" Dace paces his small functional kitchen. Taking two steps to the old stove, one from there to the ancient white fridge, three more to the stained porcelain sink, and then one and a half to the stove again, where he pauses, rubs a weary hand over his eyes, and shoots me a look so conflicted, I hesitate to meet it.

I drop onto a chair next to the carved wooden table that's nearly identical to the one in Leftfoot's adobe, wis.h.i.+ng Dace would come join me. But realizing he won't even consider it until I provide some of the answers he seeks, I take a fortifying breath and say, "Paloma told me about the circ.u.mstance of your birth-about Leandro altering Chepi's perception long enough to seduce her."

"Seduce her?" Dace whirls on me, his face a mask of outrage. "He raped her. Chepi was a sixteen-year-old virgin that day. She wasn't looking for trouble."

I shrink under his gaze, then force myself to straighten again, determined to explain. "I didn't mean it like that-like it was some romantic tryst. What I meant to say is that he lured her. He lured her with witchcraft and black magick. The Richters know how to change people's perception-they've been doing it for centuries. It's how they rule this town and nearly everyone in it. It's how Cade made us think the spring was still enchanted when it had already been corrupted. Leandro fed into her dreams, allowed her to see what she most wanted to see, and then, once she was completely enthralled..." I leave the sentence unfinished, seeing no reason to ill.u.s.trate.

Dace waves it away, batting the empty s.p.a.ce before him, his eyes fatigued and red-rimmed in a way I've never seen them. "I'm the product of violence." He shakes his head, his gaze cold and empty. "There's no getting around it. I never should've been born."

"Don't say that!" I grip the table hard, fighting the urge to leap over the counter that separates us and hug him tightly to me. Right now he's an island-a population of one. He wouldn't welcome the intrusion.

"Do you know how much easier her life would've been without me?" His voice is flat and dull. "Every time she looks at me she's reminded of the worst day of her life."

"I don't believe that," I say. "And you shouldn't either."

He dismisses my meaningful look, saying, "Really, Daire? Just how am I supposed to see it?" Practically spitting the words.

I sit quietly, refusing to rise to the bait. I just stare at my hands, noting the way my finger grows more swollen and red with each pa.s.sing second.

"And, while we're on the subject, how am I supposed to feel knowing you knew all of this and couldn't bother to tell me?"

I tip my chin until my gaze meets his. Aware that the word sorry doesn't quite cut it, but it's all that I've got. "I wish I'd told you, believe me, I do. I wish you never had to find out this way." I shake my head and sigh. "Thing is, Paloma made me promise not to tell you. She said you're a truly good and pure soul, and that it wasn't my place. In this case, I'm sorry I listened to her instead of my heart."

"A good and pure soul?" He scowls. "I'm an abomination! The result of an act so evil-"

"You're not!" I cry, refusing to let him venture along that path. "That's your brother, not you." I s.h.i.+ft my gaze to his arm, staring at the place where Coyote attacked. Wis.h.i.+ng he'd let me do something to tend to it, but when I tried, he waved me away, reached for a dish towel and wrapped it around the wound.

"He's a monster." He unwraps the blood-soaked dish towel and drops it into the sink, before replacing it with a clean one. And though the words came out like a statement, his gaze holds a question.

"He is." I nod to confirm it.

"And yet, we're an Echo of each other."

I sit silently, kneading the worn linoleum floor with the toe of my shoe, having no idea how to respond.

His voice bleak and hollow, he says, "We can't see each other anymore."

The words come out of nowhere.

Slamming me sideways.

Knocking me senseless.

"What?" I stare blankly. Aware of the floor s.h.i.+fting under my feet, threatening to drop out from under me, swallow me whole.

"I'm sorry, Daire, but we have no choice. I have to protect you, and the only way I can do that is by refusing to see you."

His words leave me mute. Unable to do anything more than gape.

"I'm not completely in the dark here, you know." He swipes a hand through his hair, scrunches his brow, as his gaze drifts from mine. "I've heard whispers through the years. Seen the way the elders, Leftfoot especially, looked at me when they thought I was too busy to notice. I was a quiet kid. A loner, a reader, a thinker-all of which made it easy to go unnoticed. I became very good at eavesdropping, collecting random bits and pieces through the years that never made any sense until now. I always knew I was different, I just didn't know how different. I also had this profound understanding that I was headed for an unusual destiny, and while I still don't know exactly what that is-it's all starting to come together. The puzzle I've been sorting for years is now that much closer to completion."

I look at him, so bereft I have no idea what to say.

"You're the Seeker," he says.

I close my eyes, wis.h.i.+ng I could rewind my life. I never would've come here. I never would've let it get to this point. And because of it, I would've ended up just like my dad-dead before my time. So, in an effort to avoid that, I decided to claim my destiny, only to find myself nothing more than a cog in its wheel. Steered by circ.u.mstance, with no say of my own.

So lost in my thoughts I nearly miss it when Dace says, "And Cade is Coyote-a member of the El Coyote clan, which all Richters are."

My shoulders sag. I wish I could disappear, vanish straight into the ether.

"And I'm the Echo of Coyote."

I rub my lips together, growing increasingly uncomfortable, having no idea where he's going with this but sensing it's about to get worse.

He takes a deep breath, scratches hard at his chin. His voice a chilled whisper, he says, "This won't end well." His eyes light on mine. "Someone is destined to die. I've had dreams-dreams I now recognize as prophecy. We can't all survive. And while I can't stop loving you, Daire-while it's far too late for that-I can stop..." He grinds his jaw, speaking the words with great effort. "I can stop feeding our love. Now that I know it strengthens him, I'm left with no choice. It's like he said, he's the beneficiary of every loving thought that I have for you. And there's no denying that the more time I spend with you, the more my love for you grows. But now, knowing what we know, we can't afford to continue-can't afford to be together. We have to make the sacrifice. Put some distance between us. We're left with no choice."

"No," I say, the word so shaky I repeat it with all the force I can muster. "No! No way. I won't have it. Your brother's a creep-a freak! He's a power-hungry, black-hearted beast, bent on world domination, and I refuse to roll over and let him win. I refuse to play by his rules. Besides, how can we be sure that it's true? Maybe that's not what the Echo is. Maybe it means something else entirely." I cry, but the words ring desperate and untrue even to my ears.

"Did you not see him?" Dace cries, his voice as incredulous as his face. "That was no illusion-that was all too real!"

I sigh, reluctantly admitting, "It wasn't the first time. I've seen it before."

"Me too..." Dace's voice fades as he stares at the peeling yellow paint, his mind traveling to a faraway place. "And that didn't end well either, or at least not for us. Though he seemed quite pleased..." I shoot him a quizzical look, but he just shakes his head, and folds his keys in his palm. "Come on. It's getting late. I'll drive you home."

I follow him outside to his old beater truck, climbing in beside him as he cranks up the heat to ward off the chill. But the hot air blowing from the vent bears no effect. My body's as numb as my heart, and a rise in temperature is not going to change that.

He navigates the dirt roads in silence, until he stops before Paloma's blue gate and turns to me to say, "This doesn't change the way I feel about you. Nothing could ever do that."

I swallow hard. Turn my back on the words. Reaching for the door handle with burning eyes and a throat gone too tight to reply.

"If you want, I'll drive you to school tomorrow, but you might want to try to arrange something else after that. No need to make this any harder than it is."

I push the door open and slip free of his truck. Aware of the weight of his gaze, following me as I carefully pick my way past the blue gate. Then the moment it slams shut behind me, I race through Paloma's front door, where I collapse into her arms in a big sobbing heap.

nine.

"Nieta?" Paloma clasps me tightly to her chest and coos into my hair. "Nieta, what has happened?"

I pull away, furiously erasing the tears with the backs of my hands. Crying is something I rarely allow, and crying in front of others is something I can barely tolerate from myself. I try to speak, but the words sputter and stall in my throat, as if I'm reluctant to give them any more weight, any more power to hurt me than they already have.

Paloma studies my face. Brus.h.i.+ng a soft, papery hand across my brow, her eyes s.h.i.+ning with compa.s.sion, she sighs softly and says, "And so it begins."

I squint, having no idea what that means. Paloma's always had an uncanny way of reading my emotions, but this time feels different. It feels like a setup. Like she was camped by the door, waiting for me to burst in.

"I'm so sorry, nieta. I feared this would happen." Her voice rings sincere, but the words leave me disturbed.

She hands me a tissue I use to dab at my face, until the tissue grows so soggy and useless I crumple it in my fist. "Feared what would happen?" I try to get a read on her, but as usual, her expression is inscrutable. "I haven't told you anything yet."

She stares into my eyes, and not missing a beat, she replies, "The life of a Seeker is difficult." Her hand reaches for me, but seeing the way I recoil at her touch, she quickly drops it to her side. "And romance always comes with a price."

"So you knew?" I cross my arms in defiance, thinking it would've been nice if she'd thought to share that with me. But then again, maybe she did and I just didn't listen.

She's definitely dropped a few hints along the way. Including the night just after her soul was returned, when she told me that Dace and I were fated. I was completely exalted by the news, while her own reaction was anything but.

I return to her, a cold chill pocking my skin when she says, "No, nieta, I didn't know for sure. I merely suspected what the pendulum, along with your appearance just now, have confirmed."

"But I haven't confirmed anything. I haven't said a single word about what happened today. So how could you know? Are you spying on me too?"

"Too?" She lifts a brow.

But instead of explaining, I clamp my lips shut, refusing to say anything more. The vow lasting only a handful of seconds, before I look at her and plead, "Paloma, please, I need to know what you know-and I need to know it now."

She nods sagely, about to speak when Xotichl pokes her head out from the archway that marks the entrance to Paloma's office, saying, "Maybe I should leave?" Her gaze seems to dart between Paloma and me as though she can see us.

Great. Now I'm crying in front of my friends. Could this possibly get any worse?

Knowing Xotichl needs Paloma's help just as much as Paloma needs the money her clients bring in, I shake my head and turn toward my room, saying, "No. You should definitely stay." Though I don't even make it to the hall before Paloma's noticed my finger and pulled me back to her.

"Nieta, how did you get this?" She inspects the wound that just a few hours ago was barely noticeable, but now, after a trip to a grossly corrupted Lowerworld is a hot flaming mess. Then she takes me by the elbow and steers me up the ramp that leads to her office, where she deposits me onto a chair at the square wooden table next to Xotichl, before busying herself at the counter with her potions and herbs.

I peer at Xotichl's black long-sleeved T-s.h.i.+rt, the word EPITAPH, the name of Auden's band, scrawled in a blaze of silver across the front, and her dark skinny jeans that are tucked into dark suede boots. With her hair gathered into a loose ponytail that allows her finely honed features to take center stage, I'm struck once again by her quiet brand of prettiness. Her soft blue/gray eyes staring straight ahead, she reaches for my shoulder, and says, "I felt your distress the moment you arrived. I'm so sorry for whatever's happened. If you want my help, just say the word."

I smile faintly, so unused to having friends, people to confide in, people willing to help, I'm unsure how to respond. So other than a quick, mumbled thanks, I sit silently beside her. Feet crossed at the ankles and tucked under my chair, as Paloma grinds a handful of carefully selected herbs with her mortar and pestle. Humming one of her healing songs under her breath, she forms the mixture into a thick green poultice she applies to my finger, then wraps a strip of gauze over the concoction, telling me to hold it in place until she says when.

I do as instructed. Waiting for her to join us at the table before I ask, "So how did you know? Or, better yet, what do you know?"

Paloma pauses long enough to warm her fingers against the base of her mug. "I'm afraid it's all part of the prophecy," she says. "I read it in the codex."