Echo, p.28
Echo, page 28
"They tricked you," Vanna said. "You shouldn’t have let them in your mind, Echo. Dark spirits can bring out the worst in you."
The Loving One scoffed. "The worst in me is a kid with a sugar rush? For God’s sake Vanna, enough lecturing." She turned to the child. "Come on, Mini Me. We need to fix this."
"We can’t," the child said.
"Why can’t we?"
The child tapped on her temple. "Use your brain, silly."
The Loving One threw her hands out. "Did you just call me silly?"
"Yes. Silly, silly, silly, silly, silly." The child scurried away. Around the house, Kirby and Tara chased her, like trying to catch a loose chicken. They stumbled and tripped but couldn’t stop her. Jackson clapped his hands in disbelief.
"She’s a force to be reckoned with," The Loving One muttered.
"I’ll handle this," Vanna said, stepping in the middle of the hallway with a cold, scary stare on her face. When the child saw her, her knees quivered, and she dropped her head in surrender.
"You have to teach me this." Tara applauded. "I can use one of those stares with Lillian one day."
"Not the point now, Tara." The Loving One approached the child. "Explain to me why we can’t fix this. And if you call me silly again, Vanna will eat you."
The child crinkled her nose. "We can’t fix this because there’s a piece missing. We’re not whole."
"There’s a third Echo?" Vanna asked. "Where’s she? What’s she like?"
"Scaryyy." The child put her hands on her cheeks.
***
Before the Dark One teleported, Ebba had caught up to her. The two appeared outside a huge building with a concrete fence and a security post at the gate.
"Why did you come here, Ebba?" The Dark One asked.
"I want to help you."
"You want to help me? You’re a burned-out witch who can’t use magic without bleeding or passing out."
Ebba swallowed. "Just tell me why we’re here, Echo." She looked around. "What’s this place?"
The Dark One brushed her hand through her hair before she answered, "Witchfield."
The Mortons’ residence in Witchfield was a modern fortress with bulletproof windows and armed security guards. Leonard Morton had cast a protection spell to prevent witches from teleporting in uninvited, and at the gate, he had set a barrier to detect magic. If an uninvited witch passed it, she’d be fried.
"And why are we here?" Ebba asked.
"There’s no ‘we,’ Ebba," The Dark One spoke with contempt. "Do whatever you want."
"But I came with you," Ebba argued.
"I didn’t ask you to come."
The Dark One pointed at the security camera to disable surveillance. She shot a glare at Ebba before swaggering towards the gate. When the guards saw her, they raised their guns.
"Explodere," she yelled, and the gate exploded into fragments. The percussion flung the guards to the ground. They coughed as the air around them became thick with smoke.
One of the guards was more injured than the others. The fire had caught his leg. Covering her nose, Ebba rushed to help him, but the Dark One paid no attention to any of that. She passed right by the guards and towards the space where the gate used to be. To destroy the barrier, she opened her palm with an electric bolt.
By that time, more guards had arrived. They didn’t hesitate to shoot, but their bullets hung in the air.
"Echo, don’t do this," Ebba cried out. "You won’t be able to live with the guilt."
Her words didn’t matter. The Dark One snapped her fingers, and the bullets reversed direction, killing the guards.
***
A few minutes before the explosion, a van stopped in the backyard of the Mortons residence. The curly-haired witch waited with the taser. Her partner opened the trunk, and Doyle descended, his hands raised in surrender.
As soon as they stepped away, Viessa jumped out of the trunk and launched herself at Curly Hair to snatch the weapon. Doyle spun around and punched the man witch in the face. The two exchanged blows.
"Get off of me," Curly Hair yelled. "Dominum mali host—"
"Your spell won’t work on me," Viessa said. "I’m a ghost."
Curly Hair growled as she flipped Viessa over and pinned her to the ground. "By the powers of lord Zaros, you shall die."
"Lord Zaros?" Viessa let out a short laugh. "Your lord is as dead as I am."
"Don’t you dare." Curly Hair strangled Viessa’s neck.
"No." Doyle threw the last punch before turning to Curly Hair and pulling her away from Viessa.
"Step back, Doyle." Viessa grabbed the taser and stuck it in Curly Hair’s leg. The witch shuddered, and her limbs jerked as the electricity ran through her.
"Viessa, stop." Doyle’s voice rose above the noise of the taser. "You’re killing her."
"This is what we do, Doyle," she said. "We kill things."
"Not anymore, we don’t."
Viessa dropped the weapon, letting the witch swoon. "You don’t love me anymore," she said, facing Doyle, who huffed.
"This is not about love, Viessa. Try to understand."
"Understand what?" She stressed the words.
"Viessa." He hesitated. "I’m haunted by the blood I’ve spilled, and you’re my ghost... I want us to be free."
Distress showed on Viessa’s face. "Is this goodbye?"
"Will you be all right without me?"
She frowned. "I’m only here because you need me, Doyle."
"I need you to forgive me," he said with a sad smile.
"How can I?" Viessa snickered. "You can’t even forgive yourself."
The sound of the explosion interrupted them. Doyle turned around to see the smoke spiraling into the sky. "What’s happening there?" he asked, but Viessa had already vanished.
Screams and cries came from inside the house. Doyle knew whoever lived there wanted him dead, but he wondered if saving them was the way to his redemption. Prepared to save those in need, he dashed through the backdoor. Alas, no one was left to be rescued. In the hallway, Doyle walked among the corpses of the house servants. The thick carpets glistened with their fresh blood.
Strange noises led Doyle to the basement, where he saw what he never coveted. The Dark One stood among the bodies she had slaughtered. Their blood stained her blue party dress. It was another bloodstained masterpiece for Doyle to watch but not to admire.
"Echo?" he asked in shock.
"See what I have done, Doyle?" She looked over her shoulder to see him.
"No, no." He shook his head. "This isn’t who you are. You’re not a killer."
"She wasn’t." The Dark One moved away to show Doyle one more body on the ground—her own.
"Wh-what is this?" Doyle’s jaws trembled at the sight. Last he knew, Echo was at the hospital, waiting for her grandfather to wake up. Now, there were two Echoes, out of whom one was dead.
***
Before Doyle arrived at the basement, the Dark One had confronted her worst enemy—the loving piece that always kept her in check and denied her the freedom to rebel.
Once the barrier was gone, the Loving One teleported to the mansion to see the blood pool her other self had created. "Wha-what did you do?"
"Oh, you found me." The Dark One sounded unamused.
"It wasn’t hard to guess your next move." Revulsion showed on The Loving One’s face. "How could you do this? To kill Zaros is one thing, but to kill innocent people."
"Not this again." The Dark One waved a hand. "I have come a long way to get rid of you."
"And I have come a long way to find you," The Loving One said.
"Why? To act all motherly, hug me, and tell me everything will be okay? Or do you think you can trap me again?"
"What are you talking about?" The Loving One pressed her hands to her head. "You killed people. Have you no remorse?"
"Survival of the fittest, Me. This is how the world works." The Dark One walked around nonchalantly. "Without you, I’m not just the fittest, but the brightest, bravest, most powerful witch."
"You’re a demon."
"Perhaps, but at least I have a fighting chance against Jivar. To fight a demon, one has to become a worse demon. What movie was that again?" She pressed a finger to her chin.
"This is the logic of the deranged. I can’t listen to you anymore." The Loving One summoned her grimoire. "Heal her heart, power of light. Let the shadows drift—"
"No way," The Dark One sneered. "You won’t have me on a leash again." She touched the amulet.
***
When anger soars, it blinds one from seeing its consequences. When fear leads, it shuts down compassion and opens the door for darkness. Hatred poisons the soul, and vengeance eats at it. The Dark One was burning in her own fire.
Like a volcano, she released her pent-up emotions, demolishing everything in sight, even her other self. But what happens after a volcano has erupted and the smoke clears? There was a stillness the Dark One couldn’t understand. She had already eliminated her enemies, so why did she feel so lost?
"Wh-what is this?" Doyle’s jaws trembled.
"She was my jailer," The Dark One said, "The dark spirits helped me break free."
Doyle kneeled beside his friend’s body and checked her pulse. "You’re both Echo? You killed yourself?"
"She wanted to kill me," she said in an uncaring tone.
"She is you," Doyle cried out. "You can’t survive without her."
"That’s funny," The Dark One laughed. "Trust me. I’m better off alone."
"Is this the dark spirits talking? Both of you have to exist for Echo to be whole."
"I can’t believe you’re taking her side!" The Dark One stomped her foot. "Aren’t you a fool for bad girls with twisted personalities? Well, here I am." She moved her hand along her waist.
Doyle clenched his jaw, seemingly to contain his rage. Coming to standing, he raised his hand and slammed it on her cheek like a whip.
"Are you out of your mind?" she cried and pressed her hand to her burning skin. "I'll kill you."
"Even if you could, you wouldn’t," he said.
The Dark One grunted. She tried to walk away, but Doyle grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to face him.
"What do you want from me?" she cried.
"I want you to listen." He held firmly to her. "You’re scared, and I understand how painful it is to meet your dark self, but you’re more than this, Echo... You’re a whole universe, with darkness and light, anger and compassion, innocence, and vengeance." His eyes softened. "When I look at you, I’m amazed by how you contain all these contradictions and still choose to do the right thing, at least most of the time... But if you let her die, if you kill off your other self, you’ll become a shadow, a memory of a person. Don’t do this to yourself. Don’t abandon her."
Doyle’s words hit like a blade much more painful than the slap. A wounded expression appeared on the Dark One’s face. Without meaning to, she let her guard down. Was it because Doyle cared about her? Or because he accepted her feelings when no one else did? She didn’t know why he had such power over her.
Looking down, she acknowledged the self she had killed and the invisible blood on her guilty hands. "This is not the path I wanted to take." She wept.
"Then bring her back," Doyle said. "You have the amulet. Reverse your magic."
She shook her head. "She’ll never forgive me for what I did."
"You don’t know that," a high-pitched voice broke in. The Dark One turned to see the child standing at the door with Ebba and Kirby.
"Who’s this?" Doyle asked.
"I’m Echo." The child grinned. "One of three."
"Can you fix what I’ve done?" The Dark One wasn’t surprised to see her younger self.
"Let me see." The child walked around, studying the littered corpses. "These people were bad, bad witches, but they didn’t deserve to die."
"Can you fix it?" The Dark One was impatient.
"I’ll try," the child said.
In its common sense, resurrection was impossible. Witches could neither raise the dead nor defy natural death. But nature didn’t kill the Mortons, a spell did, and every spell had a trail, an invisible thread that tied the Dark One to the people she murdered. To the child, the thread was thick and clear, like a rope coiled around the Dark One’s neck, dangling along with the glowing amulet. No one could see it but the child, for she was the innocent one, the untainted one.
Opening her arms wide, the child whispered a spell, creating a lustrous, blue light that came from her heart. She approached her other self and wrapped her arms around her waist.
The Dark One cringed, but then she surrendered to the child’s cleansing touch. The blue light grew bigger and brighter, dissipating the invisible rope into nothing.
The child stepped away, leaving the Dark One with a flustered expression on her face. Everyone watched as the bodies were shaken back to life and inhaled their first breaths.
"I can’t believe this," Ebba uttered.
"Impossible," The Dark One murmured.
"They’re asleep now," said the child. "When they wake, they won’t remember dying."
"How did you do this?" the Dark One asked. "Resurrection is impossible."
"I found a loophole." The child held her hands behind her back and swung to the sides.
"You reversed my spell?" The Dark One concluded. "You can reverse my spells?"
"I am you." The child blushed and stole a few glances of Doyle.
"Yes, but you did it without the amulet or the grimoire."
"Young witches have pure, undisturbed power," Kirby explained. "They’re more connected to nature and themselves. As they grow up, they build barriers through their ego and their social personas, so their magic becomes limited."
"Maybe I should stay here and fight Jivar," the child said. "Doyle will take care of me."
"Uhm." Doyle creased his forehead.
"You know you can’t stay, Echo," Kirby patted the child on the head. "At least not on your own. You need the other Echoes to survive."
The child thought for a moment, then extended her hand to the Dark One. "Will you get back together with me? With us?"
The Dark One hesitated before joining hands.
"Let us come together as one." The child chanted. A beam of blue light radiated from her heart, gathering the pieces together in the lifeless body.
With a loud gasp, I woke up from what seemed like a nightmare. Ebba hurried to help me off the floor.
In an attempt to get rid of me, the dark spirits wagered a war within, but I ended up learning the greatest lesson. I didn’t need Dark Magic to fight Jivar. All I needed was to become whole and to accept the pieces of myself I had once rejected. With that, my grimoire changed to its final colors. Shades of gold, blue, and black merged on the cover, like an oil painting that expressed my very quintessence.
My friends and I left the mansion, thinking we had spared the Mortons’ lives. We didn’t know life was indeed fair, and punishment awaited every sinner.
***
Vanna’s heels clacked as she entered the basement. On the blood-coated floor. The Morton witches had fully awakened. Memories of the day had been erased, and all left were the questions on their wrinkled faces.
Vanna absorbed the surroundings. The place was empty of furniture except for a few tables and shelves crowded with jars. Dark Magic sigils covered the walls, and at their center, an inverted pentacle with a circle too small to contain the polygon. Candles surrounded the skull of a ram with giant horns bulging from the sides. A green, slimy liquid smudged the wall. Vanna didn’t recognize it.
"Who are you? How did you get here?"
Vanna turned around to see a grizzled man whose eyes seemed to sink into his face. While she explored the room, he had brought himself to stand and prepared to defend his tribe.
"We haven’t met, although I’ve heard enough about you," Vanna said. "Leonard Morton, the head of the Mortons family. In terms of pure magic, you have no significant powers, but you appeal to the dark spirits that grant you money and worldly authority."
Leonard backpedaled to a side table on which a copper bowl was placed. He dug his hand to scoop a pitch-black powder that resembled sand.
"Using Dark Magic, you’ve committed many crimes," Vanna added. "Some of which cost innocent lives—"
"Die." Leonard threw the powder that darted towards Vanna like a swarm of blood-sucking mosquitos.
Curling her fingers, Vanna brought her sword to sight. With one swing, she cut through the clouding insects. The resurrected witches jumped up and huddled behind their leader, who began to shiver.
"As I was saying," on went Vanna. "You, the pitiful Mortons, are dark spirits worshipers. I used to think your claimed Gods are terrifying. They feed on fear, hatred, and anger, and they trick the naïve into sin. But now that I have gained my full powers, I am starting to see things differently."
"Follow my lead." Leonard opened his palm out. "Spirits of darkness, we summon you."
"Spirits of darkness, we summon you," the witches chanted, but the spirits didn’t come to the rescue. They didn’t dare show up in the presence of Vanna’s full-powered sword.
"Wh-who are you?" Leonard uttered.
"I’m the thing the devils fear," she said. "I come in many names and forms. Whether a soldier bearing a sword or a heart-warming story bringing tears to the eyes, my role is to take away the power of fear by shedding the light."
"You’re a light spirit?" His face grew aghast.
"That’s what I am."
"Wh-y are you here?"
"I understand my friends let you off the hook, hoping to preserve Echo’s innocence, but spirits and humans don’t comply with the same moral values. You see, if a human kills you, it’s a crime. If I do it, it’s divine punishment."
Vanna lifted her feet off the ground, propelling herself towards him. She released her sword in an overhead blow at his skull. The witches screamed, but she couldn’t care less. Twirling, she swayed her sword at their faces, necks, and abdomens. The heels of her boots brushed against the floor, barely touching it. Blood spattered all over her pallid skin.
Gracefully and viciously, Vanna carried out her judgment, but was punishment her only motive? Even she didn’t know. It could’ve been her loyalty to the mission, her secret desire to atone for a friend, or her piled-up feelings finally finding a release. Whatever were the reasons, the result was one—corpses rotting in the Mortons’ basement.
