The Hollow Gods (The Chaos Cycle #1)

Chapter 8

Chapter

Eight

Kai

During the day, Black Hollow was a different world from the pitiful cesspool Kai used as hunting grounds when the moon was out. The main road was busy with commuters and pedestrians, shops were open and welcoming, and the urge to hide pressed in on him with the throng.

Unaccustomed to being so exposed, he fumbled with both curiosity and unease, leaning away from people when they got too close—fighting the instinct to snarl when someone bumped into him from behind. He had no trouble hurting people or indulging his vices in the safety of a seedy dive bar; he was comfortable there, acclimated to the shadows and din that disguised misery and desire alike. But in broad daylight, there was nowhere to retreat, and the slightest human contact, the most innocent of glances, felt utterly debilitating.

The demand for social propriety wasn’t the only thing plaguing Kai. His ghostly menace had been awfully quiet these last few days, and Kai knew better than to believe the peace would last. Something was coming. Every time the dickish phantom disappeared, it was because he was squirrelling away his energy. Maybe he would hurl some moose shit at Kai’s face? Derail a train and have him mauled? The possibilities were endless, and Kai lamented that his imagination wasn’t wicked enough to conjure anything that could prepare him. The worst part was not knowing—not knowing when, where, how, or around whom the attacks would happen.

But Kai was a spiteful son-of-a-bitch. The more his antagonist pushed him, the more stubborn he became. An eye for an eye. A nut for a nut. Kai didn’t care if he had to reach into the fifth dimension and castrate the motherfucker barehanded. He swore he’d one day be rid of this curse—even if it killed him. He just had to figure out how .

Turning a corner, he abandoned the main road in favour of a quieter route where his senses didn’t feel like they were being chopped in a blender. He was only here to pawn that damn watch. Several blocks away, a bus idled as passengers stepped off. Kai’s eyes narrowed at those mammoth, rumbling wheels that stunk like tar. He loathed buses. The way they looked. The sounds they made. The way they smelled. Not to mention that every time he got on one, he felt nauseous and dizzy.

Kai picked up an empty soda can and crunched it between his fingers. He whipped it as hard as he could, satisfied by the crumpled aluminum ricocheting off the window. The monster spewed more noxious gas as it made its escape, and a confused passenger stuck their cheek to the glass to look around.

Licking the sugary residue off his fingers, Kai turned and headed the other way in a stubborn refusal to take the same path as the bus. Meanwhile, the elderly man who’d just gotten off at his stop stared at Kai like he was a lunatic, muttering something about young people and communism.

After successfully pawning the watch for a hundred dollars, Kai was eager to get the fuck out of Pleasantville. As he pushed the cash into his leather wallet, he retrieved a piece of an old lilac birthday card he always kept with him, his name scrawled on the back in dark blue ink.

Happy Birthday, Kai Donovan.

It was barely legible. He knew how hard it had been for old Alice to hold a pen, but she tried anyway.

Kai zigzagged through the smaller alleys, feeling more comfortable in the narrow corridors behind the main roads. It was quiet, and although it smelled like shit, it wasn’t disorienting like the crowded downtown streets where everything from cheap perfume and mystery meat to used tampons and acrylic paint bombarded his nostrils.

He couldn’t wait to return to his den—a tiny cabin nestled in a grove of pines and cedars. It was used by miners and forestry workers before the sudden insurgence of wolves a few years back and had long since been abandoned. The outside panelling was falling apart, and there were several holes in the roof that needed repairing. The windows were cracked, and it wasn’t unusual to find a fox or a raccoon scavenging inside. Still, it was home.

As he stalked past the chain-link fence behind the buildings, a heavy shadow followed. Kai slowed, hesitating until he felt the darkness nipping at his heels. Something cold slithered up his neck, then reached around his throat and squeezed. The chill spilled down his collar bone and cut into his chest, twisting through his heart.

The air fled his lungs, and his ribcage tightened as the phantom blade splintered. The ridges on his spine sundered, grinding back and forth like spider legs trying to break free. Something was inside of him, moving, shrieking, biting. It was a parasite, injected into his core by a cold, spectral hand.

“S-stop...” Kai knew it was his antagonist. He gasped as his insides constricted, his desperate attempt to breathe yielding only a pathetic wheeze. His vision was growing dark, white noise drowning his ears as he fought to move his feet, but it was like someone had welded them to the ground. Squeezing his eyes shut, Kai cursed loudly when he heard a distinct laugh from somewhere within the frequencies.

“What the fuck are you!”

From all directions came the low, rumbling reply.

Abaddon.

“Aba...ddon,” Kai strained. “Fuck...off!”

He managed to force out the words, the verbal outburst freeing him just enough to push one stride forward. Kai focused on the street ahead, the light of the main road drawing him like a moth to a flame. Gritting his teeth, he drove a fist into his leg until it moved. He didn’t dare look back where the shadow followed him step by step, inch by inch. But there was no way in hell he’d let himself collapse here, even if it meant tearing his own heart out along with whatever phantom vermin was crawling around inside him.

Grains of mortar bit into his palm as he grabbed at the wall for support. He turned the corner and stumbled out of the alleyway and into the open, the world around him spiralling into blinding white chaos. Unable to see or smell, he staggered waywardly, his every capacity crippled.

The last thing Kai remembered was the stench of carbon monoxide and the booming horn of a goddamn bus, hollering at him to get the fuck out of the way.