The Hollow Gods (The Chaos Cycle #1)

Chapter 14

Chapter

Fourteen

With a violent pull, Kai was wrenched from his nightmare, gasping as cold sweat poured down his burning skin. He was shaking uncontrollably, and for at least a minute he couldn’t see a damn thing—that hateful sneer and the mangled corpses still dancing in front of his eyes. The stench of fumes and rotting flesh made him lurch forward, coughing until he nearly threw up. Fire smouldered every inch of his skin, searing into the back of his skull. He clenched his knees to his chest, regressing in both body and mind, desperate to grab hold of something real.

“Kai.”

It was Ama’s voice, breaking through the fog. A hand was on his shoulder, fingertips squeezing him until he jerked back. The first thing he saw was the golden amber of her eyes—warmer and darker than the cold gleam from the figure in his nightmare.

“What the fuck did you do to me?” he growled, swooning as he swatted her hand away. He was still injured, still in pain, and now thoroughly scrambled in the head. “How do you know my name?”

“He told me,” she said, canting her head towards the window where the raven still sat.

Kai glanced at the bird, the image of the boy’s corpse flashing through his mind. Feeling his stomach churn, he reeled forward onto his knees. He clenched his teeth and bit back the bile. It wasn’t the gore that made him feel sick, but the disorienting whirlwind of sensations that flooded him as he grappled with the memories. “What did you do to me?” he demanded a second time, his voice crossing over into something feral.

Ama stepped away and sat in the chair. “I called him here.”

Kai was about to bark at her to stop being cryptic when his doppelganger flitted before his eyes. He knew exactly who she was talking about.

“Why?”

She considered him carefully, absorbing his reactions. “I wanted to see how bad it was. I got my answer.”

“Why!” he snapped again.

“I told you,” she sighed as if speaking to a child. “I’m here on behalf of someone who’s been looking for you.”

Before he could lunge at her with another question, she lifted a finger, cutting him off with a sharp look. “This entity that’s been haunting you—does it have a name?”

Kai swallowed as he watched the raven, wondering what it was, and why it had crawled into that boy’s corpse. He still didn’t trust Ama. If that was the kind of monster she was working with, he wanted to run for the fucking hills. Why was she even here?

“Well?” she coaxed, arching an eyebrow as he paled again.

“Calls himself Abaddon,” Kai said after a pause. “No idea why.”

Ama’s eyes widened, her lips pursing. “Well, that’s dark, if not a tad poetic. I’m guessing you don’t know what Abaddon means.”

“Don’t really give a shit either.”

“Biblical angel, or demon.” She ignored his disinterest. “Depends on the version you’re reading, but the book of Revelation portrays him as a destroyer—the angel of the abyss, the king of plague. Some scholars consider him to be the antichrist. Others believe he’s the devil himself. A few, however, say he’s doing God’s work.”

Kai blinked at her, his brain unable to process her holy drivel. He was too exhausted to deal with information. He’d spent all night crawling back to the cabin. He’d just barely finished screaming, thrashing, and crying like a diva. Hell, he might have even shat his pants a little—and now, while he sat in a pool of his own sweat, she wanted to give him a bible lesson?

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about the name,” Kai shot back, his patience wearing thin.

“Oh?” She tsked. “You should. After all, he picked it for a reason.”

Kai shifted to a dry spot on the bed, stripping off his shirt and wiping his arms and chest with the sheets as he crossed his legs and settled back against the wall. He refused to look at her, the gesture thinly veiling his embarrassment for being caught in such a state. Instead, he reached for a whisky bottle he kept tucked behind the mattress.

“Whatever.” He popped the cork and took a swig. “How exactly do you lure out dickish spirits?”

She watched as he threw the soaked shirt to the floor. “I’ve got an all-access pass…to the then, the now, and the wherever.”

He gave her a withering look. “That doesn’t tell me shit.”

She wagged a finger at him in deliberate condescension. “Yes, you’re right. It’s not supposed to tell you anything.”

“Right.” Kai huffed. “And now that you’ve had your kicks, would you kindly fuck off and leave me alone?” If he hadn’t been half-broken, he would’ve torn her head off and whipped it at the damn raven. It could be just like bowling , he sneered to himself.

But she was undeterred by his threat. She rose from the bed and strolled over, her knees touching his as she peered directly into his eyes—a bold move. “Don’t you want to know what Abaddon is?”

Of course he did; he pined for an answer, but his response was flippant as he curled a lip at her, loathing her display of dominance. “Evil spirit. Angry douche-turd. Invisible dick dipped in cow shit.”

“That would make him quite flammable.”

Kai snorted, unable to help cracking a smile. “I wish.”

“I don’t think he’s just an evil spirit,” she told him more seriously, slowly circling the room. “He’s too self-aware. Giving himself a name—a biblical name at that—seems rather symbolic, don’t you think?”

Kai followed her movements, waiting for her to get to the point. He fought to keep himself sealed off, but her steadiness melted away his indignation.

“I used to think I was crazy,” he confessed after a long gulp of whisky. “But even the shrink eventually realized something didn’t fit. Just never thought it’d be a ghost with a holy stick up his ass.”

“You spent enough time with humans to let them take you to a therapist?” She sounded surprised. “Let me guess—schizophrenia?”

“I was a kid when they found me. Didn’t have much choice.” Kai shook his head. “PTSD and conduct disorder. Said I was hearing things because of repressed trauma.”

“Oh? What happened?”

“You’ve gotten enough backstory.” Kai glowered, catching himself. He wondered how lonely he’d become to divulge his past to a home invader. “Now how about you tell me what’s wrong with me?”

Ama drummed her fingernails against the wooden table. “The notion of linear time is a brilliant illusion, isn’t it? You’re born, you progress through life, and then you die. But your understanding of death depends on how you understand time. If you eliminate the construct of time from the equation, there’s no saying what death really is.”

“I don’t think about time or death,” he told her. “I’m too busy trying not to get fucked sideways every day.”

“I don’t think about it either.” She smiled. “We’re animals. Time has a different meaning to us because we’re constantly engaged in the immediacy of our instincts. Still, we are aware of human constructs. Maybe we’re even becoming human.”

Kai flopped back on the mattress with a sigh and corked his whisky. If getting clocked by a bus didn’t kill him, Ama’s yapping would. “This doesn’t sound like it has jack shit to do with Abaddon.”

“It does,” she said, “because if you want to understand Abaddon, you’re going to have to move past the present moment. You’ll have to think about death.” She walked around the table, her finger tracing the edge until she’d drawn a large circle. “Humans are afraid of death because it’s so final. At least, based on their idea of time. We can say that time is an illusion, but death certainly isn’t. It’s very real, and yet the experience of death is more than just an end. Ironically, the end is endless.”

“Ama,” he said tightly as he rolled up, lip twitching. “I’m not a fucking poet. Get to the damn point or get the fuck out.”

He caught the edge of a smile. She was toying with him, shredding his brain with riddles.

“Blow me,” he snapped. “You don’t know anything except that he’s here to make me scream for my dead mommy.”

Ama shook her head. “Not today, I’m afraid.”

Kai stood up and began to pace, predatory and anxious all at once. “Why’s he stuck on me? What the hell did I ever do to him?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, “but obviously something binds you together. Seems he wants to punish you.”

He was trying to remember his dream—trying desperately to summon those grotesque visions, but the effort grew vainer by the second.

“Why can’t I remember?” he growled, reaching up and ruffling his hair. “It just keeps slipping away!” There was a drawn-out pause before he slumped his shoulders in defeat.

“That’s quite normal,” Ama reassured him. “To be left only with the feelings and none of the images.”

Kai seethed at her, squeezing his fist so hard his nails cut into the pads of his hand. He felt used, manipulated, one-upped, and powerless. “So your friend sent you here to get into my head and mess with me but didn’t tell you what that whimpering bitch is? Or why he hates me?”

Ama tilted her head and smiled. “Sounds like you and Abaddon bicker quite often. And no, my friend isn’t someone I can get hold of on a whim. He reveals only what he wants, when he wants. And I was only told to come find you and keep an eye on things. I’m sure he’s already seen what he needed to.”

“Your friend sounds like some of his brains have been pecked out.”

“He’s not all there sometimes,” Ama admitted. “But I’m curious as well. What kind of spirit names itself? And why?” She lowered her gaze, speaking to no one in particular. “You were counting on my curiosity, weren’t you?” Then, she turned to the raven with slit eyes.

“You’re fucking insane.”

“Maybe!” She laughed, walking to the door. With her hand on the knob, she glanced over her shoulder and smiled coyly. “But what does that make you?”

Kai watched as she saw herself out without a single shit given for his response, her footsteps fading into the distance. What was the point of that? She’d waltzed into his home, mind-fucked him, then waltzed right back out. And he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

He kicked the wall next to the doorframe and stalked back to his bed, tearing off the covers and chucking them in the corner. He couldn’t lie in her scent. He refused to. Throwing himself down, Kai closed his eyes and sighed as his body let go. Sleep was finally creeping up on him. Sleep—without any hope of rest.