The Hollow Gods

by A. J. Vrana

  Annabelle shook her head. “Ghosts are human spirits—the spirits of the dead. These entities are not dead, but more like living spirits, gods, and the familiars I mentioned. They aren’t human, but they live in other realms just as we live in this one. In Ireland, the Celts called them elementals and faeries. I remember Matty telling me the Japanese have them too—kami, I think. Each culture has them in one form or another. And it’s not hard to guess where people thought these spirits’ realms could be found.”

  “The forest,” Mason guessed.

  “That’s right.” She nodded wearily as he caught on. “Forests have always been places of mystery. Being spirited away—it’s a pagan thing. It’s how people explained disappearances. When someone went into the forest and didn’t come back, they said the spirits seduced them. But of course, every now and again, someone would come back.”

  “And that freaked people out?”

  “It sure did,” said Annabelle. “They thought maybe the person had changed and wasn’t human anymore. That’s how she earned her name, the Dreamwalker. It was because they thought she’d gone somewhere else—somewhere she wasn’t supposed to go.

  “According to the legend, strange things began to happen after she came back. The villagers thought she’d brought something with her from the other side—something bad. To protect themselves, they drove her out, back into the woods. She disappeared for good after that.”

  “That’s it? She just…vanished?” Mason frowned. It certainly validated what he'd seen in his dream, but a plain old disappearance seemed underwhelming. Still, it explained the villagers’ obsession with her return; they must have been convinced she was coming back for revenge.

  Annabelle nodded. “Sort of. As far as the villagers’ side of the story goes, that’s the end, yes. But there is another version, hinting at her fate.”

  Mason squirmed and leaned forward. “What happened to her?”

  Annabelle withdrew her smile. “She went looking for the wolf under the willow, following his howls through the woods. But when she found her way back to the willow where the howls were coming from, it wasn’t a wolf waiting for her beneath the tree.”

  “Not a wolf?” Mason parroted. “Then, what was it?”

  An excruciating silence followed. As he waited with a painfully clenched jaw, the old grandfather clock clicked and clacked, each second dragging out until the hand struck the hour, the deep, haunting echo jolting Annabelle out of her musings. Drawing a breath, she sat back and looked Mason in the eye.

  The words she spoke next would haunt him—not because they were frightening or unbelievable, but because they were precisely what he expected. It meant he’d already looked truth in the eye and didn’t recognize it for what it was. Somehow, he would have rather endured Mathias’s ghost, looming over his paralyzed form for a thousand nights to come.

  25

  Miya

  The night was as quiet as freshly fallen snow. Only the sound of footsteps and the pitter-patter of rain on pavement trickled into Miya’s awareness. She pulled her umbrella from her backpack and offered to share it with Kai, but he shook his head, looking almost offended.

  “I’m not a cat,” he told her, so she shrugged and raised the umbrella, happy to hog.

  She was bothered by how still her heart was, how absent she remained of any transformative emotion. She’d expected her whole sense of reality to crumble, and yet everything remained intact. This was all, somehow, acceptable. Perhaps it was because the wolf was a recurring theme in her life. Perhaps it was fate; the encounter from her childhood might have been a premonition—a sign of what was to come.

  “Do you believe in fate?” Miya asked when the crickets got too loud, knocking around the inside of her skull.

  Kai’s brows slowly knotted together. “Don’t care—don’t really think about it,” he said gruffly.

  “Really?” She turned to him. “You never think about whether things were meant to happen? Or if it’s all just coincidence?”

  “Nope.” He shrugged. “Don’t see the point. Even if you knew, so what? Fate’s just a nice way of saying you’re a hamster on a wheel. Nothing you do matters. And if everything’s coincidence, that leaves you with about as much control as fate.”

  This was the most he’d spoken to her without spewing venomous sarcasm. If anything, he actually sounded earnest, like he was willing to have a conversation.

  “What about freedom, then?” Miya probed.

  Kai shut his eyes and leaned his head back, relishing the raindrops. “Nobody wants freedom. They just like the idea of it.” He cracked his eyes open and looked at her, demanding her attention. “What people want is to feel safe.”

  “So, you don’t believe in freedom?” she asked.

  “You’re missing the point, Lambchop.” He pulled a hand from his pocket and poked her cheek. “Things like fate and free will are just ideas. Shit people make up to feel better because they don’t want to be honest about how cruel the world is. If there’s such a thing as fate, it’s nothing more than your beginning.”

  “Fate is the beginning?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Why did you come with me, then?” Miya challenged. “Wasn’t that a choice you made freely?”

  His lips curled in a mischievous smile—like he was willing to play along, for now. “I didn’t want to, remember?”

  Miya pushed back with growing confidence. “You didn’t want to, but you did. Why?”

  “I can trust you.”

  “How would you know that?”

  His eyes narrowed to a cutting glare, though his tone remained sincere. “Because you’re not afraid of the dark. You came looking for it.”

  “So?” She frowned.

  “Well, you found it,” he scoffed. “And I bet you aren’t willing to share.”

  He was right—Miya didn’t dare tell anyone about him, and not for entirely selfless reasons. Just like the wolf from her childhood, she wanted this secret to be hers. Even now, there was an urgency crawling up her spine. She wanted to slow down, prolong the journey so they could keep talking, but every step was bringing them closer to their starting point.

  Miya’s brows felt like they’d been stapled together for hours. Suffering from a bad case of thought constipation, she glanced over at Kai. “Are you the only one of your kind?”

  It was an obvious question, or so she thought until she heard him breathe in—slowly—then exhale.

  “Do you think I popped out of a test tube or some shit?” His eyes bore holes into the side of her skull, probing the squidgy mass inside.

  “I don’t know! Did you?” Miya imagined something more like genetic mutation, but she didn’t dare say so now.

  “Nope,” he snorted, tapping her between the legs with the back of his hand. “Popped out of one of those.”

  Miya’s jaw went slack. “What the hell!”

  “What?” he feigned. “You didn’t think a stork dumped my ass next to a tree, did you?”

  His act did little to placate her—though she doubted that was his goal. Known for retaliating with the grace of a maddened bull, Miya silently shut her umbrella. Without hesitation or restraint, she walloped the unborn children out of his gonads, striking him square in the crotch with the pointy end.

  “Ass!” she yelled as he doubled over, but not before he managed to grab the umbrella and yank it out of her grip.

  “…bitch,” he grunted as he dropped her weapon to the ground.

  Miya expected him to cuss her out the second he could breathe again—hurling insults and profanities that would make the devil blush. But to her amazement, he began to laugh—albeit a little darkly—his shoulders shaking as he rested his elbows on his knees and hung his head in defeat. “You’re not as tender as you look, Lambchop.”

  Miya gave him a half-hearted pat on the back. This time, she was able to appreciate his wit. “Better chew carefully, or you might choke to death, Wolfie.”

  He grumbled under his brea
th and carefully straightened up, then shifted around as if testing to see how much pain she’d put him in. “At least you know how to bite back.”

  Miya raised an eyebrow. “So you knew you were being a dick?”

  He shifted his gaze to the treetops. “Maybe. Can’t always tell.”

  “Hasn’t anyone ever been nice to you?”

  He paused, his eyes turning downwards. “A long time ago, yeah,” he replied softly as they veered off the road and onto a gravel path leading towards the trees.

  Miya’s phone was dead, but she hardly felt the pull to go home despite the late hour. Only when she felt Kai brush past her did she snap back to reality. Blinking away the daze, she quickly followed suit. She wasn’t sure what to say, let alone what to feel. She didn’t want the excursion to end, but there was no excuse to drag it out any longer. Miya imagined inviting him over for dinner, but as the scenario unfolded, she found herself wincing at the aftermath: Kai smashing cockroaches with a closed fist and Patricia coming after him with a spatula.

  The silence stretched out like a shadow at sunset.

  “Sorry, I wouldn’t make a very good house pet.” He flashed her a playful smile—a genuine smile—then started walking towards the trees. It was almost as if the bastard knew what she was thinking.

  “Who’d want to house train you anyway?” Miya called after him, her heart sinking like a pebble at the bottom of a murky pond.

  He lifted his arm and waved without turning.

  How did he spend his days in there? Was he often a wolf, or a man? Miya couldn’t help but wonder—which side dominated?

  And, if he was here, did he know of the Dreamwalker? Would he know what happened to Elle Robinson after she’d disappeared in the woods?

  Miya was about to call out to him again, to ask him if they could talk about it, but before she could open her mouth, he stopped, his every muscle frozen when a sound like thunder rolled through the air. Birds flew up from the treetops towards the sky, the forest growing eerily still when the echo faded out.

  Time slowed as Miya pushed past her stupor, then took a step towards him. “Was that a gunshot?”

  “Go home,” he commanded. As if knowing she would protest, he turned to glare at her over his shoulder. His nose and brow creased in a scowl that looked more animal than human. It was a warning.

  “But—” Before she could finish, he stalked into the woods, leaving her to wallow in her uncertainty. She didn’t trust what she’d seen on his face, but what he did with his anger wasn’t her problem.

  She was curious, though.

  Deciding she’d regret not knowing more than she’d regret knowing, Miya rushed after him, running into the woods in hopes of catching up. You’re going to get shot, the reasonable side of her screamed. Her body started shaking, though she was unsure if it was from adrenaline or fear. She didn’t remember the last time she’d been in the forest. It was pitch-black, the thick, crooked branches of ancient trees blotting out most of the starlight.

  “Kai?” she hissed, hoping he’d return to save her from her own stupidity. But he didn’t respond, and Miya didn’t hear anything around her resembling human footsteps. She wandered further in, holding her breath as she traipsed along the forest floor, startled by every crack underfoot. As she stopped to look around again, a man shrieked from somewhere nearby, his voice shrill and laced with fear. Jerking at the sound, Miya tried to locate where it’d come from when another shot rang out—this time closer. Heart pounding, her instincts told her to run before she ended up on the back of a milk carton while her body lay rotting in the woods, but then she remembered she’d have to endure tomorrow not knowing what happened today.

  Pathology winning over survival, Miya fumbled through the trees in the direction of the bang. As she approached, she saw two—no, three figures tussling. Leaves shook loose from their branches as Kai slammed a shorter man into a tree then struck him to the ground. He landed with a hard thud and raised his rifle over his head for protection, but Kai pried it from his hands and struck the other, taller man on the side of the head with the butt of the gun. Miya couldn’t tear her eyes away as he fell over, blood dripping from his mouth as he hawked out a tooth. Kai snapped the rifle over his knee and whipped half the weapon further into the woods. Leaning over, he grabbed the bloodied man by the throat and held the end of the broken gun against his victim’s neck.

  “What the hell!” Miya yelled and ran towards them. She had no intention of ending up an accomplice to murder. “Put that thing down!”

  Kai turned his torrid gaze on her. She could barely see his face in the shadows, the moonlight illuminating just enough for her to catch a glimpse of the wolf she was trying to talk out of a kill. His expression was bestial—his face contorted in a feral snarl, every pore bleeding with rage. He lifted his head to take her in, the movement slow and measured. His eyes were wild, predatory, and Miya swore that, for a moment, they flashed blood red as the dim lunar glow passed over his face. To say he was displeased with her presence was a grave understatement. He still held the man by the neck while crouching over him, a hunter ready to deliver the finishing blow.

  “What the fuck are you?” The battered man gurgled through the blood in his mouth, one of his eyes swollen shut as he fought to keep conscious. To Miya’s horror, he wasn’t talking to Kai. He was turned to her, gawping as though she was the devil incarnate. “You some kind of witch?” he bellowed. “Go rot in hell, you cunt!”

  Miya stumbled to the side and hit a tree, winded by the hatred in his tone. She couldn’t fathom why she deserved that, or why she was being attacked at all. A cocktail of fear and revulsion burned in her throat. She looked up at Kai, searching, and saw that his eyes were still trained on her. His expression seemed to soften, albeit briefly, before he returned his attention to the mass of bruises beneath him. He was stone cold again, and in her bones, Miya was sure he meant to kill that man.

  Miya opened her mouth to stall him when she heard a click—the safety lock on a gun releasing. She didn’t know where from, and she didn’t have time to look. Kai kissed his teeth before he dropped the man and lunged the other way, his figure a blur in the darkness. Miya yelped when another firearm went off. She ducked and squeezed her eyes shut, clapping her hands over her ears. As the ringing faded out, she gradually became aware of her own breathing again. She felt no pain, frantically patting over her torso as she warily opened her eyes.

  “Shit!” The words came muffled, like her ears were stuffed with cotton. Her limbs hung like icicles, but she willed her legs to move, tripping over a tree root as she struggled to lift her feet. After a few clumsy steps, she could hear the crisp crunch of earth beneath her shoes again, the feedback helping to orient her. She saw something heavy drop into the leaves to her left, followed by the sound of a gut-wrenching snap. The man she presumed to be the shooter howled in pain. Miya moved towards the screams until she could see him, his arm twisted to an impossible angle as he dropped to his knees. Kai emerged from the shadows nearby, ramming the man’s skull straight into a tree. He lost consciousness and crumpled to the ground, unmoving. Growling under his breath, Kai stepped over the body and made his way over to her.

  “You all right?” he asked, his voice a familiar comfort amid unfamiliar brutality.

  Miya’s tongue was in a vice, so she nodded, her body still trembling. Now that he was close, she could see his face again; he was back to normal, with little more than a frown of concern to show for the violence he’d just inflicted.

  “Come on,” he coaxed gently, grabbing her hand and tugging at her to follow him. But the moment she tried to walk, her muscles dissolved into a heap of useless fibres. Her knees buckled, gravity doing its best to topple her before she grabbed onto a tree to keep from falling over.

  Kai halted upon feeling her resistance, then sighed as he looked her up and down. “Come here,” he murmured, putting an arm around her waist and picking her up. He grumbled as he carried her out of the woods. “This is why I tol
d you to go home, you damn sheep.”

  Miya clung to him despite repeated attempts to peel herself away. “Y-you would have killed those men,” she stuttered.

  “Yes,” he replied without emotion. “And you would have never known.”

  She was silent until they were out of the forest and he put her down. She saw blood on his arm, soaking through the grey of his sweatshirt. “Why?” she asked.

  Noticing her eyes trailing down his arm, he raised his hand and sucked the blood off the back of his thumb. He didn’t appear to have been hurt. “They were hunting somewhere they shouldn’t have been hunting.”

  “That’s it?” There was an edge to her voice. She was angry—angry at herself for getting involved when she could have gone home and taken a hot shower. Angry at him for nearly killing two men—innocent or not—for reasons he couldn’t properly explain. To make matters worse, he looked annoyed that she was questioning him. If he had no qualms killing trespassing hunters, what else was he capable of?

  “Did you have something to do with Elle Robinson?”

  The lines on his face deepened. “No,” he said tightly.

  “You didn’t kidnap her?” His violent outburst soaked into her until she spiralled into an abyss of dark possibilities.

  “No,” Kai repeated, his tone even. “That much, I remember.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” the alarm echoed from her words as she stepped back. His jaw clenched, his eyes like stone as he seemed to bite down on something bitter and hold it in.

  “I woke up next to her body. And a few others like her in the past,” he confessed. “Always the girls who go missing.”

  Miya took another step back, preparing for flight.

  “I’d never seen any of them before in my life!” Uncertainty broke through his eyes. “I could smell them, calling for help. I’d follow the scent, but I never remember finding them. Next thing I know, I’m waking up next to their corpses. No bite marks, no blood. Always the work of a human.”

  Miya slowed her retreat, considering his words. There was nothing disingenuous about him; he was crude and unyielding, inconsiderate even, but he never struck her as manipulative. Given Kai’s choice of habitat, it wasn’t unthinkable that a wolf would sniff out dead bodies.