The Hollow Gods

by A. J. Vrana

  The Dreamwalker.

  She was humming quietly to herself as she peered down at the comatose girl, then reached out to stroke her face.

  Mason recognized her from his dream, and from the vision at the willow tree. She was the girl who had been driven out of the village by that shadow. She was different now—her face and figure obscured by her unusual garments, but he could still see the flow of her dark brown hair, identical to that of both previous apparitions.

  She hovered over Miya, then leaned her face close to the unconscious girl and tilted her head like a curious magpie. She seemed at peace—yet the flames surrounding both women grew more ferocious with every passing moment.

  Unable to tolerate the vision any longer, Mason turned away, scanning the room to see the bloody state of the battle. Kai too was enveloped by a dark mist. His eyes were red, his movements blurred as though he were amid a dream-like fog. In front of him were several of the townspeople, their faces distorted and their eyes blank as dark shadows sprang from their spines like tentacles, each one attached to something malevolent drifting around the entrance of the cabin. The villagers were all being controlled by the same entity.

  Most of the guns were lost in the scuffle, broken or damaged by Kai and Ama. But there always seemed to be a weapon nearby. Jake, the man who Ama first confronted at the door, stumbled to his feet, his face swollen and bruised from the fight as he grabbed the last remaining rifle and swooned forward, pointing it straight at Kai.

  “I’ll kill you!” he raged in a voice that didn’t sound human.

  Mason felt like he was in a nightmare, the faces around him grotesque, twisted and misshapen—completely unrecognizable from the citizens of Black Hollow who had gathered in the church only days prior. Black, tarry blood oozed from their orifices as strangled, beast-like moans emanated from their throats. These were not ordinary people any longer. On the contrary, they looked like the monsters they believed themselves to be hunting.

  And they weren’t alone.

  Dark shapes flickered across the wall—shadows cast by no object. They were frighteningly lifelike, undulating and rippling over the villagers’ heads. It was as though they’d gathered from the other realm to spectate the battle with gratified sneers and thunderous laughter.

  Mason squeezed his eyes shut. This can’t be real, he thought. It just can’t be.

  From somewhere deep within, the little boy who stood by Aunt Lisa’s bed as she took her last breath spoke up for the first time in decades.

  But it is real, he whispered, at first meekly, then with urgency. This is all real.

  You’re just going to have to find your place in it.

  When Mason opened his eyes again, the shadows were still there. Perhaps they’d always been there, and he’d only failed to notice.

  Ama and a snarling Kai barricaded Miya’s unconscious form.

  “I won’t huff, or fucking puff,” Kai muttered through clenched teeth as he took a threatening step towards the throng of villagers. “I’ll just burn you all to the ground.”

  The question of whether Kai Donovan was a man or a wolf struck Mason as foolish then. It was clearer than anything happening in the cabin; Kai was neither one nor the other. He was both man and wolf.

  But Kai’s advance was cut short by the deafening sound of a gunshot and the smell of burnt powder smoking from the barrel of Jake’s rifle. Mason expected Kai to fall, but he gave them nothing but a throaty growl as he clutched his arm. The bullet had struck his shoulder, the force of the blow pushing him back as blood trickled down his arm and dripped from his fingers.

  The villagers froze, the ringing from the gunshot fading into deafening silence. The wind outside howled until the walls sheltering them began to creak, the entire structure teetering.

  Kai looked up with a menacing, blood-stained grin. “Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”

  Mason’s heart seized in his chest. Kai wasn’t bluffing. The phantoms and the villagers, the wolf and the man—these were not two realities colliding; they were already a coherent whole.

  Mason heard a sharp, disembodied laugh from behind him. It sounded like Miya—but when he spun around, he came face-to-face with the Dreamwalker, still hovering over the girl’s body. Her lips stretched back as she brought a finger to her lips and silenced the young doctor with a single hush.

  Everything grew calm and still before the storm struck. The door of the cabin tore open from outside, the Dreamwalker’s laugh answered by a high-pitched caw that Mason recognized as a raven’s. Was it the old man? Or the boy? He could only imagine that it was Gavran—and Gavran appeared to be many things. Mason swore he could hear the rustle of the willow tree’s branches, its tiny emerald blades blowing inside with an ethereal glow. The villagers watched, hypnotized. Their arms went limp, and their weapons hit the ground in a series of hollow thuds. One of them gasped, about to release a blood-curdling scream when a black mass darted into the cabin. It was indeed a raven, slicing past the crowd towards Miya. The bird slowed before the Dreamwalker, beating its wings and landing on the phantom’s outstretched arm.

  Mason was dumbfounded. How could this animal perch on a spirit? The raven had always appeared so life-like, but perhaps it too was from another realm. Or at least, someplace in between. The raven’s beak yawned open as its wings spread wide, and it chortled joyously, as though happy to be reunited with an old friend.

  When one of the villagers regained his bearings and stepped towards them, the raven thrust out its head and released a low, threatening death rattle. It seemed to be protecting Miya, challenging anyone who dared approach.

  Mason’s eyes drifted back to the Dreamwalker. As though feeling his gaze, she turned to him and smiled like she was passing a secret. Her mischief had given way to something else—something gentle, perhaps even compassionate.

  Mason’s heart filled with grief. He finally understood. All this time he’d spent trying to prove the stories false only further cemented them in reality. If he was so confident they were fiction, why did he need proof? He had undertaken his own witch hunt; he was no different from the villagers he’d accused of destroying what they tried to protect. He wanted to shield his simple world, and in his efforts, he’d smashed it to pieces, leaving a vacuum for everything he thought impossible to take its place.

  How had he not seen it? The truth was in front of him all along. It was the same as with any cancer treatment.

  The poison was the cure.

  Yet Mason had no time to dwell; the battle was not yet over. Shaking off their stupor, the villagers turned their attention back to Kai. As though smelling the blood from his wounds, they lunged like starved animals.

  Kai brushed off their careless swings with ease, tearing his knife through bone and flesh alike. As he did, the shadows lifted from the villagers, erupting into murals of blood that licked the walls. The townsfolk went limp and fell to the floor as the remaining darkness bled out and whisked towards the Dreamwalker. Mason followed it with his eyes, watching as the rapidly dissipating blackness lashed out at her in what appeared to be one final attack. Yet having lost its substance, the shadow struck her like mist on a rock. It shattered into a thousand tiny particles, vanishing into the air.

  Who are you, Mason found himself thinking, his lips barely moving to form the words.

  With her free hand, the Dreamwalker reached up and traced the outline of her bone mask. Gripping the tip of the beak, she slowly pulled it aside.

  Mason’s vision clouded over, and the woman’s face faded into darkness as he fell towards the ground.

  “Did I not tell you...” echoed the voice of the old man and the boy in unison.

  “...that everything beats in cycles.”

  50

  Even with his closed eyes, Mason could see the hot glare of florescent lights as they blasted through his eyelids. He tried to speak, his voice hoarse and muffled as he realized something was cupping his mouth.

  “Dr. Evans?”

  It was a ma
n’s voice, calling to him from a distance.

  “Dr. Evans? Can you hear me?”

  The voice was close now. Someone pried his eye open, another white flash darting left and right across his visual field. He was able to focus in on the beeps, consistent like a metronome. Was he hooked up to a heart monitor?

  “He’s awake,” the man said as Mason stirred. “Stop the oxygen.”

  He felt cool air against his face, the string that had been cutting into his cheeks finally giving way as the mask was removed. Slowly the room came into focus—white ceiling, white walls. It wasn’t Annabelle’s. It wasn’t home.

  “You’re at the hospital,” a gentle voice told him. It was familiar—young and sweet. “You sucked up a lot of smoke.”

  “Looks like he’s stable.” It was the man again. He recognized the name on the tag: Dr. Callahan. “I’ll leave him to you.”

  As the figure in the white lab coat retreated from the room, another face came into view. “Damn it, Mason, I should have kept you home.”

  It was Annabelle, the lines of her face stricken with worry as she peered down at him.

  “I'm sorry,” he croaked. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was parched. He looked past Annabelle to see Jazlyn marking something off on his chart, realizing she must have been the woman who spoke first.

  Annabelle sighed shakily. “You had me worried sick. You were gone for days without a word.”

  Days? How many days? He was afraid to ask, afraid to even think about it. He looked around the room, taking in the brown bulletin board and the poster advocating for a medication he didn’t recognize. “How’d I get here?”

  Jazlyn put the chart down and came over to stand by the bed. “There was a forest fire. It was contained, but you were there when it happened. Firefighters found you unconscious on the ground.”

  The mention of fire sent a splitting jolt through Mason’s skull. The Dreamwalker’s face invaded him—the pandemonium he had been in the midst of.

  “What happened to the search party?” he asked, squeezing his eyes shut to banish the memory.

  The two women looked at one other, their expressions wary. “You were the only one they found,” Jazlyn swallowed, “alive.”

  Mason’s lethargy dissipated as he stared at them, searching for a hint that there was something more to be said, but neither of them so much as parted their lips. They simply stared back, concern written on their faces as they waited for him to react. Mason forced down the bile.

  “I see.”

  He mentally thumbed through the people he’d met. They were all gone now, casualties in a war between gods. But why had he been spared? And what of Kai, Miya, and Ama? Were they safe?

  Mason had never been so close to the edge, so intimate with Lady Death that he could feel her breath on his face. It was like honey laced with arsenic. He opened his mouth to speak only to find that some invisible force had him locked in a chokehold. His throat constricted, and his eyes stung like someone had poured lemon juice into them. Tears streamed down his face as the acid ate away his mask. His chest heaved as all the confusion that had taken root over the duration of his journey blossomed into something terrifying and exquisite—a hopeless reverence for feelings with no words to describe them, and a crushing awareness of the unknowability, the sheer futility, of his quest for credence.

  The poison was the cure.

  “I saw her...I saw her,” he sobbed quietly as Annabelle rushed to comfort him, throwing her arms around his shoulders and stroking his hair.

  And the wolf. Mason had always known the shadow under the willow was the wolf. Annabelle had told him as much; he just couldn’t bear to accept it. The prospect of a magical world terrified him.

  Jazlyn remained frozen. She likely never dreamed of seeing such a display from him.

  “I’m sorry.” He pulled back after the tears ran dry. “I’m all right, honestly.”

  When neither of them responded, he forced a smile. “Would you mind leaving me alone for a bit? I know you’re worried, but I’m fine, I promise. I just can’t believe I put you both through this.”

  “Don’t you worry about us,” Annabelle reassured him. “We’re just glad to see you breathing.” She smiled at Jazlyn, who nodded back as she gathered her shoulder bag under her arm.

  “You know where to find us,” she chirped.

  Mason kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling. His mouth wouldn’t form words, even as he tried to give her an inkling of acknowledgement. There was a pause before he heard them shuffling around, whispering something to one another as they left the room.

  He was grateful for the silence, the quiet helping to calm some of the horror that still lingered in his bones. He tried to retrace his footsteps and recollect every instance in those woods, every decision that led to this moment. But it was all a jumble of madness and incoherence, and there was nothing he could do to fix that. He felt stranded on a plank of wood left floating in the middle of the ocean.

  Had he been selfish? Had his idealism been wrong? He remembered Kai, crushing those men to protect Miya. And there was his superior—the tired old doctor he’d sneered at for being too afraid to care.

  But maybe Kai and Dr. Lindman were right. They disowned idealism, forsook moral perfectionism, but at the end of the day, they accomplished what Mason couldn’t: they saved lives.

  Amanda might have lived twice as long had she been in the care of a jaded man more committed to grim truths than his own ego.

  As for Mason’s vacation—he was no closer to overcoming his grief than when he’d left home. He could still see Amanda’s face; he could still feel the painful squeeze of loss deep in his chest.

  But there was something besides the grief and the desperate scramble to be rid of it. Finally, he allowed himself to surrender to the humility grief demanded. He was done with Kai Donovan’s blood, and he was done with the Dreamwalker.

  Sitting up, Mason unhooked himself from the equipment and tested his limbs. He could still taste the smoke, but he ignored it. There was a world full of air he could breathe. He didn’t have to remain in the haze just to check if he was suffocating.

  Grabbing his clothes, he took his time dressing, then folded the hospital gown and left it on the edge of the bed. Glancing down at the admittance bracelet, he caught the name of the hospital curving around his wrist.

  Ashgrove & District Hospital.

  He tugged on the edge and tore it off.

  “I think it’s time to go home.”

  As he opened the door, he patted himself down to check for his wallet. It was exactly where he’d left it, though there was something else bulging from his coat pocket. Reaching in, Mason felt around for the triangular object, his fingers running over the familiar cracks. It was different now, smaller, one of the three sides more jagged than he remembered. It was broken, half of it missing.

  He couldn’t just banish Kai Donovan and the Dreamwalker. He’d tried with Amanda, and he’d failed. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again. Pulling out the fractured stone, Mason sucked in a shaky breath. The Dreamwalker had taken off her mask and shown him her face. She had given him the truth he so desperately wanted. At last, Mason knew who she was: Miya, the girl from the village.

  “Guess you’re here to stay,” he mumbled, then placed half of her favourite stone back in his pocket for safe-keeping.

  As he stepped out of the room, there was a group of people passing in the adjacent hallway. Among the many bodies, he caught a glimpse of something familiar—a lock of white hair, stark against a dark leather jacket. Time went still. Amber eyes twinkled with mischief and plump, pink lips quirked in a knowing smile.

  The jaws of the white wolf seized Mason by the throat. Her presence reminded him of the only truth he could ever be sure of—a truth that survived the question of whether wolves walked among men, of whether fairy tales leapt from storybooks and crept among alleyway shadows. It came at him like the plague from Pandora’s Box, the final words spoken to him by a phantom l
iving in the dark crevice of a fable.

  Everything beats in cycles.

  51

  Kai

  The Wolf Under the Willow

  The last thing Kai remembered was Miya’s laugh—or at least, it was a woman who looked, smelled, and sounded like Miya. She was dancing over his lamb’s body, devoured by flames. What happened afterwards was a blur.

  As he raised his head from the leafy forest floor, he felt entirely at peace. Perhaps it was that the voice of Abaddon had finally quieted—and not in a manner that left Kai with the stink of foreboding. Perhaps it was the comfortable feeling of thick, black fur covering every inch of his flesh, or that he had a tail he could whip over his nose when it was cold. Or perhaps it was that the villagers were gone. He was in the forest, alone, and neither his wriggling nose nor his twitching ears detected danger for miles.

  Jumping up on all four paws, Kai dropped his nose to the ground and took in the multitude of scents. He knew which one he was looking for. It was sweet as honey, but with a touch of tartness, like spiced apples. It was Miya’s scent, and he knew he’d find it if he was patient. The forest was a living maze, especially here, in this foreign realm, and yet it was one that felt frighteningly close to home. He remembered crossing the threshold every now and again, often upon waking or falling asleep, often beneath the willow tree where he found himself without explanation. The willow always found him, and he always returned to its protective embrace.

  The caw of a raven alerted Kai to its nearby presence, and he huffed in turn, hot air blowing out of his nostrils as he swished his tail in greeting. Shit-for-brains still knew where to find him, no matter how far he traveled. The raven, he had to admit, if nothing else, was a loyal nuisance. He canted his head and chortled, then rushed into the air with a beat of his wings.