A Storm of Chaos (The Hunter Legacy #1)

Chapter Thirty-One

They looked like wounds; raw, bleeding wounds. The symbols were harsher across Brocard's skin than Chaos' were across hers though, lacking the smooth strokes, curls and lines, and instead they were sharp, jagged, cutting across his arms and face like they had been placed there by blades.

'What are you?' Kaya whispered, because even though his symbols should deem him a Hunter like hers something told her that wasn't quite right. Not impossible, just not right.

Brocard raised his hands in front of his face, turning them to inspect the symbols that appeared in such number they even wrapped around his fingers like lacerations. Like they were trying to consume him.

'I don't know,' he admitted, his brow furrowing.

'Brocard,' one of the thugs snarled, while the other stared at Brocard's symbols uneasily. 'Stop playing around. Finish this so you can provide what you promised.'

'What I promised?' said Brocard, his head tilting with curiosity. 'Oh, of course. Why don't I give it to you now then?'

The two thugs looked at each other, and then turned back to Brocard just as he raised his hand, his palm facing toward them. Brocard smiled and said, 'Enjoy.'

Kaya wasn't sure what had been promised, but she doubted it was this.

In unison, the thugs began to choke. Their eyes bulged as their hands went to their throats, and Kaya watched as liquid, thick like blood but as black as the darkness Reapers were made of, pooled at their eyes and the corners of their mouth. They collapsed to their knees, gurgling and spluttering as they tried to talk through whatever Brocard had done to them, and then their eyes rolled, but not so the whites were visible – they had become black, and Kaya couldn't help but be reminded of the black, empty voids of a Reaper's eyes. When they weren't glowing red, of course.

Brocard regarded the two thugs, as if he too were surprised by the results. Then he waved his hand dismissively, turning back to Kaya as he said, 'Give it a few moments, gentlemen.'

'What did you do?' said Kaya in disbelief.

But as if Brocard hadn't heard her question, he lifted his hands again to study the red symbols he bore. His brow furrowed. 'When they gave me this power I thought I would be like you, Kaya. No, I thought I would be better, but the voices...' Brocard said, his expression darkening. He dropped his hands, the symbols dulling in light and colour, and looked back to Kaya. 'They talk about you.'

'Who?' Kaya said again.

'They always talk about you,' said Brocard, frustration edging his words again. 'I can barely think around their gods-damned chatter.'

He was talking nonsense now, and while he did Kaya's instincts were pounding against the walls of her mind in a demand to run, the same instincts that had helped her survive in Klave, yet Chaos was beating so frantically, consumed by panic in a way she hadn't felt before, that Kaya couldn't muster the strength and focus to stand. She pressed a hand to her heart, but Chaos' scar was cold beneath her clothes despite how it reacted to whatever was inside Brocard. What's wrong? she asked again.

'No!' Brocard roared, snapping Kaya's attention back to him. He had turned away from her as he argued with whatever voices were in his head, but he looked down to her now with sudden clarity, sudden focus, that had her hackles rising again.

'Stop listening to them,' Kaya blurted out, more out of instinct to break that predatory focus which had settled over Brocard, but also, maybe, there was a chance Brocard could be reasoned with. She knew he had a violent streak beneath the otherwise calm, arrogant composure he usually had, and she had witnessed firsthand how obsessive he could become, and how his anger was incited by those obsessions, but whatever affected Brocard now was something entirely separate from who he was. So maybe she could reach through it, through whatever ate away at his sanity.