26

The plane lifted off the ground and Mikhail’s headache intensified. He glanced over at Viktor sleeping in his seat, back in his human form, secured with his passenger seatbelt and handcuffs around his wrists.

Damn it! Mikhail’s head was about to explode. He had taken so many hits it was a miracle he could still stand up straight. For the first time in years, he wished there was alcohol nearby. He would need a whole barrel to feel at least a tiny bit better…

It had all gone to shit. He couldn’t comprehend the witch’s hostility towards them. The vampire showing up. Viktor’s turning. Everything that had happened.

They left the city in chaos. The collapse of The Witch had triggered a thunderous wave of panic. Humans ran in terror, some shouting ‘Earthquake!’ and others ‘Bomb!’

Yet, the darkness and ensuing turmoil allowed the four of them to escape.

Soon after, Viktor had blacked out in his human form. The fight didn’t seem to have wounded him, but his clothes had not survived his transformation. So, as Mikhail was trying to flee the scene unnoticed, covered in blood and beaten nearly to death, he’d had to carry Viktor’s naked body on his back.

It would be a fucking miracle if nobody reported them to the police. Although humans were not able to identify them, the Tribunal could , and the two institutions were known to work together. And Mikhail’s transgressions were piling on.

At some point, they had been forced to split up. Mikhail had managed to find his way to their rental car, toss Viktor in the back seat and drive to the airport, while Constantine had remained with the vampire. They were supposed to meet up a few hours later on the highway to Bari.

Only, the plan had changed. Just as Mikhail had started up the Fiat, his phone rang. He thought he’d lost it during the underground melee, but instead, he fished it out from under the driver’s seat – it must have fallen out of his pocket earlier. It was Zacharia, calling with yet another set of bad news, so Mikhail had headed straight for the airplane. On his way, he had called Constantine.

“I’m already on the move,” the necromancer had said when he’d picked up.

“The vampire?”

“With me.”

Mikhail had about a thousand questions for her, but those would have to wait. “I need to go back to the Hospital immediately,” he said instead.

“Is there a problem?”

“A new murder.”

“Another Council member?”

“No. I don’t think you know her.”

“Female?”

“Yes.”

“Go handle it, and trust me to do the same on my end.”

“Good. Keep me posted.” With that, Mikhail had hung up.

Not good . If he’d had any doubt about losing control of the situation, it was not doubt anymore. It was a fact. The Hospital was his sanctuary, and someone was actively trying to destroy it. And somehow, Amelia’s presence was at the centre of it all. First, the Oracle had sent him to find her, then the first murder had occurred… And now, a second murder?

Only humans believe in coincidences.

By the time he’d got to the airport and had settled himself and Viktor into the plane, his mind was still whirring. The witch in Alberobello had wanted them dead. Until now, he had thought of her as nothing more than an intermediary, but these new events proved she was much more.

And the vampire, Diana? Friend or foe? Good thing she had lasted until Viktor’s transformation, otherwise they’d all probably have met their end.

Which brought him to another mystery. Why had Mada’s magic failed to work on the lycanthrope?

His gaze shifted to his friend, who was sleeping like a baby next to him, wrapped up in a thick blanket. The last time he’d turned had been years ago, and he had lost control. After that, Viktor swore an oath to never release the beast again. Now that vow was broken.

Viktor snored in his sleep. He hadn’t woken up since he had taken his human form. Tying him up was a precaution. If all went well, Mikhail would free him once they arrived.

***

Only, nothing went well.

Viktor woke up while they were settling into the car at the airport in Sofia. Mikhail placed him in the back seat and sat in the front, next to the driver.

At first, Vik was disoriented, unable to recall what had happened during their trip to Italy. His momentary amnesia quickly gave way to shock at his nudity. He listened to Mikhail’s explanation with narrowed eyes, then noticed the handcuffs around his wrists and ankles.

“Untie me, brother,” he said.

Mikhail glanced at him. The roughness in Viktor’s voice, and the sharpness in his features, were signs that dissuaded Mikhail from freeing him.

“In a moment,” he lied.

By the time they reached the Hospital, Sonya was waiting for them by the side entrance, just like the manticore had instructed her via a text message.

He turned to Viktor, hoping to meet the grey calmness in his eyes, but they sparkled with a beastly glow. “I will set you free now.” Viktor stilled, as though calmed by Mikhail’s words.

Mikhail got out of the car.

“You’re hurt,” Sonya noted. As if he wasn’t aware.

“I’ve had worse.”

He snatched the syringe from Sonya’s hand and opened the back door. Viktor outstretched his hand, the expression on his face promising trouble. Mikhail drove the needle into his neck. Before the lycanthrope realised what had happened, he fell unconscious.

“Keep him sedated for the next forty-eight hours,” Mikhail instructed Sonya before entering the building.

He went straight to the fifth floor as the cacophony from the gathering crowd increased. Questions of how and why, eyes glowing with curiosity, whispers and nudges… So much for keeping this new death a secret.

Everyone stared at him. Mikhail threw them an irritated look but then remembered he was still covered in blood, so he cleared his throat. “Good evening, creatures. If you’re wondering about the state of my clothes, suffice it to say, I had an encounter with a bear in the forest.”

Zacharia’s towering figure loomed over the crowd, blocking the West Wing as he casually read a magazine.

“Where is it?” Mikhail approached him.

“Did you know that according to Cosmopolitan , I have an eighty per cent chance of meeting the love of my life this week?” Zacharia said.

“I thought you meet her every week.”

“I guess you’re right.” The hybrid tossed the magazine onto a small table by the arch and faced the group of creatures. “If someone enters this wing, I will personally ensure they enter nowhere else ever again. You!” He pointed to someone in the crowd – Grigor, Viktor’s kid. “Stay here and don’t let anybody in. Clear?”

The young man strutted forward in his baggy jeans, explicit language T-shirt and heavily gelled hair, and took a guard-like stance. “At your service, sir!” He shot a threatening glance at the others.

Once they were further down the corridor, Mikhail asked, “Nobody knows what happened yet?”

“They suspect. By the way”—Zacharia ran his eyes up and down the manticore—“you look like shit.”

Mikhail frowned in response. His lower jaw hurt too much to explain.

On the fifth floor of the Hospital were the Blood Bank, Microbiology Department, and clinical laboratory. This part of the building was usually cramped with creatures from all other floors who came here to leave blood samples and other test materials or find out the latest gossip. It was notoriously known as the henhouse.

Now, the henhouse was dead silent.

Mikhail followed Zacharia through the door to one of the staff break rooms. Posters of creatures hung on the far wall. Immortals mingling with humans as Hollywood celebrities was not something Mikhail approved of, but he tolerated them, since these so-called stars had a large influence over their millions of fans, which had proven useful in certain situations.

There was a small kitchen island in one corner with a few cupboards and a fridge, two large couches and a coffee table. On the floor between the couches lay a female body.

Mikhail knelt beside it. Fine brown curls framed a face drained of colour; only a few drops of red speckled her skin and scleras. Her glassy eyes stared unseeing at the ceiling, and her blue lips had frozen while fighting for a lifesaving breath of air.

“I know her,” he murmured. “Chambermaid. Vampire.”

She wasn’t wearing her usual chambermaid uniform, though. Instead, she had on blue jeans and a white cotton shirt. The skin from the top of her chest up to her neck was bruised and torn in places. Mikhail leaned over the body to inspect the unusual angle of her neck.

“From what I’ve seen, I gather her neck was snapped, which probably paralysed her, and then the murderer suffocated her. The autopsy will confirm,” Zacharia explained.

Mikhail winced. She had certainly felt the excruciating pain of her broken vertebrae. An injury like that could be helped with therapy, surgery and rehab, but the killer hadn’t given her that chance. Strangulation was among the most torturous ways to kill an immortal creature.

“This is not your usual fray between colleagues.” Mikhail grabbed her wrist, turning her hand this way and that. She didn’t have any nail polish. The skin of her palm was hardened with blisters. Probably from the monotonous work, repeated over and over again, that hadn’t given them a chance to heal. “No evidence of self-defence, so everything must have happened fast. She probably knew her attacker.”

Mary Clare. That was her name.

“This floor is inaccessible to outsiders,” Mikhail said.

Zacharia slouched back on one of the couches. “And she doesn’t work here at all. So why come today?”

“Who told you about her?” Mikhail flipped the corpse over and observed the back, not sure what he was expecting to come upon. The cause of death was obvious. Suffocation. His lungs were suddenly heavy with an invisible weight and his headache returned.

“Elisanda Grace,” Zacharia explained. “She came in with some samples but the lab assistant wasn’t at his desk, so she went looking for him. She found the dead vampire instead. Unfortunately, there’s no surveillance footage in this area to corroborate her statement.”

Mikhail had never considered cameras in the Hospital hallways. His building was known as one of the safest places in the world. “What did Elisanda say? Did she notice anything suspicious?”

A poster on the wall caught Zacharia’s attention. “No. She claims the hallway was oddly quiet for that time of day.”

“What time of day, exactly?”

“Six in the evening.”

“That’s when they switch. Around six, everyone gathers in the other wing to pass on the work to the night shift, so the West Wing becomes empty for a short while… One or two creatures stay for emergencies. The murderer knew that.”

“So, a very meticulously planned attack.”

“Who was the lab assistant?”

“Cony Smith, a vampire.”

“And where was he?”

“Toilet. Overdid the chilli last night.”

“A spicy dish? How convenient.”

“I don’t know.” Zacharia shrugged. “It’s not that uncommon lately. Many creatures eat human food.”

Mikhail didn’t voice his distaste for some creatures’ eating habits. It wasn’t unusual for species who didn’t require food to exist, to consume it for the simple pleasure of consuming it. However, another uncommon occurrence bothered him. The Oracle, Mary Clare… A second attack, potentially also centred around Amelia’s presence at the Hospital?

Coincidences don’t exist.

“So the murderer knew Mary Clare and called her over at a time he knew the wing would practically be empty,” he said.

“Sounds like it.”

“Hmm. But doesn’t Elisanda Grace know that as well?”

“She does, but she was here for the lab assistant. He’s supposed to be here at this time, regardless of the shift swaps.”

“True.” Mikhail stood and scanned the rest of the room. “Question everyone—creatures who work on this floor or came up earlier today. Two murders in a week… Someone’s clearly targeting the Hospital. The question is, who?” Mikhail opened the fridge, scanning the contents: blood bags, meat, bread, butter… Chocolate. He wrinkled his nose. “I’ll call the Tribunal to handle the body and send an agent to investigate. It might be time to announce Kaliope’s death, too. They could spot something we missed, and they’ll be twice as vigilant. That should frustrate the murderer. Either way, our attempt to avoid panic failed miserably.”

“How do we explain why we didn’t announce the witch’s murder sooner to the Tribunal?”

“We’ll tell them you took the box without looking inside, brought it over to me, and I put it somewhere and forgot about it until it started stinking. Might seem strange none of us caught the odour from the beginning but we can claim it didn’t reek at first. They can’t prove when the decay started.” Mikhail moved towards the kitchen drawers and opened them one by one without searching for anything in particular. Cutlery, napkins, a corkscrew. “We help them often enough for them to not fixate on such a minor detail.” The pain in his ribs pierced through him. “If you only knew what happened in Alberobello…”

“I can see they beat you well,” Zacharia said.

“Mildly put.”

“Actually, I already know what happened. I talked to Constantine before you arrived. He told me he couldn’t do his tricks with the Beyond. Makes me think whoever killed our chambermaid might have known our necromancer can’t get in touch with her soul.”

“Or hasn’t even thought about the fact that we have one on our team?”

“Maybe. But there’s something else,” Zacharia said.

His ominous tone made Mikhail bristle. He had already received enough bad news – and experiences – for one day.

“I checked our staff records and this Mary Clare lady?” Zacharia glanced at the corpse. “She’s one of the two chambermaids who take care of the woman you sent me to kidnap.”

Mikhail sighed with relief, to some extent – that much, he knew.

Zacharia’s phone buzzed with an incoming call. He answered while Mikhail inspected Mary Clare’s face once again. When had she realised her efforts were in vain? What had she felt at the thought of her defeat? A lost battle. Surrender. The end of her Sisyphean efforts.

“Speaking of the human…” Zacharia’s voice pulled Mikhail out of his thoughts. “She’s attempting to escape.”

“What do you mean?”

“Looks like she tricked the twins into thinking she needs a surgeon. They took her to the ground floor after Nyavolski examined her—”

“Wait, you’re talking about Amelia?” Now Mikhail’s full attention was on the hybrid.

“Yes. She was in Radiology. Helena Nyavolska mistook her for one of the human staff working here and threw the twin from her ward. Of course, the twin refused to leave, but was surprised to find out Nyavolska is a member of the Council now and she couldn’t disobey her. She figured that instead of explaining herself, she could just wait in the lobby. The human managed to escape past her into the reception room, through the tunnel to the ambulances…”

“And no one found it odd that a human who is not staff was wandering around so freely?!”

“Well, no. She must have used some potion to mask her scent. That’s how she fooled the twin, who didn’t notice her as she strolled right by her with a group of creatures. You know hybrids rely mostly on their sense of smell…”

Mikhail clenched his jaw. “And then?”

“She reached the tunnel and asked one of the drivers to take her to the city.”

“And he informed you?”

Zacharia appeared entertained by that prospect. “No. He believed her when she told him she was a nurse. He’s one of the Three Idiots I demoted to driver after yet another slip-up. The twin sensed that something was off, so she defied Nyavolska’s orders and went inside, looking for the human. When she couldn’t find her anywhere, she realised where the woman could have gone, but by the time she got there, it was already too late. The human had left the premises with that idiot, according to another driver who witnessed the whole thing.”

Mikhail pressed his lips into a thin line. “Where is she now?”

“Somewhere on the road heading to the city, in the van. The twin called to ask if she’s allowed to use any force necessary to bring her back.”

Mikhail was about to order she do exactly that, when another thought struck him. “No. I’ve got a better idea.”