40

Viktor waved at the guard on duty as he drove onto the Hospital’s grounds. He had spent the night with three charming young ladies, all students at the National Sports Academy in Sofia – well-mannered and sociable girls.

Who would have thought that modern-day women are so into me?

He parked the SUV underground and climbed up to the first floor. His midnight ventures had somewhat calmed his explicit energy, but how long it would last was anyone’s guess.

He glanced at his wristwatch, surprised to discover it was already noon. Any other day, he would be in the lab at this time, stirring potions.

Go on then, get to work! Be yourself. A lab rat.

Or, he could lie down in bed and stare at his favourite dot on the ceiling.

He chose the latter, thinking life wouldn’t be over if he skipped the lab for one day.

When he reached his hallway, Alex was leaning against the door to his room. She pushed off it as soon as she caught sight of him. “Where were you? I’ve been searching for you for hours!”

“In the city,” he said in a calm voice. “I needed some ingredients for a new potion I’ve been working on.” He regretted the flat lie the moment it passed his lips. A new potion? He could fool anyone else, but not her.

“You stink of cigarettes and cheap perfume.” Disapproval and accusation flashed in her eyes. No comment on the new potion crap. “Whatever.” She shook her head, bringing his attention to the book in her hands. “I’m here to discuss something with you.”

Viktor cursed himself mentally. Why was he acting like he was guilty? He hadn’t done anything wrong. There was no need to lie. “You’d best come in, then.”

He opened the door and walked into his familiar space, which was similar to all other creatures’ rooms in the building. A small bed, a library with some of his favourite books, a wooden desk with two chairs, a bathroom and a window with a view of the mountain. Nothing spectacular, really. Just like him.

“You could have called,” he told her.

Alex sighed heavily. “I did. Your phone was off.”

Now he remembered that he had switched it off at some point during the night, just as one of the girls – Sissy might have been her name – had fished out a pair of handcuffs from her silver purse.

“Doesn’t matter. I found you,” she said.

Only then did he register her serious tone, which was atypical for her. He leaned against the edge of the desk. “What’s up, Alex?”

“You haven’t heard, have you?”

“Heard what?”

“Someone tried to kill a boy in the building. Ten or eleven years old. His mother’s a patient and he lives here with her. Rumour has it, Korovin found him in one of the side lifts.”

Fuck. Viktor’s stomach tightened.

“Have they caught the perpetrator?”

“As far as I know, they haven’t. But that’s not to say they won’t.” She threw him a sidelong glance. “They claim that the chambermaid was killed by her missing comrades as well, but I don’t buy it.”

“Where’s your brother?” he asked, wracked with guilt – and not because of a badly concocted lie this time. He had left the kids and his friends at a moment when he should have been beside them.

Oh, cut it out, pussy! They don’t care about you, so why do you waste your energy on them?

The wolf was enraged by his feebleness.

“Somewhere around here.” Alex’s face was sombre.

Viktor took a closer look at her. There was something unusual in her behaviour, more mature and composed – reserved.

“There have been some unpleasant incidents in the Hospital lately,” he said in his fatherly voice, “but I’m certain that soon everything will go back to normal.”

“I don’t need consolation, Vik.”

“Are you mad at me?”

Alex shook her head. “No.”

“Then what is it?”

“You know, I came here to talk about something else. Do you remember the book I mentioned before?” She pointed to the heavy tome in her hands.

“Yeah.” Not really. The last time she’d brought it up, he’d been so focused on suppressing his wolf’s thoughts that he had barely heard a word of what she’d read to him.

“I know you weren’t particularly impressed, but I may have stumbled across something very important.” Her eyes glowed.

Viktor let out a soft sigh. It was nice to see her enthusiasm was still there, regardless of the reason behind it.

She stared at him, defiance brimming in her eyes, before asking, “Have you ever heard of the eighth kind ?”

“Hmm… Hybrids?”

“No. Hybrids are hybrids, they’re not a separate species. I’m talking about a different species. Not lycanthrope, nymph, vampire or manticore, not a witch or a necromancer, and definitely not a human!”

“Yeah, I know the species…”

“Do you, really, Vik?” Her eyebrows arched. “Because, according to this”—she lifted the book above her head—“there’s an eighth kind. Reptilians.”

Viktor pinched the bridge of his nose. “Which is?”

“An immortal species, whose secondary form is an enormous reptile.”

“And where do these reptilians live? In the Nile?”

Alex hugged the book to her chest. “You’re mocking me.”

“No, I wouldn’t… Honey, I’m a thousand years old. If there was an eighth kind, I would have encountered it. Or someone else would have.”

“Well, clearly, s omebod y has.” She gestured to the book with her chin.

“And who is he?”

“I don’t know his name. He signs himself as C.”

“C., is it?” Viktor forced himself to maintain a level of interest. “And is this C. a reptilian?”

“No. He isn’t. I don’t know what he is, but he’s definitely not a reptilian. Actually, he doesn’t seem to like them very much and describes them as extremely unpleasant creatures . He believes that they want to destroy the other species.”

“Sounds like fiction.”

“It gets even more interesting when you continue reading. C. believes he has found a way to stop them.” Alex frowned. “Unfortunately, a lot of pages are missing.”

Viktor was getting distracted again. Memories of last night were playing on repeat in his mind. Him, pouring himself whiskey and celebrating life because life is short and time flies by. Him, surrounded by drunk girls in the middle of the dance floor under the sounds of music that made no sense. Him, entering the miserable student housing…

“It’s remarkable, Vik! This man tried to immortalise humans—”

“Where did you find this book?”

“Lying around somewhere. Point is, something huge happened,” she started talking hastily.

“I thought I’d read every book in this building,” Viktor remarked, digging through his jacket for his phone. He turned it on and a string of messages bombarded him.

“I guess you haven’t read this one.”

He skimmed through the texts. “Mikhail wants to see me. Can we continue this later?”

“Okay.”

“Don’t go walking around the building until I find out what’s going on.” He headed for the door.

“You can’t tell me what to do, Vik. You’re not my father.” He froze, flabbergasted by her tone. “And you may now be finding out what’s going on , but I already know because I was in the building throughout the night, just as you ordered me.”

“I may not be your biological father, but I care about you,” he replied, his tone firm.

“No need. I’m not a child anymore.”

“No, you’re not. But that doesn’t mean you’re not vulnerable.”

Alex jabbed a finger in the air between them, her face flushing red. “You know what, Vik? I actually came to tell you something else, too. I intend on joining Zacharia’s guards.”

“Excuse me?!”

“Yeah. I asked him and he said he’d train me, if you agree. I told him you do, so we’ll be starting soon.”

“But I don’t agree!” He gave up on trying to leave the room. “You’re kidding. How the hell did you come up with this absurd idea? Why do you want this at all?”

“Just because.”

“I forbid it.”

“You can’t.”

Stop whining about this insignificant parasite, you weak loser.

Viktor dug his hands into his black hair, feeling the urge to rip it out. “All right, let’s at least discuss this.”

“Maybe later.” Alex started for the door with the stupid book in her hands.

Say goodbye to the little pup…

Viktor stared after her in disbelief. Was it possible that she had changed so much right under his nose?

It’s not her, you fool. It’s you…

***

Alex didn’t mean to be so harsh with Viktor, but he had provoked her again without even realising it! He had spent the night in the city, with humans. The stink of them was all over him. And this, after he’d been ranting for years about why relationships with humans were a bad idea for immortals. What a hypocrite!

She slammed the door of her room and threw the book on the bed. She had believed that Viktor would be interested in what she had to say, but it had been only boredom in his features. He would never stop patronising and underestimating her.

Her fingers caressed the black cover and she flipped open the book. She didn’t know this C., but she had already formed a special bond with him. C. was decisive, and passionate and clearly had some unsolved issues with his father, according to some of the references he made on occasion, in which Alex could easily recognise herself.

C. was intelligent, an erudite. She loved the way he described his romantic feelings for the human woman he had not succeeded in making immortal. Years later, he had fallen in love with a witch, Violet, whom he’d loved more than anything.

Alex sighed. Would she ever find a man as passionate as the author of this book? Was C. still alive?

She pursed her lips. The book had no ending. The last entries, from fifteen hundred years ago, focused entirely on reptilians. C. claimed he was close to destroying them forever, but the absence of further records suggested he had met his end instead. Fortunately, it seemed someone else had finished the job, as no trace of such a species existed today.

Alex remembered Viktor’s mockery when she mentioned the eighth kind. He hadn’t even thought it over! Viktor had always believed there was nothing in this world he didn’t already know.

Well, there’s one thing he doesn’t know, she reminded herself and grinned.