Page 124 of Hospital for Immortal Creatures

“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.”

---