Page 35 of Hospital for Immortal Creatures

A sudden anger rose inside her. She couldn’t break. After all, none of her grandmother’s stories had starred a warrior who’d given up.

But I’m no warrior. I’m a wreck deceiving herself that everything’s fine by following a strict routine of running and working, running and working…

It was ridiculous that she had to be kidnapped in order to realise that she had been fooling herself. She hadn’t overcome the loss of her family. She wasn’t that devoted to medicine. She wasn’t even a strict runner. She had just needed a routine to distract her from her thoughts.

Pull yourself together.

She opened her eyes and sat up in bed. Her stomach growled at the sight of a bowl of fruits on the coffee table, next to a plate of croissants and orange juice. Someone had laid out a clean set of clothes and new sneakers on the couch. She frowned at her own clothes. Her shirt had specks of vomit on it and the jeans had a stain right on the crotch that she was hoping wasn’t what she thought it was.

Getting to her feet, she headed for the fresh clothes. There was a note on them that said, For Amelia. She hesitated. Did putting on these clothes mean she was accepting her fate? Officially becoming a prisoner here? On the other hand, Mikhail Korovin probably didn’t give a damn about what she did or did not accept.

Amelia grabbed the garments and rushed to the bathroom. After locking the door handle, she got out of her dirty clothes. Leaving her underwear on – in case someone was watching – she hopped under the hot shower and quickly washed herself. The clean clothes came with new underwear which she swapped for her own. The pants and T-shirt fit her well, but the shoes were a size too big. When she returned to the room, her eyes latched on the croissants.

If she wanted to survive, she had to find a way out of this place. And for that, she needed strength. Food. It was a good enough reason for her to gobble up one of the French pastries.

As she was chewing, she thought about Mikhail and the beast he had turned into. It somehow reminded her of a story that her grandmother had told her over twenty years ago. The curse of the wolf. It was a legend about a man named Ivan, who lived in her grandmother’s hamlet when she was a little girl. Ivan resided in a house at the edge of the village, where civilisation ended, and the forest began.

Ivan lived a solitary life, rarely went into the village, and never spoke a word to anyone. Some people thought he was deaf, but the elders knew his true story. One day, a young wolf emerged from the forest and into Ivan’s yard. He grabbed his rifle and shot the wolf dead. It wasn’t, however, time for the wolf’s spirit to pass, so when his soul left the rotting corpse, it needed to find a new body. It chose Ivan’s and thus possessed him. Since then, the man had to live with the curse of the wolf – he was still a man, but every full moon, he would obey the wolf inside him. Some claimed they’d seen Ivan’s body enlarge and coat itself in fur, his teeth elongate, and his eyes turn yellow. Others swore they’d heard howling coming from his house.

What goes around comes around, Amelia’s grandmother often used to say when recounting this story. Had this man never ended another creature’s life, the curse wouldn’t have tortured him for eternity.

Amelia had always thought that the old woman loved this story because of its message, but now she was wondering if it was more than just a legend. Could people really be possessed by animal spirits that caused them to transform into monsters? Her brain rejected the possibility, and so did science. And yet…

Manticore. The word popped up in her head.

That was what Mikhail called himself. He wasn’t an animal, though he bore animal characteristics. He was a beast with a giant muscular body covered in golden-brown fur that was a shade darker around the head and neck, like a mane. The black claws of his paws were as sharp as the spiked tip of the tail. And those two wings protruding from the middle of his back? Gods, she had never seen anything like it…

Then she recalled the wolf in the hospital ward and the man chasing him. The little boy, Dave – the thought of him all alone in this hellhole made her insides twist again. But what could she do for him, if she couldn’t even help herself?

She had to get out of there.

***

Her first opportunity came an hour later.

The lock clicked, and the door opened. A young woman in a chambermaid’s uniform strode in with a cup of coffee on a tray. She had beautiful features, a lean figure and an elegant gait. Amelia observed her as if hypnotised.

“Who are you?” Amelia asked, but the woman kept her eyes glued to the floor and proceeded as if she hadn’t heard a thing. “Please, talk to me.”

The maid was just a few inches away from the couch where Amelia was sitting. She bent over and placed the tray on the coffee table.

“Talk to me!”

Nothing on the chambermaid’s pretty features suggested that she noticed another’s presence in the room.

Amelia’s heart raced. One. The woman turned graciously to the door. Two, three…

Amelia’s palms started sweating. She rushed to her feet. Four, five. She caught up to the chambermaid. Six. Gathering all her strength, she pushed the maid to the ground and sprinted for the door. Seven, eight, nine… A strange hissing noise filled the air behind her. In the blink of an eye, the woman was in front of her, blocking her way out.

She hissed again, giving Amelia the chance to take in her sharp and shiny canines, and stormed off. A short click followed on the other side of the door.

It was over but Amelia was sure she would lose her mind if she didn’t say it.

“Ten!” She screamed and bumped at the door. “Ten, for fuck’s sake! Ten! Ten!”

***

Over the next few days, the same chambermaid would take turns with another one to bring Amelia food and clothes. Soon, she realised there was no point in picking a fight with them. Communicating with them was not an option either, since they ignored everything she said, yelled or whispered to them.

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