Page 66 of Hospital for Immortal Creatures

Whoever or whatever she was shouting at didn’t obey, because the cries continued. And with every passing moment, corpses accumulated in front of Mikhail while the fight unfolded behind him.

“Get away, you beast! Stop! No! No! S-stop him… S-someone… For the love of all the gods, stop him!”

A desperate shriek filled the room.

Mikhail’s body surged back to life—the paralysis was gone! He jumped to his feet, ignoring the searing pain in his right ankle, which was likely broken. His ribs and hand throbbed with pain, and he suspected his internal organs were ruptured.

Chaos reigned around him – mutilated bodies, decapitated heads, torn limbs. Among the bodies, he caught sight of Diana rising to her feet. Her eyes darted around as if searching for something and, when she found it, she leapt forward. Within seconds, she’d regained her sword from the ground and had it aimed at…a wolf.

Their saviour was a wolf.

“Viktor?” Mikhail could not believe the sight. It was impossible to tell the animal’s fur colour beneath the blood that covered it from ears to tail. It sat on its hind legs, cleaning its bloody snout with its tongue. When Diana took a step towards him, Mikhail yelled, “He’s harmless! Put the sword down!”

She ignored him, gripping the sword’s hilt tight. “Didn’t you see what it just did? I wouldn’t call that harmless.”

In truth, he hadn’t seen it, because everything had happened behind him.

His attention immediately shifted to the skeleton walking in the middle of the cave.

“What the hell is that?!” Diana pointed the sword away from the wolf and towards the skeleton.

Mikhail frowned. “Constantine…”

“What’s he doing?” The vampire kept shifting her sword between the wolf and the skeleton, as if unsure which one was more dangerous.

Next to the wolf lay Mada’s lifeless carcass, black blood pouring out of her holes. The skeleton knelt beside it, opened its jaw for a moment, then closed it back again. Mikhail recognised the act. It was something Constantine detested and avoided but, for some reason, had chosen to do it to the witch.

“He’s eating her soul,” he said.

23

It was the only way.

Mada had spoken to Constantine in his mind moments before she had immobilised him. You and I share a special bond, dark creature.

And what exactly is that special bond? he’d thought in reply as he’d knocked the teeth off a nearby witch.

You know…

He had attempted to suppress her, but it had been so easy for her to barge into his head and plant thoughts.

You still haven’t figured it out, have you? I cast a spell on you, dark creature. No, not the paralysing magic you will very soon feel. Nothing personal, truly. But there are things you must not see. When all is done, I may bring back your powers. If you survive, of course. I’m sure by now you know your spiritual powers are bound. Soon, you will start losing your physical strength as well, and you will fade away completely.

Her ugly laughter had accompanied him until the end.

Until Viktor had transformed and had gone on a killing spree. The witch had been petrified because her magic hadn’t affected the wolf.

Constantine had heard her shouts, her pleading to stop the wolf. He had felt his powers returning, and so instead, he had focused on his secondary form. The witch might have stripped him of his ability to roam the Higher Levels, but here, on Earth, he was still in full control.

His flesh disintegrated, revealing the skeleton – nothing more, nothing less.

In those last seconds, before he pounced on the witch, the hollow eye sockets of his skeleton locked onto the terror in Diana’s eyes. Maybe Mada had been right, after all. The witch and he did share a special bond. They were both sickening to the eye, though he masked it behind a pretty face. Had the witch once been beautiful too? Good, even, before something ugly had corrupted her? Was the same going to happen to him?

Who was he kidding? It had already happened. Ugly, desecrating things had been crossing his path for years, yet he still interacted with them. Gladly.

It was only a matter of time before he lost his shiny exterior.

Constantine scanned the room. Mada’s soul rose above her corpse, a ghostly, scarred entity rushing upward toward its redemption in the Beyond.

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