19
Amelia had believed she understood the depths of loss, but Viktor’s story was far more devastating than anything she’d experienced. Each word he spoke wove a mournful thread around her, ensnaring her in a web of sorrow and emptiness.
Walking back to the lift with Mikhail, she offered a silent thanks to whatever merciful force had taken her family from her. There were far worse fates.
Given Mikhail’s uncharacteristic silence, she had a feeling he shared her grave mood. Thinking he might want to be alone, she prepared to exit the lift on the floor where her room was.
But when the lift reached the fourteenth floor, Mikhail stopped her with a barely perceptible touch on her shoulder. “Stay with me.”
Amelia hesitated. The bitterness of their earlier encounter still lingered, and she was eager to retreat to her room and shed the weight of the day’s emotions. She needed space to sort through her thoughts and decide on her next move.
The door began to close, but Mikhail blocked it with his shoulder. “Please,” he said, his voice low. The lift doors remained open, giving her the chance to leave if she wished.
But at that moment, Mikhail was a different man from the one she’d faced in the Council chamber earlier. The slumped shoulders, the tension etched on his face – his mask of cold detachment had slipped.
Amelia pushed down the impulse to offer comfort. She would use his temporary vulnerability to learn more about the ring. She needed to, if she wanted to complete her task swiftly.
With that thought, she let him lead her to the top floor, then followed him up the narrow staircase to the tower. Through the arched windows, the city of Sofia sprawled out on one side, while the Vitosha Mountain loomed on the other.
Mikhail often came here when something troubled him. Just like tonight.
For a while, they were lost in their thoughts – Amelia gazing at the city that no longer felt like hers, and Mikhail staring at the mountains. Then he crossed the small space between them. “I should have done more to help Viktor.”
Amelia’s mind returned to the horrific tale Viktor had shared with them – a story of the unimaginable loss of his beloved and their unborn child. “How could you have done anything when you didn’t even know him back then?”
A deep crease formed on his brow. “I don’t mean then. Now. I knew he’d succumbed to Vaka Hara twice. But instead of helping him, I was too wrapped up in my own thoughts.”
Amelia frowned. “What’s Vaka Hara?”
“It’s a state where you lose control over the animal spirit within you,” Mikhail explained.
“It starts to dominate you, and you become its slave. The animal has no morals, only instincts and needs – good and bad alike. Sometimes you can pull yourself back, but sometimes you can’t.
They say if you let the animal take control for too long, you become it , with no way to return.
Strong negative emotions – anger, hatred, a thirst for revenge – can push you into Vaka Hara. ”
Mikhail clenched his fists. “But who wouldn’t react that way after what Viktor went through?
I know I would have done the same. Outside of Vaka Hara, Viktor is the picture of self-control.
He vowed to not transform because he didn’t trust himself.
The truth is, years ago, he helped save me from falling into it when I was on the brink myself.
You remember the murders and my trip to Italy?
” When Amelia nodded, he continued, “We went there to seek answers after learning the severed head of the witch had been delivered through a magical portal. We were attacked by a horde of enraged witches. Viktor’s transformation saved us.
Without him, we would have all been dead.
But after that, he started acting strange.
I kept him sedated, hoping that with time, the animal would calm down.
He was still off, but I thought he was managing.
Then he seemed normal again… until he announced he wanted to do autopsies. ”
Amelia processed his words. “Maybe he just got tired of working in the lab?”
Mikhail held her gaze for a long moment before responding, “The wolf in him has a passion for dissection.”
The mention of the word “dissection” caused a chill through her.
Mikhail’s eyes never left hers. “We call it an ‘animal,’ an ‘inner spirit,’ but in truth, it’s nothing more than a very dark part of yourself.” Something in the way he looked at her, or perhaps in his words, sent a shiver down her spine.
Amelia averted her gaze and focused on Sofia’s distant lights.
The streets were full of people – hurried, burdened with work and thoughts, wrapped up in their own worlds, oblivious to the dangers that lurked beyond their comprehension.
“Perhaps the similarities between humans and immortals are greater than they seem,” she mused.
“In the end, it all comes down to mastering oneself. Humans struggle with their past, with dark thoughts and emotions, just to keep living each day. But that struggle makes them strong. Immortals face the same battle, but in the form of the animal or the inner spirit. And it’s that very spirit from which they draw their strength. ”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Mikhail conceded after a moment.
They fell into a silence broken only by the howling wind outside. Amelia knew this was the moment to ask about the ring, but the right words eluded her. And she was too rattled after Viktor’s story to pursue it.
On the way back, they didn’t speak. When Mikhail left her at her door, all he said was, “Thank you for keeping me company.”
After midnight, Amelia put on her jacket and stepped into the corridor. Once she was sure no one was around, she took the lift down and slipped outside. The night was cold and snowy, so she pulled her hood over her head, grateful for the cover it provided.
The gazebo was about three hundred feet from the entrance, and with the chill in the air, it was deserted. Amelia sat on the bench, hidden under the thick canopy, and scanned her surroundings. Nothing resembled an improvised mailbox.
Then an idea struck her. She turned her palms upward and felt along the underside of the bench. Suddenly, her hand found a small gap where her fingers touched the edge of a piece of paper. She pulled it out and tucked it into her jacket sleeve.
She didn’t dare look at it until she was back in her room, sure that no one had seen her. When she finally unfolded the note, she read the words:
Hurry. She’s coming.
***
Amelia undressed, filled her glass to the brim with water from the sink and drank it in one gulp, but it tasted bitter on her tongue, as if drenched in bile.
When she fell asleep that night, the images swooped in on her like a nightmare.
Her body trembled with cold and shock. Her bare feet sank into the slush, and her chest burned with a fiery intensity. She had taken on the shape of an animal, galloping on enormous grey paws.
Her thoughts were so chaotic and frenzied that she couldn’t hold on to one.
Her heart seemed lodged in her throat, simultaneously crushed by despair and ablaze with fury.
Bare branches lashed against her face as she tore through the dense forest. One of them slashed across her hip, leaving a trail of blood, but the wound didn’t slow the animal’s momentum in the slightest.
Through the trees, a dilapidated wooden house reeking of rot came into view. The animal’s rage intensified, but Amelia couldn’t comprehend what drove it or what its intentions were. She was merely a passenger inside its body, seeing through its eyes.
The house loomed closer, yet the animal didn’t slow its pace. Amelia feared they would crash into the structure.
The creature burst through a window. Just before the glass shattered into a million pieces, Amelia caught a glimpse of the creature’s reflection in the glass – a massive grey-black wolf with yellow eyes, soaked in blood.
The wolf landed in a dark room with a few candlesticks placed in the corners.
A small red armchair with a few thick-covered tomes piled on top of it faced a fireplace at the far end.
To the side of the entrance was another door, and Amelia assumed the wolf would head towards it.
But to her surprise, it turned back towards the wall with the shattered window it had just crashed through.
On either side of the broken glass were tall wooden shelves, crowded with transparent jars – each one filled with organs.
The stench was overpowering, and Amelia only now recognised the smell. The wolf approached the macabre display, its gaze fixated on one of the jars.
A jar holding a human embryo.
Suddenly, she was no longer in the wolf’s body but that of a naked man.
Wild raven strands clung to his brow, streaked with blood and sweat.
He grasped the jar, tears streaming down his cheeks, his sobs building from quiet whimpers to loud, gut-wrenching cries of despair.
His entire body convulsed with grief. Amelia managed to detach herself from his overwhelming emotions and observe the scene as a mere bystander to this raw display of loss and helplessness.
The embryo, though it appeared human, was not. It was, in fact, a creature – Viktor’s unborn child.
A soft creak drew their attention to the door.
A middle-aged man with dark hair, clad in a long brown robe and black leather gloves, stepped into the room.
His face was long and gaunt, with deep shadows under his eyes.
Those eyes, black and sinister, gleamed with a disturbing mix of life, enthusiasm, and madness.
Viktor lunged at the man, striking with his fists. He still held the jar in one hand and smashed it against the man’s head. The glass shattered, the liquid spilt out, and the preserved embryo’s flesh collapsed onto the floor.
For a brief moment, Viktor froze, his gaze fixed on the remains. The child he had dreamed of for two hundred years lay before him.
His moment of hesitation gave the other man an opening. He seized it, rendering Viktor powerless with a needle in his side. Viktor couldn’t move – he could only shift his eyes between the fallen embryo and the man who had kidnapped his pregnant lover.
Where was Gabriella? What had this man done to her after ripping the child from her womb?
Amelia jolted awake just as Viktor lost consciousness in the dream.
She already knew the story from Viktor. The man in her dream was Cristiano Konig. One of the Kreiss Hunters. An aristocrat. A doctor. A psychopath.
Konig had kidnapped Viktor’s girlfriend to experiment on her immortal, pregnant body – dissecting and re-stitching it while meticulously documenting the extraordinary regenerative abilities of the lycanthrope species.
From each organism, Konig took a trophy – a preserved organ stored in a jar, proudly displayed alongside the others on his wall of conquests.
Each time he gazed at his collection, Cristiano felt like a god, even though he inhabited a human form.