Page 141 of Anatomy of the Immortal Species

Alex regained her composure. “Let’s say I believe you. Where have you been all this time?”

“Around the Hospital. Roaming. Learning the modern language and customs.”

“You…” Her eyes drifted down to his clothes. “Are those Viktor’s clothes?!”

The man spread his arms wide. “Well, I had to wear something…”

“How did you escape from the basement where I kept you?”

“Easily. I waited for you to stop reading to me and fall asleep. Then I got up and walked out.”

“How did you know where to go to avoid being caught on the cameras?”

“I see light waves. The range of the cameras.”

“Oh.” If he was indeed a god, as he claimed, it made sense that he could see more than an ordinary creature. “So, you’re a god…” Alex’s forehead wrinkled from the mental process torturing herbrain. She was a scientist. She dealt with facts.Scientificfacts.

“I’m practically a demigod.”

“Okay…” Alex stepped away from the lab bench and began to pace, still deep in thought. “I’ll accept that you’re not an ordinary creature given your dangerous demonstration with the knife and you not smelling like anything familiar. But how will you prove that you’re indeed the lost mummy from the temple?”

The man crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow. “By recounting the stories you told me while you guarded me? About Viktor, who ‘prevents you from growing up’? About the vampire who ‘lives three doors down from yours but doesn’t pay you any attention’? Or how about what you imagine doing with him…”

Her cheeks flushed. “Okay, I get it! You’re him!” Deciding there was no better conversational partner than a long-deceased mummy had been even more foolish than stealing the slab from the temple. “What do you want from me?”

“To help me retrieve something that’s mine.”

“And what’s that?”

“A ring…”

53

Building one’s reality on the perceptions of one’s five senses does not negate the existence of a world beyond them. Confinement within this illusion is a prison, but only for a mind that can seethroughit.

For the first time in a long while, Constantine enjoyed being a prisoner – of the five senses. They allowed him to daydream about the woman who was supposed to be guarding him. Her face was captivating enough to hold his gaze, although he couldn’t stare long at it before her features blurred into another’s. She had seductive curves that promised to triple his pleasure, perhaps even to help him forget how the heat of another body had felt. Her voice was feminine but commanding – a voice he could easily imagine speaking dirty. A voice that would never make him laugh. She smelled of ocean waves. And nothing like Diana. Constantine would enjoy the taste of that wet place between her legs, if only to distract himself.

Her violet irises were glued to the collar around his neck, and he decided to take advantage. “I’ve never been into bondage, but you’ve got me questioning things. How about you tighten my collar and see how far we can get?”

The blank expression on her face didn’t fool him. Each provocative word past his lips had her jaw tense.

“The Queen has a proposition for you,” she said, her cold eyes piercing his. “Would you meet her?”

It was the third day in a row she’dofferedto take him to the Queen. But the dungeon they were keeping him in, the collarand the handcuffs around his wrists and ankles, hinted it was not really an offer. Why and how long they planned to play otherwise, he had yet to find out.

“Thank you, but no. I’d rather spend my time annoying you, than listening to the old snake.”

A smile curved her lips. She took out the arm she’d been holding behind her back all the time. Constantine traced her movement, spotting the object in her hand. He’d guessed it was a gun, but it was something else. A small hand mirror with a silver surface.

“Do you know what this is, necromancer?” she asked.

He opened his mouth to make a dirty joke, but then… Kathrine thrust the mirror before his face, and he saw no reflection in it. Instead, a deep black abyss swirled, crackling with power. The hairs at the back of his neck bristled at the powerful energy the object radiated.

Hekate’s mirror.

“Where did you get this?” he growled.

“I won it.” She raised an eyebrow. “Actually, I took it by killing Al-Hatib himself. Then we slaughtered the remaining players in his little tournament to ensure no one would pursue me for the prize.”