Page 4 of Anatomy of the Immortal Species

Nikolay took a sip from his champagne. “You said you wanted the security footage from November 11th. What are we looking for?”

“Give me everything you have and let me worry about that.”

“And here I thought there would be no more secrets between us.” The Righteous chuckled. “We have a deal, necromancer. Just don’t take this as a green light to traipse through my bar with your soil-stinking skeleton.”

Constantine placed a hand over his chest. “I would never.”

The Righteous called over one of his guards with his baby hand.“Take him to Johnny. Let him see the tapes he wants.”

Another dismissive gesture – with the same tiny hand – let Constantine know it was time to scram.Gladly.Hefollowed the guard to the security room. Two other guards were watching the entire place on enormous screens. As one of them, the so-called Johnny, loaded up the tapes from November 11th, Constantine snuck a peek at the cameras, scanning for the woman in the leather clothes. When he couldn’t find her on any of the monitors, an unexpected wave of disappointment rushed across his body.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Johnny asked, smacking his gum.

“A woman,” Constantine replied.

“We got many women here, dude.”

“Around 23:30, sitting at one of the bars. She’d be wearing dark hair, jeans, reading a book—”

“Reading abook? You must have it all wrong, pal. This ain’t no library.” Johnny and the other guard shared a mocking glance.

Constantine had thought the same when Alex Volk told him about the stranger sitting on a barstool beside her, reading a book.

“Wait!” Johnny exclaimed. “I’ll be damned. There she is! A chick reading a book.”

Constantine leaned in. The woman had not only mistaken the nightclub for a library, but on top of that, she’d resembled a librarian with her conservative jeans and polo shirt, enormous prescription glasses, and hair pulled back in a tight bun. She was sipping wine from a thin, tall glass, pretending to read because there was no way she could see anything under the club’s blinking lights. Next to her, Constantine could make out Alex’s grainy, albeit familiar, outline.

“Have you seen her here before?” Constantine asked.

“No! Definitely not. We get many freak shows here, but I’d havenoticed one reading a book.”

In the footage, the woman closed her book and placed it on the bar counter, took another sip from her wine, and left. The footage wasn’t good enough to discern her face.

Alex Volk was left alone in the frame, all dressed up in a miniskirt that would infuriate her overly protective stepfather if he ever saw this. She glanced left and right a few times, as if she felt uncomfortable, until she reached out, took the abandoned book and placed it in her handbag. And that was how the mysterious Journal of C. – thanks to which they had learnt the existence of the reptilians – had ended up in their possession.

“Could we check if the woman was here alone?” Constantine asked.

Johnny immediately engaged himself in tracking the woman on the other cameras. “There she is. Enters alone, exits alone. You’re in luck, dude. Your chick is single.”

Thechickmade her way through the crowd with intent that suggested she was there, neither for the party nor for sex. At one point, she stopped to look around and, as if spotting her target, headed straight to the bar where Alex was sitting. Her pace on the way out was even more resolved, like someone who had done their job here and had no intent of coming back ever again.

Who the hell are you?

Half an hour later, on his way out of The Seven Horses, Constantine crossed paths with the leather-clothed brunette. Up close, her features were more mediocre than beautiful, and she feigned timid behaviour. That didn’t matter to him, for when he leaned her against the side of his car, he found her more than eager for him, her moans merging with those of all the nameless women he’d taken in his life.

2

For the first time in days, Amelia allowed herself to take a breath. As if the cold air sensed her weariness, its gust stilled, leaving North Park in an unnatural stillness.

She plopped down on a lonely bench. The silence terrified her. Not only was it unable to offer some advice, but it created a fictitious sense of calm that could well be the source of all hell.

Which, just a couple of months ago, had indeed been the source of all hell.

Amelia lifted her gaze to the January sun, but all it did was irritate her eyes without carrying the necessary heat to warm her up. Her body disliked the cold, and the winter landscapes reminded her too much of all that she had lost in the past.

Yet another anniversary of her family’s death was just two days away.

She tucked a stray blonde lock behind her ear. A burden weighed heavily on her chest, intertwined with unquenchable sorrow. She wouldn’t be at the graveyard to honour the memory of her dearest ones on their death day. It was too dangerous.