Page 36 of Dissection of Immortal Hearts

“Any progress with Renenutet’s Necklace?” the Queen asked, making no comment on the drastic alteration in décor.

Suddenly, Amelia wanted to scream, but she couldn’t afford to lose her composure. A single outburst could ruin everything. “I’m working on it, summoning visions…”

She could swear the man’s gaze was burning into the back of her neck, and it took every ounce of her willpower not to turn around.

The Queen nodded towards the portrait. “Do you recognise this man?”

Amelia glanced over her shoulder. “I don’t think so.”

The Queen’s eyebrows arched, and Amelia struggled to decipher her expression. Yes, she had experienced a vision of this man abusing her, but the Queen couldn’t know that.

The Queen pointed a crimson nail at the painting. “To you, he might be known as C – the author of the journal circulating through the Hospital. Or rather, fragments of it.”

Amelia couldn’t stop her eyes from widening.C’s journal!The very journal that had exposed the existence of the reptilian race – and the same C. whose words had ensnared her.

“I still don’t understand how a copy ended up in the Hospital,” the Queen mused, “but it’s missing the most critical part of the text – namely, how he banished my race to Antambazi.”

Amelia remembered his notes on reptilians, but the final parts were missing. Now, the pieces came together. “Why did he do it?” she asked.

The Queen’s features contorted, her eyes narrowing into slits, and her lips curling back into a snarl. “He despises my race more than anything in existence, but I assure you, when I’m through with him, the sole reminder ofhisexistence will be that portrait.”

Realisation dawned on her. Amelia had seen this man in her visions – not one of her memories, but another’s. A woman, lost in an intimate moment with him. Could last night’s vision havealso been from that woman’s memories? Had something gone awry, causing her to see her own face instead?

“So, he’s alive?” she asked.

“He is now. Since you and Korovin’s group stole his body from the Temple of the Dead Immortals, where I kept him imprisoned for centuries.”

Amelia frowned. “We stole amummy.The Beduin vampires intended to sacrifice it to the Horned God…”

The Queen shook her head. “Heis the Horned God. The vampires had no idea that their rituals sustained the very magic keeping him trapped. The Temple was a carefully crafted illusion to ensure he never escaped.”

Amelia felt the weight of an unseen gaze. Watching. Waiting. The burning in her nape intensified, but she refrained from glancing at the portrait.

“I want to warn you about him,” the Queen said. “Even in his weakened state, he’s far more than just an immortal man. If you encounter him and I’m not there, donotengage him, because you stand no chance. Run, as though the Devil himself were chasing you.”

Amelia swallowed hard as the previous night’s vision flooded her mind. “Weakened state,you say… What does he need to regain his strength?” Her pulse raced while she expected the Queen to answer,The ring. It would have fit the vision.

“He could sustain himself for a while with blood – the stronger the better. But in order to heal fully, he would require Renenutet’s Necklace.”

Not the ring, but…the necklace? Amelia hid her confusion behind a stony expression. Something else was becoming clear. If she failed to find the necklace for the reptilians, it could fall into worse hands. Maybe it wasthosehands the Oracle had referred to in her letters?

“Don’t fret,” the Queen said, mistaking Amelia’s tension foranxiety. “Everything is falling into place. Even your reckless actions at the Temple have yielded a positive outcome. Had you not revived him, it would have been nearly impossible for you to see through his eyes.”

Amelia licked her dry lips. “Why would I want to?”

“How else will you find where he’s hidden his pocket watch?” the Queen replied with a wry smile. “Perhaps I forgot to mention that the other item you’ll retrieve for me is in his possession.”

Amelia recalled Gea’s letter. ‘Callan’s Pocket Watch for lycanthropes.’

She cleared her throat. “C. stands for…?”

“Callan, of course! The father of lycanthropes and manticores alike.”

Amelia’s mind spun. Dave’s bedtime story – the tale of the first immortals. Witches and humans had once been Earth’s only inhabitants. Then, the deity Gord descended, fathering three children: Ana, the first nymph; Sandir, the sire of necromancers and vampires; and Callan, the firstborn of manticores and lycanthropes.

Her mind returned to her vision of the previous night. The dominant energy. The manticore form.

Suddenly, everything took on a chilling new clarity that knotted her insides. Callan, in the stories, possessed both the manticoreandthe wolf as his secondary forms. Which meant… “He might need the necklace to restore his power, but Callan will want the ring, won’t he?”