Excerpt from The Third Face

Blood covered the gaping face, grey with death. The right arm ended in a shriveled stump, and a huge gash stretched across his torso. Internal organs had been torn out, and the Salamander looked like an empty sack.

But his ruined face was still that of Rasuke’s foster father, his only friend.

The boy’s body shook, his body that still had everything inside it, still carried life. He closed his eyes and looked back to the last time this man had been alive, kindly bringing him to that doctor’s office. And then the doctor did something, and it all went wrong...

Doctor Grin-that was the name of the man responsible for this. Rasuke saw himself in the past as if he’d resisted, struggled, grabbed the surgeon, destroyed him with his bare hands in front of his father, and then a shadowy figure came in the tent and leapt at him, and Windeater jumped in the way, and his arm was ripped off and then Rasuke ran in horror-

The boy opened his eyes, panting. “Where did that come from?” he asked himself.

Then he blacked out.