Kenneth Oppel - Such Wicked Intent

“Are we ready?” he asks, leaping up. “This is the night, is it not?”

“Konrad-,” I begin.

His face falls. “What’s happened?”

My voice is a defeated croak. “Your body… There’s been an accident.”

Analiese gasps. Konrad sinks down in his chair. “What kind of accident?”

I swallow, struggling to govern myself. “It drowned.”

“How?”

Before I can assemble the words, Elizabeth says, “Victor fought with him and they fell into the water, and he didn’t know how to swim.”

Konrad looks at me, his eyes dark with reproach.

“Listen to me,” I say. “You must believe me. The body was corrupted. It was violent. It tried to rape Elizabeth!”

“No!” she objects. “That wasn’t the case. It kissed me and became enflamed, as any young man might’ve done. It had no conscience yet to-”

“The body was not yours, Konrad!” I shout over her. “It was meant for another.”

“What do you mean?” Konrad demands, standing now, pacing like a tiger caged.

“That creature in the pit, your body was meant for it!”

“How can this be?” exclaims Analiese.

I see how, even now, Elizabeth looks at her, with suspicion and barely veiled hostility.

“The spirit that animated your body comes from that creature!” I tell Konrad. “And all of these,” I add, looking nervously at the black butterflies that circle overhead. “Don’t let them land! They’ve been feeding on us whenever we come here, especially me, taking our life energy back to the creature and gradually waking it. When I last saw it, it had changed yet again. It was like some vast embryo.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this last night?” Konrad demands.

“My time was up. I… I had to leave,” I tell him, unable to meet his gaze.

Konrad’s voice is irate. “You take time to do your reading and collect your specimens-but not enough to warn me about this thing!”

“I still wasn’t sure what it was,” I tell him. “Or how dangerous it might be. It wasn’t until this morning, when the professor dug up the remains in the real world. It’s some kind of monstrosity, maybe not even human. Some of its features were exactly the same as the body we’ve been growing for you!”

“One!” protests Elizabeth. “A single sharp tooth! That’s Victor’s lonely bit of evidence.”

“No. There were other moments when you-the body — became strange and frightening. It bit. It growled. Its face changed into something brutal.”

“Victor has become addicted to the spirit butterflies,” says Elizabeth, “and they’ve clouded his judgment. He sees all manner of things.”

Konrad looks at me long and hard, then turns in Henry’s direction.

“Henry, you’ve always had a level head. Tell me what you know.”

“The body we grew for you did have a strange tooth, it’s true.” He sighs and looks ruefully at Elizabeth. “And today I did see those features Victor mentioned. They were like a shadow crossing its face.”

I feel a rush of gratitude for Henry. “I swear to you, Konrad, there is some infernal design at work. The professor thinks this pit creature may have been considered some kind of god, and maybe he’s right. How else to explain the fact that it created these butterflies from its own dead body?”

Analiese is shaking her head, frightened. “But the butterflies have always been here. And I’ve never sensed any evil purpose in them.”

“Until they have living souls to feed upon,” I reply. “Look how the little parasites hover, wanting to steal more from us.”

Overhead they flutter closer, darting toward Henry, Elizabeth, and me, wanting to touch us. I shoo them away viciously.

“They’re like leeches!” I shout. “They’ll drain us and use our power to fully wake that creature in the pit!”

“But you put such faith in these creatures!” Konrad says. “You said they gave you immense powers.”

“They did,” I say, swatting one that alighted on Henry’s back without his realizing. “But even as they gave, they took away. Elizabeth! Don’t let it land on you!”

I am suddenly aware that everyone is looking at me as though I’m a lunatic-and no doubt I look it, my eyes darting about, lunging to and fro to swat butterflies.

“Victor,” says Elizabeth sadly, “you’re deluded. There was nothing the matter with the body we grew. And you let it die!”

“It tried to drown me!”

“He did his best to save it,” says Henry.

“Make me another!”

The shout comes from Konrad, and when I turn, I know that I have never seen his face so angry. He stalks toward me, fists clenched.

“Make me another body!” he shouts.

“It can’t be done! It would be another monstrosity!”

“You promised me, Victor!”

His words impale me, and I have no reply.

“It’s just like last time,” he rails. “You make me these promises. The Elixir of Life! How it will heal me! How it will keep me from any illness. Then you tell me you can raise me from the dead! Your promises are meaningless, Victor! Meaningless!”

“Konrad, I’ve tried my-”

“No. You tried to make yourself grand and powerful, as usual, and you have ruined everything!”

I don’t realize how close he’s come toward me-until he strikes me. His fist actually touches my body. And though it feels like the graze of a feather, I gasp in shock. How is it he’s able to come so close?

“I want my life back!” Konrad shouts as he batters at me, his blows like little breezes. I wish they hurt more, to match my misery.

“I’d do anything for you,” I say.

“Liar! I half think you drowned me on purpose, so you could woo Elizabeth and take her for yourself.”

“That’s not so!” I protest weakly. But I wonder if all his angry words have the accuracy of arrows.

“You mean to whine at her and worry her like a dog until she takes you!” Konrad says with a cruelty I’ve never known from him.

Analiese puts a restraining hand on him, draws him back. “Konrad, his remorse is obvious. Please stop.”

“Don’t touch him!” Elizabeth yells at her. “We don’t even know who or what you are!”

A sense of madness throbs through the room, and the walls are beginning to pulse with our frenzied emotions.

Konrad shrugs free of Analiese and strikes at me again. “I-want-more- life! You’ve paraded it in front of me, and now I want it! Get me another body!”

Henry steps in front of me, and Konrad recoils, driven back by my friend’s light and heat. Why has mine not done the same?

My brother sinks suddenly into a chair, covering his face. “Victor,” he says, “I’m-”

“Do you all see?” I shout. “My light has faded. These spirits have stolen it from me and given it to that thing in the pit. Can’t you all see that? How else could Konrad have touched me?”

There’s an uncomfortable silence, and for a moment I hope I’ve finally convinced them.

But Elizabeth just shakes her head stubbornly. “If you’re weakened,” she says, “it’s because you’ve abused the spirits and dallied too long in this world.”

“But your light and heat are dimmer too,” says Konrad, looking at her carefully. “Not so much as Victor’s…”

Henry and I both regard her, surprised, for we’ve never been able to see one another’s auras.

“Have you been coming in, without me?” I ask her.

She nods quickly, and I see Konrad’s guilty look.

Konrad stands up and starts seizing weapons from the table.

“What’re you doing?” Henry asks.

“What I should’ve done much earlier,” he says savagely. “I’m going to destroy that thing!”

“Konrad, don’t!” cries Elizabeth. “It’s too dangerous!”