Kenneth Oppel - Such Wicked Intent

Elizabeth picks up the spirit clock and turns to leave my bedchamber.

My body catches her by the arm. “Wait. Maybe Henry’s right. Maybe the smashed flask is a portent from God that we’re not meant to go back.”

“I’ll go in only very briefly, to make my good-byes,” says Elizabeth.

Through Wilhelm’s eyes I helplessly watch Elizabeth, trying to gauge her reaction. I see her glance quickly to Henry, then back to me. Does she suspect?

“No, I was too rash. It’s too risky,” Wilhelm Frankenstein says with my voice. “The light about you, it will be too tempting to the butterflies. When I went, I was as pale as a wraith. But your life will blaze a beacon trail. Konrad knows you love him. And he loves you. He told me so before I left. His last words. He wants you to be safe, Elizabeth. He told me not to let you come back.”

This seems to quell her determination. “He really said that?”

My body nods. “It is too painful for him. And dangerous for you.”

She hesitates.

I feel my real-world hand rise and stroke my earlobe absently. “Give me the elixir, Elizabeth.”

She gives me an odd look, then says calmly, “So you can destroy it, or use it yourself?”

“I mean to destroy it right now.” I see my hand reach out.

“Prove it,” says Elizabeth. She uncorks the brown bottle and hands it to him. “Pour it out right now.”

Watching, I gulp in anxiety. What’s she doing? He’ll destroy it! And with it my last frail hope of rescue!

“Happily,” says my imposter, and I feel my eager hand clench the bottle and begin to tip it.

In an instant Elizabeth’s quick hands have snatched back the bottle and she retreats, her face fearful.

“You’re not Victor,” she says.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” my traitorous body says.

“No. The real Victor would never be so eager to get rid of it. And he never sees signs from God either. And there’s only one person I know who strokes their ear like that!”

She takes a step toward me and smacks me in the face. “I knew there was something vile about you, Analiese!”

I feel my real-world chest rising and falling more quickly. My body lifts its hand to strike her back. “You’re talking nonsense. Now, do as I say and give me that bottle!”

“Henry, punch him!” Elizabeth cries. “Hard! Knock him out! ”

I pivot to face Henry, just in time to see his boxer’s fists clench and his right come sweeping up toward my chin, and then***

— blackness. I open my eyes with a gasp.

“What’ve you seen?” Konrad demands.

“Henry has knocked me unconscious!” I say jubilantly.

“What?”

“Elizabeth knows! She knows it’s not me! She thinks it’s Analiese! And she has more elixir!”

Even as my heart swells with hope, I feel an opposite contraction of grief, for even if they enter the spirit world, they can only rescue me, not Konrad. And I can’t abandon my twin to the fiend now stalking the house.

“How did she know it wasn’t you?”

“I talked as though I believed in God!”

Konrad laughs and then goes silent, staring down at something near our feet. I look. Something is wriggling through the seam in the trapdoor. First a pair of antennae pokes through, then the black head of a spirit butterfly. I seize my saber and impale it, pulling it inside and slicing it in two. It flinches briefly and then is still.

“It can be killed,” I breathe.

If this thing, birthed from the pit demon, can be destroyed, then perhaps its master can be too. Hope flares within me.

A second butterfly suddenly thrusts its way into our hiding place, as angry as a hornet, and Konrad slices it in half in midair. A third one bursts in. It evades my slashes and plasters its wings against my face, blinding me. I claw at it with my hands, peel it off, and then hurl it to the floor, where Konrad crushes it.

We turn to each other, breathing hard, and smile. For a small beautiful moment I can almost pretend this is a grand adventure.

But something moves, and I look down to see a butterfly scuttling toward the trapdoor. I stab at it, but it slithers through the seam and is gone.

“It knows we’re here,” Konrad says quietly.

“It’ll tell the others,” I say, “and then its master.”

We look at each, then busy ourselves checking our weapons, making sure everything’s within easy reach.

Then comes a tectonic hooflike stomp on the marble of the grand staircase. It’s coming downstairs.

“I must confess something,” I say. “I meant to win Elizabeth.”

A second massive stomp, and a third.

“Well,” he says, “I was dead. It’s only human.”

“No,” I say. “Even after you came back to life, I meant to have her for myself. I was… I am… a terrible scoundrel.”

“I’d expect nothing less of my evil twin.”

Stomp… stomp!

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Please forgive me.”

“No need,” he says. “If I had come back, she would’ve been mine anyway.”

I give a dry chuckle. “Yes, I’ve realized that.”

The lopsided footfalls grow in intensity as the demon draws closer. I feel each impact in the roots of my teeth. There’s a moment of eerie silence when the demon reaches the bottom of the staircase, then a gut-churning scream as the footsteps resume in our direction.

All the vigor I used to feel in this spirit world has long evaporated and been replaced by numbness. The only part of my body that feels truly alive is the two fingers of my right hand, the fingers that don’t properly exist. But the fiery pain within them is almost welcome, for it reminds me that my body, somewhere, is still alive.

The great stomping stops outside the chapel; then there’s a poisonous silence.

Is it standing here at the threshold, unable to enter because this is a holy place? I’ve never believed in God but at this moment find myself wishing fervently for a powerful, protective presence.

One heavy thumping step, then another. It’s inside.

Konrad reaches out and grips my arm. Our eyes meet. He points at the crossbows, and I nod. We each take one, backs against the wall, aiming at the trapdoor.

More colossal footsteps, each one closer than before. I can tell the pit demon is directly beneath us.

It must know we’re here. But surely it isn’t tall enough to reach the ceiling. Will it realize the chandelier is an elevator? Even if it does, the chandelier won’t bear its massive weight, will it?

There’s a great wrenching sound from the chapel, and moments later the trapdoor of our hiding place explodes, shattered to splinters by a long wooden pew used as a battering ram. The pew pulls back, and the wreckage of the trapdoor dangles down on mangled hinges.

Through the madly swinging spokes of the broken chandelier, I catch a quick glimpse of a massive form churning with black butterflies. It’s shockingly like the crude cave drawing of the giant-two writhing long legs, a huge torso with seething arms, and a black hive of a skull.

“Let fly!” Konrad shouts.

We fire in unison, and our two crossbow bolts bury themselves in the swarming black mass of its chest, disappearing.

For just a moment some of the butterflies on its head flutter away, and I catch sight of a long, crooked slash of lipless mouth, parted to reveal serrated teeth. As it screams, a terrible slaughterhouse smell emanates from its throat. Then the butterflies once again swarm over its face, as though they cannot bear to be parted from his flesh.

Frantically Konrad and I wind our strings back, load, aim, fire. I give a cry as the pit demon leaps, one long arm outstretched, black fingers tapering to claws. The thing is at least ten feet in height, and the strength of its jump is terrifying, but its talons reach only to the chandelier, which it rips from its moorings as it falls back to the floor. Again the pit demon jumps, and again falls short.