I pushed myself up and limped out of the room. Screams rang out below. I struggled down the steps one by one. The castle had been transformed into something from a hellish nightmare. Villagers streamed inside, looting and smashing furniture in every room. Some lit tapestries on fire with their torches. The flames had already begun to spread, and the warm air was thick with smoke. The Frankensteins’ servants fled in terror as their home burned around them.
I did this, I thought, full of remorse. This was my home once. Now I doubted anyone would ever live there again. I hobbled toward the servants’ entrance to the castle, hoping the villagers had not discovered it yet. I prayed the others had escaped.
The servants’ entrance was abandoned. I staggered outside into the storm. Rain poured down from the heavens as lightning flashed across the sky. The forest loomed ahead, bathed in the moonlight. If I could just make it to the trees without being seen, I could find refuge. I started forward, the castle burning at my back. The sound of barking rang out above the thunder, and a small group of villagers running across the yard glanced in my direction and noticed me.
“This way!” one shouted. “There’s one over here!”
I started to run, but it was too late. The mob diverted from the front gate and converged on the servants’ entrance, leaving me with nowhere to run. I shrank from the torches as the crowd encircled me. The hounds strained against their collars, snapping their jaws at me. I backed away, and my feet hit the stairs. There was nowhere to run.
“Look at her face!” said a man at the front of the crowd, waving his torch in my direction. A murmur ran through the crowd. Without my false colors, my true self was laid bare for all to see. “It’s the monster!”
“Kill it!” another shouted, gripping his pitchfork.
“Stop!” a cry rang out above the storm, temporarily halting the mob’s advance. Victor approached from the night. The villagers turned to face him. “She’s done nothing wrong.”
What’s he doing? I wondered. Why did he return?
“It’s Dr. Frankenstein!” a villager shouted.
“I did this,” Victor said, addressing the crowd. “I looted your graves. I gave life to the monster. I brought this horror to Geneva. It’s my fault—all of it. So take your vengeance out on me.”
For a moment there was silence. Then the thunder bellowed above, and a villager heaved a stone in his direction. The stone struck Victor’s head. He stumbled back as a second rock sailed out of the darkness, followed by another. The crowd swarmed Victor, savagely beating him.
They’ll kill him. I overcame my fear of the flames and flung myself into the crowd with a primal growl, tearing through villagers until I reached Victor. I gathered him in my arms and carried him through the rain with the mob in pursuit.
“Forgive me, Justine,” he whispered weakly. Victor’s breaths were short and ragged. His face was bruised and bleeding, his clothes ripped and stained with dirt.
“Hold on,” I told him. I splashed through a stream, the forest drawing ever closer. A mist blanketed the ground. The villagers were visible in the distance behind me, where a pillar of smoke obscured the moon.
Without warning, the creature came sailing out of the night. I landed on the ground. Victor fell from my grasp.
“Look on what you have wrought, Frankenstein,” the creature declared. “Your ruin is at hand.”
He reached for Victor, but I hurtled myself at him from the ground, and we rolled through a puddle. The creature gained the upper hand and pinned me down, forcing my face into the mud.
“Get off her,” Victor said, throwing himself onto the creature’s back.
The monster roared with anger and put his hands around Victor’s neck. I used the opportunity to strike the creature where I had stabbed him earlier. The creature released his hold on Victor and I propelled myself forward, sending him crashing to his back. I was on him before he could recover, hitting him again and again. Finally I stopped, my wet hair clinging to my face in the rains, my fist held high.
The creature’s yellow eyes glowed in the moonlight. “Go ahead,” he told me, his bloodied face even more a ruin than before. “Finish it.”
I shook my head and pushed myself off him.
“I should have known you were too weak,” he said as I limped away, his face contorted in loathing.
“You’re wrong,” I said. “It isn’t weakness.” I helped Victor to his feet. “We have to go now. The others are almost upon us.”
We fled through the forest hand in hand with the villagers in pursuit, leaving the creature behind. Victor struggled to maintain his footing while torches drew ever closer. Everywhere we turned the villagers approached from all sides. Just as a clearing materialized ahead, Victor stumbled and collapsed.
“Leave me,” he said, but I picked him up and carried him past the edge of the trees. The villagers chased us onto a steep cliff overlooking the lake below. The mob stopped a short distance away. We were trapped.
Constable Rengel stepped out of the crowd, an expression of triumph on his face. Ernest stood quietly beside him.
“Take them,” he said, and the mob descended upon us.
Chapter Twenty
I waited for death. The storm had fallen silent, leaving only the lonely quiet of the long night. The stone floor remained cold and damp from the last of the rains. Silver moonlight seeped into the dungeon through a solitary window on the other side of the iron bars of my cell, a false promise of freedom just out of reach.
My gaze fell on Victor, who lay a short distance away in the same cell, unconscious. He was a bloodied mess. It was a mercy he was still alive. Then again, considering our present circumstances, perhaps not.
Why did he come back? I wondered. He could have fled with the others, but he hadn’t. Instead, he gave himself over to the villagers, all for me. Now we would share the same fate. I hoped the others had escaped. My fingers grasped the crucifix Gerhardt had given me. God, if you’re there—please keep them safe. After all I had done, I wasn’t certain if God would answer my prayer—if He was there at all—but I took a measure of comfort in the words all the same.
Footsteps sounded above. I stood from a crouching position as a shadow crept along the winding staircase that led down into the dungeon. The guard moved aside, and Constable Rengel emerged from the darkness.
“Miss Moritz.” He approached the cell, his lower face locked in a perpetual scowl. “Penny—or is it Justine? Whichever you prefer, I suppose. You have my thanks for your assistance. The people will cry out in gratitude when I hand them the monster that murdered Father Wilhelm, along with the scientist whose perverted experiments gave it life. Then we will find the other members of the Frankenstein family and mete out justice.”
“We had a deal,” I said. “The others were not to be harmed.”
His lower lip contracted in disgust. “I’m afraid I don’t honor agreements with soulless abominations. I wonder if the rope will kill you. I’ve never hanged anyone twice. If that particular method fails, perhaps I will simply have to think of more…creative ways to accomplish the deed.”
I stepped forward and wrapped my hands around the bars. “You’re the only monster I see here.” The constable’s gaze fell over Victor’s sleeping form. “At least let him go. I’m the one who killed the priest.”
Rengel remained just out of reach. He stared at me without a hint of amusement. “What’s this—a change of heart? As I recall, it was you who were so eager to see Victor Frankenstein brought low.”
I shook the bars with all my might, but it was no use. “Why are you doing this? What have they ever done to you?”
There was silence in the room for a long moment, and the constable lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “We’re not so different from each other, Miss Moritz. Years ago I too was a servant in the castle. Alphonse Frankenstein’s father was baron then. I was only a boy. Alphonse caught me stealing his mother’s jewelry, and I was expelled from the castle. I swore one day I would
make them pay.”
“By destroying their family?” His lust for vengeance had consumed him, as it had almost consumed me. “I almost pity you.”
The constable frowned and turned away. “Your execution will take place at first light. I think I’ll burn you this time.”
He left us alone in our cell. I relinquished my grip on the iron bars and collapsed in the corner, burying my face in my hands. Victor stirred beside me. “Persephone?” he called out, squinting in the darkness.
“It’s all right,” I said quietly. “I’m here.”
Victor crawled to my side, and we sat together with our backs to the wall, holding each other for support. “I’ve been such a fool. You were right—about everything. I allowed myself to become obsessed with my experiments, at the expense of everything else. I couldn’t see what mattered most.” He shook his head. “No more. From this moment on, I am finished trying to bridge the divide between life and death, forever. I swear it.”
“It hardly matters now.”
Victor peered into my eyes in the dim light, and his expression softened. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I wish I could take it back.”
“We’ve both done things we regret.” I took his hand. “I forgive you, Victor.”
“You asked me before why I allowed you to fall in love with me—why I didn’t tell you about Gerhardt? I was pledged to Elizabeth from the time I was a boy, but when I saw you wake in the laboratory, something changed in me. I had cared for Justine as a sister, but you were something altogether different.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, searching his face for meaning.
“I was torn between my feelings for you and my duty to Elizabeth. I didn’t want to fall in love with you. How could I ever bring you happiness, when I was the cause of your despair? That night when you kissed me, I was afraid. That was why I ran.”
We found each other in the dark, and Victor kissed me.
I pulled back from the embrace. “Oh Victor,” I said sadly, shaking my head. “You’re too late.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, his hand on my cheek.
“There’s someone else I love. Don’t you see? I remember now.”
Victor nodded, as if to show that he understood.
“A touching scene,” a voice declared from the shadows. “A pity your reconciliation is only fleeting.” The creature stepped into the moonlight, eyes blazing with hate. “Then again, it is more than either of you deserve.”
Footsteps sounded down the stairs once more from the guard on patrol. The creature watched us silently where he hid, watching us until the man passed.
I rose and walked to the bars, approaching him. “I’m sorry I hurt you.” I didn’t flinch under the weight of his gaze. “I thought only of myself, of my own pain. I was wrong.”
His harsh laughter filled the room. “You think you can atone for your mistakes now? It’s too late, Persephone—for either of us.”
“It’s never too late,” I said, remembering Gerhardt’s words. “You can still choose a better way. I reached out to him, but the creature wrapped his hand around my throat.
“Such a beautiful neck,” he said, caressing my skin with his spidery fingers. “I wonder how easily it would break in my hands.”
“Leave her alone,” Victor said, the edge gone from his voice. “It’s me you want. It always has been.”
“All I wanted was a mate,” the creature hissed. “One person in this world who could look at me without contempt. You took that from me.”
“What you needed was a companion,” Victor said. “It should have been me. I shouldn’t have turned from you. It was a mistake. One of many.”
The creature turned toward Victor with a snarl, exposing the scars that ran down his neck. “Where is the fight in you, Frankenstein? What happened to that unmitigated arrogance that drives you?”
“Please,” Victor said. “Let her go. No one else should suffer for my mistakes.”
“But suffer they will,” the creature said, releasing his grip on me. “Know this before you die: I will track down each and every member of your family who has escaped this city. My face will be the last thing they ever see.”
“Not today,” someone said behind him. Before the creature could react, a chair smashed against his back, knocking him to the ground. Gerhardt stood behind him, the jailor’s keychain in his hand.
“Gerhardt,” I muttered, surprised. “You came back.” I touched his hand through the bars. Victor was speechless at my side.
“There will be time for that later,” Gerhardt said. The keys rattled in his hands as he searched for the one that would unlock the cell. “We must leave at once.”
My smile faded as the creature reached out and grabbed Gerhardt’s ankle, pulling him off his feet. “Gerhardt!” I shouted, straining against the bars. The keys fell to the floor, just out of reach.
Gerhardt struggled against the monster with all his strength, but the creature rolled on top of him and held him against the stone floor. He looked up at me across the room. “This is the man you love? Then watch him die.”
I screamed with rage, my muscles tensing as I squeezed the bars. Little by little, the iron bent under my grip. The pain was unbearable. My body felt as if it was on fire. I cried out through clenched teeth but I did not stop. At last the cell door ripped free of the wall with a deafening roar. My momentum carried me into the creature, who looked up just as the iron bars struck him head-on, smashing him against the wall.
Barks rang out above, and I heard more footsteps coming down the staircase.
“Go,” I said, holding the creature in place with the weight of the door as Victor helped Gerhardt to his feet. “They’re coming. You must leave now.”
“We’re not going anywhere without you,” Gerhardt said, and Victor nodded in agreement.
I shoved the door against the creature and took off after them toward the staircase. A feral growl pierced the darkness behind me as the iron bars crashed to the ground. I hurried up each step, the creature at my back. Torchlight glowed ahead, and the guard came running down the stairs in our direction. He stared at us in bewilderment, his torch in one hand and a rifle in another. His face widened in terror as the creature came into view. He raised the weapon as we passed him, and I looked back just in time to see the creature smash the guard against the wall before he could fire. The monster snapped the man’s neck with one twist.
“This way,” Gerhardt said as we arrived at the top of the staircase. The jail was mostly abandoned in the wee hours of morning.
“Where are we going?” Victor asked, casting a glance over his shoulder.
“There’s a boat waiting for us at the docks. Elizabeth and your father are already on board.”
“They’re safe?” Victor asked hopefully, as if he hardly dared to believe it.
“They won’t be for long—not unless we reach the docks in time. You heard that thing.”
I nodded. “Once the constable realizes we’re gone, he’ll tear the city apart to find us.”
Gerhardt led us through the jail without being seen. The full moon glowed brightly above, no longer encumbered by storm clouds. The town square was packed with villagers gathered around the gallows, waiting for something to happen as morning fast approached. We slipped unnoticed into the mass. The constable stood on the platform beside the gallows, addressing the crowd in a raised voice. Ernest was one of the soldiers who stood on the steps beneath, listening.
We slowly made our way through the crowd. The mob swelled around us, but the road to the harbor loomed just ahead.
“Frankenstein!” a terrible voice cried out, and the assembly fell silent. The creature stood apart from the crowd, towering above the frightened villagers. I looked at the platform, and the constable followed the monster’s gaze to the place where we stood. Unlike the others consumed by fear, the constable’s face was masked with thinly veiled rage.
“After them!” he ordered, pointing us out to the soldiers.
&n
bsp; Ignoring Rengel, the creature stepped toward us, undaunted by the crowd. The scene dissolved into chaos upon his approach. Terrified villagers fled in every direction, threatening to separate us from each other. We hurried through the confusion, and when I glanced back I saw the monster cutting a path through the crowd to reach us. Meanwhile, the soldiers’ red coats were visibly moving in our direction.
We broke through the mob’s ranks and out into the open as screams filled the black sky. Victor stumbled, weakened from the beating the mob had inflicted upon him. I took him by the hand as the soldiers approached, unable to fire at us through the crowd.
“We have to keep going,” I said as the harbor materialized. “It’s not far now.”
I recognized Elizabeth and Alphonse watching us from the boat, their expressions lined with worry. The constable’s men spilled into the alley behind us, their rifles raised. Our feet thudded over the mist-strewn dock. I lifted Victor over the side, and Gerhardt helped him onto the boat before offering me his hand. I smiled at him and reached toward his outstretched hand. Moments before our skin touched, his expression turned to a look of pure horror.
A gunshot echoed through the night. I felt a searing pain in my back. I took another step toward the boat and another gunshot sounded. I stumbled and fell to my knees.
“Justine!” Gerhardt shouted.
Rengel stood behind me, accompanied by Ernest and the other soldiers. The constable held a pistol in his hands, pointed at me. I looked at Gerhardt mournfully and glanced back at the constable as he raised the pistol to the level of my head. The others on the boat watched, powerless.
“Drop it.” The voice belonged to Ernest, who had his rifle trained on the constable.
“What are you doing?” Rengel demanded. “You know what she is. She’s a monster—a killer.”
Bride Page 24
