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  “What you are saying is nothing but an excuse for a few wicked men to act out their sickness. Why should these innocents be the ones to suffer? Why not you?”

  “Because, Friedrich, in nature the strong prey on the weak.”

  “Then let me use my greater strength to rip the limbs from your body. That would make a fine statement concerning the power of nature.”

  A shadow passed over Frankenstein’s eyes as he looked at me. The smile that he had been favoring me with faded and a dullness settled over his features.

  “This has grown tiresome,” he said. “I had such high hopes for you. You, of all creatures, who must be so detested simply for your physical appearance by these same men and women whom you insist on bleeding tears of compassion for. With these fine sensibilities of yours, I suppose there is little chance that you will ever again be able to speak to Johanna Klemmen. To do so would be too offensive to your virtuous nature. It is a pity that she will forever be lost to you.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Frankenstein’s words had the calculated effect that he planned. I could barely contain myself as I stammered out for him to tell me what he meant by this.

  “But my dear Friedrich, I am afraid it would upset your sensibilities if I were to do so.”

  “Tell me!”

  He shrugged, and in an air of utter casualness he told me how he had obtained Johanna’s brain as material, and had been keeping it preserved using the same liquid that he used to keep Charlotte living.

  “Why would you do this?”

  “Why?” A malicious glint showed in his eyes as he considered me. “No particular reason. I was able to procure the material and thought it would be amusing to reunite two lost lovers, although I never imagined that memories and intelligence would be retained in your brain or hers. But now it would be a fascinating experiment to test whether love is indeed spiritual or merely brought about by physical attraction, for if I were to bring back your lover, would she be able to look past your hideous appearance and still have deep affections for you, or would she simply be sickened by your sight?”

  I did not say anything. My eyes cast downwards toward the stone floor. I could not have met Frankenstein’s cruel eyes for any purpose, for my strength bled out of me as surely as if my jugular had been severed.

  “Well, Friedrich, shall I sacrifice one of these young girls so that you may be with your beloved Johanna Klemmen once more? Or would that act be too repulsive for you?”

  For a long moment I could not answer him, then my voice barely a whisper, I uttered, “Do as you wish.”

  “No, Friedrich, that is not good enough. You must decide or I will dispose of your beloved’s brain and she will be lost to you forever. If you need to, you can rationalize your decision with the knowledge that you will be saving one of these young girls, for none of them will be surviving past the end of our drama. But I will not be sacrificing one of these girls for this purpose unless you are a willing accomplice. One last time, do you wish me to bring Johanna Klemmen back to you?”

  God help me, I nodded my assent.

  “That is not good enough. I need to hear your words.”

  I forced myself to meet his eyes and all the maliciousness that they contained. “Do what is necessary to bring Johanna back to life,” I said, my chest aching so that I could barely stand it.

  He nodded solemnly. “I will do that, Friedrich. But no more of your lectures, and no more of your false nobility. Now which one of these should be made into Johanna Klemmen?”

  I shook my head. “I do not care. You choose,” I said.

  The smile that next twisted his lips chilled me as nothing before had ever done.

  “No, my friend,” he said, “you will choose her, but it will be done in a most sporting way.”

  Frankenstein assembled the rest of his guests in the dungeon, and I was surprised to see that they consisted of women also. In total, his guests comprised seven men and four women. I was also surprised that the Marquis was not among them, although I later learned that they expected his arrival within two weeks’ time. As with the guest that I had seen earlier, they all appeared to be of wealth, and they all clearly shared Frankenstein’s perversity. There was little difference between them and the devil worshippers that I had encountered, except that I was powerless against them, as I equally was against Frankenstein.

  While I stood helpless, servants brought out the prisoners for me to look over, and I was compelled to do so both by Frankenstein’s black magic and his implied threat of disposing of Johanna’s brain if I failed to cooperate. It all had such a surreal nightmarish quality to it as I was forced to look into these poor girls’ faces as they wept with fear and misery, all the while Frankenstein and his guests tittering with amusement and making wagers over which girl I would select. Frankenstein in his evil even had the young children brought out for me to look over. Several times I wished to die when these innocents begged me to rescue them. But I knew I could not, and overpowering in my mind was the desire to be reunited with my Johanna, as grotesque a manner as this reunion would be brought about. In the end I chose one of them.

  “When will this be done?” I demanded.

  Frankenstein looked at me slowly as if he were going to comment about my tone, but in the end chose to ignore it. “Not for several weeks,” he said, his own tone peevish. “I need to travel to London first to consult with others who have knowledge that I need since the operation of placing a brain in an otherwise undisturbed body is very different from my constructing a being from material, as I did with you, and I will also not be leaving until after the Marquis arrives. So be patient!”

  With that the party broke up. Frankenstein and his guests quitted the dungeon, and I was compelled to follow them. I wandered about as if I were in a spell, at times sinking into deep despair over my unwitting role in this atrocity and my inability to help these innocent prisoners, at other times anxious over the prospect of once again being in Johanna’s company. The tearing that was done to my soul over this was something awful, and it was with surprise that I found myself drawn back to that evil amphitheater. When I looked up and saw the ballroom scene, I stumbled backward, disoriented, for it appeared to me as if the couples within the mural had danced halfway across the room. None of them were where I remembered them. Other details also seemed new to me. One of the men now held a dagger behind his back; a woman’s mouth froze in the beginning moments of a scream; lines of terror showed in other women’s faces. As I stood transfixed at this mural and puzzled over these changes, one of Frankenstein’s woman guests approached me.

  “Later this will become much more interesting,” she told me.

  Earlier I had been introduced to all of Frankenstein’s guests, and this one was a viscountess from an extraordinarily old family. If I had not known the evil that lay in her heart, I might have mistaken her for an attractive woman who perhaps bordered on beautiful, but even still, I might have detected her icy countenance. I did not bother to respond to her attempt at conversation. Instead I moved my gaze back to the painting.

  “Victor mentioned that he constructed you to be quite well endowed,” she said with a snicker. “Or in his words, large enough to make any stallion envious. I wish to see your cock. Show it to me.”

  Frankenstein’s hold on me extended to his guests. I was powerless to disobey her, and as if unseen strings were controlling my hands I opened my cape and lowered my trousers. She made a gasping sound and then proceeded to amuse herself with me. I stood there helpless, unable to move or command my hands to throw her away from me. Soon one of Frankenstein’s other female guests joined her, while several of the male guests entertained themselves by watching. Perhaps it was my imagination, but it seemed to me as if several of the waltzing couples within the mural were now smirking at me.

  I was required to join them for dinner, and Frankenstein seated me next to himself. Their conversation quickly grew tedious as it revolved around the same tired themes that Frankenstein had brou
ght up to me earlier. I attempted to drown them out by drinking glass after glass of brandy. They were too involved in their pontificating to notice, and after a while the brandy did help to dull out their voices. After dinner ended, I found myself drawn once more to the amphitheater, and this time there was no denying that the scene had changed. The couples were no longer happily waltzing, but now the men were displaying an animal savagery as they ripped the dresses from their partners and threatened their throats with the blades of knives. I blinked several times, wondering if I was seeing what I thought, or if the brandy had left me so intoxicated that I was merely imagining this sight.

  “My friend, you are beginning to understand the nature of my mural.”

  Frankenstein was smiling patiently at me. I did not wish to ask him anything but I couldn’t help myself.

  “How?”

  “If I can bring you back to life, why not a painting?”

  A sickening feeling filled me as I turned my gaze back to the mural and the evil it represented.

  “They are very sly devils,” Frankenstein said. “They will not move while being watched. Later, at midnight, they will, but not now.”

  I knew Frankenstein wished me on my own accord to come back at midnight so that I could watch how the actors within his mural would play out their drama, and for that reason alone I avoided returning to that room that night, as much as my morbid curiosity begged me to. Instead I took several bottles of brandy to the bedroom that Frankenstein assigned to me. The bed that he had constructed for the room was almost twice the size of a normal bed, and so it fit me, as did the silk sheets and enormous blankets that he had specially made. Frankenstein also had a special armchair constructed to hold my size, as he also did for the dining room. I sat in this chair and drank the brandy that I brought back with me, hoping that it would dim the self-hatred that raged within me. I tried to remember my life when I was still Friedrich Hoffmann. I tried desperately to think of Johanna, but my thoughts kept reflecting back on the horrors that I had experienced since awakening inside of Frankenstein’s laboratory. My execution and rebirth as a hideous abomination, poor Charlotte existing only as a disembodied head, wolves turning into vampyres, devil worshippers and their human sacrifices, this castle and the utter depravity within it, complete with a living mural of horrors. My thoughts eventually slowed as the brandy succeeded in dulling my senses, and a heavy weariness fell over me. I closed my eyes and before too long, mercifully, I fell into sleep.

  This time Frankenstein’s black magic did not invade my dreams, for there was no purpose since he had already compelled me to join him at his castle. Instead I found myself drifting into a peacefulness that seemed almost foreign to me. At first it was as if I were being rocked back and forth within a gentle breeze, and then I saw Johanna. She smiled contentedly at me, with only love and admiration in her expression, her long yellow hair flowing down her back. But she was naked, and I blushed deeply and looked away, and saw that I too was naked and my body was that of Friedrich Hoffmann’s.

  “Friedrich, my darling, there is nothing to be ashamed of. I have waited so long to visit you. Please look at me.”

  Johanna’s voice was as a balm soothing my soul. I turned toward her and found myself instantly lost within her gentle hazel eyes. She held out her hands to me, and I grasped them hoping to never have to let go of her.

  “I have missed you,” I said.

  “As I have missed you, my darling. I have tried so many times to visit you previously, but something strong and oppressive kept me from doing so.”

  My eyes misted quickly, but I did not dare to let go of her for even a second to wipe away my tears.

  I said, “When I think of what was done to you—”

  “Please, Friedrich, don’t.”

  “But the villains responsible must pay for what they did. The crime that was committed against you is too horrible to even think of. It must be avenged! Justice requires it!”

  “Let God worry about punishing the guilty,” she said. “All I care about is being able to spend eternity with you, and I am afraid that that will not be happening.”

  Her own eyes had become liquid with tears and her smile troubled, and it tugged at my heart to see her like that.

  “Do not be concerned,” I said. “I will be seeing you soon, and then we will have the rest of this lifetime together and eternity afterward.”

  She did not say anything, but her brow turned more troubled and a darkness clouded her delicate features.

  “Embrace me, Friedrich,” she said in a hushed whisper, “for I am afraid that this will be our only opportunity.”

  I embraced her, our naked bodies touching, my hands resting on her slender hips, her own arms wrapped tightly across my back. I had never felt more joy than I did right then, but also an intense sorrow as I realized that this would soon end. Johanna began to weep, and she buried her head in my chest, her tears hot against my flesh. I tried to soothe her by stroking her hair and whispering sweet words into her ear. After a while she stopped her weeping. She pulled away slightly so that she could look into my eyes.

  “Friedrich, you must leave this castle,” she said.

  “I cannot,” I said with despair. “The fiend, Frankenstein, has employed black magic to hold me here.”

  “You must find a way, my darling. And you must also find a way to rescue the girls that they’re imprisoning here, for the plans that they have for these innocent girls are even more vile than what was done to me.”

  I could not answer her. I knew she was right, but I did not know how to do what she was asking.

  She kissed me then on my lips with an intensity that made me dizzy. As she pulled away, she whispered to me, “I am so afraid of losing you, Friedrich. Please do not be lost to me.”

  I wanted to answer her, to promise her that she would not lose me, but before I could I was jolted awake, my body having crashed to the floor from falling out of the armchair where I had fallen asleep. As I lay on the floor, I did not want to believe that I had woken, and I desperately tried to hold onto the dream I had of Johanna, but her image proved to be as elusive as vapor. She was gone, and as I looked at my hands, I had to accept that I was no longer Friedrich Hoffmann, but once again a repulsive abomination. I began to weep as I lay where I had fallen, and felt the full weight of all I had lost sinking down my heart.

  Later, when I could stop weeping, I cursed Frankenstein yet again for all that he had stolen from me.

  CHAPTER 20

  Each day I would be left alone to wander the castle as I pleased. My enemy was too busy with his plans to pay much attention to me, as were his guests, and his black magic kept me imprisoned within the castle walls as surely as if bars had been placed across the main gate, although even without his spell I did not know if I could have left with the prospect of seeing my Johanna being brought back to life.

  The morning after my arrival I found myself once more drawn to that evil amphitheater. The scene had reverted back to show the couples happily waltzing across a ballroom floor with not even a glimmer of malice discernible in the faces of the dancers, and the women fully clothed in their fine ball gowns without any evidence of them having been torn off the previous night.

  Later that afternoon I discovered illustrations that were made for the drama they were planning, and what I saw was beyond vileness, beyond depravity. I stared in shock at these sketches, and could not imagine any human mind designing such acts. It was hard even to imagine Satan himself dreaming up such evil. There were hundreds of these illustrations, but I could not view more than a dozen of them without feeling whatever was left of my own soul rotting inside of me. I tried to burn those damnable drawings in the fireplace, but Frankenstein’s black magic compelled me to place them back where I had found them.

  After seeing those pages I could not do nothing. I waited until the workmen left the dungeon, and then I snuck down there with the intention of freeing the prisoners that were being held, but Frankenstein’s same evil
spell prevented me from doing this. The keys to the cages were hanging on a nail in the wall, but when I tried to pick them up my arm fell dead to my side. Not seeing my form in the dim light, the young girls and children cried out to me, pleading to me to save them, but I couldn’t no matter how hard I tried. In the end I fled the chamber, too ashamed to face these poor innocents.

  That night I was required to dine with Frankenstein’s company, as I was every night that I would remain within the castle, but as I had done previously, I drank enough brandy to deaden them to me and their voices became little more than a droning in my ears. After dinner I found myself once more drawn to the amphitheater, and the scene displayed upon the mural was similar to that of the other night, with the men cruelly ripping the women’s gowns from their bodies, and in some cases, their knives drawing blood across their victim’s faces. The fascination that this mural held for me disgusted me, and as tempted as I was to return at midnight I avoided doing so again.

  I did not sleep that night, and I used those twilight hours to search more of the castle without anyone’s knowledge. It was past daybreak when I found a secret panel that held Frankenstein’s library of rare occult texts, but only moments later I heard noises of others within the castle awakening, and since I did not wish to have anyone stumble upon me and learn of my discovery, I placed the books back within their hidden compartment.