Such Wicked Intent

by Kenneth Oppel

  “I lingered too long here, just like you,” he says, “seduced by the power of the place. I didn’t realize that my living presence woke the monster from its slumber. There were other human spirits here then, and I became too friendly with one of them. He waited till I lost my light, then stole my talisman and rode off in my body.”

  I start to push myself to my feet, but with a savage, well-aimed kick he knocks my legs out from beneath.

  “But now,” he says, “your life is mine.”

  He is already running. I scramble up and give chase, down the hallway toward the grand staircase.

  “Stop!” I bellow like a child. “You can’t leave me here!”

  At the top of the stairs he turns instinctively toward my bedchamber, drawn by my ring. I know this is a race I must not lose, and I put on a burst of speed. Halfway down the hallway I hurl myself at his legs and bring him to the floor. I still have some strength left. I punch at him, trying to claw the ring from his finger.

  From beneath the château rises the loudest, most terrifying shriek I’ve yet heard—because this one is unmistakably filled with triumph.

  For a split second Wilhelm’s eyes meet mine, and I see his utter horror. Then he drives an elbow into my face and sends me skidding against the wall.

  He’s up again, running, hurtling through the doorway of my bedchamber.

  “No!” I roar. I burst in, murderous with fury, and see him reclining on my bed, clutching the spirit clock and ring. I launch myself at him, ready to bite his hand off if need be—

  But he’s gone. I land atop an empty bed.

  Panic pounds at all the doors of my mind, hungry for entry. I touch my chest, grip my arms. The missing fingers of my right hand are still there, but they are fiery with pain. I can’t be dead. Nothing dead could feel such pain. My body lives on, elsewhere, but inhabited by another. I jump off my bed and pace the room, as though some other exit will magically present itself.

  This isn’t happening. It’s not true. Please let it not be true.

  Black butterflies swirl about my room but leave me unmolested. I’m no use to them anymore.

  “No, no!” I bellow, and sink to the floor.

  And the moment my eyes shut, I am seeing—

  * * *

  —through the eyes of another. I am in my room, sitting up on the edge of my bed as Henry and Elizabeth burst in, their faces alive with dread.

  “Did you go back inside?” Henry demands.

  “I needed to make sure all was well,” I hear my voice—my very own voice—say. And I realize I’m seeing through the eyes of my thief, Wilhelm Frankenstein. The sensation is indescribable, to be within and without oneself simultaneously, to hear myself, to feel myself move, without having any control whatsoever.

  “The pit monster is lapsing back into its dormant state,” I lie to Henry and Elizabeth.

  “You went to see it?” Henry asks, incredulous.

  “I had to, to make certain. And it already looks more firmly entombed in cocoon and stone.”

  Elizabeth lets out a long-held breath. “That’s good news, truly good news.”

  “Konrad will be gathered,” my voice says. “I have no doubt, his heart is so pure.”

  “It’s a pure heart,” Elizabeth says, her eyes moist. “I’ve got so much to atone for. What we did was a terrible interference with God’s law. And yet…” She bites her lip. “I want to say good-bye to him.”

  Henry scratches his chin uncertainly. “Isn’t that too risky? Victor, there must still be so many butterflies about…”

  “They’re numerous, though they seem to be getting sluggish too, without nourishment.”

  “Don’t go,” Henry tells Elizabeth.

  “I must,” she insists.

  “Yes, of course, of course,” I hear my imposter’s voice say.

  But Henry holds firm. “No, Victor. What if they feed on her and wake the pit god fully?”

  “I’ll be quick,” she promises.

  I watch as my hand, which is no longer my hand, reaches for the flask of spirit world elixir. I feel my fingers grasp it, and then intentionally release. The flask falls to the floor and shatters. There is little fluid left, and even as my body drops to its knees and makes a show of trying to wipe the liquid furiously back into the flask, the elixir is quickly absorbed into the wood and its cracks. Not a single drop remains.

  Watching this scene from the spirit world, I’m aware of making a low whine, like a kicked dog.

  “I… I’m so sorry,” the false me says, looking up at Elizabeth’s stricken face.

  “It’s for the best,” Henry says, putting a hand on her shoulder. She shrugs it off.

  “Did you do that on purpose, Victor?” she demands.

  “Of course not,” I reply, amazed at the sincerity in my voice. “I’m so sorry, Elizabeth. I’m still weakened—”

  * * *

  —someone is shouting my name, and I realize it’s not in the real world but here in this spirit one. I open my eyes to see Konrad standing over me, brow furrowed.

  “What’s wrong? I heard shouting!” he asks.

  I look up at my brother, so overjoyed to see him that for a moment I’m speechless.

  “Victor, what’s the matter?” he demands, and then frowns. “Your light. It’s gone altogether!”

  “He stole my body,” I rasp.

  “Who?”

  “Wilhelm Frankenstein. He stole it. I’m trapped! Trapped here!”

  Speaking the brutal truth aloud, panic grips me again in its vise and tightens fast. I pound my fists against my temples. I’m a bird in a house, my eyes flitting everywhere, unable to focus.

  “There’s no more elixir!” I rant. “He broke the bottle. There’s no more! There’s no hope of rescue! None!”

  “Victor!” my twin says. “Calm down.”

  He reaches out his hand, pulls me to my feet—and at his touch, this first touch between us in months, a wonderful stillness fills me. I look at him, then embrace him, squeezing with all my might. There is such comfort in this simple physical contact that I never want to let go. But finally I pull back and behold him. We are, at last, properly reunited.

  “Tell me everything,” he says. “Talk sense.”

  With all the calm I can muster, I explain.

  “It was him all along,” Konrad murmurs. “Elizabeth was right. Analiese was keeping a secret.”

  “I’m such a fool,” I say. “When that mist spirit broke in and grabbed her, I saw something change in her, but I thought it was just another mystery of the spirit world.”

  “He’s been waiting for three hundred years,” Konrad says. “The message from your spirit board—it was from him, trying to lure you inside!”

  “Why was he never gathered?” I ask uneasily. “How can he still be here after so many years?”

  “Maybe because he was separated from his own body.”

  I shudder. “He’s inside my body now.”

  “And you can truly see through his eyes?”

  “Only when mine are closed.”

  What torment to watch someone else live my life. And when my body dies, what will happen to me then? Will I wait here forever and ever, abandoned, like Wilhelm Frankenstein?

  Another wail emanates from beneath us, and this time it is no primal cry; it has a shape and rhythm that suggests language. A slight tremor passes through the very bones of the house. The black butterflies that have been swirling about the ceiling now gather into a thundercloud and scud swiftly into the hallway.

  I lick my lips and look nervously at Konrad, and together we follow them. I see them disappearing into the library, joined by several other converging torrents. When we cautiously enter, we see the last of them slipping through the gaps in the secret doorway.

  “Before your light disappeared,” Konrad asks, “did butterflies feed on you?”

  “A great many.”

  He needs say no more. We both know what has happened. The last of my siphoned life force h
as already been fed to the pit god—and it is fully awake, and moving. Again from beneath the house comes the sound of earth shifting, something hard striking stone.

  We run to the secret door, open it, and peer down. Echoing up to us through the vaulted galleries comes the unmistakable sound of a heavy footfall. It shakes the house.

  “Dear God,” says Konrad, closing the door.

  “Wait, wait!” I say. “We need a place to hide!”

  I reopen the door and run down the stairs toward the Dark Library.

  “Victor!” he cries out. “What’re you doing!”

  “I need a key!”

  Inside the library I scan the sagging shelves, looking, looking, until I find it. The red metal book that I plucked from the fire. I snatch it and vault back up the stairs. Behind me I can hear the sound of footfalls, like the clopping of a horse’s hooves. Breathless, I rejoin Konrad and slam the door behind me, checking to make sure the secret latch is secured.

  “What did you get?” my brother demands in bewilderment.

  I open the metal book and take out the star-shaped key.

  “The chapel ceiling?” he says, remembering the tale we told him.

  “That thing might not know about it.”

  Together we grab a table and push it against the door, and then heave a small bureau atop it.

  “Will this do any good?” Konrad asks.

  My laugh croaks from my fear-parched mouth. “I doubt it.”

  I look at all the weapons he’s assembled, and at once we both arm ourselves with everything we can—crossbows, quivers of bolts, swords, daggers. The mere weight of all this military metal gives me some comfort, but my hands and knees are shaking.

  “We can fight this thing,” I say. “My light might be gone, but my body’s still alive in the real world. Surely that gives me some power here.”

  Konrad nods vigorously. “Absolutely. This thing was destroyed once before, and we can destroy it again.”

  A footfall like an anvil blow shakes the floor. Books jump from the shelves.

  “It’s coming,” I gasp.

  We flee the library, careening down the château’s grand staircase and along the hallway to the chapel. Upstairs, heavy footfalls shake the ceiling. Outside, the wind howls furiously and pounds at the windows so hard that I’m sure they will explode.

  “Within and without,” Konrad says as he helps me hurriedly lower the chandelier.

  “Has it occurred to you,” I say as we clamber onto the wooden arms and proceed to haul ourselves up, “that our house is a bit gloomy?”

  We reach the ceiling and tie off. I insert the star-shaped key, and then pull open the hatch. We scramble inside and pull the door shut behind us.

  “This was good thinking,” whispers Konrad, lighting a candle. “If it’s truly a demon, it won’t dare come into a chapel.”

  “You really think so?” I ask.

  “Well, it’s a nice thought.”

  “I was actually just thinking it was a mistake. If we’re discovered, we have no means of escape.”

  “We’ll fight all the harder, then,” Konrad says, winding back the string of his crossbow.

  I do the same, and for a moment we work in silence, spreading out all our weapons as the heavy footfalls move about the house overhead.

  “She was Wilhelm Frankenstein all along,” murmurs Konrad to himself. “I can’t believe I thought her so… attractive.”

  “Well, she looked, um, very beautiful.”

  “I’m more disturbed than I can say.” He shudders, then asks, “What’s happening in the real world?”

  I take a breath, close my eyes, and—

  * * *

  —“It doesn’t matter,” Elizabeth says to my imposter. “I can still enter to say good-bye to Konrad. There’s this, remember.”

  From her pocket she takes the small brown bottle of the elixir she siphoned from the main flask. In the spirit world my heart beats hard. In my panic I forgot about Elizabeth’s private store. And Wilhelm Frankenstein knows nothing of this. He’s silent, but I feel his tension in my real-world body.

  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.