Such Wicked Intent

by Kenneth Oppel

  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.

  “It can’t reach us!” Konrad cries out hopefully.

  “Again!” I shout, reloading my bow.

  We fire volley after volley into its body, and though the demon wails, he does not seem at all weakened, or deterred from his quarry. He makes one last futile jump to reach us, and then stops.

  “Look!” Konrad cries.

  Butterflies are leaving the pit demon’s body, whirling about him like a tornado, stretching themselves into a line that reaches up and up toward the ceiling and into our hatchway.

  Below, the demon clasps hold of this infernal writhing rope and begins to climb toward us.

  CHAPTER 20

  THE PIT DEMON

  KONRAD AND I STAB AT THE NEAREST BUTTERFLIES, SEVERING and impaling, cutting short their writhing rope, but even as they fall away, new ones take their place.

  The pit demon climbs, claw over claw, and with fewer butterflies upon the creature, I glimpse flashes of flesh, pockmarked with burst pustules, a knee that looks as though it’s jointed backward. And then there’s no more time for looking, for it’s nearing the hatch, no matter how fast Konrad and I slash at the butterfly rope.

  I drop my sword, and Konrad and I take up our crossbows once more and fire all our remaining bolts into the monster. But the demon seems completely unharmed.

  “Should’ve. Killed this thing. Before it woke,” Konrad gasps.

  The demon hangs from its rope with one clawed hand, shoots up the other, and nearly catches me in its talons. Konrad stabs it with his saber, and a shriek rises from the creature’s hidden maw.

  Closer he climbs. I look at Konrad, wanting to say something—to tell him I love him, to apologize again—but my mouth is so dry that it’s all I can do to swallow. I tighten my left hand on my saber, my right on my dagger.

  A low howl fills our secret chamber, making my ears vibrate painfully. At first I think the noise comes from the demon, but then I realize it’s from outside the house altogether. With a great rattling, I hear, and feel, the windows of the chapel shake.

  The pit demon must have heard it too, for I see its seething black skull jerk toward the windows. And even though I can discern no expression on its pullulating face, the tilt of its neck, the hunch of his shoulders, conveys emotion.

  “He’s frightened,” I say to Konrad, who nods.

  Is the spirit outside more powerful? The evil spirit—and only at this instant do I realize that everything Wilhelm Frankenstein, in the guise of Analiese, has told us might be a lie.

  The pit demon’s head turns back to us. Again I see a flash of its serrated teeth, and above them a featureless expanse of skull that has no eyes but for the eyeholes of a huge black butterfly, wings spread. The monster climbs higher, and this time an entire forearm flails into our tiny chamber, rearing and striking like an alligator. Time and time again Konrad and I throw ourselves clear, stabbing with our blades.

  My frenzied mind carves out a splinter of time, and I remember how once, in a play, we pretended to fight a monster side by side just so.

  And then the demon’s claw catches Konrad across the right arm, tearing his shirt and opening a long gash in his flesh. No blood issues forth, only a dreadful line of darkness. My twin cries out, and I realize that all during his illness I never once heard him make such a heartrending noise.

  I turn on the pit demon’s arm with such hatred that my vision contracts, and with my saber I chop at its thickest part, like a hatchet into wood. Amputated butterflies scatter and swirl, and I feel the blade bite deep. There’s an outraged howl, and the arm pulls back.

  “If you feel pain,” I bellow down at it, “there’s more to come!”

  I rush to my brother. “Are you all right?”

  He nods weakly, looking at the strange dark gash on his arm. This thing can cut. It can wound, and in a way that makes my blood run cold.

  Part of me has clung foolishly to the hope that this spirit world monster cannot truly harm us. But I’m wrong. If it can cut, surely it can destroy us altogether.

  The demon’s head suddenly twists on its writhing neck, looking back toward the chapel entrance. The butterflies’ wings contract and tighten with anticipation.

  “Dear God!” I hear a familiar voice exclaim.

  “Henry?” I shout.

  “Victor? Konrad?” Elizabeth calls out, her voice constricted with fear.

  “Up here!” I yell.

  The pit demon drops from his butterfly rope and hits the floor with a thunderclap. He turns to face my friends, shoulders hunched, knees bent backward in a freakish hunter’s posture.

  I risk sticking my head out the hatchway and see Henry and Elizabeth just as Konrad first saw us, as creatures enveloped in light. With their swords raised before them, they might be archangels.

  “Henry’s ablaze,” I tell Konrad.

  He grunts in pain as he moves beside me. “But Elizabeth’s light is greatly faded.”

  The demon takes a tentative step toward them, then stops, one freakishly long arm outstretched as though testing the heat from a fire.

  “You’re powerful!” I shout to Henry. “Remember that! You’re both alive with light and heat!”

  “We have your talisman, Victor!” Elizabeth cries. “Get out of there!”

  “How?” I shout back, for the pit demon is still almost directly below, and his skull jerks up at us once more.

  With a roar Henry is running at the pit demon, a streak of light, his flashing sword lifted over his shoulder. Frozen, I watch, my breath stoppered in my throat, as the pit demon takes a backward step, shrieking, one arm thrust forward to ward off Henry’s light and heat. As its talons sweep toward Henry’s head, Henry strikes with his sword, severing two of the monster’s claws. Howling, the pit demon staggers back, stunned, foul vapors pluming into the air.


  Gagging, Henry peers up at us. “Now!”

  The infernal rope disintegrates into individual butterflies as they rush to their master, but I can see that the chandelier rope still hangs from its pulley in the ceiling. “Go!” I shout at Konrad, who is wincing even as he nods.

  We don’t hesitate. I let him jump first and grab hold of the rope. Then I quickly follow as the rope starts to swing outward with the momentum. We lower ourselves quickly, and when we let go, we hit the floor hard and stumble. Konrad cries out as he pushes himself up with his wounded arm.

  I take hold of him and we run. From the corner of my eye, I see the pit demon clutching its severed fingers to their stumps, and butterflies crawling over them, excreting a black gossamer that seems to be fusing them back together.

  With Henry and Elizabeth blazing the trail, we bolt from the chapel.

  “Where are our bodies?” I gasp as we rush down the hallway.

  “Your bedchamber,” Elizabeth says.

  “The spirit clock, you brought it?” I ask.

  “I have it!” Henry shouts back to me.

  The pit demon’s hooves crack behind us. I glance back and see it stooping through the chapel doorway. Its skull turns left and right, searching for us, and then a torrent of butterflies issues from it in all directions.

  “It’s blind,” I say. “It needs the butterflies to see.”

  That fact will buy us a little time. Elizabeth turns and holds my ring in the air. I know she cannot hand it to me; her heat is a barrier between us now.

  “Catch,” she says, and throws it. I clasp it gratefully in my hand, and the moment I push it onto my finger, I feel a surge. My spirit is reconnected with my body. We race for the staircase.

  “I quite enjoyed knocking you out,” Henry says, completely unwinded as we take the stairs two at a time. “But when we put a drop of elixir into your mouth, and arrived in the spirit world, it was quite a shock to see you were Wilhelm Frankenstein.”

  “I thought it was Analiese,” says Elizabeth.

  “There was never an Analiese,” I reply. “You were right. Where’s Wilhelm?”

  “We tied him up and dragged him into the library,” Henry says. “He was still out cold.”

  When we’re halfway up the stairs, a swarm of black butterflies strafes us, then circles back to tell the demon.

  “It’ll come for us soon,” I pant.

  Almost at once the sound of clopping hoofs, getting louder, shakes the foundations of the château.

  “We can’t leave Konrad behind with that thing!” I cry.

  “I’m not sure we can destroy it,” says Henry. “But I’m willing to fight it to the end.”

  “No. It heals itself,” says Konrad, wincing with pain. “We can’t kill it.”

  I look at his arm and see that the eerie black line has spread in a series of spider veins.

  “Then, we need to open the house!” I say impulsively. “A door! A window!”

  “What about the evil spirit outside?” Henry asks, startled.

  “It might help us. Whatever it is, it’s no friend of the pit demon’s,” I say.

  “Or Wilhelm Frankenstein’s,” Elizabeth adds. “I think that mist might be the gatherers, trying to get inside all along.”

  “Are you sure?” Henry asks.

  “I’m sure of nothing,” she says. “But going out may be Konrad’s only chance of escape.”

  “And I’m not leaving,” I say, “until I’m sure he’s safe from that thing.”

  We reach the top of the stairs, and Henry suddenly falters, putting a hand to his chest.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “The spirit clock,” he says in shock, pulling it from his breast pocket. “So soon?”

  I can see it vibrating as the fetal sparrow limb beats urgently at the glass, and then I whirl to see the reeking, churning shape of the pit demon at the base of the staircase. Its claws are completely intact. It takes the steps three at a time on its hoofed feet.

  Down the hallway toward my bedchamber we charge.

  “We’ll throw open the balcony window in my room,” I say. “Let in whatever wants to come in!”

  We burst through the doorway. I know instantly where my body lies in the real world, and I want more than anything to lie down, to return. But not before we open the window. I stride toward it and hear Elizabeth give a shriek of surprise, and—

  From behind the door Wilhelm Frankenstein lunges, knocking me over. My saber and dagger fly from my hands. We crash to the floor, him atop me. I punch and kick to drive him off, but he is single-minded, crazed by his three hundred years of captivity, and he swiftly seizes my hand and wrenches the ring from my finger.

  “Give it to me!” shouts Henry, striding toward Wilhelm. My friend’s face is fiercely ablaze, and his arms are spread to radiate his light and heat.

  Wilhelm staggers back, and just as Henry is about to lay his searing hand upon him and grasp my ring, Wilhelm throws it. It sails high over all our heads and out the door of the bedchamber. I hear its clink as it hits the stone, and the thin metallic sound of it rolling farther down the hallway.

  I don’t think. I run madly after it, see its sparkle as it comes to a halt, and then see the pit demon’s insect-infested hoof stamp down before it. I slowly look up. The demon towers above me. With one clawed hand it reaches down and picks up my ring.

  I feel Henry’s hand on my shoulder, pulling me back.

  “Henry—” I begin to say.

  But he is already advancing on the giant, crying, “Get back, get back!” But he never reaches it, for a torrent of butterflies comes at Henry, and even as he struggles against it, slashing with his sword, I see the butterflies flaring with color as they drain him. With every valiant step Henry weakens.

  But Elizabeth rushes forward, and before the pit demon can fall back, she swings her sword with both hands at its leg. Her blow has such force that she can’t wrench the sword free from the demon’s churning flesh. It roars from the vast serrated gash of its mouth, and more noxious fumes boil from its wound.

  Suddenly Konrad is at my side, pressing my sword back into my hand, and we strike at the thing’s torso, as high as we can reach, again and again. I can see my ring glinting in its clawed fist, and I try to sever its hand, but it keeps it out of my reach.

  I give a cry of triumph as the pit demon’s wounded leg buckles and cracks at the point of its wound, the two halves of its leg held together with only ghastly sinew and the efforts of writhing butterfly wings.

  Once again hope swells within me. Maybe we truly can destroy this foul thing. I look over to see Elizabeth and Henry both trying to fight off the black butterflies that now cover them, bleeding them of their lives.

  “Your light!” Konrad calls in anguish to Elizabeth over his shoulder.

  And then I can no longer see her light, nor Henry’s, for the butterflies have done their devilish work and return to their master with bloated colorful bodies. They fly to his wounded leg, and as their own bodies become black once more, new energy seeps into the pit demon. He stands tall, his leg freakishly refused.

  With one claw the pit demon slashes a black gash across Konrad’s chest, and before I can rush to his aid, the monster swats at me as though I were no more than a dog. I fly back and hit the ground.

  “Konrad!” I cry out.

  Elizabeth and Henry are helping drag Konrad’s limp form back as the pit demon advances slowly down the hallway. He is a nightmare drawn with black lightning.

  We have no more light, no heat left to fight this thing.

  And precious little life. As I stagger to my feet to help the others, I feel dizzy with weakness. I hear my pulse in my ears, tapping like the faltering alarm of the spirit clock. In the real world our bodies are dying.

  “We need to return,” Henry gasps when I reach him.

  “I can’t return without my talisman,” I wheeze. “Get to the bedchamber! Open the windows!”

  With a roar I rush
at the pit demon, eyes locked on the clawed hand that clutches my ring. I aim for its wrist but never even get to swing my sword, for once more the monster swats me and I sail back, my sword spinning from my hand and clattering along the floor.

  At that moment Wilhelm Frankenstein bursts from my room, pushing past Henry, and snatches up my sword.

  “Where’s your talisman?” he roars, running at me.

  “I don’t have it!” I shout back.

  For a moment I think he is about to impale me, but a torrent of butterflies intercepts him and drives him back against the wall, pinning him, helpless. He turns to look at the pit demon, and on Wilhelm’s face now—that fine, smug face that gazed down at me from its portrait—is pure terror. He stares at the pit demon, and to my amazement the pit demon stares back, suddenly motionless.

  And I understand instinctively that there is a history between these two that goes back centuries. Wilhelm was the one to first wake it, to suckle its butterflies and use their bounteous powers, to promise the pit demon in some perhaps unspoken way that it would rise again.

  Terrible noises emerge from the pit demon’s throat, that same brutal language I heard earlier. I turn to look at Wilhelm, and see a black butterfly crawl into each of his ears—not to stopper them, I realize, but to translate.

  “I had no intention of abandoning you!” Wilhelm cries. “I was going to return!”

  At this, a violent gale of noise explodes from the pit demon.

  Wilhelm persists. “I was going to bring back a new body for you, one made from your very own flesh. They have found your bones!”

  For a moment the pit demon is silent, as though considering, its body a quivering mass of insect limbs and antennae and pointy wing tips. Then it lunges. I throw myself from its path, as do Elizabeth and Henry, dragging Konrad’s limp body with them. The monster lands in front of Wilhelm Frankenstein. It takes him in its two clawed hands and lifts him off the floor.

  For the first time the butterflies around the pit demon’s head disperse completely, and I can see it truly has no other features but a diagonal gash that spans its jutting, low-browed skull. It opens wide, and its teeth sink into Wilhelm’s head, biting it clear in half even as he screams. It then proceeds with terrifying speed to cram the flailing body into its enormous serrated mouth, devouring Wilhelm utterly.