‘Why are you here?’ he growled.
‘They’re leaving London,’ said Billy. ‘Frankenstein and Clerval.’
Creecher was on his feet in a flash and lurched towards Billy, his arms outstretched. Billy shielded his face and stepped back.
‘Whoa! I know where they’re going,’ he said. ‘I ain’t stupid. They’re getting the coach to Windsor and then Oxford.’ Creecher didn’t need to know about the list of forwarding addresses yet. Billy would keep that information to himself for the time being. Never say more than you need to.
‘Windsor?’ said Creecher. ‘Where is that?’
‘I don’t know, do I?’ said Billy. ‘I’ve never been out of London in my life, unless you count Southwark. West, I think. On the Thames.’
‘Probably just as well,’ said Creecher, with a sigh, handing Billy a news-sheet and pointing to a headline.
‘Giant spectre haunts London,’ quoted Billy and looked up at Creecher before reading the article to himself. Billy and Creecher’s activities had not gone unnoticed, it seemed.
‘We will wait until dark and then follow,’ said Creecher, before walking back to the other side of the attic and sitting down.
‘Oh no!’ said Billy, shaking his head. ‘You might be going to Windsor, but I ain’t. Find yourself some other Billy when you get there.’
‘But I do not want to find another Billy,’ said Creecher with a frown. ‘I want this one.’
‘Well, this one is a Londoner and he stays put.’
‘I thought we were friends,’ Creecher growled.
Billy stared at the giant, looking for a sign that he was joking, but his face was as grim as ever.
‘You was about to throttle me a moment ago!’ said Billy.
Creecher shrugged.
‘Is your life so bad now?’ he replied. ‘What were you when I found you? A thief, and who knows what later – if you lived that long. What future did you have? Transportation, if you were lucky. The gallows more than likely.’
Billy could find nothing to argue with. It was true. For all that Creecher still unnerved and even terrified him, his life was better now. He didn’t want to give that up. Even so . . .
‘But I can’t leave London,’ said Billy plaintively.
‘Why not?’ asked Creecher, with another shrug.
‘I don’t know. It’s just what I am. It’s me. It’s where I live.’
‘I have no home,’ said the giant. ‘I belong nowhere . . .’
‘Yeah, well, sorry. But I can’t help that. I’m not leaving London.’
Billy took a deep breath and felt the dust coat his tongue. He walked to the window and looked across the rooftops towards the river. A fog was rolling in.
‘Sorry,’ he said, turning back to Creecher.
The giant did not reply at first.
‘Perhaps you are scared to leave,’ he said after a few moments.
‘I’m not scared.’
Creecher looked up at him and then nodded sullenly.
‘Well, I cannot make you come,’ he said.
‘No, you can’t.’
An awkward silence ensued and Billy felt compelled to break it.
‘Look, I’d better go. Good luck, eh?’
He held out his hand and after a moment the giant reached out and took it. The grip was not as firm as Billy had feared.
‘Good luck to you also, mon ami,’ said Creecher.
Billy climbed out of the window, expecting as he did so that Creecher’s hand would grab him and wrench him back inside. But before he knew it, he was down in the alleyway and heading back towards his rooms in Soho Square.
There was the usual raucous traffic at Seven Dials but he was oblivious to it. Was this how it was going to end with the giant? They would just go their separate ways and that would be it?
Billy shook his head. He needed to think. What was life really going to be like on his own again? Without Creecher he would be back to his old pickpocketing ways, having to rely on whatever Gratz chose to give him for the trinkets he managed to steal. Without Creecher he would never earn enough to pay for his rooms or his clothes or the decent food he’d become accustomed to. He couldn’t bear the idea of going back to the boy he had been.
Pickpocketing was a hard life. Some days Billy would take nothing at all. And besides, Creecher was right – it was only a matter of time before he got caught. Everyone got caught eventually.
It was also only a matter of time, too, before he ran into Skinner and the rest of Fletcher’s old cronies. Billy might be able to talk his way out of trouble for a while by pretending the giant was still in London, but it wouldn’t work for ever.
The more he thought, the slower his footsteps became. Creecher was right – he was scared to leave London. It was the unknown he dreaded most. He weighed his fear of Skinner against his fear of leaving London and found that the more he deliberated, the less it seemed to be about fear at all.
Billy realised that he actually wanted to go with Creecher. He did not know where it would all lead, but he knew that he needed to find out; he knew that he was not ready to let Creecher simply walk away and out of his life.
As soon as he arrived at his rooms in Soho Square, Billy packed a bag, settled his rent with his landlord and walked briskly back to the baker’s. When he climbed into the attic, the giant was exactly where he had left him, as if waiting for Billy to return.
‘All right,’ said Billy, dropping his bag. ‘Why not?’
‘Good,’ said Creecher with a grin. ‘Then we must –’
‘On one condition,’ Billy interrupted.
‘One condition?’ growled Creecher.
‘Yeah,’ said Billy. ‘I want to know who Frankenstein is and why we’re following him. Otherwise you’re on your own and I’ll take my chances here.’
Creecher’s frown deepened and Billy readied himself for an attack. But just as the giant seemed about to erupt in fury, he let out a long sigh and hung his head.
‘Very well, my friend,’ he said. ‘You should know. You deserve to know. But I warn you, what you will hear will change your life for ever. Do you still want me to tell you?’
Billy nodded silently. There was a long pause.
‘Frankenstein . . . made me,’ said Creecher at last.
‘Made you do what?’ said Billy.
Creecher took a deep breath.
‘No, my friend,’ he said. ‘Frankenstein . . . made me. He . . . created me.’
‘You’re saying he’s your father?’ said Billy, perplexed.
Creecher shook his head.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘He made me. He formed me. With his own hands. He built me.’
Billy stared at him for a moment and then laughed drily.
‘That’s it, is it?’ he said. ‘That’s the best you can come up with? Do you think I’m an idiot?’
‘You asked for the truth –’
‘Yes, the truth!’ yelled Billy. ‘Not a story. Not a joke!’
‘It is no joke,’ Creecher said.
‘It’s a riddle, then, is it?’
‘No riddle. You have followed him. You have seen the work he does.’
‘Yeah – so?’
‘Do you not see it?’ said Creecher. ‘Frankenstein is my maker. I am his creature.’
‘No!’ shouted Billy, but without conviction, the word ‘creature’ echoing in his ears. Of course! Mr Creecher. What a fool he was.
‘You know in your heart that it’s true,’ said the giant. ‘You have always known that I am not as other men. Even I do not know what I am. Can I be human if I am built by human hands? Am I a machine? Am I –’
‘Shut up!’ Billy yelled.
‘Wait! Billy!’
But he had already climbed out of the attic window and was scrabbling down the roof into the alley.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Billy ran without any real feel for direction. His running was purposeless save for a desire to put as much distance as he could between him and the
giant.
He ran until his legs would take him no further and his lungs burned. He stood, doubled over and gasping for breath. It took a few moments for him to recover.
As he collected himself and looked around, Billy realised that he had run, instinctively, back to his old haunts. He was standing in front of the steps of a church, its columns crumbling, the paintwork cracked and peeling on the entrance door, which creaked back and forth in the breeze until a sudden gust slammed it shut. He needed to move on and quickly.
Billy turned off the street down a darkened alley that ran alongside the high-walled graveyard. He could barely see his own feet on the cobbles, but he would have known his way blindfolded.
He was halfway down when he heard footsteps behind him. Was he being followed? The end of the alleyway was in sight. Billy speeded up just as a shadowed figure stepped into his path. He was grabbed by the throat and pulled sideways.
‘Well, well,’ said Skinner, walking into the light from a window overhead. ‘Don’t hurt him, Tibbsy. He’s one of us. You’ve come back to see us, Billy. Ain’t that nice, boys? And look how smart he is. I do believe you’ve washed.’
Billy spat and tried to calm his breathing.
‘You sound a bit out of breath there, Billy,’ said Skinner. ‘You want to look after yourself.’
Billy didn’t reply but stood up straight, coughed and spat again.
‘I’m not in the mood, Skinner,’ he said.
‘Is that right?’ Skinner smirked, pulling a knife from his pocket. The grip round Billy’s throat tightened.
‘I’ve got no fight with you,’ hissed Billy. ‘If it’s money you want, there’s a purse in my pocket. Take it.’
Skinner nodded to one of the boys holding Billy and he rooted in Billy’s coat pocket, found the purse and tossed it to Skinner.
‘Thanks for the cash, Billy,’ he said, walking slowly towards him. ‘But the fact is I just don’t like you – never have.’
‘Don’t be stupid –’ Billy began.
‘What?’ said Skinner, wide-eyed in mock fear. ‘Is the nasty giant going to come and get me, then?’
Skinner looked around. The other boys chuckled.
‘Well, where is he, then?’ said Skinner, turning back to Billy. ‘I don’t see any sign . . .’
The boy holding Billy had stopped laughing and was staring in horror at something over Skinner’s shoulder. Skinner turned to see Creecher standing behind him.
A strange sound emanated from his throat as Creecher grasped his neck and lifted him slowly from the ground. The other boys were already running, leaving Billy standing alone to watch Skinner’s body dangle, twitching, from Creecher’s noose-like grip. Skinner’s face was turning a darker and darker shade of purple, his eyes bulging from their sockets.
‘Let him go,’ said Billy.
Creecher looked at him but did not release his hold on Skinner.
‘Let him go!’ shouted Billy.
Creecher loosed his grip and Skinner fell in a gasping heap on to the cobbles at the giant’s feet. Billy walked over to him and kicked him hard in the ribs.
‘If I even see you again, I’m going to have him pull your innards out. Do you understand?’
Skinner coughed and gasped. Billy kicked him again.
‘I said, do you understand?’
‘Yes!’ hissed Skinner.
Billy looked up at Creecher.
‘What do you want?’
‘I followed you,’ said the giant.
‘Why?’
‘I was worried about you.’
‘Yeah?’ said Billy.
‘Yes,’ said Creecher. ‘Is that so hard for you to believe?’
Billy shrugged. Creecher slowly turned and began to walk away. Billy stood watching him leave, and then called after him.
‘Oi! Wait for me, you big lump.’
He trotted after the giant and they went back to the attic above the baker’s. They sat down at opposite ends of the space and, for a while, neither of them said a word.
‘How is it possible?’ said Billy eventually. ‘How can Frankenstein have built you? How can anyone do that?’
Creecher took a deep breath.
‘I cannot tell you how he did it. All that I know of my creation I have gleaned from a journal Frankenstein left in his coat, which I took when I fled his laboratory. But he was clever enough not to detail his methods there, no doubt fearing that someone else might read it and reproduce his experiment.’
Billy rubbed his forehead with his fingertips.
‘It can’t be,’ he said. ‘No one has the power to do that. It’s impossible.’
‘And yet he has done it,’ said Creecher.
‘But don’t you know anything about how he . . . made you?’
‘I have learned a little of his methods since,’ Creecher replied. ‘And I have read as much as I can from the works he used in his studies. I do know that he used the marrow from human bones and tissue from various organs to build me. Using his scientific skills, combined with arcane knowledge he acquired from an early obsession with alchemy, he has gained the power to grow flesh and give it life.’
‘Alchemy?’ said Billy.
‘You might call it magic,’ said Creecher.
Billy remembered Gratz and the story of the Golem. Sorcery made more sense to Billy than science.
‘In truth, what is now called science would once have been called magic,’ continued Creecher. ‘Maybe there is no difference.’
‘I read as many works as I could lay my hands on, the better to understand how Frankenstein had arrived at my creation. I read the works of Jabir ibn Hayyan. I read Hermes Trismegistus and Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus and Nicholas Flamel, and found that for centuries alchemists have sought to master seemingly impossible forces.
‘I had little interest in their search for a method of turning base metals to gold. It was their investigations into the life force itself that intrigued me. My eyes widened as I read of the elixir of life – a potion that would grant immortality – and of the creation of homunculi.’
‘What the hell is that?’ said Billy.
‘Homunculi are men created to do the alchemist’s bidding.’
‘Like the Golem?’
‘In a way,’ said Creecher. ‘But homunculus means “little man”. They are smaller than a child. And no one knows if any alchemist has truly succeeded in creating a living being.’
‘Until Frankenstein?’
Creecher nodded.
‘I believe that Frankenstein’s great discovery was in being able to bring life to his creation by harnessing the power of electricity.’
‘How?’ said Billy.
‘It is the spark of life,’ said Creecher. ‘A man called Aldini came to this very city when you were a baby. He ran electricity through a dead dog, an ox’s head – even a hanged man – making them twitch and cavort for the paying public.
‘Frankenstein realised that these circus tricks could be so much more. Instead of bringing animation to the dead for a few seconds, he might bring real life to his own creation.’
Billy was still picturing the spasms and convulsions of the hanged man as Creecher continued.
‘But for all his learning and powers, Frankenstein did not make the human being he had hoped for,’ he said bitterly. ‘Instead he built this monster you see before you. He brought me to life, but for what end? What is life without purpose?’
Billy was not sure what the purpose of his life was either, but kept his peace.
‘So how did you meet Frankenstein?’ he asked instead. ‘I mean, how did you meet up after you’d run away?’
Creecher waved the question away.
‘What does it matter? I met him and we talked and, though he clearly loathed being in my presence, he agreed to help me. He said that he needed to come to England to meet with some scientific minds that would assist him.’
‘But how?’ said Billy. ‘Is he going to . . . cure you?’
‘I am no
t a disease,’ said Creecher.
‘Sorry.’ Billy held up his hands. ‘But why are you – we – following him? What is it that you want him to do? How is he going to help you?’
‘He has promised to build me a companion,’ said Creecher.
Billy was speechless for a moment.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘Build another like you?’
‘Yes,’ said Creecher.
‘But . . . But why?’
‘Because then I will not be alone in the world.’
‘You’re not alone,’ said Billy. ‘You’ve got me.’
Creecher smiled.
‘That is good to hear. But it is companionship of another kind I want. Frankenstein has promised to build me a mate.’
‘A woman?’ said Billy, trying to calm the incredulity in his voice. ‘So that’s why he needs the bodies – the female bodies.’
Creecher nodded.
‘He needs fresh organs to work with. He harvests them and stores them in hermetically sealed jars.
‘If he builds me a mate, we will quit this world of men and go to the wilds of South America and live there in harmony with nature. The jungles of the Amazon will be our Eden. We have few needs and all will be met in our companionship.’
A procession of troubling images lumbered forward from the shadows of Billy’s imagination and he tried in vain to banish them.
What on earth would a female version of Creecher look like? The monster that Billy imagined was worse than Creecher. Though he could not have said why, it somehow seemed even more of a crime against nature to construct a female.
As usual, Billy had the distinct impression that all these thoughts were visible to Creecher, who stared at him with an inscrutable impression, making Billy blush awkwardly and look away.
‘I see you do not find the thought appealing,’ said Creecher. ‘Am I to be denied love, then?’
‘I don’t know,’ Billy answered. ‘What do I know about love? You’re the one that reads all the books.’
He had never for one moment considered that the giant had any need or desire for love. Every time he felt that he was getting closer to understanding Creecher, he was shocked by some new revelation about the giant.
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