The Constantine Affliction

by Tim Pratt

“I can see!” she shouted, holding up her hands in front of her. “The light, it… it is so much richer than the light I remember, and I can smell, oh, everything, nothing blends together, I can detect every strand of scent, and I feel—” She turned her perfect head to look at Adam—and flinched away, crying out in alarm, nearly sliding off the table in the violence of her reaction.

  “Do not be alarmed,” Adam said from behind his mask. “I know I am… fearsome.”

  She reached out and took his hand, running her finger across the stitching where his fingers—all with flesh of different colors, and none quite proportional in their lengths—were attached to his hands. “Were you in an accident, Adam?”

  “No, my darling.” He closed his hand on hers. There could be no lies between them, not now. “I was made, you see. Created, by a man, many long years ago, sewn together from broken pieces to make a whole. And I am whole, where it counts, in my mind, in my soul—in my heart.” Only one heart, at the moment. He’d have to rectify that when he had a chance.

  She nodded, apparently having no difficulty believing him—she was intelligent, but not well-educated, and while someone with scientific knowledge might have found the story of Adam’s creation difficult to believe, she had grown up surrounded by the wonders wrought by Oswald and his ilk, and did not appear to doubt his story at all.

  “You should see yourself, Margaret. I hope you will be pleased. Let me bring you a glass.” He fetched a highly-polished sheet of metal, the closest thing he had to a mirror—he still had a tendency to smash any mirrors in his vicinity, when the dark moods took him—and let her hold it up to her face.

  “Oh, Adam, I… I can’t believe it. You have given me a whole new face!”

  “A whole new body,” Adam said.

  Margaret lowered the glass, frowning. “What do you mean? This is not my own body, repaired?”

  “You were beyond repair, my sweet, your body broken—but your mind was whole. I saved you. I gave you a new form.”

  “Am I made… as you were?” She examined her face more intently in the glass, as if looking for scars, seams, inelegant joinings.

  “Oh, no,” Adams said. “I am a far better creator than my own maker was. No, your form is not fearsome, but beautiful, and you are not sewn from broken bodies, but made from only the most modern materials. You will not age, Margaret. You will not grow sick. You will be this beautiful forever. And we will be together, just as we discussed.” He laced his fingers into hers.

  “Can I stand?”

  “Of course.” He helped her down from the table, and she tottered a little, then found her balance. She looked around the low-ceilinged, cluttered workshop, frowning. “This place is so cramped, so dank, Adam. This is where you work your miracles?”

  “It is indeed. But we need not stay here, my darling—I have money put away, and we may go anywhere. Where have you always wanted to go? Paris? Rome? Someplace warm. Someplace with lights. Some place where we may love, and be loved, and be in love—”

  She touched his cheek, though he could not feel it, through the mask. “May I see your face, Adam?” Her voice was low, a whisper, and he could not read her tone, though her voice looked like swirls of dark ink dispersing into the air.

  “I… I fear…”

  “I must see your face,” she said gently.

  “Of course.” He removed the mask, keeping his own eyes squeezed tightly shut, but nevertheless, he heard her sudden gasp, felt her hand tear away from his. “I know it is frightening,” he said. “I was not beautiful to begin with, and my skin suffered terrible frostbite some years ago when I was in the Arctic, and there was also a fire, but—” He opened his eyes. Margaret was standing several feet away, and had a hand to her mouth in horror.

  Adam’s first memory was of his own creator, looking upon him in horror at the monstrous thing he had wrought, and though Margaret and Victor could not have been more different, their expressions were almost the same.

  He took a step toward her.

  Margaret backed away farther, faster than he advanced. “Adam, I… Forgive me. I will always cherish you as a friend, and as my savior, but I fear… I cannot be your… your…”

  “Wife,” he whispered. “When you were ill, in the darkness, we spoke of marriage, of eternity together—”

  “Yes, of course, but I was ill, and frightened, and the only thing in the world was your voice, and now that you have changed me, transformed me in this way, it seems unwise to rush into such an arrangement. I—I am simply overwhelmed, and—”

  “I know I am fearsome to look upon, Margaret, but truly, I am the same man you loved before.” He tried to stand still, to keep from frightening her further, but his need for her drove him to take another step, even though, as he knew she would, Margaret took a corresponding step backward. “The man you talked with for all those hours, sharing your dreams, your fears, your history.”

  “I know, I know that in my mind, but your face, the size of you… I do not wish to offend you, but in truth, you frighten me, Adam. And to tell me my body is not human, that your body is not human, it is all too strange, too much for my mind to cope with at once, and my every instinct tells me to run away—” With a visible effort, she straightened her spine, standing her ground. “I will not flee, because I know you are a gentle and wise soul, and in time I will grow used to your appearance, but even so, marriage… we barely know one another, you do not truly know me, and—”

  Adam opened and closed his enormous, scarred hands. “You are beautiful, inside, and I have made your body match that inner beauty. That is all I need know. You are… exquisite. I have made you so. And in time, as you said, you will become accustomed to my appearance, you will grow to care for me, and love will blossom—”

  “You will always have my gratitude,” she said, lowering her head. “And my friendship. You have given me a new life, Adam. A fresh start. I owe you so much, but I cannot—”

  Everything was collapsing. Just as everything always did. He felt the familiar dark storm rising within him, and did not try to resist it. The darkness was his birthright. It was his only inheritance.

  Adam dashed a row of beakers from his table, and they shattered on the floor, spraying glass. Margaret wailed in alarm, and a dark part of Adam was happy to hear her cry of fear. It was only natural to want to cause pain to the one who had caused you pain, after all. It was only human. “You rutted with men in alleys,” Adam said, his voice soft and low as he stalked toward her. “Filthy men, stinking of rum, ignorant men, beneath contempt, you let them spill their diseased seed into you—but you will not touch me? I disgust you?”

  “Adam, I do not mean to—”

  “You were a whore!” he shouted, spraying spittle into her face, making her flinch. “I took your dead brain and put it in the body of a goddess! I am your creator, your maker, and you dare to disobey me—” He reached out, not sure what he meant to do, but knowing it would be violent.

  “Did you never dare to disobey your own creator?” she whispered. “Did the fact that he created you mean you had to be his slave?”

  Adam froze, his arms extended before him. He began to tremble, and the wound in his leg ached.

  “Leave here,” he whispered. “Run, Margaret. There are tunnels, behind you, with your new senses you should be able to sense the flow of air, and follow the passageways to the surface. You must go now, before… before I… I cannot always help myself…”

  She must have heard something in his voice, because she did not attempt to calm him, to change his mind, or even to say goodbye. She ran.

  He sat down deliberately on the floor of his laboratory, held his face in his hands, and sobbed. This filthy world. He had become that which he despised—a creator, possessive of his creation, determined to make it do his bidding. Love had been in his grasp, and had escaped. Or else he was a fool, and there had never been love at all, only a desperate woman, grateful to have her life saved, responding warmly to the only voice she heard. And what
had he done? Called her a whore—a truth, but not a kind one. Nearly attacked her. Driven her away.

  He was a monster. This world had made him a monster. He should never have come to London, never taken Oswald’s money, never listened to Oswald’s promises, never pursued his desire to create a mate for himself.

  If love was lost to him, then what did he have to live for? What emotion was strongest in him, apart from the desire for love? What desire could guide him now?

  Pressing his hand against his heart, the one Oswald’s bullet had stopped, the question was answered. His name was Adam. He knew he would never find love.

  Now all he wanted was revenge.

  Adam went to the room where he kept the ravenous, feral dead women he thought of as his honor guard. They strained against their chains, but they did not attack him, and so he had no need to activate the small magnetic device that he used to guide them: their rudimentary minds had come to associate him with food, after all, the only kindness they cared about. They were devoted to him, at least.

  Adam walked into their midst. “Come,” he said. “I will feed you. I will feed you fresh meat. I will feed you the brain and liver and heart of the most brilliant man in London.”

  In Dark Places

  Ever since awakening in the cage, Pimm had wanted to pull Ellie to him and bury his face in her hair, so glad was he to find her unharmed. During Oswald’s grandiose soliloquy, he’d been more interested in looking at her profile than in hearing the old man’s mad secrets. Now that they had a quiet moment, he considered taking her hand, and telling her that being gassed and awakening with his head in her lap had altered his viewpoint on certain significant subjects… but he settled for pouring Ellie another cup of tea while Freddy worked at picking the lock, muttering and wiggling her tools. Big Ben was awake now, sitting in one corner with a teacup seeming thimble-sized in his huge hand, keeping watch in case Carrington or Crippen or Oswald himself should return. They could be out in the gloom, observing, Pimm supposed, but none of them seemed like the types to sit quietly and watch.

  “I’m sorry I missed the picnic,” Pimm murmured to Ellie.

  “Yes, then we could have all three been abducted all at once,” Ellie said. “That would have saved a great deal of time.” She glanced at Freddy, then leaned in toward Pimm—making his heart trill a bit—and said, “Why did you marry her?”

  Ah. “Well, she was in a dreadful predicament, of course. She needed help, and I was in a position to give it. Freddy’s family was never particularly patient or understanding, and they would not have tolerated the shame. And back then, especially, Freddy was entirely incapable of making a living on his—her—own. Taking on a new identity was an obvious necessity, and I had the contacts to make that possible. I might have merely given her money to set up her own household, but an unmarried woman of obvious means living alone would have been a target for fortune-seeking suitors, and never had a moment’s peace. And obviously I couldn’t have a young lady living in my house without marrying her. It just… seemed to make sense, and to solve both our problems—my problem being a family that had grown increasingly insistent that I marry someone and settle down.”

  “But… to close yourself off to the chance of every marrying for love…”

  Those of Pimm’s class seldom married for love, or only for love, but that was hardly worth mentioning. “I suppose it never seemed right, to attach myself to a woman, given the way I live—chasing criminals. And, to be frank, drinking more than anyone else seems to think I should. My parents kept pressing these sweet society girls on me, you know, their friends’ younger daughters—who seemed to grow younger every year—and I was afraid my family would wear me down, that eventually I would marry one of them just to make them stop, and subsequently make the poor thing miserable. A girl who loves dancing at balls and doing needlework and going horseback riding and playing the harpsichord… life with me would be an unrelenting horror for such a person. Marrying Freddy saved some poor girl from just such a fate.” He made an effort, and met Ellie’s eyes: so blue, so focused. “I confess, I did not anticipate meeting another woman whose personality seemed a rather better fit than, ah…”

  “But you are married,” Ellie said.

  “Yes,” Pimm said miserably.

  “How very complicated this new world is,” Ellie said. She took his hand. “But we must be willing to change with the times. The world is no longer conventional, after all. Perhaps we have no choice but to become somewhat unconventional ourselves.”

  “Are you saying…”

  “I am saying, if we do not die here, or in the near future, then you and I should dine together. But this time, I will not be wearing a false mustache and a waistcoat. That is all I am saying, for now. But I am saying it most emphatically.”

  “Seeing you two leaning together like that does my heart good,” Freddy called, “but we should really be on our way.” She grinned and pushed open the cage door, which hardly squealed at all since she’d dripped a little olive oil from the picnic basket into the hinges.

  “We can’t flee immediately,” Pimm said. “There is another lock for you to pick, Freddy.”

  “The Queen, yes. I can scarcely credit it. Seems she should be immune to the terrors of the flesh, somehow.” Freddy slipped her lockpicks back into her hair, wrinkling her nose. “The picks are dirty from the lock now. I really must get some dresses with pockets. The absence of pockets in women’s clothing is part of a systematic attempt to oppress women, did you know that, Ellie? You should write a story on it.”

  Once they were out of the cage, Pimm picked his coat up from the chair and patted the pockets. “The pistol is gone—Carrington must have kept it—but everything else is here. And, of course, I have my walking stick.” He snatched the latter up from the floor. Shading his eyes against the alchemical lamp, he peered into the dark. “Do you think it’s a trap? I can’t believe they left us entirely unguarded.”

  Ben snorted. “Oswald doesn’t know what he’s doing, nor that Carrington neither, not when it comes to holding prisoners. Without Value to advise them on the practical end of being a criminal, they’re lost. Of course they’d trust a lock on a cage door to keep us in. But we should move away from the lamp. It only it makes us a target, you see.”

  “I’m not sure where I’m going,” Pimm said, setting off into the darkness in the direction Carrington had gone when he left to fetch the tea. “Do you know which way the office is from here, Ben?”

  “’fraid not. I was in no state to pay attention when they dragged us over.”

  “Ah, well, how big can this warehouse be?” Pimm said.

  “Oh, you should know better,” Freddy complained. “You’ve just tripled the size of the building by saying that, you know.”

  “I do recall Mr. Value telling me this was originally three warehouses that got all joined up together,” Ben said. “So we may have a bit of a walk ahead of us.”

  They moved carefully in the gloom—the light from the high windows was fading as the afternoon wore on—skirting around heaps of old machinery and patches of floor slick with grease. They discovered a dozen of the clockwork women, standing stock-still in rows as regimented as any group of toy soldiers, their eyes blank, unwound and undirected, eerie sentinels in the dark.

  Not far from the grove of courtesans they encountered a tall partition dividing up the space, walked around the wall, and found Oswald’s clockwork factory. Alchemical lamps dangled from beams overhead, illuminating abandoned work surfaces scattered with tools. Great shelves held bins filled with what looked for all the world like severed body parts: arms, legs, torsos, feet, hands. Pimm and the others drifted around the space, marveling at the horror of it all, the eyeless bald heads of women arrayed in a row on a high shelf, with a line of wigs draped on stands beside them. “I wish I had an artist here,” Ellie said. “An engraving of this would be a striking accompaniment to the newspaper story I will inevitably write, and I fear a mere description won’t do the sc
ene justice.”

  Ben picked up a large box of eyeballs, all different colors, and rattled it around. “Gruesome, innit?” he said. “But I have been to this part of the warehouse before, when I visited with Mr. Value, and I believe I know how to get to the office from here.”

  “By all means, lead on,” Pimm said. Ben guided them through a low door, into another cavernous space—this one occupied chiefly by the sound of dripping water—and on a roundabout path among splintered crates and broken machinery until Pimm saw the outline of a door off in the distance.

  “That’s where we came in,” Ben whispered. “The office is just over—”

  “Shh,” Ellie said. “There’s someone moving around over there.”

  They all peered toward the office on its raised platform some hundred yards away. The windows of the office were now lit by the steady light of an alchemical lamp, and a shape moved inside. After a moment the door banged open and Carrington stepped out, whistling, and walked down the steps.

  “You must release us at once!” a querulous voice called, but Carrington didn’t slow his stride, shouting, “Shut up, you old baggage!” over his shoulder as he descended. Pimm gestured to his friends, and they all faded back, ducking behind a stack of crates.

  When Carrington passed by their hiding place, Pimm stepped out, jammed the metal ball at the tip of his walking stick into the man’s side, and depressed the button that released the stored charge. Carrington shuddered and collapsed into a twitching heap.

  “Could I kick him?” Freddy said. “Just a little?”

  “We should question him,” Ellie said. “He may know more about Oswald’s ‘great work,’ and what he has planned for the Exposition tonight.”

  “Fine, fine.” Pimm knelt, removed his pistol from Carrington’s pocket, and rose. “Ben, bring him along, will you? But first we’d better free…”

  “The old baggage?” Freddy said.

  “Show some respect for your sovereign, Freddy.” He led them—Ben carrying Carrington over his shoulder like a sack of beans—toward the cage. “Your Majesty!” Pimm called. “My friends and I will free you shortly.”