Henriette from that burning cottage finally caught up to me and I drifted asleep also. Before too long I was visited by the same dark, troubling dreams that I had had previously. In the background was that same ruined castle reeking with its evil, and as with my other dreams, it appeared to beckon me. Right before waking I heard Victor Frankenstein’s voice calling me his magnificent creature.
I bolted upright expecting to see Victor Frankenstein whispering in my ear. But he wasn’t there. No one was. My cape had been thrown aside and Henriette was gone.
A panic overtook me as I jumped to my feet searching for her. All I could imagine was that those wolves had snuck into our camp and had dragged her away. Whatever it was that Frankenstein had put in my chest pounded as I ran wildly looking for any signs of Henriette.
I had to be calm. I told myself this. If I was going to find Henriette I had to be calm. I forced myself to stop my running, and instead concentrated on whatever night sounds I could hear. Straining and holding my breath, I listened until I heard faint, ungodly noises off in the distance, noises that didn’t seem possible to be coming from animals known of this earth.
I raced toward those noises. After I had run a mile I saw them. At first they were little more than shadows. As I moved closer I could see that they were of human form and they were naked. Four of them men, one of them a woman. Their bodies were thin and sinewy, and they crouched so that they faced away from me. The way their backs were hunched gave them a feral quality that sent a shiver up my spine. As they heard me approach, they turned toward me. From the deadness in their eyes, the starkness of their features and the wet blood shining on their lips, I knew these weren’t men and women, but vampyres. I saw also that they had been crouching next to a living being. Although her face was hidden by their forms, I recognized the clothing. Henriette.
“Away from her!” I yelled. “Leave her or I will kill you!”
One of them, a male vampyre, seemed particularly amused by this. Presumably he was their leader, and he turned to face me. I noticed a thick welt showed on his hip.
“You will not do so,” he said in a voice that dripped of ice and death. The other vampyres moved quickly to surround me.
“Why wouldn’t I?” I demanded.
“The same reason that we did not slay you while you slept. Because we both serve the same master.”
“That is not true!”
“Of course it is.” He smiled at me though his eyes remained lifeless. “Only Satan’s darkest arts could create a being like you, as he created us. I am curious, what type of being are you exactly?”
Henriette stirred on the ground. She was still alive. I raced over to her and was prepared to strike this vampyre down, but he stepped aside with a quickness that surpassed my own movement. I kneeled beside Henriette to soothe her. Their marks were upon her neck. As I tried to comfort her, she groaned softly.
“It is because of you that we took her,” the vampyre told me while I tended to Henriette. “We were content to feed on the wayward traveler and lost soldier, but your brazen stealing of those young girls sent angry hunting parties into the forest. We had to move deeper into the forest ourselves to avoid them, and have found far less to prey on here. I am curious. What have you done with all those young girls that you stole?”
I did not bother to answer him. Henriette was stirring fitfully on the ground. Her eyes were closed, and her face looked pale in the dim moonlight.
“It is too late for her,” the vampyre told me. “Because of her beauty, we chose not to drain her of all her blood, but to instead make her one of us.”
I tried desperately to wake Henriette from whatever disturbed dream she was engaged in. The vampyre laughed at this, as did several of his companions. Henriette opened her eyes. When I saw the deadness in them, I knew she was lost to me. She made a horrible guttural noise, and sprang forward to attack me, but was still too weak and her attack was feeble. Her eyes closed and she collapsed back to the ground.
“This is unfair,” I cried. “I was supposed to rescue her. She was supposed to live a good life in Venice. This is unfair!”
“Much is unfair,” the vampyre said, amused.
The pain that seized my heart was as horrible as the guttural noise that had escaped from Henriette’s lips. I tilted my head toward the pale moon and bellowed my agony at it. The other vampyres laughed at this. I sprung to my feet and turned to them in a murderous rage.
“I should kill you all,” I swore.
“You could try,” the lead vampyre said, his eyes darkening to the color of coal as he smiled at me. “You are of greater size, and most likely greater strength. But we have strength also, and a quickness that would most likely surprise you. Also there are five of us, soon to be six. But if you are successful and are able to kill us all, who would tend to your companion? Unless of course you wish to kill her also. If you do, now would be the easiest time as she is still very weak and in another hour she will be like us. All you would need to do is thrust your fist into her chest and rip out her heart. If you wish to do so none of us will stop you, although it would be a shame. I am so looking forward to ravaging her body once she has fully become one of us.”
He had said this as a jest to mock me, but I realized this was the only way that I could save Henriette. If I left her, she would become a detestable night creature like these others. In life she was pure and innocent, and I could not leave her to become something vile. With my heart as heavy as stone I dropped beside her. Before any of the other vampyres could react, I struck my fist into her chest. A gasp came from her, but as I ripped out her heart, a peacefulness settled over her features.
“You are a fool,” the vampyre hissed at me.
“Leave me or attack me,” I demanded as I spun around to face them with Henriette’s heart still clutched in my fist. Their leader stood relaxed while the other vampyres continued to circle me, moving like shadows as they did. At last their leader spat on the ground with contempt. “It would not be worth the effort,” he said. “We would most likely choke on your blood.” With that he turned and ran off with the other vampyres following him.
I dug a grave for Henriette and placed her body within it. After that I fashioned a marker for her grave out of loose stones.
I knelt by her grave and prayed for her forgiveness.
CHAPTER
14
I grieved by Henriette’s grave over the next four days. The vampyres did not return, and I was left undisturbed.
When she was alive, Henriette had been an anchor holding me to the promise of being something better than I was. During our brief time together not only did I find myself enjoying her companionship and good cheer, but thoughts of bringing her safely to Venice had occupied my mind and kept my obsession for vengeance at bay. Henriette had made me feel human again. When I was with her I would frequently forget about my hideous appearance and often envision myself as Friedrich Hoffmann. But I had failed her, just as I had my dearest Johanna. Now that Henriette was gone, I was once again consumed by my desire for vengeance toward Victor Frankenstein, and once again felt that terrible pull on me to travel southwards.
I could no longer think of myself as something human, but only as an abomination. It was my actions that created the environment that allowed Henriette to be accused as a witch, and I was the one who led her to a nest of vampyres. I should have recognized those wolves for what they were. I should have known they were a different kind of creature from those that had attacked me earlier. How could I have failed to keep watch over Henriette after that? Although it was never my intention, I was the reason for her damnation, and perhaps also Johanna’s. If Frankenstein was responsible for Johanna’s murder as I suspected, would it have happened if not for me?
When I left Henriette’s grave, I surrendered myself to the urge that was pulling me south. I thought of what that vampyre had told me. How we both served the same master. Perhaps he was right. When I recounted all the evil that I had been responsible for since my transformation—from my noxious skulking through the homes of innocent men and women, to the fear that I created and saw so brightly in that young girl’s eyes, and finally,
