heavy weariness fell over me. I closed my eyes and before too long, mercifully, I fell into sleep.
This time Frankenstein’s black magic did not invade my dreams, for there was no purpose since he had already compelled me to join him at his castle. Instead I found myself drifting into a peacefulness that seemed almost foreign to me. At first it was as if I were being rocked back and forth within a gentle breeze, and then I saw Johanna. She smiled contentedly at me, with only love and admiration in her expression, her long yellow hair flowing down her back. But she was naked, and I blushed deeply and looked away, and saw that I too was naked and my body was that of Friedrich Hoffmann’s.
“Friedrich, my darling, there is nothing to be ashamed of. I have waited so long to visit you. Please look at me.”
Johanna’s voice was as a balm soothing my soul. I turned toward her and found myself instantly lost within her gentle hazel eyes. She held out her hands to me, and I grasped them hoping to never have to let go of her.
“I have missed you,” I said.
“As I have missed you, my darling. I have tried so many times to visit you previously, but something strong and oppressive kept me from doing so.”
My eyes misted quickly, but I did not dare to let go of her for even a second to wipe away my tears.
I said, “When I think of what was done to you—”
“Please, Friedrich, don’t.”
“But the villains responsible must pay for what they did. The crime that was committed against you is too horrible to even think of. It must be avenged! Justice requires it!”
“Let God worry about punishing the guilty,” she said. “All I care about is being able to spend eternity with you, and I am afraid that that will not be happening.”
Her own eyes had become liquid with tears and her smile troubled, and it tugged at my heart to see her like that.
“Do not be concerned,” I said. “I will be seeing you soon, and then we will have the rest of this lifetime together and eternity afterward.”
She did not say anything, but her brow turned more troubled and a darkness clouded her delicate features.
“Embrace me, Friedrich,” she said in a hushed whisper, “for I am afraid that this will be our only opportunity.”
I embraced her, our naked bodies touching, my hands resting on her slender hips, her own arms wrapped tightly across my back. I had never felt more joy than I did right then, but also an intense sorrow as I realized that this would soon end. Johanna began to weep, and she buried her head in my chest, her tears hot against my flesh. I tried to soothe her by stroking her hair and whispering sweet words into her ear. After a while she stopped her weeping. She pulled away slightly so that she could look into my eyes.
“Friedrich, you must leave this castle,” she said.
“I cannot,” I said with despair. “The fiend, Frankenstein, has employed black magic to hold me here.”
“You must find a way, my darling. And you must also find a way to rescue the girls that they’re imprisoning here, for the plans that they have for these innocent girls are even more vile than what was done to me.”
I could not answer her. I knew she was right, but I did not know how to do what she was asking.
She kissed me then on my lips with an intensity that made me dizzy. As she pulled away, she whispered to me, “I am so afraid of losing you, Friedrich. Please do not be lost to me.”
I wanted to answer her, to promise her that she would not lose me, but before I could I was jolted awake, my body having crashed to the floor from falling out of the armchair where I had fallen asleep. As I lay on the floor, I did not want to believe that I had woken, and I desperately tried to hold onto the dream I had of Johanna, but her image proved to be as elusive as vapor. She was gone, and as I looked at my hands, I had to accept that I was no longer Friedrich Hoffmann, but once again a repulsive abomination. I began to weep as I lay where I had fallen, and felt the full weight of all I had lost sinking down my heart.
Later, when I could stop weeping, I cursed Frankenstein yet again for all that he had stolen from me.
CHAPTER
20
Each day I would be left alone to wander the castle as I pleased. My enemy was too busy with his plans to pay much attention to me, as were his guests, and his black magic kept me imprisoned within the castle walls as surely as if bars had been placed across the main gate, although even without his spell I did not know if I could have left with the prospect of seeing my Johanna being brought back to life.
The morning after my arrival I found myself once more drawn to that evil amphitheater. The scene had reverted back to show the couples happily waltzing across a ballroom floor with not even a glimmer of malice discernible in the faces of the dancers, and the women fully clothed in their fine ball gowns without any evidence of them having been torn off the previous night.
Later that afternoon I discovered illustrations that were made for the drama they were planning, and what I saw was beyond vileness, beyond depravity. I stared in shock at these sketches, and could not imagine any human mind designing such acts. It was hard even to imagine Satan himself dreaming up such evil. There were hundreds of these illustrations, but I could not view more than a dozen of them without feeling whatever was left of my own soul rotting inside of me. I tried to burn those damnable drawings in the fireplace, but Frankenstein’s black magic compelled me to place them back where I had found them.
After seeing those pages I could not do nothing. I waited until the workmen left the dungeon, and then I snuck down there with the intention of freeing the prisoners that were being held, but Frankenstein’s same evil spell prevented me from doing this. The keys to the cages were hanging on a nail in the wall, but when I tried to pick them up my arm fell dead to my side. Not seeing my form in the dim light, the young girls and children cried out to me, pleading to me to save them, but I couldn’t no matter how hard I tried. In the end I fled the chamber, too ashamed to face these poor innocents.
That night I was required to dine with Frankenstein’s company, as I was every night that I would remain within the castle, but as I had done previously, I drank enough brandy to deaden them to me and their voices became little more than a droning in my ears. After dinner I found myself once more drawn to the amphitheater, and the scene displayed upon the mural was similar to that of the other night, with the men cruelly ripping the women’s gowns from their bodies, and in some cases, their knives drawing blood across their victim’s faces. The fascination that this mural held for me disgusted me, and as tempted as I was to return at midnight I avoided doing so again.
I did not sleep that night, and I used those twilight hours to search more of the castle without anyone’s knowledge. It was past daybreak when I found a secret panel that held Frankenstein’s library of rare occult texts, but only moments later I heard noises of others within the castle awakening, and since I did not wish to have anyone stumble upon me and learn of my discovery, I placed the books back within their hidden compartment.
The next night, when the rest of the inhabitants of the castle were asleep, I returned so that I could read this occult collection undisturbed. The manuscripts were ancient, their bindings all of aged and cracking vellum, although with one of the books I had the thought that human skin was used, as well as blood instead of ink. I handled these books carefully so that their pages would not crumble apart in my hands. Several of them were written in Greek, others in Latin, and I could feel the evil emanating from them simply by holding them. It was a loathsome activity, touching and reading these books, and it took me four nights to complete my task. It was in the last of these books—the one that I believed had human skin as its binding—that I found the spell that Frankenstein had cast on me to make me his unwitting slave, but nowhere within its pages could I find a counter-spell. I was ashamed to realize that I was relieved by this, for it left me with no choice but to allow Johanna to be brought back to me.
This knowledge that I was a compliant if not necessarily willing participant in Frankenstein’s plans filled me with a new revulsion that sent me reeling. I had been trying to believe that I was only an innocent prisoner within the castle walls, the same as the caged children; that since there was nothing I could do to save them, none of this was my fault. But was I secretly hoping that I would be left with no choice but to allow Frankenstein’s plans to play out? Left to my own accord, would I be willing to sacrifice not only one of them but all of them if it would bring
