village where she would be safe. Within minutes I traveled several miles as I sent the boat skipping along the ocean’s surface and found what I was searching for. After I brought the boat to shore, I helped Mariel off it. From the haziness of the sky it was predawn, still several hours before the sun would rise, and a small fishing village lay only a short distance away.
I was originally going to leave her there. But as I thought of how she only spoke German and did not have any knowledge of English, I had a change of heart.
“Wait here,” I said. “I will be back in only a short time. I want to ensure you safe passage back to your home in Erfurt before I leave you for good.”
She nodded, having been through too much already to argue with me. I left her the food and water, and then raced the rowboat back to where I had seen Frankenstein’s boat wash ashore. I spotted his boat, but Frankenstein must have wandered from it for he was not in sight, nor could I see anyone else in the gray haziness of the night. I carried Clervil’s body from the boat and dropped it in a clearing a few yards from where Frankenstein’s boat had been left. Before leaving Clervil’s body, I placed the button I tore from Frankenstein’s jacket within Clervil’s dead hand and folded this hand into a fist. I had earlier collected the teeth I had knocked from his mouth, and I spread these by his face, then I struck him hard enough in the jaw with an oar from Frankenstein’s boat to leave an imprint, and I let the oar drop not far from Clervil’s body. With that done I raced back to the rowboat I was using so I could return to Mariel, and was relieved when I found her where I had left her.
“You have done so much for me already,” she told me. “You do not need to do anything more.” But this was said halfheartedly, and I could tell that she was scared. Before Frankenstein’s paid villains had abducted her from her home, she had never left her native Saxony.
The village was only a half mile from where we stood, and we walked there together and quickly found an inn. I put my hood up, and dropped to my knees, hoping in these early hours that I could confuse the innkeeper about my height, and then I pounded on the door until the innkeeper appeared. From the puffiness of his eyes and from the way he yawned, I had woken him from his sleep, and from the way he scowled at me he was not happy about it. Still, even on my knees I was taller and broader than most men. I placed a dozen gold coins in his palm, and his attitude quickly changed to subservience.
“I wish for my niece to spend the remaining hours of the night here, and tomorrow you will arrange for her to travel back to her home in Erfurt, a city within Saxony. The gold I have paid you is more than double what the cost should be.”
“Aye, no worries, sir,” he said. “I will make sure that your niece returns home safely, don’t you worry.”
“You had better,” I told him. “I will be checking to make sure of it, and if anything happens to her the price you will pay will be very dear. She only speaks German, so arrange for her guide to be fluent in that language. And serve her a hearty breakfast in the morning!”
He nodded effusively, and I took his hand within mine so that he could see how massive my own hands were. He winced as he saw how his hand disappeared in the same manner that an infant’s would within an adult’s, and he promised me again that my niece would be well taken care of. I knew from his expression that there would be nothing to worry about. I then turned to Mariel and explained to her in German what I had arranged, and I repeated the promise I made to her the night before—that I would see all of the prisoners within Frankenstein’s dungeon returned home safely, and that I would tell her sister, Alice, that she was safe and would be waiting for her in their home. Mariel flung her arms around me, barely reaching the circumference of my chest, and began crying and thanking me profusely for saving her. I looked away in discomfort and patted her head, and the innkeeper also showed his embarrassment even though he had no idea what she was saying.
“Don’t worry, sir, believe me when I tell you I will see that she is taken good care of,” he promised, and he took her by the hand and led her into his inn. Once the door closed, I rose to my feet, and after sighing heavily, I made my way back to where I had left the boat.
Before I left this place, I needed to check on the mischief that I had created, and I stole my way to the nearest village where Frankenstein’s rowboat had washed ashore. This turned out to be Clogherhead, Ireland, and as I expected, Frankenstein was arrested that same morning for the murder of Henry Clervil. I spied all this from a distance, but when I saw him being accused of the murder and later taken to the jail in the city of Drogheda, I was mostly satisfied. While I would have preferred for him to answer for his true crimes, at least this would mark him as a murderer, and he would pay as dearly for Clervil as he would have for Johanna’s and Friedrich Hoffmann’s murders, let alone all of his other ungodly acts.
I watched as he was locked away behind bars before I finally quitted this place.
CHAPTER
28
For at least twenty minutes I heard the donkeys braying as they pulled the wagon up the steep path that they were being urged to travel. I tried not to think too much of this and pulled a cork from another bottle of wine. By the time the wagon had reached the top of the cliff, I had finished this bottle, and I threw it into the stone fireplace and watched as the bottle exploded into tiny glass fragments. The fireplace and floor around it was littered several inches deep with these fragments. So many wine bottles, at least a third of what had been left in a well- stocked cellar.
I sat and listened as he approached the main gate, and heard his gasps and cries when he saw the ruin that was done to his castle. He must have known I was there, but he did not flee, and instead I heard his footsteps echoing across the marble floor. To leave no doubt about my presence, I opened another bottle of wine and drank it hastily so that I could smash the bottle in the fireplace. When he heard this noise, his footsteps stopped for only a minute, and then they continued. I sat quietly after that and waited for him.
Frankenstein was as pale as a ghost when he entered the dining room. His body near emaciated, his cheeks sunken, his eye sockets gray and hollowed, his hair in disarray as if he had been caught in a windstorm. He waited silently for me to speak, his eyes near lifeless. I stared at him for a long moment before I felt that I could control myself to say what was on my mind.
“I have been waiting here for months for you,” I said. “Ever since I heard of your release for Clervil’s murder. I thought your conviction and death, even if done by a quick hanging, would satisfy my thirst for revenge, but now with this obscenity of your release my desire for revenge is burning hotter than ever before, and I have spent months pondering what to do.”
“It was no obscenity,” he said, his voice a dull, listless drone to match his wasted appearance. “I was innocent of Henry’s murder.”
“You were,” I acknowledged. “Just as I was of Johanna Klemmen’s murder, but that did not prevent me from being broken on the wheel for it, and the evidence against me was no more compelling than the evidence against you. But I was a member of the working class, and never fully understood the power of wealth, and how a wealthy father can buy a son’s freedom no matter what evidence stands against him.”
He remained silent, and I shrugged, not really caring what he had to say regarding the matter. “Do you like what I have done to your castle?” I asked, forcing my grin.
“Why? Was it necessary to destroy it?”
“I had months to spend waiting for you and I wanted to put the time to good use. I should commend you on your wine cellar. Very well stocked, and an excellent selection.”
I tottered to my feet. He took a step backward, but did not run away. I don’t think he would have been capable of fleeing; from the way he had paled his legs most likely would have given out on him.
“I am quite drunk,” I said. “That is the only reason I am able to keep from killing you right now. I do not know if you have had a chance to fully appreciate the destruction I have done to this castle, but let me give you a tour.”
Frankenstein stood frozen as I moved toward him. When I reached him I stood grinning harshly, and then grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, and proceeded to half carry him so that I could give him a tour of his castle. He put up no resistance to this, although I had him lifted so that his toes dragged on the floor, so I doubt any resistance would hardly have been possible. The first room I took him to had once been his evil amphitheater.
“I am especially proud of my handiwork here,” I said. I twisted him around so he could view the full extent of
