“Bring him aboard,” I said, worried he might drop it into the lake.
“I’m reluctant,” said Henry, but he pulled with Elizabeth and me. Krake tumbled into the cockpit, thrashing and spitting. He could not get very far, so entangled was he, but we all stepped up onto the bench seats, just to keep our feet clear of him.
“How to get it out?” Elizabeth murmured.
“If we strike him too hard, he might crack it,” Henry said.
The lynx’s eyes, all this time, flickered between us, and I had the uncanny feeling he understood our talk. Slowly, almost smugly, he closed his mouth-and swallowed.
“No!” I cried.
Krake did not have an easy time of it. He gagged and hacked, but when his mouth opened once more, the vial was gone. His unnerving green eyes settled on me, and I could have sworn he smirked.
“The fiend!” gasped Henry. “How do we get it out now?”
Elizabeth and I looked at each other-and I knew the same idea had just occurred to us simultaneously.
“I saw a knife in the cabin,” she said.
“Yes,” I answered.
I did not want to waste a moment. Within Krake’s stomach the vial’s stopper might come loose, and then we would have a very, very healthy and powerful lynx aboard our boat.
I hurried below with a lantern and looked about the cramped cabin. Amidst the jumble I found a harpoon, and a deboning knife. I took them up onto the deck.
The moment Krake beheld me, he knew. Immediately his eyes became as docile and beseeching as a kitten’s. He strained through the netting with his paws, and made a mewing sound so pitiful that I felt myself falter. He had saved our lives once, in the Sturmwald.
All part of Polidori’s dark design, I reminded myself.
I forced my mind to be still, my limbs to steady. I breathed deeply and took the harpoon in my hands.
Kill him.
I could not stab him in the heart, for the heart, I knew, was perilously close to the stomach-and in Krake’s stomach was the glass vial.
So I raised my harpoon and struck him in the neck.
He yowled and writhed most terribly, but I struck him again, harder. I felt a stranger to myself, but strangely powerful, too. With each blow the smell of blood reached my nostrils and sharpened my animal instincts. I was dimly aware of making a sound, a kind of low growl in my throat. And then Krake moved no more. My flanks heaved as I caught my breath. I knelt and began to untangle the lynx’s body from the net. Elizabeth joined me, and together we laid the creature’s limp body out on the cockpit floor.
I took up the knife and slit Krake from throat to belly. Hot viscera spilled out, and with it a penetrating stench. I saw Henry turn away, and I heard his miserable retching sounds. I looked at Elizabeth and saw she was steady. Amidst all the blood, it was difficult at first to identify the organs.
“Here is the esophagus,” said Elizabeth, fearlessly tracing the muscular tube to a sac, pushing aside tissue and pulp. “And this must be the stomach.”
I made an incision, and our hands reached together into the creature’s hot innards, handling the contents of its stomach.
I glanced at her, and saw her face not battling revulsion but alive-excited, even.
“I have it!” she gasped. “I think I have it!”
And she pulled out from the gory mess a vial, still stoppered, still intact.
Tears of relief and joy rushed from her eyes, and we embraced. I wished, even in our bloody grip, that her arms would never release me.
But this time it was I who pulled away first, for in my head was the ticking of a great clock-or perhaps a great heartbeat. We had lost time.
“We need to get back to Konrad,” I said.
We heaved Krake’s remains into the lake, hurriedly shoved the net back into the cabin, and trimmed our sails. We ran with the wind. It wasn’t long before I could see the outline of our chateau and the pale flicker of candlelight in Konrad’s room, where I knew either Mother or Maria would be at his bedside, watching over him.
We tied up at the dock, rushed into the boathouse, and thumped on the chateau door until it was opened by Celeste, one of our maids. She was in her nightgown and cap, holding a candle-and she looked upon us with horror, her hand flying up to her mouth to stifle a scream.
I suddenly remembered that I was soaked to the skin, and Elizabeth and I were both spattered with Krake’s gore. “It’s all right, Celeste.”
“Master Victor… where have you three been? What has happened?”
“I’ll explain later.”
We hurried inside, upstairs to Konrad’s bedchamber. Outside the door I faltered. I did not know what I would say if Mother was there. How would I explain? What if she refused to allow us to give him the elixir?
I opened the door silently and peered inside. To my immense relief it was Maria who sat dozing in a chair near Konrad’s bed.
The three of us slipped inside.
Konrad was asleep, so waxy pale and still that I worried we were too late. But then I saw the weak rise and fall of his chest. As we drew to his bedside, Maria stirred, and her eyes opened and widened at the sight of us.
She drew in her breath sharply, not sure if this was a nightmare.
“Don’t be afraid,” I said quietly. “All’s well. We have the elixir.”
From her pocket Elizabeth took the vial, the leather covering still crusted with Krake’s blood.
“I scarcely know what to think,” Maria said. “How-”
“We completed the final preparations with Julius Polidori,” Elizabeth told her.
“What happened to your hand?” Maria asked suddenly, seeing the frayed bandages.
“That doesn’t matter right now,” I said. “Where is Mother?”
“I sent her to bed a few hours ago-she is exhausted beyond all endurance.”
I nodded. “Now is the time to do it, then.”
“Wait,” said Maria, her brow furrowed. “What if it should do him harm? I could never forgive myself.”
“He barely breathes,” Elizabeth said, taking Konrad’s limp hand in her own. “We must try it-and pray.”
Maria nodded reluctantly, then again with more decision. “Yes, bring him back, Victor.”
Elizabeth propped another pillow under my brother’s head.
“Konrad,” she said softly, “we have new medicine for you. Wake and take it.”
He would not wake.
“We must administer it ourselves,” I said.
I opened the vial. Elizabeth parted his lips carefully. I placed a small drop of the elixir on his tongue. I watched it trickle down into his throat. In his slumber he made a murmuring sound and swallowed. Only then did I release more onto his tongue.
Drop by drop I gave him the Elixir of Life. It took a full half hour. I dared not rush it, for fear he might gag or spit it out.
When the last drop was gone, I looked at Henry and Elizabeth. I had never felt so tired in my life.
“It’s done,” I said. “All that we could do, is done.”
Elizabeth brushed Konrad’s lank hair back from his forehead, and he stirred again, and this time his eyes opened.
“Konrad,” I said.
He looked at me calmly, and with complete awareness, then at Henry, and finally at Elizabeth. He smiled, his eyes drooped shut, and he slept again.
Henry staggered off to get some sleep, and Elizabeth and I went to Father’s study. I opened his medicine chest. I poured a measure of disinfectant onto a wad of cotton and carefully cleaned the wounds on Elizabeth’s face. She was brave and did not flinch. It was a mercy the cuts were not deep. Only the very tips of Krake’s claws seemed to have caught her tawny flesh.
“It’s not serious,” I said. “I do not think they need suturing.”
They still bled slowly, so I cut a piece of gauze and taped it delicately to her cheek. “There.”
