A/N Thank you so much to my reviewers dominike , micaela ,megumisakura, and Irene. Soon, my friends….soon.
"You, my creator, abhor me: what hope can I gather from your fellow creatures, who owe me nothing? They spurn and hate me."— Chapter 10
The Demon
I am still weak. The damage from the gun blast must have nearly killed me. Since I was reborn to this life, I wondered if death now had to relinquish its grip upon me. I seemed to suffer injuries that humans would not survive. Illness never touches me.
What threatened me was the loneliness. Men who have gazed upon me lift up their hands to bring violence against me. I have no chance of earning a kind gesture or word from humanity. As such, I fail to believe any woman would look upon me with emotions other than horror. Is it the touch of something once dead they fear, or the rage that seethes below the surface of my mind?
My twisted thoughts drive me wild at times, towering rages followed by bouts of forlorn weeping. I am a babe to the emotions that coursed through this man's body. I need the consolation of another being; conversation, laughter, a contact with those of my kind.
I float in and out of an exhausted sleep, sitting at the edge of the cave, staring back towards the sanitarium. Only the thoughts of my wife's dark blue eyes regarding me so solemnly gave me any solace during my long recovery.
I would go back soon. Victor had sealed his fate when he had tried to kill me, but the fate of the woman he made for me is still undecided.
Victor
Elisabeth is quite taken with Therese. She asked for her to help when the new child arrives. I have instructed Therese to divide her time between Thomas and my wife. Although she is silent, she and Elisabeth seem to communicate on some level. She plays with the children, distracting them and allowing Elisabeth time to sleep.
There are two people who Therese doesn't care for. One, being Astrid and the other being Edgar Ragache. For both their parts, the sentiment appears to be mutual.
Ragache mistrusts her intentions towards Thomas. The young man likes to have her around, he chats to her, and they play games, and he reads to her when she wheels him around the grounds. Perhaps it is a form of jealousy on Ragache's part. He is never at a loss for the company of handsome women, and Therese has put up barriers to him. How it must gall him that a simple serving girl rebuffs his advances.
I wonder how he would feel if he knew that girl was buried a scant four months ago after her rape and murder. I can perceive his interest in the sciences, but he detests the work that it requires, and throws money to those who strive to do the work instead. Some of his cash has found its way into the sutures, gauze, and wiring that brought Therese back from the dead for her monstrous husband.
She trusts me, and follows my directions. It is imperative more than ever that she sees me as her Master, for the Demon is still out there somewhere. The girl may be my only shield against his awful wrath when he recovers from the gunshot.
The Demon
I have stolen some more cloths. Men of my size are hard to find, my forearms always peek beyond the shirt cuffs I wear. Likewise, my trousers are too short, and sometimes tight enough I tear them, and then sew pieces of more material to them to make them comfortable.
I steal what I need. Always food, sometimes supplies like a needle and a knife when I find them. I roam the country around the lake at different times to avoid being seen. When I can, I perform a favor to pay for my thefts. Some farmer finds a stack of split wood, or a sharpened scythe. More than once, I have midwived a struggling cow and saved a calf from death.
Unseen, I am the fox that steals an egg from the hens, the rabbit that takes the turnip. I am some imp from a fairy tale, taking something, and leaving something in return. More than once I have played off superstition to keep from being caught.
Therese
The air is taking on the cool cast of fall. The leaves are turning now, and spiders have overwhelmed the building, stringing up new webs every night while we sleep. With the chill night air comes a restlessness in the sanitarium.
Elisabeth is near her time, and fusses constantly as the weight of the child causes her loss of sleep. Victor bearing the brunt of her attacking tongue busies himself elsewhere. Thomas is bored, we have read through nearly a third of Victor's library, and he has taken to sharing a drink with Ragache by the fireplace before he retires. Often, I wheel him back and help him into his nightdress while he sings randy songs, and runs his hands over me.
The fact that Ragache takes some perverse delight in inebriating Thomas to the point of foolishness makes me hate the man. It is as if he hopes that Thomas' behavior towards me will make me turn away from him in disgust. That show of distaste would mortify Thomas, and our relationship would never be the same.
Ragache paces the building, stalking the maids and nurses under Victor's turned aside eyes. I have seen him leaving Astrid's room numerous times. The poor cow doesn't realize all that fawning male attention is only designed to get her legs open for a brief tumble. They turn her head with compliments and shiny baubles. I think it amuses them to turn her child like glee to groans as they use her.
One of the maids said she saw Ragache slap Astrid one night. That does not surprise me. Ragache's cool demeanor and superior airs have nothing to do with his wealth. I believe they are more from his lack of human warmth, and his hedonistic outlook at the people around him. We are all for his use, his jaded amusement.
He visited Thomas yesterday, telling him he would return in a week. I listened quietly, and he came, putting his arm around my waist telling Thomas he would leave him to my gentle care. As he spoke to Thomas, his hand moved upward, his thumb moving slowly over the side of my breast. I am not a large breasted woman, and as he took his hand away, his finger tips trailed near my nipple. Despite my distaste of the man, my body reacted.
He moved to the door, looking pointedly at my bodice in the mirror over the dresser. His eyes tell me he will have me, whether I will it or not. I try to keep my hatred for him from my eyes. I have an unusual flash of a man's face. Fair haired, he is close to me, anger twists his lips, he slaps me hard. I drop my eyes. No doubt Ragache will take this as a sign of shyness.
The Demon
There are celebrations in the villages around the lake. Some aristocratic family has whelped another potential monarch. There might be war, and taxes will drain the purses of the common folk, but out new little emperor will be cause for getting drunk for now.
I have been watching the sanitarium. Victor must have some new plan to provide for his protection at the house. Victor is a brilliant man. But like the others of his ilk, he suffers from an Achilles heel which will be his ultimate downfall. His ego. His belief in his own superiority was challenged when I was birthed.
As I have said, the head on my shoulders is not all mine. When I stumbled out of the laboratory, I could barely speak. Not that my wits were addled, rather my lower jaw was from one man, and my skull and upper neck was from the man who surrendered his brain to Victor. It took time for me to learn to walk correctly and speak again. Victor believed me to be a child. I soon was to dash that belief; showing I could read, speak several languages, write, and was capable of higher mathematics.
His realization came too late that although I was fashioned Godlike, my exterior was ugly. I can remember the look upon his face when I first beheld him; the draining color, the disbelieving eyes, his revulsion at the ochre film that obscures my irises. I was scarred and massive, but my eyes set me apart as entirely unnatural.
I changed from child to man before his eyes, and his disgust of me grew. I was perceived as an evil that must be hidden away. I was to be his showcase, the example of his genius. Instead I was an ever present scourge to his pride.
When Elisabeth came back into his life, he dropped his work in Ingoldstadt and moved to take over the sanitarium near Belrive as his Father wished. He turned from a scientist at the forefront of discoveries to a married man who turned to mundane work to provide for a growing family.
I followed; glad to be a league away from the larger city of Geneva, the countryside affords me places to roam unseen. At a loss to find kindness from any man, I followed Victor and submitted myself to the stinging insults he heaped upon me for the sake of contact with another being. And then I observed the change in his life through Elisabeth.
I had seen him hiding with Elisabeth in the conservatory during a party. He pressed her up against a wall, lifting her skirts and nuzzling her neck. They broke apart long enough for him to lift her by the hips, supporting her as she wrapped her legs around him. He slid himself into her and ground into her rhythmically until they both cried out.
From then on, the dreams came. With them, the focus of my idle time centered on my despair of ever having a woman. My frustration at being hidden away mounted. I wanted to go out into the world of men and find my place. I wanted to find that woman from my dreams. I wanted to return to nights of passion and joyous lovemaking. I needed those small strong arms that held me, the lips that placed kisses on my eyelids.
I have waited through the abortive efforts Victor has made to bring to life a mate for me. Now that he has succeeded in bringing Therese back from the dead, he keeps her from me. She lives the mundane life of a servant in the sanitarium. I wonder if he has told her what she is, or if she if being kept in blissful ignorance.
I want to know if she has spoken. Is she truly mute, or was it a result of the lightning? Nature has proven a wily accomplice to Victor's work; granting us the force of life, but scorching Astrid's intellect, and providing the driving storm that sickened Bette.
Victor has made Therese his cat's paw. He pulls me in closer with the lure of my wife. If she his dupe, I will free her. If she is his accomplice, I will kill them both.
Therese
I wheel Thomas into the spa room. One of the men lifts him into the large tub of hot water. To keep his legs from losing their musculature, Victor has designed an apparatus of pulleys and weights. We work through the exercises, pulling and pushing. The water provides buoyancy that will not allow his spine to bear the brunt of the work, only the legs. I have donned an apron, and pushed my sleeves up, but I still am splashed with water. Thomas pauses in his conversation, looking at the wet spot over my breasts. "Therese, was I improper the other night towards you?" He asks quietly.
I realize that he remembers some of his drunken stupor. He stroked my hip through my dress, and leaned close into my breasts as I pulled the shirt off of his shoulders. I feel close to Thomas, he never treats me as a servant. I am a companion and kindred soul. The fact that he still feels the needs of a man to touch a woman does not embarrass me. I grasp his chin to look him in the eye, and shake my head no, leaning over to place a kiss on his cheek.
In truth, I too feel the longings of my body. The warmth of a man's body, hands running over me, and the pleasure of him moving inside me have filled my dreams since I have been here. I do not remember my lover, and no husband or family has come forward to claim me. I feel an odd sense of loss for a lover whose face I cannot remember.
I do not care that Thomas touches me. It is not a conquest, but a sharing. We would not go so far as to complete the act even if he were capable, but I do not mind the sharing of what pleasure we can experience.
Thomas suggests we go out to the old Abbey. I look towards the building and wonder why I know what it looks like inside. That there is a large copper covered table in the center of the room, that the floor boards reek of chemicals, and that suspended above the table are two large spheres.
I shake my head at Thomas, and point to the Abbey. "You will check it out, won't you?" he asks. He is anxious to explore beyond his limited world. I in turn am anxious to remove him from Ragache's influence, and to provide him some diversion from the depression which threatens to overcome him. I reply with a nod, 'yes'.
I go to my bed that night, my hand resting near the scar. I think of Ragache and remember the face of the man who did this to me. I can remember pain and fear. I can also remember my life coming to a close.
I look about the room in a panic. I realize that I was dead. How am I here now? Did some one find me? I remember the sharp pain under my ribs and my breathe escaping from the hole. There was no one to help me.
How did I get here? Victor. Did Victor find me? And if he did, how is it that I live again? I sit up in my nightdress, and pull it off over my head. Walking to the small mirror on the dresser, I strike a light to my candle and stand looking at my body.
I look up into my own eyes, afraid that something evil will look back. What do people see when they look at me? God, what has happened to me? Am I an abomination or a miracle?
