A/N Thank you so much to my reviewers. Your communications inspire me on.

Chapter 8

The Demon

She is looking at me in horror. "I don't remember," she says in a tremulous voice. She looks like a lost child, I open my arms and she steps into them. I am so surprised I almost cannot speak. "Therese, it wasn't your fault." I lift a hand to stoke her hair.

"How can he do this?" she asks.

"He believes in his own superiority. He thinks his quest for knowledge and that God can be replaced by men of science is the course that would benefit mankind."

"Victor is an intelligent man, Therese. He left the village here to go to Ingoldstadt, Bavaria, to the university. He began the studies and experiments that would lead to our reanimations. During that time, someone must have rebuffed him for his work. Like many intelligent people, Victor has no patience for those around him who are not at his level. Being chastised by colleagues and professors would be more than he could stomach."

"He became obsessed with his works. He wants to prove himself, to exonerate himself in front of those people. I was to be his godlike example of his genius. Instead, he realized too late that he had gone too far. My first memory of him is the disbelief on his face when he looked into my eyes. I am an ugly, inhuman example to show his detractors even though I am far above them in physical abilities."

We stand for a moment and I feel her sigh against me. "How badly were you hurt?"

"Badly enough that it took three months to come back here to you," I lift her head. "There was not one day that I did not look back towards the sanitarium, knowing that he had you. You looked at me that first day when they took the wrappings off your eyes. That is what I kept seeing, wanting to see again."

I want to ask her, will she be mine? I don't. I enjoy the feel of her in my arms and thank God that she feels enough for me that she grants me this. It is because of these small gifts that I have the strength to let her go. I am falling in love with Therese; I want her to come to me.

Therese

Victor has tried to kill Michael. My calm acceptance of my life is now shattered. I hold on to Michael. I had not realized before how important he is to me. He is the only one who can understand what I am going through to find a new life.

There must be something in my eyes, because his lips descend to take mine. It is awkward for a moment, because he is so tall. We break apart and he picks me up, he carries me to the Abbey.

We return to the place of my birth. The table has now been cleared. "I took away the instruments and the wires. I don't want Victor to keep his reanimation tools. I threw them into an ice chasm up on the mountain side," he tells me. He turns his body and carries me up a very steep set of steps to the loft above.

On the floor he has made a pallet. There is a blanket, a washing bowl and jug, and some other items I cannot make out in the dark. He sets me down and gestures towards his pallet. I curl up my legs, and sit on it.

"Do you sleep here?"

"Sometimes I do. I want to stay near you because of Victor." He moves about, lighting a number of small candles. Their flames reveal a book lying on the floor.

"You can read?"

"Yes," he sits down on the pallet next to me where I sat to pick up the book. He sits with a leg bent, his elbow resting on it as he runs a thumb over the scar on his face. "I remember French and German. I think I read Latin as well."

It is now time for the questions that I have longed to ask. "Do you remember who you were?"

A shadow passes his eyes as he looks at me, "Therese, I have to warn you. You cannot go back." His large hand reaches up to lift my chin so that I look at his eyes. "I understand what you feel. You have memories, and you still love your Father and Mother. But you died to them, Therese. They would not accept you back.

I feel the mist of tears in my eyes. "Am I to mourn my whole life because I still love them? I still want to know that they are well."

The Demon

I sit looking into her eyes. This is going to be hard for her, but it must be done. "That is why I say we must leave, Therese. The temptation is too great not to go back and look after them. But you have to understand that they will see you as something evil."

She takes a shaky breath, and it pains me to see her upset. "Are we evil?"

"No, Therese. We committed no sins in being chosen to return to life. If there is any evil in this, it is a result of Victor's decisions." I pause to let her wipe her eyes. "There is no way to explain what we are. People look at me and they see the Demon, the yellow eyes, the scarred body. I am labeled something vile because they can put no other name to what I am."

"That is why you wish to go away from here?"

"I want us to go away from men. I want to find our own place in the world away from prying eyes, and their superstitious fear."

She sighs heavily. "What do you remember of your life?"

It is my turn to sigh. "Victor kept a journal to record his experiments. It was through it I found that I am composed of three men. My body was a convicted killer who Victor and Carl exhumed from a pauper's field. My hands came from another man. The other hands were too damaged as was the head. My head and brain came from the only man whose life I can remember." Memories flash before my eyes in sharp focus as if they were only yesterday. Smells seem unusually sharp, more so than sounds. I can see my murdered wife, but her voice is muffled as she speaks to me.

"I remember a house, my wife, and work I did teaching somewhere."

"You had a wife?"

"I was hanged for killing her."

Therese

He is gazing at me intently. No doubt, he is gauging my response to this new piece of his story. If he killed one wife, would he kill another? "What happened?"

He purses his lips and looks down for a moment. This must be hard for him. "I found her with another man. I strangled her. When she was dead, I turned on him and beat him to death." He makes a gesture with his hands, "She must have needed something that I could not give her. I do know that she was very young, I found her in Italy I think. She was beautiful."

There is a wistful note in his voice, a sadness for a love lost. I wonder at how an intelligent man could so brutally kill, but understand how passion can drive people to do things they have better sense than to succumb to.

"Victor is right in his reference to my rage." He gets to his feet and paces as he speaks. "I was unprepared for the feelings that would come to me when my memories returned. Victor left me, so I had no one to talk to about what I was dealing with. I learned from observing others, how to deal with the anger. I spent a lot of time curbing the impulsiveness. You see, with this improved body of Victor's, the simplest act of my strength could bring disaster. So, coupled with the pain of my crime and my death, I worked on how I could control my reactions."

He slows his pacing. He looks like a man who is tired. I know how he feels, I give a short laugh and he turns to me, "It seems I am not the only one having a hard time with my new life."

He is looking down, his hair falling like a curtain between us. He usually stays near me when we talk. I wonder if he is struggling now with old emotions, old rages. He turns and walks back to me, sitting before me, cross legged on the floor, his hands resting on his knees. "Do I," he starts, but stops. I move to take his hand but he slides it away. "Do I revolt you?"

For a long moment I pause before answering him. I look at his hands. These were not the hands of the husband who killed his wife. Who do they belong to? "No. Michael, what if the true purpose of our lives as we lived them before could not be completed unless we went through this?" At this he finally raises his head. "What if it takes a second chance," I reach for him and this time he lets me take his hand. "What ever design you complete, perhaps had to be done between the three men who make you. They lent you parts of themselves. But you are actually becoming Michael."

"And what of you," he asks, "who is Therese?"

His eyes bore into mine, I know what he is asking. "We will find out," I say.

Victor

I am so relieved that Elisabeth seems better. We finally move her back to our bedroom. The children are anxious to see her, and we have a short and joyous reunion. I hustle them out to the wet nurse, who brings me my son. Sitting on the bed next to Elisabeth we decide on a name. I want him named for my long time friend, Henry Clerval. We decide on Albert Henry Frankenstein.

I tell her to sleep, to give her body time to repair. I must go back to conducting my rounds. It will be time to check in on Master Wetherden and Therese.

Therese

One of the servants tells me Astrid wants to see me. I cannot think why. I do not enjoy her company. She spends her childish days trying on gowns and changing her hair.

I believe I resent her because she represents everything I am not. From her night dark hair, her luminous brown eyes, and her classic features, she has the face that Homer's Helen might have been taken from. I feel plain and colorless around her. If she was intelligent, no one will ever know, for it has left her now.

I go to her room, and she is sitting before a vanity, combing out her long dark hair. Large stones like diamonds dangle from her ears, and a necklace of similar design circles her throat. Her robe is open enough that one slim leg is revealed, and the smooth line of her shoulders.

"Therese, I want you to pin up my hair," she says smiling.

I wonder at why she needs to impose on my work with the patients, but go to her back and take the brush. She sits smiling smugly at me like a child who has stirred up some mischief. Looking up with the brush in my hand, I see the reflection of Edgar Ragache behind me. Our eyes meet in the mirror.

"Aren't you glad to see me, Therese?" He asks.

He knows I do not speak. I stare at him.

"I missed you, child." He saunters up behind me, a hand on my waist. Once again he moves it up and down and leans in to my ear. "I missed you," he says again. His hands pull me back against him.

Astrid giggles, covering her mouth with one slim hand. "Are we going to play the game," she asks.

"Of course, my princess," Edgar lets me go. The expression in his eyes turns hard as he looks down at Astrid's back. I feel like a stone is weighing down my stomach. I have seen this look before. It is the look Luther had in his eyes as he hit me. Ragache watches me in the mirror, "Astrid and I want you to tell us some stories, Therese." He lets his hands drift up Astrid's neck. He lifts the necklace and starts to slowly pull it tight around her throat.

Astrid's expression begins to change, she lifts her hands but he orders her, "Hands down, Darling." She complies but I can see that she is in pain. The glittering pretty stones have now become something ugly to her. I watch impassively. He will not tell me more until he has finished his little play for me.

Ragache lets the necklace go; Astrid rubs at her throat with hesitant hands. Her lips form a pout. Her little game has gone awry. Ragache turns to me. I have slid my hand behind my skirt, I still hold the brush.

"We want you to tell us a story, a story about a prince, who is injured in a terrible battle. The prince goes to the magician for his healing, and meets a princess." I glance at Astrid, he called her 'princess', and she is smiling now. "He falls in love with the princess and they live happily ever after."

He is closer to me now; I have backed up near the door. He stretches out a hand next to the wall by my head. "Now, Therese, you don't want to come between the prince and princess do you?" The meaning is clear to me. Ragache can control Astrid. He hopes to foist her on Thomas and control him through her.

I actually laugh, "You can't mean Thomas would be interested in her do you?"