The Final Descent (The Monstrumologist #4)(28)

Plop. Thwack!

And the monstrumologist, with quick, sure hands, warm in the glow of the artificial sun, quotes from one of his favorite books:

“ ‘Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.’ ”

He laughs. “Not to mention your fill of mice and men!”

FIVE

And the carapace split apart, a thick yellowish liquid oozed from the crack, then the ruby red mouth and the round black head the size of my knuckle emerged, and then teeth the colorless white of bleached-out bone: life inexorable and self-defeating, ends contained in beginnings, and the pungent odor like fresh-tilled earth and the amber eye unblinking.

Beside me the monstrumologist let out a long-held breath.

“Behold: the awful grace of God, from which wisdom comes!”

SIX

Behold the awful grace of God.

The lambs in the old stable bleated plaintively, and their blank black eyes twinkled in the washed-out winter light. It wasn’t hunger that drove their cries; they were well fed, flawlessly plump; each head appeared too small for its round body. They weren’t hungry; they were frightened. I was a stranger. An interloper. Their nostrils flared, offended by my foreign scent. I wasn’t the thin, stoop-shouldered man in the dingy white coat who brought the fresh hay and oats and water. The one who cleaned the stall and spread the warm straw. The one who cared for them, protected them, fed them until their sides were sore.

I grabbed the shovel from the hook and went back outside.

The ground was hard; my hands were soft. I was unaccustomed to physical labor. My shoulders ached; my palms burned. My feet and heart were numb.

What awful grace drove you, Warthrop? Was Beatrice a lamb like the ones in the stable or did she see too much? The mercy of monstrumologists is as cold as God’s—did you kill her to spare her a more unspeakable end?

The dry wind swirled in the smoldering ashes, and a loose shutter knocked against the peeling siding, and I still had nearly two cans of kerosene, stacks of lumber and nails, and it could be done: Board up the doors, seal him inside; the rotten old house would be engulfed in minutes.

Run, Willy, run! from the fire my mother cried.

There is no room for pity or grief or any sentimental human thing, but justice is not sentimental. Justice is as cold and immutable as the ice of Judecca.

Tell me, Father; tell me what you have seen.

Canto 3

ONE

Abram von Helrung sighed deeply around his cigar, stocky legs spread wide, pudgy hands worrying behind his back, as he stared out the window of his Fifth Avenue brownstone to the early-morning bustle below. The light cut deep shadows into the craggy landscape of his face. His eyes, normally so bright and birdlike, were the washed-out blue of a winter sky.

“Calamity,” he murmured. “Calamity!”

“Calamity implies an unforeseen disaster,” Hiram Walker piped up from the sofa behind him. “I, for one, have said from the beginning that housing the T. cerrejonensis in the Monstrumarium was—”

“Walker,” the monstrumologist said through gritted teeth. He was standing by the mantel, a study in barely contained fury. “Shut up.”

The Englishman sniffed noisily. Beside him his apprentice, Samuel the mediocrity, was glaring at me. The entire left side of his face was swollen. Perhaps I had broken his jaw; I hoped so. There are some we cannot help but take an instant dislike to. I think I would have hated him even if he hadn’t refused to yield on the dance floor.

“Pointing fingers won’t accomplish anything at this point,” Dr. Pelt said. He had draped his lanky frame upon a settee and was sipping black coffee from a cup that looked toy-size in his large hand. Brown droplets clung to his enormous handlebar mustache.

“True,” Sir Hiram allowed. “We can address repercussions at the conclusion of the affair.”

“Repercussions? What do you mean?” Warthrop demanded. “I did nothing wrong.”

“You brought it here. You decided to stash it in the Monstrumarium. It is your ‘prize,’ is it not?”

Warthrop’s face drained of all color. The doctors who had treated him at Bellevue had cautioned him to avoid strenuous activity—in fact had strongly urged bed rest—or he might have bashed the man’s head in with the bust of Darwin by his elbow.

“Hiram,” he said levelly, “you are a spineless, chinless, mutated sponge of a man, possessing the mental acumen of a sea slug, but I forgive you for that. A man cannot choose his own mother, after all.”

Walker’s beady eyes grew still beadier and his mouth moved soundlessly, revealing the upper row of yellow, uneven teeth. Beside me Lilly bit back a laugh. I let mine out.

“Mock me while you can, Warthrop. Let’s see how far your laughter will carry from Blackwell’s Island!”

“I blame you for this, von Helrung,” said the monstrumologist, turning to the old Austrian.

“Me? But how am I to blame?”

“You invited him.”

“Oh, I thought you meant—”

“The man is as useless as . . .” Warthrop searched for the proper metaphor.

Pelt drawled a suggestion: “Teats on a bull.”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” von Helrung admonished gently. “We have not gathered here to discuss Dr. Walker’s teats.”