The Isle of Blood (The Monstrumologist #3)(11)

You see, more than a starving man wants bread, I wanted to see what was in that box, whatever it might be. That desire made me more my master’s progeny than my own father’s; I was Pellinore Warthrop reincarnate, but unalloyed by any poetic compunctions. In me it was pure hunger, a desire untainted by platitudes or petty human morals.

But within that thing inside unwinding, das Ungeheuer, also dwelled the loathing—the counterbalancing force of revulsion that screamed for me to remain in the parlor with Kendall.

My charge had moved not a muscle in nearly an hour and did not look as if he would for several more. If I remained a moment more, my heart might explode. By that point I did not merely want to look at Kearns’s special gift. I had to look.

I crept down the hall and peeked into the library, where I spied the monstrumologist seated at the table, his head resting on his folded arms. Softly I called his name. He did not move.

Well, thought I, he’s either sleeping or he’s dead. If the former, I dare not wake him. If the latter, I cannot!

I shuffled quickly and quietly to the basement door, hesitating but half a breath before making the descent.

And within me, the unwinding.

Just one little look, I promised myself. I reasoned it must be a very curious prize indeed for my master to be so secretive about it. And, to be honest, my pride was wounded. I interpreted his caginess as ak of trust—after all we had been through together! If he could not trust me, the one person in the world who endured him, whom could he trust?

A black cloth covered the worktable. Beneath it lay the prize of Dr. John Kearns; I could see the outline of the box in which it had arrived. Now, why had the monstrumolo-gist covered it? To hide it from prying eyes, obviously—and there was only one pair of eyes in the house that would pry.

My anger and shame doubled. How dare he! Had I not proved myself time and again? Had I not always been the model of unquestioning loyalty and steadfast devotion? And this was my recompense? The gall of the man!

I did not gingerly lift one corner and furtively glance at what lay beneath. I flung back the black cloth; it snapped angrily in the cold atmosphere as it fell away.

Chapter Three: “The Answer to a Prayer Unspoken”

I gasped; I could not help it. I might have perversely prided myself on my transformation from naïve boy to world-weary apprentice to a monstrumologist, morbidly happy with the carapace that had grown around my tender sensibilities, but this laid me bare, exposing the aboriginal protohuman that still dwells within us all, the one who regards in terror the vast depths of the evening sky and the unblinking eye of the soulless moon. The doctor’s word for it had been “magnificent.” That was not the word I would have chosen.

From a greater distance and in weaker light, it might have resembled a bit of ancient earthenware—a large clay serving bowl, perhaps—though one fashioned by a blind man or a potter still learning the craft. It was, for lack of a better word, lumpy. The sides bulged; the rim was uneven; and the bottom was slightly convex, causing it to lean precariously toward one side.

But the distance was not great and the light not weak; I saw close up and clearly the material with which this odd container was constructed. I’d learned enough anatomy from Warthrop to identify some of the things that constituted this confusing morass of remains, woven together with mind-boggling intricacy—there a proximal phalanx, here a mandible snapped in half, but others were as mysterious—and nearly meaningless—as pieces of a jigsaw puzzle scattered to the four corners of a room. Rip a human being apart, shred him into pieces no larger than the length of your thumb, and see how much of him you can recognize. Is that a tuft of hair—or a muscle’s stringy sinew turned black? And that blob of purplish substance there—a piece of his heart, or perhaps a chunk of his liver? The difficulty was compounded by the interweaving of the various parts. Imagine an enormous robin’s nest fashioned not from twigs and leaves but from human remains.

Yes, I thought, not a bowl. A nest. That’s what it reminds me of.

It puzzled me at first, how the monstrous artisan, whoever—or whatever— he was, had managed to achieve it. Lifeless tissue rots quickly when exposed to the elements, and without some bonding agent the entire gruesome sack would no doubt have collapsed into a chaotic mass. The thing did glisten like fired clay in the harsh electrified lighting of the laboratory. Perhaps that’s how my first impression of it was formed, for it was coated in a slightly opaque, gelatinous substance resembling mucus.

In his mad rush to confront Kendall—Did you open it, Kendall? Did you touch what was inside?—the doctor had abandoned his notes. At the top of the page was this notation:

London, 2 Feb ’89, Whitechapel. John Kearns. Magnificum???

Below this line was a word I did not recognize, for my studies in the classical languages had languished under the doctor’s care. He had written it in large block letters that dominated the page:

Tυφωεύς

The rest of the page was blank. It was as if, once he had committed that one word to paper, he could think of nothing else to write.

Or, I thought, there was nothing else he dared to write.

This was deeply troubling, more so than what he had hidden beneath the black cloth. Though still a boy, I could, as I’ve confessed, endure with stoic fortitude the grotesque manifestations of nature’s villainous side. This was far worse; it shook the foundations of my devotion to him.