Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match(3)

Here lay a beautiful man, frozen at the climax of the fight for his life. He appeared incredulous to have died. His brow was creased between the eyebrows, his jaw was gritted tight, and his hands were half-curled in fists. He had faced death like a gladiator, and when she rolled up one of his eyelids, there was such a direct challenge in his brown eye that she felt true fright and released him. “You fought hard, didn’t you?”

She watched for his furious inhalation, which never came. It was terribly sad.

Tousling a gentle hand through his thick bronze-brown hair was very forward of her, but she could not resist. It was soft as tabby-cat fur. She noticed his smile lines and long lashes. He had neat fingernails, and all his teeth were present. “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,” she whispered to him. “Would you like to be mine?”

She was inspired in a new way. She’d never been somebody’s last chance before.

“Are you alone? Are you afraid?” She took a deep breath and had to muster her courage for this next question. “Can I do this for you? Do you wish to come back?” Her lantern flickered, and a breeze blew in, banging the door against the wall. Her skirts swirled around her ankles. Even Helsaw clutched his chest and barked an obscenity.

Angelika knew, deep in her bones, this dead man’s answer was: Yes, yes, yes. Bring me back.

“That was eerie,” Victor remarked blandly from where he was tapping his hands on a chest, feeling for evidence of fluid. “Who’ve you found there?”

She cleared her throat of sudden strong emotion. “Someone perfect. I won’t change a thing about him.”

“That’s not the experiment,” Victor argued. “My nemesis, Jürgen Schneider—”

She cut over him. “I know full well who your mortal enemy is.”

“Then you know that in his exquisite German laboratory, he’s reanimating entire men left and right.” Victor could not think of the man without a tormented growl. “I must go bolder and exceed him, and do what he said is impossible. My achievement must be made of many parts, all sewn back together, to be better than Schneider’s. Is everything present and accounted for?” He nodded toward Angelika’s beau.

Angelika looked under the filthy scrap covering the handsome man’s loins and considered what she saw. She had been reading a lot of anatomy manuals; possibly too many. What she saw lying on his lap was unremarkable. And upon closer review, his chest was trim and strong, but not the heavy padded muscles she preferred. “He looks . . . fine.”

Victor came over to assess Angelika’s claim. Bending the corpse’s joints, he said, “He probably died only today. He’s an excellent candidate, and his looks are almost as refined as mine.” He searched around for a mirror, and then declared, “Keep his head, and we’ll remake the rest.”

She followed Victor to the next table. Then she glanced back at the handsome man.

He seemed alone, in a way the others did not.

She noticed something on the next man along, a stocky fellow in his fifties. “This one has a tattoo. ‘Bonnie.’”

It was unlikely that Bonnie would approve of tonight’s activities, and reality struck, harder than this imagined woman’s slap. Angelika began defending herself out loud. “Surely a second chance is better than being tossed into a hole in the dirt?”

She wasn’t talking to Victor, but he answered anyway. “If it’s not us, it’s them.” He nodded to the doorway. “The difference is, we have a chance to reverse this. A few years too late, I suppose.” He meant for their parents, and they both swallowed a lump of sadness. With forced humor, he continued. “Here, you’ll like this one over here. Rippling all over with muscles, and a cock like a hog’s hind leg. I think you’ve got a few options to work with here.”

The shroud was pulled down to the knees, and she assessed the body part in question. The anatomy manuals had not prepared her. “Is it . . . too big?”

“Sister, I cannot advise you on such things,” Victor replied. “Just get spares where you can.”

It was good advice. Their laboratory smelled of burning hair.

This person’s biceps did not give under her prodding finger, and his hands were black from coal, or metal. The body belonging to her handsome man had been refined and clean; this one was a brute. She faltered, looking back again. “I still like mine as he is.”

“I think this was the blacksmith. Athena threw a shoe in the village last year. Shame.” Victor slapped the man’s shoulder heartily. “He put up with her biting very well. Don’t look so worried, Jelly. We will make somebody who is ideal to you in every way.”

Helsaw was leaning through the doorway. “What’s taking so long? Heads are now an extra sixpence.”

Victor ignored him. “I think this time’s the charm, don’t you, Jelly? We learned from the last three attempts. When I present my rebuilt man at the next Cerulean Order meeting, Schneider will cry himself to sleep.” A cruel expression spread across his face. “I’ll bring Lizzie along, to remind him of all the ways he has lost to me.”

“’Urry up,” a second voice said from the doorway, putting true fear in the siblings. It was their elderly servant Mary, tired of waiting with the pony cart. “What the bloomin’ heck is the holdup? How hard is it to pick a couple of dead lads? You,” she threatened Angelika with just a word. “You.”