Page 90 of The Last Necromancer
I dared to stand on my toes, but still I couldn't see the faces. There were three bodies, and I could tell from their large bare feet that they were all men. No. No, no, no. Surely Fitzroy was too clever—too strong—to have been caught. But the coincidence was too great for me to dismiss it.
Bile burned my throat. My stomach rolled and heaved. I squatted down again and sat with my back to the wall. I drew in large breaths and steadied my nerves. Then I began to plan.
I found crates and stacked them, then climbed up to peer through the smaller, high window, used for ventilation near the roofline. From that angle I could see all three faces of the bodies on the tables. They were bloodied and bruised, but I recognized Seth and Gus immediately. The third had his cheeks smashed in, and the rest of his face was swollen and covered in blood. His hair was matted too, but it was clearly black. Unlike Seth and Gus, the third figure struggled to breathe. His chest barely rose with each gasp of air, and once, a bubble of blood formed on his lips. He was unconscious. They all were.
I stumbled down from my makeshift ladder and threw up in the corner of the loading dock. Oh God. No, please no. Don't let them become a body farm for Frankenstein. Don't let Fitzroy die.
I pressed the heel of my hand to my heart, where it felt like a sharp blade pierced me. Tears cascaded down my cheeks, but I dashed them away. They weren't dead yet.
I steeled myself and climbed back up the crates. Frankenstein had moved away from the tables and was checking the machine. Candlelight picked out a cut on his lip, the swell of a bruise on his cheek, but they were nothing compared to the injuries on my three friends. How had he overpowered them with only minimal harm to himself?
His face was slick with sweat, his hairline damp. He'd discarded hat, coat and gloves and stood in his shirt and trousers, rubbing his hands together as he inspected a glass panel on the machine. With a satisfied nod, he twiddled a dial and tapped the glass. His gaze flicked between his six creatures, then he turned the dial again. The sudden crack and snap of lightning made me jump. Bolts of light flashed at the points where the wires met the chairs, causing the bodies strapped to them to twitch and jerk as if they were alive.
My rapidly beating heart in my throat, I leaned closer to the window, unable to believe what I saw. I'd heard about electricity but never seen it in action before. Even so, I knew that I witnessed electricity at work. The engine must be generating it and sending it through the wires and into the chairs to animate the bodies.
If he had a machine to bring them to life, why did he need me?
The motor's hum began to slow, and the lightning bolts generated by the electricity ended. Yet the bodies still jerked and twisted.
The eyes of the one facing me opened, and I fell backward in surprise, landing on the hard ground. Thankfully the crates remained in place, and I'd not cried out. I was sore but nothing seemed broken. When I realized Frankenstein wasn't coming out to investigate, I climbed back up.
He wasn't there. I couldn't see the whole room from where I crouched on the top crate, so it was possible he was simply out of sight, or he could have left without snuffing out the candles.
The motor had wound down and stopped. Now that the humming had ended, the silence seemed unnatural. The creaking of boat timbers carried on the breeze, but otherwise, there were no sounds. The starless sky above was a vast, black sea. The only light came from the flickering candles inside the warehouse. They lit up the cloudy, soulless eyes of the creature facing me. He didn't seem to see me, but that could have been because he didn't see anything.
His head moved from side to side and every part of him jerked or twitched. Then, as if it were nothing, he pulled free of the bonds strapping his wrists to the chair arms. His bound ankles freed next and he sat a moment, as if he wasn't sure what to do with his newfound freedom. Then he rocked forward and finally stood.
The other five bodies came alive too, each of them releasing themselves using unnatural strength. They stood on unsteady legs and checked their surroundings with blank eyes. I kept low, and thankfully my window was above their head height. They did not look up or down, only from side to side.
The first one, the one nearest me, tore the leather straps off the chairs and threw them. The others did the same, and even tried to pick up the chairs themselves, but they must have been bolted to the floor. One of the creatures took a candelabra and stared into the flames. He tried to catch one, and the fire didn't seem to hurt him, even when his skin began to burn. Then he snapped each candle in two, and threw the pieces to the floor where one of the others stomped on them, mashing the wax into the wooden boards with his bare heel. The first creature then slammed the metal candelabra against the chair until it too broke.
If I had any thoughts about these creatures being human, they were quickly dashed. They might have the appearance of men, but they had no conscience, no thoughts beyond violent instinct. They couldn't be allowed to roam free.
"I knew you would come, Charlotte."
My heart leapt at the familiar voice behind me. Slowly, slowly, I turned away from the warehouse, where the creatures progressed ever closer to the three bodies on the tables.
"I hoped you would be here to witness this." Frankenstein smiled up at me. He held out his hand, but I refused it. "Come away from there. If they see you, neither of us will be able to stop them."
I climbed down. I could run now. He didn't appear to be armed, and I'd wager I was faster than him. It was the only way to keep myself out of his hands, to keep myself safe. I was dressed in boys' clothing again, and it would be easy to lose myself among the network of narrow lanes leading away from the docks.
It was so tempting to dash past him. I'd not kept myself out of danger for the last five years only to throw myself into the pit now. If I stayed, there may never be another opportunity to change my mind. It was unlikely that I could save myself once caught. I'd proven my ineffectiveness in fights several times over, of late.
No, I needed to make a choice now. Run, or stay and try to save Seth, Gus and Fitzroy.
Yet it was no choice at all. I could never live with myself if I left them to the mercy of this man. Fitzroy's callousness toward me hadn't stopped me from caring about all of them, including him.
"You must stop those things!" I cried. "They're going to kill them."
He held up his hands. "I can't. They don't listen to me. I learned that the hard way."
I frowned. "Then why did you animate them again?"
"Because I saw you there, watching, and I wanted you to see why I need you."
He'd seen me?
"Admittedly, I was looking out for you." He smiled gently. "I hoped that when your captors didn't return you would come to investigate. I had everything prepared—"
