The creature huddled near the ancient fireplace of Huntingtower, warming its gnarled hands in the glow of the fire Ruthven had built in its honor. During their stroll across the moors, Ruthven had tried to mesmerize the creature as he would have any normal man, but the effort proved futile. It seemed that aside from his moon-touched physical powers, the creature was immune to Ruthven’s undead capabilities. Its mind was naturally strong, far stronger than any mind so young and naive had any right to be.

The effort had also proved unnecessary, for the creature’s tale had confirmed all of Ruthven’s suspicions. It had told him a remarkable story of grave-robbing, alchemy and galvanic experiments that restored life to the dead. The sort of tall-tale that drunken poets might dream up at winter storm parties, when the cold and the dark and the raging blizzard inspired them to out-scare one another. Ruthven believed every word of it.

As he brought a snifter of brandy over to the fire, the creature looked sideways at him with its watery, yellowed eyes. “Is this, then, how civilized men bargain for the life of another?”

“The fates of nations are often sealed over snifters of brandy. Why not those of men?”

The creature took the offered brandy and squatted beside the fire, leaning back against the stone frame with slumped shoulders. It seemed remorseful.

Ruthven stood with his back to the creature, looking out the second-story window over his ancestral moors. “And so your father robbed you of a companion, leaving you alone in the world.”

“He claims it is a matter of conscience. That he cannot release a race of devils. Where, I wonder, was his conscience when he infused my wretched form with all the human longings, as amplified as my strength and my swiftness?” The creature rose and shattered his snifter on the floor. It seemed to Ruthven as much an act of sorrow as of anger. “Who is he, to condemn his only child to a lonely eternity?” The creature began pacing, then loomed up behind Ruthven. “If I am to be alone, so shall he be. You will give me Clerval.”

Ruthven could feel the creature’s hot, angry breath disrupting his hair. It was trying to get its way through sheer intimidation.

“Ruthven,” it said, laying a powerful palm on the back of his neck, applying enough pressure to make his threat. “Give him to me.”

The brute-child had much to learn about the exercise of power. “Tell me, dear creature,” Ruthven said. “Your father, as you call him – he is merely a man?”

“Only to appearances, master Ruthven. His heart is cold and dead,” the creature said. “He is more a monster than either of us.”

“Nonetheless, he is only mortal.”

“What of it?”

Ruthven looked out over the horizon, where the false dawn greeted his gaze. It would be morning soon. A new day.

“It is within my power to manipulate the wills of mortal men. I think that I should like to meet your maker. Perhaps I can persuade him.”

“Why?”

Ruthven turned to look his new friend in the eye, giving his gentlest smile. “Because I know something of lonely eternities.”

Ruthven offered the creature his hand.

“And what of Clerval?”

“All things in their time, my friend,” Ruthven answered.

Hesistantly, like a nervous child cowed by abusive strangers, the creature took Ruthven’s hand in his own powerful grip, shook it in agreement.

And Ruthven was, finally, touching something gloriously, dreadfully new in the world.

# # #

Some weeks later – he wasn’t sure how many, though he supposed he’d have to start marking time again – Ruthven stood on the red sandstone beach of Kirkwall, in the Orkney Islands, watching the creature depart with his new “bride” in an old, sturdy dinghy they’d stolen from the docks. She was every bit the creature’s equal in hideous countenance and frightening strength, and arguably his superior in intellect. They’d anticipated trouble from her, once Victor’s alchemy and galvanism had given her life, but the transition had gone remarkably easy. She’d assessed the situation as calmly as the unseasonably peaceful winds that now licked about Ruthven’s hair, and seemed to have been immediately smitten with her male counterpart. And now, as the creature had promised Victor in their original bargain, the gracefully shambling couple were headed to the wilds of South America, to be forever separate from the world of men.

Ruthven had grown fond of the creature as a kindred spirit, and momentarily worried that he and his bride would perish at sea. But this Adam of a new race had proven himself nothing if not resourceful. Ruthven dismissed his worries, and raised his hand in a parting wave to his new friend. The creature, rowing the dinghy up over the crest of a mighty wave, returned the gesture. His bride, hidden beneath the hood of a stolen robe, looked back over her shoulder with the grace of a cultured lady. And with that, they dropped out of sight, on the far side of the wave.

Ruthven did not wait to see if they emerged from the trough and up the face of the next wave. He had more pressing concerns. There was still Victor to consider.

He’d left the young Swiss doctor in a mesmerized trance in a locked room he’d rented near the docks. Victor Frankenstein’s mind, though malleable, had proven itself somewhat more resilient than that of most mortals, and considerably more morose. Ruthven had quickly learned that Henry’s journals hadn’t done Victor’s madness justice. It was as though the man’s powerful will was animated by melancholy, rather than crippled as most men’s would be.

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Still, Victor was brilliant, and motivated by morbid curiosity in spite of himself. Give the man a puzzle involving the secrets of death, and he just couldn’t resist sorting it out. Ruthven could think of no pawn more perfectly suited to the task ahead.

The sun was setting and the full moon rising as he came down the main street of Kirkwall’s port to the small inn where he’d left Victor. Ruthven would need the moon’s power tonight, to bolster his mesmerism. He was going to ask more of Victor than he’d be willing to give, even with Henry’s and Elizabeth’s lives in the balance.

Of course, Ruthven had threatened them, cribbing from the creature’s knowledge of their lives to convince Victor that he knew just as much. In truth, Ruthven had never seen Elizabeth Lavenza, though he knew that Henry still awaited his friend back at Perth. Finding and killing him could be easily accomplished, if necessary.

As he came up the creaking stairs, Ruthven could see the heavy oaken door of his rented room at the end of the hall. He strode with renewed vigor down the hall towards his self-appointed destiny, but halfway there, something made him stop. A change in the air, perhaps, or a deeper silence underlying the quiet seaside night; he couldn’t be sure. He only knew, from centuries of hunter’s instinct, that there was the hint of death beyond that door.

Victor must have awakened from his trance.

Ruthven found himself wishing he possessed the legendary powers of his kind to shift shapes, or become mist, or assume the form of a spirit. Even the wall-walking gifts of the lizard, often attributed to but in his experience never found among the mindless revenants of Romania, would have been useful at that moment; he could have gone downstairs and crawled up through the second-story window of his room, gaining the element of surprise over Victor. As it was, he possessed only his need for blood, his heightened physical capabilities, and his power over the minds of men. And of course, his immortality. He had no fear of death, but could have its facsimile forced upon him in most painful ways, especially by modern weaponry – a fate he preferred to avoid. He had no special tricks to pre-empt whatever trap Victor had set for him, so his persuasive gifts would have to be enough.

Ruthven approached the door as quietly as he could, a light, practiced predator’s step he’d learned from observing cats. Gently, he laid his hand upon the rough-hewn oak door, splintered in places by great age. From the other side, he could feel the vibrations of Victor’s breathing. No longer rhythmic, but erratic, even a bit frantic; the breath of a man near panic, a man steeling himself for danger. Why hadn’t Victor simply fled?

“Victor,” he whispered. “It is of no use. I know you are awake.”

There was no answer, but Ruthven sensed Victor’s pulse quicken. The young Swiss doctor had heard him clearly.

“I assure you,” Ruthven said, “I intend you no harm. I am going to come in.”

Ruthven turned the knob – breaking the lock – and pushed the creaky old door open with great care, avoiding quick movements and readying himself for whatever attack Victor might have planned.

Victor was sitting on the bed, holding knotted sheets crumpled up in his hands. He’d been fashioning a noose. The attack he’d planned had not been against Ruthven at all.

“You have damned me, Ruthven. Damned the world. I will be free of you, one way or another.”

Victor was always hardest to enthrall in his dreary moments. Ruthven would have to be subtle.

“Victor, dear friend. You have much to live for. Think of Elizabeth, of Henry.”

“Do not call me friend! You are a devil worse than the one you made me unleash.”

“Then think of Elizabeth and Henry for other reasons,” Ruthven said.

Victor rose to his feet, dark eyes glaring beneath flaxen Germanic hair, fists reddening around the sheets in his hands. “More threats?”

“They miss you, Victor. You can return to them, to Geneva, and put the nightmare behind you.”

“And leave my creations to their fate? To become a race of fiends upon the earth, who will displace mankind?”

Ruthven tried to make eye contact with Victor. The mesmerism would work best that way. But Victor was too savvy for that.

“You must know, Ruthven, that I would kill you where you stand, were it within my power.”

“I know, Victor. Were our places reversed, I might do the same. No man likes being a slave. But I gave your creation my word, and honor is all I have left.”

“Then give me your word,” Victor said, “that I will be free to return to Geneva, free to return my dear Elizabeth.”

“Of course,” Ruthven said. “Your family is your affair.”

Victor loosened his grip on the makeshift noose, took an involuntary step forward. He was beginning to trust Ruthven now, to reach out for any sliver of hope.

“I might once have made playthings of your beloveds Henry and Elizabeth,” Ruthven said. And I still might, he thought. After all, he hadn’t met Elizabeth yet, though from Henry’s journal, she sounded delectably innocent. “But I have recently developed more delicate aspirations. That is why I will give myself to you, within reason.”

Victor, intrigued, finally released the noose completely, letting the sheet dangle loosely in his hands. He moved his mouth as if to speak, but no words came forth.

“Surely, doctor, you have surmised that I am no mere man.”

“You are a demon.”

“Perhaps. But I am also a puzzle, even to myself. I have spent many lifetimes reveling in the corruption of the innocent, in the degradation of humanity. And I became aware long ago that such endeavors were mere affectations to me, trivial pursuits to stave off boredom. But it was not until I met your creation, dear doctor, that I became aware of the true motive of my machinations. Your child and I, for all the difference in time and experience between us, have one thing in common.”

“You are alone,” Victor whispered. He stepped back from Ruthven, horror and anger welling up in his face.

“No! Not again! Never again!”

He lunged at Ruthven, meaning to choke him with the bed sheet. He was enraged, freed from his prison of melancholy. Just as Ruthven needed him.

Ruthven lashed out, seizing Victor by the throat, faster than any mortal could have perceived. He lifted the helpless, gurgling young man up off his feet and walked over to press him against the wall.

“Be still.” He forced Victor to meet his eyes. Victor’s will fought valiantly, but as always when he was in this agitated state, succumbed.

Ruthven loosened his grip, allowing Victor to breathe, but did not lower him to the floor.

“I will be your test subject, Victor, until such time as we have discovered the alchemy that animates me. Until I am no longer cursed to be alone.”

Victor mumbled, still feebly resisting.

“In exchange, I will leave Henry and Elizabeth unmolested. You may pursue whatever life you please with them.”

He lowered Victor to the floor, released his throat. “I give you my word as a gentleman.”

Ruthven offered his hand, pretending that Victor had a choice. Victor, of course, accepted it, and shook firmly.

“Very good, doctor. Let us now make haste to Perth and rendezvous with Henry, where you shall introduce me. Then, on to Geneva, and your dear, sweet Elizabeth.”

“Elizabeth,” Victor said, and smiled gently. He went to gather his meager belongings, and soon joined Ruthven at the door. Together, Ruthven’s arm around Victor’s shoulder, they left the lonely port of Kirkwall, and headed off into the growing bank of moonlit fog.

Beyond it lay the world made new.