Chapter 6 #4
It was another moment before Victoria could pull the mask of consternation down and move.
Her father had hit her. Her mind circled, promising her she misunderstood, but the sting of her cheek corrected her.
She had upset him. Disappointed him. Despite her battling, heat welled in her eyes as they remained locked on the covered outline of the cadaver’s nose.
“You must swear to me now—swear that you will never resurrect me. I do not want that fate. My body yearns to be laid next to your mother again.”
Victoria looked at her father and stiffened her jaw. “No.”
“Victoria!” he shouted. His voice rattled and shook the thin glass of the lamps nearby.
“You will not go against my wishes. Do you understand? This is not your decision! Have some respect for your mother—for me! When the time comes for me to die, I will leave your side and return to hers. Do not be selfish in your grief!!”
For the first time in her life, Victoria took a step away from her father as fear rolled through her.
A numbness pooled in her body as though she were watching this all happen to someone else.
The safety net that held her together had fallen into a pit of flames.
Her life’s focus fell behind the net into the fire, burning her sense of stability.
“Why—why would you not want to stay here with me?”
Alphonse shook his head, removed his glasses, and ran his palm roughly over his face before answering.
“Because it’s not the natural order of life.
When the time comes that I must leave you, your mother and I together will watch over you.
Swear to me, Victoria, that you will respect my wishes and leave your mother and me to the peace of death.
Do not, under any circumstances, bring me or either of us back to life.
Do you understand? Promise me, or I will stop everything now, and you may never step foot in this laboratory again.
” Victoria nodded as she stared at the cadaver.
A tear trickled down her face. She felt as though the world and its last hope of light had just been snuffed out.
Every drop of hope that had festered since childhood was suddenly extinguished.
A god had just been made mortal. Her years of studying and learning meant nothing—it had all been for nothing.
Her destiny of blackened, hollow loneliness had just been set.
She couldn’t keep her father from leaving. Should he fall ill tonight, it would be over. For both of them. The overwhelming feeling of nothingness swelled inside her, spreading and suffocating her like thick plumes of black smoke.
“I wish for a verbal confirmation, Victoria Rose,” Alphonse clipped, still angry and flustered.
Victoria’s glistening, unfocused eyes fell to her father.
“I—I…” There were no words in her mouth or head, there was nothing left in her; what little she’d had left had been taken.
All that remained was a mask, and as it fell into place, she stiffened and moved closer to her father.
She reached in front of him and clasped hold of the sheet covering the cadaver.
“As you wish, Papa. I will not, under any circumstances, bring you or Mama back to life.” Her voice was clinical and devoid of the torrent of emotions she felt.
“I’m sorry, Vic. I have been under such duress about this cadaver arriving without issue and everything else. I’m taking it out on you, and you are doing so much. I apologize for striking you. I—I think I need to rest.”
Victoria peeled the sheet off the cadaver’s head and lay it over his chest. Another gust of shock filled her body as she looked at the dead man. Her mouth hung open.
Beneath the sheet lay the most handsome man she had ever laid eyes on. Younger than she had expected, he had been badly beaten. Large chunks of skin were missing, peeled off from burns that covered most of the skin that remained on one side of his face, neck, and chest.
She lifted her surprised gaze to see her father studying her, waiting for her acknowledgment. “There’s no need to apologize, Papa. You haven’t been sleeping well. Perhaps the laudanum will help restore you tonight,” she said calmly. “What happened to this man? Do you know?”
“Yes, he was a killer, a deserter, and a man without allegiance,” Alphonse said as he leaned against the wall to stabilize himself, looking more drained than ever.
“He’s…huge, the biggest man I’ve ever seen. I didn’t even know men of this size existed. His shoulders are almost too broad for the table; however did you find him?”
Alphonse let out a tired breath. “People apparently knew him as the Wraith of Serbia. A monster that a Russian prison was more than willing to part with for a decent sum of money.”
“The Wraith of Serbia?” Victoria repeated softly as her eyes combed over the eight-foot-tall man. “How could anyone of this size be considered a wraith?” A disbelieving laugh left her throat.
“He is exactly the reason why the subject of our experiment cannot remain alive long after their resurrection, and we will never perform it again. He was a monster and apparently a very, very talented one. A paid killer. No allegiance, just whoever paid the most. Apparently he was unstoppable and undetectable. Countries, kings, everyone used him knowing he would never get caught. I guess Russia, his homeland, wanted his allegiance, and when he would not give it, they disposed of him. The men who dropped it off seemed to be frightened of the man’s presence even after death.
” Alphonse took a step forward to peer at the cadaver’s bludgeoned and burned face.
Victoria appraised the same face, and the curve of her mouth turned downward. “He doesn’t look very fearsome to me. Also not much of a wraith. Look at what they did to his face. They burned and beat him? If the killer was unseen, how could they know for sure this was him?”
Alphonse watched Victoria in silence for a moment, as if debating how much information he ought to tell her. “They said he moved unseen—”
“It hardly looks as if that were true,” Victoria mumbled as she leaned closer to the cadaver’s face and reached out slowly to touch the bubbled skin of his indented cheekbone.
Alphonse scowled. “You must put your lace gloves on. I don’t know why, but the thought of you being so carefree, touching it without hand coverings, bothers my mind.”
Victoria straightened with a prickle of irritation.
She wanted to shout that he touched bodies all the time without gloves, that she had been dissecting pickled hearts and brains without such measures, but the soft sting that still lingered on her cheek stayed her tongue.
“You wish me to wear a pair of my good gloves every time I work on this man? The lace would be stained and ruined by the evening.”
The wrinkles around Alphonse’s eyes relaxed. “I know, but I must insist, even with a lack of good reasoning.”
Victoria pulled the smooth skin of her cheek between her teeth until it pinched and pulled her from the numbness. “I can hardly be precise; I will be completely undexterous with gloves on,” she protested carefully.
“As a surgeon, I agree. As a father, I cannot agree with how your pure and innocent hands will be marred with touching a man so closely as will be necessary, even in a setting such as this. I will have Marta in town make several pairs of fitted black gloves that you may wash. For now, wear the pair you left here.” He moved into her space and reached high upon a small shelf and pulled down a pair of white lace gloves.
“I have been looking all over for these. Helena gave them to me. I will not ruin these!”
Her father shrugged, looking more tired by the second. The laudanum seemed to be taking effect. “Then I will finish the external assessment tomorrow, and we will both go to bed.”
“No.” Victoria cut in sharply. She didn’t want to leave the man lying on the table, not yet.
“I—I believe they were old. I will use them.” She took the gloves and held them tightly to her chest as if they might fall away or be stolen back.
“You look as though you may finally get some sleep? Go. I will finish here.”
“Can you handle the assessment on your own? Log everything that you find that needs fixing. It’s late. Do external tonight, and tomorrow you may cut into it and assess internally.”
She nodded. “Yes, of course, get some rest. I will see you tomorrow.”
“Oh,” he said, turning around after he had walked toward the stairs. “Roll the table into the chamber when you are finished.”
She turned from where she had looked at the cadaver, back to her father, expressionless. He spoke about the man as if he were a coat, tossed back in the closet and out of sight until he was needed again. “Yes.” She nodded. “Be mindful on the staircase,” she said automatically.
He grunted his agreement. “Wear the gloves, Victoria.”