Monsters and Mocha (Inspired by Frankenstein #4)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

DARBY

Amouthful of mineral oil was an effective—if unpleasant—way to rouse oneself from sleep.

Darby yelped and sputtered, wiping her mouth on the back of her arm and swishing her mouth with the stale, tepid coffee that she had intended to drink in the first place.

She grimaced and scraped her tongue across her teeth in an effort to get rid of the oily feeling coating the inside of her mouth.

The mound of black feathers perched on her coat stand shifted, revealing a long dark beak and beady eyes. The crow stretched out its wings and shook its feathers while scolding her with a grumpy caw.

"Sorry, Raven." Darby swished around one more mouthful of old coffee in her mouth before swallowing it with an expression of distaste.

"Henry would say this should teach me not to stretch myself so thin, but there's really no other time for me to work.

" She looked down at her cluttered workbench, covered with screws and gears and oil-stained papers with anatomical sketches overlaid with machine diagrams. Her scrawling penmanship filled the margins, in places so smudged and sloppy that it was nearly unintelligible even to herself.

She picked up one such piece of paper and squinted at it, muttering as she tried to make out the words, "ball and socket will best produce the movement of the joint, though full ro… ro…rotation is…"

She dropped it back on the table and shook her head. "I'll need to make neater copies if I'm ever going to present these to the Inventor's Guild. But that would require both time and actually figuring out how to make any of this useful."

Raven squawked and flapped again in protest. "Make it work!" His raspy bird voice echoed the words that Darby had so often said in exasperation.

"That's the idea." Darby drummed her fingers on the desk before pushing her chair back and standing, stretching her arms over her head and punctuating her words with a massive yawn.

"But it will have to wait until tonight.

" She glanced up at the tiny window along the edge of the ceiling.

Being below the street level, she couldn't see more than a sliver of sky above the rooftops, but it was enough to tell that the first streaks of dawn had arrived.

She changed out of her brown coveralls and back into her work clothes—a green skirt and slim gray jacket that would still fit underneath her medical uniform.

Her long, navy-blue coat still bore the crimson band around her arm that marked her as an apprentice, but she nonetheless wore the garment with a sense of pride.

She checked her appearance in the mirror, twisting back her bright red hair into a neat, tight bun at the back of her head and wiping at a smudge of grease on the pale, freckled space below one of her green eyes.

It stubbornly clung to her skin, and by the time it was finally gone her cheek was marked with an angry red streak from the prolonged rubbing.

She made a face in the mirror and sighed. "Henry is going to lecture me again."

Raven clicked his beak. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Probably not his exact words, but pretty close.

" Darby checked over her clothes one last time, smoothing the sides of her medical jacket and ensuring that there were no wrinkles or stains.

She crossed the room and stood on her tiptoes to slide open the narrow window before dropping a kiss onto the soft feathers of Raven's head. "Be good. Stay out of trouble."

The bird bobbed his head twice before pulling it down between his shoulders. "Good Raven. Make it work!"

"Exactly." She tapped him lightly on the beak, then slipped through the door, locking it behind her and beginning her ascent up the tall, narrow staircase that led to the ground floor above.

The sharp, heavy aroma of coffee filled her nose as she climbed up the creaking wooden steps.

Renting a room above Clerval's Coffeehouse had some very distinct advantages—one of which was the use of Henry's basement workshop, and the other was the availability of freshly brewed coffee at nearly any hour of the day.

She often joked that the caffeinated drink was the sole reason she was able to survive both her rigorous training at the academy, as well as her long and often grueling hours at her internship.

Darby knocked twice on the door at the top before pushing it open and blinking in the warm, cozy light of the coffeehouse kitchen.

Her landlord was nowhere to be seen, which must mean that he was out in the front of the cafe.

She closed the door behind her and swiped a fresh muffin from the batch cooling on the counter as she passed through the small room.

She held the pastry to her face and inhaled, humming in appreciation at the scent of apples and cinnamon. "I very much approve of your choice this morning," she called out as she entered the small dining room. "I was just thinking yesterday that we're having the perfect weather for apples."

Henry looked up from where he was steaming a mug of milk with a large, noisy machine.

The eclectic combination of pipes, gears, and steam had caught Darby's eye the first time she visited Clerval's.

Henry was known around the city of Walton as being something of an eccentric, but Darby knew that beneath his gruff, quirky exterior, the gentle giant hid a heart of gold.

More than just her landlord, he had quickly become the closest thing to a father she had.

And no one could deny that he made the best coffee in all of Mavoria.

He lifted one of his thick, dark eyebrows. "Is there any kind of weather that you wouldn't deem suitable for apples?"

She tilted her head, pretending to seriously contemplate the question. "Perhaps a flood? Though I suppose that would make bobbing for apples much easier."

Henry grunted and returned to his task. His bald head glistened in the lamp light, and his broad frame took up most of the narrow space between the counter and the steam machine.

Large hands handled the ceramic mug with a surprising amount of gentleness, given the fact that he could probably crush one between his fingers without even blinking at the effort.

Once the milk was steamed to his satisfaction, he turned a large, knobby valve, cutting off the flow of steam, and carefully filled the rest of the mug with a serving of thick, dark coffee from the pot heating on the side.

“You should savor those while you can. I have a feeling apples are going to be in short supply this year.”

Darby slid onto one of the tall stools in front of the counter and watched as Henry shaved delicate curls of chocolate onto the top of the milk foam. “Because of the war? But our soldiers have always kept Lavenza’s troops well away from the city limits.”

“Because I can feel it in my bones that we’re going to have an early frost this year.” He set the steaming mug of mocha down in front of her, and Darby’s mouth immediately started watering as the sweet, rich scents of chocolate and coffee hit her nose.

“Your bones are rarely wrong.” She lifted the mug to her lips and took a careful sip. The hot drink was the perfect balance of sweet and bitter on her tongue, and it warmed her all the way to her toes. “You could start writing almanacs.”

Henry grunted. “But they’re not approved by the Guild of Agriculture, so it doesn’t matter—just like you’re not approved yet by the Guild of Medicine, so it doesn’t matter that you’re already just as capable and talented as that self-important surgeon they’ve strapped you with.

He treats you like a secretary rather than a fellow medical professional who graduated at the top of her class and is a registered mage.

” He shook his head with a scoff. “He should be making much better use of your time and talents.”

Darby bit back a response to Henry’s familiar and oft-repeated criticism.

Dr. Fransten could be a bit patronizing, it was true, and he did tend to busy her with clerical tasks that had nothing to do with the actual practice of medicine, but he also was the most respected surgeon in all of Mavoria.

Her internship placement had been highly sought after, and she wasn’t about to complain about little things like doing paperwork and fetching coffee when she had the opportunity to learn from the best.

Instead, she remarked blandly, “How do you still have chocolate? Last I heard, Lavenza was blocking all trade with Saville.”

The large man shrugged nonchalantly as he took a rag and began wiping down pipes of his massive steam machine. “It’s amazing the lengths a man might go to for a good cup of coffee.”

Meaning he was likely involved in some kind of smuggling or illegal trade, and she should keep her nose out of it.

The bell above the door chimed as it swung inward, admitting Henry’s first real customer of the day.

Darby had seen the man around town before—his weathered face and dark, bushy beard were hard to miss—though he was a recent enough addition to their community that she knew nothing about him.

His faded jacket had patches at the elbows that matched the ones on the knees of his striped pants, and he wore a pair of heavy goggles around the crown of the cap on his head.

He trundled to the counter with his eyes barely open to half-mast and slammed a hand down on the counter before sliding a silver coin towards Henry.

“Give me something strong enough to wake the dead.”

“Rough night?” Henry took the coin to the till and counted out change before filling a mug with some of his steaming brew and placing both in front of the man.

He grunted as his fingerless gloves allowed him to deftly clear away the copper pennies and took a long sip before answering. “You know how it is.”