The Worm in Every Heart (16 page)

Perhaps this is because the oldest story behind the myth—one which those amongst us educated in the Classics may well recognize—is that of King Lykaon and his fifty sons; Lykaon, whose disgusting crimes caused the old god Zeus to flood the known world, washing it clean for future, less perverse occupants. Lykaon and his sons, who were transformed into wolves for profaning and denying the gods, for serving strangers human meat, for ravening the land they were supposed to protect like bandits rather than rulers. And since sometimes Lykaon's name is linked with that of Tantalus, perhaps it follows that the rule he broke was the one which warns us not to share in the eating of our own children, or others'. For to force or trick others into sharing the flesh of your own line is always an evil sort of victory over them, a potential spreading of moral contagion.

Later, in Arcadia, followers of the cult of Lykaian Zeus believed that each year, one of their number would be doomed to turn into a wolf. If that person could only live for a year without tasting human flesh, he or she would return to human form; if not, he or she would remain a wolf forever. But to be a man turned wolf makes the hunger for human flesh a dreadful, and constant, temptation . . .

Ah, yes. Perhaps you have felt it too, by now: That very different sort of greed, aching in all your bones, at the root of every tooth. That itch beneath the skin, just where you can never quite reach. That song in your blood which calls out to the rising moon, dinning in your ears like some evil tide.

For we are all were-wolves here, make no mistake. Every parent who beats and rapes their own child, every man driven to eat his fellow's flesh—like a savage, though they most-times have better reason for it—by seasonal extremity. He, she, I, you; all of us who break the social compact by treating each other as something . . . less than human.

And the cry, the cry, echoing down unchanged throughout the ages:
It is not so, nor was not so, and God forbid that it should be so!

But it is so. Is it not?

And still:
Calme-toi
. How could I possibly hurt you,
m'sieu
—an old woman like myself? Look at me. Look.

Yes, just that way.

Sit. Stay.
Assayez-vous,
each and every one of you, before I am forced to let my—worser—nature slip.

. . . better.

Ah, and now I recall how when I was but a gay girl like my poor Perrinette, still foolish enough to risk myself for trifles, I wore nothing but scarlet velvet . . . scarlet, so the stains would not show so badly. You understand.

Yet how times change, and how they do not. How do they never.

But I do not blame you for her death, any of you—oh no, not I. How could I, and not count myself a hypocrite? For I, of all people, should know how very difficult it is to refuse fresh meat when it presents itself, especially out here in this bleak and denuded frontier landscape. Out here, where hunger rules.

After all, I, too, have been known to prey on the unwary, in my time. I, too, have followed close behind travelling families and used their love for one another to harry them to their doom. I, too, keep a cellar full of bones.

Yet I will give you this one thing for gift,
mesdames et messieurs
of The Poor Girl Taken By Surprise: This much, I will tell you for free. That there is more than one reason, traditionally, why a wolf who speaks—a wolf with human hands—should always be
burnt
rather than
eaten.

You killed one of my children, and ate the other. But I do not begrudge you—since, in doing so, you have allowed yourselves to be eaten from inside-out by this same raging hunger that has always driven us, I and my kind, down all the long years before we came to this country, and after. In a way, you have
become
my children, my kin; Tessdaluye by nature, if not by name. And how could I harm my own kind, after all?

Well . . . easily enough, as I have explained already.

Nevertheless, I catch myself feeling generous, for now. For as a fellow hunter, I do so admire your arrangement here—this inn, sprung perpetually open like a trap disguised as providence; this fine, new trick of letting the little pigs come to be served and watching them serve themselves up, in turn. A steady stream of travellers lodging once, then moving on, and never being seen again: Only tracks in the snow, covered over before the moon next rises, and (here and there, in the underbrush) the rustle of soft paws following. With nothing left behind but the hard, dark scat of some unseen thing, so concentrated it must surely eat nothing but meat.

Oh yes indeed,
ca marche, absolutement. Ca ira.

But never forget whose sufferance you live by from this moment on, curs. As last of my line, I am first in the blood here—alpha and omega, the aleph and the zed. And so you will come to my call, heel at my command, because I am—

—ah,
ca phrase?

“Top dog.”

You may even call me grandmother, if you wish.

They dance together then ‘til dawn

And a single shadow make.

—J.R.R. Tolkien

1.

The first thing I saw was your face. I recall it now, as I always will.

* * *

“Tu es tres beau, comme un ange d'argent,” my cousin—Count Ivan—murmured to me, in his execrable Russian aristocrat's French, and his choice of form alone told me what would follow. But it was 1818, I was twenty-five already, and sorely needed money if I was ever to reach my stated goal—the re-Creation of new life from death.

And: “Ah, mon ange blanc, mon ange tombe,” Ivan moaned, much later that same night. And at last, altering my Irish mother's suitably Heavenly—yet a touch too . . . plebeian—choice of name (Michael) for something more to his own taste, as he finally reached his climax: “Oh, Mikela, Mikela.”

All of which I took with a not inconsiderable grain of salt, bemused to find myself the object of such passion—having always personally judged my attributes more freakish than anything else, seeing the “moon-bleached” hair Ivan extolled more as bordering on albino, the “silver” eyes mere light grey, and as defiantly crossed as any Siamese's. Quite unworthy of Ivan's intent, melancholy lust, all told.

But as I've said, he was rich, and I not. So, to bed—and after, to the bank.

* * *

A blank slate, empty of all but the most brute sensation, I lay there unprotesting on the slab in my first dazed shock of life. Then came feeling—your hands running up and down my limbs, checking reflexes, testing for damage. A tickle at my brow as your scalpel's blade traced my face's outline through the gauze. And when the veil was drawn away I blinked, eyes watering, as the light flooded in. I looked up—

—into your face.

You bent over me, tensed for certain failure. I gaped. And triumph leapt in your slant, rain-filled eyes, so vivid under those pale brows—in that pale, pale face. Ivory hair fell about you, released from its loosened bow. I saw you clearly.

You were the first thing I had ever seen, and the only thing I have ever seen since.

* * *

From earliest days on, my greatest fear has been that of death.

I was born and raised in Ireland, son of a Russian trader lost at sea and the frail, white-gilt Catholic woman whom I came to worship. One day, when I was perhaps ten, we went out riding past an ancient, beehive-shaped structure of crumbling grey stone and mortar—the proper term for which, she told me, was “a tomb.”

“Where we go when we are dead?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Mother, what is ‘dead'?”

“Sleeping, my darling. One day we must all go to sleep, never to wake again.”

I frowned. “I couldn't sleep that long.”

I didn't understand why she laughed at that.

Once inside, I picked up a stray skull and hefted it in curiosity, testing its weight. My mother cried out to me to replace it, for it had been laid there to rest until the Day of Judgement. It could not be separated from its owner except at the cost of his immortal soul. And all at once, I realized what she had meant: That this object was what lay inside my own head, under my face, housing my brain. Some day I would “go to sleep,” and then the skin which covered me would creep away. My bones would collapse in a heap and be left here, grinning under a blue sky, covered in birds' droppings.

I let the skull fall with a crunch, and was violently ill.

Not long after that, a fever took hold. My life was feared for, and I too believed—wholeheartedly—that I would die. As I tossed in my soaking sheets, I prayed to everyone and anyone I could remember for another chance.

“Twenty more years, Lord. Ten, even. And I will make sure there is no more dying ever, no more of the long sleep. Then dreams will come true, and the world will be full of light.”

Childish, yes. But it held the seed.

* * *

It was as I stared at you, entranced, that the top of the keep burst into flames. I regarded this with amazement, but no thought of danger. You, however, saw and reacted—pulling me to the floor with one quick yank. I screamed, learning pain, and fought to dislodge you, not understanding your intent. Burning beams had begun to rain from the roof. One grazed me.

From that moment on, I have feared fire. Fire can strip me of everything you gave me in an instant.

Whimpering, I allowed you to lead me away.

Behind us, the roof collapsed with a sigh of heat, flames engulfing the laboratory. You shut the door against these sights. You barred it.

And then you led me away to your cousin's room, where you put me to sleep in his bed.

* * *

From my tenth year on—until the day they struck my name from the medical register—I fought to keep my childhood vow. My aim, and the unashamed way I spoke of it (as well as my need for an ever-steady supply of dead flesh) conspired to keep me an outcast. In England I treated with those grim men known as Resurrectionists to meet my experiments' demands, which so outraged my peers that they revoked my license.

I was alone then, my mother having died some years before in a carriage accident, miscarrying my stepfather's child. So I took what money of hers was deemed mine, and went to Russia, the ancient lands of my father's blood.

And it was here . . . with Ivan's kind assistance . . . that I finally delivered upon my promise.

* * *

Later, I regained my new-found senses and went in search of you, groping unsteadily along the walls. Luckily, I did not have at all far to go—only across the hall to the adjoining chamber, a room so dark that I stumbled over the threshold before I even knew it was there. Only a chance grab at some handy draperies preventing me from falling. But since my motions thus disclosed you—sprawled half-clothed beneath your bed's curtains—I soon had more than enough light to see by.

My eyes swept you up and down, each pass adding new detail. Your sharp profile, blurred in a moony cloud of hair. The bleak enamel of your nails. One cyanose nipple, half-revealed under your shirt-sleeve's shadow. Those long, pale lines—from ankle to hip to out-flung arm and clenching fist, the whole of you sheened with a fine ivory fur—drew me in, hypnotized, like a languorous undertow. By the slow pulse at your throat, the line of fleece shadowing your stomach brought a silent groan to my lips. Before I could quite reason my actions through, I found myself reaching—as gently as possible—to trail a single finger down from throat to nipple, to navel, and beyond.

You turned in your sleep beneath my touch, sighing. And as I traced the curve of your jaw, I felt us both come to full attention.

* * *

On occasion, I felt my apparent lack of every other passion but for an overwhelming need to conquer death severely. It seemed as though my quest to reorder Nature had determined I be punished for daring to flout its rules—to wit, that each time another touched me (my pretty cousin, for example), I would be forever doomed to remain at best acquiescent—at worst, annoyed.

But I was still human. As that sweet flush settling over me like a prickly veil—seeping, with exquisite lack of haste, down through the pressing fathoms of fantasy—testified.

Uneasy at this unexpected sensation's power, I pried my eyes open and reached for the bedside candle.

Dulled with sleep, it took a second for me to realize that the figure looming over me was, in fact—

—my creation.

No beauty, no. But then, that quality had never been my main object, and while I'd still been piecing him together the difference between our sizes had seemed, similarly, no consideration. Upright, however, he seemed huge and oddly alien, as though the arcane commingling of science and necromancy I had practiced to bring him to life had conjured up a demon: Skin dark and dry, hands lightly clawed, jaws pushing forward like a muzzle into a grim jawful of shark's teeth. His eyes were mismatched, too, I noticed only now—one grey, one blue.

But what matter? They worked.

HE worked.

The sight of the candle-flame made him recoil, varicolored gaze gone wide and wounded. But like the child he truly was, his attention span was too short yet to hold such fear for long.

Abruptly oblivious to me, he stepped back, eyes casting around the room for whatever caught his fancy. I followed him at a wary distance, observing how he studied each item in turn.

“Plate,” I said, as he stroked a gilded slice of Ivan's best china.

He turned too quickly, toppling, and the weight of him almost broke my hand.

Then, still clutching the thing in question, he offered it to me.

“Plate,” I repeated.

“Paaaht.”

Soon we were pointing at all sorts of things.

Finally, he put a finger to my own chest. After a moment's hesitation, some imp of the perverse made me answer:

“Mikela.”

“Mi-ke-la,” he replied, clearly.

We smiled at each other.

* * *

Which is all that I remember of my first night alive.

2.

My liaison with Ivan yielded the keep (one of his hereditary holdings) and enough money to live on while I completed my experiments. Unfortunately, it also—for a time—yielded HIM, playing understandable havoc with my powers of concentration. Barely a fortnight had passed, however, before he came storming into the laboratory with a letter in one hand, a drink in the other.

“Most intolerable! My father has arranged . . . ” His voice shook at the horror of it: “ . . . a marriage.”

“I feel your loss already,” I replied, making another notation.

He left swearing eternal fidelity, a claim so patently foolish it gave me no honest way of even acknowledging it, let alone matching it.

* * *

My life soon settled into a seductive routine of education—question and answer, enthusiasm and exploration, all framed by your careful supervision—and one day, my curiosity piqued by a word I had heard you use once too often without definition, I asked: “What is this
God
, Mikela?”

“They say God made the world.”

“As you made me.”

You laughed, shortly. “Not quite—God has no need of science. He simply thought the world, and so it was.”

“Then God made you.”

“If you believe so, yes.”

“And you made me,” I smiled. “So you are God.”

You turned, and I noticed a line between your brows I had never seen there before. “No,” you said. “I made you, that's true—but God made all men, I only one. So I can never be more than God's shadow—his pale, pale shadow.”

“You are
my
God,” I said, simply.

And you shook your head—but I do not think you really wanted to.

* * *

A month had already gone by when Ivan's letter finally arrived, the gist of which was that he would be arriving shortly, accompanied by the new Countess—Rebecca, his wife.

Elle est tres belle, et douce aussi, Ivan wrote. Adding, in a cramped hand: Mais c'est seulement toi j'adore, mon cousin.

He advised me to expect him at any time. That particular evening, however, I intended to spend instructing my creation in the basics of English literature. So I filed the letter away, and promptly forgot all about it.

* * *

You had told me many times by then never to go beyond the last field of our lands. When I was ready, you said—and you would decide when that was. It rankled, even from a God.

That night, I sat near the window, watching a string of birds flap slowly across the purple sky. The light was almost gone, and the book I held was making my eyes hurt. I saw the last field's fence against the red rim of the sinking sun. And something rose in me—something that could no longer be denied.

A minute later, I was on the ground, running quickly and silently. Had reached the fence. In one quick leap, had bridged it.

Once on the other side, however, I paused in mid-stride, unsure of my next action. Ahead and behind me stretched the road. Lulled by the cry of night-birds, the slither and skitter of small creatures in the long grass, I stood stock-still and breathed deeply. The dark air, tainted and singing, spread like wine through my veins.

I did not see the men until I was upon them, nor they me.

“Make way for the Count's carriage, fellow!” One of them ordered, impatiently. Behind him reared a conveyance drawn by four harnessed things that stamped and snorted in distress, making their master curse, as my scent reached them. At this further disturbance, an exquisitely-dressed young man leaned from the nearest window, glancing imperiously about for the cause of his discomfort.

“Monsieur Grushkin,” he said to the first man, “remind me once again, if you would be so kind, what exactly it is that I pay you for?”

The man flushed. “By your leave, Count Ivan,” he replied—and stepped toward me, drawing a cudgel from his belt. But this fresh threat drew no reaction at all, since at that same moment—over his shoulder—I had spotted . . . her.

As dark as you were fair, and frail, with a cloud of ringlets hiding her dark, dark eyes. She hovered close by young Count Ivan's side, peeping through the carriage window, and that slender hand with which she held the velvet curtain open was so pale each vein brought a faint blue blush to her nacreous skin. At the sight of her, my mouth dried out. My temples throbbed. And like a barb to my spine's base, a hook arching up through dark water, the hunger took root: Soul-deep, nameless, aching. A negative image, fleet as steam on glass, faint haloed trace of an object struck by lightning, beneath which lurked only the dimmest recollection of what had roused it.