The Shadow of Frankenstein by Brian Stableford

Author:Brian Stableford [Stableford, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Coat Press
Published: 2012-09-03T00:00:00+00:00

PART TWO: THE CHILD-STEALERS

Chapter One

Gregory Temple’s Sleeplessness

Gregory Temple had never been a sound sleeper, and his restlessness had not decreased with the years. There had been many a night when he had tossed and turned for hours on end without ever seeming to sleep at all, even without the excuse that he presently had for the return of his most disturbing obsession.

It seemed to him now that he had not slept for a single minute in the previous 72 hours, since he had first renewed his acquaintance with that ridiculous little man, Ned Knob. Master Knob had brought his obsession back to life, by leading him to his nemesis, John Devil—who had come back from the dead without the seemingly-dire inconvenience of becoming a grey man.

Master Knob had added vile insult to cruel injury by claiming that he was intimately acquainted with Suzanne and her new family, but that should have been a minor irritant by comparison with the news that Comte Henri de Belcamp had not, after all, splattered his brains all over the gloomy walls of the Château de Belcamp. Alas, once lack of sleep began to bring delirium into Temple’s waking life, even minor irritants could be temporarily blown up out of all proportion, augmenting his fundamental distress.

It should have been the monstrous thought of John Devil’s continued freedom that was keeping Temple awake now, as it had for two nights before, but it was not. He should have been cudgelling his brain in the attempt to figure out a way of finding the bandit again, or at least berating himself for not having succeeded in capturing the bandit at Greenhithe when they had been forced to quit the Outremort. Instead, he was berating himself for something else entirely, and calling himself a monster worse than any mindless grey giant or any phantom in a Quaker hat. He was drowning in regret for his own foolishness in somehow having contrived to put it completely out of is mind that he had a daughter, and that his daughter had a husband and a son.

He had been ill, of course, and mad too—but what kind of excuse was that, for a man like him? He was no more than slightly ill now, nor was he much more than slightly mad. He was a trusted agent in the King’s secret police, charged with maintaining the peace and security of the realm—but how could he trust himself to do that, when he had not even been able to maintain the peace and security of his own family?

I am a man of great intellect, he told himself, repeatedly. I am a diehard enemy of evil. How can I be such a stupid wreck of a human being?

He would have sworn on the Bible, sincerely, that he had not slept for an instant—but he had closed his eyes in the attempt to rest, and he must also have muffled his ears, else he would surely have heard the door of his room open and close.

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