Victor was now in his creative state of flow and could not be interrupted. It struck her that Lizzie should see what he looked like right now, energized by the storm’s crackle. Victor was spoken of by the village girls as terribly handsome and rich, but oh so strange, and always eating an apple, and slightly bad-smelling. It was all truth. He was up to his elbows in other men, all day and night.
Besides, the Frankenstein coloring was difficult to get used to. Red hair, pearl skin, and green eyes. On Angelika, these colors read as beauty, or sorcery. On a tall man such as Victor, it was . . . confronting. He was regularly given blunt assessments by strangers out of tavern doors and carriage windows. Several artists had asked him to sit, balming those stings. Seeing both siblings together? They could charge an admission price.
“You’re doing well,” Angelika encouraged her brother, but he was too focused to acknowledge her. She fell into a doze and had a short dream that she was lying on her back in a grassy field, beside a warm body she knew was a man’s. His voice told her that he would be here soon. He’d fight to be with her. In her dream, she was reaching up to the night sky, trailing her fingers through the dark and stars, like a man’s soft hair.
She was jolted awake by a crack of lightning.
Victor then howled, “It’s alive!”
There was movement in the chamber—and it wasn’t convulsions.
Angelika was now disappointed that they hadn’t done hers first but covered it well. “How marvelous. Can he hear you?”
“Not sure. No, don’t come closer.” Victor was leaning over the chamber, trying to help his creation sit up out of the slurry. “I may need to scoop out his mouth.” Not necessary: the man began coughing in earnest. “He’s tall, isn’t he, Jelly? Even seated. How did I make him so big?”
“You said, and I quote, ‘No, Jelly, I want the long legs.’ Let me help.”
“Stay back.” Victor spent a minute grooming his gigantic baby, wiping away the viscous gel while he blinked slowly, his slack mouth gaping and closing. “Welcome, my friend. I am Victor Frankenstein, and I have brought you back to life. You shall make me famous. Wait until Lizzie meets you.”
A mournful groan was the only reply.
Angelika went to visit her beau with butterflies in her stomach. “Not long, my sweet.”
He was indeed superior quality. She’d justified it thus: if she was being reassembled, she would hope her maker would select improvements wherever possible. And though she had felt a pinch of guilt as she passed off sections of his perfectly satisfactory body to Victor, she was deeply happy with what she saw now.
This was an unparalleled masculine specimen.
She really should be assisting Victor, but she could not stop her eyes from trailing down this body. The blacksmith’s chest was padded out with muscle and corded sinew. His hard work was not wasted. Angelika continued her review of her own creation. She had decided to use the second-largest penis in their inventory. It had made her brother roar with mirth, and he teased her about her newfound economy, but the one she had selected would likely stiffen out to a good size, if he ever felt that way about her. She may never know. This late at night, with her dark under-eye circles, it felt like a very large if.
In the places where the afterbirth had splattered, his stitches appeared to be healing. “I need to transfer him into the full chamber,” she told Victor. “Hurry up.”
“All right then, come and help me,” Victor barked. By the time she made her way around, Victor’s achievement had both feet on the floor. As he began to straighten, slipping like a newborn foal, she could see the errors they had made.
“Those legs and that torso do not belong together.” This man was straightening up to seven feet tall.
“None of it does,” Victor retorted, in no mood for critical feedback. “Stand still, man. It’s all right.” The man howled; a terrible hurt sound that was probably heard in the village. “Jelly, come and see if you can calm him.” Victor ducked when his creation swung out an arm.
“Shhh,” she soothed, amplifying her feminine presence. “It’s all right. Angelika is here. You’re safe.” For a heart-stopping moment, the beast was silent, regarding her form with glassy eyes, lingering on her breasts and hips.
“Good. I shall begin my examination and interview—” Victor was cut off by screams so loud that the candles above dripped wax. This big man had apparently never beheld anything as horrific as Miss A. Frankenstein, and he began to struggle away to the door, evading his master’s clutches.