Read Online The Second Birth of Frankenstein (The Department 19 Files #5) by Will Hill - Free Book Online Page B

his chest rising and falling weakly, was Scott.
    Wallace nodded, and grimaced as pain shot down his neck and across his shoulders. He didn’t know what he had been hit with – he suspected a tree branch – but it had raised a lump the size of an egg. He was almost glad he couldn’t touch it; he was worried that he would feel broken bone shift beneath his fingers.
    “I’m not doing anything,” he said.
    “Aye,” said McTavish. “An’ keep it that wae.”
    The pot hung over the fire began to boil, and the smell of dried rabbit filled Wallace’s mouth with saliva. McTavish gave him a hard look, then went to tend to it, slopping the stew out into wooden bowls and passing them out. The men ate hungrily; shock and fear had not diminished their appetites. Wallace watched them silently, knowing it would be a waste of time to ask for a bowl of his own.
    Attempted murderers did not receive favours.
    The Norwegians who had pulled him, more dead than alive, from the Arctic ice, had made it clear, via a combination of hand gestures and broken English, that they had not expected him to survive. He had woken in the galley of their ship, a whaling vessel that stank of blubber and meat, too weak to move, unable to answer their two most pressing questions, for different reasons.
    Why he had been on the ice was a story he would never tell anyone; it was nobody’s business apart from his and his creator’s, and Victor Frankenstein’s mortal remains had been borne south on Walton’s ship, their fate unknown.
    Nor would he give them his name. Not only because he didn’t have one, but because the reason why would be impossible for him to explain, and equally impossible for them to believe.
    The crew of the whaling ship had taken his behaviour, which he assumed must have appeared strange at the very least, with reasonable good humour. They had nursed him slowly back to health, so efficiently that when the ship made port in Tromsø he had been able to help them unload their catch, thereby contributing some small usefulness in return for the preservation of his life.
    He had left the dock without a single possession to his name, beyond the clothes he was wearing, and headed south.
    That had been six years ago.
    “It bit him,” said Wallace. “I saw it bite him. Keep a close eye.”
    McTavish spat thickly into the fire. “I’m watchin’
you
, devil. That’s whar ah’m fixin’ ma eyes.”
    “Then you’re looking in the wrong place,” said Wallace. “If it comes back, remember that I tried to make you see sense.”
    “Aye,” said McTavish. “When yer swingin’ from a rope up at Factory, we’ll be sure an’ remember that. Eh, lads?”
    Grant managed a small laugh, but Paterson made no sound. He was staring into the fire, his face a mask of concern.
    You saw something, didn’t you?
thought Wallace.
You were nearest, and you won’t speak against McTavish, but you saw. I can see it in your eyes.
    You saw the wendigo.
    He had made his way south as far as Bergen, taking a day’s work here, a week’s there. His destitute appearance meant a great many homes would not open their doors to him, even though he could see candlelight and shadows through their windows. Those of a stronger, or kinder, disposition were invariably astonished by the immediate evidence of his education. As a result, he had spent as many days teaching numbers and letters to children as he did ploughing fields and chopping wood.
    In Bergen, he boarded a ship bound for Aberdeen, and endured hellish days and nights as the vessel was churned by the slate grey of the North Sea. He staggered on to the dock with the rest of the crew and passengers, and almost flattened a man wearing a smart suit and a prodigious moustache, clutching a sheaf of printed leaflets in his hand.
    “My apologies,” he grunted, and made to step around the man.
    “No harm done, sir,” said the man, beaming widely. “None at all. Sea legs are tricky things, are they