Dracula Ascending (Gothic Horror Mash-up) Read online

  “Good-bye. I shall miss you all dearly, as I am sure you will me, but be comforted by the fact that I will be in the company of some of the best scholars and scientists in the world,” he said, grinning. To Elizabeth he said, “There are no girls allowed at Ingolstadt, so you needn’t worry.” He winked at her.

  Elizabeth feigned shock at such a scandalous display and swatted at him playfully; forgiving his insolence, as she always did. “I had rather hoped that some young miss would take you off my hands, and I could marry for love instead of obligation,” Elizabeth quipped.

  Victor did not smile back, for these words cut him to the quick. He often agonized over whether she felt just that way.

  Realizing her mistake, Elizabeth was swift to add, “I suppose no one else would make me quite so happy, however, so I guess I’ll keep you.”

  Victor’s facial expression lightened. He ruffled Ernest’s hair, who still refused to speak or look up. He hugged his father and Henry one last time, kissed Elizabeth’s hand, and waved to Justine and William.

  Victor climbed up into the carriage and closed the door. The driver let out a “Yaw!” and with a snap of his whip over the heads of the horses, the carriage began to move forward, taking Victor Frankenstein toward the next phase of his life. His heart was light and his mind free of worry or strife.

  *****

  The farther from home Victor traveled, the lonelier and more homesick he became. He was not going to see his family for years. He had known this intellectually, but it was only now hitting him viscerally. He tried to get some sleep, instead of focusing on home, but the carriage ride was too bumpy to allow for more than a few minutes of dozing.

  He worried that he would wallow in isolation, having not the ability, nor the inclination, to make friends easily. As a general rule, he was a solitary creature. If it had not been for Elizabeth and Henry—whom he had lucked into at an early age, when making friends was second nature—he feared that he would have been quite lonely. Only with age came the knowledge that he did not converse well with others.

  What he wouldn’t give to be spending this rainy day holed up in the library with Elizabeth and Henry, as he normally did, reading fantastical books about pirates and the mysteries of the orient. As children they would often put on plays and reenact their favorite scenes from books they had read.

  Henry Clerval was partial to books of chivalry and romance like Robin Hood or tales of King Arthur and his knights of the round table. Elizabeth liked books of poetry, for which Victor teased her, not being able to abide the genre himself.

  Victor, on the other hand, had begun to enjoy books of a more philosophical and academic inclination, when he discovered a book of chemistry written by a man named Cornelius Agrippa. He had been excited about the possibilities that chemistry brought to the forefront of his young and curious mind.

  Upon showing the book to his father, however, he was told that it was rubbish and he was not to read it. Far from persuading Victor to drop the book, this only further enticed him to continue reading it. For what child upon being told not to do something is more inclined to do the exact opposite? Had Victor’s father explained to him that Agrippa’s hypotheses had been largely discredited by modern scientists and was now out of date, Victor would have gladly dropped the tome. As it was, Victor, being ignorant of this fact, felt that surely his father would not have this book in his collection if it was not worth having, and therefore reading.

  So enthralled had he been by the things he had learned in this book, that he procured for himself the complete works of the author, in addition to two others, Paracelsus and Albert Magnus. These men focused on alchemy and the occult and Victor had begun to be hopeful that he would be the one to discover the elixir of life or the philosopher’s stone, and thereby, be able to transmute lead or iron into gold. Or perhaps, he would find the fountain of youth or unravel the mysteries of death and call out a spirit from the other side. He once tempted Elizabeth and Henry into conducting a séance, at which nothing happened, to Victor’s disappointment.

  Victor had felt certain that, far from his lack of success being the fault of his instructors, it must have been his own inexperience and shortcomings that had led to his failings. However, their ignorance on the distillation and the effects of steam made them begin to lose credibility with Victor, for these were things obvious to modern science, and he soon dropped these authors.

  His enthusiasm for science, however, had not waned. Having no formal education to speak of, Victor had nonetheless been taught to read and write by his mother, and he had access to all the books in his father’s library. His father was always willing and ready to answer any and all questions Victor might pose to him, and Victor found that learning suited his interests, having not been hampered and made dull or tedious by constant nagging to excel academically. Thus, Victor’s curiosity was given free reign, and learning was not thought of as a laborious chore. The world was a secret that he longed to uncover.

  When he was fifteen years old, Victor watched a storm out of the large dining room window and witnessed a bolt of lightning strike a tree. Sparks flew, light flashed, and the tree was charred and destroyed. Blackened bark scarred the trunk of the tree evermore. Intrigued, he had asked his father about this phenomenon and the origin of thunder and lightning. To which his father had explained the nature of electricity. Alphonse had constructed a small electrical machine and attached a kite with a wire that drew down lightning from the clouds. Forever afterwards, Victor had quite a fascination with lightning and electricity and loved to watch storms from his boyhood window.

  His father had instructed him that if he were interested in learning more, he should attend some lectures on natural philosophy. Although Victor had determined that he would indeed attend these lectures, something impeded on his time. He arrived late to the lectures, catching only the end, none of which he understood, having missed the beginning. He did, however, read a couple of books by Pliny and Buffon on the matter, at the recommendation of one of the lecturers.

  One day, a traveling professor, intrigued by Victor’s formerly mislead ideas, asked if Victor wanted to attend Ingolstadt—likely thinking that it would correct this child’s archaic notions.

  “But he is but seventeen years of age,” his father had argued.

  “It is never too soon to start a proper education,” countered the professor.

  Long after he had departed, Victor relentlessly badgered his father to let him attend the university. His longing for more knowledge was bubbling and burning inside him and making him restless with energy. Upon seeing this fire of determination in his eyes, Elena had persuaded Alphonse to allow Victor to attend.

  With much anticipation Victor had gloated and bragged to Henry and Elizabeth. Henry tried to persuade his own parents to let him go with Victor, but they refused, and no amount of begging on Henry’s part would dissuade them from their decision. Victor believed that Elizabeth also longed to go with him, and had Ingolstadt allowed women into its hallowed halls, she would have been his traveling companion.

  In the ensuing months, Victor had anxiously engaged in getting ready to depart for Germany. But then Elizabeth and his mother had contracted scarlet fever. Elizabeth had been the first to contract the disease, albeit a mild form, and had been laid up in bed for weeks. When she was well on her way to recovering, Elena entered Elizabeth’s room in order to nurse and comfort her, in spite of Alphonse’s warning. Elena caught the illness, but in her case, it was much more severe, and soon became fatal.

  With the passing away of Elena Frankenstein, Victor’s preparations for Ingolstadt had come to a crashing halt. It was to be another year, full of mourning and sorrow, before he would once again broach the subject of his leaving home for his schooling.

  Victor’s homesickness was liable to drown him if he didn’t stop these reflections. He focused instead upon his upcoming studies and all that he would learn and do while at Ingolstadt. The old fanatical enthusiasm and wild excitement he
felt during his foray into alchemical theories returned to him, and he idly wondered if his old fancies weren’t out of reach and impossible after all.

  Chapter Two

  “We are here, Mister Frankenstein.”

  Victor was awakened by the deep voice of his driver, who shook his shoulder to wake him. He blinked several times, trying to dispel the sleep from his eyes. He grabbed his top hat from the seat next to him and stepped down from the carriage. With wondering eyes, he gazed upon Ingolstadt—his new home for the foreseeable future. A place full of wondrous possibilities and new experiences.

  The structure was enormous, made from huge gray rocks, cobbled together with mortar, and with loopholes cut from the masonry to serve as windows. The front entry was accessed through a large, arched wooden door inset with metal bands. A large rectangular brick edifice with a gabled roof and dormer windows extended from the building on the right side, obviously added on later as it did not match the rest of the structure. The school was surrounded by a tall brick perimeter, accessible only by a set of wrought-iron gates inset into the walls.

  “Your trunk, sir.” The driver had untied Victor’s trunk from the back and waited for Victor to relieve him of it. Victor obliged, paid the man for his services, and the driver climbed back up behind the horses. With a flick of the reigns, the horses were once again clip-clopping down the lane and away from the school. His duty finished, the driver was no doubt heading for the nearest tavern to spend the money he had just earned.

  Once inside, Victor was assigned a room on the second floor of the brick structure, and that is when he realized that it had been added on as a boarding house for the students. He left his trunk in the foyer for one of the servants to bring up and walked up the flight of stairs to find his room. When he arrived, there was already another man there, presumably his roommate.

  “Hello, my fine fellow,” the man spoke in English, sticking out his hand to be shaken. “Name’s Jack Seward. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  Victor shook the proffered hand enthusiastically, grateful for a bilingual father who had taught him English. Jack’s quick smile and pleasant face promised they would get along well.

  “My name is Victor Frankenstein. You have a pleasing accent.”

  Jack chuckled. “Yes. Most people agree that my Anglo way of speaking is indeed pleasant.”

  “You are from England, then?”

  “Born and raised,” he affirmed.

  Jack Seward was old by Victor’s reckoning. Nearing thirty, he would guess. The lines around his eyes and mouth bespoke a more somber character, but could just as easily be laugh lines. His hair was well combed and already starting to silver at the temples. He wore spectacles perched on his patrician nose. He had a strong jaw covered in a smattering of whiskers and a high forehead.

  “Where do you hail from?” Jack asked.

  “Geneva, Switzerland.”

  “Really? I wouldn’t have taken you for a Swiss. Your complexion is so dark.”

  “My mother is from Romania.”

  “Is that right? I don’t know much about Romania, other than it is the birthplace of the famous Vlad Tepes, who saved his people from the invading Ottomans.”

  “I am actually related to him,” Victor stated with pride, “or at least, that is what my mother tells me.”

  “Is that right?” Jack repeated, wonder-struck.

  “So, what are you here to study?”

  “Psychology and philosophy mainly, but I also plan on taking some medical classes.”

  At Victor’s quizzical look, he continued, “You may call it a ‘soft’ science, but the human mind is full of mysteries, just waiting to be examined. For instance, there is a local lunatic where I used to live. His name is Renfield and he lives as a beggar on the streets. I would observe him in my travels to and from the cobbler shop, where I apprenticed for a time. He was fascinating to watch. An older gent, of fifty-nine years, sanguine of temperament, and excitable. My mother warned me to stay away from him because she thought he was possibly dangerous, but I just couldn’t.”

  “Why is that?” inquired Victor.

  “He was absolutely fascinating to watch. He would collect flies, all day, every day. I asked him once, ‘Why do you collect so many flies?’ He wouldn’t answer me, only shrugged. ‘Why don’t you get rid of them? Or at least a good portion of them? There are far too many.’ It would seem he took my advice to heart, for the next day I observed him catching spiders and feeding the flies to them. This went on for about a week. He now had as many spiders as he ever had flies. I says to him ‘Renfield, why do you need so many spiders? You no longer have enough flies to require so many spiders.’ The next day he had caught a sparrow and was feeding the spiders to it.”

  Victor grimaced. He had never been a fan of spiders.

  “A few days later, as I walked on by, he asked if I would procure a cat for him. I refused, knowing that he would end up feeding that poor sparrow to the cat. He seemed distressed by my refusal. As I made my way back home that afternoon, I saw him crouched down in the gutter. ‘Renfield!’ I called out to him. He turned, and I took a hasty step back. His hands were bloody and the ground around him was littered in feathers. One was stuck to his face. He jeered at me, and I knew at once that he had eaten that sparrow himself, raw and fresh.”

  “My goodness! How horrible!” Victor cried.

  “Yes. Perhaps my mother had been right. He appeared to me to be an underdeveloped homicidal maniac. I asked him why he had eaten that sparrow, and he told me that he must consume life. That he must always consume the energy of living things in order to strengthen himself. He went back to catching flies, occasionally catching spiders as well to feed the flies to once his stash got too large. I even observed him consuming the flies and spiders himself on occasion. I steered clear of him after that incident with the sparrow; only observing him from afar. But ever since, I have been intrigued with the inner workings of the human psyche. I hope to one day run my own lunatic asylum so that I can help unfortunate people like Renfield.”

  “Seems a worthy endeavor,” approved Victor. “I don’t know much about psychology, but I have read a few philosophy books and found them entertaining.”

  “Which books did you read?” Jack asked excitedly. Victor told him, and they talked philosophy for a time.

  “But my main interests lay in chemistry and physics,” Victor declared. “I think my interest stems, not only from their fascinating implications, but also because, unlike other subjects, there is no end. There is always more to learn. Always more discoveries to be made. With other subjects like history, you learn all there is to know and that’s all there is.”

  “You know. That’s true of Psychology as well,” pointed out Jack.

  “True,” conceded Victor.

  “What are you two reprobates talking about?” A young man peeked his head around the doorframe. Jack laughed.

  “If it isn’t the ol’ rogue himself!”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “I take offense to you calling me a reprobate. You don’t even know me!” Victor defended himself. The newcomer chuckled at first, but his mirth quickly slid from his face when Victor did not return the smile. He appeared concerned. He glanced at his friend Jack, as though pleading for assistance in getting out of this trouble he had placed himself in.

  “I meant no disrespect. Forgive me, Mister—?” Quickly realized his faux pas, not knowing the gentlemen’s name, his face paled.

  Victor threw back his head and roared with laughter. “I am only joking. I am not offended in the least. Once you get to know me you will quickly come to realize what a rake I truly am!”

  “You are a rake, huh? Seems we are already on the right track to making a fine Englishman out of you,” crowed Jack.

  The twinkle in the newcomer’s eyes returned, along with his fun-loving jovial manner. “Well met. My name is Jonathan Harker. May I have your name, sir?”

  “I am called Victor Frankenstein.”<
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  “He is related to Vlad Tepes, that demon of the East who so terrorized his enemies, the Turks!” cut in Jack.

  “Really?”

  “So I am told,” Victor replied.

  Jonathan Harker was much younger than his friend, Jack. Victor would guess him to be around twenty-two years of age. He had darker hair than Jack and kept it long and pulled back into a ponytail. He was clean-shaven, and his eyes were a startling shade of blue, unlike any eyes Victor had seen before. They were so pale as to be almost disconcerting. He also noticed a string of rosary beads with a small silver cross around his neck.

  Jonathan caught him looking at it and laughed. “I am not especially religious, if that is what you are thinking. It was a present from my new bride, Mina, who prays for my immortal soul daily, on account of my being an incorrigible rogue.”

  “So, you finally tied the knot, you ol’ scallywag,” Jack said, grinning. “And to the lovely Mina Murray. Lucy will be so pleased.”

  “Mina Harker now,” corrected Jonathan. “I’ve only just finished my wedding tour before coming here. Unlike you bachelors, I need to earn a decent living now that I have familial responsibilities.”

  “He is going to be a solicitor,” explained Jack. “I assume that is still the plan?”

  Jonathan nodded.

  “How do you know I am a bachelor? For all you know I have a dozen children already,” Victor said.

  “With your youthful complexion? You can’t be more than nineteen!”

  “Eighteen actually.”

  “There, you see? You are nearly a child yourself.”

  “You can’t be much older,” Victor said defensively.

  Jonathan laughed and thumped Victor on the back. “I can tell that you and I are going to get along swimmingly.”

  Victor’s cheeks reddened. He was astonished to realize that he felt the same way. He had never been able to make a friend so easily, and he had just made two! He couldn’t believe the ease with which he was conversing with these two veritable strangers. He attributed it more to their easy-going personalities than anything that he had done on his part.