The Isle of Blood

My master then waved the thought away. He did not wish to dwell on Jack Kearns or what drove him. He was too much in the grip of his own demons.

“He is a cruel man,” he said. “Some might say a monster of a man. But that is no concern of mine.”

“Listen to you; listen! My former pupil! Father in heaven, forgive me for my transgressions, for I have failed you—and my dear student! Pellinore, we are men before scientists; it is the human monster we should most concern ourselves with!”

“Why?” the doctor said sharply. “What of monstrous men? I can’t think of anything more banal. I have no doubt—no doubt whatsoever—that once it has obtained the means to do so, the species will wipe itself off the face of the earth. There is no mystery to it. It is in our nature. Oh, one might delve into the particulars, but really, what might we say about the species that invented murder? What can we say?”

Forgetting myself for a moment, I said, “You sound like him.”

Warthrop whirled on me. “What did you say?”

“What you were saying… It sounded like something Dr. Kearns would say.”

“Just because a man is a homicidal maniac doesn’t make him wrong,” the monstrumologist snarled.

“No,” said von Helrung softly, his bright eyes flashing dangerously. “It merely makes him evil.”

“We are scientists, von Helrung; such concepts are alien in our vocabulary. In India it is a sin to kill a cow. Are we Westerners evil for slaughtering them?”

“Human beings, mein Freund

,” replied von Helrung, “are not cows.”

Warthrop did not have a ready retort for that, and he listened silently as his old friend begged him to reconsider. Rushing off to England would be premature. Kearns was gone, and, after all, the quest was not for Kearns but for the place where the nidus had been fashioned.

Warthrop hardly listened. He, the caged lion, might have been pacing the floor, but not so his passion—nothing could contain thatsnarled height="0em">

“There are those who live their entire lives in ignorance,” he shouted into the frightened face of his former mentor. “With no inkling of their purpose, who, if pressed, could not answer why they were even born. Many are called, you said. True, and most are deaf! And the majority of them are blind! I am neither. I have heard the call. I have seen the way. I am the one. I am the one.”

He was in the fever’s full grip. It was the call of destiny—his destiny—the reason he had sacrificed so much, endured so much, lost so much. This was fate, to a man who did not believe in fate. This was deliverance, to a man who did not subscribe to any notion of personal salvation. This was redemption, to a man for whom the idea of redemption was a bit of useless esoterica.

Ah, Warthrop! How often you cautioned me to control my passions, lest my passions control me. What now? Do you contain the fire or does the fire contain you? I see it clearly now—not so much then.

Von Helrung saw it, though. Saw it and was powerless against its infernal force. In all his years as master instructor in the art of monstrumology, never had he a finer pupil—and he had taught dozens. Warthrop was his crowning achievement—a monstrumologist without compunction, a scientist without the slightest bias or qualm. And yet! Sometimes our greatest strength is also our greatest weakness: The flame that lit up Pellinore Warthrop’s genius was the same inferno that drove him pell-mell toward the abyss.

Von Helrung saw that abyss, and von Helrung was afraid.

Von Helrung, who knew where the true Monstrum horribalis of the case lurked, said, “The call has come, then, and you must answer, but you must not answer alone.”

“Well, of course. Will Henry is coming with me.”

“Of course,” echoed von Helrung. His brilliant blue eyes fell upon me. “Will Henry.”

“Will Henry… what? Do not underestimate him, von Helrung. I would trade a dozen Pierre Lebroques for one William James Henry.”

“No, no, you misunderstand, Pellinore. The boy has proved indispensable to you, his father’s untimely demise a tragic blessing. But your right hand, as it were, has been grievously wounded on his left—”

“He lost a finger. A finger! Why, I once had a Sherpa who guided me across the Himalayas with his small intestines hanging out his gut—in winter!”

“There are many fine monstrumologists who would leap at the chance to—”

“Undoubtedly!” Warthrop laughed harshly. “I am certain I’d have enough volunteers to outnumber the entire magnificum population by ten to one. Do you think I am a complete fool?”

“I do not suggest we place an advertisement in the Journal, Pellinore,” returned von Helrung with exaggerated patience, as a forbearing father to a wayward child. “What of Walker? He is a worthy scientist, and quintessentially British. He won’t breathe a word to anyone.”

“Sir Hiram—that simpleton? He’s always been more concerned about advancing his own interests than those of science.”

“An American, then. You always were fond of Torrance.”