Amicus

“Henry!” I jerked away from Calypso, who immediately attempted to hide behind me, which was quite frankly impossible for someone of her stature. “This is… Urm.” My mouth failed me.

Henry’s eyes were bound to Calypso, who was now examining him with great interest from behind me. “Victor. What is that? Why does it have a transparent tail and feline ears? Why does it glow? Why can I see its organs? Victor! Victor, why can I see its organs?!”

“This is… Calypso,” I said, trying for a casual tone and failing miserably. “She’s… a project. A medical project. Very scientific. Nothing to be concerned about.”

“Nothing to be—” Henry’s voice went up an octave. “Victor, that thing is nary eight feet tall and glowing! I can see through its skin! It has…” He blinked. “Giant breasts? Victor, why does it have giant breasts?”

“It helps cool down the interior,” I said weakly, instantly realizing how idiotic my words sounded to the uninitiated. “It’s very advanced.”

Calypso, deciding Henry looked interesting and unthreatening, emerged from behind me and advanced toward him. Her movement featured the predator’s gait, smooth and purposeful, tail swaying.

Her extruding jaw suddenly snapped out, making Henry jump back.

“Christ!” Henry yelped, eyes wide. “Why does it look like a wolf now?! It just had the face of a woman moments ago!”

“No! Calypso, stay!” I grabbed her arm. She stopped, looking between me and Henry with obvious curiosity. “Henry is not food. Henry is my friend. We don’t eat friends.”

“EAT?” Henry’s voice went up another octave. “It eats people?!”

“No! Well. Sometimes.”

“SOMETIMES?!”

“Sort of. Not living people that is. She’s eaten all of my cadavers.”

“She WHAT?!”

“A simple dietary issue we’re working through.” I positioned myself between them. “Henry, I can explain everything. Just… don’t make any sudden movements.”

“Don’t make any sudden—Victor, I’m not dealing with a wild animal!”

Calypso chose that moment to lean over my shoulder and vocalize at Henry, inhumanly long tongue rolling out. “Aaaaaahhhhh!”

Henry screamed.

Calypso, delighted by this new sound, screamed back. “AAAAAAAHHHHHH!”

“No! Both of you, stop screaming!” I waved my arms. “This is exactly the kind of thing we don’t do in polite society!”

“Polite society?!” Henry had backed against the wall. “Victor, that’s a monster! You’ve created a monster!”

“She’s not a monster, she’s… scientifically advanced!” I defended Calypso. “And keep your voice down, if Father hears—”

“Your father should hear! Everyone should hear! You’ve violated every law of nature and—” He stopped mid-rant, his face going pale. “Oh god. Victor. Tell me you didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?”

“You…” His eyes widened. “You built that thing from corpses! That’s why you collected so many female cadavers over the past three years! I knew it! I knew that your obsession with corpses would lead you to the darkness of the occult! You’ve summoned a literal demon from the Abyss!”

“I used seventeen donors,” I said defensively. “All acquired legally. Well. Mostly legally. Legally-ish. There may have been some gray areas regarding the coaching accident victim and—” I looked at his expression. He was barely listening to me. “And she’s not a demon. She’s… a person. Just one born into existence… without a mother or father.”

“SEVENTEEN—” Henry looked like he might faint. “Seventeen bodies. You stitched together seventeen bodies and brought them to life. Victor, that’s… that’s the most horrifying thing I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s ambitious,” I corrected my overdramatic friend. “And revolutionary. It wasn’t just human bodies, I used animal and marine life and insect species too. Do you have any idea what this means for medical science? For the study of cellular regeneration? For—”

Calypso, bored with the complexity of our conversation, moved off to our right side.

“Victor,” Henry hissed indignantly. “Why is her posterior so large? It’s just as massive as her—”

“Balance,” I said. “I added more glutes and a tail for weight distribution, otherwise she would…”

I noticed that my creation had once again wandered over to the waste bin and started trying to retrieve the cadaver arm I’d thrown away earlier.

“Calypso, no!” I rushed over and pulled her away from the bin. “We talked about this! No corpses!”

“It’s eating corpses,” Henry said in a strangled voice. “Victor. It’s actively trying to eat MORE corpses while we’re talking. What kind of a vile demon have you made?” He stared at her massive chest and glutes like they personally offended his sensibilities.

“She’s still learning,” I said, holding Calypso back as she reached longingly toward the bin. “Her dietary preferences are… unrefined.”

“Unrefined?! Victor, it… It ate seventeen appendices!”

“You counted the appendices?”

“They were labeled! I’ve been helping you keep this place organized and clean for the past three years, Victor! I’ve fed all of your damned glowing jellyfish and your damned glowing pigs. I… I thought that you were sewing organs to them so that you could someday help gravely injured and amputees, not to create a glowing monster from female body parts!”

I swallowed.

“Look!” Henry waved a hand at a nearby ransacked shelf. “The whole shelf of ‘Appendix Collection’ is now empty! She ate your appendix collection!” Henry ran his hands through his hair. “I’m assuredly having a breakdown. This is what a breakdown feels like!”

Calypso finally gave up on the corpse arm and turned her attention back to Henry. She took a step toward him, head tilted.

“Victor, it’s coming closer!”

“She’s just curious. Calypso, this is Henry. Henry, this is Calypso. Everyone’s going to be friends and no one is going to eat anyone.”

“Why do you keep saying that?!” Henry pressed himself harder against the wall, looking pale.

Calypso reached Henry and, before I could stop her, reached out and touched his face. Her massive hand cupped his cheek, owl eyes examining him with a spark of fascination.

“It’s… touching me,” Henry whispered, staring at the transparent palm. “I can see everything inside its hand, Victor!”

“She’s curious,” I explained. “You’re the first person besides me she’s ever seen. Just… stay calm. Don’t startle her.”

Calypso made a soft cooing sound and patted Henry’s head, the same way she’d patted mine earlier. Then she leaned down and pressed her forehead against his, just as she’d done with me.

Henry’s eyes were the size of tea cups. “Victor. Help. It’s planning on devouring me!”

“She likes you!” I said encouragingly. “Relax, she’s not going to eat you. That’s her affection gesture, I think. It means she’s accepted you as part of her social group. Her… pack.”

“I don’t want to be part of her social group! Pack?! What is she, a wolf?! Why is her stomach so round too?”

“Because she ate everything organic in my lab,” I sighed.

Calypso pulled back, looked at Henry for a long moment, then opened her mouth and vocalized directly in his face. “AAAAHHHHHH!”

My friend nearly fainted.

She finally released the distraught looking Henry and went back to staring at the ceiling, where a large moth was circling the candelabra. Her eyes tracked it with predatory desire, pupils dilating.

“Caly—”

She lunged, enhanced feline musculature uncoiling like a spring. She snatched the moth out of the air with one hand, then landed on all fours, rose up, spun around and presented the moth to me.

“That’s a… giant leopard moth,” I explained, watching it flutter frantically between Calypso’s glowing fingers. “Ecpantheria scribonia. Native to North America. I had about two dozen specimens in the east cabinet for a comparative study on wing patterns.”

Henry’s voice was very flat. “Had.”

“Yes. Had.” I looked around the laboratory with a sigh. “She must have released them when she was… foraging.”

“Foraging,” Henry repeated. “Is that what we’re calling the consumption of three years of experiments, body parts, specimens and marine collection? What kind of gluttonous beast have you cursed Geneva with?!”

Calypso, looking pleased with herself, held the moth up to the light, examining its wings with child-like enthrallment. Through her translucent fingers, we could see its desperate fluttering.

“That’s the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen,” Henry said. “And I once watched Professor Shtoltz dissect a pregnant cat.”

“The transparent skin took me quite a while to craft,” I started. “I began with a cellular material from man o’ war combined with—”

“Victor. I don’t want to know. I desperately don’t want to know.” Henry pushed himself away from the wall, giving Calypso a wide berth. “What is even your plan for this creature? You can’t exactly introduce her at dinner parties. ‘Father, everyone, meet Calypso. She glows in the dark and eats corpses. Please pass the wine.’”

“I haven’t worked out all the details yet,” I admitted.

“You haven’t—” Henry looked like he wanted to strangle me. “Victor, you’ve created a gluttonous, animal-jellyfish-demon and you didn’t plan past the actual creation part?”

“I was rather focused on whether I could, not whether I should,” I said defensively.

“Yes, I’m getting that distinct impression!” Henry gestured at Calypso, who was now letting the fluffy moth crawl across her palm, watching it with rapt attention. “And what happens when your father finds out? When the servants find out? When anyone finds out that you’ve been conducting unholy experiments on the third floor of this noble estate?”

“They won’t find out if you keep your voice down—”

The door burst open again.

Henry and I wheeled around. Calypso let out a noise of surprise.

Elizabeth stood in the doorway.

She was dressed for riding, bright red hair still slightly windswept, freckle-spotted face flushed from exercise. She looked radiant and thoroughly annoyed—an expression I’d seen countless times growing up, usually when I’d forgotten some social obligation or tracked mud through the parlor.

“Victor Frankenstein,” she said with a crisp tone she stuck to when trying to maintain composure, “your laboratory looks like someone violently ransacked an apothecary and a butcher shop simultaneously.”

She stepped inside, riding boots clicking against the floor, not looking up. Her sky blue eyes were fixed on the vast carnage featuring broken glass catching the morning light, specimen jars scattered like fallen soldiers, dark stains spreading across the floorboards, the sea life tanks empty.

“I’ve spent the last quarter of an hour calming your father down after he heard strange noises emanating from up here last night.” She picked her way through the debris with the grace of a lady of noble standing. “He thinks you’ve worked yourself to lunatic exhaustion again, which from the looks of things looks entirely far too true.”

I sighed.

“Seriously, what on earth have you been doing up here?” She chided, opening the window curtains one by one. “Did you decide to get rid of your marine collection last night? This is worse than when you were twelve and tried to reanimate that dead cat. At least then you had the sense to—”

She finally looked at the center of the room.

Calypso stared back.

The giant leopard moth was now fluttering inside Calypso’s mouth, visible through her transparent cheek. Her seven and a half foot frame cast an enormous shadow across the room, tinted with blue at the edges of Calypso’s bear-clawed feet.

The silence stretched for a very long moment.

“Victor,” Elizabeth said, sounding like she was suppressing her voice very hard. “Why is there a naked, transparent, glowing woman in your laboratory?”