Page 98 of Her Creation

The other nodded in agreement.

“The what?” The word settled over her like a physical weight, cold and suffocating.

“The Nachzehrer,” the man holding the body repeated. “A thing that rises from the grave and drains the living. Someone saw a figure.”

“A faceless figure,” the other interrupted, “moving through the shadows. Disappeared before everyone’s eyes.”

The man nodded, eyes wide. “They say it emerged from a grave at the old church.”

“When they returned in daylight,” the younger man continued, “one grave was empty. Not robbed. Not disturbed. Just empty. Nothing left but dirt.”

“And then the deaths began,” Victoria said, her voice barely steady.

They both nodded.

The world seemed to tilt slightly beneath her feet as the truth pressed closer, heavy and undeniable.

“The Nachzehrer. It’s come to Glen Shire and is draining the life from everyone.”

Victoria’s stomach lurched. “What about him? Did it not succeed?” She gestured toward the limp figure held before her, feeling a chill crawl along her spine.

“No. He was lucky. Found barely breathing outside the potter’s. We brought him here as fast as we could. Can your father help him?”

The words sank like stones into her chest. Her pulse hammered in her ears.

“This is the first you’ve heard of the monster and its killings…” said the man who had stayed silent beside the horse, his eyes dark pools of fear.

“Sort of,” Victoria admitted, though the truth felt thin in her throat. “Give him to me. I’ll take him in and see what my father and his assistant can do.” She stepped forward, a tremor of dread threading through her legs.

“He is far too heavy. Let me carry him in for you,” the man said, his voice tight.

“No.” The laboratory rose before her in memory: the chains, the heavy, overpowering smell of rot and decay that clung to the shadows like a second skin. She braced herself and pulled the man away, his feet dragging across the ground.. The moment her arms closed around him, a strange, uncanny weight pressed against her chest. His head lolled unnaturally to the side—he had likely already passed. Discreetly, she pressed her fist to his chest and felt the same chilling hollowness she had sensed before.

She should have returned him to the men. She should have abandoned this macabre task. Yet a prickling shiver ran up her spine, warning her not to let go. The hair along the back of her neck rose. “You may wait here or in the stable around the corner. The stable master can give you shelter,” she instructed, her voice hollow, distant.

Sweat slid down her temples as she dragged the body into the laboratory, the cold stone floor biting through her slippers. The men had wisely retreated to the stables, sparing her the humiliation of watching her struggle. Her movements were rougher than usual; the man’s legs scraped across the flagstones. Yet adrenaline clawed through her veins, a feverish insistence urging her forward. She needed to know.

Innominatus had not gone far. He was keeping his word, yet even in this grotesque spectacle, he had thought of her. The thought that he might have prepared a grave for her father in the old church cemetery made her chest tighten, a bitter ache of gratitude and grief. Even in destruction, he had shown her twisted kindness, revealing what he could be—a monster and still somehow a protector.

She laid the man on the table, the familiar smell of cold iron and antiseptic filling her nostrils. Her trained hands moved with precision yet failed her. Despite all her knowledge of human anatomy, she could not understand how he had died. No wounds, no signs of violence, only the small X etched delicately upon his chest, no larger than her fingernail.

A creeping horror spread through her, crawling up her spine and settling behind her eyes. She pressed on the chest, feeling the impossible hollow void again. Her pulse thundered as she drew her scalpel, hands trembling, slicing into the sternum. Each movement felt like a defiance of some unholy law.

When she used the bone saw to part the rib cage, it clattered against the stone floor with a sound that echoed like a death knell. Her eyes widened in utter disbelief. The man’s heart was gone, and in its place lay a small scroll, tied with a crimson ribbon, impossibly pristine amid the carnage.

Her back collided with the cold wall behind her. The impossible truth pressed down, heavy as the tombstones outside. Inno had killed the others, leaving this man alive just long enough for Victoria to receive a message. The thought of his cunning sent a shiver through her, gooseflesh prickling every inch of exposed skin. He had removed a human heart and replaced it with a note.

She bent closer, the scent of iron thick in the air, and carefully lifted the scroll from its cavity. Her fingers trembled as she unrolled it, round script gleamed against the dim light. Every elegant curve of the letters seemed to pulse with menace, as if Innominatus’s will had seeped into the ink itself.

From my grave I come to seek the joys of love;

Still bound by passion, which I cannot quell.

Victoria’s pulse quickened. She had heard the line before, yet its echo now seemed sharper, chilling the laboratory air. Her eyes wandered in search of some anchor and settled on the stack of books in the corner of her father’s desk. It was the same pile Inno had lingered over, reading and rereading as though memorizing every word.

She let the note fall upon the still body and ran to the books, flipping through the volumes with frantic fingers. Milton’s Paradise Lost, Plutarch’s Lives, Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, Fantasmagoriana, Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound, and several other obscure works whose worn spines seemed to hum in the dim candlelight.

Victoria seized Fantasmagoriana and flipped through the ghostly anthology. A gasp tore from her throat when she found Goethe’s “The Bride of Corinth” and saw the exact line underlined in thick charcoal. The book slipped from her fingers to the table like a wounded bird.