Frankenstein: The Complete 5-Book Collection. Dean Koontz

if love had existed.

      Erika Four, like the three before her and like the other brides that he had made for himself, was not a partner in the traditional sense of marriage. To Victor, she was an accoutrement that allowed him to function more effectively in social situations, a defense against the annoyance of women who saw in him the prospect of wealth by marriage, and an instrument of pleasure.

      Because pleasure and power were synonymous to him, the intensity of his satisfaction was directly proportional to the cruelty with which he used her. He was often very satisfied.

      Like all of his modern creations, in a crisis she could block the perception of pain at will. During sex, he did not permit her to do so. Her submission would be more satisfyingly complete and genuine if she were made to suffer.

      If he struck her particularly hard, the evidence would be gone in hours, for like all his people, she healed rapidly. Bleeding lasted less than a minute. Cuts healed without scars in a few hours. Bruises sustained in the night would have faded by dawn.

      Most of his people were psychologically engineered to be utterly incapable of humiliation, for shame in all its shades grew from an acceptance of the belief that Moral Law lay at the heart of creation. In the war against ordinary humanity, which he would one day launch, he required soldiers without moral compunctions, so certain of their superiority that no ruthlessness would be beyond them.

      He allowed Erika humility, however, because from humility arose a quality of innocence. Although he was not entirely sure why this should be the case, the mildest abuse of a delicate sensibility was more thrilling than committing savageries against a woman who lacked all innocence.

      He forced her to endure the things that most shamed her because, ironically, the greater her shame and self-disgust, the further she would lower herself and the more obedient she would become. He had made her strong in many ways, but not so strong that he could not break her will and mold her as he wished.

      He valued subservience in a wife more if it had been beaten into her than if it had been engineered in the tank, for in the latter case, her slavish obedience felt mechanical and dull.

      Although he could remember a time, centuries ago in his youth, when he had felt differently about women and marriage, he could not recall or understand why that young Victor had felt the way he did, what belief had motivated him. He didn’t actually try to understand, however, because he had for a long time taken this different road, and there was no going back.

      Young Victor had also believed in the power of the human will to bend nature to its desires; and it was that aspect of his early self with which Victor could still identify. All that mattered was the triumph of the will.

      What was wrong here in the bedroom was that for once his will failed to bend reality to its desire. He wanted sexual satisfaction, but it eluded him.

      His mind kept straying back to the dinner party, to the sight and sound of Erika noisily sucking soup from spoon.

      At last he rolled off her, onto his back, defeated.

      They stared at the ceiling in silence until she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

      “Maybe the fault is mine,” he said, meaning that perhaps he had made some mistake in the creation of her.

      “I don’t excite you.”

      “Usually, yes. Not tonight.”

      “I’ll learn,” she promised. “I’ll improve.”

      “Yes,” he said, for that was what she must do if she hoped to keep her role, but he had begun to doubt that Erika Four would be the final Erika.

      “I’m going to the hospital,” he said. “I’m in a creative mood.”

      “The Hands of Mercy”. She shuddered. “I think I dream of it.”

      “You don’t. I spare all of you from dreams of your origins.”

      “I dream of someplace,” she persisted. “Dark and strange and full of death.”

      “There’s your proof that it’s not the Hands of Mercy. My labs are full of life.”

      Both bored with Erika and troubled by the direction of her musings, Victor rose from the bed and went naked into the bathroom.

      A jewel in this mounting of gold-plated fixtures and marble-clad walls, he looked at himself in the beveled mirrors and saw something much more than human.

      “Perfection,” he said, though he knew that he was just shy of that ideal.

      Looping through his torso, embedded in his flesh, entwining his ribs, spiraling around his spine, a flexible metallic cord and its associated implants converted simple electrical current – to which he submitted himself twice a day – into a different energy, a stimulating charge that sustained a youthful rate of cellular division and held biological time at bay.

      His body was a mass of scars and strange excrescences, but he found them beautiful. They were the consequences of the procedures by which he’d gained immortality; they were the badges of his divinity.

      One day he would clone a body from his DNA, enhance it with the many improvements he had developed, expedite its growth, and with the assistance of surgeons of his making, he’d have his brain transferred to that new home.

      When that work was finished, he would be the model of physical perfection, but he would miss his scars. They were proof of his persistence, his genius, and the triumph of his will.

      Now he got dressed, looking forward to a long night in his main laboratory at the Hands of Mercy.

       CHAPTER 29

      WHILE CARSON CHECKED on her castle-building brother, Michael stood at a kitchen counter with a mug of Vicky’s coffee.

      Having just finished cleaning the oven, Vicky Chou said, “How’s the java?”

      “As bitter as bile,” he said.

      “But not acidic.”

      “No,” he admitted. “I don’t know how you manage to make it bitter without it being acidic, but you do.”

      She winked. “My secret.”

      “Stuff’s as black as tar. This isn’t a mistake. You actually try to get it like this, don’t you?”

      “If it’s so terrible,” she said, “why do you always drink it?”

      “It’s a test of my manhood.” He took a long swallow that made his face pucker. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, but you’ll tell me to shut up, you don’t want to know.”

      Washing her hands at the sink, she said, “I have to listen to you, Michael. It’s part of my job description.”

      He hesitated but then said, “I’ve been thinking how things might be if Carson and I weren’t partners.”

      “What things?”

      “Between her and me.”

      “Is there something between you and her?”

      “The badge,” he said mournfully. “She’s too solid a cop, too professional to date a partner.”

      “The bitch,” Vicky said drily.

      Michael smiled, sampled the coffee, grimaced. “Problem is, if I changed partners so we could date, I’d miss kicking ass and busting heads together.”

      “Maybe that’s how the two of you relate best.”

      “There’s a depressing thought.”

      Vicky clearly had more to say, but she clammed up when Carson entered the kitchen.

      “Vicky,” Carson said, “I know you’re