the beginning,” I urged, forcing my eyes back to his face. “And keep talking until I stop you.”
Ambrose nodded.
“I was very ill when I left for Mexico,” he began. “The doctors told me I had only weeks left to live and I decided that if I was going to die, I preferred it be in a good cause, so I went into Mexico to join the revolution. It was there, in Pancho Villa’s camp, that I met a Dark Man, a brujo—a witch doctor—who haunted the battlefields, gathering up the wounded and even the recently dead. I found out later that his name—one of his names—was Johann Dippel.” He paused somewhat expectantly, and I felt an itch begin deep in my brain. I couldn’t identify it yet because my mind was still rather taken up with the walking corpse thing and disinclined to be distracted by a search for historical trivia.
“Dippel. Should I know this name?” I asked, unable to let it go completely.
“Not necessarily.” He shrugged. “Perhaps youwould have read about him under the name of Doctor Xavier Bichat. Anyhow, once he found out who I was, he offered to cure me—to rid my body of all disease if I helped General Villa. I was agreeable since that was what I had planned to do anyway. And dying people will grasp at straws of hope, however unlikely or tenuous. Besides, if the procedure killed me, it would only be depriving me of a few pain-filled days. What did I have to lose? Nothing, I thought.” “I see. And it worked?” “Oh yes. It worked and then some.” I closed my eyes and lay down in the hot sand, not caring that it was getting in my hair. I wriggled until it was comfortable and the heat began to seep into my back.
“I woke up after the drugs and electrocution in Saint Elmo’s fire—”
I cracked open an eye and squinted at Ambrose. “Electrocution? Wait, wait, wait. Johann
Dippel
. I remember now. He was the real Doctor Frankenstein, wasn’t he? The one who was killed by the peasants and whose castle was burned? I’ve read about him. I thought about writing on him for a term paper but there wasn’t enough material. And Bichat—wasn’t he the one experimenting with animating corpses taken from the guillotine during the French Revolution? They executed him, didn’t they?”
“That’s the one. Only Dippel wasn’t killed quite dead enough at the time—either time. The destruction of his body, his monsters and his castlewas incomplete and he was able to find his way to his lab and patch himself back together.” Ambrose looked over at the fire pit. His face was hard. “That’s the trouble with leaving this job to amateurs. They don’t destroy the bodies.”
“It…it figures though that he survived. Pure evil wouldn’t just die without a fight.” I had to say something and this was all I came up with. I did not look at the fire pit. The thing would have to burn for a long time before it would improve in appearance—in other words, become ash. I didn’t doubt that it would, though. Ambrose seemed to know what he was doing.
“Not usually. Evil often lives on long after good has given up and quit the battlefield.” I could feel him staring at me again, perhaps gauging my level of repressed hysteria. I think my response puzzled him, but I had learned long ago to moderate my emotions or risk blacking out. My heart could not pump an adequate supply of oxygenated blood to fuel full hysteria.
“Go on,” I urged, now reluctantly caught up in this improbable, but I suspected entirely true, story. “You woke up from electrocution.”
“Yes, and this Dark Man told me that I had become immortal, that he had improved on his process over the years and I was now virtually indestructible. Though I was lying there with the mark of the lightning that should have killed me—
did
kill me—etched on my chest in a golden ceraunograph, I didn’t believe him.” He shook his head. “Once the first instants of pain passed I feltbetter, fabulous even…but immortal? I laughed at him as
Ambrose nodded.
“I was very ill when I left for Mexico,” he began. “The doctors told me I had only weeks left to live and I decided that if I was going to die, I preferred it be in a good cause, so I went into Mexico to join the revolution. It was there, in Pancho Villa’s camp, that I met a Dark Man, a brujo—a witch doctor—who haunted the battlefields, gathering up the wounded and even the recently dead. I found out later that his name—one of his names—was Johann Dippel.” He paused somewhat expectantly, and I felt an itch begin deep in my brain. I couldn’t identify it yet because my mind was still rather taken up with the walking corpse thing and disinclined to be distracted by a search for historical trivia.
“Dippel. Should I know this name?” I asked, unable to let it go completely.
“Not necessarily.” He shrugged. “Perhaps youwould have read about him under the name of Doctor Xavier Bichat. Anyhow, once he found out who I was, he offered to cure me—to rid my body of all disease if I helped General Villa. I was agreeable since that was what I had planned to do anyway. And dying people will grasp at straws of hope, however unlikely or tenuous. Besides, if the procedure killed me, it would only be depriving me of a few pain-filled days. What did I have to lose? Nothing, I thought.” “I see. And it worked?” “Oh yes. It worked and then some.” I closed my eyes and lay down in the hot sand, not caring that it was getting in my hair. I wriggled until it was comfortable and the heat began to seep into my back.
“I woke up after the drugs and electrocution in Saint Elmo’s fire—”
I cracked open an eye and squinted at Ambrose. “Electrocution? Wait, wait, wait. Johann
Dippel
. I remember now. He was the real Doctor Frankenstein, wasn’t he? The one who was killed by the peasants and whose castle was burned? I’ve read about him. I thought about writing on him for a term paper but there wasn’t enough material. And Bichat—wasn’t he the one experimenting with animating corpses taken from the guillotine during the French Revolution? They executed him, didn’t they?”
“That’s the one. Only Dippel wasn’t killed quite dead enough at the time—either time. The destruction of his body, his monsters and his castlewas incomplete and he was able to find his way to his lab and patch himself back together.” Ambrose looked over at the fire pit. His face was hard. “That’s the trouble with leaving this job to amateurs. They don’t destroy the bodies.”
“It…it figures though that he survived. Pure evil wouldn’t just die without a fight.” I had to say something and this was all I came up with. I did not look at the fire pit. The thing would have to burn for a long time before it would improve in appearance—in other words, become ash. I didn’t doubt that it would, though. Ambrose seemed to know what he was doing.
“Not usually. Evil often lives on long after good has given up and quit the battlefield.” I could feel him staring at me again, perhaps gauging my level of repressed hysteria. I think my response puzzled him, but I had learned long ago to moderate my emotions or risk blacking out. My heart could not pump an adequate supply of oxygenated blood to fuel full hysteria.
“Go on,” I urged, now reluctantly caught up in this improbable, but I suspected entirely true, story. “You woke up from electrocution.”
“Yes, and this Dark Man told me that I had become immortal, that he had improved on his process over the years and I was now virtually indestructible. Though I was lying there with the mark of the lightning that should have killed me—
did
kill me—etched on my chest in a golden ceraunograph, I didn’t believe him.” He shook his head. “Once the first instants of pain passed I feltbetter, fabulous even…but immortal? I laughed at him as
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