The Second Birth of Frankenstein (The Department 19 Files #5) Read Online Free PDF

the trail without another word. Within seconds, he was lost from view.
    Less than a minute later, a terrible scream echoed through the wilderness. Grant crossed himself once more, and the three men lowered their heads as silence settled back over the forest.
    “How did you end up here, then?” asked Grant, rubbing his gloved hands together over the fire.
    The three men were huddled in a triangle round the orange flames. There had seemed no point in standing guard, as Scott, or the grey creature Wallace and Paterson had seen, or whatever it was that was preying on them, could clearly move with great speed and quiet. Instead, they would stay as warm as possible, keep each other awake, and watch over each other’s shoulders for any sign of an attack.
    Paterson shrugged. “A Company man came down as far as Manchester,” he said. “He was recruiting outside the factory where my dad works, and Father signed me up for five years. Didn’t even tell me until it was time for me to go to Liverpool to board the ship.”
    Grant winced. “That’s a hard turn.”
    Paterson nodded. “It’s all I think about,” he said. “On the crossing, and every day since I got here. I think about making it through these five years so I can go home and break his nose when he answers the door. That’s what keeps me going.”
    Grant laughed, and Paterson gave a small smile. Wallace watched them steadily, sympathy and sadness mingling inside him.
    “Don’t be too quick to take vengeance,” he said. “I have some experience in the subject, and it rarely brings the satisfaction you hope for.”
    “Why do you say so?” asked Grant.
    “It begets further vengeance,” said Wallace. “It becomes a cycle, with a momentum of its own. Little good comes of it.”
    “Even though I was wronged?” asked Paterson. “And clearly so? I should let it pass without consequence?”
    “I would not presume to tell you what you should do,” said Wallace. “I offer only advice, that you will either take or you will ignore.”
    Paterson nodded, then turned to Grant. “What about you?” he asked. “What were the circumstances of your arrival here?”
    Grant shrugged. “I was born on the Orkneys,” he said. “A wife and three children wait there for me. Orcadians have been taking the Company coin for years now. My brothers, two of my uncles. All of them sailed.”
    “How many made it home?” asked Wallace.
    “Two,” said Grant. “The rest are buried up at the Factory.” The grim statistic settled over the men before Grant continued. “I’m three years in, two more to go. Then I go home. I doubt my children will even recognise me, but they’ll get the chance to reacquaint themselves with me well enough. Because I will never leave them again once this term is done. Never.”
    Wallace nodded. “You were born in the Orkney Islands?” he said.
    Grant nodded.
    “Yet your manner of speech is so different to McTavish’s. How came that to be the case?”
    Grant smiled. “My wife is an Englishwoman,” he said. “From the south. She determined to cure me of rough talk, as she called it, when we married. I dare say she succeeded.”
    Wallace smiled. “I dare say she did.”
    “Do you have a family, Wallace?” asked Paterson, turning to face him.
    He shook his head. “None that live,” he said. “There was a man, who I realised had been my father only once it was too late. But I committed terrible acts against him, and he is gone. I was not the only one of us who sinned, but mine were greater, and harder to atone for. Although I am more of a mind to try than I have previously been.”
    “What sins did the two of you commit?” asked Grant, his voice low.
    “We attempted to destroy one another,” said Wallace. “I was successful, and he was not. When it was done, I took a new name, and began a new life.”
    “So John Wallace is not the name you were born with?” asked Paterson.
    He shook his head. “No. But it is the only one I