"I do not propose to put my clinic in the countryside. No, my clinic will be in the heart of England, in London itself."
"But surely the police—"
"There are parts of London where the police never go. Parts where the inhabitants speak a babble of language, and everything you want to purchase is to be had, from a girl fresh from the English countryside to a pipe of opium that will give you distinctly un-English dreams. I have become familiar with them over the last few years. Do not worry about the practicalities. Those I have thought of already."
"And third—I did tell you there are three reasons—you are a follower of Mr. Darwin. Consider, Edward." She turned again to look at the valley below. "The operation of natural selection is necessary for evolution. Without selective pressure, a species stagnates, perhaps even degenerates, reverting to atavistic forms. How long has it been since selective pressure operated on the human species? You have killed all your predators. How many men are killed by wolves or bears, in Europe? You care for your poor, your sick, your idiots, your mad, who give birth to more of their kind, filling your cities. Your intelligent classes, who spend so much of their energy in their work, do not breed. This is not new to you, I know. You have read it in Nordau, Lombroso. Your very strength and compassion as a species will be your undoing. You will grow weaker by the year, the decade, the century. Eventually, like the dodo, you will become extinct. That is the fate of mankind. Unless . . . "
"Unless what?"
"You once again introduce a predator. That is what I'm offering you, Edward. Selective predation. A species that I create, to feed off the weakest among you, to make humanity strong."
She was mad, I thought. And I think so still. But there is a kind of reason in madness. Moreau had it, and as she claimed, she was Moreau's daughter. He too had the directness, the simplicity, of a beast.
I have not seen her since that day on the hillside. The money I send her is deposited into a bank account, and where it goes from there, I do not know. Do I believe that the creatures she creates will strengthen rather than weaken mankind? I do not know, but she has never lied to me. It takes a man to do that.
There was a fourth reason that she did not mention. Perhaps it was kindness on her part not to mention it. But I do not think that, in all her interactions with men, she has learned kindness. Surely she must have known. Sometimes at night I still think of her, her fingers twining in my hair, her legs tangled in mine, her lips close, so close, to my throat. I do not think I loved her. But it was a madness that resembled love, and perhaps I am still mad, because I have not refused her. She must have known, because as she stood in the doorway, ready to depart, as respectable as any English lady, she stepped close to me and licked my neck. I felt the rasp of her tongue.
"Goodbye, Edward," she said. "When I am ready, not before, I will invite you to my clinic, and you can see the first of our children. Yours and mine."
Yesterday, in the post, I received her invitation. Will I go? I have not decided. But I am a scientist, cursed with curiosity. I would like to see what she creates and whether she is, indeed, a worthy successor to Moreau.
Editor's Note:
I hesitate to publish this manuscript, left to me by my late uncle, Edward Prendick, because credulous members of the public may connect it with the series of brutal murders that is currently taxing the ingenuity of Scotland Yard. However, Professor Huxley, my uncle's former teacher, has asked me to publish it as an addendum to my uncle's manuscript of his time on the island. I believe the conversation it records was a hallucination. It must be remembered that my uncle's health was severely affected by the shipwreck that left him the sole inhabitant of an island in the South Seas, and that at the time of his death, he was attended by an alienist. I am satisfied that the cause of his death was natural. Heart failure can strike a comparatively young man, and even if we give no credence to the fantastical occurrences that he claimed to have witnessed, my uncle must have suffered a great deal. It is true that upon the execution of his will, his fortune was found to be significantly diminished. However, there are a number of possible explanations for the state of his affairs, and we should not draw conclusions before the investigation into his death is complete. I hope the public will do justice to the memory of my uncle, who, although disturbed in mind, was a man of intellectual promise before the shipwreck that embittered him toward mankind. And I hope the public will dismiss the ridiculous fancies of Fleet Street, and assist our police in catching the perpetrator of the Limehouse Murders.
—Charles Prendick
About the Editor
Ellen Datlow has been editing short science fiction, fantasy, and horror for almost thirty years. She was co-editor of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror for twenty-one years and currently edits The Best Horror of the Year. She has edited or co-edited many other anthologies, most recently The Coyote Road and Troll's Eye View (with Terri Windling), Inferno, Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, Lovecraft Unbound, Digital Domains: A Decade of Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror.
Forthcoming are Naked City: New Tales of Urban Fantasy, The Best Horror of the Year Volume Two, Haunted Legends (with Nick Mamatas), The Beastly Bride, and Teeth (the latter two with Terri Windling).
She has won multiple awards for her editing, including the World Fantasy, Locus, Hugo, International Horror Guild, Shirley Jackson, and Stoker Awards. She was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award for "outstanding contribution to the genre."
For more information, visit her website at www.datlow.com
THE END
For more great books visit
Tails of Wonder and Imagination
Table of Contents
Introduction
Ellen Datlow
Through the Looking Glass (excerpt)
Lewis Carroll
No Heaven Will Not Ever Heaven Be . . .
A. R. Morlan
The Price
Neil Gaiman
Dark Eyes, Faith, and Devotion
Charles de Lint
Not Waving
Michael Marshall Smith
Catch
Ray Vukcevich
The Manticore Spell
Jeffrey Ford
Catskin
Kelly Link
Mieze Corrects an Incomplete Representation of Reality
Michaela Roessner
Guardians
George R. R. Martin
Life Regarded as a Jigsaw Puzzle of Highly Lustrous Cats
Michael Bishop
Gordon, the Self-Made Cat
Peter S. Beagle
The Jaguar Hunter
Lucius Shepard
Arthur's Lion
Tanith Lee
Pride
Mary A. Turzillo
The Burglar Takes a Cat
Lawrence Block
The White Cat
Joyce Carol Oates
Returns
Jack Ketchum
Puss-Cat
Reggie Oliver
Cat in Glass
Nancy Etchemendy
Coyote Peyote
Carole Nelson Douglas
The Poet and the Inkmaker's Daughter
Elizabeth Hand
The Night of the Tiger
Stephen King
Every Angel is Terrifying
John Kessel
Candia
Graham Joyce
Mbo
Nicholas Royle
Bean Bag Cats®
Edward Bryant
Antiquities
John Crowley
The Manticore's Tale
Catherynne M. Valente
In Carnation
Nancy Springer
Old Foss is the Name of His Cat
David Sandner
A Safe Place to Be
Carol Emshwiller
Nine Lives to Live
Sharyn McCrumb
Tiger Kill
Kaaron Warren
Something Better than Death
Lucy Sussex
Dominion
Christine Lucas
Tiger in the Snow
Daniel Wynn Barber
The Dweller in High Places
Susanna Clarke
Healing Benjamin
Dennis Danvers
The Puma
Theodora Goss
About the Editor