The Devil's Anatomy

By RD Francis

Obsessed by the debilitating disease and tragic car accident of his late wives, both renowned ballerinas, and the military-related death of his sister, a Greenwich, Connecticut, surgeon’s research in tissue regeneration and reanimation ensnares him in the clutches of a sensuous pharmaceuticals rep, and her sly, antiquities dealing father in Darmstadt, Germany—the birthplace of the Frankenstein legend, and the drug, Ecstasy.

Will Jonathan Kinski find salvation or serve as Faust and Mephisto in a cathedral of his own making?

• Language: English
• Publisher: RD Francis
• Release date: Jul 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463255728

RD Francis

Schooled as an architectural draftsman and radio broadcaster, and after a detour as a sometimes music journalist, roadie, and rock bassist, a move from behind the microphone to the front of the camera led to the current endeavors of R.D Francis as a screenwriter specializing in sci-fi, horror, and comedy. He now offers his rock journalism and fiction works on Smashwords.

Book preview

Also by R.D Francis

The Ghosts of Jim Morrison,

The Phantom of Detroit,

and the

Fates of Rock ‘n’ Roll:

The tales of the wizard behind

the mysterious 1974 album

Phantom’s Divine Comedy: Part 1

The Devil’s Anatomy

A Novel

By R.D Francis

Based on the screenplay

The Devil’s Anatomy

By R.D Francis

Cover Design by R.D Francis

Free Image Silhouette of Vitruvian Man (in red) drawing by Leonardo da Vinci authored by Natasha Sinegina. This work accredited under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 License. Courtesy of www.supercoloring.com/silhouettes/vitruvian-man

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialog are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2018 R.D Francis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share your enjoyment of this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work and dedication of this author.

"What is the heart of man?

It is a tragic organ that,

in seeking fulfillment,

destroys itself."

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

From his 1774 novel,

The Sorrows of Young Werther

1

THE tenth verse of the first book of Ecclesiastes embodies the futility of the dreams of man:

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be;

and that which is done is that which shall be done:

and there is no new thing under the sun.

And the dream of Jonathan Kinski always begins the same. His folly is that he dared to change the outcome.

Jonathan’s soul glides across a pristine snow blanket as Le Veau d’or from Charles Gounod’s Faust resonates across the wilds of Putnam/St. Mary’s Cemetery in Greenwich, Connecticut. As the tombstones give way to a marker and its occupant, renowned New York Metropolitan opera singer Ezio Pinza, Jonathan realizes the outcome to his dream lies in the distance—within the walls of St. Joseph’s Mausoleum. As he draws closer to a stained glass window pane, his soul passes through the glass, down a chair-lined corridor that leads to a mahogany and bronze-trimmed casket surrounded by red and pink oleander floral arrangements set against a burgundy tapestry. Jonathan gazes into the casket and sees the youthful, yet ossified, thirty-something body of his beloved Barbara; she rests on pristine, snow-white bedding—the white of the bedding overwhelms Jonathan’s sight.

Before Jonathan can reach to touch her cold, stone flesh one last time, he finds himself pulled across the pristine snows once more, towards a 1931 red-brick Georgian planted in the center of the eleven pastoral acres of the Kinski Family’s Greenwich estate. As he passes through a basement window pane, he sees his thirty-something self perched over an electron microscope inside his clinical research laboratory.

As Ezio Pinza’s tale of The Golden Calf echoes through the lab, Salamanders and Newts live a life of luxury inside two large terrariums. Four more terrariums support floral habitats of White, Pink, Yellow, and Blue Nerium Oleanders. Four computer monitors display 3D animations for the chemical structures of Extracellular Matrix, Alpha-Neoendorphin, and Beta-Endorphins. The final monitor displays the chemical structure of the Female Endocrine Glandular System—with a map of the pineal and pituitary, thyroid and parathyroid, thymus and adrenal glands, along with the pancreas and gonads.

His eyes pressed into the scope’s optics, Jonathan adjusts, and then speaks into a fiber optics headset. Repair mechanisms continue to reconstruct affected areas with more bone tissues. However, the ossification rates indicate a deceleration. Regeneration remains incomplete and the necrotic tissues come fibrosis.

As Jonathan pulls away the headset, he stretches and rubs his eyes; he concentrates on a salamander’s slither as it swims to break the surface waters.

In the upper floors of the Kinski Estate, meditative, harp and wind instrument-inspired new age music fills the master bath. A vanity mirror reflects the flickers of scented candles as a twenty-something Elizabeth Kinski sips from a burgundy wine glass; her firm, silky body soaks in marble bathtub contained waters.

Off the master bath, Ana Nicols, the Kinski’s young maid, exits a walk-in closet; she places a pair of designer shoes on the floor, then smoothes over a dress on the bed in the master bedroom.

Ana, Elizabeth calls out from the master bath, I’m ready to get out.

Draped in an open robe, Elizabeth sits at the vanity and rubs lotion on her skin. Ana unravels and brushes Elizabeth’s hair, while admiring the fresh aroma and the sight of the damp, supple breasts of her mistress.

In the lower depths of the Kinski Estate, The Fall of the Rebel Angels, a painting by Hieronymus Bosch, hangs beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass partition of a personal wine cellar. Jonathan, out of his lab wears, lounges in one of two chairs at a tasting table. He peruses his prize-winning collection of 1,395 wine bottles.

In the gourmet kitchen, raw, pink salmon drops onto an antique china plate. Fresh spinach pasta cascades from a pasta maker cranked by the almost forty-something hand of the Kinski’s quintessential gentleman’s gentleman, Charles, Jonathan’s personal valet, who also serves as the estate’s butler, chauffeur, and master chef.

Beyond, in the family room adjoined to the gourmet kitchen—sets an elegant dinner set for two on the dining table.

Down in the wine cellar, Jonathan extracts an Argentinean Burgundy Syrah from the wine rack and contemplates the bottle. He picks up the phone receiver on the tasting table.

Sir?

What is this evening’s dinner, Charles?

Grilled Salmon, along with a spinach pasta side dish in a seafood sauce and a medley of fresh vegetables.

Jonathan hangs up the phone. He inserts the Syrah into the rack. He selects a Pinot Noir, inspects the bottle, and then walks off. He stops, turns, and pulls an additional bottle of Pinot Noir.

In the family room off the gourmet kitchen, Jonathan pokes the flames of a fire’s glow that illuminates an 18th century Flemish painting, Mother and Child with Harlequin, hung over one of the home’s eleven masonry fireplaces.

The shelves and wall decor of the family room feature Jonathan’s prized collection of Edo Period Japanese Mechanical Clocks, known as Wadokei, a framed assortment of stringed, antique citterns, bandoras, pandoras, and orpharions, along with rare broadsheet music. A photograph of Ezio Pinza as Mephistopheles playing a