The Final Descent (The Monstrumologist) by Rick Yancey

There were no such things as monsters outside the human mind. We are vain and arrogant, evolution’s highest achievement and most dismal failure, prisoners of our self-awareness and the illusion that we stand in the center, that there is us and then there is everything else but us .
    But we do not stand apart from or above or in the middle of anything. There is nothing apart, nothing above, and the middle is everywhere—and nowhere. We are no more beautiful or essential or magnificent than an earthworm.
    In fact—and dare we go there, you and I?—you could say the worm is more beautiful, because it is innocent and we are not. The worm has no motive but to survive long enough to make baby worms. There is no betrayal, no cruelty, no envy, no lust, and no hatred in the worm’s heart, and so whoare the monsters and which species shall we call aberrant?
    Sitting in the cold basement before the warm egg, my eyes filled with tears. For true beauty—beauty, as it were, with a capital B —is terrifying; it puts us in our place; it reflects back to us our own ugliness. It is the prize beyond price.
    I reached out my hand and laid it gently upon the pulsing skin.
    Forgive, forgive, for you are greater than I.

Canto 2
    ONE
    Forgive.
    The empty eye and the tangled strands of hair still clinging to the skull beside the ash barrel.
    And what might Dr. Pellinore Warthrop be needing, Mr. Henry?
    Oh, the usual things. He isn’t an invalid, but he is a careless housekeeper and never cooks for himself. He needs someone for the laundry and the shopping, cooking, cleaning, someone to answer the door, but I don’t anticipate much of that—the doctor receives hardly any callers these days.
    Yes, sir. Bit of a recluse, is he?
    Somewhere between that and a hermit.
    So he doesn’t practice medicine anymore?
    He never did. He isn’t that kind of doctor.
    Oh, no?
    Oh, no. No, he is a doctor of philosophy, and I wouldn’t recommend you broach that topic with him—or any other topic, for that matter. If he wants to talk, he will. If he doesn’t, he won’t. You can expect to be ignored for a great deal of the time. Well, nearly all the time.
    And the rest of the time, Mr. Henry? What might I expect then?
    Well, yes. He has quite the temp— Well, let’s just say he’s a bit hotheaded for a philosopher.
    A hotheaded philosopher? Oh, Mr. Henry, that’s funny!
    More humorous in the abstract, I’m afraid. The best strategy is to agree with everything he says. For example, if he either implies or explicitly states that a worm’s intelligence exceeds your own, a good answer would be, “I have often thought so myself, Dr. Warthrop.” At other times, he may say something that makes no sense—it doesn’t mean he’s off his rocker; he’s just being Warthrop. He speaks out of context. I mean, the context is hidden.
    Hidden, Mr. Henry? Hidden where?
    Inside his own mind.
    He hides things . . . in his mind?
    Well, don’t we all, Beatrice?
    I tapped the skull on its face with the edge of my shoe.
    I knew I should fetch the constable. Have him arrested. It would be a fitting end for a doctor of monstrumology, whose business irrevocably leads to murder. We were bothup to our elbows in blood, Warthrop and I.
    But I did not fetch the constable. We are creatures of habit, and I had been his indispensable companion for too long.
    I righted the overturned barrel and returned its macabre contents, her skull last, and I let the moment pass; I did not pause to contemplate the empty eye like some wavering Dane to whom human life held a measure of value. I tossed the skull into the barrel with the rest of the garbage; it clanged against the metal side, loud in the cold air.
    More kerosene. Another match. And a blast of delicious heat against my face. There is no one on earth who doesn’t enjoy a good fire. The memory is embedded in our genes: Fire has been our friend for millennia. It made us who we are. No wonder the gods punished Prometheus. Master