A/N: This story is inspired by Benedict Cumberbatch's beautiful performance as the Creature in Nick Dear and Danny Boyle's Frankenstein, as well as his always brilliant performance as Sherlock.

Chapter One: The Creature's Vow

São Paulo, Brazil, 1979…

"You asked me why I came here, old man. I was given no name at my birth and was abandoned by my master. Few have ever shown me kindness and no one has ever shown me love. For the first few years of my life I had to steal what I needed. I even stole my name from God Himself.

"I was born Frankenstein's Creature, but now I am Adam, Son of Man. In my days as a young, wild soul, so full of emotions I could hardly contain, I begged my master to make me a friend—a wife of my own species as hideous as I to share my lonely and never-ending existence. When he broke his promise to me I was thrown into such grief and despair that I exacted my revenge against both guilty and innocent. For those crimes I shall never be redeemed.

"Nearly two centuries have passed and I have grown wiser. I would not wish such a foul existence on another even if it means I will never feel friendship or love. My master may be long dead, but men like him proliferate and test the boundaries of life and death every day in this terrible new world. I swear upon my unholy life that I will never permit another like me to be born no matter what evil I must perpetrate to prevent it."

"Pretty speech," said the old man, unmoved. "I had no idea you would be so eloquent."

"Where is my master's journal?" Adam demanded.

The old man hobbled to his bookshelf and opened a false door. He retrieved the journal and handed it to Adam. "Take it," he said with a careless wave. "I am too old to try again. I fear I will die soon anyway."

He had no idea just how soon his death would come, thought Adam. "Had you never been born the world would be a finer place for it. It will be my pleasure to avenge the many lives you have taken in pursuit of your science." Adam spat the last word like a curse.

The old man who now called himself Wolfgang Gerhard in order to escape justice laughed. "I am no better or worse than the one who created you. And I am not the only one who has tried to replicate his work. Foolish Creature, you do not think that this is the only copy of Frankenstein's journal do you?"

With an inhuman cry of rage, Adam grabbed the feeble man by the throat and squeezed the life out of him in an instant. Then Adam threw the late Dr. Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death of Auschwitz into the ocean.

London, 2014…

It was a quiet Sunday night at St. Bart's so Molly Hooper only had two bodies on her list. Normally she would be grateful for a slow night, but it gave her too much time to think. It had been several weeks since she had called off her engagement to Tom, but the whole debacle still stung. It started on the ride home from John and Mary's wedding. At first Tom just sulked in silence while Molly let out the occasional irritated sigh, but as they neared her Brixton flat Tom decided it was time for a row.

"I can't believe you stabbed me with a fork!" Tom said, rubbing his hand dramatically.

Molly snorted in annoyance at Tom's whinging. "I didn't even break the skin! Sherlock was deducing," she snapped. "You were being rude."

"Sherlock." Tom glared at her. "Don't think I don't notice the way you look at him."

"So I used to have a bit of a crush," she replied defensively. "There was never anything between us." Never could be, never would be… she thought sadly.

Luckily she found a parking spot nearby and got out of the car. As Tom emerged from the passenger seat, Molly gazed at him as if seeing him for the first time. His height, his build, his hair, his suit, the weirdly endearing shape of his head…Oh dear god, he was a Sherlock Ken doll! How did she not see it before? No wonder Sherlock said nothing when he met him. She put her face in her hands. Sherlock must think I'm completely mental!

"I'm going to take the Tube home," Tom said as Molly barely listened. "I'll ring you tomorrow."

Without a word, Molly removed her engagement ring and handed it back to him. "I can't marry you, Tom. In fact I don't think we should see each other anymore. I'm sorry," she added, then turned and ran inside her flat.

She had cried for a few hours afterward, but she was mainly relieved it was over. Though Tom was nice and sweet, Molly realized he bored her half to death. Perhaps sociopaths were her type after all.

With that depressing thought, Molly checked her list. First up was Mrs. Hortence Pratt, a 99-year-old woman with a diagnosis list as long as her arm. She died of presumptive pneumonia, but the family insisted on a postmortem, no doubt sniffing for a negligence suit. She hated these cases—they were unnecessary and time consuming because you couldn't just do the standard tests lest the family accuse you of trying to cover something up.

After that complete waste of time, she went to her next 'patient'. True they weren't alive, but they were still people and Molly always tried to treat them with respect—except, of course, for the ones she let Sherlock test his pet theories on, though she would always apologize to them before she let the detective have them.

This next man was a Joe Bloggs. She always found these cases particularly sad. Though some of them were runaway teenagers or unidentified murder victims, the vast majority of them were unwanted, unloved homeless people who had no one to mourn them.

This particular Joe Bloggs was a big one. She pulled back the sheet and let out a little gasp. The large man lying on the table looked like he'd been taken apart and put back together again. There were dreadful uneven scars all over his body, including one that bisected his head and face. It seemed as if someone had used him for surgery practice, but it wasn't what killed him; all the scars were well healed. At first she thought the scars were intricate prosthetics like the kind they used in zombie movies, but upon closer examination she was horrified to find they were quite real.

She looked at his face, which she imagined had once been handsome. Curly, ginger hair had grown in patches around his scars at the base of his mutilated skull. She touched the scar on his left cheek and grew angry at the sloppy incisions that had disfigured him. "Who in the world did this to you?" she asked gently. She took several vials of blood for drugs and DNA testing. Perhaps she could find someone who cared enough about him to claim him.

She turned on the recorder and started speaking, "Joe Bloggs number 14-3017, well-developed, adult male, approximately 35 to 45 years of age, height 180 cm, weight 60 kg. Has multiple, irregular healed scars all over body. Most notably is a V-shaped scar on chest 50 cm in length and a scar on skull and face, running from occipital ridge, over the parietal and frontal bones to the right mandible. No signs of recent trauma."

The man died of something, but Molly had difficulty getting over the fact that he had survived these horrible injuries. The chest seemed like the most obvious place to start, given the huge incision, then she'd crack open the skull and take a look inside. She picked up a scalpel from the tray and started to cut into the man's chest. Suddenly, she felt a hand around her wrist.

"I'm afraid I cannot allow you to continue," said the dead man. Molly staggered backwards and dropped the scalpel.

She put a gloved hand to her mouth. "Oh, my god! I-I—"

Joe Bloggs rose from the table and wrapped the sheet around his waist. "I will not harm you, Molly Hooper," he said.

She was so stunned she didn't bother to ask how he knew her name. "Harm me?! I almost killed you! Obviously I thought you were dead," she stammered. "I swear to god I thought you were dead!"

"It was expedient for me to be so temporarily."

She gawked at him opened-mouthed. "You sound like a friend of mine."

The disfigured man smiled, it was terrifying. "Your friend, would his name be Sherlock Holmes?"

Her shock turned to anger. "So that's why you pulled this little stunt, to get to Sherlock?"

"In part. I have need of Mr. Holmes, but I want you to run the DNA test as well, if you please." He retrieved his belongings from the bag stored underneath the exam table and dressed. His movements were slightly dystonic and his speech was deliberate and formal with a not unpleasing German lilt. She would have thought him a character from some antiquated play if it were not for the earnestness of his words and expression.

His clothes were as unusual as the wearer, reminiscent of 19th century men's fashion: a billowy white shirt, a dark blue waistcoat, and a high collared frock coat. On top of that he donned a full-skirted black greatcoat with a hood, pulling it over his head before turning around. Only a relatively unscathed portion of his face showed. He looked like something from a Gothic horror film. He was breathtaking in the most literal way.

"Who are you?" she breathed.

"My name is Adam."

"I'm Molly," she replied stupidly, unable to tear her eyes away from the strange sight before her.

He turned away from her scrutiny in obvious discomfort. "Miss Hooper, do you mind ringing Mr. Holmes?"

"Oh, yeah. Sorry." She looked down then dug her mobile out of her lab coat pocket. After only two rings he answered, a good indication he was bored and looking for a distraction. "Hey, Sherlock, it's Molly."

"Don't tell me it's time for me to pee in a cup again?"

"I was actually calling on behalf of a potential client, but perhaps I should check to see if you've been behaving yourself."

"You said you have a client for me?" he said, quickly changing the subject.

Molly frowned but decided to let it pass for tonight. She'd surprise him with a drugs test in the morning. "Oh yes, and he is so not boring."

"I'll be the judge of that. I'm a bit busy at the moment, but perhaps sometime next week-"

"Hold on." Molly looked up at Adam and motioned for him to remove his hood. When he did so reluctantly, she snapped a picture of him and texted it to Sherlock. "Ten minutes ago I was just about to do an autopsy on him."

"When can you be here?"

Molly gave Adam a thumbs-up. "We're on our way."

To be continued…