From Below

by Last of the Lilac Wine

"Miss Mantell was a likely target. She is young and blonde and innocent - everything about the situation is the direct parallel to Mina's...except with one, obvious difference." "Oh?" asked Victor, raising an eyebrow as the door before them was opened by a butler who assured them inside. "Cornelia Mantell came back."

Seance: Part 1

or

A Mother's Love

The house was barely a few doors down from Sir Malcolm's. Victor glanced up at its front with a slight curl in his lip. He was jealous, though he'd never show it. Of the people who lived here - of their money, status and power. He reminded himself that he possessed a far superior intellect to any one of them and yet...he picked at his threadbare waistcoat. A brief frown of displeasure flitted across his face like a shadow. He had discovered the cure to death, unlocked the afterlife - and he was still poor and still unrecognized when the entire world should know his name.

If Malcolm sensed his displeasure - which he probably had - he did not show it, speaking brusquely as he rapped the door knocker.

"From what I can gather the girl disappeared from home a week ago. Local gossip has it she'd been frequented by a man. A stranger who was tall and dressed in dark, fine clothes."

Victor nodded. "The same man who took your daughter."

"We could presume. Miss Mantell would be a likely target. She is young and blonde and innocent - everything about the situation is the direct parallel to Mina's...except with one, obvious difference."

"Oh?" asked Victor, raising an eyebrow as the door before them was opened by a butler who assured them inside.

"Cornelia Mantell came back," said Malcolm, grimly as he stepped over the threshold and removed his bowler hat. Victor did the same, reflexively glancing up at the ceiling curiously as if he would be able to see through it to where the girl would be above their heads.

"Please wait through here," said the butler, showing the men through to the parlour. "The Master and Lady Mantell will see you shortly."

Malcolm nodded graciously as the butler politely shut them into a room that gave Victor a vague feeling of deja vu. There were tall, exotic ferns in the corners and rich tapestries across the walls. When Victor spun a globe on one of the tables with a finger, he realized why the room was so familiar: it was almost exactly like that of Sir Malcolm's study.

"Is Mr Mantell an acquaintance of yours?" he asked over his shoulder, casually. Out of his peripheral vision he saw Malcolm's hands tighten round his hat.

"A friend, who went on many expeditions to Africa with me."

"He died?"

"No," Malcolm said, curtly, "I stopped going abroad after my son...Alexander is in Russia at the moment, I believe."

"Who is the master -"

"The brother."

"So will the father know what has happened to his daughter?"

"I doubt it."

"And what is the story the family has put out?"

"There hasn't been one. They've kept it all very hushed up as far as I can tell - the only way I heard about this is through Sembene. Servants talk." Victor inclined his head, indicating for Malcolm to carry on as he continued his inspection of the room. Alexander Mantell was in possession of some rather fascinating books on the indigenous population of Africa and Victor's fingers itched to open one. "Apparently, many of the servants were dismissed from the house five days ago."

"Why? It couldn't be that hard for a family as wealthy as this to pay them not to talk."

"Sembene seemed to think it was for their own safety."

Victor paused, his hand lingering on the spine of a book. "Intriguing," he murmured half to himself.

Before he could question Malcolm any further, however, the door to the room was opened once again and this time two people far more elegantly dressed than the butler swept in. Victor stood a little straighter and stepped back from the bookshelf to stand next to Sir Malcolm, his hands clasped behind his back rigidly.

"Sir Malcolm, thank you for coming."

It was the man who had spoken; Gabriel Mantell, the brother. He was tall - taller than Victor - and roughly the same age, too, with red hair and an impressive moustache. He looked quite the dandy and seemed to exude energy, striding forwards and ringing Sir Malcolm's hand. In short, Victor assessed, highly unexpected. He was not at all acting like a man who's sister had initiated a scandal - or secret - of deadly proportions.

The mother was far more in character. Almost as tall as her son, with thinning blonde hair pulled back into a knot and even thinner lips. Mrs Mantell could have passed for an incredibly stern mistress to a girls boarding school, except her impressive composure had evidently recently been shattered. Her face was now tense, and her eyes fixed in a permanently wary squint. She looked at Victor's briefcase and then at him and her fingers knotted together nervously.

At least she has more sense than her son, Victor thought.

"Who's this you've bought with you then?" Gabriel was saying, looking at Victor expectantly. "You said you had a friend - "

"This is Dr. Frankenstein," Malcolm cut in, introducing Victor.

Before Victor could speak for himself, however, Mrs Mantell spoke over him. "- Cornelia doesn't need a doctor, Malcolm. She needs a priest."

"Wonderful," Victor said, sarcastically, picking his briefcase up from beside him. "I'll go then, shall I?"

Malcolm held up a hand, shooting him an impatient look. "Please...Evangeline. Dr Frankenstein has seen a great many things."

"This isn't typhoid we're speaking of, Malcolm," she snapped, glancing at Victor warily again, as if worrying even now she was saying too much.

Ever able to read people's emotions, Malcolm spoke soothingly. "I can guarantee his discretion...Alexander is my friend. Let me help you."

She visibly hesitated, and her son rolled his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous mother. What else can we do? Dr Beckingsdale -"

"She's already been examined?" asked Victor, raising both eyebrows.

"Like I said, this is beyond a doctor - she needs a priest."

"I'll be the judge of that," he muttered under his breath - and then, aloud: "I'd like to see your daughter for myself."

Mrs Mantell seriously looked as if she would say no, but her son spoke for her. "She's upstairs." As Victor moved for the door however, the other man grabbed his arm. Victor glared at him, annoyed that he'd presumed he could touch him in this manner, "...we need your word that what you are about to see will not be spoken of beyond the walls of this house."

"Of course," said Victor curtly, wrenching his arm out of Gabriel's gasp. "Now, if you would be so kind -"

They proceeded in a line upstairs. The butler leading, then Gabriel, Malcolm, Evangeline and finally Victor. Victor was surprised as they ascended higher and higher - beyond the bedrooms to what was presumably the attic.

There was no brick here, just wooden panelling, and the chill from the winter air outside pervaded the staircase. At the top of the stairs was a narrow, creeky corridor, and then a mottled glass-paned door that glowed with the embers of a fire from the other side. Here, the butler was dismissed and the lamp taken by Sir Malcolm - Gabriel removed a tiny key from his breast pocket and then, hesitating, took a small gun from his belt.

Victor stared and Evangeline caught him looking. "It's necessary," she said, woodenly; her voice had moved beyond pain and held a clear acceptance of the situation.

As Gabriel moved to open the door, Malcolm placed his hand over the gun. "Can you aim that well boy?"

Gabriel looked up, blustering and obviously offended. "Of course I -"

"Would you be able to do what needs to be done?" Malcolm pressed, his voice grinding out relentlessly.

"I -"

"Oh, give it to me!" interrupted Mrs Mantell impatiently, pushing past Victor and taking the gun from her son's hand. She looked at Malcolm grimly. "You know I can shoot well enough Malcolm, and if anyone is going to pull this trigger, it will be me. She's my child. She still is."

Malcolm seemed too profoundly effected by her words to disagree, and finally Gabriel opened the door.

The scene inside was strange in that it was cozy. Someone had evidently attempted to make the room as comfortable as possible and a large fire crackling lazily behind a grate illuminated a small room with a plush rug and beg. The care that had evidently been taken with the decoration had the distinct sense of a motherly touch, and Victor tried to ignore the flare of jealousy once again; his mother had died when he was thirteen, and she had been a hard, cold woman.

Mrs Mantell entered first, with the gun held tactfully at her side - hidden, but ready to be used. Malcolm and Victor stepped in after her, and Gabriel hovered at the entrance - obviously unwilling to come much further in.

"Mother?" A thin, weak voice filled the room, and for the first time Victor noticed somebody in the bed. He had not seen them before because they had been lying facing away from the door with the covers pulled high - but now they had rolled over and Victor could distinctly see the pale face of a girl.

"I'm here darling," Mrs Mantell said, walking towards the bed before stopping abruptly, as if she'd hit a wall. "I - how are you feeling?"

"I'm hungry," the girl said, almost tearfully. "I need food."

Mrs Mantell twitched like a spider and tried to pretend that she hadn't. "I know Cornelia, I know - but you understand why we can't."

Victor glanced at the mother and spoke with carefully disguised disgust, his tone neutral. "You're not feeding her?"

Mrs Mantell glared at him. "She won't keep normal food down."

"Normal?"

Her face hardened.

The girl in the bed struggled to sit upright and at the sight of Victor and Malcolm she cringed back into the pillows. "What are they doing here?" she said, her voice a high whine. She was young - Victor calculated she must have been only seventeen, and would have been angelically attractive had she not looked half wild. Her rose-coloured nightgown was rumpled, and her dark blonde hair a tangled mess round her face. What drew Victor's attention was her complexion however: white - deathly white - and the skin round her eyes were red, as if she'd recently been rubbing them.

"Mother I'm hungry please get them to leave!" the girl moaned thrashing her head against the pillow half deliriously.

Victor stepped forward to examine her when Mrs Mantell's hand shot out. "Wait," she said, sharply, "she's not...safe." She looked at Sir Malcolm. "You must help me hold her down before the doctor approaches her."

He nodded, and Victor realized he hadn't taken his eyes off of the young Mantell girl the entire time. He seemed utterly transfixed, despite her disturbing state, and Victor guessed - with her blonde hair, at least - she bore some resemblance to Malcolm's daughter.

The mother started forwards carefully - like one would approach a wild bear - making soothing noises in the back of her throat. She lowered herself into a chair at her daughters bedside, one hand clutching the girl's thin arm firmly and the other quickly going to her hair, stroking and soothing and murmuring. It seemed to work, because as Malcolm leaned forwards and held her other arm, the girl seemed to calm. She stopped her disjointed movements and seemed to be able to focus more clearly, looking at Victor as he sat on top of the bed covers by her knees.

"Cornelia?" he tested.

"Yes?" she rasped back.

So she could still understand and respond well enough, despite the fact that it looked as if she was caught in the grips of a mild fever.

He turned and signalled for Gabriel to hand him the lamp, which he then quickly held up to the girl's face. He had never seen colouring round her eyes like that before and wondered if the increased blood supply concentrated on her eyes would improve her vision. "Would it be possible to extinguish the light in the room?" he murmured, preoccupied with his examinations.

The girl's mother shot him a disbelieving look. "That would be most unwise, doctor."

A theory best tested another time, then. He spoke to the girl again. "What can you tell me about your symptoms, Cornelia?"

She hesitated. "My...my - " She scrambled with a hand, but Malcolm held her arm firmly down. "My gums hurt," she complained. "And my teeth. They -"

He cut off her complaints, leaning in and gently encouraging her to open her mouth wide. He held the lamp aloft and looked inside the dark cavity of her mouth.

...Interesting. Her gums did look red and sore. He tested by pushing against one tooth, then on of her canine's.

"Ow" she wailed, clamping her mouth shut - but not before Victor withdrew his hand in shock. The tooth had actually elongated when he touched it.

"Open up again," he said, recovering quickly.

"No!" she said, looking tearful and terrified now. She looked at her mother, who only nodded grimly.

"Do as he says, dear."

She opened her mouth again, tentatively, to reveal canines that had extended to at least twice their usual length. "Incredible," Victor breathed, wondering how her jaw could possibly facilitate such a movement. Something caught his eye and he prodded a finger into her mouth - she let out a sound of displeasure - and then he frowned, realising what he was looking at and feeling.

"I thought you said she hadn't eaten?" he said sharply, glancing at the mother.

"I said she hadn't eaten normal food." Mrs Mantell returned, her face almost as white as her daughters. "But there are...mice in the attic."

The girl whimpered.

"She's that desperate?" asked Malcolm, incredulously.

"No," Mrs Mantell replied. "...No. That's all she wants."

All three of them looked back at the girl to find her eyes wide with shame. "I can't help myself -" she looked at her mother, horrified and pleading for acceptance, "you know I can't help it! I just -"

"There was an incident with one of the maids," continued her Mrs Mantell, her voice slow and deliberate with horror, her eyes fixed on some unseen point beyond Malcolm's shoulder. "We didn't know...didn't realize. She'd just come back. We thought she'd run off with that man, but she was half crazed. Filthy. I was terrified, I had no idea what to do because she is my daughter and -" her voice caught, and she had to wait several seconds before she could continue - "I was angry. I thought she'd ruined herself. And then, on the first night...I don't know what happened. But there was a scream, and one of the maids found her in the room with, with the cat...She'd eaten it. We had to dismiss most of the servants and we put her up here. We called the doctor - " Her lip curled is fury - "who suggested an asylum. I told him to leave." She looked at Victor. "She's not insane. I know my daughter - this is the work of the - of the -"

Victor turned to Cornelia and decided to try something. Before she could protest, or respond, he deliberately caught his finger on her sharpened canine. He felt the skin puncture and the blood swell, and the effect was instantaneous.

She lunged, suddenly impossibly and inhumanely strong. Mrs Mantell and Malcolm's hands were shaken from her as if they'd been nothing but ragdolls; this small, thin, slip of a girl.

Before Victor could process what was happening his back collided with something hard - the floor - and then the back of his head hit the ground hard. His vision fuzzed - he tried to struggle upright but it was like his stomach was being crushed by a heavy leaden weight. There was noise and sound - yelling - and when the weight was abruptly removed from his chest and he sat up, he saw the girl standing before him with her mother pressing the gun to the side of her head.

Both women were shaking - Mrs Mantell's face a mask of tears.

"Please don't move, Cornelia," she was begging. "Don't make me do this."

Cornelia, at least, had been shocked enough to regain some of her composure. Even with his head throbbing, Victor's mind was still racing as best it could - proposing theories - observing- theorizing. She wasn't completely ruled by instinct, it seemed - strong emotions could still render her a rational human instead of a mindless monster. Sir Malcolm was hovering somewhere between the girl and him, evidently ready to intervene if necessary.

The two men glanced at each other significantly.

"So she's hungry for blood," said Victor, struggling upright and rubbing at the back of his head. "I think we can establish that."

Mrs Mantell fished around in her jacket's pocket with her free hand and she flung her handkerchief at him. "Put that round your finger you stupid boy! What were you thinking? How dare you - she could have killed you - I cold have killed her!"

Victor shook his head, never taking his eyes off of Cornelia. She no longer looked feral - only looked a wide eyed, frightened girl. Which, he realized, was what she was. He walked towards her, and her mother's hand tightened round the gun. "What did I -"

Victor pressed his wounded finger over Cornelia's lips and she flinched as he smudged blood onto them. The room seemed to hold its breath, and the cool metal of the gun pressed even more firmly into Cornelia's temple.

But the girl remained still, despite the obvious currents of desire flickering in her eyes and the fact her whole body was coiled like a spring. Victor withdrew with satisfaction. "It would seem the emotional incentive alone can still rule her impulses. A gun pressed to her head - the love for her family, that can all still hold her instincts prisoner."

"But for how long?" said Malcolm, bluntly. "This attic is going to run out of rats."

"We can bring her food," said Mrs Mantell, quickly. "We can keep her safe."

"Perhaps," replied Malcolm, slowly. He moved to stand next to Victor who was preoccupied with neatly bandaging his finger and regarded Cornelia intently. "Whatever happened to her Evangeline, evidently didn't happen to her fully. And whoever did this to her, she managed to escape from them." His suddenly intense gaze held Evangeline's. "I need your daughter because she can help save mine. She may know where Mina is."

"...Mina?" Cornelia asked, at the same time as her mother shook her hard sharply, her arm still outstretched; pointing the gun at her daughter. "Absolutely not."

Malcolm ignored the mother and instead focused on the daughter. "You know her name?"

"I remember her."

"From where?"

"The...the room. She was nice to me. They...they turned her a few days before they turned me." Cornelia's voice was small, clearly terrified by the memory.

"Did you see Mina after that?"

She shook her head.

"How did you escape your captors, Cornelia?"

"...I was...he was biting me, and then there were gun shots from upstairs - " she trembled, "and I remember thinking that - even though it was gun shots, and that it was dangerous, guns were used by people and people came from my world. I wanted to go home so badly...so I ran." She tailed off. "I just wanted my family."

Mrs Mantell's hand trembled and she finally lowered the gun. In a sudden movement she embraced her daughter, pulling her tightly and protectively into her side. "She can't help you Malcolm. I can't have her coming back into contact with that world again. I won't - I'm sorry."

"And what if she's too dangerous to keep under your roof, Evangeline? What if the scandal of her disappearance ruins your family?"

"I don't care," she said, firmly, her eyes blazing.

Malcolm nodded slowly before glancing at Gabriel, who had remained uncertainly by the door throughout the entire encounter. "Very well, if you would be so kind as to show us out, then."

Victor glanced at Malcolm sharply. "That's it?" he muttered under his breath, turning his back on the mother and daughter so he wouldn't hear what he was saying. He pretended to be busying himself with his briefcase. "We're leaving? I thought you wanted your daughter back?"

"Doctor, I would do many things to get Mina back, but taking that girl back away from her mother is not one of them."

Victor glanced at the girl over his shoulder. "Well, I suppose it doesn't effect me in anyway whether she helps or not. Such a shame, too - she's such an interesting specimen." He hesitated as he and Malcolm started out of the room, . "She will kill them Malcolm. It's only a matter of time."

But Malcolm ignored him.

A/N Hope you enjoyed the first chapter! As I don't have access to Penny Dreadful Season 1 right now, I'm just going off wikipedia descriptions of each episode so I apologize if events aren't as exact. I think it will actually turn out for the best, though, because it won't be a complete rehash of all the dialogue.