And here it finally is – a dark, Jizabel-centric, non-yaoi oneshot. Dedicated to Dr Axel Disraeli for putting up with all my yaoi fluff. I hope this will make up for it.

This was written to remind us all – including myself – that Jizabel really isn't a nice man. Rated for gore/religious themes perhaps?

Arms buried to the elbows inside the young woman's chest cavity, white coat streaked with the blood of her partner, Jizabel Disraeli faced up to the fact that he might very well be insane.

He hadn't meant to kill them. He had simply been wandering the streets of London searching for someone of the right build for their newest deadly doll when he had turned into the alleyway to see them up against the wall. She was obviously a prostitute and he was obviously a nobleman and Jizabel had felt something rising up inside him, something familiar, something dark. He had managed to push it back, hoping to maintain his professionalism but then she had turned her head and given him that look. A look of complete irresponsibility, completely self-satisfied and yet laced with guilt. A beautiful, sinful, hunted look. The same look his mother had given him when succumbing to his father and sealing his fate forever.

The darkness behind his eyes had intensified, thickened, began to glow a deep, primal red. As he stepped forward, Jizabel Disraeli settled back to observe as a creature born of hate and fear grabbed hold of the reigns and released his fury and frustration upon the people before him, relinquishing all control to emotion with the same passion that drives a baby to scream, although no child could have the capacity to be so cruel.

The man had been the first to fall beneath that wave of anger, throat slit with an immaculately polished scalpel. He had fallen to the floor, gurgling blood and writhing in agony while the woman screamed, too terrified to run. The creature had sneered and turned to her, administering the same strike that had so quickly incapacitated her client. Once she had dropped to the floor, the creature had fallen upon her, using hands as claws, and ripped her open. Precision was abandoned and soon, he was covered in her blood; warm, crimson, sweet. Once he had run out of organs to rip from her body, the creature had slunk behind Jizabel's eyes once more and the doctor was left to tidy up the mess.

Except tonight, he didn't feel like tidying up at all. Pulling his arms out of the woman's body with a sickening slithering sound, Jizabel sighed. He stood calmly by the corpses, removing his spectacles that were coated in red and wiping them on one small clean patch of his coat. He wondered why he still insisted on wearing white. Perhaps it was because it was beautiful once the madness was over, like blood on freshly fallen snow. Leaving the corpses where they lay, Jizabel turned and strolled nonchalantly back onto the main street, not bothering to hide his bloodstained clothes. He wondered how angry his father would be to see him this way and smiled to himself.

As he walked, his thoughts returned to the matter of his sanity. There was no doubt that he had a brilliant mind. He was one of the finest surgeons in the country, had delved into mysteries and practices that man was not meant to tamper with and had mastered them and was more dedicated to his research than anyone he knew. And yet…there were moments when Jizabel's professionalism and intellect were at a loss. During regular days he would bottle up his anger, pushing it deep down inside himself. Every gash left by the whip was drawn into his heart and wrapped around it like a shield, every cruel word spoken to him was swallowed and stored just behind his lungs, every fearful stare directed towards him memorised and kept safely behind his eyes. Every now and then, something would push him too far and all these feelings would come rushing out, recreating themselves on some unlucky target. Jizabel knew that many people not only called him Death as a title but thought of him as the very incarnation of death itself…but to him it felt as though there was some creature living inside him, a creature that fed on rage and humiliation and wanted nothing but blood.

Someone passed the doctor in the street, took one look at his monstrous appearance and ran hurriedly away. Jizabel sighed again. Perhaps he was insane after all. But what did it matter? It wasn't as if anyone cared about him. Once, after a particularly bad incident involving a businessman who had stayed out dangerously late, Jizabel had returned to headquarters drenched in blood. It had been chaotic. The trump cards had paled and fled. The arcane had looked down upon him as though he was a fool. His father had sneered and said nothing…which had hurt the most of all. Nobody was interested in the state of his mind and so he felt little need to regard it as important.

His undirected steps had led him to a church. He paused by the tall wooden doors and watched them sceptically, as though daring them to condemn him for his sins. After a few moments of silence, Jizabel ascended the steps and pushed back the doors, silently mocking whoever had been foolish enough to leave them unlocked. He supposed God was open for business at any hour, and mocked him too for leaving His house open to desecration from someone like the doctor himself.

Rows upon rows of wooden pews sprawled out before him, looking almost lonely in their emptiness. The windows were high and made of ornate stained-glass, but the designs appeared warped and strange when lit by the unsteady glow of the gas lamps outside. Jizabel turned his eyes to the great cross that hung over the altar and shook his head in a derogatory manner. He had tried religion, once, when he had still been young and found it totally incomprehensible. He knew too much about medical science to believe in the Virgin Mary. He failed to understand the sacrifice of Christ since he reasoned more than one life was needed to make up for mankind's sins, and viewed someone willing to sacrifice his lie for another as foolish regardless. And he found it impossible to believe in God; surely there could be no being that was more powerful than his father. Besides, a God who preached love was not worth his time; he could not understand a belief system built on a lie.

Unknowingly, Jizabel had stood staring for much longer than he had intended and the cold draught from the open door had swept through the church and woken the priest who had been sleeping in a room at the back. He stumbled into the main building now, an elderly man, holding candelabra high over his head. As he approached, his knee collided with the edge of a pew and the noise caused Jizabel to turn, snapped out of his reverie. The priest froze and his eyes widened in fear. For the first time in his long life, he truly believed in a God…and the Devil.

It only took a moment for the creature to raise its ugly head again and within seconds, Jizabel was at the priest's side. The candelabra was torn from his bony hand and brought down to smash against his fragile skull with a dull crack. As he crumpled, the doctor caught the holy man and held his insubstantial frame with one arm, as the other produced a scalpel from seemingly nowhere and plunged it towards the man's chest. A red mist descended upon Jizabel's consciousness and he could no longer follow the actions of the creature, the movements of its hands, his hands. He could feel warmth spilling over him again, could hear ragged breaths rushing past his lips that sounded nothing like his own, could smell the coppery tang of blood.

The mist cleared and the creature returned to its hiding place, gorged and sated. It slept. And Jizabel awoke to find himself holding the heart of God's messenger on earth in one bare hand. The chest lay opened up in front of him, the ribs spread wide, a strange echo of a welcoming embrace. The heart beat gently against his hand, and Jizabel wondered how many beats it had left.

The heart beat again and Jizabel found himself whispering.

"Five."

He had never meant to kill the priest, or the prostitute, or the businessman…not even the first man that had fallen to his knife. It had all been some kind of horrible mistake.

Another weak pulse against his skin.

"Four."

It wasn't his fault. It couldn't be his fault. He had been young, frightened, confused, innocent…

"Three."

…he couldn't control himself anymore; that was clear to him now. He wondered how long it would be before the creature hiding behind his eyes would turn and sink its claws into his own body. He would welcome the pain, the release. But it seemed such a waste…

"Two."

…he had been born a little angel, at one with the world and had been moulded into death incarnate. The creature had been created and trained…

"One."

It wasn't his fault.

The muscle in his hand stopped pulsing, the blood stopped pumping from the wound and trickled instead, pooling on the floor beneath the body. Jizabel held it for a few moments longer, unable to tear his eyes away from the lump of flesh and veins and blood that had once been the core to a living, breathing, feeling being. He scowled and crushed it in his fist before dropping the twisted mess back into the chest and drawing his scalpel out of the wound. For a moment he held it, poised like an arrow, above his own heart. His eyes strayed back to the crucifix hanging nearby and he made a noise between a sob and a scream, flinging the implement away from him until it hit a pew and scored a deep scratch into the wood.

He picked up the mess that had once been the body of the priest and struggled with it to the small wooden confessional in one corner of the church. He deposited the body carefully in one half and drew the curtain reverentially behind it, before settling himself on the bench in the adjoining space. Closing his eyes, Jizabel leaned towards the grating that separated the two and took a deep breath. The air was filled with the taste of blood and it felt thick on his tongue. Trembling, Jizabel cleared his throat.

"Forgive me, Father," he whispered, "For I have sinned…"

You know the drill – R&R please sweeties. Sorry it was short…I was going for effect rather than plot.