ACT III

Karnstein Hospital

~O~

I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.

-Mary Shelley, Frankenstein-

~O~

"Isn't it nice that we're now one big, happy family?" Charlotte said between bites of deliciously sweet meringues.

"No," Ciel replied succinctly with a short glare over the top of his morning newspaper. He then lowered the paper when he saw the crumbly bite between her un-gloved fingers, "and stop stealing the desserts! You don't even need to eat!"

Charlotte frowned at him, her mouth covered in meringue powder. "First of all, you should not comment on a woman's eating habits. That's rude. Second of all, tell your butler to guard them better."

Ciel turned to scowl pointedly at Sebastian who smiled and lifted his shoulders in a nonchalant shrug. "She doesn't emit any true readings of life," he said, "I shall increase my diligence and begin paying more attention to the vents, young master. That does make me curious though," the demon turned to stare at her curiously, "how are you eating that?"

Charlotte blinked at him and then looked down at her abdomen as though it was an oddity that she had never noticed before. "Oh my," she replied after a moment, "I have absolutely no idea. Ha, isn't that funny!" She chuckled and finished her treat.

Ciel's brows furrowed in confusion and he put the newspaper down completely, his attention caught and his curiousity piqued. "How could you possibly not know how your body works?" He demanded. "It's part of you. Haven't you asked?"

The walking marionette shrugged and dusted her hands, peering between the numerous joints for stray crumbs. She caught sight of a few sugary fragments and unscrewed her thumb. "Well I never saw the point in asking. À cheval donné on ne regarde pas les dents. Papa never seemed to worry about it and he was the one who made me in the first place!"

Ciel doubled over, having suddenly inhaled his tea too fast in astonishment. "Undertaker made you?!" he coughed out. That fragment of information was wholly new and hinted at something utterly appalling.

However before he could ask any questions regarding that, the door of the dining area flew open and a familiarly unwelcome person barged in. "Good morning Earl!" Lau sang as he strode ahead, cheerfully ignoring Mey-Rin's panicked stammering and Ciel's irritated expression. He stopped and frowned at the empty plates and the lone tea set on the table and then made a sound of disappointment. "How depressing. I was aiming to be here by breakfast."

"Lau, why are you here–!"

"Oh," Lau stared at Sebastian with mild surprise as though he had just noticed him, "didn't you die recently?"

"Pay attention when people are speaking to you!"

"And my favourite maid!" Lau grinned at Charlotte who realised that her hands were bare and that if she lifted her hands to wave then her joints would be on display. Instead she grinned back while quickly reaching into her pocket for her gloves. "You know Ran-Mao has been dying to see you!"

"Has she?" Charlotte leaned over to stare at the other girl. Ran-Mao stared back and blinked her large eyes once. "I had no idea."

"Lau," Ciel snapped in a hard voice. Once he had the man's easily-fleeting attention he leaned back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest. "What could you possibly want at this hour?"

"Well, breakfast for one thing," Lau smiled as Sebastian magicked piping hot plates of crispy bacon, sunny-side-up eggs, fried tomatoes, and buttery croissants in front of them. Ran-Mao silently pushed her croissant over to Charlotte who took it and looked around for the butter. "But I also happened upon some very interesting information."

Ciel arched an eyebrow expectantly after the man didn't continue. "And that information was...?" He prompted impatiently.

Lau took his time chewing and swallowing his food before he inclined his head. "Have you read today's newspaper, Earl?"

The boy frowned and looked down at the paper. "I hadn't gotten round to finishing it. Why?"

"There's a particular article near the middle," Lau rolled up his billowing sleeves and began smearing butter all over the bread. "For such a scandalous title, its placement is quite unusual."

Brows furrowed, the earl flipped through the pages until he reached a page that was just to the left of the centre-page. It was filled with the usual gossip and tall tales but on one side was a surprising declaration.

Ciel scanned through the short article and then turned to stare balefully at both Charlotte and Sebastian. They both stared back blankly. "Young master?" Sebastian tilted his head inquiringly.

With a long sigh of disappointment, Ciel pressed his fingers together and stared at Lau. "Are you telling me," he said in a low voice, "that there is a hospital 'claiming' that they can bring the dead back to life? That's your big news?"

"I thought you'd be interested," Lau chirped, exchanging one of his tomatoes for a slice of Ran-Mao's bacon.

Ciel snorted and leaned back in his seat. "It's just gossip and hearsay," he snapped, feeling frazzled and itchy and uncomfortable with the morning's turn of topic and implications. "Every doctor likes to claim that they've discovered some new, magical way to vanquish aging and death. It's just occult rubbish and I have no interest in that." He ignored Charlotte's barely muffled coughs.

"Ah, well," Lau smiled and rolled his sleeves back down, his plate picked clean, "it might not be occult. You know what I do for a living, earl, and I've been receiving some interesting hints pertaining to Karnstein Hospital. They seem to be doing a lot of shopping down at the docks."

Ciel narrowed his eyes. "Drugs?"

"No; people. They come shopping for foreign slaves, and race doesn't seem to matter. Lately however the numbers have increased exponentially. I doubt a hospital could fit so many people even if they were packed like sardines."

"Doesn't that mean that they dispose of them?" Ciel countered. "Not that I care," he tacked on.

Charlotte turned to stare at him silently. She opened her mouth, then shook her head and looked away. The look in her eyes made it clear that she didn't think he was worth speaking to.

Even Lau's normally plastic expression seemed to change just minutely. The Chinese man smiled. "Isn't it wrong for a hospital like that to feature in regular society's news?" He pointed out. "I thought managing that that was your job, earl~."

The younger boy pressed his lips together. "You believe there's a possibility that this so-called revival of the dead is a result of human experimentation? If that is so, then it's an interference of society by an underground power. Sebastian," he ordered, "investigate this theory immediately."

"Yes, my lord," Sebastian bowed.

There was a screech as Charlotte jumped to her feet. "Well I am going out today," the blonde lady declared and strode from the room in a flurry of pink and blue. Then she stuck her head back inside. "And I'm taking Snake with me!"

"Stop making decisions on your own-!" But Charlotte had already shut the door and was skipping down to the kitchen. She had stopped wearing a uniform once the murders had been 'solved' because she felt that the part was getting stale. Being a Phantomhive maid was boring and probably only worked if you really felt some sort of deep connection and loyalty to the kid.

Plus she wasn't being paid so.

Charlotte burst into the kitchen like a pastel whirlwind, terrifying Mey-Rin who had been standing near the door. "Snake, darling! Let's go out today!"

"Cha–Miss Charlotte, you should be more careful!" Finny hastily corrected himself. She fluttered her fingers at him absentmindedly as she made her way over to the silent, fair-haired man standing over an almost empty barrel of potatoes.

He and the snake on his shoulder regarded her curiously. "Where are we going? Says Oscar."

The lady grinned a wide, wide smile. "To visit my father!"

oOo

It was difficult to convince the hansom cab driver to allow the presence of a poisonous reptile on board, however the extra shilling Charlotte pressed into his palm did the trick and soon they were outside the mortuary. She and Snake regarded the building. "This is where he lives? Says Oscar."

"Lives, works, eats," Charlotte shrugged, "I have rarely seen him even leave the place. I used to think he would melt in the sunlight like a vampire," she chuckled to herself, recalling the early years when the two of them were getting used to each other. "Anyway, shall we?"

"You first. Says Oscar."

"Are you frightened, Snake?" Charlotte got on her tiptoes to peer into his eyes. Normally Snake loathed people barging into his personal space but he was used to Charlotte and, despite her extroverted personality, she did respect his boundaries.

He met her narrowed gaze with a slow, placid blink.

She smiled and leaned away. "I understand; my papa can be a lot to handle. I want him to meet you though; you are my best friend and the closest thing I have to a brother."

Flustered by that frank admission of affection, Snake looked down. "...you are the closest thing I have to a sister too. Says Oscar."

"Yay!" She cheered and hefted him into a hug that lifted him a few inches off the ground and ended with Oscar trying to burrow his way into her hair. "Now, let's go in!"

The door swung open with that ever familiar creak of hinges that hadn't been oiled in much too long because the owner didn't care about hinges when he could be pickling dead people in formaldehyde. Charlotte sighed to herself and made a mental note to insist that he at least do a few chores while she was out.

Surprisingly the Undertaker wasn't hidden in a coffin, or in the shadows, or in a vat of salt (that had been a strange experiment). Instead he was sitting behind his table, two stacks of paper on either side of him. The left side was noticeably smaller than the right.

His already wide grin widened exponentially when he spotted her. "Lottie-dearest~!" He crawled over the desk, somehow managing not to knock any of the papers over, and came to hug her. "I've missed you~"

"You saw me a week ago," she reminded him with her face buried in his robes. He still smelled like formaldehyde, alcohol, and the ever present tang of ozone. "We saw each other at Sebastian's funeral, remember?"

"Right~" he chuckled and fixed his eyes on Snake, "I remember you~! You're the snake charmer from the circus~! Are you the one my Lottie keeps talking about?"

"Lott – I mean, Charlotte talks about me? Says Oscar." Snake was so surprised and pleased by that bit of information that he blushed.

Charlotte freed one of her arms from the hug and pinched the mortician's sides. This was always tricky because finding his body underneath the robes was a challenge on its own. "Stop embarrassing me Papa! I just brought him over for some tea! Could you not be weird for just one hour?"

The Undertaker chortled and gestured for them to follow him. "Come, come~! I have a tin of biscuits somewhere, and some tea. Oh but I have no cups so you'll just have to manage the beakers~"

Charlotte scowled at his back. "What happened to the teacups I specifically bought for guests?"

"I put some specimens in them~."

"That's what the beakers are for."

"I don't mind using a beaker. Says Oscar," Snake piped up as he picked his way through the barely lit room. Honestly how had the man been reading those papers in this gloom?

"See, he doesn't mind~" Undertaker pulled down a box of loose leaf tea and three beakers of varying sizes.

Charlotte levelled him with a stare. "That is no excuse. Are those beakers even clean?"

"Who knows~"

"Give me those," she snatched them from him and pointed to the crates and coffins that occasionally acted as seats with an imperious hand. "I will not have you poisoning my friend just because you left cadisol or embalming fluid in there! You would be awful at taking care of an actual human child."

Charlotte brought the beakers over to the tiny sink tucked in the back wall of the room. On her way there she passed by his desk and caught sight of a name next to a plain, unremarkable face.

Margaret Connor. Strange that Peggy is short for Margaret. Why is that? There is no 'p' in Margaret in the first place! Marguerite, Margie, Marjorie, Maggy, Meg...

When she came back Undertaker was being slowly strangled by Oscar while Snake chewed on a biscuit and watched in fascination. "He asked for it. Says Oscar." He informed her when she sat down beside him.

"Of course he did," Charlotte replied with a wryly amused smile. "Papa, if you are quite done courting death."

The Undertaker laughed and carefully unwound the snake from his pale upper arm, revealing dark, serpentine bruises. "Why court death when you can make it your servant~?" He passed the Oscar back to Snake and poured teaspoonfuls of loose-leaf tea into a strainer and poured hot water over it, filling the containers with copper liquid that smelled faintly of vanilla. This was the Good Tea, the one they only brought out on special occasions. Charlotte smiled to herself.

"So," Undertaker took a long drink of his own cup, seeming to ignore the scalding heat, "what adventure are you and my Lottie going on next~?"

À cheval donné on ne regarde pas les dents - The French way of saying "don't look a gift horse in the mouth"

Yes a Frankenstein quote super original I know but in my defense u know Yana-sensei was already inspired by my girl Mary Shelley, Mother of Modern Science Fiction

I almost didn't do this chapter I was going to jump straight into them being on the Campania but then I was like hol'up bitch calm tf down and pace ya self otherwise this story 'bout to be shorter than ya temper at the KFC drive-thru.