A/N: Here's the second chapter. Also, I didn't mention this in the last chapter's A/N: the chapters are being posted weekly, every Sunday.
Anyone who's already guessed what order I'm telling the monsters' backstories in, give yourself a cookie.
Chapter 2: Doctor Jekyll
London, 1888
The multicoloured liquids bubbled in their flasks, their noise prominent alongside the Bunsen burners' hissing and fireplace's crackling. Dressed in waistcoat and trousers, the silver-haired man watched the flasks with intent blue eyes, firelight casting flickering shadows on his thin face. Removing his fob watch, Dr. Henry Jekyll saw it was twenty minutes past midnight. He turned the gas taps off, causing the chemicals' bubbles to start dying at varying speeds. He lifted the first flask with metal tongs, and poured its contents into a non-heated beaker on the table which held white powder. The liquid and powder hissed on contact, forming milky-green liquid and a rapidly-growing froth layer. He added the other flasks' contents one at a time. Henry's face was calm – despite the twenty failed concoctions that had preceded this one over sixteen months, he knew from vast reading as a boy and young man the values of patience and overcoming confidence blows. Henry added the last liquid, and the beaker's contents – liquid near the brim – turned dark, almost maroon. Froth rolled down the beaker's sides, but was rapidly disappearing atop the liquid.
Henry gave the beaker five minutes to cool, removing a metal-cased hypodermic needle from its box. Once the minutes were passed, he put the needle's tip in the beaker and slowly filled the needle. Sitting, he rolled up his sleeve and slowly injected the maroon liquid into his arm. Feeling a slight sting run up the inside of his arm, Henry let his body relax for a moment, sighing an exhale of breath. Then he lifted a lone beaker of clear liquid from the table to his lips, and drank. Putting the beaker down, Henry rose and looked at the old punching bag in the study's corner, to see if his urge to attack it spiked. He'd looked barely five seconds before doubling over, arms folding over his stomach. He felt like his insides were coiling snakes. Unfolding his arms, Henry saw they were slowly changing, though the pain was mild. His hands were enlarging, their shapes and bumps warping, fingernails lengthening. Forearms thickening, his sleeves started tearing. Henry opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out, the inside of his throat bubbling. He staggered around the table, body's top half suddenly very heavy-feeling. He managed three steps before he felt like his kneecaps would burst from moving. Henry's trousers started tearing, the ceiling growing closer and floor further away. Buttons flew off his chest, clattering on the floor. The tingling suddenly subsided, and Henry looked down. His shirt and waistcoat had torn open, leaving someone else's belly hanging over his trousers' waistline, said belly flat with a hairy chest. Below, Henry had someone else's large, flattish feet which looked almost like they'd been sculpted from wet sand.
Looking across his study at the cabinet, Henry rushed forward, taking half as many steps as it would've normally taken him. Plucking the small mirror atop the cabinet between his thumb and index finger, Henry looked at it. The reflection might've made him scream moments ago. The face in the mirror looked like it belonged to a drunken East End brute. The hair was dark-brown. The hairline had receded from the forehead, but hair grew thickly down the face's sides. The cheekbones had slight hollows under them, and the brows and chin were slightly protruding, making the face look somewhat deformed. The left beady eye had Henry's eye colour while the right was blind. Ignoring the building want to do something, Henry raised a hand towards his face – the monstrous reflection mirrored him. Henry and the creature opened their mouths – the creature had uneven-looking teeth. Henry noted the creature's blotch of a nose, looking like it had been broken before – he remembered the time he'd thought his nose had been broken in university and had felt enraged. The right eye's diagonal scar reminded Henry of the family dog slashing his face when he'd been five years old – it must've been one of the first times he'd felt want to hurt another creature. It slowly dawned on the creature that had been Henry, the formula had worked. Then he realised what the growing black feeling, the need in him was. Dropping the mirror, the creature flexed his thick arms, a grin slowly forming on his face. Malicious thoughts unlike Henry Jekyll had had in years flowed through the creature's mind. He slowly cackled, voice sounding deep and guttural; like it came from the kind of man the creature's face belonged to.
Locking his fingers and flexing his arms vertically, the creature sighed. He turned his head to the wide window overlooking the surgical theatre, then with a burst of speed beyond any athlete, he ran and smashed through it. Revelling in his powers and excited to hurt something with his new fists, the creature launched twenty-five feet upwards with a spring of his feet, fingertips digging into the dark theatre's wall. Then he launched himself another twenty feet at the theatre's domed glass ceiling, smashing through the bottom part. Barely stopping, he ran towards the moonlit roof's edge, and leapt thirty feet over a street to the next roof. The creature continued running and jumping over rooftops, laughing, a shadow flying above streets and alleys. He'd leapt across twelve rooftops when he registered someone else's laughter in his slightly-pointed ears. Looking diagonally right, the creature saw two figures stumbling into an alley a hundred yards away, smoke trailing. The creature's horrid grin came. Oh, how long it had been since he'd felt his body's fists crunch someone's face.
"How'za 'bout that nice lady in the theatre, eh, Haggis?" the drunk man slurred, one arm wrapped around his partner's shoulders to keep him walking. "You know, the one in the purple-y dress?" He sucked his huge cigar.
"That was a faggot, you twit!" the other drunk barked. "Both the 'women' on that stage were faggots!" He took a swig from his bottle, while the first drunk tossed his head back, laughing loudly, thick smoke trailing out. Head tossed, the first drunk saw the silhouette looming on the roof's edge, his laughter and smile dying.
"'Ey, Haggis?" the first drunk said. "What's that?" He pointed with his cigar hand. The figure ran behind the edge with unnatural speed.
"What'z what?" the second drunk slurred, staggering sideways from standing still. "There'z nothin' up there, you faggot-lover!" Haggis got out one Ha, before something huge hit the cobblestones behind them, casting them in shadow.
"'Ello, lads," grunted a dark, slightly-reverberating voice. The men turned around, seeing a gigantic monster of a man looming over them, outline sharpened by streetlamps' light behind it. Minds gaining sobriety, the men made out the beady eyes and horrid grin. Huge, stocky arms were raised in challenge. "Fancy a rasslin'?" The first drunk's cigar fell from his mouth. Haggis bolted into the alley, and the first drunk turned to follow – he hadn't gone one step before the creature grabbed him by his coat, spun on its heel in a full circle – laughing horribly – and threw him. Colliding with Haggis, the first man felt like he'd run into a brick wall full-speed. Both men crumpled, one atop the other. Aware of the creature running at them, the first drunk started forcing himself up. In one second, he was grabbed by his coat's back and thrown into the wall – to say the breath were knocked from him would be an understatement. Head spinning, he barely registered the creature or his partner in front of his face. The creature swung its arm at Haggis' back, the sound of a bottle smashing jolting the first drunk's mind – Haggis screamed long and loud not a second later.
"Come on, what're you waiting for?!" the creature yelled, body language open like it wanted retaliation. "That can't be all you've got!" Five seconds or so passed, before the creature gave an irritated growl and turned Haggis on his back. It swung a fist at Haggis' cheek – blood flew four feet from his mouth. The creature let Haggis drop, turning its head. Mind screaming and vision concentrating, the first drunk pushed himself free of the wall-cavity made by his impact. Making to run, he only managed to stagger. The creature pounced, swinging a fist – the man barely felt his head re-colliding with the wall.
The drunk slumped, eyes dazed, face bloody. Unsatisfied with one punch, the creature backhanded him – blood and hopefully teeth flew out. Chuckling, the creature grabbed the man's coat and threw him at the alley entrance. He sailed twenty feet through the air, then twanged violently off the lamppost outside the alley. The creature chuckled more maliciously, revelling in the violence. It had been decades since he'd been so close to Henry Jekyll's surface; not since the three or four secret fights Henry had participated in at university with other students, indulging in the darkness his childhood beatings had fed, and which had boiled over when medical study costs had taken his family fortune. Henry had stopped after he'd nearly killed an opponent, because he'd feared his lifelong career suffering. Ah, how good it was to again know that feeling which came with breaking someone else's body. The creature picked the cigar up off the cobblestones, stuffed the head in his mouth and sucked. He breathed out, releasing thick smoke. Henry had enjoyed the feeling of smoking, but had only indulged when it was socially called for, because he'd thought the smoke made bad air. The creature had no such compunctions.
"Oopsie," he said wickedly, removing the cigar to speak. The creature almost couldn't believe he'd kept up that finicky act of being oh-so-kind and perfect for fifty bloody years as Henry Jekyll. He could've laughed snidely at the thought now. Looking at the broken, barely-breathing body in the alley, the creature wondered why he should stop at two. The fist-fights hadn't cured his childhood issues in university, and he felt nowhere near tired yet – nor like he'd tire ever again. Leaping three stories, he grabbed onto the alley wall, then swung like a great monkey the rest of the way to the roof's edge. The creature darted across the roofs, looking for more prey whose faces he could smash in. He'd crossed twenty rooftops, finding no-one, when something building in his mind became unignorable – a rational, worrying sense saying he had to return to his study and discover how his transformation had happened. Stopping, gazing at nothing, the creature recognised Henry Jekyll's mindset returning like sobriety. Scowling in displeasure, he was tempted to continue running and beat the first human or alley-animal he found in direct defiance. But Henry's rigid conformity and sense of supreme rationality, had already spread well – the creature now felt fear of the consequences more than excitement at harming more. Growl-groaning bitterly, the creature turned and started leaping back towards Henry Jekyll's house.
The creature arrived in almost the same time he'd run from it to the alley. Henry's rationality made him re-enter through the broken roof-dome, lest the staff be stirred and see him if he forced entry another way. He hung from the dome's edge with one hand before letting go, falling thirty feet to land on his feet's soles. Going to the study window, the creature loosely felt his body shifting, strength vanishing. He shrank or the window and study grew larger, as he climbed in. Thinking he already felt less nasty, the creature went to the dropped mirror and picked it up. He was relieved to see Henry Jekyll's silver-haired face staring back. After Henry's immediate relief at his transformation reversing, he felt shock and nigh-uncontainable delight – after twenty failures over sixteen months, he'd finally concocted a mix that could separate man's light and dark. It, and the fresh memory of the creature brutalising the drunks, threatened to make Henry's head spin.
"Yes, my cousin says medical students' teaching at the University has improved very much since that Amendment Act," John Utterson murmured. He twirled his glass's brandy with hand movements, smile on his bald, pudgy face. Henry smiled back, then thanked the manservant pouring brandy into his glass. The servant bowed and left. "There's no more drinking and grinders like when we were of student age. Do you remember what the university was like then, Henry?"
"Of course I do," murmured Henry, sitting in his own armchair opposite John, by the fireplace. "The number of committed students such as myself was small enough to form a club." John hmph'd.
"It's a shame you couldn't have lent a hand with the Act, its aims would've been achieved much sooner had a name like yours been attached," John said.
"I would have helped, but my clientele's needs were heftier than usual, and even so I had commitments of the medical arts which I wished to focus on," Henry said.
"What are these other commitments, Henry?" John asked. A pause followed, Henry lowering his eyes, uncertain if he should tell John. He looked around, making sure none of the staff were in earshot through the living room's open doors, before speaking again.
"You recall my… activities in university of which I do not normally speak?" Henry asked carefully. John's smile faded.
"You told me of them in the utmost confidence," John murmured, voice more serious-sounding. Henry gazed at the fire.
"Despite the importance of working to benefit one's fellow humans -" John mm-hm'd in agreement "-and despite the credits to my apparent virtues, the restraint of my non-professional self's whims and wishes… is a hefty burden." John's mouth was a long line, subtle threat of becoming a frown at its edges. "Do not fear that I've disregarded the threat these desires pose to my career. I remain wholly considerate of the risks." Henry put his hands together, fingers locking in front of his face. "You know I have been a leading advocate of the study of drugs' potential benefits since before they were widely accepted in the medical arts. When I considered the effects of the many substances we now use, the idea struck me, that perhaps a drug which can separate a man's intellectual part and passionate part from each-other is possible." John's eyebrows furrowed in slight puzzlement.
"You intend to create a substance which may remove the flaws in a man's soul?" John murmured.
"Not quite," Henry murmured, looking at the fire again. "I seek to render the divide between a man's intellectual and passionate parts more definitive, allowing either half to have control over the body in turns. So a man may indulge in his passions, and resume his moral obligations untainted by his indulgences." A brief pause followed. Then John chuckled like he'd heard a good joke.
"You seek to remove the threat of corruption by walling a man's goodness and wickedness off from each-other?" John asked. Henry remembered John was a faithful man, and in this instance it slightly exasperated him.
"Yes," Henry said slightly-tightly, eyes shifting to double-check the staff weren't nearby. John's mirth faded, seeing Henry was being serious.
"Henry, it is balderdash to think such a thing is possible," John said.
"And why is that?" Henry asked, eyebrows lowering slightly.
"It goes against all the laws of nature!" John almost boomed.
"You know that was said about medical practices when they were new; practices we today take for granted," Henry said calmly, straightening in his armchair slightly.
"Regardless, it is wicked to let one's cruelty have free reign," John said with certainty.
"I do not intend to give it free reign, but to regulate it," Henry replied, surprised at how slightly-defensive he sounded. He supposed it were because his formula had granted him a sense of freedom unlike he'd known before, and here his friend was belittling it.
"But letting it out even briefly would be following one's darkness nonetheless, and risking letting it harm others," John argued, no longer smiling. Henry's teeth clenched slightly. "This is a waste of your time." John sounded more earnest now.
"It is not a waste of my time," Henry said, again slightly-tightly. "I am not wholly forsaking my moral stance." Even so, despite the carnage he'd committed as the creature, Henry was sure there were some evil acts that he just wasn't capable of under any circumstances.
"I cannot turn you from this path, Henry?" John sighed, hand's middle finger, index finger and thumb at his head's side.
"I don't believe you can," Henry said, voice neutral, face slightly hard.
"Then I hope to be proven wrong, otherwise that you'll see your error and turn from this path," John said calmly. "Until either event happens, with the deepest respect and affection, I obligatorily will not talk to you more, Henry." Henry lowered his eyes, slightly sad – John was one of his oldest friends, they'd known each-other since their university days. But John was a very firm-principled man – Henry would have to prove John wrong to have their friendship back, which he was confident would happen once he'd utilised the formula enough times to conclusively prove its benefits to man.
"I understand, my friend," Henry murmured quietly. Glancing at the mantel clock, he saw it was forty minutes past nine in the evening. "I take it you will not stay later on that note?"
"I will not," John said, quietly. "From here, I must bid you goodnight and leave."
"Allow me to see you to the door," Henry said, making to rise.
"There is no need, Bradshaw will see me out," John said quickly, before turning heel and walking out the living room door. Henry watched John exit to the main hallway, gathering his coat, hat and cane, before the doorman saw him out. Henry's lips pursed inwards slightly.
Two nights later, the creature ran across rooftops again, revelling in his freedom. Henry had only needed to retake the formula to transform again – not only that, but his transformation had been slightly quicker and easier, and the creature had already been out twice as long as before without starting to change back. He'd already brutalised a dog, but was hungry for more bloodshed. Leaping thirty feet from one row of houses to another, the creature stopped upon landing on the next roof's ridge, activity ahead catching his attention. Past another row of houses, two men were stumbling through a lane running horizontally. They weren't half as drunk as the creature's first victims, but were still intoxicated, bottles hanging from either one's hand. Talking and laughing, they stopped upon coming to a man slumped by the lane wall. Enclosing him against the wall, the drunks started pushing and shoving the slumped man, laughing, while he tried to rise. Grinning maliciously, the creature removed a cigar and match from his tattered coat, lit the cigar and sucked. He chuckled quietly, smoke pouring between his teeth, then leapt the distance to the lane.
One drunk had made the first punch when the creature landed behind him with a thump. The victim's eyes bulged, the drunks turned. A second before shock could register, the creature grabbed one drunk by the jawbone, lifted him and slammed him full-force into the ground. Hearing bones crack, the creature grinned. Yelling made him look back, seeing the other two men make to run. He grabbed the drunk and hauled him back – his bottle fell and broke. Holding the drunk off the ground, the creature ran, catching up with the remaining man in less than two seconds. He swung the drunk like a sack of rocks – his body crunched against the formerly-slumped man's skull, said man falling.
"Come on, that can't be all you've got!" the creature yelled, grimacing, the drunk dangling off the ground limply. A wheeze made him turn – the first man was stirring on the ground. Grinning slightly, the creature tossed the caught man in the direction he'd been running, then advanced almost-casually towards the first man.
"Such a lovely night it is," the creature near-sighed, spreading his arms and craning his head. He grabbed the back of the drunk's clothing and lifted him to face-level. "Perfect for havin' some fun, wouldn't you say?" he growled. A yell made the creature look behind him. The other drunk had recovered – with blood running from his mouth's corner – and was charging, picking up his broken bottle without slowing. He raised it like a dagger, broken end pointed. Raising his free hand, the creature caught the bottle-wielding arm's wrist a split-second before it would've stabbed his belly. The drunk's very-sober eyes went wide.
"That's more like it!" the creature said approvingly, grinning. Then he twisted the arm so violently it tore wholly free at the socket. The drunk screamed, blood spurting like a tiny fountain from the opening. He screamed two seconds, then the creature grabbed his head, and violently forced the drunks' heads together – the crunching sound, mixed with brains and flesh squelching, was like bones crunching when Henry had fought in university, tenfold. A pause passed, the creature's eyes widening slightly. Then a very loud groan made him turn his head – the man the drunks had been harassing was wheezing. Half-annoyed at the moment's interruption, the creature tossed the corpses aside and marched towards him. The man was making clawing motions with his arms, with a slug's speed. The creature grabbed the scruff of his neck and threw him diagonally-upwards. Most of his upper-body smashed through a house's first-floor window. He dangled with his midsection on the window-frame, then his lower-weight dragged him back out. Cackling, the creature caught the falling man, and threw him diagonally-upwards at the opposite wall, with significant strength. The man hit the wall between two windows, a spray of blood exploding out from the impact. Watching the body fall back to earth like a ragdoll, the creature's glee, his overwhelming exhilaration at having killed, returned. Beady eyes bulging, he laughed maniacally, spittle flying. He'd done it, he hadn't just beaten, he'd killed. His joy and excitement was overwhelming, as was Henry Jekyll's shock which made the creature's good half rapidly grow inside his head. The creature didn't have the mind to care, too delighted at killing. The thought of taking it a step further by finding out what human tasted like – Henry had always enjoyed sampling exotic meat – was in the creature's head when his body shrank and changed shape.
Wearing ragged trousers, no shoes, a coat and torn-open shirt, Henry crawled backwards on his hands closer to the lane wall, one hand clamped over his mouth. He initially tried to control his rapid breathing through his nostrils, blue eyes on the broken bodies. The time Henry lay there seemed like both two minutes and two hours, before he picked himself up and fled the alley.
The first thing Henry Jekyll did on returning to his house was shelve all the serum-making apparatus, intending to never use it again. He took a long time to go to sleep the following night, and his sleep was dreamless. The day after, he postponed two appointments with clients and isolated himself in his study. He read about the triple-murder in the newspaper – the police believed it had been committed by a particularly-strong man, and suspected a circus in Hyde Park. Truth be told, Henry didn't know how to cope with having committed murder – in spite of the act's unjustness, he hadn't read many books explaining how a man would react to committing killing. On the second day, Henry resumed his normal routine around the house, lest the staff see something was wrong. Over the following twelve days, Henry read the newspapers thoroughly, and thankfully read no more of the murders until the day the police had given up.
When he was wholly confident the murders could be buried, Henry contacted John by post – they preferred to send letters in advance of turning up on each-other's doorsteps – to say he'd ceased his pursuits they'd discussed that evening. John had replied, saying he'd be happy to resume their friendship. He didn't say anything more about Henry's controversial pursuit and Henry wasn't inclined to say anything. For a long time, Henry avoided thinking about his formula, but after six weeks, he became aware of the longing to indulge in his dark half's mindless passions again. Henry despaired that his urges hadn't been overridden by the murders, but otherwise didn't take action to correct them.
Two months after the triple-murder, Henry suddenly woke from a pleasant dream of a beach; one which had ended with carnage, blood and the creature that embodied his dark half. Eyes shooting open, the first thing he was aware of was his bed groaning. Then he noticed the room – moderately lit by moonlit peaking between curtains – was slowly shrinking. Throwing his bedsheets off, Henry saw his torso was slowly growing under his white nightshirt, while his feet were growing further away, toenails lengthening. Eyes wide, Henry staggering off of his half-broken bed. His height increased by two more feet, and his arms' and shoulders' muscles burst to new size, making his nightshirt tear away. His face's features contorted, and he tore the nightcap off with a huge hand as his head enlarged. The creature looked in horror at his hands for only a few seconds, before his horror faded like a dimming light, replaced by a clawing desire for tearing and killing. Lips slightly peeled back, the naked creature turned to the curtains' opening, hair brushing the ceiling. He ran and smashed through the balcony doors behind the curtains, not giving the sound of glass shattering a second thought.
Standing atop the balcony's stone guard, he turned his head left and right, looking for visible prey. The lamp-lit streets this close to Henry's house were relatively silent, but the creature caught sight of a lone figure, practically a smidgeon of black, strolling horizontally across the far end of a street running vertically ahead. The creature leapt from the balcony, landing in the road outside the house's front, then he promptly leapt onto the middle of the adjacent house's wall and climbed the rest of the way up. The creature ran across the rooftops, his love of dismembering a gnawing, screaming need, begging for satisfaction like a half-starved lunatic. In five seconds, he reached the corner-house twenty feet behind his target. This close, he could see it was a thin gentleman in a dark coat, with moon-silver hair under his top hat, walking with a cane. In spite of his bloodlust, the creature felt foul at the mere sight of the man's beautiful hair and clean clothes. The creature diagonally leapt twenty feet to a rooftop on the man's left, then leapt and landed three feet behind him. Feeling the vibration through the cobblestones, the man turned, revealing a thin, handsome face. His brown eyes widened, a second before the creature kicked him in the chest, sending him flying twenty-five feet. The creature leapt, landing a foot short of the man – he was flat on the pavement, wheezing. The creature chuckled darkly.
"C'mere," he snarled, grabbing the man by his clothing and pulling him to his feet. His eyes were dazed. Picking the man's cane up by the bottom end, the creature whacked its handle across his head with lightning-speed. His head snapped sideways from the blow, a massive gash going through his hair and temples. The creature brought the cane slashing the other way, making blood and teeth fly from the man's mouth. The man fell back to the pavement. Growling through grit teeth, the creature brought the cane down thrice more, hearing ribs break, before the stick snapped. Then he grabbed the limp body, and was about to tear off a limb when an annoying, piercing noise reached his ears. Turning, he saw a small round face in an open first-floor window – a little girl with ringlets of dirty-blonde hair, small hands over her mouth. The creature grinned, showing his uneven teeth, eyes malicious. With a powerful leg-spring, he shot straight at the window. The girl turned to run, started to scream again, but the creature was on her house's wall, grabbing her through the window before she was out of arm's reach. He clamped his other hand over her mouth.
"Peekaboo, I saw you," the creature said, then giggled sadistically. In one swift move, he threw the girl at the bedroom wall on his right, hard enough to make it cave. The child fell, limp, a second later. The creature giggled gleefully, then removed his arm and head through the window and climbed away. He heard adults' voices elsewhere in the house before he leapt away.
The creature searched for more victims for over an hour, watching from roofs and stalking alleys; he wasn't content with killing one scrawny old joke and hurting a little girl, he needed more before he'd be satisfied after two bloody months locked up! Sadly, this part of London was unusually quiet tonight, and he only got to kill a dog in an alley before he felt Henry Jekyll's rationality returning, compelling him to return to the house quickly and filling him with the bloody weakling's horror.
Henry went pale in the face when he read the next morning's newspaper. It stated on the third page the man his dark half had killed had been Sir Danvers Carew, an M.P. The little girl remaining unconscious from head trauma had done nothing to dissuade Scotland Yard from starting a fierce investigation. And all this had done nothing to ease Henry's troubles on top of his unauthorised transformation.
Henry was also informed by telegraph while reading at breakfast – he wondered if the maid who'd given him the printed message saw something off about him, by the way she'd paused – Scotland Yard would be visiting later that day, asking locals questions about the incident. More than once before the early afternoon, Henry looked at his face in the mirror to examine how calm he appeared, despite his concerns there wouldn't be much point if the police had some deductive skills to recognise false calmness. He would've used morphine to calm himself, if he hadn't thought the police would find that also suspicious.
A moustached constable with large ears and another policeman, arrived at three o'clock. They privately asked Henry questions in the living room – when he'd retired and risen last night, had he heard anything, did he know anyone he thought might do something like this. They also asked how much he knew about last night's incident, a ploy to see if he knew anything he shouldn't Henry suspected. Henry was surprised at how calm his voice sounded when answering, despite internally feeling constricted. He told them about his broken bed, saying he supposed it had given out with age, and said he'd awoken to a boy throwing stones at his balcony doors at dawn – the same fabrication he'd told his staff. Henry was relieved he'd chosen to mention those things when the constable said he and his partner would have to speak to Henry's staff separately. The constable also said he'd like to see Henry's bedroom, both to see if he could tell Henry something about what had broken his bed and because his house had a view of the street the crimes had occurred on. Henry had quite-amicably granted permission. The policemen questioned five of his staff over the afternoon, while Henry continued his daily business. Despite permitting the police, Henry still felt slightly anxious that his staff might give away some important detail he'd overlooked. So he repeatedly went over relevant details, seeking anything he'd missed that might make him look suspicious – he found nothing overlooked.
The following night, Henry went to bed in the guest room terrified he'd wake to see himself transforming again. He thankfully slept uninterrupted to morning. A soft, irrational part of his mind hoped such an incident wouldn't happen again, and he could put the nasty business with his formula behind him. But Henry hadn't given in to sloth and weak hope easily in his professional life, and he dreaded the idea of the creature returning – he remembered how ecstatic taking life had been for his dark half, and he could feel that half's gnawing, desperate craving to kill again. So Henry privately studied his formula chemicals during his free time, hoping to understand what had caused his transformation. But without animal subjects to test the formula on – Henry was reluctant to risk it in case one broke out and gave him the staff's or public's attention – Henry accomplished little in two days. He continued reading about the investigation – no progress was made four days in. The little girl had woken with no memory of the attack, and was no longer able to use her limbs correctly due to her head injury. On the investigation's fifth day, Henry received a letter from John, saying he intended to see him tomorrow afternoon.
John arrived at thirteen minutes past four precisely, as he'd written he would. Henry was slightly concerned, as John was never careless about time-keeping but was only so precise when gravely serious. Instead of talking over brandies, John said he wanted to take a stroll with Henry along their usual route – fully walking around the district enclosing Henry's and his neighbours' houses, until they'd circled all the way back to Henry's doorstep. Henry accepted, quickly donning a dark jacket and top hat, and taking up a cane. The streets they walked were highly active with carriages and pedestrians, in spite of the earlier sunny weather.
"Tell me, John, what matters on your mind are so urgent that you are prompted to be precise with your timing?" Henry asked, turning his head as they walked. John, wearing a slightly darker-brown jacket and bowler hat, had a troubled facial expression.
"Henry, have any of your staff seemed out-of-sorts since the tragedy with Sir Danvers?" John asked, locking eyes. Henry paused briefly.
"Ms. Jennet and Guest were both distraught," Henry said, puzzled. "Why do you ask, my friend?" John paused, eyes leering sideways as though suspicious of any pedestrian listening.
"I believe the murderer may be someone living in this area," John said, so quietly Henry barely heard. "Given how quickly the injured girl's parents said they responded when they heard the disturbance, the only rational explanation for how a man could attack her in her room, murder Sir Danvers and disappear so quickly; would be the assailant knows the area keenly." Henry looked at John quite-seriously.
"Have you spoken with the police about this?" Henry asked.
"Not yet," John replied. "I'm not certain of my idea yet, and I'm asking you and most of the people I know around here if anyone is behaving oddly before I deem it valid."
"You think one of my staff is capable of such an act?" Henry asked, sounding aghast.
"I do not know your servants as well as you," John sighed. "That's why I'm asking from you if you think one of them has been behaving oddly." He locked eyes with Henry. "But I also suspect when considering how non-communal some of the people around this neighbourhood are, someone – maybe your staff, maybe a neighbour, maybe not anyone – could be hiding the murderer in a little-known area of their house."
"Now you drift into the realm of sensationalism," Henry said, shaking his head and smiling.
"Do you remember the robber that woman eight houses away from yours was hiding?" John asked.
"That was a petty thief, not a cold-blooded murderer," Henry said, smiling slightly.
"Nevertheless, have you and your staff been thoroughly checking and using every area of your house, Henry?" John asked, looking straight at him. "Because if not, I'd like you to assure me in future that they've all been checked by yourself, and not solely your staff."
"The house is large, and has several facilities committed wholly to storage of old items and laboratory equipment," Henry said, frowning and sounding annoyed now. He hadn't liked the thought of a staff-member stumbling across his study's formula chemicals. "Now, let us speak no more of this ridiculous story."
"But still, it would very much put me at ease-"
"I said no more!" Henry snapped, glaring slightly at John. John looked taken aback. He kept his silence through the rest of their walk. Henry instantly regretted his outburst, glancing at John out of his eye's corner. John was a calculating and close-to-suspicious soul, and Henry feared he could now see the suspicion building on John's face. If John could come up with the mad story about a concealed murderer, could he also guess that Henry were directly involved? Their walk ended in front of Henry's house twelve minutes later.
"Would you care to join me so we may speak over brandy?" Henry asked warmly, gesturing invitingly with his hand. He hoped it may cover up his outburst's oddness.
"I'm afraid not, Henry," John murmured, looking at the door. "I have a client I am seeing to this afternoon, before he goes to court, and will be near-late if I delay."
"I see," Henry said understandingly. "Then I bid you good day, my friend, and look forward to the next time we may talk."
"Good day to you as well, Henry," John said earnestly, before walking away past the front door, in the direction he and Henry had been walking towards. Henry advanced to his house's front door casually, but stopped just before entering, turning his head and watching John go. Was his mind truly addled, or did he see John look back out of his eye's corner? Was Henry going mad to think John's imaginative ideas about the concealed killer, and the way he'd asked with such focus on Henry's staff and house specifically, were suspicious?
After his walk with John, for five days Henry was confined to his study most of the time, looking at his formula's chemicals again or working on his other drug projects for treating clients. He knew it was abnormal and foolish, but an irrational part of him thought his study were a safe place to work, and furthermore insisted he were at the least risk of being found out when here, where he couldn't be asked a question and slip up. Thankfully, this foolish period didn't last beyond the five days, as Henry had an appointment with a client he'd already postponed. Dr. Jekyll had never cancelled an appointment with a client without clear reasons before.
Seven days after walking with John, Henry sat in the courtyard his house enclosed on four sides like a curtain wall, on the bench nearest the rear doors. He allowed the breeze and neighbours' trees rustling to relax him, before he attended a wealthy client in the afternoon. The early-summer sky was mostly cloudy, but the sun sporadically peaked through. Henry hadn't heard from John again since their walk, nor had he heard directly from the police. According to the newspapers, the police were pinning the blame for Sir Danvers' murder and the girl on a strongman who resided a few streets away. Henry thought the awful business with his formula might quietly be buried in the earth. He'd found out no more about why he'd transformed without taking his formula, than he could about how and why it physically transformed him in the first place. Relieving as it had been to indulge in his creature form at first, Henry now dreaded the awful consequences his professional life could suffer if his other half murdered more people, especially if he killed said people too close to his home the next time. Henry could still recall the creature's mindless glee, how aware he'd been of the consequences when attacking Sir Danvers and the girl yet had completely ignored them. Being free of his responsibilities only for brief periods had been the point of Henry's experiment, and it seemed even briefly indulging in his dark half wrought consequences on his career and reputati-
Henry felt his skin and muscles shifting suddenly. Eyes going wide, he lurched off the bench, giant long-nailed feet tearing through his shoes, the ground growing further away. He took two seconds to process what was happening, in which time his coat's sleeves, shirt and waistcoat tore, his arms, shoulders and back expanding.
"No…" Though his face was still Henry Jekyll's, he had the creature's guttural voice. Giant hands flew to his throat as his face's features melted and shifted.
"No!" the creature's voice groaned, looking at his hands. A moment later, the distant sound of wood tearing made the creature turn his gaze upwards – to the lip of the roof on his left, where the house walled the courtyard from the nextdoor neighbour. Chuckling, the creature ran and leaped, landing on the roof's edge. He ran to the opposite edge, looking down to see the pathetic old white-haired coot standing on a ladder against his tree's trunk, pruning the branches with shears, making quite a noise as he struggled with tearing through a branch. He hadn't seen the creature yet. He was right there, oblivious as a lamb ready to be slaughtered. Henry liked the man for his keen botany, but the creature thought he were begging to be picked.
"Oh, Harry!" the creature called in a sing-song voice. The man craned his head, bespectacled eyes slowly widening, shears going still. The creature leapt, feet's soles facing Harold's approaching face. Crying out, the man made to jump off the ladder, just before the creature's feet flattened him on his lawn. The creature felt ribs shatter under him, fight instantly leaving the facedown body, grass around it stained red. Laughing, the creature stepped off the body, grinning at his kill. The sight of the juicy if thin old man made the creature trace his tongue over uneven teeth, beady eyes wide. He hadn't yet gotten to taste people thanks to Henry Jekyll's pathetic desire to stay in his little bubble.
"Father?" The creature turned his head in surprise, seeing a younger-looking gentleman with brown hair and a moustache appear in the house's back doorway – Harold's son who visited this time of year, Henry knew. The man stopped at the sight. He dumbly stood and stared while the creature casually turned his body to face him. After nearly three seconds, the man staggered backwards, falling over something in the house. He grabbed a long rake that had been propped inside the doorway, pointing it out defensively though his eyes were doe-like. The creature sneered and licked his teeth, then charged quicker and more suddenly than a cheetah.
"No, please…" the man staggered two steps backwards in the time the creature took to cross the garden. He hunched low and brought his arms close to his torso before smashing through the tight doorframe. Shrieking, the man leapt sideways into another doorway. He spun as the creature was running past in the corridor, and the creature felt something slice diagonally across his back. The creature halted, registering. Had that little shit just-?!
Looking over his left shoulder – which had a red slash in it, horizontally alongside another crossing his spine – the creature growled through grit teeth. The weakling man looked ready to urinate. He didn't move, as the creature ran at him and brought his hands together around the man's head, crushing his skull to pulp. The creature scowled at the dead man momentarily, then burst into black laughter again. That skull-crunch had been satisfying retribution enough for him, and it looked like he was now going to have two human meals in one.
"Dee-dah, doo-doo-do-dah, dee-dah tah-do-dah," the creature muttered the tune, grabbing Harold's wrist and dragging him body along the earth towards the house, red trailing behind him. Once inside the kitchen doorway – second door on the right inside the backdoor – the creature ceased his tune, throwing the body on the fire stove. Hunching slightly in the room, the creature looked between Harold's body and the other on the central table, giggling in glee. He struck a match on his teeth, then stole a cigar from the nearby shelf and stuffed it in his mouth, lighting it and sucking hard. Breathing out smoke, the creature lowered the lit match to the stove's grate, grinning and laughing as the end went between the bars and the wood caught fire.
It was two hours before Henry Jekyll's mind had returned to a point that the creature felt his body start changing back, lying slumped against the kitchen wall – legs taking up nearly the entire floor's space initially – surrounded by large gnawed and picked bones including human skulls and ribcages. He was sucking the remaining juices off each finger, delighting in the taste. Human meat hadn't been bad at all – not something to die for, but something he might do again just for the hell of it. The creature laughed one final time, wanting to enjoy his last moment in this form before Henry's gnawing morality returned. Then his face's features melted back into Henry Jekyll's. Henry laughed the creature's last three or four Ha's, before the glee faded and he slowly looked around. He took in the human bones scattered here and there - some with odd traces of cooked meat still on them – as though he couldn't believe the creature had committed such an act. Seeing the evidence, Henry felt nothing for a long moment. Then, putting a hand to the centre of his chest, he felt like he might vomit in revulsion. In fact, he wanted to vomit, purge as much meat as possible.
Numbly, Henry slid up the wall to his bare feet, feeling the wall behind him with a hand. The urge to vomit continuously rising and falling, Henry half-staggered out to the back garden, mind gaining enough feeling for him to become wholly set in what he intended to do. After what his dark half had just done, Henry had no intention of letting it terrorise people again. He went straight to a ground-level window on his house's external wall, overlooking the scullery. Crouching, Henry peered inside, ensuring the scullery maid wasn't about the grey-walled cellar space. Slowly forcing the window open, he crept in feet-first, torn clothes and back threatening to catch on the window despite his thinness.
Henry hurriedly washed his hands in the scullery basin, its water still warm, and exchanged his torn clothes for a half-dried shirt, waistcoat and trousers on a clotheshorse. He didn't want the staff seeing his suspicious undress and stopping him. He remained barefoot, but hoped no-one would look down and notice.
Henry inevitably passed through the kitchen and servant's corridor – the staff were shocked to see him here, but he simply told them to continue with their work and hurried along; no-one stopped him. Upstairs, Henry passed two maids who didn't stop or stare at his feet.
"Dr. Jekyll, this telegraph message arrived from Mr. Utterson nearly two hours ago," said a maid – the same one who'd handed Henry Scotland Yard's message – when Henry wound around the front hallway's stairs.
"It doesn't matter," Henry said, raising a hand and practically brushing her off.
"But, sir, I think you'll want to read this, he said in…" Henry didn't hear the maid's words after that. Navigating to the rear part of the house, the door to his study was up a short winding staircase in the hallway, on his left. The room was dark when he entered, the only illumination coming from the theatre's ceiling-dome. Henry bolted the door behind him, then turned to the apparatus-occupied central table. He mixed green and black liquids, turned on a Bunsen burner to heat up a blue liquid before he added it, sprinkled some pure-white powder into the mix, and added increasingly more liquids. In five minutes, Henry had a dark-green, acrid-smelling poison filling a beaker.
Henry stared at the liquid in a bird's eye view. He thought about how it would all be over momentarily – no more murder, no more fear of his dark half and the police, no more responsibility, no more anything. Though he wasn't inclined to openly share it, he'd never been a man of God. The beaker had slowly risen halfway towards Henry's face when he suddenly felt a black part of himself blooming furiously, screaming and raging with its own half-voice against what he was about to do. Right side tingling, Henry removed his right hand from the beaker. A second later, Henry's right arm locked, half-raised, shuddering slightly as its features warped. Henry quickly moved to drink the beaker using his other arm. He was stopped by his right hand seizing his left wrist before the beaker was at his lips. A second passed, then Henry's right arm yanked his wrist with such force that he staggered several feet forward in the study, crying out. He stopped short of running into a corner, only for his right arm to force his left to swing, making him spin and skid across the study. Almost falling to his knees, Henry cried out slightly as the whole right side of his body began transforming – limbs, shoulders and muscles enlarging, half his face bubbling. His right hand grew larger, but his untransformed left hand still fought ferociously.
A loud knocking made the half-Henry creature look at the door, one eye clear and one blind.
"Henry, are you in there?" shouted a familiar voice, making the half-creature's eyes widen. The knocking repeated. "Henry, I need to speak with you."
"Please… go away." The half-creature's voice sounded like the dark half's. A pause followed.
"That isn't Dr. Jekyll!" John's voice said seriously. "Whoever you are, I tell you, come out now and there'll be no need to hurt anyone. Otherwise I will have this door broken down!"
"John…" the half-creature groaned, guttural voice sounding anguished. A brief pause.
"Right. Richard, get something to help break this door down." The half-creature screamed. His fighting arms swiped through a rack of test tubes, shattering them with a cacophony of sound. He continued crying and staggering furiously, gait lopsided with his body's disproportionate sides, both arms trying to drag the beaker in different directions. Banging started on the door, near-rhythmic. The half-creature's mental halves ferociously fought like its arms – one half was adamant about drinking the poison, intellectually aware of the consequences if it didn't, the other had no real argument beyond a passionate, instinctive survival drive. The intellectual half knew there was nothing left for Henry Jekyll to live for – he couldn't control his transformations, he'd committed evil acts he'd be hanged for, and the creature had killed far too close to their home to avoid getting caught again. The Henry-half used these as its weapons, yet they served to weaken it, dimming its light like ink spilling on paper, its strength crumbling. The dark-half thus was rapidly gaining territory like an invading army, slowly absorbing the Henry-half like it were a parasitic twin. Aware it was shrinking, terrified of the loss of its sensibilities for once, the Henry-half screamed and the left arm gave a burst of strength – it brought the trembling beaker's rim within an inch of the half-creature's mouth, at the same time the door-thumping turned to wood splintering. It was the good half's last throe before the dark half wholly rolled over it, the desire to survive like a fuelling fire. The right hand tore the beaker from the left and threw it like a cricket bowler. It smashed upon the wall. The half-creature tossed back his head and cried out, whole face and body shifting, falling to his knees. Barely two seconds later, the study door gave in, John Utterson stumbling into the room with the table he and the butler had been using. John, and the near-bald butler beyond the doorway, stared in horror at the man-creature's scarred back as it finished swelling. Leering sideways, the creature's lips peeled back in a horrid grin, eyes filled with malice.
"Ah, Johnathan!" the creature said, turning around in the study, hair almost brushing the ceiling. "I'm afraid you just missed Dr. Jekyll, on his way out." Throwing the table out of his way like it were a toy, the creature charged full-speed. He grabbed John's head in one hand, then tore the table out of the doorway and ran through, laughing maniacally. He grabbed the butler by the scruff of his suit, then forced both men's heads against either wall as he continued running. The creature stopped at the corridor's end, letting the pulp-headed corpses fall. Looking down the next corridor past the corner, he saw two maids come into view, staring in horror. He grinned at them for one second, then ran forward laughing, arms raised like a boogeyman out of a nightmare.
A few hours after killing John Utterson, Henry Jekyll had returned to Harold's house in time to remove the bones, though he didn't dare scrub the surfaces with chemicals lest the police suspect him when they arrived. He hid the bones in his house's kitchen for the time being, where he also dissolved his staff's bodies to bones one-by-one using his acid stocks. He waited until after nightfall before burying the bones in his courtyard. Ten days later, Henry had moved to a small estate in Barking that had belonged to his grandfather, where he'd be away from the investigation in his old neighbourhood. Over the two weeks following the massacre, the creature killed again – a pickpocket was found in an alley with his jaw torn out; a runaway orphan whose four limbs the creature had broken, he dumped in the Thames to never be found. Henry was aware something had changed. His dark half was behaving intelligently, considering what victims wouldn't be missed and whether or not Henry might get into trouble. While Henry's good half now enjoyed the regulated bouts of freedom concerning his dark half, only being concerned with whether or not the creature's acts might be traced back to him, and with keeping up his income and good reputation as a physician. The latter two he maintained by filling as much of his normal form's extra time as he could, benefitting or asking after clients.
Three weeks after his staff's massacre, Henry found himself thinking quite extensively about his dark half. At first, he'd been satisfied with the creature inflicting mindless violence, as he'd hoped to be when he'd begun his experiments. But in the previous days, Henry found himself feeling unfulfilled, like the regulation between his passions and career suddenly wasn't enough to fill him. He thought long about what else could make him feel fulfilled. His thoughts kept going back to the idea of a woman, as he'd observed from socialising with many friends and clients they found fulfilment in having a wife or husband. He'd never married, not remembering having met a woman who'd invoked a desire for companionship – or even the desire usually associated with the lower classes – but still, Henry persistently thought he was missing something. So Henry kept exploring, the notion of a woman circling again and again, until the forgotten memory suddenly sprung from the abyss, fresh and weak as the day it had been buried. Alexandrina Victoria, newly-anointed as Queen of the United Kingdom, standing radiant and beautiful in her coronation robes. Her round face had been perfect, her brown ringlets angelic. Henry remembered her eyes passing over the vast crowd he'd been in when she'd been exiting Westminster Abbey, and he'd been certain at the time those perfect blue eyes had met his slightly-brighter blue eyes.
In the indeterminate pause that followed the realisation, Henry thought something shifted in the dark study he was sitting in. He thought the light for his desk lamp somehow became bleached of colour, the room became more visible yet the shadows lengthened. Henry heard clapping in the room clearly. Looking behind his chair, he was alarmed to see a black silhouette in the room's corner, clapping its hands, otherwise so still it seemed like it wasn't wholly there. Despite the shadows' transparency, the figure's features were cloaked by blackness. Henry slowly rose from his chair. He had samples of his formula in the cabinet a foot from his head, he could get to them if need be.
"Who are you?" Henry asked, voice slightly threatening. The figure continued clapping three seconds, then it subsided.
"I congratulate you, Doctor," a male voice purred. Henry gazed in shock. "I was starting to think I might need to pluck that memory from its grave myself." Teeth grit, Henry shifted slightly closer to the cabinet.
"Now, now, there's no need for that, Doctor," the figure purred, wagging a shadowed finger. "I know all about your little secret. And even if there was need, it wouldn't do you much good." The man's tone darkened at the last part.
"W-What are you doing here?" Henry asked, eyes wide.
"Oh, come, don't you recognise your old doorman?" the man purred, stepping forward. Closer to the lamp, Henry saw his unremarkable round face, light-brown eyes, short brown hair – messy rather than combed – and manservant's uniform. "Well, I'm hurt!"
"Bradshaw," Henry murmured. "How did you get in?" His tone was somewhat harsh.
"You can't keep me out with a locked door," Bradshaw purred, smiling pleasantly. His eyes' whites faded to black and the irises became scarlet. Henry's eyes widened, he gasped slightly. Bradshaw sighed and shook his head as though slightly exasperated. "I see you're still confused, dear Doctor, so allow me to explain." He started slowly stepping forward, eyes' normal colours resuming. "Though I outwardly look like a man, I am truly only half a man. Half on my mother's side. My father was what mortals would call… a demon." He grinned dementedly. Henry had never known Bradshaw could wear such a maniacal grin. Then his rationality kicked in and he shook his head.
"No, this is impossible!" Henry protested. Surely this were all a trick, the eyes changing had been an illusion made with light or he was hallucinating.
"Oh, it's no trick," Bradshaw purred. Henry opened his eyes to see Bradshaw was right in front of him. "Let me prove it." He put his palm on Henry's forehead. Henry gasped, eyes closing involuntarily. The core of his being suddenly seemed vulnerable and alone, hanging in a vast space inside him. Rivers of blackness ending in tendrils were falling down the walls inside Henry, entrapping his terrified soul.
Henry saw his old house's cellar. He recognised the room where his chemical stocks were stored before being moved to his study. He saw Bradshaw, brown hair combed, back to him; the basin on his left, the opened drugs cabinet on his right. He removed a vial from the drugs rack on the counter, poured its clear contents into the sink. Then he lifted a bottle made of solid black material with ornate carvings, and refilled the vial with it – the new liquid was identical to the old. He returned the vial to the rack, then removed the next vial along and repeated the process.
Henry returned to his body with a shudder, unsettled despite the non-physical darkness having left him. In front of him, Bradshaw smiled more broadly. A long pause followed before Henry spoke.
"You sabotaged my experiment!" he murmured. He staggered back, putting the cabinet in front of his head, and pointed a finger at the monster which defied rationality. "You are the reason my transformations became uncontrollable!" he yelled.
"Actually, Doctor, I'm the reason your formula worked," Bradshaw murmured, sounding nonchalant. "I substituted one of your ineffectual ingredients for something that would help the entire thing work. A bit of half-demon magic that took considerable time to refine." Henry stared and listened, everything rationality-related he thought he knew about the world crashing down. "You wanted your inner-benevolence and –malevolence to have separate lives and a shared body. Who was I to deny you your wish?" Bradshaw's smirk was pleasant yet taunting.
"…I don't understand," Henry said, backing half-a-step while Bradshaw advanced forward. "Why do this to me?!"
"I want to see you marry the one you love," Bradshaw purred, sounding half-earnest despite his smile. "Queen Victoria." Henry took a moment to form a response, having not expected that.
"You lie!" he said, managing to glower defiantly.
"Not about this," Bradshaw said. "I want you to have her by your side, forever and ever. Is that not what you wanted all those years ago, Doctor?" Henry growled slightly, eyes screwing shut. Bradshaw's words snaked over his mind, making images of the coronation day repeat over and over. The youthful desire rose again, the obsession with her image, her every motion, the thought-dominating wish to have her, her, her.
"That was years ago!" Henry said, staggering backwards into another desk, hand to his head. "I was but an impoverished youth, today I am nothing but a physician. And she is not the same woman."
"No, but if you want her to be the same woman, she can be made the same woman again," Bradshaw murmured. Henry met his eyes, thoughts coming to a standstill. Bradshaw put his hand on Henry's forehead, and the horrible sense of being caged inside himself returned.
Henry saw a vast cavern, wreathed in flames. Corpses with glowing red eyes lurking in fiery liquid. A vast collection of books and texts; he could feel in the vision how forbidden they were. Suddenly, his point of view was hurtling like a shot arrow in reverse, away from a water-filled tunnel's end which the glowing cavern was at. His point of view sped up, winding and shooting perfectly through networks of manmade tunnels which water flowed through, the route's every bend being forcefully ingrained in his mind.
Henry cried out when the vision ended, both hands on his head, wishing he could shake the slimy touch off his brain.
"In addition to the power you already took in with your otherwise-ineffective draught, I have another present for you," Bradshaw said, completely unresponsive to Henry's anguish. Henry looked back at him. "A lair with a collection of dark texts, many written by covens all around the world. You're a clever man, Doctor. With your medical arts and physical sciences – the ones that work, at least – improved by adding dark magic, I'm sure you can concoct something that'll get you what you want." At the last three words, Henry seriously thought back to the twenty-year-old Queen Victoria. He remembered how madly he'd wanted her then, and suddenly that feeling was wholly resurrected. He wanted to have her, to tend to her, to care for her, to touch her. Let no-one but him see her radiant beauty, because only he truly deserved it and no-one would appreciate her like he did. His blue eyes slightly darkened, but the hints of a smile appeared at his mouth's corners.
"Tell me one more thing," Henry said, looking at Bradshaw. "Why are you helping me?" Bradshaw's eyes resumed their hellish colour, his brows lowered slightly, face darkly serious.
"Queen Victoria is the sovereign of one of the greatest empires the world has ever seen," Bradshaw murmured, voice as dark as the shadows he'd emerged from. "Can you even begin to imagine the advantage my father's brethren will have in this world, if she is turned to the forces of darkness? Bring her to our side, the side which you now occupy. The terms are simple: you give me the British Empire for Hell, and she will be yours for as long as you want her." Though overwhelmed, Henry didn't try to plunge wholly into imagining this dark plan. All he wanted was for him and Queen Victoria to be together, to be united as husband and wife, forever.
"But be aware, Doctor, you are one of us now," Bradshaw murmured, stepping slightly closer to Henry, who was almost pressed to the wall. "You are stained with the blood of innocents, your soul belongs to mine and my father's king below. Additionally, I do not give away my hard craft to anyone. Give Hell an empire in this world, and you will be rewarded beyond imagination. But if you fail, in the next life, the consequences you shall suffer will be beyond description." For a long moment, Henry and Bradshaw's eyes were locked, Henry commanded to listen to every word just said. Then Bradshaw smiled pleasantly, as though he'd just reminded Henry to keep an eye on the meteorological report. "I believe I might see you again." He turned and started walking back towards the corner he'd come from.
"Wait!" Henry cried out, outstretching an arm. Entering the shadows, Bradshaw appeared to meld with the dark, vanishing. Henry was left alone in the lamp-lit study, staring at the corner where Bradshaw had vanished.
The huge figure watched the woman in a ragged dress, walking down the alley's filthy cobblestones, the smog yellow with light from a streetlamp. The East End of London he'd again moved houses to, was perfect for preying on women who wouldn't be missed. Suddenly, the woman turned around, prompting the creature to withdraw slightly deeper into the gap between buildings he occupied. When he heard her heels resume clicking, the figure darted diagonally across the alley to another space where the walls were indentured, cloaked in relative shadow. Opening his black case, he quickly picked a surgeon's saw as his weapon. He let the smallest guttural chuckle escape as he leered.
The woman stopped and turned. She looked straight at the shadowy figure, still as a statue. A second passed. Then she screamed loudly enough to break glass, and ran. The creature ran forth with inhuman speed, overcoat rippling behind him. He caught up to the woman in seconds, backhanding her to the alley wall. The breath and fight was instantly knocked out of her, body sliding down the wall. The figure stopped her and turned her around, forcing her to look at him. Her eyes were dazed for two seconds, then became wholly aware, staring up. She opened her mouth, and a giant hand clamped over her lower face. A scream was muffled in the creature's palm as he brought the saw baring down, twice. Blood flew fast from the cut neck like from a ruptured pipe, but awareness lingered in the woman's eyes; filled with terror, seemingly aware of what was happening. It made the creature laugh, lips peeling back from uneven teeth, spittle flying. The light fading from the woman's eyes, the creature promptly released her mouth, putting a crystalline bottle's tip by it. He saw the life flowing out of her as glowing white mist, sliding into the bottle's cap. The bottle's top sealed itself when the last life entered. The woman's body slumped the rest of the way to the cobblestones. The creature cackled loudly again, stuffing a cigar in his mouth and lighting it with a match he struck on his face. He sucked hard, then raised the glowing bottle.
"That's one," he growled, smoke pouring out of his mouth. Giggling, he turned and made his way further down the alley. He hid the glowing bottle inside his overcoat, then extracted another bottle, filled with dark liquid. Tilting his head, he gulped down half its contents. The figure's shadow on the alley wall shrank and melted at the outlines slightly, leaving a man's shadow. Bradshaw had been right, the texts in that lair had been very useful. The being currently stalking the East End alley had developed a new version of his formula which he could drink without injection. Not only that, but he'd discovered re-imbibing it in his creature form returned him to human form. Wrapping his long overcoat tighter round himself, the silver-haired man approached the waiting carriage at the alley's exit, and climbed in. The red-eyed man's corpse in the driver's seat, reanimated by black magics though fresher than the lair's guard corpses, whipped the horses and the carriage took off.
Though the man in the carriage still used the name Dr. Jekyll when dropping and picking certain clients as part of his hard work to become the Royal Physician; he didn't really feel he deserved the name anymore. That charitable man of decency, if he'd ever been real, had died when he'd first used his dark potion, as far as the silver-haired man was concerned. He preferred a name he could associate with his dark alter-ego's first several killings, one which the fair his beloved had overseen for her coronation also coincided with. He preferred the name Mr. Hyde.
A/N: So people are aware, if I reply to a review I'll usually do so in the A/N when I post a new chapter – look there if there's nothing in your PM.
As you can probably guess from this chapter, I lean more towards the original good-evil duality, losing-control portrayal of Jekyll and Hyde in Robert Louis Stevenson's book, rather than The London Assignment's portrayal of Jekyll and Hyde both being evil and controlling their transformations.
Please R&R and tell me what you think.