This is it, the moment you all have been waiting for. :D The Groom complete. As for one of my favorite authors, Ridley160, thank you for introducing me to the idea which gave me this in the first place, from the story "Possession", which explores the relationship of Herbert and Dan on a darker level than normal - and which I had a hard time at first not making too similar either. It was a challenge to not make the construction of this man from different parts too much like yours.

Chapter Seventeen

Anatomy of a Groom

All was well. All was going according to plan. Carl Hill laughed to himself as he stared at his reflection in the mirror of the old, abandoned house he had returned to, which hadn't been put up for sale, thank God, right after Wilbur Graves was forced to give him his body. All it took to get the mindless fool to cooperate was applying the right amount of pressure to his cracking, feeble mind with the ultimate seduction: if he gave Carl a new body, Hill in return would give him the woman he pined for but never got.

None other than Meg. HIS Meg.

To think that the old weakling had his eyes out for the woman who was Carl's and Carl's alone made him sick to his bowels. No one, not even West, was allowed to touch Meg but him. He knew Cain had his share prior, and it only served to fuel his desire all the more. Hill couldn't get Graves to assist him in his quest for revenge, nor could he get out those other three locked up in the Sefton ward at the hospital just yet, and his mental powers still intact after all this time couldn't work on a living human being. So there had been only one thing to do: the ultimate seduction in granting him the desire for whatever he wanted, and it was Meg.

Graves clearly had no idea who the beautiful Meg Halsey belonged to, nor did he ever stop to consider it. He was brainless as well as he was on the fact that dead was dead. He dared, even when he didn't realize it, go as far as to even think he could have a life with Meg. No, once Carl got what was his, Graves would be out of the picture. But death would be all too easy, so he'd settled on having him locked up in his autopsy room, banging against the door and wailing nonsensical things that a madman would utter. No one believed him that Dr. Carl Hill was alive, and if the finding had been delayed any further, Graves would have been dead from shock if not from starvation. To think of the mental midget as a quivering shell of who he was did funny things to his mind that he couldn't stop laughing.

There was one man, and one man only, that Carl wanted dead for sure. West, the rat monkey who stole the woman who had been the subject of his fantasies for as long as he had seen her grow up. No woman in his life lasted long enough for their own reasons, but with Megan, his esteemed colleague's loving young daughter whom he looked after since the death of poor Marianne, whom he had often told could come to with her troubles…it had all been different. Carl could very much see him finally having her once Cain disappeared, and once he had made a great "breakthrough" with West's extension of his mentor's work – West would have been put away once Carl had become FAMOUS and took it all, as he'd done to poor old Gruber.

Any cadaver that hadn't been claimed by a relative, as Hill learned, had to be incinerated in the crematorium adjacent to Graves' pathology lab, gone within moments so nothing went to waste. Carl had been lucky enough to receive the one belonging to a decapitation victim – the man had lost his head due to a broken glass window taking his head clean off – which Graves had convinced his equally idiotic student assistant that he would handle for him. Carl remembered smiling with relish as he watched the dark fool – he wasn't racist, no, but it was true in its form – and fantasized about reuniting with Meg and finishing Herbert West off once and for all. But the pain of muscles and tendon sewed and bone driven with a rod was so excruciating that Carl thought his brain would explode.

Now he gazed at himself in the mirror of his bedroom; his old property in the woods just outside of the town hadn't been ransacked, thank God. If there was a God above, then Carl Hill was living proof that he hated this part of his ugliest children, not that he had ever been a believer. The only visible proof that he had once been a detached head was the ugly scar around his neck, stitched in plain sight and in tiny sutures that had been taken with extra care. He knew Meg would flinch and shy away, but in time she would grow to love him despite how he was now. The morgue had only been the beginning, but he would not force her into things this time. He would go to her in a civilized manner and politely ask her to come with him…

…using West and everything they held dear to keep her shackled to him. She would not get out of it so easily.

We must make haste. Carl's psychic mind reached out to the other four he knew were still around, whom he stopped by late the night he locked Graves in his special place – the two unnamed ones, one skinny and bearded and the other black, as well as Lt. Chapham's wife, who was still trying to kill her abusive husband and it amused Carl to no end. It had been luck that he'd discovered the police lieutenant who knew the truth and got himself in too deep with the sharks for it, and planned the break-out of the lieutenant's wife and the other two, kill anyone else who got in their paths in order to come all the way out here and begin the plan of attack. It wouldn't be hard to get the current location of Meg and West, thanks to Lt. Chapham.

West took what was mine…and he put all of you in further pain than you were before. It's time to take back what is rightfully ours. Tonight is the time.

~o~

Herbert had told her to go home for the rest of the day; she didn't want to, but their employers agreed that she ought to take the rest of the day off and have some peace for herself. After changing into a red blouse that opened to reveal a t-shirt, dark jeans, and sneakers, putting her hair up and her minimal jewelry, Meg took a cab home and left the car for Herbert, for fear if she drove home herself in the state she was in, she would wind up in wreckage. The whole ride until she was dropped off at a stop just a few blocks from the cemetery, and the walk the rest of the way, taking a path through the burial ground itself and no encounter from the beast missing an arm – YET – getting home without trouble and happily greeted by Éclair, who jumped into her arms with a meow of relief that one of his owners was home. Mm, it felt good to have a warm, living form of contact that wasn't a person for a change. "Hey, boy," Meg cooed as she carried him into the living room, dropping her purse down onto the table and her backside onto the loveseat, holding him up lovingly and looking into his green eyes. "Just you and me for a while." She sighed. "Now that my first ever true friend is gone, and I won't ever see her again."

Her heart cracked into thousands upon thousands of pieces as the memory of Francesca's hateful words rang into her mind, calling her a FREAK and a BITCH. Those accursed words would haunt her for a very long time. She blamed Herbert for this. He just couldn't resist continuing his doodles of tests with parts other than those of their guy, resting downstairs and waiting for the final touch. Her other half tried to tell her that he did it to give Francesca her pet back, but she didn't see it that way, and the violent way Angel reacted towards her with Chapham's human hand attached to where the lieutenant tore off his leg had been the last straw.

And so was losing Daniel today. His loss would, too, haunt her dreams forever. Life was so cruel. And meaningless. He'd died before she could tell him she loved him. Now it's too late.

"I'm sorry, Daniel…" Meg whispered, lying on her back with Éclair still in her arms, his motor purring as she continued to stroke him and held him close. When she did, she found herself staring at both rings from both Daniels – the rose-gold diamond band from the first whose heart was waiting to be injected with the elixir of life, and the blazing one the other one gave her when he told her he loved her. The image of herself cutting off the sternum the wrong way made her want to die herself, hating herself for not noticing the flat lines first right away, so much blame she wanted to put on someone else for letting him die…but Herbert DID try his best to save his life…Meg closed her eyes and hoped she would never wake up from her nap.

Sadly, her wish was never granted. A hand shook her out of her stupor sometime later, and by then the sun was setting. The smell of hot, creamy potato soup filled her nostrils. "I take it you haven't eaten yet? That isn't good for you. Nourishment is important."

"Says the one who still doesn't take care of himself," Meg shot back as she sat up and took the cup from him. Her stomach rumbled. Blowing on the soup, she took a small sip and lifted both her eyes when Herbert responded smartly as he would.

"I do happen to take care of myself now, Megan, but there are times you don't look for yourself." He shook his head. "But this isn't about me. I would ask how you are right now, but I know the answer."

Well, that served better than the dumb question itself. "Thanks."

He leaned up and pressed a kiss to her forehead. She didn't fight back; she didn't have much of any in her at the present. "Eat up and get your strength back, or whatever you can get back. We got work to do soon, and I don't want to hear any complaints."

Meg stared after him, shock and anger mingled to form a fire in her core. She had lost yet another patient earlier, and he was telling her to get down to the lab when she didn't feel like it? Well, it wasn't like she had much of a choice. Herbert only expected her to go along with him, and their man needed to be finished…

Her anger and grief forgotten the sooner she happened upon the thought of their man, Meg quickly finished her soup and brought the cup into the kitchen to rinse off and put away, hurrying for the door and the stairs leading down to the lab, where Herbert waited for her with a surprised expression that he had not expected her sooner than thought; nevertheless, he nodded and led her over to where the construction of parts, all their hard work that had been paid off but needed two more touches – the injection of re-agent into Dan's heart as decided, counting now as the final resort – was put together and patiently awaiting their master's grand finale. "Now, Meg," Herbert said, speaking as though he were talking to a small child who needed to hear him out, and it irritated her mildly, "I'm going to need your help with this one, you understand? This is the last piece…and this is for you, too."

A head…he has a head… Meg had a sick feeling in her gut, the nervous terror rushing through her system as Herbert began to draw back the white fabric covering the ultimate part, but the sooner the face of its former owner was revealed…everything crashed down here and then. "Daniel! Oh, God…" Meg felt her body give way and nearly collapsed from shock, but hands and a body prevented her from hitting the concrete floor.

"Meg, don't quit on me now, please," Herbert begged. "It's going to take the two of us to fuse the brain to the spinal cord…"

"NO!" Meg shouted, trying to draw back. No, I refuse to take part in putting the head of the man we lost only today together with this assembly of morbid –

Herbert held her in place and shook her once last time, out of her thoughts, out of all rational thought altogether. "LOOK!" He looked behind him briefly and then back to her, speaking more softly now. "Look what we've done. Dan's heart is going to beat again. Think about it now: others dare not dream what we are about to do."

She was no longer looking at him but found herself absorbing his words as she took in the sight of what they did together…yes. She felt as though she were falling under a spell, bewitched on sight. The complete body was covered with sheer, gossamer fabrics to prevent airborne germs from overtaking any of the skin, muscle, and other tissues; the limbs were elevated off the table by hooks attached to the metal braces and wiring going up to the ceiling. But minus the exposed areas of red muscles over the front of the feet, above the legs and between the lower abdomen, the backs of both hands and above the arms, and finally down the front of the torso – the result of the surgical insertion of the heart itself with the rest of the internal organs installed – it was…magnificent. A true work of art, soon to be what they had been trying to create: a living human being. Her rational self started screaming at her that the serpent was luring her into the forbidden realm, but she shoved it down. She'd taken so many steps down that path that it was too late to turn back now.

"Meg." Herbert was now at the foot of the table, drawing back the section covering the feet. He placed his hands on the toes of both of them, tenderly and carefully as though fearing breaking them off. "The feet of a young professional dancer, who ended his life when he lost his ambition." He was starting from the bottom up, explaining the anatomy of the thing soon to be called a man. Drawing back the gauze over the legs from both sides to reveal them, muscled and shining to perfection but displaying dark outlines of veins from lack of life and flowing blood, his tone took on a more somber tone, more than last time.

"These legs supported a body of incredible strength. You remember the bodybuilder who collapsed from heart failure and resulted in a weight crushing him to finish the job? Think of what strength these legs had to run with such vigor and energy, how many women they would wrap around or be touched by…"

Just like Dan's, Meg thought. Those nights they had at his house were either his strong thighs wrapped around her waist, or her legs around his…so faint now, but the magical feeling was bringing forth that feeling that Herbert had helped her rekindle in their times together. "What was the value of his life," Herbert went on, spitting the rest out contemptuously, "to end up being picked apart by the likes of Dr. Graves and his bumbling students?"

Yes, he was right. The man didn't deserve to die the way he did. Now his legs were put to better use; Meg was tempted to run her hands along the left thigh since it was close enough to her as possible, wanting to touch the smooth but dead flesh, but Herbert had moved on to the next part.

"And here: the torso, pelvic, and genital areas of a model, taken away tragically in a car crash…and above all, struck down before tasting the pleasures of life. Remember?"

He was looking at her, expecting an answer from her, but Meg couldn't talk. She was too preoccupied with where his hand rested, on the lower stomach, close to touching the area that classified the being as male, which would have made her laugh if she wasn't so distracted. The torso, so much as her Dan's had been, a perfect example of pure masculinity, the pelvic area defined without the bones protruding, and the patch of dark hair a relatively small amount. The former owner kept himself perfect not only for the show but for himself and prepared to have a real woman…only to have that opportunity ripped from him. Her cheeks flushed heat.

"Oohhh, I know what you are thinking." Herbert's voice was little more than a droning purr now, a mildly disturbing sound that made her want to shrink away. Even more so was the way he ran his palm gently over the planes of the chest without directly touching it. "His skin, if it were alive, so soft…so warm…but so cold, in death."

The warning bells were on right away. The way he spoke of their man's skin sounded as though he were coaxing her, testing her. Why would he be doing that? Did he actually want her to mate with this "person"? Nothing made sense anymore, but Meg hoped she would sort this out once the re-agent gave life to Dan's heart and let it run its course. She wanted to feel HIS warm skin again…and then there was that second part telling her that a living man was right there, the one she'd been with all this time, whom she had a kind of love-hate relationship with, carried his child, and was just as responsible with the "criminal" activity as much as he was…

"The arms of the same bodybuilder." Those arms…so strong, so toned, capable of picking up a girl and carrying her, or simply holding and making her feel safe and secure… "And the hands of the lawyer, winning the case only to be assassinated by a supporter of the guilty." He scoffed and shook his head.

"But they're all equal now. Nothing but cast-off remnants of a meaningless existence."

Just like this one here, Meg thought as she looked at the face of the man who died all too recently. The man who looked like the man she loved in another life, whose heart rested within the chest of the Calvin Klein model, that strong, beautiful body that didn't deserve to be left to rot in the earth…you're getting too into this, girl; get your head together… But she ignored the other voice in her head. "Even him," she whispered, reaching to gently touch the brow, the pad of her finger briefly flicking upon cold, hard flesh.

Herbert's eyes were on her, dark and unreadable, which wasn't a good sign, yet she didn't know why. "Oh, yes, how handsome is that face. He…was…special." He spoke each word with a slow, dramatic pause.

"Yes," Meg agreed, her voice barely audible to her ears.

"Just…dead tissue," Herbert murmured, gazing back at the face of Daniel Adams. "Dead tissue, repulsed and cast away without a care. But in our hands…" He held both of his hands – delicate and pale but strong to tear apart fragments of the failures of re-animation that dared attack him – in a gesture of absolute power. He had declared himself a God, in place of the one he strongly did not believe in. "It's the clay of life," he whispered, placing them on either side of the triangular red, muscle-bound section down the front of the chest.

"Within this chest…Dan's heart will beat again."

Meg felt it then: that giddy feeling she assumed was how Herbert felt every time with an experiment, and it both frightened her and excited her at the same time. She decided that she couldn't – wouldn't – leave Herbert. Ever. Not after everything they'd been through. He was right because look at what they'd done, with this MAGNIFICENT creation between the two of them. Daniel Adams' head needed to be attached and finish the project…and Daniel Cain's heart deserved to beat a second chance at life. Meg could feel all the emotions she had once felt for him returning to her in a flood. What's dead will NOT stay dead.

Without another minute to waste, she marched over to the nearby tray and grabbed her own set of operating gloves…and snapped them on, much to the pleasure of Herbert, who gave a brief nod of appraisal. "Good. Let's get to work."

~o~

She drove the car down the street with great speed but at the same time did her best to keep under the limit so she would not wind up getting a ticket for the violation. Her heart pounded so loud that she thought she would die in a crash. Meg and West are my only hopes left.

What happened at the hospital not too long ago was a massacre; so many people had been killed – by the three escaped crazies from the Sefton ward, led by Lt. Chapham. No one stood a chance, there was blood all over the walls left behind, and it was a miracle that she'd managed to get away. Until the lieutenant found her and tried to come onto her and kill her as he did her precious Angel. She remembered making sure that no one was around, from her hiding place in the janitor's closet – or so she'd thought – before the lieutenant came out of nowhere and pushed her up against the wall, tried strangling her as he told her that Meg and West "did this to me…and they'll pay!" Francesca should have guessed that his "investigation" all along had been illegal, going against the book that the case of the Miskatonic Massacre – now this being a second she could count – wasn't closed after all, and he didn't care if he got blood on his hands to solve it.

Meg was still her best friend no matter what, yet West was still full of mysteries and unlimited danger. She remembered back in Peru when she saw him, through a crack in the curtain, shooting a patient that was trying to kill him, and those lizards he barked at her to stay away from. So many questions included what he and Megan had been up to. Perhaps it was best to find them and explain later. They had vengeful "crazies" on their tails.

~o~

Running the miniature flashlight over the exposed, slick, and shiny collage of muscles, the brain stem attached to the spinal cord as well as the windpipe where the neck was connected to the skull, one last time, Herbert nodded for Meg to bring over the very thin paper sheet soaked full of re-agent from the cauldron of the largest batch he'd ever made in the last several weeks – more was better than not enough after all – and laid it over the neck muscles, the same procedure applying in which the muscles and tendons were kept flexible and supported, like the various patches of skin. The metal braces over the shoulders, driven through bone and meat, aided in keeping the head and neck intact.

"Well," Herbert spoke once they were finished, laying the flashlight back on the tray, mildly infuriated with the condition of the tissue cells of the various other connected body parts apart from the head, once called Daniel Adams, "if it had always been as fresh as the head, but…" He inhaled softly, then exhaled. "I think we're ready, Meg."

"Good."

She had spoken it almost too eagerly. So enthusiastic that it invoked a primitive fire in Herbert that burst his bubble for the last time. It seemed that after all this time, he would find now the safest time to label this as…she didn't want to wait any longer than they had done. She was ready to have her lover come back to her. There was no other way to explain it, as they drew the gauze back over the head; the dark hair had become a tousled mass in the process of fusing the brain to the spinal cord. Herbert pursed his lips tightly. Yes…I think that will do. Now it's time. "We start with the heart." He picked up the syringe of re-agent, feeling that familiar excitement he always got with an experiment despite the usual results. This time was different; this one would outshine any of his predecessors.

There was the distant rumble of thunder to be heard outside, and the lamp over them flickered off for a moment, leaving the only source of light to be the needle in his hand, an eerie glow of green as an omen of impending "doom". Then the light overhead returned to life.

"And God created man…" He was about to plunge the needle directly into the heart, resting beneath the cold, dead chest when Meg's hand on his arm stopped him abruptly. He looked up at her, shocked.

Herbert wasn't sure if the simple action ceasing him from this long-awaited opportunity caused his reaction, or the look in both Meg's eyes and on her face as she offered, "Let me."

He handed the re-agent to her without a word. She was eyeing it, as she took it into both hands, the same way Eve may have studied the Apple before taking a bite and tasting the forbidden pleasure that followed. Herbert felt like his world had come crashing down as it officially set it, no matter how hard he tried denying it.

Her placing her hand over the marble chest, but not much longer for the frozen lungs would soon take their first breaths of air and deploy it again, sealed it all. As did her plunging of the needle into the chest's opened midsection. Herbert would not show it to her, but as he watched her stick the serum into Daniel's heart, he felt his own break in half. He saw it all now, for sure this time, and he had been right all along: Meg did not love him. She would never fully move on from her dead lover; all his attempts to get her to forget the past had been in vain. The only man she ever loved was Dan Cain.

You DID do this for her, his inner voice reminded him. You used Danny's heart to lure her back, to keep her from leaving. You did everything you could, everything to prevent her from abandoning you. You've made a new Dan for her, so don't get all down on yourself, Herbert.

He wanted terribly to say yes, but he didn't have it in himself, instead keeping his focus on Meg taking the needle out of the chest of their creation. He could already sense it coursing through the still blood in the veins of this special inception. Once, all of these parts were independent, now established as one equal form. But one particular part made it so superior. So masterful, so exquisite.

He forced his thoughts to the back of his mind, getting back to the real matter at hand. "Time?" When Meg didn't answer, he repeated, "Time?"

"Fifteen seconds."

The heart was a much more complex structure than the nervous system, which meant the larger the building, the longer it took to get around. Even with the Cuzco iguana's amniotic fluids. After some time passed, which felt like forever, Meg spoke again. She had moved in the wait around to the head of the table, placing both hands on the side corners as she looked down at the face of their new Dan. Emotions of all sorts flooded her face. Eagerness. Elation. Impatience. "Three minutes, fifteen seconds."

Herbert shook his head and took his gloves off. "It's going to take time." He had applied the stethoscope to the heart, detecting no beat as of yet. His impatience was beginning to take its toll on him…and it exploded like oblivion when the buzzer sounded. "DAMN IT!" he roared, throwing the stethoscope down. "Not now!" Who the hell could be at the door at this untimely hour when they were in the middle of the moment they had waited for? Whoever it was, Herbert was going to give whoever it was something to think about. If Chapham had returned, then he was armed. Fastening his tool belt around, revolver packed, he strode out of the lab and up the stairs, not stopping till he got to the front door.

He paused right there, drawing his gun at the same time as he slowly, cautiously, pushed the curtain over the glass window of the door aside to see who it was…and growled viciously when he saw who it was. Francesca! Opening the door and putting his weapon away, Herbert clenched his jaw at her. "What are you doing here?"

Her face was uneasy and frightened; it aroused his suspicions that she must have encountered Lt. Chapham once again and got away unscathed a second time. "They're coming."

Aww, poor Herbert. :( He's more human than anyone thinks, and so misunderstood. Yup, we're getting hot now. ;D Up next: "Dan" awakens, and in swarms Hill and his army of freaks.