The situation with the Bride - whom you will see once again very soon - was also inspired by the meeting between the doctor and his creation. :)

Chapter Nine

The Tomb Meeting

Lily had called them while they were both in the hospital; well, Dan, but Meg came over to the police station of all places where Jake was being held. Dressed in a black sweatshirt and gray jeans, she walked up to the desk. "Excuse me?" she asked. "Megan Halsey. I'm here to see Dr. Stevens and Dr. West."

"Oh, Miss Halsey." She turned around to see the source of the voice who called her. He was an older man who put on more weight than her father ever did in his life, but this one, however, seemed like more trouble and with less heart than Alan Halsey despite his custom-ridden, narrow mind. "Lt. Chapham. Your friends are back through here if you would follow me."

Meg frowned the whole time as she followed him down the hall to one of the interrogation rooms, but they stopped along the way to have a quick peek in one of the tending rooms...where she saw Jake strapped down to a table facedown as his back wound and behind one of his knees were cared for, bullets extracted. Lily had told her briefly that he'd come to the house drunk and attacked her for leaving him, even accused her of sleeping with Herbert, but Meg knew there was more than just that and that Lily would tell her eventually when they were alone.

Add in the fact Jake reacted violently, howling more loudly and like a woman than she remembered hearing him. To know he had sex with his assistant and was enough for his wife to walk in on them...it still sickened her, and Lily had the right to leave him. He had no right to barge into Dan's house to try and kill her and Herbert. As much as she didn't want to admit it, he deserved what he got when Lily took advantage and shot him in the back.

But for him to die of the wound and West to do what he did best...now she was afraid. If the medics discovered that the wounds hadn't healed, they were bound to find out. Which meant all four of them were in trouble eventually. And this shady lieutenant leading her away and in the direction where Lily and West were - she knew he was going to be trouble.

"She shot her husband," Chapham was explaining to her as he opened the door and let her walk in first. "Said he was drinking and attacked her and Dr. West, to which we ran alcohol and blood tests, and found traces." She tried her hardest not to show it, but she saw Herbert remain rigid and stoic as ever as he regarded the man in the room with them, and Lily was trying her hardest to remain calm and composed.

"How...is he?" Lily asked softly, her voice squeaky as a mouse's.

Chapham chuckled, but it wasn't a nice one. "He'll be fine, Doctor, but I have to say it was a miracle he survived that bullet. A shot like that to the spine would have killed him, which is exactly what his doctor here for the time being is trying to figure out. So, in the meantime, we'll keep him here."

Meg looked back to the other two at the table; well, West stood while Lily sat there with her shaky hands wrapped around her cup of water. Looking back up at Chapham, she saw the man's face studying her like a vulture looking out for dead prey. "I also understand there was a misunderstanding that led to all of this."

Lily spoke up in defense. "He was unfaithful to me, Lieutenant," she spat. "I walked in on him - coming home from work last week - pounding into his secretary from the animal shelter he works. He cheated on me because he wasn't ready to be a father."

"Hmm. I didn't suppose reporting it would have been a bad idea."

Meg fired up at that, and good thing Herbert was there before her. "Would either of you or your colleagues have believed her and taken her side firsthand?" he asked crudely. "Now, Lieutenant, if you are done with your questions for the day, Miss Halsey and I would love nothing more than to take Dr. Stevens home after all of this."

Chapham glared at him but gave no response to the retort. "I don't see why not," he said instead, then refocused on Lily. "But we'll be in touch if anything changes in your husband's behavior." Though, he was not meant to be warm and inviting towards her as he tried to make himself out to be. Meg could see right through him, and Herbert more.

"Wife-beater," he hissed to them both as soon as they were out of the station. "He's no better than Jake."

"He knows we're hiding something," Lily whispered nervously, wrapping her arms around herself. Night was beginning to fall, the sky turning colors again. "I'm afraid now. For the baby, myself...for all of you."

"We'll be fine," Meg tried to assure her, but even she doubted that herself. She pulled Lily closer to her to try and comfort her; she was still shivering. "Let's just get you back to the house; Dan won't be home for a while, again. Herbert, do you have to be back at the hospital?"

"Not tonight," he answered. "But there is something I must do. You take her home and I'll see you both soon." He turned and headed off in the opposite direction. Meg and Lily watched him go, the former knowing that this had to do with that "demonic female" the people around them were talking about.

~o~

Herbert had made "her" for a reason: to be astonished in a fascinated manner, not to be cringed upon, but now he knew the mistake he made and wouldn't repeat it again. No reports of physical injury, but he had to put a stop to her, yet the memory of how she treated him, her Maker, in the lab was different from the way Lily had treated her. Of course, Lily had been the one to start it all; she'd called her a monster, which caused HER to retaliate and flee from the only place she'd known.

Which was Herbert's plan: to bring her back to the house for the time being but keep her and Lily as far apart as possible. However, Lily was so hell-bent on getting rid of her that it would be too difficult. In other words, Herbert had to be the one to finish his creation off.

Sometimes, he wondered how he could tolerate Lily in the future. She was always there for him, she supported him unlike any other woman, but at the same time, she tried talking him out of certain things in his work no different than her cousin had. But she was there to root him to reality, and this was a reality he was willing to face just for her. Add in the fact she would be living with him now once her cousin moved out with his bride-to-be. Just her, him, and the baby.

Thinking that made him almost lose track of his task while Herbert walked the lonely streets of Arkham as the sky darkened and the wind picked up, but his coat was bundled up around him to prevent the chills. His revolver was tucked safely into his coat's confides; she wouldn't harm him since it was he who loved her and made her. Well, he used to love her until she nearly harmed both Lily and her child. Arkham had danger lurking in every corner, so why not with this one he searched high and low for? Herbert then heard a noise to his side and found himself facing a deserted, darkened alleyway, scoffing to himself. Too stereotypical with these things; there was always a dark alley thought to be empty only to hide frightening people and things, but Herbert West wasn't afraid of anything other than death itself.

"Show yourself," he called out, proud that his voice remained steady, reaching for his weapon in his pocket at the same time.

He took his step in there only to be yanked by his jacket collar and shoved against the wall, his skull smashing into the brick wall, his vision whitening, and then he felt his body go weak. The last thing he remembered seeing before he went out was the face he had been looking for but couldn't respond because his conscious mind was slowly fading away.

~o~

She didn't know who she was, because this man who made her didn't give her a name. She hadn't been born the same way as these other "humans", as they were called, according to what she'd found in this place filled with things called "books" which she spent most of her days and nights learning about on her own and picking up fast. Her vocabulary, as it was also called, was gathering new words every day faster than her Maker had given her before, even though she was a fast learner from him...Herbert West.

If all other humans and he had names, why hadn't he named her? The one he made and loved? She'd read in a book that human men and women mated together in an act called "sex", the details of their bodies greatly explained for her to understand faster than a baby produced from it and took so many years to process. That hadn't been her birth; no, Herbert made her from different parts of different women who died when they shouldn't have. He gave her a chance to live and be happy.

Happy...a wonderful word of choice, she thought as she looked down at the sweet face of the man who cherished her, who lay peacefully asleep on the stone slab of the tomb they were in. She'd brought him unconscious to Christchurch Cemetery and into one of the abandoned centuries' old tombs, also from the books. Tombs and cemeteries were places which dead people were taken and buried after their lives ran out. No, this wasn't for her, but this housed others like her which shouldn't exist. But she did exist because he wanted her to; he didn't want her to be out in the world, and now she knew why. The world hated her because she was nothing like them. She was all but these words used to label people, things like her: wretched...miserable...hideous...and above all, abominable.

Herbert, however, did not call her that. She towered over him as she surveyed him in sleep. His skin was soft as the moonlight pouring in through the window, hair black as the sky, though his watchful eyes were closed and covered by these things called glasses - for those whose eyes could not see well. The origin of terrible eyesight was unknown, but some people were born with it. However, it made her Maker all the more magnificent than any man she'd glimpsed from afar. A man with his genius deserved more than the big, strong men that women fawned over like whimpering puppies. She brought one of her maimed hands, though still delicate as he often called them, to caress the side of his face. His skin...so soft, but so cold...he moaned under her touch and stirred lightly. Oh, his voice which was so heavenly and soft, speaking such powerful phrases and chilling his enemies to their bones. She hissed when she thought of that fire-haired woman who called her ugly and took him from her. That she-devil was the only target she could think of who stood in her way.

Herbert stirred again, this time coming out of his sleep. From more reading, she'd learned how to make a fire, so she'd taken fallen wood and twigs to create one in this room if not a large one to gather unwanted attention from the cemetery caretaker or anyone visiting a loved one's grave at this hour. She left him there and went to sit on the other side, watching as Herbert opened his eyes to see where he was now, blinking and reaching up to remove his glasses and rub his eyeballs before putting them back on, turning his attention finally onto her. She smiled at him, but he didn't.

Now she knew that something in him changed while they were apart.

~o~

His head was pounding; if he were back at the house, he would have asked Lily for Aspirin, but he was in one of the tombs that he'd entered for the recent trophies he could find...and now seeing the "woman" he was looking for. Sitting up and wincing, Herbert found himself face-to-face with his creation Lily had shunned.

She was still both beautiful and horrible at the same time, and he couldn't help but feel guilty at never naming her, which he was sure would be one of the things she wanted to "discuss" with him. And what surprised him was the sight of the fire that she made by her own hands. How did she learn to do that? It amazed him that she'd appeared to have gotten smarter without his help...but the smarter you got, the more dangerous it would become. Herbert met her eyes then, detecting bitter anguish, disdain...and loneliness. She was alone in the world and called horrible things by those she tried to socialize with. She was sure to blame Lily for that.

"What would you like me to call you?" he asked her.

She laughed then, a magical yet harsh sound. "Is that all you can ask me as a start of our reunion, Herbert West?"

He laughed with her. So, her vocabulary had improved; that was a terrific start. And now that Herbert thought of it, there was one name he could think of. "How does 'Eve' sound?"

Her face had scrunched up at first before it softened at the meaning and origin behind the name. "Eve...the first woman created by the almighty God to mate with his first man, Adam - both of whom had two sons: Cain and Abel, the former who murdered his brother. Eve who was tempted by the Serpent to taste the exquisite pleasure of the Forbidden Fruit, whose name means 'life'." Herbert's heart swelled with pride before the reality of his mission returned to him.

"Please, you've been alone all this time. I came to beg for you to come home with me, where you belong."

"Eve" stared at him, surprised, blinking once before shaking her head slowly side to side. "I will not go back. Not to that horrid woman."

"Lily doesn't understand you," Herbert tried to reason. "She doesn't know you like I do." He loathed lying to her; he was many things, but a liar wasn't one of them. Except that time with Rufus the cat; animals were never his favorite things, just irritating. "I can try and convince her to love you like I do."

Her mouth twitched until it was curled into a snarl. "You don't love me as much as I love you, Dr. West. I can see it in your eyes, and I can smell it off your body underneath your clothes that do well to hide it all."

Herbert's face burned at the comparison about his body, even more that she could see right through him. He was right; getting all the more intelligent was a danger for some, unlike himself who knew better. And her professing her love for him when she never vocalized it that way before...he'd known it when he looked into her eyes, but not now. And for that, he was now convinced he was a magnet for what Daniel called "fatal attraction". But he still had to try and save his own skin. "Because you've been such a bad girl, trying to kill an innocent human being..."

"Innocent," she spat. "You call calling me ugly innocent?"

"It's a word any person can use," he stated. "So, please, get to the reason why you brought me to a place I could run to anytime I feel."

Eve calmed down once more, but who knew for how long. "I will start with how I found refuge in the woods before I came to a wonderful place where I began to expand my intelligence without any of your help."

"You were at the library." Herbert laughed and shook his head. "I should have guessed. I'd have thought you'd be seen and reported sooner than that."

She continued, undaunted. "I spent my days and nights there, learning everything about the human ways of life: how the line is drawn between good and evil. How there are humans who love and others who hate...but the good is overshadowed by greedy ones." Her eyes flared up with fire that was further illuminated by the makeshift in between them. "I understand how they mate and bring more into the world with their own bodies, but I feel there needs to be more love rather than hate and cynicism." Herbert whistled with impression at her ability to use words bigger than her once-dead brain. "Man hates other men because of appearances and the inability to see heart. I see bliss in others around me, but I suffer, and it is because of being called a monster I act like the fiend I'm seen as."

She stopped right there to look him in the eyes. Herbert had his own glued on her the whole time, seeing and feeling her anguish, but at the same time, the right deed had to be done. He'd never labeled anything, but it never hurt to make a rare exception. There was a pregnant and newly widowed woman back home waiting for him, waiting for him to finish what he'd done nearly on his own. "I want to be happy, Herbert. I deserve it. You and I...we were happy until she came."

"Lily," he whispered, lowering his eyes then and staring at the pale golden flames ready to die in a matter of time.

"She separated us. Come away and be with me, Herbert. Just you and I."

He looked up to see that she had stood and walked around the fire, reaching out with both hands for him to take and stand with her. He did, but no longer did Herbert feel that magical moment he had in the last months with her in the basement; never did he then resort to what he shared with Lily the first time since that horrible night at the hotel in Zurich. That night between him and Dan's cousin was pure bliss, and he felt so alive that he wanted to study life more and more in order to help him in a new direction for his work.

And this...this was wrong. Herbert shook his head and pulled his hands away. "We can't be together, Eve, because...we are two different people. I'm alive and you..."

Eve's face contorted hideously again, and she stepped back with a snarl. "You feel to chose a woman more like you. You loved me...you MADE me..."

"I did love you!" Herbert shouted, his control of his emotions losing hold. "I loved you until you became what I never dreamed of."

She screamed angrily and turned away from him, tugging at her hair in heartbreak and frustration, spinning around in a circle, the gauzy dress swirling around her to highlight her goddess-form before she stopped and fixed her wildcat gaze on him, raising an accusing finger at him. "I will give you until the start of the last of two months to come to make up your mind...and I will come for you, Herbert. We belong together."

His heart was pounding. His friends were now in danger, and this was all his doing. He tried to think of a response before she was on him again, and her powerful hand was clasped around his neck, cutting off his air supply as she dragged him up the stairs of the tomb until they reached the gated door, and she shoved him out into precious life air and soft grass. "Two months - no more and no less," she said coldly, glaring down at him; Herbert did the same, rolling onto his back and sitting to look up at her as she stood there, a ghostly apparition amid the darkness of the resting place, the bloody exposures being the perfect beauty work. "I swear that to you and to the repulsive God who condemned failures like me."

Herbert had no time to reply to that when she slammed the gates and locked them fantastically behind her.

Frankenstein's monster is a real sympathetic creature as his maker should have LOVED him; it seemed that much on the same level with Herbert and the Bride, now "Eve". :D

I don't know why - and this isn't the first time either - but something itches me that I might have heard somewhere else that Dan used the phrase "fatal attraction" to Herbert, but it's probably nothing. I have this feeling sometimes that you just never know.