!Warning: M (16)-rated themes: Violence, blood.

– IXXX –

Into The Abyss

Doctor Henry Jekyll had not felt this exhausted ever before in his life. Completely dizzy, as in trance, he dragged himself up the stairs to his sitting room, collapsing on the sofa, where he fell into a fitful doze. But sleeping did nothing to restore his health. On the contrary, when he woke after only an hour or two, his head was spinning even more – and he remembered even less what he had been doing the previous night!

As it seemed, abstinence from his elixir did not lead to a cure from these dreadful symptoms. Apparently, there was no other way than to inject himself again, was there? Fumbling the nearly empty phial from his pocket with trembling fingers, Jekyll held it up into the light, green reflections wildly dancing before his eyes, forming enchanting, kaleidoscope-like patterns. How much beauty there was in this little vessel, the beauty of science, of boundless, infinite knowledge! Bewitched by the verdant fairy of his own formula, Henry could do nothing but draw up a syringe again and instil himself the last drops of the salvational serum.

Mere minutes after the injection, Lord Hyde was himself again, thinking straight again. Immediately, without further consideration, he knew what to do next: He had to synthesise more serum, before the effect subsided and he would be a disoriented, scatterbrained wreck again. And so, he determinedly rose from the sofa, vigorously heading for the corridor – only to run into Mr Poole.

"My sincerest apologies, Milord..." the old man babbled, before his rheumy eyes grew wide in fright, as if he had seen a ghost. However, he did not bother giving way for his lord to descend the stairs.

"Step aside, you feckless doter!" Hyde insulted his servant, but Poole stood rooted to the ground, simply staring at him, aghast.

Suddenly, white-hot wrath overcame the choleric nobleman, boiling over, vaporising all his reason and sanity.

"I said: Out of my way!" he bellowed from the top of his lungs, then swung out with his right arm and let his fist collide with the butler's shocked face.

Blood sputtered from Poole's nose, which had surely been broken, and the old man let out a agonised cry, but that did not assuage Hyde's limitless anger. Another blow with his left to the cumbersome servant's guts, and he crouched down, doubled over with pain, then a third to his temple, causing a large laceration, and some hard kicks to his ribs – three, four, five! – until the dodderer could not clutch the banister anymore, until he fell down the stairs, somersaulting and finally collapsing at the bottom like the rattly sack of bones he was. With this atrocity accomplished, Hyde stepped over the motionless mess, eventually experiencing some gratification, before exiting his mansion.

The registry office's receptionist had, just as the British Museum's librarians, not hesitated to call the police, reporting the case of unauthorised trespassing in the morning. Since no-one had been injured, however, the inspectors had not considered it necessary to hurry, and so the intruder had already been gone when they had arrived. In the library, the police could, apart from the description the employees gave, not find any hint to the man's identity, but the stocky registry office clerk was able to tell them a name: Lord Hyde.

Already at the proper place for such a kind of research, the officers had just needed to detect the correct file to identify the perpetrator's address – they had not found it under H for Hyde at first, but the clerk had showed them a catalogue of cross references, with which they soon figured out that Hyde's family name was Jekyll and his address therefore filed under J.

With this information at hand, two constables were sent to the Hyde mansion, where they knocked and demanded entry without success. Upon scrutinising the building's surroundings, however, they found the servants' entrance to be unlocked and decided to grant themselves access – fortunately for the butler, who still lay at the bottom of the stairs in a puddle of his own blood.

The policemen acted quickly, one rendering first aid, the other calling for a doctor, but it still took almost two hours until the old man was out of danger, and, even more important, addressable.

"Sir? What's your name?" the younger constable asked.

"...Poole," the casualty replied in a weak whisper.

"Alright, Mr Poole, can you tell us what has happened here? Have you fallen down the stairs?" the other officer wanted to know.

"I... think so," was the hesitant answer from split lips.

"And do you remember what caused this accident?" the first dug deeper. "Did you stumble over the carpet?"

"No, I... got battered... and kicked," Poole mumbled under his breath.

"By whom?!" the policemen almost simultaneously enquired.

The butler's eyes were almost swollen shut, but he still managed to narrow them to slits as he named his tormentor:

"Lord Hyde."

There was no marble in the mansion's cellar. Instead, the walls were tiled in white glazed ceramic, faintly shimmering in the pale light that fell in through the staircase. Renfield had forgotten to bring a candlestick with him, but thanks to his increased sight had no problem making out his surroundings.

There was the coal room, filled up almost to the ceiling with the material that, gone up the chimneys, was blackening the sky and turning the London air into a toxic, sulphurous smog so often. The two doors next to it led to the storages where all the old furniture, dusty and cobweb-covered, was kept in just as ceiling-high piles. The fourth and last door at the end of the corridor appeared even less used, and upon opening it, Richard beheld just what he had already known to be behind: The family's art collection, or mostly the medieval sculptures Arthur's grandfather had accumulated and which, due to their rather unaesthetic nature, his heirs had then banned from the living area.

Rows of wood-carved martyrs, crucified upside down, skinned or perforated with arrows alternated with macabrely waltzing skeletons and huge, monstrous stone gargoyles. This room appeared as if it were one of the chambers of horrors in the city's entertainment districts the lower class so loved to visit for a pleasurable thrill. Had this been enough to drive Lord Godalming's already stressed mind into madness? However, after his first venture to the cellar, Arthur had written about this storage's contents just as what they were: "The ugly sculptures grandfather used to collect".

Renfield walked down the lines of shelves, rather uninterestedly scrutinising the layers of dust on five-hundred-year-old faces, contorted in holy dolour, the cobwebs spreading between grimacing hybrid creatures, composite of reptiles, bats and birds, and the shadows eerily dancing on reliefs with the depictions of just as dancing death... wait, dancing shadows? There was no source of light in this room, no lamp, no window or well, and the staircase was way too far away. How was it possible that the statues were illuminated?!

Richard's opalescent eyes flickered through the storage just as agitatedly as the shadows, searching for whatever it was that emitted this glimmer, and soon, he noticed it came from the far corner, from behind another row of shelves filled with antique crucifixes. His curiosity now fully awakened, he was drawn to the light like a moth, carefully manoeuvring his way through the pieces of art, until he had reached... well, the wall.

The dim, dancing shimmer seemed to leak right through the seams of the white tiles, forming a vertical line. As of their own, his fingers reached out for it, travelling along the cold ceramic, and he soon felt a small gap between them. Was this some sort of secret door?

Digging his nails into the crevice, he tried to somehow pry open what he had found, but without any success. He then searched for a hidden handle or lock, however, the endless lines of even tiles remained uninterrupted.

For an excruciatingly long moment he stood there, motionless, biting down on his lip and pondering what to do. He could not just walk upstairs again and pretend he had discovered nothing. Whatever had unhinged Arthur Holmwood's sanity was behind this wall, it had to be! And he needed to know what it was!

Sighing in frustration, Renfield leant against the tiles and burrowed his hands in the pockets of his robe. What a bizarre situation this was! He felt like trapped in some surreal dream and almost expected to wake up the next moment, had there not been the cold, solid ceramic in his back, supporting him... What the hell?! Richard started up from his careless position. Had the wall just moved under his weight?

Hastily, he turned around and pushed against the white barrier as hard as he could, gathering all his supernatural strength... and indeed, he was able to move a large part, almost the size of a door. Then, suddenly, he heard a creak, as if some sort of mechanism had set in, and the door slid to the side of its own, revealing a dark and narrow staircase, faintly and discontinuously illuminated by flickering light.

Victor Frankenstein let his gaze wander over the dreadful crime scene in his friend's practice one more time, before approaching the psychologist.

"Dr Seward," he addressed her.

It took her several moments to respond, for she still did not seem familiar with her own name.

"Yes, young man?" Florence said, while slowly looking up from her shoes.

"Since the inspector has no more questions, I think it is time we leave this place," Frankenstein suggested, turning to the door.

"Oh, sure," Seward nodded, but did nothing to follow him, her eyes again travelling downwards.

The physician knitted his brows in both annoyance and concern. God, it was even worse than he had at first thought!

"Please, Dr Seward, will you come with me?" he asked again in a faux gentle tone.

Finally, she took a step in his direction and by taking her arm, he was able to tow her out of the practice and down the stairs. The freezing greyness of the London streets was not helping to cheer up the exhausted physician's moods, when he took a moment to consider whereto best take his friend. As he had not much contact to patients in general, not to mention those in need of psychiatric care, he did not know many facilities specialised in mental diseases. A shiver even colder than the misty air ran down Victor's spine as he thought of Bethlem. Never ever could he commit Florence to this hellhole! Fortunately, there was another clinic he had once heard of from Vanessa Ives, not a pleasant place either, but the only one that came to his mind.

While Dr Seward was again staring at the ground, twirling her thumbs in an infantile way, Frankenstein stepped on the street, stopping a cab.

"To the Banning clinic, please!" he directed the driver, his voice hoarse with a pang of guilt.

All night long and every night,
When my mama puts out the light,
I see the people marching by,
As plain as day before my eye.

Armies and emperor and kings,
All carrying different kinds of things,
And marching in so grand a way,
You never saw the like by day.

So fine a show was never seen
At the great circus on the green;
For every kind of beast and man
Is marching in that caravan.

As first they move a little slow,
But still the faster on they go,
And still beside me close I keep
Until we reach the town of Sleep.

– R. L. Stevenson

Almost shocked, Renfield stared into another abyss, a second stairway, leading further down into the bowels of the Godalming mansion. There had been a second basement floor in this house all the time, unnoticed, even unknown to Arthur Holmwood! He did not know what would meet him down there, but he felt drawn into the gaping depth just as he was allured by the flickering light coming from there, and so, he took an uncertain step, then another, until he found himself descending in a steady pace, further and further down.

There were no white tiles down here, but black ones, causing the staircase walls to appear like the scaly skin of some demonic snake – or the toxic intestines of hell itself. The air soon became staler, colder and mouldier, while the dancing shadows and spots of light, being reflected by the ceramic, grew richer in contrast.

Agitatedly, Richard's gaze followed the passing fragments. Hadn't this particular one just resembled a horseman? And this, a harlequin! Suddenly, his sensitive senses did not just perceive strange images but sounds as well. He was sure he had heard murmuring, and then, a whining child! Exactly as in Arthur's nightmares and hallucinations!

When he finally had reached the bottom of the stairs and turned to the left into a narrow corridor – the only direction available – his eyes went wide with surprise. He had discovered the light source: On a rack there stood a laterna magica, a magic lantern, an image projector, casting the silhouettes of children's books illustrations on the walls.

Renfield knew different types of these apparatuses from the city's amusement districts, where they were often used in horror theatres or to exhibit pornographic material. This one, however, was rather simple, with only a cut-out cardboard, automatically rotated by a propeller over a candle. A night light for the purpose of comforting frightened children. And it seemed to be an essential tool, for there were a lot of frightened children behind the bars of a trellised room at the end of the corridor.