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Carpet quality had never been a topic that occupied much space in Ciel’s mind, but as his knees dug into the coarse fibers of Dr. Jacob Hastings’ poor excuse for an area rug — which pockmarked his flesh with the same ferocity as kneeling in rice — he was beginning to have a newfound appreciation.
It was just another reason to hurry this investigation along. Ciel braced a hand against the lip of the doctor’s bottom desk drawer as the other shuffled through documents, the last rays of the setting sun warming his back. The drawn curtains weren’t a concern. Hastings’ office was on the third floor, and with most students and faculty either retired for the day or attending late-night lectures, the possibility of rogue eyes spotting his form from ground level was slim.
Ciel thumbed through another handful of papers, sighing heavily through his nose. This was becoming more troublesome than he’d hoped.
It began, as these things often did, with a message from the Queen.
Perfumed with a coiling lilac that seemed to enfuse the entirety of his office upon its opening, the letter’s contents were less sanguine—save for the prelude of her Majesty’s pleasantries that Ciel’s eyes automatically skipped over. Nobles were surging into London for the Season, and so were rumors of the corpse trade’s return, spurred on by a string of grave robberies across half the city.
The legalization of legitimate medical donation had dried the market for the freshly dead long before Ciel’s birth, but it wouldn’t take more than an opportunist cashing in on a few overzealous medical students to revive the practice. Even a small-scale operation would be enough to cause a stir.
Either way, it sounded like business better suited for Scotland Yard. Ciel held the letter out to Sebastian between two fingers, groaning. Its strong scent was giving him a headache. “I’m tired of dealing with corpses.”
The butler scanned the missive, lips thinning. “Quite, my lord.”
But a watchdog’s job was to soothe his master’s worries, not to question them, and so the pair went to London. It felt odd to enter the city on such a mission without consulting Undertaker first, but the man had long vanished. The brief visit Ciel and Sebastian made to his funeral parlor in the days following the Campania found it abandoned, preserved like a crypt with two beakers full of tea still resting on a closed coffin lid as though the Undertaker had left while preparing for a guest.
Ciel couldn’t say he held much fondness for the man. As a child, he’d been terrified of him. His baby-fat fingers always wound their way into the back of his brother’s tunic whenever the pair peered around a door jamb to stare at the blight in their sun-bathed hallways. The pale sweep of hair and the black hooked fingernails made Undertaker look more like a specter newly risen from the grave than a living man — which, in hindsight, was not too far off from the truth.
But the Ciel that came back did not have room for such fears. An off-putting nature was little more than an annoyance when he’d known worse at the hands of men who moved unfettered in polite society.
Undertaker’s eccentricities were almost comforting in how unchanged they were, when so little of Ciel’s life from before that day remained, and the knowledge that his father had once sought Undertaker for counsel only eased their encounters. Vincent Phantomhive hadn’t left his son much, and most of it had had to be reconstructed with a demon’s magic, but he’d filled his arsenal with allies for Ciel’s disposal.
He wondered if his father had known Undertaker’s true nature, or if he would be as struck as Ciel was now? A childish feeling of betrayal simmered low in his gut. He felt as if he was at the center of an ever-shifting hedge maze whose patterns his mortal senses could not perceive, armed only with a faulty compass and saccharine promises of an eventual release if he ran his courses well enough — just another supernatural being playing him for a fool.
Worse yet was that Ciel couldn’t deny his reliance on Undertaker as his most called-upon informant. He hated it, hated how weak it made him feel.
So, driven only by instinct, they began their investigation at the city’s medical colleges to see if any bodies couldn’t be accounted for in their official records.
Tucked away on a side street, Ciel waited in a carriage still laden with suitcases as Sebastian inspected university iceboxes. It was early afternoon. They’d left the manor the morning after receiving the Queen’s correspondence, bypassing the townhouse to drive directly into the heart of Whitechapel without bothering to send word ahead to Soma and Agni. Sebastian hadn’t approved of the decision, scolding him for his lack of manners befitting a houseguest. How Ciel could be a guest in his own home, he didn’t know.
In truth, he hoped to avoid spending the night altogether. The Season had barely begun, and the streets were already choked, bottlenecked, the swell and press of too many bodies adding to the creeping heat. This was not to mention the revelry of his neighbors that trembled the roads outside the townhouse.
Sometimes, Soma would rouse Ciel from his ill-gained sleep—another reason he avoided the city: the noise—and station them at the bay window to point at the partygoers below, a carousel of women with dresses frosted like bakery cakes, and florid men tripping over their own feet. It was an amusing pastime, but not one Ciel was in the mood for when he’d barely recovered from the Easter festivities.
A shift in the carriage’s weight drew Ciel’s attention as Sebastian ducked into the cab. Eleven schools, and it had taken him mere minutes. Ciel hated that too.
“Nothing unusual to report, young master,” he said, settling across from Ciel. The demon seemed almost smug, tapping the compiled records against his knee before offering the straightened pages. Ciel briefly imagined tossing them back in his face, if only to see if he would twitch.
Instead, he took the stack with a purposeful calmness, glancing through as his mind worked.
“There may still be some merit to the student theory. They could be holding the bodies in a different location, or dissecting them the same night they arrive and dumping them in a potter’s field come morning,” Ciel said.
His finger traced over the “St. Bartholomew’s” written in Sebastian’s tidy cursive at the top of the page. Below the school name was a list of the identities of the known deceased and the autopsy’s presiding doctor. “Ugh, no, investigating so many students would take far too long. Perhaps it would be best to pay the local cemeteries a nighttime visit and hope our thief appears.”
“Very well, my lord, where would you like to start?”
“Someplace he’s yet to strike. Do you have the list with the—” Ciel stopped, pulling the documents closer to his face as if to bring their meaning into focus. Physician-in-charge: Jacob Hastings. “Hastings. I know that name.”
A questioning look at Sebastian was met with a vague upturn of shoulders. Useless demon. Ciel closed his eyes, willing the image to conjure itself behind his lids. Where had he seen that name before? Hastings. Dr. Jacob Hastings. “The Aurora Society!”
“Sir?”
Energy thrummed through him, and Ciel would have risen from his seat if not for the constraints of the carriage, instead satisfying the urge with a quick heel strike to the back of the footwell. Ciel has spent the better part of the prior weeks combing through paper scraps the pair had pilfered from the late Rian Stoker’s office, following their lack of success at Undertaker’s.
It’d largely been an exercise in futility. Details of failed experiments written with the sloppiness of frustration were mixed with ramblings whose meanings Ciel could barely parse out, regardless of how many times he examined them, until Stoker’s process was suddenly revolutionized by “a new business partner.” No details. Ciel didn’t care so much about the how—he had gleaned enough of that from Undertaker’s monologuing—but the why remained obscured.
“If I recall correctly, Hastings was mentioned once or twice in Stoker’s more recent tangents.”
“A new member, perhaps? Or not a very important one,” Sebastian hummed, a curled finger coming to rest under his chin. “Not worthy of an invitation on the Campania, at least.”
Ciel snorted. “Obviously. I can’t imagine someone still having the stomach for resurrection after seeing those monsters.”
“Humans can be surprising.” A smile slid on Sebastian’s face as he knocked sharply against the roof of the carriage, signaling to their driver— a middle-aged man they’d hired upon entering the city— to carry on. Jerking forward slightly with the renewed movement, Ciel set the documents down on the bench seat. He’d never been able to read while in motion. “Although, aren't you being a bit presumptuous, my lord? There’s no indication that our good doctor is involved with the missing bodies, let alone trying to revive them.”
“Oh, he is. If Hastings got a taste of God’s domain, then he’s not going to let it slip away so easily.” It was Ciel’s turn to smile, a small, nasty thing. “I know a thing about humans, too. They’re arrogant.”
Pleasure twisted the corner of Sebastian’s mouth before it smoothed into his favored passivity, chin lowering. “That they are.”
They decided to stop at the townhouse for lunch. Sebastian offered Agni his apologies for their unexpected arrival, which the other man accepted with his usual serenity, while Ciel was tugged into the house by the overenthusiastic prince. Agni had been in the middle of meal preparations, so the wait was not long before Ciel was seated at the dining table with a prattling Soma at his elbow.
Sebastian seemed chagrined to be barred from the kitchen, and downright aggrieved to be sent back out to investigate Hastings further. The slightest downtilt of his eyebrows had been the only indication of this, but Ciel knew the demon well, and if he thought he was going to waste the afternoon socializing, he was sorely mistaken.
Satisfied, Ciel spooned more rice into his mouth. Lunch was a chicken dish slathered in a tomato and butter-based gravy. Unfamiliar, but delicious. He made a note to have Agni give the recipe to Sebastian later. The demon’s efforts would be a pale imitation of the original, but still better than anything a mortal chef could accomplish.
“How long are you staying?” Soma asked, plopping his chin on his hand and tilting his head, the gold hoops he wore depriving the motion of its usual accompanying chime. The jewelry matched the rest of his attire in its simplicity: plain pants and a long cream brocade jacket whose only adornment were loops of pale embroidery winding down the throat and wrists. The fabrics were rich and exquisitely tailored, of course, but less colorful than Ciel was accustomed to. Obviously, Soma hadn’t planned to leave the house today.
“I’m not. The case is progressing smoothly enough, so I’ll be back in the manor by evening.” Ciel was so assured of this that he’d stopped Sebastian from unloading the luggage.
Soma’s cheeks puffed out. “It’s not good for you to work so much.”
“It’s not good for you to work so little, prince of Bengal.”
Any intended heat behind the words was lessened by the teasing smirk on Ciel’s face, although Soma still reacted with appropriate affront. “I work! Angi and I are very busy. It takes time to make so many curry buns every week.”
“Oh, yes, I forgot about your charity project. I stand corrected.”
Soma huffed, snatching up his own spoon. The silence that fell between them was brief, soon replaced by the rhythmic tapping of metal against china. The prince’s face was sullen, contemplative. Ciel’s eye twitched. He wasn’t going to apologize for the comment, nor for leaving early if that’s what Soma’s pouting was meant to accomplish.
But the next bite of his meal felt awkward in Ciel’s mouth: a misshapen intrusion, flavors diminished. Golden eyes flashed to him in a sidelong glance, and Ciel took a wooden sip of water. Was Soma truly so troubled? Perhaps a change of subject was in order. Funtom’s developers had just sent over the prototypes for their fall collection, and Soma was both nosy and distractible enough to find that interesting. Still, it nettled to be the broker of peace when the older boy was clearly the one overreacting.
“Ciel.”
He flinched at the direct address, spoon clanking against his plate, and he reflexively dropped the utensil as if scalded. Face warming, Ciel snapped. “What?”
“If something is bothering you, you can tell me.” Soma placed his hand, face down, on the table between them as if expecting Ciel to lay his own atop it. Ciel blinked. The prince continued, unaffected by the non-reaction. “There’s no need for secrets between friends.”
Ciel’s face twisted. “What are you on about now? I don’t have time to entertain whatever-”
Soma’s palm came up with such abruptness that Ciel quieted. “It’s not like you to send Sebastian away like you did.”
“He’s my butler,” Ciel scoffed. “I can do as I please with him.”
The admonishing look Soma levied at him was eerie in its familiarity. Being on the receiving end of a reprimand from his butler— or his aunt Francis, for that matter—for not behaving as a proper gentleman ought was something he’d grown used to, but the emotion in Soma’s gaze was not born of that same perceived authority, rather an exasperation that Ciel would even attempt to refute him. Ciel resettled his weight. The last time he had seen that expression, it had been on someone who shared his face.
“I don’t see how it’s any of your concern,” he settled on, cringing at the feeble words.
Soma brightened with satisfaction, realized the reaction’s inappropriateness, and rearranged himself with a seriousness that had the corner of Ciel’s mouth tugging up, despite himself. “I’m your friend, of course I’d be concerned! After your ship sank, I was so worried, but you seemed well at Easter—enough for that dirty trick during the egg hunt,” Soma wagged a finger. “So, I didn’t say anything. But seeing you today convinced me that something is still wrong. Did you and Sebastian quarrel?”
Sighing, Ciel leaned on an elbow, resting two fingers against his temple. The fragrant steam rising from his meal had disappeared, and he regarded it mournfully. “No, that’s not it.”
What was he to say? They had not fought, although a portion of Ciel desired to. Sometimes, it was easy, frightfully easy, to forget the true nature of his faithful servant when so much of their acquaintance was filled with daily mundanities—the serving of tea, the buttoning of shirts, the washing of hair—that lulled him like honeyed milk.
Remembrance, when it came, always did so suddenly, and jolted his heart as if his legs had given way mid-step. Aboard the Campania, that same feeling had seized Ciel when Undertaker swept back his bangs to pin him with eyes so unnatural that his stomach had turned.
How alike reaper and demon had seemed then; inhuman eyes flashing in their stoneware faces as they attacked each other with a fluidity that better suited pouncing beasts. Cradled in Sebastian’s arms, he’d felt the gross workings of muscle usually hidden behind cloth and manners. Repulsive. Nausea sitting in his throat, Ciel had screwed his own eyes shut and allowed himself to pretend the fabric twisting between his fingers was his brother’s familiar blue tunic rather than the blood-soaked shirt of a devil.
Later, when Sebastian had poured himself back into his butler mold, Ciel did not let himself forget the spill and waited for the gloved hands that served his afternoon tea to burst with the stitch rip of talons.
Except Soma knew nothing of this. Nobody did.
“I suppose I’m still a bit shaken from the Campania,” said Ciel. He hated admitting that much. Soma wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less.
The prince nodded sagely. “I’ve heard it’s common to have a delayed reaction to frightening events.”
Ciel straightened his dropped spoon upon its napkin with the same decisiveness he would a rook on a chessboard. Some truths—partial ones, at least—would have to be sacrificed if it meant steering the reins of conversation. “That could be. Although I fear certain details regarding this case may have brought the matter back to the forefront.”
Lips pursed and brow furrowed, Ciel pretended to struggle for words for a moment; capitulating too easily would only invite further interrogation. Soma leaned forward, perhaps in fear that when Ciel finally gave shape to his thoughts, they wouldn’t be more than whispers. The earnestness in his expression niggled uncomfortably in Ciel’s stomach.
A polite knock at the door startled both of them and saved Ciel from further explanation. He’d planned to disclose that he was investigating a drowning incident; there had been enough of those on the Campania.
It was Sebastian who now stood in the dining room entrance, his hand atop his breast in its usual fashion. Any annoyance about his previous dismissal was carefully absent from his face. “I will be in the office when you are ready to discuss my findings, young master.”
Ciel stood to follow. “No point in delaying, now is fine.”
“Ciel!” Soma protested at once, standing as well. He may have said more if not for Sebastian’s presence, but all he could do was finish lamely. “You’re not even going to finish your food?”
“It’s all yours.” Ciel waved his hand, speaking the next words over his shoulder. “Better yet, give it to your orphans.”
Jacob Hastings was a busier man than Ciel had anticipated. In addition to moonlighting in a resurrection cult, lecturing at the college, and presiding over autopsies, Hastings was also a frequent surgeon at St. Barthholew’s namesake hospital—as someone with a full timetable himself, Ciel could almost empathize—but, because of this, it was almost insultingly simple to find a moment when the man would be otherwise occupied.
Hastings had a two-hour-long class scheduled for that evening, which gave Ciel ample time to rifle through documents in the man’s school office while Sebastain investigated the hospital.
At present, frustration was welling in Ciel’s stomach as another paper stack yielded nothing, and he returned them to their drawer, shutting it more harshly than intended as he pinched the bridge of his nose and he settled back on his heels. This was the second time he’d been through the desk’s contents. The sparsely furnished room offered few places to search, and Ciel had already upended Hastings’ wastebasket and flipped through the books the doctor kept piled on the floor. The actual bookcase was empty.
The sensible thing to do would be to call for Sebastian to fetch him, but the idea of doing so while Ciel had nothing to show for his efforts seemed as appealing as forcing up bile.
Ciel stood and took another slow turn about the room. The sun had almost completely set, emboldening him to draw closer to the window than he’d previously dared to do while upright. Street lamps flickered on like guide lights for the lone students who hurried back to boarding houses, collars flicked up against the cooling night. Ciel dragged a splayed hand across the sill. If he were in one of the detective stories he favored, then his fingers would catch on some hidden switch and pop open a compartment where all Hastings’ secrets would conveniently lie, but — nothing.
Spinning away, Ciel moodily elbowed the thick drapes aside and yelped. An instinctual hand slapped over his mouth at the outburst, but was quickly redirected to rub away the sting as he hissed between his teeth. He’d stuck something, and no doubt a bruise was already forming that Sebastian would gleefully prod at later.
Jaw clenched, Ciel peeled the floor-length draperies back to reveal a free-standing coat rack: solid wood, multi-spoked, and with Hastings’ jacket and hat still resting atop it. Delving into the closest pocket found only spare coinage, and in the other, a thin palm-sized journal accompanied by a pencil no taller than Ciel’s thumb.
Ciel placed the stylus on the sill, leaning into the window’s dimming light to examine his prize. Its red cover was frayed at the edges, and the well-thumbed pages were soft and slightly bent. The penciled-in contents were just legible. It seemed he could also add diligent accountant to Hastings’ growing list of occupations. Although perhaps fanatical would be the more apt descriptor, with entries including everything from the tea and scone that Hastings had procured from a tea parlor that afternoon to a halfpenny he’d presumably found on the ground two days prior.
Ah, and there it was—a series of larger withdrawals that began around the same time as the robberies, each neatly labeled with a simple A.U.R. Aurora, Ciel’s mind supplied, and he scoffed at the mundanity of it. A cryptographer, Hastings was not.
Finding nothing else of interest, the book was returned. While his prior assumption that Hastings was paying someone to obtain the bodies seemed to be accurate, Ciel wanted to confirm Sebastian’s findings before moving the investigation forward, and didn’t fancy Hastings’ suspicions being roused by the disappearance of his precious recordkeeper. The Yard would find it when they arrested him easily enough.
Vindiction bloomed, but did not take root. For a moment, he felt nothing at all as his brain struggled past disbelief to move his limbs. The voices registered first, then the footsteps, and Ciel fell to his knees behind the desk seconds before the door opened.
Hastings’ class wasn’t supposed to end for another hour; a fact that meant nothing when the man’s back was currently silhouetted in golden hall light, caught again in conversation with a student before he could fully step into the office. The instinctual urge to call for Sebastian rose and was swallowed. Ciel instead inched his way left, avoiding scattered tombs with a wince as his hands joined his knees for a carpet-induced mangling.
When Hastings came to collect his coat, Ciel would duck out of sight to the desk’s other side and pray the man didn’t have any designs to get some late-night grading accomplished.
Ciel was not left to wait long. Hastings’ indulgence quickly petered out, replies devolving into jagged fragments that the student seemed to recognize as he suddenly stammered a flustered goodnight and scurried away. The door clicked shut in the student’s wake, plunging the room in pitch. Ciel hadn’t realized how little illumination the window provided until then, and Hastings must have agreed, for Ciel heard the snick of metal as fingers idled the switch of the wall sconce mounted beside the entrance.
Ears straining against his own quickening heartbeat, Ciel waited for the flare of a struck match. But it never came, and the hand fell away with a heavy sigh. Ciel moved then, pressing his back to the desk’s left just as Hastings stepped deliberately towards the hidden rack.
Breaths were slowed and counted as if this were a game of hide-and-seek, and his brother and Tanaka were drawing too close. It made the rustling of cloth easier to ignore. He reached ten. Twenty. Thirty.
And Hastings did not leave.
A risked glance found that the man had not moved beyond the drawn curtains, one hand fisted in the pocket of the jacket he now wore as he examined something between the fingers of the other. It was a pencil —no taller than Ciel’s thumb.
His guts curdled. He’d left the bloody pencil on the sill!
There was no way to know how paranoid a man Hastings was, whether he would rationalize this away as his own doing, or if the investigation had already been compromised. Ciel swallowed another curse. There was no chance to regroup with Sebastian now. Before he could rethink the decision, Ciel eased his pistol out of his inner coat and stood, satisfied by Hasting’s answering shout of alarm.
“What the devil?!” Hastings jolted, eyes flying to a spot above Ciel’s head before skipping down to take in his unlikely intruder.
There wasn’t much to see in the mere slash of light. This was especially true for Hastings, whose appearance lingered in the mind as rain did on oilskin. The doctor was of an average height and lightly muscled, sporting a newly trimmed mustache and dark hair that needed the same treatment. Yet, whatever Hastings had gleaned from his own study must have been pleasing, for he leaned forward with a smile, unbothered by the gun aimed at his chest.
“I know who you are. You’re the Queen’s Watchdog,” Hastings paused like a magician who had just performed a clever sleight of hand and was waiting for his audience to catch on. Perhaps simple deductions earned him applause in university lecture halls, but Ciel was no student and under no obligation to oblige him. Undeterred, Hastings continued, “I knew you would eventually come for the last of the Aurora Society.”
Ciel suppressed an eyeroll. Hastings spoke with the pomp befitting the final bastion of an ancient order, not a floundering loose end who likely didn’t even know the supernatural origins of his group’s prior success.
“The last of the Aurora Society sank to the bottom of the Atlantic alongside the Campania,” Ciel scoffed. “Quite a lucky thing you weren’t on the guest list, I suppose.”
Hastings’ expression faltered, smile tightening.
Always content to pluck on a taut nerve, Ciel said. “Perhaps it would have been better if you had been aboard. Your death would have saved me the trouble of coming to town to deal with your little grave robberies. Although I can’t complain over much. It didn’t even take me a single day to track you down.”
“That’s nonsense,” Hastings snapped, and Ciel’s pistol grip reflexively tightened. That wasn’t the reaction he was expecting, but it wasn’t an unwelcome one.
“Which part?”
Hastings made an abortive step forward before thinking better of it, rocking back on his heels and speaking through gritted teeth. “There’s no way a mere brat could figure all this out in a day.”
“I’m the Queen’s Watchdog, Hastings. I know you haven’t forgotten. You were quite proud that you knew who I was a few moments ago,” Ciel paused. He wished the room were better lit; he was sure Hastings’ face was turning all sorts of interesting colors. “Also, thank you for confirming that the robberies were your doing. I like to double-check my work.”
The corner of Ciel’s mouth tugged upward. Now, he could call for Sebastian.
But then, Hastings did something else Ciel didn’t expect.
He lunged.
Ciel staggered back, but went nowhere. Heel caught on one of Hastings' discarded books, Ciel processed only the seizing of his heart before he crashed to the floor. Pain laced down his spine, and he gasped.
Above him, the inky blur that was Hastings stumbled forward before he, too, fell victim to his own mislaid trap. He landed in an awkward sprawl, forearms braced on either side of Ciel’s head so all the boy could see was the rumpled white of Hastings’ shirt collar. Ciel forced air into shocked lungs, the doctor’s lingering aftershave spicing each breath until Ciel’s tongue felt lathered in it. Gooseflesh erupted down his arms.
Then, something familiar brushed against his fingertips—the gun had not fallen far.
But Hastings recovered first. Settling back on his heels, Hastings tightened a fist into Ciel’s collar, shook him, and then slapped a palm over his mouth. The hand engulfed the lower half of Ciel’s face, and his nostrils flared at the sharp smell of sweat and ink. His left hand pried uselessly at the appendage. Hastings ignored him, eyes searching the room.
Ciel pitched a fit then, flailing his legs and squirming, so the quick retraction of his right arm went unnoticed. He didn’t want Hastings following the length of it only to find the pistol at the end.
Hastings growled, shaking Ciel again as though he were a misbehaved puppy. “Quiet down.”
And so Ciel did, hot breath ghosting over Hastings’ knuckles. The man took one more half-hearted glance around, but found nothing in the blackness.
“Goddamn it.”
The next moments were still. Hastings’ mind was busy playing catch-up with his actions as Ciel’s thoughts scattered like buckshot on canvas, unable to narrow down his next move. Had the contract alerted Sebastian to his distress? And if it had, was the demon on the way, or was he again stalling for his own amusement? Ciel’s legs twitched with the sense memory of snapping vipers at the thought.
Unfortunately, the flinch of movement refocused Hastings’ attention. Ciel felt it in the tensing of the body atop him, even if he couldn’t make out the doctor’s expression. The grip on Ciel’s collar disappeared.
“I wish you hadn’t come.” The words were hollowed out, and Ciel could have laughed at how quickly Hastings’ pride had deteriorated, but no sound escaped the tight press of the palm still covering his mouth. It rankled to think of Sebastian finding him in this position; the devil’s coiling smile and teasing words as he donned the well-trodden role of rescuer, totting the banner of Ciel’s reliance.
Hatred built within him like a fever, making him feel hot all over; fury at this unremarkable man, who only needed a moment’s luck and an adult’s body to render Ciel helpless. It was unfair.
And when Hastings’ hand squeezed in a hesitant collar around Ciel’s throat, it was that righteous anger that had him scrabbling for the pistol and swinging it wide to clock Hastings in the temple. The man grunted, chokehold loosening. Ciel did it again.
This time, the blow caused Hastings to lean back, and it was just enough space for Ciel to jam the gun upward. The barrel dug between Hastings’ brows, and he shot.
Blood splattered Ciel’s face before he could think to cover it, stinging his eyes and licking at the closed seam of his lips. Above him, Hastings wavered. Ciel tried to drag himself back by the elbows, but the body did not stay frozen in its death tableau for long, toppling onto him and nosing its drooling skull into the crook of Ciel’s neck. Crimson dampened his shirt collar, and Ciel shuddered.
Panic so familiar in shape that it was threadbare edged at his periphery. The uncooperative weight. The nestled position. It was too similar. Ciel squeezed his eyes shut, scrubbing an arm across his lips before taking a gulping breath. He could still taste the rust.
No. He couldn’t— He wouldn’t lose himself to this. Peeling his eyes open, Ciel forced himself to look. Hastings was dead. Just like the cultists. Air rattled out of Ciel’s lungs. Just like the children in Baron Kelvin’s basement. Just like—
He shook his head. That didn’t matter right now. “Alright,” he exhaled.
Skin prickling with revulsion, Ciel clawed and twisted his way out from underneath Hastings. His panting breaths and pounding heart fell into a deafening tandem as he hauled himself to his knees, quivering legs making no effort to go farther. He grimaced. God, he longed for a bath. The thick film of sweat and viscera coating his face was disgusting.
Ciel palmed at his eyes, which only succeeded in further smearing the mess, and peered at the outline of Hastings’ body in the silent gloom; realization twisting his stomach.
This was the first time he’d killed someone.
That was another thing that Sebastian always did for him. The closest Ciel had come to dirtying his own hands had been shooting the Baron months ago, and the demon had been the one to deliver the final blow. In truth, Ciel had felt very far away when he’d pulled the trigger, and still struggled to recall the moments leading up to it, like a shroud had been tugged over the memory. He’d just wanted the man to stop talking.
There was none of that blurriness now, just a hollowness where anger had once been.
The seconds stretched, slipping from his lax fingers to pool somewhere next to the blood on the cheap carpet. Ciel’s breaths slowed, and he didn’t realize he’d begun counting them until the wall sconce flickered to life. He startled back to himself, flinching as if struck. The door opened and closed with a dull click.
“Oh my,” Sebastian cooed. “How unexpected.”
The demon had always been a hovering presence above Ciel’s shoulders, but how impossibly tall he seemed now: a high judge roving over the court from his bench. But the russet eyes passed over him to fix on the drawn curtains, which snapped shut with a brassy screech just as the sconce flared with an unnatural brightness. Ciel squinted against the sudden illumination, cheeks flushing. He felt like a child who’d been discovered with wet bedsheets. “I didn’t–” I didn’t mean to.
But Ciel had meant to. His life had never truly been at risk. Despite Sebastian’s enjoyment in toying with him, the devil wouldn’t let him die before their contract was fulfilled. Ciel knew this implicitly, and he’d chosen to kill a man whose crimes were paltry compared to his typical assignments.
Who’d even been affected by Hastings’ fruitless resurrection plot? The families of the stolen deceased, of course, but they had always been the afterthought; his true mission was to calm the fear of tittering socialites and to keep any unpleasantness from overshadowing the society pages.
“Hmm?” Sebastian lilted, raising his eyebrows in subtle encouragement for Ciel to continue, but no sound came. Instead, Ciel looked away, finding Sebastian’s placid expression unbearable. He couldn’t keep losing control like this.
The butler did not allow the silence to linger. “Young master,” he said, coaxing Ciel with an outstretched hand. Ciel allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, stumbling slightly as blood rushed through his numb legs, and Sebastian grasped his shoulders to steady him. The room’s light returned to an ambient glow. “I’m quite proud.”
Ciel’s mind stuttered, accusation stalling on his tongue. Sebastian could not lie. “…Proud?”
Sebastian kept a grip on his shoulder while he fished a handkerchief from his inner suit jacket and began to mop at Ciel’s face. “The contract alerted me to your distress, and I was on my way when the threat suddenly disappeared, hence the slightly delayed arrival. Imagine my surprise when I discovered it was your doing.”
He tsked, looking balefully between the dirtied cloth and the leftover blood. He repocketed the handkerchief with a sigh. “Although your methods were a bit messy for my tastes.”
Shameful relief slackened Ciel’s limbs. He couldn’t recall the last time someone had expressed pride in his actions, and the incredulity of that bubbled and burst out as jagged laughter. “You’ve always said that red doesn’t suit me.”
Sebastian smiled, pleased that Ciel had taken his opinion to heart. “Quite right, my lord.”
They did end up staying at the townhouse that night. After his bout of laughter had tapered off, Ciel sank into a silence he could not surface from. Sebastian, accustomed to his master’s mercurial moods, spirited them across rooftops, forgoing the front door to deposit Ciel in his second-floor bedroom without prompting. Ciel couldn’t help but feel thankful; his ability to navigate Soma’s questioning, or Agni’s fussing, was currently nonexistent.
“If you would please make your way to the bathroom, young master, I’ll be with you shortly.” Sebastian bowed his head—somehow managing to appear respectable despite his crouched position on the windowsill—before flinging himself into the night once more.
He’s going to dispose of Hastings, Ciel realized.
It wasn’t a reassuring thought.
Ciel didn’t bother closing the window, wandering absently to the bathroom even as a draft rolled down his back. Shivering, he shut the door tightly behind him. The bath was already drawn, wisps of lavender-scented steam rising from the porcelain tub, and Ciel distantly thought that Sebastian ought to be scolded for relying on his magic for such mundane tasks. First the curtains, the candle, and now this.
But the notion was gone the instant Ciel sank into the bath’s warmth. He submerged himself up to the nose and watched as the tacky blood peeled itself from his body to dissipate into the water.
True to his word, Sebastian was not gone long, slotting himself into their routine as if he had never been absent. “Tilt your head back,” he murmured. Ciel did as bidden, eyes slipping closed as Sebastain worked up a lather in his hair, and half-listened to the butler’s report.
Sebastian had found the most recent of the missing dead in the basement morgue of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, hidden amongst the deceased patients. Hastings’ position as a doctor gave him unfettered access to the area, making it easy to store his newly acquired specimens after hours. It was almost clever. People died in hospitals all the time. Few would question an unexpected addition.
What Sebastian had done with Hastings’ own body was not mentioned.
“I’ll write the Yard and her Majesty tomorrow. Let them know the matter is resolved,” said Ciel, voice thin from disuse. He did not fear the Queen‘s reaction to Hastings’ death. She did not usually concern herself with his methods as long as her worries were dealt with. Hastings was no burnt child.
And, so, the culprit was disposed of, the leftover bodies would be returned to their family plots, and the unrecovered would be mourned. What a tidy ending.
Ciel’s return to the speaking world received no acknowledgement from Sebastian, who was more focused on completing their normal nightly rituals. Although once Ciel was bathed and changed into his nightshirt, Sebastian did spare a moment to bemoan the difficulty of getting the blood out of Ciel’s dayclothes with the same tone he used to discuss chocolate stains. The quirk in Sebastian’s mouth as the butler picked up each garment from the crumpled heap they’d been left in, and refolded them, also indicated he was barely holding back a comment about wrinkles.
From there, Ciel was ushered into bed and served a simple soup to placate his empty stomach. It was an echo of how Sebastian had treated him when he’d fallen sick back in February, though he did not dwell on the comparison, knowing how that mission had ended.
“Is there anything else you’ll be needing, sir?” Sebastian asked, later, placing Ciel’s mostly full bowl back on the serving tray. His insistence that Ciel try to eat more had already been ignored twice.
“No, you’re dismissed,” Ciel said, trying for haughty and landing on tired.
Sebastian lowered his chin. “Very good, young master.” He gathered the tray and made for the door, pausing at the threshold to glance back at Ciel; russet gaze bright despite the room’s darkness. “Remember, I’m only ever a call away.”
And then he was gone, and Ciel was alone.
Not bothering with the pretense of sleep, Ciel pushed aside the tangle of bed covers and made his way to the plush cushions of the bay window. If Soma were there, he would have yanked the curtains back, uncaring if anyone from the ground spotted them, but Ciel nudged them aside just enough to peer outside. The city glowed with the warm light of parties already long underway—streets barren except for a handful of harried socialites whose arrivals had tipped from fashionably late to borderline rude. Ciel wondered if they would notice the grave robberies had stopped, if they had even known about them to begin with.
Letting the curtains flutter closed, Ciel’s attention slid to the door Sebastian had just vacated, the command for the butler to stay still rotting on his tongue.
He suddenly felt foolish. Why cling to his prior convictions when all that careful distance Ciel had cultivated between them since the Campania had already shattered? He’d felt the first faultline when Sebastian had greeted his bloodied form, and the still-warm victim of his crime, without a hint of condemnation, and the cracks only spread in all their little moments of normalcy after. Perhaps it was simply in the devil’s nature to delight in the corruption of the human soul, but...
“Sebastian,” he whispered, and felt the answering pang in his contracted eye.
Ciel would allow himself to forget for a little while longer.