Ciel's footsteps echoed against the stone walls. Try as hard as he did, he could not be quiet. The shoes sent little pings along the walls, dripping water and ivy. His breath fogged before him in the cold, damp air. He had never been in the cellar before.
The cloak around his shoulders flapped about, as if by a wind that Ciel could not feel himself.
His fingers found the doorknob. It belonged to a dark door at the end of the large hall, and there was no keyhole among the rotting wood. It opened easily, and to his surprise, made no noise.
Ciel let out a nervous breath.
He was in Sebastian's quarters.
A few steps took him into the large room. It had a low ceiling, perhaps a few inches taller than Sebastian himself. There was no bed, no electric light sourse. The light only came from thousands of candles that were set on every available surface. The table, the floor. the tops and ends of the bookshelves. They were scarse enought just so Ciel could see.
Ciel picked one up, and carried it to the bookshelf. Hundreds of dusty volumes lined the shelves, some hundreds of pages thick, some only ten. But all had the same binding, with the same general title: a date and a name, written in red ink, in stark contrast with the dark leather linings.
A finger ran along each one. He stroked each book, looking for the ones that would interest him.
"What?" he whispered, and picked one up.
1929 ~ Anne Marie Thomas
"Why would he have a date like that?" Ciel thought to himself. Checking behind him a last time, the door was empty. He then opened the dusty cover to the first page. Hard parchment was raised at the words, written in the same red ink as the titles.
I recieved a request for a contrast. It was the human year nineteen and twenty nine, in the month of May. The fifteenth, as I recall it. She was a young woman, only twenty nine years old. Fair, as human standards go. She arrived at eight twenty-four in the evening.
I asked if she required a contract, and she accepted. I let her know of the concequences of her finding a place in neither heavan nor hell, and she accepted all the same.
She gave me the name Jasper Meldrum. I was to play a servant of a family friend who was being lent to her for a time. She had four children. They were Mary, 13, John, 12, Micheal, 11, and Mia, 10. Her husband was absent.
The terms of our contract were thus: She desired revenge on her husband. According to her, after the birth of their fourth child, he left, saying that there was more to life than wasting it on a family. After the revenge was delivered, I was to take her soul. Another term was she wanted to secure the future of her children.
New York City was in a state of depression, after the stock market dissolved. They were living in a small apartment which they could barely maintain with all of them working- the children in factories and the mother as a maid.
The youngest took a liking of me. She constantly followed me, asking questions and I would give them honestly. I told her I was a demon, there to fulfil a contract with her mother. She found it facinating.
The mark of our contract was placed on Anne's neck. Nearly the most noticible area, so therefore, our contract was very strong.
After seven years, we found Anne's husband, but her childrens future was not secure quite yet. After much tinkering and swapping and blackmailing, Mary, then seventeen, became the CEO of a major car company. They became millionares in the space of nine days. Quite a simple task. Why she dragged out the process for seven years puzzles me. Perhaps she was not ready to give up her soul?
In the end, Anne Marie left with me to the final destination. I told her to go to the corner of 9th and south and wait.
The youngest girl, at the time she was seventeen years old, approached me. Apparently the foolish girl had developed a sense of affection towards me. She let me know of this, and I responded by telling her just how foolish it was. In no way would I ever affiliate myself with such a disgusting breed of species. But she persisted anyway, not in an annoying way, but simply in stubbornce.
I left Mia there, in the entrance of her mansion, and offered a last bow. After that, I met Anne Marie at the designated spot, and we, together, found her estranged husband drunken at a brothel. It was quite easy to kill him in his drunken state.
It was one of the shorter books. Ceil closed it, and placed it in it's proper spot. He picked up another small book. This one labeled:
Benjamin Christianson ~ 1945
It was a year before the end of the second great World War. Benjamin Christianson was an American officer in the navy. In one outpost, a bomb caused the desolation of fifty soldiers aboard the USS SANTA MARIA.
Benjamin came to me in search of revenge upon the German army known as Nazis. I thought it to be such a trifle matter, but I agreed. Our contract secured his safety in his quest to end the war, and and return, I was to receive his soul.
This contract was the shortest I have ever completed. It took only four months to find the man who began the war. Adolf Hitler, hidden like a coward in his underground bunker. It was very easy to get to him with Benjamin. We offered Adolf a choice.
"You have to the choice to either kill yourself, or let me do it. And I promise, sir, one is far kinder. But I'm beginning to think that you are leaning towards the first."
At that point he began to cry. It made me want to throw up, the cowardace.
And on April 30th, 1945, Adolf Hitler send a bullet through his temple.
Benjamin's soul was one of the most satisfying ones I have ever consumed.
And so it ended. Ceil took one more off the shelf.
Caroline Alger ~ 2014
Caroline Alger was a young girl, at the age of sixteen. She -
"And what do you think you are doing, Young Master?"
The book flung out of Ciel's hands, and landed in Sebastian's, across the room.
Ceil was never more scared in his life. The tall, lean figure of his butler contrasted against the door's frame, and a smile crossed his lips. But even though he was smiling, a look of utter fury burned like a fire in his red eyes. He looked ready to kill.
"Sebastian, I . . . " Ciel choked out. He felt as if every ounce had been sucked out of his body. All he could do was wonder what Sebastian would do to him for breaking into his quarters.
Sebastian walked across the stone, absolutely silent, until he was inches in front of the boy.
He looked down on the terrified boy with hellfire in his eyes. The smile was still there, which was much, much worse than if he were frowning. Sebastian bend down on one knee, and lifted his hands.
Ciel closed his eyes, and got ready to receive death.
Instead, Sebastian retied Ciel's laces.
"Young Master, please be more careful to not untie your shoes." Sebastian said, this time his eyes were full of humor. "If you wanted to come down here, you could have asked."
Ciel regained his composure, and his status as the master. "You would have refused me."
"Not upon your order."
Ciel scoffed. "It's not the same with permission."
Sebasian chuckled as he stood up. "You really are a child. Now, if you please, sir, lunch is ready in the dining hall."
Ciel took one last look at the shelf, then slowly walked across the room and down the hall.
The demon smiled until he was out of sight. Then, as soon as he was up the stairs, Sebastian opened the book that Ciel had almost read. In the back, there was a picture. A slender girl with long, blonde hair and the greenest eyes imaginable.
"I can't imagine what the Young Master would think if he knew I made a contract with one of his fiancee's decendants."
He placed the book back on the shelf, stroking the bindings. He then leaned forwards and took a long whiff. "The blood is still just as fresh as the day I wrote these books with them," he noted casually. Then, he began his journey upstairs in preparation of his afternoon chores. The door slammed shut behind him.