Chapter 3: Call to Action

"Oh, this is very troubling!" cried the black presence, though his worried tone hardly matched his composed expression. "Where could the master have been taken?" His hand tightened almost imperceptibly around mine, just as his white gloved fingers held the silver tray of yellow-brown deliciousness aloft.

I stared up at the black presence, who had yet to properly introduce himself to me. His somber face, though, seemed to be directed not at me, but at the red blob running up what I assumed to be stairs with a white blob bobbing up and down next to it. My ears heard a click through the window and instinctively, I stepped away from it and tugged at the black figure's hand, but he refused to budge even an inch.

I opened my mouth to speak, to tell him that the sound was bad, to say something, but-

"Your voice is impure."

Another step back caused my hand to slip from the black presence's. Who had said, no, shouted those words? "Sebastian!" the red blob huffed. It was a girl, and she was coming in hot, too hot. My brain knew where she would fall, but seeing the black presence and his eyes calculate the same, yet do nothing to stop her...he must be a fool. But then why did keep his composure? Why accept the humiliation? "I found a letter at the front door, yes I did!"

The black presence did not even blink as the girl came hurtling towards him. "Addressed to whom?" he questioned, somewhat bored.

The girl's eyebrows scrunched at the question, though she still came sprinting as fast as she could down the long corridor. "Er," she exclaimed, "'The Earl Phantomhive's Servants.'" As the red-haired girl came within meters of the black presence, I saw the space around the both of them flare red.

Someone was going to die.

Her foot glowed white as it came down unnecessarily hard on her shoelaces. The resulting fall was ludicrously fast, as if she had been flying 20 kilometers per hour. My eyes widened as I saw the fissures on the pane of glass before the bullet pierced through. The girl. The trajectory of the bullet. I raised my hand and a small glow of white formed around the golden round, pausing it for a second. Just a second.

SMASH.

The bullet redirected towards a vase, spilling its guts all over the colorful floor in shards of white porcelain. The shards themselves gleamed white as their edges softened to fall like harmless cherry petals upon the two figures lying on the floor. My eyes drifted into focus at the pair of them. The girl was red as a beet, while the black presence's seemingly dead gaze was fixed upon mine in silent...anger? Its hand, which had thrown the cylinder high into the air, stayed dead in place as the brownish cylinder came floated down to the tray as if weightless.

"Mey-Rin," the black presence commanded. "The letter."

"Y-Yes!"

I wobbled where I stood, shooting a hand out to the wall for support. I had just done something, something big. The black presence's (concerned?) eyes followed me for a moment before drifting to the beet-red girl and her unstable body. He then glanced back to me for confirmation, and as a sign that I had understood, a slight glow of white bordered her fading red.

In no time at all, the black presence had stood up and scanned the white piece of paper with lined up scribbles on it. "'If you want us to return your Master safely, bring it to Nova Scotia Gardens in Bethnal Green,'" he stated without the slightest bit of concern in his voice. "'If you don't come before sunset, we will cut off your Master's fingers one by-'

"What a vulgar invitation."

The warm feeling was back in my stomach, and stronger than before. I ruffled my wings and took a step back, but an indifferent glance from the presence assured me that he could take care of it. I glared at him, but he gave no reaction. Two approached from the left, and at quite a speed, two approached from the right.

"Sebastian!" "What the hell happened?!"

"Nothing is the matter, so please don't worry," the black presence expertly lied with his closed-eye smile whilst holding up the beet-red maid.

"'Nothing'…?" the lady decked out all in red repeated while taking in the broken window and shattered vase.

"My apologies, everyone, but can I entrust the cleaning and supper preparations to you?" The black presence walked forward towards the two as if he had not just been shot at. Similarly, I realized that the beet-red girl was fretting over how she had inappropriately touched the black presence, not how she almost died because someone was shooting at her. The others, too, acted like possible snipers surrounding the house and shooting them to death whenever they passed by a window was more of an annoyance than an actual problem. Just who were these people?

"…?" The one with goggles questioned. "...That's fine, but..."

"I have a bit of minor business to take care of," the presence continued, as if the man with goggles had not said anything at all. "After you finish, clean this too, please." The black presence handed over the plate with the golden and brown cylinder on it, but not, I noted, the silver tray on which it had been served.

People exchanged glances, and even one of the group looked at the huffing man with the powerful red aura coming up to the group. Then it hit me: No one seemed to take in my presence. No one, but the black presence. Only he looked at me.

The man with goggles looked questioningly on at the black presence. After a moment, the man replied skeptically, "Oh?...Okay..." In the corner of my eye, the other one who had come with the man with the goggles was trying to lift the beet-red girl with little success. She kept slipping out of his hands as if she were made of jelly.

"I shall return before dinnertime," the black presence promised, taking my hand as he calmly strode away. And although I was able to keep pace with him, the black presence walked so fast that when the one with the goggles shouted something after him, all I could hear was an indistinct mumble.