"We have met before," Claudia recalled, clearly not as surprised as most people would be to see the mortician rise from a coffin on the floor. And was still in said place, as he had been the one most surprised with the visitor.

"My my, but of course," he cleared his throat, grinning before even knowing and stepping out of the coffin. He patted some invisible dust off his black robes. His hat had been abandoned on the front counter and he promptely returned it to its proper place on his head and to pin the bangs of hair over his face. "I remember you, Lady Claudia. Some years now, it would seem."

Claudia seemed pleased.

He approached her direction, and she did not seem to mind. The blurriness over her dispelled however slightly, but enough for him to get a better image of her. Her height might mistake her age to the unattentive casual eye - even though, in this era, a casual eye would hardly be sent her direction - nobility was blatantly clear in her pose, not so much from her tailored dress as much as it was from her somewhat frigid, beautiful but stern features. Young women did tend to surpass men's height with ease, specially between the age of thirteen to fifteen, but Claudia was particularly tall. The imprint of her little child self, with the tattered disguise and haughty curious look still appeared on his mind, and he could see it on Claudia's face now. Still, the contrast that remained on the other little aspects was wonderful.

"Yes, well, I've grown," she said as if knowing what his thoughts were. Probably they were common between humans who stayed apart for years and were reunited? "You look roughly the same. It was impossible not to recognize you at the cemetery. Even though you are less regal."

What a funny choice of words. "Regal? I never thought someone like me would be called that."

"Either way, you being at the cemetery wouldn't be too odd, yet I'll be completely honest and say that I'm relieved."

"That your relative died?" He was trying to follow her mental process.

"Well, it's life isn't it?" she dismissed the subject with such simplicity he couldn't help but blink and chuckle. Life and death were so fascinating! How could she barely give it a thought? "For some time I've wondered whether I had imagined you or if you were real, and which case scenario would be the best one for me. "

"Oh?" Still trying to follow her mental process.

"Regardless. I'll leave that to another day of wander. All this has always fascinated me. You were a sight to boost interest rather than a trigger for it to begin with. And now being here, I expect I can visit?"

"Ah?"

"I think you'll understand."

"Oooh?" He was chuckling rather clearly by now, and Claudia's stern expression was starting to peek a reaction at it, her eyebrow arching ever so slightly.

"It's hardly a subject that most like to discuss, even within my family... the hypocracy of it, really... but death and...

She cut her words and narrowed her eyes at him, as if he had suddenly interrupted her.

"Well, I suppose I shouldn't be discussing this with you, a stranger. Yet... well. It's not like you'll be shouting it to the four winds." He was far too entertained to even try to follow anything anymore. "I am almost certain you out of everyone will not frown at the "fascination of the macabre"."

"Considering my field of business, I'd be surprised if I did," he replied simply, cheeks slightly pinching by now, and waved casually to their surroundings.

"Yes, precisely," her pleased look returned. "I will therefore be visiting you at times, with questions. Talking means you can still work, so I take it will not be much an inconvenience for you."

"Nooone~"

"Good." She smiled, and her child features shined through. "I do wish I could start right away with a debate, but I do find myself with a shortage of time. But well, while I'm on it, may I ask if you happen to have books of interest? Medical, philosophical or otherwise."

Perhaps someone else would expect a mortuary to have merely medical books - maybe to have none at all, should it be a very poor, borderline clandestine mortician - maybe to have a panoply of forbidden and profane titles. Claudia seemed quite convinced he would have a vast library (which indeed he wouldn't mind to, and was working to that goal) of all things macabre (which indeed he did not).

"I'm afraid I only have medical books."

"And about the occult? Witchcraft, satanism, occultism overall?"

The mere words brought an unpleasant shiver down his spine. He almost didn't note how indeed, Claudia was quite straightforward on these matters, or as he would find out eventually, any matter at all. Deserter or not, the subject - and mention of anything related - of demons and their rotten filth would always be distasteful to him. It was hardly a matter he was too interested in to begin with, with his curiosity being turned to humans - not the beyond, where monsters and THE END lingered.

"I currently do not, no. But I certainly know who would have such titles in their possession. As of the moment, I am afraid I have solely anatomic tomes. Maybe some thanatology tomes."

Part of him knew he shouldn't be surprised with Claudia's knowledge of such terms, and yet the other part was charmed and surprised to see her nod.

"Any subjects in specific?"

Claudia left with a volume of human dissection and taxidermy.

.

She returned one week later.

"A simple coffin, isn't it? Does the job right, I suppose. After all, it's dirt and maggots for all of us down there."

Claudia raised her upper body from the coffin. She only noticed his extended hand a moment later, accepting it and stepping out of the coffin.

"How long does it take you to make one of these?"

"Coffins are surprisingly easy to craft," he replied, picking the said exemplary and returning it to the furthest wall of the shop. He had to attend to its intended occupant soon after Claudia left.

"Even the smaller ones?" she asked meanwhile. "Always heard the saying how they're the heaviest."

"I do not disagree with the saying. Some lives are too short. Coffins are certainly the heaviest for the people that do mourn their small occupants. I've found that's actually a rarity in this age." He saw her focused frown as he turned and returned to her side. "They're not the hardest to craft."

"You had that one custom made?" she asked again, this time pointing to the coffin on the farthest end.

"It does fit you to perfection. And yes, I did customize it for its occupant."

"So I suppose the family paid for it?"

"I like to customize my coffins even if the clients don't have people interested in doing so."

"So this client, the occupant, just happens to have my measurements."

"Apparently so."

His increasing amusement over Claudia's unexpected visit, with such an odd request out of everything brought a renewed smile to his face as the gears in her mind spinned to place, confirming his own suspicions. Her question if he was currently working on a coffin, and request to try his newest one, together with the attempted dismissive questions that yet were clear to him.

"Is it possible for me to see her body?"

.

Obviously in his line of work, this cover up as mortician (Mr Undertaker...) to learn and blend with humans, he quickly became quite acquaintanced - or reunited - with the spectre of darkness that dipped - or soaked - the human world. This line where his world and the humans' blended so effortlessly, this underworld where common people should not venture and yet so many were plundered and butchered into.

The young women that were killed continously the previous days were clearly related to each other, the same murderer creating some personal form of entertainment. Only one of the girl's family had approached for a decent burial of the poor victim; the others had been delivered through the police, retrieved from the streets. Dumped in the gutters like trash.

Two of them had been dragged out of East's End by children. He saw them leaving the corpses nearby busier streets so the police could find them.

.

Claudia's interest in the macabre was fascinating. Despite that first impression from her words related to her Phantomhive relative, life and death seemed to as an appealing subject to her as it were to him, and their conversations would reveal themselves to be very compelling and interesting.

The real motive as to why she visited him did not escape his notice, and soon she didn't care to hide it anymore. The young murdered women.

.

He attended to the young women with all his care, knowing it was simultaneously a solace for their families, respect for them and cleaning after the murderer.

He kept the lace straps the girls had on their wrists. Claudia added them to the ones she got from the police, which in turn had been collected from around the victims' bloodied necks, the cuts deep enough to be fatal.

"But these signs in their pupils are a sign of asphyxiation," Claudia had said upon watching the very first victim.

She was walking back and forth through the shop, hand thoughtfully placed below her lips. The past week had met another victim. Claudia had visited twice.

"His only pattern is the age. And the method of killing of course. And yet, the police doesn't notice the straps on their right wrist? It's the same bloody lace from their nooses. And this method of killing is just double brutality. Why cut them after they're dead? And the lace later?"

"I did find the bracelets to be interesting," he commented, placing one of the embalm pots back in its place.

"Bracelets?" she turned. She kept her disguises from her childhood days. But with her hair tied up like it was, she looked older.

"Don't they look like bracelets to you?"

"So, the lace in their necks would make turns for a necklace?"

"Perhaps. Most clients didn't get to me with their necklaces, thanks to the police keeping the lace with them."

"So, lace... it suggests someone with wealth, right? More likely so than the alternative, that we could be dealing with a thief that keeps scavaging after lace."

"Maybe."

"Lace... I should investigate a rich person? Maybe a tailor? Too wide a spectrum, but it makes sense, doesn't it?"

"Dollmakers use lace too."

She turned again.

"Excuse me?"

He shrugged. "I find a surprising amount of people have a fascination with dolls."

"I like dolls too," she added, and he blinked in interest. "But normally it's associated with small children. These victims are fourteen. One year older than me."

He shrugged again.

"Slightly older dolls are still dolls."

.

"May I ask why the interest?"

"About?"

He had yelded to accompain her on a 'sneaking mission' to a toy shop closer to East End, and while they waited for whatever Claudia was curious in, he might as well ask what he was curious in.

"This. These murders."

"People are being killed. It's only natural to want to find out and stop such murders."

"For the police, maybe."

"The police doesn't care."

"It's part of the reason why I'm asking. A noblewoman doesn't normally interest herself in these things."

"I thought I told you from the get go I had different interests," she said in annoyance, not turning to him and still fixed on the entrance of the shop, while hiding in their corner and adjusting her cap to keep her restlessness at bay.

"Yes, which is extremely lovely. But..."

"Will you shut up if I tell you I am in a mission for Her Majesty?"

"The Queen Victoria?"

"Is there another I don't know of?"

"I suppose there are others who aren't relevant to the subject."

"Then leave the subject be. I am her Watchdog. Or will be either way. Leave it."

He grinned, resting his head against the wall. He wasn't as committed as Claudia was in this sneaking mission. While they waited, he entertained himself with knowing Claudia was a special servant of the Queen.

And with the knowledge that Her Majesty The Queen Victoria wouldn't really take much interest in what, for all effects and purposes, were common murders.

.

Claudia formed a plan.

Following his suggestion, she was set in the possibility that the murder could be a toy maker - a rather sick variation of dolls therefore were mirrored on his victims. It added a tailor's access to lace for sewing, sharp objects like scissors for the cuts in their necks, and possibly some more monetary access... but all these were circumstantial. A tailor would meet the same criteria. A partnership between two people, dollmaker and tailor,could work as well. She was following his presentiment, hardly much else.

Not discarding the possibility of using herself as a bait, which would be the downright most logical choice, she decided to keep watch to find a possible future victim. Given the number of corpses, it shouldn't take long, and it didn't. She chose the toy shop near East End given his information about those two young women who had been dragged out of there by the forlorn children. It was convenient to find possible victims.

Their sneaking mission concluded the obvious; children peeked at the showcased toys and porcelain dolls with a shine in their eyes, but almost none entered. The toymaker did not come outside until late night when the shop was closed.

A second day of watchful sneaking, and a young woman with tattered clothes admired the showcased dolls, and the owner came out and made a small conversation with her.

Claudia's plan was simple.

If the same young woman came by again, and entered the shop, Claudia would follow. It would undoubtely alert the toymaker if he was indeed the murder, but her intention was simple: while distracting the possible murderer by offering another possible victim, she would assess the dolls within the shop in search for lace matching the same as the victims.

It would work as dead proof for her. The lace on the victims had a far too distinct pattern to miss.

It was her own presentiment that, if a dollmaker was killing young women in a sick twist of dolls, he would be keeping a souvenir of them. And if they had a 'necklace' and a 'right bracelet', the 'left bracelet' was missing. It would be a telltale sign if someone saw it.

But no one was looking for anything.

On that night, he asked her:

"What if I was the murderer, Lady Claudia?" A very plausible possiblity. He had given her the hunch of a dollmaker, he had means to dispose of victims. Could be aiming to kill her.

"I know you."

"I don't really see how a couple of..."

"I saw you when I was a child, remember?"

And as a baby, and in both cases around death.

"You don't kill people. Death isn't cruel. It's just there. People are the cruel ones."

.

Claudia didn't intend to kill the murder. She intended to give definitive proof for the police to not stay iddle and intervene.

For that, she would need his help.

The two young women from East End that the police had never seen.

With a contribution of her dress collection, properly altered and ruined as to befit the victims, he changed the poor girls' denouncing tattered clothes into hers, turning them into noblewomen after death. They had their original 'necklaces' and 'bracelets' which they could return.

Claudia added a shred of doll dress, that she cut off a porcelain doll of the shop before being kicked out. A porcelain doll with white lace on collar and cuffs, the pattern just distinct enough between right and left cuffs.

They left the two girls on the street.

.

Claudia's parents were outside the mortuary when she approached. He recognized the stern features of Lady Phantomhive as inherited from Claudia's grandmother, and in turn passed on (softened) to Claudia. The moment he took to recall the stern, mean and bored Shinigami that old lady had become was actually funny.

"I just wanted to tell you," Claudia said swiftly, without so much as a greeting. "The preparator of the murders as been caught."

"Yes, I know. He won't really sit on a cell, however. He's going to more premanent quarters."

"Oh. Well, not a great loss then, is it." Beneath the family sterness, she did sound pleased. After all, the culprit was a twisted murderer. His own murder at the hands of East Enders wasn't far from poetic justice. "Thank you for your help. It was quite important."

"You're welcome to try my coffins any time, Lady Claudia."

"And for your books. I've finished the dissection one."

"I am acquiring some titles of other subjects for you."

She nodded and turned to her parents, but halted a moment and turned back at him.

"And for your company. Our conversations have been quite pleasant."

.

to be continued

.


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Author's Note: I've been writing so much in this offline time, I actually have 2 chapters fully written, just waiting for typing and editing. Actually 3, counting with this one.

Like I said before, Claudia considers her encounter with Undertaker in her childhood to have been an encounter with Death. So she wanders if it's good because she met him and was spared, or bad because she might have hallucinated the whole ordeal.

Thanks to MassiveMilkshakeNerd, xenocanaan, Fushia Flame, furryfelines1 and to everyone who takes time to read. Thanks for your time, please point out mistakes.

(I'm typing this while watching a playthrough of Outlast 2 playing on side-by-side windows. It's been quite an experience lol ahah)