Disclaimer: Kuroshitsuji and its characters are the property of Yana Toboso. I do not own any of the characters, barring any OCs, in this story.
"Raum… Raum… Adducite eum ad nos, Raum…"
At the sound of the strange words Ciel's eyes snapped open, and he blinked in confusion, holding a hand to his aching head while he looked around the room for the source of the sound that had awoken him. He did not know what time it was or how long Sebastian's Nightshade draught had kept him asleep; all he knew was that it was still pitch-black and his butler was nowhere to be seen. It was too dark to see much of anything, actually, and – Wait. He was a demon now; nothing should ever be too dark for him to see through. He closed his eyes and opened them slowly, hoping it would help, but to his dismay his vision remained as useless as before. What was going on?
He reached up to rub at his eyes and flinched, hissing in pain and gritting his teeth when he felt something sharp cut through the flesh just below his eye. Blood ran freely from the cut, sticky and hot, and the coppery scent was made even stronger by his heightened sense of smell.
"What in the hell?" Ciel muttered, drawing the fingertips of his left hand across his right palm and feeling hard, sharp protrusions at the tip of each of his fingers. Holding his hand up in front of his glowing red eyes and squinting hard, he finally realized what the strange things were; there were long black claws growing from his fingertips, shaped more like the talons of a bird than human fingernails. He would have to ask Sebastian what to do about them; he was certain he had seen the butler extend and retract his own claws at will before, but if he couldn't do that he would at least have to file them down. He couldn't function very well if he was in constant danger of clawing out his own eyes, after all.
"Sebastian," he said softly, expecting to see the butler emerge from the darkness an instant later. When only silence continued to greet him, he glared toward the closed door, shifting in bed as he felt something begin to tingle on his back. "Sebastian," he said again, louder this time. Again, no response was forthcoming, and the once-earl snorted in frustration. "Where could he have gotten to?" He was too busy listening for his butler to pay attention to the strange sensation in his back, which had quickly evolved from tingling to itching, and now to a slight burning. "Sebastian, where are you?"
"Raum… Raum…"
Ciel froze, his blood instinctively running cold at the return of the unearthly voice. The sound did not seem to stem from one place, but rather from everywhere at once, echoing through every inch of the room despite how soft it was.
"Who are you?" Ciel shouted into the darkness.
"Advena - adducite eum ad nos, Raum… (The newcomer - bring him to us, Raum.)"
"What do you want with me? Show yourself!"
"Silentium! Raum… non estis. Raum ubi est? (Silence! You... are not Raum. Where is Raum?)" Ciel wished he had paid better attention when Sebastian had tried teaching him Latin, for he understood very little of what the voice was saying now. All he had managed to gather was that the voice was asking for someone named "Raum," and asking whoever that was to bring someone else to him.
"There is no one here by that name," Ciel replied in an unsteady version of the language.
"Iaces! (Liar!)" the voice spat, suddenly much louder.
"I am no liar. Now tell me who you are."
Only silence met Ciel's ears for a moment, and he immediately began to feel that he had only been dreaming. But then, the voice spoke once more, its words whispered in a tone that filled Ciel with dread.
"Adhuc iaces mihi? Tunc patiuntur propter superbiam tuam. (Still you lie to me? Then suffer for your arrogance.)"
Ciel's eyes widened a fraction of an inch before he gasped in a deep breath and lurched forward, screaming in agony. The skin on his back felt like it had been lit aflame, searing every nerve it could reach while it stretched and tore, filling his nose with the stench of his own blood. He could feel the sheets growing soaked with the crimson liquid, pooling around his legs as he bent forward and hugged himself, writhing and clawing desperately at his back in a futile attempt to ease the pain. He could feel the tears running down his face and heard himself sobbing uncontrollably, but he no longer cared. Everything hurt too much for dignity.
"Seba – Sebasti –" he choked out between his short, too-rapid breaths. Everything was getting blurry now; he couldn't slow his breathing down long enough to form a sentence; he could barely stop sobbing and screaming long enough to draw a breath. "H-he – Help m-me, SebaAAAAAGGH!" As if to spite his attempts to ease the unbearable agony, Ciel's head suddenly began to stab with pain as well; his skull felt as if it had split in two and someone was pulling it further apart by the second, working as slowly as they could just to torture him further. As rivulets of thick blood began to run into his eyes, he gave one final scream and fell from the bed, passing into unconsciousness moments before he hit the floor.
"Grell Sutcliff," Sebastian said in a monotone as his crimson eyes reluctantly settled on the red-garbed reaper standing before him on the street. "I would say it is a pleasure, but fortunately for me I cannot lie."
"Oh, Bassy, you know you missed me!" Grell said happily, grinning and lunging at Sebastian as if to hug him. The demon sidestepped easily, and the redheaded reaper fell face-down on the cobblestones, narrowly avoiding a pile of horse manure that sat just a few inches away in the gutter.
"A pity," Sebastian muttered to himself when he saw that Grell's face had not ended up where he would have liked it to be. To the demon's annoyance, Grell hurriedly hopped up from the ground, dusting off his dress and straightening his glasses where they had gone askew on his nose.
"Sebastian, you simply must tell me what you think of this dress!" he exclaimed, twirling around so that the bunches of red lace and chiffon swirled around him like a cloud. "I've spent aaages making it, you see, and Will just doesn't understand true beauty when he sees it. He's gorgeous to look at, but a bit of a stick in the mud. Not always the most perceptive fellow, either, if we're being honest. But you, Bassy, surely you must appreciate the beauty of – Erm, Sebastian?"
Grell opened his eyes, brought back from his rambling when he heard the sound of Sebastian's shoes steadily moving away from him. With a dramatic sigh, he loosened his hair from its up-do, unfastening the top three buttons on his dress and opening it so that the tip of the V fell just below his sternum. He hurriedly caught up to Sebastian, stepping in front of him and fluttering his eyelashes delicately.
"Oh, my dear, whatever has you in such a hurry? Stay with me for a while." He ran his tongue over his lips, moving closer to whisper his next words in the demon's ear. "I'll give you anything you want."
"If that is true, then I want you to leave me alone," Sebastian said bluntly, pushing Grell aside and continuing on his way. "I have much more pressing matters to attend to than a gender-confused reaper looking for love from the wrong species." Grell crossed his arms, huffing and pretending to sniffle.
"B-but Bassy, I've just missed you soooo much while you've been gone. How can you be so cold?" Sebastian stopped and turned to face Grell, glaring icily at him.
"That is absurd. If you've truly come to miss me that much in only three days, then you're more pathetic than I could have imagined."
"Three days?" Grell asked, genuine shock written all over his face. "Sebastian, you've been gone for two years…" The demon's eyes widened a fraction of an inch, and he turned his full attention to Grell, stepping back toward him until they were almost nose-to-nose.
"What did you say?"
"You must be joking! You and that brat you serve have been gone for two years now, Bassy! In fact, your gravestones at the church are already starting to become a little overgrown. All this time I've thought you were dead, and I was so disappointed it wasn't me who got to reap your soul. There is no better way to love someone than to keep them with you even in death, you see."
"Impossible. That's impossible," Sebastian muttered to himself, looking down at the threadbare coat and the dust that still clung to his shoes from the manor. "That cannot be. It is August twenty-seventh, 1889, isn't it?"
"No, I'm afraid not," Grell said, his face looking just as confused as Sebastian's. "Today is August twenty-seventh, 1891." Sebastian lunged forward immediately, grabbing Grell by the straps of his red dress and pinning him against the wall before he could even yelp in surprise. His eyes were glowing furiously, the tips of his fangs peeking out from his lips as they extended along with his claws.
"If you are lying to me, reaper…" he snarled, his teeth flashing threateningly.
"No, no!" Grell squeaked, his eyes wide as he waved his hands in a frantic gesture of surrender. "Honestly, I'm not! I thought you knew how long it had been, that's why I was so happy to see you come back!" Sebastian slowly let go of Grell, allowing his claws to recede and his fangs to shorten to only slightly longer than that of a normal human's canines. "Were you truly not aware of how much time has passed?"
"I… was not…" Sebastian said slowly, his eyes narrowed in confusion. "But how could that be?"
"Two years would pass in the blink of an eye for a demon, right? Is it possible you just slept through it?"
"It would have been possible had I not been under contract. As long as I am bound to Ciel Phantomhive, I will experience time painfully slowly as a human does, unless he should will it otherwise." For the first time in a very long time, Sebastian began to feel fear. If someone had power enough to render him and his master completely immobile for two entire years and leave them both without a single memory of it, then they could be in a great deal of danger. He needed to find out what had happened as quickly as possible, but where should he even begin?
"Hmm… It could be related to the recent demonic activity in London, I suppose…" Grell said softly. Sebastian quirked an eyebrow.
"Demonic activity? What are you talking about?"
"While you two were gone, a lot of strange things have been happening in London and the surrounding areas. Outbreaks of terrible diseases that cannot be cured, people acting as if they've been possessed, disappearances… And most of them result in death for the humans involved, which isn't a bad thing for us Shinigami, but…"
"But?"
"Many of the people on the 'To Die List' are dying ahead of schedule, before we have a chance to examine their cinematic records. And by the time we get to them, they have often had their souls stolen, although whether they've been consumed or just taken somewhere else we aren't sure. But Management is convinced it's the work of demons, so all of us in Dispatch are out here for twenty hours a day making sure no demons take the souls before we do. It's exhausting, but knowing you're alive will give me the energy to keep at it, Bassy!" Grell gave him a malicious grin, reaching for his Death Scythe, and Sebastian resisted the urge to roll his eyes, instead simply sighing and shaking his head while he re-extended his claws and fangs.
"So I take it this means we must fight again," he said resignedly, prepared to do battle with the reaper out of necessity, as he usually did. "Make it quick, if you must."
"Sorry, Sebastian, but I can't tonight," Grell said sadly. "As much as I love the feeling I get when our bodies tangle so intensely – Ooh, such heat! Such passion! Mmm… – I'm afraid I'll have to take you up on that later. Will doesn't actually know I'm here talking to you, you see, so I think for now I'll just let you go. We've only just been reunited, and I don't think I could bear having to kill you yet. Oh! But before I leave, take a look at this!"
Grell reached into the bodice of his dress – Sebastian averted his eyes and repressed a shudder – and produced a small slip of paper, which he pressed into the butler's hand. Sebastian unfolded the note, not sure what to make of the single mark on the page. It was a crudely drawn representation of an hourglass; two wings sprouted from the center, one facing up and once facing down, and the sand inside was equally full in both sections. There was nothing else, no words or names to make use of, and Sebastian was utterly unsure what it could mean.
"What is this?" he asked, turning the paper over in his hands again.
"We aren't sure yet," Grell said softly, looking around as if he expected to be overheard. "It's been found near the places where the largest numbers of premature deaths have taken place, usually etched into the wall or the cobblestones. We think it may have something to do with whoever's causing all of these strange occurrences, but nothing's been verified yet. Will and the Management Department are in charge of investigating things like this; Dispatch isn't expected to get involved, we just do as they tell us. But between you and me, I think the Queen's Guard Dog and his butler might be better able to understand this than we Shinigami can." He pressed the paper into Sebastian's coat pocket, giving the demon a more-than-friendly pat on the backside afterwards, and winked at him as turned to leave.
"Oh, and one last thing," Grell said suddenly, whirling around so fast that his red hair completely covered his face for a moment. "If you're looking for those servants of Ciel's, they're at the Middleford Manor right now. They stayed at the Phantomhive Estate for a while after you left, but for the last few months they've only gone back there once in a while to try to tidy the place up a little."
"How do you know all of this?" Sebastian asked, expecting Grell to say he watched the manor every day for some sign of the butler or something of the like.
"Oh, I had to go there to reap one of their souls last winter. Tanaka, I think his name was? The poor thing, all he did in his dying moments was ask for you and the brat, and apologize for not being able to protect you two. He really did think you'd both died, so I think he was happy to follow after you."
"That makes sense. Without a head butler, there is no way the other three could have organized themselves well enough to care for the manor. It was probably for the best that they decided to serve the Middlefords."
"So you aren't going to go after them, Bassy?"
"No. They are perfectly fine where they are now, and we won't be staying in London long." He sighed to himself, keeping his next thoughts unspoken. "Especially not with you reapers out hunting demons. The Young Master would almost definitely be captured."
"Well, it's your decision. I just thought you'd like to know."
"Indeed. As much as I hate to admit it, you've actually been quite helpful."
"Anything for the man I love," Grell said dreamily, leaning against Sebastian with a sigh. The demon pushed him off again, although he did not push him toward any manure piles this time.
"Yes, well, I have to be on my way now. I still have some things to investigate before – Ah!" He felt the mark of the contract begin to burn, and he could almost feel his master's distress through the symbol. Something was terribly wrong.
"Bassy? What's the matter, Darling?" Grell asked worriedly when Sebastian gasped and clutched his left hand to his body. The demon's eyes were wider than Grell had seen them in a long time, and before the reaper could ask anything further Sebastian bolted away at a sprint, his wings tearing through the old coat on his back as he leapt into the air. Grell tried to catch him but he wasn't fast enough, and before long he had lost sight of the demon completely. He stared in the direction Sebastian had gone for a few moments more, and then turned and started back to where his next soul was waiting to be reaped.
"Demons," he muttered with a small smile, baring his razor-sharp teeth. "You can never really understand what makes them tick. Hmm… Perhaps that's why they're so sexy? Well, Bassy, it was nice to see you again, even briefly. I hope that the next time we meet, neither of us is on-duty." Before long, the streets of London were empty once again, as if the demon and the Shinigami had never been there in the first place. The only trace of anyone's presence was a small slip of paper fluttering down the cobblestone street, baring its hourglass-shaped mark to the world before it too disappeared completely.
Author's Note: So, I translated the English to Latin on Google translator. I know enough Latin roots to recognize a few words, but I'm sure some of it is butchered. If you know actual Latin, please correct me, but if not, just pretend I'm fluent in it for now. ;)
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