He reached a closed door, knowing the room behind it was empty he pondered whether he should wait for her return or come back another time. He thought of going back to the apartment and of Ciel there, probably still in the shower...

"My, my! What a pleasant visit." Came a female's silky voice beside him.

"The pleasure is all mine" Sebastian said with slit eyes as he bent to kiss the Lady's hand. He stayed there, bent before her as they looked at each other suspiciously.

Marlene was stunningly beautiful. She was petite and always wore thigh high boots, even back in 432. She was one of the oldest demons of the realm, older than him, and her survival for this long was mainly due to her eating habits.

Instead of contracting with humans to eat their souls, she seduced them and accomplished their wish in exchange of them following her back to her lair where she toyed with them until the final kill. The longest had lasted 12 years. Rumours started going around that she had fallen for the boy... that's when she hosted a party inviting all the demons who were willing, to come play with her toy. At the end of the evening, she had ripped his heart out of... whatever was left of his body.

"Please come in" she said in a measured tone as Sebastian slowly straightened himself. She gestured him towards the doors which opened as if pushed by an invisible force.

Sebastian stepped into the vast room casually where a large bed was carved in the middle bringing the mattress to the height of your feet, a small table to the left, and a bunch of cushions gathered on the floor to the right.

"Marlene" Sebastian purred smiling "You can drop the illusion. Have you forgotten who I am?" He knew very well she hadn't; how could she after what he had done to her. But she held up barriers he wasn't willing to put up with today. Whatever she was hiding, he needed to know. For what he was here to ask, he would need all to know as much as he could about her. You never knew when someone could turn against you.

The woman hadn't come into the room but narrowed her eyes at him obviously debating. Sebastian flashed an innocent smile and she finally seemed to be convinced. "You've got me intrigued" she smirked snapping her fingers, and her pointy boots hit the floor as she walked passed him into the room.

Colors were dragged down, like a heavy curtain falling, turning the scene into a black and white movie. The bed disappeared leaving behind a flat table big enough for a human with leather bounds where the neck, feet and hands would go. The table to the left was now an aquarium of sort. Standing about five feet tall and 12 feet wide, fairies battled inside.

Sebastian smiled, teeth protruding. "You still have them battling in there?"

"Of course. It's my most prized piece."

"How long have they been in there?"

"Who knows. Even I forget; generations and generations. The beauty of it all is they still believe the last one standing will ascend to a better world. Even if I wanted to release them now, they couldn't adapt to the real world. It became a religion to them." She smirked as she sat on the torture table in the middle of the room.

"Now why would you hide such a pretty thing from my eyes?" Sebastian enquired.

Marlene slowly lit a cigarette placed on a holder. She took in a puff as she eyed Sebastian through the smoke. "Your boy." She answered crossing her legs elegantly.

"Ah... Just how insulted should I be that you'd think I've become this soft?" Sebastian fluidly sat besides the demoness and saw, where cushions used to be a young male chained and gagged. His naked body showed several marks of abuse, bruises, burns, and slashes. His eyes were a light color but the boy quickly averted his stare. "That would never happen." He continued turning his attention back to her. Of all people, of course she would have the most interest in his feelings for Ciel. She was still looking at him intently, searching for the smallest bit of contradiction between his speech, and his reaction.

She threw her cigarette on the floor, seemingly loosing interest, and bounced herself off the table; slowly heading for the man curled up in the corner. With an exasperated voice she waved a dismissive hand in his direction "What do you want Michaelis? A greater demon doesn't often pay a visit to others. What is the reason of you coming here?"

Sebastian liked Marlene the most, her cat like walk reminded him of his favorite pet and she had been, more than once, his partner in (devious and atrocious) crimes. Until a few hundred years ago when he came to her 'goodbye party' for her pet...

Back then, everyone knew she was in love with that pet and they all took a gruesome pleasure in torturing him and watching her calculated reactions. They put stakes through him, burned, cut, and bit his skin. They ridiculed him, laughed at him, and broke his soul over and over again. But he had decided on a different course of action. He had decided to make him watch, to look as he pinned down Marlene and fucked her violently. That moment when Marlene couldn't bear to have him watch anymore and, as she looked away, the anger that morphed the boy's features; eyes burning with rage. He remembered it like it was yesterday. He wasn't Satan's favorite for no reason. An evil smirk crept to his lips as he recalled the scene.

"I need your help my love."

"Oh." Was all she said as she bent down to put a blindfold on her pet.

"I need to break this contract."

That seemed to get her attention as she froze for a few seconds but then carried on "And here I thought you loved the boy. You do know the only way to break a contact is if he dies, don't you?"

Sebastian made a sound that sounded half like amusement and half thoughtful. "Hnnh... There is a great difference between love and lust wouldn't you agree? He's an object of beauty that is true, perfectly balanced between good and evil... beautiful so long as I could destroy that beauty at will. Now that the situation has come to what it is, I fear I have no other option than to rid myself of this burden."

Marlene didn't respond right away. Only the whimpers of the young man in the corner as she brushed a pointy stake slowly down his abdomen filled the silence. After a silence long enough that it would have been awkward with anyone other than her, she turned to him and simply stated "Beauty exists in the eye that contemplates it."

Sebastians' gaze grew dark. That is precisely why he loved her but avoided her as much as he could – she had an uncanny ability to make him aware of his own feelings. "That may be so, but beauty is a fragile gift; one I intend to break." he replied determined.

Marlene only let a contemplative "Hmm..." escape her throat "You don't need to kill him to break him. You of all people know that." She added and said no more.