Hello, my lovely readers! Hope you all had a great Halloween :D Now as the leaves turn and Thanksgiving plans are made at the beginning of this new month of November, why not sit back and relax and enjoy this new chapter of the Undertaker's Apprentice? Wow, how poetic was that? I'm just spouting creativity over here, ignore it if you wish ^_^
Soo I was kindly told that I have been misspelling Sebastian's last name wrong in this story! The horror! The sacrilige! :O but yeah, I'll get on that to fix it right away, so don't worry about it in future chapters :)
And last chapter wasn't exactly the very beginning of Ciel's woes, sorry about jumping the gun -_-; but THIS chapter is! The lime's coming up fast, so if you're not into that, feel free to bail. Though I assure you the story will be kicking some serious ass in later chapters. Not to mention the murderer's identity is still up in the air. What? Guilt trip? Me? No way!
...I love sarcasm.
Anyway, the important info of the week: regarding Sebastian's demonic nature, for this story I haven't made him a demon. Well, I haven't made him demonic in any way except being creepy and having red eyes, haha. But yeah, the only supernatural ones I have planned out right now are the Undertaker and Grell. Why I decided to keep those two and nix Sebas-chan fails to reveal itself to me. But for now or until stated otherwise, think of Sebastian as a not-supernatural, very rich and sexy duke ^_^
Now onward, my readers (and reviewers...? :D), to chapter 6!
The Undertaker's Apprentice
"What the bloody bloomin' 'ell 'ere ya two blasted mandrakes thinkin'?!" Ciel screamed.
"Now, now, Ci-Ci," Grell tried to soothe the tantruming boy's fit, "It's not going to be as bad as you think. It'll only be for a day or two—"
"An' what ya think can happen ta me in a day in a place like that?!" Ciel raged, "You two're out o' yer bloody minds!"
The Undertaker knelt down so he was at eye level with Ciel. "Listen, you," he said.
Ciel went quiet. He knew that when the Undertaker got seirous like this, it was time to pay attention and be serious himself.
"Good," the Undertaker said, "Now listen carefully to what I'm going to tell you, Ciel. You are going to go to the address I'm giving you now tomorrow morning and tell them you're looking for work. If they refuse, keep pestering them until they let you in. it's very important that you get work there, Ciel. You won't get the information from the Viscount if you don't work there."
Ciel jerked his head down so the Undertaker and Grell could not see the shame building on his face for what he was about to do. "…so you need me to be a… ladybird… fer a day, get the Viscount drunk enough to spill what he knows, an' figure out what ya need?"
The Undertaker nodded. "I'm glad you understand where we're coming from, Ciel."
"Just so you know, we're not doing this for our own enjoyment," Grell piped in, "It's pretty unpleasant business, I must say, no matter who goes and does the job."
"Shut it, Grell," the Undertaker admonished him, "You're not making this any easier on the kid."
Ciel leaned against a coffin, folding his arms. "What I'd like ta know is this," he said, "Why can't ya jus' find one o' the chavys who work there already an' pay 'em ta tell ya 'bout the Viscount?"
Grell held up his hands and shrugged. "You seriously think any of them will take the money and come back to tell us anything? Or that they'll even try to find anything if we don't pay them up front?"
"Basically, you're our best bet," the Undertaker said, "It's one day, Ciel. You'll be fine. If you get him hammered enough, I'm pretty sure he won't notice if nothing else happens."
"What 'bout gettin' me out o' there when this's all done?" Ciel asked.
Grell held up a bag and shook it. The bag's contents jingled and clinked. "All here! We'll pay the guys running the place to let you out when you find out what we need," he explained with a smile.
Ciel gave a short, disbelieving laugh. "So's yer buyin' me back, is that it?" he said darkly.
"More or less," Grell said, that silly smile still plastered across his face.
Ciel pushed away from the wall and stood up. "Ya sure there's no other way ta get info outta the Viscount?"
The Undertaker shook his head. "None that gets the information faster, or that's easier for that matter," he added.
Ciel said nothing, but took the slip of paper with the address on it from the Undertaker and ghosted across the room to the stairs leading up to the apartment.
Ciel walked to his small room, which was more of a closet than a room, and sat on his creaky bed. This was the last night he was going to spend in this room for a while, at least until Grell and the Undertaker got him out of that place. Ciel shuddered at what lay ahead for him. He was going to end up working in a brothel, just like Angela had feared.
The irony of the situation was beginning to creep up on him. He'd started working for the Undertaker in the first place because he'd wanted to stay away from the kidsmen and the brothels, and here he was ending up in the worst possible situation all because of where he worked.
He could run now. He could run away, disappear from this shop, leave all this horror behind him. He'd run to Sebastian's house, work for him as a servant. With a mansion as huge as that, there had to be something he could do to earn his keep and safety. Ciel's heart sank when he realized the gravity of the situation. At this point, the safest place he could think of was Sebastian's mansion. That said a few things about his predicament.
Ciel was frightened of the duke. He was frightened by his smoldering red eyes, his sneering smile, the demonic way he moved and handled himself. He was afraid of his sharp intelligence, the quickness with which he could deduce and decipher anything. Everything about the duke terrified Ciel, but for some reason that fear was not enough to keep him away.
Despite the terror Sebastian instigated in the boy's heart, there was something else. Something awfully alluring about the terrifying fear he felt. So tantalizingly alluring that Ciel could not help but be drawn to it. The more he thought about it, the more he needed to see Sebastian. The duke was not helping in keeping him away, either. Whenever he saw him, he would smile that demonic smirk. Ciel found it hard to leave at the end of each meeting, to break away from the dangerous gaze of the duke.
At the same time, he would be glad each time a meeting ended and he could go back to the shop. He needed to be free from Sebastian as much as he needed to be with him. Ciel knew that this was wrong, that it was wrong of him to want this so much; dukes and mortician's apprentices never found each other for more than business when it was needed. Ciel needed the ends of those meetings to come, to force him to leave and face the harsh reality of his future with Sebastian, if it could be called that.
Ciel lay down on his bed, which creaked and moaned under his slight weight. This was all terribly confusing. He wished Grell had never found Miss Middleton's corpse, so he would never have had to meet Sebastian and get caught up in this mess. This had all happened far too fast for his liking. The discovery of Miss Middleton's corpse, meeting Sebastian, finding out about Viscount Druitt, and now his mission to that brothel.
"Too much, too fast," he mumbled, covering his eyes with his forearm.
All of a sudden, Ciel shot out of bed. What was he doing, laying around? He could be trying to get out of here! He scrambled around his room, looking for anything he wanted to take with him. After this was over, he doubted the Undertaker would want to take him back once he ran away.
The boy found two pounds he had hidden away on a shelf and put them in his pocket. Looking around the room, he realized with a sad, sinking feeling that he really did not have much else to his name than those few pounds. Turning away from his room, he forced open the small window with a screech and scrambled out of it, afraid that the Undertaker had heard the noise.
Crawling out onto the roof, Ciel stood up and looked around. He was standing on the top of the roof over the front of the shop, next to the sign that read "UNDERTAKER". Carefully, he inched his way across the rest of the way to the edge of the roof on the far side of the building, where he climbed down into the narrow alley dividing the Undertaker's shop from the apartment house next door. Stealing a look behind him, Ciel set off on his way to find another place to hide.
Can I just say I enjoyed writing that inner conflict in the last part very much? Because I had a blast. I'm sorry about the shorter update, but at least it's vital to the story (I'm going to try to stay away from filler. Can't have readers forgetting the overarching plot, now can I?). Hmm... can't really offer Halloween candy for reviews, seeing as it's all gone (^_^'), but I can offer hot tea! It's getting pretty cold now, anyway... Be back here in a week for more, on November 13! Ooh, That's Friday the 13th. Perfect for reading horror/historical mystery!