DISCLAIMER: Kuroshitsuji is not mine, it is the property of Yana Toboso. This Disclaimer stands for all following chapters, because I'm lazy and don't feel like writing it all the time.
Oh goodness, this chapter makes me feel like a horrible person.
Venatus means "Hunt" in Latin
Venatus
Sebastian ran as fast as his form would allow, following the scent of Spring-Heeled Jack. The scent was musky, and heavily masked with human contaminants. Sebastian could not tell what the creature was by scent alone. But he was now certain it was no human who could do these dastardly deeds. Nor was it simply another fallen reaper.
Darting across the rooftops, they were now coming upon London proper. He could smell Elizabeth's perfume in the air. Good, that meant he was close.
As his lithe from jumped effortlessly from roof tiles to chimney tops, Sebastian remembered Ciel's traumatized form, kneeling on the ground immediately after the abduction. It had been a very long time since his asthma had acted up so badly, or that anything had been enough to send Ciel into a panic-stricken frenzy. Sebastian had thought that Ciel was past all that. As a child, he was certainly still prone to such moments of weakness, and understandably so. As much as he tried to be an adult and be lord of his house, he was still just a thirteen year old boy. He had been forced to mature much faster than most, but that didn't mean he was completely mature. He had broken down in Baron Kelvin's mansion at the sight of the slaughtered children, and in his madness, he had carelessly ordered Sebastian to kill them all.
Since then, he had kept his cool consistently, and even the most gruesome things didn't seem to faze him anymore. There were slight moments where Sebastian could sense his master's mind faltering, but he hadn't seen Ciel's tears in a very long time. And he seemed to be truly devastated when Elizabeth had been taken. Seeing Ciel like that over a silly creature like Elizabeth stirred something in Sebastian. It felt similar to rage, but it wasn't quite the same.
Truth be told, he didn't want to rescue her. He didn't care how much she meant to Ciel. Or rather, it was because she meant so much to Ciel that he wanted to be rid of her. Sebastian felt that same sensation stir within him again. When he tried to stifle it, it reared its head against him with twice the strength. It was as vicious and as relentless as a hydra, and Sebastian couldn't remember the last time he had felt such a thing.
His thoughts were interrupted when he saw a dark figure in the distance leaping in and out of his field of vision. Finally, he had managed to catch up to the wicked creature. Sebastian doubled his pace, wanting to get the ordeal over with as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile, back at the manor, the Marchioness was positively inconsolable, and not without good reason. After a period of prolonged sobbing, she had so little strength, it was all she could do to pass out in the guest room. As she slept, the others sat in silence in the dining hall. Sebastian's perfectly cooked dinner was slowly going cold before them. No one could speak, much less eat. The Marquis had his face buried in his hands on the table, and Ciel was grasping his fingers so tightly that his knuckles were white. Tanaka stood by him, staring at him cautiously.
Something in Tanaka knew that Ciel hadn't told the complete truth. Yes, Spring-Heeled Jack must have taken Lady Elizabeth. But there was more to it than that. There was so much anger, so much guilt reflected in that eye, he knew his master was hiding something. If the only thing that happened was that Spring-Heeled Jack leapt into the gardens and stole Lady Elizabeth away, ther would not be guilt on his expression. His master was reasonable enough to understand that he could not be blamed for such an event. But something else had happened. Ciel had done something, something for which he felt responsible leading up to the abduction.
Tanaka's thoughts were interrupted when the Marquis spoke with a cracked voice. "Tanaka, would you please bring us some brandy?"
Ciel frowned slightly. It was not a good idea to take this opportunity to drink one's self senseless, but he couldn't very well refuse. The man was in a very sticky situation, and apparently, the best way he knew to cope was with alcohol. Ciel could hardly approve. But when Tanaka directed a questioning look his way, Ciel gave a slight nod. Tanaka swiftly moved to fetch the liquor, leaving Ciel alone with the Marquis.
The Marquis spoke again, his voice growing firmer with every word that left his lips.
"Now tell me, Earl Phantomhive, I am unaware of the news lately. But who in the world is Spring-Heeled Jack?" He looked at Ciel through sunken eyes, and Ciel bit his lip. But respectfully, he answered.
"He has been in the news lately as a menace to the citizens of London. He was so named because of his ability to leap extreme heights. I saw that for myself tonight."
"Is he a... a... m-"
"He hasn't murdered anyone yet." Ciel responded, saving the Marquis the trouble of finishing that sentence.
"Yet." The Marquis repeated, the word hanging bitterly on his tongue.
Tanaka returned with a bottle of the Earl's finest Brandy, and two glasses. He poured out the first one for the Marquis, then the second for Ciel. Before he had even placed Ciel's glass before him, the Marquis had quickly gulped down his glass. He held it out, requesting more. Tanaka graciously obliged. Ciel didn't touch his glass.
The Marquis held the second glass in the air in a mock toast.
"Cheers." He stated, waiting for Ciel to raise his glass as well. Ciel wanted no part in this nonsense. In a crisis situation, level heads were needed. As the head of the Middleford household, the Marquis had no business getting himself intoxicated immediately after his daughter's abduction.
What a useless man.
When Ciel did not respond, the Marquis shook his glass a little in the air.
"Come now, Earl. Shouldn't you make more of an effort to humor your guests?"
Ciel supposed that if Elizabeth took her personality from her father, then her inability to keep her emotions in check had been inherited from him as well. It had been a bothersome trait, but she had grown out of it as she grew older. Unfortunately, her father was not the same way.
"I find this behavior inappropriate for the situation at hand." His lips pursed in distaste.
The Marquis clicked his tongue in annoyance, but did not try to push him further. He merely drank his brandy, allowing himself to be slowly inebriated. He felt utterly helpless, and he welcomed the inebriation that alcohol would bring. His mind swam with dark thoughts, and his own imagination presented worse situations than the one he was in. He gripped one hand inside the other tightly, cursing his own powerlessness. His little girl was in trouble. He was her father, her protector, but what was he doing now? He was depending on this young Earl and his butler.
Elizabeth's childish face appeared in his mind, her eyes gleaming. He could still feel how light she was in his arms as a child, he could still hear the cheerful ringing of her laughter in his ears. She loved to be held and flung in the air, and he had always been there to catch her as she fell. But now...
"Lizzie..." he muttered helplessly. Ciel clenched his fingers. He could feel the agony in that voice. He could sense how helpless the Marquis felt. They were feelings he understood, feelings he could sympathize with. But he was no longer helpless. He was no longer a child. And he would not break down. But for this man sitting across from him, who had never known true loss, he could offer him this one moment of weakness. He gestured at Tanaka, who placed a small handkerchief by the Marquis. Then Ciel rose from his chair and left the room silently, so that the Marquis could be spared from having an audience at his moment of despair.
"Lizzie..." The Marquis repeated her name pathetically. For some reason, calling her name brought him some small amount of solace. "Lizzie... my Lizzie..."
Ciel gently closed the door behind him, leaving Tanaka to take care of the broken old man. He had stopped calling her Lizzie long ago. It took her forever to get him to instinctively call her Lizzie when they were children. But as they both matured, the formalities replaced themselves. Ciel did not find it appropriate to call her Lizzie, and she, in becoming a lady, no longer bothered to correct him. But at that moment, hearing the muffled moans of her father on the other side of the door, Ciel found that he could not stop his lips from also muttering her name.
"Lizzie..."
The perpetrator named Spring-Heeled Jack leapt from rooftop to rooftop, carelessly handling his prize. Elizabeth lay limp in his arms, her hair completely undone from the neat bun it had been in earlier and still very unconscious. The man stole a glance at her sleeping face and marveled at its beauty. She was perfect. But his thoughts had slowed him down ever so slightly, and it was then that he became aware of the dark presence that had been following him for miles.
The kidnapper stopped abruptly atop the next rooftop he jumped onto and turned around to face his pursuer. At first glance, he almost mistook the man for a human, with the way he was dressed. A butler of all things!
"Who are you?" he demanded, his voice brazen and loud.
Sebastian stopped, landing on the most adjacent rooftop to Spring-Heeled Jack's. Placing his right hand gingerly on his breast, he answered,
"I am the head butler to the Phantomhive family, Sebastian Michaelis." It was a practiced phrase, delivered without a second thought.
"You're lying."
"I do not lie." Honestly, was it so hard for people to understand that Sebastian was not the sort to lie? He may be a demon, but that didn't mean it was impossible for him to delight in the truth.
"Fine. But it's not the whole truth. It's plain to anyone what you really are."
Sebastian raised an eyebrow. As he thought, Spring-Heeled Jack was indeed inhuman.
"You're a demon."
"I'm just one hell of a butler."
"You're a demon, and you're after my prize. But you can't have her, because I got to her first, you see?" He shook Elizabeth's sleeping figure gently, as if to accentuate his phrase.
"I'm afraid Lady Elizabeth is not yours to have. You see, she is betrothed to the young Earl Phantomhive." Sebastian frowned in disgust. This was clearly a lesser demon, most likely an incubus. He was crass and unmannered, so much like the mindless drabble his kind was composed of. It was because of creatures like Spring-Heeled Jack that demons were given such an awful disposition in folklore.
"That's not what it looked like when I picked her up. Seems to me like she just had her heart broken. Poor thing." He laid a gentle caress on her cheek.
"For all your brazen pretense, what exactly are you?" Sebastian would ask the questions now.
Spring-Heeled Jack let out a keen, high laugh. Straightening his posture and laying a clawed hand to his breast, he announced, "Why, I am the great Mephistopheles." He gave Sebastian a smug grin, who merely sighed.
"If you were going to lie, you should've chosen a less obvious one."
Jack pouted, hoping to have toyed with his hunter a little.
"And here I wanted to see you tremble in fear. But since you gave me your name, I'll give you mine. My name is Malchior of Nor. I, like you Mr. Michaelis, am a demon."
"You are a lesser demon." Sebastian's reply was sharp, and Malchior hissed in anger.
"You're one of those arrogant types, aren't you? Looking down on me just because I'm not of a particular class of demon. But authority was not given to you to judge. We've all already been judged, and we both belong to the damned. That's all that matters."
"Maybe so, but that's not the issue here."
"Oh that's right. You want this little one." Malchior gently laid Elizabeth down on the rooftop, kneeling beside her tenderly. "I suppose, I could give her back to you when I'm done with her."
"What does that entail?"
"I'm sure you've already guessed that I'm an incubus."
Sebastian furrowed his eyebrows. What an unpleasant creature. But he allowed him to continue speaking.
"And lately, I've felt the need to produce an heir. Imagine, a little cambion of my own to raise into my dastardly ways..." Malchior's eyes glowed with an eery light.
"I looked all over London, but I just couldn't find the right woman to have my child. I realized that half of them were unworthy only after I ravished their bodies." Malchior closed his eyes in ecstacy, recalling his lustful deeds. Sebastian could only listen with utter disgust. Scotland Yard didn't have any reports of women who had actually been raped, but that shouldn't have surprised him. Women who had been raped wouldn't report their situation out of some misplaced notion of shame. Spring-Heeled Jack had been a much larger menace than he had anticipated.
"And then I saw this little flower. Something in that tear-stained face just tugged at something within me, and I knew. I had to have her. She has exactly the quality I was looking for."
"And what, pray tell, was that?"
Malchior looked up, grinning from ear to ear with maddening fire in his eyes. He held her body close as he whispered,
"Frailty."
Sebastian eyed him carefully. Malchior began to run his fingers through Elizabeth's hair, gently tucking the stray strands behind her ears and combing the rest back into submission.
"Most of the women fought back, you know. They would scream and cry, kick and pull. They're not nearly as weak as men like to think they are. In times of crisis, they can really come alive, despite how feeble their attempts may be."
How ironic, Sebastian thought. As a demon, Sebastian only ever contracted with humans he believed were strong. He didn't care for the weak rabble, the masses who could only think to keep themselves alive for one more day. He wanted souls with flavor. Whether that flavor was pride or wrath, as long as it was determined, as long as it wasn't weak, he would be willing to serve them. But this Malchior, who kneeled before him, deliberately searched for the weak. He wanted to produce a child, and he looked for the weakest, most pathetic of human females to procreate with. Sebastian found this peculiar.
"If you want an heir, why would you choose the weakest woman you could possibly find? Wouldn't that affect the strength of your cambion?"
"A half demon is a half demon, regardless of what mortal blood they obtain. You see, it's the demon's blood that makes any difference. And the reason for desiring a weaker woman is because they're less able to resist my poisonous aura. Laying with me has a deteriorating effect on their health. After I've had my way, she'll spiral quickly on the path to death. The strength of my child will sustain her until she gives birth, but then she'll quickly pass as a result of that childbirth."
"In other words, you want to provide them with a slow, painful death."
"I just want to claim what's mine. If they're alive, they'll want to cling to my child. Women are so demanding about children. It's much more convenient for me if they just die quickly."
All at once, Sebastian felt the seal of his contract burning. His master was distraught, and a single word passed into his mind. Lizzie... Sebastian hissed with displeasure. His master was still so concerned over this ridiculous woman. Just earlier that evening he had stomped all over her precious heart, and now he was concerned over her well-being. It was irritating.
"So what do you say, Sebastian Michaelis?" Malchior's voice abruptly brought back Sebastian's attention. "How about you just stand there like a good little boy until I have my way with her, and then you can have her back, and everything will be fine and dandy."
Sebastian narrowed his eyes. His master's order had only been to find Spring-Heeled Jack. It had not included bringing back Elizabeth unharmed. And given his simmering jealousy at the moment, Sebastian carefully considered Malchior's offer.
