Heritage

x. closer kin

Back to a pillar, fingers clasped over his cane, Ciel swept his eye across the ballroom. There was no sign of his butler in the thin, forking streams of guests trickling out the door.

"Honestly..." he groused. "Where could he be?"

He glared at a clumsy servant scurrying by, but pressed barbed words back in his tongue; those he would save for the demon. Perhaps for Leopold Middleford, too, had the man not already so spectacularly shot himself in the foot. At the moment, he was spitting in Elizabeth's face the cost of her careless words.

That same slip of tongue had tipped the scales of their relationship in Ciel's favor. Still, he hardly wanted Elizabeth to suffer for his profit. I will make it up to her later, he thought, not for the first time in the course of their relationship.

The whip of a door and the loud stomping up the stairs told him that the Marquess had wrapped up his tirade. Sebastian was still missing. A seed of worry germinated—had something happened? What on earth could be holding him up? Ciel brushed a finger over his eyepatch and willed for an answer that never arrived.

"Ciel! You're still here."

His hand flew from his eye as fast as fire. Pushing off the pillar, he tipped his head to his cousin. "Yes. I'm sorry you were caught up in all of that, Lizzie," he sighed. "My work should have remained a matter between me and the Duke."

"No, Ciel, it was my fault," said Elizabeth. She clutched the folds of her dress and bit her lip. "Now I've gone and upset Father. I must set things right with our cousin—oh, I must have upset him as well! To ask such a question—and I've upset you, haven't I, Ciel? Tell me I haven't done anything to jeopardize Lord Durless's goodwill towards you!"

Alarmed by the sudden leak of her eyes, Ciel patted around his jacket for a handkerchief, and pressed it into her hands.

"Of course not, Lizzie," he offered her a smile. If anything, he will be more endeared to me. "Let me take care of things with Lord Durless. I'm sure everything will turn out just fine. Besides," he leaned in, "you have a wedding to plan, yes? Focus only on that. Everything else will be taken care of. Don't listen to your father."

Elizabeth dabbed her eyes and gave a mute nod. He made to turn from her, but she caught him by the wrist.

"Wait," she said. "I almost forgot, amidst all—that. Ciel, you told me the other day that Lord Durless's mother is Father's sister. But how is it that...well, that you know? What I mean to say is," here she paused, and worried the handkerchief between her fingers, "are you sure? How can it be, then, that neither Father nor Lord Durless seem to know of this, but you do?"

How, indeed. This was the fine print he had not the eye to pick out. It was for these grain-like leaps in imagination that he relied most on his butler, who at the moment refused to come out of the woodwork and answer his call.

"That is something I must investigate further myself," he muttered. "But first. I must get back to my work. Elizabeth, will you do me a...favor?"

"Anything, of course," Elizabeth looked up, eyes wide. "But what is it that you need my help with?"

"Your family archives. There must be..." he began pacing, thoughts flying with his feet. "If Phillippa Middleford indeed was Leopold's sister, then there must be some kind of indicator that this was...once the case." Recent history. Memories. Portraits. Things of the sort. Or perhaps...the lack of these things. "Do not make it known to your father that I have asked this of you, but could you—look around a bit? In the archives? And of course, for now, keep the knowledge that Phillippa Middleford is his sister from his ears."

This is a weapon I will not allow him to wield.

Elizabeth bit her lip, but Ciel struck her with such a cold, burning gaze that she was reminded of his duties and her own.

"I will be discreet," she said. Drawing back, she paused, and wrapped her hands about Ciel's. "But you must be careful, too."

Ciel said nothing. With a familiar sigh, she straightened, and left for the stairs. Watching her shadow recede, Ciel wondered tiredly if there was a world where Lizzie could have remained a carefree girl. He shook his head. The doors to the past had long burnt to ash.

Surveying the bare hall, he let his impatience come to a boil and tug his feet towards the servants' quarters. Now was time to take matters into his own hands.

"Your human is quite the impatient one, isn't he?"

Eyes shut, Sebastian searched the air. A ripple to his right. He flattened himself on the tabletop and heard the cool, sharp swipe of metal where his head had been a second ago. Spying an opening, he clapped his hands overhead and caught the heavy rod before it could bear down on his body. He swung himself upright and aimed a kick at the attacker, who thwarted it with a duck. Now they each bore their weight on the rod, never once yielding to the other.

"Stop—this—now," growled Sebastian as he pushed. "You may have—your duties, but I have—mine—too. The Young Master has been calling for me. Please—do not interrupt my passage—any longer."

William T. Spears removed a trembling hand from the rod to push his glasses up his nose. "I will—cease to do so—when you cease to interrupt my work, demon," he hissed. "If—I—have—to—do—overtime—again, I will see the end of you—and your kind. Now, explain yourself. What on earth have—you—done—this time?"

"What—have I done?" Sebastian grunted. The Young Master was approaching like a thunderstorm. "Nothing that would be of—interest—to you!"

With a heave, he slammed a foot against the cliff of the table, causing them both to topple onto the dusty stone floor as the table flipped in midair and shattered against the wall behind him. He shot up, ready to end the skirmish, but found the sharp end of William's scythe grazing his neck. A step back would see him impaling himself on splintered wood.

"I really do detest you," muttered Sebastian, eyes crackling like hellfire.

"And I you," William pursed his lips. "Now, please explain this." He thrust a hand amid the sickly yellow air, recoiling as a ghoulish tendril crept up his arm.

"I am as much at a loss as you are," said Sebastian. He brushed away William's spear with a snap of his hand and patted the dust off his coat. "This is not my doing. You of all beings should be able to tell. But it certainly is—familiar."

"To your kind only," sniffed William. "This air is unholy." Reaching into his suit, he pulled out a notepad. "Nevertheless, I am here to investigate this anomaly, and you are the only demon in sight. Give me answers. Now."

"I told you, I—"

Like a thick duvet torn off a bed, the miasma lifted, and the air tasted once more of clean souls. William and Sebastian snapped apart.

"What on earth...?" muttered William.

"That wasn't me," said Sebastian.

William's eyes narrowed into needles as he jotted a memo. "Yet another in a string of unexplained incidents," he muttered, jabbing his punctuation marks.

"Another?" Sebastian mulled over the implications. "Do you mean to say..."

"I have yet to uncover the culprit," said William, crossing his arms, "but I am very certain that this is the doing of your kind."

"Of course. But what happened?"

"Lost souls." William shut his eyes as a shadow came over them. "Stolen souls, to be precise. These kinds of souls would normally not be in my jurisdiction, but the nature of their disappearances...the Committee deemed it prudent to dispatch someone with experience."

"Not in your jurisdiction, you say," murmured Sebastian. A morning headline flashed by his mind. "It can only be animal souls, then." The memory of their coarse flavor dredged up a grimace.

"Feline souls." William's eyes glimmered.

"What—"

The door burst open.

"SEBASTIAN!" roared Ciel, eyepatch crumpled in his hands, chest heaving with thunder. "What on earth have y—" here he paused, took in the dust and splintered wood, and spun to William. "You! What are you doing here?"

"Took you a while, didn't it," muttered William.

"Yes, well," Ciel ground out, "the party only just ended, didn't it? And you, Sebastian! I have been calling for you. Why didn't you—"

"Just wait a minute," William narrowed his eyes. "People have left this building?"

"Yes?" snapped Ciel. "The party did just end, after all. Why is that important?"

Scribbling in his notepad at gunfire's pace, William began a pace to match. "The miasma vanished very recently, too, probably around that same time...and if I remember, let me check..." he flipped a few pages, "yes, yes, it appeared around the time the people started coming in..."

"An unlikely coincidence," Sebastian cut in. His brows drew together in thought.

A party guest...

William and Sebastian looked at each other.

"Will you explain to me just what is going on here—" Ciel marched up to Sebastian to jab a finger in his chest, "—and what he is doing here?" His finger snapped to William.

"He is on business, Young Master," bowed Sebastian. "There appears to have been...a local disturbance, lately. Souls have been taken where, ah, they should not have been."

The irony pinched like a needle. Ciel wound his eyepatch tight in his fingers.

"Is this happening at Whitford Manor, then?" he frowned. The Marquess hardly struck him as a man who would dabble in the occult.

"No," said William, glancing at Sebastian, "but a—demonic disturbance brings me here. It arrived with the guests, and vanished with them. Most likely, it is linked to the soul disturbances of late."

"It would be prudent to check the guest list, then, and investigate from there," murmured Sebastian.

Ciel rubbed his forehead. Just one more thing to cap off his mountainous workload.

"I will obtain it from Elizabeth," he sighed. "Just—whatever this is, get it away from her. I don't want to see you anywhere near Whitford Manor again."

"Neither do I," clipped William.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Ciel rolled his eyes. "Death?"

With a harrumph, William leapt onto the windowsill. "I will continue to investigate, in the meantime. Please retrieve the guest list as soon as possible. Adieu." His shadow fluttered into the wind.

"Ne revenez pas," muttered Ciel.

The marigold glow of sunset broke over the wood splinters strewn about the stone floor. Sebastian slid off his coat and rolled up his sleeves. It was time to clean up his mess.

Between the scraping and the sweeping and the tossing, Ciel broke in: "Is it another one of your kind, then?" He leaned into the doorframe, head bowed over crossed arms, looking into the depths of the floor.

"It is possible."

"Will it pose any danger?"

To us?

Sebastian brushed the scuff marks off the windowsill. Under the setting sun, his eyes shone like lava. "Not many are able to summon demons of my calibre, Young Master."

Throb. The unclothed eye shut.

"But if it were great enough to pose—a threat," murmured Ciel, "what will you do then?"

Sebastian tilted his head back to capture his eye. "The ties of sacrifice supersede all," he said, drawing his words out like blood. "That which is written—" bled "—onto your soul can never be erased."

My name.

Neither looked away. A sudden wind blew a curled leaf into the room. Their eyes found it together.

Sebastian tossed the last of the splinters out the window. "Come, my Lord," he said, "it is time to return home."

"Don't think I've forgotten your insubordination today."

"I dare not dream of it. An extra helping of dessert may be in order tonight."

"Hmph."

Pushing off the doorframe, Ciel began his trek back, but paused. "One more thing. Sebastian, I want you to thoroughly investigate Phillippa Middleford's background."

"Yes, my Lord."

His initial task finally accomplished, Ciel let his mind wander to a realm of caramels and éclairs and black forest cake. Sebastian shook his head. A long evening in the kitchen lay ahead. William's alarming remark about feline souls, however, remained lodged in his mind. His attention festered around it like an open wound.

Now, where to keep my beautiful darlings safe...

To be continued