Lady Elizabeth was also in the carriage. She slumped to the side, asleep. There was a lingering scent of chloroform in the air. I checked on her anxiously and then held her close, my arms wrapped protectively around her. I was frightened but I kept reminding myself that Sebastian was out there and he'd come save us both. I just had to focus on getting the evidence I needed to damn Corey in the eyes of the Yard.
"Your name threw me a bit," he said idly, "But you're far too familiar with that other fellow and him I can remember. He wore glasses then. I saw his red eyes anyway and wondered who he was. Later, after the arrests, Druitt said that he had seen his little robin dancing with someone, a stranger he didn't recognize. And then here you are, dropped in my lap in the same manner Druitt had received his robin. So who are you – honestly? You used an assumed name. I couldn't find you or him anywhere for the longest time... until now."
Who the bloody hell was he mistaking me for? Corey had accounted for all the guests except two: Sebastian and Ciel. Sebastian he recognized from his eyes. But me? Even if he hadn't gotten a good look at Druitt's little robin, there was no way-
Unless Ciel was disguised as a girl. The absurdity of the thought made me laugh despite my situation. It made sense, in a crazy sort of way. Ciel was very pretty and with a bit of effort he could easily be mistaken for a girl, which would be the perfect disguise to lure Druitt into a trap if I read the man right. Hilarious. But Corey didn't seem to find it very amusing. He glared at me, furious for not taking him seriously.
"I'm a detective," I said. No sense in making stuff up anymore. My mark burned. "I work with Sebastian sometimes. He's probably off mustering the Yard as we speak."
Corey went pale. He stuck his head out the window and barked something to the driver and then was silent as the carriage sped up. Elizabeth stirred in my arms and I whispered for her to be still and not be afraid. When she finally opened her eyes the carriage was stopping and there were more men just outside, waiting.
"No!"I cried as they pulled her from my arms, and then another was pulling me along too, dragging me through a narrow alleyway. I recognized it. Near the chandler's shop. Corey must own property here as well. They separated us and I struggled, no longer confident in Sebastian's rescue. Elizabeth tried to scream but one of the thugs got a grip around her neck and choked it off. I saw a flash of brilliant yellow curls and then I was shoved down the stairs into a dark basement and cut off from the world.
"Hurry up," Corey snapped, "Get some light."
Gas lamps flared to life. The basement was clean and mostly bare, save for a cage in the middle with the door open and a very smug Sebastian sitting on the top. He tapped at the side of his cheek with one finger.
"Well," he said pleasantly, "Took all of you long enough."
"I thought you were getting the Yard," I said. I shook the man holding me off. He was too stunned to resist.
"They're a bit slow and I thought you might need the help sooner than they could get here. So, Corey Lueder, is it?"
Someone thought to move. A gun came out and fired and I shrieked and cringed, covering my ears with my hands. It was so close! My head rung with the noise of it and there was a faint buzzing in my right ear. Sebastian was holding his hand before him, frowning at whatever he held in his palm. He said something and it took a moment for my hearing to kick back in and catch the words.
"-resorting to unpleasantness." He sounded half-pleased, half-disappointed. I wondered which was coming from the devil in him and which was from the butler. "But so be it."
And he flung his hand open. One of the thugs beside Corey pitched backwards, blood scything through the air in a thin ribbon. I was forgotten about in the ensuing chaos. Sebastian hopped off the cage as everyone's attention – and firearms – focused on him.
Lady Elizabeth wasn't safe. The first man's gun had fallen nearby. I picked it up and turned away from the tumult – not wanting to see what Sebastian was going to do – and bolted for the door. I was out into the cold London night air and off down the alleyway. It led to the river. I remembered that. My breath came in sharp little gasps and not from the exertion. I was terrified for the girl. Ciel would be angry. Francis would never forgive me. And my entire world revolved around saving that little girl – for all the ones I hadn't been able to save, for all the ones where help never came and it was always far too late.
Not this one. Not Lizzie.
"I'm coming," I whispered, and let my shoes slip off behind me so that I could run barefoot, my skirts pulled up to my knee.
She was putting up a fight. They had her down by the water's edge near a bridge where the shadows concealed them. Three men. One had her around the neck and was holding her slightly in the air, cutting off her air. She kicked and clawed and I saw fury and terror in her eyes. She was as much her mother as she was a frightened little girl and the ferocity that was Lady Francis had bred true. I skirted down the bank as she jabbed one elbow back and broke the man's nose. He cried out in pain and swung the little girl back into the underside of the bridge. She went limp and two of them heaved her into the water. She vanished from sight.
"NO!" I screamed and the gun was up between my hands and I was pulling the trigger. I didn't even hear the gunshots. Some part of me was beyond numb, beyond feeling, beyond thought. I just fired until the gun clicked empty and all three of them lay dead at the edge of the shore. I was panting.
There was blood on my hands now. Sebastian was not doing my dirty work this time. I'd done it myself.
I was crying. I discarded the gun and waded into the river, slipping on the algae-slick rock. The water was shockingly cold, so cold it forced my air out in painful gasps and I could only breath a tiny bit at a time. It was an effort of will to fill my lungs and duck underwater. I opened my eyes and felt the water suffuse my dress and pull me down. There was so little light. My eyes burned. I clawed about with splayed fingers, willing myself to find her. I swore I'd save her. I'd sooner drown here in the river than leave her behind.
There. A glimpse of gold. I pushed off the bottom and felt the mud drift in a cloud around me and I moved forwards, agonizingly slow, and my chest started to burn in warning. My hands closed around fabric, around a cold and limp body, and I wrapped my arms around Elizabeth and pulled. She came free of the bottom and drifted against my chest and I kicked off, straining to reach the surface. The mud dissolved under my feet and I floundered, unable to get the purchase I needed to get moving. I kicked, but the dress weighed so much! Elizabeth weighed so much and I could barely swim even unencumbered.
I saw Sebastian. It was like in my dreams, his face mockingly brilliant, those red eyes burning like fire, and he gently pulled Elizabeth from my arms. I floated there, the last of my air running out and my mind starting to shut down. I saw him smile. His hair floated around him like a black halo. And he vanished back into the darkness of the river, leaving me with the touch of his hands on my skin. The mark on my arm felt like fire, like claws were rending my flesh apart, and I realized I was going to die with it still in my skin.
What would happen to my soul?
I convulsed and the pain became unbearable. I screamed in agony and water flooded my mouth, throat, and everything narrowed in and the world around me vanished.
There was pressure on my chest, just below the diaphragm, and I sucked in air, gasping, and it turned into violent coughing that curled my body in on itself. Someone rolled me onto my side and I vomited until there wasn't anything else and I lay there, cradled in a lap, too weak to do anything but revel in the fact I was breathing. My arm hurt so bad I thought I would die from it. There was a hand around my waist and another on my neck, two fingers just against where he could feel my pulse. Gloved hands.
"Sebastian," I said weakly, "I thought you were going to let me die."
"I thought about it," he said softly and I could barely hear the words, "But my master has given me orders to the contrary."
Thank God for Ciel. I wept then, shaking with gratitude that I was alive.
The Yard didn't harry us. From the snippets I heard, Corey had been detained for kidnapping and was going to be investigated for murder. The commanding officer promised that he'd be by later to ask questions but Lady Elizabeth's status ensured he'd leave us alone for a good while yet. They found a coach and Sebastian took us home to Lady Francis's manor. I sat in the back with Lady Elizabeth, wrapped in blankets, shivering violently and both of us were crying. Neither of us said anything.
Lady Francis was home, waiting, and she whisked her daughter off with barely a look at Sebastian. She glanced at me long enough to ensure I was still breathing and standing upright. I found myself leaning against Sebastian and wondered at what point I had decided it was safe to rely on him. He escorted me upstairs and allowed a maid to hang about long enough to build up a fire. Then he shooed her out. She looked between the two of us and a sly look came over her face.
"I'll keep the Lady at bay," she whispered and was gone.
"Sebastian," I said evenly, sitting as close to the fire as I dared, still shivering violently, "What impression are you trying to give?"
"One that ensures we're left alone," he replied, "Let's get you out of that."
"Sebastian-!"
He frowned at me and pulled a thick nightgown from the dresser and draped it over a nearby chair.
"I'm not sure what impression you have," he said dispassionately, "but you need to get out of that wet dress before you catch cold."
I was silent as I unlaced it. The heat from the fire was like bliss against my skin and I sat there naked to the waist with a towel around my shoulders. Sebastian dropped a second one over my hair.
"What about you?" I asked. He was still quite sodden from his own trip in the river.
"Devils don't catch cold. Let me see your arm."
He knelt and I let the towel slip so that he could see. I didn't seem to care anymore how immodest I was in front of him. He had held my life in his hands – what more was left to give up?
"Just so we're clear," I said evenly, watching the fire, "what sort of impression should I have about you?"
The devil pulled off one glove and I caught a glimpse of the circle and star out of the corner of my eye. He poked at the mark on my arm and I closed my eyes and swallowed hard.
"I am one hell of a butler," he said, "Nothing more."
His fingers dug into the skin around the mark and I cried out, my mind going blank as fire lanced all the way down to my wrist. He drug his fingernails across the surface, as if he were peeling my very skin off, and then he pulled his hand away and I went limp. There was blood on Sebastian's fingers and he carefully licked them clean, a hungry look in his eyes. They glinted like fire. I shivered.
Gingerly, I reached a hand up and brushed it along where the mark had been. There were some very tiny lines there. I twisted to look. I could see a couple lines of scar tissue, two points of the star and a quarter of the circle. Just a funny scar to the casual observer. Otherwise, the mark was gone.
"Best to be rid of it now that the case is over," he said, "I think it worked well."
"Did it?"
"I was able to track you much faster than I would have without it. It might have even saved your and Lady Elizabeth's life."
"What happens now?"
"You get paid and go home. I'll handle the Yard. But that can all come later – let's get you dressed first."
And he threw the nightgown on top of my head.
I met with Lady Francis the next morning. She wasn't terribly pleased that her daughter had been in harm's way but I think she blamed Sebastian more than me. I wondered if perhaps her anger towards me for not fully protecting her daughter was mitigated by her gratitude for pulling her out of the river, and so she got mad at the other person responsible. Regardless, it was a relief. Sebastian was a devil. He could handle her ire.
I made my farewells to Lady Elizabeth. Francis had finally told her what I really was and Lizzie didn't seem to mind.
"You'll come visit, right?" she cried, hugging me about the waist, "You live in London, so it won't be hard."
"I'm not a peer," I said gently.
"I don't care! You're my friend and that's all that matters. We'll be in London a little while longer so come round on Saturday and we'll go out together. Promise."
It wasn't so much a question as a demand. She glared up at me. I sensed Lady Francis watching nearby and I resisted the urge to look up and see if her mother approved or not. I had risked my life for her.
"I promise," I said and Lizzie's face lit up with delight.
It had been worth it for that. Everything had been worth it.
Sebastian took me out to Ciel's manor the next day. I met with the young lord in his study and he seemed somewhat disinterested in my report. At least, that is, until I asked him about who the little robin was.
"It seems to me," I said, "I was being mistaken for the other guest on that list that had appeared under an assumed identity. But who on earth was I being mistaken for, since the other guest was Sebastian?"
Ciel looked horrified. I suddenly felt sorry for him. He was, after all, still a child and here he was about to be embarrassed before an adult, a woman, and a commoner. There wasn't enough maturity in him to put the entire thing in perspective and I was glad to see it – Ciel always saddened me somewhat, for he seemed torn between what he was and what he was forcing himself to be. Head of Phantomhive. Still a child.
"Look at me, as if I have any right to talk," I said dismissively, "I'm a woman pretending to be a detective."
And the matter was dropped. Ciel sat back in his chair, somewhat relieved.
"You pretend very well," he said, "Thank you for protecting Elizabeth."
I wanted to say that it was nothing, that anyone else would have done the same. We had both spent too much time dirtying our hands to know that was only a comforting lie, however, and I didn't say anything at all.
The constables did drop by a few days after I returned to my apartments in London. They were very brief. I wasn't sure if they had been bullied into not bothering me overly much by Ciel and Sebastian, or if they were offended that a woman had solved the case. They didn't ask about the men I had shot. I was exceedingly grateful for that. I had gone for this long without killing anyone and now I had the blood of three men on my hands. They weren't innocent men, true, but it was blood nonetheless. I wasn't sure how I felt about that. Part of me was shocked at how easy it had been. Another part of me was glad it had come so simply, glad that I had done it once and could do it again should the need ever arise. After all, Sebastian wouldn't be around to protect me all the time. Perhaps never again, should my path not cross with Ciel's.
I wasn't sure how I felt about that either.
I sometimes woke up in the night, starting awake with my heart beating like a caged bird. I'd sit in the dark for a long time after that, unwilling to go back to sleep, and wonder about what I thought and felt. He did interest me. He confused me. It was maddening – it was like the one puzzle I couldn't solve and the more I thought about it the more layers I discovered.
When I finally did sink back to sleep, he haunted my dreams. They were like before with the dark and the water, but this time I lay on the shore with him and when I opened my eyes he was leaning over me, his hand not checking to see that I was breathing and alive, but cradling my head and his lips would part and lower to meet mine for a kiss. But we never touched – the dream would slide away like mist and I would be left with a feeling like those last moments at the bottom of the river, when I felt life slip away and surrendered my soul to the devil's keeping.
END
Author's Note: I debated on adding romance to this. In the end, I realized it was inevitable, but not in the traditional romance sort of way. (for one thing, I'm not a big fan of romance) Sebastian is attractive and Bridget relies on him in a way she doesn't rely on any other man she knows – so there's going to be some attraction on her end. But are the feelings mutual? Well, it's Sebastian. He's a devil. He's manipulative. He's dangerous. And I want that to be the dynamic in their relationship – Bridget falling for the one person she shouldn't and Sebastian being what he is in response. Poor Ciel. He really got left out in the cold on this one. Maybe if I write a third one he'll show up more.
...or not.
(and enjoy the two updates in a row, I got started on this and got excited and couldn't stop until I reached the end)
