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Abyssus Abyssum Invocat...Hell calls hell; the abyss calls the abyss.
Chapter Twenty-Five... "To hate, one must first love. The opposite of love is apathy, which is when you simply don't care about the person enough to have loved them in the first place."
"You're kidding, right?! You have real bullets, don't you?!" Ciel's words were cold and unfeeling to his servants behind me but I only had eyes for the Demon Hound above.
I could remember the very day Sebastian and the young master had brought Pluto home. The very conversation that had taken place, as if it had occurred only yesterday.
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"You leave to scout out a location for a new resort and you return with...a giant demon dog? Really, Michaelis." I drawled, observing Finnian try to control the blasted thing from the window overlooking our soon-to-be charred garden. Sebastian grimaced in disgust, coming to stand by side.
"It was my masters particular wish, regrettably."
"I'm sure you're positively heartbroken. Well, I just know that you and Pluto will be the best of friends." The look he gave me could have peeled paint but the simple smile that had curled my mouth had stayed with me for the remainder of the day.
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I shook off the memory angrily. I had been happy then, content to watch over Ciel and to dodge the attentions of my sire as best as I was able. Now...things were so different. If only I could tear those happy times with him out of my memory, rip them away so that I might be spared their sting. Alas, it wasn't to be. I was stuck with them, but I could do what was in my power to erase their effect. Fortunately, I knew a great place to start.
Before the bullets could be loaded, I charged into the fray, the Elder wand in my hand and nails elongating, sharpening to pitch-hued knives. A Cutting Curse was already on the tip of my tongue by the time the humans realized what was happening and by the time they could react, it had flown, a Killing Curse following close behind. Pluto was caught off guard by the first curse and took it to the back. The second he was prepared to dodge. The hound jumped onto an adjacent building, snarling at the emerald spell that zipped by uselessly. He didn't, however, expect to have to dodge a third projectile from an entirely different direction: me. He was enormous so the second Cutting Curse to his neck didn't make as large an impact as I had hoped. My claws and teeth following it up, though, did. His artery caved and tore in my hand, my arm buried into his throat up to my elbow. A fierce delight burned inside of me as a torrential flood of blistering, crimson blood burst and flowed down over me. The pleasure of battle fought and won, an opponent destroyed and laid to waste with my very hands. His corpse fell to the ground before my small, strange family and I rode it down as if it were some sort of demented sled. My blood sodden clothes left a carmine streak against his snow white fur but I paid it no mind. I was beyond caring about such things. My eyes were shining beetle-black, my lovely emerald orbs gone in the face of the primal urges dictating my every move now. I was so close. So close to losing control completely that the inkiness in my eyes remained even after the fight was through.
A quick spell rid me of the gore covering my body but it couldn't halt the quaking in my limbs that returned full force once the adrenaline began to wear off. All three servants were watching me with tears spilling down their faces but Ciel...he only had determination in his one good eye.
"Come, Harry. We must get there quickly."
I was afraid to try and speak, concerned that I was too far gone to even attempt it. All that would come out, I feared, was a growling hiss. He lead me quickly to a horse and together, we rode off toward the palace, unaware that, somewhere above us, an alliance had shattered.
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~"Humming Hallelujah in the dark. Whispered poems leave you to be, Humming Hallelujah in the night. The sun might rise, as sometimes does it fall."- Katie Costello, Stranger.
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London was burning. Pluto was dead, killed by my own hand. The Queen was dead, sickened and rotted by her own foolish desires and now we were being blamed for the death. Brilliant. Ciel and I ran through the halls of Buckingham as fast as my heavy body would allow, a crowd of shouts and soldiers on our tail. We had made it back to the entryway only to find ourselves surrounded by redcoats and muskets. All I wanted to do was push the Earl behind me to protect him but we were surrounded on all sides. No matter how I positioned him, he was in danger. The shadows surged around the room, eager and hungry, just waiting for their master's command.
Then the worst happened.
"I won't end here!" Ciel shouted out only for time to stop in the blink of an eye when an overly trigger-happy soldier's finger twitched. The gun went off like thunder and white hot lightening. All my coal colored eyes registered was the splash of red before all humanity within me evaporated. The lights in the room were swallowed up in an instant, the shadows reaching out to devour them all. The screams began.
My claws dug into soft bellies, ripping tissue and shattering bone. For the second time tonight, my body became stained with the blood of others. All of my carefully held restraint vanished. So immersed in my rage was I that I didn't even think to devour any of their worthless souls. They had done the unforgivable. These humans had hurt my child. They were not worthy of becoming a meal. They were garbage, refuse, unwanted.
Just like me...
Just as my mate had thrown me away so too was I going to leave them to be trodden underfoot on the ground. Ciel lay on the ground, shuddering with the pain of his through and through gun-shot. His blood beneath his body was forming a Faustian Seal as quickly as it could leave his tiny frame. No, no, no...Hurt! My child was hurt! Injured! I'd failed him! I continued to fail him! I didn't think the situation could get any worst. At least until it did.
From out of the shadows, a voice echoed throughout the hall, "I see you're awake, young master."
The sound of slow footsteps echoing on the marble resounded in the seemingly cavernous darkness. Crimson eyes made their appearance only moments before their owner emerged from the shade. Sebastian. The butler gave a low bow, his white gloved hand pressed over his chest demurely.
"And you are right. You won't end here. I humbly apologize for taking unauthorized leave."
I didn't know if he just wasn't expecting it or maybe he thought that he deserved it and so endured the punishment. However, Sebastian didn't react in the slightest when, from to his left, he received a inhumanly hard kick that sent him crashing into the wall nearby. His face when he picked himself up, though, showed hard rubies alight with irritation. I hissed at him in fury, taking up my place in between him and my youngling. He was no mate of mine and that made him a predator, a threat.
'Nest-robber!' My instincts screamed, 'Young-snatcher!'
He wasn't getting anywhere near my little ones! I aimed a vicious swipe of my claws at the older demon but he dodged, evading my every kick, curse and reach. Not once did he attempt to fight back. All he did was defend. There was something in his eyes that I could see but not identify. Perhaps if I had been a little less feral, I could have put a name to it. All I could identify was that, whatever the nameless emotion was it was terribly...human of him.
"We don't have time for this!" Ciel shouted, picking himself shakily up off of the floor, "Harry, stop!"
It was as if it was I who held the contract with the little lord instead of the butler. The moment he issued his command, my feet did, in fact stop. My youngling's voice was wavering and in pain. The infant within me was kicking out feebly at the familiar presence of his father. My sons...Slowly, I came back to humanity with a gasp, shuddering in pain as I fought over control of myself. Ciel. Caelum. They needed me to get a hold of myself. They needed me. My every instinct railed against the imprisonment. Every fiber fought against me for control. My muscles ached and spasmed and shook in punishment but eventually, I was me again. Through the suffering, I regained my human mind.
There was Sebastian. Standing before me as if he hadn't abandoned us days ago. It didn't take a genius to guess at where he had been. He stank of Angel taint. The noxiously sweet smell permeated his presence. He reeked of that foul creature, Ash.
"Where have you been?" Ciel growled dangerously, his eyes taking in the man whom he had once depended on for everything. How did the young lord feel about Sebastian now? Was he as furious as I was? Was he as hurt? Did our family really mean so little to the man? Did I mean so little?
"It doesn't matter." I broke in before Sebastian could get a word in. My voice was gravelly and came out just above a whisper, like night air blowing through an empty room, "He doesn't matter." I turned to the man who had held me so tenderly only days ago and I recognized only a stranger. The same man who had once lay for hours whispering to the child within me, who had been so nervous and out of sorts when he feared another would claim me.
I leveled a healing charm at the bullet wound in my youngling's side, glad that it missed his vitals. Otherwise my paltry healing abilities would be useless. I allowed the demon to help his master off of the floor but when Sebastian stood once more, our eyes met and I let him see exactly what I thought of him in that moment.
"You are no mate of mine." I whispered, low enough that only he could hear it.
For an instant, my sire looked stricken as if he had been slapped but he hid the expression quickly, giving me a short bow of acceptance, acknowledging that he was in the wrong. Acknowledging that he deserved my disdain.
"Take me to that angel of massacre!" With that last demand, we took off into the night, trying not to face the tenseness between the three of us. The breakdown of our once happy family.