Sebastian whisked across the countryside, his shape hidden within the merest form of shadow. He skimmed over lakes and catapulted across vast tracts of farmland, his body moving too fast for the human eye to see. He only bothered to skirt around the perimeter of the grounds of certain Churches. All of his attention was focused solely on one end: he had to return to the manor now. If he was too late…. The demon did not stop to interrogate the taut, rigid feeling within his infernal body. He knew that Ciel was not dead, for he would certainly have felt it through the contract if the young heir had passed on. A little while ago, he had felt a considerable amount of panic radiating off the edges of Ciel's mind and spearing into the demon through their connection. On a normal occasion, Sebastian would have been obliged to appear immediately by his young master's side and defend him from the danger. Although the demon did not care much for the boy, being conversely bound by an order that kept him away from what he had worked so long to protect was unnerving to him. Now the panic had subsided, and Sebastian could sense that Ciel was still inside the manor, and he was not in immediate danger of harm. But that did not mean they had escaped the assassins.
Beyond that, there was Lydia. Sebastian hissed in fury; this whole thing had been her idea from the start, the utter fool. To risk one's only life to save the housemaid-! Ridiculous! Sebastian pushed himself forward at an even faster rate. Within his dark mind all sorts of uncertainties were stirring, cruel fears slaying the easy confidence he'd claimed only hours before this whole thing had started. He truly had no idea whether Lydia was dead or alive at this moment. The blood of the Phantomhive line connected her to the demon at least partially, but she did not have an established contract with him. Sebastian had never been able to remotely hear her call or sense her well-being the way he could with Ciel. He had never known for sure whether he would be able to feel it when she died. That kind of information could only be learned once, and afterward it would be too late to put it to any kind of use. With a rage-filled growl, Sebastian launched himself onward with greater speed still. Idiot though she may be, he was not going to lose his master just when she had finally come back within his reach. He was not going to let the heavens deprive him like this. All humans died quickly, but Lydia was too young even by their measly standards. She had perhaps sixty years of natural life before her, and Sebastian was not going to let go of those years. He wanted to dwell within them with her, for she was his true master, and those years belonged to him. He wanted to sleep beside her and cover his hurting spirit with her light, he wanted to build her a household and keep her safe inside, he wanted to softly persuade her to take the contract. He was not going to lose to that spirit.
Reaching the Phantomhive manor, Sebastian focused and fell out of his shadow form, the coattails of his butler's jacket fluttering behind him as his black-topped feet touched the ground. The first thing he noticed as he stared up at the imposing manor was the strong smell of gunpowder permeating the air. Lots of gunpowder; its odor was as thick as soup, dampening his ability to sniff out the humans he had left behind. Sebastian immediately ran his supernatural senses around the perimeter of the grounds, feeling for the presence of the intruders. They were not here. Even so, they had not left long ago….and in the air there was another scent, running faint and low underneath the gunpowder…. Blood. Her blood. Master. No!
Gritting his teeth at the thought of what he might find, Sebastian rushed around the side of the house toward the pull of Ciel's contract mark. It might not be death, she could merely be injured, just a wound…. But if this was her death flowing past him on the wind, if the end had come for her while he was not at her side, he had felt nothing of it. He had not seen her spirit rise up from the earth. She had gone on without him, just like all the others, without even a backward glance…. Reaching the front window of the kitchen, which was shattered into several pieces, Sebastian froze and could not move forward. He did not know why. He could sense Ciel right in front of him, and the smell of her blood was leaking out from the window at its strongest yet. Even so, the demon stood there just beyond the window for minutes which felt like more of an eternity that the eternities he had already passed through, staring at the gaping, jagged opening. The smell of her blood was thickening, congealing, drying up as Sebastian stood rooted to the spot. Everything would be finalized once he looked in the window; the riddle of Schrodinger's cat, both alive and dead, would become one or the other irrevocably, and he had barely had any time….
Finally Sebastian knew he could not remain in the thrall of this strange dread any longer. If she was gone she was gone, and nothing would change that. He would continue without her. It was not as though he had a choice. If she was still alive, he might well lose her if he tarried here like an indecisive fool. With this thought in mind, the demon drew silently near the window and leaned slowly down to peer inside. His red orbs widened.
"Master!" The next moment, the demon had swung himself down into the ruined kitchen- an absolute disaster area- and made a beeline for the source of the bloodshed. Lydia crumpled like a doll into his arms, her skin as pale and cold as bisque china. "Hello, Sebastian…." As she spoke, his razor-sharp eyes detected the edge of a gash in her left shoulder, hidden by all the blood surrounding it. Even with this, the blasted girl still had the temerity to smile. "….Good to s-see you again…."
There was an audible exhale of breath from the other humans hiding behind the counter. He took note of Bard, Finnian, and Aberlaine, all holding guns and looking rather pale and beat up, but none more seriously injured than a bit of bruising and scratching. Where was….? "Sebastian," he heard Ciel's voice from inside the cupboard behind Lydia, and he carefully pulled her to him and lifted her away so the young heir could emerge. Ciel's clothes were spattered with blood as well, but he had not lost nearly as much as his sister. The bright blue eyes of his young master gazed authoritatively into his own. "Where are the intruders? Are they gone?"
"Yes, my lord," Sebastian replied promptly. "They were not on the premises when I returned just now."
"What about Meirin? Is she at the hospital? We heard those bad men sent out another group after your carriage!" Finnian exclaimed, wide-eyed.
Wondering how they had known this, Sebastian nodded. "Yes, I left Meirin at the London hospital with Madame Red after ensuring the doctors had everything conducive to a successful surgery. We did encounter a group of armed attackers on the way there. They cut us off in a carriage of their own, and tried to force us off the road. However-" the demon smiled his charming smile, "I promptly damaged their wheels, and their carriage plunged off the road into a marsh. Since my errand was of the utmost urgency, I did not linger afterward to ascertain their well-being, or lack thereof."
"Ah! Mr. Sebastian's amazing, as usual!" Finnian exclaimed brightly.
Bard rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but we didn't do too bad, either! You shoulda seen us, Sebastian! We stomped on their offense an' pounded their defense! We had 'em runnin' down the halls-!"
"This is all well and good, and I'm glad everyone is all right," Aberlaine interjected, standing up and offering a hand to Ciel to pull him up. "But before we begin to reminisce, I believe we should see to our wounds, particularly Lydia's and Ciel's."
Ciel nodded, glancing down at Lydia, who was still folded in the demon's arms and clutching the blossom of blood blooming from her shoulder. "Yes, I agree. First thing's first, though- Sebastian, hurry throughout the manor and dismantle any traps of yours that haven't already been sprung. Also, remove any objects that may become immediate dangers to anyone passing by. In particular, I believe you will probably find large amounts of dynamite attached to different walls outside of the safe room. Dispose of all of these, and once we know the manor is safe to move about in, we can return upstairs and fetch the medical kits."
Sebastian handed Lydia over to her father reluctantly, and turned his attention to the bombed-out kitchen wall and the manor beyond, which he had no doubt he would spend the latter of the night repairing. "Yes, my lord."
/
A little more than an hour later, Ciel Phantomhive stared intently across the darkened room of an out-of-the-way parlor, rubbing the newly wound bandages which ran across both his palms. Lydia was resting down the hall in a bedroom, Aberlaine was sitting up with his daughter, Bard and Finnian were in the kitchen salvaging whatever they could find, and Sebastian was conducting a survey of the manor grounds to see if he could discover any evidence left behind by the attackers. Even though the assault on the manor had only lasted for a few hours, the young heir felt as though it had been days since he'd had the opportunity to sit down and think things through. Now that he was finally afforded this luxury, Ciel found one thought kept rising continually to the surface of his mind like a persistent ocean swell. He knew he ought to be more concerned with the fact that some mysterious entity had launched direct action against the Phantomhive name, and yet at the moment, the image frozen in his mind was the disordered, confused glimpse he had caught of his sister's bandages flying free before Lydia had pulled him into the starry world of light. The implications of this experience, now proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, were practically making the young heir's head spin. Lydia was….she was supernatural. She had done what no ordinary human could have done. Ciel was well-accustomed to the workings of the supernatural in his everyday life, but before this point, these inexplicable powers had been wielded solely by Sebastian. A demon was supposed to have supernatural powers. It was part of their otherworldly nature. And yet now, completely independent of Sebastian's presence or influence, his own very-human sister was changing the nature of the world around them and swinging them through inexplicable light. Not only that, but she had somehow managed to physically move them from danger and certainty of death upstairs to the relative safety of the downstairs kitchen. And not only that, but he had witnessed, once again, the inhuman strength which her bandaged arm possessed. He had seen her hand actually crack the countertop as she pulled herself to her feet and lunged at the assailant on top of him, and he had watched her drag the masked woman across the floor as if she were weightless. Although his distracted mind had had no time to wonder at it while it was happening, he now thought back to the knife the woman had tried to use to free herself, hacking and chopping at his sister's hand- and how in the end it had been the knife which had sustained all of the damage of blunt impact upon a limb that was apparently as invulnerable as it was strong. And yet….
Ciel bit his lip, thinking of his sister's limp body lying in the bed a few doors down, a ragged tear in her shoulder. And yet she was still mortal, still damageable. Everything other than her right arm seemed to be made of normal human flesh, easily burned, bruised, and bloodied. She was not invincible, and she knew it. This reality only made him all the more anxious as he twisted his ring upon his thumb. She could have actually died today. So many times, she could have died…. I felt like I was going to die too, but it seems like these murderers don't want to kill me, not yet, anyway. They want to catch me like a rabbit in a snare and carry me back to 'Father,' whoever that is, and use me for purposes unknown. Ransom, most likely. Or perhaps I have injured them in the past in the course of my duties as the Queen's guard dog, and they wish to exact revenge. Nothing out of the ordinary, I daresay….but what could they possibly have against Lydia?
There was a knock at the parlor door, and Ciel bade the caller enter. The young heir turned to gaze upon the dark form and inscrutable face of his butler, blocking the light from the hallway windows behind him. "There is a telephone call for you, young master," the demon reported expressionlessly. "It is from the Royal Hospital in London."
/
"Meirin is expected to live," Ciel reported to a bedroom full of Lydia, her father, and Sebastian. He had closed the door for privacy even though the only other occupants of the manor were currently several floors below them. "The most critical surgery, that involving the removal of the bullet lodged in her torso, has been completed successfully. They may have yet to perform several lesser surgeries to remove any traces of shrapnel they might find, and to make sure her stitches hold as they should. Her recovery will not be instantaneous, and we may find ourselves short on household help for some time. However, according to her doctors and Madame Red, she is not in immediate danger of death or permanent disability. She will return to the manor as soon as she has stabilized enough to be approved for travel."
There was a silence after his words that felt like a great heaving of breath. Normally such news would have been cause for smiles and good cheer, but at the moment there was too much exhaustion bleeding out the bodies of the humans. Lydia had sat up in nervous anxiety when he had entered the bedroom, and now she fell back upon her pillow with a little jarring motion that made her wince in pain. "Thank goodness," she breathed out, turning her face down toward her injured shoulder. "It wasn't all in vain, then. We took a terrible risk, sending Sebastian away with Meirin, but because of that, she's still alive."
To his side, Ciel glimpsed Sebastian tense up and narrow his eyes; he guessed that the demon was not yet ready to overlook his disapproval of being sent away from the manor in its hour of greatest danger. Before Sebastian could start another argument, Ciel assertively changed the topic. "Have you discovered anything of interest?" he asked the demon, cutting his icy blue eyes toward him.
Sebastian nodded, still frowning in displeasure. "I have, young master. I found the dynamite attached to the outside walls of the safe room, as you said. I found a large quantity of daggers scattered in various places throughout the manor. I found plenty of cartridges as well, half of a broken porcelain mask down in the kitchen, and numerous hoof and wheel tracks outside on the grounds, which I made sure to document lest another rainstorm wash them away. But by far the most interesting of my finds was this." Reaching into the cloth bundle he had been carrying, the demon removed a long, pale object- the disembodied false leg of the female assailant. Ciel grimaced before it. He was loathe to admit it, but his heart had given a dreadful leap of shock when it had appeared for a few seconds that Lydia had actually wrenched the woman's leg from her body. Even now, his sister looked quite faint at the sight of it.
"Such a thing might indeed give us a significant clue," he agreed, trying to divert his focus. "What is it made of? Porcelain? Wood? Clay? There are only a select number of merchants in England who specialize in such prosthetics."
"This limb is not made of any of those, although it possesses the fineness of porcelain and the durability of wood," Sebastian responded, appraising it with his ruby eyes. "I believe it is made of some kind of powdered bone material. It is very hard, and yet its joints move seamlessly. However, I would say the most interesting aspect of this particular prosthetic is this." Turning the leg over, the demon extended his hand so the humans could see what had caught his eye. Trying to ignore the fact that he was essentially staring at a woman's inner thigh, Ciel bent toward the limb and noted a kind of stamp imprinted onto the cold, almost life-like flesh.
"It looks like a hallmark of some kind," he commented in puzzlement, squinting at its shape. It was round, although frilled upon the edges. In its center there appeared to be some kind of animal rearing up on its hind legs, almost like a circus bear or lion….
A sudden spasm from his older sister startled Ciel out of his musings. All of the males in the room glanced toward her in alarm, for she had suddenly grown very pale and heaved herself upright with no regard for her damaged shoulder. She was pointing at the hallmark and fumbling for words. It took her several seconds to find them. "That- that's- it! That's it!"
"What is it?" Aberlaine asked concernedly, and she grabbed his hand, the sureness of conviction flashing in her eyes. "That's it, father! I'm sure of it! That's the mark that was on the man's ring, the man who left me unconscious in the alley the day Vincent Phantomhive died! It's the same mark!"
The room lay silent for a moment as this information was processed. Ciel found his voice first. "You're sure?" he asked, his tone a deathly quiet. "You're sure it's the exact same marking?"
"Sure as day," Lydia declared, overcoming her distaste for the limb and grabbing it in her hand, raising the mark to eye level. "It's just like I remember it. Just like I drew it from memory all those years ago. I daresay this is a bloody strange place to find it again, but there's no doubt about it. This is the mark, the same mark."
"Then we must find whom it belongs to, posthaste," the young heir declared, his fingers clamping down on his own ring. "Sebastian, the House of Lords, the Royal Archives; these are likely places to start. We will spend the night here while you repair the damage to the manor. In the morning we will set out for the London townhouse. It will do to be nearer to the locations of our investigation. Also, our attackers will have a harder time attempting to harm us without attracting attention to themselves on a busy street as opposed to an isolated manor."
"Yes, my lord," Sebastian responded, giving his customary bow; his eyes glinted in the dimly-lit room. "The house of Phantomhive must not take such a daring blow as this lying down. We must begin to plan our counterattack."
"See to it," Ciel ordered, before his next words were interrupted by an urgent thumping from the hallway outside. The door burst open to admit an overly excited Finnian, while Bard ambled in behind him. "Young master, young master!" the blonde gardener exclaimed. "We finally found Mister Tanaka!"
"Excellent," the young boy declared, before realizing the ambiguous nature of Finnian's statement. "Have you found him….unharmed?"
"Yessir," the gardener nodded eagerly. "You'll never believe it, but it looks like he was sleeping in the library the whole time!"
Ciel didn't fault the sudden snort of laughter that came from Lydia's end of the room. "Good land," he sighed, bringing a hand up to his forehead in consternation. "That man can sleep like no other. Still, I suppose it's for the best. He has too many years under his belt to run or fight effectively. He could have been seriously injured had he been with us."
"Doubtless," Lydia's soft voice chimed in as she lowered her head back to the pillow. Ciel frowned at the exhausted circles under her eyes. Even with the excitement of finding the mark, she was still at the bottom of her energy reserves.
The young boy glanced toward the door. "You should get some sleep. I will go and send a letter-"
Lydia reached out and laid her bandaged hand upon his arm. "We all need to sleep," she encouraged, and Ciel realized that he couldn't look much better than his sister did. Nodding in agreement, he glanced down at the hand upon his arm and once again felt the inexplicable urge to unwrap the bandages, to study the star clusters…. But now was not the time for such a thing, the young heir realized as he noted that the others in the room were all looking his way with different expressions on their faces. Bard and Finnian seemed innocently puzzled, while Lydia and Aberlaine both wore looks of knowing patience. As for Sebastian, Ciel wondered whether he was mistaken to think he saw the demon's eyes flash with an apprehensive gleam. He gestured to the materials in his butler's hands. "Sebastian, secure those in the underground vault. We may need them later as evidence. Then guard the manor while we rest. And begin repairs in the kitchen. And make dinner with whatever supplies we have left."
Sebastian bowed and promptly left the bedroom. Ciel rubbed his eyes as he once again explained Meirin's situation to the other servants, much to their joy, and ordered them to return to their rooms and take a long rest. He then bade Lydia and Aberlaine goodbye for the moment and shuffled out the door, intent on finding his way to his own bedroom and losing himself in the thrall of sleep. His lips pinched downward when he saw the arrow-straight figure of Sebastian standing still before the stairway, gazing outward with an unreadable expression on his face. The young boy wandered up behind him, irritated that the demon was delaying his orders, and realized he was staring at the portrait of the "official" members of the Phantomhive family which overhung the stairs. The still, lifeless faces of Vincent, Rachel, and his own child-self gazed out upon the damaged manor, frozen forever behind the veil of intractability.
"What are you doing?" Ciel asked bluntly, folding his arms. He could have sworn he saw the demon's shoulders twitch before the creature turned around and gave him a placid smile, as lifeless as the ones in the painting.
"Nothing at all, young master. I was merely thinking of things which are of no consequence to my orders. Please go and rest until dinnertime." Sebastian turned and made his way sleekly down the stairs, disappearing momentarily from view. Ciel frowned at the vagueness of his answer- at the vagueness of everything around him, really- before turning on his booted heel and striding away toward the certainty of his bedroom and the promise of sleep.