There were perks to having a title, and the wealth did no harm either. One of them was being able to walk into an inn, any inn, anywhere in British territory, and demand their best room and service while making the staff, owners and other guests ignore the fact that one of the members of the Earl's party was a woman that was partially naked under the black outer coat, barely awake and being carried in the butler's arms. Mouser had collapsed when the chapel crumbled, the markings fading. So using Ciel's title they had a room that was passable, a fireplace, a bathtub, water and better quality food.

Ciel looked around as Sebastian left them to make some of the extra preparations and take some more precautions. He was not particularly inclined to talk after having to see shards of his own memories manipulated into two figures that spoke of forgiveness and faked peacefulness, a clean conscience. There was a slight headache forming ad he was sure it was because of those events.

Not that he had anyone to talk even if he wanted to. Mouser was curled on the bed, having pulled the blankets into a fortress around her, sleeping and shivering. When a particularly strong shiver ran through her the hand that peeked under the small stronghold flexed, making the claws elongate for a second.

So the Earl took out the writing materials and stared at the black page for a while, waiting.

Sebastian arrived moments later, tending only to the minimum of the Earl. Apparently he took his permission to take care of Mouser when she had been in… that… state as some sort of leave. So Ciel just received the basic of the basic service as he began to outline the report before being abandoned for the thief.

Mouser sighed without moving, eyes closed. Sebastian dipped his hand into the water, rising its temperature again, using less than common methods, having refused the offers of the servants to heat the liquid in the kitchen or fireplace, dragging a satisfied purr from her. Washing away the blood and warming her body at once. The cold was a side effect of the shift and would remain for a while. So far she only seemed a bit skittish but mostly unaffected. The white spot on her chest was not fading or vanishing though, simply marking the caste she belonged to.

The boyo blushed slightly with the sound coming from behind the screen and stared at his report, tea and frankly subpar cake. There were also things that needed clarifying and Sebastian was being even less helpful than his standard self. The first one was off course the events within the church. In the following order was preferable: what had the angel done to him and would there be any side-effects; what had it had done to Mouser; and lastly why was it here and going after the Phantomhives.

"Open it." Mouser was saying to Sebastian. He folded the screen. The boyo blushed deeper. The thief chuckled. She was mostly under water in the metal slipper tub they had brought in, hair pinned up so it would not get soaked.

"Have some modesty!" The boyo shouted turning.

"I was naked in front of an angel, a demon and lots of people throughout my life. It ain't gonna be a prude boyo that's getttin' me out of the warm water here." Mouser smiled. "And knowing for a fact that you can't see through metal… We need to talk because I seem to know something you don't know."

"Quite." The boyo coughed into his hand, still not quite looking that way. "Sebastian. Explain."

"Vagueness boyo…" Mouser whispered, stretching and wincing. Even her hair touching the skin hurt. She was sore and cold even as the water worked to soothe away some of that. She was ignored by the now focused Earl.

"First what happened to me?" The boyo demanded.

Sebastian tilted his head.

"Angels can rewrite memories to suit their purposes." He explained. Whatever he had seen or felt was of little interest to him at the moment as it seemed the Young Master had both overcame and conquered it without anything feeling off about his person and soul. "It seems that the Young Master possesses a strong will and clear focus." Half a compliment, half a truth but it served to soother the ruffled feathers. "So it failed."

"It was trying to lure me into…" The boyo shook his head. The lure had not been effective but it had been mentally painful for him to watch, to see, to listen. More likely it had related with some sort of hopeful future that could not be built because its foundation was a lie. "Why?"

"Why is quite simple." Mouser said, straightening a bit, ignoring the beet-red tainting the boyo's cheeks her shoulders were exposed to the air for second before she shivered and got the back under the water. Sebastian knelt by her side, his hand touching the water again, a small burst of hellfire heating the surface. Both ignored the boyo's frown as that happened. Mouser adjusted again. "For a fallen angel it had quite an obsession with purity."

"You were able to identify it as such?" Sebastian asked, standing up again, walking towards the luggage, opening the small trunk she used to travel when part of their "noble entourage" appearance and took out one of her uniforms with the cape ready. Along with towels, unmentionables and some things she was sure they were not hers. Like that comb. Or that… whatever it was called.

"He dropped the masks at the curry contest…" Mouser stated casually. Her hands threading the water's surface. Then they disappeared again underneath it.

"He?" The boyo noticed.

"The contest?" Sebastian frowned, catching on that.

Mouser smiled slightly.

"Oh… awkward…" She moved a bit as if trying to ease something on her shoulder. Sebastian leaned to help. "No. Don't touch me. Really, it hurts less if I'm hurting myself." The demon shook his head, stopping as she moved, stretched and then sighed. "It seems it has both genders and it can shift between them."

"One of those…" Sebastian said in distaste. Mouser made a note on her mind to ask later about angels and how to kill them easily.

"Smell no less rancid in either when not masking it." She mentioned. And Grell had said that angels rarely bothered to come down from the up-above so… it was not a complicated puzzle to piece together. Then again Sebastian had no way to know if she had gotten any information from other sources.

"It approached you before?" He asked.

Maybe that had been the reason for her sudden leaps in power and capabilities. A threat that she had dealt with but not felt truly hard-pressed. But her body knew better than her mind.

"Yes. That time we just fought." She admitted, confirming his hypotheses. "Too many people around… Also he didn't seem invested in killing."

"Angela Blanc." The boyo said, the memory of the incidents in Houndsworth surfacing.

"As a male it calls itself Ash Landers. He was the one behind the dollhouse." She stopped talking as both males stared at her. "Me and Charlotte have been hunting for them." She admitted softly. "So far we had little success but I still have some information that might have the threads to follow."

Sebastian nodded. He had been quite adamant in the belief that the angel had not died in the crumbling building.

"What does it want?" The boyo inquired further. Mouser shrugged.

"If what he did to me, and you, and the girls, and Pluto, and Houndsworth are any clue I'd say… experimenting." Seeing a way to purify himself even if he isn't quite aware of its own lack of purity. The dog fucking bitch.

"The conspiracy?" The boyo asked, making a note on the paper. He was trying to build a valid report that did not make him look like some sort of raving lunatic.

"Test subjects. A proof of worth and efficacy." Sebastian built on that idea, speculating. "It is either trying to return to heaven or turn earth into its heaven and rule it."

"Like Lucifer?" Mouser asked, splashing a bit. Being dragged to church like a flock of thankful girls was part of the "good-headmistress requirements", making sure the poor little souls were saved too… bored throughout it all. Most of them used the time to sleep. Or steal. Or gather clients.

"Lucifer had his reasons." Sebastian stated calmly. There was something in his voice, a familiarity… Mouser chuckled. "And as he fell he did not delude himself about remaining an angel."

"Who are you under that skin?" She breathed out. The demon merely smiled. "And what am I? I understand what happened. I went there before." Mouser smirked and yawned, snuggling into the water. "Not quite as spectacularly, mind you but I know survival."

"You are a Cait Sìth as that white spot attests."

"Like the witches and fairies?" Scottish legends, Mouser thought, the name ringing something in her memory. Fairy tales, old tales the scots brought, told to the urchins.

"Like the demonesses that bear that name and abilities. True, most of them were called witches by the humans to begin with."

The boyo scoffed, stopping his writing.

"Witches were just humans falsely accused in rubbish trials." He stated with absolute conviction. It's not like they flew through the air or summoned storms… That is what I think"

Sebastian chuckled.

"I wonder. So many promising females were hunted down by humans in the witch trials before demons could find them. Cait Sìth never called themselves witches. They knew full well what they were and welcomed the covenants that were offered. In any case Mouser had some Scottish-'witch' blood in her and my preferences seem to have triggered it."

"If I sprout fur, tail and ears and start ending my phrases with meow in the next few hours I will be angry." The thief said, closing her eyes, sleepily.

"Nothing so literal" Sebastian gave a small chuckle. "You are one of many in that line of all-female demons. And possibly the only one not to have the distinct Scottish brogue and be younger than 300." Sebastian said, half joking as he placed the screen in front of the, tub, helping her out, covering her shoulders with the towel, trying to be as light as possible. Mouser winced and then sighed, drying.

"You will learn from them." The demon continued the conversation, lowering his voice, too low for humans to hear. "The Cait Sìth only have three forms, unlike many others. The demonic, to which you shifted when threatened, the human in which you are now and were born as, and females cannot change, and the feline form, A black cat with a white spot on her chest."

"Unlike others?" Mouser whispered back, going for the clothes, the shivering returning.

"Often demons are shape shifters. Demonic and whatever they please though most of us are also associated to an animal or thing. Demonesses inherit that trait, despite keeping their human shape as well. Cait Sìth are limited to the cat as alternate form although rumour has it the feline can change size."

So when she decided to answer a summoning she could only appear as a demon, human or cat. Mouser would not be able to look like anyone else, male or female, or anything else, animal, object or mineral.

That clear limitation was compensated by a rather unique trait that gave them their nickname. Amongst demons Cait Sìth were the only ones able to take souls away from contracts, unwilling souls, unaware souls. They were able to wall pass a human that had no belief or connection to demons and take their souls, leaving a living, soulless husk.

Any other demons with only tree faces or less would be considered minor, little more than a hellhound who was born as a dog, gaining humanoid form with age and later on self-awareness and a modicum of intelligence. But not as lowly as an imp. The soul abilities of a Cait Sìth and the simple matter of gender allowed them to be in a higher caste than the shapes they could take.

The white spot was easily concealed as she tied the bow around her neck, slipping then hastily into the cape.


In the end it was a madman who wanted to purify the country with a strange religious doctrine. There were plans to overthrow the Queen's rule and take over the country, and its colonies by default, launching then in a crusade to rule the world within the purification dream… The cult has been disbanded but some of the information about how far it had reached was destroyed when some of the fleeing cultists set fire to the place. I will stay alert in case of any resurgence.

Ciel appraised his report after another bout of modifications and adjustments, frowning, placing it down.

It would have to do for now, he though, looking around as the carriage moved at a fast pace. Sebastian was still on "leave". Mouser was sleeping in the blanket fort, head on his lap. One of his butler's hands was covered by the glove, formally placed over his thigh. The other one, bare, displaying the mark of the contract was tangled in the thief's head. It was uncomfortable to notice that his usually mocking and cold eyes softened when glancing down at the sleeping Mouser that sometimes jabbed his thigh when a shiver made her claws twitch.