CHAPTER 10 - "SECRETS REVEALED"

Bardroy was a cook, but he had also once been a soldier. And he knew a little about triage medicine as well being in the field for a good many years. With Tanaka at his side, he was able to set Ciel's arm, then wrap it in a bandage with a sling.

It must have hurt like hell and Lukas could see how much pain his brother was in, but he endeared it, which was also due to down right stubbornness. He should have gone to see a doctor. But he had to admit, what could a doctor do other than what Bardroy and Tanaka had done?

Ciel appeared to be as calm as he could be, sitting in a chair in the Sitting Room, now fully dressed, but in a loose fitting shirt, sipping some tea. They were alone.

"Why would Renfrew do this to you?"

Ciel took the cup from his mouth. "You tell me," saying, eyeing Lukas with skepticism. "First he renders Sebastian inert, then he tries to murder me. But he does not want harm coming to you."

"His vow to protect me, no doubt," Lukas said with some regret.

"Notwithstanding, I want this ghost exorcised from the mansion and I'll call some people I know to do it, if this situation can not be resolved internally."

"Let me talk with him, reason with him. He would not have gone after you unless you pushed him."

"It is my fault now? He is your 'friend'. Deal with him quickly or I will deal with it swiftly."

Lukas didn't need for Ciel to say whom he knew, those who could "exorcise" Renfrew's spirit from the mansion. They were called "The Ghost Club" and they specialized and have been successful in exorcising ghosts and other "playful" spirits from residences and commercial buildings. All it took was an understanding of the ghost's reason for being there, religious equipment, a crucifix, goats or lambs blood, and a few strongly-worded chosen Godly words. It was even said Charles Dickens, the writer of the Christmas Carol was a member, which could have accounted for him writing his Christmas story.

"You have attempted to summon him in the last several minutes to explain his actions, but he refuses to heed to your call," Ciel further said. "I want answers and want them now."

"Perhaps he does not like being called like some dog."

"And what does that suppose to mean?"

"My referral means, brother, is that you treat people like second-class citizens if they don't measure up to your standards of excellence or elegance - or to mother and father's."

"How dare you!"

"The truth hurts. But listen, and listen well, because I have more to say. You treat Elizabeth, your own fiancée, like garbage. It was obvious she went to a lot of pain-stacking effort to decorate the mansion and to bring in those fiddlers. But you just snuffed it off and her away like it meant nothing, and all because of what happened to you at this time of year more than two years prior."

Ciel sneered. "How dare you say that! How dare you!" he yelled.

"I dare say it because it is true."

"If you were not my brother I would - "

"You would kill me." Lukas nodded. "We've been through this before, Ciel. And you lost the duel."

Ciel took a sip of his tea, but Lukas could see the scowl from his brother behind the cup. But the tea appeared to calm him down at the moment. "Yes," he said, taking a deep breath. "How could I forget. And you still have not revealed the nature of your combative skills to me or Sebastian."

"When I remember how, I will do so. Like the brewing of tea, memory comes slowly. And I have a lot to still recall, for which why I entrusted Sebastian to aid me with on a nightly bases. I was beginning to remember some things I had forgotten, and then Renfrew appeared." Lukas put a closed hand to his chin in thought. "But I do recall a very specialized man who trained me with weaponry and armaments."

"Then we have a starting point and we will build on that."

"What starting point?" Lukas waved his hand in a gesture of disregard. "We are treading off topic. Let us have a 'session' to summon Renfrew - something he can not ignore. And then we can ask him questions."

"Tell me how to trap him."

"No."

Ciel seemed to growl under his breath like a disgruntled dog and Lukas suppressed a smile. "Your ghost was indeed correct when he said you were special. You are insufferable in your convictions, like no one I have ever known. Tell me how you saved me? And were did all the blood go?"

"I don't know." Lukas shook his head dumbfounded. "And your blood went back into your body by some method I am trulyclueless about in a mystery I honestly wish to unravel."

When the Undertaker arrived by horse and carriage that evening dressed in his usual dark attire and top hat, he, Ciel and Lukas sat around a table draped with a dark table cloth. Salem had also brought something else with him, made aware by other avenues of information - he was a Reaper, after all. Nothing of a spiritual sense gets past the Reaperdum. And Renfrew Phantomhive had become a hot topic in the Reaperdum.

In certain circles, the item the Undertaker brought with him was loosely called a Ouija Board. Some believed it was a conduit to speak with them dead with letters and numbers and different phrases for the spirit to communicate with the living. But Lukas thought it was a bit redundant as Renfrew had already appeared to he and Ciel without the need of such a thing.

But it was all apart of the session. And it was something Renfrew - a spirit - could not ignore. The spirit realm had its own rules and if called upon with the proper methods and words, no spirit can refuse. The room they were in, the Drawing Room, was also darkened with candlelight illumination. Dancing shadows, humorously like demons, filled the room. But to Salem, it was all for dramatic effect.

"This is all nonsense," Ciel said, but he still sat at the table. "You are a Reaper. Why can you not merely snap your fingers and summon him?"

Salem smiled a toothy grin, but it was Lukas who said, "He knows what he's doing, Ciel. We would not be here and he would not have brought this Ouija Board if it this was not important."

Salem lifted his hands in an upward gesture. "Well, my lord. Your brother is essentially correct. But I do so much enjoy the theatrics of it all. I am a Reaper, and for us, it is easy to temper the dead to our summons."

"Just get on with it," Ciel demanded, and produced a smug grin. Lukas frowned, outsmarted.

Salem snapped his fingers.

And Renfrew suddenly appeared, but with a displeased look on his face. He looked at the Undertaker. "You said you would never do that again. You know how I hate it."

Salem chuckled. "I was undone by two-to-one."

Renfrew looked at Lukas and Ciel consecutively, but he did seem surprised to find Ciel still alive, and took a longer moment staring into Ciel's hardened, hateful gaze upon him, eventually looking away.

"You and Renfrew are acquainted?" Lukas asked.

"Implicitly," Renfrew grumbled. "Even regretfully." His face had gone sour, as if he knew that a terrible secret was about to be revealed.

"You could say we are old acquaintances in fact," Salem said with a chuckle. The slightest thing seemed to amuse him. "Renfrew is a poltergeist, a trickster spirit."

Both boys looked at Renfrew in bewilderment. "Do you mean you are not our cousin?" asked Lukas.

"He is indeed your distant cousin, but he has learned a few tricks over the years," Salem said. "Boredom does that to a spirit in time. He knows he can never rest, so he likes to 'play with others' for amusement to pass the time."

"Never rest?" Lukas said.

"Explain!" Ciel demanded.

"My history is true and I was trapped by the individual whom you, Lukas, released me from. This Ouija Board that Salem had brought is no doubt a reminder to me of this and my deception to you about it." Salem grinned. "I could have escaped from him with enough effort at any time. I remained with this man for amusement. He had called upon a spirit, playing with his board one night that bought in some shop, and I came. But I underestimated his uncanny ability with the supernatural and he used a spell to hold me. It was a weak spell, and I could have broken it at any time - he forgot the anchor spell of it, the end part that finishes it, or he spoke it incorrectly. Nevertheless, I remained with him until you came along, Lukas. And told you I was trapped, to 'free' myself from him because I was getting bored of him. But his death was the only way to truly grant my freedom."

Lukas frowned hard. "So you lied to me."

"Only about that. But you did put him into 'hibernation' at the bottom of the Thames River during one cold winter night when he attacked you. I suspect by now his body has been devoured by fish."

"How did our association come about? And why are you guardian to this 'door' inside my mind now? If I didn't save you, why have you sworn a vow to protect me? And why did you try to kill my brother?"

"This vow stands true, but for a different reason." Renfrew gave Salem a sideways glance, for which Salem met, and that Lukas saw. It was as if Renfrew was asking permission for something. Salem nodded. Renfrew turned back to Lukas. "During your time away from your brother, not only were you under the influence of Bryon Kelvin, but at one point you were endowed with Reaper powers that were then taken back, whereas during this time you acquired something…for which I vowed to protect. However, it was suspected that some residue of this Reaper still remains. And this is how you were able to save your brother in the bathroom, returning the blood back into his body. It was a test, to see if your still had this power."

"A test?" Ciel was furious.

"Calm down, my lord," Salem said. "I was monitoring the entire affair. I would not have allowed you to die, if indeed, young Lukas could not save you. It was approved by the Reaperdum."

But Salem's words still didn't bring comfort to Ciel. The look in his left eye, the eye patch over his right, widened with absolute bloodlust.

Ciel then snorted, letting out a deep breath. Lukas wagered Ciel had finally realized what could he do to this pair of spiritual-powered beings? Ciel was only human.

"So you played with my life," Ciel said calmly, "and broke my arm."

Renfrew waved a hand over Ciel's broken arm and it was instantly healed.

Ciel moved his arm about out of the sling and purposely swung it through Renfrew distorting his spirit for a moment. It may have been his way of testing the solidity of Renfrew, to 'play' to a notion that, if he could, Ciel would inflict some physical violence upon Renfrew for what the spirit did to him.

"So, now that that is cleared up. Explain to me more about myself being the Gate Keeper because of the brand on my body and Lukas being the Key Master because of this secret he holds in his mind," Ciel urged. "But, before that, explain to us why you can never rest."

Renfrew temporarily shyed away. "I can never rest because of a sin I committed in life which has condemned me in death. In the eyes of God it is an unforgivable sin."

"Ah," Ciel breathed out, appearing to understand. "So you committed suicide." Saying it as if it meant nothing. "You threw away the gift God bestowed upon you. Indeed, quite unforgivable."

"The details of my departure from this world, I will not say. They are mine to bare."

"You were fighting with your father and threatened to shoot yourself with his gun, Renfrew," Salem said it for him. "You accidentally pulled the trigger believing that it was not loaded and killed yourself. In His eyes, you committed the sin, and can never rest for it."

Renfrew grumbled, taking a moment to compose the embarrassment he felt. "Notwithstanding, I have entered into a pack with a group of individuals who may have the ability to help me erase my sin and restore me back into the good graces of the Almighty. This is why I rendered Sebastian unconscious for them to collect at a time of their choosing, for they will need his powers for their plans to come to fruition."

Again, both boys looked bewildered. "Of whom do you speak of?" Lukas asked.

"It is all because of a secret group called the Illuminati," Renfrew revealed.

Ciel huffed. "Another secret society like the Inner Circle?"

"No, even larger. They encompass the entire globe, the known world. They have allies everywhere."

Renfrew, with Salem's assistance, went into some detail about the Illuminati's beginnings, up to now, as far as they both knew - aside from further secrets - and who was the leader of the English branch of the Illuminati, a man known as Wilhelm Lycan Lazarus III, who also had a secret agenda: to take revenge upon Sebastian for murdering his son, Johnny Lazarus, during what is commonly referred to as the Great Death. It was the day Sebastian slaughtered all the 'attending' members of the Inner Circle in their secret gathering place, and everyone else, including the children meant to be sacrificed, in attendance, except for Ciel Phantomhive…

"You two were meant to be sacrifices in your own rite," Renfrew then said. "The Illuminati have sought to summon a great and powerful demon, and with the precise enchantments, even He can be controlled. But they needed two individuals to be the Gate Keeper and the Key Master. You two were chosen."

"I am confused," Lukas said. "If the two 'societies' did not know of the other's existence, how were we - "

"The Illuminati have spies everywhere, and indeed, despite some may not have known, others did, and those who branded Ciel Phantomhave may have been influenced by certain Illuminati members implanted within the Inner Circle without them knowing it, to make Ciel the Gate Keeper, and you, Lukas, the Key Master." Renfrew then turned to Ciel. "On another note, Lukas's body - when your parents were told of his death at the hands of a corrupted surgeon working for Bryon Kelvin - was replaced by another boy his size, and his face ravaged by surgical implements to be unrecognizable. He is the boy whom Vincent and Rachel Phantomhive buried in the marked grave in the family plot. In essence, Bryon Kelvin, whom I told you, Ciel, I did not know, was the go-between for both secret sects. He is a very evil man and has dark heart."

"It all falls back to Bryon Kelvin," Ciel said, and slammed the table with his fists. He hit it so hard that the table shook violently and Ouija Board jumped. "All our family grief is because of him!"

"Well, not all of it, my lord," Salem said, pointing a long nailed finger at Ciel's Hope Diamond ring, and chuckled. "You have a distant relative to blame for some of it. And that can not be undone."

Ciel looked at his ring, but seemed unconcerned with it at the moment. "I want Bryon Kelvin dead!"

"As do I, brother," Lukas concurred. "But we have to find him first. I've asked our contacts around the city to alert us if they spot him."

"And something else you must know." Renfrew returned to the topic at hand. "Lazarus is in possession of certain religious scrolls that he says reveal the true resurrection behind Jesus Christ emerging from the cave…"

"True secret?" Ciel said. "The bible tells that Jesus Christ emerged after three days, resurrected by God."

"Lazarus believes otherwise. I have not read what are on these scrolls, however. But with this secret, he plans on resurrecting his son whom he had had mummified."

"Then we must get our hands on these scrolls," Ciel said determinately, "and read what's on them."

Lukas smiled at his brother. "Are you thinking what I am, brother?"

"Indeed, Lukas. Indeed, I am." And a broad excited smile encapsulated Ciel's face. "If Lazarus does indeed have something that may restore life, albeit my skepticism, then our parents may live again."

To be continued…