CHAPTER 4 - "IN SEARCH OF THE TRUTH"
"This is no way to treat a guest!" Leic protested.
Ciel Phantomhive's "twin" was shackled to the arm of a chair and the chair was fastened securely to the floor of the Dining Hall. Leic yanked at the iron binding that secured his left wrist to a short chain, long enough to give Leic movement to eat, but very little else.
"Tonight's meal consists of pheasant under glass, accompanied by a tossed green salad with shrimp, and a for dessert a chocolate mousse," Sebastian announced, standing erect in the middle of the elongated table with a white serving towel draped over on folded arm. Then served them both from a food trolley.
Leic eyed Sebastian as he put down a plate of pheasant (chicken) and a bowl of salad in front of him. "Whose idea was it to treat me like this? I'm not a prisoner!"
Ciel took a drink from a gobbet that had already been poured with water, the most suitable accompaniment to the mea as opposed to alcohol. "A precaution, naturally," Ciel said. He gazed at his "guest" across the table. "You are afforded this luxury because of certain facts that have come to light."
Sebastian served Ciel, as Leic said, "And what facts are those?"
"That you, and it pains me to say it, may very well be a son of Vincent Phantomhive, my brother. But that is still up for debate. You may also be an imposter."
Leic sighed. "We've been through this before. I look like you, I sound like you… if it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck - "
"It may be fowl," Ciel cut in. "Nothing is absolute in this world, not even blood."
"I'm not trying to take anything away from you, Ciel," Liec said. He used a fork and knife to cut off a piece of chicken and then ate it. "My memory is very foggy."
Ciel finished a morsel of food, took a sip of water before saying, "And that is why your presence here is so dangerous right now. If the wrong people were to, let's say, kidnap you, you could be killed or forced to do something nefarious against my name. I'd have you know, I have a lot of enemies in London."
"I would never do anything of the sort. Besides, I didn't escape one prison to end up in another."
"And what do you mean by that?"
Leic looked thoughtful for a moment, as if trying to look inside his own mind for some clue of his past. Somewhere in his memories everything he had experienced and who he was was storaged in his brain. He turned back to look at Ciel. "I don't know. I just feel I was imprisoned. And that's why I ran away, that's why those two men on horseback were chasing me."
"And in all of England, you just happen to end up on my estate? I don't believe in coincidences."
Leic shook his head. "I don't know why I came here. But I felt drawn, that I belong here."
"That is yet to be determined."
Ciel gave a quick nod to Sebastian, and as if to understand some silent order, Sebastian then moved to the back of the room to stand to alone in a corner as Ciel and Leic to ate without the butler hounding over them. It was also proper edict. Master's ate alone, servants ate in their quarters or in the kitchen. But with Leic here, Sebastian stood watch.
After the meal, the plates were removed.
As Leic was shackled to the chair, Ciel edged his way to the other to the other end of the table. "That was a good meal," Leic said, as Sebastian brought a chair for Ciel to sit next to Leic. "But am I to be chained to this chair all night? Surely a bed would be more comfortable."
"That all depends on your answers," Ciel said cryptically.
Leic's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
"Your chocolate mousse was laced with a truth serum. Sebastian did it." Ciel smiled. "Now every question I ask, you'll have no choice but to answer truthfully. Since your memory is foggy, as you say, this serum will interact with your nerves, penetrate the depths of your consciousness, and give us the answers that I seek about who you really are. If I find you are not telling the truth, I'll try something else."
"I'm telling you, I don't know anything about who I am except for my name."
Sebastian suddenly appeared beside Leic's chair and pulled a latch from the back quickly cramping Leic's wrists fully to the chair arms with hidden iron fasteners that were attached to the sides. His ankles were also caught and secured. Now Leic couldn't move. Minus a neck brace and a wheel in the back that would push out a piece of iron to slowly crack a victim's neck, the chair was a mild form of a medieval torture chair widely used in England prisons.
"Your name is merely a backwards form of mine, that tells me nothing." Ciel smiled gleefully sinister. "This shouldn't take more than an hour or two at most. And let me add, if I don't like your answers, you won't like my responses."
"Please, don't do this!" Leic pleaded.
Sebastian brought out a series of evil looking tools from a moderate-size black case and placed them on the table in front of Leic. They included a small round spiked hammer, used to smack hands and limbs; a miniature saw, used for cutting off limbs and fingers; a poker, used for heating up in coals to sear skin or heat up the fluid in eye balls to make them explode - and a variety of other nasty items. A "standard portable" torture kit. And all this brought Leic to wide-eyed fright.
"Now, let us begin," Ceil said.
And Leic began to scream.
A smothering gun held clutched in the hand of one of two men.
This man stood over the bodies of two men whom they had once employed. This execution was payment for failure. The men were supposed to recapture a boy who had escaped from an associate's laboratory.
The two men were murdered by this well-dressed man in a white suit. The other man was also dressed the same. They were tall, had white skin and blonde hair. In certain circles, they were known as the "Angels of Death" because they has killed so many people. They were twins.
Their names were Samuel and Sasha Ironstadt. Their ancestry was German, but they were born and raised in England. And they could speak both languages fluently.
Sasha stood over the bodies, while Samuel sat with his legs up on the desk that once belonged to an associate of theirs who had been killed. They were in the study of the their associate's mansion. His price for failure was the same.
"This will complicate things," Sasha said. He stood over the two men, and returned the gun to a holster he kept on his belt. The gun was gold embodied with silver lace. Samuel had "its" twin.
"Most assuredly," Samuel agreed, rising from the desk. He came to stand opposite his brother, careful not to step in the flowing blood that covered the floor from the two men's heads "But we will get the boy back."
"The boy's insertion was not foretold for another couple of months. Now he's with the other."
"Not to worry. His escape waspredestined, but his memory hasn't been fully integrated. His true identity is concealed even by him. It is buried deep inside his subconscious, or as the Doctor says."
"Suspicions will arise by his sudden appearance and his identical nature to the Earl," Sasha said. "I suspect it will merely confuse and confound everyone involved, especially Ciel Phantomhive."
"Precisely the intention. New science gave birth to the Earl's twin. And to think, we have Vincent Phantomhive to thank."
Sasha grinned. "Him and the Inner Circle, of course."
"Of course." Samuel returned the grin. "In fact, this will work in our favor. Come brother, let us depart and plan further.
"Yes, we're finished here."
Sebastian put his hands on his hips as he stood over an unconscious Leic laying limpless in the chair. Ceil sighed frustrated.
"Was this really necessary, Master?" Sebastian asked. "He's merely a boy."
"I thought he would be more stronger-willed than this." The Earl looked Leic. Except for a little spittle than ran from the side of Leic's mouth, Leic was unharmed. His "twin" had fainted at the first sign of being tortured. But Ceil wasn't going to do anything of the sort. It was only a scare tactic. But it backfired.
"He doesn't have your fortitude, my lord."
"Quite. And now the truth serum is wasted. Take him back to his quarters, let him sleep it off."
"Yes, my lord."
"But make sure he doesn't escape."
"Yes, my lord."
Sebastian unclamped the iron fasteners by releasing the lock on the back of the chair, and took off the chain attached to a iron faster around Leic's left arm. Then he lifted the boy in his arms and carried Leic back to the guest quarters, gently placing the boy on the bed and covering him with the sheets to let him rest. He locked the door behind him.
Outside in the hall, Sebastian smiled. Much like Dumont's story of The Man in the Iron Mask, he liked his evil "king" rather than the subtle lost twin and he had no intention of switching them. Just the thought of going through this whole torture masquerade as enough to make Sebastian Michalis hunger more for Ciel Phantomhive's soul.
But there was something about Leic that touched Sebastian in a profound way, and he found a familiar kinship with the boy. No, not kinship. His soul smelled exactly like his master's. That would could only come about if they came from the same blood, that they indeed shared the same soul.
That they were in fact twins.
And if it was so, when the time came to devour his master's soul, he could eat them both.
To be continued.