CHAPTER 15 - "CHANGE OF PLANS"

Still angry with his brother, Lukas Phantomhive reluctantly sat at the same table with Ciel for the nightly meal, albeit in the Dining Hall at the end of the elongated table. Ciel sat at the other end, sitting the farthest away from Lukas as humanly possible.

This was the first time Lukas had sat at his table since he had been trapped by the duo of his brother and Sebastian Michaelis, his butler, given a truce serum, and threatened with torture if he didn't reveal the true nature of his coming to the Phantomhive mansion. In the end, the amnesia Lukas had been suffering from and still was, caused all the memories since he had been kidnapped by members of the Inner Circle, including a close friend of his father, Bryon Kelvin, now believe dead, to be forgotten. Just recently he had reacquinted himself with some of those lost memories with the help of his brother and Tanaka, but only of the Phantomhive family, none from the time he had been kidnapped.

But now that he was once again a part of the Phantomhive family, he still felt apart from his brother, who had refused to speak with him since their argument this afternoon. Ideologies clashed when it came to the issue of servitude and self-reliance. Lukas felt Ciel should learn to do certain things on his own to gain some independence, but Ciel was adamant that that was ludicrous, because that's why he had servants.

The Phantomhive's were rich beyond the dreams of avarice, and the number of servants a family had sometimes spoke volumes about a family's status in society. But these servants were unlike any Lukas had ever known, and they were more than just that. They were protectors, hired by Ciel and Sebastian against his enemies. Being lords of the underworld had a hefty price tag to it. A lot people hated Ciel. The battle on the back property was proof of just how effective these servants were. They were strong, smart, and weapon-savvy. But afterwards, they appeared to fall back into their servant roles, including Mey-Rin, returning to her role as the ditsy, half-blind housemaid, Finny, the sometimes over-clueless gardener, and Bardroy, the often inept-chef. And he wondered, were they just playing dumb or was this just another act to fool everyone other than the family?

Bardroy's cooking tonight left him on the fence about it. Only half of the cook's meals came out right. Unfortunately Sebastian had other business to attend to, so he couldn't cook tonight, only serve. But even he admitted tonight wasn't one of Bardroy's better nights in the kitchen.

Lukas and Ciel ate in complete silence.

Sebastian was an excellent butler, Lukas thought, and he wondered were Ciel had managed to acquire such a very competent man. Sebastian appeared to be versed in everything from social matters to historical ideology. He was a young man, but he had had such a vast amount of knowledge about everything, he wondered how such a man could know so much in such a short lifetime?

Sebastian had a well-bred accent, that he must have been born in England to a well-to-do family, or at least that's what Lukas concluded. But there was just something about him that made Lukas feel uneasy, and he could not explain the feeling. There was a certain coldness and calculation to everything Sebastian did that he almost had a secret agenda, a plan to forge his way forward for some lofty goal, and Ciel was only a stepping stone on towards it.

Ciel and Sebastian were very close as master and servant, but they had only began their association a little more than two years ago. He had to admit, much like a dog adopted into a family in as little as this much time a strong bond could be fused, however, they were only master and servant, not family, and there had to be a distance between them. He didn't find this to be the case. Despite Ciel treating Sebastian as his servant, Lukas saw a camaraderie between them that closely-tied them like they had some sort of unspoken promise, a contract. Like if you do something for me, I'll give you something of mine. Payment. Something like that.

Regardless of his thoughts, Sebastian appeared good for his brother. Since their parent's had been murdered by the Inner Circle, which was an act of revenge against them for what they about to do - possibly exposing the Inner Circle's plans to usurp the Queen and impose their own rule - Sebastian had become like a parental figure to Ciel, helping him with his schooling, social edict, and financial matters when it came to Fantom Co. His brother was strong, almost arrogant at time, but Lukas wondered it was merely a façade to hide just how scared he was in a world that almost destroyed his entire life.

"Will you stop that!"

Lukas looked up from his reverie, staring blankly at his supper, and at his brother. Ciel eyed him with stern indignation from across the table. His right eye had a patch over it, but his other eye seemed to embody the anger of both.

"Pardon?"

"Your fork. Stop tapping it on your plate. It's irritating!"

Lukas hadn't even realized he had been tapping his fork. He was so deep in thought that it must have been an innate reaction to it. "Sorry," he said. "Forgive my irradiance to you, brother. If I knew you were so ill-willed to my company tonight, I would've eaten in my quarters."

"Perhaps you should. I prefer to eat in silence."

Lukas eyed him with equal indignation. "I may not be clamped to this chair this time like last, but the air in this place feels just as stifling." He noticed Sebastian, who was standing in a far corner of the room, once again had put a hand to his face in abasement. "I don't understand why you stay with him, Sebastian, with his insufferable, egomaniacal attitude."

"He serves me," Ciel said, holding a calm. "Nothing more need be said."

Lukas smirked dubiously. "You're wrong, dear brother. He serves us both now. He is a butler with two masters, as I am now back."

"A servant can only serve one master," Ciel's voice elevated with the word 'one'. "If you weren't my brother, I'd have you shot for your disrespect!"

"Then let us settle this like men." Lukas stood up sharply.

"Ten paces?"

"Ten paces? You're bluffing. You'd never shot me."

"And you'd never shoot me?"

Lukas sighed. "No," he said, some of his bravado fading. "I'm not a killer."

"Then you are at an impasse." Ciel drank from his goblet.

"What do you mean I am at am impasse? Are you saying, you would not hesitate to shoot me at ten paces?"

Before Ciel could speak, the Dining Room burst open behind Ciel, slamming against the back wall, and Tanaka stood at the threshold, "Enough!"

Both boys looked at him in horrid surprise. Sebastian even turned in utter shock to look at the man who was normally such a quiet, soft spoken man.

"I will not have you two bickering in sibling rivalry, again! You have just been reunited after seven years apart and only after a week together, you are at each other's throats!"

Tanaka's eyes were wide with anger.

Sebastian approached the man with his hands raised. "Please settle down, Tanaka. We can settle this without more anger."

"That's right, we should settle this once and for all!" Lukas declared.

"Settle what?" Ciel turned sharply to Lukas. "This is my mansion, these are my servants. I have nothing to prove!"

"May I interject for a moment?" Sebastian said.

"No!" the boys said in unison.

"But I shall anyway. Let us play a game to settle things."

"This is no time to play games, Sebastian," Ciel said, with anger.

"I agree. A game of Old Maid will not settle things between my brother and I."

"That is not the game I suggest. I mean, a game that gentlemen play to settle disputes. Ten paces."

Ciel looked shocked. "Are you mad?"

"Where is your confidence now, brother?" Lukas said. "I thought you wouldn't hesitate to kill me if had the chance?"

"You don't have the balls to go through with it," Ciel equalized Lukas's brashness. "It is insane anyhow."

"Then you refute a gentlemanly duel? You coward."

Lukas felt the anger seethe off his brother. The stare in Ciel's one eye was enough to feel like a dagger in his heart. "You really want to die? So be it! Tomorrow, at dawn!"

Sebastian had never not been in control of his surroundings since becoming Ciel Phantomhive's butler. But when it came to his master and his brother's bickering, this had been the first time. And now they planned to shoot each other tomorrow at dawn in ten paces, a gentleman's duel where two men walk ten paces, their backs turned, spin around, and then fire at the other to wound or kill, and winner retains their honor.

But Ciel and Lukas Phantomhive where only twelve years old and both had domineering personalities. Regardless of the outcome, he could not let either one die. The contract with Ciel Phantomhive forbid it, and the order by his master had the same effect.

"Protect my brother at all costs!" Ciel Phantomhive had said only days before. However, he gathered his master was referring to the Inner Circle, who were out to retrieve Lukas Phantomhive.

But he could not disobey his master's order, no matter the circumstance. He would need to find a way from now until the duel, to safeguard both of Vincent Phantomhive's children from killing each other in a foolish duel of pride. And besides, he could not allow either delicious souls to go to waste.

So he stood thinking in front of the fireplace in his master's study. He had warmed the room by putting three logs on the fire. Living with Ciel Phantomhive and humans these last few years, he missed the inferno that was his home. Being a demon, he liked the temperature very hot.

He felt a tug, more like a spiritual tug. And demonic chant filled his ears.

Simplistic garbage. Humans still believed they could control demons with that rhetoric? Well, demons who were weak-minded, that is.

He was an exception to the rule. Living for centuries, he developed a tolerance for human stupidity. This spiritual script was passed down to humans from demon homage, and over the years humans had foolishly tried to control the spiritual world by trapping death in cages built of invisible barriers to learn the underworld's secrets.

They underestimate me, whoever these others are who seem to know of my existence.,

he thought.

Whoever was calling him, he had no intention of leaving his master's side. He thought it amusing these other human's would even try.

Mathu lowered his arms in tired resolve. He had been attempting to summon Sebastian Michaelis to the amphitheatre for some time without success.

He knew he didn't have the chants wrong, they were written and proof-read in his little black book, and they had had worked to summon his wife and brother to his side, so they could attach their spirits to the bodies of these others after the Great Death. After Sebastian Michaelis. But the demon would not come.

The spiritual barrier of the spiritual script wouldn't have keep him out. The moment Sebastian arrived, one of the others would leave and drag him inside, using a Triad to pass through without harm. He felt nothing was wrong with his chants. Either Sebastian Michaelis couldn't leave the brat's side, or he was unwilling. The demon's contract with Ciel Phantomhive must be stronger than he thought.

Grell Sutcliff laughed. "Not working, I see," the Reaper said. "He's not your atypical demon."

Mathu eyed Grell with indignation. "All demons and the dead must adhere to the spells I've cast, Sebastian Michaelis is no exception. Tell me why he won't come?"

Grell shrugged. "Who knows. He has a contract with a human, that doesn't mean he likes them. In fact, I happen to know he despises them. You don't know Bassie like I do, he can't be summoned like some dog. The only reason he's with Ciel Phantomhive is to devour his soul. But he wants to cultivate it first."

Mathu nodded. "Ah, now I see." He looked at the others. They all nodded in turn, as if understanding what he was thinking. He turned back to Grell. "Ciel Phantomhive summoned Sebastian Michaelis out of hate and malice to kill those who did him wrong, so Michaelis purposely leashed himself to him. Now I understand why he's unwilling to come. Not of loyalty, not of self-entrapment, but of selfishness."

"You seem to know a lot about that night here?" Grell said inquisitively.

"That's because I was here that night," Mathu smiled devilishly. "I saw carnage beyond anything wrought by human kind. Ciel summoned Sebastian not only out of hate and malice, but also out of desperation, and he ordered the demon to murder all the members of the Inner Circle in revenge, as he lay dying in a puddle of his own blood, including myself. In fact, we were all there that night."

Grell blinked his eyes in confusion, then his eyes widened in realization. "You all died that night!"

"Correct."

"Then you inhabited these bodies afterward?"

"Correct again, and before one of your Reapers could summon their cinematic records. You see, what human's call the spirit or 'soul' stays in the human body until a Reaper releases it, this is life. The human body is merely a vessel for this life, or should I say possession. Therefore, we still have all the original hosts trapped inside, with all their memories, experiences, in addition to our own. They're buried, we dominate. But that's not to say they don't deserve hell in their cells for their transgressions."

"You were all members of the Inner Circle. Are there more of you?"

Mathu cocked his head slightly. "Do you mean a consortium of Fallen Reapers? Yes, there are more of us, but we four work for ourselves under the guise of our host's identities. The other's…do their own things. But these… are the last of the Inner Circle, as it's known. The Inner Circle died here. All we want is what's ours, then we'll disappear."

"Disappear?"

"Can we get rid of this Reaper?" Sasha said annoyed.

"Yes, he asks too many questions, and frankly, you're obliging him too much," Samuel said.

"And that will be the last answer he'll get," Mathu said in reply. "It's obvious we must alter the original plan. So, if Sebastian Michaelis won't come to us, willingly, we'll just have to force him to acquiesce."

"How?" Grell said.

Mathu stared at Grell for a moment, then said, "If Sebastian Michaelis chooses to ignore even the summoning spells of spiritual dark forces, then we'll use a more direct method, one that he must obey. And one that he'll have no choice but to attempt to control, but will fail trying."

"Again, how?"

Mathu smiled deviously. "We activate Lukas Phantomhive…"

To be continued…