CHAPTER 26 - "ENEMY AT THE GATES PART 1"
Two mornings hence, they stood together in the front courtyard of the mansion - Ciel, Lukas and Sebastian. Sebastian had sent the other servants on an "important" errand into town and he said it needed all four of them: Finny, Mey-Rin, Bardroy and Tanaka to accomplish it. But it was merely a rouse to have them out of the way of what would be a fight to a possible end - and Sebastian was the only servant who knew "the whole story". The Fallen Reapers were a dangerous bunch and they was unconcern what was to occur.
Both Ciel and Lukas held a pistol in hand. Even though it may not be of any use in battle, it made them feel safer knowing they had some form of defensive if needed. But one lead ball and ground powder was hardly a weapon against supernatural dark powers for which the Fallen Reapers' possessed, and Sebastian was really their only defense against these menacing beings.
Things had been discussed and plans concocted before hand, but the odds were adversely stacked against them - especially two humans and one demon.
Ciel kissed his ring, a piece of the cursed Hope Diamond, for luck. "Call them, Sebastian," he said. "Let us end this farce. I have a business to run and a brother to fully re-acquaint myself with."
Lukas nodded, agreeing. They had spoken much in the last two days, but it was mostly about plans to combat the Fallen Reapers. Family and history had been put aside for this fight or possibly last stand.
"My pleasure, sir," Sebastian said. "Now, are you prepared?" He directed the question more so to Lukas, giving him a sideways glance.
Ciel raised his pistol and cocked the flint-lock; Lukas did as well.
Lukas met Sebastian's sideway glance. This was more Lukas's fight, especially after everything he had gone through. It was felt if the Fallen Reapers could be defeated, a chapter in his life would be complete. For if it wasn't for these Fallen Reapers who murdered the remaining members of the Inner Circle, he might still be under their power and may have murdered his brother, or Sebastian may have killed him for trying. In a way the Fallen Reapers did both he and Ciel a favor. But now the Fallen Reapers were the blockage that they had to break through.
"Ready," Lukas said, as if speaking for but himself and Ciel. "Let them come! Finis prope est!"
"Quite right," Ciel said approvingly. "The end is near. Les libéraux les détruiront tous!"
Ciel gave Lukas a quick sideways glance, grinned, and Lukas chuckled. "Destroy them all. Yes, indeed."
Sebastian detected a little bit of rivalry between the brothers as they spoke both Latin and French to the other. Sebastian had taught Ciel both Latin and French, but Lukas must have been taught both languages by another educator, possibly associated with Bryon Kelvin. "Then let the terminus - c'est la fin… " - making it quite clear that they know that he was the teacher and not the student speaking in both Latin and French to them - "…the end, commence," he said. "I shall summon them now."
With a mere thought, he sent the summons, and welcomed the Fallen Reapers as they appeared in the blink of an eye forty feet in front of them in the courtyard.
They arrived and stood on a gravel area that Finny had been told to caretaker recently. It had been part of a new garden project, Sebastian had told him, and he was told to quickly have to done. Finny had completed it just this morning, working all day yesterday and late into the evening, even in the dark. It was a large square gravel area covered with white stone, and it was much like the Japanese stone garden that Finny had built to replace the garden he had accidentally killed with super strength weed killer only a few months prior, or at least the beginnings of it. The garden had grown back, but now Sebastian had suddenly issued this new project for a little variety to spruce things up, only that the work had to be completed in two days. Finny didn't question it, he enjoyed working outdoors. It looked more like the flooring of something else, however, and incomplete project, but Sebastian said it was all that was needed for now. It was for this in part that he had sent the rest of the staff into town to purchase other items wanted, for later.
The grounded beneath Mathu Kelvin's feet crushed as he took a few steps forward. He and the others eyed the entire large square of white stone all around them. It looked like something unfinished, but the dimensions were so perfectly symmetrical. He brushed some of the stone away from the ground with a foot, but there was nothing underneath but dirt.
"Did we interrupt a new construction project?" he said, gesturing to the stone.
"Quite true," Sebastian lied. "We are building a stone garden."
Mathu cocked his head slightly, smirking skeptically. "Do you really think me stupid, demon?" Mathu walked off the white stone and passed through an invisible spiritual barrier that seemed to exhibit momentary sparks of electricity. The others passed through it as well onto normal ground. He reached into his shirt and pulled out a chain with a two-dimensional triangle on it, so did the others. "You must take me for a fool. I knew that you would try something this obvious."
"They have Triads?" Lukas was shocked. Sebastian gave him a questioning look. "They are instruments that allow a spiritual being to pass through any barrier. Only Reapers are supposed to have them." He took out his own, hanging around his neck. "The Undertaker gave me this, he said I may need it."
"Ah, the Undertaker. How is that old man? Still catering to the humanity's finality? After we are done here, let us pay a visit to him and instruct him on his place, shall we?" His fellow Fallen Reapers agreed.
"This is unexpected, but not surprising," Sebastian said to the boys. "How very posh, dressed in black now, I see, white is very unbecoming of a Reaper," he mocked the twins. "Ah, and your burns are healed, and so quickly too."
Sasha and Samuel Ironstadt snarled in unison expressing their deep hatred for the demon. Their burns were healed from their encounter with Sebastian Michaelis at the mansion days prior when they attempted to distract him with small veils of nitroglycerin. The demon managed to turn the tables and used their own weapons against them burning them severely and dark magic had healed them; everything but their pride.
Mathu put up a hand stopping them from any onslaught. "You know why we are here. You summoned us and I can see the boy. Give him to us, so we can extract what we want from his brain. Then we will leave you in peace."
"Indeed," Sebastian merely replied. He knew the Fallen Reaper's words were filled with deception. "I did summon you and we have seen what you want. Unfortunately, you are too late. It is gone."
"Gone?" Mathu said disbelievingly. "What do you mean?"
"He means, there is been a change of plans," Lukas spoke up. "The deal you and Sebastian agreed upon for me is rescinded. What you want is no longer available."
"Explain!" Mathu demanded.
"I have removed the information from my young lord's mind. It resides within me now, locked away, and here it will stay," Sebastian clarified.
"Our bodies?"
"Indeed. And may I say, good show. They are a fine improvement on this lot." He eyed the twins. "Save for you two - or shall I say one? But such a massive spirit. Indeed you needed two bodies to hold it."
"Return to us what is ours! Or I will destroy you and this pathetic mansion!" He took out a small black book, on the cover was a demonic symbol. "With this book, I will call upon our fallen brethren and hark the skies with a darkness you have never seen!"
"I am aware of other fallen Reapers like you, but they are empty spirits without bodies; they can neither touch nor interfere with us, so your threat is meaningless."
Mathu gritted his teeth. Sebastian had called his bluff.
Ciel and Lukas laughed, if not forcefully.
Mathu frowned. "What's so funny?"
"It's symbolic really," Sebastian explained. "They are laughing in the face of danger. I know, quite cliché, but it releases tension."
"How childish. And stupid."
"On the contrary, I encourage it. Notwithstanding, they are under my protection." He extended his arms to the two boys on either side of him, who were standing firm and undaunted by the danger they faced. "Notwithstanding the social stigma that a servant can only have one master…" Ciel nodded approvingly to Sebastian when the butler gave him a brief sideways glance. "I am now a butler with two master's."
Ciel ripped off his eye patch exposing the covenant embedded in his right eye and it glowered red. Improper socially in any other circumstance but acceptable in this brief instance, Lukas stuck out his tongue exposing his own covenant and it too glowered with a red intensity. Each covenant was unique in its design catered to the separate contract each boy had with Sebastian.
"You fool!" Mathu shouted in disbelief. "You sold your soul for this demon's protection?"
Lukas smiled slyly. "I assure you, the benefits far out way the negatives. Indeed now, I no longer need to wonder what my future holds. It is quite liberating actually."
"That insufferable brat!" Sasha growled.
"Sebastian will defend each of them with his life now!" Samuel growled.
Mathu again held them back. "We need not worry. Well played, Sebastian." But he smiled amused. "But can you really defend both your master's at once on multiple fronts? Notwithstanding. Watch and learn." He opened his book to a bookmarked page. "I anticipated something like this and prepared accordingly. Even of the underworld, all things must obey the rules set regardless of their station, or whereabouts..."
He began to recite a chant in ancient Latin - and as he spoke it out loud, his words reverberated, as it coming from several different ghostly voices at once and with countless whispers underscoring its power. A strong vortex filled with phantom entities swirled around him and created a heaviness in the surrounding air. He pointed, and sent this phantom power shooting forward forking towards Ciel and Lukas. It hit both boys square in the chest, throwing them back; they hitting the ground hard.
"I may not be able to call upon my fallen brethren to help, but I can seek the power of the unrest of the dead to my beckon command," Mathu corrected Sebastian. "And there is so much power to command!"
Sebastian turned sharply, quickly collecting himself to his masters' side. He knelt between them, passing glances to each. The strike left no visible mark on either boy, but it had been a physical strike. He had neglected to foresee this. The dead has a great deal of power to use; and with countless spirits at unrest - those humans who could not accept their own deaths - their spiritual energies collectively could be used and had indeed been used as a weapon. "My lord's! Are you all right?"
Ciel moaned and felt his chest, then opened his left eye instinctively first because the other eye normally had the eye patch on, then his right.
Sebastian gasped in shock. The covenant was gone from Ciel's right eye. He snapped his head to Lukas, and asked to see his tongue. That covenant was no longer there. Whipping off his gloves, both hands were bare; the covenants of each boy that were placed here had vanished.
"No…this can't be!" he muttered.
"What is it, Sebastian? What has you in a fright?" Ciel asked.
"He's in a fret, boy, because both his covenants are gone," Mathu revealed.
Ciel and Lukas saw the other's covenant were gone. Sebastian knelt staring at his hands disbelieving what had just occurred.
"This is not possible, his dark magic has erased our covenants," Sebastian said disquietingly.
"Indeed Sebastian, even a demon can be neutralized of his powers, and now without the strength of these brats…"
Mathu took out a gun that he had hidden behind his back and fired it at Sebastian's head. The bullet entered from one temple and exited the other, and Sebastian collapsed, his head aghast with the look of death.
"Why did you do that?" Savannah said. "Now we can't retrieve our bodies from his mind?"
"He never had them, my dear, because the brat still does. He never removed anything. Never trust a demon, you recall?" Mathu pointed the gun at Lukas. "Am I correct, boy?"
Lukas gritted his teeth and stared at Mathu Kelvin with hate. He clutched his pistol, but knew it would be no match for a gun that fired multiple shots. "You are correct, Mathu Kelvin," he said unceasingly calm. Suddenly, he pointed the pistal at his own head. "But you will never get what you want!"
Savannah pushed Mathu's gun down, but he brought it back up. "No need for concern, my dear. He won't murder himself. He's bluffing."
"I will do it! I promise!"
"And what will it serve? There is too much bitterness in you to let it all go now. Bryon Kelvin stole you away from your parents and did horrible things to you. Do you really wish to allow him to concede a victory in taking your own life? Your don't matter to him, he has plenty more "toys" to do as he wishes. You are merely the one that got away. He'll just send one of his other assassins to hunt you down, so nothing he did can be traced back to him. If you kill yourself, you'll do him a favor. Is that what you really want? You mean nothing to him. Just give us what we want, and I assure you, we will let you live. Or…" Mathu pointed his gun at Ciel Phantomhive.
Lukas gasped. He looked at the Fallen Reaper with utter contempt, and lowered his gun. "You win. Spare him, and the knowledge I seem to possess in my mind, will be yours."
"How long do you plan on playing dead?" Ciel said nonchalantly to Sebastian.
"Not long, my lord." Sebastian's wounds sealed themselves with rapid efficiency, and he cracked his neck as he stood on his feet. "What a terrible nuisance these new handguns humanity continues to create. They appear to get deadlier with each passing year. He caught me by surprise."
"Well, don't let it happen again."
"Indeed."
Mathu Kelvin looked more annoyed than surprised, but Lukas was dumbstruck.
Sebastian gave him a sweet smile and it seemed to ease him a little. With a whisk of a finger, the bullet that had shot through Sebastian's head rose into the air; it had landed a distance away in the gardens nearer the mansion, and it floated back to him. He pinched it between the forefinger and thumb of his right hand.
"Conventional weapons can not kill me, my lord. Here, a gift." Lukas held out his hand and the bullet dropped into it; he looked worried. "Take heed, Master Lukas." And Lukas nodded.
"Do be more careful where you fire your gun," he turned to Mathu Kelvin, "these are young, impressible children especially at this age. You might court them to violent acts. Monkey see, monkey do."
"Quite facetious," Mathu Kelvin merely remarked. "Do not mock me, demon. I hold very powerful magic. I was once a Reaper and I very powerful one with knowledge of the ages even beyond your comprehension."
"Then why are you not using your gifts for your Kind?"
"Because existence without excitement leads to stagnation and insanity. Several thousand years ago, I conducted an experiment with the islanders of Atlantis. I gave them advanced technology and stood back observing to see how they would evolve with it. At first they prospered, then like all man-kind, they became corrupt, greedy and warlike. And they destroyed themselves. The Reaper elite discovered my interference with them and I was punished. But I didn't fell because of this. I fell because I would not obey one of them most charted rules. I loved another Reaper, and she loved me." He smiled at Savannah, she smiled back. "No Reaper is to have associations of an intimate kind with another, the rules say. But we could not stay away from one another. So the Great Council removed our Reaper licenses and cast out bodies from us in punishment for all eternity. My brother," he gestured to the twins, "enraged by out outcast ran amok. He later joined us and we became fallen. But there are others who sympathize with us, and soon they will rise up and band against the establishment. A civil war will erupt. And there will be chaos."
"But that is the jest of it, isn't it?" Sebastian said straightly. "Like humans, you fairly seem to think things our logically. Your brother could have remained with the Reapers and perhaps worked within the system to have your conviction abstained for extenuating circumstances someday, or perhaps, had you put on long-term probation like another Reaper I know. Instead he acted irrationally and ruined any likelihood of your return. Returning you to your bodies will be moot, if you truly think about it. The Great Council will hunt you down and do it once more."
Mathu was silent for a few moments as if that had struck a nerve, then he shook his head. "We will be ready for them. Your psychology tricks won't work on me, Michaelis. Do not insult me."
Sebastian smirked. "Perhaps not. But I am correct in one thing. Like you, humans are quite irrational creatures. They do the most unpredictable things when faced with their own mortality."
And Ciel and Lukas closed their eyes and both began to taught prayer in unison:
By your grace, grant me, I pray to thee the power to conceive in my mind and to execute that which I desire, to which end I would attain by thy help. I entreat thee to inspire before me that you may give me truth and faithfulness, so that I may accomplish my desired end. This I respectfully and humbly ask in your name, O Mighty Lord….
And they spoke Sebastian Michael's real demon name!
And the covenants returned.
Ciel's right eye glowered and Lukas's tongue shined once more. The covenants on the back of Sebastian's hands returned as well.
He slipped on his white gloves to complete his proper butler attire in the presence of his two masters.
Mathu Kelvin swore. "I-I don't believe it!"
"Believe it," Sebastian remarked causally.
"We want our bodies back! Nothing more! You can have those damn brats!"
"Mind your temper, Mr. Kelvin. There still may be room to bargain."
Mathu Kelvin eyed Sebastian skeptically. "What do we have that you want?"
"Quite simple: your host's souls. It has come to my realization that it may be some time before the contracts with my masters end, as you have just seen, so I am in wanting of a snack to tie me over, so to speak."
"A snack? You would trade the "images" of our bodies for these pathetic human souls?"
"In a matter of speaking, you are correct, in addition to the safety of my lord's, and once a "bargain" is struck, we will both part ways peacefully without further incident."
"It's a trick," Savannah quickly said. "He has deceived us once already."
"No trick, my lady, I assure you. I am a demon. Once a "contract" is cast, I am bound by its terms until it is fulfilled to a satisfactory conclusion."
Mathu was once again silent, thinking. "Answer me this, Lukas Phantomhive. Your brother's contract is obvious, but why did you sell your soul to this demon? It could not only have been for your protection?"
"I have my reasons, and I thought I have already stated them," Lukas replied.
Mathu shook his head. "I take heed of my wife's words, demon. Your word is not to be trusted."
"Then we are at a impasse," Sebastian said, shrugging. "Whatever shall be done now?"
"May I make a suggestion?" a new voice entered the fray.
All looked towards it, where Grell Sutcliff and Ronald Knox had made a sudden appearance beyond the white square of stones. The voice belonged to Grell. Knox warned him not to get involved, but Grell ignored him.
"Why not have a duel?" he suggested.
"A duel?" Ciel Phantomhive said. "What a stupid idea!"
"I agree," Lukas put in. "One is a demon and other a Fallen Reaper -"
"I'm not taking about Ten Paces," Grell said, sounding annoyed. "I'm speaking of a wager."
Mathu Kelvin snapped his attention taut to the Reaper. "A wager? What kind of wager?"
Savannah grabbed her husband's arm and brought his attention to her. "Daring, you're reacting to your host's addiction. You spoke of such to me earlier."
Mathu shrugged her off. "Explain, Reaper." Reverting his full focus back to Grell. His eyes wide with gambling fever.
Knox halted Grell before he said anymore. "Grell, enough! We are not to get involved in their affair."
"I'm not interfering, Knox," Grell said. "I'm merely offering a suggestion here."
"This is not - "
"Be quiet Reaper!" Mathu chided. "Grell Sutcliffe, explain this wager now."
Savannah pleaded with Mathu to stop, but he pushed her away and she fell to the ground. Mathu didn't seem concerned for her well-bring when he was possessed by his gambling fever, Sebastian observed. And he applauded Grell for seeking out Mathu Kelvin's weakness. He had a gambling addiction.
"A battle where there is one victor. And the stakes - everything the other side wants," Grell explained. "You choose a champion -"
Sasha and Samuel Ironstadt stepped forward without needing to hear anymore. "We will fight- " and pointed to Sebastian, "-him!"
Sebastian pointed to himself with not unexpected surprise. "Me? Oh my. Crude mortal combat fighting with one's hands? How Presbyterian in its suggestive audacity." Then he grinned. "But I would be at a disadvantage if I accepted?"
"That can be corrected," Mathu Kelvin said. And he reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a blue diamond shard and showcased it between forefinger and thumb. "Do you know what this is?"
Sebastian mused. "If I have to wager a guess, I believe it may be one of a scattered few missing pieces of the Hope Diamond, once cut and given as gifts to a selected few of a certain family."
Mathu looked annoyed, as if a surprise had been spoiled. "You are correct. This piece was found in a jewelry bizarre my host purchased. The merchant didn't realize what he had, but my host did and paid a pentance for it, less than a fraction that it was worth. And its worth is far more than even he could have even conceived. It's dark energy speaks to me, much like your master's ring speaks to you. The curse of the Hope Diamond is very real, my dear demon, as if you didn't know, and its powers are far beyond any comprehension. But enough talk, allow me to demonstrate."
He tossed the shard to Sasha, and the twin then outstretched his left arm to clasp the hand of Samuel's outstretched right arm. Mathu began to mouth a chant, reading it from his black book, and suddenly the twins appeared to melt into one another, fusing like some sort of Frankenstein monster, with two conjoined heads, their faces mashed together into one, grotesque-like creature, and their new body grew to enormous proportions with incredible muscle mass, hulking them to the size of a mythological Greek god.
Sebastian stood unabated, but gazed up upon Ironstadt as the monster towered above him, and it smiled innately with two mouths and vicious intent.
The ground shook like thunder as Ironstadt took one step forward, slamming his right leg to the ground. Sebastian steadied himself and was immediately reminded of the story of Odysseus and the Cyclops told in the Homeric tale The Odyssey, and how the "sailor" faced this godly monster. The end result, how Odysseus won, was the embodiment of truly human ingenuity, fortitude, and even a little artist license.
Sebastian folded his arms incredulously. "How cliché. A big, ugly monster. You used the dark energy of the shard to grow a monstrosity."
"Yes, indeed," Mathu Kelvin said. "I warned you what would happen if you did not give us what we want! And now my brother wishes to return the favor you gave him several days prior."
"When I defeated him?" Sebastian said.
Ironstadt growled angrily from both mouths.
"But you forget the old adage: the bigger they, the harder they fall."
And he stepped back.
Ciel and Lukas stepped forward, aimed their pistols, and fired.
Ironstadt's eyes opened wide in shock they exploded inside his head, blood gusted out like streams of waterfalls. The monster reached to its face and roared in pain.
With spare pacts of gunpowder and lead bullets, Ciel and Lukas began to reload the pistols.
Sebastian then attacked, and jumped, and with a powerful uppercut punch, he sent the grotesque monster flying onto its back. The ground quaked when Ironstadt landed with a heavy thud.
Mathu Kelvin looked on with horror and shock that his brother had been defeated so easy. "No…"
Sebastian dusted off his gloves. "It pays to prepare," he said. "We also anticipated something of this nature."
But then Ironstadt began to raise, his eyes had regenerated quickly with help of Reaper dark magic; his faces' blood streaked with crimson rage.
Mathu Kelvin laughed. "I could not agree more," he said.
Ironstadt rose to his full height, and Sebastian once again looked upon the towering monster.
But this time his immediate thoughts were that the situation was indeed must more grave than he originally surmised. How could he defeat a creature that could almost instantaneously regenerate itself with dark magic, and had his power intensified to immensity with the Hope Diamond curse?
He had discussed using his master's ring in such a way to wield against the Fallen Reapers, it would take the collective energies of both his masters' to add to his supernatural abilities. But he had never imagined this. And it seemed that the Fallen Reapers had thought on a similar note with a shard from the Hope Diamond.
The Fallen Reapers had had outmaneuvered him by their dark-hearted intentions.
But all was not lost, he knew. He would merely need to seek another way to defeat this pseudo god-like monster, if one could be had?
To be continued…