Elizabeth went to her room and closed the door. She needed to be utterly and completely alone. 'How does one even call a demon? Is it like the books say, by saying that one wants a contract...?' she had read many books on the occult, something that had been of interest to her lately. She knew about the contracts, a recurring theme in books involving demons, a subject she had researched extensively in the months prior. "Demon?" she said out loud. Her voice was doubtful, timid. "Can you hear me? Can anyone hear me?" she had no idea what she was doing. "All I want is to make a contract! Is that so hard?"
Elizabeth threw herself on her bed and pulled her pillow to her face, muffling her scream. Then, suddenly, she felt something. A presence, maybe human, maybe...otherworldly...around her. She was baffled by the notion. "Demon?" she called out.
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Ciel heard the call first. "Can you hear me? Can anyone hear me?" a voice, heavy with multiple years' worth of sadness and grief, called out. He looked deeper into the Portal that demons used to make contracts and watch humans. The demon squinted into the image, focusing on the source of the sound. He knew that voice...Elizabeth. It was Elizabeth... the one person he had missed since he became a demon.
Sebastian looked over at his master and smiled. "I take it that you will be wanting this one?" when Ciel nodded, the corners of Sebastian's lips curved into a slight smile.
"But...how does it work?" Ciel asked, already stepping towards the portal.
"Trust your instincts, young master," Sebastian said.
"Watch from here," Ciel ordered. "Come only when I call you. That's an order." His form flashed with bright light and he was a tall, black-haired youth, broader-shouldered and black eyed. "I don't want her to know to know that it's me. She...would not take it well..." Sebastian had taught him well. The shape-shifting was a particular talent of the former Earl's, and he had certainly put it to good use. He stepped through the portal and into Elizabeth's room.
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The young girl was lying on a bed with her face in the pillow. "Demon?" she tried to make sure that it really was the creature she tried to call.
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Ciel quickly concentrated and they were transported into the Between, the place demons go to make contracts. "You wish to form a contract?" he stayed where she would not be able to see him. The girl floated limply, eyes closed. A light breeze blew black feathers everywhere- demons in the Between relied on these feathers to carry their words to the human.
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Elizabeth was amazed that her calls worked. "I- I do wish to make a contract." She stifled back tears as she thought about her past. "My betrothed, well rather, ex betrothed is no longer with me. I want to do whatever it takes to avenge him!" she added one more thing in a whisper: "And I want to do whatever it takes to make sure I will never marry another..."
She looked at the feathers floating by. They looked like the pictures in her occult books. Those feathers carried the words of the demon that she was 'talking' to. There was something familiar about them, like someone she used to know. Ciel? No, more like Sebastian. Was he? No, Ciel wouldn't have done that to avenge his parents, would he?
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Ciel went through the formalities stiffly. His own voice was unfamiliar to him; his new form came with a deeper one. He was completely unrecognizable to Elizabeth. "Think carefully, if you go through with this, the gates of heaven will forever be closed to you..." he said, fighting to keep surprise out of his voice. She had changed so much...it was evident by the dark mourning blue of her dress. She was no longer wearing the cutesy things that so suited her and the corkscrew pigtails had been replaced by a sensible bun.
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"I don't care!" Elizabeth almost yelled, "I loved Ceil with all my heart. All I wanted to do was see him happy! Now I can never, EVER, see that happen!" She lost it, the tears she had been working so hard to get back started to flow. Her body, floating in the viscous but breathable atmosphere of the Between, heaved with sobs. "Have you ever had the thing you loved most in the world ripped from your hands? No of course not, you're nothing but a demon!" She gasped. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean that, I'm just...mad."
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Ciel's eyes widened in shock. The brief flicker of memory that presented itself to him quickly died down, but his heart still pounded with anger. How could she... how... his hands clenched into fists, but that was the only visible sign of his anger. "Once something has been lost, it can never be regained." he said, the phrase familiar to him. He had repeated it many times before, to Madam Red, to Lau, to Elizabeth sometimes. Reminding himself that she did not recognize him, he spoke once more. "You are aware what your fate will be when your goal is acheived?" maybe, just maybe, she would turn back. He didn't particularly want that, but he didn't want to condemn Elizabeth.
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Elizabeth looked towards where she thought the demon might be. "You think I don't know that something lost can never be regained? I know! It- it was told to me before!" She remembered Ceil saying it many times. She felt her heart get heavy at the thought "I know my fate as well. I plan to make the contract anyway. Someone in my position has lost all hope; I no longer care about what happens after death, in fact, after Ceil left, I was already dead."
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Ciel smiled sadly, knowing she could not see his face. "You still plan to go through with it..." he marveled. It was the very nature of the Between to set every doubt into the human's mind. "Then name me, and I will mark you," he said. He was suddenly hyperaware of his own mark with Sebastian, transferred to the back of his neck by this new form.
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Elizabeth thought for a while, a name. What could his name be? "I will name you Matthew." She said. Matthew was the name of the doll Ceil had gotten for her birthday the year before the fire. She still had Matthew sitting on a shelf above her bed. She smiled thinking of the doll. It was one of the Funtom companies. The Funtom Company had gone down greatly after Ceil left the head of it. Elizabeth had a lot of old Funtom toys that almost no one else had. Matthew was the perfect name.
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"Very well," Ciel said, remembering the name's origins with a slight smile. The next thing he knew, he was staring intently at Lizzie. He slowly stepped forward and a pentagram glowed on the ground, two beams of light shooting up. One concentrated on the back of Ciel's hand, burning a copy of the pentagram into the skin. Ciel felt no pain, but he could not say the same for Lizzie. The mark would be placed on the inside of her wrist, the vein bisecting it but not affecting the power and significance of the mark.
The mark began burning its way into her skin, to stay there for the rest of eternity.
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Elizabeth suppressed screams, she didn't want to already seem weak to the demon that was there to help her get revenge for her Ceil. Her wrist was burning and it felt like it was on fire. Elizabeth's throat went dry, like she was in a desert with no water.
The pain suddenly stopped, and the only remnant of the pain was a slight stinging in her wrist. "I-Is that it?" she asked. "Do I need to do anything else?"
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"No," Ciel answered, plain, the way he had gotten it four years ago. He blinked and found himself standing in Elizabeth's room, right next to her bed. The Between seemed to know when and how to move both the demonic and human party to the desired location after the contracts was made.
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"Well," Elizabeth "The first thing I need to do is get out of this house. I can't stand it anymore! I plan to run away, and then I can start seeking my revenge." She looked around her to see what she wanted to bring. She knew she needed a dress or two and some food, but other than that, she had no idea. "What do you suppose I bring?"
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Ciel looked around and racked his brains for possibilities, but he had no idea what a girl would pack. "Perhaps it would be more practical to consider the destination before the packing?" he suggested. He was suddenly very grateful that the random form he had changed into was wearing a regular butler uniform, and that that was what it would be wearing for the rest of the contract.
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"Oh," Elizabeth smiled "I already know that! We will be heading to an abandoned manor on the outskirts of London. No one lives there." Elizabeth thought of all the fond memories she had at the old manor. "The Phantomhive manor."
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Ciel couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the suggestion, but he went along with it. Mentally, he called Sebastian, telling him to come, straighten up the manor and replace what had probably been looted, change his form, and stay out of Elizabeth's sight. He smiled inwardly at the decision to go to the Phantomhive manor, replaying his fair share of memories, careful to omit the painful ones. He wanted nothing to ruin this for Elizabeth, she had suffered enough already. If the loss of a loved one drove her to abandon her happy manner and be 'un-cute', as she used to say, then he did not want to change her even more.