Author's note: Big thanks to Sennasanthia, my lovely beta ^_^
61. Grim
They have estimated it takes Sebastian thirty full Mississippis to recover from a head shot. Fifty five if he's cleanly shot through the heart. Four hundred and twenty to regrow a limb, sometimes depending on what limb in question, so far regrowing from femur down has taken the longest. They've never tried decapitation before, simply because Ciel has a niggling feeling even Sebastian couldn't survive that one.
Neither question how it works, both know that as a demon Sebastian will never die a true death in the moral realm, and perhaps his body continuously regenerates because the pentagram wills it.
Now Ciel is running for his life- or perhaps soul is more accurate-with a rogue god of death right on his heels.
His soul has ripened to the stage that it has attracted the attention of a number of other realm demons, all wanting a taste of him. About a month ago, his own demon had warned him it might happen again, after their run in with a particularly sly succubus. Or particularly stupid Sebastian. Ciel likes the latter much more.
His shoes are impractical to run in, as he dodges down a grimy alley way, bursting out the other end and looks hopelessly to his left. Late night drunkards sway down the street, and few nobles having just finished their evening out return to carriages. It's not like any normal human can see a death god any way.
This one isn't like Grell, or his higher ups. It's eyes are tinted red instead of the typical ringed green, and it's death scythe is modelled into the form of a harpoon launcher, breaking the mold on gardening equipment. The tri pronged grapple fires. Ciel hits the cobbled street and skids ungracefully forwards, hearing the deadly thing slam into the concrete and bury itself with an explosion of grit and rubble. It just misses his right ankle.
"Here little mousy," it's disgustingly sweet voice croons from the alley shadows, and with a forceful grunt, tears the grapple up by the wire, reloading it.
Ciel's terror slowly rises.
He's been stuck in hundreds of equally dangerous places before. But this time. . . this time it's much more frightening when he lacks Sebastian. In three perfect pieces, Sebastian lies in someone's backyard, the death god having attacked with a proper garden scythe to handicap Ciel.
Ciel scrambles up, tearing open his knees and palms in his haste, and starts their cat and mouse game again.
As shop windows flash by, so do street signs, and Ciel starts to mentally form a map of the area- realising he knows where he is. Taking a right turn, then another, then a left, Ciel sprints down the main street of London, breath coming in painful gasps and he only stops when he hits his bleeding palms against the door of a familiar shop. Undertaker.
"Open up!" Ciel bellows, rapping hard and frantic, leaving smearing trails of blood on the wood- the door opens on the seventh hit and Ciel is snatched inside. The interior is almost pitch black, save for beeswax candles on coffins and mantel.
"Hello Earl. My goodness, what's that most alluring smell?"
His hands are held up, trapped by the wrists, and he feels some part of the Undertaker's face touch his palm. Ciel hastily snatches his bloody hands away from the man's grip, tucking them inside his sleeves. He always knew the guy had a few screws loose. The Undertaker almost mimics him, slipping his own hands Chinese style into his billowing cuffs. "Tis very late, almost the bewitching hour. Shouldn't little boys be asleep in their beds?"
Ignoring him, Ciel quickly bolts the door, leaning up against it, and at last can breathe easy. His father had always said go to the Undertaker whenever in dire need of assistance. The strange man might be. . well, strange, but is reliable and a good connection to have. "I'm in need of your assistance."
"Oh ho. What monster have you lured to my door step this time, my sweet Earl? An angry flock of vampires for my coffins, a psychopath after ovaries and red head sodomite who gives death gods a bad name, or maybe there are more zombies craving for my rare treats?"
". . . that last one was entirely your doing," Ciel grumbles, flicking his sweat covered eyepatch up and rubbing away the grime.
"Yes well. . speaking of monsters, where is that butler of yours?"
Ciel's annoyed face smoothly dissolves to something much more unguarded. "I don't know," he says in a small voice. He knows where the cadaver lies, but not where the demon is. It is locked in limbo somewhere, or has it been sent down to Hell to recover and remake a new body? Or maybe it has simply abandoned him.
"This eye tells me something different," the Undertakes says, tipping Ciel's face and traces an over grown fingernail under Ciel luminous right eye socket. Self consciously, Ciel puts his eyepatch back in place. Is he being kind, is he trying to comfort me, Ciel thinks stupidly, before wood splinters from behind and something sharp slices through his hip. The boy screams, at once praying it has missed his liver and only hit flesh, bone and fat.
Wasting no time, the Undertaker rips Ciel away, deadly weapon already grinding back out from the hole it's made. There is about three seconds to spare before it is clamped back into place and swung back round to be fired again. In two strides, the Undertaker crosses the floor, kicking open a coffin and unfastens his tie around and uses it as a tourniquet for the free flowing wound in Ciel's side. Piteous, Ciel cries out as it's tied impossibly tight, cutting off his blood circulation and rubbing unpleasantly against his enflamed skin.
He's dumped inside the coffin, and the lid is closed over him.
At once Ciel tries to get a hold of his breathing- it will only pump his blood around faster and already he can feel the makeshift bandage grow damp. Next is the pain. Ciel bites his fist, stifling his whimpers and sobs, a few shocked tears sliding out from under his lashes. The serrated edges have carved up his skin, possibly clipped a few shards off his hip bone and bottom rib, and he hopes to God not struck his liver.
Around him, Ciel hardly notices the rumbles and crashes, crack of cartilage snapping and screams of someone dismembering another. The sound of something wet splashes up against the coffin. Then silence.
"You may come out, little Earl," the Undertaker coos from somewhere above.
Ciel tries to say that no, I can not come out as I am dying in quiet agony here, but instead wraps his arms around himself and closes his eyes. The lid is removed, platinum hair strands tickling his face and the Undertaker gently lifts him- almost in a paternal gesture. The boy is placed on another coffin lid and the make shift bandage is removed. Ciel ignores the smears of death god all around the room.
"Is it bad?" Ciel whispers fearfully.
"Oh dear," the Undertaker sighs breezily, untucking Ciel's blouse from his shorts and bunching up the sticky material for a closer inspection. Ciel tries not to yelp as dried blood pulls on the stab wound, and flinches as the Undertakers icy hands ghost over the smooth panel of his stomach, fingers prodding at the stab in question. "Isn't this dreadful, we might have to amputate," he giggles, Ciel lifting a leg and kicking him hard- regretting it almost at once as hot pain jabs at his side.
"Be serious please."
"Tis only a scratch, who knew the Earl is such a girl when it comes to injuries. Liver is intact, you've lost a bit of blood and the blade may have hit your hipbone- you'll have a mighty fine bruise after the night is done. Let's stitch you up now."
Gossamer thread appears in the Undertaker's hands, needle joining it- and in five neat jabs, the wound is sealed up. Ciel lies on the lid to recover a little more, the Undertaker cleans up around him- picking up a severed arm and torso, picking smeared clumps of hair and skin off the wooden floors and over turning a pail of hot water on the blood stains.
"What makes a death god turn rogue?" Ciel wants to know, pale face turning to follow the man's movements.
"You don't want to know," the Undertaker says, in an entirely different voice than Ciel is used to. He dumps the remains in the pail, wiping his spidery fingers on his robes, flecks of blood having made it even to his fringe and cheeks. "Fear not, he shall be punished for his crimes."
"Didn't you just kill him though?"
"His mortal body perhaps. Death gods, like demons and other foul things you shouldn't know about, only borrow human shells for their time on earth. Their true form is much more frightening, and thankfully can't survive very long in such a form without at least tapping into a source of strong magic. So his 'soul' will find its resting place back in the death god realm- and there he will be found and put to trial. You see, nobody truly dies, Earl, even us humans. We might discard our bodies for a while, but when our souls fly off to greener pastures, as it were, you'll find those earthly limitations aren't needed there," the Undertaker summarises sagely, perching himself on his desk.
"I don't like how you speak of this, like you know it's for certain," Ciel frowns, well aware of where his soul is fated to end up- which begs the question of what will happen to him? Will he die a true death, instead of being granted immortality up above like Christians preach about? Because the only place his damned spirit will be welcomed isn't any place with fluffy wings and halos.
"Where is your butler, will you tell me now?"
He supposes he has nothing to lose. Ciel sits up gingerly, blood rush making his head spin, and he blinks to clear the white dots that flash over his vision, feeling his long lashes curl on the inside of his eyepatch. "Cleanly cut into segments, scattered around someone's backyard for the crows to have," Ciel says, off hand, even though his gut gives an uncomfortably squeeze when he voices it out loud.
The Undertaker laughs, sound like an evil witches cackle. He flicks his fringe, enough to reveal glowing eyes and more of his wire cut scar. "That sly devil must be getting old if he couldn't even handle a death god."
Ciel omits the fact Sebastian had to deal with the handicap of protecting him more than he would have to if it was any ordinary attacker- he's seen the insides of wooden crates and smelly trashcans more than any raccoon has.
"Well, we can't waste any more time then," the Undertaker says briskly, Ciel not entirely sure what he's getting at. "Help me burn this first, for if we don't, the body parts may join back together and he might just come back to life."
80. Relief
Sebastian is right where he'd left him, tangled legs by the back fence, torso near the garden shed and shoulders and head under a rose bush. The Undertaker shoos a cat away from licking at the bloody arm stumps, dumping each segment of the demon into a burlap sack. He tightens it together with thick string. Ciel stays docile on the street corner, street lamp casting his face into eerie shadows, not having the stomach to look at the remains.
Back at the Undertaker's shop, the man jigsaw pieces Sebastian back together, frowning when his left bicep doesn't quite match up with his elbow joint. Ciel tries not to vomit on the spot. He leans heavily against the door- remembers what happened the last time he did that- so instead crouches near the Undertaker's shelf full of morally incorrect medical books.
String and needle whisk back out, and in clean, even strokes, the Undertaker stitches Sebastian up as if he's a fallen apart zombie.
The entire process takes little over half an hour, at last he stands back and wipes his mucky hands on his robes. "Good as new," he proclaims, giving the lifeless corpse a tweak on the nose.
"Fantastic. Now I have something to bury in the ground," Ciel blurts out, having meant to have keep his emotions to himself. The Undertaker smiles mischievously, but says no more. To occupy himself, he glides over to his desk, belts on his leather boots catching in the light, and he roots around in his drawers in hunt of something.
Cautiously Ciel rises from his defensive position, tripping over to his butler's body. The Undertaker has done the nicety of closing his eyes. The Earl ghosts his own eyes over Sebastian's pale face, tuffs of hair missing, nose broken, to his torn outfit and lavish amounts of blood stains. You were supposed to stay by my side forever! He wants to shriek, hit and cry over the corpse, but dares not in front of an audience. Instead he pushes his tongue against the back of his teeth and says nothing.
"It's almost dawn. I'll come back and fill out the paper work in the afternoon," Ciel says flatly, tearing himself away and readies himself to go.
Before his fingers can even graze the doorknob, a violent movement from behind attracts his attention, and Sebastian sits bolt up right, coughs, and lets out a blood clot the size of a man's fist. "Dear God," he splutters, glaring unkindly at the Undertaker, whose grin almost splits his face. "Could you have at least lined my bones up properly?" as he says it, he raises his left arm, twisting it and letting the bones snap and splinted back into their rightful place. Hair grows back fast – tests prove it only takes seconds for that to happen- he cracks his nose back into alignment, bruising and swelling blooms swiftly, fifteen seconds later they clear and his face is flawless as marble again. From the gaps in his clothing, Ciel can see his skin netting together as if a spider is spinning her threads. In five minutes, the healing process will be complete. Sebastian swings his leg's off the coffin lid, testing out each limbs in turn. As he rotates his wrist, Ciel stomps up to his side.
He raises a hand and strikes Sebastian hard across the face.
Mouth set in a hard line, Ciel's blue eye shimmers with undulating feeling. He's not sure if he trusts himself to speak.
"I apologise, young Master," Sebastian says promptly, not even touching the rosy cheek- ten seconds the mark heals over and is perfectly white again. Ciel wants to hit him again, and again, irrationally frustrated at no matter what marks he puts on his butler, it simply washes away in minutes. "I've caused you a grave inconvenience. It won't happen again."
With a curt nod, Ciel turns away, wrenching open the door and is quickly swallowed up by early morning London fog.
"He's shy," the Undertaker unexpectantly says. Sebastian gives the man a bemused smile, dips his head in thanks, then follows his master before something else befalls him.