Ciel had thought that Eleanora had been exaggerating when she kept on stressing the dangers of the East End. The East End was a bit dark and a bit disturbing, but not absolutely frightening. He was feeling rather confident and when he shared a look with Sebastian, he knew that he felt the same. Eleanora had just been exaggerating. They were absolutely fine.
And then she stopped at the entrance to a very dark alley.
"'Ere we are," she said in a coarse voice. "Remember wot I tol youse."
Then she strode inside without a second thought.
And Ciel realized just what a place the East End was.
It was crowded and filthy and chock-full of poverty. People lay on their sides in the streets, slowly dying of starvation and disease and no one even looked at them. There were rats the size of cats, eating the dead and occasionally the living—the living who didn't even have the energy left to fight back; all they could do was moan. People grumbled, they swore, they shoved each other, they drank, they smoke…Ciel had never known that such disgusting people even existed.
Sebastian was having a hard time of it too. Several men wanted to start a fight with him and Eleanora constantly had to extricate himself from the grips of desperate prostitutes.
"Cum 'ere, pumkin, ten shilling a night…"
"! off, 'ore, 'e's mine," Eleanora would growl, shoving them aside.
"'E's too good for jus one bitch; cum on, now, share the wealth…"
Eleanora actually broke a prostitute's nose trying to tear Sebastian away from her crib. Then she dragged him away, muttering obscenities and snarling at anyone who got too close. Ciel grabbed her hand and refused to let go. His feet were getting cut on the shards of broken glass bottles and he stumbled a lot on the uneven ground, but his terror took his mind off of everything else. He wanted to find the scene of the murder and then leave. He gripped her hand tighter; at any other time it would seem childish, but Eleanora seemed to be the only safe choice in this world of danger.
Sebastian himself was looking a little ill. Everyone smelled of alcohol and he was a little rattled by all the prostitutes. He looked at Eleanora with grudging respect; she wasn't the best woman but compared to those prostitutes, she seemed like a sint.
"Where'd you say this crime was?" Eleanora whispered to Ciel.
"Uh…Some place called Sam's Slum."
She nodded and strode off, practically dragging Ciel behind her, with Sebastian behind.
They found the scene of the crime; it wasn't too difficult as everyone was looking at the dead body. They pushed their way to the front and Ciel and Sebastian investigated, with Eleanora looking around cautiously.
Ciel couldn't even tell that the corpse had been a nobleman at some point. Poverty-stricken people had picked the body clean, so that all that was left was a naked man who had clearly been violently murdered.
"What do you think?" he whispered to Sebastian, who was looking rather green. The stench of alcohol was overwhelming.
"I think…" he whispered back, "that there's nothing left here to examine."
Ciel nodded and stood up. What evidence there might have been was gone, probably already in a pawnshop. He gestured to Eleanora and took her hand again and they began making their way out of the East End.
The outskirts of the East End were much better than the interior. Ciel was starting to relax and Sebastian had regained his normal color. Eleanora was more at ease and began telling Ciel stories of her youth, entertaining him with wild escapades and daring robberies and several humorous anecdotes about times when she messed up and almost died. It was incredibly interesting to Ciel but darkly tragic to Sebastian.
"This woman," he thought, looking at her pallid face and skeletal body, "has suffered more than most humans have and ever will."
Again he felt respect for her, only this time, there was no grudging.
She stopped around half-an-hour later.
"Wait here," she said and began entering a building.
"Where are you going?" Ciel called out.
"That's private. Don't go anywhere or do anything stupid."
And she was gone.
Sebastian and Ciel looked around, thinking their own private thoughts. Sebastian thought about Eleanora and her life and how he had treated her. Besides from respect, he was starting to feel something else—little twitches of it, so it could hardly be called a "feeling," but it was still present and he didn't like it. He kind of hopped up; his feet were getting cold.
And suddenly there was a nasally laugh behind him. He whirled around, keeping the young Master behind him.
Five young men stepped out of the shadows, the leader having short blonde-and-brown hair and a cocky smile. They all had strange gardening tools. They all had green eyes. They all wore glasses.
Grim Reapers.
"So the perpetrator returns to the scene of the crime!" the leader announced, causing the other reapers to laugh. "I knew that if we hung out here long enough, a certain demon would appear. You're all the same—can't resist the smell of a soul, can you?"
"What do you want?" Sebastian said in a soft, dangerous tone.
"We weren't doing anything," Ciel said, offended. "We were just investigating and now we're leaving."
The leader laughed again.
"How dumb do you think we are?" he said mockingly. "Everyone knows that the demon has something to do with those murders."
"What?" Ciel said, looking up at Sebastian, whose eyes narrowed.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said quietly.
"Oh really? Then explain why all the dead nobles are missing their souls."
"I don't know anything about that."
"We'll see," the leader said cryptically and pulled out a gun. Ciel smirked. Reapers trying to kill a demon with a gun. Typical mistake. He knew that Sebastian was almost impervious to bullets.
"Unfortunately, our boss Will wants you alive," the leader sighed, "so we can't exactly kill you. But we have to get you back to him somehow, and the best way is to handicap you. So sorry that I'm not sorry about this," he grinned and shot Sebastian in the stomach.
Ciel laughed.
"Are you kidding? Do you know how many times he's been shot? I've seen him get shot a million times and nothing ever came out of it—Sebastian, get them!"
There was no movement.
"Sebastian?"
He turned to look at his butler.
Sebastian's face had grown horribly pale; he was making little choking sounds and clutching his side, where the bullet had hit him. The reaper leader grinned.
"Scary, isn't it, demon? I've never had the privilege of being poisoned, so I don't know what it's like, but I hope it's really terrible."
Sebastian choked in response; the hole started bleeding profusely. Ciel looked around in confusion and shock.
"Wh-What are you doing? Sebastian, go get them!"
Sebastian took a step forward and promptly collapsed. Ciel knelt down beside him and began shaking his shoulder.
"Oh, you didn't know, kid?" the leader said. "Demons aren't immune to silver bullets."
He held up a silver bullet—exactly the same as the ones that had been burnt back in Phantomhive—and began loading his gun with it, while the reapers behind him howled with laughter.
"Sorry, demon, but you're coming with us," the leader said, aiming at Sebastian.
And then there was a loud sound; the leader staggered and then fell to the ground, unconscious. The other reapers looked around—
"Hey, what the—"
And Eleanora began hitting them.
She had found a wooden board and had crept up behind the reapers without them noticing her and was now beating them as hard as she could. Once she was sure that they wouldn't be getting up in a while, she ran forward, slung Sebastian's arm over her shoulder, and they ran away, the reapers screaming behind them.
"My glasses! She broke my glasses!"
"What is it?" Eleanora panted as they ran. "Who were those guys? Why are they trying to kill us?"
"I—don't—know," Ciel said through gritted teeth. "But can you help Sebastian?"
The butler groaned and pressed his side. Blood was still spurting out.
"I can't fix him like this," Eleanora said, looking around. "There!" She ducked into another alleyway and stopped at a small hovel. "My Lord, do you have a gun?"
"N-No…"
"Then take mine; it's in my pocket…"
Ciel reached into her pocket and brought out a small handgun.
"Now get in there and order everyone inside to evict or suffer the deadly consequences."
Ciel entered the shack and exited a few minutes later, looking confused.
"They just laughed at me and someone told me to wait my turn."
Eleanora rolled her eyes and dumped Sebastian into his arms.
"Oh, for the love of—Here, let me."
She grabbed her gun and burst into the room, shouting. There were two gunshots and then a naked prostitute wrapped in a dirty sheet and a half-naked man ran out into the street and away from the crib.
Eleanora opened the door.
"Here, get him inside and on the bed."
Ciel did so and Eleanora took Sebastian's shirt off.
Eleanora had seen blood poisoning in her life before. It wasn't pretty—the veins black and spidery, the pressure to fix it immediately…This was the oddest case of blood poisoning she had ever seen, so strange that she wasn't even sure that it was blood poisoning, which was absolutely ridiculous because it couldn't possibly have been anything else.
The veins around the bullet wound had turned a ghastly white and were steadily spreading across his body. Sebastian groaned and blood spurted out of the hole, faster than could possibly be healthy. His blood was odd too—in certain lights, it looked almost black and was unnaturally liquidy for blood.
He groaned and there came another spurt, and with that spurt came something else: some kind of silver disk.
Eleanora examined the disk; why did it look so familiar? Her mind flashed back to that night at Phantomhive; the one where the Earl had almost died…Of course! The butler had been dismantling hollow silver bullets in the fireplace; the disk looked like the top of one of them.
"My Lord, was he shot with a silver bullet?"
"Y-Yes, I think so…"
"Shit," Eleanora said cheerfully.
"Is that bad?"
"I think so," she said. "Get me that bottle on the nightstand."
Ciel got the bottle and Eleanora uncorked it and smelled the contents. Cheap vodka. Perfect.
"This might sting a little," she told Sebastian and poured the alcohol on the wound to disinfect it.
Sebastian screamed, making Ciel jump back. He had worked with the butler for practically two years and he had never heard him scream before. In fact, he had never seen him like this before. He had never known that a demon could have such a weakness and behave in such a way.
The alcohol hadn't helped at all. Rather, it seemed to have made things worse. The white veins were spreading faster and his skin looked burnt.
"I…don't think we'll be trying that again," she said hesitantly. "My Lord, stoke up the fire and get it as hot as possible. Quick!"
Ciel had never really stoked a fire before, but he knelt by the tiny fireplace and did his best, awkwardly using the nearby bellows to make the embers crackle and burn. Meanwhile, Eleanora was trying to stem the blood flow.
"Shit."
"What is it? What's happening?"
"Nothing; nothing; everything's just peaches and !ing roses," Eleanora mumbled and removed her shawl. "My Lord, do you have any spare layers?"
"…I have a shirt."
"Take it off and give it to me, quick. Is the fire hot?"
"I think so," Ciel said, struggling with his shirt and eventually just ripping it off his body.
"Get those tongs and carefully—carefully—bring me the hottest coal."
Eleanora searched the tiny crib for spare blankets and began wrapping up Sebastian in as many layers as possible. Ciel could see why when he approached her with the red-hot rock.
Sebastian's lips were steadily turning blue, as well as his fingertips. He was shivering with cold and was freezing to the touch. Eleanora carefully took the tongs and pressed the ember against the wound, causing Sebastian to gasp with pain and then sigh in relief. She handed the tongs and the burnt-up coal back to Ciel.
"Again. Keep the room as hot as possible."
This process went on for about an hour, with Ciel keeping the fire as hot as possible and handing Eleanora the hottest coals he could find while she would alternate between pressing the coal against the wound to disinfect it and trying to keep the butler as warm as possible.
Eventually he stopped shivering so hard and the wound had mostly-stopped bleeding. The two took a break, leaning against the bed and panting with effort and heat.
"My Lord," Eleanora said, "I have to get the bullet out of him, but I can't do it here. I need more advanced tools; I need things to be sterilized; I need a cleaner place to work. And he needs those things too: we can't just keep him here all night; he needs good blankets and a warm spot by a fire and he needs to be kept as clean as possible. Is there a place nearby that could help us?"
"No…Yes!" Ciel said. "There's my town house; it shouldn't be too far away…"
"Can you get us there quickly? I think that those guys are still looking for us…"
"I think so," Ciel said hesitantly. "Shall we try?"
Eleanora didn't really want to hear "I think so." She would much rather have preferred a resounding, "hell yes!" but beggars can't be choosers. She wrapped up Sebastian as best as she could, wrapped her shawl around his waist for a bandage, and they hobbled out into the night to try and get to the Phantomhive town house.
They got there about half-an-hour later. They would have gotten there faster, but Ciel had gotten lost and it was slow going with Sebastian mostly-unable to walk.
Ciel found the hidden key and opened the door and ran inside, securely locking the door behind them.
"Which room has the largest fireplace?"
"Up the stairs, fourth door to your right!"
"Thank you; do you know where the kitchen is? Run down there, and there should be a medical kit in one of the cupboards. And bring clean water and blankets. Lots of blankets."
Ciel nodded and ran off while Eleanora partly-carried, partly-dragged Sebastian to the aforementioned room. She rested him in front of the fireplace and dragged all of the blankets and pillows of off the bed in the room, making a type of makeshift bed for him. She made the closest thing to a bonfire as she could in the fireplace and checked the bullet wound. The white was still spreading, only less so now. He was still shivering, but at least his lips had returned to their normal color.
Ciel arrived, pushing in front of him a rolling cart with the medical kit and several bowls filled with warm, clean water. He had gotten as many blankets as he could carry and was dragging them behind him, so he was quite a sight when he entered the room.
Eleanora didn't dare to use alcohol again; she pressed another coal from the fireplace onto the wound and cleaned up the fallen ash and charcoal using a damp rag. Then she opened the medical kit and got out a pair of tweezers, sterilizing them by putting them in the flames.
"My Lord, hold his hand."
Ciel immediately did it.
"This might hurt," she said. Ciel wanted to ask who she was talking to, but by then, she had already stuck the tweezers into the wound.
Sebastian screamed and Ciel screamed because Sebastian started gripping his hand as tight as he could with the pain. Eleanora bit her lip, continued with whatever-she-was doing, and after half a minute or so, she brought out the tweezers with the hollow silver bullet pressed between them.
Everyone sighed with relief. Eleanora bandaged him up and washed her hands in the nearby bathroom while Ciel tried to make Sebastian comfortable. Sebastian, meanwhile, had fainted.
"My Lord, do you know anyone who could help us?" Eleanora asked when she had returned.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, do you know someone with medical expertise? Someone who's close by?"
"Well, there's you…"
"My knowledge of medicine is limited," she said. "I can only do so much. We need a real professional."
Ciel thought for a moment.
"Well…I do know one person…"
"Great! Do you know how to use a telephone?"
"Yes, I know how to use a telephone."
"Then go and call them and tell them to be careful getting here; those men might still be out there."
Ciel left to make his call. Eleanora glanced at Sebastian, then darted off to find some weapons. The men might come back at any time and she wanted to be ready for anything.
"I made my call; he's coming," Ciel said several minutes later. They were sitting in front of the roaring fireplace, dressed as scantily as possible due to the heat, but still trying to remain decent. Sebastian was either sleeping or still in a faint; no one could really tell. Eleanora had found some tinned biscuits and some jam in the kitchen, as well as a kettle and some tea bags, and they were eating while waiting for the water to boil.
Eleanora looked at the butler and forced a scornful laugh.
"Huh!"
"What is it?" Ciel asked, looking up from his biscuit.
"Nothing, it's just funny."
"What's so funny?"
"It's funny that this man just singlehandedly ruined my life and here I am, babying him. It's funny," she said and forced another laugh.
"He didn't ruin your life."
"Don't push me, kid; I'm angry at you too," Eleanora said, glaring at him.
"Me? Why? What did I do?"
"Oh, don't play all innocent; you know exactly what happened to me. It was done on your orders."
"My orders?" Ciel thought back. "You mean when I ordered him to bind you to Phantomhive? Are you upset about that? You get vacations and better pay and nicer living conditions; I thought you wouldn't mind; besides, I need you more than those idiotic middle-classers do…"
"…I notice that you're conveniently cutting out the tortures and the blackmail."
"Tortures? What tortures? What blackmail?"
"You mean you really don't know?"
"Know what?"
"Know what your butler did to me to get me bound to Phantomhive."
"What? No! I don't know anything! Why? What happened?"
Eleanora told him.
For the next half-hour she went into excruciating detail about what Sebastian had done to her in the basement of the church. She showed him her right arm, still decorated with the fading red marks, and told him about the numbing injections and how he had threatened to tell everyone that she was now a married maid. As she talked, she remembered more and more, and even showed the Earl her lower stomach, covered in scars where Sebastian and the nuns had accidently removed her womanly parts only to put them back in again.
Ciel listened in horror and didn't speak for several minutes after she had finished.
"Eleanora," he said quietly, "I swear I didn't know. He didn't tell me. He said that I would approve of it…Honestly, I didn't know. I really didn't know!" He looked up at her. "I swear to you that once he's recovered, he's going to get it," he said seriously. "He's getting the biggest punishment I can think of."
"Really? What?"
"I haven't thought of it yet," he confessed, "but trust me, when I do, he will pay. And you can watch! I'll give you the best seat in the house."
Eleanora laughed and suddenly sat upright. Ciel listened as well and they both heard it: someone was knocking on the front door.
"That might be my friend," Ciel said.
"Or it might be those men," Eleanora said.
They shared a look.
Ciel grabbed a gun and cautiously went downstairs. Eleanora grabbed a rifle and prepared herself for a fight. But time passed and there was no scream or gunshot, and soon the Earl was entering the room, followed by a very strange man.
He was dressed all in black with a grey sash, like a mourner. His long silvery hair covered his eyes, which only pronounced his scarred face. He had several books tucked under his arm as well as a large medical kit.
"Eleanora, this is the Undertaker, a friend of mine," Ciel said. "Undertaker, this is Miss Eleanora Black. She's my new maid—and also she's married to Sebastian."
The man looked surprised.
"Married to that butler? Oh, no, I don't envy you at all, my dear! Rather I pity you! Fancy being married to such a man! You'll get more love from a statue!"
Eleanora laughed awkwardly and they shook hands. The Undertaker knelt by Sebastian, who was beginning to wake up.
"Yes, I know what this is," he said, becoming professional. He removed his hat and pushed his bangs out of the way, revealing bright green eyes. "Miss Eleanora, could you please run and get me water? I need a lot of water."
Eleanora nodded and ran off, taking the rolling cart with her.
Ciel kneeled by the Undertaker, who had removed his heavy robe and was putting on glasses.
"Do you know what it is? Is he alright? Will he live?"
"Oh, he'll live," the Undertaker said, sanitizing his hands. "It's angelica poisoning."
"'Angelica poisoning?' What's that?"
"Angelica is a type of mineral; it's very prominent in holy medicines. He's an unholy, which means that he's the opposite of the holy. And if angelica is a medicine for the holy…"
"…then it's a poison for the unholy," Ciel finished. "Is it life-threatening?"
"It is in large doses; how many times has he been shot?"
"Just once, in the stomach."
"Oh, then he'll be fine. He'll be sick for quite some time, but he'll pull through." And the Undertaker began removing vials and jars from his medical kit, looking through one of his books.
"What happens with angelica poisoning?"
"Basically, the holy make these hollow silver bullets," the Undertaker said, "and they fill them up with angelica powder. Then they loosely cover these bullets, so that when it's fired, the top will come off and the angelica will spill out, entering the bloodstream. Unholy blood is more liquidy than normal blood; it needs to move fast to keep the unholy okay. So once the angelica enters the bloodstream, it will be immediately transported to almost everywhere in the body before the body realizes what's happening and tries to get it out. And once the body tries to get it all out, the angelica starts working."
"What does it do?"
"It tries to destroy any unholy material that it finds. The whole body is made out of unholy material, so it's trying to destroy everything. It's really damaging and it can take a while for the body to recover and start repairing itself. Did someone take the bullet out?"
"Sebastian's blood started spurting; that got the top out. Then Eleanora took the body of the bullet out with tweezers."
The Undertaker whistled.
"Good."
Then Eleanora entered with the water.
"You did a good job," the Undertaker told her. "Very nice for a human. He'd be in a much worse condition if you hadn't been around. Did you try to pour alcohol on this?" he asked, pointing to the wound.
"Y-Yes."
"That usually works for humans," he said, "but don't ever try it again on him. Any form of alcohol is poison to him."
Sebastian groaned weakly, as if in agreement.
"Now then," the Undertaker said cheerfully, rolling his shirt sleeves up. "Let's get started!"
He concocted various mixtures with the vials and the water, soaking bandages in them, shaking them up and forcing Sebastian to drink them, rubbing certain creams into the wound, which made the butler wince and then sigh with relief. In about half-an-hour, his torso was nicely bandaged and the bleeding had stopped completely.
"There now, that should do it," the Undertaker said, turning to Eleanora. "Now then, my dear, would you please be so kind as to get a clean bucket?"
"What do we need a bucket for?" Ciel asked.
"I told you, his body will be trying to get the stuff out of his system. The easiest and fastest way to get it out is by using the same path it went in," he gestured to the bullet wound, "but that would cause him to bleed out, so we can't allow that. However, he still will be trying to clean himself using other areas of expulsion."
"'Other areas of expulsion?' Like what?"
And then Sebastian vomited.