The pessimist woke to the scene before him and inwardly writhed. Little was being down at the slowly becoming corpse at his feet. No goal was being achieved, he felt, except for the exposition of morals which he felt did much less than killing the two men before him.
He noticed Venice's head shift upwards slight, a fact which eluded both butlers, Rockwell, and Lock. Arthur made some sort of gesture and Ciel felt to keep quiet on the matter would be the wisest course of action.
Arthur and Sebastian obviously had some sort of motive for keeping them alive. Sebastian stepped closer to the rejuvenated Ciel like a mother cat would toward her kittens. The other butler, Dante or Zadig or Hector, shifted and raised his head. Half of his face was clammy and pale while the other half was lividly red, as though freshly burned. Crimson eyes blinked to life, seeking something from the others in the room. At last his gaze landed on Ciel. The exposed reddened fleshy trembled and his lips moved to speak. Ciel could not decipher a single word.
He rose and drew all attention to him.
"Sir, is it a good idea to stand in your present condition?" Sebastian said, keeping his gaze on Rockwell.
"Yes," Lock agreed, coming towards him. "You mustn't-!"
Ciel backed away and ignored them both, shouldering past them and crouching down towards the wounded butler.
"What were you saying?" Ciel said, fearless. The crumpled demon before him seemed hardly able to even make a sound. His lips contorted, as if in great pain, and he made another effort to make a sound.
"M-master…" he breathed. Ciel grunted, feeling a pressure rise up in his chest. The antidote Venice had supplied him, coating his fingers, had not been enough to satisfy the poison working through Ciel's veins.
"Well," Ciel managed to say, "I'm afraid your master is dead. At least one of them."
Arthur glowered and Lock bent down to see Venice, but Sebastian stopped him with his foot pressing against the lightly whiskered face.
Rockwell tried to get away but Sebastian rounded on him with singing fury lining his eyes. Rockwell apologized and stepped back in place, gnawing his lip in frustration. "Can't you let me go?" He begged suddenly, giving way to a catty smile, "I only am indebted for that one favor to this man. He saved my wife's life, made her all loony to she would forget her mental disorder and allow it time to heal. I won't meddle again in his affairs, I promise. No good could have come of it anyway, I'm sure. Look, I cross my heart." As he did just so Lock turned sadly to him.
"Evil affairs…?" he muttered, as though finally coming to the realization in that moment alone.
"Yes, are his intentions purely to do mankind bad? He doesn't seem to have a trace of misanthropy or any hostility towards mankind. He seems devout in helping only himself and his near family. In fact, I doubt he wanted to do anyone harm and Ciel's condition was of your own doing." Arthur pointed out.
"I don't recall ever asking you to poison an innocent child." Lock agreed softly.
"Oh? Is that so…" Rockwell straightened and tugged at his jacket, "I thought he was going to interfere so it was in my best interest to subdue him."
"By killing the boy?" Lock retorted, his face twisting in rage, "I was expecting better from you, Rockwell!"
"You liar," Rockwell said.
But before the matter of who was lying and who was being honest could have been delved into further, Sebastian swooped out of the scene and raised Ciel above his head. Moments before, while Ciel had been trying to convince Dante that his master was dead and that he had failed (in an attempt to send him into more swirling agony and rip him from the current situation) Dante had lashed out. His fingers were inches from Ciel's face, read to tear and claw. Sebastian was glued to the scene from the beginning and would not allow even a scratch to be afflicted to Ciel while he could help it.
So Dante lay, unguarded, his hands stretching out like withered tree limbs. His teeth were shown, sharp and gritted. "Master!" he called, raising himself. His chest heaved with the effort.
"I've said it before I'll say it a million times more!" Arthur cried, stepping between Rockwell and Lock, "You bit off more than you could chew, Dante! Granted, one of these extra attachments was an order—and a bargain—but an order nonetheless. I suppose then that this is partially your doing. The both of you were only going for what you wanted, trying to scrape up all the good in the world for yourself. Rockwell outright did it." Rockwell made no objection, having kept his dignity proud and clear. "And Lock, more pathetically, tried to cover it up by saying it was for his family's greater good. It's very clear, now, and I don't even have to be me to know how obviously clear your motives are. Now who was lying about the poison may not be clear."
"You talk too much," Rockwell interrupted dryly, "You should learn to hold your tongue."
Arthur sensed something sharp and cold at his side and looked down to find Rockwell's miniature gun pointed at his abdomen.
Tears sprung up in Arthur's eyes, causing the green to sparkle. Genuine sadness crossed his features and his lips paled. "You wouldn't. Whatever had I done to you?"
Ciel, now firmly planted back on his feet, pulled Venice's bony body away from the two. If Arthur perished then those two would be harder to deal with, but Ciel was not a fool enough to come between a gun and a weepy victim. Venice opened his eyes and his heart shook in terror.
"No!" He called.
"Ven?" Lock turned to him, his expression unreadable.
Ciel and Sebastian pulled him away as soon as a gunshot rung out through the small house. Arthur fell with a dull thud, landing face-up on the carpet, leaking blood onto it and his eyes blankly staring upwards.
"Bloody easy to kill, those intellectuals," Rockwell said, tucking his gun away.
"What do we do now?" Ciel hissed. "Sebastian, I order you to find a solution!"
"Yes, my lord." Sebastian said.
Dante's fingers curled around his ankle and he looked down.
"He's alive," he said, indication Ven with a bob of his head. "You lied."
"But you should have known." Sebastian said. "If your master was dead it would hurt more."
"Their life lines are tangled together, like strings!" Dante began to explain. Sebastian kicked his head, knocking him back and unlatching the stiff fingers from his foot.
"Now, I'm on an order. What do you two want?" Sebastian said, trying to compensate.
"Leave us alone," Lock said.
"But we could get so much more!" Rockwell said greedily, leaning forwards and showing his true colors.
Lock scowled. "I've sinned enough. I think it's time for me to finally do some good."
"We can leave you alone, but you have interfered with us in the first place and you, a criminal for digging up your wife and convincing a child he had a made-up illness, should be charged for your misdeeds." Sebastian said evenly, looking down at Arthur who openly winked at him. He allowed a smirk to cross his face.
"What are you smiling at?" Rockwell spat, his face ruddy.
"Oh, nothing," Sebastian chuckled, "But you must understand that vermin like you must be eradicated before you infest something else."
"Are you suggesting that you should kill us?" Rockwell asked.
Lock smiled. "That would be a gift, but I feel he has something else hidden up his sleeve."
Ciel walked up behind them. "Sebastian may not, but I'm certain one of the corpses in this room does."
"What the bloody hell are you going on about, boy?" Rockwell said. Mimicking a move from before, Arthur, quite alive, grabbed his ankle. Rockwell let out a girlish screech and hopped, looking down in great terror. At first he hardly understood what had happened, but as the facts dawned on him, he picked up the gun and shot wildly at Arthur, to no avail.
"I only entertained that notion of me being dead to amuse you," Arthur said, laughing. The wound sealed up at his side and no bullet even grazed him. Rockwell continued to pull the trigger to an emptied gun.
"Are you like them?" Rockwell blustered, "Oh don't kill me! Please! I'm far too young! I haven't enough white hairs in my bear." He clapped his hands together, as though in prayer, and begged with tears and snot trailing down his face, "I'll pay you a handsome ransom if you will! I'll go to jail with my tail between my legs! I'll turn in Lock, I'll do whatever you want! I'll take a whiff of my own poison, a trademark concoction made by yours truly! But please, spare me my life! Have mercy on me! I won't carry out any other plans. I won't use my half of the dolls to distribute them, laced with my special poison, and hand them out to little children and sell their poor parents my antidote—another one of my own creations—and take their money until they're dirt poor!"
Arthur stared aghast and kicked Rockwell away. "Bly me, I thought only villains in those romances blurted out their plans. To add to that I thought only they could have such diabolically cruel plans."
Venice had tears trailing down his face. He clung to his father, clutching his trouser and sobbing into them. Lock stood motionless, patting his son's head.
Arthur burst into laughter. "Theodore, tell me, did you know about this? Or were you an accomplice? It gets better and better!"
"He's mad," Ciel said aside to Sebastian.
"He's planning something," Dante croaked.
"How do you know?" Sebastian said.
"Isn't it obvious? He's brilliant. Ever since I knew him he always treaded that fine line between 'good' and 'evil', though their natures still remain unintelligible to me. At any rate, he's buying himself some time."
"Are you saying then," Ciel said, disgusted at the blubbering display before him, feeling distinctly like he had walked into a loony bin, "That he isn't doing this to help us?"
Dante did not reply and instead watched. Arthur stopped laughing, wiping his face. Lock abstained from a verbal answer and instead shook his head "no". Venice saw and came to an abrupt stop, his face shifting completely. The tears dried and his lips turned into a smirk, though he kept his head bowed and his face hidden from all. Ciel noticed and felt an ominous sign had been displayed bright and clear to him. Venice turned out to be something more than a weakling and Ciel gained a new respect for him.
Rockwell, however, remained begging for his life, making a sign over his head and mumbling nonsense. Arthur stared down at him, and said; "Why would you send me marigolds?"
Those beady eyes widened in confusion. "Why would I send you marigolds? I don't even know where to get them this time of year! I don't even know you!"
Arthur's expression fell. "I was so sure…"
"Marigolds?" Ciel asked. "Why would he be so upset over a bunch of flowers?"
Sebastian stared at the two, watching Venice slowly stand up, his face still hidden from view. "Marigolds are a sign of cruelty."
"All this over a symbol?" Ciel shook his head, clearly disappointed in the low rate of productivity that came from the day. "At least we stopped one villain from hurting little children. Paupers these days are easy to fool."
"Symbols can mean quite a lot to certain people, my lord," Sebastian explained lowly.
"Then who sent those bloody flowers and what did they mean by it?" Arthur was in a state of shock. He had been so terribly sure that the climax to the accusation had wrung his nerves dry.
"You seem so terribly intelligent, Arthur Kirkland," Venice said, now standing beside his father, "That I was certain you'd see right through this riddle."
"Go lay down, Venice," Lock said, "You need rest, don't bother yourself now."
"Oh, father, but surely he wanted to know that I sent the flowers."
Arthur gawked, not knowing where to look or what to do.
"Why?" he managed, at length, to whisper.