Ok, getting on with things! You guy's feedback has done wonders for my imagination. Thank you!

WARNING: a little bit of angst – and a surprise.

Going on.

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CH VII

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"Come, little Phantomhive." Alistar said as they exited the mess hall. "There is something I want to show you." Alistar offered his hand to Ciel then, who merely stared at the outstretched appendage strangely, not entirely certain if taking it was wise, and equally unsure that refusing to take it was any smarter. Despite Alistar's strangeness, Ciel hadn't forgotten that he was a demon.

"You may take his hand if you wish, young Lord. It may seem odd coming from me, but I sense no ill will behind his actions." Sebastian whispered to him softly.

"You trust him." Ciel stated. He felt more than seen Sebastian's head nod over his shoulder.

"Come." Alistar repeated, and Ciel tenatively took the demon's hand, letting him lead him out the door and back into the main yard.

There, some ways down the path was what looked like a wooden pyre, of kinds, like the sort you would build for a bonfire, many small bodies bustling around it, adding wood as they passed by.

"What is that for?"

"A little bit of demon culture, if you will." Alistar stated with a smile. "It's the week of Samhain – what you would consider All Hallows Eve." He explained. "While it's hardly celebrated everywhere in Gehenna, we like to have the children participate in this...holiday, I suppose you could call it."

"A holiday? From Hell?" Ciel asked incredulously.

"Hard as it is to believe, even demons celebrate certain things." Sebastian reaffirmed. "The week of Samhain is sort of like the demon equivalent of both Halloween and Hanuka – but without the religious affiliations, of course." Sebastian explained. "It is a celebration that has changed shapes and forms over the millennia after it was accidentally introduced to humankind. Traditionally, it celebrates the crowning of the...kings, I suppose you could call them, of our world."

"Kings? Plural?"

"Plural." Alistar affirmed. "There are four high Lords. I suppose it doesn't do much harm to name them, since they're already famous here in the human world..." Alistar took a breath, and Ciel braced himself, knowing from experience with Sebastian that this was likely to be long. " There are four high Kings; Lucifer, the Lord of the West and Wind; Beelzebub, the Lord of the North and of Earth; Leviathan, Lord of the East and the Waters; and, of course, the most infamous of them, Satan, Lord of the South and of Fire."

"Why the elemental designation?" Ciel asked curiously.

"It assists mostly in identifying whose offspring is whose." Gabriel interjected. " Like Alistar here. He's a near perfect swimmer, though you'd never know it lookin' at him. That's because his mother was a water-type demon, which means..."

"You're related to Leviathan?" Ciel turned surprised eyes on Alistar then, not having expected to be in the presence of a noble demon.

"Yes, though before you get any ideas, I am not a prince." Alistar's eyes had the same melancholy look in them as they always did whenever he mentioned something a little too personal. "That title was stripped from me at birth. I was born different, if you recall." He said sarcastically, gesturing to his pale hair and claws. "But my mother was one of Leviathan's daughters; she cared for me, but my own father did not." Ciel listened intently as he talked about himself, though why he was always so ensnared by these personal tales, he did not know. "He revoked all rights I had as a demon of noble birth, and put me to work as a servant for his own sons – my brothers." Ciel could not help but feel a stab of pity for him, and when he looked to Sebastian, found an equally unpleasant expression on his face, though it's precise emotion was hard to discern. "I lived most my life that way, and was rather cruelly brought up never to lie to anyone and to always be as honest as I could be. In service, that's a smart move; if a servant sees something that they should not, then they then have fewer inclinations to hide it. However, in case you can't tell, it makes us a bit prone to not hiding anything." Alistar smiled in what appeared to be a painful way.

"Can I ask you something, Alistar?" Ciel spoke before his mind knew what his mouth was doing, and in a stream of unstoppable curiosity tumbled forth without constraint a horribly personal question. "Why, exactly, were you banished here?" Realizing too late by the dead silence around him that he'd stepped over a line, he tried to backtrack, but Alistar cut him off.

"It's alright. I don't blame you for being curious." He shrugged it off, resuming a casual air, answering non-chalantly, "We never got along, my father and I. Though I am tame now, I was once quite a hell-raiser. And I don't say that lightly." Ciel realized then that they had stopped some time ago in front of the bon fire, which as it got dark was being lit ablaze by a crimson fire. The flame's orange light reflected off of Alistar's alabaster skin, making him look...warm. "I made a bit of trouble, did a few things I wasn't supposed to...and, well, my father seen it fit to banish me here, to the human world. He said it would 'sober me up'...Well, I hate to admit it, but he was right." Ciel watched the shadows dance over the pale demon's face, his spirit strangely at ease as this noble-born, pauper-made prince regaled his story to the little Earl. Ciel didn't know why, but there was something inherently comforting about this demon, somehow. And not in the Sebastian-like way; if Sebastian was a black suit of impenetrable armour, then Alistar was a thick and heavy comforter that was both smothering and comfortable at the same time.

" I find it odd..." Ciel said after a pause. "Well, while I didn't ever really know anything about demons before...I guess it's because I never wanted to know."

"Few humans do." Alistar said. Ciel shook his head, not finished.

"I guess what I am trying to say," Ciel said, watching the ribbons of fire dance before him as they scaled up the pyre. "Is thank you. For sharing what you have with me. For being...well, I'm not sure of any other way to say it, but kind to me." Alistar and Sebastian both wore expressions of surprise, while Gabriel merely chuckled knowingly in the background.
"Kind, huh?" Alistar said ponderously. After a moment, that same tin-bell like laughter escaped from his lips in liquid drivulets that made his voice sound so fluid that it was almost physically attractive. "I assure you, I know little of kindness. I said so before – I merely solve the problems presented to me in the least confrontational way possible. Nothing more, nothing less. If you want to see kindness in it, then I suppose I can not stop you – but I assure you I am just as selfish as any other demon." Sebastian looked over at his unwilling sibling discreetly, wondering.

'Is that so?' Sebastian thought. 'Because from where I am standing, it seems as if you have been around humans for far too long – you are increasingly alike to them.' Just then, Sebastian was again reminded of what Alistar had told him in the dark room of the mansion that night:

What hypocrites we are.

'Perhaps you are not as naive as you appear, little brother. Yes, you are quite beginning to remind me of someone, in fact...'

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The wind howled mercilessly against the dull wooden shudders of the second floor balcony, billowing in it's wake the black robes of a tall, silver-haired figure. He tapped his long fingernails against the railing, staring sonderously at the nearly-full moon.

"Are you going to stand there all night, or are you going to come in? It's freezing out here." One imperious looking Ronald Knox said, dressed in a flowing green coat with orange patterns woven into it. He walked up behind the figure, shifting to press against his side with his own as he lightly touched the elder's hand.

"Perhaps." Was the cryptic reply he was given. Ronald looked down guiltily at the dark green band around the man's wrist, a way of tracking him if he wandered too far away.

"Well, when you do, you know where to find me." Ronald said after a moment, stroking his fingers gently before turning away. Just as he did so, lithe arms wrapped around his waist as a face disappeared into the back of his neck, smelling his hair with a deep inhale.

"What's wrong, Undertaker?" Ronald asked, becoming concerned with his odd behaviour.

"I have a bad feeling." the elder explained. "Like I am going to lose something precious to me. I can not explain it; I just get this strange sense that perhaps..." He trailed off worryingly.

"Undertaker? You know you can talk to me." Ronald reassured, fiddling with a strand of starlight hair that had fallen over his shoulder.

"I know." He replied. There was a long pause before he replied further. " I have a feeling, somehow, that my little Earl is swiftly finding himself unwittingly trapped into a corner."

"Oh? What makes you say that?" Ronald asked, a frown on his face.

"I don't really know, myself." Undertaker's gaze once more became entranced by the moon's face.

"I just...know."

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Short chapter! Everything gets complicated whenever Undertaker gets involved – what's his connection to this? And what does he mean, trapped?

Now, remember that this IS inspired by Dracula – with that, if Sebastian is representative of the Count himself, who does that make Alistar? Undertaker? Gabriel? What about Ciel? For the purposes of eliminating the option, I will tell you that the to-be featured Grell is rep. Of Reinfield – the crazy werewolf at Dracula's behest. Wonder who that leaves Undertaker as?

You'll just have to read on to find out!

Until next time! :)