Chapter Twenty-Six
Butler, Serene. Bride, Firestarter
BANG!
Blood exploded from Kelvin's chest when Ciel shot him point blank.
"Father!" Joker cried.
He surged forward, pulling a blade from his prosthetic arm.
SLICE!
Sebastian cut off Joker's remaining arm.
"Stay out of my Master's way, please," he said.
"There are only two kinds of people in this world. Those who steal, and those who are stolen from. And today, I steal your futures. That's all this is."
Joker fell to the floor in hysterics.
"Yeah, you're right. But guess what? You three will lose something precious tonight, too," he explained through his laughter. "We're pros. If anyone crosses our paths on the job for any reason, we eliminate them. You're the target. I wonder how many will be killed while they search for you?"
"Killed?"
"Yes. Everyone, even the servants."
"My servants?"
Sebastian started chuckling.
"What's so funny?" Joker asked.
Ciel tapped his cane against the floor.
"Who do you take them for? Those are Phantomhive servants."
Jumbo lay in the remains of the stone wall with Finny standing over him.
Wendy was shot through the head by MeyRin's sniper skills.
Peter lay in a bloody heap on the floor in the corridor, Tanaka had his back turned to him as the old man assured a half-asleep Elizabeth.
Grell was not far from the manor.
"Oh dear, has it already started? I didn't expect you to be so impatient. I'm on my way, my dear Bassy!"
At the mansion, Dagger and Beast were hidden in the undergrowth. They heard MeyRin's gunshot and looked up in case there were any more.
"Sounds like he has bodyguards." Dagger whispered. "I s'pose we should expect that from nobles."
Beast looked over her shoulder while Dagger leant against the back door.
"Let's let our elders handle 'em and we'll find the target."
They entered the manor and found themselves in the darkened foyer. Running up the stairs, Dagger and Beast stopped when they saw a flame glowing on top of a long pole. Bard stood before them, and using the pole to light the cigarette between his teeth.
"Hi, I've been waitin' for ya," he said with a smirk. "Finny and Pluto took the back door, and MeyRin took the sides. Which means you could only get in from…"
Dagger interrupted him by throwing his knives at him.
"Hey, that's dangerous! I was still talkin'!" Bard snapped.
Beast lashed out at the cook with her whip. Bard was knocked backwards, losing his cigarette along the way, but he performed a backwards somersault to regain his footing.
"Sorry, I'm not into that kind of thing!" said Bard as he kicked out at her.
The two performers landed back at the foot of the stairs. Bard rolled his eyes and twirled the pole in his hands.
"Dammit, everybody's a Solomon Grundy, tryin' to live fast and die young!" he laughed. He lit another cigarette. "It's a real waste. Don't you agree?"
He looked up to the balcony above them and smirked. Finny and MeyRin stood in wait among the shadows.
"Hey, Finny, MeyRin, give 'em what for."
Dagger and Beast started at the sight of them.
"Wait, who gives their maid guns?!" cried Dagger.
Finny hoisted up one of the porcelain statues.
"Upsy…daisy!"
He threw it down to where they were standing. Dagger and Beast barely dodged out of the way. Dagger threw his knives at the gardener, but MeyRin shot them down before they could reach him. The maid turned her guns onto the intruders, and opened fire. Dagger and Beast separated. Beast was immediately attacked by Bard. He missed and she ran, tossing the end of her whip up onto a chandelier.
"Dagger!" she called.
He climbed onto her back, and they swung over to the nearest door. Bard smirked.
"Alright."
Beast and Dagger ran down the darkened corridor, not knowing their destination.
"We'll kill them later. First, the target!" Beast suggested.
Dagger nodded his head.
"Got it. Guess we better just check every room!"
They pulled open one of the doors, and found a belt tied to the doorknob on the other side.
"A trap?!" Beast gasped.
Bard stood at the bell system in the servants' wing. He called through the communication pipe to MeyRin.
"The rats are in the drawing room. Go at 'em from the west wing," he ordered.
"Yes, Sir." MeyRin responded.
Bard turned to Finny.
"Finny, you approach from the central staircase. And don't get lost."
Finny saluted with a smile.
"Yes, Sir!"
Dagger and Beast were running down another corridor.
"I'm sorry, Miss!" he apologised.
They stopped when they saw MeyRin at the other end of the corridor, pistols aimed.
"Dagger, get back!" ordered Beast.
She used her whip to take down a painting, and throw it at the maid. MeyRin shot through the painting repeatedly before it could touch her, and dodged out the way of Dagger's knives when she realised her magazines were empty. They were swiftly changed before she moved out of her hiding place and started shooting at their retreating forms.
The duo managed to duck around a corner out of the way of the bullets. They heard the grinding of stone being dragged along the floor. Emerging from the shadows, Finny came baring two marble statues.
"Found the rats!" he proclaimed with a smile.
Dagger jolted.
"Him again!"
Finny threw the first statue like a javelin towards them. Dagger tried to use his knives, but they were useless against stone. Beast grabbed her companion by the hand.
"This way!" she cried, dragging him out the way.
Their escape left them tumbling down a flight of stairs. At the foot, they rubbed their bruises painfully.
"Ow…" Dagger groaned. "Who are these people?"
Finny spotted them and threw the second statue.
"Please don't run away!"
Beast and Dagger did just that as they ran down the second flight of stairs. Statues chased after them one after the other, the debris exploding behind them.
Upon entering a passageway where the stone couldn't reach them, the performers took a much-needed rest.
"Alright, Miss?" asked Dagger.
"Yeah." Beast replied.
"This place just isn't normal!"
"Yes. The way things are going, the Earl's probably in hiding somewhere," said the woman as they got to their feet. "Just this once, we ought to retreat and regroup. Let's get up to the roof to meet with Peter and Wendy."
As they walked down more stairs, Dagger made a comment that sent Beast's blood running cold.
"This just had to be the day Joker's not here!"
She sighed wistfully.
"Joker…"
Her face snuggled into the scarf around her neck.
Just then, they spotted a light coming from a door near the end of the corridor. Peeking inside from the doorframe, they thought they were safely concealed. They were wrong.
"Yo."
They gasped when they saw Bard cooking away in the kitchen, Pluto was sat on the floor in his human form, collar around his neck and dressed in one of Sebastian's spare uniforms.
"Poor goose and gander. Must be rough, wandering all over the mansion!" Bard commented. "Guess my line is 'Welcome to the End of the World – the kitchen.'"
Beast whipped his sieve out of his hands.
"You're pretty cocky, facing us unarmed!" she snapped.
Dagger threw a knife at the cook. Bard only lifted up a metal bowl and let it get embedded in the base.
"Idiot! The kitchen is a chef's sanctuary, where even the butler can't interfere!" he smirked, catching the knives one by one. "It's full of tools even the butler doesn't know about!"
Ducking behind an object covered by a white sheet, he smirked.
"For instance…"
He removed the cover off his weapon of choice; a massive machine gun.
Dagger was immediately terrified.
"What's that?!" he cried.
Bard's smile only grew wider.
"Here I go!"
He began firing bullets in rapid succession.
"It's the latest weapon," he explained. "Ol' Hiram brought it over from the States."
The bullets managed to completely saw through the table Beast was hiding behind.
"With this baby, war will be totally different than it was in my day."
Bard fired up the machine gun again.
When he saw that Beast was in trouble, Dagger instantly ran forward to help her.
"Miss!" he cried out.
He used his body to protect her from the onslaught.
"You're gettin' a special personal meal from the chef, better savour it!" Bard shouted over the gunfire.
Bard powered down the gun when he finally ran out of bullets. He surveyed the damage with a raised brow. Bullets holes decorated the walls more than the paint. The furniture was completely destroyed. Cabinet doors were barely hanging off their hinges.
"It's got great destructive power, but the accuracy needs some work," he sighed. "Better tell the Young Master it's not ready for mass production…"
Beast opened her eyes slowly. She saw the chaos all around her, and wondered how she could have possibly survived. When she noticed the weight on her back, she looked to the side. Her eyes widened at the sight before her.
"Dagger!" she screamed.
Dagger's back was completely bloody. Crimson oozed from his black and white shirt, and trickled out of the corners of his mouth. Beast quickly rolled him onto his back.
"Dagger… You idiot!" she cried.
With shuddering breaths, Dagger opened his eyes to look up at her.
"Thank goodness you're… alright…" he rasped. He lifted his hand, and rested it on her arm. "Run… tell Joker…"
Tears bubbled in Beast's eyes.
"Why? Why would you do that for me?!" she wept.
He gave her a gentle smile.
"Miss…" he whispered. "I wanted to take you… over the hill…"
His hand dropped from her side with a thud.
"DAGGER!"
Beast screamed his name as she sobbed into his unmoving chest.
While she grieved, Bard stepped away from his machine gun and patted his hand against the bags of flour piled on a nearby table.
"I'd rather have met a pretty girl like you in a pub over some warm beer," he said with a smile.
The woman looked over her shoulder and glared at him.
"I'll make you pay!" she bellowed.
She lashed out with her whip, and struck again and again. Bard dodged her with military ease. He used one of the bags of flour to block her blows.
"You think you can get away that easily?!"
Bard shook his head.
"Nope. Finny!" he called out.
Through the window, something crashed through and shattered the glass. Dust flew up and blinded Beast, enough for Bard to make his escape through the hole. Pluto stood on all fours, red eyes glowing in the darkness.
"Told ya, didn't I?" Bard said. "The kitchen is full of secrets."
He looked over the flour that coated almost every inch of the room and hovered in the air.
"I'll tell you one of 'em: the finer you grind a flammable powder, the more easily it ignites," he explained. "When you get the right concentration of air, it might as well be an explosive gas."
Dusting himself off, he continued.
"Have you heard of the flour mill incident in Minnesota that sent eighteen men to their maker?" he smiled. "Sorry, lady, but this is our job."
Bard then looked at Pluto.
"And another thing. You really shouldn't invade a home where there's a Demon Hound. Ain't that right, Pluto?"
Pluto barked his agreement, and opened his mouth, revealing the flames building up inside…
Ciel glared down at Joker with an arched brow.
"Those are private soldiers Sebastian and I personally selected, as well as a Demon Hound we… acquired," he explained to the wounded man. "They'll protect Phantomhive secrets and Phantomhive pride from anything."
Pluto breathed in, and prepared to release his fire…
The boy smirked.
"That's what makes a Phantomhive servant."
Beast watched the creature in human form with wide eyes. Her last thoughts as the flames exploded from his mouth were only on one person.
Joker…
The Phantomhive kitchen detonated in a burst of fire and air. Cinematic records began to stream out of the hole.
"Mally, daughter of the scullery maid, Amelia. Born May 22, 1864. Died February 9, 1889 of multiple lacerations and loss of blood caused by an explosion." Grell quoted for the sake of the To-Die List.
The Reaper was sat on top of the roof of the manor. He groaned irritably at finding nothing juicy to satisfy his Bassy-deprived state.
"Ugh, how dull! I was positive any job here would involve Bassy, but he's gone and there's not a single man my type here, except for that Demon Hound! And he only prefers those disgusting little beasts he thinks of as ladies! Too dull for words!"
He cast his eyes over the record in front of him.
"I couldn't care less about the life of some unattractive woman."
Just then, he spotted something that made him freeze the record in place. The picture staring back at him was of Beast, but she appeared to be watching from the shadows as Sebastian and Marianne shared a kiss behind one of the circus tents.
"W-W-W-W-W-Wait a minute! Excuse me?!" he bellowed. "How dare that little tart seduce my Bassy! She's all over him!"
Releasing the image, he shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, poo! What can I do to get his attention back?"
His anger emerged again when he caught sight of another kissing scene.
"Ah, no! Trade places with me, wench!"
He was disappointed however, by the lack of more… juicy footage.
"How annoying… Oh well! I love that marvellous brute to death! You really are just a demon when you take off your tailcoat, Bassy! Someday, I want to take off that coat, and not on the battlefield!" he smirked as he watched the record shift to that of Beast and Joker. "It's in a woman's nature to fall into the snares of men she knows are cruel, but unfortunately for your little friend, she has fallen into the snares of the worst man alive."
Grell stamped Beast's name with a toothy smile.
"Nothing of note," he said. Breathing a sigh, his lips turned into a frown. "Phooey, I've watched so many ugly records today, I think I'm starting to stink of ugly! I want to go home and shower."
Turning his back on the moon, the Reaper flipped his long red hair.
"While you stay by that brat's side, death will never be far away. Let's fight another passionate death match next time we meet, Bassy!"
His Death Scythe whirred loudly in the night.
Back at Kelvin's manor, Joker stared helplessly up at Ciel, Sebastian and Marianne.
"Private… soldiers…?" he rasped.
Ciel inclined his head.
"Phantomhive is a shadow which exists solely to dispose of Her Majesty's worries. Once you enter our den, you can never return to the light."
Joker shuddered at those words, losing hope bit by bit.
"They're pros, too! They won't be easy to…"
"You're free to believe what you like, but don't forget that I chose them." Sebastian interrupted with a smirk, dropping the bloody dagger on the floor between them.
"And let us not forget the resident Demon Hound who stalks the grounds with flaming breath." Marianne added. "He would see them like chew toys, and rip them apart with pleasure."
Joker looked over to the corpse of Baron Kelvin, blood pooling from the exit wound in his back. Tears pooled in his eyes as he thought of his friends, his family…
"Please… live…" he begged. "Even if I can't…"
What else should we have done? He asked himself silently. Like Tom the piper's son, we can only play one tune. We can only do one thing…
He remembered how they were all using blankets to shelter themselves from the pouring rain.
But… if only… we'd been born in some other country…
How a young, unchanged Kelvin extended his hand to them, and was willingly taken.
If we… If our bodies weren't like this…
Joker finally let the tears fall from his eyes.
We wouldn't…
Ciel didn't even look at him when he spoke.
"Don't cry; it's pathetic."
He remembered his time in captivity. All the blood and tears, and unanswered prayers and the brand on his soul.
"Crying won't change anything. The world is never kind to anyone."
Marianne placed her hands on the boy's shoulders.
"We live in a difficult world, and we can only make decisions that can be good or bad. It is a matter of accepting the consequences of those choices."
Joker stared up at them through his tears.
"Smile… Kitten…"
Ciel sneered.
"I only have one name, and it's Ciel Phantomhive."
Marianne quietly smiled.
Just then, the doors opened, and Doc wheeled himself in with a broad smile on his face.
"Sorry I'm late! I brought more!"
He then caught sight of Ciel, Sebastian and Marianne.
"Hmm? Black, Kitten and Smile? What are you doing here?" he asked.
Joker struggled to look at the doctor.
"St-Stay away, Doc!" he cried out. "They're… the Queen's Guard Dog!"
Doc wasn't fazed by the statement.
"Hmm? Oh, you're the ones?"
"Run, please!" begged Joker.
"What? Why?"
Marianne barely held in a gasp when she watched Doc lower his feet to the floor, and bring himself out of his wheelchair.
"You're the kidnappers, and I only did what the baron hired me to do." Doc explained as he walked down the stairs. "I have no reason to run."
Tilting her head in confusion, the girl wondered why a man would fake the need for a wheelchair. It made no sense unless he had something to hide. Joker was the one who voiced her question.
"Doc… your legs aren't… lame?"
Doc gave him a carefree smile.
"My legs? Oh yes, they're perfectly sound," he replied as he slapped his knee. "I've just been sitting in the chair, kids like you trust me more easily that way."
He then caught sight of Kelvin's dead body.
"Lord Kelvin!" he gasped, rushing over to his side.
Doc ran a hand over the blood seeping into Kelvin's red dinner jacket, and tested the thickness of the blood between his fingers.
"Well, he's done for," he sighed. "That's just cruel. I'd finally found a patron who understood my ideals!"
Sebastian, having been silent for quite some time, spoke up.
"Ideals?" he inquired.
Doc was eager to answer.
"Right, my ideals! I've been working for years to make the perfect prosthetic!" he cried. "And after all that research, at last I arrived at the finest material. Lighter and stronger than wood, and with the unique, sterile beauty of ceramic!"
He started walking towards the altar and picked up Joker's skeletal prosthetic.
"I created what no one before me had been able to do." He said, dusting the hand off with a smile. "The only problem with my material was that it was a touch difficult to gather."
The demon nodded his head.
"Yes, your prosthetics did have a lovely texture," he said with a smirk. "Almost like bone china."
"You can appreciate this beauty, Black?!" cried Doc. "But you're off the mark! I wish you wouldn't rate my work the same as cattle bone china!"
Marianne gulped as she started to realise the implications of his words, bringing Ciel closer into her arms.
"You did say you used 'special' materials. And Baron Kelvin must have provided them for you in abundance…" she said hesitantly.
Doc laughed.
"That's right! Special materials I can only get here!"
Ciel gasped.
"D-Do you mean…?!"
Doc shrugged as he leaned against one of the cages.
"It saves the trouble of dumping them somewhere. Brilliant recycling, don't you think?"
Joker choked on the emptiness of his mouth. The images of all those dead children as they were forced to perform those dangerous acts danced around in his head… It was just too much!
"It can't be…"
He screamed and tried to remove the offending prosthetic from his body. Doc only sighed at his distress.
"See? Another patient rejecting it," he bemoaned.
Joker shuddered helplessly before he collapsed in a heap on the floor.
"I… can't believe what we've…" he whispered, his tears trailing down his pallid face.
Doc shook the skeletal hand with a smile.
"And you were so happy to have this right hand, too!"
"If I'd known, I wouldn't have…"
"You wouldn't have wanted it? Are you sure?"
That question broke something inside the dying man. He remembered how he used both his own hand and the prosthetic to lift Beast into a bridal carry as he laughed. His pupils shook in his eyes. They rolled back into his skull, and his head landed on the floor with a faint thud. Doc stared at him and bowed himself over the altar.
"Well, this is the end of my job here," he said. He then turned to Ciel. "Oh, I say! Lord Phantomhive, would you hire me? In fact, introduce me to the Queen! She is getting on in years. She could use some maintenance, surely? I've got a record of successful experiments, and I do excellent work."
Marianne bit her lip.
"I don't think you should be saying stuff like that…" she muttered.
Ciel, ignoring her statement, spoke up.
"Shut your mouth, you scum."
Doc wrinkled his nose in disgust.
"Aw, are you another pig-headed type who cares more about process than results?" he asked. "Everyone sings my praises until they know!"
He knelt down and reached into the cage, dragging out one of the children. It was the little flower seller, with blank eyes and still holding onto her empty basket.
"But the baron was different." Doc went on to explain. "He was highly motivated to seek beauty, and he spared no expense covering my materials and costs!"
Dragging the little girl to the altar, he continued to speak.
"He was a top-class patron. Making top-class product takes top-class ingredients. It's just common sense, don't you think?"
He placed the girl down on the altar.
Ciel looked up at him when he did this. His eye widened at the scene before him. A flash of him being pinned down on the sacrificial altar came rushing back to him. He found himself slipping out of Marianne's grasp as he backed away, bile pooling at the back of his throat.
Marianne kept her eye on him, realising he was having a flashback. It was all far too similar… She had a vague memory of seeing something like this before she had even met Ciel and Sebastian that fateful day…
Doc continued his soliloquy without paying any notice to the inner turmoil that had cast itself over his audience.
"A cow's bones are fine to use, but a human's bones aren't?" he asked.
"Please, someone!" Ciel cried.
"Let him go!" Marianne screamed. "Let him go!"
Doc toyed with the dagger he had slipped out of his tool tray installed in the altar. The blade gleamed under the flickering candles.
"Who decided that?" he asked.
"Please!"
"Stop this! Stop this now!"
The man raised the knife above his head.
"Anyone, I don't care… Just…"
He slammed it down into the girl's chest. An explosion of blood sprayed up at him as his glasses shone wickedly in the darkness.
"…save us!"
Ciel's gun dropped to the floor with a clatter. A ragged scream erupted from the boy's mouth. Bile and spittle leaked from the corners of his mouth as he attempted to hold back the contents of his stomach behind his hand.
"Stop!"
Marianne glared up at them and muttered under her breath.
"I hope the demon that comes destroys you all. May he rain blood and destruction upon this god damned place. Let him burn you all!"
Marianne gathered Ciel into her arms, and pressed kisses against his hair. Sebastian took hold of the boy's spit-covered hand and squeezed gently.
"Young Master," he intoned. "What is there to fear?"
He opened Ciel's mouth and wiped his face with a handkerchief.
"You're outside of the cage now, My Lord," said the demon, his eyes glowing magenta as his nimble fingers pulled the cord of Ciel's eye patch. "Now, call my name."
Ciel whimpered as he clutched Sebastian's black coat between his fingers.
"Se…bast…" he whispered before he began to scream. "Sebastian! Sebastian! Sebastian!"
His eye patch fell away. His contract seal burned in his eye.
"Kill them!" he shouted. "Kill them!"
Sebastian gave Ciel to Marianne to tend to. His thumb stroked the skin under her left eye as it flickered demonically for a moment before returning to dark blue. She held the boy's head and let him bury his face into her shoulder while the demon performed his duty.
Sebastian's hand drove through Doc's chest, blood erupting from the gaping maw it created in the flesh. Doc was stunned. He coughed blood once. And then, went down. The demon then turned to Kelvin, who while already dead, was still casting his blank gaze upon his mate and master. He did not deserve such a generosity. Sebastian glared down at him, and slammed his foot down on his head, crushing it beneath his heel like a grape. The blood splattered near Joker's unmoving body. He had finally bled out.
The room was a massacre, much like it had been over two years ago; Sebastian stared over the bloodshed with a nonchalant eye.
"It's over," he said to Ciel and Marianne.
Ciel's contracted eye glowed slightly.
"Burn it."
The demon arched a brow.
"Would 'it' be this mansion, My Lord?" he asked.
"Yes."
Marianne looked at him in confusion.
"Ciel, I can understand the need to burn a building to the ground in cases like these, but from what I remember from the Queen's letter, it was our mission to find the kidnappers and rescue the children," she said, stroking his hair.
Sebastian glanced over at the dead bodies littering the room.
"The kidnappers are already…" he began, but Ciel immediately interrupted him with his screaming.
"Shut up! Shut up!"
The boy escaped from Marianne's arms and latched onto Sebastian. Sebastian quickly gathered him up and stared at him with wide eyes while Ciel frantically clutched at his face.
"Don't leave anything behind! Burn everything here to ash! Have you forgotten your job?! This is an order!" he cried.
Tears slowly slipped down his cheeks as he buried his face into Sebastian's coat. Sebastian looked at his mate with glowing eyes. Marianne bit her lip and looked around the room, staring at all the children in their cages, watching their blank expressions as they stared back, not really seeing what was in front of them. With great hesitation, she nodded her head and walked over to one of the candelabras. She picked it up, and brought it before the demon.
"These children shall never be able to live with what has been done to them. They are trapped in their own minds, with no way to escape. There is no cure. In a way, the flames will be a mercy…" she whispered.
Sebastian removed his bloodied left glove with his teeth, and extended his black nailed hand towards the offered candelabra. His contract seal glowed on the back of his hand. He smirked when the flames rose up like the fires of his home, and encircled the room in a blazing inferno. Marianne clung to him as she watched the destruction unfold before her eyes. She remembered when she watched the fire she made take her family home, how she let everyone believe she died in the flames… Her death gave her freedom. And now, they were setting these children free from their suffering with theirs.
"May the fires of Hell cleanse you, and set you free from that monster's grasp."
The way in which Marianne accepts Ciel's choices is because she has made the same choices, in terms of setting a fire to leave no trace of the past behind. It also hints at how she accepts Hell to be the place she descends to.
Also, writing about Bard and Pluto, and their roles in defending the mansion was very fun as well.
Should you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.
Please read and review!
