a/n I apologise these are coming out so fast they are not receiving my usual care in editing. I will return to them later with a broom and dustpan and tidy up I promise-and Shadowrin865: I'd love to chat but without a ffnet presence I have no way to answer you. And I really would like to answer.

Just as the sun set, Maylene returned with a wonderful haul of candles, root vegetables for hollowing out and turning into lanterns, a large basket of apples to bob for later, plus a nice sack of skulls, a richly appointed casket with a book of ghost stories inside, all care of the Undertaker. All the atmosphere anyone could want.

He also sent over another of his funerary urns filled with those dreadful bone biscuits of his, which I left on the counter in the kitchen when setting up the buffet tables in the ballroom. If they were meant for him, he'll know where to find them. I sent the servants off to don their costumes.

It was nearly time.

Darkness had fallen. It was a delightfully pitch dark night. After passing between the bonfires the guests stand chatting admiring the flames leaping vigorously to the skies...and yes, some of them just might be admiring me, too, as I am standing there in my 'costume' a modified version of the appearance I showed before Ciel the first time I talked to him when the cult still had him. I made it more solid and 'real' to fit the setting. There are lots of feathers, glistening black with glossy rainbows running over their surfaces in the right light, and the rest is simply black. It isn't leather or laytex as it may resemble, it's simply black. Like my appearance, this body I inhabit, it is whatever I wish it to be and what I wish to be is black.

And of course the heels. I do love those steel heels.

The more observant may notice the shadows following me. The truly sensitive to such phenomena may see some of the shadows taking the form of enormous 'shadow wings'. They are there of course, my wings, just out of sight. One never knows when one might need to take to the air with such visitors about the house .

Ciel totters out, awake finally and better for the day spent in bed with ice on his head, more or less ready to participate in the festivities. He is wearing a few pirate-themed items to go with his eye patch.

"What was that?" he asks as something pale green and scintillating with self-generated light zips past right before his eyes. Trust them to show themselves the moment he shows up, silly creatures. To Ciel, I'm certain it looked like a green hummingbird or perhaps a dragonfly, glowing softly in the dark.

"It was an elemental, my Lord. Humans often name them faeries...or, oh, pixies, brownies, boggarts, dryads, nymphs,... other names as well. Really though they're all the same thing: spirits of nature, once worshiped before the Christian belief swarmed over the island. They are still here, though greatly weakened for lack of worshipers. They are small and weak now as a rule, but in numbers they are capable of overwhelming a human with combined magic. Your grounds are actually exploding with them."

"Really. My grounds."

"Yes, you have seen all the faerie rings on the lawn after showers, haven't you?" I ask.

"Yes, of course, but I didn't realise they had real significance." The boy mused as another, more blue than green this time, zooms by. "And why my gardens, do you suppose?"

"Quite frankly, you attract such things, Ciel Phantomhive. I think perhaps our agreement has wrought some fundamental change in you. Perhaps it has simply augmented some latent talents you always possessed. You never saw a cinematic record before we joined hands, did you?"

"No...I hadn't really thought about that before, but no, you're right, I hadn't been able to before and I can now."

"Likewise, no contractor in my memory ever drew elementals, not to mention death gods, angels even other demons the way you seem to do, young Master."

"I really do, don't I. A goddamn nexus, I am. How bizarre."

"Your soul is like a beacon to every non-human for miles. Even faeries follow you home."

"You really know how to pick them, don't you, Sebastian."

"It would seem so, my Lord."

"Hmm..." the boy murmurs as he extends a hand toward the sparkling little thing. It readily comes to him to stand fearlessly on his outstretched palm. He bends near and whispers something, closely watching the tiny creature whose proportionally huge eyes remind me of an insect. After a brief handful of exchanged words the tiny one lets go a miniscule giggle, shakes its head and leaps away back into the air to fly off again. I'm sure even my Master could see the tiny thing's blush as it tore away from us. I wonder what the cheeky child has said to it to cause such a reaction?

They are milling behind me: the non-humans waiting for the ritual, the humans politely waiting until the host escorts them inside. The Lady Francis now makes her appearance with her family. She is wearing a sumptuous black dress with a simple red and black domino sporting petite horns obscuring her eyes. She comes up to me, her eyes trained on my head.

"Those are magnificent. However did you get them to stay put like that?" she says referring to my horns, which I am sorry but I am extremely vain about. They are quite large, and a dull greyish black, a sign I have more than reached mating age, and are curled about my ears a bit like a like a ram's horns. She reaches up and strokes along them, unaware how sensitive they are and how frankly sexual stroking them is to me. Of course she believes them to be artificially attached and means nothing by it. But I make a noise involuntarily when she handles them, and she draws her hand back as if she's been burned, stepping back as well, now embarrassed and looking at my blissful face with real alarm.

She clears her throat, but surprisingly, continues talking to me. Next eyeing my attire with a highly critical expression, she decides she cannot risk looking at me at all for what it will do to her. Her face may be saying oh god no, but her heartbeat, the heat suddenly coming off her exposed flesh and her rising flush are telling a different story all together. . So just for fun, I fill the air around me with mating pheromones, which luckily affect humans as well as other demons.

"Your current state of 'undress' is making me appreciate your everyday appearance more with every moment that passes, Master Butler," she says, frowning. At my footwear especially. Why are humans so taken aback by my boots, of all things? In a couple of hundred years, the shinigami tell me they're going to be all the rage. I will have you know I am a trend-setter.

"But you are appreciating me, that's the important thing," I dare to say, which draws her up even straighter and throws a delectable flush across her chest and cheeks. I further dare to run a finger across that wide expanse of blushing flesh above her bodice- trying to completely horrify her—after all and what's more horrifying than an amorous butler sticking his finger in and out of your noble cleavage? So of course I do exactly that.

Until she grabs my hand in her surprisingly strong grip and tosses it away from her wordlessly. I merely grin, because she is not horrified in the least despite the show she's putting on, she is profoundly excited. She is reacting exactly like her little nephew does when I flirt with him, and I find that utterly delicious. We may not be able to get Ciel out of a marriage tonight, but I may well become a very lucky devil before this is over.

"Who or what are you supposed to be anyway?" she asks, her arms folded under her breasts, her eyes on the dancing flames.

"Oh, Mephistoles of course, I tell her with a wink. "Care to make a contract with me? I'll just bet your soul is scrumptious." At that moment the ridiculous Druit rolls up in of all things a devil's costume. Well, at least that is what I assume it is supposed to be. It is red...

"Oh no no no!" he declares , pointing at me with an outraged finger. "We cannot have a lesser demon like you interfering with the lady when she is my prey!"

I admit it: his words nearly trigger me to madness –certainly what I wish to do to the foolish prating knave because of his unfortunate choice of costume and words would be madness, given we are in the company of so many fragile humans. But apparently Blondie here is oblivious to the heavy atmosphere he has just created, and, entirely used to women completely ignoring his advances, simply ploughs on fluttering about her—it is, after all what we've paid him to do— pawing and flattering, pulling his bright red union suit out of his arse crack and straightening his bright red artificial horns as he goes, dragging his 'devil's tail' behind him through the grass. If a real devil with such minuscule horns ever dared offer me such an affront to my honour on my home turf I shouldn't stop until he were paste beneath my feet.

She ignores his florid fluttering in favour of her own fiery appetites. "Why is it we are still standing out here? I'm hungry and I want something to eat. I'm going inside," she announces generally, not really wishing to speak to either of us directly, and turns to go back in.

"No no no, Lady Francis, you must enter through the bonfires. You must. It is tradition. Come, I shall escort you," and I call the rest of the Midfords, and Ciel with his irrepressible little fiancee' now glued to his side squealing out complaints he didn't dress as Oberon to match her pink 'faerie queen' as requested— as well as the servants (inexplicably in spite of the chill Tanaka has stripped down to traditional Japanese undergarments. That is to say he has a rag tied around his genitals and between his cheeks and he is –AH! KAPPA is what he was saying before! Of course, he is dressed as a minor Japanese water demon! I see the duck bill now. How appropriate given the way he waddles when he walks these days. He looks a bit green all over as well. Wonder how he managed that?

At any rate we all start around the outside of the blaze. "Take care you go widdershins, Lady Francis! Over this way!" I cry when the woman takes it into her head to go around the fires on the opposite side, most likely to avoid too close association with the butler dressed as a demon who so lately had his finger thrust into her cleavage.

"What-er shins?"

"Never mind my lady, just come with us. You must go this way to be out of danger. Most of the time it wouldn't matter but tonight is a special night, you see. You wouldn't want to annoy any demons now would you?"

"That would depend," she looks me up and down quite frankly this time, not hiding what she's doing at all, "On which demon and what sort of annoying things he was doing."

"Is this minor creature annoying you my lady?!" Druit again. "I shall have him horse-whipped to within an inch of his infernal life if he does not desist!"

That's it. I'm eating him. First chance I get he is demon chow. And to think I used to like getting horse-whipped.

I signal to Bard and Finny to bring out the bones. They carry them in a large sheet. Interestingly, Tanaka has elected to help, or at least to tokenly participate by holding onto the back edge of the sheet. When the cook and gardener heave the bones into the fire, Tanaka also tosses in some sort of beans and cries "Oni wa uchi! Fuku wa uchi!"* and repeats it a couple of times as he puts his hands together as a westerner would to pray and bows.

But first he winks at me.

I acknowledge with a little nod and a smile. He hasn't said it quite right, his little incantation, but that was no accident and his little chant lets me know what I've suspected all along: that this little old Japanese man is far smarter than he appears. He has worked it out on his own and knows what I am. And he is so far from panicking, he seems perfectly content working with an oni every day. In fact he seems to think it's brought this house blessings, and who knows, perhaps he is right.

"And this rabble are Ciel's friends are they," Lady Francis comments. It wasn't really a question. She is standing behind me looking at the gathered throng, many of whom are now frolicking around the fire, singing and dancing as any pagan should on such a night. "I hope we will be able to retire to the ballroom and to more civilised delights soon." She says, sucking her teeth. "Eh butler? The ballroom? Soon?"

SMACK.

Unbelievably, while promenading about the bonfire, the prim and rigid patroness of propriety, the Lady Francis Midford, has just reached out and smacked her nephew's butler on the ass. Hard. (On 'Honey' as opposed to 'Hole', in case you were curious.) I guess familiarity really does breed...well, something. Just plain breeds, perhaps. But ooh, wouldn't that be fun? A Phantomhive who was half demon? I wouldn't mind getting one on her I think. Apparently what she objected to earlier was not the familiarity so much as my taking the initiative! This woman...entirely unexplored depths, to be sure.

I'll have to see about correcting that.

*Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi! is the cry of the spring or New Year Setsubun festival and means demons out, Luck in, and you either toss roasted soybeans out the door and slam it, or you have a family member dress up as the obi (demon) and chuck 'em at him. Tanaka changed the wording a bit as a message to his fellow butler that Tanaka had rumbled him.