"So I ask you this, Grell Sutcliff and Ronald Knox. What have you done with my butler?"
The dining room goes dead silent for a moment. One by one the noises are added back into the space: Finny sniffling softly from the pain the gash on his head is causing him. Emily's hiss from around Snake's wrist. Mey-Rin and Bard releasing their breath in unison to go back to caring for an unconscious Tanaka.
The house phone RINGS.
Grell cracks up laughing at the little earl, whose puffed out chest was rapidly rising and falling in smoldering anger. "Oh, just in time."
The phone RINGS again.
"You're going to want to get that, you know." the reaper states with a pointed smile.
"Damn it, Grell! What aren't you telling me?" Ciel small body was shaking, his fists balled up at his sides.
"You should listen to the lady, ya know," Ronald adds, arms crossed and dead serious.
The phone RINGS a third time.
"Bard, for godsake, answer it already!"
Bard leaves Mey-Rin's side and strides over to the console table pushed against the dining room wall. He pulls the receiver from the cradle, glaring all the while at the two reapers. "Phantomhive Manor," he says, pausing for a reply, "… no he's entertainin' some company and the moment."
"Who is it?" Ciel asks, beyond irritated. Grell giggles in response.
The blood runs out of Bard's face. "Master, it's Lady Midford. She says Lady Elizabeth's gone missing."
Finny and Mey-Rin both gasp. Ronald lowers his head in a small, half nod.
Ciel's heart stops. His gun clatters to the floor. "Lady … Elizabeth." The name falls from his mouth in a voice that sound foreign to him. "Bard, hang up the line." He grows quiet, fear sinking down into him. He dry swallows and address the reapers once more. "You took her as well, didn't you?"
"Not us. The department don't like us meddlin' too much with the affairs of the living," Ronald says.
"But you knew."
"Elizabeth Midford? Age thirteen, daughter of Alexis Leon and Francis Midford? Yeah. She turned up on the 'to die' list yesterday afternoon, and is scheduled to bite it in three days time." Ronald kicks his feet on the floor."Thought you'd want us to let you know."
"How …" It wasn't possible. It shouldn't be … he had just seen Elizabeth the other day when they had disembarked from the rescue ship.
"Master!" Mey-Rin shouts, as Ciel's sways forward as though he was about to collapse.
Ciel catches himself, a million thoughts still running through his head. "I'm fine. Get Tanaka and Finny out of here."
"Master, I won't leave you!" Finny cries out as Mey-Rin pulls him up to his feet. Bard has Tanaka's arm pulled over his shoulder.
"Finny, come on," Baldroy says sternly, sensing even rattled, the earl was familiar enough with the intruders to know if he could safely send his staff away.
Finny did not share the ex-soldier's intuition. "NO! He needs us!" He easily wrestles himself out from the maid's grasp.
"Snake, help her," Ciel commands.
"But, Smile … says Emil—!"
"GET OUT! All of you OUT!"
The servants shuffle out uneasy and powerless. Bard is the last one out. He turns to Ciel, his voice gruff. "Yell for us and we'll come running."
Ciel nods. The door closes. It's just him and the two reapers now.
"Tell me everything."
"Here's the thing, kiddo," Ronald sighs, flopping into one of the high backed chairs around the dining table. "We don't know much about your girl. It's just a bit of a coincidence we noticed her name coming up at all 'cause we've got her flagged for her relation to you." He fiddles with the silverware. "As for us being here, turns out we can be fillin' in paperwork for weeks on end and still have no way to prove to the council that Undertaker's the filthy deserter he is. So the three of us, well mostly Grell-sempai if I'm to be good and honest, we thought ourselves a little plan to get us off probation, get our death scythes back, and make sure the traitor won't be creating more overtime for us manufacturin' of those biters."
Taking a cue from Ronald, Grell jumps into the chair next to him. "Ooh yes, it all started when I watched my dear Bassy take a tumble with that filthy whore several months ago. I caught a glimpse of a certain marking on his hand, and it was so attractive I couldn't help but doodle it all over my—"
Ronald drops the spoon he was toying with on to the table to cut off the redhead, "Anyway, it turns out senpai is quite the artist—"
"Ronnie, you're too kind!"
"—and I had one of my birds down in cryptology decipher it. She likes puzzles and what not and thought it was real endearing that I brought her one. Of course we never expected to learn exactly how honest the Phantomhive butler has to be."
Ciel grits his teeth. "Go on."
Ronald leans back. "The council's holdin' a hearing tomorrow. With Sebastian's cooperation, all speculation that the Campania was our fault will be put to rest for good."
"My butler may not be able lie, but you are mistaken if you think he'd ever do anything to help the likes of you."
"Well, we were kinda hoping … you'd order him to cooperate."
"I would rather eat my own shit."
"It's just for the next two days. We'll help you find Elizabeth before she gets axed, and the boss says we're even to help you with your case for Her Majesty in Sebastian's absence, if that would sweeten you over."
"I wouldn't need your help if you didn't take him from me in the first place!"
"You ungrateful little BRAT!" Grell shrieks, "You should be thanking me! Bassy was quite an awful mess without our help! He was even more red than I'd care for!"
Ronald flips his hair back with a gloved hand. "The way I see it, you help us get square with our jobs, and you get your girl and your demon back. It's the best damn deal you're gonna get."
The dispatch officer realizes a moment too late that the words that just escaped him are the worst possible thing he could have said to the prideful Earl of Phantomhive. Ciel's jaw sets as three new names are entered into the ledger of people he needs to seek revenge against.
"You're wrong. You WILL help me get Lizzy back unharmed, and you WILL return my butler to me RIGHT THIS INSTANT—and then I will decide whether or not I choose to SHOW YOU MERCY. Do you understand?"
"How feisty!"
"Are you serious, mate? We've got you pinned in a corner here! You've got no cards left!
"That's the thing, Ronald. I never was playing cards." He tears the eye patch from his face. The mark of the Faustian contract blazes. "Sebastian, this is an or—"
"WAITWAITWAITWAITWAIT!" Grell screams. "If you try to summon him again, he will die. That contract of yours is punishing him for not being able to come to the first time you called. William darling is with him right now, and he sent us to have you recant your order."
"What a load of bull crap. There nothing in the provisions of our agreement that would make that remotely true."
"You're not going to gamble you butler's life on the hunch that we're bluffing, would you?!" Grell asks, appalled.
"It's not a gamble if I know I won't lose."
"Well then you'll lose!" Ronald exclaims jumping to his feet. "You'll lose everything. Call for your demon then. See if he's any use finding your damsel with his insides hanging half out!" He catches his breath. "You've just got to trust us on this one."
The gun is back in the earl's hands, aimed at the reaper.
"I don't put any value on trust. If it's a deal you want then you shall have a deal. But I will have my own way to keep you honest." Ciel throws his head back and speaks to the heavens.
"If Elizabeth Midford dies or is harmed in any way, William T. Spears is to be obliterated without hesitation. That's an order, Sebastian!"
Ciel turns to the horrified dispatch officers, who have gone death pale. "Now shall we discuss the rest of the terms?"