Shall We Visit the Circus?
~O~
"My dear boy, how did you enjoy your Christmas? My attempt to make a Christmas pudding with Phipps was a great success, and we received a lot of praise from John and Grey. It will give me great pleasure to see you try it.
Now, as to the enclosed tickets..."
~O~
"It is very convenient that sir Randall is out today." Ciel paid little attention to the nervous please of man behind him, a subordinate to be sure, clearly not high enough up the corporate ladder to know who Ciel was or exactly what he did, and without the training or authority to actually throw them out.
"Please stop!" He begged again, arms half outstretched as though to herd Ciel away, although Sebastian had already breezed past him moments ago and was quietly scouring through pages of reports and evidence and making notes. "If the commissioner finds out-!"
"Then you had better make sure he doesn't," Ciel interrupted briskly.
"This is the 3rd floor building! How did you even get in here?!"
Ciel ignored his question, although he felt the wide open window was clue enough. "Well, Sebastian?" He called out to the man. "Have you found anything?"
The servant, although he didn't look much like one, rose to his feet smoothly, still flipping through one of the files. "So far, no bodies have been found that match those of the missing children," he reported.
The subordinate glanced between the two warily, still unsure of what to do. The Earl of Phantomhive was notorious amongst the London's police force and criminals. Rumours of his title and role filled the city's metaphorical sewers. The Queen's Guard Dog,but the boy was clearly a child, he couldn't only have been about 12, yet he held himself with a cold authority that would make more powerful men take notice.
Ciel sighed as though he'd expected that response, and then inclined his head. "We'll leave once you're done copying down the files," he decided. "And we might as well take the photographs with us as well."
"You can't do that!"
"If you're caught, just say I took them," Ciel tossed the words over his shoulder.
"That would just get me into more trouble!" He took a step forward, but was halted in place by the manservant, Sebastian.
Ciel spoke casually as he went through the files Sebastian had copped down. "Listen, Underline was it?"
"Abberline!"
"Yes, yes, you've been a great help today," he hummed distractedly. "We appreciate your cooperation." He nodded without looking at him, and Abberline turned his attention to the manservant, who produced a handful of coins from somewhere on his person, and placed them in his palm.
Abberline hissed like he'd been burned, and shoved the money back at him. "I'm not for sale! I just want to do whatever it takes to bring them home!"
Done with his perusal, Ciel hummed at the man as he brushed past him. "'Whatever it takes', huh?" He repeated with a smile. "Very flexible of you. You have a rather bright future. Sebastian."
The officer bemusedly watched the two leave, and then realised that at some point the manservant had swapped out the large shillings for a damp mop. He whirled around to call after them, but Ciel only called back a parting, "Hurry up and get yourself promoted, Abberline," and then they were gone.
The streets of London were filled with the usual people. It was early afternoon, though the sky still hung dark and overcast as it usually was for most of the year, including the late spring. Ciel and Sebastian made their way back to the carriage, blending in quite well with the rest of London's typical muted colours, and greys and blacks. "It seems that they are still being treated as missing persons," Sebastian stated.
"By respectable society, perhaps," Ciel replied. He waited for Sebastian to open the door of the carriage before he climbed in. "But someone in the underworld society may have already disposed of them."
Sebastian took his seat across from the boy. "Will we be paying him a visit then?"
Ciel grimaced at the thought, but nodded. "I'd really rather not, but it seems the situation requires it." A tap to the ceiling of the carriage, and it began the short journey to the famed mortuary, the him of course being the mortician himself, whose name filled the dark blue and copper signboard above the door.
The shop was located in a quiet area, facing the street. Coffins and gravestones leaned against the outside walls, and the brown cracked stone was decorated with spider's webs and strange herbs strung together above the door.
For as long as Ciel had known the man and his shop, he had never seen another living human inside that had arrived there before him, so he didn't bother to knock and simply pushed the door open. "Undertaker, are you here?"
The shop was dark, lit only by the many candles that had been placed on nearly every conceivable surface, and cast eerie shadows on the floor and walls. Several of the candles formed a runway on the ground, leading into a darkness their light didn't seem to reach. The two took a step forward, and the door shut behind them.
High-pitched giggled filled the room, coming from the shadows. "Welcome my lord~" the voice greeted, sounding pleased. A human skull rolled out from the darkness, and Ciel jumped back, making a sound of shock as it rolled past his feet and knocked something over on the other side. The voice cackled, revealing itself to be a man in a long grey-black and a strange hat that covered most of his face, save for the wide grin of his mouth. "Did you finally decide to get into one of my special coffins?"
"Why, you-!"
He rose to his feet. "Now, now, won't you have a seat~? I have a batch of cookies I just baked from the oven~!"
The Undertaker was strange thing. Ciel had no idea who he was, and where he had come from, and he had tried to find out. The earl was fairly certain the cheery mortician was human, although he often gave off the aura of knowing more than he should. He was always laughing, and Ciel didn't trust a man that only showed one face.
They sat, using the coffins as seats. Undertaker listened to the story while munching on a biscuits shaped like bones, and drinking tea from a glass jar that smelled faintly of formaldehyde and dead people. "Children's bodies, hmm~?"
"Regular society regards them as missing," Sebastian explained.
"Well, dead children are an everyday affair in the underworld society~" Undertaker snickered as though he'd just recalled something funny, and chomped down on another biscuit. "I'm sure you know that well, my lord~. Why, just a few months ago I had a lovely case myself..."
The earl ignored the teasing jibe, interrupting the following story. "I've brought you their information," he said as Sebastian placed a sheaf of papers on the coffin-turned-desk in front of the mortician. "Did you 'take care' of any of these children?"
The mortician let his chin drop to the table with a quiet thump, still smiling. "Hmmm~, did I~?" He wondered, poking at the stack ineffectively with one sharp fingernail. "I feel like I may be able to remember if I saw something entertaining...~"
This was Ciel's least favourite part about visiting the mortician. His general eeriness aside, the man insisted on being paid in laughter, and not money. Legal tender, he claimed, held very little value to him, but a good joke was priceless.
It was annoying, but that was what he had Sebastian for. He turned to the manservant, only for the Undertaker's loud cackles to taper off into a tone of sly curiousity. "Oh~? You're relying on him~?" He snickered. "Aren't you able to do anything without your butler, earl?" Ciel gritted his teeth at the mocking undertone. The Undertaker shrugged helplessly, what can you do? "Well, whatever, anyone entertaining enough will do~."
A trait usually seen in those born to English high society is a high degree of pride, and whether it was inherited or caused but his life experiences, Ciel had been born with quite a bit of it. Veiled insults and challenges did not sit right with him unless he won in some manner, which was why he promptly agreed to the Undertaker's challenge and kicked Sebastian out with the words:
"Don't you DARE peek! THAT'S AN ORDER!"
~O~
They eventually got their answer, after five hours of nothing the Undertaker's shop rang with loud, cacophonous laughter, and Ciel himself looked as though he'd been put through the wringer, but they got the answer they'd wanted.
The only thing left now was to visit the circus for themselves.
The circus caravans had arrived sometime in the afternoon, and by night all of the brightly lit tents and stalls had been put up. The entrance proclaimed the name Noah's Ark Circus in gold writing on a background of purple, bordered by iron curlicues. For all the stories and rumours following the circus itself, the compound was still filled with people and children chattering eagerly amongst themselves.
Each and every area was designed to draw your attention to it, whether with bright lights or miniature shows. Ciel caught sight of people in bright clothes and masks doing all manner of tricks, and handing out balloons. The air smelled cloyingly like candy and the people milling around, and in the middle of all of that was the big top itself, a large blue tent where the main circus act would be performed.
The inside was fairly elaborate, with gold chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, and a set that looked like it had been freshly painted and well taken care of. Maybe this was the norm for circuses, but Ciel wouldn't know that, he'd never been to one at all.
Moments later, the lights slowly began to dim one by one, ushering the beginning of the show. An expectant hush came over the crowd. From the ceiling, a single spotlight suddenly shone down on a man now standing in the middle of the ring.
The performer was dressed in the typical outlandish circus manner; he had orange, spiky hair, and wore a purple coat on his shoulders, a diamond checked waistcoat on a flouncy-looking shirt, and puffy trousers. In one hand, he held four coloured balls between his fingers, and in the other he held the same, but that hand was a skeleton prosthetic.
"Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls of all ages!" He bowed at the waist. "Welcome to the Noah's Ark Circus!" He straightened and began to juggle the balls skilfully while speaking. "My name is Joker. Pleased to meet 'ee. Now if you'll look here–whoops!"
As he spoke, he 'clumsily' lost control of the balls and they came falling down on his head, much to the amusement of the crowd, especially the children. The joker then opened his mouth to reveal a blue ball, which he then enclosed in his skeletal hand and 'vanished' out of sight entirely. The crowd clapped again, pleased with the little pre-show they had gotten.
The ringleader smiled and gestured dramatically. "Tonight," Joker continued. "You will see performances to stun and amaze 'ee!" At that moment, more spotlights came on, illuminating five other people, the main attractions. "And now, with a great broze from our fire-breathing Jumbo, the show of the century begins!"
With a roar, a large, tattooed man rose up and blew a plume of fire from a lit stick. The cheers grew louder and more excited as several of the lights came on again, and the circus officially began.
The acts were fairly standard, in Ciel's opinion. There was a trapeze act, performed by two artists with child-like appearances named Peter and Wendy. The second act was knife-throwing by a man called Dagger. The third was more interesting, featuring a snake dance performed by a half-naked man introduced simply as Snake. His skin seemed to glitter with scales like the reptiles coiled along his body.
"They don't seem to be forcing the children to perform," Sebastian noted at the end of the snake dance. The circus acts were drawing to a close, and there had yet to be any sign of a single child. None of the children in the audience had been singled out for participation either.
"Now, ladies and gentlemen," Joker gestured with his prosthetic hand to the ceiling. "Look above 'ee!" Their eyes went up at the same time to the length of rope strung tent high above their heads. "Behold, a death-defying tightrope walk by the circus princess, Doll!"
"If they didn't intend to force the children to perform," Ciel said, not looking away from the girl's perilous journey. "Then it be a coincidence that the disappearance of the children occurred along the circus route?" That seemed like an exceedingly large coincidence, but correlation did not always mean causation.
The audience ooh-ed and ah-ed as Doll performed splits and other feats of flexibility while balanced along the rope. Ciel could hardly pay attention to the rest of her act. "Now, prepare to be amazed and disturbed by our lovely contortionist, Ms. Muffet!"
A woman walked onto the sand, and Ciel regarded the ring with mild boredom. He blinked in surprise however, when Sebastian straightened and fixed his eyes on the woman. "Sebastian?" He whispered, half-stern, half-curious.
Ms. Muffet seemed perfectly normal as far as circuses went. She was a bit on the short size, and wore a scandalously fitted white and gold leotard, with large black diamonds going up the side, and a gold circus ruffle around her neck, wrists and waist. She had pale blonde hair that had been tied up with a peppermint-striped bow, leaving bangs to frame the sides of her face. She was fairly pretty, yes, but that was no reason for Sebastian to start so suddenly or stare so intently.
"Sebastian!" He hissed louder, but was again ignored. Down on the sand, the contortionist began her act. Ciel didn't know much about contortionism, but he was fairly certain that the human body was not supposed to bend quite like that, at least not without a fair bit of pain and damage.
She spelled the names of audience members with her body, and then performed a split. Then, while her legs were still in that position, lifted one up and up until it was behind her head. There were horrified and awestruck gasps from the audience, which turned to shrieks when she twisted her head 180 degrees to stare at the people behind her.
Ciel jerked back, for a moment, it had seemed as though she was staring right at him.
The woman dropped to her hands and feet, head still twisted and knees bent at an odd angle, and rushed the crowd, only to be stopped by a whip coiling around her leg. She temporarily collapsed to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut, before untwisting herself to make room for the final act.
Sebastian snapped back into focus once she was offstage, and Ciel wasted no time in berating him. "What was that about?" He snapped.
The demon turned to him thoughtfully. "I noticed something strange about the performer."
"What?" The earl's eyes narrowed, and he looked to see if he could catch a glimpse of her, but she was already gone. "Was it something to do with the missing children?"
"It might," he replied. "I was scanning the tent for life, but no matter how much I stared at her, she wouldn't show up."
Ciel's eyes widened in shock. "You mean-?"
"Yes," the demon nodded. "Whatever that performer is, she's not really alive."
If you're curious as to how she moved, find that Attack on Titan gif of the titan crawling after Sasha. Now imagine that, but with a head that's been rotated the other way. Yes.