The Indignity of Mortality (Sebasclaude)

6. Claude

November 28th, Tuesday, the Trancy Manor, around two pm

I checked the time on my pocket watch, and sighed, I didn't have time to polish the cutlery myself, since Alois and I were due to leave in under a minute. Thompson had done an unusually poor job of the garden, and Timber had got what Alois wanted for breakfast wrong, so I'd had to fill in for them, costing me precious time. I didn't know what had got into them. I spotted Canterbury leaning against the worktop, clearly in need of a job to occupy him with - if left alone he'd only gossip with the other two. "Canterbury." The Triplet looked up, ruby eyes filled with mild irritation at the fact I required him to do extra work. "The cutlery needs polishing, and I don't have time before we leave." The demon sighed, and nodded dejectedly, before pushing himself away from the worktop and muttering something under his breath. I didn't care to know what it was, and we were already a minute behind schedule anyway, so I didn't have time for the illogical nature of the Triplets.

I knocked on the door of Alois' study, and heard a bored 'come in' from the other side. I pushed open the door, to see Alois with his feet up on the desk and a bored expression on his face. "It's time to leave, Your Highness," I stated, and Alois groaned.
"Do we have to?"
"You're meeting with Earl Phantomhive tomorrow, today is the last day we have to investigate as you've put it off for the past-"
"Can't you just go on your own? Oh, but then I'd have Hannah attending to me the entire day, and I saw one of the Triplets had fucked up the garden and I assume that you were a bit less punctual than usual not out of mercy, but because one of the other Triplets fucked up something else. Since things tend to happen in threes,  I don't really want to be around when the third one blows up the kitchen or something, so I suppose I'll come. I hope you've given them a telling off, or better yet, left it to Hannah," Alois smiled, "I've heard she can be quite intimidating when she wants to, I know she's scared you a few times. I don't know why, though, she's always seemed ever so mousey to me. I would continue to ramble to get out of work, but since you're so completely oblivious to when people are toying with you I think I'll take pity on you and stop. Come along then." I blinked, slightly dazed, as Alois walked past me, before I hurried to catch up with him.
"Since I'm being so nice can I get cake when we're in London?"
"Your Highness, you just had cake."
"Sweets? For after dinner?"
"Your Highness-"
"Gin?"
"Are all humans like this?" Alois laughed loudly, but didn't reply, and went to pull his thicker coat on.

We arrived in London forty-seven minutes later, and I helped Alois out the carriage and down onto the cobbled streets bellow. People milled around us in every direction, chattering and staring, not giving anyone space to breathe. I payed the cab driver, and Alois began to skip in some direction that wasn't the correct one. "Your Highness, that's not the way to Scot-"
"I'm not going there, I'm going to get sweets," Alois replied, pulling that smile that never meant good things.
"You're Highness, Earl Phantomhive and the Queen are both putting their faith in you to help solve this case-"
"I'll go to the sweets shop, and you go and investigate the crime scenes, you should be back by the time I've finished picking." It suddenly occurred to me that Alois had agreed to come to London to look at where dead bodies had been found a little too easily...
"Your Highness, that wouldn't be safe, suppose someone kidnapped you or-" someone pushed between us, and I stepped backwards to get out their way, right into someone else, who yelled something rude at me, "- you could get lost, or-"
"Either I get sweets or we're going home." I sighed, and pushed my glasses back up my nose, knowing there was little use arguing with Alois when he was like this.
"We can get sweets on the way back. Now, please come with me so we can investigate as we were supposed to." Alois' face brightened, as someone shouldered me out the way, and Alois began to trot in the direction of Scotland Yard, so we could ask permission to look at the crime scenes. I hated London.

It was almost relief to be standing away from all the people, even if the stench of death clung to every wall of the house and refused to let go. It was funny, all the furniture and rugs had been removed, the house gutted like a fish, and yet that same, distinct odour remained. "This is the house of the first victim - Emily White. She was found lying," I gestured to a bed that was stripped down to only its iron frame, "on that bed, horribly mutilated." Alois sighed boredly, covering his nose with his hand, as he glared at me.
"I don't care. It smells in here. Can we get this over with quickly so I can get my sweets and we can go home?" I pushed my glasses up my nose, and systematically began to check the house. Starting at the front door, there appeared no signs of forced entry, nor anything else to imply the murderer entered through the front door - which made sense all things considered. After checking the whole of the bottom floor, I could find no traces of the killer even having been downstairs, but it was hard to tell, as the investigators had already trampled through the building - I wished they'd wear something over their feet - and the killer could have merely been careful. Moving upstairs, nowhere other than the bedroom had any traces of the killer, but the bedroom more than heavily bore the mark of what had happened there. Blood was splattered up the walls and even onto the ceiling, now dry and flaking, the window had clearly been forced open, and bloodied footprints were scattered across the room. Kneeling down, I could see the footprints were small, implying a female murderer, but of course it could have been a male with small feet. When I scanned the room for more footprints, I noticed something fluffy and white stuck between the floorboards, and so I picked it up. I felt myself shudder as I rolled the pearlescent feather between my thumb and index finger. Then I looked up to the window, and found myself pacing towards it, and sure enough, fifty odd of the same pearlescent feathers, of varying sizes, were stuck in the window frame. I could feel the horror start to weigh down my stomach and pinch at my airways, before I quickly pocketed the feather and began to jog out the house to check for signs the killer had climbed up the wall of the house. When I passed Alois I was bordering on sprinting, and my heart was starting to pound in my chest, but when I looked up at wall up to the bedroom window, it was pristine, only the windowsill had any traces of anyone having been there. At that point my heart stopped, and I told Alois we were leaving.

Every other house was exactly like the first - the killer had seemingly flown in through the bedroom window, which they'd forced open, killed the victim, and then flown straight out again, and each and every house had the signature pearlescent feathers scattered around the room and caught in the window frame.
After I'd checked the last house, Alois ran up to me, panting - he'd been chasing after me all day, since I'd forgotten to compromise for his smaller legs. "Claude! Stop running away from me and tell me what's wrong?!" Alois choked out, his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath. "You look like you've seen a ghost, and you've been dashing everywhere - I could hardly keep up." I handed Alois the feather, who stared at it with a face that implied he didn't understand. "Claude, it's a very pretty feather but I don't see what it's got to do with-"
"It's an angel's feather." Alois looked up at me, confused.
"Well, I don't know if it's that pretty..."
"No. I mean it literally. I have every reason to believe that this feather once belonged to the wing of an angel: it matches what I've heard about them, and it doesn't belong to any bird I have ever encountered. I have never personally seen an angel, so I can't be sure, but it would certainly seem to explain the improbable nature of-"
"Why would an angel kill people?" Alois' blue eyes had grown wide and watery, his platinum brows furrowed, as he looked up at me in confusion. "Aren't they supposed to be nice?" I pushed my glasses up my nose, wishing Alois would just understand.
"Some have been known to... stray from what is generally considered moral. They, from what I have come to understand, tend to try and purge to the world of evil, except, what they are doing is considered, in of itself, evil." Alois' eyes were watering, but he quickly wiped them on his sleeve, and straightened his posture, before nodding.
"Okay. I don't want sweets anymore. Let's just go home."