Bring Me Home

Chapter Eight: Murder In The Family

London, England.   August 19, 1888.  (Late that night)
Ciel, Sebastian, and I waited outside of a building where the apparent next victim lived. The idea at the time was that we would catch the murderers before they went inside the woman’s home.
“Are you sure we are in the right place?” I asked.
“Yes.” Sebastian answered.
“I noticed that the murdered women had something else in common, you know. What I do not understand is why they had to kill them in the first place.” Ciel mumbled to himself while Sebastian was distracted.
“Them?” I asked. Before Ciel could even respond, a scream rang out through the night. We all rushed through to the woman’s door, bursting it open to a room full of blood. Sebastian grabbed Ciel and pulled him back, but he had already seen it all as well as I. He began to vomit everything in his stomach. I stepped back, shaking like a leaf in the cold autumn breeze.
“You’ve made quite a mess in here, Jack the Ripper.” Sebastian called out as I finally stopped moving, just a few steps behind him. “Or should I say, Grell Sutcliff.”
“No! You got it all wrong. I..” Grell came out of the building covered head to toe in blood, his brown hair now stained red.
“You can drop the innocent act Grell. It’s over.” Sebastian smiled to him, still a hand covering Ciel’s eyes from the scene and myself still a few steps behind him. “You know, this is the first time I have ever seen one of your kind in the human world. You played the role of a helpless butler rather well. You had almost everybody fooled.” I looked to Sebastian in question. What in the world was he talking about?! I wondered.
“You.. you think so?” Grell smiled and I nearly jumped back in surprise. What was with his teeth? His eyes, that turned into a crazy glare. “How kind. It is great to hear. After all, I am an actress, and a good one at that.’ The butler, or so I had thought, began to let his hair down, combing it out and turning it just a hint of a darker red than my blondish tint of red. His glasses, a dark shade of red with skulls hanging off of them. His teeth now sharp and pointed like a sharp. What was I seeing?! I thought I was going crazy. Looking at Sebastian’s serious face, though, I knew something else was happening, “Of course, you’re not really Sebastian are you?” What?!
“Sebastian is the name my master gave me, so that is what I am called. For now, at least.” He shrugged his shoulders as if it were no big deal.
“You’re playing the faithful dog then, are you? Oh well, you look the part well enough.” He began to toss his hair from side to side in a flirtatious sort of way. His voice, now sounding more feminine. “Well, here we are Sebastian. No. I think I will call you Bassy. Let me introduce myself. The Bernett butler, Grell Sutcliff. So nice to talk to you now, in my real form. Though I must say I was very surprised when I first met you. I had never seen a demon play a butler before.” I looked to Sebastian, both wide eyed and shocked. What was I supposed to say?
“I should say the same thing about you. I never thought I would find a being like you donning a suit and playing a butler. You are supposed to be an intermediate between man and God. A grim reaper.” I was starting to get light headed. I did not know if I could begin to handle anymore of this. I backed myself into the brick wall behind me and just watched. Sebastian took a glance behind himself to make sure I was alright before turning back to this reaper. I was unsure whether or not to fear him or trust him anymore. “What is a divine being like you doing pretending to be a butler, anyway?”
“Oh, you could say it was out of love for a certain woman.” Grell giggled like a school girl.
“And who might that be?” Sebastian asked.
“You don’t really need to ask, do you?” I knew the voice before she even began to make her way out of the building. My heart was pounding like a drum in my ears and I was praying in the back of my mind with every thump of my heart, but she came out anyway. My beloved aunt stood in the doorway of the building, crossing her arms as if she had no care in the world. She knew what she had done. She just did not care.
“Madame.” Was my brothers only response.
“Well, I really had not counted on this. I didn’t believe anyone would be able to tell who Grell truly was.” Aunt Ann shrugged her shoulders.
“Naturally, you were on the suspect list from the very beginning, but all of your alibis were air tight.” Ciel looked behind to make sure I was still in the same spot before continuing.
“You mean, you actually suspected your own Aunt?” Madame Red faked shocked. She knew better.
“I was looking for a murderer. Degree of relation made no matter to me. Even Gabriella’s betrothed was looked into due to his career.” My eyes widened for a moment, but again we all knew better. Ciel had a job to do. It did not matter who he had to look into for it, if it got the job done. “No human but the Vicount fit the profile for the job, but if one of the suspects was an inhuman accomplice that could travel from the Vicount’s home to the east side instantaneously, that would change the game completely. In the end, only you two could be the killers.” Both of them just stood there, nothing to say, so Ciel continued. “I began to look at what else these women had in common besides prostitution. They had all undergone a certain surgery in the hospital where you work. This was the only one left on the list, but we were too late.” I looked back to the scene in horror. How could she have done that? With no remorse?
“My darling nephew. If you could only have let it go, we could have played chess together again. But now..” Aunt Ann began to shake. “Now you have taken everything!” She grabbed Ciel by the throat and put him up against a corner on the bricks. I heard a weird sound and saw Grell with a weapon I had never seen before, going after Sebastian at the same time. Everything was moving too quickly. I started to try moving again, to try to run to Ciel’s side, but I must have moved too fast for everything that had happened. Everything started to spin and next thing I knew, I was falling into someone’s strong arms, silver hair flowing in the wind being the last thing I saw.