The night started in fire. Ciel remembered the smoke. It billowed like wraiths, slipping between the cracks of the doors. Thin, crawling fingers tugged at the carpets. Everything was soon coated in soot. It caught in the chandeliers, clawed at the windows, and dirtied the shining armor.

Ciel ran. He could feel the heat, pushing at him from all sides. It sucked air from his lungs, making him gasp, but still he ran. His father's study was just ahead. In the smoke and wavy air, it seemed transfixed at the end of a long tunnel. The mahogany door shone with an almost transcendent light to his young eyes. Ciel shouted, he knew he did, fighting his way through the close-quartered corridor to that one single room.

The handle burned his hand but with his desperation he hardly noticed.

It was the first time he encountered a demon. He knew without a doubt that Sebastian was only the second. Shaking, throbbing, gasping, he might have screamed, but it might also have been swallowed by the fire.

Only half-coherent, drenched in ash and terror, it did not take much for him to led unresisting from the crumbling manor. Phantomhive manor collapsed behind him, burying the monstrosity that had been his parents. Ciel didn't know whether to feel sorrow or relief.

Gently guided into an unmarked carriage, Ciel had been too caught in shock to realize that the hands on his shoulders were foreign, that the masked men were strangers to him and that their hidden eyes were not kind.

Ciel remembered nothing of the carriage ride, only that he was suddenly no longer in a place he recognized with men in alien robes, aged hands, and Venetian masks. When he balked at their manhandling, he was trussed like a boar, mouth gagged and thrown like a sack over someone's shoulder.

Fear became him.

He struggled when his clothes were taken from him. So many hands bore down on him, pushing down his shoulders and hips as more slid the fabric from his weak body. Tears flowed freely, soaking into the gag. Even as the binding was loosed, those hands were upon him, holding him as tightly as the ropes. They held fast to his squirming, fingers wrapping nimbly around his ankles and wrists. They were everywhere, stroking, pressing, murmuring lowly in ancient Latin above him.

The sting of metal over metal met his ears. The brand hissed, red hot. The hands maneuvered him to his side and his begging, his pleading, his pathetic weakness did not hinder them. He screamed as his flesh was seared. The ugly stench pervaded the room, making him gag. The pain was blistering, festering, aching, throbbing. It was surrounded by ant bites. It was itchy poison.

It burned.

Drool pooled from his open mouth as he panted, no longer possessing the strength to fight them, the lingering apathetic hands. He was stained by them. It was unclean, this pitiful cruelty, this unwilling sin. His hand hung in defeat off the alter, his legs akimbo, and his cheek pressed to the stone.

Blood was pouring from him from somewhere. He could feel the wetness, register that his strength was being slowly leeched from, but he didn't know where. It was everywhere. Like a doll, he was turned, blue eyes dead, face like porcelain in his damning youth. The murmurs of the chant was a dull roar in his ears, like waves from the ocean where he used to play with Lizzie and Aunt Red and… his parents.

His parents. His beautiful parents, carved into some mockery of love. Stitched Raggedy-Anns with mismatching eyes. Now ugly, broken, and discarded to the rosy flames beneath the mantel.

And fear became hatred.

The eyes like sapphires, dark but dead, grew to the inky blue beneath a frozen lake, yet still dark but filled with rich malevolence. The shame of his degradation spurned the icy fire. His body was too weak. His silly childish sensibilities had weakened him. He hated his softness, his youth. But most of all he hated the person who had began this game, tore his life asunder, and placed him, burned and broken, on this fake alter with these blasphemous monks.

I want strength. I want power. I want the power to carry out my hatred. I will do anything, give anything, to avenge this hatred!

The lightness of death overtook him. Black reigned the realm. Black feathers, slick as oil and deep as pitch, slid down, sharp thin blades in a downward spiral. The autumn leaves of hell. And beneath the cascade, flickering in and out of existence, was a raven. Claret eyes sharp as cut rubies. They shone wet in the torrent. Crafty and cunning above the pointed beak.

Ciel stared at it, the slyness of the demon, seeing everything taken from him reflected in the humored gaze of a beast.

You seek power, came the sultry, flowing voice of the raven.

"Kill them for me," Ciel said.

It wings flapped, creating a violent tempest. I will serve you in exchange for your soul. If your anger that great. Great enough to bargain your most precious thing. Know that it will never be returned.

"I said to kill them."

The raven paused and the feather returned to their gentle descent. The eyes, the blood of the beginning of the world, regarded him with wry surprise.

Very well, young master.

The night started in fire and it ended in blood. Wreathed in the dark cape of a murdered priest, Ciel Phantomhive walked limping and labored but without assistance from the basement of the church. Sebastian Michaelis trailed behind him, watching him weave on bare feet through the mud. The rain pelted them both, sliding over bare shoulders and dark hair. Ciel paused in the middle of the road, a cropping of trees framing his right.

Sebastian, fresh in his new skin, paused as well.

"You will kill them all for me and I will give you my soul."

Sebastian smiled, tasting the hot loathing in his young form. He bowed, a hand draped across his waist.

"Yes, my lord."

- - -

Ciel was sure that he was not breathing. The screaming had stopped. The fires had stopped. London was calm, stilted on broken crutches, impeded by smoke and ruin, but calm. The living walked silently among the dead.

The boat rocked in time with Sebastian's gentle and steady rowing, like a fading heartbeat. Sebastian did not have the strength to raise his head. On a bed of white flowers, roses, he felt no thorns, only the softness of surrender. Sebastian rowed with his remained arm, steering them through brackish water, his long pole meeting no bottom but pushing them nonetheless.

The island was misty. Two arches, cracked and broken, greeted the two of them. The sky was grey and the land dark, peppered with the ruins of abandoned Roman architecture. Ciel pressed his cheek into Sebastian's shoulder. It was not warm. It was not soft.

Ciel exhaled, tasting the fabric of his tailor and the last lingering hints of the Phantomhive manor. His limbs were leaden, lethargic. He felt Sebastian's movements around him. It was the only thing alive in the island. All else was still, disillusioned mirages of time.

Sebastian set him on a bench. The stone was pocked and twining white blossoms straggled the legs. The smell was poignant, overwhelming the salty crust of the sea beyond the shore. Ciel lied still on the stone as Sebastian backed away.

"I'm finished," Ciel said, watching the motionless background of the deserted isle, an isle not so different than his precious England. He sighed, feeling the last bit of himself be taken away. "Will it hurt?" he asked of his faithful servant.

"A bit. I will try to make it as painless as possible."

"No," Ciel said. "Make it hurt. Stamp my life on my soul."

Sebastian stared at him in surprise. The last surprise that Ciel would ever give him, all the sweeter because Sebastian was still entranced by his bitter life, so short, so full of pain. Engrained with the strongest of sins, Ciel was still innocent. He paradoxically remained unclean and pure. He had forsaken love and forgiveness, allowing the deepest of evil into his young heart, but he was without regret, without reserve. Honest to the last and not at all resentful for his errs. A Wrathful Waif.

Sebastian bowed, once more, for the last, draping a hand against his waist and dropping to his knees Three years of hunger kept in check by their contract whetted his tongue. Ciel was so beautiful, prostate on the bench, head heavy and lids lingering wearily over his cold eyes. As Ciel watched him, he removed his glove, dropping the white cloth to the ground. His black-nailed hand brushed Ciel's bangs, grazing the flesh of his forehead. His white hand drew beneath the patch. Ciel closed his eyes, trusting even in his demise. Sebastian pulled the patch from him, revealing their bargain, the cursed contract that had killed an angel, killed a queen, and brought ruin to London. A gaze strong even past death.

"Yes, my lord," Sebastian said, a sly curve to the lips in his slim face.

His hand cradled the boy's jaw, lifting the head up. Ciel watched him expectantly without fear. The lips drew down on him. Darkness swarmed the island, taken with that final breath released against a demon's mouth.

Delicious.