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Devilish Impulses	By : Arianawray Category: > Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji ???) Views: 13948 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Kuroshitsuji or any of its characters, and I do not make any money from these writings.

Chapter List
- 1-Unwanted
- 2-Whim
- 3-Trust
- 4-Taste
- 5-Scheme
- 6-Command
- 7-Competition
- 8-Advice
- 9-Enlightenment
- 10-Sustenance
- 11-Caught
- 12-Breath
- 13-Arms
- 14-Inflammation
- 15-Imagination
- 16-Intent
- 17-Compromise
- 18-Sacrifice
- 19-Despair
- 20-Compassion
- 21-Interest
- 22-Equality
- 23-Mentor
- 24-History
- 25-Disorder
- 26-Reputation
- 27-Gifts
- 28-Admission
- 29-Watching
- 30-Bonds
- 31-Revelations
- 32-Confrontation
- 33-Struggle
- 34-Separation
- 35-Duty
- 36-Change
- 37-Together
- 38-Love
- 39-Epilogue: Heaven
- 17
- 18
- 19
Sacrifice

"Young Master, wake up."

Ciel stirs, hearing the voice and seeing the first hints of morning light stealing into his room. He is too disoriented for a moment to remember why he feels surprised that his butler is in his presence, and several seconds pass before he recalls the events of last night. Before he can order Sebastian out of the room in anger, however, the devil speaks.

"I know that you do not want to see me, but something has happened. We must go to London at once."

"What?"

"The Commissioner telephoned the manor a minute ago. Mrs Easton has escaped from Newgate Prison, and somehow entered the Tower of London where her sons are held. She is in her eldest son's room as we speak, accompanied by two men, one of whom is holding off all the guards. The other man is said to have shoulder-length, silver hair."

"Damn it!" Ciel snaps, jumping out of bed and stumbling into the bathroom to relieve himself before returning to the bedroom and cooperating fully with Sebastian as he swiftly cleans his teeth and face and dresses him.

"There is no time for breakfast, but I have bread rolls ready, filled with thin slices of cured meat and shredded greens, that you can eat in the carriage."

"We shouldn't take the carriage – bear me there at once," Ciel tells him icily, ready to add a barb that he had better keep his gloves on.

But Sebastian says: "The Commissioner knows you are at the manor. You will not be able to account for your appearing at the Tower within minutes. Nothing will change until you get there."

"Why do you say that?"

"She has asked to see you."

"Bloody hell," Ciel mutters. He runs downstairs, sees that Finny has prepared the carriage, and climbs in. Sebastian deposits the bread basket in his master's lap and jumps into the box seat. There is nothing for Ciel to do but bear with the ride, and eat. And think about last night.

He had asked Mey-Rin for his blue jacket after Sebastian left the manor, because he thought he'd left in one of its pockets a note from the managers of the new restaurant being set up to sell the curry bread and other curry dishes. Mey-Rin had gone to the laundry room and returned to report how odd it was that she had only just seen the blue jacket folded neatly at the top of one of the stacks of the earl's clothing – but it was now gone.

Ciel had told her to forget it, but immediately concluded that the jacket's disappearance had something to do with Sebastian's night off. He had waited near the laundry room after his dinner, thinking that Sebastian would surely sense his presence there upon his return – after all, the nature of a contract with a devil is such that the devil knows where its master is at all times. But Sebastian had seemed unaware that he was there as he returned the jacket to the room.

He had been absolutely furious when he got his answers. He had felt betrayed, insulted and disgusted – and reacted like a toddler throwing a fit. As Sebastian's master, he could have commanded him to do any number of things as penance for the offence, or terminated the contract. Instead, he had ranted and retaliated childishly. He is still not certain why he behaved thus, but suspects that it was a fearful animal response to this aspect of the adult world he was not ready to tackle – just like he had all but panicked when Aunt Francis had reminded him that he could legally marry by the age of fourteen.

Upstairs, Baldroy had wisely refrained from asking what had happened between him and the butler. He had done his job competently enough, considering it was his first time as valet, but in his hands, Ciel had genuinely felt like a small child. Baldroy had undressed him, bathed him, and put his nightshirt on him, then tucked him in the way Ciel imagined any commoner without servants would somewhat awkwardly get his own son ready for bed at times when his wife was ill. It was done carefully, even affectionately, but with none of the sense of deep personal interest that Sebastian always had in him – as a meal-in-the-making during their first contract, then as something else, something different, under the new covenant.

It has been that sense of being something else to Sebastian that has intrigued and repelled Ciel, culminating in the painfully immature confrontation of last night. He does not yet know what he will do about his demon, but that must be put aside for now, while he deals with Mrs Easton and Percival Ambrose.

***

The Tower of London housed no prisoners for decades before admitting the Easton brothers nearly three weeks ago. In recent years, it has even become a place of interest visited by ordinary citizens and guests from abroad seeking a taste of the great events of history its walls have seen, and the famous prisoners it held centuries before.

However, Lord Randall had deemed the Tower the best place to hold offenders charged with treason, to prevent them from communicating with ordinary prisoners and wardens. Therefore, the Easton brothers were brought here after their arrest with the Prince of Wales' authorisation. Despite the Tower's association with prisoners of royal or aristocratic blood, the scullery maid and newspaper reporter in league with the brothers are secured here too, also to separate them from other common prisoners.

Although the four inmates have been living in fear of what awaits them in court, they have been treated well, properly fed, and made as comfortable as the circumstances allow. They have not been permitted to speak with one another, or see anyone but the yeoman warders and high-ranking officers from Scotland Yard, but their accommodation is better than Mrs Easton's tiny cell in Newgate Prison, each with his or her own fairly spacious room. And despite talk of the Bloody Tower being haunted by royal ghosts, the prisoners have encountered nothing otherworldly, and the security and daily routines have calmed them, leaving them quietly preparing to face the law for their crimes.

They were certainly calm until the earliest hours of this morning, when something astonishing happened before dawn. Shouts and cries rang out beyond their locked rooms, and sounds suggestive of people being thrown aside and hurled down stairs reached their ears. Those whose rooms were at the tops of narrow, winding staircases soon found their doors unlocked by a tall man, whose features were largely obscured by a strip of dark fabric wrapped about his lower face and a hat drawn down to his eyebrows. One after the other, they were taken down those winding staircases and up others, until everyone was herded together into George Easton's lamp-lit quarters, where a silver-haired man was waiting.

Then Sophia Easton walked in, dressed finely in her favourite green gown, her most fashionable hat on her coiffed blonde hair. She strode up to her sons and slapped each of them hard across the face, saying bitterly: "Fools. Worthless fools. All this is owing to your stupidity. It ends here, and the fault is entirely yours."

"Mother!" Robert Easton had gasped. "Are you here to save us?"

Mrs Easton, turning a cold, pale-blue eye on him, then on George, had replied bitterly: "Save you? How did I ever bear such idiots in my womb? I haven't come to save you. I've come here to die."

***

Ciel and Sebastian are met by Lord Randall's men and the warders when they reach the drawbridge of the fortress. They are quickly escorted through the Middle and Byward Towers, and down Water Lane towards the Bloody Tower, where the people they seek are gathered.

"Where are they?" Ciel asks when he spies Lord Randall on the Green.

"In George Easton's room," reports the Commissioner, as he gestures to some of his men to wait in the courtyard and others to accompany them into the Bloody Tower. "The warders told us that what felt like a gust of wind was followed by doors being unlocked and flung open. Mrs Easton suddenly appeared inside the Bloody Tower in the company of a silver-haired young man, and a taller man whose features were obscured by a hat and scarf. Guards were thrown aside, and the prisoners removed from their rooms. No one has been able to bring down the taller man, who cannot be felled even by bullets."

Ciel glances at Sebastian. He and his butler know that the impassable person is the devil called Carsten. As they hurry up the stairs leading to the room where the prisoners and their uninvited guests are, Ciel asks Sebastian under his breath: "Can you get past him?"

Sebastian feels the thickness of the atmosphere they are entering, and replies quietly: "He has erected a spiritual shield as strong to demons as any of the Tower walls would be to a human being. Without his permission, it will be impassable by me."

"Damn it."

Lord Randall is now calling out to the figure at the top of the stairs: "The Earl of Phantomhive has arrived. Mrs Easton said she wished to see him."

The dark, face-covered figure nods, and moves backwards. The space at the top of the stairs that no one could get past now opens into a short passageway which admits Ciel, Sebastian, Lord Randall, two of the Commissioner's men, and four of the yeoman warders. The tall, fabric-masked individual has stepped into George Easton's rather large room, with its doorway which is wider than the narrower doors common to the other rooms.

"Good morning to all of you. Don't think that just because we've moved back a little, that you can enter as you please," comes a man's amused voice from within the room. "You will find the doorway as impassable as the stairs before."

The silver-haired man is the speaker. It is the first time Ciel, Sebastian, and even Lord Randall have set eyes on him, for the Commissioner had not been able to reach the top of the stairs earlier. He looks no older than twenty-five, has a beautiful face, and cuts a striking figure in a silvery-grey coat over a spotlessly white waistcoat, shirt and trousers.

Mrs Easton stands two feet behind him. The Easton brothers, the scullery maid and the reporter are huddled against the far wall, looking as uncertain of what is going on as the others outside the room.

"How delightful to meet all of you at last," says the man. "My name is Percival Ambrose. I am happy to tell it to you, and to show you my face, as I doubt I will live much longer. I have decided, however, that my manservant ought to cover his features as he will outlive me, and I would like him to be of use to society, unhindered, after I depart this world."

"Why are you here? What do you want?" Lord Randall asks angrily.

"I am here to see true justice done, Commissioner," Ambrose replies. "Do you think that Mrs Easton will pay fully for her crimes if she is tried at the Old Bailey? I doubt so. I suspect that she will get off with a measly term of imprisonment, after which she will be free to dig up the vast wealth that the Crown cannot confiscate from her estate because it does not know she owns it, round up her thugs, and kidnap children again."

"What would be true justice to you?" Randall snarls.

"Death, of course. I could have broken her stubborn neck in her cell, but unfortunately, she and I are former associates, and one of my protégés was a great admirer of hers. Therefore, I owe her the courtesy of letting her dress up grandly before her final act, decide for herself how she should die, and what ought to happen to the sons she spawned. So here we are."

Ciel had thought that he never wanted to look at Mrs Easton again after what happened at the mill, but finds now that he has no feelings of distaste towards her, because she looks like a proud, wild creature caged by her silver-haired handler. To his surprise, he feels sorry for her.

"Mrs Easton," Ciel speaks. "Why did you ask to see me?"

She comes forward, eyes him coldly, and says: "I didn't ask to see you. I never wanted to set eyes on you again. It was Ambrose who insisted that I ask for you, to apologise for what I did to you and the girl. But I refused. I won't apologise. It was only right to repay like for like, after you condemned my sons by the part you played in their exposure. So Ambrose and I agreed that I should see you, at the very least, to tell you who your friends and foes are."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that he wants me to tell you who was ready to assist me in harming you, and who was not, so you will know who is on your side. I am therefore telling you that I consulted various groups and individuals before abducting Lady Elizabeth and taking you from your manor. The Ferro family was willing to help me, but they have lost their power. Other gangs on the Continent did not know enough about you, although they are no friends of yours. Lau has disappeared. The Undertaker refused to help. The society gossips who told me of the girl's betrothal to you did not know what I intended. And the magical practitioners I approached to breach your manor's defences were of little use, but one of them, a man with red hair, was the one who advised me to drown you in a cage. That is all."

Ciel is still absorbing the information when Ambrose speaks: "Is that really all, Mrs Easton? Didn't we agree to more?"

The woman looks cornered, but defiantly holds her head high. "Ambrose believes I ought to serve as a reminder to you that no one of noble blood, like you and me, should cede control of their lives to someone else. But I don't care for being a lesson to you – I do this for myself. What you take from it is your concern. I only care that whatever happens after I am gone, you and the others here will bear witness that no one – not the Queen of Great Britain, not the Prince of Wales, not all the devils in hell, could determine my fate, or the fate of the sons of my womb, for my bloodline bows to no one. I alone decide what happens to me, and mine."

She turns to Ambrose, and says: "There. I've said it. Keep your side of the bargain and let me end things the way I choose."

"Very well, Mrs Easton," Percival Ambrose says. "Carsten, do as I instructed earlier."

The tall figure with the obscured features replies: "Yes, master", and stretches out his left hand towards the Easton brothers, standing against the wall. It becomes apparent to Ciel and the other observers that Carsten is rendering the brothers incapable of movement, without physically touching them.

"Let me go!" Robert Easton cries, struggling to move, and failing. His brother does not attempt to speak, but his straining against his invisible bonds is causing him to break out in a sweat that plasters his fair hair to his forehead.

"What is he doing to them?" Ciel hisses in an undertone to Sebastian.

"He is immobilising them with a spell."

"Can you stop him?"

"No. It will take me at least half-an-hour to break through the shield he has erected around the entire room. Even if someone blows a hole through the walls of this tower with gunpowder, it will not penetrate that shield."

"Bloody hell."

They watch helplessly as Mrs Easton holds out a hand to Percival Ambrose, who slips a knife out from a sheath attached to a belt he wears under his coat, and places its hilt in her palm.

"Mrs Easton, no!" Lord Randall shouts, when he realises what she plans to do.

"I alone decide what happens to me and mine," she says calmly.

The Commissioner's men and the warders charge the doorway, but they are thrown backwards as hard as if they had flung themselves at a wall of stone. At Ciel's order, Sebastian ventures an assault on the invisible wall. He fares better than the men in that he is not thrown back, and succeeds in pushing his hand at least two inches deep into the magical shield, but that is as far as he gets before Mrs Easton walks up to her eldest son, George, and says to him: "From my body you came into this world, and by my hand and my hand only, you will leave this world."

She raises the knife to his throat and slits it deeply from one side of his neck to the other.

The devil Carsten releases his hold on the elder Easton brother, allowing him to collapse in a heap on the stone floor, clutching at his throat and gasping hopelessly for air through the gushing blood. Sebastian forces his fingers another inch deeper into the invisible shield, but even as he does, Mrs Easton steps up to her second son, Robert, repeats to him the words she spoke to her eldest, and slices his neck open with her blade. Carsten likewise releases his hold on him, and lets him fall to the ground beside his brother.

Outside the room, several men and one devil strain against the powerful shield, but cannot breach it before Sophia Easton passes over the terrified scullery maid and reporter cowering on the floor in one corner of the room, pronounces them unworthy of her attention, and turns back to face the people outside.

"No one determines how my life ends. Not God, not the Devil, not the Queen, and not you."

With that, she calmly raises the knife for a third time, and draws it deeply across her own throat. Blood pours down her dress. She drops the knife, sinks to the ground and sits upright for a minute in the centre of the great circle of green silk formed by the skirts of her dress, glares balefully at Ciel as the life leaves her body, and at last drops to the cold stone floor, dead.

The utter silence that falls over the room, inside and outside, is broken after several seconds by Percival Ambrose's voice: "She was a terrible woman, Lord Phantomhive. But she had the most admirable pride. Let that be a lesson to you – never allow someone else to determine how you live and die. Remember that, child, and when you next see me, perhaps you will allow me to save your soul."

The man nods to Carsten, who encircles him in his arms. Before the eyes of the humans watching them, master and servant disappear in a sharp gust of wind that blows a hole clean through the outer wall of the Bloody Tower. The invisible shield dissolves, and Lord Randall and his men tumble into the room where the Eastons lie dead. The scullery maid begins to scream hysterically, and the reporter holds his head in his hands and weeps.

"They didn't just disappear, did they?" Ciel whispers numbly to Sebastian, his feet rooted to the ground outside the room.

"No, my lord. Carsten picked his master up and broke through the tower wall. He moved too quickly for the human eye to see, but I saw. Shall I go after them?"

"No," Ciel says, watching the warders trying to calm Millie Clarke and help Stephen Chapman to his feet, and the Commissoner's men examining the Eastons' bodies. "Ambrose indicated that he would come to me. Let him come."

"Young Master, although I previously said we could wait for them to find us, I now see that it would be inadvisable to allow them to freely approach us. That devil is not only as powerful as I am, but uses his master's magical spells to amplify his natural abilities – which makes him more powerful than me. If they come to us, I may not be able to protect you as well as I ought to."

"I don't see that it matters," Ciel replies. "If I don't come to an end at their hands, I come to an end at yours, or someone else's. What's the difference?"

"Ambrose is dangerous. Something is wrong with his hold over Carsten – that devil is completely under his control, in the most unnatural way–"

"Which may be no bad thing, considering what your kind are like once you're given a little latitude," Ciel returns curtly.

Sebastian gives no reply.

After a word with Lord Randall, Ciel concludes that there is nothing more he and Sebastian can do here. Millie Clarke and Stephen Chapman will be questioned by the police and warders about what happened in the night, but they are in no state to be interviewed at present.

"Sebastian, we're leaving," the earl announces, walking down the stairs and out of the Bloody Tower.

He is in an uncommunicative mood, for he has been quite affected by the cold-blooded murders of the Easton brothers at their own mother's hand, and by Mrs Easton's calm suicide. Despite the shock, however, he remembers the most ridiculously practical of matters: Mey-Rin's eyeglasses, which they ordered from a London optician the day after he had promised the girl he would get her a new pair.

"Stop at the optician's to pick up Mey-Rin's spectacles," he tells Sebastian.

The butler directs the horses towards the optician's shop, and Ciel waits in the carriage while Sebastian collects the prescription eyewear. In a few minutes, the butler returns, hands over the wooden box with the glasses in it, and receives his next order: "Drive to the town house. I want to look at some papers there before returning to the manor."

Sebastian wants to say that with Ambrose and his devil on the loose, he would prefer Ciel to be back at the manor, where at least Baldroy, Finnian and Mey-Rin can help to shield the master while Sebastian tackles Carsten if the worst happens. But the boy is not in the mood to be contradicted, so he obeys, and heads for the town house.

Once there, Ciel immediately goes into the study, where he digs up old Phantomhive records which have always been stored here, and were thus spared destruction in the manor fires. Sebastian has already studied them. Ciel knows the butler will have been thorough, but he wants to look, anyway, at what may have been written by his great-grandfather at the time Ambrose last attacked humans in London. Fifty years ago, Ciel's grandfather would only have been a small child of three or four, so the earl in power then would have been his great-grandfather, Charles, the one who changed the family name from Winterbourn to Phantomhive.

The letters and papers from his time are written in a strong but elegant hand, with side notes which suggest that Charles Phantomhive was a compassionate man. He more than once expressed regret over having to kill or order the destruction of certain enemies.

Ciel sighs and puts the documents away. If his great-grandfather had encountered Ambrose and the succubi he used at the time, no records remain of it. He leaves the study, and is about to tell Sebastian that they should return to the manor, when the butler holds up a hand to stop him from approaching the front door of the house.

"What is it?" Ciel demands.

"Young Master, they are here."

"They... you mean..."

"Ambrose and his devil are outside. Stand back."

A knock sounds at the door.

"They wouldn't knock if they intended to harm me," the earl scoffs. "Open the door. I have some words for him for the part he played in the bloodbath at the Tower."

"I do not think–"

"At this time, I do not care what you think. Let them in."

Sebastian hesitates half a second before opening the front door, admitting Percival Ambrose and Carsten.

"Mr Ambrose," Ciel growls. "You are responsible for the murders and suicide of the Eastons – why could you not wait until the courts passed their judgement before passing your own?"

"Lord Phantomhive," Ambrose smiles, bowing to him. "I thought I was avenging the insult to you and Lady Elizabeth."

"I do not need you to avenge me or my cousin," Ciel answers angrily. "You should answer to me, to Scotland Yard, and most of all, to the Prince of Wales, for those deaths. You also need to account for the murders you committed in London fifty years ago."

"So you have learnt that I was responsible for the acts of fifty years ago," Ambrose remarks. "Well done. Your great-grandfather would have been proud of you. He caught me, do you know that?"

"He caught you? My great-grandfather?" Ciel asks, surprised.

"After I attacked my last victim, but spared him because he was a good man, your great-grandfather cornered me and my succubus with spells – Charles Phantomhive was very good with spells. But when I explained that I had let my most recent victim live, and intended to cease extending my years by means of extracting the life forces of other humans, he destroyed my succubus, then let me go. Because of his compassion for me, and his belief in my good intentions, I was in his debt. I was unable to repay him, however, before he died. So I decided that when the next opportunity arose to help his descendants, I would. I deeply regret not being in England three years ago, when your parents were killed – if I had been here, I would have intervened. But I wasn't here, and looking back at what might have been is futile. That I could help save the lives of Charles Phantomhive's great-granddaughter and great-grandson a few days ago is the little I have done so far to thank him for letting me go. Now, however, I hope to do even more."

"I don't need you to do any more than you already have," Ciel declares, wondering how old Ambrose really is, how he has sustained his youth without draining other people's life forces, and if the long years of living have not made him quite mad.

"I think you do, child," says Ambrose, taking a step deeper into the house as Carsten, with his face and dark-golden hair now fully uncovered, closes the door behind them.

Sebastian interposes his body between his master and the visitors, and Ciel instinctively moves backwards.

"You need me more than your father did, Lord Phantomhive," Ambrose insists. "For he only lost his life without losing his soul. You, on the other hand, have sold your soul to the devil, and you need me to save you."

"No, I don't," Ciel growls. "Sebastian, send them away!"

But as Sebastian begins to act on his master's command, Ambrose and the other devil move as one and throw something invisible at the butler that roots him to the spot, then slowly, painfully, forces him to his knees.

"Sebastian!" Ciel cries. He has for a long time wished to see his devil brought to his knees just so that he can wipe that smug look off his handsome face. But not like this... not like this...

"Young Master..." Sebastian gasps, straining against the bonds that hold him in place, and failing to break them.

"Release him at once!" Ciel orders the man and the devil standing before him.

"No, child," Ambrose says kindly, as if speaking to someone who may have difficulty understanding him. "I won't release him until he is completely under your control."

"He is completely under my control!" the earl snarls. "Stop it now!"

"You think he is completely under your control, but is he really?" Ambrose asks. "Look at my devil – now that is a devil completely under my thumb. He cannot take my soul, and cannot harm me, or so much as move without my command."

Ciel stares at Carsten's blank face and empty brown eyes, and suddenly understands what Sebastian meant about something being wrong with this demon. He looks completely lifeless, like a puppet on strings.

"Trust me, child," Ambrose is speaking again, moving closer to Ciel. "Devils are evil things. They make you think you can rely on them, then when you least expect them to, they betray you. Did this devil promise you would have full control in this contract he offered you? Did he swear that he could not harm you or consume you without your permission? That's the oldest trick of all – it's what the most devious of them do. They wait for you to trust them, let your guard down, even come to love them, then they tear your heart out of your body for the pure delight of seeing the terror and betrayal in your eyes. You are too young to understand, but that is what they do, their kind."

Ciel wavers. Ambrose's warning strikes deep and connects with the suspicions he has had of Sebastian since he broke their first covenant, and since he sensed Sebastian's peculiar urges towards him. Could it be true? That his butler would gain his trust purely to derive a greater thrill from consuming him when he would least expect it? That dream he had... of the devil's shadow looming over him when he was happiest and most innocent, playing with Lizzie and the dog in the garden, comes back to him.

"Is that true?" he asks Sebastian numbly, naively, lifting his eye-patch.

His butler forces his bowed head up, and looks into his young master's eyes, which are full of doubt and confusion. Sebastian gives a peculiarly resigned huff of laughter and whispers his admission to the boy: "He's not wrong. Devils are cruel things. I did think of betraying you, while you were naked in my arms, wounded and sick. But it was a thought, no more. It was a thought I forced myself not to act on. I have not wished to destroy you since."

The earl looks as if he has been hit hard in the face. He had of course considered that it was possible – but hearing it from the demon's lips wounds him, nonetheless.

"There, child, what did I tell you?" Ambrose asks. "You can only trust him when he is so completely chained to your will, like a beast tethered within a large cage which you are always outside of, that he can never damage you even as he serves your every whim. I have already set the spell in motion – the one I used to capture and bind Carsten, and which will bind Sebastian to you for as long as you live, while never permitting him near your soul."

"You've begun the spell?" Ciel gasps, startled.

"Yes. The very spell I used to keep Carsten from touching my immortal soul, which would also sustain my life using his excess power, so I could retain my youth without harming humans. It does not diminish the main body of his power, which is entirely bent to serving me. You will now benefit from it – you may safely live off your devil as long as you please. I do not intend to live much longer – I've lived three hundred years, and I'm tired. Humans were never meant to live this long, or to develop the level of magical skills I have. But I will do this for you before I die – I will enslave your devil to you, and prepare to give Carsten to you as well once I am gone. I will explain it all to you in detail after the spell is complete."

A stunned Ciel can only stare as the physical manifestations of the spell become apparent to his eyes. He and Sebastian are enclosed together within a large dome of yellow light, while Ambrose and Carsten stand outside. A net of demonic and magical power wraps around Sebastian, trapping him, while a frighteningly bright lance of light begins to emerge from Ambrose's right hand. A narrow hole opens in the surface of the dome directly opposite Sebastian, and the lance travels through that opening. It enters the dome and aims its sharp point at Sebastian's heart. From its blunt end springs a chain of light that curls and twines around Ciel's wrist – the thing that will bind Sebastian to him forever, like a tame dog.

"Stop it!" Ciel cries to Ambrose. "This is unnecessary!"

Sebastian looks at his frantic young master and says gently: "Let it be, my lord. I have deserved no better."

The lance of light is now only inches away from Sebastian. Ciel looks again at Carsten's painfully blank face, and thinks he sees a suppressed glow of anguish in his brown eyes. Then he looks at Sebastian's face, which he has never known to express so much pain while masking it with stoicism. Suddenly, he knows that he cannot bear it – he cannot allow this – despite his anger with Sebastian last night, he would now rather die than let this happen. He should have died long ago, anyway. And if he should chance to live, then he would rather trust in whatever devilish honour is in Sebastian's unfeeling heart than turn him into a puppet whose strings he holds.

"No!" the boy yells, and in one swift move, he grasps the chain of light entwining his wrist and rips it off, then throws himself bodily between the lance and Sebastian's chest.

"No, child, NO!" Ambrose thunders, appalled, as he sees what is happening, but is powerless to break through the dome or to stop the spell in an instant once it is in full motion.

Sebastian, in the midst of his suffering, feels for the first time in his long life the emotion of absolute horror as he sees the boy – his covenanted master – the one for whom he is meant to sacrifice everything – now sacrificing himself to protect him from a fate of eternal enslavement.

"Young Master, no!" Sebastian cries furiously, helplessly, only to see in that instant the lance piercing Ciel from behind, thrusting through his chest and impaling him with its white-hot light. Somehow, the butler finds the strength in the reserves of his power to break his arms free of the net binding him so he can catch the boy as he collapses, wide-eyed with pain.

Ciel gasps once, staring blindly into his demon's eyes. The lance vanishes in an explosion of light, and Ciel falls limp and senseless over Sebastian's arms.

Ambrose pounds on the dome with his fists as Carsten works to undo it, but even as the pair outside attempt to reach the fallen boy, the damaged, disrupted spell cracks within the dome, opening a jagged slit of yellow light behind Sebastian. With only his arms outside the net, holding Ciel, the devil can do nothing as a force like a whirlwind drags him backwards through the gap. He vanishes through the crack, holding Ciel tightly. In a second, the gap closes up after them, and the dome is empty.

Ambrose and Carsten break through the wall at last, but the boy and his devil are gone.
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Devilish Impulses