The Curse of the Blood Moon

"There are nights when the wolves are silent, and only the moon howls . . ." - George Carlin

Ciel couldn't sleep. Not for the reasons he normally couldn't sleep. He hadn't had a nightmare, nor had anything happened earlier in the day to cause him any unrest. The day had been busy with a history lesson, a trip into town to investigate the latest murder, and an hour's worth of those god-forsaken dance lessons Sebastian insisted he take. When he thought about it, that could have been the reason why Ciel couldn't sleep.

Sebastian had been acting strangely all day. The only way Ciel could describe it was as a sensitivity to the environment surrounding him. Every sound, no matter how subtle it was, was distracting; like a starving predator anticipating a meal, yet alert for another predator to jump out from the brush and attack. Certain smells seemed to prove to be equally as distracting. Ciel had done his best to ignore all the times he'd glance back at him and see him flaring his nostrils and wrinkling his nose, almost as if there was an overwhelming stench in the air. Then there was the fact that the demon had been tense all day; looking around, glancing over his shoulder, and looking uneasy.

Originally, Ciel had just written it off as a weird demon thing; something similar to his unnatural obsession with cats. Maybe the filth of London was getting to him, or perhaps someone had been following them, and Sebastian had just been trying to keep track of both them and his master. He wasn't sure, but he knew there had to be a logical explanation for it all.

But all of that had changed earlier that night when Sebastian had tucked him into bed. The first thing that struck him as odd was when the demon had left as soon as the earl was settled into bed. Even when Ciel had ordered him to stay by his side until he fell asleep, Sebastian had declined stating that he couldn't stay by his side that night, and jokingly told him to be a brave little boy. Just for tonight.

The next thing that struck him as odd, and even had him concerned, was when Sebastian had exited the room, and locked it behind him.

This is what had done in Ciel's ability to sleep. Sebastian never locked the earl's bedroom door behind him when he left. Whatever was going on with Sebastian was bad enough that he felt the need to lock him in . . . or, perhaps, keep himself out.

Curiosity got the better of Ciel as he crawled out of bed and made his way towards the door. He was trying to figure out how he was going to get himself out of the room when he felt something cold and hard under one of his bare feet. Just barely visible in the light of the full moon was the key that went to the lock on his door.

Now Ciel was certain. The earl was unaccustomed to doing things himself. Even buttoning his own shirts and tying his own ties were a challenge that he couldn't beat, so his butler wouldn't lock him in his room and toss the key under the door to get him to do things himself. Sebastian was trying to lock himself out.

As he was unaccustomed to doing things himself, it took the young earl a few minutes to fit the key into the keyhole just right to get it to slide in and turn, and it took another moment for the key to turn the right way so the door would open. Ciel peered through the narrow gap that had opened up before him and listened. The hallway outside his room was dark, deathly silent, and still. The other servants were most likely asleep, and Sebastian had to be somewhere around the mansion doing his nightly rounds. Or so he assumed.

The floorboards creaked ominously under Ciel's feet as he searched for his butler. It was too quiet. At the very least, he expected to hear the clapping of Sebastian's shoes against the floors as he moved about, or the faint glowing of the candle he'd carry with him. Instead, throughout the mansion, he heard nothing but the creaking of the floorboards under his feet against the eerie silence that seemed to envelop his home.

After finding no traces of Sebastian on the second floor, Ciel made his way down to the first floor and turned down the hallway that led towards the downstairs where the servants worked. He passed the sleeping chambers of the other servants, hearing nothing but the light snores coming from Finny and the loud, rattling snores from Bard. Their was a stairway that led up to Mey-Rin's bed chambers, tucked out of the way so her nightly routine didn't interfere with her master's. Towards the end of the hall, just past the doors to the kitchen, wine cellar, and supply rooms, was Sebastian's quarters. The room was practically unused. Since the demon never slept, he normally just went in there to dress and undress . . . as well as feed the growing number of cats he kept hidden in his wardrobe.

If Sebastian was nowhere to be found throughout the rest of the mansion, then that could only mean that he was in there.

"'So softly it starts,' he whispered. 'Foolishly clever and with an unsurvivable trust. It just saved your miserable life, that questionable show of thought, my itchy-witch.' Al's smile shifted, becoming lighter. 'And now you will live to possibly regret it.'" - Kim Harrison, "The Outlaw Demon Wails" (The Hollows, #6)

As Ciel approached the door to Sebastian's room, he could see that the door had been left ajar. The flickering light of a candle could be seen illuminating a small corner inside. As the earl looked through the gap in the door, he could see the candle sitting atop Sebastian's desk, but the butler was nowhere in sight.

"Sebastian?" Ciel called out, "Are you in there?"

Receiving no response, he pulled the door open and approached the candle that sat on the desk. Next to it was a pistol elaborately decorated in rubies and silver. It was fully loaded with the hammer pulled back. Underneath where the pistol had been placed was a note that Ciel assumed had been by Sebastian, only something about it was off. It wasn't written in the delicate cursive that the butler normally wrote in. Instead, the note had been written in crude chicken scratch.

'DoN'T hESiTaTe. It Is ThE BlOOD MooN. CAn'T PRoTeCT YoU."

The words sent a chill up Ciel's spine as he kept looking the note over. Sebastian had never said anything about the Blood Moon or how it affected him. The fact that he had written this note and left him the gun meant that he had expected Ciel to unlock himself from his room, and he expected him to go looking for him and come into his bed chambers. But that left one question on Ciel's mind. What happened to demons during the Blood Moon?

A noise coming from within Sebastian's wardrobe caught Ciel's attention. Normally filled with the mewling of cats, the only sound that could be heard now was a chorus of nervous growls. Curious, the earl picked up the candle and made his way over to the doors of the wardrobe. He pulled one of them back in a swift motion and met the eyes of a large cat with long black fur. The green orbs only glanced at him for a moment before they locked onto something just beyond the earl's shoulder. A few other cats crept up and peeked into the room outside, but quickly retreated deeper into the wardrobe.

Ciel tossed a glance over his shoulder, wondering what was there that they were so focused on. He could have sworn he saw a dark shape retreat underneath the bed. He tried to reason with himself that it was just a cat that had crawled out of the wardrobe, but some part of him was uneasy and doubted that reason. He had only caught a glimpse of Sebastian's cat hoarding obsession a couple of times before, but each time the cats were friendly and eager to be loved by the people that resided within the mansion. They seemed to be magnetically drawn to Sebastian in particular, as they practically threw themselves at him, approaching him like he was their rightful owner. Even the feral cats warmed up to the demon's presence almost instantly, and yet here was his collection of furry, purring, allergy-inducing pets with eyes wide and fur bristling.

Cautiously, Ciel stepped back over towards the desk and reached for the pistol, not once taking his eyes off of the dark abyss that seemed to lay under the bed.

"Sebastian?" he called again, "Is that you under there?"

Once again, he received no response.

Ciel crept up to the edge of the bed and knelt down, gun in hand and ready to pull the trigger if he had to. As he sat there, he felt a hot breath brush against his bare knee.

"Sebastian?"

He was about to bend down and look under the bed, when a hand suddenly rested on his shoulder. Ciel jumped, spun around, and aimed the gun. In the faint light still provided by the candle, he could see Tanaka stooped down beside him, the barrel of the pistol mere inches from his nose.

"Young Master," the elderly servant spoke in a confused tone, "What on earth are you doing down here at this hour?"

Ciel relaxed and light out a small sigh, "I was looking for Sebastian."

"Mr. Sebastian is still doing his nightly rounds," Tanaka explained as he picked him up and carried him towards the door, "You should be in bed, my lord. You'll make yourself ill."

As Tanaka carried him out of the room, Ciel kept his eyes fixed on the dark room that lay beyond the open door. Before they turned the corner that led to the stairway, he could have sworn he saw a large pair of glowing red eyes glaring at him from the darkness.