KuroShiritsutantei

Grell Sutcliff stared down at his latest victim, not a whore, not a woman even, but someone who he knew would be important to the Phantomhive boy, someone that the boy’s newest interest cared about. A certain Dr. John Watson. The man was tied down on the chair that was sitting in front of him, much like any other one of Grell’s whore-ish victims, though one of them he was not. Watson was merely a boy thing to be played with, information to be sucked dry out of a living husk. This would be an interesting (and to Grell’s pleasure, surely it had to be bloody) adventure.

“What do you want with me again?” Watson spat, blood splattering out with his words, making Grell’s body shiver in every sort of way. Out of the side of his vision, Watson barely registered tools that looked something like his own, medical tools. Who was this man, and why did he have tools much like Watson’s own?

“You’re going to be my informant.” Grell said, his lip curling up slightly to reveal his dangerously pointed teeth. He stepped over to the table where he kept his tools, and his array of make-ups that he would use on whores to paint them beautiful red, which, of course, he would not do to the doctor, since he had no intention of killing the man. “And nothing more than that.” Madame Red would not be happy with him, taking this man who had no interest for either of them, but she could just suck it up. This was Grell’s interest. “Nothing more at all…” He took a thin knife from the table, and stepped back over to Watson, cutting a small slit in his cheek, drawing thick, beautiful red blood.

Watson let out a small disapproving noise that made his cheek hurt even more. “Wh-” He attempted speech, but Grell had proven himself capable of rendering the doctor speechless with the simple cut that he had made with the scalpel.

Grell shivered again at the sight of the blood running down Watson’s cheek, the blood shining on the metal of the scalpel in the soft glow of the firelight. Grell turned around and went back to the table, reluctantly wiping the blood on a snow white handkerchief, staining the thing red with Watson’s blood., he sighed dreamily. The Madame would not be happy with him at all… “Tch…” The Reaper turned abruptly on his heels, his brown pony-tail (the one that didn’t suit his tastes at all) whipping around with him, and raised his hand. With strength unlikely for the woman that he wanted to be, Grell’s hand whipped down hard across his captive’s uncut cheek, sending blood splattering across the man’s face and the wall behind him.

***

“You think he’s in there?”

“I know he is.” Holmes’ face showed clearly the seriousness of the situation, if the killer was in there, then Holmes himself would be proven right with the Phantomhive boy, but if the killer was not, then he had to come by the alley they stood in at some moment, toward the house. “The last two victims were found in this alley, and the only place near here is that house.” He pointed to the building that was barely a yard or two in front of them. “If he’s not in there, then he will have to come by here.”

Ciel nodded slightly, still somehow managing to act formal even with the clothes of a peasant marring his dignity. Sebastian had insisted that he wear a ‘street child’s regular attire’ so as to not compromise the importance of the mission, and so he would not be suspected as the head of the Phantomhive household. Holmes had proven his point with the fact that the one named ‘Jack the Ripper’ had to be in the building, and if her weren’t he’d have to come by the alley that they were in, however, the Phantomhive had took other necessary means to find the killer.

Had he not ordered Sebastian to make a list of the suspected doctors in the area and directly attend to the questioning of each single one of them on their alibis and the whereabouts of that doctor on the nights of the killings? Holmes was impressed by the butler’s speed. Ciel blew off the detective’s praise earlier, it meant nothing to him, and it meant nothing to his demon. Ciel was poised to say something, words of impatience on his lips when the door to the building opened quietly.

He, Holmes and Sebastian blended themselves to the darkness, watching closely the figure that stepped out. The figure of a man took his glasses off, wiped the m on a handkerchief that he retrieved from his coat pocket, and when he was finished, took a comb out as well. The man brushed his hair out, and in the lighting that Ciel, Holmes and Sebastian could see, the length of dark brown almost magically changed into a vibrant, annoyingly red color. He clearly took out something from another small container and attached them to the lids of his eyes, then pulled a pair of red glasses and attached them to the chain around his neck. When his transformation was complete, he stood stock still, hands on his hips, watching down the dark alley way.

“A bit ostentatious isn’t it?” Holmes asked, his voice swelling purposefully from where he stood attached to the dark shadow of the wall. He took a step out of the shadow, facing the wall that was across from the trio, and abruptly turned to face the man near the doorway. “Grell Sutcliff.” Sebastian’s expression remained the same, but Ciel’s gasp was audible throughout the silence following the detective’s words.

“How…?” The child’s voice was soft, but filled with horror. He knew nothing of the world of the underground.

Holmes barely turned his gaze to the Phantomhive. “Earl Phantomhive, out of all of the doctors that your butler listed up earlier today, there was something that I had noticed when I did some investigating later on,” The detective nodded once in a manner of thought, and clasped his gloved hands behind his back. “All of the victims that were taken by Jack the Ripper had some other things in common besides their, ahem, career background, the chosen style of death, and the place of death as well.” He strode forward, meeting his glance with the changed Grell Sutcliff but keeping his voice at a level that was audible even to Ciel. “All of the women that were killed had gone to the same hospital, had operations done by the same doctor, a woman, whom you referred to as none other than Madame Red.” Holmes nodded once again and stepped closer to Grell, if this were any other situation, Holmes would have been dead already.

But Grell simply loved the light shined upon his beautiful bloody art, the art that even the audacious Madame Red could not understand. He loved it when something like this came along, some long monologue giving him his well deserved praise.