The Phantom

In Palermo, it turned out that the unbearable heat becomes even more unbearable when you can’t feel it. Ciel was quickly growing tired of wiping non-existent beads of sweat from his brow, sighing wearily, and shielding his invulnerable demonic eyes from the sun with his hand. His cues for how to behave usually came from Europeans tourists wilting in the heat, not the tanned locals, but at this hour, the tourists had all hidden from the sun. He couldn’t stop playing the part of an ordinary human, either. Who knew who might see them from the windows of passing cars, even in this deserted part of the city. Despite how easy it was to get lost among Palermo’s narrow streets, he and Sebastian quickly reached the half-ruined district they were looking for, marked on Earl Phantomhive’s smartphone map. News of this place had recently been shared on a paranormal enthusiast forum by yet another individual obsessed with the idea of making a deal with a demon. This square, Piazza Nera, could only loosely be called a square. It was an unmotivated, five-sided absurdity, surrounded, like everything in the city center, by tall, crumbling houses. All the buildings in the vicinity were in such poor condition that it seemed no one lived in them. Many balconies had collapsed, and the glassless gaps where windows should have been were crisscrossed with red-and-white or black-and-yellow striped tape, warning that it was better not to enter the buildings for one’s own safety. Ciel was sure the garish tape, so ugly against Sicily’s sandy orange hues, stopped no one, and that if he dared to enter any of the multi-story buildings, he would undoubtedly meet some homeless person or a bunch of stoned teenagers. But fortunately, the pair of demons weren’t interested in anything inside the houses. Everything they had come to Palermo for was contained within this pentagonal Piazza Nera, which seemed almost purposely designed for conveniently drawing a pentagram across its points. And someone had indeed drawn one! The forum post recounted how a long, long time ago, well before Ciel himself was born, a young man seeking power and wealth had tried to strike a deal with a demon here. He had successfully summoned the dark force, but he’d made a mistake in drawing the pentagram’s symbols, and the deal had fallen through. The demon lost power over his victim and had to leave empty-handed. This emboldened the young man, who, abandoning his attempts to stain his soul, set out to travel the world preaching his story. The plot of how he “fooled” the demon proved popular with his listeners and over time evolved into many legends, including Goethe’s Faust. According to the forum post’s author, the square still bore traces of that very pentagram the young man had used for the summoning on its stone pavement. Although the stone slabs had been partially destroyed during World War II, devotees of the legend of the young man who outwitted Satan himself, appearing once every half-century, had maintained the symbols carved into the pentagram, preventing them from completely cracking or being buried in dust. This lead had inspired in Ciel a long-forgotten feeling of hope. Even fragments of that pentagram would be a major step forward for him and Sebastian on the path to their goal. After all, Sebastian himself, having been summoned once, remembered the symbols cultists had drawn on the marble floor back then well; they only needed to compare those symbols with the ones here. During siesta, the streets were so empty that this ruined part of the city seemed completely uninhabited. Even on the approach to the square, Ciel complained nervously to Sebastian: “Summoning a demon in the middle of the city is so stupid. Why, when there are more impressive places for it? Like Etna? Why not summon a demon on the path to the summit of Etna?” “Think about it, young master,” Sebastian answered indulgently. “Who in their right mind would climb a volcano and risk their life if they want to live forever so badly they’re willing to turn away from God for it? They won’t climb a volcano for demons. For angels, perhaps. For love. But not for us.” Ciel shuddered. He still found it difficult—how naive!—to get used to the fact that he was now the same as Sebastian. Not human. “Be grateful it didn’t happen in the middle of the Conca D’Oro valley, for example. We would never have learned about it then.” The Earl nodded and stared at his phone again. Of modern inventions, Ciel liked the Internet the most. Thanks to it, they had been able to learn of the square’s existence in the first place and find its location. Ciel checked the Google Maps. “Right, we just need to turn here and…” He never finished. Sebastian, who had been faithfully following his contractor, also froze behind his master. The pentagonal square was there. Only, there were no stone slabs on the ground to speak of. In their place was just a construction site, fenced off and filled with poured concrete. Having left for siesta, the workers had abandoned their carts and shovels right in the center of the site, near a small, ugly fountain erected, of course, long after the events of the myth of the failed deal. Everything tightened in Ciel’s chest. Still stunned, he made to step toward the center of the square, but Sebastian held him back by the shoulder. It was a bit rough, but it kept the Earl from getting fresh concrete on his leather shoes. Ciel swore at length. “Nothing ever gets repaired in Sicily,” he uttered, barely audible. Then he cleared his throat and spoke louder, almost on the verge of hysteria. “Sebastian, nothing ever gets repaired here. Why this square… why did they decide to renovate this godforsaken little district right now?” Sebastian, who by his contract could not lie, answered simply: “I don’t know.” He too looked confused and even disappointed; being a hostage to a contract and serving an ageless Earl naturally didn’t please him. There were no decent photographs of the remnants of the ancient pentagram once drawn on the square online. Those who had seen those symbols along the points of the five-pointed star had never shared their discovery. “Who could have needed this?..” Ciel asked despairingly. He didn’t expect an answer. But an answer was given to him, in a woman’s voice and with a strong Italian accent. “The Grigio clan, of course. I can’t even remember how many years they’ve been pushing to have this square rebuilt.” Ciel turned around. Next to Sebastian stood a woman, an elderly local signora. “The Grigio clan?” Sebastian repeated, unlike Ciel, having perfectly heard someone approach. “The mafia?” The woman chuckled. “To you foreigners, everything is the mafia.” She shook her head. “No. Not the mafia.” “Then who?” Ciel asked impatiently. The woman was in no hurry to answer. She looked Sebastian over, then assessed Ciel with a scrutinizing gaze. They did the same to her. At first glance, the woman was too well-groomed and well-dressed to be one of the homeless living in these abandoned ruins. “Are you more bloggers, or what?” Despite the hot weather, the woman wrapped her shawl tighter and gave an eloquent glance at the phone in Ciel’s hand. He immediately locked the screen and put the smartphone in his jacket pocket. “No, we’re…” he began. Sebastian interrupted him. “I am a historian, Dr. Michaelis, and this is my apprentice. We are working on research about…” “Demons?” she finished in a skeptical tone. Ciel was surprised again. “How did you know?” The woman chuckled again. “Only those who dream of deals with the Devil come here.” Ciel was flustered by how many questions he wanted to ask this strange woman. They all swirled in his head, and he, which rarely happened, couldn’t keep up with his own thoughts. Sebastian, however, managed his emotions (if he had any) more skillfully. “The Grigio clan,” he reminded her. “Who are they?” The woman didn’t answer again. This was beginning to irritate Sebastian: with a movement noticeable only to Ciel, he pursed his lips and sighed in a constrained way. The woman suddenly turned away from them in the opposite direction, and it seemed to Earl Phantomhive that she would simply leave, but then she turned back and beckoned for both of them to follow. “It’s very hot here. Come.” As if enchanted, both demons followed the woman in an unknown direction. She walked in silence and didn’t turn to look at them. If they had simply stopped and not gone further or turned into one of the many alleys they passed, the woman wouldn’t have even noticed. But they didn’t turn anywhere. After all, it was important for them to learn something from this trip. When, after winding through the streets, they approached a noisy tourist route, Ciel grew tense. For a moment, it seemed to him that the woman was leading them to a church. The massive and mesmerizing Palermo Cathedral awaited them at the end of the path they were on. Ciel and Sebastian exchanged a glance but didn’t dare to run away yet. And finally, to their great relief, without quite reaching the church, the strange woman turned off the path and entered a residential building. Here the houses were in slightly better condition than around the square, but still looked completely unfit for habitation. In the shabby entryway, the woman nimbly climbed to the top floor via a steep staircase—the elderly signora was much sprier than she first appeared—and invited both demons into a tiny apartment. Ciel barely maintained his composure. Inside, the apartment was not in the same dismal state as the building’s exterior. The renovations weren’t new, but quite decent, and the decor itself was terribly dualistic: the spacious living room simultaneously held the diplomas, certificates, and books of a physicist, Professor Laura Lane, and her magical crystal balls, Tarot cards, runes, and, in the opposite part of the room, an altar with fresh flowers and several statuettes of gods. Laura Lane’s first move was to hurry to this altar to light the candles on it. She struck a long match once, twice, but the fire refused to obey. The woman turned to the guests still frozen in the room and squinted suspiciously. Setting the long matches aside on the windowsill, she pointed the guests to two armchairs by the coffee table, and they immediately sat down. “Would you care for some cold orange juice?” the woman asked, tossing her shawl onto the nearest sofa and already heading toward the refrigerator in the kitchen, which was combined with the living room. Sebastian didn’t react. Ciel only shook his head weakly. The woman definitely didn’t see his refusal, but she brought a glass of juice only for herself anyway, set it on the coffee table, and sat down opposite the demons in a wicker rocking chair. “I am Professor Lane,” she finally said. In the pause that followed, Ciel understood that he should introduce himself too. “I’m Ciel, this is Sebastian,” the Earl stated without further ado. “Tell us about the Grigios. Are they some kind of ‘ghost hunters’?” The woman pointed to a photograph on the wall. It showed her at around thirty, with a small group of smiling men and women; at the bottom margin of the photo was written “Grigio,” and below that, a motto: “Do not wake the sleeping.” “My father was the last known member of the Grigio to me. It was fulfilling his last wish, and with his money, that the city administration is repaving the square.” The woman took a sip of juice from her glass. “They didn’t hunt anyone. On the contrary, the Grigio clan believed in the existence of the paranormal but dedicated their lives to concealing any contact of the unclean with the real world.” Here, Ciel couldn’t contain himself and stared at the professor in surprise. “By the Grigio’s conviction,” she continued calmly, “people live much better if they don’t believe in demons.” The woman took a deck of Tarot cards from the coffee table, took them out of their pouch, and began to shuffle. She fell mysteriously silent again, leaving the floor to Ciel and Sebastian. The demon butler looked very focused on the photograph on the wall. Something in it had become a clue for him. Ciel wasn’t far behind, latching onto the same thought. “And how long ago was this… clan formed?” “A hundred years ago,” Laura answered. A fluffy black cat jumped onto her lap from the mysterious space under the coffee table. The woman set the Tarot aside and began to pet it. “A long time for some, not for others.” Sebastian’s attention immediately turned to the cat. He was no longer interested in the photograph or the inscription beneath it. He just watched the animal mesmerized, with something that looked suspiciously like fondness in his eyes. Ciel instinctively moved away, as if forgetting he was a demon and long past suffering from cat allergies. “A lot of various secret societies formed around the turn of the century, check me. I mean, any historian will tell you that,” Ciel corrected himself. “Why did the Grigio specifically last so long?” “Oh, because their founder, a Russian landowner, it seems, saw demons with his own eyes. And he took their side.” Ciel raised an eyebrow. “And you believe that?” “My father believed it,” the woman answered evasively. And suddenly she turned to Sebastian, who had remained silent. “Would you like to hold her?” Sebastian looked at the cat’s owner hopefully. “May I?” Laura simply lifted the large cat from her lap and passed her to Sebastian across the coffee table. The cat was indifferent to the relocation. “What’s her name?” Sebastian asked, settling the cat on his knees. “Cat.” Laura returned to the deck of cards. Ciel fearfully shied away from Sebastian and Cat. “Let me do a reading for you,” Professor Lane offered, addressing Ciel. “You didn’t find what you were looking for. I can try to suggest where the key to your problem lies hidden.” Ciel pursed his lips. The woman spoke in riddles. He simultaneously thought she was just a crazy old lady and that she knew everything about them and saw right through them. “It’s free,” Laura added softly. That wasn’t what convinced Ciel, but he nodded anyway, and the woman contentedly cleared the surface of the coffee table in front of her, moving the juice glass and the card box out of sight. She shuffled the beautiful, narrow Tarot cards again. Their edges gleamed with a gold border, and the design patterns on the card backs were no less interesting than the major arcana scenes. Ciel understood nothing about Tarot and so didn’t scrutinize which specific cards the woman was laying out on the table. He only watched her, trying to read what she was feeling, what she was thinking, but he could discern nothing in her. He wasn’t very good at it, but to not be able to read anything at all—this was something completely new for him. Laura laid out quite a few cards before finally speaking. “The Grigio can indeed help you in your search,” she mused. “But not they themselves, rather what they left behind.” The woman looked puzzled: she didn’t quite understand what she saw in the cards, yet Ciel understood perfectly what her reading was trying to convey to him. “In the end, your problem will present you with a choice. Both options will come at a high price. Both options will lead to victory.” Ciel leaned closer to the table, as if finally deciding to look at the cards, but the images stared back at him with silent reproach, not conveying the same knowledge they conveyed to their owner. “Both options will give me what I want?” Ciel asked disbelievingly. Yes, it was just a stupid Tarot reading, but he hadn’t expected to hear such hopeful words. Laura nodded. “And the choice will not be made by you.” The phrase landed heavily. Ciel didn’t care. If both options gave him what he desired, then what did it matter who decided to choose something for him? Let them choose. Only one thing was important to him—to break the contract. To be free. Ciel rose from his chair. It was best to end this meeting on a good note. “Thank you for your help. But we must be going.” He said the last phrase stiffly. The butler didn’t react. “Sebastian,” the Earl called. “Yes, we really must be going,” Sebastian agreed, speaking only to the cat, and handed the animal back to Laura. Cat parted with him as easily as she had ended up in the demon’s hands. “It was a pleasure to meet you.” While Ciel was already heading down the hall toward the door, Sebastian gave Laura Lane a deep bow. “Goodbye,” he said, and they left. Before speaking about Laura Lane, Ciel found the strength to walk silently for a couple of blocks. Who knew where the old woman might have ears. “She’s strange,” was the first thing he said. “Sebastian, did she know who we are?” Sebastian thought about it. “I’m not sure. I hold no power over witches who seek the patronage of gods.” “Is that why she was so hard to read?” Ciel understood. “Horrible. Like a blank slate. Like a dark room. Nothing.” Ciel fell silent, watching two young students on a Vespa pass by. “You understood, right?” he specified. “About the Grigio? Grigio means ‘gray’ in Italian.” Sebastian nodded and gave a sharp smirk. In the golden sunlight, his eyes looked naturally scarlet. A random passerby, drawing level with the demons, was frightened by the sight and scurried to the other side of the narrow street. “It all forms one picture,” the elder demon continued. “Russian nobles hid from political turmoil in Europe. So Duke Serov, our favorite, took you out of England at the beginning of the century, and about ten years later founded a society to protect demons from people.” Ciel laughed. “God, how stupid that sounds. And I didn’t even know he’d guessed who we were.” Sebastian snorted sarcastically. “You were so clumsy with your newly acquired powers back then, anyone would have guessed.” A group of young women walked past them, their high heels clacking loudly. One of the girls blew a kiss to Ciel. He averted his eyes with feigned indifference, but her scent, her young blood, and her loud thoughts—all of it reminded him of his eternal hunger. Sebastian noticed. “Wouldn’t you like to spend the evening productively?” he suggested with a smirk. “In places like this, moths fly to the flame themselves. Young master, you have no idea what exotic tastes you’re missing out on among the tourists.” “How disgusting,” Ciel replied coldly. This only made Sebastian more amused. “You can’t run from your hunger forever,” he feigned a sigh. “When was the last time you dined on a soul? You’re growing weak.” He took Ciel by the elbow and lifted his arm, as if wanting to check if his bicep was still there. The Earl pulled his arm away. He hurried to change the subject. “So, we need to go see that Russian Elizabeth. She is of the Serov line.” “You understand perfectly well she is not Lady Elizabeth,” Sebastian checked him. Ciel was beginning to tire of the elder demon’s impudence. “I don’t care who she is,” he raised his voice. “I only care about what she might know about breaking the contract.” Sebastian didn’t answer. He clearly had something to say, but his master became very difficult when angry, and Sebastian didn’t want to get into that right now. He doubted that Duchess Elizaveta Serova could know anything about demons and deals with them, but they had nothing left to do but try and find out for sure.