Warning: Details of the Black Butler version of the Jack the Ripper murders described in this chapter, along with other things such as organs in jars and a basement with corpses, you have been warned.
Encased in the envelope was a letter from the Queen herself and another addressed to Arthur Randall that Y/N was to give to him later that day. Apparently the Queen was set on hiring Y/N, even if she refused a face-to-face meeting with her. She wrote that it made Y/N seem very brave and mysterious: not just anyone would deny the Queen so she must've had some form of either great bravery or extreme stupidity. Further down in the letter the Queen stated that she would order Lord Randall to hire more officers and have them patrol the streets at night. She had already approved funding and had heard from Earls Grey and Phipps that lack of protection for the lower class was what had been causing Y/N to refuse her. "In the end, she always seems to get what she wants without hardly batting an eye," Y/N thought as she continued to read the letter. Working for the Queen was also going to pay handsomely once Y/N agreed to meet with her and discuss a method of payment. Y/N was practically being offered anything she wanted in return for service. That was one thing she was pretty sure the Queen would actually stick to. As long as she perceived Y/N as somehow lesser than her and maybe a tame dog on a leash, Y/N could count on being paid. If she was being honest with herself, Y/N saw no downside to this arrangement: the less fortunate would still receive protection and she would finally start earning some money. "Sounds like a 'win win' situation to me," Plus, she already knew how most of the cases ended so she knew who she could and couldn't trust.
Y/N heard the Undertaker laugh behind her as he watched the cogs turn in her head. She knew he had been reading over her shoulder, "Besides, Sebastian reads all of the letters she sends to Ciel, or Ciel reads them out loud to him so there shouldn't be any harm in letting the Undertaker read mine," Y/N rationalized as she put her letter back into the original envelope. "So, are ya taking the job?" Both of them already knew the answer to that question.
"Yes, I am, I'm not stupid," Y/N sighed, "She can have me killed or have my identity revealed should I refuse and besides, there are more pros than cons." This caused the Undertaker to laugh again. Y/N knew he still didn't understand that she knew exactly what she was signing up for.
"That job might not be as luxurious as you think," he warned her, his signature smile spread across his face.
"Oh I know," Y/N smirked, "It would be far too boring if I didn't have to do a little work."
Y/N knew Alice would panic if she woke up and Y/N was yet to return from her patrol so she had the Undertaker slide a note under the pub door.
Was out late, things went bad with an abuser, staying with the Undertaker. Making sure everything will be okay before I come back. See you by tonight. Sorry for not coming back sooner, I'll make it up to you!
-Y/N
The note was short but it quickly explained what had happened and where Y/N was, and it was in her handwriting so Alice hopefully wouldn't worry too much. The Undertaker had been kind enough to deliver the note for her so Y/N had waited patiently for him to return to his Parlor. As she waited, she looked around. Nothing was out of place from how she remembered it. Coffins littered the floor, cracks crept up the walls, waxy candles dimly lit the room, and glass bottles filled with organs and other things of that sort lined the walls and shelves. Any normal person would have probably left in a hurry, afraid of possibly having one of their organs on display, but not Y/N. She was perfectly content. She had wanted to stand in this room for so long it would've been a waste to leave on account of being spooked by some brain or heart floating in a jar! Y/N inspected the coffins, wondering which one would serve as her bed for the night. Just as she was beginning to work her fingers under the lid of a coffin she heard the Undertaker return to his shop. She let the coffin close and asked which one would serve as her not-so-permanent resting place. She was ushered over to an empty one which was lying on the floor, "This one, if you don't mind, I haven't a propa' guest room, don't get many folks staying the night," he chuckled again as he opened the lid for her. Y/N didn't hesitate to climb inside and lay down. This surprised the Undertaker a little bit; he'd never seen a human practically jump into a coffin like a cat would pounce into a box. He laughed again at the thought of Y/N as a little kitten rather than as the Lion she was.
"Oh, before you close me in here," Y/N said before he could shut the coffin, "What details should I know about the Ripper case now that I'm working on it?" Of course Y/N already knew everything she needed to know about the Ripper case, including 'who done it', but she couldn't arrive at that conclusion so easily without definitely becoming suspicious.
"Well, usually I charge but since this is your first case and I've enjoyed your company, I'll give you this tidbit of information for free," the Undertaker traced one of his long, black nails against the rim of the coffin, "All my Ripper clients have been lacking, you see. None of them have come into my care complete."
"They were missing an organ?" Y/N wasn't half bad at acting like she was almost clueless.
"Yessss, tell me, how did you figure it was an organ?"
"Well if she was missing a foot or a finger or something they would've mentioned it in the paper," Y/N was also good at bullshitting, "The reporters would've run wild with a missing limb story but they didn't, because they didn't know she was missing something. You can't account for someone's organs just by looking at them from the outside, you've got to look at their insides." The Undertaker chuckled again very darkly, impressed with how quickly she caught on.
"Milady is right about that, and do you have a guess for which organ he took as a prize?"
Y/N pretended to think for a moment before answering: "Their uterus?"
"Veeery good, and how'd you figure that?"
"Because whoever did this obviously has a thing against women, more specifically prostitutes. Whoever is killing them probably thinks that they either don't deserve to have the ability to have children, or they are abusing their ability to bare children by having sex but not to conceive a baby." Not a half-bad bullshit explanation, especially considering the fact that it was partially true.
"You're quite good at this, milady. You'll have this case solved in no time then," the Undertaker tapped his nails on the coffin's wooden lid.
"I hope so. Say, I feel a little bad for staying here, getting all this help from you and everything, and I've only told you one joke," Y/N had been silently praying for an opportunity like this for ages, "So why don't I offer you a chance to make you laugh harder than you ever have before?"
"Oh?" He was intrigued to say the least, his cheshire cat smile somehow growing.
"Let me stay until you get a customer who needs information. Let them come inside, tell you a joke and have them stand by or sit on this coffin. After they get close I'll throw open the lid and scream, pretending to be the living dead or something!" It was childish, true, but Y/N knew who would be walking through that door tomorrow, and she wasn't going to pass up on making the Earl, his butler, and his associates jump out of their skins. The Undertaker cackled at the thought.
"Why, that sounds like a lovely idea," He managed between breaths, "But what makes you sure someone will come for information tomorrow?"
"Well, I'm supposed to be working with the Queen's Guard Dog who's supposedly been informed of our new partnership. I haven't heard any word from them and time until the Ripper's next kill is running out. I feel like I would've heard or seen something if another one of the Queen's employees had made their way to your parlor."
"You really don't let anything slip past you, do you?" Y/N nodded before she yawned. The Undertaker fixed her hair, probably a force of habit, and told her goodnight before finally closing the lid of the coffin. Soon after she was engulfed in darkness did Y/N hear another coffin creak open and close and assumed that the Undertaker was also retiring for the night. Reapers did need sleep after all. Not long after his coffin closed did Y/N slip into unconscious sleep.
Y/N slept very well considering she was asleep in a coffin. Only when someone came into the shop did she wake up. Making sure not to make a sound Y/N tilted her head closer to the crack between the lid and the base of the coffin. She counted five different sets of footsteps. Y/N smiled brightly as she waited to hear their voices, if she was lucky it was the five people she had been waiting for. "Are you in... Undertaker?" Though it was muffled and distorted Y/N couldn't have mistaken his voice. Ciel Phantomhive and his associates just walked into the Undertaker's Parlor for information on Jack the Ripper. The Undertaker did his whole 'emerging from the coffin' act and terrified Madam Red, Lau, and Grelle. He also asked if Ciel was ready to step into his specially made coffin, which Ciel refused.
"She wasn't a 'client' in the 'ordinary folk' sense of the word." Now the Undertaker was describing the murders to Ciel, just as he had done for Y/N the previous night. "See I cleaned her up riiiight nice and pretty."
There was a small pause before Ciel pressed him for more information, "...I want to hear about that."
"Then let's have a chat," the Undertaker could hardly contain his laughter, "I'll make some tea or something. Won't you just take a seat somewhere over there?" That was Y/N's cue. She heard approaching footsteps, two people were walking over to her. If her memory served her correct it was Sebastian and Ciel. The footsteps stopped inches from her, only the wood separating them. Right before whoever it was could sit on the coffin, Y/N violently threw the lid open and screamed and growled. Her arms stretched out like some sort of zombie, her eyes rolled around in her skull and her tongue hung from her mouth. Four people screamed at the top of their lungs, one person howled with laughter and fell to the floor and the last person dove on top of Y/N, pinning her to the inside of the coffin. Y/N's screaming was cut off but it was soon replaced with hysterical laughter that could only match the Undertaker's. Y/N recognized that Ciel, Madam Red, Lau and Grelle had been the ones to scream, obviously the Undertaker was the one rolling on the ground with laughter and Sebastian now had her arms pinned and a hand around her throat ready to choke her out. Ciel began to yell at her that it wasn't funny and how he would have her head for that, Madam Red occasionally joining in. Grelle and Lau were trying to recover, Sebastian was peeved that she had almost scared the life out of his master, and the Undertaker was still laughing.
"What the Hell do you think you're doing?" Ciel screamed at her.
"Trying not to suffocate," Y/N breathed out as she continued to snicker, "And as much as I love this position we've found ourselves in, I do have business to attend to." Y/N wiggled from underneath Sebastian's grip. The Undertaker howled louder and almost everyone else looked a little uncomfortable at what she was insinuating. Sebastian looked to Ciel before he let Y/N go and left to stand beside his master, a little bit more on edge in case someone else was going to pop out of a coffin.
"Who do you think you are, scaring someone like that?" Madam Red took a turn to yell at her.
"Someone with a better sense of humor than you lot, that's for sure," Y/N rubbed her throat as she sat up inside the coffin. The other five glared at her as she and the Undertaker continued to snicker with each other. "Hey, 'Taker," Y/N finally managed between laughs, "Where's our buddy from last night? He still in the basement chillin' with the cold ones?" The Undertaker laughed even harder, she had used slang around him before. She had accidentally slipped some slang to him once or twice, and he had figured it out pretty quickly. Everyone else looked at her like she was purely insane and the Undertaker cackled harder. He managed to stop gripping his sides for a moment to point to the entrance of the basement.
Y/N pointed finger guns at the Undertaker, winked, clicked her tongue and said "Bitchin'," before she hopped out the coffin and made her way to the basement's entrance.
"What do you think you're doing? You can't leave-" Y/N was already halfway down the basement stairs before Ciel stopped yelling behind her. Y/N felt the smell of death hit her nose like an unwashed brick wall. She looked over the bodies and other things that littered the room before her eyes landed on the very much still-alive man from the night before. Y/N sighed before she walked over to him, lifted him onto her shoulder, and hauled ass back up the stairs.
Once she made her way upstairs she threw up some peace signs and excused herself, "Duces, Undertaker and company. I gotta get this one to the hospital, before he, ya know, croaks. See ya!" Before Y/N could make it out the door someone placed a hand on her shoulder. The hand was gloved in white fabric. Y/N turned to look at Sebastian, "Look, I know we might've had a connection back there in the coffin but this man is dying and I don't want to deal with his corpse. It would be unsightly, wouldn't you all agree?" Everyone looked at her, weighing the options: let the crazy coffin woman go or let a man die from 'carriage accident' injuries. Ciel motions to let her go and Sebastian released his grip. "Thanks, if you're lucky you'll get a chance to get back at me for that joke later." Before anyone could question what she meant she was out the door and halfway down the street.
A few people had looked at her funny when she lugged the man from the Undertaker's to the nearest police station, but she didn't care. She was still snickering about what she'd just done. She had almost gotten herself strangled by Sebastian but it had been well worth it to hear the sounds of the other's screams. Y/N was sure she had just earned a year's supply of free information from the Undertaker, all from one little prank. Once Y/N got back to the pub Alice ripped her a new one about how worried she was. She ranted for almost an hour about how afraid she was that Y/N was hurt or someone had gotten killed. Christopher had come down to greet Y/N but began walking back up the stairs when he saw his mom drilling Y/N on what she had been doing the previous night and that morning. Y/N was surprised she hadn't started crying, but she was pretty sure that was only because she kept mentally replaying the faces of Madam Red, Grelle, Lau, Ciel and Sebastian when she popped out of the coffin. She made sure not to smile but she couldn't stop thinking about how peeved they must still be; Y/N had just scared the life out of them and used a dying man to get away unscathed. To say she was proud was an understatement.
Eventually Alice ran out of breath and Y/N began to talk. Y/N gave her a detailed account of her night and morning (minus the coffin prank). She even showed her the letter she had gotten from the queen. Alice read over it three times before she looked up at Y/N, eyes as big as saucer plates. "The Queen wants you to look into these murders?" Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"Yes, I know it's dangerous but I'll be working with the Guard dog. I know you don't like him but he has a ton more experience with this than I do and he can help me out. The more people working on this case the better," Y/N reasoned with Alice.
"I know that," Alice remarked, "I just don't like the idea of you working with a man you don't know when a serial killer is on the loose tearing women to shreds!"
"Trust me," Y/N smirked, "I met him this morning. He won't lay a hand on me."
"What makes you so sure he could-"
"He's like twelve and barely closing on 150 centimeters tall," Y/N laughed, "If he lays a hand on me I can literally kick him into the next city!"
"He's a KID?" Alice loudly scoffed, believing her at all.
"I met him this morning, he's a bratty earl with a butler that looks like a depressed praying mantis in a tailcoat," Y/N argued, voice getting louder, "He won't touch me and his butler won't either, trust me." Alice went silent.
"There's no talking you out of this, is there?" Alice began to match her volume and tone.
"No, there's not," Y/N told her, "I'm sorry but I'm not going to give up this opportunity. Plus the police will finally be able to get more officers hired and on the street. This is what I've been working for and it's an amazing opportunity!"
"And the money she promised doesn't have anything to do with it?"
"No, because if I wanted that money I probably would have stolen it by now, and I would have kept all my tips instead of giving them to you and Christopher," they were almost shouting, "Look, Alice, I don't care about the money. What I do care about is keeping London safe. With this," Y/N held up the envelope, "I can finally do that!" Alice looked like she wanted to say something more but she had become close with Y/N and she knew Y/N wasn't going to back down.
There was painful silence. Y/N was waiting for Alice to say something else. When she finally did, it wasn't what Y/N was expecting, "Fine, but if you get hurt in any way, you are to come back here and I will unleash Hell on whoever hurts you!" She sounded like Molly Weasley. Y/N broke out into a huge smile.
"Oh trust me honey, no one is going to lay a hand on me," Y/N placed a hand over one of Alice's before they both got up and went back to work at the pub. Y/N was in a better mood than Alice but despite being a little angry at her, Alice was definitely proud of her friend.
Back at the Undertaker's Parlor...
"Who the Hell was she?" Ciel was more than enraged. He had already asked all he wanted to know about Jack the Ripper and 'his' victims and was now demanding information on Y/N.
"Hmmm, her name is quite the unusual one," the Undertaker giggled to himself, "Y/N, she's a good friend of mine."
"A friend?" Ciel was more than skeptical; not many people would pursue a friendship with the Undertaker.
"Yeees, she's good for a laugh and quite easy to talk to," snickered the Undertaker, "If you're lucky you'll run back into her. As far as I know she works around here as a waitress."
"And what was she doing in that coffin?"
"Unlike you she appreciates me coffins. She needed a place to sleep and was happy to hop into one for the night, had some real good jokes too!"
"And is she one of your regular customers?"
"If you're thinkin' of that man she had with her, he was hit by a carriage last night an' she brought him to me so he could be helped until she could get him to a hospital." The Undertaker wasn't going to give everything about his friend up to Ciel, not even for another joke.
"You know what I meant!"
"Do I, milord? Do I?"