"I'm finished, Lady Serena.", Sebastian had only said to her when he came out of the much too quiet house. Despite the darkness, Serena had seen the blood on his white gloves, but she had said nothing. Sebastian hadn't said anything since they left. Only when they stopped over in Manchester had he exchanged a few words with her.
It was three days since Wyrodd's death and it was late in the evening when they moved to their temporary accommodation in Bristol. As is so often the case, they had looked for a small boarding house that they would leave again at the crack of dawn. Even though Serena didn't feel like talking big either, she was beginning to be frighten by her butler's behavior. She wasn't used to Sebastian being so silent.
"What do you have, Sebastian?", Serena finally asked into the silence. She sat on the bed in her small room while Sebastian stood at the window and looked out into the dark night. Very slowly he turned his head to her and looked at her for a moment in silence.
"It's nothing, my lady.", he said and a faint smile formed on his face. Serena frowned suspiciously and looked at him appraisingly.
"But you don't act like that.", she commented and Sebastian closed his eyes for a moment, smiling very weakly and shaking his head. Then he walked slowly over to her and kneeled on the floor directly in front of her.
"It's really nothing, Lady Serena.", he protested and gently took her hands in his. His gaze bored into hers and once again Serena couldn't help but notice what wonderful eyes he had.
"Please don't worry for no reason.", he added and his smile widened a little. Serena eyed him appraisingly for a few moments, then slowly cocked her head and then nodded weakly.
"Okay.", she relented in a low voice and ran a hand through her hair. So much had happened at once in the past few days that she had become more and more tense. She gently withdrew her hand to cover her mouth when she tried unsuccessfully to suppress a yawn.
"You must be tired, my lady.", Sebastian stated and straightened up again, "You should go to sleep.". She looked him in the eye for a moment. In other situations she would have made a little joke and called him sensitive, but although she was so glad that he was by her side, Serena was not in the mood to laugh. Her thoughts wandered again and again to the still distant Cornwall and to her little Hyder. She now was so close to finally being able to see him again and this filled all of her thinking.
"You're right.", she said after a short pause and was already pulling her shoes off her feet. She got up slowly and let Sebastian help her out of her clothes. The moment she stood in front of him, naked, he leaned down gently and pressed a light kiss on her collarbone, exactly where the dark purple symbol of her contract was emblazoned. Then he straightened up and watched her as Serena put on her nightgown.
As in so many nights before, Sebastian went to bed with her. He had taken off his shoes and jacket and unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt so it was more comfortable for him. The bed wasn't very wide so they had to be very close together. Serena cuddled up to the side of his torso while he put his arm around her and closed her in a loving hug. Shortly after she closed her eyes, Sebastian gave her another quick kiss on the top of the head.
"Sleep well, my little star.", she heard Sebastian mutter before Serena fell asleep plagued by exhaustion and tiredness. But her sleep was by no means restful.
Serena ran across a large, dark meadow, lined with numerous fir and spruce trees. Her cottage was at the end of the meadow. She recognized it immediately, although it looked even more run down and neglected than it already was. Determined and without making a sound, Serena ran across the meadow towards her cottage. What was already worrying her was the fact that she was alone. No Sebastian ran behind her. At some point, Serena's feet quickened and she ran towards her cottage, only to see that when she arrived the building had crumbled into ruins. The glass in the window had shattered, the front door, half broken off, hung on its hinges and only a good quarter of the roof was left. Serena entered the house cautiously and stood in a completely filthy entrance hall. Pieces of furniture that didn't really belong there were lying around in ruins and crooked, and under a few scraps of fabric that had probably once been curtains, she could make out a few skeletonized hands.
Startled, she pressed her hands to her mouth so as not to scream out loud. Then she looked around, confused. Only now did she notice that not only did she appear to be silent, but that she could not hear any other noises in her surroundings. It was as if the whole world had fallen silent and stopped. Only she herself was the only movement in this bizarre situation. Carefully she started moving again and walked towards the stairs, hoping to find answers to all of that on the upper floors. But in the middle of the stairs a single noise echoed through the whole house and through her body, as if she were part of the facility that seemed to soak up everything that was happening here. It was a cough. A low but convulsive cough. As if petrified, Serena stopped and wondered if she had only imagined the sound when she heard it again, this time louder, more desperate.
With a jerk, Serena suddenly straightened up in her bed and her eyes wandered frantically through the dark room for a few seconds before she realized that she had only been dreaming. With a hand that was still shaky, she wiped her sweat-dampened forehead and tried to slow her breath back to a normal pace.
"Sebastian?", she then whispered softly and already held out her hand, "I have ...". The word stuck in her throat when her hand only touched the pillow next to her. A little clumsily, she felt for a moment in the dark only to find that she was alone in bed. Panic rose in her immediately, because the last time she was in such a situation, she had had to fear for her life. Serena quickly tossed her head around in order to be able to at least make out Sebastian's silhouette or the glow of his red eyes in the darkness of the room, but she saw absolutely nothing.
But then suddenly she heard the cough from her dream again. It reached her ear, suppressed and pitiful, and made her feel nauseous.
"Sebastian, where are you?", she whispered again and despite the whisper her voice accidentally shrilled a few octaves up. Serena heard the rattling cough again, but this time she knew for sure that it was coming from one of the corners of the room. Carefully she got out of bed and narrowed her eyes to see something. With a shaky hand she reached for the oil lamp on her bedside table and let it light up. The shaky little light wandered briefly across the room before it got caught on a figure in the corner.
When Serena saw Sebastian like this, her heart seemed to skip for an excruciatingly long moment and she had trouble not just dropping the lamp in her hand and then rushing to him. He crouched in the corner of the room, his back against the wall and his legs drawn close to his body. His hands and the area around his mouth were smeared with blood and all color seemed to have drained from his face. He looked like he had died several hours ago and his entire body was trembling incessantly.
"Sebastian.", Serena managed with difficulty and she felt how small tears gather in the corners of her eyes. Very slowly, as if she was afraid that she would cause him pain with too fast movements, she walked up to him and kneeled on the floor directly in front of him. When she sat down in front of him, he raised his head a little and looked at her with tortured eyes.
"Lady ... Serena. I ... ", he panted hard, but was interrupted by a strong urge to cough. He coughed with a gasp and Serena froze to stone when she noticed the amount of blood he was coughing up. He pressed a hand over his mouth as best he could, but Serena saw the blood that was dripping down his hand and heard the tortured strangling sounds he tried to suppress.
Serena had never felt so helpless. Not even when she saw the death of her father or mother. Sebastian had always been the constant in her life who, despite everything, was always there. As unshakable as a mountain that could defy any storm. To see him so suffering now made Serena break out in a cold sweat of fear.
"Sebastian.", she now cried and the first tear made its way down her cheek, "What ... What about you?" .Shivering, she reached out a hand to touch him somehow, but he shrank from her movement like a shy animal. Then she withdrew her hand and straightened up again. While she tried to somehow calm her loud and uncontrolled heartbeat, she looked around the room.
"I have to ... I have to get help.", she explained more to herself than Sebastian, "Somebody has to help you.". Serena kept nodding to confirm to herself that this was the right solution. Someone would find out what happened to her butler and they would be able to help him too. As she approached the door, he coughed a few more times before he took an audible breath.
"Don't ...", he rattled, "No, my lady.". Startled, she turned her head to him and stared at him with tearful, wide eyes.
"What?", she beeped slightly panicked, "But ... someone has to help you.". She saw him shake his head weakly and pleadingly at her.
"No ... nobody can help me against that.", he said in a croaking voice and it was clear that speaking was very exhausting. The tears flowed down her cheek more and more and she shook her head again and again. Carefully she walked up to him again and sank down on her knees in front of him.
"But ... I ... I ...", she stammered and helplessly held out a hand to him, "I have to do something ...". Shivering, she put her hand on his cheek and she was shocked by the cold that received her there. It was like dipping her bare hands into a lake in the dead of winter.
"No ... my lady ...", he coughed again and leaned his head slightly towards her hand, "You don't have to ...". Then he had to fight again with a strong coughing attack and the blood from his mouth splashed now on Serena's hand and partly on her nightgown.
"Sebastian ...", Serena cried and now reached out her other hand to him in order to be able to frame his face completely, "What ... What about you?". He just stared at her for an agonizingly long time, but was silent. The only thing Serena heard from him was his irregular breathing and painful cough.
"Please Sebastian ...", she now whispered pleadingly and her thumbs gently stroked his cheeks, "Please tell me what's going on.". She knew he had this information, otherwise he would have acted differently. But again he just looked at her with his red eyes. Anger and desperation made their way to the surface in Serena and the tears flowed even more violently down her face.
"Tell me what's going on.", she said more urgently, but her voice broke away from the tears and plagued by her convulsive crying, her whole body contracted and shook her gently. But she kept her hands on Sebastian's face and looked at him helplessly with watering eyes. Again he just looked at her quietly for a moment before she heard him sigh very softly.
"I ...", Sebastian began quietly and had to cough briefly, "I really thought that I would ... be able to...". Confused, Serena looked at him and her hands slowly and carefully sank down his face, then she pulled them back. But to lose contact with him completely would have made her even more hysterical and so she gently put a hand on one of his knees that was right in front of her.
"To ... what?", she asked with a sniff and wiped her eyes briefly with the other hand. Then he laughed very briefly and gasped and Serena stared at him in surprise. The corners of his mouth had drawn up very faintly, but infinite sadness was reflected in his eyes.
"I wanted ... to cancel the contract.", he gasped and fixed her with his gaze. Serena's whole body froze at his words. It was a few words what he had said, but the meaning behind it was so immense. Serena had never even considered trying anything like that. That option had never existed for her, and now that she saw what that possibility entailed, she felt only strengthened in her thinking.
"You ...", she whispered, still stunned by his words, "You wanted to undo our contract?". He nodded weakly and now she realized that there was not only sadness in his eyes, but also an apology.
"Why?", Serena could only whisper and stared at him in disbelief. Her hand on his knee grew colder and she could literally feel the color and warmth draining from her face. The pure, sheer fear for him spread inside her and crept into every corner of her trembling body.
"Don't you know that yourself?", Sebastian whispered strainedly and did not take his eyes off her. "And ... you know what awaits us in the end ... ". She pressed her jaws together, trying unsuccessfully to stifle the next burst of tears.
"I had ... really thought that I would be able to do this as a demon ...", he said again with a rattling voice, "But ... apparently there are rules that even I have to submit to ...".
"And that's why ...", Serena tried to put everything together in her head, but just didn't dare to speak the gruesome truth. He nodded weakly and Serena heard a very low, sad sigh from him.
"Yes ... my body ... now gives me the ... the punishment for this breach of contract.", he continued her sentence, saying what Serena was most afraid of. She wasn't even able to think about her little brother anymore, only the fear for Sebastian still filled her. Very slowly, as if she was afraid that she would somehow cause him pain, she leaned forward and put her arms around his neck. In another fit of tears she finally hugged his cold body and buried her already wet face on his shoulder.
"No ... that ... that mustn't be.", she cried and pulled him closer and closer to her body, as if to be able to give him some of her strength. Only now did she understand why no one could help him. The best medic in the world could have stood next to her and still could not have done anything for him. Sebastian succumbed to a gruesome force that no one in the universe could do anything about.
But then Serena suddenly froze in her crying and this realization widened her eyes. Carefully she straightened up a little again and wiped her cheeks dry with one hand.
"Sebastian ...", she said in a husky voice and looked directly at him. His eyes searched hers and very weakly he knitted his eyebrows in question.
"I ... I command you not to fight the contract anymore.", she stuttered, trying to breathe as evenly as possible. As absurd as it was, this might actually be a way to end Sebastian's suffering.
"What ...?", he managed to get completely confused and had to cough up another gush of blood. With trembling hands, Serena grabbed his shoulders and shook him a little, even though she knew she was causing him pain.
"Obey my command, Sebastian.", she said a little louder, but her voice still broke strangely at the end of her words.
"But then ... then ...", Sebastian tried to rebel against her instruction, but was again shaken by a strong coughing fit and bloody tears formed in his eyes. The blood now seemed to flow out of all orifices and for a terrible moment Serena was afraid that by giving an order she had only made things worse.
"I don't want it to end like this for you, Sebastian.", Serena now said and gathered all the strength she had, "Obey me.". It took a lot of effort to talk to him so calmly. The metallic smell of his blood rose to her nostrils. Sadly, she had smelled this smell many times before, but since it was his blood, it almost turned her stomach. It was probably the adrenaline in her body that saved her from vomiting right away. Sebastian looked at her convulsively and tormented for a moment and the unwillingness was clearly visible in his eyes, but then he nodded very slowly and weakly.
A jolt of relief went through Serena when she noticed how his body instantly stopped shaking. He had to cough a few more times before his breathing seemed to gradually become even again.
Serena instinctively threw herself forward again and wrapped her arms around her butler. She hugged him as tightly as she could and after a short while she felt his hands on her back as he returned her hug.
"I ... I'm sorry ... Serena.", she heard him whisper very softly, but she just shook her head and kept hugging him tightly. Very slowly she rubbed his back up and down and pressed a quick kiss on the cheek.
"It's all good.", she breathed in his ear, even though they both knew she was lying. Still, Serena began to sway him very gently, as if she were holding a small child instead of a full-grown demon in her arms.
Neither of them said more as she continued to sway Sebastian back and forth. Both knew that they now had to suck up every drop of this precious time together, because at least now it was clear to them that it would all too soon come to an end.
Published on 12-03-2021
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