His nerves had tingled when the news arrived, possessed by the thrill of finally acquiring a live specimen. Now the bright crystalline eyes peered into the cage, searching between the bars. Abraham held it up, closer to his face than others might dare. But the Hellsing scientists were accustomed to his unconventional lack of restraint. Curiosity turned the cage round like a globe, as the irate occupant screeched and chittered from where it clung to the high corner of its metal box. The forked nose sniffed as the world beyond the tight bars swirled, all direction lost as the motion cut back to be turned and angled incessantly.
The near spillage of guano paused the examination, though not out of disgust that might result in a loss of interest. Abraham replaced the cage carefully, deciding it was best to leave it on the table. With this accommodating stillness, the little beast inside thought it would finally have some peace. But, betrayed by the assumption, it released an infuriated cry when Abraham's huge face lowered into view, as the man crouched to make further observations.
Thin, folded wings waved aggressively as the stubby, tac-like fangs remained exposed, to dissuade the man from trying to eat or harm it. The threat did nothing to abate Abraham's eagerness, however, and the fangs only succeeded in mesmerizing him. Abruptly, the man's face slid away as his body straightened into the bat's view. And then the man was gone entirely. But only briefly, for the duration of the shuffling packages and clinking jars, and other clutter on the teeming shelves was jostled by the man. Once Abraham had uncovered the item he sought, his smile fused to his features, lightly crinkling his eyes. This was how the bat saw him, when the face returned, though now a hand was also visible. Pinched delicately between a large thumb and forefinger, radiant blue flicked between a corked vial and the bared bat fangs.
The bat did not heed the useless fang within the glass capsule. It could do no harm, having been removed from whatever monster it was grown in. It instead preferred to focus its annoyance on the human being that refused to retreat.
Abraham had a loud, shouting laugh, when he made a discovery that pleased him. And, unused to the sound, it startled the bat badly. The small beast hissed furiously at the moving blunt human teeth, wings waving threateningly and hair bristling, all to no effect.
"Yes, those back fangs bear a much greater resemblance. Those primary fangs, they are too rat-like. But do the second set of fangs ever pierce the skin? I wonder." Abraham spoke from the cage, examining and turning over the vial as a man stood at the neighboring table, beside the one currently occupied by the bat.
After a pause was used to reassess his jumbled thoughts, the scientist continued to write in the log book. "I'm not sure, Commander. But you've riled up the beast enough, haven't you? I don't want this to become any more complicated than it already is."
Abraham hummed, and his grin regrew itself when he looked up to find the bat snarling at him in the cage. "Too bad tranquilizers are said to be too much for them." After a moment, bright blue was gazing into the side profile of the scientist. "Wilfred." The man did not respond. Abraham watched him, the smile shrinking over time. "Wilfred. … Wilfred!"
"Yes sir?" The calm disguised the reluctance with which the man divided his attention between the Commander and his work.
"Have we readied the small pig? We will see it eat, tonight, yes? It must eat."
The pen scratched ink into the log, and grey eyes followed the black scrawl across the page. When he broke onto the next line, Wilfred allowed the Commander's questions to register. "Ah. …No, and then most likely, yes, sir. The word you are looking for is 'piglet.'"
The excitement refueled by Wilfred's reciprocation, Abraham's white teeth set the bat off on another fit of hostility that beat against the bars and filled the room with a ruckus the hard working scientist did not appreciate. "Ach, das Schweinchen ist das 'pigget'?"
"Pig-let, sir."
"Yes yes, I see. It is very charming, the name. Rotund in sound."
Wilfred took a subtle, prolonged breath, as he neared the end of his task. "Our Schweinchen is not very round."
The shouting laugh and succeeding similar shouts rattled the bat around the cage, as it dropped from its perch to flutter wildly about the small space it had available. This activity distracted Abraham from the scientist as Wilfred straightened, and his hand swept over the booklet, shutting it, before he pushed it towards the back of the table, neatly pressing the log book against the wall so it would not be crooked. He extracted a pair of much larger booklets from a shelf, and left them lying open on the table. Finally looking at his Commander, he saw that the great Van Hellsing had remained crouched on the floor and was obviously combating the urge to poke his fingers through the bars of the vampire bat's cage.
Wilfred paused to take one of the prolonged breaths that kept him running, winding his mental mainspring with what he imagined to be, at this point, a very well-worn key. He felt like his son's wind up drummer, tapping out the rhythm his Commander gawked at and, of course, did not himself follow. Work would be slow tonight. Yes, Wilfred thought, as he tapped on a shoulder to have the Commander withdraw his fingers from the cage. It most certainly would be.