I couldn't wait any longer. The new Hellsing, Integra, had brought herself to my doorstep like a neat package gift wrapped in that hideous olive green and topped with a pretty red bow. Leave it to Incognito to draw her out into the open. I was going to have to thank him later.
He knew me, my history with the Hellsings. I had been a prisoner, a lab rat, of Abraham Van Helsing's for fifteen years before he'd been distracted by that Nosferatu, that bloodthirsty Count Dracula. He had made me suffer for years, day after day, for hours on end, trying to see what made me tick, what made me the kind of creature I was. All the times I had been cut open, carefully carved and parted and examined like a dead pig. I had screamed for him, cried for him, begged for mercy and release, for fifteen years and got none. I was given no respite, no kindness, although I knew I'd never given any in return. But what he did to me was different. I let my victims linger for a few days, a few hours. In the end I was quick about it, I made death come in a matter of seconds.
Van Helsing did nothing of the kind for me. He let me linger for fifteen years, let me suffer for all that time. He had no intentions of finishing me off. I was never going to die at his hands. I was never going to be free of the endless cycle of torture. Despite my lack of religion, I prayed. I prayed every day that this would be the end, this would be the day I could walk out of his laboratory and never have to see him again. What did I get? Nothing.
Not until Count Dracula emerged from the shadows.
It was as though Van Helsing forgot I ever existed. He went off hunting Dracula, hunting down the monster that terrorized his village. I was left chained in the darkness of his basement. I was left to bathe in my own misery and self pity, my blood and pain. I should have been relieved that Van Helsing had found a new toy to play with, but I wasn't. I could only wonder when he would tire of Dracula and come back to me.
I was afraid.
Countess Carmilla Karnstein, afraid of a human.
The only human who had ever brought me to my knees. Not even Laura's father could have done as much.
What I would have given to be back under his roof instead of Van Helsing's.
I escaped one night while Van Helsing was out hunting Dracula. One of the man's idiot servant boys came to check on me. A sweet notion, but ultimately the wrong one, the poor boy. He gave his blood to me, and with that he gave me back enough strength to break the chain around my neck and free myself from the silver shackles that had kept me bound to the floor. I knew then I was never going to let another human get the better of me. I was never going to bow down or cower before another human. I was a vampire, not a sniveling, groveling dog. I was better than that.
I left the cell behind without as much as a glance back at the body that lay bloodless on the floor. I left the laboratory without as much as glance back at the table that had held me down for Van Helsing's experiments. I left the castle without as much as a glance back at what I had been forced through for fifteen years.
The only thing I left with a glance back at was Van Helsing. I was going to have my revenge on him one day. Perhaps not him personally, but his family. His descendants. I was going to make them pay for the hell I had been through. And I was determined to see my revenge through.
When I saw the blonde woman standing there out in the field, surrounded by an army of men, I knew it was her. I caught the scent of her blood on the wind, both sweet and vile at the same time. She was a virgin, and yet she was Van Helsing's descendant. Integra Hellsing.
The name had changed some in sixty years, but not enough that I didn't recognize it. Not to mention that she held herself the same way Van Helsing had held himself: proud, arrogant, haughty. I was tempted to kill her then and there. But I knew better. In time I had learned to become a strategist, planning my attacks down to the letter and taking into account all possible ways that an attack could go wrong. I had learned to compensate for all of those ways. Now, in just a few short hours, I was going to put my practice to the ultimate test. I was going to assassinate the Hellsing bitch.
I had her right where I wanted her. Trapped under my illusion, caught in my paralysis. She was like clay in my hands. I had toyed with her enough to fully convince her that I was her sister, her dear, non-existent little sister from Avon, come to visit on a whim. I had taken her mind. Now I was going to take her life.
Not right away, of course. Incognito had given me orders to keep her alive and suffering for as long as I pleased. Oh, how I relished the thought. I slept well knowing that one day I was going to sleep even better once I had eradicated the Hellsing bloodline for good. Incognito didn't need to order me to make Integra suffer. I'd had that planned for decades.
I wanted to toy with her first. I was too easy on her, for all her great-grandfather had done to me. But I toyed with her nonetheless. She was softer than I'd thought. It was almost a shame I was going to have to kill her. She wasn't going to make a very nice ghoul, but that was something I would worry about later. Right then, I was more enthralled with exacting my revenge on her.
What a surprise it was to me when she snapped herself out of my illusion. What a shame, even. I was hoping to keep her under a little longer. I wanted to make sure I remembered just how soft my big sister was before I drained her blood and forced her into the ranks of the undead. Not the vampire ranks, of course. An immortal Hellsing? Ha! I think not! If she became a vampire, I may as well have returned to my human form. No, I would never allow a Hellsing to join the ranks of the vampires. I wasn't going to share the rest of eternity with the spawn of the man who had ruined me.
It was a pity that I had to stab her to keep her quiet. Her voice was poetic. Rough and yet soft at the same time, strong and yet quiet, I could have listened to her all day. But she crossed the line. She went too far. She had no right to remind me of my past, who I had been. I was no longer Carmilla, but Laura. She insulted my name, she taunted me. She reminded me why I was there. I hated her.
I wanted her to pay.
When I stabbed her with her bloody letter opener, I wanted to plunge it in deep. I wanted to drown her in her own fluids. But that was too quick a death, even for her. Instead I kept it far enough from her lungs to cause her pain, but not enough to cause her too fatal an injury. Twisting it made me feel empowered. I had become the tormentor, not the tormented. I wanted to twist it over and over until she screamed as I had screamed for her great-grandfather. I wanted to her beg and plead for her life as I had begged and pleaded for mine. I wanted her to cry for mercy, as I had cried for my own mercy.
In fifteen minutes, I wanted her to suffer as much as I had in fifteen years.
But instead I twisted the blade once and pulled it from her, and drank her blood from the gash I had created. I sneered at her as I licked her blood from my hands, the same way Van Helsing had sneered at me as he had wiped my blood from his hands.
The end was quickly approaching. And then, at last, I was ready to do what I had come for.
I cradled her, inhaling the sweet smell of her perfume and virgin blood, feeling her soft hair on my cheek, and explained to her how her last moments of her filthy human life would be spent before she became a mindless ghoul. I explained her death to her the way Van Helsing had explained a full day of torture to me, as I had lain helplessly on his table, held down by silver-coated leather straps.
I drummed my fingers on her bare shoulder, hardly able to contain my excitement. I had waited decades for that moment, and it had finally come. I sank my fangs into her shoulder. Never before I had ever felt such a sense of triumph. I had escape from the torture of Van Helsing, and now I was going to be rid of him and his horrific family for good. I was no longer going to have to look over my shoulder, wondering when the next Hellsing would come to cart me away to the dungeons of the mansion. I was no longer going to live in fear of being hunted down by the Hellsings. I was no longer going to live under their shadow. And although I was no longer Countess Carmilla Karnstein, but Laura, I had found my enemy and I had killed her.
I was Laura. And I had won.