Monte Carlo, Monaco. 1:30 AM, June 1st, 2023.
Monte Carlo never slept. Not that anybody wanted it to.
The European citadel of racing and gambling shone day and night with the sins of the continent's aristocracy. Rivers of gold and alcohol ran across the streets, and inside the hotels, dreams and promises were made and destroyed with an incredible alacrity. In the lounges people talked about the end of the nuclear era for Slovenia, the meaning and impact of the new Istanbul Canal, and how they were being forced to learn Chinese in order to deal with the new global balance. Without mentioning how they missed the good old days of the dollar.
Speed, excitement and change were the only true constants of the city. In the Grand Casino, several people huddled in one of the craps tables desperately threw small fortunes in chips against a smiling, thin man who kept winning. In the slots section, a slightly bitter woman poured coin after coin in her preferred slot machine while sipping from a tumbler.
Jack and Mina Sussex-Fairbrook, even by Monegasque standards, were two of the wealthiest patrons of the Grand Casino. Twin children of an industry baron and a former jet-setting member of the British nobility, each had had their own fair share of adventures. Jack was the less-inhibited of the two, often seen with a different lady every single night. It made no difference to him who they were; actresses, singers, politicians' daughters; and while legendarily hedonistic, he had a keen sense of mathematical acumen and logical thinking. Employed by a minor branch of the family business, his main ambition was to find a way to seize control of his father's empire and earn it instead of receiving it in a silver platter. He had inherited the family looks and charm, and felt no qualms about liberally using them with everybody he met.
He smiled as the dice were thrown and again Lady Luck smiled upon him. Briefly pausing to discreetly fondle his partner for the night, he leant forward to take what was his and mutter compliments, true or fake, to the other participants. It filled him with a strange delight to know he was better than them, even at a game as banal as this. He had it all - any woman he wanted, ample funds he could draw from, and slowly but surely he was worming his way into the executive branch of the family corporation. One day, he would have the world beneath him and everyone would obey.
Mina was the romantic, emotional one. While not a virgin by any standards, she was far more closed than her brother and had taken one of the family's least useful business - a near-forgotten Parisian haute couture fasino house once purchased by her mother and left to seethe in oblivion after her death - and made it work. While not yet a particularly strong voice in the fashion industry, Mina had successfully managed to pull it into a couple of important roles by sheer bull-headed stubborness. In her father's opinion, she was much like her mother, if her skin had been just a shade lighter, with a darker shade of flaxen hair. To be honest, neither of the two was yet a frequent visitor to the Grand Casino, but their father had invited them for a week to enjoy themselves away from their respective jobs.
A beep distracted her for a second from her routine. Laying down her drink as she reached for her handbag, she smiled sadly as she noted another message in her phone from one of her assistants. Another diminutive change added to the next collection. She shook her head and punched in her acknowledgement and approval. Silently, she laughed to herself as she poured more of the drink down her throat; she honestly wished the road to success wasn't as painful and tiring. On the other hand, the taste... the taste of sheer, unadulterated success when something went right for her... how wonderful it was.
Martin Sussex, on the other hand, was an older gentleman, just like they made them before the wat, the old military wolves joked, with a tall, muscular build, wrapped in a cashmere suit as he rested in one of the Casino's bars, staring into the bottom of his own tumbler, remembering his wife.
"Mister Martin Sussex? Husband of Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing?"
Sussex turned, and sighed in quiet horror as he saw a troupe of several men, each in a very expensive suit, approaching him from the salon's entrance.
"Who the hell wants to know?"
"George Starr, Foreign Office, sir. Could we leave the main lounge? We have to discuss very serious business with you wife's estate, sir."
Sussex sank his head into his hands and downed his tumbler in a single drink.
"My wife? She's... God, why do you bring this again?"
"I think you know, sir. You were warned this day might come."
"Leave my children alone. Integra died for them and now you come dragging this aberration back."
"I'm afraid we have no choice, sir. The laws explain it rather amply. Britain needs a Hellsing, any Hellsing, and a Hellsing is what Britain will have."
"Fuck that. Integra had it covered."
"You know what is the most interesting part of human planning, sir?"
Sussex bitterly spat on the Casino's floor and forced himself to ask:
"What, you bastard?"
Starr smiled.
"'The best laid plans of mice and men, often go astray.' She is an extraordinary woman, sir, I will not deny it. But it seems we managed to succeed in finding a loophole in her plans."
Sussex looked at the bottom of his tumbler. Then at Starr's quiet smile. He shrugged.
And punched Starr with enough force to knock out two teeth. He gestured to one of the men next to him.
"Fine, then. Arrest me. Arrest us. Been hiding this for how long..."
As the other men moved in to bind him with handcuffs, Sussex sighed:
"Dammit, Integra... you promised me! You promised us!"
Mere minutes later, Sussex was unceremoniously escorted into an unmarked black van parked just outside the Casino, and he wearily counted the seconds before his children joined him. He did not have to wait long: less than thirty seconds after he'd taken his place, the door was flung open and his son was thrown in.
"Hey! This is an outrage! I'm a British citizen, you can't do this to me! I've done nothing!"
"Jack?"
"Pop?"
"Trust me on this one. Shut the fuck up."
Ten seconds later, Mina was chucked in, and the van began moving.
"Alright. Which of you two jokers began it this time?"
The elder Sussex groaned.
"You two have no idea of how much I'd love to chalk this one up to one of you juvenile indiscretions, but I really can't. This is about something a lot more serious and difficult to explain..."
From the front of the van, a harsh, high voice asked:
"Excuse me... you mean you never told them? Ha. Lady Integra's gonna love this."
"Lady Integra? Hey, what the hell are you talking about? My mother's dead, she died from childbirth!"
"Hey, Sussex, that for real? That be what you told them?"
Martin Sussex groaned in pain.
"Pop? What do they mean, and where are they taking us?"
"Your mother hated the very idea of leaving you alive. Knowing there was a good chance this would happen."
"Alright, what the fuck is going around here, Pop? First, Mother's alive, then you tell us she hated us..."
"Oh, no, no, no! She loved you with all her heart! What she didn't want to happen was this; these... men... because you on the front are men, aren't you?"
"At the moment."
"These men are dragging us to Britain. To London."
"London? What the hell are we going to do on a nuked city?"
"London wasn't nuked."
"Okay, firebombed, same thing. Nothing's alive there, Pop. London's a dead city and you know it."
"London isn't dead. In fact, you could say it's never been more prosperous. Okay, let me explain. You don't understand. Sure, there's a woman in Hellsing Manor, who once happened to give birth to you two. Every day, weekends and holidays included, she wakes up after three hours of daily sleep, washes her teeth, eats, reads the papers she's handed, breathes, moves, talks, receives her daily metabolic booster injections and sometimes cries. But if you call the existence she leads life, I think I'd rather shoot my brains out than live like her. How long has she lived like that? Decades. What for? So you two wouldn't be there, shouting orders and jockeying the fate of the Empire with every choice."
The silence in the van was nearly deafening. Mina decided to take a gamble.
"Alright. Since this seems to be so bloody confusing, perhaps you can start by giving us a real explanation of what the truth's like?
"I don't know the full story, children. I just know what you mother managed to tell me and get away with. But what little I know boils down to this - I wouldn't touch the Hellsing name for the world. Sure, there's wealth and power attached, and mind you, it's a damn huge share of both, but think - nobody gives anything for nothing in this valley of tears. It's always either equal, fair trade, or one of both loses. And to take the Hellsings' legacy is to take responsibilities that go hand in hand with the money and the decrees. The ultimate double zero."
"Okay. we're making progress. Hellsing equals bad. What does that mean for us?"
"Your mother's full single name was Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing. And you were baptized as Jackson and Wilhemina Sussex-Hellsing. You're Hellsings, both of you. Old, noble blood of the old country... I'm gonna tell you of what I know about tha family of your mother. Hopefully, you will manage to find a way to cheat the reaper."
"And if we don't manage to?"
"Then one of you goes and becomes the next Master of Hellsing Manor. The Hellmouth."
The family was driven to a Monegasque private runway and shunted into a Cessna light plane. The three of them were a bit confused with the shuffling, but it was obvious the plane was directed straight at the British Isles.
"So... the Hellsings were really once nobles?"
"More than that. Hellsing was one of the twelve families that dominated the United Kingdom. And they were one of the strongest, despite their little actual power. Mostly because of their excellent relations to the Walsh, Penwood and Irons families. See, once there was this system called the Council of Twelve. From the twelve families, the best and brightest were selected to join into the Council. Your mother was an only child and your grandfather's ambition was to make his portfolio unnecessary so he could just hand over the entire estate in raw money and properties to your mother so she would not have to deal with power plays and power games."
"What position did Grandfather Hellsing have in this conspiracy?"
"Targeting and destroying interior threats to the United Kingdom of certain nature, initially. With time, that function widened a bit so the Hellsing Corps became a sort of secret, very discreet police, a sort of Internal Affairs for the kingdom. Alternating this with their original function, you'll understand the Hellsings wielded enormous wealth and great properties."
"Such as Hellsing Manor."
"Hellsing Manor. Ugly place, very opulent, gothic. Only went once, your mother shooed me away and gave me you two for safekeeping. Didn't want any of us near the place again. Ever. That was mere months before all of London was shot to hell."
"And what do they need us for?"
"Crux of the whole thing, Mina. There is this law, that many have tried to manipulate invarious forms, unsuccessfully, may I add, that only Hellsings have the right to command certain sections of the Hellsing Corps. Your grandfather tried to shut down that section; he died before he managed to go too far. Then the responsibility was thrown into your mother's hands; she tried to, as well, but then the London thing happened."
"And the Hellsing Corps were more necessary than ever."
"More or less. Her position became very vulnerable, though in all honesty she had no way of knowing about it; it was all very random and unexpected. See, the London attack was a madman's dream, as Integra told me. The fallout would have been much worse had she not decided to screw everything and order a full firebombing run. After that, her position and her leadership of the Hellsing Corps was drawn into question; she was forced into doing stuff she really didn't want to; she tried to leave and others tried to force her to leave, but the laws, the laws, meant she couldn't be removed from power just like that. Britain needs a Hellsing, and it's a Hellsing they'll get, even if they have to get one of you two for that."
The Cessna aircraft landed with a dull thud. All three prisoners were unceremoniously escorted outside.
Martin Sussex huffed in repressed rage. Hellsing Manor was still as horrible after all those years.
The Gothic manor loomed before him, impassible and unchanging. Four squadrons of Hellsing Infantry Corps, two of Hellsing Special Operations and the full Hellsing Special Weapons Regiment stood in formation before them.
Three solitary, silent figures awaited in the lintel of the door. A tall, swarthy man in a full black suit he vaguely remembered from his previous visit. A young, strawberry blonde woman in secretarial attire. A bowing, young male in black clothes. The main service staff. Martin remembered two of them. This did not bode well. Especially since they seemed to have berely changed since his last visit twenty-three years previously.
The single woman of the tree broke ranks and walked to meet them. Bowing lightly, she said:
"Jackson and Wilhemina Sussex-Hellsing? I am Seras Victoria, your mother's secretary. This is Walter C. Dornez, family retainer. This gentleman is your servant. Welcome to Hellsing Manor. "
In a pristine white hospital room, a heavily bandaged figure, connected to machine after machine, lightly writhed under the cool air of the room.
Her single open blue eye shod tear after tear. She had failed everybody.
And she knew what came next.
