Crucify

by Sanis

Integra was already in so much pain she thought she was probably on the brink of insanity, and a little more might be enough to drive her over into the sweet abyss of being completely empty. So, the threat was not taken as much of a punishment.

This time Alucard wasn't going to get there in time to save her, she knew. It was going to be too late.

"Do you like it?" he asked her as she took another blow. "Isn't in vonderful?"

She hissed in pain as she slid across the room.

"Vere is your God now?" he asked, laughing. He was mocking her.

"God is everywhere," she replied through gritted teeth. "Even in this place."

"Hahahaha, fraulein," he said with a smile as he came closer, a piece of wood in his hands. "There is no God here."

She expected to be hit again, but she was mistaken. Instead he grabbed her chin in his small fat palm and raised her head towards his.

"You do believe in God," he hissed, "don't you? Ah, but I do not care for such things."

He hit her across the face hard. The smack was resounding. "I hope there is a God," he said thoughtfully. "He would make a very vorthy opponent, I vink."

She said nothing. There was not much she could do. She had come to slaughter him and be done with it, while her servant killed in her name. However, she had underestimated the technology that Doc was capable of creating. She had been shot from behind by a Nazi coward…it wasn't a bullet though; she didn't know what it was. The Major had drug her off someplace private. It was a rooftop of some sort, she new. They were alone.

"Is it painful?" he asked her. "I hope so. Oh, I hope so."

He kicked her. She couldn't wretch, but knew at least one of her ribs had been snapped.

"Can you not speak?" he asked her. "Is it vorking?"

Then he laughed again.

"It is one of Doc's newest toys," he explained. "It paralyzes the body temporarily, but it heightens the sensation of pain. Quite the combination, don't you vink?

She said nothing. Her body felt heavy and lifeless.

"Call your servant," he hissed. "Come have him get you….Don't you want to be saved?"

Integra's eyes flickered slightly. She would not call Alucard. On her orders he was saving innocent people, her life was not enough to justify the killing of millions. True, everyone on this island would be dead, but it was a necessary sacrifice. This inhuman plague could not spread to the mainland.

She would bear as long as she was able.

"You're not going to, are you?" asked, both pleased and aggravated. "Vell. Ve shall see."

And he laughed again. It was a metallic annoying sound. She wanted to rip out his teeth with a pair of pliers.

"Vhat?" he asked himself. "Are you not enjoying yourself? Is it not arousing?" he grinned at her. "I will give you pain so fiery it pleasures you, fraulein."

Integra's eyes were not capable of killing a man, despite her efforts. She shot daggers of poison at him anyway.

The fat Nazi grabbed her by her long platinum hair and began to drag her, toward what she did not know.

All at once he stopped and pulled her face to his.

"Do you love God?" he asked. "They say no man will warm the bed of the cold hearted Integra Hellsing. The Ice Maiden. The iron virgin," his breath was hot and rancid against her face. His mouth was level with her nose, and she wanted to vomit, but her throat would not obey. "Oh, but I know about your kind, Fraulein. There is a man in your bed every night, making you hot and filling you with passion. He takes you to the brink and fills you with pleasure. What does it feel like? To be a woman unpenetrated except by the spirit? Oh, now that is arousing…."

His voice was thick. He began pulling her again. Integra's eyes were beginning to lose the ability to see. It was too hard to blink, the water from the pain wasn't enough anymore. It would almost be a blessing when she lost her sight. She would no longer be able to watch him make a mockery of her; it would be a small gift to her pride.

It didn't take long for the blackness to overtake her eyes.

She felt him chortle as he rearranged her body and removed her clothing. He kept giggling in an octave that was too high for a grown man.

"Not to worry," he said to her as his fingers grazed places on her body even she had refused to touch. "I vill not rape you." He told her. "I, like you, find my pleasure in other forms of sensuality. Besides, the raping of a woman…vell, it's really too easy to be allowed."

The things she would do to him….the things Alucard would do to him once he found her body. The thought comforted her.

"Ungh," she managed to grunt as he began tying something around her waist. It felt rough, like a flour sack. She had a sick feeling of knowing where this was going.

"Have you figured it out, my Fraulein?" he asked her, his tone nefarious. "I knew you vould."

He patted her on the head as if she were a child.

She managed a twitch. "Why?" she was trying to ask.

He ignored her silent question. "You're beautiful," he told her. She was startled as she felt a pair of lips descend upon hers. They were warm and smooth, and damp in the most unpleasant way. She was reminded of kipper. The feeling was heightened by the…sauce, in her body. She had hoped for a different pair of lips on hers, the first time the thing had come to pass.

"You know," he told her as he stood up and began to drag her body across the cement floor once again. "That when Jesus vas crucified, on either side of him was a man. Thieves. They ascended into heaven…but of course you would know that."

Yes, of course she did.

"Ah, but you know what?" he asked her with a grunt as his weak self picked her up in an effort to toss her. "There were no women. Only men. It always bothered me, Fraulien, that women, the creators of original sin, were given no respite in the Bible. All men were forgiven…women it seems are to be stuck in limbo."

Integra snorted internally despite the pain. Protestants of her sort did not believe in limbo.

"You have been a vorthy enemy, my love," he panted as he lifted her. "For that I am villing to give you a gift…the best you will ever receive."

He dropped her. She crashed towards the ground, but her weight of her own body broke her, wrapping her around the wooden planks below her.

"Death," he hissed into her ear. Integra imagined his crack being out as he bent over her. It was a cheap escape. "And not just any sort, my love," he whispered to her gently. "I am going to give you the only death vorthy to you…the only one that could possibly cure that tattered thing you call a soul."

Integra knew that the worst was about to come. Herr Major started to rearrange her body again. It felt strangely intimate. She was still only wearing the cloth he tied about her waist. Her breast and limbs were exposed. The air was cool and his hands were warm and sweaty. It was disgusting. She had always preferred the cold.

She could feel the grain of the wood beneath her. She was pleased to note it was of very good quality. At least he hadn't used oak. That would have made it even worse somehow.

"You're crown," he said with reverence in his voice. Integra cringed as she felt a crown made of thorns descend upon her head. It bit her skull and left warm trails after the stinging had subsided. She was sure that even if she wanted to, the thing would never untangle itself from her hair. Somehow thinking of that made it easier to bear.

"Ah," he said. "Yes…almost there."

She felt him pull her arm by the wrist, pulling it straight out. "You know, they say that Christ had holes in his hands," he told her as if he was just making polite conversation. "However, it cannot be true. The veight of his own body would have ripped through his palms and allowed him to fall. No…he vas nailed at the vist."

That was when she felt a cold touch against her wrist. Fear streaked though her. She heard an intake of breath and she was sure that he had raised the hammer, ready to bring it down on her.

But she was wrong. Instead he laughed. "Fear not, my pet," he told her soothingly. "It is not necessary…and it would kill you too quickly. No, I will just tie you…for now. Besides," he added sheepishly. "I forgot to get the right sort of nails.

Typical male, Integra thought. Can't even do the thing properly.

So she was tied. He made everything was good and secure, and then he hauled her up.

It's harder than it looks, being crucified. The weight of her own body betrayed her. Suddenly she was glad for all those skipped meals and late nights. They had made her thinner. She tried to breathe, but it was hard. They were shallow hard breaths, raked with suffering and struggle, the only thing her body would allow.

There she was. Hanging from a cross. The irony was not lost on her. The maniac below her laughed heartily, she imagined him to be arching his back in delight, but she could not be sure.

"Ah," he said, wiping the mirth from his voice. "But you are not out of the voulds yet, fraulein. I cannot leave you so easily. You must suffer a little. What fun vould it be otherwise."

Integra was already in so much pain she idly thought she was probably on the brink of insanity, and a little more might be enough to drive her over into the sweet abyss of being completely empty, so the threat was not taken as much of a punishment. Internally she laughed. He would never win.

"Vhat will it be? Hmmm?" he asked more to himself than to her. "Should I gouge your eyes out? Sodomize you with your own sword…but that is too much life your own Count. Cut off your breasts? Vhat, my poisonous little snake, vould you like?"

Naturally she didn't respond. She just wished he'd get the damn thing over with already. Men, always stumbling through their foreplay.

Integra heard him drop something. Dolt. She wanted to roll her eyes.

"Ah," he said gently. "I know what would torment you…and it is outside of the physical realm of discomfort…"

Integra thought that was odd. It was so unlike the Major to divert from his boyish fascination of killing things with a giant magnifying glass that it took her off guard for a moment.

"This will humble you, Fraulein," he told her. "As every good servant to the Lord must be, you have been much too prideful."

In the end this would be the mistake he would never be able to reflect on.

He took a dagger or knife and pressed it against her chest, over her heart. She could feel the tip digging in as he drug it into her flesh. It was not the push over the brink she needed, instead it only added to the burden. He giggled as he did it. She wished she could see what it was.

It took him forever. She wondered how he could see what he was doing through all that blood. She hoped for his sake that he had not left her with a hideous scar.

"Guess what it is Fraulein," he whispered to her with insane glee. "Please, please guess."

She tried to pull her head up higher, but it wouldn't.

"Ah," he snarled. "Will you not overcome? How disappointing!"

He traced her new open wound with his finger. "It is an eye," he told her. "It is old and vonderful. You know this eye, my pet."

She pictured the eye in her mind…and then realized what she had done.

"What does it say?" she managed to croak out, finally overcoming the serum…finding new strength in hope. "But let me guess, Major," she added. "'The Bird of Hermes is my Name, Eating my Wings to Make me Tame?'"

"How did you know?" he asked sounding thoroughly disappointed.

"It was the most unoriginal thing I could think of," she told him simply. Her voice was hoarse and she could yet bring herself to feel fiery impertinence. It was the picture and inscription on Alucard's coffin. She knew that the Major had seen it before during WWII. He would carve that onto her body. Fool.

"Why do you want Alucard here so badly?" she asked after she decided that he was going to make no attempt to give her anymore of that supped up pain juice. "He will not come unless I call."

The Major laughed. "And you will not?" he asked. "Too bad. Just die there then." And Integra could hear him walking away. He was bluffing she knew. Assuming that when enough time would pass she'd be desperate…what he didn't know was that he had removed that option from her.

She closed her eyes and waited. The devil would come for her soon enough.

It was not a long wait. Soon a sting hit her in the right thigh. She refused to cry out. "If you will not bring me the Nosferatu, then I will have to amuse myself in other ways."

It was a whip with broken shards of something sharp woven in, she decided. But a second blow would never come.

"That's hardly a way to treat a lady," said a cold disapproving voice from somewhere in front of her. "You are such a pig."

"Oink oink," mocked the Major in glee. Integra could feel him. He had arrived.

"No," he said. "You're worse that a pig…you're not even good enough to butcher."

Integra could hear the crunch of his boots as he walked towards her…and presumably the Major.

"Let us battle!" cried the little fat man. Alucard snorted.

"I will do you no such honor," he said. Integra could hear him stop.

"No," protested the Major. "You will, you have to! My most worthy opponent! Look at what I have done! Look! I have presented you with a dowry to my death. The Iron Maiden is splayed before you, free for the taking, she is bloodied and wonderful! I give you death! I give you blood! I give you lust! What more could you ask for? You will battle me. YOU WILL BE MY KILLER!"

Alucard snorted. "I wouldn't waste my time."

And without much ado at all Alucard did something that Integra thought was rather a good insult.

"Police Girl, if you would." Then there was some nasty snarling and some hasty screams. Idly Integra wondered if she should be concerned, but as she could not see what was going on the whole thing seemed anticlimactic.

"Ah, but she is such a messy eater," Alucard said over his shoulder to Integra. "My little girl is growing up."

"Bloodlust," Integra managed to rasp out with a smile. "Are we sure it's enough this time?"

"Are we ever?"

"Will she calm down?"

"Oh, after she eats her fill. She has been hungry for a long time."

"…how did you know to come Alucard?" she asked, fairly certain she new.

He snorted. "I notice when people go around carving my insignia on my Master's body, no matter what task might be at hand."

"I did not call."

"You didn't have to," he said solemnly. "My original mission was completed."

There was a dead silence. "Our little island is no more then? You certainly made quick work."

"I am extremely good at destroying things."

He walked over and touched the eye. She was still dangling from her cross. "I did not teach you to be this sort of Knight, Integra."

"What sort?"

"The sort that does noble things…the sort that dies."

She choked on her laughter, coughing. "No," she managed between gasps for air. "But I forgot my pistol at home, so you'll have to excuse this one mishap."

He smiled. "I couldn't bear to lose you," he told her, up on her cross. "But now things will be easier."

"How so?"

"I have always worn your mark, Master." He touched the carving again. "Now you wear mine too. We are bound together, no longer Master and Servant, but…something else. Equals? I don't know. More like we are both master to each other."

"WHAT?!"

"It's an unfortunate side effect of being an experiment of Arthur Van Hellsing," he told her sadly. "He was a brilliant man, but not the most subtle. On my body he created wounds that could not heal, of your family seal, binding me to you. Now, you have mine. I'm afraid once a bond has been started, it is all that is needed to see it complete."

Integra was aghast. "I am not going to let you be my…anything," she told him, half serious, half pushing away the reality. He smiled, but it was not a happy one.

"If I could take it back I would." There was a long pause. "Would you like help down?"

"I would be much obliged," she said with as much sarcasm as she could muster. He untied her and let her semi naked body fall to the ground at his feet. He looked at her, covered in blood helpless and no longer his complete Master. The anticipation had greatly outweighed the event.

He sighed.

"Alucard?" she asked. Either he would do it, or he wouldn't. This would be the deciding moment, she knew he would not dangle it over her after this.

He bent over and pulled her up. His decision made. He took of his coat and wrapped it around her.

"I have one condition, Integra," he said as he walked toward God knows where, since Hellsing was demolished. There was nothing holding them back now. "This must not be the last time I get to see you starkers."

"Oh yes, it will be," she said firmly. He smiled. As they walked farther away they continued to bicker, it felt good. Alucard was unsure about Seras's whereabouts, but he was under the opinion that it was best to have her away while Integra was still so human and full of blood. He'd find her later; after all, they were on an island.

They both wondered what came next…besides Neosporin.