"So you all sleep in these apartments?" Seras looked at the doors that stretched down the hall. It resembled a hotel's hall, with the plain carpeting and wallpaper, and the neatly ordered rows of numbered wooden doors. "Why? Why don't you have your own houses?" she asked, not thinking about the near-rudeness of the question.
"You get a townhouse when you are married," was the reply. The long red-haired Iscariot with the nice eyes that they'd seen earlier had been put in charge of accompanying them to the rooms that would be theirs for the remainder of their stay. They were stuck into the Iscariot apartment complex, seeing as it was the only one that had any vacant rooms at all (neither Seras nor Integra wanted to dwell on that fact too long). The second floor of the squat complex belonged to the females, and the woman had led them through the common area to the stairs with as little ceremony as possible. She seemed keen on getting them in their rooms and away from her.
"And what if you aren't married?" The woman didn't miss a beat.
"Then you're by yourself and don't need an entire house-worth of space." She eyed Integra warily, as if deciding whether or not the heiress would take offense to her words. "We're men and women of God. We're not supposed to own a lot of gaudy things. We have basics for living and a few personal items—nothing that would take up plenty of space. A room here is plenty for the likes of us."
"This is your room, here." She gestured to Seras and opened the door. Seras stepped inside, holding her suitcase lightly as she looked around the room, if it could even be called that. The room itself barely had any space to turn about in. There was a plain twin-size bed, a small armoire that stood open and empty, and a desk shoved into the corner. A door opposite the bed stood open as well, showing a tiny bathroom with a shower stall and shelf stocked with toiletries.
"It's…quaint," Seras acknowledged with a strained grin. "But I suppose it is really all I need." She sat her suitcase on the bed and looked carefully at the small arched window. "I don't suppose you have anything that might cover this up, do you? I don't need the sun glaring in on me."
"Only the towel," the woman replied simply, nodding towards the bathroom. "I'll have someone bring you a spare. Which reminds me," she continued, "when you bathe, stick the towel in the laundry chute. It's behind the door. Usually we do our own laundry, but because you're a guest they'll just wash yours and restock them for you." She looked over at Integra. "Your bedroom is down the hall here. We don't have any empty spares right next to each other, I'm afraid."
"That's fine," Integra replied curtly. "Agent Victoria, I'll call for you around 8:00 am tomorrow morning. Good evening."
"Sleep tight," Seras called after them as they moved down the hall before closing the door.
Integra's room was just as plain and drab as Seras'. While she was used to a higher standard of living, being in the small room didn't bother her in the slightest. She unpacked her bag, situating her clothing in the armoire and her shoes by the door, and then putting her shower stall to good use. After she'd dried her hair and dressed in her nightgown, she brushed her teeth and then settled into the small bed with a book.
The unfamiliar sounds of night around her kept grabbing her attention away from the story, and she found herself looking up from the printed pages often. She heard water and showers running in her neighbor's rooms and a good deal of people wandering up and down the halls, doors opening and shutting as they spoke with one another. She heard people traversing the stairs, and masculine voices drifted up from the floor below. Someone laughed nearby, the sound high and tinkling, quickly followed by an equally loud "Shh!"
The central air kicked on and blew from a ceiling vent, cool and sterile. The night outside was cool as well; Integra was a cold-natured person, and the combination of central and nighttime air had her shivering in no time. She sunk beneath the coverlet, silently cursing the thin material that more resembled something from a cheap army barrack. Well, I suppose it's a holy army, she thought drily before sighing and turning off the light, curled up in a ball beneath the blankets to hold what little warmth she had left.
It was strange, so strange.
Seras rolled over with a sigh. If someone had told her a few years ago that she would be missing voices in her head, she would have worried for their sanity. But ever since Sir Integra had made her sign that waiver—or whatever it was—it was like… it was like watching television with the sound muted. She knew Alucard was there (sort of?) in her mind, but she couldn't hear him.
Of course, she could have spoken to him, if she wanted to. But that rat-faced bishop had stamped something onto that waiver and she'd felt the strangest sense of foreboding. Something deep down told her that if she broke her promise, it wouldn't end well for her. She was already neck-deep in enemy territory, sleeping in a tiny room and surrounded by a floor of women who would enjoy nothing more than sticking a bullet in her heart and cutting off her head.
If she could just ignore the strange-ness of her new silent mind and go to sleep! But it was the middle of the night—her noontime. She was wide awake, even if she had been awake for over 24 hours already. It wasn't her bedtime, it sure as hell wasn't her bed, and she was on edge=no amount of chamomile tea would help that, even if she could choke it down.
She had just settled again after her eighth fierce toss-and-turn bout when she heard it. She sat up in bed, clapping her hands over her ears. What the hell is that?! she thought, shaking her head. It sounded like a symphony of chainsaws cutting through a mile-high stack of chalkboards. The sound grated on her ears and sent shudders up and down her spine.
She got up, still dressed in her uniform, and grabbed the trench coat she'd thrown across the desk. She stuffed herself into it quickly, hoping that if she ran outside with a mob of confused, sleepy Catholics, they wouldn't notice who she was with the Hellsing symbol hidden beneath the coat's thick fabric.
Instead of the tumult she would have expected after hearing a loud, angry noise like that, there was silence outside the door. She opened it hesitantly, allowing only her head to leave the threshold before she was certain that all was clear. She looked up and down the empty hall and turned to make for her boss's room when every door opened simultaneously. She jumped a mile and both hands covered her mouth to muffle the scream that escaped, but her surprise quickly turned into bafflement.
A fleet of Iscariot women took one identical step into the hall, all at the same time. There was no air of puzzlement, even though the god-awful sound was still going as loud as ever. Seras backed against the wall, looking at the young women with wide eyes. They weren't even dressed; they all wore the same starched standard-issue nightgown. Their hands dangled at their sides, the long sleeves billowing around stick-like arms. Their feet were bare.
They all wore the same vacant expression, almost as if they were sleepwalking or hypnotized. Their eyes were devoid of emotion, their faces passive, hair uncombed. It was clear that they had all been asleep moments before, and they all had merely thrown back the covers and left the rooms as they were. They stood like statues for a long moment, and then at some unknown signal they all made a quarter turn to the right and began to march.
Seras jump-scurried out of the way and stood in the middle of the hall, two identical rows of single-file women on either side of her. When they reached the stairs, the two rows merged seamlessly into one and they moved down the steps. No one rushed; they all stood still and waited their turn.
"Ah, excuse me?" she asked a thin-faced woman near her. The women didn't so much as glance in her direction. "Hello?" She waved her hand in front of the woman's eyes, but other than an involuntary blink it was as if she had no clue of her surroundings. "What the hell's going on?" she muttered to herself, scratching her head.
"Y-Yumie!" Jumping again, Seras spun on her heel to see one woman wasn't behaving like the rest—in fact, she had just now stuck her head outside the door. She moved past the threshold as an Asian woman marched by stoically. She was about Seras' own height, with choppy blonde hair and glasses smushed haphazardly on her face where they hung unevenly.
"What's going on?" Seras called to the girl, who turned and looked bug-eyed at her, her hands trying to force her friend back. "Is this—some sort of drill?"
"Does it look like a drill!?" was the panicked reply, and the woman slapped the Asian on the face. "Yumie! Wake up and look at me! Was istlos mit dir?' she yelped, lapsing into German as her voice rose steadily. The woman didn't look at her friend, only moving forward with the queue with the same unchanging, serene countenance.
"What is that sound?" Seras asked after a moment of watching the two women. The line had moved up enough that they were only an arm's legnth from her. The German glared at her, mouth pursed before she shivered a little.
"How the hell should I know?" she snapped. "I've never heard it before." Seras frowned at the woman's straightforward unfriendliness and was about to respond when the walls and floor shook and the sound was drowned out by an explosion. The woman lost her balance and fell backwards, ripping the Asian's sleeve and landing on the ground with a hiss of pain. Seras stumbled but stayed on her feet, hearing a loud crack all around her. She looked up almost instinctively and saw the split run across the ceiling.
"L-look out!" she cried, even though the woman couldn't move quick enough. She leaped forward and grabbed one of the German's ankles, pulling her quickly and bumping into the sleepwalking Iscariots, messing up the line. The ceiling collapsed with a loud groan-snap-crumble. Seras looked up from the downed woman to see the wall of rubble reaching to the ceiling, blocking off their half of the hall. She dropped the woman's ankle, ignoring the other Iscariots, who were quietly reforming their line for the stairs as though nothing had happened.
"Sir Integra!?" she called at the top of her lungs, but she hadn't seen hide nor hair of the woman since all this mess had started. In fact, she'd only seen Iscariots, and the heiress had been nowhere to be found. Curiouser and curiouser, she thought wryly as she looked back at the line, which had once again become single-file.
She looked back at the woman on the ground, who was adjusting her glasses and craning her head to see the rubble behind her. The poor woman, still in her nightgown as well, seemed to be in a state of shock. Seras knew too well what that felt like; for a moment, she wondered if the Iscariot thought it might be a crazy dream. She almost wished that it was a dream, or perhaps her mind playing tricks on her. But the stark reality was that something crazy was happening, and they were most likely being attacked. But an attack didn't explain the state of the women, did it?
"Come on," she commanded, offering her hand to the woman on the ground. The woman took it without thinking, but immediately shivered when her palm came in contact with Seras'. Seras winced; she knew that as a vampire, her body was only a few degrees warmer than a corpse, and the chill made touching her uncomfortable for humans.
"I don't understand," the German finally spoke, still trying to prevent her friend from reaching the stairs by grabbing onto the back of her nightgown. "Yumie, you need to snap out of it!" The woman paid no heed and put one hand on the railing delicately, just as the others had done before descending the stairs. The German made to follow her and Seras pulled her back.
"Wait, you can't go down there—" she started, but the Iscariot cut her off, yanking her arm out of her grasp.
"You're not the boss of me!" she spat childishly, grabbing for Yumie again. "Yumie's like a sister to me; I'm not letting her go off alone like this!" Seras made a frustrated sound and spun her back around to look her dead in the eyes.
"Listen to me!" she barked, and the woman's eyes narrowed in anger. "You don't know what's down there yet. What if whoever's done this is waiting down there and sees you aren't like the rest? You think your friend's going to wake up and be happy that you got yourself killed because you acted recklessly!?" The woman's face scrunched as she tried to think of an argument, but eventually her shoulders slumped.
"What do you suppose we do, Protestant?" The heat of the insult wasn't behind her words as she stared at the line of descending women with a sort of helplessness. Seras thought a moment, and as the last woman's head disappeared she tugged the German over to the stairs.
"I'm going to lower you over the balcony," she warned. "And you tell me if the coast is clear, or at least where they're all headed." The German made to argue, but then seemed to think better of it and nodded. "I wonder why you and I weren't affected," Seras mumbled as she leaned over the edge of the balcony to make sure that there was nothing that the other woman might get hurt on hanging from the ceiling. After all, the roof had crumbled—who's to say there wasn't some wires that had popped free or some sharp metal sticking just out of sight?
"Your guess is as good as mine," the woman replied as she leant on the balcony, both hands on the railing. "Now, how do you plan to—wait!" she squeaked as Seras grabbed her by the knees and knocked her over the railing, making sure to grab her gown as well so it wouldn't fall over her head and blind her. The woman bit back a curse and glared up at her, her glasses barely hanging onto her head.
"What do you see?" Seras asked, holding the woman steady so that she could beneath the overhang while staying in the shadow and out of sight. Unless someone was looking directly at the alcove that held the stairway, no one would be able to see her. The woman was silent, and just when Seras was beginning to worry she wriggled violently.
"Pull me up!" Seras obeyed and the woman practically clawed her way back up the railing as soon as she could reach. When she emerged, her face was flushed from the blood pooling in her head, but her expression was one of fear.
"I know what it is," she said breathlessly once both her feet were on the ground.
"What?" Seras urged, leaning over as if the answer stood in the stairwell. "What is it? What did you see? Were all the women down there—was Sir Integra down there? What about the men?" But the woman didn't answer right away, instead swaying with one hand on the railing. "What's going on!?" Seras pressed, wanting to grab the German's shoulders and shake her like a doll until the answer came out.
"Sirenen… die meeres verführer…" Seras shook her head uncomprehendingly. Suddenly, it was her hand being grabbed as the German dragged her back to her room and locked them both inside, biting her nails absently. "The tempters of the ocean, the –ah, what is the English word—the Sirens," she clarified. "I've never seen them up close, but we learned about them when training for Iscariot."
"Sirens?" Seras repeated, thinking about what little mythology she could remember. "You mean those ladies on the rocks in that story… The Odyssey, that's it," she finished triumphantly, happy to have remembered the name of the epic they'd read once in school. The German nodded bitterly.
"That's right—well, in a way, it's right." She looked out the corner of the window, but nothing seemed to catch her eye. "They are devils of nature, and their favorite meal is human flesh."
"Naturally," Seras huffed. Why couldn't dangerous magical creatures just be vegetarians for once? "Wait a second…." She thought back to her muddled memories of the poem. "Aren't they supposed to sing? They had to tie that guy to the mast of the ship so he wouldn't jump overboard." The German nodded again.
"That screeching—" she made a hand motion to indicate the awful noise still filling the air. "That's the song. According to lore, it's only beautiful to virgins—everyone else hears the Siren's true voice." She looked back at the window, trying in vain to see through the darkness.
"But I'm a virgin still!" Seras protested. "That doesn't sound like a song to me, though." The German shrugged.
"You're a vampire, not a human," she said simply. "Perhaps it doesn't affect you."
"Maybe," Seras replied hesitantly. "But…hey!" she screeched, turning with incredulous eyes to the woman. "They didn't get you either! That means…." She trailed off as the woman turned a dark red.
"That's none of your business!"
"You're right," Seras agreed sheepishly. "I don't even know your name." The woman turned away, her arms crossed. Seras felt a little guilty—that was something incredibly personal to talk about, and she knew it. It had only startled her that someone that worked in such a prestigious religious setting would be anything other than a virgin… not that there was anything wrong with that! She had just considered all the Iscariots to be sort of asexual.
"Wolfe." Seras looked up, the word bringing her out of her thoughts.
"Hmm?"
"My name," the woman said, not turning around. "It's Wolfe; Heinkel Wolfe."
"I'm Seras Victoria." The woman did turn at that, glaring at the vampiress over her shoulder.
"I know who you are." Seras felt the familiar heat in Heinkel's tone, but chose to ignore it.
"Well then, Heinkel," she began, "we might as well try to get some more rest. When the sun rises, we can figure a way to get out of here." The woman nodded and moved to her bed, lying down on it and turning to face the wall without another word. Seras lay on the small expanse of floor, pillowing her head with her arms. Before she could say a word about turning out the lights, the power flickered and then turned off completely. Another smaller explosion boomed in the distance and she closed her eyes, wondering how in the world she was going to manage to get out of this one.
Integra woke up with one word flashing like a beacon of intense light running through her mind: Detonation. She sat up in the bed, her heart pounding incessantly against her ribcage, the coverlet clutched in both hands and held up to her chest. For a moment, she thought her mind might have been playing tricks on her, rather in the way a person can dream of falling from enormous heights only to wake up safe in their bed millimeters before they hit the ground.
In the wavering light from outside (perhaps clouds were obscuring the moon?) she saw the room. It was devoid of life, the bathroom still standing open, the door still tightly shut. She could see the position of the lock; she was still securely bolted in. There were no screams, no shouts of fear or anger, nothing to arouse suspicion. But it was the nothing that alarmed her the most.
Why had her mind honed in on that word? Why had she felt as though for a moment the bed shook, and her ears caught the sound of a muffled explosion and the resulting aftershock? Perhaps there had been an earthquake. She knew she wouldn't be satisfied until she had seen that all was truly well. She threw back the coverlet and stood, flipping the light switch on her way to the armoire. The lights didn't respond, but there came the sound of fierce sparking from somewhere above her head. She immediately flipped the switch again and stared up at the ceiling in vain, trying to see a problem.
It would have been easier if her window had been like Seras', closer to the floor and arched in a way that it gave off a better view. But her windows were long panels against the ceiling—during the day, the room would be flooded with light. But at the moment, there was only enough to see the outline of shadows, with a thin sliver of moonlight focused on the wall that held the door.
She went anyway to the armoire, pulling out a thin dressing gown before rethinking and putting it back. This wasn't her home—she wasn't going to walk around outside with nothing on but an ankle-length nightgown, dressing gown, and bare feet. She dressed as well as she could in the dark, leaving behind the suit coat and pocketing her pistol instead of on a holster where a potential enemy could see. She slid her shoes on almost silently, and then unlatched the lock and slipped into the inky darkness of the hallway.
The power must have been out, for the lights in the hallway were out as well, though when she went to bed they'd been shining beneath her door. She listened to the silence for a long moment, her heart still pumping adrenaline to all of her limbs. She decided in the end to go find Seras, and stepped forward. She walked in the center of the hall in order to keep from running into anything, her eyes straining to see in the pitch black.
She judged herself to be about halfway down the hall when she encountered something. At first, she thought she'd gone too far and had stumbled into the wall on the opposite end of the hallway. But she knew from walking it earlier in the night that there was no way for her to have walked the length in such a short amount of time. Reaching her hands out, she blindly felt across the impassive surface and it crumbled beneath her touch. Another touch had her pulling her hand back with a gasp as something pointy stuck into her palm.
She grabbed a crumbling piece and turned it over in her hands with a frown. Then, something above her head cracked and a sliver of light shone across the hallway. Looking up, she saw what appeared to be rocks rolling out of sight, and above the night sky shone with a silvery glean. She looked at it for a moment before moving the piece in her hands into the moonlight. She saw what appeared to be sheetrock, her hands stained chalky white from handling it.
Suddenly, a wave of comprehension swept over her. It was rubble; a pile of rubble. Part of the hallway had caved in, and because they were on the second floor, the ceiling naturally gave way to the roof. She felt a shiver run down her spine at the implication—it was very, very likely that she had been woken by an explosion. She shifted from side to side musingly. Something didn't add up. If the explosion or earthquake or whatever had happened, surely there would have been more commotion. She wouldn't have been the only one woken by such noise, would she? She was a heavy sleeper!
Part of her reasoned that the debris might not reach the roof, and that she might climb over it and continue looking for Seras. For all she knew, the girl might be on the other side, looking for her as well. but she didn't want to call out in the night—she was vulnerable in this darkness, until her vampiric police girl could be called upon to be her night-vision. At the same time, she'd never been a woman to back from a personal challenge and she quickly began to negotiate the broken bits of ceiling. About halfway up the thought that live-wires might also be in the pile occurred to her, but she decided that they would probably be sparking and she would hear or see them before she touched them.
She didn't see the ceiling; she bumped her head on it hard enough to make her see stars instead. A half-bitten curse left her in a rush and her hands slipped on the panel she was using as a hold. She fell back and tumbled down the rubble, her hands and feet both trying to find purchase on the ground. She felt a sharp pain in her left calf and hissed as she hit the carpet, rolling twice before finally stopping on her back. She breathed heavily for a moment, her head pounding and dizzy, her arms and legs jelly.
She reached down to her calf, her fingers coming back sticky with blood. She felt a thin gash there—it didn't feel serious, but it would need to be bound. She must have hit a piece of metal on the way down; her pants leg was torn to shreds. She ripped it off, feeling her way in the dark and tying the fabric around the gash as best she could, using her fingers as a guide. She stood up, stumbling slightly as a jolt ran through her leg nerves.
What next?
She recalled briefly noticing another flight of stairs at the other end of the hall, past her own room. She guessed that they led back to the first floor, but she hadn't done any exploring. However, it beat standing around next to a wrecked roof, and it certainly beat sitting demurely in her room like a sitting duck. What if another part of the ceiling caved? She'd rather be on the first floor if that happened. If I can find the stairs, I'll go down, and find Seras' flight of stairs. Perhaps the hallway on the other side is untouched as well.
She walked back down the hall, this time leaning to one side and running her hand along the wall, counting doors. Her door—the 25th—was still open, and she stopped in the light to check her leg. She saw that her "bandage" was already bloodied, and in the light it looked much worse than what she'd felt in the dark. She felt her stomach turn, but now was not the time to be worried about such things.
There were stairs at the other end of the hall. She felt a sheer sense of joy as she climbed carefully down them, stopping once to rest her painfully throbbing leg. Beneath her, the first floor was just as quiet as the second, and just as dark. Darker, even, for below no doors were open to let what little moonlight there was filter through, and no roof had collapsed to allow a small beam to enter.
She vaguely remembered the common area being somewhere off to her right, which meant that turned around as she was, it would be to her left instead. That meant that the stairs were off to her now-right, if she calculated correctly. She touched the right wall and began counting doors again, her leg forcing her to limp as bolts of pain traveled up it. She knew that she would have to sterilize it somehow; perhaps there was a first-aid kit in the common area?
Scrich…scrape…scrich….scrape…tap tap tap
She stopped, and felt that for a moment her heart stopped too. Her eyes sought out the source of the noise, although in her mind she knew that it was pointless to try and see in the dark. For what seemed like eternity, she stood in one spot, her hand resting on door number 12, blood running down her leg and making her ankle itch before pooling on her sock and in her shoe.
Then, a flash of light… again, another flash!
A figure, holding a flashlight, stepped into the hall up ahead. Integra's eyes widened and she knew that the person, whomever it was, had come from the common area into the hall. The flashlight shined at her and she blinked rapidly, the sudden change from darkness to light blinding her temporarily. The beam was gone soon enough and when the spots danced out of her eyes, she gasped in surprise.
It was a child of perhaps thirteen or so, dressed in a sleeved nightgown that seemed too long for her. It trailed the ground behind her, hiding her feet. The flashlight turned on the holder and Integra saw the child's face. The round cheeks were cast into shadow, the gray eyes shining with fear. The child's long blonde hair was straggly and hung in its face. Integra wondered where she had come from; she hadn't known that children resided in this complex too. Maybe it was only a very young Iscariot in training?
"Hallo!" the child called out, her voice shaking with nerves. "A-are you hurt? I heard a bomb go off, I think."
"Are you hurt, is the better question." Integra moved forward as quickly as she could until she reached the child. The girl shook her head.
"No, but—" she paused, tears filling the gray eyes. "I'm lost, and frightened. I can't find my teacher, or my sister either. I don't know what to do…" she trailed off, voice cracking. "Please, help me!"
"Of course," Integra replied a little awkwardly, unused to seeing a child—or anyone for that matter—crying. "Come along," she ordered, holding out her hand. "We'll go and find someone who knows what's going on."
The child reached for her hand with a teary smile, but Integra's fingers never even brushed the tips of the child's nails. She felt herself being jerked out of the light, the wind whooshing in her ears and her head spinning from the motion. There was a loud thump and then she found herself eye to eye with a bookcase, of all things. A snarl and another, louder thump made her regain her senses. She was being held in a vice grip under someone's arm, feet dangling two inches off the ground. She writhed against the hold, trying to get her would-be attacker to let go. She felt for her pistol, but it was missing. It must have come out of my pocket when I took that fall!
There was finally a loud slam and she was dumped unceremoniously. She landed on her injured leg and couldn't help the quick yelp of pain that followed, stumbling and catching herself on the bookcase. The light was much better in here, thanks to a kerosene lantern burning on the little desk, and the window above the bed, which was much larger than the one she had upstairs. She wobbled over to it and sat, twisting her leg and quickly unraveling the makeshift bandage. Blood still oozed from the gash and she winced.
"Yer injured!" The voice, quite familiar, rang through the room and she jumped in surprise. She put a hand on her heart, feeling that the poor organ couldn't take much more tonight. She looked up at the owner of the room, standing with his back against the door.
"Very astute observation… Paladin Anderson," she remarked with a sneer, biting the inside of her cheek as she shifted her leg on the bed. It was clearly much worse than she thought, if it caused her this much pain. The priest watched her silently, head tilted as he stared openly at the wound.
"I got someat for ye leg," he said finally, moving to the bathroom and carrying the lantern with him. She shifted again, trying not to bleed on the sheets. Her mind, now that the shock was over, was racing. Why did he drag her into his room? A loud scratching on the door called her attention, and she felt concerned for the child still out there. Wasn't Anderson supposed to like children?
"Here." He came back with a wet washcloth and something in his hands, which he sat on the table. He handed her the cloth and nodded towards her leg. "Wash it, and then we'll get ye set." He moved back to the door, which was nearly shaking with the force of whomever or whatever was scratching it. He made a face and slapped his palm against the wall. Integra looked up in time to see the holy barriers glow; he had them strung like lanterns all across the wall, and in neat rows all the way down the door. It was a very powerful barrier too, she was sure.
"The child, out there," she piped up, wondering if perhaps he might not have seen it, though she was certain there was no way he could have missed it. "We have to get it in here." HE turned around, and his face was a mask of confusion.
"Child?!" he repeated, his tone the closest thing to panicked that she'd ever heard coming out of him. "Wha' child?!" Now it was her turn to be confused.
"The one holding the flashlight, of course!" She bit back another curse as she rubbed the cloth over her leg, firmly pressing back the pain. Anderson shook his head grimly.
"Tha' thing… 'twas no child." His nose wrinkled in a snarl. "God-forsaken creature; going so low as to take the form of God's innocent lambs, all in pursuit of its bloody slaughter." Integra blinked slowly, trying to digest what he'd said. She didn't understand a word of it, and it wasn't for the heavy accent, either.
"Excuse me?" He didn't answer her directly, instead coming over to take the red-stained cloth from her hands. He went into the bathroom and she heard the clank of metal as he stuffed the cloth down the laundry chute. He came back, grabbing the things on the desk, and she saw it was a bottle of antiseptic and something bulky.
He sat apart from her on the bed, placing the antiseptic aside and unfolding the bulky object, which she saw to be a white shirt. He ripped the bottom hem off, along with nearly half the bottom of the shirt, working in a near-stifling silence. Then he folded the remains of the shirt and placed it beneath her leg. She saw what was coming and closed her eyes as he poured some of the antiseptic over her leg, using the shirt as a barrier between the bed and the liquid. Agony blinded her and she grit her teeth, her hands clenching until the knuckles were white. By the time the pain faded and she opened her eyes, he was deftly tying the ripped half of the shirt tightly around her leg, knotting the end with an expert hand.
"It was," he finally began, "a Siren." He looked back at the door, which was continuing to rattle fiercely, though nothing tried to enter. Integra knew that it probably couldn't enter with the barrier.
"Siren?" she repeated thoughtfully, looking down at her bandaged leg. She moved it again, this time with a little more success. The sear of the antiseptic had taken the bite out of the pain. "We don't have those in England," she admitted. "I didn't think they existed."
"Aye, they exist alright," he growled. "But never this far north. Dangerous creatures. They stay near the oceans—the cliffs are barren. Less to kill 'em with." He shook his head. "This don't bear well." He looked at her, taking in her disheveled appearance. "Did ye not see anyone upstairs?"
"No. I was going to find Ser—Agent Victoria, but the hallway is blocked. The ceiling caved in. I didn't hear anyone, so I came down here to take the other stairway and go up another route." She tried not to glare at him; after all, if he spoke truly, he might have saved her life. "What about you? Why aren't you out fighting those things, if they're so dangerous?"
"Silver knives willnae do a thing to a Siren. Just makes them angry. A barrier will hold 'em off, but ye have to have something organic to do 'em in with. Wooden stake from a yew tree'll usually do it," he stated, as if giving her a lecture. "Or if ye can find a way to set them on fire, tha' works too. But ye can't drown 'em, or choke 'em, or any o' tha' sort. They live in water, and they only breathe when they want to."
"So they're like mermaids?" Integra knew of mermaids, but the ones near the coasts of England were docile creatures that didn't enjoy rising from the ocean depths unless it was the ecclesiastical full moon. They kept to themselves and didn't bother humans, so she'd never had a reason to interact with them.
"Did I say mermaid?" Anderson sneered. She bit back a sharp retort, her hands fisting in her lap. "I know yer a Protestant, but yer not completely daft. Mermaids are harmless. They only come up 'round Eastertide to brush their locks and laugh at the moon. No, mermaids are quite different."
"Well, I suppose I should thank you for saving me, but Protestant gratitude probably means little to you, and I do have a vampire to find. So if you'll excuse me…." she stood, turning to leave. She wasn't sure if she could handle being around him for an extended period of time, and was more than ready to find Seras and quit the place for good. But he lashed out faster than she could move, his hand encircling her arm. She turned on him at once angrily.
"Ye shouldnae leave yet," he warned her. "Yer safe here behind the barrier." She took on a smug expression and tried to shake her hand free.
"I appreciate the concern, but—"
"Are ye a virgin still?" he cut her off. Her mouth hung open for a moment or two out of pure disbelief that he would even say a thing like that to her.
"I beg your pardon?!" she snapped, an infuriated blush rising to her cheeks. "I don't know what sort of thoughts you're having, but they aren't the kind any normal sort of priest should be having!"
"Idiot!" he hissed at her, shaking his head. He moved to the window, throwing it open. "Can ye not hear it?" At first, she just heard the crackle of fire. Confused, she moved to the window, and gasped in surprise. The horizon… it was on fire! Smoke billowed into the air, the orange glow staining the night.
"The city's on fire," she murmured, but before he could answer, another sound drifted to her ears. It was… singing. Low and soft, it was the voice of many children. It ebbed and flowed like a tide, or a church hymn. She closed her eyes, leaning towards the window to catch the words.
It was strange—the syllables were all drawn out, long and wavering in the night. The flames danced in slow rhythm with it, she felt her own heart slow in time. As she listened, she began to sway to the song, humming and trying to match its uneven tone with her own voice. She had the strangest feeling that somewhere, long ago, someone once sang the same song to her, though the syllables were strung in a nonsensical way. She could find no semblance of real words in the song, but she loved it. She needed to get closer, and maybe if she listened long enough, she could memorize it and sing it too….
"No, lass." A sharp smack caught her unaware and the window closed, cutting off the song. She held her cheek, and realized with a sense of dread that she had been ready to try and jump out of the window. "Tha's how they get ye." She felt lightheaded and the thing that masqueraded as a child continued to scratch at the door, but instead of singing the sound was a fierce hiss instead.
"But you—you weren't affected by…" Integra shook her head, trying to clear the fog hanging over her mind like a drug. It made her thoughts hazy and she couldn't seem to focus. "How—Why?"
"Simple," he replied, guiding her back to the bed and sitting her down. She swayed where she sat, phantom syllables still bouncing around in her mind. It was funny—without the song in her ears, the syllables meant nothing to her, and though she hadn't been away from the window for thirty seconds, she couldn't remember the tune. "Tha' song… it only holds with virgins." Integra turned this over in her mind, unable to process the statement as a thought.
"But… priest," she blathered, holding her head in one hand. She felt like falling back on the bed and sleeping for weeks. It was if she'd been up for days without a nap or anything, and her mind just couldn't go another moment without reprieve. "That's…." she mumbled, her eyes closing. A loud clap near her ear had her wide awake again. "That's impossible, isn't it?"
"No." That was all the answer she got, and she was too dizzy to inquire further. "I'm worried, though. I think the other Iscariots might've been bewitched by tha' song, and they've gone off to their deaths, or worse." He did look very worried. "And without anything to kill them Sirens with, I'm stuck here for lack of a better plan. My blades willnae hold 'em off, and they're fierce with their claws. They've been prowling the lower level all night, and dawn is still aways off."
"I didn't…earlier…." She wasn't speaking above a whisper, her lips barely moving as she sagged sideways on the bed. "The song, I mean." He managed to piece together what she was saying.
"I have my own theory about tha'," he assured her. "I'll tell ye about it when ye wake, if ye remember to ask." He pushed her lightly and she fell back on the bed, boneless. In another moment, she was dead asleep. He sat down in the desk chair, facing the door, a blade in his hand in case the barrier fell.
Afterword:
John Mellencamp: Crumblin' Down
www . youtube watch?v = FxSlYdIYQ7E
