A/N: I'm sorry I haven't posted a chapter in a while, but I've gotten a little lazy with updating due to fatigue . . . courtesy of the homework assignments that spill gallons of my daily lifeblood. By the time I heal up, it's either midnight or I'm plumb exhausted. That being said, I hope you like this new chapter.


Some couple nights afterward . . .

I ran out of the mansion as fast as my tired legs could carry me. My maid's uniform was stained with red, and my hair was disheveled and matted to my face by blood, sweat, and tears. I was sniveling as the murder scenes were seemingly imprinted onto my retinas.

There was the decapitated body of my master, Monsieur Bossuet; the rippled, punctured figure of his beautiful blonde wife; the pupil-less, floating body of Marguerite, the seamstress, who hovered lifelessly under some sick manipulation . . . and my fellow maid, Brigitte, lying dead on the staircase, severed at her torso. Each of those people's images haunted my mind as I walked onto the street, but especially frightening was seeing those black demons.

I guess I was so absorbed in thought that I did not realize I had knocked into someone on the street until they blared a vulgar phrase toward me.

"Désolé," I murmured again and again as I became caught in the sidewalk's traffic.

Suddenly, I realized I was shivering, although it well above cold weather. My eyes fogged over, and I heard a strangled noise from somewhere close. It took me a minute before I realized it was my voice.

Not knowing what else to do in order to get away from everyone (and not get ran over in the street), I retreated to an alleyway nearby. I dragged my bum leg, which I'd hurt by tripping and having Madame Bossuet kick me in the thigh. I re-injured the leg by falling down a staircase and ramming my knee into one of the steps, then broke my fall on a huge chunk of ceramic from a shattered pot on the landing. Of course, I broke my fall with my shin and received a deep gash by doing so.

Limping pathetically, I sought relief by resting on a cold brick wall. My leg wasn't bleeding anymore, but the blood was itchy and drying on skin that throbbed with pain. I felt myself beginning to convulse into tears, so I held myself to try and stop. I didn't want to attract attention, not that anyone would really care. . . .

"Are you hurt badly, Mademoiselle?" I heard an unfamiliar voice ask.

I looked up to see a tall man, probably a few years younger than Monsieur Bossuet. He was wearing a black suit and a blue silk tie. That was very odd, considering the setting. However, he still seemed casual, for he was leaning slightly backward with his hands in his pockets.

"I don't think so, Monsieur." I had been taught not to talk to strangers, but for some reason I spoke to this man.

"Let me see," he walked over, and leant down to look at my leg, which I held awkwardly so I didn't stretch out the ripped skin on my knee. "I am a practiced doctor, of course."

He put his face rather close to the cuts. "They do not look deep." He then grabbed my leg harshly and pulled me down. "I could always fix that, of course."

My first reaction should have been to scream "FIRE!," seeing as people never look to see if you're hurt if you scream "HELP!" I suppose a fire could put their own lives in danger, which is why they grow a heart to care.

I just sat there, though, with a strange man next to me. My tongue felt like it was glued to the roof of my mouth with absurdly thick peanut butter.

The man got to his feet and lifted me up, apologizing for his rude behavior.

"This hunger gets out of control, sometimes. You see, one of my patients bit me on the arm this morning, obviously angry that I was trying to pin her down and give her a sedative.

"Ever since a few hours after, I've been craving —" he hesitated "—blood. I had to leave the hospital before I could harm someone.

"I tried to stay home with my wife until this thirst subsided, but I'm afraid it never did. I even tried eating something else, but all it did was give me throat pains. I just left my house a minute ago."

I did not know what to think of this man's speech. What was this, craving blood? Again, another ludicrous reference to Dracula. Had the centuries-old novel suddenly been revived by a motion picture so believable that people began thinking they've been infected? Or did someone recently write an overwhelming book or novella, maybe an editorial or short story?

After all, Monsieur Bossuet didn't really bite me . . . did he? I couldn't even remember. . . .

"You don't believe me, do you, Mademoiselle?" the doctor sounded disappointed. "I didn't think you would."

"It just doesn't make any sense." I tried justifying my doubt. "Vampires are of fiction. If they were real, surely we would have an epidemic of unexplainable blood loss by now."

"I know it sounds crazy," he sighed, "but it is true."

He still looked sad when he said abruptly, "Have you read Night by Elie Wiesel, my girl?"

"Oui, I have." I remembered reading the depressing story of Eliezer's experience in Auschwitz, true to the last heartbreaking drop. I had cried many times while reading the book as I cursed the world for allowing the Holocaust to happen.

I then cursed the world again for letting it happen again, even if on a smaller scale of people. There are many stories of genocide. Some go unlearned by many, like the tragedy of Rwanda's civil war, where more than 800,000 people were slaughtered in three months. There had to be many I didn't know of either, and I was angry for being so oblivious.

More important, I knew I would never forget the death camps or its victims after reading Night. That would be impossible.

"Do you recall reading about Moishe the Beadle?" the man then asked me, breaking me from my thoughts.

It took me a moment, but I remembered. "He came back to Sighet from the beginning of the Holocaust's terror. After he escaped, he told Eliezer and many others of what had happened to him. Only no one believed him."

"And all of Sighet was invaded eventually by the Hungarian police. The Jews that refused to believe Moishe were sentenced to a similar fate," the man added. "Many of them, however, were not able to escape."

"Yeah," I agreed softly. If they had listened, perhaps many people would have been saved.

"Mademoiselle," the man whispered, as if in deep thought, and looked to the ground. Then, he raised his head a bit to reach my eyes. "I do not want to be Moishe in this situation. Please, don't doubt me so fully. Just as there will always be Nazis—even if they are not active—there are other monsters out there.

"Granted, I don't know you like a daughter, but I've met you and I've talked to you. Now, there will always be part of me that remembers you. And I can at least find a way to stop this pain knowing that I've warned someone. I can rest knowing my job is done, though it is up to you whether you believe me."

I could not look away from his eyes, though they pained me so. Here, in front of me, was a grown man on the verge of tears, yet I was enthralled. There was simply something in his gaze that caused my heart to break in two . . . something that made me say the next three words:

"I believe you."

He smiled briefly, then flinched with a grunt as he hid his face. "It's very hard for me to resist tearing out your throat . . . I'll leave before I get the chance. Thank you for listening, Mademoiselle."

He looked up. "I pray you are luckier than I."

Then, he disappeared.


I woke up in tears.

I remembered that man so clearly now, as if it were yesterday. His sallow face, puffy eyes that glistened with a thousand more tears of blood. His greying hair was tousled, pristine suit wrinkled, the sleeve over his forearm ripped to expose a bite mark. In my dream, however, I did not notice the disarray of his appearance; I only saw the refinement.

The only difference is that the Elie Wiesel's Night was actually very recently published in English under that title. It had many versions before, though, and it was an earlier version I had read . . . and it had been in French. Perhaps my subconscious just got mixed up. . . .

I told Vanessa to remind me of Moishe if I ever considered converting to a vampire, though I did not give her an explanation (she'd read Night a few days ago and was confused about Moishe's importance). I took a shower to get ready for the day. I did not report for my duties, however, until I recited a prayer for the man I'd met at the young age of fourteen.


"Capt. Bernadette, I've been meaning to ask you something," I began my questioning of the man a few minutes after the soldiers scurried off into the mess hall, just as twilight was fading. Capt. Bernadette had lagged behind, finishing off a nub of a cigarette.

"What?" he spoke dismissively.

"What exactly are we preparing against?" I buried my head into the shadows, not wanting to show how red my face had gotten.

A lieutenant should know these things . . . but I had missed that part of the interview with Sir Integra. Actually, I fell asleep halfway through her explanation, due to an extreme case of a jet lag. I still wondered how I'd seized the position.

"It depends. Lots of things."

"Well," I sighed as I prepared to clarify, "I know we are to fight the living dead. And Iscariot's Catholics, whenever they get in our way or cause a problem. And we must protect the crown from any and all threats . . . but my men have been a bit edgy lately. They say there's rumor going around. . . ."

"Which one?" he asked with a smile. "Really, Lieutenant, don't worry about it. If something else pops up for us to take care of, you'll know about it."

Capt. Bernadette stared at me for a second and patted me on the shoulder. "They're just rumors, Lieutenant. Relax for once."

I would, but cigarettes are off-limits, I thought sulkily. "Sorry, I'm still quite new at this," is what I said.

"Six years in the military and you're still 'new at this'?" He seemed to find that funny.

Non, I'm still new to people believing me when I supposedly "talk crazy," I thought to myself again . . . and once more, said something differently entirely. "Good night, Captain. I'm off."


Vanessa was out on the town for the night in search of other single ghosts, so I had settled into bed with another book I found in my armoire. It was a compilation of Edgar Allan Poe's many short stories and poems, and I had settled upon "For Annie" to read.

My glasses began slipping down my bridge as I read over the poem, lost in the words as I often became. It wasn't until I heard a deep voice across from me that I was brought back into reality.

I looked up to see Monsieur Alucard, quoting the last two stanzas of poetry—the exact lines I was reading as I read them.

I would have dismissed him if he hadn't recited the lines with such emotion. Because he'd done so, I actually was on the verge of tears—it seemed that I was able to feel the emotions Poe intended to express.

"Do you enjoy Poe, Monsieur Alucard?" I tried asking as casually as I could without my voice cracking.

"He is a far better choice than your last pick," he somewhat answered. "Wouldn't you agree?"

"I suppose," I whispered, sniffling as discreetly as possible.

"You gave up on Süskind." It was more of a statement than a question.

"Non. I have a habit of reading various things at once," I explained. "I'd like to think it's something I inherited from my grandfather, or maybe even my father."

He gave me an odd look, so I added something further. "I'm not really sure of my family heritage. Just after I was born, my mother . . . well, she shot herself after hearing my father had been killed in war. I spent the majority of my childhood in a Catholic orphanage."

"You were raised Catholic," he said skeptically until I nodded, which seemed to confirm his assumption. "What caused you to become a Protestant?"

"Mostly, I think I was just being rebellious," I said shortly after realizing how much I'd just revealed in a matter of seconds. "Enough of story hour for tonight, non?"

He smiled. "You are more interesting than you appear, Lieutenant."

I scowled and replied, "You're too kind."

"I know. Honestly, I thought the only interesting thing was you're a bit more 'endowed' than most French women," he mentioned vaguely with a deviant smirk. "In fact, your assets were the only two reasons I believed you're American."

It's great to know my breasts aren't distracting, I sighed mentally. "Good night, Monsieur. You can see your own way out. . . ."


So ended the redundant chunk of my life as part of the Hellsing Organization. It is time for the next chapter, which is much more interesting than this ridiculous gabble, I assure you. Let me help you out:

Sooner than I could have guessed, my life changed completely. My past as not Lieut. Lynette Aurelle but as Miss Soleil Etoile Devereux was exposed. All I'd kept cleverly concealed was cast into the open before my very eyes, with no way to recover the mess.

My duties became harder to handle and temptations rose from the darkness I tried to stay away from. In a quick, reckless blow, my life plummeted from where I stood . . . and stopped where I once gazed sympathetically. I found myself questioning everything I had once stood for and changing my morals almost absolutely.

I found myself wanting something I'd cursed. I found myself in an existence I'd despised. Most important, I found true happiness.

. . . .Let's begin after I fetch a glass of water, shall we?