Author's Notes: I have fixed this chapter. Now our mysterious guest should be more like "Alucard" than "Carmilla."

Disclaimer: I do not own Hellsing, Carmilla, Dracula, or a schloss in Transylvania. (Boo!)

I told you that I was charmed with her in most particulars.

I shall begin by describing her. She was about the same size as I, slender and wonderfully graceful. Except that her movements, like her mama's, were exaggerated—very exaggerated— indeed, she strutted about at all times like an actress on stage; the world was her theatre. Her complexion was cool and white; snow could not have had a paler hue. Her features were small and beautifully formed, and her eyes were sharp, green and lustrous. Her hair was quite wonderful; I never saw locks so magnificently long and straight as when it was down about her waist.

Once, as we were talking in her room, she stopped suddenly, fixed her fine eyes on mine, and smiled that little mysterious smile of hers. "You like my hair, don't you, Integra?"

Realizing that I'd been staring, I suddenly became very embarrassed and ashamed, and could feel the colour rushing to my face as I cast my eyes downward. "Really? I didn't mean to..."

"And you say that I am impertinent!" she sighed exasperatedly, and stood up suddenly. "Well, if you really cannot help yourself, then we simply must remedy the problem at once!"

So saying, she strutted to her vanity like a princess, lay back in her chair dramatically, and spread her hair out elegantly, as she continued talking in her sweet low voice: "Now I shall allow you to groom me as I finish telling you what comes of mating griffins with horses."

Hesitantly, I placed my hands under it, and laughed with wonder at its weight. It was as exquisitely fine and soft as silk, and in colour a rich and very pure black. I had always assumed that dark hair would feel slightly coarse to the touch, or else lose its fine sheen and appear slightly brown in daylight, but hers was no such thing. I often loved to let it down, to fold and braid it, and to spread it out and play with it.

"You remind me of the fairy tale princess Schneewittchen," I would say, "with your hair black as ebony, your skin white as snow, and your lips red as blood. Truly, the Brothers Grimm must have been describing you when they wrote of her beauty."

"I have never heard of Schneewittchen," she said once, "yet you keep comparing me to her. Is she a clever girl?"

"I suppose, in English, she is more commonly known as Snow White," and I proceeded to tell her the story.

"I am not like Snow White at all," she said irritably, once I had finished. "She is a very stupid girl who allowed Death at her door, not once, not twice, but thrice!"

"I suppose," I agreed, timidly, "that you would prefer the account of Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot, or Snow White and Rose Red?"

This piqued her most intense interest, and my beautiful companion asked earnestly after the story, but rather than troubling to explain it to her, I fetched her a copy of my Grimm account. "Read it to me," she said carelessly, "I do so love to hear the sound of your voice."

We were lying in bed by this time, I against the many silken throw pillows and she reclining against me, and I proceeded to read to her.

"There was once a poor widow who lived in a lonely cottage. In front of the cottage was a garden wherein stood two rose-trees, one of which bore white and the other red roses. She had two children who were like the two rose-trees, and one was called Snow-white and the other Rose-red. They were as good and happy, as busy and cheerful, as ever two children in the world were..."

I paused. Seeing as she had not yet interrupted me, as she was prone to do when she was bored, I assumed that she liked it, and carried on.

"The two children were so fond of each other that they always held each other by the hand when they went out together, and when Snow-white said, "We will not leave each other," Rose-red answered, "Never so long as we live," and their mother would add, "What one has she must share with the other."

I had not realized my beautiful companion had leaned off of me until she suddenly yelled "HA!" like the morning we met and tackled me to the bed. I yelped as the book was thrown from my hands, and we tumbled for a moment before my companion thrust me to the bed. "Wonderful Integra! You were very right to compare me to Snow White, for I am very like her after all, and you are my perfect counterpart." She laughed softly, and smiled mysteriously. "If I am Snow White, then you are Rose Red."

"But," I protested weakly, "it says in the book that Snow White and Rose Red are sisters, which you and I are not." I could feel her hot breath on my cheek; feel her firm hips on my own. "And, and it says that Rose Red is the more rambunctious of the two, which you know I am not."

"That is true," she replied carelessly, "While I appear more like Snow White, with my skin white as snow, my lips red as blood, and my hair dark as night, you appear more like Rose Red, with your hair gold as the sun, your eyes blue as the sky, and your skin rich as the earth. I have Snow White's appearance while you have her docile nature, and you have Rose Red's appearance while I have her wild nature." She was staring deeply into my eyes, and smiled that mysterious smile of hers. "'What one has she must share with the other.'"

Heavens! If I had but known all!

I said there were particulars which did not please me so well.

I have told you that her confidence won me the first night I saw her, and again with the story of Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot; but I found that she exercised with respect to herself, her mother, her history, everything in fact connected with her life, plans, and people, an ever wakeful reserve.

It was, of course, very unfair of me to press her, very ill-bred, but I really could not help it; and I might just as well have let it alone.

There was a coldness, it seemed to me, beyond her years, in her smiling persistent refusal to afford me the least ray of light.

"Will you not," I said one night, "at least elude to me a name by which I may address you?"

"Matska," she said, after a long silence, "the woman you saw in the carriage, called me..."

What she did tell me amounted, in my unconscionable estimation—to nothing.

It was all summed up in three very vague disclosures:

First—Her name was Alucard.

Second—Her family was very ancient and noble.

Third—Her home lay in the direction of the south.

She would not tell me the name of her family, nor their armorial bearings, nor the name of their estate, nor even that of the country they lived in.

You are not to suppose that I worried her incessantly on these subjects. I watched opportunity, and rather insinuated than urged my inquiries, for she was rather arrogant, and loved very much to discuss in great detail of her many admirable qualities and virtues.

Once or twice, indeed, I did attack her more directly. "What harm could it do anyone to tell me what I so ardently desire to know? Have you no trust in my good sense or honour? Why will you not believe me when I assure you, so solemnly, that I will not divulge one syllable of what you tell me to any mortal breathing?"

But no matter what my tactics, utter failure was invariably the result. Reproaches and caresses were all lost upon her.

She used to place her pretty arms about my neck, draw me to her, and laying her cheek to mine, murmur with her lips near my ear, "Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours." To my exclamation of disbelief she would say: "Come now, pretty sweeting, surely you must know much I adore you, and of the highest faith I have in your good honour. When the time has come, you shall at last know all; so, for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit."

And when she had spoken such a rhapsody, she would press me more closely in her trembling embrace, and her lips in soft kisses gently glow upon my cheek.

From these foolish embraces, which were not of very frequent occurrence, I must allow, I used to wish to extricate myself; but my energies seemed to fail me. Her murmured words sounded like a lullaby in my ear, and soothed my resistance into a trance, from which I only seemed to recover myself when she withdrew her arms.

"What can you mean by all this?" I would ask, "I remind you perhaps of some one whom you love."

"Not in the least," she would reply carelessly, "you are quite unlike anyone I have ever met before."

"And I suppose then," I would accuse, with tears in my eyes, "that I am quite unlike anyone you can love."

"On the contrary," she would say, bringing my fingers to her lips and, with eyes closed, kiss my knuckles gently. "You are quite the only one I feel as if I am capable of feeling any sort of affection for."

"But you must not, I hate it; I don't know you—I don't know myself when you look so and talk so."

She used to sigh at my vehemence, then turn away and drop my hand.

Respecting these very extraordinary manifestations I strove in vain to form any satisfactory theory—I could not refer them to affectation or trick. Was she subject to brief visitations of insanity; or was there here a disguise and a romance? I had read in old story books of such things. What if a boyish lover had found his way into the house, and sought to prosecute his suit in masquerade, with the assistance of a clever old adventuress. 'But there are many things against this hypothesis,' I would say to myself, 'highly interesting as it is to my vanity.'

Between these passionate moments there were long intervals of common-place, of gaiety, of brooding melancholy. Except in these brief periods of mysterious adoration her ways were girlish; and there was always a carelessness about her, as she sauntered about our home like a princess before her subjects. A spoiled child of aristocracy, she would laugh in the face of my uncle's accusations of her history, and speak to my father on world subjects with artlessness and frankness. She was always an animated talker, and very intelligent.

In other respects her habits were odd. Perhaps not so singular in the opinion of a town lady like you, as they appeared to us rustic people. She used to come down very late, generally not till one o'clock, she would then take a cup of chocolate, but eat nothing. Sometimes even then she would fail to come down, and I would go up to fetch her.

"Alucard," I would say, circling the bed, in which she was covered so completely. "Alucard, you must get up now. It is tea time, and you have slept right through breakfast. Alucard!"

Still she would not budge. I would then crawl into the bed next to her, and shake her earnestly by the shoulder. "Alucard, this is not funny, you really must get up. We have the whole day together, and you are squandering it away. Will you not get up?"

She would always obstinately ignore me or else remain in a deep slumber, I could never tell which, for she seemed to sleep like the dead. But just as I always went to leave, I would feel a cool hand suddenly wrap round my wrist, and pull me down and under the bedclothes with lightening speed. This would invariably startle me, yet whenever I felt those familiar cool arms wrap round my waist firmly, I would ceased struggling.

"Just so you know," Alucard would whisper, huskily, and kissing my ear, "I would never squander my time with you."

Sometimes we would go out for a walk, which was a mere saunter, and she always seemed almost immediately bored, and either returned to the schloss or sat on one of the benches that were placed, here and there, among the orchards, and demand my undivided attention.

As we sat thus one afternoon under the trees a funeral passed us by. It was that of a pretty young girl, whom I had sometimes seen, the daughter of one of the rangers of the forest. The poor man was walking behind the coffin of his darling; she was his only child, and he looked quite heartbroken. Peasants walking two-and-two came behind, they were singing a funeral hymn.

I rose to mark my respect as they passed, and joined in the hymn they were very sweetly singing.

My companion shook me a little roughly, and I turned surprised.

She said brusquely, "Don't you perceive how discordant that is?"

"I think it very sweet, on the contrary," I answered, vexed at the interruption.

I resumed instantly, and was again interrupted. "You pierce my ears," said Alucard, almost angrily, and stopping her ears with her tiny fingers. "Besides, how can you tell that your religion and mine are the same? Your forms wound me, and I hate funerals. What a fuss! Why you must die— everyone must die; and all are happier when they do. Come home."

"My father has gone on with the clergyman to the churchyard. I thought you knew she was to be buried to-day."

"She? I don't trouble my head about peasants. I don't know who she is," answered Alucard, with a crimson flash from her fine green eyes.

"She is the poor girl who fancied she saw a ghost a fortnight ago, and has been dying ever since, till yesterday, when she expired."

"Tell me nothing about ghosts. I shan't sleep to-night if you do."

"I hope there is no plague or fever coming; all this looks very like it," I continued. "The swineherd's young wife died only a week ago, and she thought something seized her by the throat as she lay in her bed, and nearly strangled her. Father says such horrible fancies do accompany some forms of fever. She was quite well the day before. She sank afterwards, and died before a week."

"Well, her funeral is over, I hope, and her hymn sung; and our ears shan't be tortured with that discord and jargon. It has made me nervous. Sit down here, beside me; sit close; hold my hand; press it hard-hard-harder."

We had moved a little back, and had come to another seat.

She sat down. Her face underwent a change that alarmed and even terrified me for a moment. It darkened, and became horribly livid; her teeth and hands were clenched, and she frowned and compressed her lips, while she stared down upon the ground at her feet, with eyes that seemed, for one dreadful instant, to flash that terrifying shade of red that was not altogether unfamiliar, and trembled all over with a continued shudder as irrepressible as ague. All her energies seemed strained to suppress a fit, with which she was then breathlessly tugging; and at length a low convulsive cry of suffering broke from her, and gradually the hysteria subsided. "There! That comes of strangling people with hymns!" she said at last. "Hold me, hold me still. It is passing away."

And so gradually it did; and perhaps to dissipate the sombre impression which the spectacle had left upon me, she became unusually animated and chatty; and so we got home.

This was the first time I had seen her exhibit anything like temper. It passed away like a summer cloud; but very soon I witnessed on her part another tell-tale sign of anger. I will tell you how it happened.

She and I were looking out of one of the long drawing-room windows, when there entered the courtyard a figure of a wanderer whom I knew very well. He used to visit the schloss generally twice a year.

It was the figure of a hunchback who wore a pointed black beard, and he was smiling from ear to ear, showing his white fangs. He was dressed in buff, black, and scarlet, and crossed with more straps and belts than I could count, from which hung all manner of things. Behind, he carried a magic-lantern, and two boxes, which I well knew, in one of which was a salamander, and in the other a mandrake. These monsters used to make my father laugh. They were compounded of parts of monkeys, parrots squirrels, fish, and hedgehogs, dried and stitched together with great neatness and startling effect. He had a fiddle, a box of conjuring apparatus, a pair of foils and masks attached to his belt, several other mysterious cases dangling about him, and a black staff with copper ferrules in his hand.

His companion was a rough spare dog that followed at his heels, but stopped short suspiciously at the castle gate, and in a little while began to howl dismally.

In the meantime the mountebank stood in the midst of the court-yard, raised his grotesque hat, and made us a very ceremonious bow.

"Top of the evening to you, young ladies," he said very volubly in execrable French, and German not much better. Then, disengaging his fiddle, he began to scrape a lively air to which he sang with a merry discord, dancing with ludicrous airs and activity that made me laugh, in spite of the dog's howling.

Then he advanced to the window with many smiles and salutations.

"Will your ladyships be pleased to buy an amulet against the oupire, which is going like the wolf, I hear, through these woods," he said dropping his hat on the pavement. "They are dying of it right and left and here is a charm that never fails; only pinned to the pillow, and you may laugh in his face."

These charms consisted of oblong slips of vellum, with cabalistic ciphers and pentagrams upon them.

Alucard instantly purchased one, and so did I.

He was looking up, and we were smiling down upon him, amused; at least, I can answer for myself. His piercing black eye, as he looked up in our faces, seemed to detect something that fixed for a moment his curiosity.

In an instant he unrolled a leather case, full of all manner of odd little steel instruments.

"See here, my lady," he said, displaying it, and addressing me, "I profess, among other things less useful, the art of dentistry. Plague take the dog!" he interpolated. "Silence, beast! He howls so that your ladyships can scarcely hear a word. Your noble friend, the young lady at your right, has the sharpest tooth—long, thin, pointed, like an awl, like a needle; ha, ha! With my sharp and long sight, as I look up, I have seen it distinctly; now if it happens to hurt the young lady, and I think it must, here am I, here are my file, my punch, my nippers; I will make it round and blunt, if her ladyship pleases; no longer the tooth of a fish, but of a beautiful young lady as she is. Hey? Is the young lady displeased? Have I been too bold? Have I offended her?"

The young lady, indeed, looked very angry as she drew back from the window.

"How dares that mountebank insult us so? Where is your father? I shall demand redress from him. Were this my home, I would have the wretch tied up to a team of horses, flogged with a cart-whip, impaled upon a pike and left to rot in the castle court-yard!"

She retired from the window a step or two and sat down, positively seething with rage. Her fiery red eyes had hardly met my own terrified ones, however, when her wrath subsided as suddenly as it had risen, and she gradually recovered her usual tone, and seemed to forget the little hunchback and all his follies.

My father was out of spirits that evening. On coming in he told us that there had been another case very similar to the two fatal ones which had lately occurred. The sister of a young peasant on his estate, only a mile away, was very ill, had been, as she described it, attacked very nearly in the same way, and was now slowly but steadily sinking.

"All this," said my father, "is strictly referable to natural causes. These poor people infect one another with their superstitions, and so repeat in imagination the images of terror that have infested their neighbors."

"So then," Alucard challenged playfully: "You do not believe that we are in danger of being infected?"

"We are in God's hands: nothing can happen without His permission, and all will end well for those who love Him. He is our faithful creator; He has made us all, and will take care of us."

"Creator! Nature!" said the fiery young lady in answer to my gentle father. "And this disease that invades the country is natural. Nature. All of these peasants who are afflicted are just as faithful, if not more so, than you are; but has the Creator saved them? I think not!"

"I have already spoken with the priest," said my father, after a silence. "The doctor said he would come here to-day. I want to know what he thinks about it, and what he thinks we had better do."

"Priests never did me any good," said Alucard peevishly.

"Then you have lost you faith?" I asked, almost pityingly.

"More faith than ever you had," she answered bitterly.

"Long ago?"

"Yes, a long time. I suffered from this very piety; I forgot all but my loyalty and devotion, but in the end I had nothing to show for my profound sacrifice."

I suddenly felt very sorry for her. "You were very young then?"

"I'm afraid not; let us talk no more of it. You would not wound a friend?"

She looked languidly in my eyes, with an underlying melancholy that was heart-breaking, and passed her arm round my waist lovingly, and led me out of the room. My father was busy over some papers near the window.

"Why does your father like to bother us so?" said the pretty girl with a sigh and a little shudder.

"He doesn't, dear Alucard, it is the very furthest thing from his mind."

"Do you believe in God, dearest?"

"Of course," was the instant reply.

"Are you afraid to die?"

"Yes, every one is."

"But to die as lovers may—to die together, so that they may live together."

"So then you believe in God, in His Eternal Kingdom, if you believe in the Afterlife?" I asked, relieved that she had not completely lost her faith, but still terrified by what, I believed, she was implying.

"Girls are caterpillars while they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes," she continued, whimsically ignoring my questions. "But in the meantime they are grubs and larvae, don't you see— each with their peculiar propensities, necessities and structure. To allow such potential beauty to die prematurely, or else become irreversibly ruined before the final metamorphosis, would be the greatest sin of all, don't you agree?"

"I do not understand what you are saying," but that was all that was said on the subject; she would speak no more of it.

Later in the day the doctor came, and was closeted with my father for some time. He was a skilful man, of sixty and upwards, and shaved his pale face as smooth as a pumpkin. He and my father emerged from the room together, and I heard my father laugh, and say as they came out:

"Well, I do wonder at a wise man like you. What do you say to hippogriffs and dragons?"

The doctor was smiling, and made answer, shaking his head—

"Nevertheless life and death are mysterious states, and we know little of the resources of either."

And so they walked on, and I heard no more. I did not then know what any of them had been broaching, but I think I guess it now.