Walter let Integra sleep late into the next morning, until the sun shone as brightly as it could through the gray England clouds and into her room. After having been up for two days and losing sleep the night before, Walter knew that Integra needed all the sleep she could get before she tackled her case head-on.
But he knew Integra would be unhappy with her extra sleep. She was Hellsing's director, she couldn't afford to sleep through the morning! Well, she could just this once, if she wanted to live long enough to still be called Hellsing's director.
Integra's sleep was dreamless and undisturbed after Walter's visit. She slept soundlessly through the rest of the night, not even woken by the faint light through her window. She didn't hear the click of the door knob as Walter opened the door and came into her room, shutting it behind him with the same amount of force he used to open it.
He crossed the room and leaned over the bed, resting a hand on Integra's shoulder. She didn't reacted in the slightest. Walter gently rocked her. "Sir Integra."
Integra sighed and grumbled incomprehensibly. Walter shook her and called her again. "Sir Integra, wake up."
With a raspy breath, Integra shifted in the bed and tolled halfway onto her back, her eyes narrowed with sleep. Beside her, Illiad raised her head, yawned and shook it, waking herself up the best she could. Integra ran a hand over her face and blinked. She exhaled and squinted; her glasses lay on the nightstand beside her bed. "Walter?"
Walter stepped back from the bed as Integra pushed herself up onto her elbows. Her long, blonde hair hung tangled around her face. "What time is it?"
"A little after ten-thirty," Walter answered, and quickly pressed Integra down by her shoulder as disbelief formed on her face. "And before you begin panicking, we both know you needed the extra sleep."
"But what about-"
"I've been taking care of all your internal affairs for the time being, don't worry. You just needed to focus on resting up."
Integra nodded gratefully, then looked up at Walter. "I take it you've heard something new, then?"
"Yes." Walter released his grip on Integra, allowing her to sit up all the way. "I've received a call from the police department about another missing child. They've found him, and he's missing his dæmon."
~O~
The antique gold car pulled up just outside the perimeter, marked off with yellow caution tape and the unmistakable flash of red and blue police and ambulance lights. Officers were scattered around the perimeter, talking in hushed voices among themselves. On the sidewalk inside the marked area were five men, four officers and the police chief, around a small boy sitting on the pavement and wrapped in a gray blanket.
The sky had darkened since earlier that morning, Integra noticed as she stepped out of the car. The pale gray clouds had darkened to the color of ash, and the air felt thick with impending rain. There was a storm on the horizon, Integra knew. She could almost smell it.
She inhaled the sweet, thick air and pulled her overcoat tighter around her shoulders. She pushed her glasses up further on her nose, and calmly made for the scene.
Integra ducked under the tape one of the officers held up for her; Illiad exchanged nods with the officer's black serval dæmon. She crossed the open space made by the vehicles and tape toward a group of officers and a young boy. The police chief had sat down next to the boy on the sidewalk, one hand on his shoulder, but as Integra grew closer, she knew that the boy needed more than just that.
His face was chalky and white; his eyes were bloodshot, red, and teary. He had dark circles under his eyes, darker than the ones Integra sported on her own face. His knees were drawn up tightly, and he shivered, despite the blanket he hand pulled around him in a white-knuckle grip. He was hunched miserably over the street corner, and his dæmon was nowhere to be seen.
Integra's heart caught in her throat, her stomach twisted. She had only read in the reports about the children who had lost their dæmons. Until now, she had never met one personally. All the reading in the world, all the information she had, couldn't have prepared her for what she saw now. Nothing could have prepared her for the shock and heartache that came with this part of the job. She couldn't ignore her feelings, but at a time like this, she couldn't quite acknowledge them, either. She couldn't show herself to be as upset and bothered as she was in front of the police chief and his men.
Catching sight of her, the chief patted the boy on the back twice, then stood and met Integra halfway. He extended his hand to her. "Sir Integra," he said. "It's good to see you, though I wish the circumstances were better." He glanced quickly over his shoulder. "Thank you for coming."
"Chief Wilson," she said, taking his hand. "Thank you for calling. What's the situation?"
Wilson lowered his voice and turned Integra away from the boy by her shoulder. "A passerby saw him wandering down the street. She stopped him to see if he was all right, and noticed he didn't have a dæmon. She called us." He indicated with a nod, west of the perimeter, where a short haired woman was speaking frantically with another officer, her sparrow dæmon fluttering nervously by her shoulder. "I'm having her give a statement. We'll put it in our report to you."
Integra gave a curt nod, holding back a sigh. Just another report to add to the ever growing pile on her desk.
She looked over Chief Wilson's shoulder at the boy sitting on the curb. "May I speak with him?"
"If you'd like," Wilson invited. "But I can't guarantee anything."
Mmm. Integra didn't mind a challenge. Without another word she strode over to the boy, Illiad trotting tentatively at her heels. She felt the fear that pricked at Illiad's stomach, but ignored it. The health and safety of this boy came before anything she felt.
The boy looked up at Integra and the officers cleared away as she sat down next to him. She sat closer to him than Wilson had, her hip against his. He blinked his tired eyes, unsure of what to make of her. He frowned as though he wanted to ask, but couldn't form the words.
Clearing her throat, Integra put her arm around the boy's shoulders. She had always been careful not to appear too soft around the men she worked with, but at times like these there were just somethings that required more of a...woman's touch.
And with that, the boy leaned into her. She didn't object, though she did look around to see what officers were watching her. She spotted the only female officer in the group, a short-haired blonde with a hedgehog dæmon, watching her curiously, and maybe hopefully. Why, Integra couldn't guess.
Integra ignored her, turning her focus to the boy. She made a mental check of Illiad crouching on her opposite side, hidden from the boy's view.
"Can you tell me your name?" she asked.
The boy was silent for a while before he finally said in a tired voice, "Samson. Samson Richards." He shifted and looked up at her. "What's your name?"
Integra smiled softly. "Integra Hellsing," she answered.
Samson forced a smile in return. "That's a pretty name," he said.
"Thank you. How old are you, Samson?"
"Six years old, miss," he said. "How old are you?"
Integra drew a shaky breath. Until then she only had names and ages to go by. Now she had a face to add to that. It did nothing to alleviate the sickness she felt. She cleared her throat again. "Nineteen."
"Do you have a job, Integra?"
"I do."
"What it is? Are you a police officer?"
"Not exactly," she said.
"What do you do?"
"I run the Hellsing Organization. Do you know what that is?"
Samson shook his head.
Integra paused, wondering how to explain to a six-year-old boy what her organization did on a daily basis. "The Hellsing Organization protects England from certain...monsters," she said slowly, explaining her organization's role in the simplest terms possible. "Ghouls...vampires..."
Samson stared up at her, brown eyes wide and, despite his lost dæmon, bright. "Wow," he breathed. "Really? Vampires are real?"
"Oh, yes." Integra nodded, feeling a pair of crimson eyes burning into her back from the shadows. "As real as you and I."
~O~
"She's good with him."
Walter turned, jolted out of his thoughts as the youngest of the police officers joined him by the car. She was a little over his shoulder, with short blonde hair and an innocent air about her despite the field of profession she was in. In a way, he reminded her of a younger Integra. Her hedgehog dæmon made himself comfortable by her feet.
"Yes," Walter agreed, turning back to watch Integra and the young boy. "She is." He had never seen Integra interact with a child as young as this boy, six years old, he guessed. He never thought Integra had any patience for children, but as it stood now, she had the patience of a saint and the kindness of a mother-not something she showed too often, given the people she worked with. It was almost a nice change, to see her talking with a young child instead of men thirty years her senior and an ancient forever blood-thirsty vampire.
"Oh, what's your name, miss?" he asked the police girl, remembering his manners.
"Seras Victoria," she said, extending her hand. He took it. "Division Eleven. This is Rohan." She motioned to the hedgehog at her feet. "Say hello, Rohan."
The hedgehog gave something of a smile. Hello, sir. Who are you?
"Walter Dornez," he answered, and motioned to his own dæmon. "And Bentley."
The foxhound dipped his head. A pleasure to meet you.
"If you don't mind my asking, Mr. Dornez-"
"Walter, please."
"Walter," she corrected herself. "Who is that?"
"Sir Integra Hellsing," Walter said. "Head of the Hellsing Organization."
Seras was silent for a while, leaning against the car and watching Integra's interaction with the boy. "I don't think I've heard of it before today," she said finally. "What is it you do exactly?"
Walter couldn't hold back a smile. "We protect our Queen and country from supernatural threats," he explained. "Shall we say 'things that go bump in the night?'"
The questioning yet too-scared-to-ask expression on the young police girl's face told Walter that he had done a well enough job of explaining to her the operations of Hellsing without giving away too much. If she had never believed in vampires, werewolves, or monsters under the bed, he was sure she would think twice now.
Then she cleared her throat and asked, "Is...is that so?" She was trying to put on a brave face, but Walter had seen enough reactions at the news of Hellsing's business to know that she was unsettled. At her feet, her dæmon bristled and let out a series of low hisses. Bentley's ears went up, intrigued by the little animal's noises.
Don't touch him, Bentley, Walter warned. The last thing he wanted was the feeling of being stuck in the face by a hedgehog.
Of course not, Bentley said, straightening. I've no intentions of doing so.
Walter let the matter go. "Yes," he said, addressing Seras, "it is. Tell me something, Miss Victoria, how many other cases of this have you seen?" He nodded toward the boy sitting on the curb, his face pressed into Integra's ribcage.
"Dozens," she said uncertainly. "Maybe close to hundreds. I don't know. There have been so many at once I've lost count."
"Do you know where they come from?"
"No." Seras shook her head. "We get calls from parents only a few minutes after they discover their child's gone missing, they didn't get off the school bus, they didn't come home from the park, it varies each time. We go out and look in every place the parents last saw their child. Naturally we assume the worst and treat the case as though we're running on limited time, of course. We've never found a child until five days, sometimes a week, after it's gone missing." She stopped, her eyes growing misty. She picked up Rohan and held him close to her, unable to imagine what it must be like to be cut from your dæmon, your soul. What it would be like without Rohan was something she didn't want to think about.
Even Walter felt the same way. He put a hand on Bentley's shoulder and pressed the foxhound dæmon close to his leg. Bentley had been with him for sixty-nine years, through thick and thin, through good and bad. To lose him...Walter couldn't even begin to think about it.
"Do they all come back the same way?" he asked gently.
Seras nodded slowly. "Yes. But we never see any of them live past two days."
Bentley whined softly. Walter's stomach twisted. "Why is that, do you think?"
It was a moment or two before Seras answered. "They're young," she said finally. "They're closer to their dæmons than anyone gives them credit for, I think. At this age, their dæmons are their best friends, the ones who are always there for them. Losing your dæmon, for these children, is like losing your best friend, but on a deeper level. Have you ever lost a best friend, Walter, and you felt like you couldn't live without them? I think that's what it's like for these children. And it's hard for them to go on afterward. Human friends can be replaced, but dæmons...those you can never get back."
~O~
"Do you think you can tell me what happened, Samson?" Integra asked gently. She'd gotten to know the boy well enough. Now she needed to try and figure out who had done this to him.
"I think so. I don't remember much."
"That's quite alright. Tell me anything you can."
"Well..." He pushed himself up into a straighter sitting position, but still leaned against Integra. He reached up to wipe his already red eyes. "I know I was in the park with John and Willy, we were playing hide and seek, right. John was it; Willy and I were hiding. I found a good place behind a bush, and I was waiting for John to come find me, and this lady came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder."
"Do you know what she looked like?"
"Uhh, oh, well she had a big gray wolf dæmon and I think she was blonde...and I couldn't really see her eyes because the sun kept making her glasses shine. And I think she had a...a German accent. Oh, and she wore all black, like a robe, or something, I think."
That was the most information Integra had ever gotten on the kidnappers, more than the records on her desk could ever tell her. She felt a little spark of hope. "Did she say anything to you?" she pressed, anxious now. "Did she tell you her name?"
"No. She just said she wanted to talk to me about Grayla, that's my dæmon's name. I said okay and went to talk to her and then...I don't know. I don't know what happened after that."
"What about when you woke up?"
Samson shrugged. "There were more people dressed in black, and this one man with white hair. He said he was going to help me, but..." He trailed off, sniffing.
"He took your dæmon," Integra finished softly.
The boy nodded, taking a grip on her blazer with one hand. She let him. "I want Grayla. Do you know where she is?"
Integra rubbed Samson's shoulder. "I don't," she admitted. "But I'm trying to find out."
"Can you bring her back?" Samson asked hopefully, looking up at her.
Integra took a moment to answer. Bringing a lost dæmon back to its counterpart was one thing, that was easy as long as you knew where it was. But reconnecting them was something else, impossible. Once it was severed, there was no repairing the bond between human and dæmon. That Integra knew of.
"Yes," she said finally. "I can bring her back."
Samson nodded a thank you, and his next question surprised Integra, though she wasn't sure why. "Where's your dæmon?"
She looked over at Illiad, crouched against her side, hidden from Samson's view so as to not upset him further. "She's here," Integra said. Say hello, Illiad.
Illiad's head snapped up. Only because he's asking to see me. She stood and leaped into Integra's lap, blue eyes watching Samson carefully. Hello, Samson.
"Hi, Illiad." Then he turned his attention to Integra. "Your dæmon is a girl," he observed. "I thought everyone's dæmon was the opposite gender."
Not everyone's, Illiad said, shaking her head. There's a reason why some of us have same-sex dæmons and others don't. Illiad flicked and ear toward Integra. In their line of work, in regard to the people they dealt with on a daily basis, they were the only two females around. It was only reasonable to assume that Integra needed another female around, and so Illiad's gender matched that of her counterpart. For Illiad to have been a male would have truly put Integra at odds with the world.
Samson simply accepted the information. He didn't ask why, and he didn't ask about anyone else who might have had a same-sex dæmon. Meaning, to Integra's relief, he didn't ask about Walter and Bentley. She wasn't even sure why they shared the same gender.
He leaned into Integra again, adjusting his grip on her blazer. He watched Illiad with tired eyes, but with longing.
Illiad wilted visibly before Integra's eyes. She looked up at her counterpart. Oh, Integra, if I could touch him, I would. This poor boy...
Shock sparked in Integra's heart. Illiad was her dæmon! She was forbidden to touch another human! "Illiad."
But her dæmon wasn't listening. She was watching Samson.
"No." Integra lowered her voice to an insistent whisper. She could never allow her dæmon to cross that vital boundary. But despite being bound to Integra at every possible level, Illiad was as independent as her counterpart. If she had her mind set on doing something, it was virtually impossible to derail her from doing so, so long as it didn't harm herself or Integra.
Integra, please, Illiad pleaded. How would you feel if you were in this poor boy's position?
Integra sighed. As much as she hated to admit it, Illiad had a point. She would have felt the same longing for her dæmon that Samson felt for his. "Gently," she hissed through her teeth.
I would never mean to hurt you, Illiad said. She inched forward on Integra's lap until she was close enough to offer her paw to Samson. The boy, though hesitant, let his grip on Integra's blazer go, reached out and took Illiad's paw. Illiad rested her muzzle on Samson's head.
Integra felt her limbs grow weak and at the same time felt a rush of warmth, making her face hot. She didn't feel that this was a violation of the contact rule, but rather the establishment of a promise to mend what was broken. But she was still fighting off feeling dizzy and sick.
She had never let anyone touch her dæmon before, not even her own father, not even Walter, and certainly not even Alucard. She was uneasy with the contact, but forced herself to let it go. She looked around to see if anyone had noticed, hoping that Illiad's contact was discreet enough to overlook. To her relief no one on the police force took notice, not even the young girl who had been so intent on watching Integra earlier, but Walter was standing outside the perimeter with a mortified expression on his face. Perhaps he had never thought of Integra as the kind of person to allow someone to touch her dæmon, or perhaps he knew something in the dangers of allowing another person to touch someone's dæmon. Either way, she had the distinct feeling she was going to hear about this when she got back in the car.
Integra let them stay touching, as it seemed to calm Samson, until she spotted the police chief coming toward her. She nudged Illiad softly with her free hand. "Illiad."
Illiad's head went up and she looked around, momentarily confused. Upon seeing Chief Wilson coming near, she pulled away from Samson with a hurried apology. The warmth rushed out of Integra, leaving her cold. She gave an involuntary shiver.
"Sir Integra," Wilson said at the same time that Illiad leaped off Integra's lap and back onto the sidewalk. "Mr. and Mrs. Richardson are here to pick up their son." He looked over his shoulder at a worried couple waiting anxiously outside the perimeter. "They said his name is Samson."
"Yes," Integra confirmed. "I'll be sure to bring him over as soon as we're finished. Thank you, Chief Wilson."
He nodded and walked slowly back toward Samson's waiting parents.
Integra watched him leave before turning her attention back to Samson. She found him looking up at her with a mix of wonder and admiration.
"Sir Integra?" he echoed. "Are you a knight?"
"Yes," Integra answered slowly. "I am."
Samson tipped his head with a confused frown. "But where's your shining armor?" he asked. "And your horse?"
Integra chuckled and smiled. "No, Samson, I'm not that kind of knight."
"But you are still a knight?"
"Yes."
"Wow," Samson breathed. "I've never met a real knight before. Can I tell my parents?" He seemed more alert and talkative now that he had had that dose of contact with Illiad.
"Of course," she said. "But, Samson, you have to promise me something." She got off the sidewalk and crouched in front of him. She took his small, pale hands in her gloved ones and looked him in the eye. "You have to promise me you won't give up on life," she said. "It's going to be hard without Grayla, and I'm going to find her, but you have to promise me you won't give up. Can you do that for me?"
Samson's eyes were tearing up again. "You'll find her?"
"Yes," Integra nodded. "I'll find her."
In an act that surprised Integra, Samson lunged forward and wrapped his arms around her neck, his face buried in her hair. It took a little time for her to register what was happening before she returned the child's hug.
Illiad gave her a cat grin from where she sat on the sidewalk. He's a good boy.
Integra smiled back to her dæmon in reply.
Then Samson pulled away quicker than she expected. "There's something I forgot to tell you," he said.
"What's that?" Integra asked, standing up.
"Those people I told you about, the ones in black, they all had crosses hanging around their necks, like the one on your bow."
