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9
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It began to snow heavily the next day. Integra stood before the windows of her office in coat and breeches, watching the world turn white. The snow cushioned all sound and everything was as quiet as can be. But she knew from experience that quiet did not necessarily mean peaceful.
She ran a hand through her hair in agitation. They were more riotous than usual. Alucard used to tease her about it. "It looks straight, your hair, but it's not entirely. It curls at the end, like hooks. Luring your prey into a false sense of security."
"Wax rhapsodic about your own hair, Alucard," she had said.
That git. He had looked so full of himself when he saw her off while everyone around them was panicking about the king and his critical condition. "Now is not the time!" she had nearly shouted. That stupid git. When it came to him she felt years older. The king was at the end of his life and Alucard was at the end of his as a prince, it was a pivotal period and all he could think about was the likely fruition of her sort-of not-quite acceptance to his proposal.
He had such a one-track mind.
If they wanted his ascension uncontested they needed the right kind of support and the right amount of force. The meeting she had with the Convention an hour ago had been for those exact needs, for gauging their reactions toward the imminent power change.
It had been a complete headache.
"We are aware of your...friendship with the prince, Sir Hellsing," one had said, "and while he does possess a certain brand of charisma, he can be...enigmatic. Who knows how he will act as king?"
Do you? had been on the tip of her tongue, but she had held it. "All rulers can be capricious—that is why they have advisors."
"And you believe you can advise him?"
She shrugged. "I'm his oldest friend. I'm sure I can talk him out when the situation requires it." She took a sip of tea. "His Majesty has been remiss in guiding the prince into regnancy, as he had in most aspects of his reign."
No one refuted her. They were still collectively smarting over the budget cuts made a few months ago.
"There will naturally be thus reservations about the prince's ability to rule. However, as far as legitimacy is concerned, the prince's is indisputable. The king did name him his heir." And that was as far as his parenting went.
"Is it really," another knight muttered.
Integra looked at him. "I beg your pardon?"
The knight, Sir Bradbury, cleared his throat. "The prince. His legitimacy as His Majesty's heir. You cannot—pardon my word choice—skirt around the obvious, Sir Hellsing. His eyes. They are not human."
Integra leaned into her chair. She seemed unaffected by the man's jab at her sex, her sight, and her professionalism. She steepled her fingers. "Continue."
"How can you trust him? You are, for all intents and purposes, asking us to vouch for a man who may very well not be a man at all. And it's not just his eyes. Rumors circulating about, of the amount of blood on his hands!"
"Did they say how many litres?"
"Sir Hellsing," Sir Islands said quietly.
"Don't drag us into your personal affairs with—with—Dracula!" Sir Bradbury concluded, his face red.
Her blue diamond eyes were unblinking.
"You seem to enjoy rumors, Sir Bradbury, so let me tell you one," Integra suddenly said. She stared at nothing in particular as she began. "It's about our current Queen Consort…who harbors the desire to become Queen Regnant."
Silence at the table.
"Who is said to secretly practice witchery."
Sir Penwood coughed discreetly into his handkerchief.
"Who is said to have attempted to murder the prince, on multiple occasions."
"Where are you going with this?" Sir Bradbury asked.
"It's odd that all these rumors 'circulate about,' as you have said, but no one has attempted to discredit the Queen to my face as much as they have the prince. It is as if," she said carefully, "they are frightened by my proximity to him, as if should the prince gain a prominent ally in, say, an influential member of the Round Table, something might happen."
Certain members of the Table, including Bradbury, were not looking at her.
"I know many things about me detract weight from my words. Yet I feel I must voice this concern." Her diamond eyes could cut through steel. "How is it that one half of the castle is perpetually exuberant...and the other half is perpetually in ruins?"
No one had an answer.
"With that in mind..." She drawled the next sentence out, slowly. "If the prince is a monster, then a fair share of that fault...lies in your hands."
"Sir Hellsing!" Sir Bradbury squawked.
"Don't come to me, the young woman with personal ties to the prince whose family has killed monsters for generations, when the arrow of blame circles around and points to your heads."
"You're threatening us!"
"Am I?" Integra tilted her head. The movement raised the end of one of her shorter locks above the table. It was curved like a hook. "I was merely stating an observation. But rest assured. If Alucard does turn on all of us—" the eleven knights reacted in varying degrees to the name, that strange name, "—I will take full responsibility. Now. The snow is piling. Let's call it a day."
Sir Bradbury sputtered. He and the other knights stood shakily and dispersed, leaving Integra sitting alone in the center chair. A couple of them approached her.
"I trust you will keep your word, Sir Hellsing," Sir Islands said, as he gave her a nod.
"I'll apologize in Bradbury's stead, Sir Hellsing," Sir Penwood said, resting a fatherly hand on Integra's shoulder. Only then did he realize that she was trembling in anger. He squeezed. "But please know we are not the enemy."
"Good day, Sirs," Integra replied, keeping her voice steady.
She had stayed in that conference room, reining in her temper, until Walter came. She had walked to her office, her eyes following the ceiling where, inside, crisscrossed the vents she had crawled in a desperate bid for survival. And then...
"We were never meant to last as children."
Yes, she thought. She smiled witheringly. No need to dwell on the past. Their time is nigh.
Funny, though, how the fates seemed to weave the same props into their tapestry. Rises and falls. Tea. Snow. Quietness. Storms. False sense of security.
"My lady," Walter said behind her. She was brought back to the present. She had not even heard him knock.
"Report."
"Tea, first?" Walter offered, placating. He filled her cup.
Integra sighed and stared into the steaming liquid. Darjeeling. It always had to be Darjeeling.
"Worried?"
"Very."
"You shouldn't be. That young man and I have seldom gotten along but I will say this for him: he knows how to watch his back."
Coming from Walter, this was high praise. Still. "I'm not worried about his self-preservation. Or is that precisely what I'm worried about?"
"He can be ruthless," Walter agreed, "when it comes to defending his own. As you can be, my lady."
Integra let out a puff of inaudible laughter. The smile that graced her lips was savage. "Years of covert investigation and we have found out, that on top of abuse and neglect, the Queen had embezzled Alucard's assets, conspired with Richard to usurp Hellsing, collaborated with members of the court and the Convention, who in turn willfully ignored her atrocities." She gritted her teeth. "I'm going to make them pay, Walter."
"I would not expect anything less, my lady," The butler said, monocle flashing as he bowed deep.
"Did you find about the Catholic delegation?"
"Yes. To be brief, there was nothing unusual about those you saw at the ball. However, their numbers do not match up. There were thirteen in my report. At the ball there were only twelve."
She frowned. Who was the thirteenth?
Something was not adding up.
"It's too quiet." Integra held a cigar to her mouth, prepared to light it, then stopped. She crushed the cigar on her desk. "Walter, I need to leave."
Walter glanced at the snow. It would be a treacherous road. Yet he was well aware that it would be useless to try to dissuade her. "Do be careful."
"I won't promise you this time, Walter," she said as she grabbed her sabre. "It never works out."
xx
xx
What point was there in staying indoors when he was not going to appear properly mournful? Alucard went out, in the lightest of winter attire with his sable cloak around him. Snow was his element. He had been conceived in snow, born in the depth of winter, died and reborn on a snowy day. And now, it seemed, he would be crowned in it. How beautiful it would be when the red of his enemies spilt on its white. What a delightful season it would be to be wed. Integra had always looked lovely in the snow.
How could he pretend that the old king's impending death saddened him, when he could almost taste the triumph? Truthfully, he cared little for the kingdom and its frivolities; but Integra did, taking her late father's message of serving this land with integrity to heart. So he would give it to her. She would be at his side and they would rebuild it to their vision.
For, having plucked God's masterpiece right from His hands, should he not rule a realm that could rival His as well?
Whatever the Queen had in store could come at him at any minute and he would welcome it with open arms. He was exuberant and he needed an outlet.
"How useful are you in a hunt?" he asked his valet behind him.
Two thousand days of employment later, Dillon, the stable boy turned valet de chambre, was feeling quite sure of himself. He liked his job. His master was far from being the most finicky, even if he did spring sudden inquiries such as this on him. Yet they did make him stutter. "M-my lord?"
"A hunt, Dillon," Alucard said patiently. "Get the horses."
The valet did, coming back quickly with two horses that whinnied in annoyance at the weather. At the sight of the prince, with his red eyes that loomed through the flurry of snow, they quieted.
Had they been going to battle, Alucard's massive form on the black stallion would have speared through the souls of the stoutest of cavalry. Dillon did not think any animal would dare show itself with him a predator in its woods.
"Er, with all due respect, Your Highness," he said, as they ventured into a forest, "but would there be anything to catch?"
It was a politer way of asking whether it would not be pointless. He got away with it, though. Very few people could.
"On the contrary, this kind of weather ensures that there will only be one specific kind of game." With that, Alucard raised his rifle and fired.
The bullet hit something behind a tree. Dillon rode his horse to the fallen creature and gasped. "It's one of those things that have been turning up in town!"
"Little beasties that have no sense of when and where they are welcome," Alucard said scathingly. "Skulking in the depth of woods and the silence of winter to ambush unsuspecting passersby. Even I have standards."
Dillon was not sure what to say to that.
"Come along," Alucard said, and they rode further into the forest.
It turned out Dillon was useless in a hunt, not that it mattered. He did not know what these beasts had done to pique the prince but he was thankful he had not been anywhere near. Alucard shot down all sorts of things before there was barely an inkling that they were there and when the bullets ran out, he catapulted the rifle through the skull of some impish varmint with wings. Dillon almost felt sorry for it.
Having discarded his firearm, Alucard drew his sword from the saddle. "By the way, is the stable master still giving you trouble?"
The question was out of the blue and it took Dillon a moment to realize what was being referred. The stable master, his old employer, had acted nastily to him since the elevation of his status, badmouthing the prince, giving him a faulty steed when he went down to attend to his duties as messenger to Sir Hellsing. One day, when he had returned later than expected, the prince had asked what kept him, and he had replied that the horse had had a loose horseshoe.
The next day, the horse had been fitted with new shoes. And the stable master was gone. No one knew where he went.
He did not want to know.
His successor was pleasant enough. "No, Your Highness," Dillon answered.
After two thousand days of employment, Dillon was sure of his loyalty to his master. The prince took care of his people. It was just that the scope of "his people" was extremely narrow and fit very few individuals.
"All is well that ends well, isn't it?" the prince said with smirk.
. . . there appeared . . . in heaven . . . a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet . . . upon her head a crown of twelve stars . . .
. . . another wonder . . . a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads . . .
Alucard stopped.
"And there was war . . . And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."
"My lord…?" Dillon asked. He started. The prince's eyes were violently and venomously red.
"Dillon," he said conversationally, tone belying the malice that reeked from those eyes, "why don't you return to the castle?"
"I—"
"Don't make me tell you twice."
The last time he had heard that, the prince had returned in the dead of night with blood spotting his shirt.
Dillon swallowed. "I'll…see to the others, Your Highness."
When the valet reversed his horse and sped off, the voice grew clearer in the dense forest. Alucard nudged his reluctant steed forward, the shadows under its hooves twisting and curling in agitation.
"Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: Now have salvation and power come, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Anointed. For the accuser of our brothers is cast out, who accuses them before our God day and night.
"They conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; love for life did not deter them from death.
"Therefore rejoice you heavens, and you who dwell in them. But woe to you, earth and sea, for the Devil has come down to you in great fury, for he knows he has—"
"...but a short time," Alucard concluded.
The speaker in the clearing looked up at him and his face split into a wide grin. "Amen!"
"Amen," Alucard mocked. "And who do we have here? A lost Catholic? I didn't realize the clergy employed mad men now."
The Catholic tossed aside the carcass of the beast he had felled, which was riddled with blade marks. "Sanity as it is known on the mortal plane is a myth until we ascend to His embrace. Are you a child of God or the child of Satan?"
What a tiresome question. "They tend to call me the latter yet I answer to neither. I serve no God or Devil but an idol."
"The worse of the lot, then. A heathen!"
"If the shoe fits," Alucard purred. "What has brought you to these parts, Father? Come to convert a lost little Lamb?"
"Lost, very; little, quite far from it; Lamb, devoured by the dragon. You have grown into a frightening picture, prince of the realm. I was at your birth." The priest's grin widened. "The years of wait were worth it. You have become a formidable foe."
"Delighted to meet your expectations, I am sure," Alucard said, inclining his head. "I see. You are the thirteenth delegate. Judas Iscariot, who lurks in the shadows. For what, I wonder? Did the Queen command you? Has the sacred obeyed the bidding of the secular?"
"No one bid me, demon. That whorish woman did ask me to kill you, but I laughed in her face. I, Alexander Anderson, am conducted by the voice of God, and it is in His name that I will tear your heart and lay it down at His feet."
Alucard laughed. At the sound the stallion reared, flailing its front hooves, and charged at the priest.
The first bayonet was embedded in the horse's heart and the other narrowly missed the rider's head. As the horse lost control of itself, Alucard grabbed hold of a branch and dislodged himself from its back. The beast of burden fell to its side in the snow with a great thud, sending a mixture of blood and powdery snow everywhere. In the chaos it caused along with the freshly falling snow and the massive carcass, Anderson raised his bayonets just in time to block the tip of Alucard's sword. Their blades met with an earsplitting clash.
"The first sacrifice," Alucard said, his smile as lethal as his sword.
"Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness," Anderson agreed, and flung back his opponent. Alucard jumped over the dead horse. The two men circled each other with it as their axle in their bastard of a dance.
The small clearing was already overwhelmingly full of ghastly sights: the hulking Catholic priest, the imp he had slain, the dead horse. Red and black and white. Yet no one would be foolish enough to stray their attention from the self-identified idolater whose eyes were the core of the sun and positively blistering to behold. Anderson tutted. "This kingdom is damned, to have nourished a monster such as you."
"Nourished?" Alucard repeated. He thought the notion hilarious. "It couldn't wait to get rid of me! It seems now, however, it has finally stepped up its efforts. You are without doubt the worthiest opponent I have ever encountered! Are those lovely bayonets of yours going to draw my blood, Father Anderson?"
"That they will," Anderson vowed, leaping up in the air with his blades poised south.
In the snow, the movement of their metal was almost blinding. Alucard deflected the blow yet missed an additional blade that had suddenly materialized in the priest's fingers. It grazed his cheek and he hissed.
Fucking blessed silver.
He retaliated with a swing of his sword and slashed the man's forearm. Blood for blood. Anderson retreated and threw two of his infinite bayonets. Alucard dodged. They hit a cedar tree behind him, half-uprooting it by sheer force, and the air exploded in peppery white.
There.
His eyes flashed when he saw the opening.
One thrust.
He lunged. The sword went through Anderson's stomach.
The priest spat out blood.
Alucard exhaled an exultant breath as his foe stumbled backwards and slid down next to the horse. He stuck out his tongue and licked at the cut on his cheek, which was gradually healing. "You've come well-prepared, Father, but even you cannot escape death by my hands. Don't worry; in honor of this fight I'll give you a proper burial."
The priest thrashed, and was making a noise that sounded like he was choking.
Alucard's expression flickered. His visage twisted, and he let out a low growl.
The man was not choking. He was laughing.
Anderson wrapped a fist around the hilt of the sword and wrenched it out, dropping it. The amount of life essence that was drenching his cassock was decreasing with each second. The mortal wound was knitting itself.
"A Regenerator..." Alucard trailed off.
"Aye," Anderson grinned, and flicked his fingers.
One strike.
The bayonet pierced his sternum.
Alucard coughed violently, clutching at the burning weapon. He crumpled to the ground and his blood left a streak on the cold wetness. The Judas Priest stood up and brushed his robes.
Alexander Anderson trudged forward. His smile was in full. He seized the fallen by the hair and removed the bayonet with a hard yank. He drew it to the neck. The blessed silver made a fine red line on the prince's snow white skin.
Then the priest stilled. He seemed to be having second thoughts. He took the blade away from the neck and slowly moved it up. And up.
To the red, red eyes.
"I sense an emptiness about you," said Anderson. "You could have succumbed to that void a long time ago. But something has given you hope. What—or who—is it? Your idol?"
Alucard snarled, teeth coated in blood. In his mind, a pair of blue diamond eyes gazed at him.
"Whoever it is—"
The blood red orbs reflected off the silver.
"—will never see these again."
No! her voice screamed.
The bayonet tore through his eyes.
xx
xx
Integra winced. Something got caught in her eye.
A snowflake…
She blinked. A teardrop fell.
xx
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NOTES
Spring...is a difficult season for me...dust everywhere, pollen everywhere, the weather can't make up its mind and the insects. And all this warmth makes me sleepy. At least in this fic-verse I can make it winter however long I want. I hope you all are having lovely weather, though. Please know that I appreciate you all so much. Your words, your feedback of any sort are the best things of my day. Don't catch a cold!