Hellsing is owned by others.
This is how Integra meets her assassin.
The luncheon's quiet drops behind them, lost in passages of Gothic-Tudor splendor. They flash through rectangular rooms in a string of open doors, navigating the mansion's tangled labyrinth. Amidst the flurry of footsteps, they gain a few of Dantes' bookend bodyguards.
They stop before a doubly planked arched door, a staircase behind them sunk into the ground appears to be an addition. Eric deftly enters a code in a locked security pad, his fingers flying across the screen. He presses his thumb into a scanner, and the arched door clunks as he heaves it open. He smiles over his shoulder to Integra and motions for her to enter as the bookends fall into place at her sides.
They enter a second chamber with a floor-to-ceiling steel-reinforced concrete door. Video cameras monitor from all corners of the ceiling. A spiky-brown-haired man greets Dantes from his post. He steps to one side of the door with a turnkey in hand, he hands another to Dantes.
"William."
William-the-security-guard nods to Dantes as Eric takes his place at the opposite end of the door. Both men insert their keys into small, round recesses, and William counts down from three. On one, both turn their keys toward the doorway, and it clicks.
Dantes turns a massive wheel in the center of the access and opens it to reveal a strongroom.
Integra nods to William's impassive face as she steps through the foyer into what appears to be a gallery. The bookends push the vault door closed behind them. They position themselves on either end of the door as Integra joins Dante's side.
He smiles down at the tall woman. "Shall we?"
Polished wooden floors stretch the length of the long room and into adjacent chambers. Recessed lighting halos each picture, sculpture, portrait in the long gallery. They walk a measured pace, allowing her time to inspect the massive collection of artwork entombed in the heart of the mansion. She inspects a Rembrandt.
"The Storm on the Sea of Galilee," she reads aloud. "A depiction of Christ in the storm," she murmurs adjusting her steel-rimmed glasses. The light in the flashing night sky is liquid and poured over the heads of the pilgrims, their ship thrashed between cavernous waves, men on board sheltering Christ at all cost, even unto ruin.
Integra turns to face Dantes. "As I recall, wasn't this painting stolen?"
"It's part of my personal collection," he answers, smiling ever so slightly while gesturing the length of the room.
They walk the length of the gallery passing works by masters such as Picasso, Van Gough, and countless others Integra cannot name each arranged and displayed impeccably.
She stops before another seascape, lured by a pair of soulless red eyes staring out from the sea. "What is the story behind this?" she inquires of the gruesome scene.
"That is Watson, and the Shark." Dantes points to each as though introducing friends. He smiles.
The water in the picture is oily green, sky clouded, tall ships in a harbor. A group of men in a small wooden boat are frozen in the action of rescuing a youth from the sea. He is floating, his long white-blonde hair appearing almost green in the water, a look of shock and horror on his nearly feminine features as he floats upside-down, staring into the gaping maw of a thick-lipped slick gray shark. His hand appears mere inches from the shark's nose as it swims in for a repeat encounter. The boy's right leg appears to have been stripped off, ribbons of blood flow from the wound into the water. The men in the small craft wear visages of pain, horror, shock, and helplessness, two bravely reaching into the water to grab the doomed lad. A rope dangles from a man's hands, just out of the swimmer's reach. Another soul, appears with a boat hook at the prow, long, wavy brunette hair blown back in the Caribbean breeze as he moves to impale the red-eyed monster, sending it to its demise. Despite the heroic efforts, escape seems impossible for the blonde human.
"Is this fiction?" Integra asks, as transfixed by the painting as the swimmer Watson by his shark.
"No. This painting was a true story. Perhaps you recognize the name Brook Watson."
"...Of course, once Lord Mayor of London. His leg was amputated below the knee," she replies. She pauses a moment then smiles. "One opponent famously thought a wooden head would have served him best."
"Yes, he survived and commissioned this painting to recall his triumph over such adversity. A testimony to the strength of the human spirit."
Dantes turns, leaving Integra to digest the scene in front of her. "A happy ending?" she questions aloud.
"Indeed. Fortune doesn't smile on most, and certainly never twice."
She lingers for a moment longer, transfixed by the eyes of a shark.