As the sun set on a seemingly perfect day, many red eyes around the world lay open to note its passing. Ordinarily, sunsets are highly anticipated and vampires celebrate them because they herald another night of freedom. However, nobody celebrated the sunset that day. As always, the sunset of the spring equinox was met with dread and sadness because it marked another years passing and another six months during which the day would outlast the night. It brought with it another season of loss for the vampires because it was during this time that vampire hunters would be the most active.
Despite the untold number of spring equinoxes that Rosiel had noted the passing of, he was always still affected. That day, his eyes had opened at noon and he had not gotten a moment's rest since. Slowly, Rosiel slid out from his king sized bed and to ducked behind the drapes covering a floor-length window to watch the sunset, careful not to let a single noise or ray of sunlight rouse this bedmate.
It was not as if Rosiel really cared for his bedmate. He just didn't want to hear any petulant whining or insolent demands that he return to bed. Although sometimes he had the desire to let his bedmate be the victim of an unfortunate accident, he could never bring himself to do it. It would be a shame to kill such a talented and beautiful bed partner and he doubted that Selena would appreciate the loss of yet another fledgling.
When the sun finally dipped below the horizon, Rosiel stepped back from the window and prepared for the night. Dressed in a black dress shirt and trousers, Rosiel emerged from the bathroom and frowned upon seeing his bedmate still oblivious to the night, with blonde hair mussed and an arm hanging from the side of the bed. Perhaps it was time to charge Selena with finding him another bedmate. This one was dumber than a doornail.
Impatient to get out of his bedmate's presence, Rosiel disregarded his bedroom door and just walked through a wall onto the lavish terrace of his penthouse, breathing in the scents of the many exotic plants that he kept. Although it was not necessary for vampires to breathe, it was something that he would continually do. He could not understand how some vampires could deprive themselves of this sense, even momentarily to avoid foul smells.
Quickly picking out Selena's earthy and minty scent, Rosiel followed his nose to find her exactly where he expected to. The penthouse came complete a swimming pool and hot tub but because she wished it, Rosiel had allowed her to disable the hot tub's functions and turn it into a koi pond. Although he could not really understand why he had given in to this ridiculous whim, especially because he liked to use hot tubs, he was often glad he did. Every night, he would rise to find Selena reclining by the tub, with her long auburn hair flowing down her back and a hand in the water, the fish weaving around it and nibbling on her fingers, a picture of serenity. It was as if the water could temporary wash away all her sorrows to leave only the beautiful woman that he had first met, as if she had returned to that innocent girl who still believed in happy endings and had never felt the pain of unrequited love.
"Selena," Rosiel called softly, hating himself for disturbing the peace.
Selena looked up at Rosiel and smiled faintly before gracefully rising. With a quick flick of her wrist, she rid her hand of the water and sent the droplets back into her fish pond, startling the koi and sending them running for cover among the aquatic plants.
When Selena looked back up at Rosiel after righting her black empire waist silk dress, Rosiel was crushed to once again see defeated red-orange eyes. This was what he did to her. Years upon years of harsh words and cruel actions had done this. And he knew exactly why Selena stayed with him although her sister Lorena had left him a little over a century ago. She loved him. Oh, how he wished that he could bring himself to love her back. However, he liked to imagine that he could make up for the pain that he caused her with little things such as allowing her to turn his hot tub into a fish pond.
Rosiel hated himself for causing Selena pain but could not bear to ask Selena to leave him. He was selfish. It was easier to see Selena suffer every night than to bear the pain of his own loneliness. She was his only constant companion and had been so for almost two hundred years. Decades ago, Rosiel had thought to drive Selena away by taking lovers but it did not work. She still stayed and Rosiel began to find a perverse pleasure in his cruelty. Despite the number of vampires who would bow before him, he knew that none loved him except for Selena. None loved him enough to sacrifice their own happiness just to be with him. Not even his human mother had done that. She had abandoned him at the age of ten to get remarried.
"You've failed me again. Find me another lover. This time, make sure he has a brain," Rosiel demanded airily.
Despite wanting to curl into herself, Selena was able to keep her posture stiff and unchanged. However, she was not strong enough to keep the anguish from her face. Quickly, Selena lowered her head, allowing her hair to sweep in front of her face and nodded.
Rosiel smiled.
When Rosiel stepped into Summertime that night, a slight smirk graced his lips. The jazz quartet that the club regularly hired was playing a variation of "It Ain't Necessarily So" from George Gershwin's opera, Porgy and Bess. Knowing the club's manager as well as he did, he knew that all of the songs that night would be from the opera and played in reverse order so that the band would finish with the opera's most famous song and the club's namesake, "Summertime."
Without pause, Rosiel turned to the right wall and wove through the tables scattered throughout the club to make his way to the bar, behinds which the manager scurried about, acting as a bartender.
"Good evening, Charlie." Rosiel called.
The squat and balding man quickly turned with a wide smile on his face and thrust the whiskey bottle in his hands at another barkeeper. With a cherry nose and a smile so wide that it always caused his eyes to crinkle, the man was often assumed to be jolly and harmless. Rosiel knew better though. He had met the
human fifteen years ago fighting against a young vampire who thought that he would be an easy meal. The young vampire was weak in vampire standards but still had the strength to rival any human. Still, with his fighting skill, Charlie had easily dominated the fight. That had been a long time ago but he still had all the makings of a great fighter. He did it less often these days but Charlie could throw any human out of the club as easy as any of the gargantuan bouncers that he hired.
"Porgy and Bess in reverse order?" Rosiel asked.
Charlie grinned and leaned forward on the bar, resting on an elbow. "You know me so well. Thought you would need some cheering up tonight. Looks like I was wrong though, eh?"
Rosiel gave Charlie a slight smile and shrugged.
"Ooh, Ros," Charlie began, "You know that girl I hired a lil' while ago? Vickie? The one who suddenly disappeared? Well she showed up again a few nights ago claiming an occupational emergency and has been hanging around 'til closing time every night since. What nerve. What occupational emergency? She worked for me. Even if she managed to squeeze in a day job, she could have at least managed to pick up the phone."
Rosiel pivoted on a heel and scanned the room, quickly picking out Seras alone at a table against the far wall, staring at him. The sparse crowd around the bar seemed to part like sheep among a dog as Rosiel stalked towards Seras without another word to Charlie, who frowned in annoyance.
"Ros, you bastard, if you take my girls, the least you could do is tell me so I can find a replacement!" Charlie called at Rosiel's back.
Today, with her dark blue halter dress and simply pinned back hair, Seras radiated an aura of confidence and refinement. With a nod of greeting, Rosiel took the seat to Seras's left. She had gotten the upper hand by appearing without notice and taking the seat against the wall, the strategic spot that allowed her to observe the whole room, but he would take what he could. He would not suffer the indignity of being chased down and if she was planning on betraying him to Hellsing, he would at least have some warning, being able to see the front and side entrances.
"Rosiel," Seras acknowledged, nodding.
Rosiel raised a hand to call over a waitress. "So you knew who I was after all."
"No, I only found out after I talked to Carl," Seras explained, while Rosiel nodded in acceptance.
"Hi Leah, can you get us two Bloody Babes?" Seras asked the waitress who had made her way over to the table.
Rosiel clenched his jaw in displeasure. Once again, Seras had managed to take control of the situation. It was as if she was a completely different vampire than the temperamental one that Rosiel had met a month ago. She had acted like a fool during their previous meeting but Rosiel would be wary of her in the future.
Seras leaned forward on her elbows and began to twiddle her thumbs. Looking at him from the corner of her eye, Seras hesitantly posed asked, "What would you do to somebody who knows the plan but is unwilling to help?"
"It would depend on who they are. My vampires know better to cross me. However, I would assume that anybody else would be untrustworthy with such information and would justly eliminate them." Rosiel did not know where this line of questioning was going but there was no harm in answering truthfully.
Several moments passed during which Seras's and Rosiel's eyes were locked upon each other. Neither spoke and neither moved, even to blink. The tense situation was finally broken when the waitress came to deliver their drinks. Instantly, Seras put on an act of merriness and began to run a finger around the glass's rim.
"Where's Selena?" Seras asked, cocking her head to one side.
Rosiel tensed. Was she implying that Selena was not willing to help them? The idea was ridiculous. Selena had been nothing but obedient throughout the years. He suspected that if he demanded her to go on a kamikaze mission, she would.
"I sent her on an errand so until she's finished with it, you will be seeing less of her."
Seras groaned. "I really need her help. She said that it appeared as if my master had taught me everything he could but if that's true, why am I such a piss poor vampire? I mean, I can't even use the shadows for five minutes without getting a bloody headache."
With a frustrated huff, Seras buried her head into her arms. Rosiel frowned at her immature display of frustration and let his gaze caress the back of her pale neck. Perhaps she was a fool after all, able to let her guard down so quickly. If he wanted to, he could easily behead her with the dagger that he carried with him before she even knew what happened. On the other hand, assuming that she was not a fool, taking this posture to exposes her neck could be taken as an offer of faith for an acknowledged superior, a behavior commonly seen in wolves.
"Did you tell Uriel or Selena of your headaches?" Rosiel asked. If she could give him that show of faith, the least he could do was to offer up some information about her ailment if indeed she did not know what caused it. It seemed likely that this turn in the conversation was meant to reaffirm their relationship. The unspoken agreement that they had made upon their first meeting was that she would receive training for her assistance in the destruction of Hellsing. Because he had said that she would be seeing less of Selena, perhaps she had taken it as a willingness to break the agreement and relationship.
Seras turned her head towards Rosiel and peered up at him through her bangs although she did not lift her head. "No, I don't think so."
"Headaches are an easily explained ailment. They are caused by poor control. You are allowing your power to fluctuate as you use them."
Seras laid her hands on the edge of the table and pushed herself backwards to slouch in her chair and pouted slightly. "But I have been training for months!"
"But not according to your needs. You have been stubbornly training through your pain when you should have been solving the problem. I can show you some techniques once away from prying eyes."
Seras leaned towards Rosiel, her head propped up on the palm of her right hand and gave him a wide smile. "Thanks."
"I believe you have some news to deliver," Rosiel drawled, near the end of his patience for Seras's childish acts.
Immediately, Seras's countenance changed. She straightened on her seat and gazed evenly at Rosiel. Without a smile on her face, she immediately seemed to age several years, instantaneously changing from a careless adolescent to a poised woman.
"In the week that I was gone, I made contact with my associate, Carl. He has agreed to join forces to destroy our common enemy. Also, he has provided me with a list of potential allies within the organization. I will make contact with them once I feel that I can eliminate any who would threaten us. However, first, we will need to draw out a detailed course of action."
Rosiel was not sure if he preferred this side of Seras over the previous annoyingly childlike one that she had cast off. This side was too bold. How dare she, a female vampire who has still not gotten use to the length of her fangs, treat him, a vampire of four hundred years, as an equal? She should be showing him more deference. If she were one of his vampires and not an ally, he would have shown her her place, forcibly if needed. Instead, all he could do was grudgingly agree.