Winter had come and gone, and air of early spring was blowing through the open window in the library. It was a cool and calm breeze, though the cold and so often dreary atmosphere of the region could not go unnoticed. Iscariot had long since returned to The Vatican, where Wolfe had written several letters in response to the recent silence from their newfound enemy. It had grown far too quiet since that ambush, and everyone knew it. Yes, it would fly over the heads of the servants, and some of the soldiers, but only the non informed. That had always been life at Hellsing; The sad knowledge of how simple and happy life would be if one was simply ignorant.
It would seem Wolfe had something up her sleeve, at least according to her her brief messages to Sir Integra. That was troubling all in itself, but nothing could be done about it. The Vatican was a force to be reckoned with, and the technology they possessed made them a silent and deadly force above most else.
Integra had let herself drift into an almost relaxed state as she loosened her tie, leaning back against the plush surface of the couch. She adjusted her glasses and took off her gloves, setting them neatly on the table, before opening one of her books and skimming over its table of contents. Vladimir kept a good distance from her, sitting on the other side of the room and pulling books off the shelf closest to him. He seemed to be looking for something, although his lack of communication made this a single handed search.
Altogether he'd actually improved in the past month, there where no more violent outbursts at least, and his relationship with Integra had changed for the better. He was still distant from everyone, but his personality was sowly shifting back to what it was when he had first arrived, and overall he appeared to be walking on much more solid ground. Helena's presence in the house did not alarm him. Infact, he seemed more at ease with her then Seras, with whom his relationship with was still rather unstable.
But at 1:00 on a sunday afternoon neither Seras or Helena where present, leaving only Sir Hellsing, Layne, and a number of servants in that wing of the mansion. The only noticeable sound was the turning of crisp paper as Integra read, occasionally pausing and looking to Vlad, who was completely engrossed in whatever old volume he had pulled off the shelves. Integra could not have been more the opposite, as each page she scanned left her memory the moment she read it. Relaxation had never been a strong point for her, and one could almost say the art of doing nothing was something she alone could never master. Her mind would ultimately find its way back to their current problems with their newest undead threat, or to Vlad. Despite her abilities to focus, focusing on anything trivial was often out of the question, and she found herself re-reading the same page several times, trying to take it in. The library at the Hellsing mansion had a unique reminiscent aura to it, and to this very day Integra could still remember lessons with her father, Walter bringing her tea, Alucard 'reorganizing' all the books and leaving others to deal with it. This place was a source of light at so many darkened times. On this particular day the fragrance of lilacs blew through the open window, being swept up by the spring breeze and now mingling with the scent of old tobacco and dusty leather. Altogether it left an antique feeling, but not one of a musty old shop, a much more warm and inviting feel.
Vlad flipped over the pages of the beaten up journal, scanning over only the most important bits and pieces, only reading the full entry when something caught his eye. The handwriting in the book was lush, yet with a certain harshness to it, an elegant bite that allowed one to almost understand just who had once owned the book. The entries themselves where mostly scientific, with a few philosophical bits here and there. What the notes pertained to, however, was something out of fiction, so far out of touch with reality that anyone outside of Hellsing would consider such a journal a farce.
Abraham Van Helsing, a name out of a fiction, but slowly seeping over the pages and into the harsh depths of Vladimirs reality. His eyes darted to Integra, who didn't seem to notice what he was looking at. That was all for the better, he had his doubts she wanted him looking at these books...Strange she even left them in the library, really.
Nothing was safe to call fantasy anymore, and all that existed in reality was a covered up lie. There was no 'reality' left for Vlad, the lines between fact and fiction had long since blended together. Months prior an attack on Hellsing had proved it... and what of the London attacks six years ago?
So many people used to say it was a coverup, but they where taken no more serious then those hunting for UFO's in such an empty sky... Were they right?
Vladimir rubbed his eyes, the hours he'd now been reading where getting to him and, despite the neat writing in the journals, such an antique style, aswell as what the journals pertained to, felt so foreign and hard on a modern mind. Bram Stoker... best known for a work of fantasy that was since dragged through the mud of hollywood and the like... Yet everything written in these books scattered around him suggested that the novel was based on fact, facts that where changed to quite a grand level by the end.
He rested the journal on the floor.
The end... what lies past the end...?
No, No... How could any of this really be true? Someone had to be gaslighting him... that was it... The most simple explanation... Still...
He yawned, leaning back against the book shelf he was sitting against. He was tired, so tired for so long, yet this heavy paranoia looming over him would never let him sleep. Glancing at a shelf across from him he saw another small book resting on the edge, it's lack of a title indicating yet another journal. He rubbed his eyes again, groaning, before crawling forward and picking up the volume, flipping it open and scanning the first page.
The handwriting was cursive, but much lazier then the other, although the neatness varied with each entry. It lacked a specific date, but the entries themselves ranged from 1941, to late into 1944. The name scribbled lazily onto the end of each note was Arthur Hellsing.
Vlad's eyes wandered to Sir Integra, who, by some chance, had fallen to sleep, her book still in her hand and laying across her chest.
He kept his eyes locked on her for a moment, with an odd adoration as he watched her chest rise and fall. He then returned to the journal skipping over the useless notes on the inside of the cover, and turning to the first entry...
--
"Bloody hell...You...You look like you've seen a ghost!"
"Oh, I-I didn't say? ...Really sorry, it's Vladimir Layne..."
"I only came because you wanted it, You needed me in those first few months... You do not need me anymore."
"Then did I...fail you...Sir Hellsing?"
"You told me once that your world and mine are the same... So then, Integra... Do you believe that I am really here...?"
"Don't disappear!"
Integra's eyes opened as she jolted up from the couch, the book lying over her chest falling onto the floor with a dull clunk. She took a few seconds to catch her breath, taking her glasses off for a moment and cleaning them with the edge of her shirt. She lifted them back to her face, adjusting them, before looking out the window at the calm night.
Calm... night...?
Reality of the situation returned to her, and her eyes darted to the corner where Vlad had been sitting, only to find him gone, the books he'd taken from the shelves back in their rightful place as they had always been. She stood abruptly, ignoring the book that was still lying on the floor and rushed to the doors, pushing them open and stepping into the long and empty halls. She turned, making her way to the staircase, thought not once stopping to call out his name. She climbed the staircase, heading towards Vladimirs room on the next floor, the eerie calmness of the house unnoticed to her as she rested her hand on the ice-cold door knob, turning it ever so slowly.
The room was empty, without the smallest sign that anyone had inhabited it in the recent past. His bags where gone, she shuffled through the drawers finding them all bare, there was even a thin layer of dust over the dresser. She raised her finger, staring at the thin mark where she had wiped the dust off.
No... that wasn't right... This would be clean at least... the maids would have...
She turned abruptly, reaching for the door knob only to be burned on the hot metal. Shocked, she felt the door, a rising level of heat on the other side. It wasn't possible, was it...? Though she knew the answer, the roar of the fire growing loader on the other side. Slowly she turned from the door, about to make her way toward the window, when the room changed. She wasn't in the Hellsing mansion any longer, she was outside it, staring at the rubble of the partially demolished building. She recognized that image. It had been just this way when she first returned with only Seras at her side.
This was not reality, nor was it anything like a nightmare, no, she recognized that dark yet playful glee that radiated around her. Finally, for the first time since this mess had started, she spoke, but not in the calm and composed way she had known for so many years... This tone of voice was reserved only for him, a fury that only that servant of hers could ever insight.
"ALUCARD!"
Her scream echoed farther then she had thought, ripping through the entire picture that had been set around her, and like a films set burning to the ground, she found the images tearing away from her.
There she stood, in the center of the library, everything once more in perfect clarity, despite the time of day, and how Vlad was still missing.
"...Alucard..?"
She raised an eyebrow, turning her head slowly to glance at her shadow that was being cast by the lamps dim light. Slowly and silently he rose from the murky depths of the shadow, a cheshire grin across his face.
"I suppose you found something funny about that...?" she muttered, turning to face him.
His smirk didn't falter, as he took off his coat and hat, tossing them carelessly onto the coffee table. No, his grim smile remained, and he shrugged in response to his masters question, letting himself fall back onto the couch. Integra's dire expression remained also, and as she approached the lounging vampire the smirk slowly fell from his face. He stretched his arms and shoulders, almost like a cat, before answering her.
"I suppose. It was rather interesting... Tell me, what do you care more about?" he began, as he pulled himself back up into a seated position, lounging against the couch. "...Do you care more about your family's legacy... Or... him..."
He brushed his hair up and out of his face, holding his hand in his his dark mane for a moment as if posing for a magazine, but since Integra was paying little attention to his antics he let his hand fall back down, annoyed by the lack of interest.
Integra leaned down, grabbing his tie and pulling him towards her.
"...Why are you here?" she said, very tensely. "...You need to leave me alone..." she said through gritted teeth.
"...I think I told you before, master... I'll be here as long as you want it... as long as you will it..."
He ran his tongue over his teeth, wrapping his hand around her wrist and pulling her down towards him, almost causing her to loose balance.
"...As long as you desire me... As long as I am yours... You told me not to leave you, master... I'll obey your every command... I will vanish from time to time, yes... but I will never truly be gone until you will it..."
He kissed her wrist, his fangs and tongue lightly brushing over her creamy skin. Her expression softened, but only so slightly before her free hand slid behind her, lifting a pistol from the table and firing it into his right eye. She dropped the pistol to the ground, as Alucard fell back against the couch, the empty socket bleeding profusely for several seconds before it began to regenerate.
Integra stared down at her own hand, Alucard's blood now splattered over it.
"I am your master. I may desire you, I may want you by my side... but you will not act outside of your bounds."
He pulled his hand away from his eye, wiping his own blood onto to couch... and just as yet another grin was spreading up his face, she backhanded him, wiping it clean off. He slowly turned his head back to face her, his expression more serious then before
Integra stood, pulling the tin of cigars from her pocket and lighting one.
"...You mentioned Vladimir... So then... You know of him, are my assumptions correct?" She said, looking to get straight to the matters at hand before her slave had the chance to talk his way out of her subconscious as he so often did.
"...Vladimir...?" he remarked, raising an eyebrow, though in a rather sarcastic matter, acting as if he knew nothing on the matter. Integra exhaled, the smoke wafting through the room as she walked to the window, which she now noticed was closed.
...Oh...Vladimir wanted it open today... Then that must be why it's closed... Every trace of him is gone...
"...Who is he, Alucard?" she said, staring out at the calm night. Several minutes passed by slowly before she received an answer.
"...He is ...nothing..." the vampire replied, his red eyes reflecting in the moons rays, "...He is nothing more then the combined memories of many pathetic souls..."
She turned back to him, returning to him once more and sitting down beside him. She leaned forward towards the ashtray, snuffing out her cigar.
"...Are you just another pathetic soul then...?" she remarked, leaning back on the couch, ignoring how Alucard's arm was now snaking around her shoulder.
"...You know what I am."
She smirked, at last, looking back at him.
"Really?" she responded with a sarcastic tone. "...You can never just answer a question, now can you?"
She looked away from him, staring into the corner where Vlad had been reading her smile faded.
"...I want you to leave now." She said, with an air of melancholy. "...You where right before. It has been too long, Alucard. You only used to come because I needed you...Now I no longer..." She would have continued her speech, but the weight beside her had shifted, and that cold hand on her shoulder had been lifted, strangely leaving her more chilled then before. She looked around the room, standing as she saw him with his hand on the door knob.
He did not look back to her, not once, but in the deadly silence that surrounded her, she could barely hear the knob click as her turned it.
"...Why use the door...?" she murmured, that dry feeling in the back of her throat choking her words. "..Why not just do what you always do...?"
He paused, finally answering her.
"...I wanted you to remember this night." he replied, before stepping out of the door and into the oblivion outside her mind. The nothingness outside that a part of her felt he'd never return from. She said nothing, every emotion she thought she had saved for this moment had simply dried up, and she sat back down on the couch, merely staring into the distance.
...I will remember this night...I'll remember this night until the dawn comes again...
--
Integra's eyes fluttered open, the evening light pouring in through the window, as the sounds of gunfire out on the target field commenced. She looked up at the clock, reading that it was 4:00 in the afternoon, the same day, the same year.
She lifted the book off her chest, resting it on the table, and glanced to Vlad who was now asleep in the corner, the journals scattered around him, save for one that he still had in his grasp.
Integra rubbed her eyes, as she got up from the couch.
"What dreams await me now...In a the depths reality..."
...and as she straightened her clothing out, and reached down to put on her gloves she finally saw the blood that was still left splattered across her hand.
"Then it never was just my mind...
Then that really was... the last time..."
The coming of the dawn... that morning light would always be just out of reach.
--
((OKAY! So, ths is really just abit of filler to take us to the next chapter, but it's somewhat needed filler...Anyway, sorry for all the slow updates lately...I hope you enjoyed that, though, umm, review please...?? Seriously, I live off of reviews. xD I eetz them, and they r gud. So review please, thanks.))