A/n: Hey guys, I'm back! Endless apologies for the huge delay, I've been having some recent real life problems that have really gotten in the way of this. But rest assured, I will try my best not to let this fic die.
So hope you enjoy! There is one last part to this battle after this one and then it's over promise!
Please leave any comments, reviews or questions as always! I am so, so grateful to every single one of you that has reviewed so far. I read all of them, so please keep them coming :)
The Witch House (18.4)
11:00pm
Will really didn't know what the hell was happening at the moment. Or rather what had even happened for the last hour and a half.
There was one part of him that was still wondering if this was some hellish nightmare he'd wake from at any second, safe and warm with his wife tucked next to him. Another part wondered if his death would be very painful.
And it's all wrong. He has been a good soldier, a good Christian, and a good husband. He has taken care never to stray from the light of God and His words, and kept his faith no matter how many times it's been tried.
Why the fuck was this happening to him?
The black, blood-like substance had dried on his face and was flaking off his cheek in bits. It reeked of decay and old kelp, and the mere stench of it would've made him gag if he wasn't already on the edge of hyperventilating.
Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit
His legs were somehow supporting him, though they felt like rubber and ached from the bruises made while being thrown all over the deck.
It was too dark to make out every detail, but the moon traced a silver outline around the thing (oh god, what is that thing? Whatisthatthing?), and each long black spike of its shell stood unobscured over the water.
It was the only reason Will saw one of them spear straight through the vampire's torso. How it exploded out of his back, blood spraying out like some macabre fountain.
And maybe it was the adrenaline coursing through his veins or the numbing terror threatening to white out his mind, but he could see every rivulet, every drop of bright crimson slithering languidly down the black length of the spike.
He had never seen blood so red before.
The vampire Alucard hung there like a rag doll, pupils shrunken into pinpricks of shock, and as tall as the guy was, he was also thin and almost weightless-seeming at times and looked like he'd been damn near split in half.
A dripping, wriggling tentacle wrapped around his long, prone legs. Will's sweat ran cold.
"Oh, no…" he said, and then though he didn't really understand why himself, he was across the deck in a dead sprint.
The metallic floor was slick with bay water and slime, while somewhere far behind he heard the girl, Seras, scream something out in horror while the Captain continued to moan.
Alucard hit the water where he was flung, instantly disappearing under without a hint of struggle.
And it's only after Will had already vaulted over the railing, the brackish, bottomless waves rushing up to greet him that he realized how far he was out of his league.
The Crimson Man disappeared beneath the surface of La Mer.
It had felt His fanged maw closing in upon Its flesh and It had sensed more hunger in Him than anything It has known. An ancient hunger. Much like Mère's.
The wriggling minnows still stuck in the cavities of his shell had screeched.
FleefleefleefleefleeFLEE
It tried, but the Crimson Man's shadow wrapped tight around It, much like It too once had centuries ago to wandering sharks and long-legged women who came too close to the edge. It could not moveItcouldnotmoveItcouldnotmove…
And then strangely. The Crimson Man jerked, his shadows being swallowed back into him. His pale, beautiful face marred by bared, clenched teeth. A white hand gripped his head and an emotion flashed over his eyes. Pain.
If It were any other creature, It would have been surprised.
But It was not made for curiosity.
The blood on its shell now was cold. Like ice or the rock of the arctic bed. Nothing like the heat and life of human blood and perhaps unappetizing in this respect, because It has always loved humans for the warmth of their flesh.
But it was very red and shimmered like the scales of fish under moonlight. Power roiled in its scent.
Mère's words ring faintly in the flickering caverns of Its mind.
I do not believe you have tasted immortal blood.
The water was a lot colder than Will had expected and plunging in had nearly knocked the breath out of his chest. Pitch blackness enveloped him and he could barely see even the outline of his hand a few centimeters away from his face.
The lone source of light came from the boat's lantern, still miraculously intact and swinging on its hook up above. It gave off a pale yellow beam that penetrated only a shallow amount into the depths.
But it was still enough for Will to catch a glimpse of the blurry, red-coated form, sinking like a rock down towards the abysmal darkness. With frantic, furious kicks, he swam after it, trying desperately not to think of what else may be swimming close by, how that thing was in the water too.
I'm going to die oh my god I'm going to die. The mantra raced in his head even as he somehow finally caught up with Alucard and closed a hand over his arm. His lungs were crying by then and the growing pressure on his bones as he dived down was starting to hurt.
The vampire's ebony hair floated all around them, darker even than the depths they'd sunken to. Some locks of it almost seemed to wrap around Will's shoulder, as if clinging to him with a will of their own. He tried not to think about it.
Alucard's face could not be made out save for the ghostly profile of his cheekbones and perhaps it was best this way. While Will had always been a little different from his colleagues where the Hellsing vampires were concerned—finding them fascinating, beautiful even—those bloody red eyes in the dark was the last thing he needed to see right now.
Wrapping his fingers tight, he pulled upwards.
And nearly lost what air was left in his lungs from shock. It was like trying to pull up an anchor. A pure metal one. With two extra anvils stacked on top.
Holy shit…
There was no way in hell a guy so willowy and slender could weigh this much. Yet even as Will's mind frenetically puzzled over the physical impossibilities of the matter, they continued to sink—invisible forces sucking them down and down and down.
Clenching his teeth, he strained his muscles, pouring every ounce of strength into his legs as they sliced through the water. His lungs were burning and his chest was threatening to burst from the strain.
Somehow, miraculously, they started moving.
But it was slow and the little puddle of lantern light up above seemed impossibly far away. It wasn't long before black specks began dancing across his vision. Instinct told him to let go of the extra weight and make a break for the surface, but Will knew better than to do that.
He thought of his wife and his daughter and knew he owed Hellsing too much to let its greatest legacy sink to the bottom of the bay.
Even though he was dazedly certain he was about to drown.
Suddenly, the water above exploded in a white plume of bubbles that sent him reeling back in surprise.
Something plunged in a meter or so above their heads, bobbing straight back to the surface an instant later. It was long and shadowed, but the only thing Will immediately noticed was that it floated.
With one final burst of strength, he pulled Alucard toward it, scrabbling for purchase on the edge of it to buoy himself, before bursting through the surface.
Oxygen flooded his lungs in a white rush and Will gasped it in like a starving man. Salt water stung his eyes, dripping down his face as his head throbbed from the lack of air. The violent sounds of the crashing waves and the boat's squeal came back in a torrent of noise. Someone was shouting in the distance, the girl Seras, but her words flew straight through one ear and out the other.
It wasn't until a good beat later that he realized the object he was clinging to was the deck bench—the forty-kilo deck bench that had been bolted down with steel and welding. Flung into the water like a plastic frisbee.
His mind decided not to process it.
With one weak, trembling hand he towed over the vampire still in his grip.
"Y-You alright?" he stuttered, knuckles whitening as his fingers dug into the bench's side. It took a monumental effort just to keep Alucard above the surface.
There was no reply, not that Will had been expecting one, but the vampire did look at him then. Under the moonlight, his skin was a strange bluish-pale and the black hair that had been flowing around them was now plastered wetly to his face.
His eyes were glowing and huge.
It would have been terrifying if Will hadn't been so concerned. Looking back, Alucard had not struggled or even moved once, even as he'd been essentially dragged through the water.
Could vampires go into shock?
Before Will could do anything he'd undoubtedly regret however, Alucard suddenly reached over him and grabbed the edge of the bench with his own hand. The entire thing sunk down a visible inch, but continued to stay afloat.
He then sent Will a pointed look, his gaze falling to the hand still on his arm. Seeing as he was able to keep himself above water a hell of a lot better than Will ever could, he released the vampire, feeling his shoulder scream with joy.
It was a millisecond later that he saw the blood stained all over Alucard's hand.
"Bloody hell!" he screamed and grabbed Alucard's arm again without thinking, "Shit, right, right, you're bleeding, God, hold on let me check it…"
He missed the look of utter astonishment on Alucard's face as he reached down toward his abdomen where he had seen the spike go through, still horrified at himself for forgetting that the guy had just been impaled only a few minutes ago.
When he raised his hand again, it was soaked with gleaming blood. Alucard's eyes widened a slight fraction in vague surprise. Will was nearing hysteria.
"Oh, fuck," he muttered shrilly, and quickly clamped his hand back down on the wound, "Oh, fuck, oh fuck, okay, okay, don't worry, I've got you. Bloody hell, I didn't—a-are you dizzy? Please, please don't pass out…"
Panic was rising like a tidal wave in him as he babbled. It was cold, they were adrift with who-knows-what around them, and he was trying to plug up the fist-sized hole in a vampire's stomach with his bare hands.
I didn't sign up for this. Jesus Christ, I didn't sign up for this.
Alucard was a bit confused at the moment.
After being rather obnoxiously stabbed (because apparently the creature could grow those annoying spikes on its back at will), he'd fallen off with the one sole thought of disemboweling the disgusting thing and leaving it out to shrivel in the sun.
Then he'd actually hit the water, during which centuries of natural instincts and terror of the sea had rendered his body near catatonic with shock.
His last fleeting thought at that point was that no, if they ever managed to find him again he was going to kill everyone. Everyone. And then he was going to ignore Integra for a week.
Never, in all the centuries that he's lived, did he think the shivering, sobbing little pilot would jump after him. Humans were such puzzling creatures.
The boy's hand was currently pressed against the hole in his torso, which he noted was still bleeding. This was why he hated fighting in the water—his body always took forever to heal.
The boy was also babbling incoherently at him, firing out hundreds of jumbled questions, none of which Alucard had any way of answering.
It was all very inconvenient and annoying.
He couldn't even remember why he'd ended up falling in in the first place. It was unlike him. The pull of the water had been strong, but nothing he couldn't have overcome with the slightest bit of effort. And he'd fallen off with the clumsiness of a yearling.
"Master!" Seras suddenly screamed from on deck, her blind eyes staring pointlessly out into the waves, "Captain Blade!" When Alucard turned to glance up at her, he could see the indentations she was leaving in the metal.
Oh. The police girl. Yes, this was the type of mistake he expected more from her…
Wait, the police girl.
Now that he thought of it, hadn't she been shrieking about something earlier? About killing someone or stopping something or whatever. Fledglings really were such pains. Couldn't she see he'd been busy? As if whatever she'd had to say was of such urgency that—
It hit him.
Will screamed at an octave he never thought he'd be capable of when the bench suddenly crumpled underhand.
I'LL KILL HER!
In her defense, she had done it to save Pip.
So if given the choice, she would do it again.
Even if there had been that one split second, as she heard Will's footsteps race across the deck before leaping into the water, when she'd been full of the most unbridled form of terror she had ever experienced. A mind-numbing moment where she sat there and wondered if she had just lost of her own doing the last remnant of family she had left.
It passed quickly though when she heard Will burst through the surface minutes later, Alucard's brilliantly red aura appearing before her third eye.
It was no exaggeration to say her master was pretty much invincible. Pip on the other hand was not. And her master would have survived falling into the bay, while Pip probably would not have survived being eaten by Baskerville via unexplained, psychic connection.
Given this logic, she thought her actions were warranted.
It was too bad Alucard did not seem to think the same.
Blimey, he was angry. She'd never heard him use so many swear words in one sentence before. He hadn't even seemed to notice that she'd managed to restore the mind link between them, simply raging through it in a firestorm of threats and belligerence and random curses in Romanian.
Seras shrunk down, hugging the much-abused railing.
"I'm sorry!" she wailed out over the water, toward the general direction she thought he was in, "I didn't know it was going to hurt you. Please don't be so mad!"
The day you could actually hurt me is the day I leap freely into the sun, you little piece of căcat! You're dead, do you hear me? DEAD! Don't bother sleeping for the next century!
Seras whimpered, the bond between them making her wilt further under the heat of her sire's rage.
"But Master, I—"
She was cut off when a hand suddenly grabbed her wrist, yanking her away from the edge. A split second later, a tentacle smashed through the guardrail.
"Can we not forget about the giant fucking sea squid trying to kill us?" A familiar French voice snapped next to her, as her wrist was released.
"Captain!" Seras exclaimed in relief, seeing his warm, auburn aura glow before her, "Are you alright?"
Pip sighed, sounding uncharacteristically tired.
"Yes, ma cher, I'm fine. Thank you," he replied genuinely, before suddenly cursing again and shoving her away from him. The place where they'd been standing was smashed a second later and Seras's eyes widened at the sound of metal being bent and crushed.
Had it been that strong a few minutes ago?
"Get out of the water!" Pip was shouting over the edge, "Will, get him out of the water now!"
"Pip, watch where you're standing!" Seras cried, pulling him back, "Isn't that thing after you?"
She had to repeat the question again, before Pip could read her lips properly. There was a short, incredulous snort.
"Me? I doubt it even knows I'm here. It's you it's after." Then he paused.
Unbeknownst to Seras, Pip turned back to the bay in dread, looking at where Alucard's blood swirled bright crimson in the water.
"Or more like the goddamn opium you have for blood."
It was the single most delicious thing It had ever tasted in Its life.
The power, the magic of it. It could feel it all thrum through Its flesh, healing the ruined, shriveled skin. The cracks upon Its shell sealed with barely a hiss. The ancient ache of age and death dispersed as if it were never there.
How? How had It even lived without this blood?
Had Mère kept this to herself? All those centuries they'd rotted with Her in that barren, human house and She had kept this to herself?
It'dkillher It'd Kill Her But First It Needed More
And more and more and more and more and more…