Disclaimer: Hellsing is the property of Studio Gonzo and is used without permission. No profit is being made from this work.
A soft, slow piece of music was the final thing that set the mood for the room, like an illustration lifted from a history book. It was the latest fashion in parties amongst high society, to recreate a period in history and have your guests try to blend in, and amongst the guests at this party where the highest of high society. It was they who controlled the fate of a small island nation that had once been the capital of the greatest empire in the world. Even Henry, Prince of Wales, the man destined to become King Henry XI was in attendance. There were also others there who some would argue exceeded him in power, like Geraldine Archer, the world's richest woman and world's second richest person, with personal wealth exceeded only her father, that she would inherit upon his death.
But two were there whom no one would consider powerful, but within Britain, of all those who lived in the shadow realm, where the creatures used to frighten little children and raise hackles around a camp fire were made flesh and the dead walked, they reigned supreme. They lived and worked in secret, away from the prying eyes and to continue to do that, they needed the aid of those who attended this party, so when the invitation arrived, they accepted. They were greeted by the Prince Henry, who was not the actual host, but had played a part in organising the party. "Al, old boy!" the prince enthused, catching sight of the latest arrivals. "Good to see you! I was afraid that you weren't coming. I know this isn't your sort of thing after all."
"It's not that I don't enjoy them your Highness," Sir Allan Wingates Hellsing demurred. "It's merely that I find business so often occupies the hours when the most entertaining events are scheduled. As for the delay, this place was harder to find than I thought and in all honesty I must say, your directions were less than superb."
"My apologies then," the prince said. "It comes from being chauffeured all one's life. Now don't be rude and introduce your companion, or I'll have to tell your wife you came here with another woman."
"Emily sends her regrets, but the doctor won't let her out of bed," Allan replied. "Your Highness, may I present Celes Victoria, retainer to the Hellsing Family. Celes, may I present His Royal Highness, Henry Windsor, Prince of Wales."
The prince gently took Celes's hand and raised it to his lips, kissing it through her glove. "My Lady, you are far more beautiful than any jewel that adorns that pile of gold and velvet in the Tower."
"Your Highness is too kind," Celes replied. "I have had the honour of seeing the crown jewels and it is something to which I could never hope to compare."
The prince's eyes lit up as he let go of Celes's hand. "I see you know the steps to this dance better than some," he said, green eyes twinkling. "I should love to dance a few more rounds, but I've kept you both too long. Please, enjoy the party." He stepped back and gestured out to the room expansively. "And remember, this party isn't just about politics." The last was directed at Allan with a look of tolerant amusement.
Alan just smiled in response as the prince went to greet some more late arriving guests. Taking Celes's arm, the pair made their way down the stairs and into the flowing sea of guests on the floor. They were halfway across the floor when they stopped to take a glass of wine from one of the circulating servers and in that time a small knot of people drifted into them. "Alan, it's been too long," one of them said as he saw the leader of the Hellsing Organisation and his retainer. The man who spoke was a florid, heavy set man, dressed in the formal robes of an arch-bishop from the mid seventeen hundreds.
"Ah Your Grace!" Alan replied smoothly. "It has been quite some time. Could you introduce me to your friends?"
"Of course Alan, of course. Anything for an old friend." He went around introducing those who were with him to Alan and Celes, mostly influential members of the business world, save for the viscount and his wife, one of the very few nobles who still held title to his hereditary estates and actual made a living off them. "Now you must introduce me to this charming young woman."
"Not so young as you would think. Your Grace, Celes Victoria, retainer to the Hellsing Family. Celes, His Grace Frederick Giles, Archbishop of Canterbury."
Celes had been reaching out to shake the man's hand but when she heard who he was, she flinched away at the last moment with a mumbled apology. "Come now Miss Victoria," the Archbishop said. "I don't bite."
"But I do Your Grace."
The Archbishop merely raised one bushy grey eyebrow slightly and said, "I see."
What followed was an extended period of awkward silence that no one seemed quite certain how to break. Alan shuffled uncomfortably as Celes and the Archbishop simply looked at each other, while the rest of the group looked at their fellows uncertainly, not entirely sure what was going on. Finally, after what seemed like hours, but was probably little more than a minute at most, the tableau was shattered by the shrill ring of Alan's pocket phone.
"Blast!" he swore as he retrieved the offending item from one voluminous pocket, not entirely sure whether to be annoyed that he had forgotten to set the phone to silent, or be grateful for the interruption for the silence that had threatened to drag out all night. Phone retrieved, he snapped it open, silencing its electronic cry, and held it up to his ear. "Hellsing speaking," he said. "This had best be an emergency or someone's head will roll." Celes watched as Alan's brow creased, not even her supernaturally acute hearing able to pick up anything from the tiny sonic laser that transmitted the sound right to the eardrum. "All right," he said finally when whoever was on the other end finished speaking. "I understand. She'll be there momentarily." With that he snapped the phone closed. "Celes. I'm afraid a situation has come up at the office that needs your personal touch. Michael will tell you more when you arrive."
Celes nodded and then curtsied to the rest of the small group. "I'm sorry to cut things short ladies and gentlemen, but I'm afraid duty calls. Perhaps some other time." She didn't wait for a reply before turning the a swirl of her skirts and making off across the room as best her outfit would allow, catching a few snatches of Alan's voice making further apologies as she went. She managed to avoid the prince, who had left his self appointed station at the door, and strode into the cool night air. A valet caught sight of her and went to help her, only to blink as the shadows seemed to swirl up and swallow her. Shaking his head, he muttered to himself about imagining things and not getting enough sleep.
Some distance away, Celes emerged from the shadows into her chambers in the basement of the Hellsing mansion without breaking her stride. Already waiting for was Michael Fitzroy, the Hellsing aide de camp. As always he wore pristine white clothes, from the highly polished shoes, to the high collared shirt and snug vest, a sharp contrast with his ebony skin. He performed the same duties as Walter had back when Celes had first joined Hellsing, but personally she thought that Michael lacked his sly sense of humour, or any sense of humour for that matter. Still, he was very good at what he did and already had Victoria's clothes and weapons laid out.
"What's the situation?" she asked, stripping the dress as fast as possible.
Michael didn't so much as bat an eyelid when Celes disrobement left her practically naked, save for a set of very sheer lingerie. "Major Bryne's squad has confined a group of vampires in an apartment in the Sir Alec Guinness residential tower. The vampires are unable to leave, but they have barricaded all the entrances so that none of Major Bryne's squad are able to enter by conventional means. Heavier weapons have been ruled out due to the proximity of civilians. We are currently trying to persuade the building management to evacuate the floor the barricaded apartment is on, and the floors above and below, but they are being unco-operative."
During Michael's speech, Celes had managed to dress almost completely. He wore a pair of charcoal grey trousers that would eventually be tucked into calf high leather boots, currently sitting next to the table, and a midnight blue vest over a black shirt, with a navy blue cravat peeking out from the throat. She stepped easily into the boots, stamping once to get them settled and then buckled on the black leather sword belt, before pulling on the long sleeved blue duster and turning to her weapons.
The sword was the first weapon she grabbed. The blade was made out of blessed silver, a vampire's worst enemy, which made it almost as dangerous to Celes as to those she was using it against. So the cross-guard had been coated in specially treated red gold, tiny runes engraved on it that prevented the coating picking up the silver's blessing and making it safe for Celes to touch. The hilt had been simpler and had simply been wrapped in blood soaked leather, also inscribed on the inside with the same runes to be on the safe side, and it was topped off by a polished hematite pommel stone. It slid home into its sheath with a click and then turned her attention to the three guns on the table. One of them slipped into a shoulder holster built into the duster, a handgun variant of the standard rifles used by the soldiers of the Hellsing Organisation. Like most weapons used today it was a laser, but it was lower powered than most weapon based lasers, and like most lasers, it used the stimulated emissions of a gas, or in this case a pair of gases to work. One gas was silver vapour from an ingot of blessed silver, the other was water vapour from a specific type of water, holy water. With its lower power setting, it wouldn't hurt a human too badly, but a vampire would most definitely feel the effects and after just one or two shots they simply dissolved. The other two guns were different though. By any standard, they were antiques, but when using a gun, Celes preferred them to any other projectile weapon, save perhaps her Halconnen. The .454 Casul and the 13mm Jackal Anti-Freak Special. They had been her Master's, perhaps the only things in the world he owned, and he had left them to her when he had gone out in a blaze of glory, taking Iscariot Division with him. She picked them up and with a simple spin they disappeared up her sleeves, stored somewhere by her vampiric powers. Out of the same place she pulled out a pair of wire frame, rose tinted glasses, slipped them on and nodded to Michael as the shadows in the room seemed to deepen and she vanished again.
Major Joseph Bryne was a veteran of the Hellsing Agency, having served with distinction for thirty years, didn't even flinch when a voice from nowhere that said, "Status report."
"We have six to ten vampires holed up in an apartment, three doors down. Six rooms, living room, kitchen, three bedrooms and a bathroom, one entrance. The door has been very heavily barricaded, we're not sure by what, all the air and heating vents have been blocked, no windows."
"Civilians?"
"Despite management being less than co-operative, we've managed to persuade most of the residents in the immediate vicinity to leave for the time being, at least on this floor." The veteran soldiers slumped slightly as he continued. "The family living in the apartment, the Fergusons, were all home when the vampires arrived. Both parents, twin boys aged fifteen and a ten year old girl. We heard sounds of feeding not long after we got here, so there could be up to five ghouls as well."
"I understand," Celes said softly. Then her voice rose back to its normal volume and said, "Stay here and get ready to fire if one of them comes running out. I'll let you know when everything's clear." Her sword came out of its sheath with a rasping hiss and it seemed to glow in the harsh artificial light of the corridor. Then everything was plunged into darkness as Celes waved her hand and when the shadows cleared, she was gone once again. None of five men, veterans all, not just Bryne, and all familiar with the abilities and habits of the Hellsing Organisation's resident vampire, did more than blink a few times as their eyes tried to cope with the sudden shift from light to absolute darkness and back again in the space of a few heartbeats. They did however nod with a certain grim satisfaction when the sounds of combat filtered through the walls.
Most of the lighting in the apartment had been shot out and to a human it would have been too dark to see, but to Celes's vision, it was bright enough to make out everything in perfect detail. One of the vampires who had barricaded themselves in the apartment was standing right in front of Celes as she emerged from the shadows, his back to her. He didn't even have time to react as the silver blade she carried parted his head from his shoulders before he dissolved in a pile of dust. Two more were with him in the living room and they barely had a chance to register Celes's presence before they too were reduced to dust, one stabbed through the heart, the other when Celes grabbed his throat with her free hand and ripped his head off.
Celes paused for a moment and looked around to see if anyone else was there. The living room and attached kitchen, more like a kitchenette in Celes's opinion, were empty, but as she completed her inspection, yet another of the vampire gang walked in, flanked by a pair of ghouls, the two parents of the family to judge by the clothes. "What the fuck!" the vampire gang member swore when he saw Celes and the three piles of dust that his companions had become, but he didn't waste time on surprise. "Get her!" he yelled to the ghouls who obediently shuffled forward like the mindless walking corpses they were, knocking over furniture without regard.
Celes snarled in frustration. She had been hoping to take them all out before one of them could raise an alarm, but that was now a lost cause. A single backhanded swipe with her sword ended the threat of the ghouls and she shifted the swing so that the strike turned into a two handed overhead chop, but dispatching the ghouls had given the vampire commanding them a chance to draw a weapon, specifically a sonic disrupter. The shock of confronting someone when he was unprepared and the sheer speed which Celes moved meant that his aim wasn't that good. A single bolt of sound took Celes in the upper left arm, shearing it clean off and sending it flying across the room, but her right arm still possessed more than enough strength to slice her would be attacker from crown to groin.
The thunderous crack that the sonic disrupter gave off had attracted the attention of those who had not already been summoned the earlier cry of the shooter, numbering four more vampires, two of them females in outfits that looked more appropriate for the red light district, and two ghouls, probably the twin boys. The fight had also carried Celes into the short hallway that connected the bedrooms and the bathroom to the living room, giving her insufficient room to properly use her sword with only one hand and not enough time to summon her missing arm back to her. So instead she dropped the sword, the blessed weapon hitting the ground with a thud, while the Casul emerged from her sleeve. She judged it entirely appropriate since though this group of vampires may have been low life scum, they weren't Freaks. Six shots, thunderous in the confined space, especially to heightened vampiric senses, rang out and six rounds of blessed silver tore into their targets, leaving only six piles of dust.
Celes waited for several moments, gun still held at the ready in case any other surprises sprung up, whilst at the same time summoning her left arm back to her. By the time the wayward limb had flown through the air and reattached itself to the stump where it had been, nothing had shown up and Celes slipped the Casul back to that otherspace where she stored it and retrieved her sword. Major Bryne had reported that there could be up to ten vampires and five ghouls, and Celes had only accounted for eight vampires and four ghouls. Granted that the Major hadn't been sure how many vampires there had been, so it was possible that there weren't any more vampires left, but that still left one ghoul, the little girl, unaccounted for. Holding the sword in one hand, Celes moved to investigate.
The first two rooms yielded nothing. The first had probably been the parent's room, with a single double bed in the centre of the room. The sheets were rumpled and strewn half over the floor, which probably explained the undressed state of two of the vampires that were now nothing but dust. There was nothing visible, and Celes couldn't smell anything, living or undead, but just to be safe she used her free hand to telekinetically raise the bed to look under it, and open the cupboard. Both were empty. The second room yielded similar results, though the bunk beds and walls plastered with tri-d posters of the latest bands suggested that this room had belonged to the twins. The third room she tried was the bathroom, which was as empty as the other two.
Moving into the last room, Celes immediately went on guard. From the pink bed covers and the stuffed animals it had probably belonged to the little girl and the ex-police officer could smell something. Vampires could literally sniff out living beings in a very similar way to mosquitoes, by smelling the carbon dioxide produced by all animals that breathed oxygen and their sense of smell was acute enough to make a shark jealous. But they also possessed another sense that allowed them to sense other undead. It manifested differently in different vampires. Alucard had once told her that to him, it was a subsonic hum, half heard, half felt and that you could tell different kinds of vampires by the varying pitch and frequency, while others she had opportunity to talk to over the years had alternately described it as a flickering aura that could penetrate all but the stoutest wall, an odd prickling on the back of the neck, or even a taste in the back of the throat. But for Celes it manifested as a kind of scent that only she could smell and right now she smelt something, but it was puzzling. She could smell the difference between different types of vampires and those she had just vanquished were the lowest of the low, rarely even possessing basic telekinesis, and as a rule, like begat like. Only a No Life King could make a No Life King (or Queen in Celes's case) and low level vampires could only create low level vampires. But what she smelt was the scent of a high level vampire. Not a No Life King, but not too far from one either. She also smelt the very human scent of fear sweat, tinged with the adrenaline tang of panic.
There proved to be nothing under the bed but the built in wardrobe yielded the proverbial jackpot. Cowering in the wardrobe, dressed in pink flannel pyjamas damp with sweat that reeked of fear, knees pulled up to her chest and face buried in her knees was the little girl. But she was no longer just a little girl because Celes knew that she was also a newly turned vampire. Instinctively Celes knew that the little girl would prove to be no threat and sheathed her sword as she walked over as quietly as she could, which was pretty damn quietly, and knelt down next to her to gently touch one shivering shoulder.
The reaction was immediate and vocal. The child vampire screamed, quite shrilly, and tried to hunch herself further back in the corner, but it gave Celes a good look at her eyes, which seemed to be pools of molten gold. "Shh, it's all right," Celes assured her in the most soothing tone she could muster. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm here to help." Repeating that over and over like a mantra Celes eventually got the little girl calmed down enough, though she knew it was a fragile calm that could shatter at any moment, but at least the screaming had stopped. "I'm Celes Victoria," she said, hoping to get the little girl to trust her. "What's your name?"
"Anna Ferguson," was the soft reply. "What happened to the bad people who hurt my Mummy and Daddy?"
"They're gone," Celes assured her. "I promise that they won't come and hurt you or anyone else anymore."
"Are my Mummy and Daddy all right? And Billy and Stevie?"
Celes gave a mental sigh a decided that honesty was the best policy and would save problems down the track, even though it would cause probably cause more problems in the short term. "I'm afraid not Anna. The bad people hurt them very badly."
"Are they dead?" she asked with surprising frankness. "Did they go to heaven like Grandma?"
"Yes, they did," Celes said simply.
Anna absorbed that quietly for several moments and then her face seemed to collapse into slow motion as she burst into tears and flung herself in to Celes's arms, sobbing furiously. Celes endured the storm of weeping, just holding Anna and letting her cry herself out, making soothing reassurances until it passed and it happened sooner than expected. Outbursts of strong emotion can be exhausting as strenuous physical activity and freshly turned vampires are generally already worn out by the transformation they had just undergone, so it was in very short order that Anna soon cried herself to sleep in Celes's arms.
Gently the older vampire lifted the exhausted little girl up and strode back towards the front door. Vampiric strength made it easy for Celes to support her burden single handily for long enough to clear the barricade and open the door. "Don't shoot!" she commanded as she stepped into the corridor. "I'm coming out!"
None of the five men in Major Bryne's team so much twitched their trigger finger as Celes stepped into the harsh light of the corridor, though none of them relaxed either, just in case something followed Celes out through the door, unlikely as that was. Major Bryne noticed the sleeping girl in Celes's arm and his face brightened momentarily. "You were able to save her?" he asked. "What about the rest of the family?"
"I was too late to save anyone," Celes said gravely. "Including her."
"But..." the Major started to protest and stopped as Celes's blood red gaze bore into him. "I understand. What arrangements are to be made?"
"Radio back the Headquarters and tell Michael to prepare a room in the basement, preferably close to mine. We'll be having a guest for a while."
Bryne hesitated slightly, and then nodded. The chain of command was rather blurry when it came to interactions between the Hellsing Organisation's military units and the four Angels of Death, which included Celes, but on this occasion Bryne decided that it was better to agree than get into an argument about authority. "Very well. What is the status of the hostile force?"
"Eliminated. And for the record, they were definitely vampire's, not Freaks."
"Noted. The clean up team will be here shortly. Do you want me to wait for them?"
"No. You take the girl, she probably won't wake up for a while. I've got something to do."
Bryne nodded. "Gareth, take the girl, the rest of you, move in and secure the premises until the clean-up team arrives."
Celes handed over Anna to the team member sent to collect her and then disappeared in a swirl of darkness, reappearing instants later on the roof of the tower. She took a brief moment to savour the cool night air before invoking her power. The rooftop was suddenly coated and pitch darkness as inky clouds appeared over the glass and ceremacrete edifice and a brilliant blue pentagram sprung up under Celes's feet, slowly revolving as she sought the vampire that had made Anna one of the ranks of the undead. Some higher level vampires could move through the shadows in the same way as a No Life King, though not as easily or effortlessly, but unlike a No Life King, they could be tracked if the trail was fresh enough and the tracker knew what to look for. But Celes could find nothing and she reined her dark power back in, the clouds vanishing as quickly as they had come and the pentagram fading.
"You won't find anything Police Girl," a voice seemed to whisper in her ear. "Not until they want you to. But you did well to night. Keep a close watch on the child. She could be your salvation, or your destruction."
While the voice spoke, Celes was locked in some kind of paralysis, unable to move a single muscle, but the instant it stopped, she spun to face where the voice had come from, because she knew that voice, though as far as she knew the owner was three hundred years gone from the face of the Earth. All she saw was a dog sniffing around the rooftop entrance, presumably someone's pet that had wandered up here. Then it turned and looked at Celes and she knew that it was no family pet, but a Hellhound, with six eyes glowing a baleful red and they looked at her, before it turned and disappeared through the door. "Master," Celes said almost inaudibly to herself, recognising Alucard's preferred alternate form, before racing after it. She passed through to door like it wasn't there and raced down the stair, only to stop when she realised that she couldn't smell any vampiric presence at all, but she could definitely smell the sulphuric reek of brimstone and the landing on which she stood had four paw marks indelibly burned into it.
Well, well, the game is afoot. Is that really Alucard the Celes is seeing, or is this mysterious enemy setting up an elaborate hoax? If it is him, and he's right, what part will Celes's new charge play in the destiny of the Hellsing family and those who follow them, and will it be for good or for ill?
Notes on the Hellsing Orginisation:
At the time this story is set, the Hellsing Orginisation is organised along the following lines. There are five response teams, consisting of five people, named simply, if unimaginatively as Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon. Major William Bryne is the overall commander, as well as the Alpha Team Leader. Beta team is led by Captain Francis Sharpe, Bryne's second in command. Gamma Team is led by Lieutenant (pronounced Leftenant since this is in England after all) Bartholomew Abraham, Delta Team by Lieutenant Samson (Sammy) MacFarlane and Epsilon by Lieutenant Madeline Stevens. These five teams are backed up by clean-up teams drawn from a pool of approximately fifty people who can also serve as additional combat troops should the need arise. Also working for the Hellsing Orginisation are four Angels of Death, Celes Victoria, Hellsing's resident vampire armed with a custom made blessed silver sword, the Hellsing Arms .454 Casul, 13mm Jackal Anti-Freak Special and the Halconnen Artillery Rifle, Calvin Carlyle, an expert marksman armed with a Hellsing Special Laser rifle, with sniper attachments, two Hellsing Special Laser pistols and a set of ten blessed silver throwing knives, Othello Killian, close combat specialist with subcutaneous body armour and implanted cybernetic blades and Sir Alan Wingates Hellsing himself, who uses silver wire garrotte gloves.
Historical Note:
Several years before the death of the famous Dame Integra Wingates Hellsing, the Vatican, as part of a series of reforms being instigated in the Roman Catholic Church, ordered the formal dissolution of the Iscariot Orginisation, which had become increasingly excessive in its actions and frequently moved without authorisation. The majority of Iscariot's administrative staff were rotated into other positions where a close eye could be kept on them, but the actual field agents staged a revolt, led by the ageing and completely insane regenerator Paladin Alexander Anderson. They escaped from the Vatican City, leaving several dead, including two Cardinals, in their wake and then went into hiding.
Over the next three years they would surface somewhere, leaving a trail of destruction that frequently included humans as well as vampires in its wake, and then disappear. Eventually the turned up in England where they staged a full scale assault on the Hellsing Orginisation, aided by mercenaries they had hired with loot stolen in their escape from the Vatican. While the mercenaries engaged the troops of the Hellsing Orginisation, the former Iscariot agents went for the throat, only to be met by the vampire servants of the Hellsing Family. Anderson, who had stolen the power of the other five regenerators that had been with him, challenged Alucard himself, leaving Celes Victoria, recently raised to the status of No Life Queen, to deal with the remainder.
Whilst the agents confronting Celes were able to deny her the use of her full powers, none of them had been prepared to deal with her physical strength or the firepower of her Halconnen Artillery Rifle and while they were able to injure her, they were not able to destroy her before meeting their own deaths. Meanwhile, between the power Anderson had stolen from his fellow regenerators, as well as other forbidden procedures he had performed upon himself over the years, and his insane disregard for his own life, made him a match for Alucard and when the battle was over, all that remained was a blackened corpse holding the twisted ruin of what had been a pair of blessed swords, a pile of dust topped by a wide brimmed red hat and Alucard's guns, miraculously undamaged by the conflict.
With her Master dead and no ties binding her to the Hellsing family, Celes was given the option of leaving with the promise that she would be left alone provided she did not make any trouble. For reasons that she refused to tell, she chose to remain in service to the Hellsing Orginisation, where she remains to this day.
End Part 1