{A/N:} Still don't own Hellsing!
XIII.
It felt as though all the air had been sucked out of her at once. Ash from the charred ground wafted through the air like a transparent cloud. Sir Integra was able to stand only for a moment before her feet could take the burden no longer and her legs gave out from under her. She landed on her knees in the ash and triggered a thick, smoky cloud to encase them. Her entire body burned.
Walter had yet to make a move, had yet to have even spoken a word. He just sat there and stared at her with those Godforsaken eyes. His expression was set in the same unreadable neutrality that had aggravated as a child her until she'd matured enough to overlook it. She was furious that she still wasn't able to see through him.
Primal fear took hold of her and chilled her to the bone, and she hated herself for it. But then again, it wasn't so often that one stared their death in the face for longer than a second.
After another long and silent moment, Walter rose from the ashes with grace and without pain. Though his feet were painted black from soot, she assumed he'd acquired heightened healing abilities from his transformation. He could be classified as a second tier vampire* by eye color alone.
Sir Integra gripped one of the empty revolvers in her hand more from instinct than comfort. Second tier vampires had been the thorn in Hellsing's side for the past decade. High and middle ranking first tier vampires such as the Count and his direct subordinates were so rarely sighted, let alone engaged in battle, that their very existence was regarded as more legend than threat. The first-tiers were more a means to scare new recruits into memorizing battle drills than something to be taken seriously.
But it was the second and third tier vampires, the go-to soldier species of the vampire world, that Hellsing battled with the most. Just strong enough to put up a hard fight but weak enough to be killed by holy weapons, they were the common predators of back alleys and unsecured bedrooms. Second-tiers lacked the frightening supernatural powers of their First-tier masters, but still posed a terrible threat to an unarmed human.
Walter stopped about a foot away from where she knelt, the red bottoms of her feet weeping fluid and blood. Anger more potent than anything else she'd ever felt rose through her at her humiliating position.
Integra curled her fingers into the soot.
"For how long have you plotted against me, Walter? For how long have I been made a fool of?" She was the first to speak, and she was careful not to show the extent of her hurt and bitterness in her voice. She still had to forge a dignified death somehow.
Walter was silent a moment. Perhaps now that he was a vampire, he couldn't deign to speak to his prey. Sir Integra curled her lip at the thought.
"Not as long as you might have thought, Sir." Walter's voice was quiet. If she hadn't known better, she would've said that he almost sounded guilty.
It was too bad that guilt was a human emotion.
Sir Integra snarled. "That's Sir Hellsing to you."
"Of… course." He sounded so calm, so steady. The tremor of old age had disappeared from his voice entirely.
She tensed when he closed the distance between them and reached down to loop his arms under her knees and upper back. He gently lifted her like a little doll. Did it ease his conscience, she wondered cynically, to play nanny again?
That pissed her off.
"You dare to touch me so impiously after betraying me so deeply? Does your treachery know no bounds?" She spat in his face. It was the first time she'd acted so crudely in all her twenty-three years, and not to mention against the man who'd essentially raised her.
But Walter only sighed and wiped off the saliva as though she was still just the small, awkward girl in the ill-fitting pantsuit he'd met over a decade ago. Someone way out of her depth, all too naive and easily bruised. Integra knew she was at his total mercy. She couldn't even stand to walk and regardless of what the Count had promised, Walter was not truly bound by any oath.
Walter started off with a slow walk that gradually increased to a trot, then a sprint, then to an ungodly speed that rivaled that of her best steed. He held Sir Integra securely in his arms and gave no signs of slowing down or being hindered by the extra weight. Her eyes watered from the speed and the dust kicked up. In what felt like only minutes later Walter stopped, and only then did Integra realize Cramer Hall was back in sight.
Walter was silent as they observed the flames illuminating the third and second floors, listened to the distant booms of bombs and gunfire. Her heart leapt in her chest in desperate hope, but she bit her tongue to keep from saying anything. She had an idea of what Walter was planning, but it was best to feign ignorance for the time being.
Sir Integra tried not to stiffen in anticipation when he started toward the manor at an unbearably slow pace. She tried not to scoff when he threw in a limp for good measures. The damn coward.
"Trying to tie up loose ends to appease your new master?" Sir Integra goaded as they climbed the hill she'd chased Seras' carriage down not even an few hours ago. The sounds of yelling and breaking glass grew louder.
"You surely can't expect me to go through all this trouble only to be killed in misunderstanding, Sir." Walter replied.
"What? Is the Count so possessive of his new bride that he'd bite anything that'd dare touch her?" The comfort she took in their banter was alarming.
"Well, his familiar is a dog, you know."
Sir Hellsing had just begun to respond when Walter stopped suddenly, only a few steps shy of the top of the hill and her soldiers' range of sight. He heaved a sigh and looked down at Sir Hellsing for the first time since he'd grabbed her. His expression resembled that of someone who'd just remembered a particularly troublesome chore after they'd checked everything else off their to-do list.
"If you attempt to communicate my change to any of the soldiers, I will kill all of them before I kill you." He was so nonchalant he might as well have been giving her the forecast for the morning.
"While I am only a second-tier, you of all people should know that new fledglings obtain an obscene amount of power during the first few hours after their first feeding." His eyes glinted from behind his glasses. "However, if you don't draw attention to my new self, there will be no massacre."
She tried not to smile.
"Why not just kill me quietly when you could? Why come back here of all places?" Sir Integra snapped.
Walter sighed again, as though disappointed in her inability to follow along. "I am not in particularly good graces with the Count. Killing you myself would rob him of the honor and simultaneously upset his bride. I'd rather not find myself in either position… the punishment would be the same." He smiled. She felt the need to spit again.
"As for the Manor… I was told to meet my new master here."
"Hoy, show yourselves!" A voice boomed from overhead. Walter sighed and readjusted Sir Hellsing in his arms.
"Hello! Hello, we are down here!" Walter stumbled up the thorny slope and into the light cast by the burning manor. He took care to add an air of desperation to his voice.
The soldier, whose silhouette stood at the precipice and kept his rifle trained on them, slowly lowered it when it became clear just who he was aiming at. Sir Hellsing recognized him as one of their soldiers once they'd gotten close enough to make out his features. He was, however, flanked by two stalky figures in impractical black cassocks and wooden crucifixes. Sir Hellsing's lip curled.
"Sir Hellsing! Mr. Dornez!" The soldier instantly gave the traditional salute, and Sir Hellsing immediately waved it off from Walter's arms.
One of the Iscariot gestured to the other, who nodded and walked off without a word.
"So," Sir Hellsing coughed. Walter tightened his grip on her. "It seems the Iscariot Organization finally made it. One cannot say you fail to make haste."
The remaining Iscariot chewed on her cigarette, apparently unconcerned that Sir Hellsing was probably bleeding out in front of her. She holstered one of the two pistols she carried and the other remained none so casually in her other hand. Her short, fair hair was splattered with blood.
"Indeed, Sir Hellsing. Although I must say, no one expected the Hellsing Organization to have been so poorly organized as we found it." The woman's voice was short and brittle, but still had a bit of a cocky edge to it. "Soldiers lazing at the bottom of the hill, waiting on orders from a leader who'd run off on her own?"
Sir Hellsing took a deep breath.
She light-headed to the point of nausea, her feet had gone numb, and she had to somehow thwart a newly minted vampire's escape plan. But Jesus Christ, Sir Hellsing had not forgotten why she hated the Iscariot.
"Those are not observations for one such as you to make." Sir Hellsing retorted. She hated how strained her own voice was.
The pain was becoming unbearable. Any slight movement or jostle sent waves of agony from her feet up through her legs. She wondered, fleetingly, how much of the damage was permanent. Despite that, Sir Hellsing noticed that the screaming she'd heard as they approached seemed to be dying down.
"Where is Anderson?" She demanded.
"As you can see," Walter decided to butt in. "Sir Hellsing has been grievously wounded and needs attended to. Where is first aid offered?"
"I do not need-" Sir Hellsing tried to say.
"I'm not certain!" the Hellsing soldier sputtered, looking around.
The Iscariot shrugged before spitting out her cigarette and tossing it over her shoulder. She seemed much more fatigued without it.
"I'd assume Yumie to be bringing Father Anderson soon. He was inside the Manor last time anyone checked." The woman clapped her hands over her pockets and sighed when she found them to be empty.
Sir Hellsing could practically feel an aneurism coming on from these people's nonchalance. Good God, they still had a master vampire to kill, someone to rescue, and several underlings to deal with! There was manor burning down not twenty feet away from them, for Christssake! Was she the only one here who cared?
"Retrieve Alexander Anderson at once!" Sir Hellsing roared. The startled Hellsing soldier nodded about twelve times before finally running off.
The Iscariot nun gave Walter, then Sir Hellsing, a pointed look. "She seems well enough to me."
"A high tolerance for pain runs in the Hellsing family, I'm afraid. Quite higher than the average man." She forced herself not to stiffen at Walter's none-too subtle threat.
Sir Hellsing was surprised the nun hadn't seen through Walter yet. However, he'd taken care to keep his face in the shadows - to hide his new eye color, no doubt - while the rest of his body and Sir Integra were illuminated by the gold flames. Even if he did step into the light, Sir Integra theorized sourly, the orange light cast by the fire would allow for most people to disregard it as a trick of the light. And after all, who would accuse Walter, of all people, of being a vampire?
"Ay, so ye finally condescended to sit through yer own tea, did ya?"
It was the warmest welcome she could have expected to receive. Anderson appeared behind the nun with Sir Hellsing's soldier. They were trailed by yet another glaring nun in a priest's garb, only this time with black hair.
Anderson was so covered in soot he looked as though he'd just climbed up a chimney, and his garb so bloodied and burnt that he may have just as well rolled out of Dante's Inferno. He was studded with weapons - one bayonet in each hand, several pistols holstered comfortingly around his hips.
"Oh, save me, Anderson." Sir Hellsing spat from behind gritted teeth. She could feel Walter's muscles subtly stiffen, hear his sudden intake of breath. "What the hell happened here? We asked Iscariot to act as reinforcements, not crusaders." She hissed. Walter's exhale was slow and shallow.
Anderson laughed sharply, sheathing one bayonet and turning over the other in his right hand. He gestured to the burning house behind him with it.
"When we arrived yer soldiers were all hepped up and waiting outside the edge of the woods. Wouldn't go in, was too dark. Said it was guarded by the Old Shuck and two had been killed by it when they tried to get through the first time." Anderson wasn't smiling anymore. "We belted the thing 'til it up an ran back to whatever Hell it crawled out of. Then we came here."
"I see." Sir Integra shifted uncomfortably. She tried to suppress a cringe of pain and hoped it hadn't shown too much. "I believe you ran in to the Count's familiar." She neglected to mention that they'd decided to retreat from it.
"Aye, don't doubt it. It tried to eat the head off, it did." He turned to the fair-haired nun beside him. "Heinkel, help Walter with 'er."
The woman moved forward, but Walter took a step back. He looked up at them with a sheepish smile. "There is no need."
Anderson was quiet for a moment before shaking his head. "Right."
Heinkel moved to stand beside her commanding officer once more. The screaming and fighting around them had gradually subsided, leaving them with nothing but the sound of the flames. Hellsing soldiers and Iscariot alike began to congregate behind Anderson, on stand-by for new orders.
"When we finally got through the woods, we see one of yer soldiers and three horses, dead, lying right there on the front steps. Bodies all in flitters, but nay a drop o blood."
Sir Hellsing closed her eyes and took a deep breath. So she'd lost Timothy, and probably at Walter's hands - the hands that currently held her. Another body to be added to the absurd count Hellsing had accumulated in the past fourteen hours. Perhaps that had been the Count's goal all along: knock Hellsing down to a dysfunctional number, grab the girl, turn the girl, kill the enemies. Two birds with one stone.
But realistically, if that had been his true plan, the Count would have nothing to do for the next hundred years. There were few to no other organizations that could muster up the strength to combat the Count's underlings. He'd have won too easily and would be left to rot on a throne day in and day out. Therefore, Sir Hellsing felt relatively safe in ruling out such a thoughtful ulterior motive from the king. Grandfather always said that even vampires needed a hobby, and making war and slaughtering things could be counted as such.
"There were three horses, so we assumed you all were in the mansion." Anderson smirked and cast a glance at the smoldering manor. "We tore through it up an out. Found half an undead army pining for us on the third floor."
Unsurprising, Sir Hellsing thought as she remembered the eerie lighting of the castle when they'd first arrived.
"They were either ready to ambush or made to guard something." She intoned levelly. "Most likely the Count's coffin."
Anderson nodded.
"Ay, most likely." His voice was calmer now, so it was surprise for Anderson to suddenly pull out a revolver and shoot Walter point-blank in the head.
There was a stunned silence in which Walter stood still in shock before beginning to fall forward. Sir Integra was grabbed out of his arms by a nearby soldier just before she was dragged down with him. Once Sir Hellsing was out of harm's way, the Hellsing soldiers snapped back in to action - by aiming their rifles at Father Anderson.
"Permission to shoot, Sir!" About eight different voices cried out at once.
Sir Hellsing could feel the emotion building in the air, which no doubt amplified the confusion of why she shook her head 'no.' Walter had been a friend and sort of fatherly figure to many of her soldiers, most of whom had come to Hellsing from difficult homes. It was a personal affront.
Sir Hellsing gripped the shirt of the man who held her, a boy barely over nineteen who was most likely one of her new recruits. It was a shame that he had to suffer through what was probably Hellsing's most bloody mission to date. It was a shame that the truth of the world had been so violently and quickly presented to him. It wasn't easy to lose one's naivety.
"Stand down." Sir Hellsing managed to cough up at her men. They seemed conflicted by the order, but did so all the same.
Then she looked up at the soldier who held her. "Get back," Her voice was cracked and alien to her own ears. The boy-man nodded and did just that. She could feel his heart beating rapidly through his shirt, and she found that it almost matched the pace of her own.
Anderson seemed to take her words as his cue to keep shooting. He went through all the rounds of his first revolver, threw it at the blonde nun to catch when it ran out of bullets, and pulled out his second and unloaded it on the vampire. Walter's body twitched with every shot.
"I must say, I didn't take you as a man of subtlety." Sir Hellsing said once he'd run out of bullets.
Anderson's smile was smug. "The day ya ask me to 'save ya' is the day Hell freezes over." His laugh was dry. "An he didn't even bother to hide his eyes. 'tis offensive to think we're so stupid, y'know.
Their conversation was cut short when the blood Walter had shed on the ground began to move back to where the new vampire lay, face in the dirt. His limbs started to twitch violently, and there was a slight moment of stillness before he moaned into the ground.
"I must say, this has become quite the irritation." He said before looking up, copper eyes bright and bared for everyone to see.
Seras curled in to herself in the corner of the open-air carriage. Perhaps, her subconscious reasoned, if she made herself small enough, he'd lose track of her. But judging from the Count's unyielding stare from the other side of the carriage and the way Baskerville curled around her, the Count did not plan to let her out of his sight.
Her lilac dinner gown was in tatters and did nothing to shield her from the cool wind, but Baskerville provided a decent amount of protection. He was surprisingly soft and affectionate for a hellhound. Now that they'd left the threat behind, the dog had reverted back to the normal canine form she'd first met him in. His body was curled snugly around her waist, and his head rested comfortably in her lap. At first Seras hadn't wanted to even touch Baskerville, but after several minutes she'd started to pet its head if only just as an excuse to continue to avoiding the Count's eye.
"When we arrive to the shore," The Monster finally broke the silence. Seras gulped and didn't look up. "we will board a boat which will take us to France. From there, we shall travel onward to my home in Romania."
Her hand shook. His home in Romania. Dear God, she was really going through with this, wasn't she? She had hoped that giving herself away for Sir Integra and Walter would give them time to recover and fight him. But Seras still feared what was to become of her in the mean time. She'd come to realize all too quickly that she hadn't fully thought that part through.
Romania was a very far ways away.
If the Count expected her to respond, he didn't say so. They sat in silence for another long moment before Seras finally mustered up the courage to break it. She couldn't tell if she was shivering from the cold or fear.
"Alucard…" She spoke softly.
The Count hissed, as if affronted, and Seras instinctively flinched. Baskerville whined at the disturbance and buried his snout further into her lap.
"Do not call me that. Do no speak or so much as think that name." His voice was deathly calm. She was uncertain if that meant she'd struck a nerve or if he'd picked up on her fear of him and decided to control his emotions around her. Seras ventured a peek up at him and was instantly drawn in to his bright, iridescent eyes.
"What should I call you, then?" She whispered.
He looked away for a moment in thought. The trance was broken and she, relieved, did the same.
"The Count will suffice for now, I suppose." He paused. "You will be calling me by a very different name soon, anyway." She didn't miss the sly smirk that slid across his face.
Seras blanched and looked down at Baskerville, who by this point was simply the friendly black dog she remembered from the Count's townhouse library. For a moment it was easy to pretend that they'd only gone out on a midnight drive in the country, that her family was still waiting for her back in England… but some things were too dire to ignore, and Seras couldn't forget she'd signed her soul away.
He couldn't hurt her now, could he?
"Then, My Lord…" Seras began softly.
She slowly looked up and was not surprised to have the Count's full attention. Perhaps the better question was whether he would hurt her.
She seemed to have surprised him by speaking to him so soon after all the trauma of the night. A good part of her was surprised as well, but Sera believed her survival would be determined by whether or not she could stay in his good graces.
"Why does that name…" Her next words had to seem well-intended and caring, else he become angry and attack, "…pain you so? What did they do to you?"
The Count laughed. It was short and bitter. Seras' shoulders relaxed slightly.
"What did they do to me? What did that demon van Helsing do to me, you ask?" He murmured, his smirk gone and replaced with a deep frown. "Perhaps the better question is what torture he didn't inflict upon me."
Seras remembered Sir Hellsing mention that it had been her grandfather to hold the Count captive for quite some time. "You speak of Sir Hellsing's grandfather?" She ventured quietly.
The Count hissed. "Yes! I speak of him! The man was a lunatic and, for all the names he gave me, a true monster." The Count shook his head. "There was a reason why van Helsing's son decided to discreetly change his surname."
Seras bit her lip. "I thought that was to do with English custom… th-that the 'van' was too German for an English aristocratic family."
"Such English arrogance would not surprise me. But no, the van Helsing was given his title once he presented my subjected, battered body to the queen as proof that he and his children could serve as the Church's holy knights." He laughed bitterly. "And serve they did. The old man went insane by the end, and the younger one had to change the name so as not to forever be associated with the mad doctor among polite society."
She was afraid to ask what he meant by that, but the Count was on a roll.
"The reason your Sir Hellsing understands how to effectively combat vampires is thanks to the years of torture I was subjected to. How long can a vampire last in the sun? If we pluck out his fingernails, toenails, and eyelashes, will they grow back? How many times can we do it before he stops feeling pain? How high is his pain threshold? How long can be starved for? Can he eat anything other than blood? How much? How can we decapitate him? Can we starve him, burn him, and skewer him all at the same time?" His eyes took on a wild light and he leapt to his feet, wind billowing through his air and cape.
"They have told you that I am a devil, a monster, that I want nothing more to kill and eat you! They say I am mad but do they understand that they are a part of the blame?" He was screaming now, and his cries were carried off into the night for no one else to hear.
"They pretend to want nothing more then to protect their people, they love to play the role of the righteous while they are NOTHING BUT MONSTERS THEMSELVES!" He was shaking, completely and utterly lost in his own madness. He stared out at the moorland behind her head at the ghosts that undoubtedly still haunted his mind.
"I drink blood to survive, yes, but I do not have a choice." The Count spoke lowly once he'd seemed to calm down. "They do."
And despite all that had happened, all that she had lost, Seras could see the truth and pain in his eyes. She was still afraid and did not excuse his actions, but she now she felt she was able to understand him if even just a bit. And through that understanding, and against all the other emotions Seras felt, she couldn't help but begin to sympathize with him.
That feeling gave her the nerve to speak. "Did… did Sir Integra…?"
The Count's gaze flashed back to her, and for a moment he looked as though he'd only just remembered her presence. He shook his head.
"She was but a child when I made my escape. Her dying, vile father had been poisoned by her uncle so he could steal ownership of me. She hid in the attic while the uncle attempted to transfer ownership of me from his brother, but the man was a fool who couldn't tell Greek from Latin." He smiled darkly. "I was set free at the first misspoken syllable. I dismembered him. I still think it a pity that her father was dead when I came for him. That would have been quite exciting."
Seras stared at him and shook her head, trying to absorb it all. Her mouth was dry. "The Hellsing family tortured you, owned you, yet you didn't kill Integra…"
He tilted his head to the side, an eerie smile playing at his lips. He closed the distance between them.
"I could say that I decided to spare her, since she was but a child…" He leaned in to take her face in his hands. They were ice cold. "…but in reality I wanted the last Hellsing to feel the greatest extent of pain possible." His voice was hardly above a whisper.
The Count closed his eyes and planted a soft kiss on her forehead, smiling. Seras shivered.
"You understand, my dear, that I would never harm you or your family in such a terrible way. I would never dare harm you or, in extension, those you held dear." He murmured as he drew back.
The Count let go of her face and sat down on the cushion next to her. Baskerville whined and shimmied out of the way. The vampire slowly snaked a long arm over her shoulders and pulled her to him so that she was held flesh against his side. He leaned over and buried his nose in her hair and took a deep breath.
"Sir Hellsing has been rotted inside out by her hatred of me. She used your poor sister as a pawn in her selfish game." He said quietly before taking one of her hands in his.
"She knew the danger she put your innocent, teenaged sister in - danger she as an experienced vampire slayer could have taken up instead." He rubbed comforting circles in her palm with his thumb.
"And yet Sir Hellsing chose to send that poor, sweet young lady into harm's way just to get back at me." The Count whispered. "My underlings take orders from me, but even so they can still go against me. Even I cannot turn back time, I cannot stop them if it is too late. Sir Hellsing knew this. Sir Hellsing chose to involve your innocent family in her war without your or their permission, my Seras. She put them all in danger, she sacrificed them for a cause they were not invested in. Had Sir Hellsing never allowed your sister to get involved, no malicious attention would have ever been drawn to your family, my love." He whispered into her hair.
"Sir Hellsing is the true monster here, my dear."
Seras didn't say a word and stared straight ahead as he kissed her cheek. His grip on her tightened, but she did not move away.
{Notes:}
- The vampire ranking system for this story goes as follows:
First tier: The oldest and most powerful vampires, usually thought to be more legend than fact; this includes Alucard, his offspring, and higher level aristocrats. Identified by their bright red eye color and thought to possess the purest bloodlines and strongest abilities.
Second tier: More common than their First-tier superiors but less spotted than their Third-tier underlings. Maintain some bloodline abilities and can be identified by their bright copper eye colors. The more dangerous type of vampire Hellsing comes in contact with.
Third tier: the common vampire scourge exterminated by Hellsing. Third-tiers have no known bloodline abilities and are identified by their yellow eye color.
This chapter was brought to you by the War & Peace and The Crown soundtracks. :) Really great finds, check them out!
I do apologize for taking a year to update. My life is absolutely insane in college, and I'm so busy that I barely have enough time to get 6.5 hours of sleep let alone write. However, next semester I'm hoping that I'll have more time to write. This story will be finished!… eventually.
Thank you all for your patience and continued support, it never ceases to amaze me how many people love this story. Though I don't have time to respond much anymore, I do read all the comments and PMs sent to me. I appreciate them more than you know, it literally makes my week!
Also, if anyone is ever in the mood to make fanart based off of any of the scenes in Civilities, you have my full permission. winkwink nudgeduge ;)
Until next time,
Della