So, I'm not 100% on how known the Ologies series is, but to summarize, it's a youth fantasy series of supposedly nonfiction encyclopedias on various subjects. For reasons up to and including staying awake far past my bedtime (no, seriously, I came up with this idea sometime after midnight), I have decided in a sleep-deprived haze to use the skeleton plot from the Vampireology book as the basis of an AU for an Andercard fic.

That's right, I'm finally writing an Andercard story on my own! (Ignore the fact that I'm adapting a lot of it from another book.) We'll see how this goes.

Also, there's a certain amount of acrobatics in my adaption(s) of both source materials. Most glaringly for those who've actually read Vampireology, I've fiddled a bit with the Ba'al, whose description in the book leaned a little too close to antisemitic stereotypes for me to be comfortable with writing. (Small, "goblin-like," obsessed with money, etc.) Anderson's also a Protestant in this, because I was too lazy to change his occupation and Protestant priests can get married, which makes his having attraction towards other people not a problem in the story. Also, we're blithely ignoring period-typical homophobia for the same reason. Anderson is a marriable Protestant in this story and nobody bats an eye about mlm attraction because it is Normal and Fine, Actually.

POST OFFICE TELEGRAM
If the receiver of an Inland Telegram should doubt its accuracy, he may have it repeated on payment of the amount originally paid for its transmission; and if it be found that there was any inaccuracy, the amount paid for the repetition will be refunded. Special conditions are applicable to the repetition of Foreign Telegrams.

I MUST SPEAK TO YOU URGENTLY. I FEAR THAT MY LIFE IS IN DANGER. COME TO THE MUSUEM. IF YOU ARE TOO LATE LOOK IN THE CONCEALED CUPBOARD. HELLSING.

This was the telegram that Father Alexander Anderson received on the eleventh of May in the Year of Our Lord 1920, and it need not be said that he set out immediately. There could be only one place that the telegram referred to, and that was the British Museum. Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing did much work there in her capacity as a historian, and they had often met in her office.

Father Anderson was not ashamed to own that he admired her, for Sir Integra Hellsing was an admirable and remarkable, one not content to sit on her laurels or rest on her inheritance as a member of the British aristocracy, and instead earned her bread fairly through research and knowledge. She was an adamant woman, as beautiful as a diamond –and as hard.

Old age did not wither her steely strength, nor the loss of her eye make her flinch from polite society. Father Anderson had relied on her numerous times for his own modest research into historical matters, and he had even, at her own request, provided some assistance on several cases of her own. They were unusual cases, but Integra Hellsing was an unusual woman, to whom many strange things might happen. The telegram that Anderson obsessively fingered in his pocket was proof enough of that.

The priest was a burly man, wide across the shoulders and strong in the thigh, and there were few, if any, things that might make him flinch. Nevertheless, he felt a strange thrill of horror as he descended from his cab and stood for a moment upon the wide marble steps that led up to the famous museum, looking up at the vast building. Some strange premonition chilled his heart for just a moment, like the shiver of fine hairs on the back of his neck when a sword was raised above him –a sense of looming danger, perhaps, and of death.

He shook off these flights of fancy and stepped forward, his cassock billowing powerfully about his heels. The clerical collar at his throat and the rosary about his neck gave him enough authority for the attendants to let him pass, even though it was late, and the lights in the streetlamps flickered feebly against the thick gloom that swathed London as the sun sank red over the distant rooftops.

He made his way across the dark and yawning space of the central foyer, heading for the adjacent block of offices in which Sir Hellsing was typically found. It was not unusual for her to remain in her office from sundown to sunup, something he had once chided her for. While no one could argue her iron will, her body was not as strong as it once had been, her hair gone white and snowy with age and a web of wrinkles spreading across her face. To stay in her office while hot upon the scent of some new research was no bad thing, but destroying her health by spending long, semi-sleepless nights with only a padded chair for slumber was another thing entirely.

You should go home and rest, he had told her once, upon arriving one morning and seeing her standing at her office window with dark shadows beneath her eyes. It is easy to find a cab in front of the museum, even at the late hours you work.

Going abroad at night is a dangerous thing for me. Sir Hellsing had replied, putting a cigar to her lips. Better to remain in my office, which has some protection.

You would only be on the streets for a short time. I doubt any ruffian would be so foolhardy as to attempt to waylay a woman with a sword. Anderson had said, eyeing the rapier that never left her hip.

It is not that I'm worried about, Sir Hellsing had answered, cryptic as ever.

He wondered what she had summoned him for. Sir Hellsing was friendly to him, in her own way, and indeed she had relied on his strength as a visual (and occasionally physical) deterrent numerous times to free her for other tasks when conducting her research in strange and dark corners of society, but Father Anderson could not conceive of anything that might offer her the danger and, indeed, the peril that her terse telegram seemed to hint at. She was a woman of noble blood, an aristocrat, and a respected historian to boot. What could possibly menace her, especially in the confines of the museum where she had spent so much of her time?

He was about to find out.

The hallways of the offices were ordinarily quiet and austere, as befit a place of learning filled with solemn, studious scholars intent upon the path of enlightenment. There was something about that silence now, though, that filled him with a strange premonition of horror. No matter how late the hour, there were always soft rustles and murmurs in the distance, faint sighs of human presence ghosting through the walls and echoing down the vaulted ceilings. No longer. The offices seemed silent as a tomb.

A chill closed around his heart, but Father Anderson was no coward, and he pressed forward, hastening and quieting his steps as much as he was able. For such a large man, he could move with surprising silence, something that he had taken advantage of several times when carrying out his duties. His mind nearly burst as he tried to think what danger, what enemy, could prompt Sir Hellsing to send him such a telegram, and how he might fight them if they had dared come and threaten her. He was good in a fistfight, but he was unarmed, and if they had guns or knives…

The priest rounded a corner to the stairwell, and then froze as his short, choked cry of frenzied grief echoed throughout the empty halls.

Sir Hellsing lay gracelessly upon the stone steps before him. Her long, fine white hair was splayed about her, and blood pooled black and glistening beneath her head in the ruddy light streaming in through the window on the landing above. Father Anderson rushed forwards, but even as he drew near, he knew that he would be too late. She was too still, too quiet. His hand trembled in grief and in hope even so as he laid it upon her neck, but his hopes were quickly buried. Her breath was gone, as was her pulse, and her body was already cooling.

His first thought, rather shamefully, was that she had fallen –that she had lost her balance in her old age, and tumbled fatally down the steps. That theory was almost immediately dashed, however: he remembered that Sir Hellsing had warned him of some danger that she feared would overtake her, and as he looked closer at the wound on her forehead, he saw that it was deeper than a mere fall would cause. As he stood, too, he saw the gleam of steel in Sir Hellsing's hand, half-hidden under her sprawled body and her curtain of hair. Her rapier was drawn, though it seemed it had done her no good.

This was no accident: someone had deliberately and in cold blood murdered his mentor and dearest friend.

Rage drew a rumbling growl from Father Anderson's throat as he stood there upon the stairs, his hands clenching and unclenching. Vengeance burned within him, but now he thought that he understood the quiet of the halls. With their foul deed done, the murderer or murderers had fled, and it was no good chasing after them now.

He swallowed thickly as he looked down at Sir Hellsing's body again, grief replacing the fiery rage. Anderson's throat quivered as he saw her sprawled so upon the steps, and tears rushed to his eyes. She had been so strong in life, and yet she looked so small beneath the makeshift shroud of her own hair, so frail. Diamond-hard, but also diamond-brittle.

Never again would he be able to hear Sir Hellsing's tart wisdom. Never again would he be able to admire the way she cut through the heart of some thorny translation, easily drawing order out of chaos as they bent over dusty books together. Never again would he be able to chuckle softly alongside her at parties as she commented on the failings and foibles of her colleagues. She was dead, she was gone, and he was left bereft.

The crackle of paper in his pocket as he shifted reminded Father Anderson of the fateful telegram. If you are too late, look in the concealed cupboard…

Sir Hellsing had foreseen this, somehow. She must have. She had known that she would die, and with her characteristic control and efficiency, moved to make sure that everything was prepared for…whatever she wanted to be prepared for. This hidden cupboard that she mentioned: was that what had prompted her murder? Some secret, some research, that had angered another noble, or made her some implacable enemy?

In any case, it was imperative that he search for it now, before her enemy or enemies returned –and before the police got involved. It was more than possible that the cupboard hid some secret that would be shameful in the eyes of the public, too, and Sir Hellsing had given the cats of society more than enough fodder to gossip over with her unconventional ways already. He would preserve her honor if he could.

And besides, if nothing else, he owed it to Sir Hellsing –as his last obligation, his last duty to her– to see her wishes fulfilled.

Anderson rubbed the tears from his eyes with a gloved finger. He did not fear to be thought unmanly, but he could not search for a concealed cupboard when his vision was blurry. The round spectacles perched upon his nose could only do so much to aid his vision, after all.

Not without a shudder, not without a lingering cloud of guilt and sorrow, he stepped past Sir Hellsing's sprawled corpse and quickly ascended the stairs, heading for her office that she must have been fleeing from when she was overtaken.

With a heavy heart, Father Anderson entered the once-familiar, comforting office that he would never again be able to face without horror. It should be easy to find what he was looking for: Sir Hellsing was ordinarily as neat as a pin, with everything in its proper place, all files stamped and labeled, all books organized by subject and author.

However, this was no longer the case, as it seemed someone else had gotten here first. Papers and books were scattered everywhere, as though evidence of a frantic search: a search that, hopefully, had gone unfulfilled. It seemed that his first guess had been correct, that Sir Hellsing had something that someone else wanted, and she had gone to great lengths to hide it…while they in turn had gone to equally great lengths to get it.

Grief rose up again at the thought and threatened to choke him, but Anderson throttled it down. Mourning could come later: practicality first. Unless her enemies had carried it away already, he had to find that hidden cupboard and its contents, and protect whatever they may be. Removing his glasses for a moment to briskly polish the lenses on his sleeve, Anderson put them back on and began his search.

It was not an easy search. Sir Hellsing's telegram –her final telegram, and tears clung stubbornly to the edges of his eyes, wet and hot– made no mention of where the cupboard was or how it might be concealed. It was as though she had assumed that he already knew where it was –an oversight, perhaps, born of her haste and fear. Or- or perhaps, if she truly had known what was coming, it was a measure of her caution: caution, and the fear that any instructions she sent him might be viewed by others.

She trusted him as her colleague and, perhaps, as something like her unofficial student. Father Anderson flattered himself to think that he had been closest to the notoriously distant old woman, and the acquaintance that she viewed as most worthy of her impressive mantle. He swore not to disappoint that trust, now reaching out to him from beyond the grave, and yet he had to admit, it was difficult to find even something so simple as a cupboard in the disarranged office. She had hidden it well.

At last, however, he found a likely catch, and pulling at it, shrank back in surprise as an acrid, pungent scent of herbs rose to meet his nose. Father Anderson's eyes watered in the dust of it, and he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, pressing it against his nose and mouth as he peered closer once again. His heart leaped in victory as he did: it seemed that the contents had been untouched, which meant that Sir Hellsing had thwarted her enemies this much even in death.

At first, though, it truly did seem to be nothing more than research: there were several books inside the casket, and a fragile-looking scroll tied up in a much-newer modern ribbon, and a letter in Sir Hellsing's handwriting, and –to his surprise– the silvery locket that had never left her neck and that she had never permitted anyone to touch, all laying on a crackling bed of dried bay leaves and star anise. Last of all, there was something he had never seen: an old, sepia-toned photograph of Sir Hellsing, much younger than he had ever seen her, standing beside a handsome man.

Father Anderson's cheeks warmed a little. The man standing beside Sir Hellsing was very handsome, with a silky fall of raven hair that was cut longer than was, perhaps, slightly proper for a gentleman, and falling about his clear-cut cheeks in a rather artistic manner. The yellowed, colorless tones of the photograph made it impossible to tell the color of his eyes, except that they were dark, and seemed to sparkle with sly humor. The curve of his mouth seemed made to smile –wickedly or in fun, it mattered not– and his stance was jaunty, his chin lifted with effortless pride.

Both he and she were dressed in evening wear, and Anderson was startled to see how the young, frozen Sir Hellsing took the stranger's arm in her own, how her uninjured eyes shone at the camera with a joy and life he had never seen. Her dress was simple, hinting at the suits and trousers she would wear in the future without a blush of shame. The smooth, clear strokes of Sir Hellsing's copperplate handwriting at the bottom frame labeled the picture simply:

Happy memories of times before the turning.

London, 1876

Father Anderson turned the picture over, but it was smooth and blank on the reverse side –no mention of the man's name, or if he was a suitor, or anything. Flipping it back to face the front again, he looked into that sharp, aristocratic face, wondering what had come between the two that made them turn against each other. As a priest, he heard many confessions, so he was wise in the wicked ways of the world even if he, himself, had never yet engaged to find a spouse. There was arrogance in the lift of that chin, and mischief in the curl of that inviting mouth. Those eyes, though unknown in shade, were filled with the potential for hubris.

A man with such features would find it easy to attract the flattering attention of men and women alike, and it was possible, perhaps, that he found such easy conquests more enticing than the indomitable woman by his side. Or…it may be that Anderson was doing the man an injustice: Sir Hellsing's note made no mention of what sort of turning had come between them, be that fortunes or faith. Perhaps this man had not turned against her, but fate had turned against him, leaving him to sicken and die while Sir Hellsing grieved at his bedside. Or perhaps, even, his aristocratic demeanor and fine clothing had been a lie, and her parents had disapproved of a suitor so lacking in wealth and blood, and turned against them both, forbidding the marriage.

With so little context, Anderson could not discern what she meant, and with a sigh he set the photograph aside, tucking both it and the letter into the front page of one of the books. He stacked them one atop the other and then cradled them against his chest with his arm, balancing the dusty scroll atop the tiny stack, and slipped the silver necklace into his pocket.

Bowing his head with a grief that seemed to come with a weight all its own, Anderson took his leave, keeping the precious items –the books and paper that Sir Hellsing might very well have died for– cradled tight against his chest. He made his way out of the museum in a daze, unable to believe that she was gone, and all but collapsed into the seat of the cab that he had hailed as the driver flicked his whip and the wheels began to rattle off along the cobblestones.

Sir Hellsing was dead. The loss of her seemed incredible –it would only grow worse as the scientific community kept going without her guidance in the coming months, no doubt– but the mystery surrounding her death and, indeed, her final telegram, kept Anderson from sinking too deeply into gloom. Who had attacked her, and why? How could she have foreseen it, and yet failed to protect herself? These questions plagued him, buzzing like flies around his head as Anderson numbly clutched his strange inheritance.

A thought –an unworthy thought, and one that made him blush for shame at his own curiosity– made Anderson remove the heavy silver locket from his pocket, slipping it into the palm of his hand and staring at it in the light from passing streetlamps. Sir Hellsing had worn this every day of her life, as cumbersome and, indeed, as bulky as it was, disdaining both other jewelry and the need to match this pendant to her clothing. Why? What secrets did it contain?

His thumb hovered over the catch to the hinged clasp…

…but then pulled away.

No. No, he could not invade his beloved mentor's privacy, her intimacy, in such a fashion. She had left this precious keepsake to him, and it was not his place to pry and peer at the memories contained therein. He would protect and cherish it for her sake, and that would be enough. He may be desperately curious to uncover some of the secrets that the enigmatic woman had carried, but he was not some vulgar busybody.

To forestall any further curiosity, Anderson hung the locket around his own neck, tucking the pendant away inside his shirt to hide it from any prying eyes. The smooth, heavy weight of the silver locket settled perfectly against his heart, and he touched the small, hard lump beneath his clothes, feeling the reassurance of its sturdy metal. Sir Hellsing's secrets and her honor would be safe with him.

He was tempted to read the letter that he had tucked away within the larger of the two books, but the way the lamplight flashed in and out of the cab made his eyes ache even when he tried to read the title on the cover of the book itself. It was a manuscript, not quite yet finished, but beautifully bound in dark leather embossed with silvery arabesques. Shining silver letters were written on the lower half of the book's cover in strange, blocky calligraphy.

The True History of the Fallen Ones.

As a priest, Anderson was passingly familiar with demonology, but such things were not Sir Hellsing's usual area of study, nor anything she had ever expressed interest in. And yet, what else but demons could she be referring to? For this book was her own, Anderson knew that much. The letters written on the cover were not in her usual hand, but after years of serving at her side, he recognized her writing in all its forms. She had written this book, compiled this manuscript. To what purpose?

Had it been anyone else, he may have suspected that the "fallen ones" in question were perhaps a bit more mundane, and this a sordid book of blackmail-worthy scandals that needed to be burned with all due speed. But Sir Hellsing had always disdained the workings of polite society, and shunned her fellow aristocrats. Such a book would be unworthy of her spirit and her nature.

He puzzled over this mystery all throughout the following cab ride back to the church in which he humbly served, and Father Anderson gathered up his strange burden, paid the driver, and traipsed back inside in something of a disoriented fog. He felt as though he was groping his way through a blackness that Sir Hellsing had lit with a lantern of her own devising, struggling to find the path she had been guiding him towards, the truth that she wanted him to find. But now she was gone, and her light extinguished, and he had to find the way to answers on his own.

At this time of day, however, his evening would probably be free of further interruptions, and now that he was in a place with proper light and without the chance of interruption, Anderson was free to examine the contents of the hidden cupboard more closely.

He swept through the nave of the church and entered his quarters in the much-smaller extension alongside it, making his way through the gloom of the unlit suite and into his study, a much smaller and altogether dustier space than Sir Hellsing's spacious, well-kept office. He turned the key in the porcelain lamp on his desk, and the warm glow of electricity leapt to life, shining through the delicate white shade. Setting his prizes aside for a brief moment, he undertook to make a space on his generations-old desk to examine them.

It took him a few moments to clear the top of his desk. Reports of church minutiae were stacked and bashfully stuffed into a more modern cabinet file, intending to be returned-to at a later date (and date that may not come for some weeks, which was what made him blush), inkwells were stoppered and set aside, pens were gathered, and only then did he begin the laborious task of picking up all the errant books that had somehow migrated from his shelves onto the top of his creaking, well-worn desk. Anderson decided to be brief, and tidy, and put them into neat stacks, which he then set on the floor close beside his desk, ready to be returned to it once he had finished.

The other books stacked on the floor around the verges of the room, some laboring under weeks of dust and suffering to be used as the occasional tabletop for tea or papers, cried out in mute accusation. Anderson stirred his glasses with a sheepish finger and ignored them, before at last setting the strange collection Sir Hellsing had deemed so important onto the top of his desk, sitting down in the chair behind it and spreading the objects about a bit to take them in more fully.

First, the locket. He would not open it, but he could certainly inspect this strange, omnipresent piece of jewelry a good deal closer than he had ever done when it was hanging around Sir Hellsing's neck. For a woman who eschewed ornamentation in all its forms, it had been a rarity and, indeed, a source of gossip for many that she had this pendant –a locket that she never seemed to remove. Some whispered that she kept some token of a long-gone lover in it, nestled against her heart, but Anderson doubted that. For one thing, Sir Hellsing was not a woman given to such sentimentality, and for another…the locket was rather strange, if indeed it was meant to contain a lover's token.

For one thing, although it had a delicate raised relief etched onto the front side –a design of a climbing rose vine with a single bloom, surrounded by a border of voussoirs with cloverleaf inserts, glory lines radiating from four points in the ovular design– it was also much heavier than a standard locket. Most of them were scarcely a quarter of an inch thick, and usually less than an inch long. This pendant was almost half an inch thick, and it was the full length of his thumb.

In a strange sort of way, Anderson had always fancied that it was like the bank vault of lockets, despite how it was made of silver polished new and bright. It seemed more like a safe than it did a beautiful piece of jewelry to contain a lover's token, and it had to be said that the former use was something far more in line with Sir Hellsing's temperament and attitude.

Amused by the whimsical thought, though it was tempered with the bittersweet knowledge that he would never see her again, Anderson gently hefted the locket up and down in his palm, shifting that solid weight. Nothing scratched at it from within, no strange sensation pricked his already wandering fancy. The locket was just a locket, and if it was meant to secure something, Sir Hellsing would have doubtlessly forged a better lock than a mere pressure clasp.

His heart ached a little, and Anderson drew the locket back over his head, slipping it inside his shirt once more to lay against his skin.

Next, the books. One was the strange manuscript, but the other was a book he knew well –a pocket Bible. It was old, with page markers, but when he briefly opened and thumbed through it, the passages marked didn't seem to have any rhyme or reason. Perhaps they were marked because they pertained to the research Sir Hellsing had been doing, and attempting to reconstruct their purpose without her full report would result in meaningless gobbledygook. Anderson set the Bible down and turned his attention to the other volume.

The larger of the two books, the hand-bound one, was much heavier than it appeared: the leather binding was thick, true, and the book itself almost twice the length and height of an ordinary novel, but the paper within seemed like it was nothing but light, crackling parchment, interspersed with strange bulges and creases that seemed to hint at objects, perhaps even samples, hidden between the pages. Maybe it was those samples that gave the book it's weight. One thing Anderson did know, and it was that it was not a childish sense of looming portent that made the book seem so heavy: the copy of the Bible, which he knew well in all its wrath and ruin and beauty, had felt far lighter as he laid it to one side.

Moving with caution nonetheless, he opened the book, slipping the letter and the photograph out of it and laying them on the table, beneath the scroll. Opening to the first page of the book, he was surprised to find a painting on the title page –an oval portrait painting, apparently pasted into the book. Gently running his fingers over the edge, Anderson judged the glue to be fragile enough that the portrait had been pasted in some time ago. It lay underneath the precise type inked deep into the page:

The True History of the Fallen Ones
By Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing
The Protector
1900

Setting aside whatever that meant, Anderson was startled to note that the painting was not of Sir Hellsing herself, but a surprisingly familiar man. Glancing aside, he drew the picture closer, laying it on the opposite page, close to the crease. No doubt of it: the man in the painting was the very same man in the sepia photograph, only now his features were touched with living color.

The painting was a three-quarter view, and the nameless man wore a somber charcoal suit, touched with startling and rather flamboyant flashes of red at the throat –in the form of an intricately-tied cravat– and in the trim, showing at his sleeves and alongside the lapels of his double-breasted suit. He was wearing what seemed suspiciously like the exact same locket that Sir Hellsing had carried for most of her life, the locket that was now lying smooth and cool over Anderson's rapidly-beating heart.

There was more decorum about the man this time, though, as befitted the need to remain still for long enough for the painter to capture his likeness. He sat on what Anderson assumed to be a posing stool –the background was dark with age– with his back ramrod straight and his shoulders firmly set. His hands, gloved in white, were folded gravely in his lap, and he regarded the painter –and now, Anderson– with a dark, steady gaze. What gazed out at him from the photograph was a potential rakehell, eyes dancing with mischief: this painting was of a man with a gravitas to match Sir Hellsing's.

The contrast made a strange warmth tickle in his chest, and Anderson cleared his throat, shutting the book on photograph and painting both. These were nonsense thoughts: the man in those pictures would be fully as old as Sir Hellsing by this time, if he lived at all, and her hair was –had been– snowy with age, even if her iron spine had stubbornly refused to bend even to Time itself. Doubtless, the only things that remained of this dashing young gentleman would be the framework of his bones, the lean jaw and aquiline nose, the high, aristocratic cheekbones and the proud chin.

Anderson turned his attention to the other contents of the hidden cupboard, the scroll and the letter as yet unexamined. While it might behoove him more to read the letter addressed to him, Anderson had to admit that as a scholar, the dusty scroll wrapped in a new ribbon drew his interest.

Deciding that a small glimpse would not hurt him, the priest rose from his desk, crossing the room to his bookshelves. From among the boxes and bottles of supplies for his services, he found a lamp with a bright silver backing. Fetching it back to the desk and keeping it well away from the scroll itself, Anderson lifted the glass chimney and set it aside, before striking a light from the book of matches he always carried in his pocket. He lit the candle within and replaced the glass chimney, rubbing his hands as he moved back around the desk to sit.

Anderson bent over the woodwork, drawing the old scroll closer to him, and began to undo the ribbon with gentle fingers. He had yet to remove his gloves, so hastily had he come to his office, and so he did not worry about leaving oil or fingerprints on the fragile document. Excitement building within him, he drew the silver-backed lamp closer, angling the reflective back to him as brilliant light swung over the desk, and began to tease open the roll of paper the first few inches.

It was with disappointment, then, that Anderson saw the nonsensical words The Ritual of Making that headed the old document. This, certainly, had nothing to do with Sir Hellsing's murder, and he sighed as he let the scroll slip closed once more. Fragments of research and nonsense, nothing that would prompt anything so energetic and heinous as the scene he had witnessed earlier. Sir Hellsing's telegram, too, hinted at a danger foreseen, which meant in turn that she had enemies, perhaps, whose coming was anticipated and who Anderson was expected to thwart.

It was time, then, to read her letter, and to hope that it somehow explained what had happened to her, and the strange contents of the hidden cupboard, and why she wanted him to retrieve them, and what she wanted him to do with them now. The locket and photo, certainly, seemed like little more than keepsakes, but the books and the scroll took on a heavier import: a hint of some dark and dangerous research that Sir Hellsing may have been following, of secrets that may have led to her death.

Blowing out the extra lamp that he no longer had need for, Anderson sat back in his chair and began to read what may very well be Sir Hellsing's last words to him. The thought of such a thing wrung his heart, but as a priest who tended to funerals as well as births and weddings, Anderson knew that the only cure for grief was work –work, and the truth as to what had killed her, which would help ease his suffering.

The letter was short, written on her own desk-paper, and in her usual hand. Though it was dated to this very day, the day of her not-unforeseen murder, the elegant swoops of her letters were clean and unhurried, without a single stray blot of ink. Anderson had to rub eyes that blurred for a moment, however, seeing that familiar writing for the final time: Sir Hellsing's letters were always sharp and thin, like swords traced onto the paper, importance in every line of them. This missive was written in her boldest and darkest hand, and as night slowly gathered and fell in the streets outside his window, Anderson read through it with growing astonishment.

May 11th, 1920

My dear friend,

They have found me, but that is of no matter. I am a woman of the past; you are the future. However, before you can face the future squarely, it is imperative that you take the time to learn from the past.

Read the book and study the items in the casket, Anderson. The book is penned by my own hand and it is the truth. You must understand how real a threat the Fallen Ones pose; they infiltrate every aspect of our daily lives. I completed this book some time ago, but have failed to find a publisher with the sense to support it. Few editors have been brave enough to read it from cover to cover; some have been so foolish as to reject it without a second thought. Believe, Anderson. You are the only one who can take up my mantle –you are to be my successor, the world's next Protector. There are few left with your skills and perception, and I trust no one else but you.

Good luck, dear boy. Heaven knows you will need all you can get.

Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing

Father Alexander Anderson read over this perplexing missive three times before he was at last forced to admit defeat. The handwriting did not waver, the notepaper did not change, and the message remained as firm and as inscrutable as ever. What Sir Hellsing was talking about, he could not guess: she had never so much as hinted at this strange duty she had wanted him to perform, not in all the years that he had known her.

What was going on?

Whatever the strange, leather-bound manuscript that she had hidden within her office contained, it clearly seemed to be something that even Sir Hellsing feared he would not believe. And yet, it was a secret and a duty that she had given her life to protect, and she seemed to expect him to do the same, if the opening and closing lines told him anything. They have found me and Good luck, dear boy. Heaven knows you will need all you can get were not words that Sir Hellsing would have offered him if she did not believe that the deep and deadly peril stalking her would soon follow his own steps.

The question was, what was he going to do about it?

He could take the craven route and send the book off to publishers in the vain hope that he would succeed where she had failed, never opening the manuscript for fear of learning the secret that someone had been willing to kill to protect. But the very idea of that cowardice left a sour taste in his mouth: not only was it not in Father Anderson's nature to run and hide from danger, that betrayal of Sir Hellsing's final wishes would have sickened him to his core.

He could protect this manuscript that she had given her life for, but still refuse to read it. He could act as custodian and guardian for the book while searching for someone to pass it onto, someone more suited to taking up whatever specious mantle that Sir Hellsing seemed keen to lay upon his shoulders. But as he thought that, Anderson's eyes ran across the there are few left with your skills and perception, and I trust no one else but you line in the note, and he blushed with shame. If Sir Hellsing regarded him this highly, then surely he could at least attempt to step up and fulfill her expectations.

But that was the other thing –the main thing that kept him from turning past the title page of this manuscript. He was not a historian, merely a dabbler, a priest in possession of a quiet and small parish in one of the many hidden corners of London. He had only met Sir Hellsing to begin with when haunting the British Library housed alongside the museum, had only been invited to parties in which the nobility mixed because of his acquaintance with her and his egalitarian position in society. A priest was welcome in any house, from the lowest alley of the slums to the most glittering manor of high society.

But he was a priest, and at the end of the day, Sir Hellsing and her odd researches and occasional request for assistance –usually coming no more than once every six months or so– were a secondary part of his life. It was his duty to tend to the souls of the faithful, to offer them a welcome in God's house and to bless their marriages, their funerals, and their births. Even with a parish as small as his own, tucked away as it was in a city filled with a thousand similar parishes, dealing with all the paperwork that accrued and all the ceremonies that needed performing was a full-time job. Did he have the resources to answer this call, too?

Anderson stared gloomily at the dim, foggy reflection of his face that was shadowed in the dark leather of the manuscript. The thought of shying away from a task Sir Hellsing had personally set him was abhorrent, but neither the circumstances nor her own parting words promised him a quick and simple problem, a burden that would be easy to complete and then set aside. Could he devote his time and energy to something so obscure?

He thought of his mentor's body, frail and sprawled and broken on the marble steps of her own domain, and his heart clenched. Oh, God. He must.

Carefully, with hesitant –but not quite reluctant– fingers, Father Anderson peeled open the cover again. Both painting and photograph lay there innocuously, the strange title unchanged and as inscrutable as before. Swallowing and wetting his lips, he thumbed the corner of the first page and turned, opening the first proper chapter of the book.

Large, bold letters in strong Gothic type immediately arrested his attention, centered at the head of the first page: AN IMPORTANT WARNING. There was no other heading on either page, which likely indicated that it was the sole title for this chapter. Each page bore a painting, neither one noticeably older than the other, though they were both in very different styles and had clearly been painted by two different hands. The first picture seemed familiar, and he had a vague memory of seeing it, or something very much like it, in a magazine or newspaper at some point in his life.

Said picture was of a woman in a frothy white chemise or morning gown swooning supine upon a curtained bed, her long dark hair unbound and curling wildly as it hung down off the edge of the mattress and splayed over the lacy white pillow. A man in evening dress with a high-collared black cloak bent over her, eyes focused intently on the dark slip of bared, taunt skin that showed above the creamy frills of her loosened neckline.

The picture had a caption, but Anderson's eyes were drawn to the head of the page, beneath the title, where the first paragraph was written in a darker ink, with the very first letter outstanding in a drop-cap Gothic font.

To all who read this book: please take heed. The Fallen Ones –known by most as vampires– have insinuated themselves into every corner of human society. They have been clever down the years at their concealment, so much so that we do not fear them as we should, capable though they are of eradicating our kind forever. Instead, we have romanticized them, viewing them not as a terrifying reality but glamorous fiction.

Father Anderson closed the book. He shook his head several times, and then looked down and opened the book again. No, the writing had not changed. Sir Hellsing had very clearly written the word vampires down on the soft, yellowed page some time ago, and it had not been edited or changed in any way since.

Vampires! Revenants that could only be held in their graves by stakes through the heart –walking corpses who cast no shadow or reflection, who drank human blood and needed permission to enter a home! Was she telling him to believe in such fantastical creatures?

This was the 20th century, and he a man of logic and faith. Vampires! The very notion was preposterous. It was true that some corpses did shift in their graves or appear to grow new skin, nails, and hair, but that was a natural result of decomposition. Anderson knew that well enough, given his time spent in sad hours at the morgue, occasionally attending to bodies that had not been claimed by any living soul. To claim such bodies as vampiric was folly. A corpse was a corpse, and there was nothing that could change that, certainly not any magic or old-world superstition.

Scoffing, he read the rest of the unbolded text on the first page, his eyes moving with restless skepticism behind the lens of his glasses.

Now the time has come for the hideous truth to be revealed, so long kept secret by my predecessors and their inner circles of allies, convinced as they were that these vicious blood drinkers could be kept at bay.

As the world's Protector, I sense that the time has come for all men and women to become Protectors in their own right. This book is, therefore, a practical guide to dealing with the undead for any who have the courage and strength to join our ranks and fight. It is also the true history of vampires from ancient times to the present day, and it acts as an answer to the weakened accounts of vampire history sold to us by Abraham Stoker and his ilk.

Be certain: this is not a child's game. It is war, and we face the enemy's heavy assault dressed in our human weakness. The truth contained within these pages will be your armor and sword as you enter this ancient battle in defense of humanity.

He glanced down at the painting at the bottom of the page, now knowing what it was meant to portray. A supposed vampire, feeding on its victim. Sir Hellsing, whose precise writing he recognized in the neat caption, seemed to share his cynicism.

Popular depictions such as this often show handsome vampires drinking blood in a dramatic pose. How romantic! The real actions of blood drinkers are more gruesome than theatrical.

It was too much. Father Anderson shut the book with an aggrieved snap, pushing himself back from his desk. The knowledge that Sir Hellsing had died for such an absurd delusion, that her fading reason had, perhaps, lured some unscrupulous person to murder her for the empty secret that she so desperately hid –it was all too much. It was a sinful waste, a travesty, a, an insult against her and everything she stood for. He couldn't bear it.

Muttering under his breath, the priest savagely swept books, letter, photograph, and all into a drawer. He took care only to spare the ancient and dusty scroll out of habit as he laid it carefully on the top, before slamming the drawer shut with a great deal less care. Turning the key in his lamp and plunging the office into darkness, Anderson swept from the room without looking back.

Vampires. Hah!

His worries over the book and its contents seemed absurd, now. Sir Hellsing had been one of the most clear-sighted people he knew –missing eye notwithstanding– and yet now, he was faced with the shameful truth that like any scientist who dealt too closely in folklore and superstitions, she had more than half-believed in what she was studying. Useful in deciphering, perhaps, but it made for poor decision-making otherwise.

It was just too much, all of a sudden. The shock and horror of finding his beloved mentor's dead body, the shame and incredulity at reading her book –it swept over him in a wave, making his eyes burn and blur as Anderson paused in the hallway, one hand resting against the plaster. Sleep. He needed to sleep now and, perhaps, this would all make a great deal more sense in the morning.

Feeling his way by memory through the short hallway that connected his rooms, Father Anderson opened his bedroom door. He lit the electric lamp on his nightstand for only a moment –long enough to strip off his gloves, his cassock, and don his nightshirt– before he paused, one hand fiddling with the chains around his throat. His rosary, he generally laid at his bedside, but for some reason he was reluctant to discard the locket.

Sentimentality. With a firm shake of his head, Father Anderson removed both rosary and locket and laid them together on his nightstand, beside the lamp. Likewise, he removed his glasses, sliding them off his nose and placing them in their case on the stand, shutting it with a brisk, decisive snap.

He wished for no dreams tonight, and moved his hand lower, pulling out the bottle of laudanum. He kept it in his room for several reasons –chiefly because he did not want to put temptation in the path of the weak, but also that when he wanted a cure for insomnia, he did not want to undo what little drowsiness he had managed to acquire by getting up and moving to the kitchen.

Sitting on the edge of his decades-old bed, Anderson swallowed down a carefully-measured dose, before screwing the cap back on and replacing the bottle where it should be. Switching the lamp off, he turned and rolled the covers back, sliding into bed and pulling them back above his shoulders with an aggrieved scoff. Vampires, indeed!

The laudanum worked, inasmuch as his slide into sleep was quick and painless, but as a cure for dreams, it was ineffective. All throughout the night, he was plagued by strange, vague, recurring visions of wandering the cold and empty hallways of the British Museum, looking for something important that he could not remember, and feeling as though he was enclosed in a marble tomb.