A lot of the diary entries are written with British spelling, i.e. memorise instead of memorize, enquiry, etc. I try to keep as much as I can, since Anderson is definitely not American in this (or anything else), but some things hurt me and my spellcheck too much and I just. I can't, man. Sorry for any immersion-breaking that causes.
The first thing that Father Anderson did that morning, upon completing his daily routine of cleaning the church, administering morning service, and doing some light upkeep in the garden (mainly refilling the bird basins and reordering the gravel), was retreat to his office and pull out Sir Hellsing's manuscript. It had burned in his mind all night, and his dreams had been filled with vague fears. Now, with the bright sun shining in through his office windows, he could feel a bit sturdier, and much more ready to face whatever challenges lay ahead.
If what lay in these pages was true –and he was already, regretfully, more than half convinced that it was– then reading the book cover to cover, carefully, may be his only guidance and salvation in taking up the mantle of "Protector." He knew nothing beyond the fact that vampires existed, and that the silver shard now in his possession was possibly precious beyond word or price. How to kill vampires, how to protect himself from them, even how to recognize if any danger stalked him –he knew nothing of this, and he needed to learn, quickly, before Sir Hellsing's enemies found him.
He thumbed past the first few pages, but his breath caught as he came upon the one that was new to him, for the old map that had been sewn into place, with fold-out flaps in Sir Hellsing's handwriting, was beautiful beyond measure –especially to a historian.
The map itself was drawn in red and black ink, wonderfully ancient, and was comprised of four spheres, two large and two small, the larger halves showing the New and Old Worlds and the smaller showing the two poles. These four circles were surrounded by capering watercolor sketches of angels and vampires, with faded colors he hardly dared touch even with his gloves firmly in place.
In point of fact, the map was hardly accurate –it was labeled 1660, and the geography was lacking, to say the least. Most of North America's upper portion was unmapped, and even the continents that were fully drawn and outlined had woeful proportions. Dragons of various sorts coiled at the fringes of the ocean, warning of the archaic dangers therein.
Nonetheless, the rough outline of the world was represented fairly well, and it was marked with a series of what looked very like modern stamps, three designs that repeated over and over: a purple spoked wheel, a red pair of crossed swords, and a green set of dangling weights. Lines in their corresponding colors led to black dots on the map, which seemed much older.
Too absorbed in this incredible historical document to even breathe for several moments, Anderson finally recovered himself and shook his head a little to clear the cobwebs. Although this was certainly a valuable piece of history, it had also clearly been worked on by many hands, and he needed to focus on what everything actually meant rather than what it represented.
It was not overly difficult, once he got over his awe. A banner stretching beneath the circles labeled this map as The Spread of the Curse in Gothic letters, which led him to assume that it was meant to be a history of vampiric movements across the world. Gently turning over the leaves sewn to the very edges of the map, he saw the words THE SPREAD OF THE CURSE repeated bold and dark at the top of the abbreviated page, followed by Sir Hellsing's brisk handwriting.
This map is the earliest record of the history of vampires in ancient cultures and civilizations from about 3500 BC onwards. The work was begun by the Elizabethan scholar and former Protector John Dee, and completed by a later, unknown hand. It is thought that some of the first vampires were spotted in ancient Egypt, Rome, and Greece. The Moloch were drawn to areas where they could incite war and conflict, the Ba'al followed the trail of civilization, and the Belial voyaged to the farthest corners of the world, where they avoided human contact as much as possible –although it is important to note that the Belial were, in fact, still involved in some wars and conflicts.
Below that was written a key to the stamps, with their designs repeated in a larger size and entirely black ink: it seemed that the crossed swords stood for the Moloch, the spoked wheel for the Ba'al, and the three weights for the Belial. Anderson hummed in interested understanding, but his eye was drawn to the words written below, for they were in smaller type and bordered by a plain black outline unlike anything he had seen in the book thus far. The words chilled him to the bone.
A WORD ON THE CURSE
You may question why vampires have not taken over the Earth completely, subduing the human race down the long years of history. The answer is simple: they desire our goodness, our spirit of grace, as well as our blood, feeding off our positive energy as much as our life force. And the more they can corrupt human energy into something wicked, the more powerful they become, for it is from the destruction of our essential humanity that they derive strength. They incite evil and encourage hatred and wrongdoings of all kinds; indeed, we are their playthings as much as their food. Moreover, they are careful to keep their numbers in check so that the delicate balance of vampires to humans is maintained. All over the word they move amongst us, like godless shepherds amongst their flocks.
Those words, like nothing else, seemed to lay a warning of danger over him, like feeling the tip of a knife prick at the back of his neck. If these were the enemies that he, that Sir Hellsing, had been set against, then they were powerful and terrible indeed.
Father Anderson took a deep, slow breath and shook off such thoughts. So there were terrible dangers arrayed against him –so what? Sir Hellsing had dealt with it unflinchingly, as had generations of Protectors before her. He knew this from the pure simple fact that vampires had not conquered all of humanity: that even now, after her life had been so cruelly extinguished, Sir Hellsing had thrown a faint and glimmering thread out to him in order to continue her great work. The line of Protectors lived on, even when her enemies, when his enemies, doubtless thought it had been broken.
He rubbed his already-faintly-bristled chin and glanced at the other flap, seeing the list that it contained. It seemed to be a more concrete history of one of the three bloodlines and their spread over the earth, likely corresponding to the dots and the stamps marked on the map itself. He couldn't lie –part of him was itching with curiosity at what truths had been hidden from him through his ignorance of vampires. It was his love of learning and history that had first brought him into contact with Sir Hellsing at the British Museum. He adjusted his glasses with one finger and bent over the words eagerly.
TIMELINE:
THE MOLOCH
c. 3300 BC
A subset of the Egyptian population takes the ancient legends and lore very seriously: they endeavor to create the mass destruction of the Moloch and drive the survivors into a trap.
c. 1880 BC
The Moloch king Hammurabi conquers the Belial capital of Babylon and forces the remaining Belial to scatter across the globe.
1122 BC
Wu Wang, the Conqueror, leads the Chou armies to capture the Shang capital of An-yang in northern China.
480 BC
The Moloch Persian king Xerxes I sends his armies to invade Greece. He is delayed by the Spartans at Thermopylae and later destroyed by vampires from his own bloodline who are hungry for power of their own.
AD 70-100
Upset by Jesus's pacifist teachings, the Moloch lead widespread persecution of both Christians and Jews in the Middle East and southern Europe.
AD 378
The Gothic war leader and Moloch Fritigern defeats a Roman army at Adrianople and kills the emperor Valens. This defeat signals the beginning of the end of Roman supremacy.
c. AD 600
Muhammed, the prophet of Islam, cleanses the Arabian Peninsula of Moloch influence.
AD 793
Viking longships land on the English coast and sack the monastery at Lindisfarne. The seafaring Viking Moloch chieftains and their warriors terrorise the coastlines of northern Europe for the next hundred years.
1147
The Second Crusade begins, bolstered by the presence of the Knights Templar –a Moloch fighting brigade masquerading as a Christian order.
1270
The Moloch gain control over most of China when the Mongol khans expand their empire to its fullest extent.
1467-1603
The Moloch incite perpetual conflict in Japan during the Sengoku period, a time of great social upheaval and constant warfare.
So war followed the Moloch, or the Moloch followed war –that seemed self-explanatory enough. He remembered the earlier words in the book: this Bloodline considers Slaughter a Tribute to its Ancestors and They do not need Reason to kill –it is their preferred Pursuit. Humans either gave way before the Moloch, or met them with stiff and bloody resistance if they knew the truth of what they faced. One thing he did note immediately: if the original three had been allies, or at least neutral parties to one another, their descendants were not so peaceable. Or perhaps that was just the Moloch…
Lifting the flap and turning it, Father Anderson found, as he had expected, that there was another history for a different bloodline on the reverse side of the abbreviated page.
TIMELINE:
THE BELIAL
c. 3500 BC
Tired of the incessant squabbling between the bloodlines, the Belial depart their Egyptian homeland and settle in Babylonia.
c. 2700 BC
Gilgamesh, the fifth Belial king, builds a wall around the city of Uruk in an attempt to keep the lure of humans away from the Sumerian people, many of whom are Belial.
c. 1500 BC
The Belial Tuatha De Danann, the ancient people of Ireland who are closely connected to the island's stones and sites, assume the High Kingship from the native Fir Bolg race.
753 BC
The Belial Romulus founds the city of Rome but is restless and leaves it soon afterwards.
c. 257 BC
The Belial Indian Mauryan emperor, Ashoka the Great, renounces conquest after severe losses during a war with Kalinga. He adopts the Buddhist faith.
AD 60
Boudica, a tribal Belial queen, leads a revolt against Roman rule in Britain, aided by Belial druids. They prove no match for the powerful Roman legions.
c. 1290
The first Cossack hosts start to appear on the Russian steppes, protected by the Russian Belial Baba Yaga. In mythology, Baba Yaga is depicted as a witch-like character who flies around in a giant mortar, kidnapping and eating children.
1357
The Hapsburg Empire is defeated at Morgarten. This battle features an alliance between a fourteenth-century Protector, the crossbowman William Tell, and a Belial called Werner Stauffacher.
1326-1332
Wadyslaw I, a peaceful Belial known as the Elbow-High King, leads a fierce resistant to the Moloch Teutonic Knights, forcing a truce between Bohemia and his native Poland.
1520
The last Aztec emperor, the Belial Montezuma II, surrenders to Hernan Cortez and is attacked and wounded by his enraged subjects, who feel betrayed. Three days later, Cortez has Montezuma quietly destroyed.
1646
Traveling abord Dutch ships, some Belial start to live amongst the indigenous tribes of Australia and the Pacific islands, learning their arts and crafts and living in isolation.
So it wasn't just the Moloch: vampires of different bloodlines clashed with each other on a semi-frequent basis, and the actions of Gilgamesh seemed to imply that vampires of the same bloodline had also been prone to friction as well, even many thousands of years ago. That did not altogether surprise Anderson: if these creatures were godless enough not to feel human emotion, then things like loyalty or gratitude –the emotions that made cohabitation and peace possible– would certainly be beyond them. Therefore, any time vampires came into contact with each other, they would be in competition for the available…food.
A slight shudder ran down his spine, and he quickly returned to the first leaf with a grimace, turning it back to see, as he expected, an abbreviated history of the Ba'al.
TIMELINE:
THE BA'AL
c. 3300 BC
The Ba'al are forced to migrate into southwestern and central Asia.
c. 1500 BC
Sailing with Phoenician traders, the Ba'al spread throughout the islands of the Mediterranean Sea as far west as Spain.
221 BC
The Ba'al emperor Qin Shi Huang unites the warring Chinese states and breaks the influence of the Moloch Yen-Lo Wang.
247 BC
The Ba'al general Hamilcar Barca takes control of the Carthaginian forces during their war against Rome.
44 BC
After the death of Julius Caesar, the Ba'al Sextus Pompeius, progeny of Caesar's old enemy Pompey, raises an army in rebellion on the island of Sicily.
AD 400-500
As the Western Roman Empire collapses, large numbers of Ba'al migrate into the most distant corners of Europe to set up their own little pockets of power.
1066
William of Normandy invades England and seizes the throne; the Ba'al start to build a power base at the Norman court.
1370-1405
The Ba'al warrior-king Timur builds an empire that extends over much of central Asia and northern India.
1533
The Spanish conquistadores, under the Ba'al leader Pizarro, bring about the fall of Incan civilization.
1571
During the reign of the Moloch tsar Ivan IV, "The Terrible," the Ba'al maneuver to regain control of Russia by marrying the sister of their own Boris Godunov to the dim-witted Fyodor, who is to become Ivan's only surviving heir.
1600
At the battle of Sekigahara, the Ba'al family finally wrest control of Japan from the Moloch, ending more than one hundred years of rule by warlords and establishing the shogunate.
As the Moloch seemed to be destroyers, and the Belial tormented souls seeking to escape their own wickedness, the Ba'al bloodline over the centuries seemed drawn to power in all its forms, from trade to politics, and presumably all the luxuries that could be brought with it. Father Anderson remembered that the earlier scroll had mentioned they were endowed with great charm and wit, but were also highly susceptible to their own greed. It reminded him, in a strange way, of some of the nobles he had seen while accompanying Sir Hellsing –the sort of hedonist for whom everything had its price, and any price was worth paying for a moment of sumptuous pleasure.
Parasites, indeed.
He scowled, but then carefully moved to reach over his desk and set empty inkwells on both of the opened flaps, keeping them there (hopefully) without straining the stitches that bound them to the delicate and incredibly valuable map. He wanted to see more of the markers that showed where the vampires had committed some historically notable event, and see if he could piece together anything important.
While Sir Hellsing's writing had said that only the Ba'al followed the trail of human civilization, Anderson immediately noted that the stamps for all three bloodlines were thickest and most plentiful around the Mediterranean, in two of the great cradles of civilization, Egypt and Mesopotamia. Other markers stretched up into Europe or straggled out to Asia, but it was significant, surely, that they were so clustered in one area.
Europe and Africa had been densely populated for many thousands of years, so it made sense that most incidents were recorded there –though he would freely admit that the lack of sources for both Africa and the New World probably contributed to their sparse population of dots. This had been written by his fellow Europeans in the 17th century, so he supposed that he should be grateful that they had any dots outside Europe at all.
Hardly daring to touch it, he slid his fingers beneath the reverse-edge of one of the map pages, gently lifting it as he peered closer at the delicate watercolor figures disporting themselves around the edges of the paper. Various angels, all bearing swords, looked down with grave eyes at a figure of Eve standing in the Garden of Eden, or seemed to stand ready at its gates. Some looked at their weapons, as though testing them. While these figures dominated in the upper portion of the map, the lower portion was filled with shadows, a mythical serpent coiling around the circle that depicted the southern Pole and a dragon with a lolling tongue crouched above a figure that…
Anderson squinted and frowned, bending closer to the page.
At first blush, the small figure menacing the dragon with a dagger seemed to be a putto –the correct term for the winged infants often called cherubs in art– but when he looked closer, the watercolor tint to the putto's skin seemed ashen and sickly, and small nubs of pale red horns were hidden amongst its blond hair. Most tellingly, rather than the white feathers of the angels in the clouds up above, this figure's wings were batlike and ragged, and the loincloth wrapped around it for modesty was likewise tattered. Another demonic-seeming putto, similarly attired, braced its pudgy hands against the belly of the snake curled around the southern pole.
These strange putti were not the only human figures at the bottom of the map: in the far right corner, the monstrous forms of Belial and Moloch crouched, Moloch with a drawn sword across his knees. On the far left, beneath the dragon but before the flame-like, tattered edges of the banner that named this map, Ba'al crouched over what Anderson supposed was a victim, hands on either side of the poor naked figure's head and his hairy, hooved legs splayed beneath his loathsome body.
Anderson hummed aloud as he stared at this puzzling display of artwork. The figures of both vampires and angels were self-explanatory enough, but the putti interested him, especially since, despite their rather demonic appearance, they seemed decidedly set against the other figures at the bottom of the page. It was almost a pity that he couldn't show it to his coworkers. The artistic and religious implications alone were-
A sudden series of brisk knocks at the tradesman's door startled the priest so badly that he spasmed, his knee jolting up and hitting the underside of the desk with enough force to make his eyes water. The acoustics of the church were a blessing in many ways: Anderson did not have to invest in a bell at the side door that led to his quarters so long as someone knocked strongly enough, because the sound echoed throughout most of the building.
However, in his current state of mind, unexpected knocks were nothing to be excited about, and Anderson swallowed his shout of pain (and all the curses that instinctively wanted to spill forth) as he clutched his knee. He pushed himself and his chair back with his other foot before he stood, and hobbling a little, he began to make his way to the front door. He hadn't even left his office, however, before a sudden thrill of fear rushed through the priest.
What if this was an enemy?
He hadn't expected any guests, and if it was a churchgoer, they would go through the public doors with no need to knock at the tradesman's entrance, which led exclusively to his private space and nowhere else. Even if they wanted to see him, rather than pray in the silence and the sanctity of God's house, they would have knocked from the other direction, on the inside of the church.
Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was a bonafide tradesman. But even so, even as he chided himself for his paranoia, Father Anderson found himself reaching for the small revolver that he kept in a box on the highest shelf. Maybe this was too extreme, he thought as he slipped it into his pocket, but Sir Hellsing had been killed in her own offices, and he didn't know what vampires could and could not do as yet. Perhaps the book would tell him eventually, but it had told him almost nothing of any practical use so far.
Anderson had to take a moment to compose himself as he sidled out into the hallway, the knocks continuing, and reminded himself that whether this was an enemy or not, looking visibly tense would only make things worse. Even so, it took several deep breaths before he had the nerve to open the door, sunlight flooding into the front hall as he looked at the man on the stoop, who was startled mid-knock.
"Apologies." Anderson said, manners too firmly ingrained into him to do otherwise. "I was occupied. How may I help you?"
The man, who wore the uniform of the telegraph office, took a half-step back and stood smartly at attention. He looked unremarkable, even if the priest wasn't entirely certain what he should be looking for to indicate vampirism.
"Father Alexander Anderson?" he asked briskly.
"Speaking."
"Telegram from overseas." the man replied, pulling a green slip of paper from his messenger bag. He held it out expectantly, and Father Anderson took the telegram on reflex. He stopped fingering the revolver in his pocket as the telegraph officer nodded to him once, with a suggestion of clicking his heels, before turning and striding quickly back to the street without even waiting for the door to close.
False alarm, apparently.
Feeling rather foolish but also strongly disinclined to stand out in the open, Father Anderson retreated back into his home and closed the door behind him, locking it for good measure, before he turned away and considered the missive in his hand.
This was surprising: his circle of acquaintances was small and mostly professional, and none of them could afford the extravagance of sending him a telegram. Sir Hellsing, who had sent telegrams as a matter of course due to her position as a noblewoman, was dead. If Enrico wanted something, he could simply send a letter, or a cab messenger –they did both live in London, after all. If the church wished to contact him over something, an official letter or a telephone call to one of the larger parishes nearby would easily suffice.
So who had gone to the time and expense of sending a telegram? Those implied urgency, and since every telegraph office Anderson had ever heard of charged for messages by the word, they also implied some degree of importance. A telegram was only sent to someone when a quick reply was needed –indeed, when a quick response was needed, when the receiver was expected to act within a few precious days. The only person who had ever sent him telegrams was Sir Hellsing, but with her gone…
Anderson unfolded the frail slip of paper and held it up to the light.
May 14th, 1920
FROM:
COUNT VLAD DRACULA
PALAZZO BELLA
VENICE, ITALY
TO:
FATHER ALEXANDER ANDERSON
I GRIEVE FOR OUR MUTUAL FRIEND, AN OLD COLLEAGUE AND MENTOR OF MINE. DID SHE REMEMBER ME IN HER WILL? THERE WAS A CERTAIN BOOK THAT SHE ONCE PROMISED TO ME AND I HAVE GREAT NEED OF IT.
PLEASE BE IN TOUCH AT YOUR EARLIEST CONVIENIENCE.
COUNT VLAD DRACULA.
Anderson sucked in a long, slow breath through his teeth. So, he had not been the intended recipient of Sir Hellsing's manuscript? It had been this man instead, and she had merely left it to Anderson as some sort of…caretaker? Messenger boy? Errand-runner?
Something was reading false, here, though. How had this count known of Sir Hellsing's death if his residence was on the Continent? The news of her untimely demise had been posted in the papers, true, but only the London papers. So how did an Italian man learn of it so quickly, within a scant few days of her murder?
And there was something else that did not ring quite true –how could one have an urgent need for this book?
Anderson was struggling through its obscure pages slowly, and as he had noted before, he had yet to find anything of real, practical use. Warnings aplenty, certainly, but nothing that would help him defend himself or others. Nothing to identify vampires, either, just an explanation that they did indeed exist and were a threat to everything he stood for.
If this…Count Vlad Dracula knew of the book, which seemed all too clear from the telegram, then he likely already knew all or most of what Anderson had read so far in its pages. He knew that vampires existed, and that they were a threat, and that Sir Hellsing had been the Protector, whatever that title may have meant. So why did he care about the book at all?
And why had Sir Hellsing not given it to him previously, if they were as old friends as this telegram hinted?
Anderson realized that his fingers were crinkling the telegram paper, and with a deep breath, he consciously loosened his grip. There were a number of very logical responses to his vague suspicions, of course.
This nobleman might indeed be telling the truth, and he and Sir Hellsing were old acquaintances: she simply may not have thought it safe to send him the book. Look at how cautious she had been in handing it to Anderson! And her office had been ransacked on the day of her murder. This man might be everything that he said he was, and it had been Sir Hellsing's own wariness and wisdom that had prevented the book from falling into the wrong hands on its way to the Count.
As for why the Count seemed so very interested in it, well, presumably Sir Hellsing and her fellow Protectors had not fought vampires entirely alone. It was very plausible, even likely, that the Count was a fellow colleague who knew much of the supernatural. Perhaps the book would tell him valuable information that currently escaped Anderson, as new to all of these concepts as he was.
Still.
Still…
This book was a direct inheritance from Sir Hellsing, and Anderson would not betray her trust. There was another worry that niggled at him, too, as he brought the telegram back to his office –he had been a close friend of Sir Hellsing's for almost twenty years, and he had never even heard of this man. Who was he? Could the Count…could he be the unknown man in the two pictures she had left behind? Was he the original owner of the locket that even now lay nestled, cold and smooth, against Anderson's breast beneath his clothes?
The priest shook his head slightly with a scoff of irritation. Too many mysteries, not enough answers. If the Count was that man, what rift had grown between him and Sir Hellsing to separate them, and why did it seem entirely mended in his telegram? Why did she still wear his locket even up until her dying day? If they had forgiven each other, why had she never spoken of him? Why had he never come to call?
Setting the telegram down on his desk, he glanced at the clock and winced, realizing how behind-schedule he was. Having a small parish did not mean that he had no duties as a priest, and Anderson was quick to fumble his revolver out of his pocket and lay it back on the shelf, scooping the book and telegram back into his desk drawer and shutting it with a slam. A church was a community center, and as the sole employee of this particular church, it fell to him and him alone to organize, arrange, and oversee the various activities.
Looking back on it, this was probably one of the many reasons that Mrs. Phoebe was so insistent on him hiring a servant. Anderson was personally responsible for hosting the weekly events for almost half a dozen various domestic clubs and social circles, which meant that he was also responsible for making sure that the room they met in was clean and that various refreshments were available.
Resigning himself to (yet another) day when he was too preoccupied to remember making a midday meal for himself, Father Anderson quickly rushed to the kitchen and pulled out the tea kettle. Today the afternoon was scheduled for a knitting group rather than a sewing circle, which meant that the women attending would be older and in dire need of a good cup of tea. And biscuits. And sandwiches…
With the water boiling in the kettle and a stack of mostly-presentable sandwiches laid out on his serving platter, Anderson descended to the basement room of his church to begin airing out the room and rearranging the tables and chairs. It was cold down here, but the basement had been remodeled before modern plumbing, so he had to make do with a cast-iron stove to keep things tolerable. He knelt to kindle the ignition paper and start feeding tinder into the belly of the stove, and then straightened up with a grunt and a crackle of his knees.
However short his time may have been to get ready, Anderson was an old campaigner, and in a flurry of furious activity he had the basement cheery and warm, with the knitting baskets laid out near the tables (most of the women brought their own projects and tackle, but it never hurt to be helpful) and a full tea service and platter of finger sandwiches laid out on the sideboard. While he waited for the women of the knitting circle to arrive, he picked up one of said sandwiches and surreptitiously gobbled it down, trying to appease the growling ache in his stomach. This wasn't the first time he had inadvertently skipped a meal, and probably wouldn't be the last.
Slowly, rather in the manner of unbalanced ducklings paddling through the water, the grey and silver-haired matrons began to arrive, the fringes of their hats bobbing to their polite nods and little coughs. Being the courteous person that he was, Anderson usually had to help them navigate the rather hazardously steep steps down to the basement level, and received many a pat on the arm and a mumbled congratulations of what a fine young man he was, truly. Several of women were far less restrained, and chuckled and clucked fondly over him, reminiscing over the priests they had once had and how he measured up.
It was a gentle babbling flood that he had braved many times before, and the blond and burly priest moved through it easily, returning quips and comments as he moved ceaselessly around the room to assist steps or fetch materials. Once they had all been settled, he was dismissed as the matrons settled down for a good gossip session –but his duty wasn't done yet, either, as Anderson returned to the kitchen to brew more tea.
Going back and forth in such a manner occupied most of his afternoon, and after the ladies closed up shop and he tidied the room after them, Anderson was left to take his place in the confessional booth and wait for any penitents to arrive. Rather shamefully, since there almost never were any confessors, he usually took these few hours of breathing space to work on writing his sermons, Bible open on the bench before him and his notebook propped on his folded knee.
Today there were the rare two confessions, one a teenager who confessed to stealing her mother's favorite pearls in order to dress herself up for a party, the other a married man who admitted to having desirous thoughts for a milliner whose store his wife frequently shopped at. Anderson dealt with them both as best he could.
The girl, he advised to think of how risky such secret parties could be, and how devastating it would be for her family if she suddenly vanished without a trace. He could understand her desire for vanity, being that age and all, but the risks of continuing to attend such parties recklessly far outweighed the rewards. She should repent and attempt to negotiate attendance of similar but safer parties with her mother, and see what came of it.
For the man, he pointed out that looking at another person with genuine lust was already committing adultery in spirit, and asked him to examine his current standing with his wife. What had come between them? Why did he not keep his desire solely for her? If his love for her was true, he would not be swayed by any other woman, no matter how beautiful. What had changed, and how might it be fixed?
Both penitents left with their problems hopefully solved, if not on the way to being dealt with, thanking him for his wisdom as they went. As Anderson had learned through training and long experience, it was a priest's job to listen to people's sins and give them advice, not offer judgement. It was difficult enough to bare your sins to someone else: he should not punish them for exposing such vulnerability. If they had committed a wrong, he should help them realize a way to fix it, since they had already shown that they felt guilt over their actions by coming to tell him about it.
He waited for some time after his last confession, slowly jotting down his notes for the next sermon this Sunday as he flipped through the Bible pages. No one else came, though, before his time was up, and Father Anderson sighed, picking up his two books in one hand and ducking out through the curtain. He blew out the candle that signified his presence, then moved back to his office, pausing in the doorway and sighing at the mountain of paperwork that awaited him. It had been stacking up over the past few days, ignored in favor of the mysterious book that he had acquired.
He really couldn't put it off any longer, though, and the priest pulled out his chair with another sigh, setting his journal and the Bible aside. He took up his pen and pulled the uppermost page of inter-parish reports over, starting to read with resigned eyes. Perhaps if he plowed through enough of the documents, he'd be able to read through another few pages in the book…but he doubted it. As the sole employee in this particular parish, literally every scrap of paperwork, from Church of England messages to applications for youth groups, fell across his desk, and even a few days of absence was enough to build up some hefty stacks.
At least this time he remembered to eat his evening meal, methodically stoking his empty stomach with several thick sandwiches and some bacon he quickly fried up in a pan before he returned back to his piles of paperwork. As evening fell, he lit the lamp on his desk and continued soldiering on, the scent of the fresh black ink heavy in his nostrils and shining in the warm, steady glow of the porcelain shade.
At long last, the clock chimed his usual hour for bed, and Father Anderson sighed, sitting back in his chair and looking at the stacks of paper atop his desk. The paperwork to be done, at least, had been much reduced, and he cast an almost involuntary glance towards the drawer in which he kept the precious book –and now, the mysterious telegram that had been sent to him.
Shaking out his hand a little to work out the muscle cramps, he pulled over his journal and flicked it open, wanting to jot down a reminder of the strange occurrences of today. If he, too, was found dead with no one around him, then he would not allow his murder to remain unsolved. There would, at the very least, be a record of his correspondence and his thoughts.
London, May 14th, 1920
Today I looked over the map featured in the book. It is old and charts the spread of the curse across the world up to the mid-seventeenth century. Patterns emerged as I studied the map closely, but I was interrupted by the surprise arrival of a telegram from Italy.
The somewhat abrupt message came from a mysterious man who claims to have been an old acquaintance of Sir Hellsing. He is plainly aware of the existence of the book, but there is something about his tone that unsettles me. I will write to him, nonetheless.
If he is an old friend of Sir Hellsing, he may know something of the supernatural –perhaps he can help me in my search for understanding.
The next day, after his usual morning routine of fetching a newspaper, garden and church upkeep, and the morning service, Anderson returned back to tackle the paperwork, and by lunchtime, had finally cleared his desk. He had time to sigh in relief, but as he returned to the kitchen to cook himself a proper luncheon for once, he noted upon opening his cupboards and icebox that he was running low on groceries.
As he sat down to munch on his food, the priest ran some mental calculations. He should have enough time to run out and get groceries before today's youth group meeting, but it would be a bit of a narrow shave. Due to his irregular schedule, when he ate, he tended to eat voraciously, and it took large portions to keep him satisfied. Well, that was one nice thing about being unprecedentedly muscular as a priest –he could carry a lot of groceries.
It was also nice to get out and about and talk with the people around him. As a priest, Anderson occupied an odd sort of social niche in society, and was often considered both a confidant and an advisor. He had an ongoing dialogue going with the man from whom he bought his newspapers, regarding how to get the most use out of their mutually very small scraps of garden, and of course he was generally on speaking terms with most of the organizers and the participants in the various groups that used his church as a meeting-place. Going out and just…talking with people who were semi-strangers to him, though, was an enjoyable break from his usual activities.
He had a pleasant chat with the grocer, talking about the latest deliveries of produce and the ongoing drama between him and the hairdresser next door, who still refused to move their equipment away from the wall the two shops shared and how it was making it impossible to keep practically anything near those spots. Anderson promised to at least try and talk to the hairdresser on another occasion, since he was running on such a tight schedule today, and left the store loaded down with bags of groceries.
He had to move quickly to get everything stored away and prepare snacks for the incoming youth group, but he managed, as he always did. The rest of the afternoon was spent hosting various groups and arranging the basement room between each visit, although he did have a spot of excitement later as the afternoon tended towards evening, finding several men outside the exterior basement door when he opened it to throw out the contents of a dustpan.
Anderson sighed. The alley between the side of the church and the building next to it was rather narrow, which made it an inviting place for various drunkards to stagger through on their way back home –it was dark and quiet, after all, with a minimum of tripping hazards. Nonetheless, he was in no mood to clean up someone else's vomit or piss…again. This was a church, and drunk or not, both the sanctuary and its grounds needed to be respected.
"Can I help you, gentlemen?" he asked in his firmest and most polite voice as he scraped the contents of the dustpan off onto the ground, the voice that strongly suggested whoever he was talking to needed to find somewhere else to be, posthaste.
Being drunk, they naturally did not take the warning.
"S'fine, gmlr…." one of the three men slurred in what could generously be called a dismissal, wheeling a hand at him. One of the others slumped against the wall, propped up against it by his arm with his face hovering in a dangerously downwards position, while their third associate stood where he had stopped, swaying a little.
Anderson set the dustpan and small hand-brush down, leaning them against the side of the wall. As he straightened up again, he pulled his shoulders back from their typical scholarly hunch, looming suddenly broad and tall as he folded his arms across his chest. Anyone with half a scrap of wits left in their head would see the length and width of his brawny arms, not to mention his solidly immobile stance, and realize that this was not a person to be trifled with.
Being a priest and therefore a pacifist by profession, Anderson did not commonly use his looming height to its full, intimidating effect…but neither was he supposed to be a fighter, at all, and he had busted his knuckles in more than one brawl, so. He did his best to beg God's forgiveness for any temporarily violent tendencies and salved his conscience by the reminder that he really only fought in defense of other people or, in this case, sacred locations, so surely it was permissible, right? It wasn't like he was some hooligan. And he was giving these men an easy out, instead of just wading into them with bared fists.
"This is church grounds," he said, slow and careful. "-and if you do not need anything, I would like to ask you to leave before you throw up somewhere."
"S'wot if we'll leave iffin we want to." the swayer replied in what probably made sense in his own mind, flashing an obscene gesture at Anderson with a smug look on his bleary face. The priest sighed and unfolded his arms, because as slurred and insensible as that sentence was, the sentiment behind it was woefully clear.
For answer, Anderson stepped forward several paces and unceremoniously picked the man up, feet dangling off the ground and a rather shocked expression crossing the lout's face as he dangled from the priest's grip. Taking several steps more, Anderson dumped the drunkard without fanfare on the sidewalk to the road proper.
An outraged shout behind him let Anderson know that the man's companions objected to this treatment, and he cocked his ear at the sound of running feet and instantly sidestepped, fighting the reflex to drive his elbow back into his new attacker's gut at the same time. While a valid move under any other circumstances, especially if he wanted to fold his opponent's body over his arm with a startled wheeze, it was an exceedingly unwise decision with drunks, whose control over their stomach was already not of the best.
Instead, as the first speaker came staggering past him, Anderson cuffed him over the back of the head –more of a tangible warning of how hard he could hit than any proper attack– and then shoved the small of his back, sending the man staggering over his friend's body with even less grace than before as he sprawled onto the pavement.
Anderson turned to the third man and raised an expectant eyebrow, but this drunk seemed too far gone to be of any real trouble, still leaning against the wall with a groggy expression. Oh, he certainly was aware of the priest's scuffle with his friends, but he was also clearly far enough into his cups that any sudden movement would have unfortunate consequences. Anderson stepped aside and gestured pointedly at the road, and the third man quickly shuffled past him as he turned to look at the trio.
"Well? Will we be having any more trouble, gentlemen?"
No doubt stricken by their unceremonious and extremely rapid trouncing, the drunks simultaneously grumbled something that might have been an apology, in a manner oddly reminiscent of chided schoolboys, simultaneously both resentful and ashamed. One grabbed the other's arm, and they all hauled each other to their feet, staggering back off again.
Anderson sighed in relief and went back into the church, secure in the knowledge that he wouldn't have to clean up anyone's obscene leavings anytime soon.
Despite the very necessary requirements of his mundane schedule, the book had been burning in Anderson's mind for several days as it went neglected in his desk drawer. On the morning of the next day, he finally had enough breathing space to pull it out and investigate it, and he lost no time in opening the heavy manuscript, which had acquired an almost mythical mystique in his mind. This book was the source of so much, and the sooner he read it from cover to cover, the sooner he could properly center himself and decide his future course of action, instead of groping blindly in the dark.
And this chapter seemed educational indeed.
A chill slid down Anderson's spine as he turned to the latest new page and saw the words THE RITUAL OF MAKING emblazoned in dark ink across the old, musty paper. Was this…?
Well, it had to be. This was the chapter on how vampires made new vampires, and thus propagated their curse. Finally, finally, he was coming to useful information, to knowledge that would actually serve rather than confuse or interest him.
The title of this chapter also sparked an echo of memory in him, and he pulled open the drawer again with a slight frown, fishing around inside. If he remembered correctly…
He did.
The ancient, semi-dusty scroll that had been tied with a modern ribbon shared its name with this chapter, and carefully, Anderson set the scroll to one side on top of the desk, before returning his gaze to the book. He literally did not know how much he didn't know, and for all he was aware, merely opening and reading the scroll past its first few words might have some permanent effect on him. It was better not to risk it until he had more information.
Sir Hellsing's firm handwriting at the head of the page, though, was quick to reassure him.
The transformation of a human, blessed with grace, into a vampire, a Fallen creature cursed with bloodthirst, is a delicate and precise course. The method must be followed closely, step by step –failure to do so will render the progeny, or Chosen, impaired. The general method is outlined in its original form in a scroll entitled "The Ritual of Making." I have included notes below on the matter, as the scroll itself has caused much debate amongst previous Protectors.
So the scroll was the source material? Controversy or not, Anderson found his gaze returning to the ancient parchment with renewed interest, and less nervously now –but certainly no less cautious, given how old and fragile the parchment itself was– he undid the ribbon and teased it open, slowly unfurling the scroll atop his desk.
It was surrounded by a border of square arabesques in deep purple ink, which had faded somewhat with the years. The writing itself was still clear, and archaic enough that he instantly dated it as several hundred years old, with the very same title as the chapter spelled out in larger letters that receded in size by line, so that THE RITUAL was noticeably bigger than OF MAKING. The rest of the words were all uniform, save that the first word of each new bracket was fully capitalized.
FIRST must come the blessing of the Elder. Then the Vampyre may begin the search for the Chosen.
FOLLOWING the Blessing, the Chosen shall be fed upon, on the Night of the White Fire. Thrice shall the Vampyre feed, and each time the Blood must be taken of the same Wound, and of the same Amount, neither more nor less.
AFTER the Third feed, the Chosen shall be Drained until he or she falls into a Deep Trance. Quickly, the Chosen is to be revived with the Blood of the Vampyre.
AS the old Blood drains from the Chosen, so shall these words be spoken by the Vampyre: "I cast out they Mortal Essence, for thou must be Filled Anew."
AS the new blood of the Vampyre fills the Chosen, so shall these words be spoken: "I offer thee my essence, that thou mayst walk again Undead." The newly made Vampyre shall then drink from its Creator –now its Fallen Master.
The Ritual is complete; a new Vampyre walks the Earth.
Anderson swallowed, cupping his mouth as he tried to battle back an unexpected surge of dread. This was…fairly simple, as far as instructions went, but something about it still managed to put the hairs up on the back of his neck.
The priest tried to calm himself and quell the inexplicable chill he felt while reading this by mentally reciting facts. He didn't quite understand the reference to the "Night of White Fire," nor the full context of the "blessing" offered by the vampire's original master, but the rest seemed fairly straightforward. Vampires were created by elaborate ritual that involved draining and replacing their mortal blood with something cursed and unclean.
Maybe that was what unsettled him so. This was so…wrong, so antithetical to everything he had known or believed as a man devoted to God. The holy act of creation was warped and debased in this ritual, turned into the sickly rot of infection and a blasphemous curse.
Straightforward as the instructions were, however, they were also highly ritualized and not at all practical, and Anderson wondered if that was what had caused controversy in Sir Hellsing's prior colleagues as he returned his attention to the book. She had included the same basic steps, but expanded upon them greatly, and he found himself sinking into the words with a sort of horrified fascination.
STEP 1: THE CHOOSING
Of old, strict observances are met before a vampire is allowed to create its own progeny. The Chosen is carefully selected –not all humans would be deemed an appropriate choice. Most Chosen display some particular quality that the vampire in question admires –great beauty or intelligence, an appetite for cruelty, a thirst for power, or an ability to intimidate or influence others. Take note: a Chosen will not escape their fate once selected, unless the vampire is destroyed during the Ritual of Making. A Chosen should not be confused with "prey," who are humans that vampires feed on to satisfy their everyday needs. Prey will naturally die from blood loss once fed upon.
Interesting. That was another little fragment of useful information: that Protectors like Sir Hellsing had an acknowledged structure, an order of terminology. Prey and Chosen meant different things, and were undoubtedly approached by Protectors and their allies under different circumstances. Allies like, perhaps, that mysterious Count…
Anderson wrenched his mind back to his work with a huff. Whether or not that man would become useful to him was something to be proved later, not now.
STEP 2: THE FIRST FEED
On the night of the first feed, a storm, or "white fire," must be brewing –stormy weather makes the ritual more potent. After the first feed, the Chosen may feel enfeebled. If not bitten again, he or she will make a full recovery.
So that was the answer to his prior question, then –the "Night of White Fire" simply referred to a stormy night. He did have to admit, he was intrigued by how or why a storm seemed to influence the turning of a human into a vampire. Did it, perhaps, have something to do with the fact that during the fight between Michael and the three progenitors of the vampire race, a storm had also been supposedly brewing…?
STEP 3: THE SECOND FEED
Following the second feed, the Chosen will experience some symptoms of anemia, losing skin pigmentation. If the Chosen is not bitten a third time, he or she will continue as a human and will probably remember very little of the encounter with vampires. For the remainder of his or her life, however, the victim will suffer from a weak constitution.
STEP 4: THE THIRD FEED AND DRAINING
The third feed renders the Chosen unconscious, and the body is drained of blood. Generally, the draining is done with a quick cut to the throat, and the blood is kept for the onlooking vampire to feed upon later. The next step must be completed quickly, before the Chosen slips away to death.
Anderson was interested to note that Sir Hellsing made no mention of the scroll's injunction that the vampire needed to feed from the same spot and take the same amount of blood during each of the three feedings. It was a tantalizing hint to the debate she mentioned amongst her predecessors, though what it meant and to what end, he remained frustratingly ignorant.
STEP 5: THE GIVING OF BLOOD IN RETURN
The vampire fills the victim with its own blood, using an ancient mouth-to-mouth method of transferal. This nourishes the Chosen back to consciousness. Awoken, the Chosen drinks the blood of its Fallen Master.
He was unashamed to admit that he choked at this, face flaming with heat. Mouth-to-mouth? Previously, all these steps had seemed clinical, more the act of a demon stalking its prey in preparation to offer a fatal contract rather than anything else, but this seemed –intimate. Deeply so. And how, exactly, did the newly-made vampire feed on their progenitor? Where did it feed?
The priest scrubbed his face with one hand, hiding his molten cheeks. This was…well. Uncomfortable, although that didn't quite feel like the right word. It certainly wasn't arousing –the dark horror of imagining how many countless people had been chosen like pets for their interesting qualities, to become vampires in their turn, made him feel sick. The book and the scroll called them Chosen, but the only choice here lay in the master vampire making a selection. Their progeny were unaware and quite likely unwilling as damnation stalked ever closer to them, their own ignorance making them helpless to escape, until they were inevitably damned in their turn.
It was horrifying, he decided. Deeply, deeply horrifying. Hoping not to find further horror ahead, Anderson turned his eyes back to the page, wondering what the last step entailed.
STEP 6: THE BLESSING
An old symbolic blessing is made on the Chosen, who is now a vampire. The thrill of potent blood will be exhilarating for the newly made creature, and it will take some time before it adapts to its heightened physiology. In theory, a Master is entitled to the absolute loyalty of its progeny. The reality is different: after the initial teething stage, Chosen often rebel against their Masters and will be abandoned to their own fate.
Now that was just cruel. The vampires shattered their Chosen utterly, destroying them down to the foundation of their humanity, and then, when that brief spark of interest that had first drawn them to the Chosen passed, threw them aside like discarded dolls. It made his hands clench in a fury, an unprecedented rage stirring in him. If these were the creatures who had murdered Sir Hellsing…no, he would show no mercy on them. Not even as a priest. Monsters like this deserved no pity or salvation.
His eye was caught by the picture beneath Sir Hellsing's words, which was drawn in monochrome pencil and displayed a gentleman with a cane alongside a terrifying illustration of a bat-winged woman clad in a flowing Grecian dress. Her hair was bound up around her three horns, and her eyes were a blank and milky white. The picture was titled THE TRANSFORMATION OF A HUMAN INTO A VAMPIRE, and seemed to display the rough sequence of events on a grassy, vague background.
The man stood alone at first, shading his eyes with one hand and peering up at what Anderson presumed to be the sky with an almost-comedic expression of alarm. The next image in the sequence had his head lolling to the side and eyes closed as he stood relaxed, peaceful as a corpse lying at a wake. The woman had appeared behind him for the first time, one hand resting delicately on his shoulder and her other slim white arm curled around his own. Her batlike wings were flared up, and despite the floating, elegant lines of her posture, how she barely seemed to be touching the man at all, there was something dark and gleeful in her face. She seemed to be looking at the man's neck, exposed by his lolling head, with the avid hunger of a child about to lick their lips in face of a treat.
In the next part of the sequence, the man stood alone, his cane no longer held in a slackened hand. Both hands, in fact, were pressed against his body, one cupping his stomach and the other clutching at his chest, seeming to sway in place. His cheekbones seemed more prominent, his face drawn and sallow. In the next image, he was downright haggard, pitched forwards but still standing, as though at any moment he might collapse, still clutching at his stomach and heart. Following that was a still figure lying in the grass, slightly curled on his side. The man seemed peaceful, but his face was drawn, his eyebrows heavy over his closed eyes.
In the final, hair-raising part of the sequence, the man was once again standing tall and proud, his mouth open in what seemed to be triumph, with a suggestion of teeth in that dark hole in his face. The two figures had reversed their positions and power: the vampiric woman was taking her turn to lay in a placid swoon in his arms, seeming as frail and helpless as a doll as one bare foot peeked through her billowing, draping dress. Her new progeny held one limp hand in his own, the other curling around her back to let her wings soar free as he looked at her throat with undisguised glee. The vampiric woman's rosebud mouth was closed, and the whole pose seemed macabrely reminiscent of a cat patiently holding still so that a kitten might feed.
Forgive the simplicity of this illustrative work. Sir Hellsing's neat handwriting captioned an empty space in the drawing. In reality, the transformation of a human into a vampire is nothing short of terrifying. A faint echo of the Chosen's personality will be taken with them into immortal life.
Anderson's stomach turned as he read those words. The illustration was plenty terrifying all on its own –the way that the man transformed from a blissfully ignorant victim to yet another godless predator was sobering in a deeply unpleasant way. After all, there was almost no doubt in his mind at this point that Sir Hellsing had been killed by vampires, and if they wanted to torment her successor as well as snuff out all hope of another Protector's direct inheritance of the book…
His hand involuntarily sought his throat, curling around the warm flesh under his clerical collar. Anderson felt his pulse bumping against his fingers, hot and strong, and shuddered. He had never realized how precious it was to him, before.
He could not afford to be caught: the priest knew that now with crystal clarity.
There were worse things than death.
The urge to read further ahead built to an almost fever pitch in him as he considered the words on this page and what they meant, but Anderson held himself back, barely. He was already beginning to wonder how he could protect himself and the people around him from this monstrous scourge, but he knew better than to read wildly in a manuscript. Only by slowing and carefully parsing every chapter could one learn all there was to know in historical documents, and their authors arranged certain things in a certain order for a reason.
Did he still trust Sir Hellsing's wisdom?
The answer to that was still yes, absolutely, which meant in turn that Anderson had to trust her wisdom in arranging these chapters as they were, and read in chronological order through the book. No matter how much he wished to do otherwise, he had to hold his trust in her and be patient. No matter how mysterious she was, Sir Hellsing had never, ever done anything without at least one very good reason. He had no reason to believe she had suddenly started doing otherwise now.
So with a heavy, bracing inhale, Anderson got back to work deciphering the next page. There were two pictures here, one in the lower left and the other in the upper right, with small portions of text crammed in above and below each respective picture.
His eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline as he read the title for the first section of text, which was above a painting of a stone-faced, pale man with immaculately-groomed black hair and a butler's uniform, holding a bouquet of funeral lilies against his chest. Further back in the same picture was a ragged woman with a withered wreath of flowers in her hair, her nightgown hanging loose off her emaciated frame. Thankfully, she was far enough in the dim background that her details were difficult to make out, because Anderson definitely caught some hints of necrosis despite the fact that she was standing upright.
VAMPIRE RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE UNDEAD:
Some powerful vampires have the ability to reanimate the corpses of recently killed human prey so that they may perform the duties of servants. It must be clear that these latter creatures –known as ghouls– are not vampires and do not share in their powers. The ghoul has little will of its own and is an extension of its Fallen Master's senses. This makes it an ideal servant.
Ghouls should not be confused with zombies. Zombies are old, decaying corpses that have been animated by witchcraft or sorcery. Unlike ghouls, who can disguise themselves as human, zombies are grotesque and do what they can to hide their hideous frames. These creatures are in no way related to vampires, though are occasionally confused with the Chinese notion of the vampire, the chiang-shih, as described earlier.
His green eyes lowered, flicking between the two figures in the foreground and the background of the left-hand picture, noting the composed man and the rotting woman. As expected, Sir Hellsing's caption below the painting stated that A ghoul (left) and a zombie (right) do not belong to Fallen bloodlines.
What was interesting and criminally offhand was how Sir Hellsing had mentioned that witchcraft and sorcery existed, and were the common(?) means of creating a zombie. It was enough and more than enough that Anderson had to contend with the sudden knowledge of vampires, but now –witchcraft? Magic? More types of undead? Exactly how much of this strange world was hidden from him, and how much did Sir Hellsing intend to reveal?
He glanced aside at the other painting, which depicted a ghostly pale woman in a violet dress with her fiery red hair flying free, both arms wrapped around a strong, olive-skinned man with the features of a Roman gladiator. Her eyes were fixed on his face, and her pink lips were parted slightly, an intense and strange expression on that white face. The man sat or reclined on whatever it was they were perched on, but he was turned aside from the woman, almost, mostly facing her with his back and staring ahead at the painter as though he was unaware that she was there at all. Despite all that, Anderson noticed that one strong brown hand was cupping the elbow wrapped around the man's waist.
When he looked at the caption for this painting, he spluttered on what was half an incredulous bark of laughter and half a cough of shock.
Romantic relationships with vampires must be avoided at all costs.
Romantic-? People actually-? Well, he supposed there was some excuse in ignorance, but did men and women who actually knew what vampires were…?
Surely there were easier ways to commit suicide.
Anderson glanced down at the words beneath the painting, wondering what, if anything, Sir Hellsing had to say to expand on that bit of nonsense.
VAMPIRE RELATIONSHIPS WITH HUMANS:
It is not possible for vampires to have offspring with humans. Many have ascribed the word dhampir to the notion of such offspring, but it inaccurate to suggest that the Fallen can procreate in a human manner. Those who claim the title dhampir are most commonly ghouls, hungry for attention. Friendship with a Fallen, even the more peaceable Belial, is a risky business. Furthermore, romantic relationships between humans and Fallen Ones should be avoided at all costs. Trust my word on this.
Short and curt, as such warnings probably should be. Well, so far as he was aware, Anderson didn't know any vampires, and he fully intended to guard himself both physically and mentally against them once he learned how to identify the creatures by sight. So for this, at least, he had nothing to worry about. He wouldn't be so weak as to fall into temptation, especially not when he now knew what to be on his guard against.
When he looked over at the clock, though, Anderson realized that once again time had slipped away from him, and got up from his desk with a sigh. That was likely all the reading he had time for today, and he fully intended to visit the British Library soon, to check all of this information if nothing else. Sir Hellsing had spent much time there, so they would probably have evidence of her assembling this manuscript at the very least. He had gone past doubting her word at this point, but every man liked to have confirmation in hand, especially with how…outré this entire business was.
Given how often he had gone, both in pursuit of Sir Hellsing's research and his own, he naturally had a pass to the British Library. The real difficulty lay in arranging a time to visit, as he intended to stay for several hours and, as a priest, his time was somewhat at premium. He definitely wouldn't be able to manage it today, but tomorrow…perhaps.
It wasn't just Sir Hellsing's paper trail that he intended to look into, either. If this…Vlad Dracula truly was a count, whether on the Continent or no, his family background should be fairly easy to track down. One did not become that level of nobility in any country or kingdom in Europe without leaving records, so if this man was who he claimed to be, Anderson could do some rough verification on his own before writing to him.
And if he was an imposter…well. Anderson was not actually entirely certain of what he would do if that was the case: he badly needed some additional support and allies as he took his first steps into this dark and dangerous world, and if this man had bothered to contact him, at the very least, he had an interest in Anderson's activities. Whether or not he could trust that interest was another matter entirely. He did not like how one of the first things the Count had asked for was the book, nor had he forgotten how Sir Hellsing had most definitely been murdered by an unknown hand for the very obvious reason of acquiring said book.
Still, he could but possess his soul in patience and try.
The streets were filled with the metallic scent of rain and damp earth, iced over with the pervasive hints of soaked wood and wet leaves. Stone breathed cool drafts across one's neck and feet, and each glowing lamppost with its flickering gaslight flame was a warm and welcome glow against the grey twilight chill of the rain.
Safely ensconced inside the British Library, warm and dry and with the familiar perfume of parchment, ink, and glue –the hallowed aroma of books– lingering all around him, Anderson still sighed as he laid his last volume in the return cart. Faint smudges of dust clung to the fingers of his gloves, and he had to be careful how he rubbed his forehead or adjusted his glasses, for fear of making his eyes water.
His afternoon, despite being much less damp than that of some of the people hurrying about on the streets below the blurry windows, had been singularly unproductive. He had, of course, looked back through the many records of various guests, searching for Sir Hellsing's name, and he had found many documents that she had pulled to use at one point or another –but very little with anything to do with vampires, or even the occult in general.
This, while disappointing, was not altogether unexpected. Sir Hellsing had used this library for many, many years, and her records stretched back over several decades. Spending time carefully reading through the enormous list of withdrawn materials to find every occurrence of her name would have taken him weeks, and he simply could not afford to waste that kind of time. Not now. While it would have been immensely helpful to find the original copies of the manuscripts and texts she had pulled her references from, it was not necessary, and he had more urgent things to occupy his precious free hours.
And, for that matter, several of her notes had hinted that she had pulled her sources from the records and libraries left behind by prior Protectors, and he certainly wouldn't find any records of that here.
He sighed once more.
Still, he had found some tantalizing traces of the books she had handled, the texts she had pulled from, which at the very least did confirm that the book was not an elaborate fabrication. There was still a faint and almost half-humorous gleam of hope in the back of his mind that this was all somehow a very strange, very plausible delusion of Sir Hellsing's, but this afternoon had at bare minimum confirmed that she had used real sources to back up her wild suppositions.
With that knowledge in hand and his progress slowing to a crawl, however, it was time to turn to something that would hopefully be more immediately productive –finding out the Count's true identity and family history. The British Library had many, many books on heraldry and historical nobility, and after due consideration Anderson decided to start his search in the past few editions of Burke's.
If what the Count had said was true, and he had personally known Sir Hellsing, then they had likely met in England. Following that logic, there were a number of reasons why what appeared to be an Italian nobleman should be in England… but if he had stayed long enough to form a friendship with the notoriously reclusive Sir Hellsing, then the list of reasons dwindled. One of them was seeking a good marriage: another was having close relatives in the country.
Anderson knew nothing of the Count beyond this short telegram that he even now fingered in his pocket, so he mostly had to guess at the man's character. Telegrams charged by the word, so the fact that he was fairly verbose meant that money held almost no concern for him –typical of nobility. He named Sir Hellsing as a colleague and a mentor, which showed that she had his respect. While his message to the priest was apropos of nothing, and therefore more than a little suspicious, the tone of the Count's message was fairly courteous: starting with condolences, stating his desire and at the same breath giving a reason for it, and ending with an invitation to respond at Anderson's earliest convenience.
Being a priest as well as Sir Hellsing's close friend, Anderson had brushed shoulders with more than a few nobles, and while the Count seemed more than usually egalitarian, his overall attitude rang true. He felt like a nobleman.
So, Anderson could make a few assumptions. The Count was genuinely a noble, and given his rather relaxed demeanor towards the disparity in his and Anderson's social situations even through a letter, probably had bonded with Sir Hellsing at one point or another, given their similar attitudes. The priest could easily imagine them gravitating towards each other at a party out of sheer sympathy alone.
His next step, then, was to ascertain if the Count actually had the family name and the title he claimed to possess. A bastard child might still be raised as a noble, albeit secretly, and this whole strange mess might be an extraordinarily convoluted plot to eliminate a rival and gain legitimacy, somehow, using Sir Hellsing's book.
There were no mentions of Draculas, or anything like the name, in the editions of Burke's that he paged through, though, and Anderson frowned a little. Odd. He had already gone back a full century, and he would've thought for sure that the Count's former presence in England was due to family or marriage.
Oh, well. The man had residence in Italy, so his family history was probably Italian. Anderson went back to the return cart, then politely stopped by the clerk's station and asked for the section or books that dealt with noble bloodlines and titles on the Continent, particularly counts or Italians. He went back to his reading desk with a goodly number of these volumes, and sat down to read them as the gaslights burned a warm and steady glow against the chill rain outside.
Nothing.
Nothing.
And still nothing, again.
His eyes feeling tired and rather red due to a combination of dust and strain, Anderson closed his last book hours later with a frown and a somewhat aggrieved snap. Not one book, not one page, had the single slightest mention of Vlad Dracula, or the Draculas, or- or anything about the man and his family name. Had he lied about his name? Why would he lie, if he knew Anderson was of the same breed of Sir Hellsing and that it would only take a single afternoon for him to discover and disprove the lie? Why would he bother lying to begin with?
And oddly enough, it only seemed more suspicious if this…man had been telling the truth when he signed himself Count Vlad Dracula. How on earth could a real nobleman contrive to erase his history so thoroughly, and in the name of God, why would he do such a thing? A baron or country squire, perhaps, might languish in obscurity, but not so high a personage and title as a count. In every breed of nobility that there was, all across Europe, a count was usually only a short two or three steps from becoming a monarch. If this title was a true one, the line of Count Dracula simply couldn't have sprung from nowhere like this.
Perhaps…perhaps this latest member of a noble line had taken a different name for himself, one that was different from all his predecessors. It wasn't unheard of for nobility and great leaders to suddenly change their name for one pointed reason or another –conforming with the new state religion they had created, commemorating some great deed, publicly breaking ties with an old regime– but even that action in and of itself should have left some record.
Anderson grumbled to himself deep in his throat as he went to return his last few stacks of books and gather his things, before tromping out of the museum in an ill mood. Nevermind the fact that being this close to the scene of Sir Hellsing's murder still made his throat tight and chills shudder down his spine –this had been a deeply unsatisfying visit, not to mention unhelpful. While he had gained some information, he had not truly answered any of his many questions, and more seemed to whirl and hum in his head like bees as he sat back in the cab to take him home.
How and when had Sir Hellsing met this supposed Count?
Who was he, truly?
Why was there no record of his family or their history?
Why had he lied about who he was?
Had he lied about his name?
To what purpose?
He wanted some laudanum to ease the sheer pressure those questions induced on his buzzing skull when he arrived home, but Anderson knew that he must keep all his wits about him if he intended to follow through on his plans and write back to this strange nobleman. What to say? What could he say? Obviously he could not voice his suspicions, but Anderson was deeply reluctant to even acknowledge his possession of the book to someone he trusted so little. How to dance around such an important topic?
The Count had explicitly asked after this book in his telegram, so failing to mention it at all would at once ignite his suspicions. Bluffing and saying that he knew nothing of it at all would turn out poorly if Anderson was misreading the situation and the Count turned out to be an ally. There was a delicate middle ground that he had to tread, not to mention the fact that he must muster his wits and attempt to figure out how to answer such an abrupt –and to be brutally honest, baffling– communication. He did not know the Count. The Count did not know him. Even stripped of all the alarm and danger of the current situation, how was the priest to write to such an important stranger?
After some thought, Anderson decided to be polite, but firmly dissemble any knowledge of the book or its whereabouts. The Count could not possibly know anything about him, save that he was also a close associate of Sir Hellsing's. They had not met, and if the Count's intentions were sinister, then any spies he set upon Anderson would only be able to tell him the priest's character, not his business. For all that he was often the beating heart of this tiny little corner of London, Anderson was very much alone, and there was no one who could snoop into his private quarters.
The Count might be aware of his personality, but only from a distance, and he would have no way to tell what Anderson was currently doing in a professional capacity. That could be the fine line of truth that he tread, the way to keep from lying and yet also keep the crucially important information about the book out of a –possible– enemy's hands.
With a short, near-silent sigh for his pounding headache, Anderson sat down at his desk as he began to write.
London, May 19th, 1920
I continue to examine Sir Hellsing's book. So much of what I am reading gives new meaning to my work and suddenly makes clear some of the bizarre occurrences I have witnessed in my career as a priest.
I responded to the telegram from the mysterious Venetian gentleman and will keep draft copies of anything I send in return as proof of our correspondence. I can find no record of his family name in any of my history books. I am deeply suspicious of his intentions.
Who could he be?
DRAFT
London, May 19th, 1920
Dear Count,
Thank you for your enquiry about the possessions of our mutual friend. I extend my deepest sympathies for your grief.
I must confess I was unaware of your acquaintance with Sir Hellsing, and I ask for your patience in waiting to view her bequests. It will take a little time to settle our friend's estate and dispose of her property, and until these issues are resolved, I regret that these matters must remain confidential.
I envy you your residence in Venice. I visited the city some years ago and was mesmerized by the contrast of cool water and warm stone; it seemed a city of secrets about which I would love to learn more.
I trust you will bear with me at this difficult time.
Yours sincerely,
Father Alexander Anderson