*Insert Standard Disclaimer here*
Now onto the story…
Carpe Jugulum, Chapter Two
Deep in the misty green English countryside, the Headquarters of the Hellsing Organisation was a large, stately mansion, whose original inhabitants had long died out or moved on. Following its abandonment, the Manor had been granted to the fledgling Hellsing Organisation, for use as it saw fit.
From the outside, the Mansion looked like a stately home that had fallen into disrepair, with cracked stonework, dirty, unwashed windows, and a large garden, overgrown with weeds. Anyone entering the facility would have been shocked at the contrast between the interior and the crumbling façade outside. As soon as anyone entered the mansion, they were presented with an incongruous object, a large, metal elevator set conspicuously into a wall, it's gleaming metal surfaces a sharp dissimilarity with the woodwork and upholstery around it.
In actual fact, the Mansion was simply a shell, with the elevator being the real entrance into the base. While there were a number of armoured escape tunnels secreted in the nearby woods, the elevator was the only true means of ingress.
The real Headquarters of Hellsing was in fact a colossal underground facility, built beneath the mansion, and stretching out for kilometres around. The facility had been built during the Second World War, and consisted of dozens of underground bunkers, many several stories 'tall', linked by concrete access tunnels. While these bunkers were old, much of the equipment within them was most certainly not.
It was in one of these bunkers, which served as the base's infirmary, that Sergeant Sheppard found himself in. Still weary from the mission, which had concluded only hours ago, he stood behind a glass observation screen and looked into the operating theatre where Corporal Bryans, his squad medic, stood with one of the base's medical staff. They were both facing away from him, examining something on the table. As Bryans shifted positions, it became apparent that the object of their interest was the young woman from the operation that morning.
"So what've we got, sir?" Bryans addressed his question to a tall, somewhat ascetic man with greying hair, dressed in the ubiquitous white lab coat of doctors everywhere. Instead of answering, the man reached down with gloved hands, and gently forced his unconscious 'patients' mouth open, revealing a pair of small, but already distinct fangs.
"This, soldier, is what we've got." Bryans' expression was disbelieving.
"It happens that fast?" The doctor grunted and pulled his hands back.
"Obviously, it does. May I remind you that this chemical was experimental, had never been tested on a human being, and was only issued to the troops as a last resort? We have absolutely no idea how it works, or if this is a typical case."
"Ah, sorry sir." At this, the doctor looked up.
"I believe I asked you to pull up some information on Jane Doe here. Did you find any?" Drawing his attention from the prone form of the patient, Bryans walked to a desk behind him and returned with a file, on closer inspection, it contained a variety of personal details, as well as a photo of the person in question.
"Yessir. The young lady here is Victoria Celes, a…former officer in the Leicestershire police department, age 21, no living dependants, parents died a few years ago…"
"…and now she's a vampire." Finished the doctor. "Things aren't exactly looking up for Miss Celes, are they?"
"No sir." Briskly, the doctor turned back to his patient.
"Well, the Chemical seems to have something of an anaesthetic effect, and while she is growing fangs, she doesn't seem to have begun regenerating yet. Fortunately, we've stabilised her condition, so she isn't in immediate danger…" Looking up, the doctor made his way to a computer terminal located on the far side of the room. "Command is aware of the situation, and for what it's worth, they think you did the right thing." Turning back to Bryans, he added: "To be honest, I'm not sure whether they want her as a lab rat to study, or are genuinely pleased that you saved her life." After a few more moments on the computer, the doctor turned around, and moved to the unconscious form of Victoria Celes. Brushing aside a lock of blonde hair, he opened her eyes. Bryans flinched involuntarily.
"Bloody hell…" The file he held listed Celes' eye colour as blue, and that had been accurate until a few hours ago. Now, a pair of blood-red orbs glared dully from an incongruously pretty face. Smiling thinly at his companion's discomfort, the doctor closed Celes' eyes and turned to face the shaken medic.
"As you can see, widespread physical changes have already begun throughout the victim's body. The anaesthetic effect of the Chemical is simply keeping her asleep while the Vampire's bite does the rest, and when she wakes up, it will hopefully keep her docile."
Still standing behind the opaque one-way glass partition, Sergeant Sheppard was mildly surprised when he was joined by another man, wearing the Grey fatigues of Hellsing Base personnel. Speaking in a noncommittal monotone, the soldier informed Sheppard to report to one of the base's scattered briefing rooms, where he would be debriefed again by his superiors, with the addition of one of Hellsing's government liaisons. Nodding, Sheppard turned to accompany the soldier out of the room and down the hallway, leaving the doctor and the medic unobserved.
In the surgical theatre, the Doctor turned his attention to his desk, located in an adjacent room. Motioning for Bryans to accompany him, he sat down and indicated an empty chair nearby. Bryans sat down, feeling oddly like a small child on his first trip to the hospital. He half expected the doctor to hand him a sweet. Instead, the doctor gathered a number of papers together on his desk, and examined one minutely, before raising his gaze to Bryans again.
"Now Corporal, when Command learned of the outcome of your mission, they came to a surprisingly swift decision. They have decided to induct Miss Celes here into the ranks of the Hellsing organisation. Their reasons for this are completely unknown to me, as we have no real knowledge of her personality, mental traits, or even whether she'd be willing to help us. And personally, the thought of an uncooperative Vampire within the base is not a cheerful one to me." Corporal Bryans had been on the verge of releasing an incredulous complaint when the doctor had announced Command's decision, but then thought better of it. Instead, he made a conscious effort to keep his voice level, and asked:
"Who's going to handle training the Vampire? I don't think many of the lads here would be very enthusiastic about having a bloodsucker right up close to them, to say the least…"
"Actually, I'm glad that you brought that up. Command has come to the decision that your unit should handle the…'taming' of our new recruit. Specifically, you will be assisting me in monitoring and studying any physical, mental or dietary changes, and Sergeant Sheppard will be instructing the Vampire in advanced marksmanship, which shouldn't be overly difficult, considering the fact that when she was alive, Victoria Celes passed a police qualification in shooting." At this point, Bryans was somewhat numbed. His foreseeable future had consisted of killing the Undead in the service of the Hellsing, hopefully avoiding being killed in the process, and then moving onto a higher pay level in one of the other Armed Services. Now that future looked significantly different.
At almost the exact same time, Sergeant Adrian Sheppard received the same news. He took it somewhat more stoically than his subordinate, and had simply acknowledged the order, departing the room after the debriefing. The prospect of being in charge of what was potentially Hellsing's first ever Vampire recruit was an interesting one, and anyway, maybe it would help assuage the guilt he felt over causing the young lady's death in the first place.
Cracking his knuckles, he made his way back to his quarters. He had a long few weeks ahead of him.
A/N: Yes, Blade will make an appearance in the story, once I've wrapped up the Hellsing end to some extent.