*Standard Disclaimer*

Now, onto a character you might recognise…

Carpe Jugulum, Chapter Three

The first thing that Victoria Celes thought when she awakened was: Oh God, I'm alive, thank you, thank you God. Opening her eyes, she blinked away the fuzziness at the edge of her vision, and focused as best she could. She was lying on her back, looking up at a featureless, white ceiling. As she tried to move her arms, her attempts at motion were brought to an abrupt halt by a thick restraining strap, holding her arms and legs to the surface she was lying on. That was when the first stirrings of panic began. Hesitantly, she raised her as much as she could, which was a few inches off the surface. Looking around, she found that she was in a cold, impersonal room, with blank concrete walls, painted a light surgical green. Scattered around the room were a number of medical and surgical appliances, and in the far wall, opposite her resting place, was a heavy-looking metal door that appeared very tightly sealed. Turning her attention to the restraints again, she found that they were almost half an inch thick, made of leather supported by strips of Kevlar. All in all, they seemed like overkill.

Distinctly nervous now, she called out tentatively: "Um, excuse me? Is there anyone there? Hello?" Her voice seemed to echo from the wall of the room she was in, serving only to increase her nervousness. Almost panicking, she forced herself to calm down, and try to remember what had happened previously.

All of a sudden, a flood of hazy memories returned, surfacing from her consciousness like the rusted hulks of long-sunk ships, rising to the surface once more.

She remembered heading for the church with the rest of the group, fidgeting nervously. It was the first time she had been armed outside the firing range.

Tension in the group was high, but they weren't unconfident. The perpetrator appeared to be nothing more than a serial killer with a knife, albeit one with a particularly horrific Modus Operandi, and they were all heavily armed, so it shouldn't be a particular challenge. She remembered Jack, one of her fellow police officers, smiling to her as he began to open the church door…

Then they entered the church, and saw…him…

The memories of the next few seconds seemed particularly vivid to Celes, and she shuddered with the memory of the…thing that, dressed like a priest, had slaughtered the entire team, save her.

Afterwards, rising from the corpse of the policeman near her, the creature had noticed her. Before, it had moved so fast she hadn't even had time to take the safety catch off before all her companions were dead, and now, as the creature stood up in front of her, it's blood-soaked features laid out in a horribly human grim, she had only just managed to raise her pistol. As the monster walked slowly towards her, her eyes widened and her grip trembled. She willed her hands to fire, but they wouldn't respond, and then the creature was right up next to her, and with a horrible ease it took the pistol out of her hand, and crushed it like it was made of tin foil.

But the horror wasn't over yet. As she whimpered, trying to draw back from the monstrous being, willing her legs to respond, it reached out and grabbed her.

The next few minutes had been a blur, and she wasn't able to recall much, except for the ever-present stench of death, and an enormous, sudden bang which had knocked her almost to the floor and had caused her captor to snarl in anger. Her last memories were of a man in military fatigues walking towards her, raising his pistol while muttering something under his breath. Then there had been darkness.

Puzzled at these fragments of memory surfacing inside her head, she almost failed to notice a small but insistent sound coming from the door ahead of her. She listened closely, and then realized she was hearing the sound of footsteps, steadily increasing in volume.

Deciding that her best chances lay with inaction, she lowered her head and closed her eyes, willing herself to look unconscious as the door opened ponderously. The footsteps became louder as someone, or perhaps two people, walked into the room. For a moment there was silence, and then one set of footsteps increased in volume, as someone walked towards her. She felt a hand on her lower jaw, tilting her head to one side, and then the other, holding her head with a firm but gentle grip. Then the one who had examined her neck moved away and a conversation started. The first voice to speak seemed to be fairly aged, and spoke with a certain meticulousness, as if trying to arrange the words neatly.

"Well, our patient should hopefully be awakening soon. Our instruments have detected a steady increase in brain activity over the last few hours, and I'd take that as a good sign." The second voice, which obviously belonged to a younger man, seemed somewhat nervous.

"When she does wake up, what're we going to tell her anyway? Will she believe it?" Then the older voice answered, with a certain touch of morbid humour:

"Oh, she'll certainly believe the evidence of her own eyes…"

At this point, Victoria almost wanted to jump of the table and yell: What changes!? What have you done to me? But instead contented herself by opening her eyes slightly.

The two men were across the room, and neither was facing her. The older voice belonged a man wearing a lab coat, mostly bald but with a certain amount of grey hair on his head. At the moment, he was busying himself studying a computer monitor by the far wall. The younger voice belonged to an equally younger man, watching the older one. The younger man wore green, brown and black military fatigues, and had sandy brown hair. He carried a pistol in a holster strapped to his leg. She realized she recognized the uniform; it was the same as the one worn by the man who had shot her. That meant they weren't affiliated with that…thing…

And that was a good sign, wasn't it?

At that point, she resolved to make them aware of her presence. It took her a few moments for her to work up the courage, while the other two, apparently fascinated by some anomaly on the computer display, remained oblivious. Until she spoke.

"E-excuse me?" She asked hesitantly. The effect it had on the other two would have been comical, if it were not for the fact that the situation was so confusing. Both men straightened abruptly, and spun around to face her. The doctor's verbal reaction was contained to a single: "Oh, my." The younger man's reaction was rather more dramatic, and Victoria found herself staring down the barrel of a rather large pistol, before the man seemed to remember himself, and lowered the weapon. The older man turned to his somewhat startled colleague and reprimanded him in a tone that reminded Celes of a stern schoolteacher.

"Now that, Corporal, is the type of gut reaction we were trying to avoid." The soldier muttered something and flashed Celes an apologetic glance. "Well, you've finally woken up, Miss Celes. How do you feel?" The man's urbane tone and friendly manner caught Victoria off guard, and she stammered a moment before she answered:

"I'm…fine…where am I?" The words didn't seem to sound normal, as if she was speaking through a mask, and she had to concentrate to make them understandable. The two men glanced at each other for a fraction of a second, and then the doctor spoke up.

"Miss Celes, we are currently holding you for your own protection, and rest assured we'll get you out of those bonds soon." Victoria blinked. Was this like the witness protection program? Or was she in a mental hospital? Before she could open her mouth to question, the doctor spoke again. "We are currently underground, in an installation owned by a government organisation. That organisation is called Hellsing. Personally, I find the lack of acronyms a relief, but I suppose some of my colleagues would have preferred some obscure acronym. H.E.L.L.S.I.N.G, perhaps…" The doctor seemed to realise he'd gone off the topic at that point, and moved back on with his main explanation: "Hellsing is a highly secret government institution, created officially during the Second World War, though some believe it has it's roots in the period of the Crusades. The organisation was created for the express purpose of exterminating the undead, Vampires, Zombies, Ghouls, and other such monstrosities." Victoria blinked incredulously. Vampires? But vampires didn't exist…the memories came back with the force of a tidal wave, the image of the creature foremost in her mind, the blood-red eyes and long fangs prominent in its cadaverous face…and suddenly, Victoria believed. Completely.

Seeing her apparent distress at his mention of the Undead, the doctor paused a moment, motioning for the medic standing by his side to undo the bonds on her arms and allow her to sit up. He wasn't surprised by the flow of emotions that raced across her face for a moment, to be replaced by blank acceptance. When he was sure she had gathered herself, the doctor continued: "Now, yesterday, you were involved in a raid with the Leicestershire police department, in which your team was massacred, and you were taken prisoner by a vampire. The Vampire then reanimated the corpses of your fallen comrades, possibly to thin out the inevitable Hellsing counterattack. The attack did come, and our team managed to wipe out the Ghouls, and destroy the Vampire. Unfortunately, you were injured badly in the firefight…" Victoria looked up.

"I…I remember that…" The doctor nodded.

"No doubt you do. It's certainly not a situation I would find easy to forget." Still staring at the doctor, she frowned.

"But what happened afterwards? After your man shot me?" At this point, the doctor looked somewhat embarrassed, and turned to the soldier standing nearby.

"Well, when Sergeant Sheppard shot you, the bullet badly damaged your liver, but penetrated the heart of the vampire holding you. The blood loss you suffered sent you into shock, and Corporal Bryans here-" He gestured towards the soldier. "-Performed some emergency first aid and revived you." The soldier didn't seem to register the mild credit he had been accorded, preferring instead to gaze stonily at the wall behind Victoria. Thinking she should award the man at least some thanks, she spoke out.

"T-Thanks, I think…" For some reason, neither the doctor nor the soldier seemed in the least bit slighted by the lack of unqualified praise, and Victoria suddenly suspected there was something that they weren't telling her. For a moment, a horrible thought went through her mind: Had she lost any limbs or organs? No, she reassured herself. Her arms and legs were all present and correct, and she didn't feel any different…Nonetheless, something was wrong, and these two didn't seem likely to vouch any of the details of their own accord, at least for the moment. So Victoria asked, in a slightly quavering voice that she was ashamed of inside: "Is…is there anything wrong with me? I'm not going to die, right?" Her voice almost cracked, and inside she screamed at herself to keep the fear out of her voice. Awkwardly, the doctor cleared his throat, and seemed about to say something when the soldier beat him to it, speaking with stunning bluntness.

"Actually, you're already dead." For a moment, the comment didn't fully register. Victoria Celes simply sat there, gaping at the two men in front of her, not moving a muscle. Then, an incredulous 'what?' emerged from her lips, sounding strangely muffled. While her mind whirled, twisting in confusion, and filled with simple denial of what she had just heard, her tongue brushed against something in her mouth. It was a short, sharp fang.

Victoria Celes (1982-2001) screamed.