Drowning in Darkness.
By: Lazeralk.
Standard disclaimers apply.
In the name of God, impure souls of the living dead shall be banished into eternal damnation. Amen.
Part 13
To all my reviewers, I love you. I really do, this fic is written in your honor. Today is my birthday and I thought I'd celebrate by putting up a new chapter. I'm horribly sick so I have nothing better to do anyway. My muse says she likes macadamia nuts in her cookies.
0o0o0
Malikai was quite pleased with himself. Alex had left a few minutes ago, promising not to kill him. They still didn't see eye to eye on the vampire issue but at least the paladin was beginning to see more than what he was told.
There is no black and white. There is no good and evil. There is no right and wrong. These were the truths he's come to accept. And now that he could see them, he was determined to live by them. Vampires were not all evil. Arucard was not evil. Seras was not evil.
Seras. The name tightened his chest with something between love and lust, he wanted her, needed her. He would like to think that it was moral philosophy that made him betray his church but that was a lie. A lie to Alex and a lie to himself. He was loyal to Hellsing for her sake, for Seras.
He ran a tired hand through his hair and went to find her, maybe he'd tell her he was in love with her, maybe he'd just stare at her like an idiot, who knew? Hopefully she wouldn't still be mad at him for telling her she had to die. That was not one of his more tactful moments. Although, he had just been backhanded into a wall, that'd make anyone a little grumpy.
He spotted Walter as he walked out of his room and flagged him down.
"Do you know where I can find Seras?"
The retainer opened the door he'd just come out of and held it, turning his body to allow the younger man to pass.
"Thank you."
He pushed past him, scanning the rooms other occupants before settling on the little blonde in the corner trying not to cry. She'd been standing perfectly still, trying to look small and harmless and not draw attention to herself.
"Seras?" he called timidly. Arucard stood up, making the legs of the chair he'd been sitting in screech across the floor. His power rolled off him in waves, blood red eyes coating the shadows his upper body had become.
"Malikai?" answered Seras, looking fearfully at her master. The elder vampire flinched at her words or maybe something he couldn't see and pulled his power back into himself. He sat stiffly, turning his back on the two and speaking in hushed tones to the woman sitting across from him.
She had long black hair, loose around her shoulders and trailing to the small of her back. He'd heard things about her, wild stories about immortality and serial murderers. She didn't turn her face to look at him.
He went to Seras, and took her hands in hers, folding his large fingers around her small ones and leading her gently to the door.
"Can I talk to you?" he whispered, she nodded dumbly and glanced at the ridged red back of her incensed master.
He ignored her.
They walked out of the room, hand in hand and Malikai was in heaven. He walked her down the hall to the main corridors of the building and out onto the veranda.
"Seras." He said, sitting her down on one of the chairs and smiling.
"I have some thing important to tell you."
0o0o0
The walls were stone. All the old ones had stone walls, it was just something they did, and no one ever questioned it. The torches in their rusted iron holders were real and burned with bright flame.
A long blood red carpet covered the stone floors and led the way in to and out of all the chambers and corridors. Feet followed the carpet, silent feet in soft leather boots, brushing against a thick velvet cloak.
"Mistress." Whispered a voice in the darkness.
"Seron." She replied.
"They know my Mistress. They will come for you." He said, moving out of the shadows to face his mistress. His hair was a deep scarlet, falling to his waist in a straight, fine curtain. His skin was pale; his eyes gleamed like emeralds, a green too impossibly green to be human. Large golden ankhs dangled from his ears.
"I know that. My master has already informed me. Go find Aramore and Meriquoi, then go to the throne room." She instructed.
"As you wish my Lady."
His voice fell like a caress on the air and then he was gone. She stared at the spot where he had stood only moments before and continued her trek to the throne room.
0o0o0
Integra looked up as Walter entered her office. He set a large stack of folders and a burned CD on her desk and gave her a small smile.
"This is everything we have on Mauve's cult. It includes their history and a blue print of the castle their using as a base of operations. Shall I take it down to Arucard?"
"No, I'll do it myself. Where is he anyway?" She asked, any excuse to see Arucard would do, not that she'd ever tell him that.
"My bedroom."
Integra arched an eyebrow.
"For the computer."
"I see. Thank you Walter."
She strode out of her office and down into the lower levels where Walter's rooms were located. She pushed open the door and found her vampire seated around the table with Shadow. They'd moved the computer from the small desk near the wall to where all of them could sit comfortably.
Arucard leaned back in his chair, using a knife to pick his teeth of some nonexistent scraps of food he hadn't eaten for two thousand years. Shadow resisted the urge to take the knife away from him.
They both looked up as she entered the room, cradling several files and a CD case.
"Here's everything. Get to work." She said, setting the files down. She gave them a cursory look before turning on her heel and leaving. She shut the door and continued walking yelling mentally at herself as she went.
She took any opportunity to see him but when she did see him she froze up and had to get away as quickly as possible. It didn't make any sense, she loved him didn't she?
0o0o0
Aramore was obscenely tall and thin, built like a basketball player with long limbs. His hair was snowy white that fell in a frothy mass to his shoulder blades. The smile on his face was enough to make even the most modest woman blush, the look in his eyes said he was thinking wicked thoughts.
Meriquoi was almost his exact opposite. He was tall, but not overly so with a sleek body lined with hard muscle. His shirt was white and did nothing to hide the bulges in his upper body and arms. His hair was cerulean blue, and tapered off at about knee length. His face was calm, and serene, as if nothing in the world mattered to him at all.
Seron was there as well, hiding behind his thick red hair, his earrings glinting in the firelight. They stood before the throne; Lady Mauve perched on its arm. In the throne itself sat a monster.
"The three of you are to hunt together. Seron, you will be charged with the duty of destroying the Vampire Arucard. Meriquoi, the Shadow Walker is yours, and Aramore, the child vampire Seras Victoria will be your target. Seron is in command of this mission."
The three bowed, their long hair sweeping the stone floor with its red carpets. They turned and left to gather their weapons.
Mauve turned to her master, her lover and stroked her pale hand down his hair. He was the only demon she knew of that could look so human. She watched the light play over the lines of his face and her ruby eyes glowed with insane love.
0o0o0
"So then, we're storming the castle? What fun!" cackled Arucard happily as he dug through the files.
"Does it matter? I don't care either way as long as they're dead." Said Shadow as she read from a neat stack of files to her right.
"Blood? Coffee?" Asked Walter who was being beyond tolerant of them using his room as a study hall.
"Sure." said Arucard.
"No thank you Walter, I can get my own." Said Shadow sticking her hand into a shadow gate and pulling out a streaming cup of her favorite human drink, spiced cider.
Walter bobbed his head and went to fetch a refreshment for the vampire.
0o0o0
"What is it Malikai?" asked Seras, now much more calm. He nerves ran high to frizzing when she was in her master's presence. She felt so horrible after attacking him. What kind of fledgling attacks their master?
"Seras, look at me will you?" said Malikai as he knelt before her and lifted her chin with gentle fingers.
She raised her garnet eyes to meet his green ones and nearly cried. His eyes were filled with so much kindness, so much forgiveness. She reached up to him and wrapped her tiny arms around his neck and was engulfed in his arms.
"I love you Seras." He whispered to her ear.
She pulled back, looking at him with a question in her eyes. She searched his face and seemed to like what she found there because she smiled and softly brushed her lips against his.
"I love you too Malikai." She whispered.
He smiled and kissed her for real.
0o0o0
Aramore met Seron in the hall outside his door, all dressed in his tight pants and a scrap of cloth that may have began life as a shirt. Now it barely covered anything, showing off the planes of his chest.
"You're such a slut Aramore." Said Seron. His pants were loose and burning red with black trim to match his black vinyl shirt. He'd tied his hair back, leaving his face clean and handsome.
Aramore looked like a male prostitute, and was probably just that in his free time. Seron didn't really want to know if he was or not though. The white haired man leaned on the blade of his scythe, Black Siphon, and gave the other man a sultry smile. He flirted with anything that moved.
Seron rolled his eyes and gestured for the other to follow.
"Oh, lead on tall, dark and stud-ly!" said Aramore, putting away his scythe with a casual flick of his wrist and locking his eyes on the redhead's butt as it moved down the hall.
They met Meriquoi on the way; the hydrokinetic was still slipping his long sword in its sheath across the small of his back. He looked up as they came towards him but said nothing.
"Hey Mear-ri." Said Aramore, his eyes raking hungrily down the other man's body.
"Ahram. Sear."
Aramore, Ahram for short drew a hand through his snowy hair and blew the water sprite a kiss.
"Lets go guys. We don't have all day." Said Seron.
0o0o0
Allen, still quite drunk, was having another 'shot' of demon energy from the Deep. By now he was amusing himself by watching the lovely laser show that someone had kindly provided for him while riding the merry-go-round he'd just happened upon. People around here sure were nice.
Distantly he heard a scream but didn't pay much attention to it; after all it was only his mother.
0o0o0
Arucard sat bolt upright, the knife in his mouth clattering on the floor as it was flung away. He'd kept the link to his child open in case of any trouble and was getting bored of wave after wave of depression that he was constantly being hit with. Then that human, that putrescent ball of slime that dared to even exist in the same century as his child was putting his filthy mouth all over her!
The nerve of the insufferable little ingrate! He'd rip the boy limb from limb and see if the pieces could crawl! He'd nail the bastard in a coffin and make good on his threat! He'd! He'd…..loose his baby girl.
He'd stormed out of the room and found them on the porch, kissing. He just watched them for a moment and felt all her anger and sadness and despair vanish at the touch of his lips. He felt happiness and security well up inside her and he backed into the shadows. He swallowed and turned away, shutting the link between them as tightly as he could and retreating through the walls to his own room.
He sighed and sat heavily on his floor, legs straight out before him. He pulled out his gun and the normal bullets and switched the clips as he remembered his earlier promise to shoot himself if he ever saw them kiss.
"Please let me forget that." He begged of his gun before bringing it to his temple and resting the gun there. He waited, not really sure of his hesitation before tossing the weapon aside and curling up on his bed.
He wasn't in the mood to blow his head off tonight. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but the image of his child and her human kept coming back to him and he opened his link a tiny bit. He felt her contentment and her happiness, and heard her murmur those words to him over and over and he knew he had to let her go.
0o0o0
End part 13
