Fresh Blood
By SSG Michael B. Jackson
Disclaimer: I don't own Hellsing or anything connected with it, though it sure as hell would be fun if I did. I'm writing this purely for my own twisted amusement, and will not make a dime in the process.
August 17th, 2002:
Flashing blue lights, police tape, and, incongruously, light armored vehicles were the sights that greeted SSG Brad Porter as he approached the motel he and his family were staying in. His pulse raced as he saw this, and the bags of take-out Chinese slipped from his grasp, unnoticed, as he took of running for the last hundred meters, dreading what he was terrified he'd find. Right up till that moment, it'd been a great vacation.
Brad Porter had finally managed to set all of his ducks in a row back at his duty station in Schweinfurt, Germany, allowing one of his junior NCO's to 'take the reigns' for a couple of weeks while he burned off some use/loose leave time, and he'd made the most of it, at least from his point of view. After spending the first week just relaxing around the house and catching up on some family time, he'd packed up the wife and three kids and headed for England, a trip they'd been planning for some time.
Oh, sure, it had been a hell of a drive, across Germany, Belgium, and a tiny sliver of France, all in the first day. Especially with the year-and-a-half-old screaming her little lungs out, and the older brother and sister bored after the first hundred miles. But it hadn't been that bad. Both Brad and his wife, Anja, loved to travel, and were used to doing it with kids. And both loved to see the countryside gradually change around them as they drove, taking in the new sights avidly.
The ferry ride from Calais to Dover had been especially exciting, as none of them had ever traveled that far over water, nor in a ship quite that large, and the children had a wonderful time. Once on the other side, of course, actually finding the tiny bed and breakfast they'd reserved a room in via Internet proved to be a bit of a chore, but the place itself had turned out to be well worth the irritation. And the next day had taken them to London.
That too had been a little frustrating. While Brad had experience driving in large cities, New York, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Frankfurt, and Nuernberg, to name just a few, London proved to be perhaps the most challenging he'd ever encountered. He wasn't sure if it was the volume of traffic, the awkwardness of driving in the left lane, or just the sheer lack of sense in the city's layout, but after an hour or so of wandering aimlessly, he'd been ready to scream. Luckily, he'd stumbled onto a reprieve eventually.
Taking one of the M's north, eventually they'd found a decent motel in a suburb nearly twenty miles from the city center, but still on the Underground line. Mercifully, they'd stopped for the day, planning to just relax for a while, and take the Tube in for some sight seeing in the morning. Naturally, food had been an issue, so Brad had volunteered to scout around for some take-out while Anja, three months pregnant and exhausted, was happy to stay behind with the kids. And that was where everything had gone horribly wrong.
As Brad came sprinting up to the cordon line, fully intending to barrel on through, he was stopped by a burly police officer in blue fatigues and tactical load bearing gear. "Here, now, sir! Afraid I can't let you through; got a situation going on in there and all."
"You don't understand!" Brad yelled fiercely. "My family's in there, for Christ's sake!"
The officer just shook his head regretfully, and said, "Sorry, but I still can't let you in. It's just not safe yet, sir."
"Son of a bitch!" Brad exclaimed. "Look, I'm a goddamn cop too! I'm a friggin' M.P. with the American Army! I understand where you're coming from, but you've gotta at least tell me what the hell's going on! I've got a pregnant wife and three kids in there!"
A pained look crossed the policeman's face, and finally, with a sigh he said, "We're not exactly sure, sir. We were just told to secure a perimeter around the motel complex while a group of 'specialists' dealt with whatever the problem inside is. It must be terrorists or some such, though, with the firepower these blokes are packing."
As if to emphasize this point, the sound of automatic fire suddenly broke out inside, coming from all too near the room Brad and his family had rented. Punctuating this were a number of screams, both masculine and feminine, and a few that sounded like the screams of children.
Brad surged forward at this, heedless now of the D-11 officer who made a grab for him as he broke through the police tape. Unwilling to be stopped, he sidestepped as the officer reached for him. Grabbing and taking control of both wrist and elbow, Brad pivoted sharply, using the officer's own momentum against him. Yanked off balance, the policeman was thrown forward, and landed hard on the pavement, his face taking up a large part of the impact. But Brad didn't take any time to survey the results; he just sprinted for the room that he fervently hoped still sheltered his wife and children.
As soon as he got close, though, Brad felt the bottom drop right out of his stomach as his worst fears were confirmed. The door of his family's room gaped open, smashed, and four men in olive drab fatigues and full-battle-rattle crouched warily in security positions on either side, SA-80's at a low ready.
Brad skidded to a halt as two of the soldiers drew down on him, and raised his hands to signal his non-hostile intentions. As chance would have it, he found himself to be in a perfect position to see through the doorway into the room beyond, at least until the soldiers got around to ordering him away and put him facedown on the ground, as he knew they would. But before this could happen, several things occurred very quickly inside the room.
Near the door, Brad could see two more of the soldiers, kneeling with weapons aimed inward. Between these two stood a young, blonde-haired woman in civilian clothes, wielding a moderate-sized pistol that was also aimed toward the back of the room. And there, near the sink by the bathroom door, stood a very pale, dark-haired man. In one hand, he brandished a MAC-10 SMG, aimed menacingly at the two soldiers and the woman, and in the other...
The pale man's other arm was wrapped around Brad's ten-year-old daughter Janin, pinning her arms to her sides and holding her up high in front of him, blocking his enemies' line of fire. Brad's blood both boiled and froze in his veins as he saw this, and he couldn't help but notice that Janin looked to be no more than semi-conscious, her shirt soaked with blood that appeared to have run down from her neck. Worse, however, was what he saw at the pale man's feet.
Heaped there were three bodies, one of them small and one of them heart-rendingly tiny. Fighting back a primal scream, Brad realized that these were what was left of his wife, son, and baby daughter, torn, broken, bloody, and obviously lifeless. As this sight burned itself onto his brain, he felt something snap inside him, and he knew that, no matter what orders the soldiers were about to give him, he wasn't going to comply. At that moment, he didn't care if they shot him as he stormed past. He only knew that, somehow, he was going to make it into that room and that he was going to rip the pale man's heart our with his bare hands when he did. But again, events inside pre-empted this.
With a muttered, "I'm sorry," the blonde woman suddenly squeezed off two rounds at the pale man. One struck him dead center in the forehead, the other center mass in the chest. Unfortunately, both rounds had to pass through Janin in order to hit their marks, punching through her skull and abdomen in the process and killing her instantly.
As Brad screamed, "NO!" and sprinted for the door, his homicidal intent suddenly transferred from the pale man to the apparently psychotic young woman, a distant part of him registered something decidedly odd. As the pale man screamed and crumpled toward the floor, Janin's body still cradled in his arms, his own body suddenly just came apart. It disintegrated into a shower of ash that cascaded over all three of the bodies at his feet, as well as Janin's. But in the state of mind he was in, Brad hardly noticed this, and it made no impression on him.
"You fucking crazy bitch!" He screamed at the top of his lungs as he charged toward the door, heedless of the four armed men who guarded it. "I'll fucking kill you!"
The blonde woman whirled around at this, weapon swinging to cover Brad as he ran toward her, and, again in some distant part of his awareness, he was faintly shocked to see that tears rolled freely down her cheeks. Regardless, Brad had no intention of stopping until he'd either gotten his hands around her throat and throttled the life from her, or his own body was too riddled with bullets to go on.
But for whatever reason, the woman suddenly yelled out to the soldiers, "Don't shoot! He's unarmed! Just grab him!"
And, as he came barreling through the doorway, they did just that. All four standing outside swung their weapons to their backs and hit Brad like a football defensive line, bearing him to the ground and trying desperately to hold him there. For his part, Brad fought like a wild animal, sheer rage and grief affecting him much like PCP. That being the case, even though he was by no means a large man, it eventually took the combined efforts of all six soldiers to subdue and eventually restrain him with flexi-cuffs. And even then, hog-tied, bound hand and foot, he continued to scream and rage.
"Goddamn you all!" He yelled. "What the fuck kind of bastards are you?! Who the fuck ever taught you sorry sons of bitches to take out a hostage to get to a perp?! A little girl for fuck's sake!" And then, lapsing into sobs, he finished brokenly, "MY little girl!"
Though he didn't notice at first, as his tirade continued, the woman, who'd been standing silently, listening, had begun to sob herself. Finally, in a voice raw with anguish, she screamed, "Bloody hell! Do you think I WANTED to do that?! Do you think if there was any other way, any other way at all, I wouldn't have at least tried?!" And then, shaking her head, wiping tears from her eyes, she finished in a low voice, "It was just too damn late. The bastard had already bitten her. A quick, painless death was the best I could do for her after that. And believe me, it's a lot better than the alternative."
An icy, almost unnatural calm descended upon Brad at her words. Somewhere inside himself, he continued to scream, and knew that he probably would never stop. But on the surface, shock, denial, and cold rage come together to create a deceptively placid façade. He realized then that it was quite likely his sanity had just snapped, but he registered it only as a cold fact. After all, what difference did it really make now? In his opinion, his sanity was the least of the things he'd just lost.
"Really," he finally said in a cold, dead voice. "Why don't you just explain that one to me, lady. And while you're at it, why don't you tell me what the FUCK was up with the son of a bitch who killed my family? I've seen some shit before, but never a bastard who crumbles to dust when you blow his goddamn brains out. An explanation is the very fucking least you owe me right now, - Hell, I don't even know your name."
"It's Seras," she said in a small, subdued voice. "Seras Victoria. And- I really can't give you any answers. I'm not authorized. But for what it's worth- I am sorry. So very sorry."
Brad's mouth compressed into a hard line, and he said, "Well, Seras, 'sorry' just isn't good enough. FUCK sorry! I want to know WHY! And by God, if you can't tell me, then you'd better point me toward somebody who can!"
She sighed, and said, "I'm afraid I can't do that either. I'm going to have to turn you over to the police, and let them sort this out. They'll have some questions anyway, and then-"
"Yeah, I damn well know what comes then." Brad interrupted. "Like I told that cop on the perimeter, I'm a goddamn cop too. A military cop. And yeah, I can see where the hell this is going. Probably a few charges for forcing my way onto this scene, assaulting that officer in the process, a bunch of stupid fucking questions about my family and what we were doing here, and, at the end of it all, some time in the local nut house until the Army can arrange a transfer to Landstuhl Hospital for me. But that's fine, lady. I can weather all that out. And then I'll be back." Then, looking at the insignia on each soldier's left breast, he said, "Hellsing, huh? Can't say I've ever heard that name before, so I guess you guys are spooks of some kind. Doesn't matter. And here's something to think about. My wife and kids were all German citizens. The German government's going to be really interested in finding out what happened to them, and why one of them was MURDERED by someone I assume is an agent of the British Crown. They were all U.S. military dependents too, and that's going to raise a stink, especially by the time I've called every damn congressman and representative I can find."
After a pause, Brad continued. "Now, I'm not so naïve as to think you can't shut me up one way or another, and I'm equally sure you can spin doctor yourselves out of anything the Germans or the military stirs up. But all I want are some damned answers. Wouldn't it be a hell of a lot easier in the long run to just let me talk to somebody in charge? After all this shit, aren't I at least entitled to that much?"
Seras seemed to mull this over for a long time, and then, with a heavy sigh said, "God. I suppose so. She'll probably kill me for this but-" And then, addressing the soldiers, she said, "Bring him on out. I'll talk to the commander about this, but I expect he'll see it my way, so you might as well load him up in one of the troop carriers. And blindfold him while you're at it. Can't have him peaking at anything he shouldn't see."
Reluctantly, the troops obeyed, and Brad soon found himself inside one of the armored vehicles he'd seen on the way in. As the blindfold was tied securely in place, he heard the back hatch bang shut, and someone sat down next to him.
"Well, you've got your wish," said a voice he recognized as belonging to Seras. "The commander wasn't especially happy about this, but he at least agreed to call and check."
"And?" Brad said flatly.
"And," Seras replied slowly, "Sir Integra has agreed to see you."
Well, I think that's a wrap for chapter one. I'd appreciate any reviews, positive or negative, and would like to know if anyone thinks this is worth going on with. Also, YES this is an author avatar (Brad is just me with the serial numbers filed off), but I don't plan on letting it become a 'Gary Stu'. I just had this weird damn idea, and had to slap it onto digits to get it out of my head. Oh, and I do have a direction I'm planning on taking this. It'll just take a couple of chapters to get there.
