Chapter 14
A man walked threw the silent hallways of long sense vacant castle, his footfalls being the only thing disturbing the otherwise perfect silence. All about him was neglect and decay, paintings that once proudly showed works of art hung in rags, the material that they were painted on ripped apart, suits of armor were rusted solid or pieces were missing. Every now and then he would come across collapsed walls, or the many works of art in the form of stained glass that once sparkled and gave color to the castle he would find shattered on the floor.
A cold wind blew threw the once great castle forcing him to pull his black cloak trimmed with veins of silver closer to him as he continued to walk the hallway to the throne room. "So much for a homecoming, why did I even come back here?" the man silently said to himself.
Finally he reached a pair of giant heavy oak doors and with one strong push attempted to open the ancient door. The door didn't move an inch. Pulling his cloak off he set it aside along with his weapons. Focusing he felt his arms being engulfed in flame as he pushed on the doors. The fire eagerly bit down on the dry wood and covered the entire door. Within minutes the fire consumed the entire door leaving nothing but ash and smoldering ambers. Pulling his cloak back on and placing his weapons back to their places he continued his walk into the throne room.
DS/
An elder man ran wildly after another, his mouth open in anticipation. The man he was after was a would be vampire hunter, but he had quickly showed him the error of his ways and now grew hungry. In his mind he fought the thrill of the hunt and the disgust that he was now forced to resort to go after his own food just outside of his old castle. He was almost on top of his prey now; he could here the frantic heartbeat of the hunter. He reached out and grazed his arm, causing the man to scream in fear.
DS/
The man in the black and silver cloak looked down at his father and mother's thrones. How long had it been? Fifty, a hundred years sense he last walked these hallways, played with the other children of his "kind", fell in love for the first time? That was why he had come back, his love. He had wanted to find out where she was and hoped she was still alive, not knowing where to look he decided to start here, where he had last seen her.
A scream cut threw the silence, one of surprise and fear. Jumping at the sound, pulling out his weapon and brought the staff to a ready. Another scream pierced the air, this time he recognized it came from outside. Entering into a run he quickly jumped threw one of the broken windows and fell to the source.
DS/
The vampire held the blonde man down, his fangs elongated, ready to bite threw the skin and suck the warm blood out of his victim.
"Vampire bastard!" the man shouted and spat into his captors face.
"So, the hunters sent someone they thought they had managed to endow with the power to regenerate? Hah! You're nothing more than a rookie and a failed experiment! Please try again in your next life."
Slowly the vampire began to descend towards the hunter's neck when something above caught his eye.
DS/
As Markus fell he saw the situation, a vampire was holding down a man. Bringing his weapon to the ready he meant to drive it threw the vampires back, killing him as the potion his teacher had given him flowed threw his veins, killing him slowly. Suddenly the vampire looked up and time seemed to stand still when the tip of the weapon was only a few inches from the targets face.
"Father...."
DS/
David awoke with a start, for the past week or so he had been plagued by memories of about the first hundred or so years of his life. The night before was when he had first lost control, another of his first love and the night they had met. Getting up he walked towards the window and looked out at the sunset and felt a rush of anticipation for some reason.
"The rest of the family should be getting up soon." David mumbled to himself. Taking one last look at the colors being painted in the sky he turned and headed towards his personal shower.
DS/
"We have confirmed reports of a vampire and freak attack happening in Stonehenge. The group seems to be turning all around the structure either into ghouls or just feeding on them." Integra said to the mixed group of he own hunters and those from the American Section 80.
"What are freaks?" David inquired. Suddenly all eyes were on him, as if he asked the dumbest of questions for their line of work.
"The freaks are humans that have received a type of bio chip that alters there bodies and turns them into make shift vampires, from what we have seen, they lack the powers to change shape, turn others to vampires, or some of the basic vampire powers, though what makes up for this is the fact that there powers are not affected by the sun." Integra informed him.
David pondered this for a moment then finally gave his answer. "I can't kill them, they are not vampires." He said calmly.
"They have spilt the blood of this house, already turned hundreds if not thousands of innocents into their ghouls and you say you can not kill them? How dare you call yourself a member of Hellsing!" Integra shouted slamming her fist into her desk.
"You forget, Miss Hellsing, that I'm not a member nor wish to be a member of your organization, I'm here to hunt down the bastard's that took my family, it is not up to me to judge a group that decided to become vamp..." David trailed off when he realized the truth.
"Now that you understand maybe you should be part of the team that goes to take out the infestation." Integra said with a smirk on her face.
"No, ill go myself..." with that David turned to leave.
"Just a minute David, perhaps you wouldn't mind the company of Priest?" Jonathan asked as David walked by.
Looking over at the American hunter David secretly wished that the leader of this hunter group had recommenced Laura. Deciding to act indifferent he shrugged and soon the pair departed.
DS/
Priest wasn't the kind to make idol conversation and apparently wasn't David, which suited him just fine. The drive was a good four or five hours and in the old jeep that David had picked it seemed to extend time even further, that is until they reached the city limited and were greeted by open road and country.
"You might want to put on your seatbelt." David said quickly
Priest was about to say something when the vehicle jumped from thirty miles an hour to its max of about eighty; obviously this jeep's engine had been modified. At first the speed didn't bother Priest, he had been in faster modes of transportation before and this didn't bother him, at least until David hit his first sharp turn.
The speed combined with the power of the turn shoved Priest into the side of the car and pressed him to it as the turn was completed and the road returned to being straight. "What the hell!"
"I told you to buckle up, id say you have about five more seconds before we hit the next turn and go off road, then it's going to be fun."
Quickly putting on the seatbelt Priest played the final thing that the crazed drive had said in his mind 'off road, and then it's going to be fun.' "What did you say?" but it was to late, they were already on the dirt.
Driving up the hill they quickly approached the top and went flying into the air, looking out Priest couldn't make out anything on the ground and he wondered how David was even able to see anything.
"Your just as insane as Alucard." Priest said as the jeep slid on its tires before regaining traction and sending the jeep speeding across the hills and fields.
Suddenly Priest felt the edge of a blade at his throat, looking over at David he saw the man still driving at this insane speed with one hand while he held a knife to Priests throat. "First off, if you want to live to see another sunrise you will never compare me to that monster again, like you I hate them all, second get used to my driving." slowly, David took the knife away from Priests throat.
The drive after that was anything but ordinary with David at the wheel. In some instances Priest didn't know that jeeps could perform some of the maneuvers that David was pulling with ease. Finally they saw the outline of Stonehenge on the next hill, as they got closer they saw a large number of people milling about.
"Hey, you know how to work a mini gun?" David asked.
"What?"
"Get in the seat behind you and release the rag top, were not stopping, all of them are vampires, ghouls or these freaks."
"You got to be kidding me." Priest said as he struggled to get into the back seat, throwing a switch the top of the jeep flew off and a mini gun slowly rose up above the driver's head.
"David, is this a Hellsing jeep?"
"No, my own design, why?" David said as they came within firing range of the ghouls and undead on the ground.
"You have to much time on your hands." Priest said as he slammed the release, took aim and began to fire.
DS/
The sound of gunfire and engine sounds attracted the ghouls as the vampires and freaks stayed behind. The ghouls carried a large number of firearms, proof that this wasn't a random raid. Unfortunately the weapons did little to prevent the jeep from running them down or stop the gunner from throwing them to the ground with the high caliber bullets the peppered the mass of undead solders.
After making a few passes around the ancient structure the chain gun finally ran out of its explosive bullets, it was time to mop up what was left of the filth. Quickly leaving the jeep the two armed themselves with their own personal weaponry, David using his bladed staff, Priest pulling a pair of silver and red guns which looked eerily similar to Alcuard's favorite gun, the jackal.
DS/
The freak watched from behind one of the great stone columns as the army of ghouls quickly fell to a single vehicle. Looking back he realized he was alone, as the true vampires had taken their leave either by slipping past him or simply melting into the darkness. He slowly realized he was not long for this world when the sound of the engine cut out and he could here the slow beat of a pair of hearts. Pulling a rapier from its sheath he waited for them to come past him so that he could at least take one to hell with him.
He flinched as he heard the sound of a pair of gunshots going off in the night air.
DS/
Priest had always preferred overkill. That was what had kept him alive all this time. "So what if my work is sloppy, at least I got the job done." That was what he always told Jonathan, and so far no one seemed to care other wise.
Aside from his overkill he was a dead aim shot, as was displayed when he had spotted a ghoul walking aimlessly around the structure, clearly its master had fled leaving it behind. Quickly he fired his guns taking down the undead solder, under his breath he said a prayer for the lost soul.
As the two continued into Stonehenge they quickly noticed that nothing was out of place inside the stone ring. Walking into the ring Priest didn't have any time to react when the freak jumped out and began to thrust a sword for his neck.
DS/
The freak saw their shadows in the moonlight it was now or never. Jumping out he saw two men, one holding a strange staff weapon and the other a pair of magnum looking guns. Making his choice in a split second he went for the one holding the guns, but it was a split second too late.
DS/
David reacted more in instinct than choice, a fellow hunter was in danger and he had the power to stop it. Reaching out with his hand he grabbed the freaks throat intending to hold him there, the force that was behind his arm instead sent him flying into a stone pillar. The artificial vampire clutched at his throat, feeling the deep imprint as he gasped for breath and reeled in shock over the speed of the second intruder.
DS/
The pain of not being able to breath was intense; he knew he was going to be tortured for information about the chip under his skin, so he decided to go out relatively peacefully. Making to snap his fingers to start a fire that would burn him alive he quickly felt a stabbing pain in his wrists, looking down he saw a pair of silver stars had punctured his arms and held them to the stone, some blood began to trickle out and off the stars.
DS/
David quickly realized this one was a coward and would take a cowards death. His suspicions were confirmed when the freak raised his hand to snap his fingers. Quickly David pulled a pair of stars and threw them to their targets, pinning him down.
Walking over the freak began to swear and say profane phrases, none of which fazed either David of Priest. "Tell me what I want to know and ill make your death relativity painless."
"Go to hell" the vampire freak spat back.
"Wrong answer." David said with a calm voice. Taking his staff he stabbed the freaks left leg and made sure the injectors were on full blast, from what his sister had told him, these freaks were immune to silver, but not mercury.
The vampires face went from a defying sneer to slowly realizing what was happening to sheer terror and pain. David finally pulled the staff out and quickly noticed the wound failed to heal, another drawback for the artificial freaks. Looking at his face David could tell the freak was in pain, veins started to pop across his face in a sickly fashion.
"Now, should I do the same to the other? Or are you more compliant now?" David asked, as he leveled a sharp point of the staff for one of the kneecaps.
"Do what you will, I won't talk!" the freak said. David could tell that while he was putting up a good show, he was in immense pain. Any other dunpeal, or mortal would have given up and tried another approach, but David learned long ago not to be idol when it came to making threats.
With a quick thrust the razor sharp point of the staff pierced the clothing, then the skin, muscle and bone and grinded to a halt only when the tip of the staff was greeted by hard stone. The night's peaceful silence was ended by an unearthly scream of pain.
"Well, tell me what I want and the pain will end, all you have to do is tell me what we want to know and you can go free." David promised. "If not, ill have my friend over there retrieve my kit out of the jeep."
DS/
The freak couldn't believe what pain he was in and as he looked down at what remained of his leg he clearly believed that who ever this person was that he was no amateur. The very thought of this man using his "kit" on him was painful enough.
"What do you want to know?"
DS/
Over the course of three hours both David and Priest learned everything the freak knew, locations of chip factories, masterminds, and potential targets for recruitment. One thing however, that caught David's attention was when the freak mentioned something about an alliance between true vampires and the freaks. When he asked the artificial vampire about it he tried to trail off and avoid the question entirely.
A few quick twists to the staff still embedded in the leg convinced the vampire to confess, but to David's dismay, it was information he had already knew about. Their main contact with this vampire group was Aundae, there were a few others around the country but he didn't know their locations as well.
"Well I think that we got everything that we can from this one David, what now?"
Pulling his staff out of the wound he looked down at the poor excuses for a vampire, fake or not. There was one last thing that he knew they could get from him. With lighting fast reflexes David moved his staff in four clean sweeps. A moment later the vampire fell to the ground, while his arms and legs remained stuck to the stone.
Quickly David enflamed his arm and cauterized the wounds that once had been the leg and arm joints.
"What the hell!! You said that you would free me!" the Vampire screamed as David began his work on stopping the bleeding.
"I kept my word, I freed you from your limbs, and from your restraint to that stone, Miss Hellsing would like to see a active freak chip I'm sure." Taking the freak by the shirt now David walked down to the jeep with Priest not that far behind. After securing the disarmed freak to a seat David walked around to the divers seat of the vehicle. He was about to open the door when Priest slammed it shut again.
"What kind of monster are you?" Priest demanded
"He still has information that we need, I kept my word to him, just not the way he wanted." David defended.
"That's not what I meant, have you no compassion? Yes he's the enemy but what you did was far worse!"
David looked calmly at Priest and quickly slammed him down to the ground. Before Priest could react David was mere inches from his face.
"Now you listen to me! I don't care if you have seen more in your time than I have but I know this, we are in a war. Like it or not these monsters that we hunt are here, you and I understand this the most and so do all other Dunpeal!"
Pulling Priest up off the ground David silently turned and entered the jeep.