Integra gasped as she felt Seras' fangs sink into her neck. Whatever she had thought it would feel like, this wasn't it. She had expected pain, or at least some sort of dull ache, but this felt…well, to put it bluntly, she could get used to this. It felt like getting a massage almost, a sort of pleasurable warm hum. She could feel the blood trickling down her skin from the puncture wounds, warm and wet, but it was like a nosebleed. No pain, no…
Then, Seras brought things to the second stage. Withdrawing her fangs for a moment, she bit her lower lip, causing two deep wounds which filled her mouth with her own vampiric blood. Then, she regurgitated some of Integra's blood, allowing the two to mix, before re-inserting her fangs into the wounds and injecting the mixture into Integra.
Integra's eyes widened. She thought she had felt pain. She had been shot, stabbed herself in the neck, damn near raped by an insane vampire at least twice, and numerous other things. Heck, she had just been stabbed within centimetres of her heart and in her gut with a serrated blade. But nothing she had ever felt before hurt so much as Seras' blood entering her veins. She screamed as it burnt through her like fire, flaying through taught muscle, etching down the pathways of her brain like splinters of ice being hammered into her skull. She gasped for air, blood bubbling from her wounds as her heart beat faster and faster. It spread down, along her left arm, across her chest and into her right arm. Her heart felt like a supernova going off in her chest, faster and faster. Her wounds were brilliant lances of pure pain. It reached her abdomen, and she clenched up as it burned through her most sensitive regions. On it crept, down her legs, into her toes, until her whole body was made of pain. Good lord! Shouldn't you black out when you're in this much pain? Her heart was beating faster, faster, every beat like a sledgehammer smashing into her ribs. She saw, through red misted eyes, Seras keeping the Paramedics at bay, a fierce look on her face, emphasised by the trickles of blood that fell from each corner of her mouth.
"No," she heard the vampires voice through a curtain of pain. "Don't go near her. She'll be hungry when she comes to." Then some more, something she couldn't catch. Oh God, this pain, this incessant drumming…
Then her heart stopped. No, she thought, it hasn't worked, I'm dead…
Is there still pain when I'm dead? Maybe I didn't truly believe, maybe this is hell…
No, hell did not have an asphalt floor. She was still alive, still on earth, still breathing…but her heart had stopped.
"My heart…" She said slowly.
Seras kneeled next to her, stroking her forehead.
"Quiet Integra, and, don't fight it. I fought it, and it hurt like hell."
"Fight what…" said Integra, as the pain slackened off into something far worse, an incredible itching, like an army of ants moving to and fro under her very skin. She convulsed, clawing at herself, trying to get rid of the itching. She felt Seras delicate but unbelievably strong hands firmly grasp her wrists, holding her to the floor. She cried out in frustration…this itching!
"I said, don't fight. It comes in the eyes and mouth first, I remember…"
Before she could ask what, she felt it. The itch became stronger, welling up behind her eyes and in her gums and tongue. She screwed up her face, closing her eyes, her jaw agape, gasping.
Seras kept her pinned to the floor, watching, with a confused mixture of horror, excitement, fascination and pity as a single tear of blood welled up in each eye and ran down her face. She smiled at a memory. Of how scared she'd been when she first cried as a vampire. She'd thought she was dying, the same thing she'd thought when she'd had her first period. That was before she had started drinking blood… fifteen years ago now.
So much could happen in fifteen years. They say everything happens in an instant, but think of all the instants in fifteen years…
Integra's eyes opened, and Seras could see the red slowly growing from the pupil, drowning the steely blue forever. She'd wished she could have seen that happen in her own eyes…now she could watch it in another's.
"Stings…" Groaned Integra, struggling feebly as Seras firmly pinned her to the ground, stopping her from clawing at her new, delicate eyes.
"You're not going to like the next bit then." Said Seras, smiling sadly.
Integra was about to ask what on earth the next bit was, but was cut off as she felt her jaw clench…what on earth?
Then, there was the impression that her canines had been hammered through her gums. She screamed, and she felt her tongue push up and through her teeth, longer than it should ever possibly be…she remembered Bubbancy's long, pointed demons tongue and she felt sick. Oh god, what had she done. She was becoming one of them, one of those monsters. What would her father think now, up in heaven…no. He would understand. This was for the good of the family, the good of Hellsing. She could not have left the organisation to collapse in the hands of an idiot and a child. Never!
Hah, how can this be good for Hellsing. To be ruled by a demon? You need your head examining, Integra…
Well, either way, it was too late now. She felt worrying movements inside her, innards shifting, presumably to cope with her new diet. Then the itching left her insides, migrated to the flesh, to the muscles and skin…she realised she was becoming slowly cold. Her breath was no longer misting the air. Oh god. She really was dead, she was a corpse, an infernal undead…oh God! This itching!
Seras actually felt Integra's strength increase as her muscles changed, her arms which had once so casually pinned the injured woman to the floor beginning to strain slightly against the monstrous strength now embodied in Sir Integra's limbs. It was almost complete now. Her flesh was paler, her eyes red, her tongue lengthened, her canines had become fangs. Her whole body was tensed now as the final surge of transformation took place. Seras watched in mute fascination as the innumerable wrinkles and worry lines that had appeared in Sir Integra's face over her time as the leader of the Hellsing institution disappeared. Her wounds, which had stopped leaking blood some time ago, began to close. She winced as the wounds sucked together, as if the flesh was pulled in to some central vacuum. Then, she gave a final convulsion, and was still. Seras released her arms, let the newly born vampire slowly bring her arms up to feel the smooth flesh where so recently there had been bloodied wounds, to trace the new and unfamiliar line of her teeth
She looked up at Seras, saw her blurry face, sitting there, what seemed to be a wistful smile on it…but it was hard to tell…damn, weren't vampires supposed to have incredible senses?
"I can't see well, Seras." She said, weakly. She felt cold all over, and so very, very hungry.
"That's because your glasses have come off, Integra." Said Seras…she wouldn't have been so intimate but…it felt wrong somehow, to call her fledgling by rank, to bow down to someone lower on the order of things…
Oh no, those feelings she had had about Alucard…Integra was feeling them now, about her.
Oh no…this was going to get complicated.
"I…still need glasses? But I thought…"
"You have superior distance and night vision…you just need your glasses to get it."
She retrieved the fallen knights glasses from where they lay, lying close to her. Miraculously, they had not chattered, though a crack ran through one lense..
She gently placed them on Integra's face.
"Thank you, master."
Okay Integra, what the hell did you just say? What the hell did you say? You called her master, didn't you. You called the Police Girl your master!
Well…she is. She made me, she brought me back from death.
But you're her commanding officer damn it.
Seras had expected it. Yes, things were going to get complex.
"I didn't mean... I…"
Seras laid one finger on Integra's lips, and put her arm around her, drawing her up into a half sitting position, back propped on Seras knee.
"Where is it, dammit!?" asked Seras, turning to look at the Paramedics. One of them, the look and smell of fear plastered all over him, handed her a packet of transfusion blood.
"Thanks" she said, turning to her fledgling and leader, blood-soaked and shivering, lying pathetically in her arms.
"Here" she said, tearing the tab from the packet. "You lost a lot of blood. Drink this"
She looked at the blood packet with a look of utter revulsion.
"No, I can't…"
"Drink it!" Seras said in a stern tone.
"But…"
"Remember when I refused to drink, how you chided me for my refusal, my inability to accept my new self? Well, don't show the same weakness. Trust me, it will go easier. Besides, I doubt you could resist at the moment. Even I drank just after I'd been turned."
"Where did Alucard get the blood from…" she asked, in little more than a murmur. Such cold.
"He always has some stashed away for when he gets peckish. The rationing system is a petty human joke as far as he's concerned. Now, drink!"
"I…but…" Seras just held the blood packet closer to her face. Integra could smell it now…it smelled metallic, coppery, yet somehow rich, sweet…it smelled good. Unbelievably good, better than anything she'd ever smelt before…Seras brought the packet closer and closer. She reached up with her hand, intending to push it away… but instead, as she grasped it, she squeezed it, and an arc of crimson sprayed from the hole in the bag to her mouth.
Aha. So that was how they could stand to drink blood. Her pupils dilated as she tasted it. It was better than anything she'd ever tasted before, a flavour finer than the finest champagne, and she wanted more…
Her mouth lashed forwards and her fangs met in the bag, dribbling blood down her chin and across her upper lip. She sucked greedily, slurping the carmine fluid down in just a few seconds. Then she leant back, gasping for air, as she felt the warmth flush through her body…
Damn, if this was what cold blood from a packet, laced with anticoagulation chemicals tasted like, imagine what warm blood from a human…
No. Don't. Never, ever, imagine that again.
She suddenly felt sympathy for Seras, for what she'd been going through all these years. So this was why they called vampirism a curse.
Oh shit, Integra, what have you let yourself in for?
Hunger.
"I want some more…" she said, slowly. "Please". She looked imploringly into Seras eyes.
Wow, thought Seras, reaching down to brush a strand of bloodied hair from Integra's eye, and I thought my personality changed fast. Good grief, Integra had hardly been a vampire for five minutes…but, of course her personality was different. She was not only a vampire, but a hungry fledgling vampire, and Seras was her master. She remembered how strong that feeling was, the master-servant relationship, the terrible weighty bond of love, respect and obedience that hurt so much when it was severed. She had, in the space of ten minutes, become everything to Integra: mother, older sister, nanny and teacher combined.
Bloody hell…I'm actually younger than her.
But not now. Vampirism was a rebirth. This was Integra's new birthday, and she was zero years old, nothing, whilst Seras had sixteen years of nights under her belt.
Seras smiled and nodded. Then she turned, her face hardening.
"Get me another packet." She growled at a medic. "Wait!" she said, as the man turned. "Just get it ready in the ambulance. Actually, get two, I gave her quite a bit of my blood. If possible, make sure one's B positive. Prepare the ambulance for one stretcher case, and for all that's good, keep those bloody troops away."
That was the number one concern now. She had to get Integra back to Hellsing without alerting the troops to her transformation. She had been injured, she was ill. That would cover the first few awkward weeks of adjustment.
She stood slowly, bringing Integra up with her. The blonde haired woman took one shuddering step and fell, only to be caught by Seras.
"Come on…I'll carry you."
"Thank you…"
She hauled Integra up, light as a feather, and lay her across her arms, just as Alucard had carried her from Cheddar. Integra groaned slightly and put her arms round Seras neck, causing Seras to hold her more closely as they walked to the Ambulance.
"What have I done, Seras?"
