"Sir Hellsing" The stout man bowed decorously, a slight and indecipherable grin on his face.
"Sir Ferris, welcome" She bowed herself, stiffly as befitted an invalid, rather than one who could bend her limbs into almost any devilish contortion she wished.
"So glad to see you making such a quick recovery from your injuries, after all, none of us getting any younger, eh?"
She nodded slowly, barely suppressing a smile. It was true, but in a way the knight couldn't possibly imagine.
"That's all of us then!" Said Sir Makepeace, shuffling his papers slightly. "Now, we can get to business."
Sir Ferris moved quickly to his seat and sat down, exchanging some small pleasantries with the two knights on either side of him, as Makepeace coughed busily yet ineffectually. When silence had finally been achieved, Makepeace, who, as the royal liaison, was chairing the meeting, looked down at his papers and read out the first article of business. Arms sales to some North African country, Integra paid little attention as Hellsing wasn't involved in this. She let her mind wander to other things, pleasant thoughts of her childhood, of Seras and their unlimited future together. The same for the second article of discussion. To the third article she had to contribute a few occasional interjections, as they were discussing the metropolitan police authority, and that infringed on Hellsing's area of authority at points. It was the fourth article for which she had been waiting.
"Now, Sir Hellsing, article 4, this worrying series of unsolved incidents seemingly relating to some kind of illicit counter-undead activity…"
"You refer to the kidnapping of the Vatican regenerator, the Das Millennium copycat murders and the discovery of the stash of anti-undead weaponry?"
"I do indeed, Sir Integra. What do you make of these…incidents?"
She gave a sigh and carefully folded her notes down on the table.
"To be quite honest, Sir Makepeace, neither I nor the investigation department of my organisation have any idea whatsoever. Every course of investigation we have tried to follow has led us to yet another blank wall. We know someone, possibly American, almost certainly using Americans, kidnapped a regenerator, for what purpose we know not, though we suspect the plan was to extract regenerator blood in a bid to gain immortality. We know someone killed the only two of these mercenaries not disposed of by our agents in a manner that mimicked the way in which the Das Millennium agents known as 'The Valentine Brothers' once disposed of one of MI5's undercover agents, and finally we know that at least one, possibly more clandestine groups have been gathering together undead-hunting materials inside the British isles. That is all. These incidents stand separate and isolated. FREAK targets captured by our agents and bought in for inquisition have, as normal, revealed nothing and been added to our extensive collection of remains. And that's all I have gentlemen. No new leads, no new facts. A few of my intelligence officers have come up with plausible theories, all wildly differing of course, and all based purely on circumstantial information. Nothing solid."
She paused, letting her eyes sweep around the knights. The expressions on their faces were calculatedly unreadable, and her mental powers were not powerful enough to pierce those masks of flesh. She did think she could smell something though, a vague wafting of pheromones. What was it…anxiety? Well, no wonder, the knights were cautious men, and well knew the kind of things that could lead on from strange happenings like this. None of them wanted zeppelins in the sky over Big Ben again, she was sure…
"I was hoping, gentlemen" she concluded, "That you might have some more information gathered by your various departments to add to the mystery?"
There was silence. The room was still except for a few nervous glances thrown here and there. Integra tried to follow them…there was something going on here, something she couldn't follow…
Makepeace slowly stood up.
"I think I can make this mystery clear, Integra." He said, in an odd, flat kind of voice. Integra looked at him quizzically as he put his hand into an inside pocket, then drew back startled as he bought forth the deadly black shape of an antique service-issue revolver and pointed it straight at her forehead.
"Sir Makepeace! Have you lost your mind…!?"
"Quiet, Sir Hellsing!" his voice had an icy edge to it now. "Before you die, I think I, we, at least owe you an explanation, so listen carefully. It's the last thing you'll hear before the gunshots."
"Traitor…" she murmured angrily under her breath, fixing him with a deadly glare. Her anger was rising inside her like boiling water, filling her brain with noise and bubbles so she could scarcely hear herself think. She was sure she could see the skin on Makepeace's neck twitch as his blood flowed through the veins and arteries just beneath the surface.
"Sir Murray, are both of Hellsings infernal pets away on mission?"
"Yes, Sir Makepeace. Our agents have created two separate events at opposite ends of the country. By the time either of them can return the rituals will be complete and Arthur Hellsing will control the seals."
"And we will control Arthur Hellsing." Said Makepeace with an air of unassailable certainty, turning back to Integra. "You are a disappointment to the knights, Integra. Don't think we aren't aware of the kind of corners your organisation cuts in its dealing with the undead. Pet vampires were bad enough, but we've also uncovered information of the other activities you have engaged in. Allowing certain undead freedom in exchange for information or co-operation." He slammed his fist down. "That is an unacceptable betrayal of the mission Hellsing was created to fulfil!"
"Makepeace, Hellsing could not hope to destroy every vampire in Britain, let alone the world, even if we had whole armies of troops and all the time in the world. It's a hard enough task merely to silence the newer and more aggressive vampires…"
"Silence, sir Hellsing! Your pathetic excuses mean nothing to me. Your job is not meant to be easy, nor are you meant to fail in such a way. We went to the royal liaisons office of course, but they would hear nothing of it. You are the darling of the Queen, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. They care NOTHING for the protestant ideals and morals this organisation was designed to safeguard!" He spat viciously to one side, and then continued to speak, pulling back the hammer on his revolver with his thumb as he did so.
"You are about to have a relapse, Integra. A blood clot in the brain, an artery suddenly rupturing under the pressure…don't worry, our private doctors will think of something whilst they're busy dressing your corpse for an open-casket funeral. Control of Hellsing will pass to your son by blood, Arthur Hellsing. And Arthur Hellsing will be ours. Your husband Julian has disappeared whilst on a business trip, visiting his mistress truth be told, and he will not be heard from again, I assure you. It looks suspicious, true, but the entire forces of the British intelligence service should be able to work something out. And if anyone in your organisation gets too inquisitive?" He shrugged. "There are plenty of spaces left in Hellsing's graveyard, Sir Hellsing, even once we have erected your glittering, marble clad mausoleum…Goodnight, sir Hellsing."
He fired once. The bullet struck Integra high in the left chest, smashing a rib and driving deep into her lung. Amazingly, however, there was no pain. The lead bullet smashing into her and the splinters of bone being hammered through her organs were little more than a tactile sensation. She looked down amazed, tasting the delicious trickle of immortal blood that was beginning to dribble from her lips.
Another bullet struck her in the forehead, smashing her glasses and throwing the bent frames and shards of bloodstained glass across the table as she was smacked back into her chair. A third smashed into her stomach, knocking her over with a gasp, a smile hitting her lips at the strange tickling sensation of the bullet mangling her intestines. Her hair fell across her face as she hit the table, a veil of crimson and silver as three more bullets struck her in the shoulder, neck and back, emptying the drum on Makepeace' weapon. She slumped, her anger clouded mind attempting to work out how its body had just received so much damage without getting hurt.
"That's her disposed of" She heard Makepeace saying, "Now, you, Sir Blakely, we must retrieve her son and perform the ritual. Use force if necessary, but he must be alive and conscious."
What!? They were going to hurt her son!? That was it! Those cursed traitors, those scum, those filthy, verminous mortal filth, had shot her, broken her glasses, betrayed the queen and now they were going to hurt her son? She let out a low growl of pure rage as she twisted her head, snapping the broken neck vertebrae forcibly back together and rising slowly to her feet, her blurry vision swimming, the taste of her own blood filling her mouth.
She heard a scream of pure terror. Sir Mackenzie. Always a coward. She caught a whiff of human urine mixed in with the delicious smell of blood filling her nostrils, which dilated as she hissed and raised one foot, stepping zombie-like up onto the table as the room was filled with cries of shock and terror.
"Oh dear god!" Screamed someone "She's one of them, a Midian!"
She could see sir Makepeace blurrily, fumbling with something in his hands. His revolver probably, trying to load more bullets. What use? Bullets couldn't hurt her! Nothing these stupid little insects made could hurt her now. She was beyond them, beyond life and death, a beautiful and terrible queen of darkness, and she was going to feast on them all. But him first.
"You traitor" She hissed under her breath "You filthy traitor. You thought you could kill me, didn't you, you arrogant little piece of shit!" She kicked a glass of water into a thousand shards of needling crystal as she stalked across the conference table towards him. "That's what you are Makepeace, and soon I'll be scraping you off my shoes just like I scrape shit off them, right after I drain you dry…"
He clamped the gun back together and fired wildly. Another bullet struck her thigh, causing her to stumble, and two went wild, then the gun clicked empty. She staggered forward, regained her balanced and arched up unnaturally before launching herself the remaining distance across the room, Makepeace's throbbing, stringy throat expanding to fill her entire world as her teeth met in his flesh.
