Rating: PG-13
Author notes: the wonderful, wonderful and very talented Rae00 has done me the honour of depicting a TWA scene, namely the sight of Alucard as Kester first sees him. I'd like to yet again convey my immense gratitude and all in all awe at the loveling's might. If you want to see the picture (and please do leave a comment to her if you do), just remove the extra spaces from the following and access the linkie:
http:www. deviantart. com/ deviation/ 13426391
August the 14th , 1994 –
Present article discovered in a considerably poor state – suggested verifications ended in a clear reconstitution of the urgently required fragments from the deteriorated pages.
Further notes: Remaining pages are placed in the Hellsing library for further study. This is the only known exemplary.
Integral Hellsing
Christopher Hadrian Hellsing,
On Tea and Conversations
"He looks like a pimp."
"I'm afraid I'll have to concur. That just isn't his colour."
"Mhmmm."
"Alucard, might we see you in red?"
"Quite so, and – vampire, are you trying to stake yourself?"
"Do stop. Blood stains are killers on these carpets. Besides, you look fetching in red, but this moulding suit makes you a mite too round."
"How droll - I thought black was a slimming colour?"
"Could be the heavy silver collar and matching leash."
"True. Could have done without those."
"Or perhaps it's the straps and handcuffs?"
"Definite faux pas."
"Kester, what do you think?"
"Uch…"
"Director Erlich? This is Christopher Hellsing. I do apologize for the inconvenience, but I have been told that the Academy of Medicine and Biological Studies of Vienna was last to have hosted my father, the late Abraham Hellsing
Coarse voice, anxious tone, the bearings of an honest man who's always in haste. "I know. And remember. It's why I answered your queiry last time as well. " Last time? "Abraham and I were quite close. He was an extraordinary man... such a shame… My condolences."
"Thank you, but it's not reminiscing that which I called for, sadly, but –"
"God... Is this about what happened last night? We had nothing to do it. I tell you, he'd had that pack of letters in his house for ages, he always took them with him, the Academy can't be blamed that the entire house got raided yesterday! Listen, Christopher, your father always said you were a sensible man, surely you can see how though everyone seems to think we were madly envious of his studies, we would never have gone as far as robbing a deceased's house! Besides, we mailed all his studies to you, and what could we have done with his correspondence? The papers are all just mad, mad, and there's just someone who wants to cause trouble, it's because of these latest articles we've been publishing, they all want to defame us just for daring to say the truth about certain things -"
Surprise on my part.
"I fear I've no knowledge as to what you're referring to… Actually, what I wanted was to ask that you please deliver me the results of his post-mortem examinations and all adjacent studies."
A pause.
"How dare you?"
"Pardon?"
"How dare you! I don't know who you are, but how dare you pretend to be that poor boy? Christopher Hellsing wrote to us from Rome and asked for those files, and he had the Church's permission! Who are you? What do you want? How dare you try to pretend—oh damn you, what do you want? Are you from some journal? I tell you, the Academy had nothing to do with the theft of those letters, stop pestering us! And that man, that poor man, mocking the predicament of his son by pretending to – the press has no shame! I'll see you in court for that man's sufferance if ever shall I find who you are! You should pay, you people're of such an insolence"
I slammed the phone back on its knob most unceremoniously, ending what'd likely be a very expensive conversation to Vienna.
I had never exchanged various milieus throughout my life, but the kindest thing I could conceive to say of London's sewers was that they had fortunately not been among them. Joy of all joys, a first for everything.
I had only allowed Alucard to come with me. As a former commander of what the legends claimed to have been huge armies as well as his better realization of the vampiric nature made him indispensable; and as someone who had not even served in the army, I was at a loss when it came down to hand picking our troops.
With an hour at my disposal for such affairs – there was still my London residence to see to, as well as certain appointments with a few clients and several shady figures who'd made valiant promises of producing me the sort of weaponry and ammunition that a faction of Hellsing's magnitude must have need of. But Boleyn had orchestrated the entire display masterfully, men grouped by the dozen, coming down as others left at regular intervals. Once this was done, they all gathered down, offering us the possibility of a final look.
No words were said on what Boleyn had told them to make them come. His uneven smile spoke clearly of just promiscuous that had been. I couldn't make up my mind. They all seemed the same to me, though Boleyn often commented on this man's athletic figure, or the other's great speed. Even now he was praising his own merchandise. "Simon here, for instance, has wonderful stamina."
Alucard had been glaring at them intently, and I hoped that at least he would provide us with a suitable assortment, once all was said and done.
"What do you make of them?"
"Green boys, the entire lot. If you left them to their devices, they'd still be sucking at their mother's tits."
An insolent smile on the sun-burnt lips of a bearded fellow from the first row. "Mate, I'd suck you for this pay."
Alucard grimaced dangerously. "Can't I go first?" And then he moved closer…
Among his peers, the bearded man was known as "Grandpa", because he had a few white strands in spite of his young age.
They say a huge shock will transfigure one's hair from its true colour to that of the craven.
"I'll be damned," said Boleyn at my right, sardonic smile still frozen on those thin lips, as he calmly wiped off the faintest drops of blood that his nearness to the first row had inflicted on his tie. I didn't flinch as Alucard made "Grandpa" earn his name.
"Who was the man with the wonderful stamina, Lord Boleyn?" My tone was colder than I had meant it, but it seemed somehow… fitting. "He's hired as long as he can carry our gentleman here to our motor." His recklessness had insured his employment, but I doubted Grandpa could still walk on his own.
I could have told Alucard to desist as soon as the intention had taken shape, forming from his thoughts, but I didn't. Fear brings with it respect.
And they would never have respected us if I'd stopped him.
"Alucard, round up thirty of what you can make as the finest of the lot—"
"Worthless trash, all of them."
"Make do."
He laughed, "One week, and I'll have them trembling at my sight."
"Look around you, ser. It only took those twenty-one seconds." Boleyn chuckled lowly, and then signalled for me to join him outside, in the open air, where I could finally put my lungs to their intended use. Too much dust, dirt. I hadn't even apprehended their true toll on me during my stay, but there was this difference that had suddenly made itself apparent.
"So, Hellsing… what is this all about?"
"Nothing, really. Just seeing to the British unemployment issue. How kind of me, wouldn't you say?"
"Thirty men. Isn't that a bit too much?"
"Don't worry, I have sufficient train tickets." I was pressing them in his hands far before he could even say he had no need to see them. "That was never called into question."
"Oh good." I snatched them back, and then corrected the line of my tie and collar with the sort of dedication that might have implied my life pretty much depended on the action. "After all, Lord Boleyn, I wouldn't want to think you were meddling in my innocent affairs."
"Innocent? I'd be a sucker to fall for that."
"Exactly. And we Hellsings don't take to suckers all that well."
"Alucard?"
"Masssssterrr?"
"Never try my patience in this way again."
"Or else?"
"Gwendolyn writes that she'll arrive in four days' time. Lance's apparently been a mite under the weather, and then my father also had to dispose of the governess because she was making a fuss over the boy."
"Uncle Thomas is coming?"
Robert toyed with a cigarette before lighting it. "I don't know. He knows he's best not welcome here, now doesn't he?"
"He can rest here for a few days, if such is his liking," I said slowly, though I supposed he could see reasonably well as to the truth of my enthusiasm.
"Well, we'll see on Friday."
"More Hellsings? Heh. You breed like rabbits don't you? Humpitty-humpy-hump, all day long."
To Alucard, I had made quite an adequate proposal: he was to come and go as he pleased through the entire estate, but was not to make his presence known when endeavouring in any dubious activities, nor was he to slay the animals. This proved to be a mutually satisfactory engagement, because just as he was spared Brother Fiorelli's painful ministrations, so was I the guilt of keeping him locked up constantly. I had left unsaid that Fiorelli himself was beginning to have an increasingly difficult time restraining him with each passing day. I left it unsaid, because he never asked.
My cousin, however, was not as delighted by his sudden materialization in Papa's – my- study. "Have I told you how they first taught me to take aim and then shoot a man in the head when I was of age?"
"Have I told you how I had already impaled my first dozen when I was of age?"
"Alucard, please."
"I'm not your dog, pathetic corpse."
Robert snorted. "Would've been the family's overachiever had you been a dog, surely."
"Enough. It's gratifying to hear that Gwendolyn shall soon grace us with her presence." Although, it was far more within my inquisitive nature to wonder as to how exactly little Lance had turned out. Was he Robert's faithful replica, another memory from a not so distant past? Or maybe he was more like his mother ,with the Welsh blue-blue eyes and the lopsided smile? My one fear I dared not voice.
Alucard gave me a knowledgeable look, and though warned, I could still barely perceive the tendrils of his mental form, probing through my mind. I tried to give the matter no further thought – but what if Lance did resemble Arthur?
"Robert…? Why did you come here? Of course yours is the most accommodating and comforting of the presences I've had to endure, and of course I shall never be able to repay you your devotion and your kindness. But I never wrote to you. I never asked you to come after Papa died, and yet you did. Why?" Had it just been for the Archbishop's letter? I doubted it.
"I…well, you were alone, for a start."
"I've always been alone." That wouldn't do it. And he knew it wouldn't do, so he said, slowly, "And then Father told me I was to come."
The thought of Uncle Thomas being preoccupied over my welfare was mildly unsettling. "Because I was alone?"
"Yes. He didn't think you could handle things as they were. He said I should take care of you and the estate. He didn't want you to sell it. Grandfather was overly fond of it, and apparently so was my Father, and so when Uncle Abraham left if completely unsupervised, and when they were still not allowed to visit…" Why? Well, it can't have been solely for my account. There'd been a great drift between my father and the his brother and his own father for as long as I could remember, but I had never thought their little wars could have taken such magnitude.
"But why listen to Uncle Thomas?" After all, Robert and he had never been too close, especially not after my cousin had relocated his interest from the medical benches to economy. And yet here Uncle Thomas was, accompanying his wife, in constant vigilance over his one son and heir.
"He's my father, Kester. And at one point in his life, he acted like a father should. And I will never forget that."
Robert may have had many failings, but he was as loyal as a dog.
I could almost hear Alucard's smooth laughter, his manipulation of this link so explosively formed between us. Dogs bite the hand that feeds them, or didn't you know?
It won't hurt. Nothing can hurt you now. Nothing can hurt either of us now. Why won't you try it? Chris?
"Kester, my bad on interrupting your lunch, bu- Kester! Oh God, you bastard, what have you done?"
It won't hurt…
"Kester? Kester? Move! Cadwell! Say something – say—Cadwell! Nod your head if you can hear me— CADWELL!"
"Was just…doesn't…"
"CADWELL! COOK! Kester, Kester keep your eyes open—oh God, what have you done!"
Nothing can hurt you now…
"Sir, I heard you-I'll ring Doctor Lewis!"
"Elliott, yes, call Lewis! Kester, don't worry, it'll be all right, it'll be all right… Hurry, man, call anyone!"
"Gracious, my lord! I'll bring warm towels."
"Kester, speak to me, don't close your eyes, just don't.. he's bleeding so badly, Cadwell, hurry up with those towels!"
"Here, sir."
"Kester, put your hand here, put it – wrap it around the other one – Kester, you fool!"
"Was…just…I…it doesn't…hurt…was just…playing…"
Nothing can hurt either of us now…
"Ach!"
"Cook, stop screaming! Bring warm towels!"
"Oh God, sir, is he-"
Why won't you try it?
"I don't know! Kester, don't fall close your eyes, don't! Stop crying, woman, stop crying and help me! No, get that child away!"
"Tim, see yourself out!"
"But, gran, he… the young master, he…he cut his wrists…"
Chris?
"Christopher, your medicine."
I inclined my head wearily, though the pain summoned by even such a simple gesture discouraged me into no further attempts. Doctor Lewis brought the glass to my lips, and I drank the thing greedily. I was certain I had grown feverish. The inside of my mouth was burning, and my tongue would click irritatingly, sticky and heavy, and I couldn't speak.
Doctor Lewis placed the glasses on my nose, and I could see again. I would have wanted to ask whether I would unfortunately have to retain them, but I couldn't. He offered the answer all the same. "Your vision was impaired, as was generally all sensorial activity. It'll take some time to recover fully."
The liquid was soft along my throat. I had thought it would scratch and tear at it with its coldness. Doctor Lewis appeared perfectly in awe at my small smile. "I fail to see the amusement in your circumstances."
"Forgive me." My voice was so rough and unsteady, so hoarse. I barely recognized it. He was old, but not senile, and what intellectual decrepitude would one day conquer his senses had yet to make their claim. He said nothing. "Forgive me," I said again, and this time my voice sounded a slight more like mine own. "I did not mean for this to happen."
"Really. What did you mean to happen, then?"
"I don't know." I signalled that I was done drinking, and he casually took the glass away. He was remarkably patient. "Try to figure things out. What were you doing?"
"I…don't know."
My hands were all wrapped up, from where the palm first met the joint of my fingers and to my elbows. The wrists themselves were encircled tightly with what I could only suspect to be a very light alloy. "We couldn't chance your trying it again," Lewis explained tentatively, and I nodded.
I couldn't move my hands, and the burn in them was fierce. "I was having lunch. Lamb." Shrill laughter. "I loathe lamb. And the knife…it was just…there."
I couldn't explain. Deep down, it all made sense. Admittedly, now not as much as then, but it made sense, and it had been so natural to pick it up and shred at pale skin, skin that had deserted my limbs so good-naturedly. "The knife was just there…"
My study's balcony had perhaps the most luxurious opening to the fields, which at sundown were at their finest. I should have wanted to ride, for this was one of the occasions when the tenants were assured to be otherwise preoccupied and not within sight. John Elliott's cousin was to be wed, and in small communities, such events were not taken lightly. But my health had saved me the attendance to the event, but sadly also all equestrian undertakings. I had been far too tired as of late, and I dreaded to think what kind doctor Lewis would make of my ignominious treatment of his request to please rest.
"He's beautiful," I said calmly, in an acknowledgment to Brother Fiorelli, who had snuck up behind me. Either he was suppressing surprise at my "discovery" of his whereabouts, or he was simply as caught by the view as I was, because he waited before replying. "Yes. That he is."
Alucard too had probably learned of the event, for he was near the border to the forest, having taken a canine form of suitable dimensions. A large black hound slicing and shredding a helpless sheep that he had not had the mercy to kill just yet. It was crying in pain, the white of its fleece covered in her just as shiny blood, eaten, controlled by the red. Alucard was a glorious predator. However cruel his gestures, I couldn't take my eyes off him.
"What can I do for you, Brother?"
Fiorelli joined me at my right, and at first said nothing. His face was drained, the jaw line tensed. And then he gave me that big and disarming smile, and the mask was back on. "More of what I can do for you, really. My superiors write that Father Kinsella's confirmed that he'll see you in two days."
Ah. So that was that. I was sure some form of thanks were in order – but his presence tired me. Best to keep my silence. He, however, wouldn't. "I had thought you had an agreement? He did not kill the animals, but was left to roam freely?"
I nodded. "We did, and still do."
"Forgive me, but that's a sheep." How demonstrative of the Brother's talents. Alas, he had the discerning abilities of a three year-old! Soon enough, he'd be capable of coherent speech. Well, best not hope.
"Yes. But not one of ours. It belongs – rather, belonged- to the Clavells. He brought it back here, back to his territory. By tomorrow, we'll probably hear the wolves have moved to the north."
Religion had always played a menial part in my life, more a fleeting disposition than an attitude in itself, and I admitted I could be easily accused of a fondness for Gnosticism that chose to express itself quite often. The idealistic nature of the Maker's existence was one I could condone so far as it was associated with an element in which I had the deepest faith, the sheer goodness existent in all human beings, when left unprovoked.
Feeding Alucard had been…disturbing.
He had never talked to me before. Addressed me, yes. Ordered me, insulted me, demanded things of me. But never talked to me .
"God? Where is your God?" He'd twisted his fingers around my wrist, hardly complimenting the swelling formed over the cuts that were never given the time to heal. Blood had come, dark and thick, but he had fed already, and for all its appeal, it had not been his intention to do so again. Instead, he had waved a hand over it, pressing it on white skin. Like mud on pure snow.
"Here is mine, but yours? I see nothing of Him here. You're going to die." Said simply, clinically. He hadn't even meant to offend me. "You're going to die, and He's not here for you. Where's your God, Hellsing? You show Him to me."
I had withdrawn to my chambers with the simple objective of catching a good night's sleep.
But as I reached my room, stepped right in, I realized that this would hardly be a possibility. I didn't recall calling for Cadwell, though I must have done so, he was there instantly.
"Mister Hellsing, I do swear, I don't know how this could have happened – no one came in, I – I , well, do please wait only a moment while I'll deposit these on your desk, oh, all your letters… it might have been the wind, there's a window open, I do apologize in the name of the staff, and—"
The floor of my room was filled with the perfumed sheet of aristocratic correspondence. Everywhere, sheets and enveloped, on my desk, near the fireplace, as if someone had gone to great pains to make such chaos.
"These aren't my letters." I produced one envelope dated clearly. All of them addressed to my father, my mother's signature on each, and near her own that of the ward from the mental asylum. "Leave me," I said, with a calm I could barely recognize in myself.
Cadwell seemed reluctant to do so. "Mister Hellsing, are you quite all ri-"
"Leave me."
He closed the door behind him discreetly.
Arthur came to me in my dreams. He was as lively as you have never been. And he said to me, "Mama, avenge me." That's why I tried to kill him, Abraham. Arthur asked me to do it. And I wanted to do it. And I will. I'll kill your precious boy, Abraham. I swear it. I swear it.
Abraham, kill him. Spare me this sufferance of knowing what he did! He's not my son! Can't be my son! Christopher, he illegible him… Arthur, illegible ! His own brother. Kill him. Do it for me. I can't bear the thought of him alive now that Arthur…
They've put me on medication, and it's horrid, though all is far quieter now. I've not dreamt of Arthur for days. I want Arthur, I miss him so. Why did you do it? It's all your fault. They tell me I should forgive you, Abraham, and if not you, then the flesh of my flesh. But I can't. You both did it, you're both to be blamed. I could never forgive you. I want to dream of Arthur again…
Abraham, I can think clearly now, I swear I can, please let me return. I promise I'll leave him alone, I'll leave Christopher alone, I won't try to make him pay, God will see for that to me. God will punish him, I shan't take part in it. Let me come back. Please
Fragments of letters, of which only the first had been opened. My father had not even bothered himself with the great majority of Mama's delusions. Mama who… My Mama who…
I collected them all, made the proper arrangements in the fireplace. The flames tore at the paper I threw in it with unmatched greed. Nay, one that did indeed have a rival, though only in Alucard's hunger for my blood. The letters died of fire, one by one by one.
I tried desperately not to think of my own mother, who for some reason had tried to kill me. Questions. I had questions, and I took a few letters with me, intent on taking them to Robert and –
"Aaaaaah…!"
More screams.
An orgy of malign sensations played out through pants and shrieks and horror.
From his room.
I let the letters be and ran as fast as my feet could carry me.
Robert was already there and so was Fiorelli, and for a moment I thought they were by themselves. But then I saw the walls, and the shadows upon them, as they slithered and came together, red eyes emerging from the most unlikely of corners. The darkness was stretching.
"He's restless again. I'm sorry. I usually tire him during the night. Get out of here, the both of you," Fiorelli hissed menacingly, his eyes never turning to us, but instead always following the shadows as they leapt from one side of the room to the other. "Get out of here!"
"You won't manage by yourself," I told him weakly, but he laughed. "I've done so before. The most anyone's lasted, months locked up with him."
Robert tried to open the door, but it was suddenly blasted closed, darkness keeping it so. He gave up almost instantly. "He wants us here."
"Yes," muttered Fiorelli, crouching in a nearly feline pose. His hands sunk in the interior of his long robes, revealing a set of what I estimated as a dozen silver cylinders. Japanese hair pins were he closest design I could match to their shape. "Of course he does, he likes an audience. Overkills, they call them. He favours them well."
I was appalled. "What do you plan to do with those things? For God's sake!" He had jumped an Alucard, rather, on that thing that Alucard had become. Fiorelli looked far more the madman, the glint of the white of his eyes almost as vivid as that of the pins. He pushed one in a tentacle, but Alucard retreated it. Blood stood where darkness had been. "What do you think I plan to do to them? To him?"
Alucard's tentacles, for now they were far more numerous, sprouted almost immediately from the wall, tying themselves to Fiorelli's wrists, drawing the priest closer. Robert pushed me away before a similar movement could be done to us. I fell on my knees, hands slinking in the flooring. "Robert…"
But he had noticed as well. The flooring itself was now covered in this chaotic slime, and it felt as if we were slipping through it. More appendages swam around us, caught Robert by his feet, myself by the waist. Fiorelli spared me a glance, and then his free hand threw a pin. Caught and held. He arranged the others in an odd symmetry, a pin between each finger, supported by the joint where finger met hand, kicked Alucard as hard as he could to buy himself the time for such an action. The vampire's tentacles had wrapped him up fiercely, but for all his frowns, Fiorelli seemed utterly blasé by the ordeal.
The unexpected pressure over my stern reminded me of what I was to do. The pin I had caught was too sharp and too white, but I had no choice. Robert fell down as well, as Alucard's familiars pushed him over, strapping his feet together. He couldn't move, but I could.
"F-forgive me." I stabbed the blessed pin in the tentacle. Alucard gave off a strangled cry, more of surprise, I assumed, than actual pain. I crawled away, the slime so sticky and wrapping itself to my hands, although it cleared up auspiciously whenever I tried to support myself with the silver item.
Robert thrashed about violently. Fiorelli kicked at Alucard's shadows, doing a mid-air roundabout – where he had the space to do that, I couldn't tell, it didn't matter, oh God. I freed Robert. Again, I didn't know how, but I did it, and I was shaking, because Fiorelli had caught Alucard again, inserting one pin in his shallow frame after the other. "Robert, we can't let him do this!"
"For once, " said my cousin sternly, "I agree. We can't let your vampire do as he pleases. Order him still."
"I will not order! I will not lower myself and-"
"Would you rather lower yourself three feet under?" Robert was shouting, and yet I could not see him. My eyes were always on Alucard, so miserable as Fiorelli secluded him down, so abominably helpless. I had seen the most beautiful of mares shot once, for it had grown untouchable due to her hatred of those who had taken away her stillborn. I had thought it the cruellest thing, then, to destroy such a being.
But I now saw that it was even worse to break its spirit.
"Gah!" Fiorelli rolled over, his left cheek slashed from the ear and down to the corner of his mouth. There was so much blood over his face, it was hideous to me but so tempting to Alucard. A tentacle extricated itself from the dark mass, following the line of the brother's face, sinking in the newly made wound.
Robert was shaking me. "Just order him! ORDER HIM!" Alucard's one red eye was hypnotic. I couldn't look away from him, from what he was doing, draining Fiorelli.
I had to do it. But I …I couldn't…couldn't… This went against everything I had learned, everything I had fought against, everything I was…I couldn't order another being, I couldn't master it. To spawn a child, to raise it – now this was responsibility, yet even this to a smaller extent. A child's conduct could be adjusted. A child's cruelty could wane. A child had own free will and spirit. A child…
A child was not what Alucard was. He was not my child. He was more than my equal. He – I was…
" Mas…ter…?" The red eye followed me, my every movement.
"Alucard," I began hesitantly, but already his entire form had tensed with predatory delight, "I or—"
"The same hells you came from should have you back anew!" A moment of distraction was all it had taken Fiorelli, and now he was back on him, pins safely directed towards the other's throat. Alucard ceased his struggle. All rational thought left me, and I realized slowly, that the fever in the back of my mind did so as well. He was no longer conscious. "He is not yet healed," the brother said impassively, and then to me, with something almost like resent, "But you said you'd put things right…"
I had no true answer for him. "I said many things."
"Do you know him?"
Peering at the card intently.
"Yes, I believe I do. Different circles, he and I, but we've seen eye to eye every now and then. Why?"
"Lawrence'll be handling the Hellsing finances from now on."
"I beg your pardon? And what am I to do? How could you even think of "
"At ease, Robb. Whereas finances and sleight-of-hands , or, rather, sleight-of-numbers is something reasonably cold and unspecific, there is only one person I can entrust with our administrative tasks, however disgusting they'll prove to be early on. Don't expect to be done any kindness or honour, really."
"I can handle everything. But, then… well… I had supposed you would be the one to take these responsibilities, seeing as they are more suitable for the Hellsing commander."
"Exactly.
We're associates in this, partners of equal standing. You see to all the earthly details, I'll be mindful of the supernatural. There'll really be far too much work in founding such an enterprise for one person to undertake…"
"So what's left to do?"
"What isn't? I've arranged for men, though they're not likely to come in adequate numbers, and, God, what're we to see to their wages with? The Hellsing Estate could support its own expenses and even provide a sizeable profit as far as sustaining a family was concerned. I'm however afraid that, unless we can snap our fingers and perform some bureaucratic wonder, we'll be unable to see the project to a lengthened existence. Unless the Crown decides to finance us, of course…"
"With Huyxley in charge? Small chances."
"Huyxley's not the problem here. He's an odd sort, I'll admit, but I think we can make him see reason."
"What an awful character."
"Was, wasn't he?"
"Mmmm."
They had prepared me for me a difficult encounter with a man bred to feed on deception, and I was myself a bit anxious at the thought. Even my small experience with the Iscariot association through Brother Fiorelli had readied me for a shady individual willing to sell his soul in the prettiest cover of vice and instability. But Father Kinsella was perhaps the most open and brutally sincere individual I had ever come upon. Or so he appeared to be.
We met outside of London, where he indicated that we should follow him. We'd both come by motor. After half an hour of circling Westminster, I began to wonder whether he would take me to some awfully shady place, like a tavern, or some smuggler's lair. Somewhere excitingand ominous..
…Well, he did.
The waiter that welcomed us to what was very much a respectable and central restaurant looked very ominous. "Your table was prepared, Your Eminence, and I assume the usual shall be served?"
As I later found out, the usual was a very potent, highly illegal, but not at all unpleasant bottle of absinthe.
Two gentlemen had followed us as we had walked down the street; now, they had entered and ordered a table not too far away, and kept peering in a disgracefully evident manner.
"I thought you might enjoy their salads," Father Kinsella said as we were seated, with only the shadow of an accent to his words.
"Ah yes, carrots and vampires, my favourite." I leant and pretended to kiss the rings on his fingers in pious awe. "I'm afraid you're being followed," I informed him, casually.
Father Kinsella laughed. "Oh no, we escaped mine at the last turn, these ones are here for you. But don't worry, I somehow doubt henchmen are educated in the Dead tongues, and so this'll likely suffice as an additional mean of protection," he said gaily, slipping from Latin to English every other word.
From Latin to English, confident of my understanding, and he a man whom I had never met. True, my work did imply a certain knowledge in the field, but seldom was Latin still required when actively professing, and it would have been absurd to expect that a conversational Latin will still have been remembered. That I myself had maintained it was a wonder partly owed to my intense studies of old Orators. But Kinsella can't have known that. The only one who could have known was…
…Fiorelli. Fiorelli, whose letters we had read line by line. Fiorelli, whom Robert and I had thought a perfect fool for still practising in a language he new clearly I could comprehend.
"That too was an additional mean of precaution," I told him in a tentative combination of the two tongues, wondering whether he would catch my meaning. He did.
"Well of course it was, Mister Hellsing. I assure you we would have done the same, we did, in fact, for you might have noticed we never gave either a definite address nor signed ourselves with our true name. One can never be too careful, and I am told you had particular reasons to fear."
"Yes. A Brother Cesare –"
"—who is now with our Lord in Heaven, I presume, facing His judgment. A misunderstanding, Mister Hellsing, one which I am confident we both regret." I gave the waiter that delivered his cake and my tea a careful look. He'd picked up the order from our followers' table only just before coming here. Father Kinsella tasted his brownie, I drank some of my Earl, and we both glares at the boy until he finally decided we were either mute or starved, and let us be.
"You've Father Cesare and not us to regret only for of Brother Fiorelli's timely intervention."
It took skill to catch the shadow of a frown on his face, for it went just as it had come, in an instant; but I had not been schooled in trying to estimate the character of my clients so to not pay mind to subtleties. "Fiorelli?"
"Yes. Tomaso Fiorelli. I should think you know of him?"
"I- yes. Well then. Fiorelli. This was certainly… unexpected." His earlier statements came to mind, the absence of a name might have been the cause for his ignorance. And yet to entrust what seemed to be ever so valuable to them, the care of a vampire and his tutors, to an unknown?
"How so?" My tea had cooled and was now almost undrinkable, though I decided against attracting the waiter's unwanted attention a second time and resigned myself to death by intoxication.
"I don't assign our operatives, Mister Hellsing. These are orders that come from Rome, orders that are meant for the men of Rome alone to ponder, and orders that our ours to follow." He'd slipped up with that moment of hesitation and was now doing his finest to make amends. "I simply hadn't thought they'd send Fiorelli, of all people."
"Mister Hellsing," continued Father Kinsella soon after, "we're your friends. In fact, these days, I can safely attest to that we're likely to be your only friends. Trust us, Mister Hellsing. We trusted and still trust you. Brother Fiorelli is an excellent linguist, and I myself will confess to a modest, but all in all sufficient handle over Persian, as well as extended knowledge in Greek. Had we wanted to keep our secrecy, we could have in a language that you would not have found accessible in the least. But there was no reason to such a thing. We have nothing to hide. As I've said already, we're your faithful friends."
Except, Fiorelli had never in his letters reported my affinity for Latin.
Somehow, they had maintained contact, making their letters no more than a formality that I was meant to toy with whilst supposedly assured I had the upper hand.
If the Iscariots were my faithful little friends, I truly didn't want to chance upon my unfaithful enemies. I decided, however, to make no note of this matter and instead questioned him on something closer to my area of direct interest.
"I have received your reports. How gracious of the Vatican to provide them, needless to say. Am I to understand vampirical actions have been noted in England?"
"Ah, you're entirely welcome. Congratulations on your enterprise, Mister Hellsing. And yes. Hampshire, Norfolk, Gower…"
"Gower?" That close to home?
"Yes. But don't concern yourself with that. England's always been fertile territory as far as vampires are considered, though at least now we can tell what they're after."
This implication of my involvement was thinly veiled, but I supposed that I had agreed to take a part in this the moment I had collected Alucard. Or hadn't I? What had I wanted with Alucard? Heh. To help him. But so many things had happened since… "What are they after?"
"Your vampire."
The absinthe burned down my throat. But the tea wouldn't help. "My vampire, ser?"
"The vampire, then. The true vampire, Nosferatu, what have you."
"I see. What exactly would be so special about him now?"
"His blood. Your blood. Hellsing blood that a true vampire has tasted and now has running in his veins." His eyes came to slits, and for the first time that half smile looked entirely too menacing. "Now that…is a thing of beauty."
"How so? What could make our blood so remarkable?"
"I don't know."
I waited for him to continue, but it took him a while to realize I had nothing worthwhile to say and was expecting him to dazzle me further. "There's something, but I don't know what it is. I was hoping you could reveal anything of importance on the subject."
"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I can't believe that."
"Your right given to you by King and country, to be sure." But he wouldn't say anything else.
This vexed me. "Then let's speak of something you do know, eh?"
"Do let's."
"Father, I have conversed with the academy of Vienna, only to be informed that all medical records, including the studies on the time and condition of his death were taken to Rome. They're with your people, of this I've no doubt. I would like to have them by the end of the week."
He had not expected this. " Yes, they do rest with us, but…I'm afraid it was a heart attack, Mister Hellsing. There's rarely anything of notable interest to account for these, not even when it comes to the most exigent of medics. There's nothing to see."
"We had the body at such a time and degree of discomposure, that an autopsy could reveal nothing. I would dither from thinking it a deliberate error on the Vatican's part. Surely, you had only the best intentions at heart."
"Surely," he echoed dryly.
"Then I'll have my papers within the week." I smiled thinly. "And do make sure it's not a Christopher Hellsing from Rome sending them to a Christopher Hellsing in London."
"Heh. Our apologies "
I waved him off. "—are not accepted. Get me those files."
"Mister Hellsing? A trifle, really, though I thought you might wish to know, for all it's worth."
"Please, Mister Cadwell."
"Andrew, come here. Sir, I think the boy might have been in your room last night. The maid found something of his in the fireplace this morning."
"Sir, I didn't do nothing, sir—"
"Do please shut up."
A coin placed in my hand.
" She claimed it to be his, because it's in a very poor state, and that's the only sort of coins he's given to play with, for they're no good to buy anything with."
A coin given.
And now returned.
My studies became an unrivalled priority; I had books sent from Cambridge, pulled a certain few strings to obtain the shortest glance on original manuscripts.
When I felt decently prepared, I went to him. He was still in his quarters, still in his circle, looking as miserable as he had back in London.
I called out for him. I said his name – his trueborn name- so many times that it was no longer a question of wanting to have him pay me any mind. I whispered it, shouted it, alternated.
Names give one power over those who bear them, or so the word went. The response I extricated, however, was so much more than I had imagined it would be.
"Don't," he demurred, slowly.
I said it again. He came to his feet, arms crossed on his chest, the bellicose look of kings not yet vanquished playing in the eyes of a creature in chains. "Don't."
A final summon. I waited.
He tsked unpleasantly, fingers slowly abandoning their posture, supporting to the wall. "What do you want?"
"I've one of your belongings." The coin, I produced instantly.
Alucard gazed at it unmoved. "A reminder."
"Then keep it." If such was his game, then damn him, I would play it. These endless matches at a pride that hadn't its place were unbecoming. We were two adults – rather, he had lived the life of many adults – in extraordinary circumstances, but we had to see this through. "To remind you of the one defeat that it took and the one who brought it."
He made to claw at my eyes, but I backed away, thanking the bounds that Fiorelli had placed upon him, for they alone edged his speed. "I could kill you here and—"
"No, you couldn't." Enough of this! "Hellsing blood. Hellsing magic. And the oath that binds them. You cannot end my life unless such is my desire, and as you may clearly observe, I have no ambition to treat with the true Lord Charon, however charming his occupation."
"Defeat? At those filthy hands?" He had meant it as spit, but the trickle of blood dispersed on the floor. "Luck, exhaustion, arrogance – my failings, my undoing, not his victory! Never that! He won nothing that day!"
"But you lost everything." A self-explainable conclusion.
"I hated him!"
"He had no love for you either, assuredly."
"I hated those hands." He slowly let himself fall to the ground, ending on his knees, as if a man in pagan prayer. "They had still mud when they touched me. Blood too. But there was far too much mud, he was dirty, dirty, DIRTY. A peasant! A useless peasant, a madman! What did he do? What did he succeed? He was nothing." Don't. Don't say that, because I shan't be able to control myself, don't say a word about him, don't"You are nothing, scum. Both of you scum."
I slapped him with the back of my hand, cold silver touching pale flesh. His head slammed to the right – and then the left as I repeated the gesture.
"I am still Master! I shall not issue commands, for it should be within human ability to enslave another – but you will not make a mockery of my father, you will not taint the name of this house, you will "
I realized that, while my first blow must have taken him by surprise, it has still left him unaffected. A vampire's force against human frailty, of course he wouldn't feel the touch.
"Obedire est vivere."
"Vivere est obedire."
He laughed bitterly.
"Keep it, Hellsing."
"Why?"
"It's served its purpose." And then
softly, mockingly, "Master."
"KESTER! KESTER!"
"I think he's heard you already?"
"KESTER!"
Robert was thundering up the stairs, a meek little voice forming lustful sighs, probably after the good old times when its owner had still benefited from an undamaged hearing. I tried to hurry things, but found my companion very reluctant to do so – before I even had a chance to push him off, the door had been slammed aside, Robert was cackling, and the reddest hair ever known to man could be seen with ease. Lawrence was stormed through, "Christopher, gods, to have to come to this backwater place, with your babbling about vampires, and then I get these letters from Canterbury claiming there are vampires, and I swear everyone's off their cake! And—"
He stopped halfway.
"C-Ch-Christopher! I- that- beg pa- God – that is- Christopher!" Lawrence was the very image of aristocratic indignation: pale, speechless, and ogling.
Then again, I assumed we were giving him quite the rare sight. I had only just begun buttoning my shirt, chest and abdomen still considerably exposed, for all the straps and plasters encasing my ribs. But far more worth the stare was Alucard, knelt in front of me, licking my wrist, having by now savaged through all the blood and only drinking in the smell of it where it had once been. He was dishevelled; I was still flushed and panting from my fights with him.
We both somehow patiently managed to go on with our activities, while Robert sniggered most ungraciously, and Lawrence struggled for coherence. "Christopher," he said slowly, "forgive me, that was uncalled for. I had never known you were…well…like that. But, uch, I've no right to judge you, and if it makes you happy – gods, so few things do, don't they- but just make sure word doesn't go out, you know what they do to- anyway, I want you to know you can always—Gods, Chris, you bloody queer!"
By now Robert was roaring with laughter, whilst I was praying to some god or the other for the earth to open up and swallow me. Alucard just fed on serenely.
"It's nothing of the sort," my cousin explained at last, "that's just Alucard's taking his tea. Kester, just make sure he doesn't touch your…sugar lumps?" More laughter. Sick. The man was plain sick. And a pervert, to top it all up – and he was speaking again, "Besides, it wouldn't matter, even if it was. Alucard's genderless."
If the revelation of my supposed homosexuality had nearly put Lawrence in an early grave, this last could easily have accounted for the world's fastest revival. "He's what?"
Robert shrugged. "Genderless."
"As in… Chris, do you mean to tell me he has a… waist " Lawrence vaguely motioned to his own, gruesome mental images now abounding on my part. "—as well as a…uch…a waste?"
I rose a hand, calling for silence and trying to muster as much dignity as possible in a man whose arm had probably been decreed a national blood pump and nourishment free-for-all by an insatiable vampire. "Don't drag me into this conversation."
"He's not a hermaphrodite, Lawrence. He can merely change his shape to his liking."
Alucard's sole intervention was a muffled "Hmmmmph." Damn him. I tried to slap his head off, but he'd sunk quite deep in.
Lawrence was thrilled. "So he's a man and a woman?"
Oh no. Robert's eyes were suddenly glinting with devious delight. I was doomed. "Yes, a man and a woman. Except when Kester's very nice to him, and he's a dog."
Pause. Awe. More staring.
"Christopher," said Lawrence, finally, and in all seriousness, "I'm your friend and all the such, but if you ever want to confide about your tangents with bestiality…just…don't ring me up. Really. I shan't mind. Not in the least. Just imagine I've no telephone – or address to write that – in fact, better yet, whenever you're boinking some desolate poodle, just imagine I'm dead."
Alucard let go of my hand with a decisive "Slurp" that could be ever so easily mistaken for a chuckle.
What I would never understand was how two individuals so outwardly alike, both physically and even in their general conduct could prove to be so disquieted when in each other's company. They were both slightly effeminate as far as looks were concerned, lacking in muscles what they made for in full lips and delicate features. Lawrence was haughty of manner whenever given the occasion, but just as easily charming and far too talkative. Fiorelli was …well… Fiorelli.
But to say that they hadn't hit it on was to be of an unrivalled optimism.
"I know you," Lawrence stated stubbornly moments after I had introduced them. Kind Cadwell was pouring us tea and even serving a few cookies to go with it. I couldn't remember when I'd last been this hungry, but then I also couldn't remember when I'd last had a bite. Robert's mouth was full with what I calculated to be roughly three slices of pumpkin pies. Fiorelli was plainly drinking the content of his cup – a strong brew of coffee and caramel. "Do you?"
"Yes…though I don't quite remember where from…"
"Rome? Orphanages? Monasteries? Church?" The priest settled better on the couch, his foot moving up and down, up and down, as if in hurry. ""You do look such a devout man yourself."
"Perfectly true, Brother, and yet—"
"I don't remember you, sir. And I never forget. Do excuse me, now. I'm sure Castor's informed you of the nature of my responsibilities, so you'll understand why it's best that I stick around Alucard," fiorelli said stiffly, and then he was up and had left before I could even utter a word to detain him, or at least a farewell.
Robert looked up as the door was shut. "When did Fiorelli grow a spine?"
This, I couldn't answer. Nor exactly could I account for the Brother's sudden disinterest in our devices, when he was usually so intrigued by whatever our plans, seldom abstaining from voicing his desire to participate. If anything, he did his job as a spy astonishingly badly, because while we rarely understood what his plans were, his subtlety was deficient. "You've met him before?"
"I don't know. I could swear that face's strikingly familiar, but I just can't place it. Then again, it sometimes feels like I've met half a London and the step sons of their thrice denied cousins." Lawrence tasted his tea moodily, and when he looked to me again, he was smiling. "Now, tell me all about what you've been doing with this fabulous estate of yours."
Accustoming Alucard to Lawrence was one aspect of my associate's visit that I had not been offered the chance to consider en detaille. But my former colleague surprised me with a very tolerant view on the paranormal that I would never have suspected in a man bred and wed to mathematical precision.
In fact, he was the closest Alucard had ever come to finding almost tolerable, though more often than not, this understanding came at my expense.
The vampire was expressing an unusual interest in a matter I had almost forgotten: my mistress, that apparently, or so Lawrence had it, had been pining for me ever since my hasty departure. "How's this different from keeping a whore?"
Lawrence, inbred cynic when it came to the finer gender, was quick to play at his comment. "Hmmm, not by much, I assume, although…although it's more of a gentlemanly exploit, and it does insure a certain amount of discretion."
"Besides," I drawled, "we can't all have three wives."
"Oh?" Alucard seemed to consider. "But what if they're only alive in shifts?"
I made a mental note to one day educate him on the legal implications of polygamy, but then decided to put his attention at better use, and quickly led Lawrence in a small visit to our modified stables. The project itself had been suitably costly – a matter which he was quick to note upon—but as I had only kept a small selection of horses and had found such a room necessary, no further words were said on why exactly we now had a training chamber.
Only eight men were now playing with their toys – hunting riffles, or old versions of pistols were all we had until the arrival of our new equipment - but our chamber could easily accommodate five more.
"Impressive," Lawrence declared, as all our employees ended an awkward imitation of a salute. For all our mutual discontent with the other's manner of dealing with things, Boleyn had been obliging and also offered us the services of a former soldier at a realistic price; it was this man that had instructed the London leeches in the basics of discipline.
"More or less. Robert's been giving a hand as well."
Lawrence measured my cousin, from the cleanly shaven face, to the unworked hands and the fine stance of a man accustomed to keep his head high rather than take orders. "I wouldn't have thought you the military sort."
"I'm not, but – Sanders, your gun, if you will- I was taught a decent bit of marksmanship early on." The named offered his weapon, not without resent. These men had had nothing until we had come, picked them, washed them, gave them clothing. Fed them. We always fed them, and we made sure they realized fully well just where this nourishment came from, how undemanding it would be for it to disappear. To take away the symbols of that which we'd made them was to little but deny that they had been freed of their misery for the slightest moment.
"My thanks," Robert said, then walked closer to the poles lined in the central-southern region, where a few targets had been improvised, painted on either marks themselves, upturned tables, even small bags of hey. He took aim to the nearest one – flicked the trigger – pulled the switch. I didn't realize I had been trembling until the thin smoke was done away with, and there was only the chipped mark of where the bullet had hit, straight in the bull's-eye.
"Such a good aim, m'lord has!" The obsequious intervention of a man who's known hunger at his time and who'd rather not do so in the future. They all meant to curry our favour here, but Robert was little but immune. He smiled sharply, and then examined the results of his efforts with dignified expertise and a sure hand. His fingers brushed over the heated spot, cleansing the dust to reveal a clean shot. No waver.
"Yes, yes, quite nice." Lawrence clapped politely, and a very smug Robert came along to try again. But Alucard's interest had been picked, perhaps because of the awe instilled as well as the silence when my cousin had decided to carry out this representation. There could be no doubt he had been admired. "Hand it over."
"You ever shot one of these?" My cousin balanced the gun, the pose of his hands complimenting its structure. "They're no child's toy."
"He's no child, is he?" said someone in the opposite corner, a one Miles Grey, unless I was mistaken. Which rarely happened, or at least as far as people's faces were concerned.
"That he's not," Lawrence asserted, and kindly passed Alucard Mister Grey's gun, to both Robert's displeasure and my personal unease. "Here. Do your best, though I'd advise you to come closer. This is too far away even for an experimented shooter, and"
Aim – flick – shoot. Once. Twice. Repeat. More smoke.
He'd moved with incredible speed, positioned himself negligently, without any calculation; but then Alucard was not the most patient of creatures.
Robert chuckled, pointing his pistol to the target. "You missed."
"So it would seem." Alucard's laughter was like a force that erupted and devastated all around it. Lawrence cringed momentarily, while the men, uninformed of our "friend" 's nature gave him frightened looks.
I stood my ground. "The sign of the inverted cross. How lovely. Please give Mister Grey his gun. I'm sure he has need of it." Miles Grey shook his head enthusiastically, but Alucard's sole response to this was an affected boredom… as he pointed the gun, this time to a new target, Mister Grey himself. "Does Mister Grey need it, hmmm?"
"Alucard."
He looked back at me with the corner of his eyes, just as Miles Grey, too shocked to move, gave me the example of the sort of behaviour I did not expect of my soon-to-be elite troops. "I'll give it back to him…but…you never did say where the bullets should be."
Damn him. "Robert, Lawrence, do take everyone out, if you will. Alucard and I need a word."
"Oh no, no, no," Alucard objected. "Not Mister Grey too. I like Mister Grey. I want to su—"
I felt compelled to resort to a different appeal. "Alucard. You've gone far enough."
"Have I?" said my tormentor, and he pulled the safety switch on and then off. He was playing, I knew, playing as cats do with mice when the whim so takes them, without either remorse or even the intention to do as asked of him. Miles Grey was aghast, sweat shining in a thin layer on what was visible of his face, chest, arms. "Sir…?"
"Alucard." I stepped forward. "Hand it over."
No movement. The edge of my voice grew cutting . "Alucard."
"Kester, stand aside, I'll be damned if I won't make him see reason." But I had no patience for Robert, paced further. "Alucard."
The vampire tensed, eyes narrowed in what was a feigned concentration. He could easily tear his head off without any bother, but it seemed as if the drama of it all appeased him.
"Sir, Please, please tell him to"
"Kester-"
"Christopher, maybe we should call—"
I paid them no mind, neared further. I finally reached him. Instants had turned into hours. "Take it," he murmured, sweetly, arms relaxing for a moment, as if willing himself to release the weapon. "Take it."
I froze in my place. Take it from him. It did appear to be such a remarkably simple order, but then… I couldn't. That weapon disgusted me in so many ways, had disgusted me when I had been forced to pick it from Robert as well, but he had surrendered it then, and it had never seemed to powerful in my cousin's hands.
Sickening.
Blood. Death. Destruction. I couldn't – fear was the spider that webbed in your soul, fear consumed all, fear knew no borders. Fear was corrupting me, burying me alive. I couldn't move.
I pulled out my handFlinched back – no, have to do to it- Unclenched my fingers.
So many deaths, all because of a gun. What a gun could do, time could not unmake, what a gun couldNo, I didn't, didn't want to touch it, didn't want to, didn't want to – ah, my arms, my arms hurt…
But as I fingered my arms, there was no pain there, only the tingling sensation of what could be, have been, a few very old scars made during some accident when I had been younger, dried blood from where my wrists had as of yet to heal from Alucard's attentions…
No pain. No true pain.
Chris...?
I didn't want to touch that gun-
"Sir, please…"
My eyes snapped open. It was not a question of my ability to do it, it was my responsibility to do so, damn it, damn it, damn it!
"Alucard, if you will," I said finally, and then placed my hands over his, meaning to unwrap his fingers.
Alucard tilted his head, grimaced. "How does it feel? Death, to know it could come at any point, to know you could demand its presence – how does this feel?"
I looked at him intently. He let go and vanished before I could even whisper the answer, "Cold."
"Sir? What'cha doing outside? You going to sleep among wolves again?"
"No, no, Mister Elliott, beg pardon should I have disturbed. Did I, per chance?"
"Neh. I saw you on the fields… no one else wears this shade of red. The old master did too, though."
"True."
"Are you all right, sir?"
"Oh, yes, yes, Mister Elliott… I just…can't sleep."
"Nightmares?"
"Pardon?"
"The old master used to have those too."
"Heh. Well, it would seem Father and I weren't entirely unlike. Nightmares are horrible things to have, Mister Elliott, and I enjoy these nocturnal walks."
"That you would. Although…sometimes, Mister Hellsing…sometimes, the worse nightmares aren't nocturnal in the least."
Chris?
Author notes II:
Obedire est vivere / Vivere est obedire
"To obey is to live" / "To live is to obey".
It's part of an exchange between Spartacus and the aristocrat Gracchus. Spartacus, trying to defend his cause, arguments that, to a slave, free will is an unknown and a lethal threat. Gracchus himself, at the time oppressed from his political adversaries and even allies, cynically notes that even to them, free men but men assigned with any a citizen's fortune, life is only an ensemble of decisions that others eventually take in their place.
I promised more frequent updates. I quote obviously lied, although unintentionally, rest you assured. Kester's growing increasingly hard to write, and I imagine it's because I'm nearing the end of his arch. Already, by the next chapter, there'll be an extra Point of View intertwined with his own. So, um, yes, say buh-bye to Kester…
Hope ye liked it any! (((-)) v! (the Zelgadis smiley urges you to say so)