Chapter Three

- Two Hundred Forgotten Pages

"Wait here, please," Seras told the taxi driver as she descended the vehicle, carrying a bag with the blood and clothes Sir Integral had requested. "I'll be right back." The man did not ask any probing questions; she had paid him to keep his mouth shut. Police Girl had taken a few minutes to change into her D-11 uniform, one of the spare ones she had hidden in her apartment out of the sentimentalism her Master disliked so much. It was easier to enter if she pretended she was carrying out a mission.

Did I take that long? Seras thought, lowering her shades with her free hand to assessed the Mansion. The building was dark and quiet as she moved into the courtyard; there were no traces of any party that had been held except for the lingering smell of alcohol and sweat coming from inside. Cautiously, she rang the bell and waited to be greeted. Seras had memorized a speech to use in situations like this; she was not going to sneak on a balcony like she was a mere thief. The problem was getting out of there with Sir Hellsing when she found her. But she was certain her leader had a plan.

After a few minutes of waiting and no response, Seras tried again – twice, in fact. No one answered those times either. I hope I'm not trespassing, she mused concernedly as she attempted to open the gates. The door was unlocked and Seras slid inside the Mansion. The sensation of being watched grew with each step. Her eyes narrowed, and she looked around in order to locate the source of her paranoia. She found no one; she was alone in the hall. Shrugging, she made her way up the spiral staircase. Integral had told her she was upstairs, hadn't she?

There's no one else here, Seras assured herself when the overwhelming sensation of being watched returned. To be sure, she expanded her senses. She did not hear any human heartbeat. The closest one was the driver waiting for her in that cab.

Seras froze in her tracks. No heartbeats, none at all. Troubled by that revelation, her mouth fell open. Am I too late? Please no, I can't be late! she thought horrified. "Sir Integral!" Seras exclaimed, rushing on her way, following the feminine tobacco scent of her boss until she arrived at a room near the end of the corridor of the second floor. Agitated, she opened the door with a swift kick, fearing the worse. Her eyes widened at the sight.

Integral was standing in front of a mirror, looking pale despite of her naturally tanned skin. Her clothes were reduced to pieces on a side of the bed, and she was nude except for the sheet that covered her body. "Finally." Seras was relieved just to hear her, ignoring the exasperated tone of her chief's voice. "You took your time, Senior Officer."

"S-sorry, Sir! The Mansion was far away from my former location!" Seras saluted, unable to take her eyes from Integra's form. It was not that she was ogling; she was actually attempting to figure out what was wrong with her superior.

Integral turned around and walked in her direction with closed eyes. "No excuses, Victoria," she addressed her agent, stopping a few inches away. Seras noted the knight was not looking at her. She was staring at her bag instead.

"Here is what you as-" Seras told her, offering her the bag. She could not finish her sentence. Integral took the package from her hands in the blink of an eye. Taken aback, Seras watched silently as Integral removed the clothes, tossing them to the bed and grabbed the blood with hunger in her grey eyes.

Grey? Seras' jaw fell as her eyes travelled from the image of Integral's hungry feeding to the mirror. There was no one in the room. Nothing was reflected on the surface. Oh dear. The revelation sank into her. She had realized beforehand but her own denial had rendered her unable to grasp the truth.

No heartbeat.

Lack of reflection.

Thirst for blood.

Abnormal eyes.

Sir Integral was a vampire!

Master won't be too happy about this…

-

Unlike the former Mansion where the party had been held, the Hellsing Organisation was anything but quiet. Alucard had lost control for the first two hours after the waning of the seal and focused on destroying his dead Master's property in mindless rage. He growled and broke the closed doors standing in his way, crushing furniture with his legs and throwing away whatever was neatly ordered: paintings, vases… The staff did not dare to step closer to him, let alone stop the vampire. The chaos overwhelmed his mind without Integral's ordered presence to quench it. There was also the lost of his godlike powers, and how impotent he felt in comparison with the comfortable No Life King position he had experienced for a century.

He was free and thirsted for blood. His eyes glowed with a malign crimson light as the noise of the personnel's children reached his ears. Alucard smirked, licking his fangs, recalling how the blood of the infants tasted. His Brides used to be addicted to it; feasting on them was one of the few activities in which they allowed him to participate. Alucard headed to the source of the weeping, devastating whatever was in his path with one thing on his mind: Kill. But once he was over the cradle, casting his shadow over the pitiful excuse of a human being deposited in it, he stopped his motions, disgusted with himself.

Would he lower to the level of those punks again just because he was less powerful?

The old man was right, Alucard thought about Abraham van Helsing, departing from the room without touching a single hair of the babe. I did have a child-mind. But he was no longer like that, he had more dignity now and not even his losses would strip him of that as well.

Alucard avoided the prying human eyes from the house as he sat before the fireplace, refraining from pulling them out of their sockets. They were Integral's servants, thus they belonged to him now. He was the new Master of Hellsing Manor and it was improper to kill the subordinates without a good excuse. Impalement sounds like a good tool to convince them to work for me, he thought, laughing at his own clever plan, but it was mirthless. He felt no joy; strange, that. Only anger and confusion. Yet he restrained himself to avoid sinking to the FREAK vampires' level. The ignited flames danced over his eyes as he schemed his revenge against the one who took his Master and strength out of his reach. Within those ponderings, he listened to Seras' weak voice speaking to his mind.

'Master? Master? Are you there…?'

Alucard chuckled, the girl was able to use telepathy when she was in dilemmas. Police Girl, he addressed her, thoughts clearer now to muster that ability himself. Where are you?

The courtyard, was her response before it faded into silence.

Alucard scolded her, she must have not drunk her blood after all. And he was adjusting to the change of being able to sense her presence in a wide range. After rising, he moved to the main, shooing the butler who was just attending the door. He passed through it with some difficulties and gazed at the taxi disappearing on the road between the woods, then at the former passengers. He paid little attention to Seras, his focus was the tall woman dressed in a long purple skirt and a black blouse whom Seras was helping to walk.

It cannot be. Alucard's eyes widened and his jaw tensed as he recognized her features and her scent, even if that wretched leech had dared to mark her with his. "Master?" he ventured. "Integra?"

Integral looked up, locking her eyes with his. They were dead grey. The signature of a bloodline that was not his. That drove him near the edge. "Alucard," she nodded, tone collected and cold. His mere name spoken through her lips soothed his madness and chaos. "Stop staring and help me," she ordered. "I'm still rather weak after losing so much blood."

Alucard smirked widely at her attitude and complied, snagging Integral out of Seras' grasp into his arms, picking up the Hellsing and carrying her inside the house. Both Police Girl and Master did not find this amusing, for different reasons. "If you insist," he murmured, chasing away the wrath with her presence. Without the seal, Alucard had to get skin contact to feel as close as before. His peaceful demeanour twisted when he smelled the other vampire's odour, not only on her neck but on other parts of her body. It was his fault, he had failed in his duty to protect her, he was a monster but one of word.

Alucard abhorred failure. The fiend would pay, he vowed to himself as he slammed the door after Seras rushed to come inside.

And he would enjoy every second of it.

-

Alucard had finally stopped watching her. He had been observing her for the past two weeks after she confined herself in the basement. Integral sensed him; his presence was familiar, and without his godlike power, he could not conceal himself so well in the shadows.

"Are you coming to hunt with me this time?" Alucard had asked for the last time that day. Integral did not pay heed to him and continued her self-appointed task. "As you like," he had nearly growled before fading.

Alucard's behaviour had shifted from protective to disgusted once he had discovered her condition. Integral suspected her former servant was frustrated with his own impotence, something she could relate to very well, for she had shared the horrible feeling. But the Hellsing would not allow herself to be distracted by his conversations, she had something to do. And she would accomplish it alone.

Integral was researching her state, trying to figure out the location of the monster who had turned her by recurring to her ancestor's rituals. Aside from attaining her freedom, it was the top priority at the moment. She had tried the laboratory, the torture chamber, and now she was seeking any useful information in the archives of Abraham van Helsing's former personal office. No luck so far. Exasperated, she slammed the drawer in frustration, indifferent if her strength shattered the wood of the ancient desk.

Nothing at all!

Integral wanted to find a way around her status of servitude without needing the willingly offered blood from her cursed Master's veins. Alucard had told her that her quest was pointless but she would not give up. If she was eager to murder the bastard who damned her, Integral must be free first and foremost. Or she would die with him.

Outside the dark office, someone timidly knocked, disturbing her grim demeanour. Integral waited a minute to collect herself, then she opened the door. A blood bag was deposited on her feet, and she heard rushed, clumsy footsteps going upstairs. Her personnel suspected her vampirism. Integral had not been careful enough during the first days of her plight, acting like a newborn child lost without parents. And she was one of those in undead terms. The fact that she had missed dinner and barely was seen in daylight was a rich source of gossip.

"They are leaving, Sir Integral. They are afraid of Master and you," Seras had told her when she dropped by yesterday, concerned about her state. "What should I do?"

Integral had not replied, she did not know. Her reasoning was not working as usual, occupied by the obsession of hunting down the vampire who had robbed her mortality. Furthermore, half of the time she found herself forgetting what she was doing, like awaking from a hypnotic trance.

"It's him. He's controlling you," Alucard had nearly been unable to contain his snarl. "Master vampires can take over the servant's mind and body if they wish. No matter how wilful you are. Coward. Taunting us in this way…"

Integral picked up the bag and quickly entered, shutting and locking the door. Her fangs ripped the plastic unceremoniously, and she drank the blood as fast as she could. Little by little, strength returned to her. It was a sad sight that someone of her status was reduced to drinking cold blood in a dark room. But she could not be trusted around others; that was another reason she was down there by herself. God only knew what she had done during all those dreadful hours she spent as a puppet.

Integral hated to admit that she was afraid… and that for the first time in her life she had nearly had a nervous breakdown. They could take away everything - her life, her honour, her loved ones, her organisation... But the one thing that her soul dreaded to lose was her self-control. The ultimate humiliation, as she called it.

Integral removed her gloves and threw them to the floor. They had been stained by her messy eating. The knight had grown indifferent to her personal looks. She had not taken a shower in over a week and she did not change clothes unless Seras remembered to deliver a fresh suit, which she had not in four days. Her hair and garb were covered with dust and stains but she did not release an unpleasant odour. She was dead, after all. She did not sweat.

She was starting to miss the unpleasant body function.

None of that. There's no time to mourn for meaningless things, Integral thought, steeling her nerves as she tossed the now empty package to the trash bin. It landed with accuracy on top of the rest. At least her sight had improved and she did not need light to be able to move inside the office that lacked electricity.

Integral spun around and glanced at the desk. The jolt she had given to the drawer had broken the wood. The container now was on the ground, beside the opposite wall, and the items in it were spilled over the room. She felt embarrassed to have inflicted an act of violence on a piece of furniture unrelated with her problems. It was indeed immature. But the lack of firing range practice had increased her stress and levels of irritation.

There is nothing useful here, Integral pondered, stepping closer to the desk again and gazing down the drawers. She had checked all, there were merely annotations of Alucard's behaviour and progress she had read countless times when she was a teenager. She was about to leave when the knight cast a final glance on the table. Her eyes narrowed, noticing something unusual on it. From the hole she had opened with her violence, she could distinguish the interior of the desk, more specifically, the shades of the woods. It was darker and smelled older.

Curious, Integral slid her hand inside the slit and knocked it. It was empty. She bent to see beneath the table. The section she was touching appeared to be made of a block of solid wood from that angle.

A secret container? For what purpose?

Intrigued, Integral hit the wood with her closed fist twice. Her hand went through the layer of the desk easily and started to explore the box. Soon, her fingers brushed a delicate and soft material. She trailed the rectangular shape of it and felt the edges of the pages.

Could it be a book?

Integral grasped the object carefully and brought it out. It was a black leather notebook without title or indication of what it was. The pages were yellow and fragile, so she took an extreme caution in opening it, afraid they would disintegrate. The ink printed in the pages was blurred, and difficult to read in several spots as if someone had spilled tea on them. Or tears…

Her eyes focused on the beginning of the selected page and started to read.

"15 December. Amsterdam - My son is dead…"

Integral paused, eyes widening slightly. This was her grandfather's journal. Before his trip of London, his old days. During her childhood, she had gathered Abraham was no one for journals until Dracula's capture but it seemed she had been wrong. Why it was hidden? For what purpose?

As tempting as the discovery was, Integral had better things to do. Deeming her present and future more important than the past, she was about to place the journal back to the desk when her body paralysed.

'Those who cannot remember their past are condemned to repeat it, Sleeping Beauty,' a male voice whispered inside her mind.

"Where are you!" Integral shouted, glaring at the empty office as a malign laugh filled her thoughts. It was colder than Alucard's, and less deep. "Who are you!" The laughter ceased and her right hand reached for the journal without her consent. Integral blinked. Why? Why did he want her to read the diary? Fine, it seems that's the only real clue I have of his identity, the knight mused as she counted the pages absently. Two hundred in total, two hundred forgotten pages of her ancestor's past.

She was not going to read all of them. By instinct, or rather by the infuriating culprit who subconsciously guided her, Integral started reading in a place a couple of pages after the middle. She did not have a choice in the matter.

Author's Notes: I will like to thank my reviewers for the feedback and specially to kitsunelover, who kindly edited this chapter.