Youth and Innocence
Chapter 4
Standard disclaimer: All characters belong to Kohta Hirano and his publishers. I have no stake in them.
4.
"It's almost over, ducks," her governess slid chubby arms over Integra's shoulders as she murmured, "that's the last of them gone."
Standing on the steps, Integra leaned back into her comfort. The iron security gates closed after the limousine and she let out a sigh. It had turned out all right. She had been forthright and honest with each of them. Now she would have to wait and see how they handled her succession as director of Hellsing and soon to be newest knight. Formalities demanded that she be nominated and paperwork processed. The Knights of the Protestant Order preferred that she be sixteen, but messengers from the palace had assured her that she could assume all the duties immediately. New questions rose in her mind. Did she need to inform the Queen about the new vampire servant? Would she want it… him terminated, like their directive seemed to require?
She mused on those and a million other worries as she was being bustled back inside. Her staff would forgive her daze on this day. Without paying attention, she could hear Mary, her governess since birth, fretting with the others about cleaning up the food left over from tea. "Here now, let's move this to the small room and," Mary turned to Integra, "Teggy sweet, would a cup of soup do to warm you up? You can eat in the study, if you like. I know you didn't touch even a sweet."
Integra opened her mouth to rebuke Mary for calling her "Teggy," a childhood nickname she lost as soon as she went off to boarding school, when a shadow passed by the window outside the dining room and then returned. What was odder than its motion was its density. How does a shadow change opacity?
Mary looked to the window, then back at her, "Miss? Shall I have them bring it here?" Mary followed her eye again. "Would you like me to crack this?" She moved to the window, "There's a chill, but…"
Integra waved her hand. "No, no thank you, Mary. I'll eat here." She watched her governess organize the foods to stay and go. Once she and the other servants closed the door, Integra turned back to the window. There was no shadow there now. I really should go back to Father's office, she thought, and see to those cases. The cult one bothered her. They seemed to have gotten followers from within the hierarchy of the Church and Father had been working hard at sussing it out before he died. She rubbed her temples. There had been a strange sensation in her head all afternoon, but it was hard to say what it was. She supposed it was exhaustion and grief mixing.
"That was a very touching service," the voice was very close to her ear. Integra stiffened. "You should consider putting the vicar on your payroll."
She turned her head toward the slight stirring in the air on her right. "Show yourself!" Her eyes twitched as she tried to make sense out of the shadows.
Alucard hesitated, just a moment, as he wondered what form he should take. He settled on her image of him. The skeletal, white haired corpse appeared in a long black leather suit, leaning languidly on the chair, his mouth only inches from her head. Inwardly he thrilled at the pounding of her heart. "Better?"
"What do you want?" Since he didn't seem likely to move, Integra got up, anything to put distance between his leering face and hers.
"To serve you," he lied. "I am your willing slave."
"Servant, you mean." Integra watched him close his long lashed eyelids, giving her some relief from his harsh red gaze. "Walter said you were my servant," when he didn't respond or even look at her, she went on, "hard to kill and a great asset to Hellsing."
He chuckled, eyes still closed. "Indentured servant, then." He was moderately pleased to hear Walter say that. He watched her shift from foot to foot. Here is a creature I can work with, he thought and let his smile crawl wide.
As much as his gaze disturbed her, Integra was now annoyed he wasn't looking at her. "I expect you to behave." No response. She leaned against the table behind her. "Look at me when I'm talking to you!" She shivered as he complied, her heart skipping a beat at the predatory look. "Don't hurt people." She had been thinking about this, about what to say to him.
"As you wish, my Master," he bowed low to her. "You may find," he paused as if considering this for the first time, "that to be limiting, for your purposes." Alucard waited for her to take the bait.
Her brow crumpled as she considered. "I don't want you to hurt the innocent," she rephrased.
"Understood, but who defines 'innocence'? I have read the reports on your desk and I might be of use there. They've got human collaborators. You wouldn't want to tie my hands in pursuit of the vampires involved would you? May I suggest that you direct me not to hurt anyone unless I need to?" He knew she would take it before she nodded and spoke the words. He had many needs and defined them broadly while 'innocence' very narrowly.
"Yes, that will do." He was still looking at her expectantly, so she added, "Don't hurt anyone unless you need to." His face lost none of its menace, but she thought she saw a release of some tension in his tall body. His face, when not in a gruesome grin, wasn't as ugly as she'd first thought. She wondered if he'd once been handsome?
"Wonderful," he purred. He reflected on the gullibility of children. "Then there's only the question of my feedings." He drank in the look of confusion on her pretty face. The glasses did not detract from her beauty; in fact, they enhanced the brilliant blue of her eyes. Alucard decided that the contrasts within and without defined her. Dark skin, light hair, self-doubt and determination, all wrapped up in one appealing package. He would beat her weaknesses out in time but for now, he felt, they gave her charm. Like her predecessors, she thought she could hide fear from him. He gave in to some of the laughter that rose inside him.
"What, um, do you want?" Where is Walter, she really wanted to ask. Couldn't he deal with this? Integra looked about her as the vampire finally moved. He was laughing and walking slowly toward her. She had no weapons if he tried to hurt her. Still, hadn't he taken a bullet for her the night before? She tried to shift away from the table in case she needed to run.
"Walter and a few other agents are disposing of bodies," he answered, watching her jump. Even if he had no access to her thoughts through their mystical bonds, he could've read the question from her face. That face was finally showing traces of fear. Behind her mask was a thirteen-year-old orphan. "You have no reason to fear me," he lied. "I am like a puppet, you hold my strings." He reached for her hair, breathing in the scent of her shampoo. "You have only to tell me to stop." He had broken her personal space; in fact, he redefined it as his own down in the dungeon when they met. Her skin was charged, tingling where he traced a line along her neck.
Integra empathized suddenly with deer facing a runaway lorry. She wanted to scream, but no sound came out, wanted to move, but found herself paralyzed. Tears began to form in her eyes as self-hatred rose. I've got to be stronger, she thought. He's testing me and I'm failing! Laughter surrounded and invaded her mind as his physical presence disappeared around her. As Integra gave in to tears, the door to the dining room opened.
"Oh, duckie, there there." Mary set down the tray she'd brought and put her arms around Integra, but wasn't surprised to be fought off. Since her mother died, Integra didn't like being held while she cried. "It's all right, Miss, you've been a brave girl, you're due a good cry." She led her ward to a chair, letting her put her head on the table, arms hiding her face. "I'll just leave this here then and start a nice bath for when you're done." Discretion is the better part of valor, Mary thought as she closed the door, leaving Integra to her breakdown.
His prey was whistling softly along with some tune Alucard couldn't recognize. He did appreciate Walter's good pitch. In no hurry, he observed the agent going about his business alone in the small barracks room. Surely Walter could've afforded better by now? A feeling almost like nostalgia gripped Alucard as he watched. He saw not the sixty-year-old man, but the fourteen-year-old boy he had once fought beside… and with. For a vampire, time did nothing to dim such memories. Walter lovingly put away the silver rings and wires he used as primary weapons. As he reached over to pick up needle and thread, Alucard moved to push through the thin walls. A strange pain that reminded him of burning radiated along his shadow self and he was rebuffed. He howled outside the doorway.
"Ah, Lord Alucard," Walter said dryly as he opened the door, "I thought you might drop by."
Alucard took solid form. Without thinking about it, he appeared as he had for Integra, an almost wraith-like monster. "Guards? Mystical barriers? What are you playing at Walter?" He noted Walter's surprise at his choice of appearance and began to re-mold it somewhat, then chided himself for caring.
"Have you found your new room? We moved your casket into an old lab you may recognize." He found his lips twitching up into a smile as Alucard seemed to be the one caught off guard tonight. Since his barrier had apparently done the job, he magnanimously motioned for Alucard to enter. His guest hissed lowly as he passed the symbols Walter had copied onto the door jamb.
"You will renew that once I've gone, Death?" He noticed that Walter left the door cracked open, presumably to keep an escape route.
"More than likely. It's good to know it works," Walter clicked off the music and gestured for Alucard to take the only chair. Walter sat on the side of his bed and a slight look of annoyance passed his face as the vampire sat down beside him. He was quite certain now that Alucard's face was softer than the death mask he'd first seen in the hall.
"But then I will not be able to protect you in your bed, from…" he batted his long lashes, "creatures of the night."
Walter shrugged, ignoring him was the best plan, he thought, as he picked up his mending. Self-sufficiency was Walter's personal credo and he rarely troubled the house servants for a thing, preferring to launder, mend and polish his own belongings.
"Your case goes well?" Alucard tried for a friendly tone.
He's been back a little more than a day and already he's getting under my skin, Walter grumbled to himself. He put down the torn shirt, "Slowly would be more like." Truth was that the moles they'd planted might not be reliable. The whole trip to Scotland had been fishy, was regrettably ill timed and hadn't yielded much new. Walter reached for a cigarette, but Alucard stretched out his hand and the whole pack flew to him.
"These things will kill you, Walter," he smiled to soften the sting in the statement.
"Something you would like the pleasure of doing instead?" Walter laughed as Alucard inclined his head ever so slightly. As if to prove the monster right, a cough shook Walter's slender frame.
Alucard stood, tossing the pack into Walter's lap. "Your time has passed, old man. We should have had our test of strength twenty years ago."
Walter shook his head, not daring to look in the beast's face. "I did what I was ordered to." He was sure he must be beet red.
"Indeed? Whenever you'd like a fair fight-," He grinned as Walter rose up to shout in his face.
"Fair? I'd like to know what fair is to you!" He'd reached for his gloves before his brain could stop him. The vampire's face was now level to his, younger and almost feminine. So, he's going to play that old card now? Walter dismissed the trick. "When have you ever been fair to me?"
"Careful, Angel of Death," Alucard reached a hand out to cover Walter's left hand. That was the one you had to watch out for, Alucard remembered, the one he'd flick for momentum before directing the strings with the right. Already there was smoke where one of the wires looped over Walter's knuckle and touched Alucard's flesh.
Walter stepped back, noting, "Where're your gloves?" He watched Alucard mentally change tracks. "Your gloves with the sigil?" His leash was still on, that much was clear from the glowing runic symbols on the back of the vampire's hands, but he didn't like casual contact with living flesh or silver items, hence his special gloves.
Alucard held his pale hands up, inspecting them. The elongated nails began to shift back to normal length and he mentally improved the cuticles the way he liked. Really he hadn't given his appearance enough attention, lost as he was in the joy of moving again. "I'll need weapons, Walter." It took the humans heart rate a moment to catch on that the potential fight was gone. "You still have the gun?"
Walter smiled despite himself. "Please lie low around here, Alucard. Integra hasn't notified the other agents yet. I hope we'll be meeting tomorrow, but it does depend on the shape she's in." He opened his mouth to ask about the flicker in the monster's eyes, but decided against. "Your coffin's still in its crate, didn't want to nick it." Walter chose not to mention that the guys who helped him move it wouldn't have understood, had they known what was inside the box.
Alucard reached out for Walter's face, causing a quick flinch as he caressed the lined cheek. "We'll raise her fine, Walter. With a little training she could be a fine leader. She needs you... trusts you. We can do this together." He had softened his voice, the pitch just slightly higher than usual, "You don't need to keep dying. Choose to follow me. Age no more." They say that the eyes are windows to the soul. Alucard gazed into his, burning through to read his spirit.
Walter had to close his eyes, sever the connection. Not sure if he was still capable of standing without Alucard's cold hand, he whispered, "Death holds no fear for me, old friend. I'll serve Hellsing not you." He swayed slightly, opening his eyes to see nothing but the plain little room around him. He's back, Walter thought as he sat, always testing, pushing the limits. Stifling a thrill that caused his shoulders to shudder, Walter reached for the book he'd used to guard the room, and found it gone.