Rarity: Part 5
There's a car waiting on the road, with someone standing outside of it. So that's how that Hellsing guy got here - he and this other had been following me as well.
I trudge the last fifty feet to the road. The figure by the car reaches down to help me up the lip at the edge, and I see that it's Seras Victoria. I'm a little out of sorts, and for once, I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.
"Your friend down there is a dork."
"Eh heh..." she gives a forced, slightly confused, toothy smile, and I note that she has rather spectacular canines as well. "You're wounded... I'll drive you to the hospital."
I frown. "What about your..." I'm not sure if "partner" is the right word. "...cohort?"
"He'll be fine," she answers quickly. "Do you feel up to being briefed on the way?"
That takes me by surprise. "You've found out something new already?"
She gives that uncomfortable smile again. "Not exactly..."
By eight in the morning, I'm sitting in the emergency room, waiting for the Novocain to wear off from my now-stitched shoulder. I'm very lucky in that I wore a racer back bra today - they didn't have to cut it off the way they did my poor sweater to do the stitches. Getting it off is going to be an interesting experience, though.
Somebody's supposed to be arranging transportation for me (and my revolver, which they're holding at the desk) to the police station, so I have nothing to do but wait.
My jacket is folded around my hands; I'm sitting on the edge of the bed. Hesitantly, I reach inside and pull out my dog-eared copy of Dracula. I blankly stare at it, musing over what Seras told me.
Part of me says, "Well, duh." The rest of me says I'm being taken for a ride, with a sizeable conspiracy built up against me, and that at any moment the curtains will be pulled aside to reveal the cameras and the host telling me that I'm on "This Is Your Life" or "Scare Tactics" or something.
But I don't really have any choice but to believe what I've been told. It's the only even moderately reasonable theory that fits the data, so to speak.
Apparently it's true all over the world, but generally hidden. In the UK, however, it's been enough of a problem that even the lowest levels of law enforcement are given seminars on how to deal with it (namely, pass the problem off to Hellsing).
Jacob knew, and never mentioned it to me.
Of course he didn't. They're told not to let slip the secret if they can possibly help it. And when he'd last spoken to me, Jacob hadn't known...
I concentrate, still trying to get used to the idea.
He hadn't known what Fioli-Sternson is.
Fioli-Sternson is a vampire.
I let out an uncontrollable snort, and my shoulder gives a twinge - the Novocain is wearing off. It's not enough to be a bother yet, but it's going to be horribly sore by evening.
...It still sounds ridiculous to me.
I review what Seras told me anyway. There's a reason that Fioli-Sternson used a bad anagram of his name to acquire the house and BMW - apparently part of vampire lore is that they can never truly change their name. So, when the need for a pseudonym arises, they're stuck with anagrams. It's a lesser-known flaw.
Fioli-Sternson is, in truth, Sir Leonard Skeffinton, Lieutenant of the Tower of London during the reign of Henry VIII. He is also the inventor of the Scavenger's Daughter, with which I am now officially all too familiar.
Over the past several centuries, he's been using that device, along with other methods, to remove the blood from his victims' bodies without biting and sucking (which apparently really is vampiric convention). Seras said that usually, a body that's been fed off of to the point of death will arise as a ghoul - but since Fioli-Sternson hasn't been biting to feed, he's left no ghoul trail, making him very difficult for Hellsing to find. In fact, they've only known of his vampirism from documents from the court of Henry VIII itself.
The Hellsing Organization was created for dealing with vampires and ghouls and the like in the UK. And yes, Bram Stoker had known about them. They'd given him a lot of information.
It's not every day that you find out stuff like this. In fact, most people are never told anything meant to change their worldview as drastically as this.
"Ms. Crouse?"
I look up, and I wonder how many times the nurse with the paperwork has called my name as I sit here staring at my book. Luckily, however, she's both patient and pleasant, having just come on shift.
I wish the same could be said of me. I can feel the bags under my eyes.
"There's an officer here to take you to the station," the nurse tells me as I finish signing papers. "He's in the waiting room. Just take the hallway to the left and follow it to the end; you're all done."
She gives me a big smile, and I can't help but notice how blatantly rectangular her teeth are. Great, now I'm going to be staring at peoples' teeth for the rest of my life.
I shrug on my jacket - which would be quite painful if there hadn't been a gauze pad taped over my stitches, and if the Novocain wasn't still hanging on. I hold my jacket closed around me, partly because it's cold and partly to hide the fact that I'm wearing only a sports bra underneath. I've never been a bare-midriff kind of person, even in warm weather. With my book in my pocket, I head for the waiting room.
I'm pleasantly surprised to find that the officer waiting for me is a concerned-looking Jacob.
Author's Note: The real historical personage's name is
Sir Leonard Skeffington, not Sir Leonard Skeffinton.
But, hey, the real character's name is
Abraham Van Helsing, not Van Hellsing.
It started out as quickly realized typo, but I decided to keep it, so as not to disrespect the actual person or his descendants.
Disclaimer:
Hellsing, the series, concepts and characters, are the property, copyright and trademark of Pioneer Animation/Geneon (see http/hellsing. No ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by the use in this work. This work constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This work is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.