Chapter 6 : The round table.

Thames Building, London

There was a lot of activity around Thames Building. MI5 HQ was receiving the highest placed people in the defence of Her Majesty. VIP cars dropped their important personnel while armoured carriers dropped squads of soldiers from special branch. They promptly evacuated civilians from the streets and started fortifying their position. Snipers occupied the roof of the building and were posted at different windows. Every person that came in was double checked. Even high ranking soldiers, even MI5 personnel, even her, Baroness Integria Wingates Hellsing. She could guess Pierce didn't plan on having a disaster similar to the last Round Table where two vampires: the Valentine brothers and their ghoul minions had nearly exterminated them. Strangely enough, Pierce was one of the few who didn't blame her for it. He understood the idea of a dangerous foe. He was simply taking no chances. Two heavily armed troopers escorted her to the entrance of the building. They then let her go through the glass entrance where two others troopers took charge of her. Then a blond man in his thirties received her.

- Baroness, the meeting starts soon, please follow me.

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Adam escorted the baroness to her chair before taking his own. He was one of the few invited to the gathering, with Zoe, Danny, Chambers (the surviving police officer) and Ruth. They were here to provide data to the meeting, no more. Once every one was seated, Pierce rose and started speaking.

- Well, once again our country is in a dire crisis and it is apparently up to us to clean this mess up.

Pierce's relatively blunt way of putting things up was in contrast with the seriousness of the situation.

- So, this is how our little story goes: Many countries, England most of them all, have been sustaining attacks from a mysterious foe with an unknown agenda. Normally, such an affair would be the job of the secret services, but recent events, and I am by that referring to the situation at Eastside, have shown us that a more frightening foe than a mere terrorist cell is behind the bloodshed.

He had everyone's attention, presenting the facts as they were. Oliver Mace, chief of the Joint Intelligence Comity, was the first to ask questions:

- I would rather like to know what exactly happened there.

- In time. Now our little story involves several fascinating caracters.

The wall behind Pierce opened to reveal a screen. A picture of an 40 ish black haired man appeared on the screen.

- First of all, we have Dereck Hassing: smuggler. He was the one who informed us about his rather unusual clients he had. He smuggled what he described as an oversized spider. During transportation it escape and wrecked havoc before being put down. His clients were furious and killed one of his men, that's what made him come to us. He is so far the only real information we had on our foes. They seem good at concealing themselves and in intimidation.

Then the screen went to show to sketches of two men. Adam remembered them as the two individuals Hassing had described. He also knew Zoe had encountered them.

- Before we proceed, are these people clarified for the nature of the information we are about to disclose ?

It was Hellsing who asked that, a very stern look on her face.

- Yes baroness, they are. Anyway, they already saw enough so hiding the truth wont be of much use. Danny, Ruth, Zoe, Commander Chambers what I am about to tell you is absolutely confidential. Understood ?

They all shock their heads to signal they had understood.

- Very well, I'll be brief, Vampires, demons, zombies and all those niceties exist, and not just in movies. They are real and our job, amongst others is to hide that and keep it under control. Baroness Hellsing is the leading of an organisation charged with neutralising vampires. Like the one you met Zoe. By the way, I wish to thank her for her fast intervention. It saved my agents life.

The baroness let a small smile show on her face for a split second. It almost creeped out Adam out. Despite being beautiful, she was scary.

- Now, these two characters are not yet identified but a few facts have been established. The thinner one is a vampire, as my agent saw him feed on another woman. That's when the situation got bad. He has proved resistant to conventional weaponry which tends to confirm the speculation. We suppose he is the one that changed the special branch soldiers into ghouls. We know that the police officers on the roofs were taken down by him.

Chamber's face lost its colour. He was probably imagining the gruesome fate of his men.

- The second one is yet to be identified but he is confirmed to be of supernatural nature since one of Hellsing Foundation's choppers reported him taken a point blank shot from a sawn shotgun. This shot was fired by our third character, the only person we have identified so far.

The screen now showed the photo of that man in a red coat with white hair. The photo showed him wielding two guns and shooting unseen foes. A huge sword was strapped on his back.

- Our man here is known as Tony Redgrave, alias Dante. His official job description is private investigator, but officiously, he is a auto proclaimed demonhunter. If you look at your files, you will see he was involved in numerous incidents of supernatural nature. The tower in New York, the Mallet Island castle, the Tokyo cults conflicts. Let's put it simply, when shit hits the fans, he's highly likely to be around. The usual way of hiring him is through a contact named Enzo Ferino. He arrived by transcontinental ferry yesterday.

Once again, Oliver Mace interrupted the presentation:

- MI6 has on several occasions hired his services as a mercenary during the 80ths. He's usually quite efficient.

Pierce nodded.

- Thank you Mace.

The remark had a sarcastic tone. It was no secret him and Mace did not like each other. They often came into conflict through their agencies.

- Is he of supernatural nature too ?

- That we do not know for sure. There is speculation due to his over-average abilities but he corresponds to none of the usual types known. Not a vampire, nor werewolf. He does not seem either to have regular contact with the wizard community so we can more or less rule that out.

- Are you sure he is not vampire ? After all, his look and dressing tastes do remind of someone…

Adam wasn't sure to understand what Mace had implied here. The baroness expression seemed to go annoyed for a brief moment before returning to normal.

- Anyhow, after showing the cast, let's go to the script.

The screen now showed the map of the area around the warehouse. Dots represented different people. Purple for MI5, blue for police, dark blue for special branch, black for hostiles, red for Redgrave and green for the last person.

- Firstly my two agents arrive at the place. Zoe goes to recon while Danny stays in the car. She goes to investigate and finds the vamp having his meal while his friend watched, is that correct Zoe ?

She nodded, still a bit uneasy.

- So then she tries to neutralise the foe with her handgun. Rounds hit but no real damage takes place. She is about to be charged but then, someone, a young man about 18-19 comes and shoots some unknown projectile that stuns the two foes. They retreat calling reinforcements and special branch comes in. They never stood a chance against the vampire who made them his minions that he then sends back. Commander Chambers and his men arrive and form a defensive perimeter around the building. Ghouls attack and a firefight opens. Teams on roofs are taken out by the vampire and his colleague. Meanwhile, our young man disappears mysteriously without trace. Then our man in red appears on the scene shooting and slicing ghouls before shooting our not vampire foe and leaving with the young man on his motorcycle. Hellsing was unsuccessful in intercepting him.

The screen displayed the robot portrait of a young man in his late teens. He had big glasses scruffy medium hair and, most noticeable feature, a lightning shaped scar.

- This, is the last character of our story. So far Identification has been unsuccessful, but I don't think there are that many kids with lightning shaped scars around. Unless it's the latest fashion in the youth pop culture. Zoe, you maintain he and the two hostiles knew each other.

- Well, the strong one recognised him. They seemed even to consider him as a priority target.

- We can agree, anyone important enough to attract the attention of hostiles and a demon hunter is worth looking into. So that concludes the presentation. Now, the big question, what do we do about it ?

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Dante was showing files to Harry, they were illustrations of different artefacts. He recognized some of them: Hufflepuff's cup, Slytherin's ring, the diary. There was also one of a snake he supposed being Nagini. Some of them showed the word destroyed. The diary and the ring.

The fact that he had these files showed that he had inside knowledge of the wirzarding world. Harry wondered who had given him all this information and how desperate he was to call in a muggle. He had broken one of the most important wizarding laws by doing so. The other part that left him wondering was how he could talk about it so casually. The only experience of Harry had of muggles knowing about magic were the Dursleys who were very wary of it up to the point of banishing the word from the conversations. Despite the fact that they were hardly a reference as far as humans were concerned, Harry did expect most muggles to speak of it in a weird way if they knew. Yet, that man was talking about it like it were something as natural as cars and TVs. Harry guessed the man wasn't new in all that.

- What is it you do again ?

He just looked at him casually and answered:

- I whack demons. I shoot them, I kick them and slice and dice them. I also extend into any psychotic supernatural creature, undead, and maniacs with too much power and not enough hobbies. That includes Voldo here.

He was also the first man Harry heard mentioning Voldemort without fear or even the trace of a shudder. Either, he knew almost nothing about Voldemort, or else he was greatly overestimating himself. That or it was just Lockhart type bravado. Then again, he had slain a bunch of ghouls and shot a werewolf, at least he wasn't a phony.

- Right, you do realise Voldemort, even without the Horcruxes, is extremely powerful.

- He's just human. One bullet in the head and he's toast.

- One aveda kedabra and we're down.

- I'm quicker. He's not Neo, he can't dodge bullets or anything.

Ok, the, guy was just plain nuts. Suggesting a suicidal attack on Voldemort just confirmed that. But then, didn't Harry have in mind to confront Voldemort alone? Yes, it was more in the rush than a rational decision, but, he still hadn't changed his mind. Maybe they weren't that different.

- Do you at least have a plan to do that ?

- As a matter of fact, I have one. Knowing were he hid his toys gives us initiative. The idea is to wreck them all before he realises what's going on. Speed will be the key. Once he knows we're after them, he'll probably hide them elsewhere. Two are down, the diary and the ring, which leaves us five more. The snake always being with him, that leaves us three strike points…

- Four you mean..

- Duh, don't they teach you maths at wizard school ? 6-2-13. Six Horcruxes…

- Seven..

Dante looked surprised for a second there. He obviously thought there were only six.

- Are you sure. I was told there were six.

- Your informant is either misinformed or lying to you. There are seven of them. Well five now.

Dante looked annoyed now.

- I knew that was too good to be true. I should have learned by now. Clients with briefcases full of money are always trouble.

- So, what do we do? This might be a trap.

- As I always do: walk right into it. He will regret it if it were a trap. If you knew the number of clients I had who tried to screw me….

- That's… good to know…

Suddenly, Harry realised who Dante reminded him of: not Lockhart, but Fred and George Weasley. He showed the same recklessness.

- Anyway, if there's a trap, might find Voldo there…

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Not much action in this one. Sorry It took so long but I had writer block. Used my imagination on other stories meanwhile. Hope you're not mad at me. I'll be quicker now, promise.