Deadly and Blonde

Chapter 5: Lost Lives

Aya awoke to the sound of soft crying. Looking next to her she found Tamsen curled up in a ball on the seat, her legs pulled up against her body and her arms wrapped around those, her head resting on her knees and her dark hair spilling over down the front of her legs almost reaching the floor. Aya shook her head for a moment to clear the lingering traces of sleep from her brain. She reached over an put her hand on Tamsen's shoulder, "What's wrong?"

Tamsen quickly uncurled herself and returned to a sitting position, making a quick effort to wipe any remaining traces of tears from her face. "Oh, it's nothing really. I'd just thought I'd never have to come back here again. Or I'd hoped at least; not many happy memories of this place for me." She glanced at Aya, "I ever tell you I used to live in England?"

Aya shook her head, "No, you didn't. I wouldn't even have been able to guess, you do a great job of covering up any accent you might have picked up." After a few moments of silence following that last comment, she decided to try a different approach. "So, do you want to talk about it? You don't have to if you don't want to, I don't want to pry."

"No, it's alright. It'll be nice to tell someone for once." She paused for a moment to collect her thoughts and shift to a more comfortable position. "Both of my parents died when I was very young, and I spent most of my childhood being shuffled around through endless numbers of foster homes. The last couple I ended up staying with moved into a house they owned in London shortly after I came to live with them. They were a nice couple, and I probably would have ended up staying with them if it hadn't been interrupted. Apparently they thought the same since they left everything to me in their will.

"I came home one evening to find the house in shambles, furniture broken and overturned, and blood spattered everywhere. I ran to the kitchen, where the phone was so I could call the police. I found my foster mother there, lying on the kitchen floor in a puddle of blood with half of the back of her head missing. My foster father was lying nearby, I'd thought he was dead too, but he called my name. I went to him then and he told me to get out of the house as fast as I could, there was someone still in the house, and he didn't know where he was.

"He didn't last long after that, he'd been shot in the liver and died in my arms a few minutes later. I didn't know what to do then, I was scared beyond moving at that point. Then I heard the back door open. I kinda' lost it at that point, I grabbed a knife off the counter and went to the back hallway not really caring what would happen to me. I found him there, the thief, the murderer; dragging himself out the door. He wasn't in very good shape, he had a stab wound in his leg and was losing a lot of blood. If it weren't for that fact, I'd probably have ended up getting myself killed." She sighed and continued, "I jumped on him, stabbed him…it seemed like I was at it forever then, it was probably only five or six times. But I'd killed him, within an hour I'd had one of my parents die in my arms, and I'd killed a man. I was eleven at the time, so I had an easy time dodging my way out of any criminal charges. Nobody suspected the little eleven year old girl could have killed the man.

"In order to avoid being put back into the adoption pool, I made an arrangement with the parents of my only real friend at the time. As it turned out, her father was the land lord of an apartment building. I opted to get my own apartment next to my friend's so we could say that I was staying with the family. I used the money that I'd been left to pay the rent even though they said I didn't have to. The next few years were good, my friend's parents let her move in with me, and we roomed together through most of middle school. But then my luck, or lack thereof decided to kick in. My friend was diagnosed with terminal leukemia and died two months later.

"I'd helped to pay for her treatment as much as I could, and it left me largely broke. Even without the money, my friend's family was willing to let me continue to stay in the apartment. I felt guilty though, staying without paying for it, so I got a job through one of the other residents. She ended up really being my only friend at the time, I'd known her for a while previously and she'd seemed nice and all, but I'd not really been that close to her up until that point. Anyway, she got me a job as sort of a secretary where she worked at a police station.

"It was a pretty nice job, it didn't really pay all that much, but it was enough for me to help pay my way and not feel guilty about staying in the building. We became close friends, she wasn't really even all that much older than me at the time. I guess I kinda' fell in love with her at some point, I don't think she knew though." Tamsen paused, considering how to go on, "I really never got the chance to tell her, she was killed in action only a few months after we became close. After her death there just wasn't anything anchoring me over there anymore, so I stayed just long enough to go to her funeral, then I ran away to America. I've already told you everything after that, how I ended up in MIST and all." She sighed and leaned back against Aya.

"I'd just hoped I'd never have to come back here again. This place is like a black hole, sucking in lives…especially ones that I'm close to." She closed her eyes, trying to suppress the tears that once again threatened to come.

Aya stroked her hair gently, "Hey, it's me this time, you know I'm too damn stubborn to die on you any time soon. Now stop worrying about it and get some rest, we have a long flight ahead of us, and I get the feeling that we won't be getting all that much sleep once we get to London."

HR

Seras stepped back and looked around at her handiwork. It had taken her a good four hours, but she'd gotten two rooms prepared for the two visiting specialists. Hell, she'd practically had to re-build the rooms with the condition they'd been in. Each of the two rooms now had a clean bed, a dresser, and a table and chair setup much like her own room. Fortunately the bathrooms hadn't been in very bad condition, only in need of a bit of dusting, ok a lot of dusting, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

She walked back to her own room and sat down for a moment, it was almost two in the morning now. I suppose it's time I go on patrol; wouldn't want any more of those things popping up unexpectedly. Seras quickly stripped out of the clothes she'd been wearing, took a quick shower to get rid of all the dust, and dressed in her hunting outfit. She patted her belt to make sure she had her radio and a few spare clips and started walking towards the exit of Hellsing Manor. She felt better once she got outside, her earlier musings forgotten. Not quite sure where to start, she decided to head back over to where she'd seen the first thing the other night.

It took her a good two hours to walk there from HQ, but she wasn't in any sort of hurry and was taking her time. She reached the intersection at about four in the morning, there was almost no evidence of the battle that had taken place there the previous night. There was a covering over the dent she'd made in the brick wall, but otherwise nothing. All the blood had been cleaned up, there was no broken glass in the street, and there was nothing to indicate where the hell the thing might have come from. Seras wondered if she might be able to find and question any of the people that had been at the scene the previous night, but realized she hadn't really gotten a good enough look at any of them for her to be able to recognize anyone.

Seras muttered a curse to herself and leaned back against the wall she was standing near considering what to do next. She jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder, and nearly shot a hole in the owner of said hand. "Jeez, you should say something before you grab someone like that, you scared me half to death." Seras' brain suddenly wandered off for a moment on the implications of the phrase "Scared me half to death" as a vampire

"Sorry to have startled you," the owner of the voice was a young man, not much younger than Seras appeared to be, he had a girl with him probably his girlfriend Seras thought. "You're the woman from last night right? I…we just wanted to say thanks; for saving our lives." He seemed frightened, almost to the point of soiling himself actually; his girlfriend wasn't in much better shape.

"Well…you're welcome I guess. It's just kinda' what I do. You don't have to be afraid of me you know, I won't bite." Ouch…bad pun "I wonder if you could help me with something. Would you be able to tell me where that thing came from in the first place, at least from which direction or something?"

The young man seemed to relax a bit with Seras' assurance and shook his head, "I'm sorry, it was already here when we walked out of the store. Is there anything else we can do?"

Seras shook her head slowly, "Sorry, not at the moment I'm afraid. I just need to try to figure out where the hell that thing came from." Seras knew she was no investigator, but she was curious and there didn't seem to be anyone else trying to figure anything out at the moment. She figured it was probably useless anyway and made up her mind to start on her way back soon. She was about to start walking away when she noticed that the pair was still standing in front of her looking like they wanted to say something. Finally the girl lightly elbowed the boy and he spoke up.

"We were just curious…umm, what are you? I mean being slammed into that wall hard enough to make a hole like that should have killed a normal person."

"Ok, but you have to promise not to tell anyone, you're not really supposed to know that I exist. I'm a vampire."

"Wow, that's what we thought. It's just so incredible to know that vampires actually exist. Don't worry though, we won't tell anyone."

A moment or two passed where neither party knew quite what to say to the other and, figuring she'd probably said enough Seras decided it was time for her to get going. She gave the kids a nod and walked away, they seemed like nice enough kids but they asked too many damn questions. Eh, they'd probably figured out what I was already anyway. Seras wondered what to do now, she still had most of the night left to kill and there wasn't really anything else in particular that needed doing for now.

After a few minutes of walking completely aimlessly, she found herself in familiar territory, she was in the area where she'd lived before that night in the little town of Cheddar what seemed like a life time ago. Seras sighed, as far as she had progressed since then, she still wasn't really able to completely put her humanity behind her, and the memories stirring in her mind were enough to bring a single red tear to her eye. She quickly swiped it away, staining the back of her glove but not really caring, she could think up some other reason for it later.