Deadly and Blonde
Chapter 9: Laments of the Lost
Shielle awoke in the dark, she couldn't see anything and panicked for a moment before she remembered where she was. Her face was buried in something soft and warm and there was a weight pressing down on her left side. She squirmed around a bit until she found the controls to the lid on the bed and pressed the button to open it. There was a quiet hissing noise as the seal between lid and body opened, and a wave of slightly cooler air flooded in making Shielle shiver. Along with the air came light; it wasn't much, but it was enough to let her vampiric eyes see without difficulty.
At first, what Shielle saw didn't make any sense to her. It seemed that someone was trying to smother her with a pair of blue pillows. As she gradually gained back her lucidity and realized just what those pillows really were she squeaked. She would have blushed if she'd had the blood to spare, but instead skipped directly to the flailing about to try to free herself.
Seras awoke to find Shielle struggling to free herself from a rather awkward situation. Seras was hugging Shielle to herself like a teddy bear and had the younger girl's head buried almost completely in her chest. She released Shielle once she realized what was going on and Shielle, suddenly unrestrained, managed to catapult herself completely out of the bed, smacking herself into the retractable cover above. She landed on Seras a moment later. "Ow…"
Seras struggled into a sitting position, positioning herself so that Shielle's head was resting in her lap. She had to force herself not to laugh for a moment, but had herself back under control quickly. "I'm sorry, are you alright?" she asked, brushing Shielle's hair out of her face. Shielle didn't respond right away; she had her jaw locked and her eyes squeezed shut, tears slowly pushing their way through to run down her face.
"It hurts…" said Shielle, her voice little more than a hoarse whisper. She continued to fight the tears that came to her eyes, and started to pull herself into a fetal position.
Seras looked up at the inside of the cover; there was a crack in the thick wood where Shielle's head had impacted, along with a patch of scalp. Now Seras was worried, she ran her hand down the back of the younger girl's head searching for the injury. She found a nasty bump, but it seemed that she did indeed have the benefits of improved healing abilities. Even as she watched, she could see the nasty looking contusion fade into a black and blue mark and then into nothing. Seras continued to stroke the spot where the injury had been. "There, there. The wound's already healed itself."
"Really? I thought it would be worse than that. I feel like I cracked my skull."
"Oh, you did alright. You left a bit of it stuck to the bed up there." She gestured up towards where the crack in the coffin lid was, "I guess you haven't managed to hurt yourself since you were changed. You should heal from just about anything that's not too large in no more than a minute or two."
Shielle sat up and wiped at her face to clear away the tears, "Is it really already gone? It's stopped hurting." She reached her hands up tentatively to touch the place she'd been injured just a few moments ago. "Oh wow, it really is gone. I didn't know I could do that."
"Yeah, it comes standard with the whole vampire thing. I've been shot nearly to pieces before and I hardly even have any scars to show for it except for this one." She pulled down the ribbon around her neck to show the vertical scar she'd received from the Paladin Alexander Anderson what seemed like a lifetime ago. "This is from a blessed silver blade, that's just about the only thing that'll leave any sort of lasting mark on me now."
"Blessed silver?" her face fell, "So we really are unholy. I really am a monster."
"You know, I've wondered about that myself every day since I was turned. I don't believe that just being a vampire makes someone a monster. Monsters do monstrous things, and while the temptation may be greater for us being what we are; as long as we don't commit the acts that would define someone as a monster we don't have to be." At least I hope we don't, but she shouldn't have to worry about that at her age. "You don't have to be a monster if you don't want to be."
"But the blessed silver…"
"One thing I think you'll find out as you age, or as you exist anyway, is that many of the rules and conventions laid down by religion aren't quite as concrete as a lot of people think them to be or would like them to be. If you must, just think of the vampirism as another trial to overcome. You need to try to be a good person despite the temptations and bloodlust attached to our condition. I don't know if it might already be too late for me, but you never had a choice about being turned so I can't see how you would have to be eternally damned for a change that was forced on you against your will."
Seras hugged her, making sure to avoid a repeat of before, "Now let's get back to sleep, sunset won't be for a while, and I get the feeling that we'll want to be well rested to face whatever is ahead of us." The two laid down and Seras closed the lid on the Coffin.
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Sir Integra Wingates Hellsing was not a happy camper; she paced her office, gnawing on a cigar while Walter read a report of what might have been another one of those creatures. The rest of the round table was hounding her for information that she just didn't have yet.
"It would seem that the group behind this is operating out of a subterranean base and the creature the other night either escaped or was released through the sewer system. This is all still conjecture, but based on the data we have about the types of 'NMC's we've seen thus far and the report the FBI gave us on the Neo-Ark incident I believe it would be safe to assume that the site of this operation will be in the vicinity of the Thames, most likely under ground near some sort of nexus in the sewer system.
Walter paused for a moment to gather his thoughts before continuing, "I believe it would be wise to start canvassing likely areas in the sewer system now, so if nothing else, we'll know where they're not based."
"Very well, assign one of the squads to go down and plant motion sensors and cameras in any areas you suspect might be in use. I think we should keep Seras and her group here for now, so they have some time to get used to each other before going out into the field." She paused for a moment, "I don't know what to do about that girl though. Do you have any suggestions?"
"I suppose she'll have to stay here until we can find some way to reverse her condition, or at least until we can make other arrangements for her. We'll be taking blood and tissue samples from her tonight so we can start getting some better research done on the workings of the FREAK chips. Hopefully this will be able to provide us with some new insights, since we've never been able to take in any of the artificial vampires alive."
"I'll leave her in Seras' care then, for now at least; or until we can find someone else to look after her." She paused and thought for a moment, "If she needs looking after. So far as I know, she could be as old as I am though I have a feeling that she isn't. See if you can find out how old she is when you're running the tests."
Walter bowed, "As you wish Sir Integra," he said as he turned to leave.
"Oh, one more thing, give her access to the library so she will have something to occupy herself with while the others are out on missions, I don't need her running around the premises unattended." Walter nodded and walked out of the room, shutting the door softly behind him.
Integra sat back down at her desk and resisted the urge to smack her head against it in frustration. This whole thing was turning into a tremendous logistical mess. Far too many people had already come into contact with the creatures for them to be able to just cover up their existence, but if it became too public Hellsing would receive a lot of unwanted attention and other secrets might get out. The Americans had been faced with the same problem after the New York City incident, but the attention on the NMC related incidents had dwindled as all of the following problems were covered up immediately. From what Integra could gather, they had been lucky with the Neo-Ark incident; there were only two living people outside the agency who had any idea what had really gone on there.
Frustrated, Integra sighed. It wasn't like her to get this stressed over what she really hoped would only be a minor incident, however, if this were to continue she wouldn't have the resources to continue covering up future incidents like the American FBI was doing. That would leave her with two choices, neither of which she cared for. She could expand the organization, losing a lot of the secrecy that they were able to maintain as a smaller group. The other option was to hand off the responsibility for handling these problems to another agency, none of which she trusted to be able to handle the situation.
"Is something bothering you master?" came a voice out of the darkness.
"Nothing that concerns you. Shouldn't you be getting ready to go out and kill things?"
Alucard took the hint and began to fade back into the shadows. "As you wish master."
"Oh, one more thing; stay away from the FBI agents and the little girl. That constitutes an order." She saw Alucard nod and vanish into the darkness out the corner of her eye. Annoying git. Couldn't Van Hellsing have chosen a less annoying vampire to enslave? Integra swiveled on her chair to look out the window. The sun was beginning to set, painting the sky off to the west scarlet and casting long blood red shadows off the trees. The moon began to rise, looking bright orange as it crested the horizon. Integra shuddered involuntarily, the eerie scene outside her window was reinforcing the gut feeling she had that something was about to go very, very wrong.