Deadly and Blond
Chapter 12: Girl Talk
Tamsen's funeral was a small event, held in Hellsing's small chapel. Rupert, Eve, and Jodie had flown in just a few hours ago and Jodie had decided along with Eve to remain in London for the duration of Aya's mission there. Aya reluctantly agreed after Jodie told her of Eve's recent rash of nightmares about her past.
The ceremony ended with Aya being presented with a beautifully crafted urn by the vicar, who offered a few private words of condolence before concluding the ceremony. As the group shuffled out towards the dining room for refreshments, Rupert quietly pulled Aya aside. "Are you sure this is the best way to go about this? Once I report her as Killed in Action she can't come back or it'll be all of our asses."
"I know, but as far as I can figure, this is our only real option. She won't be able to leave for probably at least a year, and we don't have the ability in our organization to be able to meet her needs. If need be, we could probably get her a new identity to come stateside with. It wouldn't be too hard considering how few people know her."
Rupert nodded, "Well, I'll abide by your judgment. Just try to see to it that this doesn't somehow come back around to bite us in the ass."
Aya was about to respond when they reached their destination and their conversation was cut off. Aya gave Rupert a little nod and walked over to where Jodie was helping Eve get what she wanted from the small buffet.
This elaborate little ceremony was necessary to establishing and maintaining that Tamsen had been killed. It also allowed Rupert to state that he'd attended her funeral without perjuring himself. Sighing, Rupert walked over to the buffet; he had a long flight ahead of him and he didn't want to go on an empty stomach.
It wasn't until almost two hours later, after the sun had set and they'd seen Rupert off that Aya led Eve downstairs. She came to a halt in front of Tamsen's door and was reaching out to knock when she heard Tamsen call from inside, "Come in, it's open." She sighed and pushed open the door. Tamsen was seated half facing the door at a table in the middle of the room along with Jodie.
Aya had barely taken a step into the room when Eve bolted past her and vaulted into Tamsen's lap. Tamsen, still breathing out of habit let out a "Woomph" as Eve landed on her. "Hey kiddo, long time no see. Have you gotten bigger since last time I saw you?"
Eve smiled up at her, "Nope, still the same age as always. I hope I grow up a bit more eventually, nobody takes you seriously when you look like you're nine."
"Well, looks like the three of us are in the same boat now kiddo. It doesn't look like I'll be aging anymore any time soon either."
"So you're really a vampire?" Tamsen smiled sheepishly and lifted her upper lip with one finger showing off her fangs. "Wow, do you really have to drink blood and sleep in a coffin and stuff? I thought your fangs would be longer."
"Yeah, I really do have to drink blood and sleep in a coffin. Not really that it has to be a coffin, but my senses are so sharp now that without being sealed up in something like a coffin, every little noise or bit of light would keep me awake. As for the fangs, they get longer when I need to feed, if they were that long all the time, I wouldn't be able to close my mouth all the way."
Eve considered this for a moment, then hugged Tamsen again. "Will I still be able to see you?"
Tamsen smiled down at her and stroked her hair, "Well I'll have to stay around here for a while, at least long enough for me to become strong enough to travel around on my own. I'll make sure to come visit you sometimes though. Until then you're welcome to come visit me if the scary lady there will allow it." She flashed a toothy grin at Aya, who gave her a mock death-glare in return.
"Only if 'Auntie Tamsen' promises to behave herself. I don't want you coming home with fangs and an allergy to garlic.
"Oh, we can bite people without them becoming vampires or ghouls; and she looks so cute…and tasty," she said before burying her face in the crook of Eve's neck and making a bunch of loud, obviously exaggerated slurping sounds. Eve squirmed and giggled until Tamsen withdrew, smacking her lips, "Mmm, mmm, good."
Laughing, Eve jumped up and mimicked Tamsen's earlier actions, to which Tamsen responded by tickling her sides. Eve quickly fell back into Tamsen's lap, laughing and squirming. Tamsen stopped a few seconds later, allowing Eve to pull herself back into a sitting position on her lap.
After giving her a moment to compose herself, Tamsen lifted Eve off her lap and helped her to a standing position before getting up herself. "Okay," she began, kneeling down a bit so her face was level with Eve's, "Eve, if you'll come with me for a little bit, there's someone I'd like you to meet." After a moment, Eve nodded and grasped Tamsen's hand. Smiling, Tamsen led Eve from the room, crossing her eyes at Aya as they passed by, causing the older woman to shake her head amusedly.
Tamsen led Eve down the hall a little ways and knocked on one of the doors. "Come in," called a somewhat muffled sounding voice from within the room. Tamsen opened the door and immediately had to clamp her hands over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.
Shielle was standing in the middle of the room, wearing a white tee-shirt that could have held four of her. There was a half-drunken blood bag dangling by the tube from her mouth and a pair of cheap headphones on her ears. She was casually holding a pale pink coffin that must have weighed at least six times what she did over her head with one hand like a waitress holds a tray. She smiled as much as she could without losing her blood bag at Tamsen, then startled a bit when she noticed Eve standing next to her. She hastily put down the coffin in the far left corner of the room and pulled off her headphones.
"Eve," started Tamsen, looking down into the child's face, "this is Shielle. She's about the same age as you actually, in both ways. Shielle, meanwhile, had pulled the blood bag from her mouth and walked over to where the two were standing.
"Hello," she said extending a hand.
Eve took the offered hand, "I'm Eve, it's nice to meet you." She paused for a moment before adding, "So you're a vampire too?"
Shielle smiled a bit sadly, "Yup, I am indeed." Her expression brightened a little a moment later, "You know, I've heard a lot about you from Tamsen and Aya since I met them. I didn't really get most of the scientific stuff, but apparently we come from similar backgrounds.
"First off, anything bad they told you is a lie," said Eve with an impish little grin. "Second,"
"Second," interceded Tamsen, "You two will have plenty of time to discuss all of that later. It's been arranged for you two to room together here for the time being since the rest of us probably won't be around too much in the next few days," she told Eve, gesturing towards the bed that was situated at the far end of the room, opposite the disturbingly cheery looking coffin that Shielle had been moving when they came in. "On second thought, maybe this would be a good time for you two to discuss your backgrounds since the rest of us are due at a strategy session in a few minutes," she said after taking a look at her watch.
Eve was about to respond when she suddenly froze and her eyes widened. Tamsen was about to ask what was wrong when she noticed Seras in the process of phasing into the room via the side wall. "Hi master," called Tamsen as soon as Seras finished phasing.
Seras smiled and walked over to the group. "You know you really don't have to call me, 'master,'; 'Seras,' would do just fine instead.
"Sorry Mas...I mean Seras," she corrected herself. "There's just sort of a compulsion in the back of my mind to call you that."
"I know, I went through the same thing with Alucard before I was released." Tamsen looked at her a bit inquisitively so she went on, "Don't worry though, I won't put off releasing you to keep you under my thumb like my master did, but I do want to be sure that you're ready before I do it." Then, remembering why she'd come in, "Now why don't you introduce me to this pretty young lady?"
"Oh, right. Eve, I'd like you to meet Seras. She's the one who turned me into a vampire." After a moment, she continued, "and this is Eve, Aya's younger sister."
"It's nice to meet you Eve. I didn't know that Aya had a younger sister, but the resemblance is uncanny."
"It's nice to meet you too...but yeah, I don't really get talked about very much since I'm actually her clone, not her sister so we don't want to attract too much attention to me.
"Ummm...Eve..." Tamsen murmured in her ear.
"It's okay, sis and Jodie told me who's in the know here so I can just be myself for a while, which is partially why I'm here. Trying to act like a nine year old all the time is a pretty big pain in the ass."
Tamsen laughed at this, "Oh, I'm not so sure about that. I can think of a pretty good number of adults...mostly politicians actually, that manage to pull it off pretty well."
All four women laughed at this, even Shielle who, for the first time Seras could think of since she'd found her, had a genuine smile on her face.
Seras' radio went active then, "Miss Seras, could you and Miss Tamsen please come to the meeting room?" came Walter's voice.
"We'll be right up," responded Seras. "Well, it looks like this is where we leave you two. When you're done figuring out the room, why don't you ask Shielle to show you around a little bit if she's willing." With that she turned and led Tamsen out of the room, shutting the door behind them.
"Those two look so cute together," said Shielle to nobody in particular.
"Hmm? You mean they're?"
"Oh, you didn't know? Besides the blood bond, they're also a couple."
"Huh, well whatever makes them happy," she said, shrugging. "You're right though, they are cute together." She said as she started to look around the room.
The room was easily large enough to accommodate both girls and had its own attached bathroom. Eve's bed was in the back right corner, opposite Shielle's coffin in the left, and appeared to be an old-style canopy bed. Her bags had already been brought in and were stacked neatly in front of a dresser along the wall adjacent to her bed. There was also a desk pushed back against the wall, but apart from a similar arrangement on Shielle's side of the room, the only furniture was a small table with a bucket of ice sitting on it and two chairs.
"Well, it's large enough," she commented, "Kinda' Spartan though."
"Yeah it is rather. Sorry 'bout that."
"Why are you sorry?"
"Well, you might have been able to stay in one of the nice rooms upstairs if I weren't..."
"If you weren't a vampire, we probably wouldn't have met. Personally, I prefer it this way. Besides," she said, smiling, "this saves me from having to massively re-arrange my sleep-schedule." She sat down at the table and stretched a bit, "So I take it that was blood you were drinking when I came in?"
"That's right," said Shielle, sitting down opposite Eve at the table, "A negative, my favorite flavor."
"You can tell the difference by how it tastes?"
"Yeah, your tastes change I guess when you become a vampire, along with the rest of your digestive system. Blood tastes really good to me now, better than...well anything I ever had before I became this way. I grew up on the streets so I never really had any good food while I was alive. Even for a while after actually. I just came here a few days ago, before that I was living off of rats. Rats' blood tastes awful."
She stopped to take a sip from her blood bag then, so Eve piped up, "You lived off rats? Eeww... So you never had to kill anyone then?"
Shielle reluctantly nodded and put down the now empty blood bag. "I have," she said a bit sadly, "but he was a child molester or something and he was coming after me, so I think he probably deserved it," she added defensively.
"You don't have to defend yourself to me. According to the records we recovered from when I was found, I've killed at least four people, though I don't really recall doing it at all."
Shielle looked her over skeptically for a moment before commenting, "Are you sure the records are right? You don't look like you could hurt a fly."
"I think that's like the pot calling the kettle black..."responded Eve, noting Shielle's slight frame and delicate features, "I think I'm bigger than you are."
Shielle looked down at herself for a moment, then laughed. "You know, I think you're right; but I get super-human strength along with the whole vampire package. I don't see how you'd have managed to kill four adults."
"Well, apparently I made one's head explode, set two of them on fire, and drained the life-force out of the fourth."
Shielle just stared at her quizzically for a minute, then finally managed to say, "H-how can you be so blasé about something like that?"
"Well, before sister rescued me, I was being conditioned to kill by the people that made me. When my old memories started coming back I guess some of the conditioning did too. I know I should really be a bit sad or regretful, but between the conditioning and the other things they were doing to me I just can't seem to make myself care. I'm sure I'd feel terrible if I did something like that now, but I wasn't even me back then, I was basically just a Guinea Pig."
"Wow, that's so sad. I mean, I was used like that in a lab for a week and it was terrible for me. I don't even want to imagine what it must have been like for you." She got up suddenly and walked over to Eve, then to Eve's surprise, hugged her. "I'm sorry for questioning you like that," she whispered in Eve's ear, causing her to squeal.
"Aghh! That tickles!"
"Does it now?" Shielle whispered, then blew lightly in her ear. Eve giggled at the whisper, then completely spazzed when Shielle blew, shooting to her feet reflexively to escape the tickling, forgetting that she was being hugged still. Before she could try to maneuver herself to escape, her foot caught in the chair leg, causing her to trip and fall into Shielle, knocking both of them over.
Eve opened her eyes a moment later, after they'd landed and realized that it was pretty dumb to jump up like that while being hugged. The next thing she noticed was that her lips were pressed firmly against Shielle's. Shielle seemed to realize this at the same time and the two girls sprung away from each other, blushing to the roots of their hair.
Eve came back to her senses first and said, "Well, it's not that I don't like you, but we only met less than an hour ago. Maybe we should slow down a bit."
"Hey, it was you who jumped up and kissed me, you hussy."
Both girls stared at each other for a moment then broke down into helpless laughter, shattering the awkward tension.
As the girls calmed back down, it was Shielle's turn to speak first. "So...was that your first kiss?"
Eve nodded, "And you?"
"Same here. I never imagined it would be with a girl though."
"Well I never imagined it would be with a vampire. It tastes kinda' like blood."
"You know, that's like telling a smoker that it tasted like ash. What did I just finish drinking?"
"Oh yeah, forgot about that."
"Soooo...shall we get you unpacked?"
"Sure, thanks for helping."
"Oh, it's nothing. I may have to steal some of your clothes though. Walter went out and got me some stuff, but it's all pink frilly dresses."
"Ah, that would explain the tee-shirt then." she said, then smiled mischievously, "I bet the dresses match great with your coffin."
Shielle rolled her eyes, "Yeah...they do actually," she grimaced a bit. "Walter picked that out too. It's all pink and frilly on the inside," she said, sticking out her tongue."
"Yep, while I get this nice canopy bed," teased Eve as she flopped down on her bed. "Hey, what's this button for?" she asked noting a little control pad she'd fallen on. Suddenly the mattress began to lower and the canopy started to descend. "Wait a second! Is this a coffin!"
Shielle laughed and nodded.
"A four poster coffin...son of a" THUNK
Well, that's the end of this chapter. Thanks to everyone who's been reviewing my story, I really do appreciate it. The next chapter will be up within the next few days since I already have it written, I'm just proofreading and editing now. Get ready for a few guest appearances from some other series. I also have the first two chapters of another crossover fic between Negima and Hellsing mostly done, and I hope some of you will read it once I get it posted.