CHAPTER TWO
A Cheshire present, a Demon lurking or "…Curioser and Curioser!"
In which the man playing Cheshire cat gets right down to the nitty gritty of it all and tells the girl playing Alice what's up and what exactly she has to do
Seras stared at it, wide eyed.
It was a cat indeed, bigger than any ordinary housecat, with a black and white stripe color combination that Seras didn't think occurred in nature unless something had gone horribly wrong in the gene pool. Ang again. It was huge. The size of a leapard, maybe, or a tiger. All in all, it looked like the kind of feline that got what it wanted, when it wanted. And right now, it seemed to want something from her.
And it was grinning at her. Menacingly. With terrifically sharp teeth to boot.
Oh yes. And it talked.
Seras couldn't remember the last time a cat had grinned at her. Maybe because cats, by the order of the great, indomitable mother nature, in fact, did not grin.
The young vampire backed away from the cat, slowly. She wasn't entirely sure what it was going to do, but if it was going to pounce, she wasn't entirely sure she'd be able to handle it. She was still groggy from realization after all.
"Hello Seras," it purred, "Welcome down the rabbit hole."
Seras meant to scream. She really did. However the sound traelled up her chest and caught in her throat and what came out instead was a tiny, terrified, unbelievably, high- pitched squeak.
At the sound, the cat stopped smiling. It rolled it's blood red eyes at her with a face more sarcastic than Seras thought cats were capable of. "Oh please," it said, "what in hell's name was that? You're a vampire for God's sake. You could have some dignity."
Seras stared at it, halfway to another sort-of-scream. She knew that tone of voice anywhere.
The cat was flicking it's tail back and forth, though in annoyance this time instead of playfulness. It was emanating the question "Well?" so strongly, Seras half expected herself to automatically burst out, "Well what?"
What she did though, before doing the above, which would have been bloody embarrassing, was slowly rub her eyes with her still wet hands.
She blinked.
And suddenly the image of the animal blurred into nothing but strips of colors and shapes. They jumbled around for a while, a living, discombobulated jigsaw puzzle – the shades of black and red and the flecks of white swimming through the air, experimenting with figures and forms before finally finding the right one, coming together to form the not so clear but clear enough shillouete of a person.
She rubbed her eyes and blinked again. And blinked again.
Now the cat was completely gone. What was left standing next to her, hands in his pockets, the question, "Well?" still plastered onto his pale, sharp features was –
"Master," said Seras.
Alucard smiled, no teeth this time. "Ah, so she remembers. Well, that's good. You know for my sire, you're actually incredibly slow."
"Master!" she said again, disregarding the insult, "There is something terribly terribly wrong happening. I mean, when I woke up, I thought I was a character named Alice from some really old surrealist novel that I know of, and I was chasing this white rabbit, and that kind of thing never really happens normally in dreams, well not for vampires anyway, the forgetting who you actually are and thinking you're someone else, I mean do vampires really actually dream? But anyway, the rabbit suddenly disappeared and then I'm here in the pool and then I saw my reflection and it looked wrong and I knew it was wrong and well, umm…."
Alucard was staring at her, eyebrow raised to the zenith of his forehead.
Seras felt the blush rise to her cheeks before she could recover. "Um, er, well, what I mean to say, master, is, er, um…Master, what's going on?"
Alucard nodded in approval to the conciseness of the question and turned to face the lake.
Seras took the moment to look him up and down from her sitting position. He was not wearing the standard red coat garb, much to her surprise. At the moment he donned, with the utmost charm and confidence anyone could, a magnificent black pinstripe suit, complete with shiny, black, pointed shoes. It seemed as if aside from the gloves, his look had gone over a complete overhaul. In fact, for anyone that didn't know him personally, he would have been perceived as a perfectly respectable gentleman – except, of course, for two cat ears sticking out of his dark, unruly hair and a long black tail stretching from his backside, swishing.
Seras stared incredulously.
"Master?" she said.
"What?" he said.
"You're a cat? Wait -- you were the cat? The big one?"
He turned to her. "A Cheshire cat to be exact, but yes, I am a cat. And I was the cat. I woke up this way as you did Alice. I'm surprised it took you this long to notice."
Seras tried not to be insulted again. Alucard went on.
"To answer your question, Police girl, answer me this. What have I told you about demons?"
She was caught a bit off guard by the sudden inquiry of such an off question, but she answered. "That they all come in different shapes, with different abilities and will always have different intentions?"
Alucard looked like a proud father for about a split second, but it passed. "Very good. You remembered. Well, anyway, I have reason to believe that we have just been pulled into your dreamscape by some foul humored demon or other."
Seras stared at him. "What?"
Alucard looked at her, counting the seconds it took for her to understand.
Finally, after several false starts, Seras stammered, "Drea…Demon…wait…we? Who's we? You and me?"
This time, Alucard was genuinely surprised. "You mean you can't sense them?"
For an answer, Seras gave an embarrassed shake of head.
"The rest of Hellsing is here," the elder vampire stated bluntly, "pulled into different roles in this story you're dreaming about, just as you're Alice, and I'm the Cheshire puss."
Seras took some time to digest this before asking her next question.
"Demon? What demon?"
Alucard answered. "Dream demons. They enter the mind of their host, twisting the dreams into compexities and stories of their own liking, and sometimes they get other people involed as well. There are many different kinds. Some do it just for the fun of it all. Some do it out of interest, to observe, and to leave once they're curiosity is satisfied. Others, however, for questionable motives, do a lot of damage to their hosts."
"Damage?""
Alucard shrugged casually. "The loss of dreams completely, insanity, incapacitation…" He watched for her reaction. "…death."
Seras expected he was watching. She had put on a very calm, understanding exterior, however underneath the multiple layers of frill and skirt, she could feel her knees starting to shake.
She swallowed so her voice wouldn't crack as she spoke. "But what in the world makes you so sure that I'm the host right now, if there's a demon at all? What if I'm just getting pulled into some other Hellsing member's dream, ever think of that?"
Alucard smirked in an infuriatingly superior way. "You better believe there's a dream demon in here, because I'm pretty sure that you can sense it too." She aveted her eyes. It was true. She could sense something off.
"...and a very good question, Police Girl." he went on, "And the answer is this. First of all, you're playing the main character. And second, the metaphor fits."
"Metaphor?"
"You'll figure it out eventually."
Seras clutched her head. She believed him. His explanation was in lack of any solid, undebatable evidence but she believed him. She could feel it in her bones. She was the host. She was the one dreaming. The one putting everyone else in mortal danger. The one in huge danger herself.
"Oh god, oh god, oh god," She whispered quietly. "We've got to do something."
Alucard heard. "Why?" he ventured.
"Why?" she very nearly screamed. She shakily got to her feet, her hands indignantly bunched up into fists. "Is that even an actual question?"
"Well when the demon gets it's business over and done with, it'll leave – poof – without a trace," he said, rubbing some invisible dirt off his suit.
The nonchalance was angering her to no end. "Business? Business? What then if it's so-called business is to kill me!?"
The left cat ear wiggled slightly like it was waving at her.
"Then it's been nice knowing you." he said.
Seras could have thrown something at him this point, but that really wouldn't have gotten them anywhere. So instead, she said, "Come on, Master. Let's look for the others. They might be able to think of something. Walter, Sir Integra – I'm sure they'll be able to come up with a way out of this mess."
"Hm," said Alucard, "bad idea. Namely because I don't know where they are – don't look at me like that, you have no idea how hard it is to pinpoint locations in erratic dreamscapes, much less dreamscapes being manipulated by a demon – and therefore you definitely can't know either. Not to mention they may have gone completely into character by now."
Seras looked at him questioningly.
Alucard explained, "Like us, they'll have found themselves in different story roles which seems to be this demon's sick little fetish, but since they're human, they will have less resistance to the demon's powers and will have succumbed completely into their roles. And since we're playing Alice in Wonderland right now…I can't guarantee that that'd make it any easier. So I'll say it again – bad idea."
He grinned at her again. It was unnerving.
Seras was panicking now. "Then let's kill it!" she just about squeaked.
"Better idea," her master said, "Excellent idea, in fact. Only one hindrance. Neither of us know where it is, and in retrospect, neither of us know how to kill it."
Seras bit her lip. This was insane. For one, there was this demon thing riding her dreams like she was a willing, saddled horse and she couldn't do anything to stop it. For another thing, her master didn't even seem to begin to care that she could just possibly die in the next few hours or so. She couldn't understand. She was his fledgling. He should have at least shown some sign of caring.
Of course, she voiced neither of these facts out loud. Again, bloody embarrasing.
"So what do you suggest I do?" she finally managed to say.
The elder vampire turned his eyes onto her in an expression that looked like he thought that this was the first intelligent thing that had escaped her lips since they started talking.
He took both hands, both gloves, out of his pockets and adjusted them like he was a magician about to perform a trick. He sharpened his red gaze at her.
"What you're going to do, little Ms. Victoria, is, again, since neither of us know what to do, is go on with the story. You're to go on playing Alice. You will finish this novelty play."
"Why?"
"Because if you do," his tail flicked in the air sharply, "well, the way I see it, there are only two probabilities. A, you will find a clue as to how to solve this problem of ours, or, even better, find exactly where this peculiar dream demon is so we can send it to the nether worlds where it belongs. Then we all, that is to say both you and me and the rest of Hellsing, wake up unscathed. B is, well, you don't."
"And what if I don't?"
Alucard clapped his hands together. "Then you won't. Then you won't wake up. And perhaps neither will anyone else. Ever."
They were very quiet for a moment.
Then Alucard suddenly grinned again, that menacing cat grin of his, and said, "Well then Alice, what are you waiting for? This story isn't going to continue by itself you know."
And before any coherent sound could come out of Seras's mouth, the black suited, cat eared and tailed vampire faded away into nothing, the grin disappearing a flicker of a second later than the rest of him.
Seras stood there, unmoving, for the longest time, bewildered, more than a bit confused and beyond scared. Go on with the story? Sure she would. She could do that. Easy. That and keep her eyes open of course. For clues. Or for the demon. That might kill her. And all the people she called friends. Yes.
She put her hands on her white aproned waist and looked sternly down at her own reflection in the pool – her reflection, not Alice's. It looked back, just as serious.
"There's just one problem," she whispered, her headstrong confidence deflating a bit, "it's just that I was just a little kid when I watched Alice in Wonderland. I've never even read it. I have absolutely no idea what happens next."
His invisible cat ears heard, and his invisible mouth spoke. He said, "Why, you nearly drown of course. Now go get that dream demon."
And Alucard's invisible, shiny, pointed black shoe came into contact – hard – with her back and – SPLASH – there was nothing but ripples.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Pip opened his one good eye.
He rubbed his head. Whatever he was feeling right now, it was worse than any hangover. He looked around, not particularly sure of where he was.
He was in a long, relatively empty hallway. A line of red marble columns, each with a rose border on their center, lined the walls. Each of the pillars reflected on the floor, which was tiled with nothing but glass, reflecting the roof as well. The roof was as dome shaped as a hallway could get and painted on it realistically was an intense, bloody war, caught just right in shocking hues of black, red and white. What stood out the most about it though, was a woman painted on the foreground on a reared horse who had her sword drawn proudly in the hair, her hair flying in the wind wildly, her eyes shining, and her shield having a cross emblem. She seemed about to crush an enemy soldier underneath her soldier's hooves.
People usually presumed the woman to be Joan of Arc and the battle to be the crusades. They were wrong of course. The woman was an impression of the queen when conquering Wonderland during the Great War of the Suits.
"Ah," said Pip, "East hall. I must have fallen asleep while patrolling or something."
Now anyone who knew Pip and would have seen him standing there in the so-called East Hall would have commented with pure puzzlement that he had never been the type to wear so much ruffles in plain daylight, and that he was also never the kind of person to be so orderly as to replace his unruly, typical braid with a long, neatly-brushed ponytail. Simply, the person would hae commented that he looked very, very different.
Actually, even Pip himself felt a bit uncomforable.
Perhaps, even under the dream demon's spell, the strong minded, foolhardy Pip would have noticed the difference, for he knew himself better than any other. He might've been one of the very few people to ever break out of a Dream Demon trance without any supernatural abilities to his name…
Perhaps.
…but then he smelled it.
His nose wiggled in pure delight as he almost visible smell of the East end kitchen wafted into his nostrils.
"What is this delectable aroma?" he whispered, entranced.
He leaned in that direction to get a better whiff. "Ohhhh," he said, sniffing, "sweet pies and tarts. And chocolate pies, sweet as sin. Oh lordy."
He completely forgot that he had felt strangely dressed a moment ago. The sweetness was all that mattered.
And suddenly, his feet had a life of their own. He started walking towards the kitchen, his steps echoing endlessly off the grand lady's neverending crusade and it's reflection.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Alucard stared at the bubbles erupting out of the pool – all that was left of Seras.
He had read the book some time back, before he was put to sleep, and the memory of it remained a bit hazy. However he did remember the Cheshire cat. He had found it very interesting. It was an animal with the ability to disappear, telling nothing but truths to the poor little girl named Alice, but these truths were what was confusing her so.
This was his role now. To confuse the girl with the truth. It seemed strangely apt, he had to hand it to the dream demon.
Undutifully though, he had lied thrice to Seras while she had still been around asking questions.
One, he did know exactly what kind of dream demon they were dealing with, and he knew exactly where it was at the moment to boot.
Two, he knew exactly where the rest of Hellsing was at the moment, and which characters from the novel they were playing. Dreamscapes were hard to manage, but not that hard.
Three, he knew just what Seras had to do to wake up safely. And it did concern killing the demon. But not totally.
He sighed, becoming visible again and subconsciously swishing his tail.
He really could have just came out and told her all of this. They all might've been awake and laughing about it by now.
He grinned then, a grin that would have put the original Cheshire to shame. He blurred from suit to colors and back in cat shape, he slinked away from the pool, deeper into the Tulgey Wood.
But where would the fun have been if he had done that?
And he sang softly to himself..."Into the hole again, we hurried along our way, into a once-glorious garden now seeped in dark decay..."
Next: "...the Best way to explain it is to do it yourself."
Comments:
I have now decided that as tribute, every chapter will have at least one quote from not only Alice in Wonderland, but American Mcgee's Alice as well.
I was actually thinking of ending it with one more scene with Seras but then when I typed it up, I thought "OMFG, it's freaking long", and this ending, now, is enough of a cliffhanger to be satisfying at the same time.
Sorry if it's so long. kowtows
A lot of questions and answers in this chapter. Haha, way too much dialogue, acutally. Sorry for that, but I was itching to update before leaving for a China vacation with my family next week. Anyway, people waiting for grotesqueries of sorts should hold up till next chapter -- that's when I plan to start putting in all the serious wierd.
Does anyone else think Alucard would be seriously hot in a black pinstripe suit and cat ears?
Again, reviews are love. Review please, especially if you long for quicker updates. 8 3