Note: Edna, Emma, Hester, and Dymitri are mine. Everyone else belong to there respective owners.
Chapter 5
Deception
Flanders stared out at the rolling countryside. It was Dymitri's turn to drive and the werewolf had decided to take the more rural routes.
Fewer cops, Flanders assumed.
Twice, they had to pull over and knock out their hostage. She was a fiery one, much more resistant than the nun had been.
Eventually, they tied her up and locked her in the trunk. After a few hours she finally shut up.
"Do you think the Countess will be upset that we locked her in there?"
Flanders snorted loudly, "If she wanted us to treat her nicely she'd've been quiet when she was in the back seat."
Dymitri made an uncomfortable noise but didn't argue.
"She's not gonna get hurt back there, pup."
Dymitri shot an angry glare at the nickname, but, again, said nothing.
"Pssh," Flanders refocused on the view outside his window.
"Emma says Mina's been spending a lot of time with your nun." Dymitri said sometime later.
"What?"
"She called last night," he explained, "Emma. She told me that Countess Mina has been conversing with the nun we brought in. They seem to be allies."
Flanders pounded his fist against the door, "You gotta be shittin' me."
"What's wrong with that? She seemed like a nice enough girl when we were tailing her," thunder boomed in the distance, "She's not much of a fighter. What harm could being nice to her bring?"
"No. No!" Flanders whirled around, "After all that time she spent with that mother-fucker, she could be the most conniving, two-faced bitch on the planet!"
"All that time with who?"
Flanders continued as though the other man hadn't said anything, "She might look unassuming, but I know better. Mina can't warm up to her. She'll ruin everything."
"You seem a bit paranoid about this…" Dymitri raised an eyebrow, but kept his eyes on the road, "I knew you had history, but—"
"That wench needs to be heavily guarded and kept in check." Flanders snarled turning back to his window, "Who knows what she's capable of…"
"She's a nun!"
"She's a vampire!"
They left the conversation at that.
It started to rain.
"Well, if they're in Bel—"
"Schrödinger lied to us. They aren't in Belgium. He probably expects us to go there so he can mislead us and slow us down further"
"But—"
"He's right."
This was the first time Seras had ever heard the two of them officially agree on something. All three of them had been sitting on the floor of Integra's office for over three hours formulating a game plan. They would have moved, but no one really wanted to see the carnage outside. "So what then? We wait for Mina's troops to strike again and hope that leads us to her? Schrödinger's the only lead we have."
All eyes turned to Alucard.
"They're not in Belgium."
"Then where are they? Where's Integra?"
"Wallachia."
No one said anything for several moments. Alucard rose and retrieved a map of Eastern Europe from the desk. He laid it out across the floor and the others leaned in to examine it.
"Wallachia," Alucard explained, "is a small farm city somewhere in… here." He pointed to a section of northeast Romania. "There's a castle there, I think that's where she is."
"How sure are you?" Anderson sounded grave.
"Sure enough to go there and find out."
"Then it's settled," Seras brought her hands together, "we go to Romania. How long should it take to get there? Two days? One by plane?"
"No planes," Alucard said, "we want surprise. We don't want her to see us coming. It's going to be the tw-" He paused and looked at Anderson, who nodded, "The three of us, against Mina, Schrödinger, Lucy and any other allies she may have. Not to mention her army."
"So then what? We take the train? On foot?"
Anderson piped in, "A boat can get us to the mainland, from there a train, or a rental car should get us there in a week or so."
"A week?"
Alucard turned, "There's no faster way?"
"Probably is." The ex-priest shrugged, "Last time ah had to travel across the mainland discretely was thirty years ago, and Ah dinnae even go that far."
"Thirty year—" Alucard stared, "How old are you?"
"That's no-ah yer damn business."
"So what are we looking at?" Seras interrupted, "A week?"
"Yeah, with help…" He thought for a moment, "Heinkel can probably help us."
The vampires both blinked, they'd completely forgotten. "Yeah," Seras said when she found her voice, "she can."
"Ah'll have Heinkel arrange something for us, that way we don't lose time waiting for false paperwork to go through."
Seras watched him for a moment, but said nothing. Something about his wording of things made her uneasy.
Anderson called Heinkel and began arranging what he could.
"Now, to take care of the humans," Alucard was standing at the door, "Victoria, come."
She followed him out.
Flanders and Dymitri met Schrödinger at the gate.
"You misled them?"
"Ja," he said, "I tried, but they are a perceptive bunch, I wouldn't put it past them to show up here in about ten days. Give or take."
Flanders rolled his eyes, "where do you want the woman?"
"Downstairs, ve have a special room prepared."
Dymitri carried an unconscious Integra into the castle and down to the basement. Flanders and the cat-boy tailed a few paces behind him.
"So what's all this about the Countess talking to—"
"Sister Kris?" Schrödinger cut him off, "Not sure. Mina probably thinks she'll find a sympathetic ear in her. Especially after vhat you did." He pointed at Flanders meaningfully, "Sympathy is powerful. And I think Mina needs it. It's good for all of us, because maybe she'd be a little less…crazy."
Flanders scowled deeply, his bat-like features feeling even more alien on his face. He said nothing.
They arrived at the room, a small nondescript door just outside the catacombs. The room itself was also very nondescript. One bed, desk, private wash closet, and a window just small enough to let light in, but not much more. There were no lamps or other glass pieces of furniture, nor any heavy pieces that weren't securely bolted to the floor. The bed had more than it's fair share of pillows and quilts and other bed-things. But it was nothing extravagant.
Dymirti laid Integra on the bed gently. More gently than he had knocked her out; a large, dark bruise was forming just above her left eye showed that.
They locked the door as they left.
Dymitri separated from them at the stairs, "I'll go report to the Countess."
"No need," Schrödinger replied with a tone Flanders thought he shouldn't have, "you two go to bed, I'll tell Mistress Mina you're here."
Dymitri gave a quick nod and jogged up the stairs, Schrödinger followed close behind.
"Oh and Herr Flanders," he said once he got to the top.
"Yeah, yeah whatever," Flanders stalked away before the cat-boy could finish his order.
"Try not to incur Mina's wrath," he called to the darkness, "she will find you."
Flanders never heard him. He was already down the residential hall and well out of earshot by the time he finished his own sentence. He unlocked the door to the catacombs and slipped inside. He took the stairs down two at a time. Zombies slept, groaned or gnawed human remains in the main chamber. They all looked at him when he entered. Flanders ignored them when they moaned at him.
Down the hall, passed the hall of mirrors and his room, around a corner. Third door on the right; that's where they put her. Flanders saw Edna and Emma enter the parlor. Those damn brides, they were every where! Flanders often speculated that there were more than three of them in the castle.
No time for that. Third door on the left. Shit.
He didn't have a key.
Flanders looked around to check for prying eyes. When he saw that there were none, he pulled out a pocket knife and began trying to force the door open. It did open after a bit, but his knife bent in the process. Flanders bent it back hurriedly and slipped into the room.
A single coffin in a large empty room. Too easy.
He pulled the lid open and saw her sleeping.
Flanders stared at her for a while, holding the lid open. Bitch.
"Wake up."
Her cloudy yellow-green eyes opened slowly. She stared at him in shock for several breaths.
"What?" she hissed.
"What have you been saying to the Countess?"
"What's it to you?"
He swung the lid open the rest of the way. Flanders jumped with a grace unnatural for a man of his stature and balanced on the rim just above her.
"You will not fuck this up for us!" he shouted and bent forward. His booted feet and gloved hands tuning to four fingered hands that ended in talons. His new digits gripped the edges of the coffin on either side of Kris's head. Flanders hissed as his face slowly transformed to one more akin to a bat than a man. His fangs grew long and his eyes filled with blackness.
"Tell me just what the FUCK you think you're doing!"
"I'm not doing anything," Kris replied calmly from her position pinned inside the coffin. "I cannot converse with my captor?"
"No. You're just as two faced as that he is! You're going to play it nice and safe, and then, next thing we know, your gone!" He shifted awkwardly.
Kris propped herself up on her elbows, causing Flanders to pull his head back. It popped loudly. "I don't know what you're talking about…"
"Liar!" there was a carrion smell on his breath.
"I have no intentions of hurting the Countess or thwarting her plans at present." Kris's voice was even, her face tired and expressionless, "The only one I'm after is you."
"Me…"
"Yeah," She hissed, "so if you know what's good for you, you'll leave me alone, or so help me GOD I will end your life! Even if I have to take out that psycho you call 'MASTER'!"
Flanders snarled, but held himself in check, hurting her would have horrible repercussions, "You're nothing without him…"
Kris laughed mirthlessly, "No, I'm a monster. And, guess what, you MADE ME THIS WAY!" She was inches from him now; her filed fangs aching to sink into him.
Flanders couldn't handle it anymore, "You're supposed to be DEAD! You're supposed to belong to me! Not to some hack who hates your guts anyway!"
"Lies!"
He stared her down, "No… He kills vampires now. He's stealing your thunder! Your spot in heaven!"
"I lost my spot in heaven when you came to me; following him like some love-sick puppy!"
He lost it. She was so close, and his rage was piqued. Flanders knew the consequences, but he didn't care. He sank his fangs into the soft, ashen flesh of her shoulder. Her blood was think and bitter, vastly unlike what he'd tasted when he bit her the first time.
When she was pure.
She screamed, earth-shatteringly loud in his hyper-sensitive ears. When nothing happened she fought back. Her claw-like nails digging into his shoulders, sides, and chest at lightening speeds.
When he pulled away, she clawed at his face, and snapped at him like a caged animal. He bit her hand and she punched him in the eye.
Their scuffle caused the coffin to shake, jarring it from the altar and sending it, and its occupants tumbling to the floor. A few seconds of bloodshed, bruises, and splinters later the door burst open. Emma and Edna stoop in the doorway.
"Flanders…"
Neither heard them, Kris stabbed a chunk of wood the size of her own forearm into Flanders's thigh. He screeched and scurried away, clawing at his wounded leg.
Edna and Emma stood between the two of them. Edna grabbed Kris and pulled her up. Emma kept Flanders on the floor.
"Just what the hell is going on here!" Edna shouted over her shoulder.
"She's going to destroy us all!" he shouted back, "She's a spy! A traitor!" He pointed at her accusingly, "That bitch is trying to get everyone to warm up to her so she can take us down!"
Kris said nothing.
Emma violently shoved him out of the room, down the hall and upstairs. He limped unsteadily, but kept his pace.
Edna pushed her black hair behind her ears and examined the wound on Kris's shoulder. "Dammit," she growled, "hold on, I'll bandage this up."
She scurried out of the room to fetch bandages.
Kris sat on the altar and thought. He kills vampires now?
Edna returned and began patching up the wound. Kris didn't even notice.
Mina's eyes widened when Emma half dragged, half shoved a bleeding wounded Flanders into her private chambers.
"What on earth?"
"He fed on a hostage," Emma reported, "She fought back."
Mina's gaze leveled on Flanders. "Leave, Emma. NOW."
Emma obeyed.
"What were you thinking?" Mina's deadpan voice made Flanders shiver, she approached him slowly, "you FED on a HOSTAGE?"
Flanders stuttered a bit, "S-S-She's deceiving us! She's trying to win you over! She'll betray you!"
Mina slapped him across the face and gripped the collar of his shirt dragging him across the room to her vanity. Flanders saw several letters lying open on it. Most of them from Schrödinger or other informants. He knew what was coming.
"I thought I explicitly told you not to go in there! Not to go near her! You have blatantly disobeyed my orders for the last time!" She stopped at the vanity, "Any more of this behavior and you might end up like the major."
He tried to save himself, try to tell her that she shouldn't be trusting of the nun. That there was treachery afoot.
She dug a letter opener out of the stack of mail and plunged it into the eye opposite of the newly formed blotch that threatened to engulf his face. He writhed and shouted in pain, but she wouldn't let go of his shirt or the letter opener.
"What kind of idiot do you take me for?" Mina stabbed him over and over again as she said this, "She is a hostage! She will remain in that room until I request otherwise."
Flanders howled in pain but didn't respond.
She stabbed him one final time in the neck and dropped him to the floor. "Know your place, boy. I will not hesitate to kill you next time."
She left him bleeding on her floor, and went off to take care of other matters. Dymitri came eventually to take him to his room. Flanders licked his wounds in solitude.
Kris was tied up and forced to stand against the wall opposite the door when the attendants brought in her new coffin. They filled it with soil from her old one, swept the floor and left.
Edna untied her when they were finished.
"Don't run," she said.
"I have no reason to," Kris said quietly.
Edna left the room.
Knowing that Flanders hadn't had a key to her cell (Mina had told her that personally and apparently, she hated him just as much.), Kris knew that he had to have broken in.
The door swung shut, the keys turned.
The tumblers didn't fall.
She stood there for several moments, listening if anyone would say something. No one did.
Minutes passed. Nothing.
Kris knew better than to bolt. She knew better than to just 'go missing' when she had no idea where she was. But now she had the opportunity to explore.
And explore she did. Now all she needed was a weapon.
Anderson greeted Heinkel at the gate when she arrived. It had been several days since he'd called her, but he was positive she had something for him.
"Train tickets," she aid, "for ven you get to France. Boat tickets to France, but after that you're on your own, Vater."
Anderson narrowed his eyes at the honorific, but took the tickets without comment.
"You look like shit," Heinkel said when she got a better look at his face.
"Haven't been sleeping well," Anderson replied. And they left it at that.
Heinkel decided to stay behind and try to rebuild what she could of Hellsing in Integra's absence. Maybe bring some Section Thirteen priests in. No one argued.
Seras in her coffin, Alucard and Anderson dressed as mourning family members, the three of them set off for Romania.
End chapter 5
A/N: Jeezus. Had to draw a map of the catacombs for this chapter and the next one. A MAP. UGH god. It's two in the morning. Have to get up and D&D tomorrow.
Need to work on Godless.
Sweet baby jesus.
Review as you see fit.