Do not own! Not mine!
Flora's POV:
"I THOUGHT YOU WERE TRYING TO STAY ALIVE, NOT RUN RIGHT INTO THE ARMS OF THE ENEMY!" Heinkel screeched, slamming her fist down on the wall as she towered over us, and I gulped, unconsciously edging away from the threat. Jay was unmoved. "We aren't exactly helpless. I have my wire gloves and Flora has her knife." she said mildly, making Heinkel snarl and slam her head against the poor abused concrete beside us, muttering threats and curses in Italian. Jay watched her calmly. "There's a reason for it ya know. One-" My best friend held up her fingers in the pose I had come to dread in these past few minutes. "-the instant the sun comes up, the vamps will be scanning each and every last little square of pavement for the two of us –Flora technically– with a microscope in case we try exactly this. They won't expect us to slip out when they're at full strength, and the patrols or what have you will relax and only be a loose guard over the places we might be. Once we get out of that zone of attention, we're basically home free." She folded a finger down, and I realized with horror Heinkel was listening.
"Two ties into that same reason. The vamps will be relaxed to some extent; after all, this is their time and they technically have the city on lockdown. Anderson usually is very noisy in his extermination, they probably think they'll hear him miles away. So again, they'll be overconfident and not really in a fighting mode. Two telling points if we actually DO get in a fight. Three-" Another finger down, and by now I was whimpering to myself, desperately hoping Heinkel WOULDN'T LET US DO THIS. "-I've been shot. The longer I go without movement, the stiffer the wound'll get, until I'll be completely useless in getting up, never mind fighting and running like we'll probably have to do. Got it?" I waited on tenterhooks as she folded the last finger down, and Heinkel sighed heavily, running her hand through her tousled hair. "I can't BELIEVE I'm allowing this…" she muttered as my heart froze, and I swallowed audibly as the Catholic nun gave us a sympathetic look. "Alright then ladies. Let's get you packed for the road."
***Time Skip***
"Stay on the main road out of here until you hit Farniole. That should be far enough away that you can call in your vampire." Heinkel said, drawing a red marker circle around a town that looked depressingly far away from our current position, the incessant drip-drip-drip of water echoing down the long, stone-covered walls of the sewer. Jay nodded, adjusting the pack on her shoulders; mostly items to help us fend off vampires, blessed silver, incendium power, ect cetera. "Thanks mam." she muttered as Heinkel handed her the map, and the papist let out a long breath as she grabbed the ladder, looking at us in annoyance. "Take care of yourself, damn heathens. You may be bratty, annoying, and full of atheist ideals, but you've got guts. Don't die." she growled at us before turning, climbing up the ladder hand over hand and slamming the manhole cover down, bathing us in utter darkness. Jay laughed, her voice echoing in the utter darkness of the sewers as I jumped, instinctively grabbing for the wall I thought was there, but grabbing empty air instead. "And then there were two…" she cackled, not helping my already fraying nerves at ALL. "Can you see?!" I whispered, and she laughed merrily again.
"Not a damn thing! Don't light anything though, vamps will see it if there are any down here. Our eyes'll adjust soon enough." she said, and I jumped as a leather-incased hand grabbed mine, starting to softly pull me forward as I gulped, my heart pounding. It was amazing what light and the lack thereof does for the human psyche. "Not a word unless you think something's there. Familiarize yourself with the sounds around us; anything out of the ordinary, we'll know. I'm feeling along a wall, and since Heinkel said this tunnel leads straight to the edge of the city, I'll continue to do so until I feel an outlet. Once you start seeing shapes and outlines, squeeze my hand twice. Squeeze it three times if you heard something but aren't sure what it was. Right? On we go." she said briskly, and I swallowed down my fear, following her silently as I could, my heart pounding in my chest.
It was amazing the change a mere few weeks had wrought on my best friend. Before Walter, before Hellsing, she would have tried something like this, but she would've been much less professional, less clearheaded, probably bringing a flashlight and trying this in the sunlight just to make sure. Now she was calm, orderly, and prepared to the hilt, her hand holding mine tightly as she walked forward, unafraid. I realized there were sounds all around us, panicking for a split second, but relaxing ruefully as I realized they were the scurries and scratching of rats. The constant dripping of water was there too, and gradually I began to calm down, the return of vague outlines and the blurs of lighter and darker patches of blackness reassuring me as I squeezed her hand twice, feeling her grip it in a congratulatory way, probably smirking. Suddenly she squeezed my hand three times in rapid succession, and I inhaled shakily, listening with all my might. Nothing.
Wait…the rats! The rats weren't making any sound!
"GUARD!" I screamed instinctively, and the shining glow sprung up around us in a tornado as her hand whipped out of mine, and there was a brief snick of sound before all was silent. Jay's hand found mine again quickly, and I squeezed it hard, trying to calm myself, feeling her squeeze back reassuringly. "I felt resistance. There was something down here." she said quietly, and I whimpered despite my efforts to calm myself, my chest heaving. There were no words for the sheer, instinctual terror of being underground and hunted, your senses blind, unable to see, unable to smell, your only fragile line of defense your confused hearing in an echoing tunnel of stone. I squeaked, feeling something as delicate as a spider's web trail across my skin as the barely perceptible glow of wires flickered out. "Sniff your hand. There was something wet on the wires. Did I get him?" she asked briskly, and I brought my shaking hand to my face, sniffing it as the familiar scent of iron hit my nose.
"Its blood. Vampire blood." I said with a cough, the musty air getting to my lungs, and she chuckled grimly. "Good…I did get him." she said confidently, and I stared at the faint outline of lighter blackness against the pitch black of the tunnels. "Can't we light something and make sure?" I whispered, my nerves standing on end, and she shook her head. "This tunnel goes straight as an arrow through a whole heck of a lot of Rome. Light so much as a match and any vampire in the tunnels will see." she murmured apologetically, and we both stepped forward, side by side now that we both had some –limited– night vision. I nervously looked back, squinting to see what I thought was a body lying some meters behind, a pool of wet darkness spreading out from its chest, but it was took dark to be sure it wasn't some dark splotch on the concrete.
We walked along in silence, listening intently as my eyes strained to pierce the darkness ahead of us, trying not to think of what I must be stepping it. We were going to need a thorough scrubbing once we got out of this. I almost half chuckled, half sighed at the thought of how we must look, Jay with her vest unbuttoned and her grimy white shirt fluttering loose, bandages showing around her middle, and me, my trench unbuttoned for economical movement, my hands bloody and my hair tangled, both of us probably reeking of sewer. On the plus side, any vampire that came down here would have a hard time of finding our scent among this hodgepodge of odors, something that I was grateful for. That was a small blessing in all the curses that seemed to be raining down upon my head. "Flora." I jumped at Jay's strained voice, and we both stopped, her doing it first as I halted out of curious worry. "Get out a match. A flame. A lantern. Something." she croaked, and I quickly fumbled in my pockets, feeling her urgency communicate itself as I finally found a flashlight, turning it on and looking over to her.
Her hands were outstretched, wires going off into the darkness, and I slowly traced the light along them, seeing sweat on her brow and her face set in a firm, panicked line. I squeaked as I found the end, wrapped tightly around a vampire with a smirk on his face despite the wires, my numb hands dropping the flashlight in shock and terror, Jay cursing as I heard a faint snap, the light flickering wildly as I glanced over to my friend. The vampire was right beside her, making me cry out and scramble backwards as they tussled, Jay holding the vicious fangs away from her face as her wires knotted around his hands, stopping him from clawing at her. Suddenly he broke the wires again, and I watched him hit her stomach hard, her mouth falling open in a gasp of pain as the sound of impact carried across the tunnel, something wet and dark flying from her parted lips as she coughed for air, the light flickering out once more as I heard a wet thud. Her words from before echoed in my head as I pressed myself back against the wall, whimpering.
"And then there were two…"