The Seldom Seen
AN:The reviews made me so haappeeee... *heartsymbol*
I don't have p3 typed out just yet, but all your reviews for p1 have already earned it being posted as soon as it's finished. :]
I added a little extra in after I got back home and saw all the new comments, but I'm a bit tired, so forgive me if the ending seems a little odd. ^^; Unless I fall asleep right after posting, I'll start work on p3 right away.
OH YEAH! WARNING: There's a bit of swearing and carnage. I don't think it's enough to up the rating yet. But maybe I'm wrong. You guys can tell me.
14: Observation (p2)
Seras woke slowly, mumbling nonsense into her pillow as she snuggled deeper into the warmth. Her pillow moved, and her groggy brain connected it to the chuckling trickling into her ears like warm honey. Mmm… There was something achingly familiar about that sensation. Taking a deep breath, her mind glazed further as the comforting scent of her Sire numbed her senses. Wait… What?
Crawling out of her sleepy daze, Seras cracked an eye open to gaze up at the familiar figure of her Master, though at a rather odd angle; the most prominent point of his face was the underside of his jaw. Shifting, Seras realized with a flush that her pillow was his lower stomach, and that her arms and legs were tangled quite cozily with his long charcoal suited limbs. "…Wasn't I sleeping on the couch?" She questioned, fingers idly petting the wrinkles in his pants, not quite willing to move yet despite her mild embarrassment.
"I moved you." He answered back, amusement roughening his voice to that low tone she loved, "A gentleman does not leave a lady to sleep on the couch when there's only one bed." He grinned wickedly and her inner girly-girl melted into a puddle.
"Yeah? All the stories I read said the gentleman takes the couch or the floor, not the bed with the lady…" She wasn't really annoyed, though, despite her playful grumbling.
"I never claimed to be a gentleman, Seras." The use of her name shocked her and sent a tingle of appreciation down her spine. Rather than continue the banter, she blinked and looked around for a clock, "What time is it, Master?"
"Past sunset, I can hear the others stirring. I believe we'll be asked to join them on a hunt within the hour." He answered, and ran his fingers through her hair. Leaning into the touch with a purr, Seras relaxed into a boneless heap of pleasure.
A tentative knock came at their door and Seras grunted, rolling over to sit up at the edge of the bed and grumpily retrieve her boots from the floor. "Uhm… Alucard? Officer Victoria? We received a report of an attack, and will be leaving in ten minutes…" If she recognized that voice correctly, it was the girl who had cried over the death of the moron who didn't know when to back down. Finished tugging on her boots, she glanced at her Master to see him waiting by the door expectantly. Nodding, she joined him just as the girl was about to knock again, and the door flung itself open dramatically, with her fist raised in mid air.
The vampire shrieked and jumped back a good five feet in surprise, her back colliding with the opposite wall in the hall. Jerking herself upright, the petite brunette led them with stiff posture to the generic white mini van outside. Seras cringed at the thought of sharing seat space with one of the others, and glanced hopefully up at her Sire. He smirked, opened the front passenger door, sat down, and grabbed her around the waist to drag her into his lap. Squeaking and flushing slightly, Seras bit her lip and reached for the seatbelt. What? She was a forner police officer, and went through training since she was sixteen. Seatbelts are important.
The other nine piled into the three back seat benches, and the driver shot the pair a sideways glance before shrugging, putting his own seatbelt on for appearances' sake and started off into the night.
Alucard chuckled in her ear and rested his hands on her thighs, fingers tracing innocuous designs on the material of her slacks, "Mm, Police Girl, I like your other uniform better." To be a tease he ran his tongue along the edge of her earlobe and she stiffened, biting her lip harder to smother the moan. 'Master!'
'I find I no longer care what rumors they spread, Police Girl. You are my property to do with as I please.' His left hand squeezes playfully at her inner thigh, unable to find any flab on her toned legs.
Cheeks flaming, she looked resolutely away from him, the driver, and any damned body that could see them, keeping her gaze locked onto the window to admire the scenery. It felt like a cliché for them to be driving out of a forest, but she appreciated the night scene nonetheless and even opened the window a crack to get a breath of fresh air. America is quite large. She thought admiringly, they have so many different terrains. Back home it's only one or two things, not all this.
'Police Girl, remind me to take you on a tour through Europe sometime.' Her Master murmured, sounding pleased by her appreciation for the pockets of untamed nature.
When they finally pulled to a stop it was at a local city park with dim orange streetlamps along the outer edges. Arching a brow, Seras unclicked the seatbelt and pushed open the passenger door to hop out onto the parking lot. The van was the only car here… Conspicuous much? Shrugging she half turned to observe her Sire and the diluted vampires as they filed out of the back seats. One of the females stumbled and fell onto Alucard. For some reason that made her see red and she snarled, grabbing the wench's arm and throwing her to the asphalt even before her Sire could sneer with his own comment or retaliation. The wench's wrist snapped when she broke her fall, and Seras felt a sick satisfaction at the injury. None of these things were worthy to touch her Sire.
Alucard laughed, delighted by Seras' reaction, and clapped a possessive hand over her shoulder once more.
The wench stared up at them for a moment before her face flushed cherry red, "What the fuck was that for?!" She screamed, getting to her feet jerkily.
Seras growled, baring her fangs, "You touched my Master. Don't. You'll regret it if you do." Sending a menacing look at the other females – five of them – in the group of eleven they were to observe, the fledgling crossed her arms over her chest and affected a bored air.
The others grumbled to themselves as they pulled the injured member into their group, as though shielding her from the 'psycho brits'. Seras was amused.
They tramped into the park and drifted towards the trees gathered at the edge by the public bathrooms, Alucard and Seras hanging back a couple feet to observe their behavior. Seras noticed with some disgust that their attempts at stealth were deplorable. Did none of them learn the importance of subtlety? Killing the witnesses is all well and good, but security cameras can still capture them in the act. She'd like to blame the 'reformation' process, but that seemed like it was giving them too much credit. These weaklings aren't true hunters, they blend too casually with the mortals. Perhaps it was her Master's blood prejudice talking through her, again.
She wondered for a moment what they were even hunting; FREAKS? Rogue vampires killing without stealth? What sort of supernatural malady befell the Americas? Well, she supposed she'd find out shortly.
Spotting the swing set, Seras grinned at it, she loved swings. Shaking her head to clear it of the distracting thoughts, she jumped up into the nearest tree and hopped up another few branches to perch in the concealment of the thicker foliage. Her Master looked up at her with a smirk and simply appeared on the branch beside her, breath tickling her ear, "Staying out of the line of fire, Police Girl?"
That made her think – did the vampires they were observing even have firearms? Maybe they had silencers. She didn't really care.
"Yes, Master." She answered, scanning the woods for signs of movement. There, to the right, were sounds of a scuffle. Hopping through the trees nimble as a monkey – and secretly thinking that this made her feel like those silly ninjas in cartoons – Seras watched two of the uniformed vampires corner a ragged and feral looking creature against a tree trunk. The thing was gibbering and wild eyed as the two approached it and took an arm each in merciless holds as it thrashed violently and kicked desperately at thin air. Within seconds the pair had pulled the monster in half like a wishbone. Slightly sickened by the barbaric tactics – a gun was far more humane even if they didn't deserve it – her sharp ears caught another disturbance and she bounded off in search of it. Screaming. Children screaming.
Alarmed, she hot footed it and landed in the clearing with a snarl on her lips. Oh god… There were five of the uniform wearers, two of them dismembering another deranged thing, while the other three had opened the tent it had targeted and dragged the two children and their father out into the open. "What the FUCK do you think you're doing?" Seras roared, seeing red. One of the trio, a male that looked suspiciously like the 'spokesperson' they'd talked to yesterday, sunk his teeth into the screaming child's neck. The female holding the other child looked at Seras quizzically, "What? It's just a little snack. No need to tell anyone."
Seras gagged from the sheer depth of her rage and felt like vomiting, though her stomach didn't work that way anymore. "What the fuck is wrong with you, you fucking bastards? You don't target children as snacks!" Launching herself at the female in a golden blur, she tears the bitch's left arm off at the shoulder and beats her in the face with the protruding bone. Remembering the move her Master used on the Dandy Man, she snarled and swung her boot out at the other's knee, inverting the joint in an explosion of blood. She collapsed with a shriek and Seras caught the child to cradle her protectively to her chest.
The little girl fainted dead away and Seras glared at the man holding the unconscious father. With a sneer down at the flailing pathetic creature at her feet, Seras slammed her boot down into her chest, crushing the bones easily. With an extra shove, her foot pierced the woman's chest cavity and pulverized her heart into paste. The corpse began disintegrating slowly.
The coward dropped the unbitten adult and Seras set the child down next to him before turning on the one who'd been drinking from his screaming victim. "To paraphrase another moron just like you scum; you're so fucking dead and you don't even know it yet."
The raven haired monster dropped the desiccated corpse – and she was surprised to see it wasn't putrefying yet to become a ghoul, perhaps these watered down undead lacked that ability? Which was odd since the FREAKS and vampires in England had it – and bared his bloody fangs in a snarl of his own. Seras lunged for his fucking throat, and her vision went red. Not black, though it felt similar, but deep burning crimson fury red.
"Police Girl, they're dead." Alucard's voice broke her blood trance and she shook her head to clear her vision, staring at the deteriorating remains of the last vampire in the group of five from the clearing. Whoa, that was freaky…
"…How much time did I lose?" She asked, knee and elbow deep in blood stains on her new modest uniform. It felt like some was in her hair, too. Ugh.
"Only five minutes." To his credit he looked completely calm and neutral over her little murdering episode. "The others are coming." He added offhandedly, standing near the unconscious humans. Seras joined him and watched the treeline for movement. Ew. She felt kind of sticky.
"Wha-… what the fuck?!" A voice exclaimed to her right and Seras pivoted on her heel to turn still red eyes in that direction. "Shit!" The startled vampire leaped back as he caught her gaze, and took in the state of her clothes. "Fucking psycho brit bitch, what is wrong with you?!" He screamed, hands clenching into fists as the remaining five of the hunting party gathered at his back.
"What's wrong with me?" Seras snarled, "What's wrong with you? Targeting children? CHILDREN!" Flailing her arm in the direction of the little boy's corpse, she almost snapped again, and her Master shifted his weight, uncrossing his arms from his chest.
"Pff, they're just humans, and the feral one would have eaten them anyways." A female voice muttered from the crowd.
"Just humans? May I remind you sick fucks that you used to be human too?!" Seras was just about ready to tear the remainder of the group into bloody little pieces when her Sire placed a restraining hand on her upper arm and she jerked in surprise. Alucard was stopping her? Pushing at the encroaching red edges of her vision, the Police Girl visibly forced herself to relax. "The point of hunting down these 'feral' vampires is to save the humans from them, not claim them as snacks." She finished, tone glacial and shoulders stiff.
The six vampires glanced at each other for a moment and she heard mutterings of 'traitor' 'human lover' and various derogatory invectives. "Fine, whatever, let's go back to base."
God she wanted to kill them…
'Maybe later, Police Girl, after I call Integra with our nightly report.' Her Master's voice soothed her ruffled feathers and she glanced at him gratefully. 'What about the humans, Master?'
It didn't seem right to just leave them here in the open, unable to defend themselves. Her Master turned his head and looked at the tent, and she got the hint, crawling in and finding the duffle bag inside with the father's cell phone. Dialing the police she made some bogus report of a bear attack in the woods and hung up, following her Sire and the supposedly tamed monsters back to the much less crowded mini van.
'Master, are there any others like us left?'
'Some, the lines are diluted, but pockets of the older blood remain in the wilder countries. Humans aren't the only ones to change as their species expands.'
'I don't like them, Master.'
'I know, Police Girl. I know.'