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04.
jamais vu
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The veil of mundanity hung by the summer morning ruffled, the inhabitants of the manor were left in varying states of restlessness. Ostensibly, they were doing what was expected of them. The vampire lay in his coffin. The butler made his way with breakfast. The master was in her office in her chair. Yet where on any other day she would be diligently sifting through her papers, today she sat motionless, her blue eyes faraway in the space her vampire had occupied.
What they reflected was the pattern of the wood, but what they saw was a different kind of wood. A forest. A cadaverous forest. Where she had walked with her hair flowing, the sole semblance of light in its darkness. She had looked up at its trees, and smiled. Then she had looked down at its keeper, and quietly admired his form. Here was the king and he was kneeling. His cape was shredded, flying, giving him the silhouette of dancing flames. He had burned for her. He had killed for her. He had returned for her, for her, only for her, and there was nothing between them now that he was reduced to one man and she was reduced to one woman sharing the same acrid air in the bowels of perdition.
So she had said, Count.
And the Count had said, Countess.
But once again, there was everything between them. Time. Knowledge. Walter. Alucard himself.
Anger ate away at her rationality. When she put it into words it did not make sense even to herself. How dare he demand answers from her. How dare he stand there and speak of the alleged war in her eyes as though he had not been its player. How dare he rouse her heart with these—these palpitations—which he did not deserve. You don't deserve it. Anything. My horrors, my honesty, my heart. You were the one who broke. You think you can traipse into my life, after the years I spent wondering if that shadow in the corner was not yours or if this color red was a trick of the light? Fucker. I can't—I won't—
The deplorable thing was, she could not accuse him of any of the above.
She wanted to march down to his crypt, kick his coffin open, seize him by the collar and throttle him. Ah, but what's the use? What can that deadly mouth offer me? Maybe she should revise, and instead kiss that mouth. Bite his lip, make him bleed, mark his skin and maybe, finally, when she had vented thirty years of waiting on his grinning face she would be exorcised of these ghosts. Because otherwise—Integra smoothed a hand over her left eye and moaned as if in pain—they were not letting her go. Hounding her—like the fucking dog he called himself—
"Bastard," she gasped.
"My lady."
She jolted, her hand falling from her face. Her eyes shot up to the door.
Walter was also startled. "I did knock."
"Oh." Integra shaped her lips into something struggling to resemble a smile. "I must not have heard."
There was a beat.
"I saw you were holding your head," Walter said. "Do you need an aspirin, my lady?"
"No. Come in."
The butler entered with a vague feeling of wrongness that had been nagging at him all morning. He set the tray to the side, then placed a cup and saucer in front of her and poured chamomile from a china pot.
"You missed the tea that was sent up while you were in the bath, so I made a second batch." He stepped back. "I can never say this to Mrs. Bolger, but I do think my brews are a touch more precise."
She stared at the cup.
His brows furrowed. "Would you prefer something else?"
"This is fine."
Integra fingered the handle of the cup. To think that she would be tasting his tea again.
Walter's brews were, in fact, precise. After the war she had made her own tea, yet each attempt had always been off. Always too hot or too cold, too weak or too strong. When she had lamented about this to Seras, the girl had admitted to burning at least six pots in her lifetime trying to boil pasta.
She took a sip, swallowing the memory down with it, the afternoon she had spent with Seras laughing over bitter tea. This tea, however, was perfect. A perfectly tempered, fragrant cup of chamomile.
But of course, everything Walter made was perfect. His weapons especially. So perfect, that not even the vampire wielding his gun had noticed the remote-controlled explosive hidden inside.
She returned the cup to its saucer, fearing she would slop its contents all over the place. "In the language of flowers, chamomile equates to 'energy in adversity.'"
Walter nodded. "A remedial herb for nightmares."
"If only there was such an herb for life after death," Integra said wryly.
He mistakenly thought she was talking about Alucard. "He seemed high-strung when I encountered him. Have you had a disagreement?"
"He was being querulous because I denied him the answers to the newest mystery in his lackluster existence."
"He is unhappy with the stagnancy," Walter agreed, "and seeks an outlet. Which is why I may have overreacted. Integra, please don't doubt my concern. I only want you safe."
Integra was very glad she had not been holding that cup.
Walter's eyes were sincere. They taught her grey could be warm. They were prettier than hers, she had thought as a child. She had told him so. "Father's eyes are blue, and mine are blue, but yours are grey, Walter, and that makes yours the special-est and the prettiest."
"Most special," he had corrected gently. "My lady's opinion is precious to me. Yet acquiescing to it would be telling an untruth, for your eyes are by far the most beautiful."
"Really?"
"Yes. They're like little blue diamonds."
I've come a long way from the girl who received that compliment. These diamonds are nowhere near as pristine as hers. Eyes of war, indeed. Integra gradually dropped her gaze to the tea. Chamomiles were almost identical in appearance to daisies. Daisies, however, meant 'innocence,' and represented all that had fallen through the spaces between her fingers. He was gone, that Walter. This Walter was...a stranger...who looked and talked and acted the same. Jamais vu, Pip would have said.
The same person, recognizable, yet unfamiliar, and painful.
"You must realize, that any errant behavior on your part can be taken as a weakness," he was saying. "And as I mentioned, Alucard is not above exploiting that weakness. Though I can see that he is exceptionally attuned to you," he added, with a hint of a frown, "and that you are somewhat fond of him, you have only known him for three years. You need to be careful."
Three years? Try ten.
You have no right to speak of him this way.
"I don't doubt your concern for me, Walter," Integra forced out, raising her eyes, her throat dry. "But you shouldn't doubt Alucard's. He has already more than proved himself to me. I will not have him questioned."
"I am merely pointing out a possibility, my lady," Walter defended.
"What good is chasing after a possibility?" she said tiredly. "Some things are set in stone. I am Master and he is Servant, bound by blood, and he will never betray me." Unlike you.
"I am not saying he will. Simply beware of his cultured words and what they seek from you."
"Walter, aren't you the one most affected by his words?" Integra sniped.
He stiffened. "Pardon?"
"Really," she went on, feeling a crack in her facade. "You've known him the longest. I shouldn't have to remind you to ignore whatever bull he spews out of his mouth because he doesn't mean it." The mask of fifteen-year-old Integra was splintering. She was spilling. "He doesn't mean any of that tripe about—about growing old. If anything he envies you for it! Why would you—"
throw away the one thing you had over him
"—let him get to you—"
and destroy yourself
"—it was—"
it was
"—the most foolish thing you could have done." It came out as a whisper.
"Integra," Walter said, stricken.
Then, she had not asked why. There had been no point. Now—
Her nails were digging into her palms where they rested on her skirt. Reminding her. Don't let your mask shatter, like you did your mirror. She dug deeper, felt the skin break. It helped. She reined herself in. "I'm sorry, Walter. I was already angry with Alucard; I shouldn't have taken it out on you."
He smiled ruefully. "You've grown so quickly, beyond our reckoning. How my incompetence must have frustrated you. Consider me properly chastised."
"I know you were only worried." Integra picked up her teacup and was pleased when it did not wobble. She drank. Energy in adversity.
"To be frank, all the time in the world will not prepare a person for reacquainting with a creature such as Alucard. I'm afraid I may be still in the process of...getting used to him again, so to speak." Walter shook his head. "I've gotten rusty in more ways than one. Forgive me."
For the second time Integra lowered her cup to avoid making a mess. Walter did not, could not realize that what he was asking went beyond this morning's slight. "Don't be silly," her mask replied.
"Nonetheless, I find myself surprised, my lady. Your understanding of Alucard seems to have matured greatly."
"Why is it surprising? Should I not understand my subordinates?" She said this with a tight smile. "Who knows what will befall if I don't."
There were splinters in her words.
The thing about splinters, particularly the tiny ones you are never quite sure how you got, is that they do not hurt unless touched upon. Walter bowed. "My lady is wise." He gestured to the covered plate beside her. "I've kept you from your meal long enough. I'll leave you to it." He started to turn.
"Walter."
Integra came around her desk to stand next to it. She hesitated, for a moment looking as if she would run into his arms, like she had done as a small child. But she stayed where she was. A hand gripped the edge in want of stability.
"Walter, you know I love you, right?"
For the umpteenth time that morning Walter was surprised. "Why, of course I do." He stalled. He could have given her a hug, yet something stopped him. Perhaps the way her face had gone curiously blank.
"Know that I love you as well, Integra," he said. "And that if there is anything you need or wish to tell me, I will always be here."
When he left, the air was stale.
Cold. Was it not summer? Ah, it was just her, then. She wrapped her arms around herself. Hugging herself.
"You will, won't you."
The statement was followed by an equally sardonic puff of laughter.
Integra returned to her seat. The tea was lukewarm. She did not care to drink it anymore. She held the cup in her hands and stared into it, fancying herself a scryer, fishing for her fortunes in its yellowish depths. All she saw was her youthful face.
Chamomiles were almost identical to daisies. Yet the first to be sacrificed in the pursuit of energy in adversity was innocence.
To Walter, Alucard had been that adversity, she thought.
A bound one, a subservient one, but ever present, ever potent. A land mine waiting to be stepped on. A glorified piece of garbage that he, the Angel of Death, must invariably collect. Partnership did not matter. What would a vampire care? True immortals did not exist. He would prove it to him. He pursued that unattainable dream and it sapped him of every virtue. He was willing to risk his wisdom, his duty, his love. He had chosen to, back in Warsaw, September 1944.
Then Arthur had sealed Alucard away.
Integra had reached this conclusion on a night in, ironically, September. A year after the war, in this very office, nursing a bottle of whiskey in candlelight and clutching her pounding left orbit. Papers had been strewn on the floor, some of them crumpled.
Walter had been just as much of a reason for her father's decision as Alucard himself. Arthur Hellsing had been many things but never ignorant. The less refined mask worn by a younger, wilder Walter would have had holes to see through. Having glimpsed that futile ambition, had he not taken measures to prevent it? Leaving Alucard to rot and Walter to grow old, anticipating that age would mellow him?
"A fat fucking lot of good that did," she had said.
Age had not mellowed Walter. It had merely made him desperate.
Twenty-three-year-old Integra had wondered, as she had never allowed herself to wonder sober, if like everything else, his love for her had been a ruse as well. Under the blanket of alcohol where thoughts were trackless that single query picked at her, an incessant vulture. Grey eyes that had been so cold, so cold, had their warmth before been artifice, too? She wondered, and wondered and wondered until the side of her skull felt as though it had been pierced with a bullet all over again. She laid her head on the wood, and her glasses reflected the flickering candle. The world appeared ephemeral in its glow.
This world is after all a violent, fleeting dream...
A hand landed on her shoulder, softly.
"Master Integra, is your eye hurting?"
"Seras," she said. Seras, have you come to pity me, too?
"Did you drink the whole thing? Master! The doctor said you shouldn't drink! It's bad for your eye!"
"What does another vice matter?" Integra slurred. "This world...is fleeting..."
There was a pause. Then the crackle of a piece of paper being smoothed out.
When an arm hoisted her up, its hand was empty. Integra was on her feet. But not walking. Floating, perhaps. "Seras," she murmured. "My uneaten pair of wings."
"She's damn round the bend."
"Pip!"
"Hey, I'm not judging. As coping mechanisms go, drinking is pretty tame."
She leaned heavily into her carrier. Her vision was blurry. She was blinking at a tunnel of darkness. Unknowable, like her butler.
"Seras."
"Yes?"
"Was I a good master?"
There was a catch of unnecessary breath.
The voice that answered her, however, was firm. "The best."
The darkness was blinking back at her.
"Then why wasn't I enough?"
She felt the arm supporting her tremble. "You were. You were enough." The girl was not so much supporting her now as she was herself. "Master Integra, when you—when you meet Walter again—"
"Sending me to an early grave, Police Girl?"
"When you meet him again," Seras said, "you'll see. He loved you. It wasn't because he didn't love you."
(The scryer emerges from her vision.)
Fifteen-year-old Integra set her cup down, pulled her breakfast forward, uncovered it and began to eat. She was hardly aware of what she was putting into her mouth, and had no appetite whatsoever. Yet masquerades had to continue, pretenses carry on, the living go on living. Memories had to be folded with care and locked inside a gilded box, emotions herded, questions reserved for another day and names of loved ones uttered with a farewell kiss. And in the blink of an eye, none would recognize her as other than Integral Hellsing, the Iron Maiden. Hinges oiled, spikes sharpened and awaiting the death verdict that would fall from her own lips.
"Seras, you were right," she said, allowing herself a last respite before sliding her disguise in place, just in time for the knock on her door.
"Miss Hellsing, your tutor is due to arrive at ten."
"Thank you, Miriam."
She buttered her toast, her knuckles white around the knife. She bit. She chewed. She swallowed.
Seras, you were right.
And that's the worst part.
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A day in the life of a butler was straightforward, if not tedious. Running an estate was no small feat, yet it was eased by routine, and Walter C. Dornez's routine had been nearly the same for fifty years. Preparing morning tea, afternoon tea, evening tea, and every other tea in between. Serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Dusting the shelves of the library, which was off-limits to ordinary staff members. Reviewing the ledger. Making adjustments. Rinse. Repeat.
Clockwork.
Walter was used to the monotone that had become a fixture ever since Midian activity had plummeted several years past. Seasons tumbled by, among them his as a reaper of the earth. Did he miss it? Yes, but he had more important things to do. The aforementioned list of his duties contained mere trivialities. His paramount duty was to nurture his ward, his lady, the young Miss Integral Hellsing, into the finest director the organization had seen.
His routine was Integra's routine, or rather, her routine was his. She drank the tea he prepared, ate the meal he served, read the books he dusted, confirmed the adjustments he made. Clockwork, in juxtaposition. The hour hand followed the minute hand.
Not today.
Her behavior was troubling to him. So troubling, in fact, that he had had half a mind to ring Dr. Trevelyan. What if it was a sign of some kind of summer flu? After all, night terrors were often indicators of a health problem. When he had walked in to witness her holding her head, he had been convinced.
His concern had been rebuffed. Not a word about her terror, even when he had more or less prompted her with the chamomile. Truthfully, he had been crushed. It was not that, by having her confide in him and not Alucard, he had been hoping to show the vampire up. It was just that she had confided in him always before. Alucard, who had the tact of a lemming, would of course end up angering her. That was where he came in. To be her confidant.
Walter hated it when Alucard was right.
As he approached the study, this time carrying a tray of Darjeeling, the butler could not help but mull over their conversation. Fondness and understanding—the terms he had used—were insufficient to explain the vehemence Integra had displayed in defending Alucard. It had been a deeper thing which had discomfited him, and he dared not presume... He thought that perhaps it was a teenage thing, wanting validation of a family member's love while simultaneously distancing herself from it. There had only been a few steps between him and Integra, yet it had seemed to be an inexplicably great distance. The way she had asked if he knew she loved him had been an echo.
Perhaps he was going senile.
"Alucard, envy growing old?" Walter chuckled. "What a concept."
What did Alucard know of aging? When he, that bastard, could appear as young as he wanted, as beautiful as he wanted? He had to wake up every dawn to the prospect of another line on his face that increased his resemblance to a piece of driftwood. Alucard was a rotting skeleton with intact flesh. He did not need his envy. What he needed was to drive a stake through that flesh.
Walter was pulled out of his fancies when he saw Ms. Crane, the history tutor, rush out of the study.
"Mr. Dornez," she announced upon spotting him, "I resign."
The contents of the tray stayed admirably still, if he did say so himself. "I beg your pardon?"
"My contract," Ms. Crane said, her face interestingly puce, "was to instruct Miss Hellsing on the subject of history, not to engage in verbal sparring. Good day."
Flabbergasted, he let the woman storm past him. He peered into the doorway.
Integra was sitting serenely at a desk, reading a book. She did not look up when she spoke. "Has that insipid woman resigned?"
"She did say as much, my lady."
"Good." Integra flipped a page.
She was not forthcoming. Walter had to ask. "What happened?"
Integra flipped another page. "The text she chose was biased, inaccurate, and," she closed the book, "had a nauseatingly optimistic view of the future. She turned unattractively purple when I told her so. Tell me, Walter, was I present when we engaged her as my tutor?"
Did she not remember? "Yes."
"Hmm. I must have been stupider than I thought." She tossed the book to the floor. "What other lessons do I have today?"
Where was she going with this? "It's summer, so you have a couple in the afternoon."
"Cancel them."
"Excuse me?"
"Cancel them. I don't need them." Integra rose as if she had said nothing out of the ordinary. "These lessons are an insult to my intelligence and to my time, Walter. I should like to study by myself from now on."
"But my lady," Walter said. "The knights—"
"The knights," she repeated. A little smile formed on her lips. "How could I forget. Is Sir Penwood well?"
He had no idea why she was singling out Shelby Penwood, of all people. "He is."
"I'll have to visit him." She calmly made for the door. "Bring that up to the library."
Walter balanced the tea tray. "Integra, the knights are invested in your education."
"Yes, I do remember that," Integra said dryly. "They'll have their grades, rest assured. Don't I only need to pass the exams?"
"Yes," Walter verified reluctantly. "But are you certain?"
"I'm certain. I'll be in the library all day. Try not to disturb me."
Walter watched her receding back.
In the afternoon, when he arrived at the library with that hour's Earl Grey, he saw Integra curled up in an armchair with a stack of tomes at her feet. She was absorbed in her reading, and again did not look up at his entrance. He kept respectfully silent, poured a cup and set it atop the stack.
She did not thank him.
Walter was abruptly and strongly reminded of an autumn dusk a year ago, when he had been passing by this very room and noticed it was occupied. Voices sounded from the seats near the fireplace.
Integra and Alucard were conversing in a foreign language. He remembered belatedly that the vampire had offered her lessons in Romanian which, after due consideration, she had accepted. The sinuous tongue of the former prinț român slithered in the air, pursued by the clumsy enunciation of the young English girl.
Alucard laughed. "Your pronunciation is atrocious."
"I've been learning it on and off for only four years, you git. What did you expect?"
"I'm surprised Arthur didn't enforce it sooner. He must have become complacent in his later years." There was a smirk in the mild insult.
"Don't talk about him like that."
"Yet the evidence sits before you, my Master."
Integra sighed. "Can we move on?"
"Very well. Let us try something simpler this time. A poem."
"A poem is simple?"
"The rhythm will make it easier to read aloud, my Master. Allow me."
Integra listened, as did Walter outside.
"Spune-mi, daca te-as prinde-ntr-o zi
si ti-as saruta talpa piciorului,
nu-i asa ca ai schiopata putin, dupa aceea,
de teama sa nu-mi strivesti sarutul?"
"Spune-mi, that means 'tell me.' And I heard picior, that's 'foot.' Sarutul...?"
"The kiss."
Walter almost barged in.
Integra's voice was positively radiating a blush. "Alucard! Just what kind of poem is this?"
"A perfectly harmless one, my Master. Why? Are you flustered? How impressionable you are."
"I am not—argh! Alright. Give me that book. I'll read it."
She had, and somehow managed to transfigure an elegant poem into a hodgepodge of stutters and reiterations. Yet she persevered.
"... de teama sa nu-mi strivesti s-sarutul?"
"Da."
"What?"
"Your pronunciation is unerringly atrocious."
There was the distinct thud of a shoe colliding with a shin. Alucard cackled.
He would have known he was there. The amusement in his tone gave it away. Walter had withdrawn, intending to inquire about the poem's meaning later, but had found himself distracted by the various chores that presented themselves. By the time they were finished, the lines had eluded him. When he asked, Integra had merely replied, with a faint shade of pink on her cheeks, "It was just a silly little poem, Walter."
Secrets littered the distance between them.
"Walter, do you have something to say?"
"No, my lady."
"Shut the door as you leave, then," Integra said, and still, did not look up.
She was seated in the same chair as that evening.
And like then, Walter left with a sense of bereavement.
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Tell me, if I caught you one day
And kissed the sole of your foot,
Wouldn't you limp a little then,
Afraid to crush my kiss?
- Nichita Stănescu
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NOTES
This chapter was published on August 31, 2016.
It has been updated for grammar, punctuation, formatting, and word choice on January 28, 2021.
The original end note for this chapter can be found in the link in my profile.
Jamais vu - the phenomenon of experiencing a situation that one recognizes in some fashion, but that nonetheless seems novel and unfamiliar (Wikipedia)
Prinț român - Romanian prince
Da - Yes