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Once, she had wondered what he would think of her wrinkles.
It doesn't matter what he thinks, the sensible side of her berated. He doesn't have the right to judge at all!
Yes, that was true. But she was human and she wondered.
She imagined.
Count, she might say to him, see what you missed. This is what you left me to become.
His expression would be the usual one of insidious mirth. But maybe, just maybe, she could glimpse in those inhuman eyes a bit of rue. He did not mean to be gone for so long. He did not mean to disobey her. The Count who had crossed the sea for her, had crossed an ocean of time, he would reply, You mock me on the assumption that I bemoan your change.
On the contrary, Countess...
He might then trace each and every line on her face. The creases around her mouth and eye, formed by the rarest laughter.
Long ago, she had touched him in the same way. Fingers alight with unadulterated curiosity and subdued awe, familiarizing the flesh of the one who had saved her. The knight that was not a knight. The knight that was a monster. She had dared not give him her hand for his teeth were too sharp; would they not puncture her as he kissed?
Yet she had not been afraid of him. She had even told him he was beautiful, in more than three words.
Like snow and like miniature suns.
And as she had done before, he might now hold her in his deadly hands, pale lips parting to say, My dear Countess, you have never been more beautiful.
She might scoff.
She might smile.
If only.
If only.
If only.
xx
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10.
bitter, sweet
xx
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In the evening on the day Seras Victoria came to Hellsing Manor, Walter trudged down to Alucard's lair to deliver his blood, per usual. The vampire was slouched in his pathetic excuse for a throne, looking thoughtful. A thoughtful Nosferatu, what horror. Walter did not attempt to engage. He deposited the packet, bowed curtly, and exited.
Well, that had been his intention.
"'All young girls are ladies worthy of respect'?"
Fucking great. "You heard that?" Walter asked lightly.
Alucard studied him with farcical concern. "It got me thinking I should stop calling you 'Angel' if it's going to make you develop such sanctimonious drivel." The concern was replaced with conceit. "After all, you certainly didn't treat me with respect when I was a young girl."
Walter kept his face purposely null. "You were never a young girl, Alucard."
Alucard ignored him. "You know, I've never shown Integra that particular form of mine. How will she react, I wonder? Seeing as she's stooped to picking up strays, perhaps she'd prefer I be one, too."
"She won't prefer anything, because it won't matter to her," Walter said primly. "You won't be putting any guards down with that face. She sees right through you."
Again, his intention had been to deflate him, but evidently the universe was working against him today, for the beast merely grinned. It was then Walter realized a prominent article of clothing was missing.
Integra still has his coat with her...
Red, red eyes matched the hue of the missing coat, the packet on the table and the liquid that surfeited their lives.
"Isn't that the catalyst."
Walter was on the verge of begging God for a ghoul outbreak. He did not know why he was so anxious for a distraction—by which Alucard's attention would finally be diverted from Integra—ah, who was he kidding.
He retreated upstairs, feeling a headache coming on.
That was yesterday.
Today, Walter brewed Integra's wake-up tea thanking the high heavens that there were no broken mirrors, missing ladies or new household members. Integra was, mercifully, in her room sleeping. He turned around with the tray.
"Bloody hell!"
A mass of shadows with no discernible shape was protruding out of the kitchen floor. It had the refrigerator open and was pilfering a month's worth of medical blood.
"Alucard!" Walter squawked, yet it—he—they—ignored him completely. The shadows disappeared with the booty.
With one hand Walter steadied the tray. With the other he palmed his face.
Bloody buggering insomniac bastard, he swore as he managed to get up the stairs. What's up with him? If it was not Integra that was acting odd, it was Alucard. He just hoped this was not a recurring theme. Walter shook his head, knocked on Integra's door and entered.
He swiftly set the refreshments down and went to tie the tassels of the curtains, before noticing a water glass upended on the table. Integra must have woken up during the night and drank in haste. Mildly uneased, he turned to the lady in question.
A strangled cough escaped Walter's throat.
Integra stirred. The red coat she had wrapped around her rustled.
The shade of red was unmistakable in the light. Alucard's coat—again.
A muted sort of horror rose from the depths of his soul as Integra opened her eyes and sat up. She seemed neither surprised to find him there nor aware of what she wore over her nightgown.
"Walter. What time is it?" Rather than waiting for a reply, she retrieved her glasses and read the clock. "Nine? You left me to oversleep?"
"It's the weekend, my lady," he reminded her faintly. Then, "Integra, is that Alucard's coat?"
So much for tact.
Integra looked down at herself.
"Yes," she said.
And she wrapped the coat tighter around her.
There was not a single change in her countenance. If Walter knew his lady at all, if he knew her as well as he had always thought, she would have at least blushed, and taken it off. No, she would not have worn it in the first place. There were boundaries he had seen Integra employ when it came to Alucard. This was not it.
Where was this nonchalance coming from?
It was also summer.
Integra glanced at him when his silence lengthened. "I was cold," she explained.
"Ah."
"Is that Irish Breakfast?"
Integra went for her tea, and Walter mechanically went after her to pour her a cup. Pull yourself together, Angel. A coat is a coat. It's not even the point you should be worrying about the most! "I can't help but be concerned. Are you sure you're not ill?"
She sipped. "Truly, Walter. I have never been better."
He phrased his next question carefully. "Alucard was up late. He seemed...ravenous. Do you have any idea why?"
Her expression was unreadable. "No."
Well, then.
She paused and studied her drink. "You forgot the sugar."
Walter stared. "My lady, you've never taken Irish Breakfast with sugar."
A second passed.
"Because it makes it too sweet," Integra murmured. "I remember."
She said "remember" like it was dredging up scraps locked in the bottom of a dusty drawer. Sweetness was not favored by the Hellsing director; the sugar bowl was removed from the tea tray when she assumed the position. It had been her order. Did she forget this as well? The cup of Irish Breakfast was held in listless hands, and its vapor spiraled into nothing.
"Don't you add sugar to your tea, Walter?" Integra asked.
"As it turns out, I do. It's a recent development." Walter thought of the two lumps of sugar he had begun to plop in each morning. "I find the older you grow, the sweeter your tooth."
"Why do you think that is?"
He had a feeling she was not asking about the physiological dulling of the human palate. Walter considered, then answered.
"Life's bitterness accumulates upon your tongue. Perhaps it's an internal longing to wash that taste away, however fleetingly, with sweets."
Integra slid the unsweetened cup onto its saucer. She smiled, but it did not quite reach her eyes. "I hope there's not anything you're bitter about, here and now."
Walter chuckled. "I am nowhere near writing up a resignation letter, my lady, rest assured."
And she said, "What about aging? Are you bitter about aging, Walter?"
Her tone was only mildly curious, even casual, yet the question was a needle to the butler, pricking a cancerous mold in his heart. A mold that did not exist, but he imagined it did, as he imagined the bitterness of the cigarettes his little punk self had smoked coating his tongue. Was he bitter? Of his wrinkling face and stiffening joints, of the fanged grin he would never have the pleasure of ripping off? No—the answer was no. It had to be no. For here and for now, until, until—
Until what, Angel of Death?
The voice that snickered in his mind was that of a young boy.
Walter inclined his head. "Why, for us John Bulls, growing old is one of life's pleasures."
Integra's reaction was somewhat jarring. Her expression took on an inexplicable cynicism, though there were no outward changes to her smile and unblinking gaze. "I'll have to see for myself if that is true."
"You have many years ahead of you, Integra."
She stood. "I should get ready for lunch at Sir Penwood's. Take care of Seras, and in the meantime, I want you to seek out tutors for her. Of higher caliber."
"Much higher," Walter confirmed wryly.
Integra took off the coat—Finally!—and draped it over the chair.
Walter was good at pretending.
He pretended not to notice how her fingers lingered on the fabric.
xx
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"I won't be long, Seras."
Integra felt the need to reassure the girl, though she would not be gone for more than a few hours. As much as she trusted Sir Penwood, Integra had no desire to expose Seras to the Round Table and their inevitable nosing. That they would eventually learn of her was also inevitable, but at least by then Seras would be less overwhelmed with the changes in her life, and surer of her place. This was her rightful place, here. Where she would be provided with the best of everything.
Except normalcy.
To Seras, being inside a huge manor with Integra and being inside a huge manor without Integra were two different things entirely. "Okay," she mumbled.
Integra peered into her eyes. They were outside, awaiting the chauffeur in front of the double doors. The sky was cloudy, but that was not what shaded the blues. "What's troubling you?"
Seras looked up at her plaintively. Then she looked left and right, as if she was fearful of her demons listening in on them. "I had a bad dream again. But it wasn't..." She hushed.
"Do you want to tell me?"
She shook her head. "I want to forget it. I don't want it to mean anything."
Knowing intimately that nothing became something the moment it was uttered, and given irrevocable power, Integra did not pry. "Wait here," she said, and walked off.
She was back in less than a minute holding a daisy.
"Now." Integra pressed the flower into Seras' palm. "This is in exchange for your dream. I'm buying it from you, so you no longer have to worry."
The daisy resembled the sunny-side up eggs Seras ate for breakfast. It was small and fragile yet bright and immaculate in her hand. It was a terribly high price for an awful, awful dream that had made no sense and had been unlike all her other dreams. She opened her mouth to protest, but Integra held a finger to her lips. Seras blushed.
"You're a part of this household, Seras. My household. I protect everyone in it, with everything I have, with every method that may suffice."
The car arrived then, and Integra left on that note.
Sir Penwood, whom she had last paid her respects to as a bronze monument, looked better in the flesh. Mustached, rotund, with a perpetually sweating worry line between his brows which he dabbed at with an ever-present handkerchief, he greeted Integra at the door. "Coming all the way out here in this muggy weather, Integral. You didn't have to go through the trouble."
She gazed at this brave, brave man—England's Protector, she had called him, and meant it. Gregory had never quite believed her, but really, of course she lost her left eye trying to duel him for fun one day. Sir Shelby Penwood deserved to be a legend, and if being a legend entailed one's story becoming rather tall, then was this not a sweeter tale?
Good hunting, Sir Penwood.
She smiled. "Good day, Sir Penwood."
"Yes, yes," he said gruffly, yet inwardly he was touched that Integra had gone out of her way to visit him. "I'm telling you, I can't fence. I don't even think I can fit into my old gear."
"No need to be harsh on yourself, Sir," Integra said. "You're as dashing as always."
The knight appeared disgruntled and wary and flattered all at once. "Now you're just making fun of me. Come on in."
They made small talk. How were her studies going? Was Walter attending to her properly? And her—er—vampire, was he, er, behaving? Integra was not bothered by these questions. They reminded her of what she had missed most about Sir Penwood: his awkward, yet genuine concern for her. He had always been like an uncle to her, instead of her father's weasel of a brother. He had, in retrospect, never let her down.
But she, the gullible fool she had been, how had she repaid him?
"Integral?"
"Yes?"
"You seemed a bit ill there." Penwood glanced dubiously at the table. "Er, the meal's not disagreed with you, has it?"
"My apologies, Sir. It's not the meal. I tend to get easily distracted these days."
"Well, it's a pivotal time in your life." Penwood twiddled his thumbs. "To tell you the truth, I never imagined you would ask to visit when I called yesterday. This quarter's Table meeting is not far off, after all—that was why I called, to confirm your schedule."
Integra refrained from curling her lips. "I was under the impression that my schedule mattered little."
Penwood winced. "Integral, you mustn't think that. Hugh and the chaps, I know they're rather—old-school—but—" He heaved a sigh. "I thought you were just a little girl when I first heard you were to be director, yet here you are. Doing more than I've ever done, busier than I've ever been busy in all my years of—warming up a seat in the Council—"
Poor Sir Penwood. He had no idea she had outgrown the need for the point he was trying to make some thirty years ago. The only problem she had with the meeting was the likelihood of her being bored to tears. But she listened patiently.
"I guess, what I'm trying to say is, you should never doubt your place among us."
"Sir, I am assured of my place," Integra said. "Very assured."
Penwood blinked. "Oh."
"And so should you be of yours."
"Huh?"
"I couldn't be running the organization without the helicopters you provided me," she remarked, and Sir Penwood groaned.
"You're on a roll today, aren't you?"
Integra laughed, and added a cube of sugar to her tea.
xx
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The white of his eyes was bloodshot. He could feel them, the tiny swollen vessels. Even this imperishable body of his protested fatigue every now and then; perhaps it was his subconscious, mimicking human frailty as a result of being surrounded by them night and day.
Once, he had pointed out a laggardly healing bruise and offered, not entirely in jest, a drop of his blood. Of course, Integra had turned her nose up at him.
"It's a part of being human that these things take time."
Ever the vampire hunter, my Master. Shooting down the monster with mere words. He had dissolved into the floor, his laughter bittersweet.
Against that same floor echoed the footsteps of the manor's inhabitants. They rang dully in his ears. None of them were Integra's. If there were hundreds, thousands, millions walking above him, he would still find her. And when he did, she would only be annoyed that he had killed those numbers between them.
Or would she be annoyed? He no longer knew what to expect from her.
Alucard shifted in his throne, the movement less cumbersome without his coat. Why had he not reconjured it yet? Sometimes he surprised himself. But it came across as cheap to him, to be wearing another, when one was upstairs in his master's bedroom. One warmed by the heat of her flesh, perfumed by her scent, and privy to her command.
Never leave me.
Did she say that?
Yes. Yes, she did.
He threw his head back and laughed, and if it sounded hoarse, sounded bittersweet, he did not notice. His hair spindled madly in the air before falling and veiling his face.
First a kiss and now this.
Oh, he was a connoisseur of lust, and he had been lusted after, certainly, and they all wanted something from him. His body, his blood, his bite, his love... Yet never the lot at once, and they all ended the same. In the end they wanted him gone.
Alucard.
The front doors of the manor opened.
Never leave me.
He cast his eyes up at the ceiling.
Integra was back.
Her steady steps stopped halfway to greet Walter, and again to greet the new girl. When they reached her room he tuned her out. He would not seek her today. Or tomorrow. Or the following week. Until her touches ceased to flay him, her words to haunt him, and he degenerated to being content with their previous nothings, savoring the memory of a single kiss.
Content? You?
The No-Life King shut his eyes and willed himself to sleep.
You insatiable creature.
He succeeded, for a couple of hours or so.
Footsteps.
Her footsteps.
Closer. Closer, closer, closer. His shadows shivered. Crimson irises stared at the entrance of his lair with desire and dread. Closer. Her essence tugged at his, caused his body to gravitate almost unwittingly. He could not recall another instance in which her arrival so tormented him. How the tables have turned.
"Master? Can that be my Master? Come to visit me in my sordid sanctuary? Gracing me with her presence?"
There was a chuckle from Integra as she emerged little by little down the stairwell. She had bathed. Moisture still clung to her pale tresses and flooded his nostrils with bergamot. When she at last descended—in every sense of the word, for setting foot in his court of none was tantamount to delivering oneself to the Devil—he bared his teeth. Alucard could not help it. She looked sacramental.
Especially with his coat held to her white blouse like a splash of blood.
"Count."
Integra uttered that solitary word and grew quiet. Her eyes landed on his coffin.
Alucard waved a lazy hand toward it. "Care to give it a try?"
The look she gave him was condescending, even from the distance. Touché.
"Not until I die."
Deeper she ventured into the darkness of his court, in actuality hers. There was nothing in here that did not belong to her. And it seemed that recently the not-so-little lady had become too aware of it, of the pathetic extent to which he was ready to debase himself if only she would allow him. This was his vulnerability. "Why are you here, my Master? Why not summon me?" His smile was a mask.
So was hers. "I have realized," Integra said, "that sometimes, I must be the one to return."
She approached the wine table and into the circumference of a feeble candlelight. Her lips pursed at the empty packets littering the vicinity. "Since you are such a slob." She tossed the coat into his lap.
It was warm. It bore her scent.
The shameless creature buried his face into it and inhaled deeply. Behind his black curls merely an eye was visible, and it swiveled up at her.
"You didn't need to."
"I asked to lend it," Integra said simply. Unfazed by his display. "Anyway, you're being rude. The least you could do is not keep me standing."
Alucard watched her with a hooded gaze, half-drunk on her scent, as she wandered over to where his coffin lay. The hem of her blue skirt brushed the side. Three nights ago, he would have been delighted to have her in his snare. Now it felt like he was the game ensnared, by a bait of his own making. Ah, how cruel his master was. "Planning to stay for a while? Alas, I have nothing to offer but a bottle of claret, and the poor company of yours truly. Surely you'd rather frolic with that stray you brought in."
She seemed amused by that phrase, for some reason.
"What a pity." Integra's amusement waned. "Perhaps, then, I should leave."
Yes.
No.
"Stay."
She did.
Integra sat down on the coffin lid. Her fingers swept over the polished ebony in a familiar trajectory, and came to rest on the symbol at the top. "Why the cross, Alucard? Is it out of spite?"
"No less than what you're exuding," he said sardonically.
"Is it spite that keeps me here?" she asked. "I've wondered that myself."
When her palate betrayed her today, she had thought that maybe the answer was not meant to be convoluted.
"I think I've been deluding myself. I've underestimated how vindictive I can be. I told myself I had forgiven, but that was a wish more than anything."
He was out of his throne. Her vampire was behind her, with the coat. His? Hers? Did it matter? He slid it onto her shoulders.
"You've twisted into a fine vindictive form," Alucard agreed. He let out a grisly laugh. His nails were claws beneath the skin of his gloves. "It makes me almost jealous of that incarnation of mine in your dream."
Integra smiled, bitterly.
Yet his fingers, with their monstrous claws sweetly caressed her shoulders, to whisper against her nape, just under her blouse collar. And those cold, hushed strokes moved up the slope of her neck, to her throat, to her chin, and tilted her head back. She gazed up at him.
She did not stop him.
"But not envious," he murmured.
Above her, her Count was without edges, the black of his hair and the black of his suit rendering him indistinguishable from the enveloping dusk. She thought, since when had she loved the darkness?
Integra remembered playing hide and seek as a child, how she would choose the obscurest nooks, and fall asleep.
She remembered crawling through the vents, and how despite the seemingly endless gloom, she had only been frightened for her life.
And at the end, in his cell, in the coppery stale darkness, she had sat down beside him. Don't mind me.
At least I won't die alone.
She reached up. She traced his jawline.
"You look tired."
Bloodshot eyes drooped at her touch. Alucard bowed his head, and his hair spilled into hers.
"You know why, cruel, cruel Integra."
"Yes. Yet though I am cruel, you will never leave me."
His lips curved crookedly. "I heard you the first time."
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NOTES
This chapter was published on January 19, 2017.
It has been updated for grammar, punctuation, formatting, and word choice on January 29, 2021.
The original end note for this chapter can be found in the link in my profile.