Hellsing Fan Fiction ❯ Drowning in Darkness ❯ Blood and Light ( Chapter 4 )

Drowning in Darkness

By: Lazeralk

Standard disclaimers apply

In the name of God, impure souls of the living dead shall be banished into eternal damnation. Amen.

Part 4

*

Integra stood, her legs aching from having to sit so long (sorry, my fault) and walked across her study to her bookshelf. She ran her finger along the bindings until she found the one she wanted and pulled it down. In neat, slightly crooked handwriting was her name, written by her clumsy fourteen-year-old hands. The book was a diary, recounting the events of her life after Arucard had been freed; detailing the different ways she'd wanted to kill the smug bastard while she was growing up. Ah, the innocence of youth.

She flipped it open and scanned through the pages one by one, passing entrees of blockish writing with sketches and doodles in the margins. Then she came to the page she wanted, a large sketch in the center. A human figure that might have been Arucard, or maybe a deformed giraffe, hung from the wall, his arms chained above his head, just as she'd found him all those years ago, and a large cross sticking out of his chest, blood pooling on the floor. She brought the book back to her desk and laid it beside a black and white photo of a recent vampire slaughter, courtesy of their mysterious hunter. The positions were the same, the images nearly identical.

"Arucard!" she yelled, slamming the book shut and flipping it over. There was silence for a moment before figure in red entered the room, power still radiating angrily off him.

"Yes, master?" he hissed, his voice straining not to scream.

"Has anyone entered this room other than yourself and Walter in the last two days?" she asked, her fingers splayed over the photo.

He immediately sobered, the implications of the question making his face shut down into a black mask with a maniac smile. Had someone broken in and taken something, without him knowing about it? Absurd, though if it were the case, he was either slipping in his old age or they had a traitor.

"Not that I know of." He answered, his voice bland and empty of the anger he'd shown earlier.

"Find out Arucard. Someone went through my journals and this is the result." She said, her voice tight. She handed him the photo and reached for a cigar.

He took it and stared at it for a long time, before his smile widened, (if that's even possible)

"This is the position I was in when we first met. And the cross is from the page in your diary." He said.

"You looked through my diary?" she asked, her voice quite dangerous.

"Of course not Master, I looked through your head."

"Don't ever do that again." She ordered.

He nodded, not really listening to her anymore.

"The way I see it, we have three possible culprits. The first is a powerful psychic, the second is a traitor and the third is a very cunning thief. No thief could have crossed my seals and not triggered them. Unless the thief is sorcerer as well." He said.

"Great. Just what I need, a psychic, a traitor or a magic user."

"Could it be that the shadow we hunt is already among us?" asked Arucard.

"If he is, then we've severely underestimated his talent, and he's disobeying orders."

"Shall I hunt?" asked the vampire.

"Yes, go right ahead."

Arucard gave her a mock bow before dissolving through the floor.

*

Seras laughed, her whole body shaking with amusement. Malikai laughed with her, sending her a sideways look.

She lifted a glass of wine to her lips and tried to drink and laugh at the same time. It would have worked too if her master hadn't appeared out of thin air no more than a foot in front of her.

She spit out the wine in her mouth and the glass shattered on reflex. The broken glass cut her fingers and she looked down at them in wonder.

"Seras, you're bleeding." Said Malikai, picking up a napkin and wrapping it around her fingers.

"I'm alright Malikai, it doesn't even hurt." She turned to her master who was quietly laughing at her.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"We had another murder, and the hunter added a rather - personal touch to the death. Something personal to my master." He said.

"Oh no! She's not hurt is she?" asked Seras as she stood, discarding the bit of paper around her hand. The wounds were already healed.

"No, but she believes someone entered her study and went through one of her journals. The murder was a scene from her childhood recreated." Said Arucard, motioning for her to follow him as he spoke.

Malikai sat unhappily in the background, his fingers clenched.

Seras, entranced by her master's news, totally forgot about him.

`Serves the incompetent right.' Thought Arucard.

Neither noticed when his hand reached out and took the napkin with Seras' blood on it and stuffed it into his pocket. He frowned at their backs and silently apologized to Seras.

They made their way along the streets in quiet, headed back toward the Hellsing house. A scream pierced the night air causing both their heads to snap to the right. Arucard glanced down at his child and nodded in the direction of the vampire attack in progress. Seras briefly touched the gun and her face fell into hard lines.

Arucard turned and walked away, his long legs eating the ground easily. Seras had to jog to keep up, in high heels ("God damned shoes!") and a short skirt.

The came upon an alley (why do these things always happen in alleys?) and watched a men get his head torn off and his guts introduced to the light, a classic, boring scene of carnage that Arucard had been witness to and had participated in a thousand times before.

He pulled out his gun and took his time aiming. The light flickered out and they were lost to darkness. A shadow descended onto his target and blades, nearly five feet long, flashed.

The hunter had arrived. Arucard re-aimed his gun and fired before the shadow could get away. He hit the figure in the leg and it went down, knees slamming to the ground with an audible thud. The creature made no sound other than that.

The last of the vampire thugs came at it with clawed fingers only to be cut down with a cross shaped double strike. The man let out a gurgled shriek before splitting into four pieces and falling to the ground to join his brothers in true death.

"Hello." Said Arucard, figuring it was the most proper greeting. His maniac smile made it a little less genuine though. "My master, Sir Integra, sends her greetings and asks you to consider joining Hellsing. What do you say, come hunt the undead with us?"

Arucard, strained to see the shadow cloaked in shadows. It was difficult, even with his vampiric eyes, and he could only make out a faint outline.

The figure was silent.

"Won't you give back the light?" he asked.

"Really, we won't hurt you, we just want to talk." Said Seras, coming forward with empty hands and a hesitant smile.

The figure struggled to stand, using the blades as hand holds to pull itself up. The light returned to normal and Seras let out a gasp. Arucard's eyes widened in surprise, as they took in long raven hair, kohl eyes and the shapely body of a woman in her prime.

"You," she said, her voice a soft alto, "Are sickeningly skinny."

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"Actually Master, she has a point." Said Seras sheepishly.

"I am not too skinny." Arucard returned stubbornly.

"Um."

"Whatever police girl, so Shadow, what do make of my offer?" asked the vampire, turning his attention back to the woman.

"Why? What do you have that I don't?" she asked.

"Resources, information about your targets. Your hunting for a specific vampire, aren't you. That's why you've been killing so much. You're leaving the corpses as a challenge. That last one you did, with the cross in the chest, it was a challenge to my master wasn't it?"

"It was. She is the only one to answer any of my challenges. She is worthy. I will join you for three months time, if you cannot aid me in my hunt or offer me reason why I should stay, I will leave, and return to hunting on my own." She said, standing up a little straighter.

Something silver popped out of her leg and hit the asphalt with a `ping'. She walked to meet them and waited patiently, there was no sign of her earlier injury.

"Ladies first." Said Arucard, bowing and making an extravagant sweep with his arm. She passed him and he noticed that she was no longer carrying her blades, the weapons had vanished and he had no idea where they were or when or how they got there. His eyes narrowed and he mentally told himself to be on guard at all times. This woman was dangerous, and he'd been right not to trust her at his back.

"Um, this way." Said Seras, turning her back to the woman and leading her down the street and out of the ally. When they arrived back on the main road, they walked abreast, Seras and Arucard on either side of the mysterious woman.

"So, uh, what's your name? I'm Seras."

"I have none. A name is human concept my people never bothered with." She answered.

"Oh." Said Seras, he feeble attempt at conversation ending before it even began.

"What are you?" asked Arucard, not looking at her as they walked.

"There is no name for us among your kind, nor among mine. We do not feel the ridiculous need to label everything, as you do." She answered, her voice filled with a sarcastic scorn.

They walked the rest of the way to Hellsing house in silence with suited the eldest two and made Seras squirm.

Walter met them and the door and escorted them up to Sir Integra's office. The blonde woman was seated behind her desk, a cigar between her lips.

"This is Sir Integra, the leader of the Hellsing Organization. Please, have a seat."

The woman with no name walked in and sat on the chair nearest the door, turning it to watch all the people in the room.

"Well?" asked Integra of Arucard.

"She is the hunter, and has agreed to become one of Hellsing for three months in exchange for information regarding all known vampires. She's hunting for a specific one." He answered. The rest of the information he'd gathered he whispered into her mind.

"I see. Welcome to Hellsing. We'll do what we can to help you. I hope you understand that you will be placed on level with Arucard and will be handing all freelance missions with him from now on. If you have any requests or needs, Walter will see to them. A room has been prepared for you downstairs." Said Integra.

"Thank you Sir Integra. For now you may call me Shadow, as I have no human name."

"Very well Shadow. Dismissed."

They all trooped out of the room save Arucard, who lingered, sensing that his master was not finished speaking to him.

"Right this way Miss Shadow." Said Walter, showing her to a lavish room on the ground floor. There was a large four-poster bed, a set of chests and a vanity. A door leading off the main room led to a bathroom and a closet within. There were no windows.

Shadow nodded and looked around it, not really seeing everything. She looked beyond the walls to the blood red pentagram that floated above the house, unseen by mortal eyes.

*

"You wished to speak with me master?" asked Arucard.

"Yes. I have a mission for you regarding Miss Shadow. Keep her here, I don't care what it takes, seduce her, whatever, but when three months is up, I want her to stay in Hellsing. Understand?"

"Yes my master."

"Dismissed."

*

End part 4