Hellsing Fan Fiction ❯ Drowning in Darkness ❯ Bleeding Shadows ( Chapter 10 )

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 10

To all my reviewers, thanks for your support and comments. Now on with the fic.

*

Arucard placed his child on her bed and tucked her in, his slender fingers gentle and loving. He gazed at her peaceful face and wasn't quite sure what it was she made him feel. He'd been dead inside for so long that he hardly recognized his emotions anymore.

He tried to look at her as his child, as someone to be protected and taught. He tried to see himself as her father. He frowned when it didn't quite work. He did see her as his child, that's exactly what she was, and he did feel the overwhelming need to protect her but there was something missing.

He tried to look at her romantically. God it'd been so long since he'd been with a woman. (Or a man for that matter, because let's face it, after a few hundred years you either swing both ways or you go insane. Not that it made much difference in his case.) Nearly thirty years of celibacy. Ick. He looked at her again with new eyes and saw that she was indeed lovely, she had a woman's figure and she'd been of age, ah what was the human term? Legal, yes, she'd been `legal' when he'd made her, so that was no problem.

He could feel lust for her, if he had to, but he didn't. It was something that just didn't come. Something was off about it, as if his heart and his head were both clueless on what to think about her. She was his child, his servant, and yet she was more. How much more though, he had no idea.

He had a sudden memory of her in Malikai's arms and it stirred something in him. Something that wasn't protectiveness or jealously but a combination of both and something else. Something he couldn't quite grasp. It was there and it rushed through his veins like fire and ice, but for the (life) of him he couldn't figure out what it was.

He scowled, even if he didn't know what it was he was pretty sure it was Malikai's fault. Why? Because he was Arucard and he could blame the stupid human for the end of the world if he wanted to.

Psychotic smile in place he went to find the good professor and have a word with him.

*

Integra was not at all pleased. Well she was happy that Arucard was alive and well (or rather dead and well) but he was spending entirely too much time with Seras. Now she admitted that the girl was ill or something and that she had just undergone a rather traumatic experience, not to mention defying a direct order from her, but that didn't stop her from being jealous.

She was a woman too damnit, and she had the needs of a woman. She looked around her office and told herself that she wasn't allowed to cry. The office was her father's, a beautiful room full of her father's books, her father's favorite cigars, and her father's pens with his name engraved in them. It was her father's room, and just the thought of that made her chest tight with pain. She saw Seras in Arucard's arms and that pain intensified. It was a growing, throbbing ache of loneliness and despair.

Look at the life I lead, she thought; will I never have a family of my own? Will I ever find love in a place like this? But she'd already answered her own questions. She'd keep those answers to herself though, because as brave as she was on the battlefield, she was a coward when it came to emotions. She'd worked so hard to lock them away, to just not deal with them anymore because she was absolutely terrified of them.

She'd spent years honing her mask of blank indifference, shutting away the screaming voice of her conscience, so that she could pull the trigger again and again without flinching. She had to; she couldn't afford to bring shame on her house. She could not let her father down. She'd made a promise to him; she swore she'd bring honor to the Hellsing name. She swore she'd always put her family's name before herself.

Even if that meant denying her only chance at love.

*

Malikai was brooding, he'd sent his now customary `all quiet' report to the Iscariot and felt that gnawing guilt fill him up. He stood by his conviction though; he'd give the vampires a chance to prove themselves before he indiscriminately condemned them. `Judge not lest ye be judged yourself.'

Arucard walked through the wall, or rather floated through, his booted feet never touching the ground.

"You, human." He said.

Malikai scowled at him and crossed his arms over his chest.

"You, vampire." He returned, not liking the sense of hostility the vamp was giving him.

Arucard laughed, that hair raising, heinous laugh that made fear chase through his blood like quicksilver. He'd seen Arucard kill when he laughed like that.

"Look mortal, I'm only here to tell you to keep your grubby little hands off my child. She's mine, got it?"

"Seras is a big girl. She can make her own decisions." Replied the blond hotly. After he'd realized that he was going to be betraying his church on a rather permanent basis he'd decided to pursue Seras seriously.

"No you fool, you're not understanding me. Maybe I should use smaller words no? Seras is mine. I made her. I own her. Hands off. There, is that better?"

"You can't demand that she live her life the way you want her to Arucard. She is her own person."

"Again you misunderstand me, swine. Relationships like this don't work the same way for vampires as they do for humans. I am her master, her maker, I make her heart beat, her blood flow. I make her eyes see and her body move. My power, my will, nothing else. Now do you understand?" asked Arucard, his voice condescending. He'd spoken to the other man the way you'd speak to a very small child.

Malikai continued to scowl.

"Even so, you can't force her to feel anything. If she wants to be with you, fine. If she wants to be with me, then you'll have to back off. It will be her decision."

Arucard gave a long-suffering sigh.

"Then lets just put it this way whelp, think of me as both her overprotective father and her jealous boyfriend. If you touch her again, I will nail you inside a coffin, drill a hole in the lid and then submerge the coffin in a tank of formaldehyde and watch as you drown, suffocate and are poisoned to death all at the same time. Do I make myself clear?"

Arucard had been enjoying himself immensely watching the color drain from the human's face. He wasn't so happy when Malikai laughed at him.

"Arucard, I love Seras and I'll do what ever it takes to make her see that."

"Then you're dead, mortal." Growled the vampire as he sunk through the floor.

When he was gone, Malikai sat heavily in his chair. He had no doubt in his mind that Arucard would do just what he said he'd do, the vampire was crazy enough to pull it off without getting squeamish. He knew that Arucard would enjoy killing him, he'd seen that in his eyes, in the way his smile grew more intense.

He thought back to the vampire's parting words and his position with the Iscariot, and had to smile.

"That's more true than you know mien nosfaratu." He said to the empty room. He turned back to his computer and deleted the reply he'd gotten from his church. They were sending Father Anderson to execute him as a traitor.

*

Shadow drew in a breath and let it out slowly, claming her self and letting the tears on her face dry before willing them to disappear. She stood up and focused her will on building the rest of her house. Shadows are willed into existence by other shadows, but she was one of the originals, one of the deep shadows that had taken form by watching the other worlds and copying them.

She needed no will but her own to support her. She watched as the house materialized around her and felt instantly better. There were walls now to separate her from the cold, echoing darkness. The Deep had never felt more empty than right now.

She sat down at her table and willed a steaming cup of spiced apple cider into her hands and sipped at it while she remembered throwing parties in this very room. Remembered watching her friends, a man with long red hair and playboy personality, always touching the girls, a white blonde man with a cool disposition and a teasing sultry smile, her lover. She saw a girl with long blue hair and a solemn face, the Thinker they called her, for she sat in her floating garden, on a stone in the center of a river and meditated most of the time. A man with long limbs and wild burgundy eyes came next, the daring crazy one. He'd always complain about her looks by sending her pictures of herself dressed and changed to the extreme.

She remembered his face as he willed his hair into six different colors and styles in a matter of minutes just to try and `teach' her how it was done. She'd laughed at him and turned her hair blonde just to spite him and then turned it right back to black. He always complained about her black on black color scheme.

And her lover, she remembered running her fingers through his so fine hair and smelling his skin and tasting his lips and she ached to have him again. She could see his own black eyes and that smile he gave her when he was doing something mischievous.

She sighed and pushed the memories away and found that through her reminiscing she'd drank all her cider. She waved the cup away and stood, willing herself outside the house. She pushed with her power and let it reach out and out into the shadows as if she'd melt right back into them. She had the sudden urge to look again as she had the first time she returned to this empty place. She stretched herself as far and deep as she would go and she felt it.

The energy was tainted, full of evil and hate, and below it were the screams, the pleas for mercy. She listened to them and only after she'd picked out a few choice voices did she realize she was hearing the cries of her trapped people.

They were there, in the Deep, caught in some horrible demonic magic. She pulled on it, with all her will and felt it move ever so slightly, then it seemed to grow stronger and it resisted her.

"No!" she screamed at it. She tried again and this time it didn't even budge. She sighed in frustration and whirled to find the gate to another world open behind her. She marched through it and came out in the Shallows of Arucard's room.

*

Arucard was brooding, he seemed to be doing that a lot lately and sipping his blood when Shadow stormed out of the wall and grabbed his arm. She pulled him up out of the chair and right back in to the wall without a word.

He stumbled after her but kept his mouth shut, something on her face stopped his words. They emerged on the other side in darkness. A house was the only thing in the inky blackness that stretched on forever. She stopped in front of it and he looked at the odd design of it. It looked like pieces of architecture from all over the world were thrown haphazardly together and expected to hold. He spotted an Arabic round tower, a roman style dome, and Greek pillars. He saw Egyptian reed rugs and straw mat floors, mixed with hardwood and tile. One of the doors was a Japanese style shoji, another a heavy metal door that looked like it belonged on a high tech vault.

"Look, feel, hear, know." She said and he looked at her and was suddenly falling. The darkness swallowed him up and he felt the shadows embrace him like a rock in a stream, all around and through him, everywhere and nowhere all at once. He couldn't feel himself moving and yet what felt like wind rushed around his body, filling him with sounds and sights and tastes and feelings, all foreign, all so intense they rubbed his senses raw.

Then he heard it, first a single wail, then the screaming began, and continued until it echoed inside of him like the sound of a giant bell. He felt hands grasping at the legs of his pants like prisoners below him, begging for release. He felt their pain and their fear and their confusion as they all sent it too him and his brain just couldn't take it. He couldn't stand all the things these people, for he knew that's what they were, kept sending him.

His senses overloaded and his body shut down, he stared into darkness and felt the press of a thousand thousand bodies all around him screaming, crying, begging, beseeching, and then he knew nothing.

*

End pat 10