Hellsing Fan Fiction ❯ Night Shift ❯ Chapter 1

Night Shift

Integra let the door of the hospital lobby swish closed behind her before lighting a cigar. Even small details had to be treated with careful attention, or the misplaced speck of colour would grow into an unsightly blotch in the big picture. A red blotch, in most of the cases she was dealing with.

The whole affair was becoming dangerously close to unnerving, but at the moment she was too irate to care. The recollection of her encounter with the Paladin sent another wave of righteous, satisfied anger through her. On the far side of the road, the priest was getting into a taxi while the other Catholics fawned over him and held the car's door open for him almost reverently. Integra watched with eyes narrowed, exhaling smoke and disapproval.

The drive home gave her time to boil her anger down to a seething purposefulness. She sent her subordinates scurrying to complete their various tasks and retreated to her office. There was work to be done. Reports turned up on her desk, Walter came and went without expecting more than a quiet thanks for the tea, which turned cold unnoticed.

It was words, always words, always the same words beginning to swim in front of her eyes. This was a time of change. The guard shift changed, the day shift of the housekeeping staff began their work, the faintest hint of dawn tinted the sky. Integra was aware, dimly, of all of this, which was why she kept her office curtains closed. She did not want to be reminded of how swiftly those nights passed.

She leaned back in her chair and rolled her shoulders, listening to the bones crack. I ought to finish. Even my vampires are turning in. A wry smile quirked her mouth at the possessive pronoun she had caught herself using.

Then, the moment of hovering passed, and a more thunderous look chased the smile away. Damn the time and damn her weariness. One moment, she had nearly let herself forget.

The events of the night had turned into neat rows of letters on the computer screen, angrily punched into the keyboard by her; or meticulous stacks of paper formed by the reports Ferguson and the others had handed in. Victoria's report she had laid aside. Alucard, as always, had not provided one.

She was not sure what infuriated her most-the Paladin's trespassing on her land, the sheer arrogance of the Vatican, the loss of her Captain, Alucard's failure. The Police Girl's innocently rounded writing seemed to stare at her as she carefully disentangled the strands of her anger. I should have known. One of them was not hers; it led back directly to her strange link with Alucard. She could sense his awareness of her. He was sulking in the back of her head, feeding her his own frustration. He was doing it on purpose!

She felt the equivalent of a smirk flashing through her mind before he withdrew behind his accustomed boundaries. In regards to her state, it didn't matter; she was vexed enough for both of them.

Tackling Victoria's report now would hardly help. The young vampire was, of course, recovering, but she was another risk, another vulnerability, another unlife on her hands. Integra had been observing Seras closely, as had all the Organization. She was not so much causing problems as being one, for all her efforts.

Integra pulled her glasses off and rubbed at her eyes with her free hand. Wandering again? She could see, at time like this, why Alucard called her mind a confused muddle. Her thoughts were straying all over the place with weariness. Sleep, however, was out of the question. She was much too agitated.

So she would at least get some work done. With a sigh, she reached for the last report, feeling unusually reluctant to the task. She dismissed the notion. Who had ever heard of a Hellsing shirking duty? And her duty were, now and ever, the vampires. Both of them. All of them.