Eden, thanks for reading!
Chapter VI: Insanity and Intensity
"How is she, Walter?" Celes asked the aging retainer when he emerged from Christina’s room.
Walter managed a thin smile. "She is well. She is a Hellsing–she will not give up easily."
Celes nodded. She and Walter were guarding the Hellsing heir, since Lord Integra and Alucard were not here. They were going to the Gautiers' mansion, in an effort to discover who the intruder was.
The former policewoman frowned slightly. The leader of Hellsing, Lord Integra, though she didn’t show any signs of it, probably had a nasty shock when she saw her daughter slumped in Celes’s arms, bleeding profusely.
Christina had fainted minutes after Celes and her master arrived, alarming Celes and later, Walter. Her blood stained the wooden floor, indicating she had been seriously wounded.
“How is her wound?” she wanted to know. The wound had been a deep, diagonal gash that bled like hell.
The loyal retainer stared at Celes with uncommon intensity. “There is no wound,” he said calmly.
“No wound?” Celes nearly cried out. “But–but–I saw her–”
“You must be mistaken. There is no wound, my dear Miss Celes, on Miss Christina." Walter's words were bland, but Celes sensed the underlying message in them.
*******
Christina was eleven years old again, and she was lying on her bed. She was sleeping soundly when the doors suddenly burst open with a loud bang. The windows were flung open as well, and the cold wind rushed into her room, chilling her. She felt herself being shaken awake, and when she opened her eyes, she found herself gazing at a pair of red eyes, so much like her own…
Then, she was standing in an open field. Around her, tanks were moving, and men were running around. Looking up, she saw her mother staring at her with her intense blue eyes. Integral Wingates Hellsing gripped her shoulders tightly. She gestured towards the activity going on around them. "This will be your inheritance, Christina."
"My inheritance?"
The small blue flame in her mother's eyes flared into a roaring fire, her fingers tightening their grip on her shoulders. "Yes. You are the heir to Hellsing. It is in our blood–our heritage–to protect the kingdom from monsters."
A shower of blood-red roses suddenly appeared, masking her vision, and when Christina could see again, her mother was no longer holding her–it was the blonde man with the melodious, deadly voice. It was dark, and they were in the forest near her school. Behind her, she could hear Jean-Luc screaming, "Run, Hellsing! RUN!"
She struggled to get away, but the blonde man squeezed harder, his fingers digging into her flesh. "You are one of us. Always remember that, my lady Hellsing," he hissed. Then he laughed and laughed and laughed…
Of course, that was when she opened her eyes and realized it was all a dream. She was lying on something soft–probably her bed–and sunrays were streaming into the room through the open windows.
After a few minutes of difficulty, Christina managed to get out of the bed. She immediately headed for the bathroom. When she bent down to wash her face, she stopped, remembering something important.
Her head snapped up, and she glanced at her torso through the mirror. She was certain she had been wounded last night. She ran her hand lightly on where her wound should be. There was no pain, no bandage–no trace that the wound actually existed. Had that been a dream? Did she dream that she had been wounded? She shook her head. God, she couldn't remember.
When she emerged from the bathroom, she was a bit disappointed to see Walter standing beside her bed, a trolley full of food beside him. She would have expected to see her mother.
"Good morning, Miss Christina. How are you feeling?" Walter had a genial smile as he spoke, but Christina could sense the tension surrounding him. What is he so tense about?
She smiled slightly at him. "I feel fine, Walter. My mother, where is she?"
Walter carefully poured tea into an elegant teacup. "She is investigating about what happened last night."
"Oh." Trust her mother to put duty before family. She sighed. Some things never changed. "They didn't catch him, did they?" When Walter nodded, Christina's hands clenched into tight fists. "I see."
Walter looked like he was about to say something, but the phone rang. Bowing slightly at Christina, he picked up the phone. After the usual pleasantries, Walter handed the phone to Christina.
*******
To say that Integral Wingates Hellsing was displeased to see Enrico Maxwell and Alexander Anderson in the Gautier mansion was an understatement of epic proportions. She was furious. It only meant one thing: the Vatican would get involved in this case as well.
"Ah, if it isn't Sir Hellsing," Maxwell said in that fawning voice of his. He shrank back slightly when he saw Alucard walking from behind Integra. "And her pet as well," Anderson remarked from behind Maxwell.
Integra regarded Maxwell with cool disdain. "What are you doing here? This is none of the Vatican's–"
"On the contrary," Maxwell interrupted, wagging his finger, "this is the Vatican's business. All the victims are Catholic, and it is one of the Vatican's most important functions is to look after its flock."
"Were Catholic, you should say." Integra inwardly seethed. "However, they are in England and in England, the Vatican has no business nor power to interfere with matters happening here."
"The faith knows no boundaries," Anderson said, grinning at Integra. "I met your daughter last night. Such a beautiful creature," he remarked with a gleam in his eye. "Tell me, how is she?"
Integra said nothing. Turning her back to them, she headed to the crime scene. Alucard flickered Anderson a malicious gleam of his own, then silently followed his master.
"She didn't say much about her daughter," Maxwell remarked to a smiling Anderson.
"Humph."
*******
"Hey, Hellsing, it's me," a masculine voice said.
"Harker," she said in a cool voice. She turned to Walter, who stood patiently beside her, not a trace of expression on his old face. Christina covered the mouthpiece for a moment. "You may go now, Walter. I'm quite all right. I'll just call if I need anything."
Walter said nothing, but there was a look of disapproval on his face. However, he did what Christina said.
"What is it?" she asked as soon as Walter was out of earshot.
"Jean-Luc's parents got killed last night."
It surprised Christina that she wasn't stunned at the news. "What about Rachel and Anna Katrina?"
"They're all right. They weren't there when the murder happened." Michael paused. "The Gautiers were drained of blood, then beheaded, Hellsing. And oh, Jean-Luc's corpse's missing, too," he added lightly.
"I see…" she managed to say in a calm voice, though she was stunned by the news. "Where's Rachel and Anna?" she asked, worried about her friends. The dead was dead. There was no use worrying about them.
"They're with me. Listen, the reason I called is because we need to talk. Can you come to my house?"
Leave Hellsing mansion after what happened last night? Impossible. "No."
"I'll pick you up," he offered. "My house isn't that far away from yours."
Christina felt her anger rise. He was so persistent. "No. I cannot go."
"Hellsing, if it's your mother you're–"
"NO, Harker."
Silence. Then he sighed. "As you wish–but we have to talk about what happened in the forest."
"Why do you insist on talking about it now? Didn't you say that it was better for us not to talk about it at all?" she said cuttingly. How dare he insist on talking about what happened at the forest when he had insisted that they all forget what happened!
"I made a mistake. I'm sorry. I realized that we can't pretend that it didn't happen and–"
Christina's voice was icy as she spoke. "No, Harker. You didn't realize anything. You're just afraid the vampire will go after you and kill you. This isn't about you realizing anything–it's you realizing that you're a frightened coward." And with that, she slammed the phone down.
*******
Integra glanced at the walls of the Gautiers' bedroom. The walls and floor–everything–were sprayed with blood. The room stank of it. Integral turned to one of her men. "Where is the daughter?"
"She's in my house," a familiar voice said. "Along with a friend of hers."
Integral turned to face the owner of the voice. Joseph Jonathan Harker strode towards her. He looked around, a disinterested look in his gray eyes. "A bloody mess, isn't it?" he remarked almost cheerfully.
Integra didn't say anything. J.J. Harker, as he liked to be called, was a recent member of the Round Table and president of Harker Inc., a multi-billion-pound business empire. He took over his father's position when the old man died about ten years ago. He was about her age, though he was two or three years older.
Integra didn't like him. Though he and his ancestors had been allied with Hellsing, somewhere in the line, Harker and Hellsing went their own ways. Integra herself is not familiar on why things went wrong between the two families, though she suspected it might be something connected with Alucard.
Aside from inherited prejudices, she had another reason to dislike Harker. In the Round Table, meetings, he was merely content to listen to the arguments, never participating. Silence was a virtue, yes, but Integra had a feeling that he wasn't really listening. For someone who took her duty as a Knight of the Round table seriously, Integra found Harker's attitude unforgivable. Then, when it came to decisions and voting, he always made sure that he sided with the majority. He never seemed to have his own opinion.
"Why didn't you find out about this earlier?" Integra asked Harker. He was the one in charge of the gathering of information about the activities of the undead. It infuriated Integra that the Iscariot found out first about this incident because this…man was so lax with his duties. Not only that, three more people died.
Harker grinned a little sheepishly. Integra suppressed the urge to blow the man's head off with considerable effort. "I had other matters in my mind." Then he raised his hands. "But the information did get to you, so it doesn't really matter. I did my job," he said defensively.
Would you like me to blow him to kingdom come, Master? The slight irritation in Alucard's voice amused Integra. It seemed like she wasn't the only one who didn't like Joseph Harker. However, Integra remembered that Alucard had a lot of things against the Harker family.
The leader of Hellsing turned to Alucard, a warning look on her eyes. Alucard merely grinned back.
Joseph then noticed Alucard for the first time. His eyes nearly popped out of its sockets when he saw the infamous vampire, but he quickly regained his composure and looked away, an act that amused the vampire.
"By the way, how is your daughter, Christina? She and my son are good friends," Joseph Harker asked, a sly, suggestive smile on his face. "They study in the same school, do you not know?"
"No, I did not." She smiled icily at him. It was time to drop the cordial act. "And neither do I care."
*******
After Michael Harker's phone call, Christina decided to take a bath. Emerging from the bathroom clean and fresh, she immediately sat on the stool in front of her vanity to brush her hair. Reaching for her comb, she suddenly stopped and stared at the mirror. She stared, and remembered.
One of us.
Her hands curled into tight fists. What did that monster mean? One of them? Her? A Hellsing? Impossible!
She continued to stare at the mirror. Her eyes…red as blood…
Christina was fully aware that red eyes were extremely rare. As far as she knew, humans do not have red eyes–unless they were stoned with drugs or sick. However, for monsters, such as vampires, red eyes were a norm.
Her mother was the master of such a creature–the vampire Alucard.
Christina only asked about her father just once. She was around six or seven years old and had just come home from school when she dashed into her mother's study and asked in a small voice, "Mummy, do I have a daddy? Am I a bastard?"
She could remember her mother paling slightly at her question, though the expression on her face did not change. Walter, who had been in the act of pouring tea, stared at Christina. Tea spilled from the cup.
It seemed like an eternity before her mother replied, "Yes, you have a father, Christina. You are not a bastard." Integral frowned slightly. "Who told you that?"
Christina shrugged. "A classmate of mine." Then, in the same, innocent manner, she asked, "Is Mister Alucard my father? We have the same eyes."
This time, the answer came swiftly in a confident, authoritative voice. "No." Integra grasped Christina's wrist firmly. "Alucard is not your father. He is not."
Christina had accepted that. As she grew older, she began to read books about vampires. She found out that they generally cannot have children the normal way, but–but–there have been exceptions to this rule–several, actually. There were half-vampires, who had inherited their vampire parent's red eyes.
No, it's impossible, Christina thought. First, knowing her mother's pride, Integra would never let a monster, be he Alucard or not, get that intimate. Besides, even if she did, the Queen or the King would never allow such an offspring to be born to Hellsing. The child would be killed, including the mother, for heresy.
Christina closed her eyes, not wanting to look at them anymore. Maybe, it was time for her to ask her mother that question again.
~T.B.C~
Author's little notes: Yessss! Another chapter finished. Things are getting a little too exciting, ne, so I had too cool it a little.
Next chapter: flashback on what happened on the forest and the quest to discover what's behind everything that's happening begins. Read and Review, please. ^_^;
Ah…the Harker family. I've been wanting to bring them up. I tried to make them appear a little stuck-up here, but I ended up making them carefree and somewhat cowardly? Hmm, not the proper term, actually. I find the Harkers interesting, since in Stroker's book, they (Mina and Jonathan) are main protagonists, though I view Mina and Dr. Abraham van Helsing as the 'movers' and the 'stronger' characters in the book. Poor Jonathan comes out as a little weak for me…AH! That's the term. The Harkers are carefree and somewhat weak, though they, as Michael has proved, can be persistent as well.
Did you notice the Harkers' names? Making Jonathan their middle name is sort of a way to honor their ancestor.
