Hunting the Hunter

“You’re ready.”

“No.”

A soft, wet sound and a whimper.

“You keep saying that, but you’re still here.”

∙∙∙

Christian Wallace.

Walter looked at the name heading the neatly typed form and scanned down to the passport photo that went with the name. Christian Wallace, in his tiny grayscale representation, was a man whose face matched the 1925 birth year listed on the form. He was perhaps a little foxy-faced with his sharp features and clever eyes, but Walter thought that he could see the wit that had to have earned the man his position.

Hellsing’s most trusted retainer had read dozens if not hundreds of such profiles, but never one quite like this one. Christian Wallace was Richard Hellsing’s personal assistant, and Walter was reading this dossier in preparation for Richard’s homecoming. He skimmed the information again, turning pages and flipping back and forth between the passport photo and other photos deeper inside the file.

Right. He glanced up at the clock on the wall – 12:59 p.m. Christian was due at 1:00. Walter wondered if the man would be prompt or not. He did hate the inconsideration of lateness.

The clock ticked over to 1:00 and a light rap sounded on Walter’s office door.

He pulled open a drawer and put the two files away before calling, “Come in.”

The door opened and Walter’s first thought was that Christian needed ironing lessons.

Not auspicious, perhaps, but despite his crisply pressed trousers and the almost foppish white carnation boutonniere in his lapel, the crease in the man’s collar was going to drive the fastidious butler mad with the urge to smooth it out soon enough.

He rose from his seat and offered the newcomer a smile. Christian was a few inches shorter than he was, but that wasn’t surprising; there were few people who could match Walter’s 6’5” height. Doru was one of the few people Walter had met in his life who was even taller.

Walter smiled and pushed thoughts of Doru away. This was hardly the time.

“Mr. Wallace,” he held out his hand. “Walter Dornez. Welcome to Hellsing.”

With a smile that smoothed out some of the sharpness of his features, Christian Wallace took Walter’s hand in a firm grip. “Christian, please. We both answer to Hellsings. I think we can afford a little informality between us.”

Walter nodded before releasing the man’s hand and gesturing to a guest chair in front of his desk. “Christian it is, then, but only if you call me Walter.”

The two men sat and Walter tapped a notepad on his desk. “I have a list of potential office spaces for Mr. Hellsing, as well as some city homes that may be acceptable to him. I understand that he is very particular.”

Particular enough to have sent his assistant ahead of him to begin scouting suitable locations rather than taking his brother’s offer of placement. Richard would be staying at Hellsing for a week or three while he personally approved his office and housing, but he had demanded that Christian cull through Hellsing’s offerings before he even considered any suggestions.

Walter chose to be charitable and consider that it was because Richard had been travelling the world for years for business, hardly staying in one place more than a few months before moving on as his growing investment company demanded. This time, the elder Hellsing brother was supposed to be back in England to stay. Shouldn’t it be his right to be particular about where he settled down?

“You could say that,” Christian agreed with a grin. “Mr. Hellsing wants things done exactly as he wants them, whether he tells you what he wants or not.”

He held up a warning hand. “And I can’t criticize. After all, his business is very successful because of his particularities. They just keep me very busy.”

“I’m sure they do,” Walter agreed, warming to the slightly irreverent respect the man seemed to have for his employer. “Perhaps that’s something Hellsings have in common. I have been in Sir Hellsing’s service for ten years now, and I have grown into anticipating his wants.”

“Ten years?” Christian tipped his head at Walter, looking dubious. “You’re having me on. You’re younger than I am.”

“By four years,” Walter agreed with the start of a cocky grin of his own. “But the fact remains that I have been Hellsing’s retainer since 1941.”

“Incredible.” The other man shook his head and made little effort to hide his appraisal of Walter. “I shouldn’t expect you – no offense intended – to be in a position of such responsibility. Most people who enter service so young don’t get the sort of training needed.”

That made Walter smile wryly. “Christian, what, exactly, do you know of the Hellsing Organization’s charter and charge from the Crown?”

The man’s clearance was sufficient to know everything. Walter knew that much from his dossier. The question was, how much had Richard seen fit to tell his assistant?

Christian paused, rubbing his fingers over his chin in a gesture Walter didn’t think the man even realized he was making. “To be honest, Richard told me some cock and bull story, but I really didn’t believe it. Why don’t you tell me and we’ll see how they measure up?”

Walter drummed his fingers across the notepad once, fingertips bared by his customary fingerless gloves, then nodded. “Right. I can tell you because you have clearance, but you have to understand that what I tell you does not ever get spoken of outside of Hellsing and its operatives and employees.”

Christian nodded once, slowly, all trace of his grin gone. Without the smile, the vulpine sharpness was back. It didn’t make him more attractive, but it did highlight a canny intelligence his smile camouflaged. “I understand.”

“Hellsing is charged by the Crown to protect England from supernatural threats,” Walter said seriously, watching Christian’s face for his reaction. “All supernatural threats, but our specialty is vampires. Your employer and mine are the sons of Abraham van Helsing – the man who, with four others, killed Count Dracula.”

The name seemed to reverberate in Walter’s comfortably tidy office for a moment. Even now, more than fifty years after his death, the vampire’s name still held a sort of power.

“Count Dracula,” Christian repeated slowly. “Count bloody Dracula….”

The grin came back as though a switch had been flipped. “I always loved those films. Don’t tell. It’s a guilty pleasure.”

“I won’t,” Walter agreed, but he wasn’t smiling to match the other man’s apparent glee. He continued to watch him seriously. “But this is no picture show. Vampires are real. Dracula was real. England has a hidden war on against creatures that would take her citizens and damn them in the night.”

He grimaced inwardly. He knew it had to sound fantastical and melodramatic from the outside, but he’d seen too much blood and death to take it anything but deadly seriously.

“Then what do you do, Walter? Do you go out in the night with a stake and a cross to fight the forces of evil?”

“Not with a stake and a cross, no.” How he hated these talks. People rarely took it seriously at first. Which was as it should be, granted. He and Hellsing had worked long and hard to help relegate the supernatural to mere fairy stories in the minds of most of England’s citizenry. It kept them from panic. It kept them from mucking about with things they should not. It kept them, in a way, safe.

It also kept them from believing the truth when it was presented to them.

“But I am Hellsing’s trashman. I am the one that Sir Hellsing calls upon for the most serious situations.” He twitched a shoulder in a bare intimation of a shrug. “Still, most of the time, I’m not needed for that, so I found an equally valuable place in the organization for those times when things are quiet.”

Christian leaned forward slightly, his expression was something that Walter thought was skepticism that wanted to be allayed. “What does it mean to be a trashman, Walter? Do you carry a gun or recite prayers to protect England’s citizens?”

No, I use deadly filaments of wire to destroy my enemies, laying them to waste before they can lift a finger against me.

Right. And didn’t that sound like bragging, no matter how accurate it was?

Walter shook his head and suppressed a sigh. He lifted his hand, fingers crooking as almost invisible filaments flew out and plucked the white carnation from Christian’s lapel, drawing it back to Walter even as the silvery threads disappeared into their rings once again.

“I have my ways,” he said, smiling at the other man as he raised the carnation to his nose and drew in its scent.

∙∙∙

London again. It was becoming Walter’s thinking location of choice. Not anywhere in particular, but when he was in the mood to think – no, it was not brooding – think without interruptions, he found himself just driving into the city from Hellsing’s estate and getting out anywhere where the impulse struck him.

Tonight he wasn’t entirely sure where he was walking. He knew he was not far from Royal Albert Hall, skirting Kensington Gardens, he just didn’t know where his wandering would take him.

The houses were in tight rows of tall brick, practically looming over the street. His footsteps echoed on the pavement, and he felt almost alone in the midst of a city that had hosted human dramas and lives and deaths for two millennia. Somehow it suited his mood to be both alone and surrounded by people.

Christian was interesting. Walter had met ambitious young up and comers before, but something from Christian’s dossier stood out and Walter found himself worrying at the tidbit for reasons he couldn’t fully grasp.

The comprehensive background check on Richard’s assistant had included the standout fact that Christian Wallace of the sharp features, sharp mind, and poorly ironed shirt collar was a homosexual. This was not a rumor; there was confirmation from former paramours in university and overseas.

It should have been enough to have had Richard terminate his assistant’s employment. The man knew about it. That was also in Christian’s dossier. It was Richard’s intervention that allowed him to keep his clearance. Homosexuals were ordinarily denied security clearances.

What was it about Christian Wallace that made him special?

A light voice from above cut through his thoughts. “Look what I find out in the night.”

Walter sighed and looked up, already knowing who he would see.

“Angel.” Mihaela beamed down at him from an open window with a mug of something cupped in her hands. “Imagine my delight to open the window for some air and see my favorite young man strolling by.”

“Imagine,” Walter muttered, pulling his hands out of his pockets. “Is this where you live?”

“Do you like it?” Mihaela waved a hand to stop him before he could answer. “Wait a moment. I’ll come down. It’s uncivilized for us to be calling back and forth to each other like this.”

Right. More unexpected company from the vampire. He supposed this explained finding her in Hyde Park before. It wasn’t that far away.

He’d just lit a cigarette when the front door opened and Mihaela skipped out and down the steps onto the sidewalk to join him. She wore a white cape over her little suit, a beret perched atop her straight black hair.

Her hair was just like Doru’s, Walter realized. Perhaps they were related?

He was opening his mouth to ask her when she shocked him to silence by taking his free hand and starting walking.

“Come on. Let’s walk. I like these walks with you. Now that you know where I live, you should come to visit.” She chattered on like the child she looked like as she pulled him down the sidewalk. “I don’t have many guests I can talk to like an adult. You don’t know how much that means to me.”

“I suppose not,” Walter said absently as he tried to work out how to extricate his hand from her grasp without being offensive.

How had he come to a point in his life where he cared whether he offended a vampire holding his hand?

“Where are we going?”

“The underground,” Mihaela announced, taking a happy skip as she said it. “I don’t get to go down there often.”

“You don’t?” Walter made no effort to hide his surprise. “I would have thought it would be someplace you quite liked.”

Mihaela cast an exasperated look up at him. “Walter, do you think a child who looks like me goes unnoticed down there if she’s alone? Adults see me. They remember me. They think they need to protect me. They want to know where my mum and dad are.”

She shook her head. “I may like the underground, but I almost never go down there.”

She brightened and pulled him down the stairs into Knightsbridge station. “But I can go down now that I have dear big brother Walter to take me.” Her last words were louder as they passed a tired-looking businessman trudging up the stairs to the surface. He smiled at the pair, no doubt approving of this example of fraternal care.

“Mihaela,” he tugged on her hand to draw her to a stop. “I don’t want to ride tonight. I wanted to take a walk.”

“We can walk. We can walk through the train cars, get out the next station, and walk back,” Mihaela insisted, even going so far as to try a bit of a pout. “I like it down here.”

“That would work better if I didn’t know how old you are.” Walter frowned down at her. “But I think you lose your right to make that face when you pass a hundred.”

Dear God, he was teasing her like a friend.

“One stop and then we walk back. My car is around here and I can’t stay out all night.”

The little vampire beamed up at him and bounced over to wait for the next train.

“What are you doing out tonight?” she asked, rising up on her toes and settling flat on her feet again. Up. Down. Up. Down. She was just a fount of energy tonight. Walter couldn’t help but wonder what had been in that mug she’d had.

“I like to walk.” Why was he feeling defensive? There was nothing wrong with liking walks in the city.

“I think you go for walks when you have things on your mind.” She gleefully clapped her hands together as a light appeared down the tunnel, heralding the train’s imminent arrival. “Why don’t you ever tell me about them? We’re friends.”

“Because,” Walter raised his voice over the sound of the train and then just shook his head. Better to wait until they were inside.

“Because,” he began again once they were in the train car, automatically shifting his balance as it began moving. “Because I’d rather work things out for myself. There’s no need to trouble people with things that aren’t important.”

Mihaela held a pole in one hand and spun in a circle, for all appearances a little girl simply enjoying herself.

“Do you think you’ll trouble me?”

A few people riding in the train car with them watched the pair with varied reactions, from amused indulgence for what they thought were brother and sister, to disapproval for the girl’s apparent undisciplined behavior, to incurious boredom, watching them because they were there, not because they were interesting.

“No.” he thought the only way he could trouble her would be if he said he had an execution order for her. She might be troubled for Doru’s sake, too.

“Then you can tell me, Angel.” She settled down in one of the seats and patted the empty one next to her. “Hurry, we only have a few minutes.”

Walter leaned on the seat rather than sit next to her. “Right. Tell you what’s on my mind.”

Was this a bad idea? Almost definitely. So was holding hands, going for walks, and even talking with her.

“Do you think a homosexual is a security risk?”

Mihaela tilted her head up at him, her expression almost serious. “Why? Are you going to tell me something about yourself?”

Her expression went completely serious when she saw him ready to draw away from her. She put her hand over his where it gripped the seat. “No. I don’t think a homosexual is a security risk. But you’ll understand that my opinions of risk and wrongdoing aren’t exactly the same as everyone else’s.”

The serious, adult expression disappeared to be replaced by that superficial child once more as she released his hand and slid out of the seat. “Look. Here’s our stop!”

∙∙∙

Mihaela closed and locked her door, peeking out the window to watch Walter turn the corner heading back toward his car.

The vampire pulled the drape closed again and turned to walk deeper into the house. Her little feet tapped on the wood floors, almost keeping time with the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall near the basement door. She unlocked the heavy door with a large iron key and started down the stairs, flicking on the light.

A young man turned grey-green eyes fearfully up to watch her, shaggy brown hair falling across his face to almost hide their red rims and his pallor.

Shadows gathered around the little vampire as she reached the bottom of the stairs and smiled.

∙∙∙

Arthur looked up at Walter as the young man stood at pseudo-attention in front of him. “Tell me about Richard’s Mr. Wallace. What do you think? Will he be trustworthy?”

“I think it is too early to say, sir,” Walter answered. “He seems quite loyal to your brother, but I do not know how that applies to Hellsing on the whole. I shall be taking him to look at properties tomorrow. I may have a better idea after that.”

Good, Arthur thought to himself. He had wondered if Wallace’s recorded… “proclivities” might interest or distract Walter. Obviously he should have known better. His retainer had never been anything but loyal and trustworthy. Whether Richard’s retainer was Walter’s equal remained to be seen.

“I shall expect a full report after you two are finished tomorrow, but if you were to give me an opinion now, what would you say of Christian Wallace?”

“I would say, sir, that he is resilient, but may miss important details. Beyond that, I simply would rather not pass judgment yet.”

Fair enough. Arthur nodded and smiled at Walter. The young man was always so reliable when it came to Hellsing’s interests, even if he’d gotten a bit more comfortable with that pair of vampires than Arthur would have liked. Even then, he was honest with his master, and for that, the man could not complain.

“Right then. I’m sure you have other things to do than stand around in my office. I will expect to hear from you tomorrow evening.”

Walter nodded and inclined his head in the bare intimation of a bow. “I will be leaving you another report unless you want to hear it now. I met Mihaela in the city again tonight.”

Arthur sat up straighter in his chair. “Did anything different happen, or did she just want to talk to you again?”

“We only spoke again. Nothing different from past encounters.”

“Then you may give me the written report in the morning. I have other matters to attend to.” Arthur rubbed his temples with his forefingers before adding, “At least her interest in you allows us to keep tabs on her.”

Walter only nodded in response, giving Arthur no indication of his feelings on having a child vampire interested in him. “I’ll have the report for you in the morning, sir.”

Arthur watched the young man go and picked up his phone. Moments later, a familiar voice answered on the other end.

“I have new orders for you, Bernadette. I’m sending you a file tonight. Christian Wallace is your new focus until I tell you otherwise.”