Hunting the Hunter

Silence, stretching until broken by a sigh.

"No more fighting it."

"Then I can do this."

Sheets rustle until the sound is lost under a shaky moan.

•••

“But I owe you my part of the story.”

Those words replaced the growing warmth between them with a chill at the reminder of realities outside this room. Did it only take a kiss to make him forget his duty?

Walter nodded and tried to ignore his own reluctance to release Doru. Duty first. Always duty first. What did it mean that Doru had been the one to remind him of that?

Doru reached for his hand as he pulled away to stand. He couldn't imagine hearing the tale while they embraced when he was already dangerously lacking in distance from the vampire. The last thing he needed was something to draw him in even closer.

He looked down at Doru's long white fingers, taking in the details of the almost stone-like smoothness of his fingernails, the fine blue veins that spidered under his skin, and their coolness now that the heat from the bath had started to fade. He compared their inhuman whiteness with the living vibrancy of his own skin and then twined his fingers with Doru's.

It was already too late, wasn't it?

•••

"I was walking Philip to his hotel." Doru began the story at a point soon after Walter had last seen him just the night before. It was hard to believe that so little time had passed.

They had moved to the couch, and though their bodies did not touch, Walter still held Doru's hand. He didn't know if it would offer the distance he felt he needed, but it was more distance than he actually wanted from Doru and it would have to suffice.

"We were in Regent's Park, walking along the boating lake while Philip told me about Paris and his latest work." Doru's tone was calm, but his fingers trembled against Walter's before he tightened his grip and they stilled. Walter caught a flicker of expression before Doru's face smoothed into calm again.

"It came suddenly; I was walking and then there was a pain in my neck and throat and the rest of my body felt as though it disappeared." He shook his head and sounded almost confused. "I have taken victims with such speed, but I never thought to be the victim...."

Walter lightly squeezed his fingers, but didn't urge him to go on. He remembered the way it had felt to be helpless in the dark with red eyes looming above him and he knew how that had struck him at the core of his self-image as the predator, not the prey. How would it feel to have that experience for the first time in... how old was Doru? Younger than Mihaela's 208 years, but by how much?

Doru found his voice to go on, cutting into Walter's thoughts. "I fell like a puppet with its strings cut. All I could do was lie there and watch as Phillip turned to see what had happened and that vampire came out of the darkness to snatch him away. I had to lie there, helpless, voiceless, hearing Phillip cry out and hearing it cut off. I thought he was dead then.

"He should have died then."

Walter remembered the state of Phillip's body and nodded. This was so much harder than he'd expected it to be; he'd liked Phillip in their brief acquaintance and he had just had to admit to himself that he more than liked Doru. He didn't want Doru to have the pain of this remembrance, and he didn't want to be the one who pushed him to it, but he had to. There was only so much of his duty he could put aside for his (infatuation? affection? fondness?) care for a vampire.

Unaware of Walter's thoughts, Doru continued. "Finally the vampire came back. I don't know how long it had been — not long I think — but it felt like hours. He picked me up and there was nothing I could do but let him carry me to a funeral coach and put me in a coffin in the back. I didn't understand at the time why he took special care to lie me on my side. There was another coffin and I could hear Phillip beating at it and calling for help, but none came. Through all this, I couldn't move, couldn't speak, and I still didn't know why."

He raised a hand to rub the hollow of his throat and then the back of his neck. "I found out later, when we arrived at the house where you found me. He took Phillip in first and then carried me upstairs. He hadn't said anything during all of this. It was..." He shook his head and grimaced. "Can you imagine? Being treated like meat?"

He gave Walter a tight smile. "Not that it got better when he did start talking. First he stripped me and strapped me down to that slab. I still couldn't feel my body, so I didn't fully appreciate the slab's true devilishness until later. Phillip was there, strapped to the gurney, and when he saw me, I knew that whatever the vampire had done was something he could see. He made sure that my head was turned toward Phillip and Phillip had been begging for our release, promising everything that came to mind, and then he stopped, staring at me with horror. I think he said my name...."

How do you offer comfort at a time like this? Walter didn't know. All he could do was offer Doru his full attention. He squeezed Doru's fingers to let him know that he was listening and planned to stay right where he was.

Doru squeezed back and sighed, but then he resumed his story. "The vampire made sure I was restrained and then he left me alone with Phillip. Phillip tried asking me questions I couldn't answer. I could move my eyes and my lips, but I couldn't push air past some obstruction in my throat to make a sound. Finally he gave me the answer: 'Doru, there's an arrow through your neck.'"

He made a harsh sound then, Walter thought it might have been a laugh. "An arrow. Outside I could hear the hearse start up and drive away. I assume he was hiding it away in anticipation of your eventual arrival, but at the time, I had no guess as to when he would be back. Phillip and I were alone, I was paralyzed from the neck down, and I had time to hear Phillip grow more and more panicked as he realized what he was seeing around us. When the vampire finally returned, Phillip was in a full-blown panic that I couldn't help him with and I was... fatalistic. He brought with him the young man who looked so much like you, slung over his shoulder. If I hadn't heard his heart, I would have thought he was dead already, and when the vampire first laid him out on the last gurney, I thought it was you.

"He wanted that. I could see him drinking in the look on my face before I realized that it wasn't you. He started taunting me then about my helplessness and my weakness. Telling me how I had brought this upon myself by choosing humans over my own kind. He turned on Phillip, driving him to spasms of terror when he revealed the true nature of his tormentor."

Doru closed his eyes and Walter could barely make out his murmur. "I should never have hidden the truth from him. I thought I was doing us both a mercy."

When he spoke again, his voice was stronger. "And then he showed Phillip my true nature. He ripped the arrow out of my throat and he cut Phillip to bleed into a glass. He poured Phillip's blood over my wounds until my spinal cord regenerated and I regained my voice to scream. I hadn't felt the slab before then, but when sensation returned to my body, the first thing I felt was the silver in its makeup — not enough to burn through me, but enough to keep me weak, enough to cause me pain. I could see that Phillip was horrified by the revelation."

The words began to come faster, almost tumbling out as Doru hurried through the rest of the story. Walter could only guess that he wanted to get it out and over with so he would not have to speak of it again. "He tortured us then. Me. Phillip. The one who looked like you — I never learned his name. In the pain, I kept thinking he was you, even when I knew he wasn't. He told us we deserved it for being inferior, for coming between him and what he wanted, for simply existing. He revealed nothing about himself except that he thought were were beneath him. I don't know his name or where he came from or what he wants and I did ask, I begged. I know that he is endlessly creative in physical torments, that he plans ahead — or else where did the slab come from? — and that he will not consider this over after a single day's agonies."

He shook his head, keeping his eyes fixed on their entwined fingers. "That's all. There is nothing else. He took us in a blitz attack, paralyzing me with an arrow — you might find the arrow at the house, I don't know, perhaps it was special, perhaps it was just a vampire's uncanny aim that let him do it — hitting my spinal cord and preventing regeneration by leaving the shaft there to block the healing. He tortured us, killing Phillip and the man who looked like you and saving me for last. I don't know if he meant to kill me. I know he meant to hurt me and I believe he meant to hurt you.

"And I am sorry. I should have fought him in the shelter that first night, instead of running with you. I might have won. I might have spared us all that followed."

"No." Walter surprised himself with his vehemence. He waited until Doru looked up and fixed him with a resolute gaze. "Don't do that. 'I might have' and 'I should have' will drive us mad. I should never have trusted Christian, I should have trusted you sooner. I didn't. You didn't. We're here. He should never have attacked us and hurt people we care about. I will see him regret it, no matter how long it takes."

Doru nodded and forced a smile. "I should thank him, I suppose, for the gift I have here." He raised their hands and kissed Walter's knuckles. "I had entertained only the slightest hope that you might ever see me as someone you care about. This—" he raised the fingers of his free hand to Walter lips for a feather-light touch, "—was more than I could have even hoped for."

The smile faded and he dropped his hand back to his lap. "But now you have my story, will you be leaving to bear the tale back to Hellsing?"

Walter opened his mouth to say yes, but he didn't, instead he shook his head. It's already too late, isn't it? "No. Not yet. Sir Arthur gave me until sundown, and nothing you've told me is so urgent that I should leave now."

When Doru smiled again, it was more honest, and it raised Walter's spirits to see it on the man's face. "Would I be too forward if I asked you to sleep with me?"

He nearly laughed when Walter's jaw dropped and his cheeks flamed red. "Sleep, Angel. Only sleep. I am far too tired to attempt anything more than another kiss, but it would comfort me to have you near."

Sleep with a vampire? Walter's instincts kicked up an uproar that he hadn't immediately shouted No! But Walter silenced them with a reminder that he'd been ready to trust the human who had betrayed him and hadn't trusted the vampire who had been nothing but trustworthy.

And there was the matter of that kiss earlier....

He settled for an answer that was neither a yes or a no. "I would rather not sleep in a coffin."

"Did you find my bed comfortable when you slept in it before?" Doru asked in response. "I had not thought to invite you into a coffin when I have a perfectly serviceable bed near at hand."

Walter bit his lip before nodding and standing, pulling gently on Doru's hand to encourage him to rise. "I don't have any experience in sharing a bed, but I'll try not to steal the blankets and pillows."


•••

"Did you follow him?"

Gerard Bernadette nodded and handed over a slip of paper. "Yes. The address is there. He went in, but the curtains were closed and all my man reported was that lights went on in the front room for a couple of hours, then they went on in a back room and went off in the front of the house, and then all the lights went off."

Arthur read the address and nodded to himself. It made sense; that neighborhood was near the deep shelter where Walter had first seen the white-haired vampire. It accorded with his story of being taken to Doru's home nearby after the encounter. What was his butler getting himself into?

He hadn't realized he's murmured that question aloud until a sharp voice replied, "Murder. Or so I hear."

Arthur snapped his gaze up to the man standing in the doorway to his office.

A tall, dark-haired man stalked into the room, his face set in an expression that did not scream "I'm so happy to be here!"

"Ah. Richard." Arthur rose from his seat and rounded his desk to come face to face with his brother. "The prodigal returns."