Hunting the Hunter

And there's nothing more to say...

•••

Walter drove with only the barest attention for where he was going. His mind was still back in a darkened bedroom with a man in his arms and the lingering aftershocks of pleasure running the length of his body.

The world should be different to reflect how his own world had just changed. There was no pretending, no dancing, no mental gymnastics he could do to change the fact that he was quite definitely a homosexual.

He was a homosexual whose lover was a vampire.

No, that didn't quite cover it, did it? He was a homosexual vampire hunter whose lover was a vampire.

That certainly wasn't something that was going to come up in polite conversation, now was it? Why yes, I'm charmed to meet you. What do I do for a living? I'm a vampire hunter. And my wife? No, I'm sorry, I don't have a wife, would you like to meet my lover? He has a gift for conversation if you can overlook the matter of his liquid diet and the fact that he's older than many of the antiques in the room.

He sighed and fished his cigarette case out of his waistcoat pocket, already knowing that this was his last cigarette and he should probably be saving it for the drive out of London and back to the Hellsing estate. But he was going to be seeing Mihaela - probably - and didn't want her immediately smelling Doru on him. Knowing her, she wouldn't let it go without comment, and he wasn't ready to discuss the matter with anyone, especially not the blunt little child vampire.

So he lit the cigarette and took a long, blissful drag as he navigated his way through the late-afternoon traffic.

He hadn't forgotten where Mihaela lived and soon he was pulling up at the curb in front of Mihaela's house. Everything looked fine at first glance, but he'd hardly expected to find anything else. In his experience, you could find any number of horrors behind a simple closed door.

He rolled his eyes at that melodramatic turn of thought and left the car to stride up the stairs to her front door and press the button for the doorbell. He heard the buzz faintly behind the door, and stilled his breathing to listen for any movement inside the house.

After a minute, he pressed the button again and waited. Maybe she was out. Maybe she had stayed in the home of whoever she had hunted the night before. Maybe she was just asleep in her coffin - idly he pictured her in a tiny white coffin with a doll in her arms - and couldn't hear the buzzer.

Maybe she was strapped to a child-sized slab leaking blood out of countless cruel wounds...

Walter rapped on the door with his knuckles and then tried the knob. It didn't dispel his last mental image when the door opened for him. What kind of sleeping vampire would leave her home unlocked in the middle of the day?

Damn.

He pushed the door all the way open before stepping into the dimly lit house and closing it behind him.

"Mihaela?" he called softly, scanning the foyer and taking in its details. Umbrella stand with a small white umbrella. Coat rack with a child-sized overcoat hanging from it. Telephone stand with a plain black telephone sitting on the hook.

He lifted the receiver and heard the open line before putting it back in its cradle. The phone was working, so that didn't explain why she hadn't answered.

To his left he saw a formal parlor, dimly lit with its curtains pulled closed. To his right a dining room he was sure had never seen a night's use. Ahead of him a hallway led deeper into the murky house and a stairway led upward to what he assumed were bedrooms. He remembered Mihaela leaning out of an upstairs window with a mug in her hands.

Where was she now?

He moved deeper into the house, following the hallway back to the kitchen, which he was sure saw as much use as the dining room.

"Mihaela?" he called again. "It's Walter."

Nothing.

He pulled open a door in the kitchen, finding it to be an empty pantry.

She could be somewhere else, but after recent events, that just seemed too clean and easy. It almost surprised him, but Walter found himself growing anxious to find her alive, or what passed for alive for a vampire.

The door out of the kitchen into the narrow back garden was locked and nothing seemed out of place. With a last look around, he backtracked out to the hallway again, this time finding a light switch and flicking it on to cast a harsh electric glare in the narrow space that highlighted a grandfather clock against one wall and two doors.

The first door proved to be a coat closet. There were several pairs of small boots, and a bright red cape he had never seen the little vampire wear, but no Mihaela.

The other, much heavier door opened on a steep pair of stairs that led down into darkness. Walter clenched his jaw, remembering the last time he had faced the white-haired vampire in the pitch black underground. The sharp hint of fear goaded him to fumble along the wall at the stairs until he found a light switch and flick it on, illuminating the stairs and the concrete floor at the bottom but little else.

Maybe Mihaela was down there getting her beauty sleep and would be quite vexed with him for interrupting her.

Maybe, but he didn't quite care at that point. He would accept the vexation to reassure himself - and Doru - that she was unharmed.

He called her name again and waited, straining for some hint of motion from the cellar. All he heard was the grandfather clock's ticking and his own breathing.

He muttered a curse to himself and leaned out over the stairs to look through the gaps between steps and assure himself that nothing was going to reach between them and grab his ankles. For some people that might be paranoia, but for Hellsing's hunter that was simply a survival tactic.

He saw nothing but the shadows cast by the stairs themselves, and after shaking the building tension out of his shoulders, began to descend the stairs.

The stairs creaked despite his attempt to step lightly, but that just seemed to be the nature of things - try to make a silent descent and laws of nature demanded that the stairs would creak. He was barely a quarter of the way down the stairs when he stopped to examine marks gouged into the wood along the wall.

He put his hand out to trace the marks, finding that his fingertips easily fit into the gouges. If he had claws instead of fingernails, he could make similar marks, but Mihaela's hands would probably be too small.

"Shit."

He rolled his shoulders again and shook out his hands, letting strands of wire drop from his fingertips to swirl around his legs. He was ready if the white-haired vampire had come after Mihaela. After all, she was dear to Doru, and something akin to a friend to Walter. That made her a target.

"Mihaela, if you're down here, say something," he called as he reached the bottom of the stairs without incident. The cellar was lit by unshielded light bulbs, hanging every twenty feet in the chilly, stone-walled space that ran the length of the house with only a coal furnace, stacked crates, and support beams to break the line of the room.

A thought struck him. What if Mihaela was hiding because she thought he was coming for business reasons? After all, on their first meeting she had pointed out that he was the bogeyman for vampires.

"Mihaela," he tried again. "Doru sent me because you might be in danger. I'm here to help."

He almost didn't hear the tiny voice that responded, so faint that he couldn't tell where it came from. "Your wires say otherwise, Angel of Death."

He looked down at the flicker of silver around his legs and shook his head, flexing his fingers to draw the wires back. "They weren't for you. Doru was concerned-- I was concerned that you might have been attacked by a vampire who attacked us both." He advanced toward the front of the cellar where he thought she might have spoken from, peering around crates looking for the diminutive vampire.

"Will you come out or do I have to keep talking to the walls?" he asked, allowing the faintest hint of exasperation to enter his voice.

There was a slithering sound and the flap of the coal chute squeaked and opened to let a small figure slide down to the floor.

Walter hardly recognized Mihaela. She was covered in coal dust, and while she was wearing her familiar suit, it was only because he knew her penchant for white that he could see where it might once have been something other than black and gray.

He also wasn't expecting her to fling herself at him and wrap her arms around his neck like a spider monkey.

"It really is you. I thought it was him again," she said in a rush. "I thought he was mimicking your voice and was trying to get me to come out. He tried pretending to be Doru, too, but I stayed hidden and he went away."

She tightened her hold on him and laid her head on his shoulder, "I thought it was him again, but then I heard your heart. Doru's not hurt? Tell me he's not hurt. You said he sent you."

Walter was briefly immobilized by surprise and warring impulses that wanted to comfort her and get the vampire off you! It was the impulse to comfort her that was more foreign and problematic.

"Mihaela," he said uncomfortably. "You're getting my clothes dirty."

She didn't seem to hear him and continued her torrent of words. "He came to the door and at first he didn't seem so bad. He said that he was a friend of Doru's in that way that Doru sometimes has male friends."

She paused for half a breath and said, "I'm not telling a secret am I?"

She went on without allowing Walter to respond. "He said Doru had been hurt and I could smell Doru's blood so I believed him. Almost believed him. Something just seemed wrong."

By this point Walter was trying to extricate himself from her grasp, tentatively putting his hands on her waist to move her. Her next actions made him freeze.

She stopped the verbal barrage and took a deep breath against his neck and before pulling back to look him in the eye. Her lips shaped a little "O" of surprise that showed her sharp white teeth in the midst of the coal dust covering her face.

"Oh." She just stared at him before breaking into a grin. "You do know that way Doru sometimes has male friends. Oh Angel, this explains so much...."

Walter grimaced and pulled her away to set her on her feet on the floor.

"He sent me because you didn't answer your telephone," he said harshly while he tried to brush the black grit off his white shirt, trying not to look as embarrassed as he felt. "Now that I know that you're all right, I have to go. I'm supposed to be back at Hellsing before sundown."

Mihaela sobered and reached out to clasp Walter's forearm, forestalling any attempt he might have made to leave. "Not yet you don't. You said the vampire attacked you and Doru and I smelled Doru's blood on him. What happened? Why are you here instead of him? He can't be too badly hurt...."

She trailed off, but Walter easily caught the implication that Doru couldn't be too badly hurt if Walter smelled of him that way. He flushed and tried to pry her fingers off his arm.

"I don't have time for this. The short version is that the vampire captured Doru, killed his friend Phillip, and hurt Doru. He tried to catch me too, failed, and I rescued Doru and took him back to his home where I brought him blood because you weren't answering your telephone when Doru rang you for help."

Mihaela let him pull her hand off his arm and was silent while she apparently absorbed what Walter had just told her.

He more than half-expected her to have some comment about the kind of help Walter had given Doru, but when she spoke, her tone was surprisingly subdued. "Thank you," she said before she walked past him for the stairs, adding, "I have to see Doru."

Walter followed after her, thinking to himself that her shifts in mood were too much to keep up with. Wasn't there some adage about a woman's prerogative?

She reached out to trace the gouges in the wall on her way up the stairs, but said nothing. She stopped at the top of the stairs to wait for Walter to join her before pushing the cellar door closed behind him.

In the time he had known the little vampire, he had never seen her so somber. He didn't think it was fear for herself; she had been all too willing to smile and tease before she had heard Walter's terse recounting of the prior day and night's (had it really only been so little time?) events.

She must truly care about Doru.

It was a strange thought, equating vampires with caring, and not one he would have had all that long ago, but... things had changed lately.

Mihaela interrupted his thoughts. "Can you call a taxicab for me while I clean up? I won't ask you for a ride to Doru's house since you're in such a hurry, but would you do me that one favor? They won't always send a taxi if I call; they think I'm just a child."

How difficult must it be to be over 200 years old and still forced to live as a child? Walter had chafed under the restrictions when he'd been ten, and she looked even younger than that.

"Will you be able to take the taxi while it's still daylight?" he asked, following her down the hall toward the front stairs and the telephone.

"Oh yes," she assured him, still unusually solemn. "I can tolerate the sun." She glanced over her shoulder at him, flashing a hint of her usual smile for an instant. "I just hate it."

He made the call while she hurried upstairs to rid herself of the coal residue and then paced restlessly. He pulled out his cigarette case and turned it in his fingers, not bothering to open it just to see a few stray flecks of tobacco and no cigarettes.

Mihaela ran down the stairs just as the taxicab pulled up at the curb and honked. She still had a smudge of black on her right ear, but had mostly managed to clean up and was wearing a frilly dress and apron in a navy blue that was probably meant to camouflage any lingering coal residue.

She carried a small suitcase and ushered Walter out the door before locking it with a key she tucked into a pocket on her apron and took Walter's hand without asking.

"Just pretend you're seeing me off," she told Walter as they descended the steps to the street. "The driver won't give me any trouble after that."

How had he gotten himself into this? Walter asked himself, but he opened the car door for Mihaela and helped her into the taxi as she'd asked him to.

She stopped him before he could close the door and gestured to him to lean in. When he complied, she threw her arms around his neck in a tight hug and used the opportunity to whisper in his ear. "Don't break Doru's heart, Angel. I don't think he's ever had a human lover he didn't have to pretend to be human for. He's taking so many risks for you."

Walter pried her loose and gave her an unfriendly look, slamming the car door shut a little harder than necessary. He ignored her when he leaned in the front passenger side window and handed the driver a ten pound note, giving the man Doru's address and instructing him to keep the change as long as he didn't stop anywhere else.

He scanned the street instead of watching the taxi pull away. Her parting words had left him embarrassed and defensive and more than a little angry. He did not want anyone getting involved in his personal life, particularly not yet another vampire.

•••

Walter had fought for Hellsing, killed for Hellsing, gone to war for Hellsing, and every time he came home, it was the same as it had been when he left. After the events of the last 24 hours, as he pulled through Hellsing's gates and left his car at the motor pool, it came as a comfort that this truth remained the same.

He strode through the servant's entrance with a nod of acknowledgment for the guard posted inconspicuously nearby. The sun was low on the horizon and he wanted to stop in his room to clean himself up quickly before reporting to Sir Arthur.

His room was a spare and immaculate space. Some people might have found it cold with its overall lack of adornment, but Walter spent most of his waking hours pursuing other interests than interior decorating. His twin bed sat lengthwise against one wall with a small table and reading lamp at its head, the wall directly opposite the door was dominated by a large picture window that was as often as not covered by heavy blackout curtains for the sake of a man who did much of his work at night, and the wall opposite his bed had a door into his private bathroom and a desk with a single picture of his parents in a frame next to the desk lamp.

Richard Hellsing had appropriated the chair from the desk and was sitting facing the door smoking a cigarette and using Walter's ashtray.

Walter stopped in the doorway and was silent while he considered what his reaction should be. He recognized Richard, although it had been at least eight years since he had last seen the other Hellsing son.

He decided that it was just as well that Richard get his recriminations for Christian's death taken care of in private, so he stepped inside and closed the door.

"Mr. Hellsing," he said neutrally, waiting for Richard to make whatever point he wanted to make.

"Dornez," Richard said in a tone lightly laced with venom. "I was wondering when you'd finish swanning about and come back to face your crime."

Walter didn't rise to the bait and merely stood, face set in a calm expression. Arthur could have told Richard that when Walter settled into that "attentive servant" posture very little could get a visible rise out of him, but Arthur wasn't there, and Walter had a feeling that calm would do more to set Richard off balance than defensiveness or anger would.

Having Richard invade his privacy and then accuse him of a crime did in fact make him feel defensive and angry, but since he couldn't kill or even hurt the man, he'd just have to let Richard's temper - which he well remembered from the time before Richard had left - get the better of him.

"Don't you have anything to say for yourself?" Richard asked. He crushed out his cigarette and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "You killed a good man and Arthur might be fool enough to buy your cock and bull story about Christian pulling a gun on you, but I don't. And then you go running off to feed some bloodsucker so he'll back up your story...."

He shook his head and looked so disgusted Walter wouldn't have been too surprised to see Richard spit on his floor.

He tipped his head the barest amount at Richard. The man didn't want to hear reason, he wanted to browbeat Walter and then probably turn to Arthur with some story of how Walter had been disrespectful and acting beyond his station. Walter didn't intend to give him a single round of ammunition.

"Mr. Hellsing," he said coolly, "I am but a servant of Hellsing, and I have a report to make to Sir Arthur which he expects by sundown. " He placed a feather's weight of emphasis on Sir for Richard and watched the man jerk as though Walter had struck him.

Served the arrogant bastard right.

"However, I would not want to do my master the disrespect of reporting to him in this condition, so if you will excuse me...." Without waiting to see if Richard was going to excuse him or not, he stepped past the man into his bathroom and closed the door in his face.
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AN: So when I started this fic, I didn't expect I'd need to have more than three or four chapters worth of those little intro bits I've had... 18 chapters and 3 1/2 years in, the scenario that was supposed to be played out in whispers and rustling sheets has played out and I feel like I'd be milking it to the point of annoyance if I took it any farther. So... I think this is the end of the intro bits.