Hunting the Hunter

“Is this really your job?” Sister Emiliana asked in a low tone, pitched to avoid disturbing Father Wright who slept restlessly nearby.

Eight hours of sleep had made a noticeable difference in her mood, but Walter had not expected that particular question.

“Yes.” He nodded and went back to writing out his initial case notes. They were seated across from each other at one of the dining hall tables with a plate of sandwiches and a pot of coffee between them. Walter had thrown together the light lunch for them both while she watched over Father Wright and her other sleeping charges.

Between the rest and his willingness to do “women’s work” without being asked, her earlier dislike seemed to have bled away. Now she was curious.

“How do you get a job like this?” she asked. “You don’t pick up The Times and see an advertisement: ‘monster hunter needed, reply with qualifications and salary requirements’.”

She paused, brow wrinkling a little and added, “Do you?”

Walter barked a surprised laugh and shook his head. “No. It’s been in my family for... for as far back as my parents told me stories. My father, my grandfather, his father. I have trained for this from almost as soon as I could walk, in one way or another.”

“Oh.” Emiliana chewed on that for a moment before surprising him. “So... then... you were never really a child, were you?”

Walter set his pen down and frowned. Was everyone he met going to question his life from now on?

He decided that perhaps it was just that she was so used to communal living that these questions didn’t seem overly forward to her.

“I suppose not,” he admitted. “But my parents weren’t your ordinary sorts either, so it all just seemed natural to me, and I do something important; I think it’s all worth it.” Lately, perhaps not all, but he was hardly going to discuss that with a virtual stranger.

“What about you? Did you answer an advertisement in The Times looking for spiritually-minded women open for lifelong relationships with their savior?”

Emiliana shot him a look and said, “No. It was in Brittania and Eve, actually, and I think it said something more like ‘Large religious institution looking for ladies willing to wear frumpy frocks and listen to smart arse comments from young men,’ so I had to jump right on and sign up.”

Walter laughed again, surprised at her tart comeback and inclined his head to her in a small bow. “I stand corrected and I apologize.”

Emiliana relented and even smiled again. “Accepted. As for the real story, I studied nursing. During the war, it was either lean on God or fall. When the war ended, I wanted a way to repay Him for holding me up, and this has been my calling.”

“That explains how you’ve been able to take care of everyone,” Walter made it almost more a question than a statement.

“I have been taking care of everyone because someone has to.” She pushed a few stray strands of red hair back under her wimple and stood up, smoothing down her habit. “And I should go look after them now. Thank you for making sandwiches.”

•••

After arguing with a freshly-awakened and determined Father Wright, Walter was taking a turn in the circle. Admittedly it was his first chance at sleep in more than a day and a half, but Walter felt that he could go on for another day if necessary.

It was only Father Wright’s argument that there was nothing more Walter could do until he found something in the Liber Ivonis that made him agree to trust to the circle’s protection.

He had used a wire to draw a thin cut for the blood to close the circle and lay down on the cot under a light wool blanket, covering his face with his arm to block out the light from the bright overhead lights in the dining hall that were on for Sister Emiliana and Father Wright’s sakes when they watched over Walter while he slept.

For the first time in years, Walter had trouble falling asleep. When he closed his eyes, he thought of the last bed he had slept in, and the company he had been in. All of his conflicting emotions bubbled to the surface - concern that he was somehow betraying Hellsing, his humanity, his faith in God, even the idea that he should only want women the way he wanted Doru.

And oh, how he wanted Doru. He could remember with perfect clarity every moment from when he lay in bed next to Doru trying to sleep to when he finally left Doru’s home with his parting kiss still on his lips.

He touched the silver cross on the chain around his neck. Arthur had doubted him. Perhaps he was right to do so.

His thoughts chased themselves in circles until he finally drifted to sleep with the cross still in his hand.

•••

Walter pulled the heavy eiderdown up to his chin and reached his other hand behind himself to rest on Doru’s hip. He had never realized that sharing a bed with someone else could be anything other than inconvenient, but it was so restful to feel Doru’s weight behind him.

“Are you awake now?” Doru asked and pressed a light kiss to his shoulder.

“I suppose,” Walter said reluctantly, still not opening his eyes or rolling over to face the vampire. “How long before I have to be back at Hellsing?”

“Long enough. As long as we need.”

Walter half chuckled and finally, lazily, rolled over to look at Doru. “I couldn’t take a long enough holiday for it to be long enough.”

Doru had his head propped up on a hand and was smiling at Walter, fondness in his dark eyes. He brushed away hair that had escaped Walter’s ponytail while he slept before kissing his forehead.

“Walter, you have made me very happy. If I could keep you here always, I would, but I know your duty comes first.”

Walter? Walter’s smile faded. Calling him Walter just didn’t sit right. Doru always called him Angel. It had frustrated him, but it had come to be an endearment.

Doru’s expression flickered, going blank before his smile reappeared as though it had never been gone.

“Perhaps you would like a cigarette?”

Walter would almost always like a cigarette and it distracted him momentarily from his concern about being called by name. He pushed himself up to sitting and tried to remember where he had put his clothes, but he realized he couldn’t even remember undressing or putting on the night shirt he always seemed to end up wearing at Doru’s.

Doru interrupted his attempts to remember by holding out an open cigarette case to him. “You’ll feel better after a cigarette and a cup of tea, hm?”

Walter absently took a cigarette and let Doru light it for him. Now where had he left his trousers? It wasn’t as though he’d tossed them away in a moment of passion with Doru; he would at least remember the moment of passion, of that he was certain.

“Walter?”

There it was again, that wrongness - being called Walter, his clothes, how he had even gotten into this bed.

Suddenly he crushed out his cigarette on Doru’s arm and slid out of bed, sweeping up a straight-back wooden chair and smashing it into the wall to break into smaller pieces, leaving him with a chair leg as a solid club.

Doru, however, didn’t come after him. He was still in bed as though this sudden explosion of violence had never happened, watching Walter ruefully.

“What did it?” he asked, and Walter understood exactly what he was asking. What gave me away?

“Doru never calls me Walter.” He hefted the chair leg and swung between attacking immediately or finding out how he’d come to be here in the first place. Pragmatically, he decided that he might not be able to get the information he needed if he killed this fake Doru.

“How did you get me here. What’s your game?”

Doru slid off the opposite side of the bed, leaving Walter to try to keep his attention from wandering when he was confronted with the sight of his nudity. This was not how he had wanted to see Doru like this. Particularly when this wasn’t really Doru.

The false Doru pulled on a familiar fur-collared robe, never turning his back on Walter. While he tied its sash, he said, “I didn’t hurt your Doru, you have my word. You chose this setting, not I.”

“That’s nothing but bilge and you know it,” Walter snarled. “Tell me what you’re doing before I shove this thing so far up your arse I can stir your brains with it.”

“Walter, please, this isn’t going to make things go more quickly. Put your anger aside for the moment and you will have all your answers.” He held up his hands placatingly. “I have no intention of hurting you. I would never hurt you.”

Walter put his back against the bedroom door and gestured with the chair leg. “Back against the wall. Don’t make a move unless I tell you to.”

Obligingly, “Doru” put his back to the wall and raised an eyebrow. “Anything else?”

“Yes,” Walter snapped. “Enough with the disguise - take it off and tell me your name.”

“I don’t have a name, but I have been called Irdu lili in the past.” He shrugged and in the moment between the raise and drop of his shoulders, his features changed entirely. He still had black hair, but it was close-cropped, his nose was still aquiline, but broader, his eyes were still dark, but in deep-set dark hollows. Somehow he looked utterly different from Doru, but still hinted at the vampire’s same allure.

“It’s just a name,” he finished. “Just Irdu will do.”

“What are you?” Walter breathed. He had never seen anything like that sudden transformation, though he knew of many creatures that were supposed to be able to change their form so easily.

“I am not a witch or a demon,” Irdu replied. “If I tell you the name I am most often given, you will think things that are not true.” He half-laughed. “Or at least have not been true since long before the time of Jesus.”

“You’re also not the milkman,” Walter snapped. “Just tell me what you are.”

Irdu let one word drop into the air between them. “Incubus.”

Suddenly what he had said about Walter choosing the setting made sense. He remembered falling asleep in the Burford Priory dining hall with a head full of thoughts of Doru and what they had done in this bedroom.

He felt his cheeks burn.

“Wait! How did you get through the circle? It protected Sister Emiliana and Father Wright.”

Irdu smiled ruefully, “That gets to the crux of what we needed to talk about. Are you sure you won’t put that thing down and sit with me like a civilized being?”

“I’m not sure I don’t want to see if killing you here will wake me up,” Walter growled and shifted his grip on the chair leg. “Answer my questions.”

Irdu sighed and folded his arms across his chest. “The circle has to be activated with human blood.”

Walter frowned. “I used my blood to activate the circle.”

Irdu nodded and looked at him expectantly.

“Oh no you don’t,” Walter said. “I’m human. I have a human mother and father. I eat, sleep, go out in daylight, cross running water, go to church, all the usual things.”

“All the usual things?” Irdu asked, and for a moment Walter heard an echo of Doru’s questioning. “Like dodging bullets and wielding a weapon that should have killed you when you first started learning to use it? Or resisting a vampire’s attempt to snare you with its gaze? No, Walter, you aren’t human. Mostly, yes, but not fully.

“If you were fully human, this dream would still have its hold on you and even the small detail of what name I called you wouldn’t have been enough to rouse you.”

“Then what am I supposed to be?” Walter asked, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “Am I a changeling swapped in the middle of the night while my parents slept?”

“Oh no,” Irdu said, shaking his head. “Not at all. Your parents knew what you would be from the moment you were conceived.”

Walter leapt across the bed before his mind had a chance to catch up to the surge of rage Irdu’s words brought. He was going to slam the chair leg into the creature’s lying mouth, he was going to--

The scene shifted.

Walter was sitting empty-handed in Doru’s parlor, still panting with the anger that had propelled him into his attack. Irdu was sitting across from him on the couch with a cup of tea and a saucer in his hands.

“Incubus, Walter. It means dreams are my realm. Now have a cup of tea and we’ll have our talk. When we’re through here, you will wake and so will all the other sleepers, none the worse for wear.”

Walter glared and stood up, but Irdu only took a sip from his cup.

“What are you doing to them?”

“They’re dreaming and I am taking sips of energy from each of them. With that many sleeping minds, I can take enough energy to be very, very strong right now, Walter, but with just a sip from each, I harm none of them.”

“Why?” he shouted the question and took a step toward the incubus. “Why them? And why did they call for me?”

“I needed you,” Irdu said simply. “And I needed you away from Hellsing and your lover. Not that he was your lover when I started this, but I could see in your dreams that it was coming.”

“Why? Why me?”

“Walter, please don’t make me ask again. Just sit down. You’re going to get all your answers without trying to shout me into compliance. I brought you here to give you answers to questions you only ask yourself in the grey moments before sleep.”

Walter kicked over the table holding the tea service, but then he sat. In the back of his mind, he was still certain he was going to kill Irdu, but he could wait just a little longer.

“Talk,” he said ingraciously.

Irdu nodded and began, “Humans are special creatures above all others in this world, they create without understanding how precious that gift is. They create without even knowing they have done so.

“What I am is a result of the human mind, the energy that it gives off even in the womb and which endures sometimes even after death. Beings like me were born when humans came together in sufficient numbers to have the rampant energy of their dreams coalesce into something more.

“I am incubus because I came from the energy of dreams of lust.” Irdu’s expression was turned inward, remembering some distant past. “There are others like me that came from dreams of fear or rage or even delight. There are more of us that spawn from rage and fear than from lust or delight. Your wars are fertile grounds.

“Usually these infant dream feeders die before they attain self-awareness, but sometimes... Sometimes they grow to be called demons, and while they never fell from Heaven, it may as well be true.”

Walter found himself being drawn in to the story, despite his still simmering anger. Perhaps it was his time with Doru and Mihaela that left him more willing to hear the tale.

Irdu went on. “I have tried to find companionship with others of my kind, but it can be disastrous. What happens when a dream of lust combines with a dream of rage? I cannot do that to myself or to the humans whose minds host us. What we are without a human mind is as ephemeral as a morning breeze. I can travel like a thought, but it takes so much energy to affect the material world that it is something I only do on rare occasion.”

“You said you feed on the energy from humans,” Walter said. “If it takes that much energy, do you have to kill someone to affect the material world?”

Irdu shook his head, and Walter reflected that for a creature that claimed to be immaterial, it had a good grasp of human mannerisms.

“No,” he said. “I don’t have to. I have taken enough energy from the priory’s sleepers that I can affect the material world now or go years without having to feed again, but I will get to that. Give me just a little more time.”

Walter waved a hand at him to continue.

“I am old, Walter. How old I can’t say exactly because it takes time to acquire self-awareness, but I remember Sumer and I remember its fall. Consider that if your vampire is lonely after just a few centuries, how lonely I grew.

“Eventually I conceived a plan. Another of my kind showed me the way. She found that if she took enough energy from humans, she could affect the world. I watched as she made love to a king and then took the seed from their intercourse to make love to the queen, adding a bit of his own energy to the seed and conceiving a child that had just the slightest touch of other to its soul.”

“Wait,” Walter interjected. “Which was it, he or she? You said she made love to the king and then he made love to the queen. Which was it?”

Irdu laughed. “We have no physical bodies of our own, why would it matter? I am male for you because that is what you are most comfortable with, and what you prefer. I would have been a woman for you if that would have eased your mind instead.

“You should have heard all of this from your parents, but they died too soon,” Irdu said, his laughter fading away under a pall of sadness. “They were waiting for puberty, as their parents had waited, and their parents before them, going back centuries. Your family is usually long-lived, but war stole them away.”

“What does my family have to do with any of this?” Walter asked, but suspicion gnawed at him that he knew where this was going.

“After Ardat Iili showed me the way I tried it myself. First experimentally, but eventually I conceived a plan to found a family line of my own. I was not created from violent lusts, but more tender yearnings. That informs the being that I am. I am what humans made me and I want to make my own mark on humankind.”

“You’re saying....“ Walter couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence.

“You are one of mine,” Irdu said, nodding. “As were your parents, and their parents and their parents’ parents. Only in the past two hundred years have I been able to bring the lines together to beget children whose parents were both from my line, but the results have been beautiful.”

“You’ve been breeding us like cows?” Walter found himself on his feet again, shouting his questions. “Don’t we have any say in it?”

“Of course you do. I’m not a rapist. This is why your parents were supposed to tell you. On occasion some of the children have refused to accept my gifts, but it’s an old tradition that has served the families well.”

“How?” Walter started to pace the parlor, hands opening and closing into fists. “How has this served anyone but you?”

“Do you get sick? Have you ever had a cold or flu?” Irdu asked. “How old did your great-grandfather live to be? Do you remember stories of children in your family dying in the womb or in infancy? And you. Look at you. You fight supernatural creatures and you have only a few scars to show for it - most of those from shrapnel, not claws or teeth.”

He pressed on. “Your family, all the bloodlines that carry my gift are strong. Your family has lived through plagues, through wars, through the perilous role of protector that your great-great-great-grandfather chose to expiate what he saw as a sin in conceiving a child with my help.”

Walter stopped his pacing and turned to face Irdu. “Then what do you get out of it?”

“Hope.” Irdu cocked his head and smiled. “Something to give my existence more meaning than living in dreams of lust and love, and the hope that eventually one of the children will be my true link to the waking world. I hope that one of the children will take all of my energy and use it to become something magnificent. I would sacrifice myself happily for that.”

“And you want me to help you,” Walter said slowly.

“Yes.” Irdu nodded and stood up. “I had hoped that you would like one of the daughters of your generation, but I know that isn’t to be. We can still work with it. One of the daughters has agreed to carry your child to continue the line, but she refuses to bear the stigma of an unwed mother. She will give the child up to you to raise.”

He took a step toward Walter. “Think, Walter. I know you have regrets that you will not carry on your family name because of your... inclinations. You can have a child of your blood without ever having to touch a woman. It will be strong, healthy, and you can bring it up to continue the tradition of protecting the humans in your care. Your child will have a choice when the time comes as well. I will force nothing on you or any of your descendants.”

Walter took a step back and shook his head. “You could have found a better way. Bringing me here after you victimized innocent men and women doesn’t make me want to give you a damned thing.”

“I needed you away from Hellsing, and I needed the energy. None of them are hurt.” Irdu matched Walter’s step back with a step forward. “When they wake they will be happy, rested, and warm in the knowledge that somehow, they are loved. Please, Walter.”

“Hold it.” Walter held up his hands to ward off Irdu’s advance. “You can’t just give me a long cock and bull story about how you’re somehow my spiritual parent, grandparent, great-, great-, great-whatever, and then tell me it’s time to have a baby. You might be old, but did you really think this was going to work? Even if I believed you and trusted you, I am not ready to be a father.”

“It needs to be now, Walter. I have the power to make it work now, I have a woman willing to bear the child now. She is nearby, would you be more likely to agree if you met her first?”

“No!” Walter shook his head and took another step back, bumping his back against the wall. “I do not want to meet her. This sounds like some story of arranged marriage where I meet my bride on the day of our wedding and we’re supposed to live happily ever after. You can just bugger off with this tonight, let everyone out of your spell to show good faith, and piss off until I have time to think about this. I am not doing this now.”

“Walter--”

“No!” Walter surged forward and pushed Irdu back. “I don’t care what you want and I don’t want you snooping around in my dreams. Get out!” He pushed again. “And wake up those nuns and priests or I will never even think about saying yes!”

Irdu bowed his head and murmured, “As you wish,” and the room dissolved into blackness.

•••

Walter sat up and swung his legs off the cot, breaking the circle in a long stride. He had just made it to the door out of the dining hall when he heard a commotion from the chapel.

In the chapel twenty-five men and women were sitting up in their cots and hospital beds, asking groggy questions and rubbing sleep from their eyes.

Emiliana was bustling among them, trying to reassure twenty-five increasingly agitated people until Father Wright’s shout cut through the growing chaos and turned all eyes to him where he stood in the pulpit, the Liber Ivonis clutched in his arms..

“Order! I want order here!”

In the quiet that descended, he issued orders, sending Sister Emiliana scurrying to assess those who had awakened, drafting his newly awakened assistants back into service since they had only been sleeping a few days, and sending Walter to the kitchen to make a large batch of soup to get everyone fed.

Within hours everything was bustling with a calm return to order and Walter settled in the parlor where he had first met with Father Wright.

“I was reading one of the rituals of banishment from the book,” the priest was telling Walter excitedly. “And then everyone woke up. It really worked! I didn’t expect any result. I was just rehearsing before trying the full ritual after you were awake, but just the words seemed to do it.”

Walter nodded and lit a cigarette. He should tell the priest that it hadn’t been anything he had done that had wakened everyone, but what was he going to say? My semi-parent is an incubus who had everyone asleep just to bring me here to propose making a baby? No, that was not going to work, and worse, it would cast doubt on him when Arthur was already concerned.

The secret burned like a bubble of vitriol behind his sternum, but he kept it to himself and let Father Wright enjoy his sense of victory.

“Now that everything is in order, I can call Hellsing with my report and see what Sir Hellsing’s next orders are.”

•••

Arthur was unable to take Walter’s first telephone call. The Round Table council room at Hellsing manor was filled with a full meeting of the Knights called not by one of their members, but by Richard Hellsing.

The meeting had gone on for three hours so far and the only progress seemed to be in the rising volume of the shouts and arguments from the thirteen gathered men.

Arthur had Sir Islands, Sir Penwood, Sir Davidson, and Sir Gunn firmly in his corner. Richard had Sir Ash, Sir Sykes, Sir Wilkinson, and Sir Lindsay on his side. That left Sir Collins, Sir Hall, and Sir Pike waffling in the middle.

The matter at hand wasn’t merely Walter’s killing of Christian Wallace. Richard had managed to turn the gathering into a referendum on Arthur’s successes and failures leading Hellsing. He argued that the fact that Arthur allowed vampires like Doru and Mihaela to live in London and associate with his key hunter showed how far he had come from their father’s mission to eradicate all vampires.

“Our father would never have chosen Arthur if he had known he would tolerate these monsters’ existence in our capitol city! And he trusts a man who consorts with them. He trusts that man over his own brother. Over his father’s teachings.”

Richard thrust out a finger to point at his brother. “Arthur has failed Hellsing.”

Arthur leapt to his feet and slammed his fist down on the table. “Under my watch the number of deaths in our controlled territory has gone down, even during the chaos of the war. I did that by knowing when to fight and when to leave things alone. Unlike my brother.

“Admit it,” he snarled at Richard. “You’re so eaten up with jealousy that you can’t even think about what you would do if the Round Table gave you control of Hellsing. Who would hunt for you? Would you throw soldiers into the breach to die because you have a personal vendetta against my finest asset?”

He took a deep breath and asked in a low voice the men around the table had to strain to hear, “Why do you even want Hellsing now when you walked away years ago without once looking back? Where were you when our father died? Where were you during the war?”

•••

Arthur sounded tired when he returned Walter’s call. He hadn’t intended to tell Arthur about what had happened in his dream, but hearing the fatigue in his voice cemented his decision.

“Sir? The case is closed here. Father Wright is finished with the book, shall I return with it now?”

Arthur sighed audibly on the other end of the line and said, “No. No, things are... Richard is still rabble rousing about what happened with his man Wallace. I think it would be best if you went on holiday for a week or two. When was the last time you did that?”

Walter could answer that for him. He had never gone on holiday. There were always other things he could do instead.

“Sir, I wouldn’t know where to go or what to do with myself,” he protested.

“I own some property near Aberdeen. If you’re looking for something to do, you can go up there and supervise getting it up to snuff, but I want you to take some time for yourself.”

He interrupted as though he could see Walter opening his mouth to protest. “I know you don’t know how to do that. I’ll ship some books up there for you as well. Just--” He paused to try to frame his request. “Just go and take some time to think about what you want from your life and I’ll take the time to teach our men that you can’t be everywhere all the time.”

“Sir--”

Arthur cut him off again. “Tell Father Wright I would be obliged if he would bring the book to us directly. Now get a pencil and paper and take down these directions. You’ll need them to find the cottage.”