Hunting the Hunter

Walter stared at the telephone receiver long after Arthur had hung up. He was trying to understand what was happening because it truly made no sense to him. Was making him take a holiday another way of suspending him?

He was shaken to the core. Too much had happened too quickly – Christian Wallace, the white-haired vampire, his new relationship with Doru, Arthur’s testing him, the incubus and what it had told him about his heritage – whether he believed that or not – and now this. It was hard to believe it had truly been just a matter of days since all the dominos had started to fall when it felt as though some invisible hand had been stacking them all his life.

How was he supposed to manage this?

He stirred from his shock and fished a pound note from his pocket, placing it under the telephone as payment to the priory before he made another call.

He tapped his fingers impatiently on the tabletop next to the telephone while he listened to the phone ring and ring and—

“Hello?”

Walter let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Doru? Hello, it’s Walter.”

The pleasure in Doru’s response made him smile despite himself. “Angel, I was just thinking about you. Your letter arrived in the post this morning.”

“Did it?” Walter pictured Doru in his fur-trimmed robe picking up the envelope after it had dropped through his mail slot, moving unconsciously to avoid beams of sunlight that crept in along the edges of his dark curtains. “Did you give my regards to Mihaela?”

“Ah....” Doru paused, giving Walter a moment to worry that something had happened. “No. She decided that London was too dangerous. She called on an old friend for an escort and has gone on holiday to the continent.”

“Oh. That’s probably wise of her.” He hated to ask, but he had to. “Have you thought about going with her?”

“I thought about it,” Doru said. “But I am not trapped in a child’s body, and I owe him a debt of pain.”

Doru didn’t need to specify who he meant by “him,” Walter understood perfectly.

“Will you be returning to Hellsing?” Doru asked. “Your note did mention that you would like to see me again, and I share that sentiment.”

Walter took out his cigarette case and spun it in his fingers. He had so much he wanted to tell Doru, but not on the phone.

“I’m going to Scotland for a week or two. Arthur wants me to take a holiday, whether I want to or not.” He tapped the case hard on the table and took the plunge. “I know Aberdeen is a long trip from London, but if you wanted, I have a cottage all to myself. If you’re feeling well enough, that is.”

“Are you asking me on holiday with you, Angel?” Doru asked, sounding truly surprised.

“I don’t know how much of a holiday Scotland in winter will be,” Walter said. “But I would like to see you.” He tapped the cigarette case hard enough for it to pop open and spill bits of tobacco on the table. “And I... think you are the only person I can talk to about some things that have happened.”

“Say no more. I’ll be there.”
•••

Walter paced the length of the cottage’s front room, cigarette in hand and eye on the clock. Doru was due to arrive at any time and he had already done everything he could to make the gray stone cottage feel welcoming, from a fire in the fireplace, to cleaning out all the cobwebs that had accumulated in the years it had stood empty.

It was hardly the coziest of holiday homes, but that came as no surprise, since Aberdeen and its environs were better known for stark granite than charming warmth. Outside the cold bit through heavy coats with sharp teeth that seemed to reach down to the bone and gnaw.

The crunch of tires on gravel outside sent his heart racing. He stubbed out the cigarette and caught himself dithering over whether to open the door directly or wait until Doru knocked – who was this Walter Dornez who dithered? No one he had known before, and he hated it.

He growled at himself and pulled open the cottage door to see Doru unfolding from a car that looked almost too small to contain his lanky frame. Doru caught his eye and smiled broadly, sharp white teeth gleaming in the light streaming out the open door.

“Angel,” he said, slamming the car door closed and striding out of the cold. “Couldn’t you have chosen someplace warmer for a holiday? Perhaps the Mediterranean?”

“If I had had a choice—“ Walter closed the door and turned to find Doru’s arms suddenly around him, drawing him in for a kiss that cut off his response and shocked all other thoughts and concerns from his head while he raised his arms and fiercely clutched the vampire to him. He didn’t care if the kiss tasted of blood and cigarettes, he didn’t care that just days ago he would have perhaps tried to kill Doru for being so forward, he didn’t care about anything except a brief moment of losing himself.

When they broke away, Walter laughed shakily and let his weight rest against Doru before he took a half-step back, straightening his waistcoat on reflex.

“As I was saying, this isn’t so bad.” He patted his pockets for his cigarette case to keep from reaching for Doru again. It was so hard to think when all the lusts and urges he’d kept so under control for all his life were now running rampant, free of their cages after one afternoon spent in the man’s arms.

Doru took the hint to step away and turn to look around Walter’s holiday home. The main room was furnished with a few heavy antique pieces, upholstered in a brown leather dark enough to be confused for black, the stone walls were plastered over and painted a muted tan, and the floor was layered in mismatched rugs meant to keep the cold from seeping in, not to contribute to the décor. Bookcases lined most of the walls, but were as likely to hold bits of seashell or gnarled wood as books. The two windows were small and would probably leave the room still dim in daylight. The kitchen was separated from the living room only by a bit of imagination and presumably the one other door out of the room led to the bedroom.

On the coffee table in front of the couch sat a small clear vial of blood. Doru looked from the vial to Walter and raised an eyebrow.

“Angel?”

Walter opened his cigarette case and closed it again without taking out a cigarette, then opened it again to look inside as though for some answer to Doru’s question. He closed it again with a snap and met Doru’s eyes.

“I need to ask you for a personal favor.” He nodded to the vial on the table. “Tell me if that’s human.”

“Why—“

Walter cut him off. “Please, just tell me if it’s human and I’ll explain everything after.”

Doru took a seat on the couch and picked up the vial. He had lost all trace of the smile he had greeted Walter with, but he unscrewed the cap and raised it to his nose. Both of his eyebrows shot up and he looked to Walter, his face a question.

“Can you tell just by smell?” Walter asked, the cigarette case in his hands like an unlikely comfort object.

Doru shrugged and said “It smells human enough. Do you mind if I taste?”

Walter pressed his lips in a thin line and gave him a curt nod. “Go on.”

Doru raised the vial to his lips and closed his eyes as he poured the first drops onto his tongue. For a moment Walter remembered what Doru had looked like after he had rescued him from the white-haired vampire, when all pretense of humanity had been stripped and Doru the vampire had been laid bare for him.

He watched Doru’s expression dissolve into something almost blissful and reminded himself that this man who was his lover was only wearing a human mask.

“Well?” he asked when Doru did not open his eyes or speak. “Is it human?”

Doru forced his eyes open and gave Walter a bare shake of his head. “No. Almost, but not quite, like the difference between dog and wolf.”

Walter swallowed and let himself sink to the cushion next to Doru. “No?”

Doru’s voice softened. “No, Angel, you are not human.”

“You always said I wasn’t,” Walter said dully. “You must feel good to know you were right.”

Doru put a hand over Walter’s and squeezed.

“I’m not human,” Walter said, trying it on for size. “I’m not human.”

“No,” Doru said again.

Walter stared at Doru’s hand where it rested on his and took a deep breath. He could handle this, the first thing to do was to shove it all down, put it in a box where he put all the other things that could interfere with his life. It had worked until just recently with Doru.

In a dull monotone he started to tell Doru everything. He told him about the priory, the nuns, the Liber Invonis, and he told him about the incubus. He kept the descriptions detached, even when he described waking in bed with someone he had thought was Doru. He omitted nothing and tried to remember every possible detail because he never wanted to tell this story again.

He ended with Arthur’s orders to come to Aberdeen because of Richard’s actions against him.

Doru said nothing, offered no interruptions, and gave him exactly what he needed while he unburdened himself – contact without comment or judgment. When he finished, he looked expectantly at Doru, who gave away nothing with his expression.

“And now?” Doru asked softly. “Will you give it what it wants?”

“No!” Walter felt his cheeks burn. “No,” he repeated more quietly. “Not—no.”

“As you say,” Doru said, much to Walter’s frustration.

He realized he wanted something more than this calm. He wanted a fight. He wanted something to take his anger and helplessness out on. This creature, this incubus had turned his picture of himself and his family on its head and he could do nothing against it, Arthur had let him down, Richard was baying for his blood, and his normal reaction to threats would do him no good.

Doru set the vial back on the table with a tiny clink that broke into Walter’s thoughts.

“Did you like it?” His tone had a more sarcastic edge to it than he’d intended, but Doru didn’t react to it.

“Yes,” he said, sounding suddenly husky and raw. “It was everything I had ever wondered at and so much more. A wonder.”

Walter suddenly rose to his feet, taking Doru’s hand to try to draw him up with him. He had one alternative to a fight with Doru to help drive away some of his rage for a time.

“Take me to bed.”
•••

“Report, Bernadette.”

Gerard Bernadette’s voice sounded tinny with distance and Arthur could hear the sounds of laughter in the background. The man had called him from a pub. Why didn’t that surprise him from a French mercenary?

“Two cars. One is Hellsing’s. I can give you the license for the other, but I don’t recognize it from your motor pool. The lights are on in the cottage. No one at the pub reports seeing your man yet, but he can’t have gotten here more than five or six hours ago. I don’t know when the other car arrived. We’ve only been in place for an hour and the car was here before us.”

Arthur cursed under his breath. He had sent Walter far enough away that he had thought to keep him out of trouble and out of Richard’s eye. Who would he have met in Scotland already to have them back to the house? Certainly it couldn’t be that vampire, Walter would have had to have called him from Burford for him to have beaten Bernadette and his men there.

“Give me the numbers and I’ll track them down,” he said into the phone. “Call me when you have a local contact number and keep out of sight.”

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Bernadette interrupted before Arthur could dismiss him. “Why do you spend so much money on a bunch of mercenaries to watch your man? We don’t mind easy money, but I’m started to get embarrassed by how easy this money is. Maybe you should just hire a detective, no?”

“No,” Arthur said decisively. “I’d feel bad if I got some detective killed. If something happens to you or your men, that’s just the job for you.”

He hung up on Bernadette before the man could say anything else. He was getting damned tired of being questioned by anyone or everyone. His father had been carved from cold stone, but no one had ever questioned Abraham van Helsing when he said something was necessary. Perhaps Richard was at least partly right about Arthur. He still believed that he was the right choice to lead Hellsing, but perhaps he had slid too far from his father’s ideals.

Perhaps it was time to consider some changes for the sake of Hellsing’s future.

•••

Richard sat in a parlor in a wing of the Hellsing manor far from Arthur’s study. Behind the closed and locked door he and Donald Sykes sat swirling brandy in glass snifters and filling the air with cigarette smoke.

“Everything is going almost better than I could have hoped,” Richard said to Sykes. Arthur had his cronies from Eton, but he wasn’t the only one who had grown up among future Round Table members. Sir Donald Sykes looked like everything the British aristocracy wanted to be but rarely attained – he was tall, blond, blue-eyed, square-jawed, and almost a caricature of manly handsomeness.

It was a pity that the illusion of perfection was shattered when he began to speak. You were supposed to at least pretend you didn’t think most of the population were still just peasants with illusions of freedom, but Sir Sykes could never be bothered.

Was it any surprise that he and Richard were, if not friends, allies?

“I’m still working on Collins and Hall,” Sykes drawled. “Pike’s a lost cause. He’s gone soft in the head in his old age. His boy Peter should just poison him and have done with it.”

“Once Hellsing is mine, we can invite Peter to make use of some of the more particular resources the organization has,” Richard said. “The Round Table needs more new blood than just mine. I think Islands and Penwood are looking tired, and are Davidson and Gunn. Accidents happen all the time.”

“What if the vote goes against you? You can’t count on Collins and Hall realizing which side their bread is buttered on.”

“If the vote goes against me, my brother is going to have to have an unfortunate accident. You just be ready to back me up.”

Sykes frowned at his brandy and tossed it back before leaning toward Richard. “Tell me what you’re going to do, Richard.”

Richard shook his head. “Not yet.”

Not yet. His backers said be patient. His backers said wait. His backers said Hellsing would be his, all he had to do was follow orders.

His backers had better not make him wait too long or he’d just have to act on his own and to hell with them.