Midian Evolution

“You are as limp as English cooking,” Alucard said, setting me on the bed. “I must take you out for blood.” He knelt beside me and finished removing my ruined shirt. “At this rate you’ll need two or three full feedings.” He tackled the problem of my sodden skirt by ripping it. “You exhausted yourself with that pleasurable little assault. Learn anything?”

Uncaring of anything but sleep, I just fought to keep my eyes open. Let him do as he would. I couldn’t even talk. I didn’t care he’d rendered me naked, either.

Alucard attacked my closet, again just flinging clothing over his shoulder. “No,” he muttered, throwing a thick nightgown toward my trash can. He repeated the word, making garbage of another granny gown. Finally, realizing I didn’t own anything that suited whatever standard he sought, he took a shirt to me and threaded me into it. “You wear more concealing clothing to sleep than to work.”

I stared at his unmarred, perfect chest. All the damage I’d done to him had already vanished, except for my main bite. He saw me looking and smiled. “For Integra’s benefit,” he explained. “Don’t be surprised if she wants to put the Hellsing wards on you, now.”

She’d told me she didn’t like slavery. I believed her, so I didn’t think about it any further. Swaying, I fell against his arm. My forehead hit a metal buckle but I hadn’t the strength to wince.

Alucard held me upright with a hand on my shoulder. Quickly, he took my stockings from his sleeve and placed them on my table. His tattered top dissolved, leaving him with nothing but the so-called trousers. I hoped he’d put something else on; leather shrank when wet.

God, he had a beautiful body. So graceful and strong. He made the naked humans at Boleskine house look like squatty brutes.

He lifted me in his arms. I always felt so safe when he carried me.

In moments we occupied his coffin. He lifted one of my legs and draped it over his hip. My head he arranged on his shoulder. “You’ll recover just a little strength by staying close to me, I believe,” he said.

With maximum effort, I managed to put my hand on his chest. His heart lulled me. I heard it speed up slightly. Gently, he covered my hand with his. “Sleep, Seras.”

Yes, master.


I did sleep, but I also dreamed.

I stood in the shade of an oak tree on Hellsing Manor’s lawn. Integra sat on the ground at my feet, chewing an unlit cigar furiously. Her hair looked a fright, all tangles and static frizz. She checked her watch, then took off her gloves with fitful, irritated jerks. I smelled blood similar to menstrual issue.

“Where is he?” she demanded impatiently. “Jarrod and Alex were due for a feeding ten minutes ago.”

“He said he might be late,” I heard myself reply. “We trust him, so why worry?” Though interacting in the dream, I felt like I stood inside a shell of myself. I had all my senses, but slightly numbed. A character in a play had more feeling than I did.

“I like a firm schedule,” Integra said abruptly, almost harshly. “You know that about me, Seras.”

“You worry about nothing.”

I looked up and behind me to see my master reclining on a tree limb. He wore a beautiful, formal suit, but those same old boots. He smiled at me, and the smile held such warmth, such free emotion, I felt my throat close up.

Alucard could always break any shell around me, including the one around my heart.

“Babies don’t need their feedings to be so rigidly timed,” he continued, winking at me. “Just like with Midians.”


I woke with a gasp.

“Seras?” Alucard stroked my leg lazily, but I heard concern in his tone.

“Just a dream,” I said. “But, it seemed so real.” I felt his smooth skin with my cheek, comforting myself.

He stayed silent a moment. “When I have dreams, they are utterly realistic. Sometimes from my past, they qualify more as memories than dreams.” His soft recitation brought a measure of calming distance between me and my vision.

I didn’t know why such an innocent dream upset me. Surely, even if I’d looked into the future, all I’d seen was Integra’s expectation of her children. Twin boys, by the sound of it. I liked those names she’d chosen.

We must have been waiting on Walter…

Eventually, I fell asleep again, lulled by Alucard’s languid stroking and the scent of his body.

*********************************************************************


“Alucard, open up,” Integra’s voice demanded.

Master gave a mental groan. What does my harridan of a master want now? he posed silently, prompting me to giggle. He threw the lid of the coffin back and sat up, inducing me to do the same. We looked at her.

Integra examined me a moment. “You look much better,” she announced. “You’ll be happy to know I received two more unofficial blood donors this afternoon. They’re waiting for you in cell twenty-five.”

I almost climbed right out, I was so hungry, but remembered my short t-shirt and stopped moving.

Integra glanced at Alucard, then did a double-take. Her focus narrowed on his bite. Her gaze slid to me. “Thank God,” she said fervently. I saw true relief in her icy eyes. “Do you feel any different?”

I blinked. “Not yet,” I answered.

I knew you wouldn’t, master said smugly. You still adore me.

Master should keep his self-satisfied, conceited ego to himself, I shot back.

And ruin the fun of watching you get angry?

Integra tilted her head, seeming undecided upon which of us to center. “Did you know I can hear your mental chatter?” she asked abruptly. “I can’t understand a bit of it; it sounds like the clatter of tapped Morse Code combined with train whistles of varying pitch.”

Alucard chuckled. “How amusing.”

“Can everyone hear it?” I asked.

“I imagine not. I’m trained to focus in ways others are not.” Integra lit a cigarillo. “Also, my bloodline comes into play, remember.” She snapped her lighter shut smartly, sliding it into her pocket. “After you feed, Seras, I need to see you about another shopping expedition. I have a very specific occasion in the near future, in which you and I will have to…” She paused to grimace in distaste.

“Be girly?” I interjected.

Again she hesitated. Her eyes moved to the very silent, very attentive Alucard. “Classy-girly,” she said at last. “I need your measurements, too, Alucard.”

He smiled.

Integra bared her teeth at him. “Shoulders, waist, height, inseam, arms,” she recited in a guttural tone.

Alucard climbed out of the coffin, blocked Integra’s view of me to aid me out as well. He rather drifted to his closest, dusty table, picked up a curious implement, dipped it into an ink bottle and scratched upon a sheet of off-white paper.

“What’s the occasion, Sir?” I asked while attempting make my shirt longer by tugging on it.

Her gaze softened upon fixing upon me. “My honeymoon, Seras,” she answered. “Walter chose the Istanbul to Venice line on the Orient Express.”

Alucard growled. He snapped the point on his unusual pen, threw it, and seized another from a holder.

“You’ll behave yourself in Istanbul, Alucard,” Integra said firmly, “else I crate and sedate you like an aggressive show dog.”

“You may be forced to do just that,” he answered, crossing the room to thrust his paper at her. “I don’t know if I can resist putting modern Ottomans on spikes. Filthy Turks.”

I almost swallowed my tongue when Integra leaned over and slapped his face. The crack of it echoed sharply in the vast, stone enclosed room. “Remember your age, Prince,” she said, voice and expression furious. “Those people have done nothing to you.”

Alucard, eyes mildly surprised, just grinned.

Integra whirled and left, her cigarillo smoke billowing out behind her like from a smokestack.

“Glorious, isn’t she?” Alucard asked, putting a hand to his undamaged cheek. Before I could think of becoming jealous, he looked at me. “You’ll surpass her, even, Seras. You have the advantage of eternity, of an open mind, and more resilience.” He put his paper away, straightened his unusual pens, and looked at the wall, seeming not to see it at all. “Oak is very strong, but the Willow bends to survive even the harshest wind. Sometimes, fledgling, the softer element is superior.”

He walked to his chair, dropped into it, crossed one knee over the other and leaned his head back. Closing his eyes, he folded his naked arms over his equally bare chest. “You have more humanity. I don’t think that will ever change.”

Though terribly ravenous, and preoccupied with thoughts of cell twenty-five, I lingered just a moment more. Alucard opened his orange eyes and pinned me with them. “You can drop your envy of Integra. I didn’t make her my kin, did I?”

“She didn’t choose you for it,” I argued softly.

He stared at me.

The silence stretched to infinity.

Finally, Alucard favored me with a soft, mysterious smile. “Choices make a queen the same as they make a king.” He waved his hand at me in a gentle sort of dismissal. “Come back to me well before dawn. I have something I want to teach to you, sotie.”

Well.

Effectively but kindly sent away, I left him.