Midian Evolution

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Upon returning to my master, I fell into a dead sleep bereft of dreams. The next thing I knew, Alucard was inside my mind, distress making his presence like a turbulent ocean instead of the calm, placid lake I usually knew.

Seras, why won’t you awaken and answer me? he asked.

I didn’t hear you. Master, I’m starving. I need to drink blood.

I hoped the solution so simple. Integra is bringing nourishment. Just for you, I specified child molesters and rapists.

I’m hungry enough to devour the innocent.

Then, I’m glad I can save you from yourself.


I came awake, groaning. “Oh, master,” I said. “Why would a nightmare leave me so hungry?”

“It’s known to happen to a Midian,” he answered, putting me in his chair. “Try and stay awake, now.” He pulled up another chair and sat in it opposite me. “Walter will be here in a moment with medical blood, which will keep you alert until the real feast.”

On cue, we heard a knock. Walter came in with blood on ice. He looked at me and sought my master’s eyes. “Is Miss Victoria well?”

“She’ll be fine when she drinks, I believe,” Alucard answered. “Give her O-Negative, if you have it.”

Walter crouched before me, offering a blood bag. “I hope you never have any more of those dreams, my friend,” he said softly. “We shouldn’t know what our other selves get up to, you realize that?”

“Other selves?” Anderson asked at the same time as Alucard. They looked at each other and scowled simultaneously. As if this second unity offended them, each man looked away.

“I’ll let Seras tell you,” Walter said, smiling at me. He got up. His eyes fell on Anderson. “Thank you, Paladin, for your blood. I know you’d have rather renounced your cassock, but I still offer my thanks.”

“Too late fer that,” Anderson grumbled. “Be off with ye, servant ‘o darkness.”

Walter lifted an elegant eyebrow. “Very well,” he agreed amiably. Composed and graceful, he left us.

I bit into the bag of blood and drained it, feeling better nearly at once. Alucard sought my eyes and I obliged his effort. Other selves? he asked.

I shrugged. It might be easier if you just find my dream and look at it yourself, I told him.

My master got to his feet and stood over me. Placing his large hands on either side of my head, he stared into me. I felt that familiar sensation of falling, of having his consciousness wrap around mine like a soothing, fuzzy blanket.

Images from my dream flashed behind my eyes, but distantly.

Alucard released me and crouched at my knees, still looking into my eyes. “What did Walter say?”

“He said he’d never be what I saw, and that he’d rather be dead than a Nazi.”

Alucard nodded, looking satisfied. “They did their best to take him. Walter’s temper became his shield. You may not believe me, but Walter has mellowed considerably. He used to exhibit all the impatience, arrogance and anger of youth. When I knew him then, he had a foul, quick mouth, but even quicker wires.”

I had to smirk. “Walter? Foul-mouthed?”

Alucard grinned. “The dirtiest language I’ve ever heard, and I’ve been on many battlefields. He knew every rank epitaph, every offensive reference to sex and heritage in dozens of tongues. He could insult a man twelve ways with one breath and six words. Even the Yankees stood in awe when he opened his mouth.”

I started to giggle. “What on earth happened?”

Still grinning, Alucard shrugged. “One day, he just stopped. I think retiring from active service meant he thought he should tone the language down. After all, he used it to taunt people into doing what he wanted, into acting irrationally. Many people are thin-skinned to insults, and it makes them proceed unwisely.”

“’Tis not a talent to admire,” Anderson commented. He rattled one of his chains for emphasis.

“I don’t agree,” I told him, cast him a glance. “Making someone act the way you want before the fight even starts is pretty cool.”

Integra chose this moment to come in, Walter at her side with three men in tow. The convicts saw us, saw my master stand and expose his fangs, and tried to make a run for it as one unit. Walter twitched his hand and they fell inside the doorway, jerked into submission by his near-invisible wires.

God, it was good to see the Angel of Death again, especially with such an evil smile.

“Shall I stay?” he asked Integra.

She smirked. “If it pleases you, Walter.” Clearly, Integra found Walter’s question funny. She held a rather indulgent air toward him, too, one that spoke of their deep connection.

I wondered if Walter would become a field man again. He had the talent and the youth. Now, he even had the ability to heal very fast. Integra wouldn’t have to worry about her husband when he went out to fight.

“As you requested, Alucard,” the master of Hellsing manor announced. “These three are pedophiles, exclusively. May you do humanity and Her Majesty a service by executing those that our own government would provide with food and shelter.” She turned her back on us. “Amen.”

To my surprise, I heard Anderson mutter an answering ‘amen’. I looked at him. He glared back defiantly; perhaps angry I’d caught his endorsement.

I was too hungry to worry about him.

Walter stepped back at my first choice, releasing a crying man. Briefly I wondered just what Integra said to the people she brought to her vampires, for they were all completely in panic by the time they reached us. Did she know their fear made them taste good?

I wrenched the man’s head back and sank my teeth in him. I took a lesson from Master, putting all my intent for pain and suffering into the bite. He screamed and punched at me ineffectually. I took his weak blows as evidence I hurt him.

That agony I inspired gave a new flavor to the blood I drank. Fear, combined with suffering, made a heady drink. I felt strength pouring into my body, filling my depleted cells and renewing the acuity of my senses. But, it ended too soon, as it always did, and I dropped the corpse.

“Which one next, sotia mea? Alucard asked, grinning. He loved watching me feed from living flesh. I supposed to him it validated my existence as a real vampire.

On whimsy, I looked at Anderson. “Let the priest choose,” I offered, feeling the she-beast within stir. She liked cruelty.

Anderson curled his lip. Leaning against the wall, he stretched out his legs and assumed a casual stance. “The blond,” he said, showing me his teeth.

“There’s hope for you, Paladin,” Alucard chuckled.

“Dinnae lump me inta yer lot,” he replied. “But, I don’ have tae think ‘o this filth as human.”

“Quite correct.” Using his booted foot, Walter shoved the blond, crying convict closer to me. “They aren’t human. I wholly approve of Miss Victoria’s choices. If only England remembered her heritage, we wouldn’t succor vermin.”

“Walter,” Alucard said, laughing softly. “You’re quite loquacious today. Dare I hope you’ve remembered your poisonous mouth?”

Walter’s sly smile reeked of mischief. “Not in front of a lady, Alucard,” he admonished lightly.

Let the men keep talking. I wanted blood.

I grabbed and drank, pulling back a few times to punch the man anywhere I fancied. I hated my victim, hated anyone who would hurt children. He couldn’t endure enough pain.

Oh, yes, sotia mea, master urged. The bruised fruit is the sweetest. He oozed his sanction into me. That approval filled me with an answering desire to have more of it.

I twisted the man’s arms behind him, jerking and dislocating them at the shoulders. Then, I broke them, shattered them at top and bottom. The wet, snapping sounds echoed in my own bones, vibrated my teeth. Black and red settled over my eyes. From far away I heard myself snarling overtop of screams.

Ahh, master sighed. His pleasure fed back into me. Seras, you’ll make me embarrass myself in front of a Catholic cur.

I tore out my victim’s throat, feeling a wave in my mind that meant Master’s climax. His culmination set my own off, and I shuddered in orgasm as I drank the last of the blood. Heaving upright, I looked for my final prey.

“Please, God!” he gasped, scrambling out of my path.

“Why would he listen to you?” I snarled.

It seemed I only blinked and I stood over a very dead body. I’d blacked out, I supposed. I felt master’s long hands wrap around my shoulders and guide me to sit against the wall. I pulled my knees up and dropped my head to them, feeling spacey, yet nourished.

“Yeh ain’t entirely used ta bein’ what ye are,” Anderson observed, and from a shockingly close distance.

I turned my head and looked at him. Alucard had sat me less than a foot from the priest. Peripherally, I watched master start incinerating the bodies one by one, and tried to formulate a response. “Well,” I answered. “I’m a little different. I’m partially still alive.”

Green eyes blinked confusion. “Partially alive, ya say? What part?”

“My heart’s still beating.”

Anderson scowled at me. “Nonsense.”

“Honest.”

Anderson reached a chained hand out. With effort I remained still. I felt my master watching closely, with suspicion, alert for any wrong move. Anderson pressed just the tips of his fingers over my heart. I shuddered at the feel of him.

Vampires and priests just don’t mix.

“Och!” Anderson drew back as if I’d burned him. “What sort ‘o devilry is this?”

I rolled my eyes and got up. “I don’t know. None of us know.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Walter said from my other side. I hadn’t known he watched over me from that vantage. “What matters is Miss Victoria is one of a kind.”

He winked at me.