Midian Evolution

Still plugging away. Not happy with this chapter, but... Anyway, I want to again thank everyone for their reading and reviewing, especially Lara, who encourages me even from afar.

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I found Walter in the gun room on the practice range, assembling a pistol. A cigarette dangled from his lip. He’d abandoned his monocle; I saw each of his violet eyes without hindrance. Smiling, he executed one of his swift, short bows to me. “Friend Seras the Prophetess,” he greeted, a smile moving his lips. “Escaping the stress of priest versus vampire?”

Wow.

Walter wasn’t just hot, he was smoking. All those lean angles, ropy muscles and long length combined with his indolent pose at the table and he made a terribly attractive sight. Mean and deadly, but attractive. No doubt Integra appreciated him from top to bottom.

Good on her. They both deserved a mate who could put up with them.

I sat on the table beside his work, nodding. “Yeah. Awfully tense, Walt. But, how do you feel? I came to talk to you.”

Walter smiled. Again, he treated me to one of his genuine smiles, a smile that let me know I was one of his ‘in’ people. “I feel well,” he answered. “I have a nagging earache, but that should clear up soon. I’m never one to feel sick very long.” He finished assembling the gun and moved on to the next pile of pieces.

I watched him a minute, fascinated by the fingers that used to be so old, now so smooth and strong. Walter always had a deft touch, but now his hands seemed to move like magic. “You’re pretty kick-arse, aren’t you, Walt?” I said, grinning. “Like being young again?”

“Language,” he admonished, but he smiled. “Yes, I enjoy a renewal of youth.”

“You got something against me using bad language?” I asked, amazed. “Master said you once had the foulest mouth in Christendom.”

Walter lowered his head a moment, struggling against a smile. “Ladies shouldn’t use it, however,” he replied. “Perhaps it’s chauvinistic of me to think thusly.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It is. Why don’t you teach me to talk filthy? I’d love to spin an opponent up that way.”

Briefly, Walter looked like he’d swallowed a lemon. His lips pursed and his eyes narrowed. Slowly, he lifted both eyebrows. “Do you really want to learn such a controversial… art?” he asked quietly.

“Shit yes, I do!” I exclaimed.

Walter gave me that smile. “Try ‘hell yes’ or ‘fuck yeah’ instead,” he suggested mildly. “’Shit’ is more useful for sudden moments.”

I giggled.

He shook his head. “It’s useless to employ vicious invective and then giggle, Seras,” he said.

I sobered quickly. “Right.”

Walter sniffed. He looked at me steadily for a moment, then took a pen and a piece of paper from his vest pocket. He wrote swiftly, his clear print totally at odds with his general manner. I’d expected Walter to have beautiful, flowing script like my master.

“Try using these words,” he said, giving me the paper. “Additionally, use your powers of observation to find the obvious point of your opponent’s weaknesses. Is he fat, skinny, short, gangly, etcetera.” Walter paused, rolling his eyes upward as he thought. “Everyone has insecurity about something. Sometimes one can discover what that is simply by whittling at them like a piece of soap.”

I looked at my list. Some of these words I’d never heard, but Walter had kindly given definitions and where to put them in sentences.

“Walter, Seras,” I heard Sir Integra say. We turned to see her coming through the door. I quickly looked sideways at Walter, interested to see his reaction to the Hellsing Director. His eyes focused on her absolutely, brilliant and animal in intensity.

“Well, I have to go back to Master,” I announced, quickly walking to the door and passing Integra. “Thanks for the list, Walt.”

“Anytime, Seras,” he murmured, not taking his eyes from the blonde woman advancing toward him. “Do tell me how you get along with your words.”

I exited. Unable to resist looking back, I snuck a quick peek in their direction just in time to see Walter cage Sir Integra against a wall with his hands on either side of her, not touching. He leaned in, as if sniffing her hair.

“Three days, my dear,” he whispered, but my acute hearing easily picked up his low, husky tone.

I hurried on, quite stimulated by the short but passionate display.

When Master advanced upon me like that, I melted. By Integra’s expression of flushed delight, I knew she felt the same way. Burning deep inside, I went back into Hellsing Manor, immediately heading for the lower levels. I wanted to push Alucard into such a demonstration of ardor.

I found him in his quarters, reading aloud to Anderson.

“Out of the night that covers me, black as the Pit from pole to pole,” he recited, his voice deep and resonant, “I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul.” He looked at the quiet, watchful priest. “Do you have an unconquerable soul, Alexander?”

Anderson’s eyes darted away. My master smiled a secretive, sly smile.

“In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance, my head is bloody, but unbowed,” he continued. Again he looked at Anderson, whose eyes had once again slid to my master. “I think it’s safe to say your head is bloody and unbowed.”

Anderson showed him his teeth.

“Beyond this place of wrath and tears, looms but the horror of the shade, and yet the menace of the years finds, and shall find me, unafraid.” Alucard tilted his head a bit. “You aren’t afraid, Alexander. That’s good. I like an enemy who faces his fear like a soldier.”

Anderson didn’t answer.

“It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.” Alucard shut the book with a sharp snap, causing a bit of dust to float in the still air. “William Earnest Henley was a striking poet, don’t you think?”

Anderson still didn’t answer.

“That was beautiful, master,” I said, thinking he was more beautiful than any poetry.

Favoring me with a non-manic smile, Alucard placed the book upon his closest table. “Humans have the best words,” he said. “I’ve had opportunity to hear words from many sorts of Immortal, and I much prefer the human perspective.”

“Why?” I stepped right up to him, drinking in his powerful, sensual presence.

Alucard’s humorous mien dropped away. Magenta eyes sober, he seemed to look into my very soul in the matter of an instant. “Because, sotia mea,” he murmured. “I’ve never been human. I wasn’t human even when others could claim me as kin.”

His words peeled like a death-knell. The useless air in my lungs whooshed out and found no replacement.

No, my master didn’t know what it was to be human. But, he’d never known. He hadn’t just forgotten over the ages, had his humanity buried over time and blood thirst. He’d never felt like the species. He’d never understood, never had a human welcome, never had human cares.

My master had always been alone.

The absolute misery of his existence swelled up within me. I didn’t know how to help him, didn’t know how to even think of this. If I could give lessons in humanity, I would, but I stood close enough to humanity’s flavor to wonder if it would be right, giving Master a human soul. He could adapt, I knew he could, but, would adaptation be the right choice?

I’d told him he had a soul, and I knew that as truth. So, what sort of soul did Master have?

I let my eyes rest upon him at length. He had human form, human desire, human need and human speech. Still, I now perceived a peculiar distance, an anomaly of essence that fairly shouted to the world of his evolution.

Master was higher than humanity, and had been higher from his very birth. He didn’t relate to the rest of us, didn’t find our concerns and emotions personal to himself, didn’t understand anything about us. He only assumed he’d once been human.

He didn’t really know he’d ever been an alien.

“Humans are fascinating, aren’t they, master?” I asked, coming closer still. “They’re warm and weak and utterly unapologetic for what they are.”

“Just so,” he murmured, watching me with his bloody, attentive gaze. “Why do you ask me, Seras?”

“No particular reason, master,” I answered. “More upon my mind is the question of your generosity.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Generosity?”

“I want to explore you,” I explained, unable to prevent the onset of a blush. “Let me?”

He smiled a soft and tortured smile. Crossing the room, he opened the door that separated our rooms. “Seras, explore as you desire,” he replied.

In this, Master could be human. Perhaps his highly developed sexuality served as his best anchor to humanity.

“Master,” I murmured, moving past him.

In a few minutes we occupied my rooms. Master wandered around my collection of candles, sniffing stubs and making unknown judgments upon the odors therein. He threw himself into a chair and stretched out, splaying his long limbs to the four corners. “Seras,” he sighed.

“Master,” I answered. “My master.”

Shivering, Alucard let his head loll backward. “I’m so weary,” he confessed. “I love being what I am, but I feel as if I’m meeting my fate when I meet you,” he said. “So, please, Seras, meet me.”

I loved meeting him. If I could meet him to all eternity, I would.

“Master, please get in my bed,” I asked.

He obliged, levering himself upward and to his feet, moving to my bed and throwing himself upon it. Facing the ceiling, his eyes fluttered closed. In that moment I knew he needed me to treat him gently.

Not for my master the flame of passion and burn of desire, at least not this morning. Now, he needed human caring. He needed to know someone looked out for him. He’d never admit it, but he needed soft, unconditional love. I had that for him in abundance, because I loved him.

I stretched out beside him, savoring this quiet pleasure. He moved toward me very slightly, unconsciously. I put my arms around him and squeezed. “Master,” I breathed.

“Seras,” he answered softly.

I spread my hand out on his flat, hard stomach. “You said you were tired, master?” I asked.

“Hm?” he said. “I suppose.”

Such an understatement. My master was exhausted. Even I felt it.

“I am, too,” I said, hoping to make his fatigue alright by an admission of my own. “I’m so tired of the line between what I was and what I’m evolving to be.”

Alucard sighed. “I don’t remember that line,” he confessed, throwing an arm over his eyes.

Of course he didn’t remember that line. For him, it had never existed.

“Well, I’ll be okay,” I said lightly. Gently, I stroked down his abdomen. “Master, you’re so firm. I love that I can rely upon you for that.”

“My firmness?” he asked sleepily. “You like that, Seras?”

“Yes,” I whispered. “My master, I love your unyielding body and mind.” I put my hands over his for a moment, feeling the dormant power. With these hands he could do anything. He could kill, caress, even coax music…

God, I was so in love with him. Unlike many silly girls who fell in and out of love five times a week, I’d never had feelings for anyone until this man came along. I was totally unprepared for the depth of my feelings, but at least they were pure. My love had no division. I would care for Alucard, Dracula, Vlad, whatever he called himself, until I died.

I took my eyes up to his face, startled to see he already looked at me. Not a trace of sleepiness showed on his face now. His eyes seemed to just absorb me.

“Seras,” he said quietly. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

I searched my mind for what he meant, drawing a blank. “Master?”

He smiled a little. Wending an arm underneath me, he cradled me closer to his side. “I haven’t slept on a bed in centuries,” he said. “Not since I lost Elizabeta.” Stroking down the side of my face, he dragged a finger across my lips very slowly. “She didn’t love me. Did you know that?”

“No, master,” I answered. “I haven’t read much about your life. It seemed silly to do that, when I could just ask you anything I pleased.” I so enjoyed it when he touched me like this, like he savored me.

Alucard chuckled. “Just so, Seras. I might not answer, but you can ask anything.”

I tucked my face against his neck and inhaled his scent. “She didn’t love you, Master?”

“No, but I loved her. At least, as much as I was capable of loving anyone, then.” He flexed, bringing me up to lie atop him in a smooth, swift movement. Locking eyes with me, he smiled. “It’s good to know you wouldn’t kill yourself if I died.”

“She did that?” I whispered, slightly horrified.

“She threw herself from a high window when false news of my defeat reached the castle. I arrived from a victorious battle to find her dying on the jagged rocks below the tower.” Alucard’s eyes dimmed, and I knew he was remembering. “She believed my enemies would come to rape and kill her, and she thought she’d save herself from the pain.”

Sickened, I laid my head down on his pectoral. “I’m so sorry, master. I’m sorry you lost her that way.” My throat ached with the effort not to cry. I pitied his long lost wife.

“She’s at peace, Seras, unlike you or me,” he said mildly. “For us there will be no peace. I condemned myself to this fate, and I’ve also condemned you.”

I could have said a lot of things. I could have told him I didn’t consider myself condemned anymore, and that I probably never would again. Instead, I just leaned up to kiss the underside of his jaw. “I forgive you, master,” I whispered.

His arms tightened around me. “Thank you, Seras,” he whispered in return.


In that moment I realized he knew very well I worshipped him like a god.