Sacred Lineage

Across London, close to the Thames, there was a small house that was usually empty. This night, it was shrouded in fog. Just after dark, a car pulled up to the house, and two men dressed in dark suits emerged. They walked quickly to the door, then the older man inserted a key into the lock, and the two men went inside. The car\'s driver drove off.

Less than an hour later, another car pulled up, and another man in a dark suit disembarked. He, too, went directly to the door and unlocked it, going inside. The driver of this car also drove off into the city, his destination unknown to anyone except himself.

The house was sound, but old. No one lived here, but there was a housekeeper that came by weekly that dusted and did the other small repairs that needed to be done. The result was a meeting-place where certain members of the Roundtable occasionally met for very private meetings. Integral had been to this house before, as had all of the rest of the Roundtable. They came here in twos or threes to discuss the impact of this policy or that, or to plot revenge, vendettas, or rises and falls from power.

Today, Sir Integral Wingates Hellsing was not invited, nor anyone who was loyal to her. Today, only three men were in residence, one of them not even yet a knight. The subject of conversation tonight wasn\'t even primarily Sir Integral, as it had been a few times before. The subject of conversation tonight was Deirdre Mab Hellsing and her upcoming knighting on the morrow.

\"The Word is given.\" Said the man seated behind the table as the third man arrived.

\"The Watch is complete.\" Said the man who was just entering.

The youngest man in the room, the one who had been invited to this meeting for a specific purpose yet unknown to him was silent. He knew that there would be a decision of great import to the realm made tonight, but he had no idea what it was. It was best, the older men thought, that the boy didn\'t have time to get overly excited about the plan.

\"So.\" Said the older man seated behind the table, \"Sir Gawain, welcome to this meeting.\"

\"Thank you for inviting me, Sir Cai.\" Said the other.

\"I would like to introduce my son to you.\" Said the first. \"This is Lancelot.\"

The younger man startled, surprised to be named for the greatest of the Knights of the Roundtable. He well knew that he didn\'t deserve that honour. He had little way of knowing that the last member of the Roundtable to die an unnatural death had died at the hands of the Hellsings after engineering the failed invasion of the Hellsing Compound by the FREAK vampires Luke and Jan.

Sir Gawain nodded. \"It is good to meet you, Lancelot. I have heard so much about you.\"

Indeed, there was much to be said about young Lancelot, and little of it was good. His father had already paid off two female servants and paid them to leave the country so no scandal would touch his son. The boy had some obvious mental health issues that made him dangerous to have around people that were weaker, either physically or emotionally, than he was. In short, the boy was a bully.

Perhaps \'boy\' wasn\'t the correct word to use to describe him. He was technically a man of twenty two years of age. Interestingly enough, he had the body of a young god, the face of an angel, lovely golden hair, and the heart of a demon. Compared to Alucard, he was small potatoes, but even small potatoes can grow a choking vine.

The silence as the men considered their percieved reasons for the meeting tonight lengthened and finally was broken as Cai spoke.

\"So, the young Hellsing is to be knighted tomorrow night.\"

\"Aye.\" Gawain nodded. \"She is. Are we still continuing the same plan?\"

\"Yes,\" said Cai. \"It is the reason I have brought Lancelot.\"

Lancelot still wasn\'t sure that he should say anything at all. The reason for his being here was beginning to come clear, though, and he wasn\'t sure that he liked the way things were going.

\"So, we can trust him to stay to the plan?\" asked Gawain.

\"I haven\'t explained it to him yet in detail,\" replied Cai. I am sure that we will need to discuss it.\"

\"What plan?\" Broke in the younger man, tired already of the secrecy. \"What do you want me to do that you cannot.\"

\"Why get married, my boy.\" Said Cai, shocking the boy into silence. \"You didn\'t think we were going to send you on a quest for the Holy Grail, did you?\"

Both the older men laughed at that, the younger coloured, somehow sure that he was the butt of a joke. He was not amused. Not that he could do anything about that, just that he hoped that he wouldn\'t spend the evening the victim of double-entandres and private jokes.

\"What we want,\" said Gawain, immediately gaining Lancelot\'s attention, \"is to gain control of the Hellsing Organisation.\"

Lancelot\'s mouth slowly dropped open. He had heard stories, legends really, of how powerful Sir Integral and the Hellsing Organisation were, and he had coveted that power. He had seen no way to obtain any of that power for himself, though. Sir Integral was too old for him, and guarded by too many for him to ever make his way inside. His father looked at him impatiently. He would have to be quicker than this to get ahead with the Hellsings. They were both well known for their wits. The daughter was less well known than her mother, but Cai was sure that was because she had not had too much public contact.

Gawain laid down two sketches of people on the table. One was of a tall male with long dark hair wearing a red hat, yellow sunglasses, a red duster, and black clothing. The other was of a woman in an impossibly short Hellsing uniform. She was blonde, and carrying a huge rifle.

\"You should be very careful of these two. What you are looking at now is the true heart and soul of Hellsing. The male is Alucard, a vampire of incredible strength and ability. Never underestimate what he is capable of, he has been seen reducing bodies to their fundamental parts by hand, and enjoying every second of it.\"

\"It took us a while to identify the female, mostly because she was not well-known before her \'death\'. This is Officer Seras Victoria, formerly the medic of the D11 special teams. We had a difficult time identifying her because she was listed among the dead in the Cheddar disaster some years back.\"

He said this as if it was not worrisome at all. Lancelot looked at the drawings, the female appeared to be between sixteen and eighteen years of age.

\"Surely she\'s aged some since then.\" He stated. \"Are these old drawings?\"

\"No.\" Replied Cai. \"These are very recent. The dead do not age. Officer Victoria was killed in the Cheddar incident, but she was killed by the Hellsings tame Vampire, Alucard. She is now as he is, an undead thing of awesome power.\"

Lancelot considered this for a few moments. \"So, what is the plan?\"

\"What we want to do is break the daughter to our will. This will be accomplished by your marriage to Deirdre Mab Hellsing and you will use your usual methods, the ones you used upon the maids, upon her until you control her utterly. Through her, you will control the dogs of Hellsing, her Vampires.\"

The promise of absolute power over whomever he wished appealed to him. The promise of absolute power over that stuck up bitch, Deirdre, inflamed him even more. He would not only have power over the Hellsing Organization, he would have power over the entire Country, perhaps even the world!

The elder men watched the emotions flitting over his face, and the one called Gawain thought that perhaps they had chosen the wrong man to do this thing. He doubted that Cai would be able to control his son after the plan had come to fruition. If that happened, however, it would be but a simple thing to remove the boy. Indeed, the possibility existed that if the boy showed his hand too soon that the Hellsing Vampires would take care of that problem for him. It was an elegant solution to the problem, there wouldn’t even be a body to dispose of.

The plans continued late into the night, and Gawain kept his thoughts to himself. Neither of the other men showed any indication that they had made secondary plans in case this plan failed. An oddity, for sure, that there were not secondary, and even tertiary plans in place. One thing that Gawain had learned from dealing with Sir Integral and Hellsing was that Murphy’s Law was most definitely in effect. This Father and Son were making plans straight from the Evil Overlord List. Gawain started to become nervous.

Finally, the meeting came to a close. The men left quietly in the light rain, each to their own chauffeured vehicles. Gawain breathed a sigh of relief that no one had caught them this time. No one had a reason to suspect, but then, when had anyone ever needed a reason?

He wondered if he should scrap the entire plan and just tell Integral about it. Playing the savior to Hellsing could have it’s own benefits, and he was tempted to do just that. The truth was that he didn’t want to be indicted if the other two got caught. It was almost tempting…almost. He was wary of the power the Hellsings wielded, though, and decided to continue with the plan for now.

In the other vehicle, plans continued to be spoken quietly. The father and son continued to discuss the future of the Hellsing Organization. They were planning to mold it into a new image, hoping for the best, but not bothering to plan for the worst. After all, it was the perfect plan. How could it possibly go wrong?