Midian Evolution

I’d never been on a train before. The steward greeted us, escorting our group to their various accommodations. Walter and Integra seemed impressed by the ornately designed cars and by how much could be squeezed into one, but it made me deeply claustrophobic. So many people, and so optimistically described as an ‘intimate’ setting. I already felt too intimate with these other occupants, and all I’d done was get a tour through the dining car and the bar.

I wasn’t the only one having difficulty. Anderson was almost just too big to be comfortable at all. And, he obviously knew nothing about trying to take up less space. He kept bumping into me, Master, or random passengers, and when he fell against a person, they knew it.

Integra owes me for this trip, Alucard said, repeating word for word an earlier claim. You don’t cage wolves with sheep.

I knew what he meant. These were rich, well-fed people without a scrap of survivalism between them. They’d be easy meals, and they’d taste wonderful.

Master, why didn’t we sightsee in the city before coming to the station? I asked, ignoring his little proclamation.

Me. Master gave a nasty little chuckle while dodging a swift-moving porter, his coat flaring out dramatically. Integra thinks I can’t control myself among the descendants of my old enemies.

Can’t or won’t? I dodged the same porter, but the man ran flat into Anderson, bouncing off the paladin to spiral into a guest. We all walked past the instant knot of polite society confusion.

Can’t and won’t often share their definition in me, Sotie, Master returned in a conversational tone. I’m weak to my appetites. The Hellsing family has ever known this, and they tailor my evolvement accordingly. He put out a hand and skimmed it along the opulent paneling that made the wall of the corridor, the old fashioned, amber lamps that hung there made a flashing pattern of brighter orange to dark umber on his red clothing. It’s very amusing, Sotie. Integra and her predecessors continually fashion me into a madder and madder wild dog, then fear to put me on a leash for ‘walkies’.

But this time its even worse, I replied, getting at what he meant. Integra knows now you stay with her because you want to stay. She’s not so sure of her ability to control you. Privately, I thought Master was dead-on with summing up his major flaw. He was weak to his appetites. Having more and more power handed to him wouldn’t improve that at all. You could reassure her, maybe?

How and why? Master tossed a grin backward to me. All this friction and worry over what I’ll do has her in a state. Her high nerves make her susceptible to Walter’s libido. It’s just delightful, Sotie.

I smiled to myself.

Integra and Walter were given their compartment, and the rest of us shared a double. The two cars connected, too. The leader of Hellsing and her husband immediately ordered us to occupy our part and to not come out unless retrieved. They then vanished into their own.

I looked around curiously. This was beautiful and horrible at the same time. Even if I were alone I’d have trouble with the amount of space allotted. The beds folded down from the walls, apparently, becoming couches during the day. A small hand sink compartment, lavishly furnished, divided the double compartment. I supposed the toilet must be in a separate car. I didn’t mind that, of course, because I had no need for one, but I hated the lack of at least a shower.

Anderson stalked to one side of the oddly made room, threw himself onto a couch and covered his eyes with his arm. “Holy Father,” he said clearly. “Deliver me from the rabble of the Pretender-God.”

“Father Anderson isn’t any more predisposed to Allah than I am,” Master remarked, opening the door to our cabin. He called out for the steward, ordered a bottle of wine, and waited for it. He gazed into the hallways with interest, his red eyes watching every person who walked by his position.

“That was like, a thousand years ago,” I shot back, sitting hard on the opposite couch. I felt very grumpy, hungry, and tired. “Both of you need to get over your religious bigotry.”

“But, it makes me more human,” Master said in a very strange voice that rather electrified the air in the room. “Train rails and railroad ties make excellent spikes, Sotie.”

“You stop that blabber,” Anderson demanded, lowering his arm to glare at Alucard. “Yeh don’ have any intention o’ spiking these heathens, Hellsing lapdog.”

“I think the Crusades are over,” I interrupted testily. “If I have to listen to the two of you fight for the next week, and in this tiny little box, I’ll go spare.”

“Yeh think I like being hemmed inta this wee coffin wi’ two vampires?” Anderson gave me an incredulous look. “I’ll either suffocate or wake up dead.”

“Your blood would taste awful,” Alucard said flatly. He accepted his wine and shut the door. “Pious, regenerating virgin vintage.”

Anderson started to splutter. He sat up and wrestled his cassock off, showing his teeth. “The minute I get yeh off this train, I’m beatin’ yeh ta a bloody pulp.”

Mystified, for all of my master’s descriptive words seemed apt, I sank down to watch him pour and drink.

“That sounds like fun,” Master said. “You’re so romantic, Alexander.”

That sink divider blocked my view of Anderson now, but I heard his teeth grinding.

The train started to move. I would have felt a little excitement over this, but the cramped room and the ill will surrounding me had a dampening effect. I badly felt like retreating into myself again, into that hot-core of purest instinct and simple urges. Master, when will you show me more about my animal form?

You can explore it right now if you want, he answered, his pupils dilating. Walter left our blood supply in a bag just inside the adjoining door. He paused, setting down his wine and fixing upon me with intensity that made my insides liquefy. You know what your initial trigger was, Sotie?

Pride, I answered immediately. I was feeling proud of myself, proud of being your offspring.

Ahhh… Alucard smiled, but it wasn’t his usual, lunatic humor. Such a cat-like emotion, pride. He took a sip of his wine and leaned back into the couch. But, Sotie, there was something else.

Desire. I felt myself smile, and wondered if it looked crooked. Our bond.

Master exposed his teeth with his return grin. You twist that bond to suit you, and with breathtaking speed.

I lost most of my amusement. Master, you said we’d eventually be equal. Do you still think so? This worried me. I liked having power, but not over him. I enjoyed his power too much to like having it diluted. I… It seems like I’m moving so fast!

You are moving fast, Seras. Once you started hunting, drinking fresh blood, your skills exploded. I’ve never made a Midian so conflicted, so natural and unnatural at the same time. He set his wine down and motioned at me with his hand. I found myself gracefully dragged into his grip in the blink of an eye. You’re a new form of Midian, a step up, I believe.

I closed my eyes as he began stroking my hair. His long fingers eased over my head and followed the strands all the way down my back. He set a rhythm of this, and I loved it instantly. I leaned into his movements, shameless.

All cats enjoy being petted, he said. Especially cats in heat.

That prideful, hot feeling settled into my head. My skin prickled. I felt my nails lengthening, my teeth changing shape. My sight flattened and bubbled out again in a peculiar, concave way, and much of my colors drained out. I felt my body changing shape, growing, my arms and legs balancing downward from an elongated, flexible spine.

I hopped down to the floor and began to bathe, compelled to do it. My tongue scraped over soft, clean fur. I scented my master, smelling lust, arrogance, maleness, madness.

“Oh, Seras,” he said, grinning at me. “How beautiful you are. My glorious Sekhmet.”

I yawned and stretched, pleased by his easy worship. Padding back over to him, I leaped onto the couch and put my head on his leg. He began stroking me again, and I lolled with it, rolling onto my back so he could get my tummy.

“You’re a lioness, Sotie,” he informed, scratching an itchy spot with accuracy. “But, easily the largest possible. Too, you have a unique color for being a lioness; a black and red sort of mottling, rather brindled.”

I yawned again. Master tapped on one of my teeth. “I don’t know if I should be worried you’re a saber-tooth.” Suddenly, he threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, the delicious irony! I wonder if you can suck blood with those teeth?”

I hit him with my tail. He kept dangling his fingers in my vision, and I wanted to swat at them. I held back, though, because I didn’t yet feel completely like a cat. I knew who I was. But, I’d added a new dimension to that definition.

Master wiped a tear of amusement away before tugging on my whiskers playfully. “Your facial hair is blond,” he said, starting to laugh again. “It’s very pretty, actually.”

“What’re yeh goin’ on about over here?” Anderson asked, making his way into our side of the car. He stopped dead at the sight of me. His head tilted as he examined me from crown to tail with his piercing eyes. “She’s a cat,” he announced.

“Her animal form,” Master explained, scratching under my chin and making me writhe. “Lovely, yes?”

Anderson scrunched up his face. “She could take a man’s head off with one swipe o’ her paw. She’s gigantic.”

“She’s exquisite,” Master stressed in the happiest of tones. “Just like her ordinary form, she’s both wild and domesticated. The hunt will please her even more, now.”

Anderson leaned on the wall and looked at my master. “Does she understand what yer sayin’?”

“Perhaps in the barest possible terms,” Master answered, totally missing the mark. I knew exactly what was going on. “I never have highest function in my hound form.”

“I don’ ken why ye’d think she’s annaethin’ like you, monster,” Anderson replied smoothly. “From what I can see, she’s completely different from you. She’s softer, more human, able ta smile an’ have it only mean happiness.” The ex-priest looked up for a moment, his expression darkening. “Did yeh take her because o’ that?”

Master rubbed my ears slowly, and I closed my eyes a moment just to enjoy. “She offered herself. I’m not a fool.”

“Pleasures of the flesh,” Anderson murmured.

“Are well anticipated,” Master finished. “But, they aren’t current.”

Anderson grimaced. “Ah know better than that. Ye’re all over each other.”

“It might seem that way to you, paladin, but my sotie is still chaste.”
Master took my face in both hands and looked into my eyes. “One blue eye, one red eye,” he said softly. “My conflicted little sotie, one foot in the grave and the other just out of the womb.”

“Yeh call her your wife and yeh havenae taken her?” Anderson shook his head. “Ah don’ understand.”

Well, this was interesting. Did they talk like this when I wasn’t around? I rolled from the couch and made a show of stretching, hoping they’d focus on the animal behavior and keep talking like I wasn’t aware of their conversation.

Master stood and adopted a similar stance as Anderson’s, leaning on the windowed wall and crossing his arms. “Vampires, Anderson, when they mate, they mate for life,” he said quietly. “I have eternity to wait on her.”

“Man isnae known fer his patience,” Anderson argued.

“I’m not a man.” Alucard bent to give me another few strokes of his hand, making me arch and rumble.

“Yeh most certainly are,” Anderson shot back. “Ye’re a monster, but still a man. And, yon lass is still a female. Do ye think I’m witless? Even if I hadnae eyes and ears, I c’n smell when the two o’ ye go inta the matin’ game; it hits me right in th’ brain.”

“What’s your point?” Alucard asked, and I took his moment of inattention to approach Anderson, who tensed perceptibly upon my advance. I sat as his feet, looking up at his infinitely mobile face. He grimaced.

“My point, demon, is that ye dinnae ought to have her,” Anderson said severely, his burr very pronounced. “She worships the ground you walk on, to th’ point of cryin’ blood when yeh upset her. She bleeds what’s left of what makes her human, an’ all because she cannae bear lettin’ ye down.” Anderson drew himself up proudly, baring the expanse of his chest and holding his head high. “Ignore that, Satan-spawn, if yeh can.”

Master turned his head away from us, his face a study in divergence. A long moment ticked by in which I sat and tapped the end of my tail upon the false wooden floorboards of our car.

“I never claimed I deserved any of the Police Girl,” he said at last.

“Damn right,” Anderson uttered harshly. “Even as far gone inta darkness as yeh are, yeh know that truth.” He reached down and petted my head twice, his touch careful and gentle. “I feel sorry fer the lass; she loves you like a god, an’ ye no more be worthy of that praise than any human that walks.” He put his hand under my face and looked into my eyes, seeming searching for the girl inside the beast.

I looked into those eyes. I remembered them as vivid emerald, but right now they appeared green only in shades of darkness.

He was a good man. I knew that.

I flexed, bringing myself to the very limit of my height. I was as tall as Anderson now, and could look him eye to eye while I had my paws upon his shoulders. We stared at each other. After a long, long moment, he gathered my large feet together and lowered me to the floor.

“She’s better than you,” Anderson said coldly. “As old as ye are, you haveta know it.”

“Be silent,” Master said, and his tone could have peeled wet paint. “Seras is my sotie, not yours.”

Anderson smirked. “Ah know it,” he assured. “Be sure you know it too, demon-spawn.”

It was strange. I understood this conversation and felt uneasy over it, but it didn’t throw my head into a maelstrom of thinking. My human mind inside a cat’s brain made worry very difficult. I knew I’d be a mess once I went back to my true form, that this really candid exchange I witnessed would have many more levels of meaning. But, to me, their talk only meant the two men cared about me separately. Anderson was the newest, most challenging member of the Hellsing Pride, and he called the Alpha out.

“You put one move toward her, Anderson, and I’ll make it my pleasure to kill you just fast enough to surpass your regeneration abilities,” Master warned ominously. His darkened stare illuminated briefly as he crossed his arms. “I could keep you alive for centuries.”

Anderson grinned. “Oh, I havnae any doubt,” he replied. “Ah did a lot o’ readin’ on you, Vlad Teppes, after I failed to eliminate yeh the first time.” He stroked his golden crucifix, his eyes going thoughtful. “Ah think its verra interesting that the entire world knows yer a monster, except for the people you used to rule. To them, yer a hero.”

“You certainly are long-winded today,” Master remarked coldly. “It’s like the Police Girl told me a week ago; history is written by the winners of wars.”

I blinked. A sense of hubris crashed through my feline brain. It had been only a week since I’d read part of that awful book about him. In one week I’d gone from reluctant to kill and half-fearful of my master, to eager for blood and desirous, even lustful, for him. I couldn’t blame the timelessness of being a vampire, either. No, I’d just been so caught up in Alucard that I hadn’t really paid any attention to the flow of time.

“But, it’s wha’ yeh do,” Anderson protested in a light, smug voice. “Yeh select a small number o’ humans and make ‘em worship you. The rest become toys.” He grinned a second time.

“You can’t make someone worship you.” Alucard looked away from the ex-priest. “You can inspire it, but you can’t force it. Free will is a condition of the human heart.”

“Oh, aye,” Anderson agreed pleasantly. “An’ that’s why the lass’ heart quit beating.”

Stunned, I quit tapping my tail on the floorboards. What had he said? I looked toward Master quickly, interested in his reaction.

“Yeah,” Anderson said as Master’s eyes widened. “Ah noticed,” he said in a most cheerful, knowing tone. “The lass havin’ a heartbeat fascinated me. I noticed her strong pulse on her neck, after she pointed out to me that her heart still worked.” Anderson’s face turned hard, then, like one carved from stone, and his voice dropped to match. “It stopped sometime around th’ wedding. Yeh managed to kill what was left of her free will. How long, do ye think, before she’s like those mindless, vapid killers you kept in your castle? Or like the lunatic under Seward’s care?”

Master closed his eyes. “You’ll be silent, now,” he said, and his tone brooked no argument. Deadly earnest leaked from him. The menace of his temper lowered the temperature and darkened the air. If Anderson said one more word, Alucard would splatter him all over this train.

Anderson bent over, patted me on the head once, and retreated to his side of the compartment. Alucard stalked to the couch and dropped into it, staring at me.

I yawned and shook my head, feigning more of the animal and less of the human. It wouldn’t do to have Master know I understood all that. I protected myself, here. He obviously couldn’t hear my thoughts while I was a lioness. It was my first bit of privacy in a very long time. But, I’d soon need my human thoughts to make sense out of all the new things I’d been seeing and hearing.

“Come here, girl,” he said, holding out his hand.

It wasn’t his usual cool and easy tone.

I sat beside him on the couch before just flopping across his lap. Groaning, I lifted a paw and touched his face, batting him while exposing my tummy.

He read my signal well. Smiling very slightly, he scratched my stomach. “You’re the only one who completely believes in me,” he mused aloud softly. “But, I’d like to know if the paladin is correct. Do I have such influence over you that you’ll turn into something less than you are?” He stroked my head gently, and I felt the purring start.

I’d read somewhere that lions didn’t purr…

I felt myself slipping farther and farther into the animal, but I didn’t care.

“I did try to give you your independence,” he went on. “You wouldn’t take it, and now it’s too late.”

I patted at his face again, enjoying how smooth and soft he felt under my toes. I was content to wait until I had my own mind to sort out this newness. Right now I just wanted to enjoy all this attention.

“No one had ever refused before,” he explained, tugging on my whiskers again. “I didn’t know what to think. At first I felt scorn that you would give my gift back.” Master’s eyes began to glow from within, and I briefly hated how I couldn’t see their color. “Then,” Master continued, “I felt intrigued that your freedom meant less than having me. No matter how worshipful any subject of mine, none would have volunteered an eternity of servitude. Even Renfield had moments in which he wanted to break free, and he had the weakest mind I’d ever encountered.”

I writhed upon him. He felt good, smelled good, and knew exactly where to touch me. If he’d just be quiet I could fall asleep on him. Finally, though, I had the perfect body for wriggling all over him. So, that cancelled out wanting a quick nap.

“You have changed in a week, Seras,” Alucard told me quietly. “You’ve grown in ability by leaps and bounds, and made me proud. I just wonder if my satisfaction is suitable.”

I put my head on his knee and gazed up at him. Of course he should be proud of me; I was amazing.