Midian Evolution

Looooong chapter. Couldn't break it up. Sorry for the delay. Lots of work and trying to move at the same time. Thanks, readers and reviewers!
.
.
.
.
.
Rain pelted the streets and sidewalks. Ordinarily, I enjoyed rain. It made everything clean for a little while, just like snow. Right now, however, all it did was make the smell of wet dog hang around. I could only assume I smelled the person following us, since the wind flew at us from behind. Before the rain started falling, I’d scented werewolf. I guessed it washed off some of the lingering stink.

God, how it made my hackles rise to even get the smallest whiff of one. My hatred of them grew steadily worse. I hadn’t minded their awful odor, or even recognized it at first. The more of Alucard I absorbed and the more I came into my own, the more they sickened me. I caught myself grinding my upper and lower fangs together and had to quit.

“Are we goin’ ta stand here in the pourin’ rain all night?” Anderson asked, barely audible.

“Quiet,” Alucard ordered almost absently.

I sighed and shifted a bit. I felt in unity with the paladin on this one. But, while I wanted to rush out for the confrontation, I also feared getting hit with serum.

“We need to take it alive,” Alucard went on. “At least, it needs to be alive until we question it; I’m not drinking its blood to learn anything.” He curled up one corner of his mouth into a grimace. “I’d rather drink the Thames.”

I realized with a start that Master wasn’t rushing. An obvious point, but one I’d missed due to the misery of standing in rain while dumbly waiting for him to make a decision. He didn’t want hit with the serum either, assuming we had to worry about that. Just the possibility made me afraid.

Anderson bared his teeth at Alucard. “Yeh want it alive? Let me, then. Anythin’ ta get out o’ this downpour.”

“You’ve never taken anyone alive,” Master argued lightly, starting to smile. “You don’t even know how.”

Anderson returned a gruesome parody of Alucard’s smile. “So says th’ Impaler,” he countered.

I rolled my eyes before staring at the pavement. Alucard and Anderson bickered when they couldn’t out-and-out come to blows, and I thought I preferred the latter. I tuned out their quiet exchange of invective and focused on our quarry. Whoever it was hadn’t moved from across the street in as long as we hadn’t stirred from this alleyway door. But, I smelled impatience and frustration with that wet dog aroma. They couldn’t see us, but they knew we hadn’t escaped.

A very dim, very bloody looking pinpoint of light eased down the dark alley, and I stiffened. “Alucard,” I whispered.

“I see it,” he said. “So, perhaps Regenerist Serum isn’t the problem, but magic.” He passed my guns to me fluidly, taking only one of his own before sliding a grin down toward me. “Somehow, I prefer serum-toting.”

And, in his typical disregard for preserving himself, Alucard stepped into the alley’s center, in what I imagined as full view of our human hunter. “Come out,” he demanded as the light touched his boot and began crawling up his leg like a laser pointer beam. “I’m tired of waiting for you.”

Suddenly, the air seemed to rush out of the enclosed space as if sucked in a vacuum. The rain evaporated. Noises of the busy, Byzantine city just died. A ring of pulsating, sickly green light began revolving around Alucard. Then, everything collapsed back inward and exploded.

Anderson and I, only half-sheltered from the blast, got dragged fully into the passage, tumbling over each other for a handhold. I heard the ex-priest muttering, and then the sharp clang of metal going through stone. Flailing, my hand closed over the hem of his cassock, and I jerked to a stop. Hitting the pavement, I rolled and let go of him. He’d shoved a bayonet into the cement to keep from moving farther, and I’d managed to arrest my own movement by hanging onto him.

The sound of Master’s demonic laughter made me thrill inside.

“Is that all?” he asked, sliding a clip into his gun and cocking it. “I thought you magic-using humans might be obstacles!” He pointed the Jackal, showing all of his teeth. His coat had singe marks at the hem, and even frayed a bit. Whatever had blasted him only harmed his clothing. I suddenly felt a bit better about facing this unknown, doggy-smelling enemy.

A figure stepped in between us and a weak street light. Female. I saw long legs, generous curves illuminated through a filmy white garment. Long, blonde hair…

The woman from Boleskine.

“Ahh,” Alucard sighed, bringing his gun square to sights. “You.”

“Me,” the woman affirmed, continuing to walk closer and closer. “Interfering vampire, what business do you have with Neo-Thelema?” Her cold, clipped voice echoed off the close buildings around us, and though I could see her, I felt disoriented. A current of repulsive energy radiated from her.

“The better question is, what would your dead leader think of his legacy passing on to Nazi freaks and werewolves,” Alucard replied, grinning that feral grin. “Neo-Thelema, indeed!”

The woman’s face screwed up into such an expression of hate and anger that I felt alarmed. Her right hand twitched, and a dagger dropped into it. “Do not cast your undead judgment upon my eternal scion!” she demanded.

For an answer, Alucard began firing. I watched, amazed as the bullets hit an invisible barrier and just disintegrated. Their impact made a ripple of silver around the woman, showing she stood within a cocoon of power. My master laughed long and loud, putting his gun away inside his coat. “Which idol do you use for that trick?” he asked, the question sounding like a taunt. “I despise you on principle, casting your human will upon the gods. You put your hand in a jar of deities and draw out whatever your greedy fingers can grasp.”

“You’re a dirty blasphemer,” the woman replied, bringing her weapon out further. “Hellsing’s lapdog!”

“Better a lapdog than a cocksucker to werewolves,” Master replied, grinning.

The woman gave a screech of pure fury. Her hands came out, one sending a blast of energy toward Alucard and the other throwing the knife. I barely dodged in time. She hadn’t targeted Master at all, but me. The blade buried itself in the crumbling brick close behind.

“What do you people have against my wife?” Alucard asked, his arm up to protect him from the forceful surge of energy. “You attempted to destroy her with Regenerist Serum. Even that cowardly scum, Jhonas tried to hit her with it. Now, you try to get the serum in her on the end of a knife?” He drew his gun again and fired at the street lamp behind the woman, forcing her to dodge to one side to avoid the falling globe. Taking advantage of her distraction, he put a bullet into her shoulder.

It didn’t do half the damage it should have. It should have blown her arm off. Instead, it did nothing more than make a hole about the size of a twenty-two caliber. “I don’t appreciate you filth trying to kill her,” Alucard went on, still firing. He managed to get another bullet in her, this time in the thigh.

“One vampire is the same as another,” the woman said, but her eyes went toward me with such hatred that I could only stare back in confusion.

I’d never done anything to deserve being a target of a magical community; I felt certain of that.

“Oh, how wrong you are,” Alucard said in mock-pity.

“You all die alike,” she countered, raising her arms skyward. Blood flowed from her injury, ran down her side. She had her shield back up, and she closed her eyes. Unintelligible words tumbled from her mouth.

The next blast of energy sent Master flying. He slammed into another invisible wall, one that I hadn’t known of, and I swore I heard his bones breaking. He liquefied, making a black puddle on the cement.

I wasn’t worried. I’d seen him take much worse.

“Well,” Anderson said, “I think tha’s enough.” A twitch of his fingers brought six bayonets down from his sleeves. “She’s not goin’ ta tell us a damn thing.”

Master’s eyes floated in the puddle. His teeth appeared, grinning. “You’re such an impatient man.” Slowly, he began to re-form, becoming a column of black shadow before taking his solid shape again. But, he didn’t form all the way. One arm remained shadow, and his tendrils slowly made their way toward the magic user. “Fine, then, paladin; I’ll hurry up.”

His darkness penetrated the woman’s magical shield. She saw it happening, but too late. Alucard wrapped a slender, nebulous appendage around her mouth and throat. “Your mistake,” he told the struggling woman, “was in coming alone. I’d have a difficult time with two or three magi.”

The barrier dropped. Alucard’s quarry began to thrash as he applied pressure. He squeezed slowly, eyes alit with enjoying her muffled sounds of pain and fear. “Humans are so arrogant, especially those like you, who think a bit of godly magic is a substitute for strategy.”

“Just kill her already,” Anderson complained. “I’m cold, wet, and hungry and she isnae goin’ to talk.”

“Oh, I agree,” Master replied, and his hold got tighter. The woman’s skin began to rupture. She’d turned purple from lack of air. Still, she thrashed. “Too bad she’s tainted; I’d have enjoyed some fresh blood.”

He squeezed her head right off. It rolled into the gutter while the body jetted crimson and collapsed.

“I think I’ll leave her here,” Alucard said thoughtfully, forming his arm back into normal length. “Her friends should find her soon enough. She couldn’t be entirely alone.”

“If that’s settled, we can go?” Anderson asked. He looked almost fatally bored.

“Yes.” Master grabbed his shoulder and then took my hand. “The quick way.”

We faded out. Upon coalescing, I saw we stood outside a very busy, very ritzy hotel. No one seemed to notice how we came into existence before their very eyes. Gazes passed over us, made mild note before just drifting on unconcernedly.

I felt weird, outside myself, and barely noted we sedately moved ever onward. Anderson and Alucard were arguing again. The man directing our path smelled of decent, woodsy-noted aftershave and leather. Rich, gleaming gold tones shone everywhere, reminding me of Alucard’s sunglasses. I had a bad taste in my mouth and wanted to wash it out with blood. Any blood would do.

Outside these sensory distractions, another sense overpowered my soul. Awareness. I had it now.

I knew why Master had a hard time sleeping. He dreaded giving his consciousness free reign. He didn’t want to know the names whispering, swirling in the dust and old blood stains. He could know of each soul ever to pass through this place, every person who’d died here, even to the ghosts on the land beneath the building.

A shudder passed through me, halting me in my tracks. Instinct, my constant companion no matter alive or dead, sent a bolt of infinite understanding to my core. No one, not even a creature as mighty as my master, could pretend at being human when time had no meaning.

I looked back on my nearest memories, choosing the ride from Inverness Airport to the castle. I’d mused on Alucard’s timelessness, feeling his terrible inertia yet understanding not a fraction of what it meant. Worse, I’d missed the most obvious of things all this time.

Deep, deep down in Alucard’s soul, he wasn’t happy drifting in eternity’s seamless flow. He measured time through belonging to the Hellsing family. As long as he had a Hellsing master, he had an anchor to the here and now. They gave him something more important than duty; they gave him a sense of when he was, not where he was.

For Alucard, only the past had natural strength; he had too many yesterdays to even count. But, he deliberately forged his future with Hellsing as his foundation.


And, they were killing him.


I gripped my head between my hands, vaguely aware of someone shaking my shoulder. I couldn’t respond. I just couldn’t. The horror held me so tightly I thought I would freeze solid.

My master was an extraordinary, fantastic beast, and I knew he’d ever been one. He was mighty. He was the True Nosferatu, a god among Midians. Yet, Hellsing kept improving him. They fed him more and more power, more ability. He allowed it. He allowed them to keep stuffing his greedy heart.

It couldn’t continue. He’d burst.

More shaking sensations at my shoulder. I forced myself to open my eyes and they locked unseeing onto patterns of color. Red, gold, black green. Voices blended together. Underneath the strongest two, I heard whispering, muttering, the impressions of souls in the marble all around me.

Knowledge, truth, despair…

I had retro-cognitive psychometry because Master had bled into me his intense concentration on the past…

I felt him reaching for me, trying to see inside my head. I couldn’t let him in, not when his presence would only throw me into riot. He could never calm this turbulence. It was up to me to sort my own head.

Master’s presence left, but I tasted his reluctance. He didn’t want to go away from me. He didn’t like that I hadn’t moved, or that I couldn’t move. He had to report to Integra, but he couldn’t take me. He had to trust me to Anderson and just be as brief as possible with his master.

Anderson’s voice, low and lilting peculiarly, said something to me. I blinked and dropped my hands, but I still couldn’t move from the spot. The universe crashed around me. I’d pierced a veil and couldn’t look away from the vista that was everything and nothing. For, I was eternal, too. Just like my master, I’d walk in shadows until shadows themselves became light.

Moving, moving, floating, arms underneath me. A long pause, and…

A sharp pain lanced across my face. “There’s only one ‘o yeh allowed ta be insane, and it’s damn sure not goin’ ta be you,” Anderson said, his voice cutting through my freefall. “Yer not courtin’ me fer friendship and cuttin’ out.”

Gold and silver, green and white. Something absolutely foul and burning went down my throat. Oh, oh god. Alcohol of some kind. It didn’t like me any more than I liked it. I coughed, gagged, then promptly vomited bloody whisky all over Alexander Anderson.

“Shite,” he said succinctly. I watched, vision clearing, as he slowly put up his hands and wiped ichor from his eyes. Twin flicks of his fingers slung the mess left and right. “Might’ha known yeh couldn’t take a drink.”

I latched onto the humor of the moment, feeling my mad hubris slowing. The most ghastly mess dripped from Anderson’s blond spikes. His disgust hit me in such a comical way that I had to smile.

Anderson saw me and sighed. He got up and shed his cassock, then retrieved a handkerchief and started wiping himself. “What th’ hell happened to you?” he asked bluntly.

“Total perspective,” I murmured. I didn’t have a name for it. What did one call it when one acquired a hitherto unheard of view?

Anderson lifted an eyebrow, but he didn’t say anything. He gazed around the large room before striding off. I went to staring at the lovely carpet. Well, lovely expect where I’d puked. The fumes coming from there made me faintly dizzy.

A giggle escaped me. God, I was so stupid. I’d yearned for a fairy tale, but I hadn’t been specific enough for the Powers That Be. I deserved this blood-drenched romance.

Anderson came back wearing a towel and a bathrobe, clean. He sat down in a chair and dragged a complementary blanket over himself, though for modesty or comfort I didn’t know. “Yer th’ scariest, saddest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said matter-of-factly. “Ah never gave much thought to vampire growin’ pains.”

I wiped whisky and blood from the corner of my mouth. “I’m going mad,” I whispered. “I don’t know how he can bear what he is or what he’s becoming.” He’d know I meant Alucard. Who else could I be speaking of right now? “His only anchor is the Hellsing family, and my only anchor is him. I’m twice as unstable as he is.”

“Tha’s no true. Yeh’r friends with Dolneaz,” Anderson argued. “And, yeh love Integra Hellsing.” He shifted and opened the small refrigerator sitting beside his chair. Searching, his hand grabbed a random bottle. He read the label as he spoke. “And, fer some damned unfathomable reason, yeh want ta add me as a friend.”

“You’re not so bad.” I hiccupped, tasting something nasty. “Is there any juice in that ice box?” Alucard had mentioned I should be able to tolerate juice. I’d do anything to clean out my mouth. “I can’t stand the way you feel when I have to touch you, but I couldn’t really expect or want that to change.”

Anderson pitched me a bottle of apple juice for his answer, then opened a split of wine. We sat in almost companionable silence. I opened the juice and smelled it.
If I drank this, I’d be ingesting something akin to food for the first time in a long time. Wine didn’t count. This was nutrition.

I tried to sip it, and my fangs clinked on the glass. Frustrated, I tilted my head back and just poured. My aim wasn’t good. My shaky hand managed to slop as much down my neck as into my mouth. It felt good, though. The scent of apples and sugar went right to my brain while I flooded with the taste.

Oh, god, so good! It didn’t hurt, and it made me feel so much better.

“Juice is the blood of fruit,” my master’s voice said from nearby.

“Mmm,” I said into the bottle, making a hollow rumble of my voice. He’d returned and I hadn’t noticed until he spoke.

“Enjoying the show?” Master asked Anderson, his voice cold.

“Surely not,” the paladin replied, drinking deeply from the wine. He wiped his mouth on his robe sleeve and met Alucard’s eyes. “The fact I canna quit watching hasnae bearing on lust, vampire.”

Alucard sat beside me on the couch, drew his booted foot up to the cushions and leaned so he could look at both of us. “The sensual awakening,” he murmured. “I recognize that even if I don’t know what happened to you in the inner foyer, sotie.”

I didn’t answer, just let more apple juice splash into my mouth. This was heaven. Cold, sweet heaven.

“Anderson,” Master said quietly. “To the right there’s a room adjoining to this one. Use it.”

“Gladly do ah take my leave of this,” Anderson replied with a snort. He got up and stomped out.

“Sotie,” Alucard said after a long moment. “Can you focus upon me at all?”

With great effort I brought my focus down. I lowered the empty juice bottle and let it drop to the carpet. Turning my eyes, I took the time to just look at him. He was so beautiful, so tragic, so utterly mine.

“Alucard,” I murmured.

He made me burn inside and out. I scooted closer, draping my arms over his shoulders. “Pretty thing,” I said softly, bending my neck so I could nuzzle his neck. “My master.”

Alucard made a noise of uncertainty, of pleasure and anticipation. His arms wended around me. I found myself wrapped in centuries of strength and purpose.

“I can’t see inside you anymore, sotie,” he confessed, his voice rough. “You’ve blocked me.”

I laughed against his collar. “Sucks, doesn’t it?” I asked. “I can’t have you inside my head anymore, master, not for awhile,” I told him. “You’ll never think of me as a woman if you keep listening to my thoughts.”

His arms tightened around me a little. “Any fool could see you’re a woman, sotie,” he murmured.

I sensed Integra and Walter nearing this room and sighed. My first good cuddle with Alucard in forever and it was about to be ruined. I dreaded what Integra would have to say to me. I’d nearly attacked her on the train, and I’d had a psychotic episode in this hotel.

They didn’t knock, just entered, which I found a bad sign.

“Is she all right now?” Integra’s voice, though cold, held worry. She addressed Alucard, not me.

“I’m… okay,” I said, wondering if I spoke the truth. “Well, better,” I added. I lifted my eyes to her reluctantly, seeing carefully veiled concern in all that perfect blue. “I…”

“Yes?” she asked, taking a tin from her pocket and putting something in her mouth. I remembered what Master said about controlling the reaction of jealousy, but not what actually made me jealous.

“Remember when we went clothes shopping, sir?” I asked. “I think I’m going to have to have a pair of gloves after all.”

She remembered and understood in a split instant. I saw it, sensed it. She bit down and I smelled sharp wintergreen mixing with blood. “I see,” she commented calmly. Her eyes flicked to Alucard. “I need to speak to you, alone, Alucard.”

With seeming reluctance, Master unwound us. Wordlessly, they vanished through a door to the left. Walter sat down beside me. “What did you mean, Seras?” he asked softly.

The kindness in his voice shattered a little of my control. I leaned on him, giving up any pretense of a queen’s strength. “I asked Integra for slavery,” I said miserably. “I don’t trust myself anymore, Walt.”

Walter, good old (young!) Walter, put his arm around my shoulders. Absently, I noted he felt twice as wiry as he ever did. “I understand, Seras,” told me, tone soothing. “You’ve gone through a great deal. It will get better, though, I’m sure of that.”

I sniffed and realized I was crying. Water this time, not blood. “Do you think so?” I wanted to believe him so much.

“Yes, I think so,” he assured. “It’s written in your horoscope.”

I grimaced against Walter’s shoulder. I could hear a strange, half whistling and half whispering noise and hoped it would go away soon. “How can you draw up my chart when you don’t know my birthday?”

Walter chuckled lightly. “Seras, it took me all of a single day to find you in a hospital birth record. You came into this world on the twenty-third of November, nineteen ninety-one, at precisely midnight.”

I was so startled I forgot how awful I felt. I jerked up and looked into Walter’s kind, heliotrope eyes. “You’re fucking kidding me, Walter!” He’d found out my birthday for me!

He smiled. “I fucking swear I’m not,” he responded. “I was going to save the information and give it to you as a birthday present, but I decided you needed it now.”

I hugged him, just elated at this news. “Walter, you’re the shit, you know that?”

“Yes, I’m amazing,” he agreed, gasping a little. “Seras, I can’t breathe.”

I released him, blushing. “Sorry.”

Walter shook himself a little. Expression turned serious, he fixed me with his intense eyes. “You are meant for greatness. Don’t let setbacks and situations break your spirit, yes?”

“Right.” I dried my eyes. A random thought came to me. “Walter, just curious…”

“Yes?” he asked, eyes gleaming.

“Why the Istanbul to Venice honeymoon? You planned this trip, right?”

Walter smiled slowly. “My wife needs an opulent honeymoon that doesn’t permit smoking. Your master needs to catch the air in his native land.”

I laughed a little, amused at his sound reasoning. “Okay, but why make Integra quit smoking on your honeymoon?”

“She can’t smoke when she’s pregnant,” he answered, now grinning. “I’m merely nipping a problem in the bud.”

Now I really laughed. “Wow. Sir Integra hasn’t had a cigar since we had to take that commercial place to Istanbul.”

“That was a more difficult piece of manipulation.” Walter, looking smug, stroked his bottom lip. “You wouldn’t believe the lie I had to tell for that one.”