Imperfection

There was a pimple on her chin.

She could feel it there, squatting huge and malevolent in her skin. She’d always been lucky in that she was not as prone to breaking out like others of her own age, although thinking about it, luck probably didn’t have nearly as much to do with it as Walter’s iron control of her diet.

Walter’s private little war on her complexion was something that had started when she was thirteen and it had continued every day since. Breakouts would see him drastically rearranging her schedule for visits from beauticians and bruising facials. Scrubs and foams and potions would appear on her bathroom vanity unit with depressing regularity, complete with detailed written instructions. Occasionally he would take the drastic measure of seizing her chin between thumb and forefinger and painting her face with powders and sticks of thick colours. There were many things One Did Not Ask Walter, not the least of which included asking where he had learned to so skilfully paint a woman’s face.

Subsequent to all this she found Walter’s apathy to the newly-risen blemish on her chin somewhat alarming.

It itched, so she turned the kitchen mirror back to face her and found a relatively smooth section that gave her reflection enough to pop it. As pus squirted onto the glass and blood began to trickle she realised that, even by her own highly erratic standards, her menstruation was late.

Her burn was refusing to heal.

Her ice tunnel went around the entire house, extending out in several directions. Her knees were black from layered bruises. Her back ached. The blizzard still raged. None of them had any idea how long it had been going for. Day and night were meaningless. With gestures and borrowed words they tried to figure out how long it had been. They all agreed it had been about a week, but that was just a guess. They were all developing a severe case of cabin fever. Middle and Youngest watched her constantly. An invisible umbilical cord had sprung up between the hound and herself, resulting in the near attachment of its neck to her hip. It followed her everywhere. It lay across the toilet door when she was inside, and had nearly shoved its way into the kitchen when she decided to take a bath. While she had cleansed herself she had seen flashes of red all around her as it fought imperfect surfaces and poor reflections.

Without a doubt it was getting hungry. Periodically it would scratch at the door and periodically it would be let out to clamber up through the tunnel she’d made, to break through the crust of snow and hunt for animals in the dark. It wasn’t fond of animal blood but beggars can’t be choosers since Walter was too weak to share his and she simply refused. It seemed the height of rudeness to let it snack on their hosts, especially since her little party were uninvited guests in the first place.

She dug her tunnels. She napped. She tried to work the tangles out of her matted and brittle hair. Middle occasionally made motions to help and was firmly slapped down by Eldest. She played chess, deliberately losing to all three of the brothers although it took a fair amount of skill not to win against the younger two as they played with astonishing ineptness. Eldest wasn’t too bad. Walter had trounced her repeatedly without even trying. She bathed and sponged clean her underwear. When she finally escaped from the house she gleefully planed to burn those garments and her blouse too.

Opening the kitchen door she promptly tripped over the hound and went sprawling headlong into the ground. Someone grabbed her arm and righted her. She looked up as the hound snarled and Youngest smiled and offered her a lopsided newspaper origami flower. She stared at it for a startled few seconds, and then, holding her breath, reached out to take it. The hound jumped up and mouthed her hand, growling –grrrrah!- a fully unpleasant sensation because the inside of the hound’s mouth felt exactly like what it was: cold, slimy dead meat. She snatched her hand away and brought it down hard across the hound’s snout. It responded by rocking back on its haunches and letting loose a wild, maddening howl. Youngest clamped his hands over his ears, paper flower crushed as he stumbled away, fleeing upstairs. She slapped the hound a second time and it glowered at her. She met its eyes steadily and it wasn’t long before it whined and submitted, grovelling on its belly. She grabbed it by the scruff of its neck and hauled it towards the front door, opening it before kicking the hound hard in the backside and slamming the door shut behind it. Sighing, she went and sat on the lounge. Walter was staring at her.

-that was perhaps unwise-

She ignored him –no one’s ever tried to give me a flower before- she felt wistful, and a little sad. She napped.

Screams. She bolted upright. Middle was babbling loudly and she shook her head to free it of cobwebbed dreams.

-what’s going on?-

Walter had the kind of too-calm expression that meant that he was very, very angry –the wind died down, so Tweedledum here went outside to see if the blizzard had finally stopped. He saw- Walter stopped. He took a controlled breath -perhaps you had better go see for yourself, Lady Hellsing- he motioned at the door and obediently she put on her heavy coat.

She slithered into her tunnel, noting with displeasure the little marks on the walls that meant someone else had been there. She thought of the tunnels as her own private space, even though she knew it was silly of her. She climbed up and out, into sleight-grey light. The clouds seemed so close that she had only to jump up and touch them, so thick and solid it seemed that they might come falling out of the sky. The dimness was a thankful thing, because it muted the colours and made the whole tableau a small fraction less terrible.

The doe had died a horrible death. A doe without a doubt, because over there was the uterus with foetus bulging through rents in the muscle. The head had been wedged in the fork of the tree, staring, staring, bewilderment in its frozen eyes. The tongue ripped out, laid carefully across the snout. The carcass impaled on a branch, in through the anus, out through the stump of the neck. Organs scattered around in random patterns. At her feet, a delicate rosette arranged from the small intestines.

No blood. No blood at all.

Her gorge rose and she retched. She clamped a hand over her mouth and doubled over. She closed her eyes and shook.

-your orders?-

Alucard stood before her. He wore a coat, identical to the cut and make of her own, but instead of brown chinchilla fur, his was the texture and colour of red deer.

-what are your orders, my Master?-

He grinned. He gestured at the intestine arrangement.

-I made you a flower, see? Don’t you like it?-

She shuddered. Her legs gave way and she fell to her knees. She spoke and it seemed like her voice was coming from far away.

-I see it. It’s very pretty-

-I made it for you. I made you a flower, to make you happy. Does it make you happy, Master?-

-yes. It makes me happy-

-Master, I see the truth in your mind. You are not happy, and you are lying. I did my best. There were no flowers so I had to make one. There were only green boughs and deer. Deer have such pretty colours on the inside-

-yes, I see. I see that you did your best-

He smiled, and brushed his hair out of his face. The sigils burned into the back of his hands glowed.

-I want to do my best for you, Master. I want to make you happy. Tell me how I might make you happy-

She gazed at him numbly. After a while it occurred to her that the intestines stank terribly and that her knees were freezing. With difficultly she stood.

-it would make me happy if you look for the enemy. Spy on them again. Make sure they don’t come any closer- she shuddered –you may feed off them if you are careful not to kill, not to make any slaves, they are not to know you are there-

-yes, my Master- he crooned –Master, my pretty Master, I gave you a pretty flower- she started as a deafening howl rang out somewhere nearby.

-take that thing down!- she screamed, pointing at the deer carcass. He reached up and tore the branch off the tree with one hand. Wolves were circling, grey shadows in the twilight, snarling, whining, whimpering. They slunk towards Alucard on their bellies with tongues lolling and their tails between their legs.

-my children- he said –my children will watch you while I’m gone. My children, my hungry children, I have meat for you-

-leave- she said, shaking with something between fear and rage. He bowed.

-Master- he fell into a thousand pieces and flew away on tiny wings.

She backed into her tunnel, but the wolves weren’t looking at her. They fell on the carcass of the poor doe and took it to shreds. She watched until Walter called her name and she went back into the warmth.

Middle was being harangued by his brothers –they don’t believe him- said Walter, a trifle smugly. Eldest delivered a smack across the side of his younger brother’s head and stormed off towards the door, throwing on his neon parker as he went. He returned quickly, chattering –wolves, he says, it’s only wolves making a mess outside, stupid brother to panic over a wolf kill- Walter smiled grimly and Eldest fumbled with his rifle, but the wind was rising sharply and there was really no point going outside.

Eventually, Middle settled and they ate a silent meal together, sitting on the lounges and on the floor, eating those horrible little sausages and jelly straight out of the tin. She was too tired to care and as soon as they were finished they all went to bed. She took off her brassiere and stuffed it into her blazer pocket while Walter arranged their fur coats and blankets. They lay back-to-back for a long time. She shivered even though she wasn’t cold and she waited until his breath became shallow and even, with just a faint rasp. She knew then that he was sleeping and she turned over and timidly snuggled against his back. She shut her eyes tight and lay there, furtively, guiltily, and she was just drifting off when she heard something scrape across the floor and call her name. She rolled over to see.

-Integra-

Uncle Richard, impaled, branch thrust through his anus and coming out through his mouth. One-armed and half his skull blown away to show the brain and wolves lapped at the blood that trickled down.

-Integra- wolves circling around -Integra- his mouth working around the wood –Integra- wolves, wolves, slinking towards her, little grey ones long-limbed and lithe, a big red one, six red eyes and polydactyl –Integra- big red opening its jaws, teeth, jaws within jaws spinning and revolving teeth sharp white teeth all the better to eat her with –Integra!-

She woke up. Walter was leaning over, saying her name, over and over.

-what’s the matter? Why are you shaking?-

She said, very quietly –I had a nightmare-

He hovered there, for the longest time. Eventually he sighed. He gathered her up in his arms and he held her very carefully against his chest as he rocked her back to sleep.

He woke her. He gently shook her until she sat up and blinked at him with sleepy myopia. The sound of hardcore snoring rattled the ceiling above them as he threw wood on the fire and lit precious candles so that the room was almost bright. From the unfathomable depths of his valise he took a comb and a little vial of hand cream and seated himself behind her. He touched her matted and brittle hair and slowly, moving from the ends up, worked the comb through the knots and snarls, using tiny smudges of the hand cream to stop the strands from breaking. He clicked his tongue when she stole a little of the cream for herself, but said nothing when she limited it to soothing her chapped lips. The brushing of her hair was a long and tortuous process. She had washed it only with harsh soap and had given up completely trying to comb it, had eventually tied it back and tried to forget about it. Walter was strangely gentle. The sensation, even allowing for the inevitable tugging, was rather pleasurable and she hummed a little as she rested her chin on her knees. Soon enough, a series of crashes shook the building and he stopped, instead quickly braiding the free strands and binding then with string.

-why did you stop? You haven’t finished yet-

-it would be inappropriate for me to continue with an audience-

-why? How would it be inappropriate?-

The door on the landing opened and the first of the three brothers stumbled downstairs. Walter opened his mouth to speak, clearly annoyed, but then his face changed and took on a peculiar cast of mingled patience and resignation –you’ll understand when you’re older- he got up and walked into the kitchen, leaving her to tie back the rest of her hair. She performed the complicated manoeuvre of putting on her bra without taking off her blouse, listening as she did so to the manly grunts of Youngest emptying his bladder. He never, for reasons she didn’t understand, closed the toilet door as he did this. Middle came down before she could fasten the last of the buttons and he caught sight of a bare inch and a half of skin between the base of her throat and the silk. He gave her a cheerful leer and she looked at him with exasperation because he’d seen nothing at all, really. From the kitchen came the sudden cry of disgust –weevils!- and she snickered before she could stop herself.

She let Middle go into the toilet before her, and all the while Youngest stood next to her -câine, câine- he repeated the word, over and over. He finally held his hands to his temples and mimed a panting dog and she realised that he was asking about the hound. Middle finished and she shrugged at Youngest before shutting the door in his face. She relieved herself and poured icy water over her hands to cleanse them. She decided that at least some small pretence of concern over the whereabouts of the family pet would be appropriate. She tugged at the bandage over her burn. Her hand felt strangely numb and it barely hurt at all.

While Walter was occupied in the kitchen, presumably picking weevils out of the oats one by one, she pulled on her fur coat and mittens and heavy boots. Remembering the wolves she moved one of her handguns to the coat pocket and checked that the other was secure in its ankle holster. She opened the door and slipped out, scrambling up her tunnel and breaking the crust. The snow was falling softly and thickly and there was no wind at all. Squinting through the snowflakes on her lashes she could just make out the shapes of the fifty metres away. She hauled herself out and onto the drifts but no matter how carefully she tried to walk she kept sinking down. She was breathing heavily by the time she made it to the trees and pushed her way though the heavy boughs of one, an evergreen pine, its dense needles catching the snow and gathering it, forming a cosy, protected little hollow around the trunk. In this space, the first privacy she’d had in forever, she slipped the mitten and then the glove off of her good hand and shoved them into her coat pocket. She worked this hand though the sleave until her arm was free under the coat, and one-handed she unzipped the front of her slacks. She touched herself, with all of the urgency that only a hormonal teenager who hasn’t been able to do it for weeks could muster, keeping her mind carefully blank, and when she finished she shuddered and slumped against the hard wood with a relived sigh. She had the wits to refasten her clothing but otherwise she drifted, thinking idly of doing it again, wondering how it was that she wasn’t embarrassed by the memory of Walter’s arms around her last night. It was exactly the way Daddy had rocked her to sleep when she was a little girl, and by rights she should have been mortified, letting herself be treated like a silly child.

She snapped into awareness at the crunch of snow outside of her tree. Unmistakably footsteps, one two, one two. Bipedal. A bear? Unlikely. No telltale heaviness at the base of her skull, so it wasn’t Alucard. Human, then. She slipped her arm back into her coat sleeve and fingered the handgun in her pocket. She heard him call her name –Laydee Integrrralll- a guttural sing-song. Heavy accent. She wondered which of the three it was – Laydee Integrrrrralll, iubito, scumpul meu- a choice between Youngest or Middle, obviously. Youngest she could probably bluff. Middle she would probably have to shoot. She slipped her palm around the grip and put her thumb on the hammer. She pulled it back with a satisfying click and he sniggered. She waited. Something brushed the heavy branches, heavy lumps of snow slithering off the slick needles.

She heard something growl.

Not the hound. The hound could pack the depths of hell and damnation and promises of torture, defilement, and despair into a single short growl. This growl was something simpler and much more basic. It said, quite eloquently, that it wanted to eat and that fresh and bloody meat happened to be standing right in front of it. Frightened gasps; the clatter of fumbling hands on a rifle, only now discovering that the weapon had been quietly rendered useless even though to all outward appearances it was sound. The bear whimpered and stumbled away through the snow, and she, thinking it was best to wait a while before returning to the house, squatted down on her heels and set the rest of her clothing to rights. She wondered what it would have been like to lie down with the man, whichever one it had been. She listened to her pounding heartbeat and wondered if what she was feeling was desire. She suspected not.

There was movement outside of her little shelter, and as she watched a pale muzzle push under the branches. She aimed the gun. Intellectually she knew that the wolf would not hurt her, but intellect was suddenly drowned in a million years worth of monkey instinct rushing up from her hippocampus. The wolf sniffled and snuffled, and soon withdrew. She waited a little longer, starting to shiver because it really was very cold, until finally she shoved her ay through the branches, cursing when a lump of ice suddenly worked its way in between her collar and her neck. She beat at it, making futile scrapes with her bare hand but she knew she was only making it worse. She glanced up and froze. The wolf was sitting just in front of her, waiting calmly, and what’s more, the snowfall had become heavier. She could no longer see the sharp points of the house roof. She could no longer see where she was. She was lost in the snow.

The wolf, creamy coloured and elegant, yawned. The pink mouth was vivid and violent. It trotted up to her, completely unafraid, brushing against her coat, fawning, affectionate. It scrapped at her boots with a narrow paw, and after so long around the monstrous hound, she felt a sense of shock at seeing the delicacy of the claws. It turned abruptly and trotted off, pale coat quickly becoming almost indistinguishable against the snow. Only its vulva, swollen and distended, was distinctly visible and when the wolf-bitch yipped over its shoulder at her she lunged forward, following desperately. She chased that spot of red, slogging her way through the drifts, the animal hesitating often, whining encouragement when her clumsy human feet sank into the white and were stuck. It didn’t take very long because they weren’t all that far from the house after all, and very soon the bitch stopped at a certain spot and dug energetically. The snow tunnel, entrance collapsed in on itself. She forced her way to the animal’s side, picking up the compacted chunks and throwing them aside. The entrance was almost clear when she heard the sound of the pack.

The unlikely pair was surrounded by tumbling wolves, long-limbed and lithe, coats in every shade from white to black. The bitch was pushed, nudged away from her while she stood still as not to provoke them. The pack was excited and feral. The creamy bitch was nipped and teased mercilessly while it cringed in submission. She took her gun out of her pocket, gloveless hand blue with cold and pointed at the wolves, uncertain whether she should go to the rescue of her rescuer. She was shaking so much that she could barely aim and she stood there, indecisive, when finally an iron-grey dog lashed out with his teeth. The other wolves scattered away, out of reach of the dog-wolf’s fangs, but stayed close. When the dog mounted the bitch and began to hump energetically she whimpered and pressed her mitten to her face. She was surrounded by filth. She felt dirtied. Dropping to her hands and knees she slithered backwards into the tunnel, unwilling to turn her back on the animals for an instant.