Hellsing Fan Fiction ❯ Amoare ab Hostis ❯ Chapter 6 ( Chapter 6 )

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Alexander Anderson had been a young boy of seven when his parents died. They'd owned a small furniture store outside of Dublin in the suburbs. His father had taught him how to soak and oil wood to make it supple. How to bend and shape it, to carve and wittle it into beautiful pieces fit for the drawing room of the wealthy elite. He'd been trained since he was able to hold a chisel to follow in his father's footsteps.

That is, until the night his mother and father were murdered.

He'd snuck down the stairs that didn't creak due to his father's talent, and out of the house to the shop next door. He used the spare key he'd snuck from the bottom drawer of his father's work desk to open the door with an elaborately engraved sign, "Anderson: Master Carver". He wanted to surprise his father by finishing the framework on the armchair they'd been laboring over that day, which they were behind schedule on.

He had barely picked up the edge knife before he heard the sound of shattering glass. He would forever remember the sound of his parents' screams drifting through the night air. Alexander dropped the tool and ran back to the house, his breath burning in his lungs as he lunged up the stairs as fast as his short legs would carry him. When he reached his parent's bedroom the door had been forced open, and the scene that met his seven-year-old gaze would remain with him for all of his years.

His parents lay on their marriage bed admist their own gore. Their throats had been ripped out, and the frayed ends of veins and arteries could be seen, still pulsating weakly. Blood flowed thick and sticky down their chests and onto the bedspread, spreading every outward in a great plume. It began to drip onto the floor, Plip plop, plip plop...

Alex couldn't move, he didn't dare to breathe, nor make any sound. He shook all over, his small body beginning to suffer the first stages of shock as his fists twitched at his sides.

Plip plop, plip plop...

He let out a low moan of despair, finally bringing himself to rush toward the bed in a lunge born of desperation. Something caught him by the back of his coat and gave it a sharp tug, sending him sprawling onto his back. He stared up into a face from his nightmares, with hollow eye-sockets and sunken cheeks. The gray skin sagged on its face, creating jowls near the cracked, gaping mouth. Alex screamed, scuttling away on his hands and backside over the wooden floor.

"Stay away from me!" He shreiked shrilly.

The thing took slow, unsteady steps towards him, bending ever lower. It seemed uncoordinated and slow-witted. Alex quickly ducked under its legs and ran to the doorway, only to have it blocked by more of the obscene creatures. They reached out dead fingers to pull at his coat, hair, collar and anything else they could grasp. He found himself in the middle of a tight circle of dead corpses, and he began to cry.

After a time the ghouls parted in a horseshoe manner around him, their lifeless faces turning towards the doorway. A form appeared, sillouetted against the dark doorframe. He chuckled lowly under his breath, a dark, chilling sound that brought shivers to Alex's spine. He sniffed loudly, his cheeks wet and quivering as he stared at the thing in front of him that seemed to be controlling the things around him.

"How pretty," the thing murmured. "Such a pale piece of moonlight, all white skin and golden hair..."

Alex began shaking worse than before as the man-thing stepped forward into the dimly lit room, his chin-length brown hair swaying with each step. He had the look of a beggar. His clothes were ill-fitting and torn in some places. His unnatural red eyes were blood-shot and beady. But for all of his haggard appearance, he was terrifying.

"I believe," he began, his voice sultry and dangerous. "You dropped this."

Long, dirt-streaked fingers pulled the forgotten edge knife out of a frayed jacket pocket. Alexander's eyes rounded in fear as he stared at the gleaming silver instrument held before him. The man-thing took a step closer, twirling the tool in his hand as he looked down at Alexander with a lustful, insane light in his eyes.

"Are you afraid, Moon Child?"

Alex nodded slowly, feeling faint and sick to his stomach.

"You should be," the man-thing grinned maliciously, nodding to the ghouls behind Alex.

The response was immediate. Dead hands clasped him tightly once more, lifting him off the ground so that his face was even with that of the being in front of him. He screamed, struggling against them, nearly retching when his hand or cheek brushed dry, scaly cold flesh. The man-thing laughed.

"Stop!" Alex kicked out at the thing in front of him.

"But I haven't ever started yet." It crooned sweetly.

More dead, rotting hands grabbed his ankles and held him steady, so that Alex could only jerk futiley against his captors. The man-thing approached him again, the edge knife held aloft, with that same crazy look in his eyes. Alex barely had time to cry out before the blade cut deep into his left cheek. The being in front of him gasped in pleasure as blood pooled around the wound before slipping down Alexander's pale cheek. Alex yelled hoarsely as he dragged it slowly in a long line down the side of his face. Tears mingled with blood and the man-thing's cruel chuckles rang in his ears, pain and shock weighed heavily down on Alex and he felt blackness behind to intrude on the edges of his mind.

A loud noise upsetted his slow decent into unconsciousness, followed by the clanging of the edge knife as it fell to the ground. Alexander opened his eyelids heavily and with great effort to see through a watery haze many dark figures filing into the room. He was released and hit the floor in a boneless heap, and sound of struggle issued from all around him. He was dimly aware of coughing and sneezing as he breathed in large amounts of dust, before blackness claimed him.

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Now Alexander stood as a young man of thirteen years old, silently contemplating the last few lines of the Mass. Bodies shifted around him, eager to escape. He resisted the urge to snarl at them in disgust. These people, these fools, did not want to be here in the house of The Lord. They forced themselves to come, week after week, too afraid to turn their back on Him, and too weak to truly understand His love. Did they not think that God, in all of his infinite wisdom, could see the apathy in their hearts? They sickened him.

Trying to remain in a state of meditation and reflection was difficult with vermin swarming around him. Somehow he managed to reach that place, the one he struggled for every week. The place where a silent click went off in his head as he thought of the priest's sermon, and suddenly he could relate to it. Put use to the knowledge it brought.

So many sinners merely came to Mass and nodded their heads knowingly, occasionally murmuring agreement or sobbing delicately behind lace hankercheifs, as though touched by the words of the man behind the alter. He found it to be a distasteful display of false faith. Blasphemy at its most revolting.

But not Alexander. No, every Mass...for he attended them three times a week...he would stay perfectly still, his eyes closed in deep thought, as he reflected on everything he'd just been told. He would wait for the moment when it all came together to form a single, solid truth. Some nights it took longer than others. Some nights every word, every syllable that rolled off of the priest's tongue was like an angel's call to him, singing sweetly in a language that only he could understand. Others it was as though the Devil himself were using the holy capsule of the priest to speak his demon's tongue, deliberately trying to confuse Alexander and frustrate him enough to lose his faith.

But his faith, his devotion to the Church was unshakeable. He was a devout Catholic and a good young man. He lived his life by the Book and followed God's every written law to the best of his ability. After his rescue by the Iscariot special force unit when he was seven years old, Alexander had devoted his life wholly to repaying the debt he owed the Vatican and God for sparing his life.

And it would seem that his efforts had not gone unnoticed. He was well aware that he had been receiving special treatment since he was a young boy. The other boys didn't have the additional lessons, the extra time and energy spent on them as did Alex. He knew he was being prepared for something. He knew he was being trained.

And he had a meeting with the Pope himself tomorrow to find out just what he was being trained for.

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