Hellsing Fan Fiction ❯ Fare ❯ Bonds of Blood ( Chapter 22 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: Artemis_Vampiress 
They walk into the night, unaware of the danger . . . hope is born from darkness and death
Anime/Manga: Hellsing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Horror / Action | Type: Fanfiction Sequel | Uploaded On: 06.18.2009 | Pages: 4 | Words: 3.5K | Visits: 389 | Status: Work In Progress
They walk into the night, unaware of the danger . . . hope is born from darkness and death
Anime/Manga: Hellsing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Horror / Action | Type: Fanfiction Sequel | Uploaded On: 06.18.2009 | Pages: 4 | Words: 3.5K | Visits: 389 | Status: Work In Progress
Author's Note: No reviews for the last three chapters :( that's not good. How am I supposed to know what you think if you don't tell me? I'm going to keep writing this and I estimate this fic is about ready to come to a close, and I have come to an important decision. Upon the closing of this fic, I shall write another story in this series. More info on that later. And, yes, I know, I killed off Seras Victoria. Just bear with me here.
He'd endured these long spells of emptiness before, years passing by without experiencing any kind of emotion. But nothing like this. He had never felt so dead inside, as if his heart had been torn from his body and he was existing now by sheer force of will, left alone in his body with no heartbeat and no purpose.
Alucard knew he should be dead.
After he'd felt her die, he'd tasted blood in his mouth, and his world had gone black. He'd blacked out for the first time in over five hundred years. When he came to, it was all he could do to sit upright, much less stand. He'd immediately gone to search for her ashes and when he'd found them, he'd buried his hands in it and let it sift through his fingers, and sat staring off into the night for an unknown amount of time.
“Vlad.”
He turned, saw Malakai leaning on a charred tree trunk, watching him carefully.
Alucard stood, his gaze returning to the pile of ashes as Malakai came to stand beside him.
“I'll kill her.”
Malakai felt a deep sorrow in his heart as he looked down upon Victoria's ashes.
“I'll help you find her.”
Alucard's wine red eyes met with Malakai's matching ones and he nodded once.
“Why am I still alive?”
Malakai bit his lip.
“Our bond is stronger than we expected, old friend. It kept you from death and will continue to sustain you, for now.”
“Hm.”
Malakai put his hand on Alucard's shoulder.
“She'll pay very dearly,” Malakai breathed, “I almost pity that Cheshire Cat bitch.”
Alucard grinned, exposing fang. Then he turned and walked away, leaving the ashes that had once been his soul mate to scatter in the wind.
* * * * * * * *
He slid the cool frames of his glasses onto his face and pulled a new clip to reload the Jackal. The old still had a shot left, but that one shot would be worthless, and would leave him vulnerable when he had to reload.
His heavy boots made little sound as he walked the streets of London. Malakai was quiet beside him, and Alucard knew he was thinking of Lansing. Thinking of what he would be willing to do if he lost her. They both already knew the answer.
Anything.
They could have phased or flown to the hidden caverns where they would begin their search, but there was no need, they weren't in a hurry. They both needed to feed, badly.
It wasn't long before they came upon the park where groups of teenaged humans would linger at night.
Alucard's footsteps became utterly silent. There, clustered about a small grove of trees, was their prey. One human girl was perched atop a branch above the others' heads, the others leaned on the trunks or sat on the ground. There were nine of them there, a large group, and they had been passing round bottles for some time now.
Malakai wrinkled his nose, knowing their blood would taste of alcohol.
They fed quickly and carelessly as they had in their early days.
Come morning, there would be nine corpses carried off in body bags and police cars surrounding the area with sirens and police tape.
But there would be no evidence left behind for them to find.
* * * * * * *
There were no living entities in the hidden cavern where they had found Lansing, and all the monsters had disappeared. Scattered across the floor were the corpses of the humans who had not progressed very far into the change, and had to be left behind.
But upon further inspection they found their pathway.
A door that had perhaps once been cleverly hidden was torn from its hinges and thrown across the room, and they could smell her scent, recent, from within.
It opened into a tunnel.
So they followed it, and it stretched for miles. They walked silently, quickly. But they didn't need to follow the tunnel all the way to its end, because after about six miles, her scent disappeared, and Alucard spotted a hatch that would open out into the night.
He broke it open carelessly with a sharp press of his hand.
He lifted himself through the opening and Malakai followed, and they found that her scent traced to a dirt path leading upward, towards the cliffs on their right.
Alucard called the Jackal and felt its weight in his hand, and he began to walk.
Malakai glanced back at the ruined opening and scanned the area for any signs of life with his eyes and his vampire senses. Finding nothing, he proceeded after Alucard.
The dirt path took a sharp incline as it reached the very top of the cliffs and they opted to jump rather than walk.
Immediately, they saw her. She wore no glamour as she sat perched atop a rock looking out at nothing. If she sensed them she gave no sign.
She didn't need to. Alucard approached her with swift, smooth strides, and pressed the Jackal against the back of her head.
He couldn't see her smile.
“Turn around,” he commanded, his voice low and rough.
There was a menace and fury working its way into him.
She did, slowly, still smiling.
If the fact that she was dressed modestly for once shocked Alucard, then her smile shocked him more.
Fitting clothes to die in, but he'd do something about that smile.
He pressed the Jackal harder against her skull, baring his fangs in a growl.
“Did you think I wouldn't find you?” he asked.
Her smile widened.
“I'd thought you would be here sooner.”
Alucard met the remark with a grin of his own, “We had to make a quick stop for some lunch.”
She nodded understandingly.
“I hope you ate well?”
“Oh, it was just fine.”
His hand reached for her and he grasped her chin roughly. She took no notice of this.
“And you brought a friend!” she exclaimed, peering around Alucard at Malakai.
Malakai grinned obscenely. In a whirl of shadow he phased to Alucard's side and bent at the waist to be at eye level with her.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance. It's awfully sad that you'll be leaving us so soon.”
She shook her head as best as she was able with Alucard's grip on her face.
“I'm not going anywhere.”
Hands reached for Malakai and he darted from their grasping fingers. Alucard turned and pierced the monsters behind them with his hand through their abdomen, and they fell.
He felt the cold sting of their magic being released into the air. He could feel it draining at his own powers, but was unconcerned. Perhaps when he had still been a slave to Integra, he would have, but he wasn't, and he had full access to all his nearly limitless powers.
Even if he was held captive by these beasts for hours, their draining magic would still have little effect.
Malakai returned to Alucard's side immediately.
“That wasn't very gracious of you, as a hostess,” he chided the Cheshire Cat vampiress.
She shrugged.
“Even the greatest hostess can make a mistake.”
“There are consequences for every mistake we make,” Alucard said softly.
He squeezed the trigger of the Jackal, and her flesh exploded and her body was flung back by the force.
He kept firing, fired until the clip was empty. Anger was controlling him now, swept him up in its chaotic embrace. He summoned his hellhounds, and they leapt upon the fallen body, devouring.
And then something sliced at them from below, and they were split in two, and Alucard drew them back into himself.
The ruined body of the vampiress began to regenerate.
She stood, half healed, and her hand reached out for Alucard. In answer he reloaded the Jackal and took aim for her chest where her heart would be if he believed she had one.
“Shoot me as you will,” she called to him, her voice echoing strangely, a siren's voice, “I'll keep regenerating. You cannot destroy my body.”
“Would you like to make a formal wager of it?” Malakai growled, fangs bared, and Alucard flung out an arm to restrain him as he fought to approach the vampiress.
“You would lose this wager, my heart,” she crooned soothingly, as to a child, “My body is no longer merely of flesh and blood, as yours are.”
At these words the last of her broken body had healed, and she shook her head, smiling, and her strange eyes locked with Alucard's crimson ones.
“As Seras Victoria's was.”
A feral snarl erupted from Alucard's throat and he lunged at her, and she vanished. When she reappeared he fired the Jackal, the bullets tearing her body apart again and again.
He used this not as an attack in itself but a distraction, so that he could approach her himself, and when he got close enough, his grabbed her throat with one hand and dropped the Jackal, reaching for her stomach with the other, pressing his fingers against the soft flesh.
“I'll tear you apart,” he said in a soft, deadly voice, “I'll tear the living heart from your body and eat it, Cheshire Cat filth.”
She smiled tenderly, and reached up and clasped her hands over the hand that held her throat.
“You cannot destroy my body, my sweet. I've sacrificed much to ensure this. I'm sure you understand. After all, what did you sacrifice to become as you are, the Prince of the Undead? I am the essence of a vampire's powers in a living body. I cannot be destroyed so,” she told him gently.
Her gentle calm in the face of his dark fury was madness itself, and for the first time, Alucard saw in her eyes that she was truly insane. Perhaps her body could not be destroyed, but her mind had been twisted till it was broken.
“If you are so powerful, then why do you need him?”
The Cheshire Cat turned her head to look at Malakai, watching them casually from only a few feet away. She didn't seem to be in the least bit surprised to find that Malakai knew something of her intentions. Or perhaps she simply did not care.
“My powers are limited, I admit this freely,” she replied, “I can restore my body from nearly nothing, I can create my Siphons to feed my powers and destroy masses of my enemies. I can bind all manner of intelligent creatures with my own blood to serve my will, much the same as you can. I know a number of ancient magics that the humans have forgotten which allow me to manipulate and disguise anyone I wish. But I . . . I am limited.”
Malakai sneered.
“In other words, you can create mindless slaved and perform parlor tricks, as any Freak created with a microchip can do. I've spent the last hundred-odd years killing off cockroaches like you. You're just a more resilient roach, that's all,” he spat.
She shrugged.
“Believe what you will, my dear.”
Malakai disappeared, and materialized with his mouth pressed to her ear and his body pressed close to hers and Alucard's, his hand on the back of her neck.
“I'm certainly not dear to you. I'll be even less so in but a moment,” Malakai breathed into her ear, “You have much to answer for. And you didn't answer my question.”
The Cheshire Cat shivered, “I need him because of who he is.”
“And who do you think he is?”
“He is the Prince of the Undead. He is the Dracula.”
Malakai bared his elegantly pointed fangs in a silent snarl.
“And knowing this, still you chose to pit yourself against him? Knowing this, still you chose to destroy his mate and former fledgling? You're even more insane than I gave you credit for.”
Alucard felt an agony in his chest that rivaled the pain he'd experienced upon Victoria's death.
“Knowing this, I took the necessary precautions against his rage,” she breathed in return, her hands sliding up from Alucard's to touch his chest and face, “And continued with my plans to have him as my own. He will serve me.”
Malakai nearly laughed.
“Precautions?”
“I have taken Seras Victoria's lifeblood.”
Malakai and Alucard both looked as though they'd been slapped, and just then, a pair of Siphons who had approached Malakai silently from behind took hold of him and wrestled him to the ground. They were as physically strong as he, and his struggles went nearly unnoticed by the sickening monsters. Then the Cheshire Cat's hands became shadow and reached into Alucard's body and took hold of his slow-beating heart.
The Cheshire Cat vampiress began a low, melodious chant that echoed in Alucard's ears.
As she bound herself to him, she took note of the way Malakai thrashed and the way Alucard's gaze returned to him though he should have been completely immobile and unable to look away from her.
So this white-haired vampire was the reason why everything had gone wrong?
From the moment Seras Victoria had died, the dark Prince should have been an empty, malleable shell of a creature, with no will to move or to live. He should have responded to her summons immediately. But he had not, and not only that, he had defied her will and attacked her. And even now he retained such strength.
“Why do you defy me still, oh my Prince?” she breathed.
Alucard snarled at her, though he was weakened.
“Is it that male? What is he to you?”
For a brief moment, Alucard felt sheer panic.
If Malakai were destroyed . . .
It was only their bond of blood which sustained Alucard now, the bond established four and a half centuries ago to save them from the madness that befell all other vampires of their time. The isolation which drove all the other originals to insanity had only been overcome by their exchange of lifeblood, the first ever exchange of blood between vampires. The pact demanded, every few decades or so, that Alucard and Malakai reunite, and that they remain loyal to each other always.
If Malakai were killed, then their blood bond would die with him, and Alucard would be exposed to the full power of the Cheshire Cat vampiress, and would lose his autonomous will to live. He would exist by her command. And what of Lansing? She would share the same fate, upon losing her mate . . .
Then the panic was erased and Alucard turned his gaze from Malakai. He felt emotion radiating out to him from the corner of his mind that Malakai occupied.
“I am the Prince of the Undead,” Alucard sneered at her, “Do you think it would be so easy to bend me to your will, nameless filth?”
The vampiress accepted this without question somehow, as though she had immediately forgotten Malakai's existence.
“I have a name,” she replied, and resumed her chant.
As if he cared.
Malakai turned his gaze from Alucard and ceased his struggles. He knew he needed to escape form this place. He needed to live, for Alucard's sake, and as much as he would have loved to have a hand in the destruction of the bitch who manipulated the powers against them, he knew that to remain here would mean their own destruction.
He closed his eyes . . . . . . .
Alucard nearly sighed in relief as he sensed Malakai's disappearance.
But then, the chanting ceased and Alucard felt something strange, something utterly familiar winding its way through his soul . . .
She had completed her spell.
She had used her powers and Victoria's lifeblood to bind him to her, much as the Hellsing family had bound him. But rather than restricting his powers, she had tied herself to them. She controlled his powers now, and he was a tool for her personal use, a weapon. This bond made him little more than a gun, like the Jackal.
“My name is Amelia,” she whispered into his ear, and then pulled her hands from within his body.
He used all his senses to better understand his bonds. He could still move as he pleased, but if he moved in such a way that displeased her, she could use his own power to punish him. He could feel his power, but he could not reach it unless it was by her will. He could not harm her. He could receive contact from outside minds, but he could not return the contact. He was isolated.
Alucard bared his fangs, and she smiled.
“Now, my sweet, do you understand?”
She touched his face.
“You will serve me.”
And Amelia opened her mind to him, and he saw everything.
Below ground, three miles from this place, there was another chamber, containing an altar. Upon this altar lay the body of a male vampire, one of the originals. He had died several centuries ago, and where she had been able to use her powers to preserve his body, she had not been able to return his soul. She had tried everything, from sacrificing blood and souls of humans and vampires alike, to ancient spells to recall his soul, and somehow, long the way, she had gotten the strange idea into her mind that another vampire, a vampire driven mad whose powers were unstable, could take his soul back from Death. And so she had enslaved vampires and spent over three centuries trying to use their powers somehow to summon the lost soul. She had even tried separating the souls of the vampires from their bodies by magic and tying them to herself, and sending them into the afterlife to search for his.
But all this had failed.
And then she had heard of Alucard, whom all had believed dead, tied instead to the Hellsing family.
The most dark and powerful of their kind.
And she believed that he could succeed where others had failed.
Truthfully, Alucard wasn't sure if she was right or not, but something told him that the reason she had failed was the reason the vampire had chosen to die to begin with.
Despite her obsessive stranglehold, she was not his soulmate, never would be, and as such had no power to summon him back from Death.
It was then that he knew.
He had to kill her somehow, of course, that was a given. But perhaps, if he managed to learn how she intended to use his powers . . . he would succeed where she had failed.
Because where she was not this dead vampire lover's true mate . . .
He was Victoria's.
His thoughts were interrupted by her gentle command.
“Come, my sweet. We will go now, and you will do as I ask. Let's go to the altar.”
Alucard followed her back to the tunnel and they continued down the path, away from the chamber where her Siphons were created, toward the chamber where the body of her dead lover waited to be awakened.
He'd endured these long spells of emptiness before, years passing by without experiencing any kind of emotion. But nothing like this. He had never felt so dead inside, as if his heart had been torn from his body and he was existing now by sheer force of will, left alone in his body with no heartbeat and no purpose.
Alucard knew he should be dead.
After he'd felt her die, he'd tasted blood in his mouth, and his world had gone black. He'd blacked out for the first time in over five hundred years. When he came to, it was all he could do to sit upright, much less stand. He'd immediately gone to search for her ashes and when he'd found them, he'd buried his hands in it and let it sift through his fingers, and sat staring off into the night for an unknown amount of time.
“Vlad.”
He turned, saw Malakai leaning on a charred tree trunk, watching him carefully.
Alucard stood, his gaze returning to the pile of ashes as Malakai came to stand beside him.
“I'll kill her.”
Malakai felt a deep sorrow in his heart as he looked down upon Victoria's ashes.
“I'll help you find her.”
Alucard's wine red eyes met with Malakai's matching ones and he nodded once.
“Why am I still alive?”
Malakai bit his lip.
“Our bond is stronger than we expected, old friend. It kept you from death and will continue to sustain you, for now.”
“Hm.”
Malakai put his hand on Alucard's shoulder.
“She'll pay very dearly,” Malakai breathed, “I almost pity that Cheshire Cat bitch.”
Alucard grinned, exposing fang. Then he turned and walked away, leaving the ashes that had once been his soul mate to scatter in the wind.
* * * * * * * *
He slid the cool frames of his glasses onto his face and pulled a new clip to reload the Jackal. The old still had a shot left, but that one shot would be worthless, and would leave him vulnerable when he had to reload.
His heavy boots made little sound as he walked the streets of London. Malakai was quiet beside him, and Alucard knew he was thinking of Lansing. Thinking of what he would be willing to do if he lost her. They both already knew the answer.
Anything.
They could have phased or flown to the hidden caverns where they would begin their search, but there was no need, they weren't in a hurry. They both needed to feed, badly.
It wasn't long before they came upon the park where groups of teenaged humans would linger at night.
Alucard's footsteps became utterly silent. There, clustered about a small grove of trees, was their prey. One human girl was perched atop a branch above the others' heads, the others leaned on the trunks or sat on the ground. There were nine of them there, a large group, and they had been passing round bottles for some time now.
Malakai wrinkled his nose, knowing their blood would taste of alcohol.
They fed quickly and carelessly as they had in their early days.
Come morning, there would be nine corpses carried off in body bags and police cars surrounding the area with sirens and police tape.
But there would be no evidence left behind for them to find.
* * * * * * *
There were no living entities in the hidden cavern where they had found Lansing, and all the monsters had disappeared. Scattered across the floor were the corpses of the humans who had not progressed very far into the change, and had to be left behind.
But upon further inspection they found their pathway.
A door that had perhaps once been cleverly hidden was torn from its hinges and thrown across the room, and they could smell her scent, recent, from within.
It opened into a tunnel.
So they followed it, and it stretched for miles. They walked silently, quickly. But they didn't need to follow the tunnel all the way to its end, because after about six miles, her scent disappeared, and Alucard spotted a hatch that would open out into the night.
He broke it open carelessly with a sharp press of his hand.
He lifted himself through the opening and Malakai followed, and they found that her scent traced to a dirt path leading upward, towards the cliffs on their right.
Alucard called the Jackal and felt its weight in his hand, and he began to walk.
Malakai glanced back at the ruined opening and scanned the area for any signs of life with his eyes and his vampire senses. Finding nothing, he proceeded after Alucard.
The dirt path took a sharp incline as it reached the very top of the cliffs and they opted to jump rather than walk.
Immediately, they saw her. She wore no glamour as she sat perched atop a rock looking out at nothing. If she sensed them she gave no sign.
She didn't need to. Alucard approached her with swift, smooth strides, and pressed the Jackal against the back of her head.
He couldn't see her smile.
“Turn around,” he commanded, his voice low and rough.
There was a menace and fury working its way into him.
She did, slowly, still smiling.
If the fact that she was dressed modestly for once shocked Alucard, then her smile shocked him more.
Fitting clothes to die in, but he'd do something about that smile.
He pressed the Jackal harder against her skull, baring his fangs in a growl.
“Did you think I wouldn't find you?” he asked.
Her smile widened.
“I'd thought you would be here sooner.”
Alucard met the remark with a grin of his own, “We had to make a quick stop for some lunch.”
She nodded understandingly.
“I hope you ate well?”
“Oh, it was just fine.”
His hand reached for her and he grasped her chin roughly. She took no notice of this.
“And you brought a friend!” she exclaimed, peering around Alucard at Malakai.
Malakai grinned obscenely. In a whirl of shadow he phased to Alucard's side and bent at the waist to be at eye level with her.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance. It's awfully sad that you'll be leaving us so soon.”
She shook her head as best as she was able with Alucard's grip on her face.
“I'm not going anywhere.”
Hands reached for Malakai and he darted from their grasping fingers. Alucard turned and pierced the monsters behind them with his hand through their abdomen, and they fell.
He felt the cold sting of their magic being released into the air. He could feel it draining at his own powers, but was unconcerned. Perhaps when he had still been a slave to Integra, he would have, but he wasn't, and he had full access to all his nearly limitless powers.
Even if he was held captive by these beasts for hours, their draining magic would still have little effect.
Malakai returned to Alucard's side immediately.
“That wasn't very gracious of you, as a hostess,” he chided the Cheshire Cat vampiress.
She shrugged.
“Even the greatest hostess can make a mistake.”
“There are consequences for every mistake we make,” Alucard said softly.
He squeezed the trigger of the Jackal, and her flesh exploded and her body was flung back by the force.
He kept firing, fired until the clip was empty. Anger was controlling him now, swept him up in its chaotic embrace. He summoned his hellhounds, and they leapt upon the fallen body, devouring.
And then something sliced at them from below, and they were split in two, and Alucard drew them back into himself.
The ruined body of the vampiress began to regenerate.
She stood, half healed, and her hand reached out for Alucard. In answer he reloaded the Jackal and took aim for her chest where her heart would be if he believed she had one.
“Shoot me as you will,” she called to him, her voice echoing strangely, a siren's voice, “I'll keep regenerating. You cannot destroy my body.”
“Would you like to make a formal wager of it?” Malakai growled, fangs bared, and Alucard flung out an arm to restrain him as he fought to approach the vampiress.
“You would lose this wager, my heart,” she crooned soothingly, as to a child, “My body is no longer merely of flesh and blood, as yours are.”
At these words the last of her broken body had healed, and she shook her head, smiling, and her strange eyes locked with Alucard's crimson ones.
“As Seras Victoria's was.”
A feral snarl erupted from Alucard's throat and he lunged at her, and she vanished. When she reappeared he fired the Jackal, the bullets tearing her body apart again and again.
He used this not as an attack in itself but a distraction, so that he could approach her himself, and when he got close enough, his grabbed her throat with one hand and dropped the Jackal, reaching for her stomach with the other, pressing his fingers against the soft flesh.
“I'll tear you apart,” he said in a soft, deadly voice, “I'll tear the living heart from your body and eat it, Cheshire Cat filth.”
She smiled tenderly, and reached up and clasped her hands over the hand that held her throat.
“You cannot destroy my body, my sweet. I've sacrificed much to ensure this. I'm sure you understand. After all, what did you sacrifice to become as you are, the Prince of the Undead? I am the essence of a vampire's powers in a living body. I cannot be destroyed so,” she told him gently.
Her gentle calm in the face of his dark fury was madness itself, and for the first time, Alucard saw in her eyes that she was truly insane. Perhaps her body could not be destroyed, but her mind had been twisted till it was broken.
“If you are so powerful, then why do you need him?”
The Cheshire Cat turned her head to look at Malakai, watching them casually from only a few feet away. She didn't seem to be in the least bit surprised to find that Malakai knew something of her intentions. Or perhaps she simply did not care.
“My powers are limited, I admit this freely,” she replied, “I can restore my body from nearly nothing, I can create my Siphons to feed my powers and destroy masses of my enemies. I can bind all manner of intelligent creatures with my own blood to serve my will, much the same as you can. I know a number of ancient magics that the humans have forgotten which allow me to manipulate and disguise anyone I wish. But I . . . I am limited.”
Malakai sneered.
“In other words, you can create mindless slaved and perform parlor tricks, as any Freak created with a microchip can do. I've spent the last hundred-odd years killing off cockroaches like you. You're just a more resilient roach, that's all,” he spat.
She shrugged.
“Believe what you will, my dear.”
Malakai disappeared, and materialized with his mouth pressed to her ear and his body pressed close to hers and Alucard's, his hand on the back of her neck.
“I'm certainly not dear to you. I'll be even less so in but a moment,” Malakai breathed into her ear, “You have much to answer for. And you didn't answer my question.”
The Cheshire Cat shivered, “I need him because of who he is.”
“And who do you think he is?”
“He is the Prince of the Undead. He is the Dracula.”
Malakai bared his elegantly pointed fangs in a silent snarl.
“And knowing this, still you chose to pit yourself against him? Knowing this, still you chose to destroy his mate and former fledgling? You're even more insane than I gave you credit for.”
Alucard felt an agony in his chest that rivaled the pain he'd experienced upon Victoria's death.
“Knowing this, I took the necessary precautions against his rage,” she breathed in return, her hands sliding up from Alucard's to touch his chest and face, “And continued with my plans to have him as my own. He will serve me.”
Malakai nearly laughed.
“Precautions?”
“I have taken Seras Victoria's lifeblood.”
Malakai and Alucard both looked as though they'd been slapped, and just then, a pair of Siphons who had approached Malakai silently from behind took hold of him and wrestled him to the ground. They were as physically strong as he, and his struggles went nearly unnoticed by the sickening monsters. Then the Cheshire Cat's hands became shadow and reached into Alucard's body and took hold of his slow-beating heart.
The Cheshire Cat vampiress began a low, melodious chant that echoed in Alucard's ears.
As she bound herself to him, she took note of the way Malakai thrashed and the way Alucard's gaze returned to him though he should have been completely immobile and unable to look away from her.
So this white-haired vampire was the reason why everything had gone wrong?
From the moment Seras Victoria had died, the dark Prince should have been an empty, malleable shell of a creature, with no will to move or to live. He should have responded to her summons immediately. But he had not, and not only that, he had defied her will and attacked her. And even now he retained such strength.
“Why do you defy me still, oh my Prince?” she breathed.
Alucard snarled at her, though he was weakened.
“Is it that male? What is he to you?”
For a brief moment, Alucard felt sheer panic.
If Malakai were destroyed . . .
It was only their bond of blood which sustained Alucard now, the bond established four and a half centuries ago to save them from the madness that befell all other vampires of their time. The isolation which drove all the other originals to insanity had only been overcome by their exchange of lifeblood, the first ever exchange of blood between vampires. The pact demanded, every few decades or so, that Alucard and Malakai reunite, and that they remain loyal to each other always.
If Malakai were killed, then their blood bond would die with him, and Alucard would be exposed to the full power of the Cheshire Cat vampiress, and would lose his autonomous will to live. He would exist by her command. And what of Lansing? She would share the same fate, upon losing her mate . . .
Then the panic was erased and Alucard turned his gaze from Malakai. He felt emotion radiating out to him from the corner of his mind that Malakai occupied.
“I am the Prince of the Undead,” Alucard sneered at her, “Do you think it would be so easy to bend me to your will, nameless filth?”
The vampiress accepted this without question somehow, as though she had immediately forgotten Malakai's existence.
“I have a name,” she replied, and resumed her chant.
As if he cared.
Malakai turned his gaze from Alucard and ceased his struggles. He knew he needed to escape form this place. He needed to live, for Alucard's sake, and as much as he would have loved to have a hand in the destruction of the bitch who manipulated the powers against them, he knew that to remain here would mean their own destruction.
He closed his eyes . . . . . . .
Alucard nearly sighed in relief as he sensed Malakai's disappearance.
But then, the chanting ceased and Alucard felt something strange, something utterly familiar winding its way through his soul . . .
She had completed her spell.
She had used her powers and Victoria's lifeblood to bind him to her, much as the Hellsing family had bound him. But rather than restricting his powers, she had tied herself to them. She controlled his powers now, and he was a tool for her personal use, a weapon. This bond made him little more than a gun, like the Jackal.
“My name is Amelia,” she whispered into his ear, and then pulled her hands from within his body.
He used all his senses to better understand his bonds. He could still move as he pleased, but if he moved in such a way that displeased her, she could use his own power to punish him. He could feel his power, but he could not reach it unless it was by her will. He could not harm her. He could receive contact from outside minds, but he could not return the contact. He was isolated.
Alucard bared his fangs, and she smiled.
“Now, my sweet, do you understand?”
She touched his face.
“You will serve me.”
And Amelia opened her mind to him, and he saw everything.
Below ground, three miles from this place, there was another chamber, containing an altar. Upon this altar lay the body of a male vampire, one of the originals. He had died several centuries ago, and where she had been able to use her powers to preserve his body, she had not been able to return his soul. She had tried everything, from sacrificing blood and souls of humans and vampires alike, to ancient spells to recall his soul, and somehow, long the way, she had gotten the strange idea into her mind that another vampire, a vampire driven mad whose powers were unstable, could take his soul back from Death. And so she had enslaved vampires and spent over three centuries trying to use their powers somehow to summon the lost soul. She had even tried separating the souls of the vampires from their bodies by magic and tying them to herself, and sending them into the afterlife to search for his.
But all this had failed.
And then she had heard of Alucard, whom all had believed dead, tied instead to the Hellsing family.
The most dark and powerful of their kind.
And she believed that he could succeed where others had failed.
Truthfully, Alucard wasn't sure if she was right or not, but something told him that the reason she had failed was the reason the vampire had chosen to die to begin with.
Despite her obsessive stranglehold, she was not his soulmate, never would be, and as such had no power to summon him back from Death.
It was then that he knew.
He had to kill her somehow, of course, that was a given. But perhaps, if he managed to learn how she intended to use his powers . . . he would succeed where she had failed.
Because where she was not this dead vampire lover's true mate . . .
He was Victoria's.
His thoughts were interrupted by her gentle command.
“Come, my sweet. We will go now, and you will do as I ask. Let's go to the altar.”
Alucard followed her back to the tunnel and they continued down the path, away from the chamber where her Siphons were created, toward the chamber where the body of her dead lover waited to be awakened.