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Chapter 3, Blister in the Sun

Seras Victoria was… Bored? Well that’s a bloody weird thing to say. No, more like tired past caring that she was tired. She’d spent the last fourteen hours buttoned up in Fargason’s old field jacket hauling vampire corpses, after those five able men left of the Wild Geese had dragged those off to a corner on the third floor and stripped them of weapons and ammunition. Sargent Jaffre, a rather compact and stocky blonde man let her know their logistics situation.

“We’re damn near dry on rifle rounds, but between SMG’s and Lugers these pricks are lousy with Nine millimeter, we can do pistol shooting all day long, Ma’am!” his high voice sounded better giving report than it had a few days before, cracking dirty jokes in earshot of her.

and slabs of architectural wreckage by hand, tossing them into the field behind the Manor like so many bags of trash into rubbish dump. She probably didn’t need the jacket, but after the first couple of hours the bright April day had started to feel like a dull sting against her good arm and legs below the skirt. She’d finally cleared the whole damned Manor of trash and trip hazards, only once rifling a half a bag of transfusion blood down her throat like a pint of Ale after a day’s yard work. She’d dug up a pager and given orders to the Barracks staff to page her as soon as Integra was awake. That could take some time yet, she’s been patched up after five hours in Intensive surgery… Now there’s a novel thought, the sweet Police Girl giving orders? It hadn’t occurred to her that Englis was a separate Chain of command that had mistaken her for an orderly, or an NCO at best, and would decide for themselves when their patient was ready to be revived to her duties.

Then she’d found Captain Fargason again in a 2nd floor lounge, finally out of his heavy field gear, almost relaxing in a hard white dress shirt. She was almost tempted to tell him off and rest, but thought better of dressing down her bosses in the same twenty four hours. She’d explained more about the… guest? She’d carried home. The older man understood. Neither of them was sure what would become of the boy, but that was later. Seras dismissed herself with a final salute of the night, only lifting a single bottle of a cheap white wine from the polished Cedar bar. No use bothering the medical dispensary this time of night for a bag of O-Negative, and she’d started to think a glass or two of middle shelf chablis could suffice just fine for an evening meal, or maybe it was just the French mercenary’s wants bleeding through.

Then she dragged her weary feet to the same room she’d left the boy in. Kade. He’d barely muttered it through gritted teeth but she knew she’d heard it right. She stepped through the blown out wall where a door had probably been before last night, and saw her precious fledgling was still fast asleep. Was I really out like a light for a day and a half when I turned? Then she’d remembered she’d died in her True Blues and awoke in… Her own sky blue pajamas. She shivered at that. Of course Walter was too old for that sort of shite but it wasn’t a leap of faith to think that Alucard had leered at her… That train of thought went right the hell away, the mental image seized by Pip’s strong arm and stuffed into the very bottom of her mind’s Fuck-It Bucket. If nothing else she felt better with how modestly she’d handled dressing the boy after his wounds had been cleaned, wrapping him in new long lounge robe she’d found from a quick run to the uniform storeroom.

After another hard fought victory against fatigue, her tired feet carried her to the wash room. A minute later she was in heaven.

A tub that hasn’t been shot up or blasted by shrapnel, and a Hope against all hope, hot water. If her faith in some supreme Goodness had ever wavered, it was restored wholly by this small miracle. She sank into the steaming water completely, steeping and the hot water eased dozens of small cuts and a hundred aches she didn’t know she had. She dipped in her phantasmal black arm, the ghastly limb still felt alien, it had been solid enough to hold the steering wheel and hold guns. She could feel her fingers through the semi formed phantom cloud.

Pip chimed in, awfully quiet now that he didn’t have a real mouth to run. “How about this? How did you grab ahold of my ear earlier?”

She thought for a second. I imagined it, of course. I can give you another too. She thought about it though, not just imagined. Clearly visualized it. Needed it, like fingers to grip the steering wheel. Seras kept her eyes closed and worked her brain. It’s an arm. I never lost it. Its right here on me shoulder where it’s always been. She felt the phantom mass around her twitch. Now concentrate and find a shape that felt right, then pull back into her until the thing held the size and rough shape it was supposed to.

Seras was seating when he opened her eyes again, she hadn’t expected shape shifting was this much work! She looked away from the phantom limb and into the bedroom, using her good hand to splash and scrub her face clean before she glanced right.

“Well ma chere there’s always room for improve-“ Rather than grabbing his ear she grabbed something else, that really shut him up for a few seconds. It wasn’t…right… but it was close. She’d pulled back the flaring shadow form into the shape of a solid arm, never mind that it looked like she had taken that arm off a professional wrestler and the hand bigger than her own skull.

Now she saw her fingers, and a hand almost solid at the end of the mass. She took a few steady breaths and flexed her hand, turned it to and fro a few times. She used her right arm to grab the washcloth and clean herself, scrubbing off almost two days’ worth of sweat and filth and dust and blood until she was afraid the tub water might be too much to drain. The half century old plumbing reaffirmed her faith in all that was good in the world and drained neatly, but left a thin mire of mess in the tub. She stood up and stretched, trying not to chuck as she heard her ankles pop. Maybe she was due for new boots? The shower head came on, still steaming hot and she rinsed herself clean.

It could have been midnight or it could have been next week when she pulled a bath robe about her. She was just about past caring for clock or calendar. Then she saw the one glaring hole in her great design. It was an actual hole. She’d forgotten that the room she’d picked had been breached during the battle the night before. Now it was night again and for the first time in almost three days the whole manor was quiet. Without thinking she grabbed the curtain rod over the bath and jammed it into the gap of the wall. Fits like a glove.

She pulled the plastic curtain closed, limped over to the couch and drank down the last of the wine bottle like she was dying of thirst in the Sahara. She hit the couch like a sack of bricks and less than a minute later was sleeping as soundly as her boy.

Nine hours later she woke up to her ears twitching, they’d gone off like a warning signal five seconds before she heard the beep of the little pager that still sat clipped on her belt. She silenced it and saw a number to call. While she slept a housekeeper had wheeled a cart into the room hung with a few sets of pressed duty blues for her, and a couple different pairs of jeans and shirts that might fit Kade if he ever woke up. She hadn’t even taken the boy’s measurements, let alone told any of the housekeeping staff. That was a can of worms she could unpack later.

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There was a phone on a nightstand by the couch, she took a seat and made the call.

“Victoria here.”

“Good morning Seras. They won’t let me leave until tomorrow; I want you and Fargason here within the hour for full reports.”

Integra clicked off the line before Seras could respond. Good God, she really is as hard as Thatcher. No, if Thatcher was the Iron Lady than Integra a bloody Terminator.

She’d just finished dressing when she saw Kade stirring in his sleep, she’d been worried for a day now he might never wake up. She sat on the edge of the huge four poster bed and watched over him, she had at least forty minutes to spare and could be across the street in five. She should have known what to expect but it was still unsettling. The boy was tossing, muttering to himself. Whatever kind of fight he’d seen during the battle of London, he was reliving the worst of it, she’d come to the same way, through a fever dream of that night in Cheddar. She could make out “You cooked those you crazy…no… oh Gods…” he twisted away from some unseen horror before bolting upright and screaming, and Seras was there to catch him. The screaming died down and became crying, and she was beside him with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

Kade was crying and he didn’t know why, and he was ashamed that he couldn’t stop it. He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder but buried his hands in his face. He calmed down after a minute and wiped his eyes. That flood. That terrible flood of the howling damned. He knew that was a sight he’d never forget. A woman’s voice brought him back to the present.

“It’s alright, you’re safe.” The sound of her voice caught his ear like…like music. Like the disco tapes he’d listened to when he was a boy. He didn’t know why, but he knew she was right. Now, being near her, her warmth, he feared no hurt. He turned to see her face and remembered his savior.

“You’re… the policewoman?”

Then he saw her uniform. An evening blue double breasted duty jacket, the chest pockets didn’t have much room for storage, the high collar was buttoned with a polished, solid brass clip across the neck, with identical epaulets over each shoulder, and his eyes fixated on the Unit patch sitting on her left breast, the gold rimmed heater shield; quartered at the center into checkered fields, the sharp yellow outline of a golden Rook against the red lower right quarter, and the Family’s motto in sable against the top right. Hellsing. We are on a Mission from God.

If she was worried where he was staring, she’s expecting what he said.

“You’re Hellsing!” He scampered back, his hands searching for something he didn’t know was sitting on the nightstand four feet away, but he looked down and saw that the Package wasn’t where he’d tucked it into belt. That his belt, shirt, and slacks were gone and he wore a bathrobe as soft as a cloud wa immaterial. He looked up, afraid? Anxious. “I had a case with me, I have to get it to-“

Seras put a finger to his lips and looked him straight in the eyes and he went silent, she reached over with her dark arm and brought over the case, but didn’t hand it over yet. Her cop brain was working overtime again.

“You told me your name was Kade?” he nodded, his light brown face was showing a pink flush and she took away her finger, but kept her gaze firm and he couldn’t look away.

“Kade, I need you to answer a couple things for me. How do you know about Hellsing? And what’s in this case that’s so important?”

The boy summarized from memory.

“I’m with a special unit, American, our boss has been trying to get into contact for weeks. Your organization’s got a traitor. That case has the proof but… There are three people I was cleared to hand that off to.” He reached for it but Seras got up from the bed and stood up, denying him the Package, but he was sadder to lose the reassurance her arm had given him.

“Who?” she asked.

“The head of the outfit, Lady Integra Hellsing. The second option is a Captain Craig Fargason. If we couldn’t reach either of them directly, the last contingency was, ‘a big scary guy named Alucard’, that’s a direct quote.”

Seras was speechless. She wasn’t surprised to hear that the Americans had a counterpart for the sort of work Hellsing did, but Kade was hardly more than… He was a child! She’d been with Hellsing almost half a year and never heard of working with Americans. Then again she hadn’t really asked. It just wasn’t her job to know. And if anyone would have handled a liaison at that level it would have been… Walter… She handed over the case and deflated with a sigh.

“That traitor has been…dealt with. Sir Integra’s just woken up this morning from surgery. I’m reporting to her with Captain Fargason shortly. You should dress, I think you’re going to have to come with me.”

She nodded at the cart. Seras realized a second too late she’d forgotten the important part. The lad had already crossed the floor to find something, it was almost midday and brilliant sunlight flooded the breach in the wall where the curtain was ajar, he reached for a shirt and his arm passed through a ray of light. He gasped in pain and recoiled, his left hand and part of his forearm smoked with burning skin, she came up behind him and took his arm gently, the burn was bad, but not severe, he’d pulled out in time. They would be reporting to the hospital in any case. Kade grit his teeth against the sharp pain, he couldn’t stop tearing up from the shock. Then he remembered. He brought his right hand up to his neck and felt the twin impressions where Seras had marked him. His tongue prodded around inside his mouth and he found his own fangs. He was shaken, weak at the knees and had to sit back down at the edge of the big bed. Seras sat with him and he looked up at her.

“I…died…”

“You were hurt too badly when we found you. I asked you if you wanted to come with me, you told me you didn’t want to die there.”

She half expected tears… Anger? Fear? He leaned, maybe fell sidewise into her and she held him like that. He closed his eyes and just breathed slowly; thinking long and hard about the first real choice he’d made. Valens had let him run with the big boys for a day and he’d gone and… Gone and what? Fucked up? His two teammates were dead, older and better people than him and he was… Yes sir, he probably had fucked up then. There was no sense beating himself up. There was someone else who’d be happy more than happy to. He didn’t know if Seras would keep him safe from that, and didn’t have it in him to ask her. His hand hurt like hell. If he could take this pain, maybe his mother wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Seras didn’t pester him, all that mattered was that he had leaned on her for support, all that mattered was she gave it to him. The way she held him, her dark arm was both a cloak and cradle; she just laid her head atop his and found herself humming softly, she didn’t know the tune but remembered her own mother had hummed it to her as a girl. She’d probably laugh if she knew it was the tune of “Dancing Queen”.

Kade didn’t know the song either but it was too much, too comfortable, too good for him He came back out of reverie and was terrified of how close he was. She was too warm and he knew how easily he could let go and melt into her embrace. And afraid if he did she could hurt him even worse. He pulled back, reluctantly, and she let him without a fuss. “You said Sir Integra wanted to see us?”

They met Fargason out in the main foyer shortly after, Seras still expected tears but trusted the boy would reserve them for some later time. She’d bundled him in the Captain’s old field jacket and relied on her strong arm to shield him against the day, and the older man took the wheel of the same Vauxhall sedan that Seras had appropriated the day before.

The base hospital ward had devolved almost devolved into bedlam the day before, but held against the flood of wounded. Long rows or bare frame beds filled with hurt men, five General surgeons and two full teams of nurses milling about their duty, but Kade followed close behind Hellsing’s two, he thought of them both as senior officers, as they cut a path to a smaller hall of to the left, where six larger rooms sat secluded for the more important Officers. Before they reached the hall, Seras saw, and Pip saw through her eyes what remained of the Wild Geese Company; those eight who were awake sat up at attention at Sera’s passing, and she was taken aback by the earnest intensity of their salutes. They were saluting her as their commanding officer.

Pip Bernadotte had brought his entire force of sixty men with him when they’d been hired on to supplement Hellsing’s manpower in the wake of an attack on the manor by a company of armored ghouls. Having survived a second attack against a similar number of vampiric Panzer-grenadiers, thirty of his men had been massacred in that desperate defensive stand, and twenty of those had survived the night and five of those had succumbed to their wounds. Fifteen men left out of a fighting force or two companies, and ten of those fifteen sat on the mend in their beds. Seras felt his grief in her. They were his men, the remainder still on duty in the manor standing watch. Pip had led these men, men he’d known for years, some since they were schoolboys together, he’d led them into a nightmare of savagery and massacre, and didn’t even have the decency to survive himself to assume the responsibility Whatever he expected, salutes wasn’t one of them. Their sharp salutes were for Seras of course, who had fought tooth and nail beside them all, come to their rescue, kissed their Captain like a lover as he died; and gotten up from a fearsome mauling before avenging their dead and wounded tenfold on the hated enemy. If he’d felt maudlin about it, Pip felt that miasma broken with the sound of his own laughter.

“They’re your men now, ma cher, as much as they ever were mine. These men will follow you and no one else.”

For the second time that morning Seras was dumbfounded. Honored but dumfounded. She turned to look at these ten brave men, who’d stood defiant in the face of savage terror and death the same way she’d stood. The same way Kade had stood. They too, would be hers if she asked. If she dared to ask them to.

She returned their American salutes with her own, in the English fashion, palm outward. There would be more, later, but it would keep.