Chapter Text
Alucard relished the echo of sheer human terror lingering in the cell. The ghost of hearts pumping madly and barely suppressed screams. Feeling is a tangible thing, and here in this cell after an eternity of empty nothingness, these remnants threatened to overwhelm him.
Upstairs, the girl had finally drifted off in a tenuous sleep, wounds tended, fears relatively assuaged. She was a strange little thing, wild with terror but with the presence of mind to aim a gun at him— not that the weapon would’ve done her much good, it hadn’t been meant for vampires.
She’d let him remove the bullet from her shoulder and stitch up the injury. She’d told him to sweep across the mansion for any more threats— unfortunately there hadn’t been any. And when all had been done he’d returned to kneel before her, this new Hellsing child with Abraham’s eyes.
She’d looked at him coldly and said she appreciated his help (she’d only addressed him as “vampire” ) but if he crossed her— she would kill him.
He knew then that she’d be magnificent .
So he helped her as best he could, and once he sensed her dreaming, he allowed himself to drift back down to the basement.
He had not thought he’d walk out of that cell, and he’d especially never considered walking back in. But the light outside hurt his eyes, and there was so much of it. The moon through the windows, the neon glow of her alarm clock, even a strip of light intruding from underneath the door.
He nudged the bodies still littering the floor with the edge of his boot. Two of them had already gone cold, such a waste. Twenty years since he’s had a chance to sink his teeth in human flesh and he wasn’t even able to drink.
But, oh, there was a sound he hadn’t noticed before. A wet rasp of breath, he only noticed it now because it accelerated at his approach. One of Richard Hellsing’s men had survived, despite a punctured lung and shattered ribs. Only minimal blood loss.
What a lovely surprise.