AUTHOR’S NOTE: this story is for Joanne, who graciously helped me recover a story I lost a while ago. She request AxS, and since I am not good with and do not support AxS, I did the best I can with a non-romantic setting. It may not measure up in quality to my other stories. Blame it on my lack of practice with this particular topic.

MY MASTER’S KEEPER

United Kingdom

Hellsing Order of Royal Protestant Knights

Remaining forces: 3

The sound of massacre. The scent of blood. The beating of helicopter rotors – a modern war drum. Everywhere.

Everywhere.

As she stood beside her master’s master, the new-born vampire felt herself losing to the anthem of war ever so slowly. It washed over her like a tide. And, she was certain, it felt differently now that it would have before. She could hear every detail, feel every movement, see every drop of life’s blood leaving its host. She was different now.

She heard the mercenary laughing inside her as the bloody army of Wallachia emerged from the shadows, from the body of her master. That Alucard, Pip Bernadette was saying, I knew he had a few more tricks up his sleeve.

But though they shared a body, she knew Bernadette did not feel her master’s presence as she did. His power was overwhelming, resonating to her very core. The gallops of his eyeless ghost horse beat inside her like her heart once did. It shook her. All of it. His power, his presence, his war cries.

“That is a true vampire.”

She looked up. Miss Integra was addressing her. In this sea of blood and death, she didn’t even drop her cigar. If the Lady Hellsing was disturbed by the sight before her, she didn’t show it. She felt slightly ashamed at the quivers worming their way through her own body.

“That is Alucard himself,” said Integra. A body came flying through the air. She reached out with her wing and blocked it, slamming it to the ground right next to Integra’s feet. Integra didn’t even flinch as a shower of blood splashed against her pant leg. “Blood is the currency of the soul, the coinage of life. It is no more than a vehicle in the traffic of life. To drink blood is to make the existence of a life one’s own.”

She knew this. On some level she always knew this, but to say it was easy to admit to herself would be lying.

“With you as you are now, you can probably understand that,” Integra said, “Seras Victoria.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, nodding firmly.

oOo

From day one it had being like this. They had always shared that bond, a bridge of blood and memories that linked them. But it wasn’t until now that Seras truly understood how strong it was. In the night, her eyes glowed red.

The Vatican’s army was falling. The Millenium army was being slaughtered. It was as if she was killing them with her own hands. The grip of his fingers around his sword, the wordless orders he sent to his servants, she might has well have being the one doing it all, because she was a part of it. Just like the others, her blood flowed in him, and she felt part of herself on that battlefield.

“Do you yearn to fight?” asked Integra. “Do you wish to join your master in the bloodshed? I understand. It is part of your nature.”

She did. Oh, how she did. But Seras knew it was not her place. Her master, one of her last treasures in her undead life, was entrusting her with a greater task. He didn’t have to order her. She already knew. She was to be the guard for his own treasure.

“No, Miss Integra,” she said. “My duty is to see that no harm comes to you.”

London bled. Crimson rivers ran through the streets, out the windows. A million spears rose from the ground, bearing the bodies of Hellsing’s enemies. Seras felt a gnawing hunger inside her. Not the hunger for blood, not the hunger for killing, but the hunger to be in the presence of her master once more. He was like a black hole, drawing her to him with invisible arms.

And he did come. Through the forest of corpses he came. That night, when London fell, the first time she saw her master for what he truly was.

A king.

And as a king, he knelt before his queen, his armor glistening with the blood of his kills, and offering to her.

“Welcome home, Count,” said the queen.

“I have returned, Countess,” he replied.

Seras searched her mind for words to contribute to this momentous occasion, and in the end settled on the dumbest thing she could think of. “Um, master,” she muttered, “you grew a mustache.”

His laughter filled her mind. Then he reached out toward her. She flinched, thinking he was about to strike her for failing to protect the mansion and allowing it to fall to ruin. But his large hand landed atop her head gently. She looked up to see him smiling down at her, a gentle smile unlike the bloody grin he carried to the battlefield.

“Seras,” he said through his smile. “Seras Victoria.”

She smiled back, a triumphant smile. It was a small victory but a victory nonetheless.

Welcome back, master.

It’s good to be home, childe.

Then, the priest and his holy blades fell from the sky.

oOo

The priest gave up his humanity.

The world is burning to the ground.

Seras Victoria stood her ground by the side of her master’s master, as listened for the vampire king’s voice. The thunder of war could not drown it out. She could still hear it.

Don’t become a monster like me.

“Do you hear it, Victoria?”

She nodded. Of course. Integra could hear it, too. It was that bond they all shared. “Does he regret being a monster, Miss Integra?”

“Do you?”

It was a loaded question she wasn’t prepared to answer. She watched her master’s battled with priest who had forsaken his God to become a monster. They were equals now, both curves, both forsaken. What did that make her?

“Do you even think about your master’s humanity, Seras?”

She shook her head. She had never stopped to wonder what her master was like as a human. The very idea of it frightened her. But she was right. Alucard was human once.

The priest rose high into the sky, a forest of thorns growing from his body. He looked more like a plant than man. Her master raised his gun, only to be greeted with a bayonet through his skull. Seras gasped as thorns sprouted from it, embedding themselves into the vampires’ skin, tearing him apart from the inside. She began to rush to his aid, but was stopped by a hand on her shoulder.

“Not yet,” she heard Integra say softly. “Listen. Watch. Consider this a lesson in your master’s life.”

Flames.

She closed her eyes and let the warms of the hellfire all around her wash over her senses.

Screams.

A figure appeared in the darkness, surrounded by smoke.

Death.

Then, a boy.

She saw the meaty hand in the boy’s hand, the one that dragged him across the cold stone floor and threw him upon a large bed. It tore off his clothing, pushed his face down into the layers of quilt, and forced him to stay quiet and obedient.

O lord, my heavenly father.

He cried. His tears were clear.

Not ever have I entreated your mercy.

Then the boy disappeared, followed by the rumbling of hooves. She could still feel Integra’s hand on her shoulder and wondered if she could see this, too. She saw her master’s army and his forest of impaled trophies.

God shall descent to Earth at last. That’s the new Jerusalem my prayers shall bring.

She felt it. That boy. He was still there, and he was looking for God. He searched for God to save him, to hear his call. The more he killed, the stronger his call became. How he desired it. How he desired salvation. The salvation he can no longer have.

In the name of your God, for the sake of your prayers, everyone lies bloodless, dead.

God didn’t come. The boy had become a man, grown up handsome and strong, but a part of him had died. It died long ago, taking with it belief of a benevolent God. Missing that part of him, he became a crazy king who sacrificed his own people and was ultimately punished for it. God still didn’t come. God never saved him.

Regardless…

“Do you see?”

Regardless of it all…

She opened her eyes. Integra was gazing into the battlefield. She could feel the phantom beating of her master’s dead heart as the priest’s magical thorns invaded it, split it into pieces.

“He had lost hope long ago. He wanders this world like a ghost without purpose. He has wanted to give up many times, but immortality will not allow it. If he is not pushed, reminded of what is real and current, he would drown in his bad memories and snuff out like a candlelight. That is your role, Victoria.”

She looked up in surprise. “My role, sir?”

“You are part of his present, and you will wake him up to that fact. That is something I cannot do for him.” There was sadness in Integra’s voice, but also a stern, inescapable truth. “I represent part of his past. What he needs now is a dose of the present. He is weakening, can you feel it?”

She could. She could very well.

“Go then.” The hand on her shoulder lifted. “And do not forget why you are doing this, what you represent to him – the world has not ended.”

oOo

God never came.

“Master!”

The child blinked away his old tears and looked around. Someone was calling. Was the call for him?

“Master, wake up!”

The crusader lifted his eyes to the light. There was fire and blood, just like the old days, but something was different. Someone was looking for him.

“Master! Master!”

The king who had gained and lost everything through bloodshed searched for the source of the voice. Someone called to him, someone from the new world, apart from the old. The old world faded away in smoke and fire.

She gripped the priest’s blade and stopped its descend through her master’s body. The thorns turned on her and pierced her skin, drilling its way through her limb like worms. The pain was excruciating, but she hung on.

“Master!”

Quiet.

Fire. Fire and thorns all around. Her master opened his eyes and she saw that he was calm. Much calmer than she felt in the face of peril.

“Why so loud, police girl?” he asked her, his split face gazing down at her. “Your voice sounds just fine, like fragments of a shattered melody.”

Master…

Don’t scream, childe. You are too young to die for this battle.

He reached out and grabbed the thorny blade she held.

That’s enough, he told her. You have done well. Now it’s time for you to sit back to watch, and learn a lesson in true monstrosity.

She gave her consent in her eyes.

I will watch, master, but I will not sit back. I cannot sit back now that I have finally learned my role. I will always be your servant, childe, and keeper.