Chapter Text
Names, names, names.
I’ve had so many at this point that there’s days where I genuinely have to scour my memory for the original one. Not because I don’t care about that original name, but because I sometimes went decades upon centuries without thinking about it. It was still special to me, even though that original life that it belonged to had lasted only a few measly decades.
My first ever name was Sarah.
Then it was Vlad Tepes. Vlad Draculea. Draculae. The Impaler. Vlad the Impaler. Vovoide Vlad. The Romanian Demon. The Romanian Hero. Monster. Creature. Godless cretin. Prince. Blah blah blah. And that wasn’t even getting into all of the names I’d used while in hiding, and the faces I’d stolen just so I could see someplace new.
… My current name, five-hundred-and-then-some years later, was ‘dog’. Though whenever I displeased my Master, it was ‘slave’.
I’d displeased him a lot last time I saw him. Couldn’t quite remember what I’d done to make him so mad. I’d been a creature of violence, murder, and torture for so long that it was kinda funny to remember that the original me would have been horrified by all of it. In the here and now, I’d been stuffed in a little cage underground without so much as a mouthful of blood, presumably because one of my acts of violence hadn’t been authorized.
Or maybe this was just Master venting his frustrations. I made for a tantalizing target, and I knew I could be infuriating. I said and did whatever I liked, whenever I liked, however I liked, and people generally didn’t find that amusing. Complained that it was ‘rude’. Which it probably was. I couldn’t keep proper track of what was rude and what wasn’t anymore. I hadn’t been enslaved for my good manners and riveting conversation skills anyway, so it didn’t matter much.
I’d gotten myself into this situation. And into the situation before that, and the one before that, and the one before that - … all the way back to my early years as just young Vlad.
I’d been an incredibly strange and difficult child, with Sarah’s otherworldly (or maybe just ‘modern’) sensibilities wildly out of place in the 15th century. Oh, the beatings I’d gotten when I had jokingly attempted to wear my mother’s hair pin! Oh the nightmares when I’d been started in on swordsmanship and horseback riding - … that poor stableboy didn’t deserve to have his guts spilled over my sheer incompetence as a fourteen-year-old.
I actually still had that nightmare, though it’d become more of a dream over time. I’d dropped my sword and hurried to the dead boy in some misguided plan to save him, and I’d held his warm innards in my hands. It’d made me violently nauseas for years, and now it just made me hungry. Here in my little prison, my teeth were covered in ancient fuzzy plaque, my gums pushed back nearly to the bone, and the thought of meat would have made me drool if my body wasn’t completely desiccated.
I’d gone a little cracked over the last five hundred years. And that in itself was funny all over again, because Sarah had had what they called ‘mental health issues’. Pervasive developmental disorder, anxiety, and an affliction most usually referred to with a lot of letters that I’d since forgotten. The memories from Sarah’s life tended to stick around as impressions, rather than the near photographic flashes and scents of this one.
Compared to Sarah though, I wasn’t mentally ill, but rather mentally beyond-death. Nothing quite heaped on the mental trauma like growing up in an age where ‘mental health’ might as well have been words to cast a magic spell, and death and sickness were more common than folks over sixty. Boys became of age when they were fourteen, girls became of age when they bled – which was anywhere between twelve and fifteen years old. Depending on what kind of parents you had, you could find yourself wed or kicked out on the very day that was socially acceptable, though most were fine with waiting a few more years.
Oh the things I’d seen and done, even before I became a cursed creature … I would be a fascinating case study for a budding psychologist. I wonder if they already existed, or if it would be a few more centuries before the field would become well known. Did the people from my far-future-yet-far-past really exist? Was there a Freud out there, or was that just vernacular from a diseased mind?
Ah. Maybe I could ask my Master, when he came to let me out. Or when his death erased the chains of control that his family had so painstakingly put on me. He was quite the playboy, my master. I wonder if he has a wealth of choice for his successor, or if he’s had them silenced to ensure none of them could inherit my leash? I’d admittedly lost track of where Britain stood when it came to abortion and women’s rights – most of my time had been spent creating absolute carnage among the lesser monsters, and my Master hadn’t allowed me access to newspapers.
Oh, I had so many questions and theories to annoy him with! No doubt he would immediately regret his decision to free me, but if he’d decided to free me at all, then I knew his circumstances must be dire. Perhaps even the ‘life or death of all mankind’ kind of dire.
… the thought of all mankind dying sent a little thrill of interest down my spine, alongside a far larger chill of fear.
I had an undeniable longing for blood and pain. The idea of the world being so far gone that I could just set out and murder indiscriminately without worrying about governments or organisations, was incredibly appealing. The crushed shards of humanity that were left in me were terrified of death. Of death, and paradoxically, immortality.
What if all of humanity was dead or dying right now? Choking on toxic gasses or rotting away from rampant radiation? What if there was never again going to come someone down to this cellar to undo my binds, because there was no one, not even another vampire, left to unchain me? Would I just slowly crumble into sentient dust over the course of eons, or would I have to wait out the lifespan of the sun?
If my body was more than a corpse, I would have been hyperventilating. I shouldn’t be thinking about those things if I wanted to remain sane enough to beg my Master for release when he came down here. I could beg so prettily if he wanted, even turn on the waterworks if I had enough moisture left in me. Hell, at this point I would probably lick his shoes in gratitude just for confirming that the world hadn’t exploded.
And then, once I was free (for however free a slave could get), I’d make an incredible nuisance of myself, of course. Call in for a food delivery at the mansion with foods that I couldn’t eat, beg my Master incessantly for some blood… Maybe poke at his insecurities a little, and imply that I watched him fuck the head maid that one time. Maybe turn into a woman and flirt with him shamelessly, or badger him into playing a good old fashioned board game with me. Monopoly was its own brand of torture.
I’d honestly settle for a six-hour recording of grass rustling and clouds drifting by, or a video of paint drying, and enough moisture in my eyeballs to make use of them. The best I could do to amuse myself was to count every bone in my body, and then wonder if I should count partially decayed cartilage or not.
Once, before I’d become a monster, I’d been put in a cell for a few days. A quite nice one, considering the time period, but it’d still been a tiny room of cold stone with nothing but hard bread and water to keep me alive from day to day. How strange that that horrible experience was almost luxurious to the one I was in now, and yet I was coping with this one far better. To be fair, I’ve gained a lot of experience with being a prisoner, a slave, a pet, and a weapon, so maybe that counts for -…
…
Vibration.
I couldn’t hear it, but I felt it. The thump of something heavy, falling. The more irregular but no less heavy thumps of a group of people coming in running.
For me to feel it so clearly despite my body being nothing more than a mummy in rags, they had to be standing mere meters away from me. I wanted to see them.
The last remaining dregs of blood in my body stirred – little shards of crusty scabs reanimating my body on what had to be pure satanic bullshit and magic – and muffled voices started sounding in my ears. I started to see silhouettes take shape in front of me, smells started to fade in, and -…
A Hellsing was bleeding.
There were strict rules in place when it came to feeding from my Master or his direct family. Any wounds created by my own hands, claws, or teeth were off-limits. Drinking straight from the source was forbidden without an explicitly stated order. But blood that had dropped on the floor? Or blood that had soaked into cloth or congealed into a carpet?
That shit was free fucking game!
I lurched forwards in my chains until my face was mere inches from the growing pool of delicious blood on the floor. I focused all my ability on lengthening my tongue so I could lap at it. It was already cold, and mixed with filth to boot, but it was blood. A Hellsing’s blood -…
No. Not just a Hellsing. Not with how the bindings surged – this was a potential Master of mine. Seems the old one had bitten the dust. Shame I hadn’t been there to see it happen. I’d promised him that I’d be standing over his deathbed, laughing, among other sweet promises. Oh well, I’d just have to stand laughing over his grave instead.
I sent the newly ingested blood to further strengthen my senses, and watched the world come into focus for what felt like the first time in years. The greyish stone was a sweet, sweet sight, and the messy dark streaks that my tongue had left in the puddle of blood were even sweeter.
Raising my head, I took in the rest of my little cell. A young girl in a blouse and skirt was half sitting on the ground in front of me, clutching a wounded shoulder that was still dripping delicious blood onto the floor. Behind her, there were men.
For a split second, I thought that one of them was my Master. He had a similar face, and his blood had a claim to my leash – but it was about equal in strength to the little lady bleeding out on the floor. Two potential Masters, fighting over their precious inheritance? So predictable, but I suppose I couldn’t blame them. I was quite the valuable tool after all.
Well, whatever. I was plenty content to just sit the whole situation out – a slave master was a slave master no matter how you cut the cake – except the longer I watched, the more something seemed off to me. There was something about the scene that was giving me an intense feeling of déjà vu. Something about the framing, maybe. Or the girl’s eyes.
And then it hit me. I’d seen this before. As Sarah. In a fucking anime.
I probably would have burst out laughing if my vocal cords and lungs weren’t still mummified vampire-jerky. Still, the wheezy rattle of a corpse’s lungs emptying was enough to have all the humans in the room jerk in surprise, pointing their guns at me and forgetting all about the girl they’d chased down here.
The pricks of pain from the bullets were actually kind of nice in comparison to the sensation of slowly drying up and dry-rotting away. And of course, it opened up my favourite argument for making gross human casualties: Self defence!
Moving felt so, so good. Breaking the rotted leather straps around my limbs felt even better. Picking up two guys like squirming capri-suns and messily chugging from them until the arterial spray lost peak pressure? Nothing, and I mean nothing felt better than that.
I probably would have killed the girl too, I was that lost in the sauce. Shameful really - my self-control had really taken a hit after who knows how long, and it was only the bindings that kept me from tearing her throat out after caging her against a wall. Her relative – the ex-Master lookalike – enjoyed the same protection through his blood, and was busy fleeing for his life. Even with all the fresh blood roaring in my veins I could hear his beating heart, and the panicked panting of his breath.
When I finally got myself wrangled back into something human-ish, my new Master was holding one of the men’s pistols, pressing the barrel right up against the bone of my left eyebrow. Safety off, and with mostly proper form too, even though she had stick-thin arms and had grossly underestimated the thing’s kickback judging by the two shots she had already fired (and missed).
“…Hey,” I said, immediately followed by snickering. How could I not laugh? I was Dracula, but the Dracula from an edgy Anime, standing in a basement with an English-Japanese schoolgirl who was holding a pistol, saying hey.
“Stay back, I will not hesitate to shoot you,” the girl said. She had immaculate control over her voice and body, but I could smell how scared she was.
I couldn’t help but laugh again. I’d been fed through a literal meat grinder at one point, and I’d still reformed looking like I’d barely turned twenty-three. Flawless skin and silky black hair included. The girl might as well have been threatening to kiss my cheek. “Oh, you’re a little spitfire aren’t you? Got more balls than those men combined,” I chuckled.
She smelled like fresh blood, and now that she was the only one in the room that controlled my bindings, it was more alluring than ever. I leaned in closer, sending the girl stumbling back and nearly losing her proper form before –
BANG!
“Stay back!”
My head snapped backwards in a familiar sensation of cartilage and bone being pushed beyond their limit. Ah. Being shot in the head reminded me of the … what was it called again. The kay-row practor? Some kind of therapist from Sarah’s life, who learned to crack joints and bones to help reduce pain and aches. Sarah had never visited them, but she had watched videos of their practices for the satisfying noises.
Apparently, it was a bogus form of medicine, and quite a few people got paralysed through it. Oh, I really remembered the strangest things from my first life. Fun facts galore, but not a single winning lottery number to be had! … Maybe I should see if I could get certified for it in this life – it’d be a hilarious addition to my skillset, and maybe I could trick a future master into letting me snap their neck.
Ah, but back to the present. My little master wanted some space.
I let the kinetic force of the bullet drag me back a little, and went to my knees in front of her, my eyes never leaving hers. “Of course, my apologies. My manners mummified alongside me; you’ll have to forgive me.”
I was perfectly polite of course, and my voice was still smooth for all that it still showed some age. Still, from how the girl looked at me I might as well have spat at her like a feral cat.
“My father told me to come to this place if I was ever in a time of great need,” the girl said. She didn’t sound at all shocked at having shot someone in the head – or that said someone had gotten right back up again. I kind of loved her already, what a little freak of a girl. “Why send me here. What use did he have for a monster like you?”
Oh, wasn’t it obvious? I suppose the chains and collars weren’t all that visible unless you knew how to look for them, but still, she had to have some idea. Had my Master really left her that far in the dark? Just, sent her off into the cage of his little slave beast with no other instructions ? … Now I really wished he was still alive, because I would’ve had a field day taunting him over how bad of a father he was being. What a sad, lost opportunity.
“Slave…?”
Oh, oop. Had I spoken out loud again? Nasty little habit, but hard to curb. I just had so much to share with the world! Now to talk some more, but actually on purpose . “Yes, little Hellsing, I’m your family’s pretty little slave. Though your father considered that word to be too humanising – he preferred to call me his dog.”
That seemed to ring a bell for the girl. Her eyes widened and the barrel of the gun dipped down just a bit. If she fired it again, she would take out a couple of my teeth rather than an eye. I wondered if that would get rid of all the plaque buildup, I’d never actually tested it.
“You’re the weapon he talked about – the last resort … it was a vampire all along?”
She sounded so betrayed by that simple fact, and it made me chuckle again. I could barely remember being that young, for all that I often got accused of juvenile behaviour. “Oh yes, quite galling, isn’t it? The greatest vampire hunting group, using a vampire for their dirty work. Or depending on your sense of humor, just vaguely ironic.”
The girl didn’t seem to find humor in it. She glanced at the broken shackles around my wrists, legs, and neck. “… and now you’re free? No. You wouldn’t have spared me if you were.” She muttered.
Indeed, I wouldn’t have. Her blood still smelled so sweet from where it was resting on the floor, but I wasn’t sure if it would be the best idea to indulge in licking the floor clean. I’d already made a dreadful first impression with the whole ‘emaciated corpse’ look and tearing off heads like I was picking flowers. It was far easier to manipulate my Master if they only knew me as a well-dressed young gentleman with a quick wit and a fondness for crass jokes.
Ahh… I really should have played a little longer with that fool of a master. How long did he last again? A week?
I bowed, folding an arm across my chest and making sure to show the little Master my neck. “Indeed. I am at your service, Master,” I said, trying to capture some of that ‘Count Dracula’ charm that had forever changed the way people viewed Vampires as a monster-archetype.
She was quiet for a few moments. I could hear her swallow her spit and shift on her feet. Elsewhere in the mansion, her uncle was barging past a servant, sending a basket of something falling to the carpeted floor with a soft thunk that only a vampire such as I could hope to hear.
“You are, are you?” She didn’t sound quite sure. I couldn’t blame her – I hardly understood how my bindings worked, what luck would she have figuring out the boundaries of the enchantments when she hadn’t even known about their existence in the first place? “Then. Then, I order you to track down my uncle, and make sure he cannot leave the mansion.”
Ah, such vague instructions. It was too bad that I could smell her uncle, or I could have taken the order as permission to simply run free until she yanked on my chain to pull me back. It had been far too long since I’d gone mountain-climbing to terrify poor mountaineers with my impression of a Yeti.
“How kind, how kind,” I lilted at my Master as I got my long bean-pole legs to set me upright again. “I don’t often get to play with my food. You will let me eat him, won’t you? Or do you just want me to hold and terrify him for you? I’m pretty sure I could make him piss himself just by pressing a little kiss against his neck.”
“Just bring him here,” the little Master said, already lining her tone with the steel I remembered. “No, wait, bring him to me. Alive. I’ll-… I’ll take care of him myself.”
I didn’t bother replying, and instead just bowed to her before letting myself fall apart into shadows and blood. I did not have to hunt for my quarry, not when I’d already been tracking him throughout the house. Hilariously, he had made a detour to the old Master’s office, rather than dashing straight for safety. Maybe he thought that there was something hidden there that could command me, or that he could get his victory through a court if he had the right papers in his possession.
I melted out of the shadows next to him, and enjoyed how his scream of fear blotted out all other sounds in the world for one long moment. He ran, and I batted at him the way a cat bats at a toy, sending him tumbling across the floor. I joined him there moments later with a slow pounce that honestly had more in common with a flop, and proceeded to have a jolly good time playing with my food.
My master had said that the man needed to be alive, not that he had to be uninjured, and so I let my nails break skin to smell his blood. Such a shame I couldn’t drink it without a direct order, but smelling it was already a great pleasure. He did, indeed, piss himself when I dragged my tongue over the side of his face. I swore that the presence of stubble and a mustache did something to the taste of a man’s sweat – or maybe it was just his fear that gave it such a unique tang.
I only stopped playing when the man stopped fighting. Playing with dolls had never really been my thing, not even as Sarah, but it was a little more enjoyable when you knew that there was life behind those glazed eyes.
I carried the man back to my Master the same way that a small child carries an oversized plush, his legs dragging over the carpet between my legs and my arms circled snugly underneath his arms. I didn’t have to go far – she had made her way out of the basement and had tracked down a first aid kit to bandage her wounds with.
“Master, look what I found! Can we keep it? I promise I’ll take it out on walkies and clean up after it!” I greeted, holding out her uncle’s haggard form to her.
She looked startled for just a moment, before she buried it underneath a firm expression of authority. “… I see I should have been more specific in my order,” she said. “Is he still alive?”
I chuckled and lifted the limp man’s neck to my mouth, letting my teeth rest against his skin without biting. That, and a puff of icy cold coffin-breath, was enough to jolt the man back into awareness. “No, please!”
“Alive and well, as you can see,” I chuckled. The man had started out by yelling orders to stop. Come to think of it, that might have been why I tussled with him rather than simply slinging him over my shoulder. I hated taking orders - especially from little blood bags that had been moments away from becoming my new master.
I didn’t really bother listening to the finer details of the conversation that followed. My Master – Integra, can’t believe I forgot the name of the third baddest bitch in the entire Hellsing series – grilled her uncle on information. He was reluctant to part with it, but a promise of his safe release from my loving embrace was apparently enough to shake loose some information. I helped, of course, making the right noises and threatening motions at the right time to have his fearful sour scent grow even more rancid.
I pretended he was my Master, and lost myself in a glorious daydream where I bit off his ears and nose and kissed him so hard his front teeth broke away. Then I’d eat all his fingers one by one and drag him to my coffin to whisper my most cutting insults in his ear all night long before I drank him dry for breakfast. … Ahh, it was nice to dream.
“… I suppose I should honor my word then,” my Master said, though I only really heard her retroactively, as she followed up her words with a command. “Vampire, let him go.”
It was a direct order, and one I couldn’t refuse even if I wanted to. A little whine escaped me as my arms uncurled to allow my prey to drop to the floor. “Master, won’t you allow your poor dog to feed? I’ve been so good, and so thirsty-…” I begged.
“Shut up.”
My mouth snapped shut quicker than I could move my tongue out of the way. The dead molasses of my own blood pooled between my teeth.
Integra’s uncle climbed to his feet. Everything seemed so much quieter now, which - … had I really been mumbling out loud for all that time?
“… Th-thank you,” Integra’s uncle said as he started to limp backwards down the hall. He was putting in great effort to keep me within his vision without looking like he was afraid of me. “Sweet, sweet girl- … I … I’ll- … I’ll stay out of your way, I promise you.”
He was a pretty little liar, just like his brother, but my Master didn’t need any warning from me. I smiled with all my teeth on display as I watched her lift her gun and pull the trigger. Her uncle fell, the last of his delicious blood soaking into the carpet and staining the expensive wooden floorboards underneath.
“I promised to release you from the Vampire, but I never promised that you would get to live.” The girl monologued, “One betrayal to pay for another.” I wondered if she knew that the man had died the moment the bullet had gone through his skull, or if her little speech was for me as some kind of warning. I would have asked, but my lips were sealed until my Master deemed otherwise.
Her shoulders sagged a little, as if she was about to collapse, but then her eyes flicked over to me and her steel spine straightened again. She stuck her nose up, squared her shoulders, and turned around while making a flippant gesture with her free hand. “… Clean up that mess, and-… and come find me when you’re done. I’ll have work for you.”
I bowed my head by way of a reply, and kneeled at the cooling body. My new Master skillfully ignored the slurping sounds of me dragging the last few mouthfuls of blood from her uncle as she walked away.
I could smell her tears. Soft silt covering my tongue and flavouring my last little snack of the night.