The Child of Seras - by MindAsylum - Anime - http://www.hellsingfanfic.net/hellsingfanfic/The_Child

The Child of Seras

Chapter XXI

The White King's Dream

The London Bridge. A white van, stuffed with nine soldiers and one “inhuman auxiliary,” crept slowly along with the thick rush-hour traffic. From the passenger seat, Jake looked out the window at the sky, much like he had when Seras had taken him to the park. The sun was gone, but the light was not. He wasn’t sure he liked it; if he didn’t know the time, he could have mistaken it for dawn. He stilled his hand for the fourth time in the last hour, while Mick, oblivious, released and pressed the brake in time with the traffic, muttering the words to a song by The Who. Jake wasn’t sure when or how this habit had started, but sometimes, when he wasn’t paying attention, he found himself scratching at whatever his hand was laid upon. If he hadn’t caught himself the first time, the large weapons case on his lap would have had a fist-sized hole in it by now. Luckily, the hum of the engine, the soft static from the radio, and the gentle breeze of the road passing beneath his feet kept any of the other soldiers from hearing it, but Jake’s anxiousness wouldn’t allow him to keep it up.

He’d noticed it first about a week into his reading. He’d gone through almost half of Hellsing’s files, absorbing the text almost word for word--he’d never known his memory to be so powerful—and had just finished his twenty-seventh combat report when his eyes wandered a few inches to the right and saw that his nails were carving grooves in his mahogany desk. At first he was a little embarrassed with himself; all that noise and he had to finish a chapter before he’d even noticed. But later that morning, after he’d finished the book, clipped his nails, talked with Seras, and gone to bed, it had started to bother him.

Months ago, during a spat with Alucard in the library, Jake had forgotten himself and smashed a table to pieces. The outburst was only momentary, but when he’d seen the No Life King’s pleased face, the reality of what he’d done instantly twisted his hatred into terror. All his life, he’d never been even remotely strong, and suddenly he was able to lift a man twice his size without so much as a shrug.

Or tear one apart in a fit of rage.

And now his hand was moving without his permission; without his knowing, even. He was just starting to dismiss it as pre-op paranoia when, at the bridge’s end, a stern voice crackled over the radio: “This is Red Queen to March Hare, do you copy?”

Mick picked up the receiver and replied, as if it were the best news he’d heard all day: “March Hare here, read you clear as glass, over,”

The guise of a police raid, Integra had explained, was vital to the suppression of the mission’s true nature. As such, she’d assigned codenames to the key figures. Jake thought the choice of motif was a bit ridiculous, but that was probably the point.

“Status?”

“A steady five kilometers from the Mad Hatter’s tea party,” Mick answered, clearly amused by all this Wonderland business. “Shall we commence painting the roses red?”

There was a silence on the other end, followed by a quick, “Repeat that, March Hare?”

Jake leaned over, put his hand over the receiver and whispered tensely, “That was the cartoon, not the book.”

Mick looked surprised. “They’re not the same?”

Jake only knew because the book was Ceil’s favorite. She’d read it to him so many times he could almost recite pages of it from memory alone. She had always looked upon it with a sense of wonder, and so had he, but there was one part he could never understand, that provoked an strange dread in him even as he recalled it:

“`He's dreaming now,' said Tweedledee: `and what do you think he's dreaming about?'

Alice said `Nobody can guess that.'

`Why, about YOU!' Tweedledee exclaimed, clapping his hands triumphantly. `And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you'd be?'

`Where I am now, of course,' said Alice.

`Not you!' Tweedledee retorted contemptuously. `You'd be nowhere. Why, you're only a sort of thing in his dream!'

`If that there King was to wake,' added Tweedledum, `you'd go out -- bang! -- just like a candle!'”

Mick returned to the radio and Jake to his seat: “The card soldiers are suited up and ready, Red Queen.”

“And the White Rabbit?”

Mick flashed Jake a knowing smile. “Ready as they come, Your Majesty.”

Seras’ voice interjected in a soft whisper, “Alice to Red Queen, Cheshire Cat and I have arrived on site. The tea party is underway. Four limousines, three taxicabs and…one truck, an eighteen-wheeler. Must be how the ‘Hatter ships his tea across town.”

Visions of a truck loaded with human cattle, bound, drugged, and caged, swam past Jake’s eyes. His jaw tightened. Steinman was lucky man. If Integra hadn’t spent half the briefing stressing the importance of his “cooperation,” death was only the last point of a long list of things he’d like to give the parasitic bastard.

“Hey kid,” said Mick, as friendly as ever, “I understand if you got the jitters, but could you cut that out?”

Jake looked down and saw four scratches on his black weapon case. Somehow, the gloves hadn’t helped. He cursed inwardly.

“Sorry.” He said quickly, replacing his grip on the side handle. He had to clear his head, to stay focused; the last thing he wanted was a rerun of the metro station. This is it, he thought, if I blow this, there won’t be any second chances. Not for me, or the people in that truck.

“…minimum of nine partygoers,” continued Seras. “Could be as many twelve.”

“Thirteen,” corrected Alucard with insufferable smugness, “Don’t forget the truck driver, Alice.”

Jake could almost hear Seras glare over the radio.

“Red Queen to March Hare: prepare the scones. Alice and Cheshire, standby.”

Mick confirmed the go-to phrase and went off the main roads. The target was the recently-bought sight of the former Langston’s Butchershop and Deli. Steinman’s idea of a joke, Jake guessed. He found it strange that so soon after a fiasco like the metro station, Integra was able to pull her resources together quickly enough not only to tap Steinman’s phone, but to discover him in the first place. He didn’t notice it at the briefing, but Integra normally stated the agency that provided the intel for each mission, but this time she never even mentioned it. This mission was of considerable importance, so it made sense if she wasn’t showing her cards, but still, Jake felt the twitch in his fingers grow harder to resist the more he thought about it.

After they were two kilometers away, Mick grabbed the radio and said with unmasked satisfaction: “Scones are hot an’ ready, Red Queen!”

Jake rolled down the window, and stuck his head out just barely, his eyes focused on the rooftop Seras and Alucard stood on. It was a strange thing, to see through a vampire’s eyes; everything looked just as far away as always, but everything is just as clear as though it were up close.

“Alice, confirm.” said integra.

Seras smiled from afar, and even from two thousand meters, Jake could see the deep breath she had taken, and the wistful stretch of her lips. When she spoke into the radio, it was as if she were right beside him.

“This is the stupidest tea party I’ve ever been to.”

“White Rabbit, Confirm.”

Jake felt Mick speed up to catch a yellow light, took the radio and said: “I’m late…I’m late…I’m—“

“Shit!” Mick screamed.

Jake didn’t turn around, because Seras’ eyes had gone wide and her mouth had wrung open into a cry that he couldn’t hear over the explosion of tearing metal and shattered glass. The van twisted to the left, and all Jake could see was a pair of headlights growing bigger and bigger until they and all else disappeared. There were car horns and the smell of blood and gasoline, and a voice marred by static, pleading for him to wake up, wake up, wake up…

A balloon of fabric pushes against him. Airbag. He gasps and frantically beats it with his little fists—both of them?—as if it were trying to chew his face off. It deflates slowly, giving him a view of the smashed windshield and the dashboard he could barely see over. He looks on the driver’s side. A girl of seventeen sits hunched over, her nose broken against the steering wheel. Her long black hair is sprinkled with shards of glass. Blood runs from her nose down the center of the wheel where her airbag should have deployed and falls into her lap in steady, careful drips like a broken faucet. “Ceil…?” he utters, as though he’s just recognized her. But she does not move. One hand hangs limply at her side and the other loosely grasps the steering wheel, the same hands that had taught him how to speak to everyone without ever saying a word. Jake’s small voice calls her name a second time, then another, then another as though it is the only word he knows. The dripping gets louder; he soon has to shout over it to stop himself from counting the seconds between each lazy smack. Her hair covers her eyes and most of her open mouth that had sung a hundred songs and told even more stories. He cannot touch her. He’d kill her if he touched her, he knows this as surely as a mouse knows that if he looks away from the snake’s eyes, he’ll be eaten. Five minutes pass and now the tears scold his face and his throat feels like it’s been scraped with a wire brush. Still, he keeps reciting her name, as though it contained all the words of the Lord’s prayer and the Upanishads and every other holy benediction ever written or imagined. The drip stops, and suddenly he realizes it is not enough. She’s moved no more than she had five minutes ago, no more than she ever will again. Jake knows this; he has been in this passenger seat a thousand times and it has never changed. But then he says something new, something he never stayed long enough to hear:

“Wake up!”

Her jaw moves a little.

“Ceil, please wake up!”

Her head shifts, and a few shards fall from her hair. Her breath comes softly from her mouth--or is it only the wind? He quiets himself and listens, harder than he’s listened to anything in his life, and he hears it again. Nothing he had heard before or since could ever match the beauty of her pained groan as she peels her forehead from the wheel and turns to him with sleepy blue eyes. She doesn’t even check herself for injuries as she puts an arm around him, rests her head on his small shoulder, and cries. They cling to each other, afraid to move or speak, for fear that Death might hear them and correct its mistake. A moment passes, then a minute, then an hour, and two car doors slam shut as a pair of voices, an old man and woman, call to them, and they realize that in spite of everything, they are still alive.

“Ferguson…Ferguson report!”

As if he’d been drowning, Jake sucked in a breath that escaped in a growl of pain. A piece of metal, most likely the frame, had torn out of the dashboard and through his gut, almost pinning him to his seat. Through the window he’d seen Seras out of moments ago, he could see only a close-up of asphalt and glass. The van had been overturned. Oil and blood crept into his nostrils as he looked down and saw Mick’s head dangle limply by his side, while everything from the waist down was held in place by the seatbelt. The blood squirting from his nose and mouth was all over Jake’s lap and the smell of it was so sweet it sickened him. He heard a heartbeat, but it was fading fast. Déjà vu crept into him and he was just as small and afraid as he had been moments ago, in the dream so vivid and clear he could have mistaken it for memory.

“Jake? Mick? Somebody pick up the bloody radio!” pleaded Seras.

He returned to himself and grabbed the radio receiver swinging idly in his face. The code words had been dropped; not a good sign. He gritted his teeth and spoke into with shallow breaths.

“Mick’s alive, but he won’t last long. We need a medic onsite now!”

“What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me, I just—“ he looked down at the frame that impaled him. Somehow, it had bent sideways halfway through him. He knew what had to be done, and there wasn’t any time to be gentle about it. He clenched his teeth and grasped the metal spike in his hand.

“I didn’t get all that, what did you—“

Without giving himself the chance to hesitate, he ripped the metal hunk at an upward angle, through his kidney and out of his side. A growl seethed through his teeth as cold blood ran down his thigh while the gaping wound slowly began closing itself. Something was missing and he paused for half a second to think of what.

The car horns had stopped.

“How long was I out?” he choked into receiver.

“About…two and half minutes.” Said Seras hastily, “Listen to me: one of Steinman’s scouts spotted us.”

“What?” Jake spat.

“We shot him down before he could blow our cover, but Steinman’s been calling each one every ten minutes like clockwork. If he doesn’t get a response, we’ll be found out!”

“Rivers, report!” commanded Integra, “Is Corporal Braxton combat-capable? How many are wounded?”

Jake turned back, re-opening his wound, toward the heap of groaning soldiers in the back.

“Status!” he shouted, forgetting his rank and that he’d never given an order in his life.

Jackson clambered upright and faced Jake through the grate while Riley, his left arm limp at his side, forced the back doors open.

“Braxton’s down!” barked Jackson. “’Can’t feel his legs. And Riley’s—“

“—still plenty able to shoot a gun,” finished the Irishman.

“Any second now, he and the others are going to scatter like roaches in a floodlight,” assessed Integra gravely, “We have no choice but to move in now.”

“What about our wounded?” Jake demanded as he kicked open the windshield, tossed his weapons case out of the opening, and wormed out of the van.

“Hellsing does not leave its men behind. Medics are already on their way. Prepare Ferguson and Braxton for extraction and head toward the target at once.”

Jake quickly opened the case, put in the earpiece, and pulled apart the rest of the windshield so he could get Mick out as quickly and safely as possible. He and Jackson carefully lifted Mick onto the street next to the Braxton. He went to respond, but stopped a moment, unsure that he’d heard his commander right. He spoke a little lower, so that no one would hear him over approaching sirens.

“Ma’am, are you asking me to take command?”

“No Rivers,” she said tersely, “I’m ordering. You have at most eight minutes so take the alleyways. Are we clear, soldier?”

Jake’s hand was shaking. Mick’s heartbeat was fading, and Jackson, who had been watching him as if he’d disappear if he blinked, was now trying to read his orders through Jake’s baffled face.

“Are we clear?”

His face tightened and his hand stopped shaking. He was being trusted with salvaging the raid, and as afraid as he was of a bad decision, he was much more afraid of not making one at all.

“Yes sir. Will advise once Mad Hatter is secure.”

“God and the Queen be with you.”

He heard the link close off and turned to Jackson’s eager face.

“Well?” he urged, “Are we phoning it in?”

“No,” said Jake soberly. The Hellsing’s “ambulances” were already preparing stretchers for Mick and Braxton. He turned to the others, some of whom had just walked out of the wrecked van. A crowd of gawking onlookers had been gathered, and the cops still hadn’t shown up to bar them off.

Jake could hardly think of a worse time to learn managerial skills.

“Everyone!” he shouted over the sirens, “The operation has commenced. We’re moving in!”

“Under whose command!?” said one soldier, Crowley if Jake remembered correctly, “Both our officers are down!”

“Mine.” Said Jake, praying that, between the sharpness of his voice and the harshness of his face, he didn’t look near as afraid or sound as uncertain as he really was.

A few soldiers looked at him as if he’d just chewed his own fingers off and offered them a handshake. Others just stared dully at him, still not fully recovered from the wreck. What was he to say at their disbelief? How was he supposed to convince them that he was up for the task, when he himself wasn’t even sure?

But Riley just smiled nostalgically, as if he’d been in Jake’s place before, then shouted like the world’s most deep-voiced leprechaun: “You heard the man! Move the bloody fuck in!”

At that, with no complacency, they all snapped out of their stupor, readied their weapons, and formed two straight lines right in front of Jake, Riley leading one of them.

“Orders, sir!” he barked.

As if he’d practiced it a thousand times, Jake kicked open his black case and kneeled down to ready the weapon inside: The Whirlwind. It was an idea that no gunsmith but Walter could even take seriously, much less design and build within two weeks. Its appearance was of some bizarre hybrid of a tommy gun and a revolver, only much larger and designed to be held upside-down. Rather than the traditional silver bullet, it launched eight-inch long silver-plated rods at speeds that rivaled most anti-tank rifles. In spite of Walter’s generously detailed description, Jake still didn’t understand how it fired without any sort of combustion. All he knew was that it could reduce a slab of bricks to pebbles, and vampires…well, he’d find out soon enough. Below the barrel was what looked like a large flashlight, though its function was far more practical for his purposes. He fastened the ammo pack over his should, and lifted the weapon out of the case. He brought the metal bar jutting out the left side to his teeth, cocked it, and addressed his men.

“We’re taking the alleys,” he said, with a confidence he didn’t expect, “Go full tilt the whole way and stop for nothing; if you can’t keep up, stay behind with Mick and Braxton.”

The soldiers followed him into the closest back alley, and before Jake could even ask the crowd that had been staring at him like a freak show’s main attraction parted like the Red Sea. It just occurred to him that his contact lens was missing, and his make-up was smeared. The wound he’d conceived, while almost healed, had been a tremendous, bleeding gouge just moments before. That couldn’t have escaped their notice. Integra wasn’t going to be happy about that.

Don’t worry about it, soothed Seras in his mind, Do what you have to do. We’re all counting on you.

I won’t fail, Seras, he said, I can’t. Not this time.

Jake and his men bounded off. The twilight had ended; it was getting dark and he was thankful for it. The sky was certain of its direction and for once, so was he.

It was his origin that remained to be seen.

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