London,
1955
Sir
Hellsing was a tall, unruly man, with brightness in his eyes that bordered upon
madness, as bright as the silver cross on his throat, gleaming silkily under
the streams of sunlight that spilled through the tall windows of his office.
Thrumming his fingers on his heavy oakwood desk, the man's lips twisted in a
maniacal smile as he looked upon Walter, who stood crossing his arms by the
door, quietly smoking a cigarette. When the lord of the House of Hellsing
spoke, his voice was loud and clear, with an eccentric cadence that seemed to
be a trademark of prodigies -or the hopelessly insane, there was not much of a
difference-, for the man was a genius, in his own right.
"Getting
old, Angel of Death?" Sir Hellsing said, lighting a cigar and speaking through
the explosion of smoke that followed. "You seem quieter now, more
relaxed."
"I
am a grown man now, Master," Walter replied, still crossing his arms.
"Not the reckless child I may have once been. War made me what I was. Now
that it is over, I intend to settle down, a bit."
"Very
well, very well." Sir Hellsing laughed, a harsh bellow that had sent many
a chill down his colleague's spines, during his time. "I wish my daughter
would do the same. She's quite the little screamer, that one."
"Ms.
Integral is very still young. She will learn of the world, in time."
"And
maybe that is what I am truly afraid of," Sir Hellsing mused. Walter
maintained a polite silence. "But enough witter. I'm sending you on
another assignment."
"As
you wish, my Master," Walter said.
"It'll
be a killing. And this time, the target will be human." Sir Hellsing
puffed on his cigar. "There is man here in London, goes by the name of
John Farlane. A very rich man, even I will allow that. And lately, it's come to
our attention that he's been sending exceedingly generous donations to certain
fund groups. All which happen to be operated by vampires. Coincidence? I don't
think so."
Walter
nodded. "Another would-be vampire. I don't see what the fools find so
grand in the idea of spending all eternity as a monster."
"As
do I, Walter. Farlane seldom appears in public, these days. You may have to
find him. And that's not all."
Walter
listened patiently.
"We've
sighted a freak with Farlane, called Fritz Kampfer. The vampires must have sent
him in to guard Farlane, to make sure their little goose will keep on laying
those golden eggs. He'll be trouble. Though nothing you can't handle, I
imagine."
"I'll
keep that in mind," Walter said, tugging at his gloves.
"Good
luck," Sir Hellsing said, as he reached for the ashtray with the hand
holding his cigar.
Walter
promptly twitched a finger, and whipped one of the five ultra-fine wires that
extended from his right hand at the smoldering tip of the cigar, slicing it off
cleanly. The severed end of the cigar plopped into the ashtray, instantly
crumbling into gray ash.
"Ah,
thank you, Walter," Sir Hellsing said, grinning as he fitted the slightly
shortened cigar back into his mouth and clacked away at his lighter.
"You're
quite welcome, my Master," Walter said, smiling slightly as he bowed. He
excused himself from of the room.
It
was a clear, sweeping winter day, the first rays of sunlight scalding in the
morning chill. Walter Cumm Ddollneazz walked briskly down the dirty alleys, gravel
crunching under his shoes. He wore gray pants, a black jacket over a similarly
black vest and white shirt, accompanied by a flowing red bow tie. His hands
were enveloped in open-fingered gloves. A straight crop of short raven hair
spilled from under a black bowler's hat. His eyes were his most striking
feature, slightly upturned, narrow and playful, alive with an animal sadism
that flickered here and there, like a cat on the hunt.
Walter
stopped by a rotting door, stained by vomit and blood and piss. He rapped
smartly on the soft wood. There was a fumbling on the other side of the door,
and it swung upon with a croaking creak. The overpowering smell of blood
billowed out from inside, but Walter didn't so much as blink. A voice rasped
from inside.
"Who
is it?" Walter could see a sprawl of red glowing eyes in the dimness
within. He counted three, four pairs in all. Yellow fangs glinted as the voice
rasped again. "Name yourself."
"Walter.
From Hellsing," Walter said.
"Hellsing!"
Walter leapt into the room just as the vampire shrieked in outrage, lashing out
with a kick that caught the creature full in the chest, sending it crashing
into a stack of chairs. Even as he did so, he was spreading the wires fixed to
his fingers, letting them snake through the room to loop around the neck and
limbs of the snarling freaks. "Don't move!" Walter shouted, as he
swiveled on his feet to dodge a swipe of clawed fingers. He tugged at the wires
that extended from his fingertips and laced around the vampire's bodies. The
vampires froze, feeling the wires biting down on their skin.
"If
you so much as twitch, the wires will hew you to shreds," Walter said
coolly. He waved a hand, to demonstrate. One of the freaks screamed as its hand
flew off, landing on the floor with a sick plop.
"Walter.
I've heard of you," a white-haired freak murmured fearfully. This one
appeared to be the leader. "Angel of Death Walter. What do you want from
us?"
"Your
brood's been having dealings with a human named Farlane. I want to know where
he is."
"Farlane...?
We've never heard of him," the white-haired freak said, eyes bulging.
Walter
walked toward the freak, careful to keep the wires taut. He looked about for a
handy object, and picked up a small brandy bottle from the table. He popped the
cork and poured the whole thing empty. He grasped the vampire's jaws and pulled
them open. In one smooth movement, he shoved the bottle into the freak's mouth,
then closed its jaws and hammered its chin with a knee. The bottle shattered
into a dozen shards of razor-sharp glass inside its mouth, completely mangling
its tongue, gums and the inside of its cheeks. Tears welled in the white-haired
freak's eyes as it helplessly hung its mouth open, pieces of bloody glass and
saliva pouring out of its mouth and tinkling on the floor.
"How's
that? A taste of your own blood," Walter said, smiling. The freak gagged,
as blood began to fountain down onto the floor. "Now tell me where Farlane
is."
"Hith
thuite," the freak moaned, glass cracking as he spoke. Talking drove the
glass further into its mouth and throat.
"A
suite? Where?"
"Eatht
Ithland Hothel."
"East
Island Hotel. So Farlane is hiding at a suite in the East
Island Hotel, correct?"
The
white-haired freak nodded weakly.
"Next
question. What do you know about Fritz Kampfer?"
"Not
muth. He'th an outhsither. The bosses broughth him throm out-thide. Creepy
fellow. Quieth."
Walter
stared at he freak for a moment, then smiled. "That's all I needed to
know," he said cheerfully. "Thank you."
He
could feel the vampires relax, though the wires, before he pulled, crossing his
arms over his chest, decapitating every last one of them. They fell like
puppets with their strings cut.
Opening
and closing his gloved hands, Walter marched out of the dim room, pooling blood
lapping at his shoes.
Fritz
Kampfer took another sip of collected blood, ice tinkling within the crystal
glass. He ran his tongue lightly against his needle-sharp canines as he regarded
John Farlane, lounging on a expensive-looking sofa across the room. He slit his
lips into a chilling smile at the human he was supposed to defend at all costs,
consciously revealing his pearly fangs, still wet with cold blood. Farlane
averted his own eyes, away from Kampfer's unblinking gaze. Kampfer suppressed
the urge to laugh.
For
Fritz Kampfer considered himself a creature that could savor the taste of
irony. Here he was, the most ruthless vampire killer in the underworld, protecting
a human from a human assassin. The situation was simply delicious.
Kampfer widened his smile, and Farlane shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
Kampfer
was a slight, wiry vampire, with snowy skin and pale crimson eyes. A shock of
inky black hair fell down his neck, pulled back and tied into a ropy ponytail
that snaked over one shoulder. He wore a loose black cassock, woven of heavy
fabric so that it hung impeccably straight, causing his silhouette to look like
a black tombstone, quiet and ominous.
The
doorbell rang. Farlane jumped off the sofa, eyes wide. Kampfer restrained him
with a wave of his hand.
"I'll
get it," he said, walking out into the hall of the suite and for the door.
He
looked out the peephole and saw a young maid, standing nervously outside the
hall. "What do you want?" he asked.
"Mr.
Farlane called," the girl said. Kampfer raised an eyebrow. Farlane? What
the hell was that fool thinking? He found himself hesitating, unfamiliar with
human practices, but finally he put a hand on the knob, and turned.
His
world exploded in a flash of sound and light. Kampfer's superhuman reflexes
took over a quarter second after the blast; he leapt back to fix himself on all
fours -spider-like- onto the wall of the hallway, before kicking off the wall
and shooting back into the room where Farlane sat. He turned for the sofa, and
knew it was too late.
Death
himself stood over Farlane, tall and thin, dressed in black. Farlane gurgled
brokenly, then relaxed, as still as stone. Death stooped lightly to retrieve
the knife that had buried itself to the handle into the man's heart, clean
between his ribs. The curtains fluttered madly in the winter night's breeze.
"Well
played," Kampfer said, grudgingly. No doubt the man had planted the
one-way bomb beforehand, then scaled the thirty-four stories to the window of
the suite to wait for the maid to lure Kampfer into triggering the booby trap.
It was the perfect assassination. Kampfer felt that smile again, creeping
around the edges of his mouth.
"Thank
you," the fellow assassin allowed.
"You
do realize I will have to kill you now," Kampfer continued, "a point
of honor, if you will."
"I
see."
The
two stood there for a while. The assassin crossed his arms over his chest,
nonchalantly leaning against the windowsill. The wind ruffled his short black
hair.
"Name?"
Kampfer suddenly said.
"What?"
the other man cocked an eyebrow.
"What
is your name?"
"Walter.
Walter Cumm Ddollneazz," Walter said. Then, grinning; "You're
Kampfer, right? Fritz Kampfer."
"Correct," Kampfer said, slightly
surprised that the man knew his name. He wondered who had sent this man. The
Vatican? No, no. Not those fanatics. They were too far away from London.
Hellsing;
that was it. He must be an agent from the Hellsing Organization. And that was
just as well, just as well; Kampfer had a score or two to settle with the 'ol
maddog Sir Hellsing.
The
two men smiled at each other, both pondering upon how to kill the other in the
quickest way possible. A mutual understanding of sorts passed between them. Killer
to killer.
Walter
moved first. The man was fast, way fast, even for a vampire. One second he was
there, and the next second he had vanished out of the window. Kampfer ran after
him, for the windowsill, and he saw half a dozen wires whipping out of the
darkness to coil around his limbs. The wires dug painfully into his flesh
-though not strong enough to harm him through his inhumanly tough skin- as they
dragged him out over the windowsill and into the night sky. Before he knew it,
he found himself free falling down a thirty-story building, streetlights and
car lights streaming far below him, the howl of the wind deafening to his ears.
Walter was falling a couple dozen feet under him, capturing Kampfer with his
damn wires, taking him down with him. Walter laughed at him as he fell. The son
of a bitch was suicidal.
Kampfer
reached out with a hand and slammed his hand into the hotel wall as it rushed
past him, his abnormally strong fingers digging joint-deep into the concrete.
He ran five ten-foot gorges into the side of the building before he came to a
stop, Walter hanging from under him.
Suddenly
Walter released the wires that held him to Kampfer and shot another stream of
twine from his other free hand, letting them trap a lightning rod atop a
building on the other side of the street. He swung away to attach himself to
the face of the building. Walter began to climb rapidly, grappling his wires,
and using windowsills and light cables as holds.
Kampfer would be damned if he could let
him get away that easily. The vampire reared up and launched himself -a good
thirty feet- diagonally into the air, flying through the night sky, his cassock
sweeping around him like a black cape. He landed on the rooftop of the building
just as Walter, finishing his climb, hauled himself up at his feet.
Walter
looked at Kampfer, standing there cool and unruffled, and blinked.
"What
in the blazes are you doing here?" he said. The man wasn't even out of
breath.
"We
have our ways," Kampfer said, showing his fangs. Walter vanished again,
reappearing a good twenty paces away. Here it was again; the quickness. It was
all Kampfer could do to keep track of him with his eyes.
It
was windy up on the rooftop, and cold, lashing his own hair against his face.
Kampfer reached into his coat and produced his weapon; a long, thick iron
stake. He gripped it with his right hand, the wickedly tapered end gleaming
viciously in the night-lights. He took a step forward. Walter took a step back.
Kampfer thought of his opponent's weapon. Reinforced steel threads. No matter
where he moved, the wires would trap him and dismember him in a second. Kampfer
needed to get close.
Walter
waved both hands into the air, like a conductor commanding his performers. This
time he did it fast; the wires appeared from nowhere to snake everywhere around
Kampfer's body.
Walter
spread his fingers and pulled. Kampfer fell apart into six parts in an
explosion of blood; his head spun out into the air, and his arms and legs
tumbled down onto the concrete in a pile, along with the bloody stump of his
torso. The vampire's head hit the rooftop with a heavy thud. Kampfer's
disembodied head was grinning from ear to ear, baring its fangs. A pool of
blood began to collect itself around the severed limbs.
Walter
was withdrawing his threads, when the lines of Kampfer's body wavered, then
began to dissolve. Kampfer's cassock crumbled into a thousand insects, rattling
their wings together as they took flight. The insects swarmed toward Walter,
before suddenly melting into a rolling black mist that completely enveloped
him, shrouding his sight. Walter dropped down into a semi-crouch, squinting his
eyes, trying to see through the mist.
Something
cold and hard struck at Walter's shoulder from the behind, juddering him with
pain. Walter twisted around as he jumped out of the way, coming face to face
with the grinning face of Kampfer, holding his stake, bloodied with Walter's
blood. Kampfer's cassock was the last to materialize out of the black haze, and
the vampire stood there as if nothing had happened, looming like a tombstone.
"You
know, Alucard would love you. A real live A-class," Walter said, clutching
at his wounded shoulder. "Too bad he's sleeping in a vault
someplace."
"Ah,
the queen's pet. How could I ever forget," Kampfer said. "How does he
fare, the No Life King? I do hope he's well. I've always wanted to cross swords
with him, one time or another."
"Somehow,
the idea of Alucard and swords don't seem to mix," Walter mused.
Just then,
the night was shredded in a horrific flash of light. Walter squinted as he
shielded his face with a forearm, and Kampfer snarled in irritation as a
helicopter burst out from nowhere, agleam with lights. Through the beams of
white, Kampfer could just make out the official emblem of the Hellsing
Organization. He cursed, and turned to Walter.
"It
was fun playing with you, Mr. Ddollneazz," Kampfer shouted, over the roars
of the chopper. "But I guess all good things must come to an end."
"Oh,
yes. Very fun," Walter shouted back, still clutching at his bleeding
shoulder. "We should get together again, some time. Maybe I'll bring
Alucard along, if he decides to crawl out of his vault."
"That
would be delightful," Kampfer agreed. "Now I really must go. May we
meet again, Walter Cumm Ddollneazz."
And
just like that, Fritz Kampfer was gone; his body scattered into a swarm of
black insects that melted away into a night.
The
helicopter had landed, and Hellsing soldiers were running towards him, cradling
their rifles. Walter turned to smile at them, and the barely concealed
bloodlust that gleamed in his eyes was so unnerving that it stopped the men in
their tracks. Still smiling, Walter circled around them and started walking for
the chopper. A gust of wind toyed at his bowtie, and he absent-mindedly ran his
fingers through his hair.
It
had been so long since he had taken on a class-A vampire. "Just like the
good old days," Walter murmured, to nobody in particular. He hated to
admit it, but he found himself missing Alucard,
damn his sadistic soul.
After
all, in the end even Walter Cumm
Ddollneazz –Angel of Death Walter- was only human.