Chapter Four: Rebirth
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All Gwen could see was blackness. She tried to move, but found, to her alarm, that her muscles weren't responding. Where... Where am I? The thought drifted musingly through her dim half-consciousness. What happened...? Am I dead? How did I die? And when, and where...-? Her thought trailed off as, with a shock, she remembered all that had happened. That's right...! That vampire Alucard shot me... But then he told me he'd save me... So where am I? Was he too late? She tried to open her eyes, but her eyelids refused to budge. Her senses were slowly starting to return, though, and she now noticed a low murmur of voices in the background. Since she couldn't move, Gwen instead tried to concentrate on the voices.
"-can't have you just running around taking in stray victims like this, Alucard!" That was the voice of a lady with a light english accent. She didn't sound too happy. As a matter of fact, she sounded like she was about ready to take someone's head off.
"It was her decision, not mine." The deep, smooth, and unmistakeable voice of the vampire that had saved her life. Gwen noticed, to her surprise, that it seemed to be coming from somewhere directly above her. And yes, now that she could feel her sense of touch coming back, she noted that she was wrapped loosely in a blanket, and it seemed that someone was carrying her. She fought the intense urge to open her eyes, now that she was decently sure that she could, and willed herself to just sit still and listen.
"And who," snapped the female voice, "gave her the choice in the first place? Don't overstep yourself, servant."
Servant...? Thought Gwen, perplexed. Alucard is this lady's servant? How the heck does someone go about controlling a monster like him...?
"My apologies, miss Integra Fairbrooke Wingates Hellsing," came Alucard's fluid response, and Gwen thought she detected a very distinct hint of sarcasm. "But what's done is done, and you can't really afford to leave a rogue vampire wandering around, now can you...? You really have no choice other than to transfer her into the Hellsing organization." She could almost see the smug smile on his face, even without opening her eyes.
Alucard's master- Integra, he had called her?- growled in exasperation, and when she spoke next, her voice was farther away and muted, as if she had turned around and was walking away. "You don't make my decisions for me," she snarled, and Gwen heard no more from her.
Slowly, cautiously, Gwen opened her eyes. It was as she'd suspected- Alucard was carrying her, and she was wrapped in a beige blanket. She could feel the sticky blood all over her torso, but she wasn't actually in any pain anymore. She took a quick glance at her surroundings. She could see the forest close by, but now she was on a small paved road that seemed to cut through those rolling grassy hills she'd seen earlier. Not much time seemed to have passed since she'd fainted.
Walking away from them, her white-gloved hands clenched into fists at her sides, was a lady with slightly dark skin, pale blonde hair and a dark green suit. She had an air of leadership about her, as if she was used to ordering people around, and wouldn't stand for any disobedience. The lady opened the door of a waiting helicopter and stepped in, slamming it shut behind her. As Gwen watched, the propeller roared to life, and the helicopter rose slowly into the moonlit sky and soared away...
Deep laughter sounded above her head, and her gaze snapped up to look at Alucard's expression. He still wore that twisted grin. She was starting to wonder if he was incapable of changing his expression. Like those people who had that botox stuff, and their skin was all stretched, and they couldn't stop smiling-
"My dear master apparently doesn't appreciate my brief spell of generosity..." He laughed again and started walking at a leisurely pace in the general direction the helicopter had gone. "How entertaining."
"Where are you taking me, huh?" Gwen snapped warily. Every muscle was tensed, and she was already thinking about what she would do once she got free of his grasp-
"The Hellsing mansion. Your new home."
She stared at him blankly. "Okay, what? What the hell is going on here!?" She demanded, exasperated. "First I get chased down by a bunch of freakin' zombies, then you come along and shoot me, then you randomly decide to save me, and now-" She paused, and her face went pale. "W-wait a second... H-how, exactly, did you-...?"
Alucard laughed, his red eyes glittering in amusement. "Are you really so much of an idiot that you can't figure it out on your own?" He chuckled, and Gwen felt a small flame of resentment flicker to life in her heart at the comment. He apparently took her silence as a yes. "Must I spell it out for you...?" He grinned wider and reached up a hand to tap her throat with one finger.
Gwendolen reacted automatically. She flinched away and craned her neck quickly to bite down on Alucard's hand... But she found, to her surprise, that her canines easily pierced his glove and flesh without her even having to clench her jaws too hard. Blood burst into her mouth... And she didn't gag as she normally would have. An intense craving arose rapidly within her; she wanted nothing more than to swallow.
Horrified, she unclenched her teeth and twisted her head to the side, spitting and wretching violently to get all that warm, metallic-tasting, irresistible blood out of her mouth.
Alucard laughed again, and this time the sound was noticeably harsher than it had been a moment ago. "Now that you're a vampire," he put emphasis on that word, as if he couldn't figure out how else to drive it through her thick skull, "you're going to have to drink blood at some point. So why not start early? Why bother rejecting the very thing that will give you your strength? Are you really so-"
"Shut up!" Gwen snarled, still spitting. "I never wanted to be a freaking monster!!"
Alucard said nothing, the smile briefly gone from his face. Surprisingly, he looked slightly less creepy when he was being serious than he did when he was grinning. "You chose this life, slave girl," he informed her curtly. "Now you have to live it. You've made your choice. You're not getting any more."
Silence from the slave girl. Oh, great, Gwen thought grimly. Now I feel guilty. Dammit. She didn't trust this guy as far as she could throw him, but he had saved her life... And he had a point; she'd agreed to let him do so. "Look," She said grudgingly. "I appreciate the whole 'saving my life' thing. Seriously, thank you. No one's ever bothered to try saving me from anything before."
Smirk. "Unsurprising," Alucard commented helpfully.
Gwen scowled up at him, irritated again. "But," she snapped, "know that I don't trust you. At all. I don't trust you, I don't trust this Integra person, I don't trust anyone. And I'm just going to keep hurling questions at you until you tell me what the heck is going on around here. What's this Hellsing organization thing? Since when are there actual vampires walking around killing people? How many are there, anyway? How-"
"I suspect that my master will explain all this to you once we get back to the Hellsing mansion, slave girl," Alucard cut her off, sounding bored now.
"Stop calling me that," Gwen growled. "My name is Gwen, Gwendolen Freewing, and I am no one's slave."
"Yes, you are."
"No, I'm not. I escaped from slavery long ago-"
"And now you've run right back into it." Alucard chuckled, gazing up at the sinking moon. "How ironic."
Gwen stared at him blankly. "What the hell are you blabbing about now?" She snapped icily. "I already told you, I am no one's slave, and that's not about to cha-"
"You are now. I changed you. That means that I am now your master." His grin stretched wide across his face at that last word. He looked like he was enjoying himself.
Dead silence. The only sound to be heard was Alucard's steady footsteps on the road.
"... Excuse me?" Gwen's voice was deathly quiet and cold as ice.
"I think you heard me," Alucard said, his smile morphing briefly into an ugly sneer. "Why don't you be a good little servant and call me your master now, hmm?"
The girl's response was instant and cold. "Go jump off a cliff and say hi to the devil for me."
"Oh? Well, aren't you defiant. I don't like rude servants."
"I am not your servant," Gwendolen snarled, her green eyes blazing. "I call no man my master. I will die before I refer to anyone as 'master', particularly an arrogant, twisted jerk like you, you freakin'-"
Before Gwen could so much as blink, a gloved hand gripped her chin and forced her face upwards. She found herself staring into two fiery red-orange eyes that distinctly resembled what Gwen imagined the gates of Hell to look like. They were mere inches away from her own, and she fell silent, trapped and horrified as a bird locked in the eyes of a snake.
"I suggest you watch your step from now on, Gwendolen Freewing," Alucard hissed, right in her face. "You're incredibly, unspeakably lucky that you're even alive right now. Why don't you just take what you've been given and stop trying my patience...?"
Gwendolen Freewing said nothing. Her face was as pale as ash, her eyes wide, and it finally hit her that she was completely at the mercy of an insanely dangerous creature of darkness and blood. She began to shake, but she couldn't otherwise move. Alucard's snakelike stare seemed to have some sort of hypnotic effect.
After several moments, Alucard blinked, releasing her from her frozen state, and let go of her chin. He gazed ahead as if nothing had happened, but Gwen noted that his eerie smile was gone.
She decided that it might be a good idea to shut up now.
Gwendolen stared at the ground as it passed by beneath her. Yes, she was lucky to be alive. Especially considering the fact that she had the horrible, blood-chilling feeling that she'd stared death in the face just moments ago.
Gwen said nothing, and waited in quiet wariness for Alucard to reach his destination, Hellsing mansion.
Her latest prison.
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