LETTERS FROM HELLSING VI

What happened next is a bit of a blur and I am still not sure how much of it was real and how much delusion.

There was a lot of pain, I remember that much. I remember the man removing the glove of his right hand and raising that hand to his mouth. I watched as sharp teeth ripped open his wrist just below the palm. Then saw him swing his arm down towards me and shove his hand, bleeding wrist and all, into my wound.

God, then pain, blood, his, mine, everywhere.

I heard voices babbling. Brushing up against my mind, whispering warnings and secrets, gone as fast as they came.

A woman’s voice, speaking in a language I did not understand swirled through my mind. She seemed to be talking to me about the tall man. Asking me to do something, calling him by name.
I was just starting to grasp her meaning on some level when it slipped away into the current of noise.

Voices, music, and strange, unfamiliar sounds were washing back and forth in my mind. The clashing of two heartbeats surging against each other. Mistimed pulses fighting for control. And everywhere, the pain and the blood.

The stronger pulse won. Two hearts began to beat in time with one another. I could feel it like a tide flowing through me, out of me, into him, out of him, in to me. The voices flowed with the blood, chanting dark secrets best forgotten.

I sensed, rather than saw him, reach out his left arm toward the other flagpole which seemed to fly into his outstretched hand. He pulled his bleeding hand out from inside of me and used it to grasp the silver cross finial of the flagpole.

It started to glow and stretch, then three thin wires of molten silver began to pull themselves from the cross. They writhed between his fingers like living things growing longer and thinner. There was smoke and the smell of burning flesh began to permeate the room.

Suddenly, he released the cross. The wires snapped and twined reaching, straining, towards his hand growing still longer and thinner. He brought his hand down fingers spread and arching over my wound. The silver threads surged down in pursuit diving between his fingers and plunging into my body.

The searing agony of the molten silver twisting inside me snapped me out of my haze. A scream of pain escaped from my lips and before I could stop myself my hand came up and began beating against his chest trying to push him away.

"Stop!" his voice commanded. Somehow, I obeyed and ceased struggling as the wire bit into my flesh over and over under his direction weaving my torn body back together again. Then he drew his hand back from my body. I could feel the stitches tighten inside me and the heat began to die down.

"Bring it here." he said to the medic who had returned with a Gurney his eyes wide with fear

"What did you do to her?" The medic asked, voice trembling.

The tall man did not even look at the medic. He lifted me gently up, as if I weighed nothing, and settled me onto the stretcher. He smiled down at me and said, "We made a deal with your God, didn’t we Angel?" He brushed my cheek with his hand smearing it with blood.

He glanced at his hand, just seeming to notice the gore. His wrist seemed to have completely healed itself. He brought his hand up to his mouth and casually sucked the blood off of one of his fingers giving me a wicked look. I could hear the medic gasp and choke slightly behind me.

I smiled at the tall man’s mischief and reaching out a hand to grasp his lapel, pulled his head close to mine. "I don’t care if you are a monster." I whispered "You saved those children and I owe you for their lives. I will keep that promise."

"You will live to regret that statement." he said smiling.

"I am sure I will." I said, and then murmured something, I don’t remember what, I don’t even think it was in English. I only remember his eyes widening as he asked me to repeat what I had said.

I did not answer. The music had started again and I was already quietly singing along; "Precious memories, how they linger..."