"Oh yes?" asked the captain hopefully.
"Try not to look too thrilled." I said. "You got her cell number?"
"Speed dial one." He said pulling out his phone and grinning.
"OK. Don't call her yet. Just be ready."
And so, much to Seras' exasperation, began "The Great Vampire Hunt". Well maybe "Great" is bit of a stretch but the title "The Highly Educational Yet, Terribly Interesting And Vastly Entertaining Search for Seras across the Hellsing Estate" while more accurate is, in my humble god-like opinion, a bit too convoluted for public consumption.
Basically; I sang, Seras ran and the captain made crank calls.
Specifically; I demonstrated my new-found ability to locate and track the movements of the undead from a "relatively" safe distance.
It was a bit like the method I had been using to send messages and images to Seras for the last couple of weeks but, instead of throwing balls of thought at her to catch; I was casting my awareness out like a net to find her position without actually sending her any sort of message. It's a bit like sonar but instead of using sound, I was using thought to "see" without being seen or sensed rather.
It was the not the sensing part for me that had been hard to learn. At this point, I could find Seras in my sleep but the not being sensed part, that was much harder and according to Alucard, being quite key to my future survival in the field, the reason for my most recent set of bruises.
I am apparently clumsy as an ox and loud as, well, a “stupid, clumsy ox” on the psychic plane. It was annoying enough, he said, that he had to listen to me "squawking" at the top of my mental lungs as Seras and I "blathered on and on like idiots", but one moronic misstep while I was scanning a building for vampires and I would not only give away my physical location but expose myself to a possible mental backlash that could leave me brain dead, if I were lucky or howling, gibbering mad if I were not. Gosh, he's fun. So he taught me how to make my general thoughts more diffuse so they would blend in with the background and create a sort of mental white noise while I was casting out and sifting through the echoes in my net.
Here, is where the quick have a slight advantage over the dead. You see, life is everywhere and living things, even if it is on the most rudimentary level, think and thinking creates waves or noise if you will, on the psychic plane. And humans, apparently, make a lot of noise. Not, according to Alucard, because we are sentient or self aware but because we are so unbelievably self-centered. From our first breath to our last, we humans literally sing a non-stop chorus of "Me, me, me, me, I, I, I!”. When I pointed out to him that he was without a doubt, hands down, the most egotistical, self centered creature I had ever met, he laughed and said of course he was and rightfully so but vampires, already being aware of their extreme superiority over all living things, felt no need to muck up the aether chuntering on about it. That, and the fact that one vampire is just as likely to attack and destroy another vampire just for the fun if it, or maybe that was just him. Either way, not so much noise.
So, the advantage for me then was that a human can theoretically learn to blend their thoughts in with the thoughts of the quite literally millions of their fellow living creatures in a given acre but the undead are usually quite spare on the ground and therefore, once you knew what to look for, much easier to spot. Think of it this way, if you had a portable brain wave scanner pointed at a goldfish, you could expect at least some reading be it the smallest of wiggles, you would not however expect any reading from say a grandfather clock or bowl of soup*.
*Should you get such a reading from a grandfather clock, I suggest you check for mice. Should you get such a reading from your soup, I suggest that you immediately throw it away.
At first, I tried to just be background noise when looking for Seras and not human at all, just a random living thing. I tried thoughts like “How lovely to be an ant today” and “perhaps I can grow my roots a bit deeper to reach that water.” But what came across to Seras was more like: “OK, so, I’m an ant now, hmmm...What do ants think?...‘EVERYTHING NOT FORBIDDEN IS COMPULSORY’... OK, T.H. White notwithstanding?...‘Mammy, mammy, mammy’...Ack! No stop it...Perhaps if I were a plant...Plants need water so...OWW!...Did he just throw a grape at me?..." and so on.
So after Alucard's gentle prompting I worked on being human background noise. Just a generic human no one in particular. Certainly no one who had any interest whatsoever in vampires or other such non-existent nonsense. This went over almost as well as the ant disguise. You know how when a cat pretends it is not in the least bit interested in the bird hopping a few feet away from it? Well, I was the cat, Seras was the bird and Alucard was a big pile of rocks landing on my head.
Eventually, after much bruising and an ear full of raspberry juice, (where does he get all of that fruit?) I finally hit on a method that would focus most of my random and subconscious thoughts away from the task at hand while also masking my scans as background noise but still leaving me nominally aware of my surroundings.
I sang.
When I sing, I tend to sing loud, both on the physical and psychic plane and when I really get into a song I start broadcasting my thoughts and emotions across those planes as well. These broadcasts can be used to both mask and enhance my ability to sweep a given area for the non-living. So instead of hearing "Gee, I wonder if there are any vampires about?" they hear "Do wah ditty ditty dum ditty do." or something of the kind. It was so annoyingly simple, I could of kicked myself.
The tricky part is to not think about what you are doing and learning not to get distracted while you are doing it. That, apparently, is where the fruit comes in. Because believe me, having odd bits of produce hurled at you with inhuman force at unpredictable intervals is very distracting. Not to mention painful, sticky and more than a bit humiliating. But if a piece of my pride and the ability to wear short sleeve shirts in public is the cost I have to pay to save the life of one of my boys, it's a bargain. Just don't tell them that. They're cocky enough as it is.
It was pretty routine at first. I would tell the captain where Seras was then he would call her up and confirm her location, then he would harangue her with a description of several interesting things that a young, healthy and exceptionally flexible couple could do with each other in that particular room. Normally I would chastise him but Stewart needed time to track her signal and many of his suggestions were quite intriguing. It's been a very long time and I'm only human.*
*No really, I got the all clear about a week ago from the lab staff. I am altered but now officially, "mostly human".
...Anyway.
It worked splendidly for about 20 minutes and six rooms until a particularly intriguing scenario involving a card catalog drawer and one of the rolling ladders in the library put forth by the captain, caused Seras to throw her cell phone into the fireplace. Stewart tried to bring her another one but she merely thanked him sweetly then promptly locked it in her sock drawer.
So much for that, I thought but a clever Stewart had secreted a tracking device on her uniform so we were back in business. Only this time, instead of pinging Seras and waiting for conformation of her location, we were able to test my ability to track her movements in, real time.
It was kind of surreal, but in a fun way. I would be rolling along singing, say a Jim Croce song, and seemingly random words and phrases would slide into the lyrics such as, "...and if you go down there you'd better just beware of she's in the laundry room..." or "...I'm in love with a roller derby rose parlor..." and the like. And once Seras got warmed up to the game, it became a real challenge to keep track of her. She's sneaky and can move real fast.
I even managed, for the most part, not to get distracted by what was going on around me. I slipped a bit when I made the mistake of starting to sing "Like a Prayer" forgetting Griffin's visceral dislike of all things Madonna. Personally, I can take her or leave her but I've always sounded good singing that particular tune so I went for it. But then I had to listen him him gripe about how annoying Madonna was coupled with Sherman's "At least she's sexy, now that Sade, she's annoying...and bald." ??? A point which Griffin grudgingly conceded 'but still'...
"...When you call my name it's Sinéad O'Connor..." I sang at them.
"Where the what?" Asked Stewart hands pausing above his keyboard where he was plotting my sightings over his tracking signal.
"...I want to take you portrait gallery..." I corrected.
Stewart narrowed his eyes at us but resumed typing.
"That's right," said Sherman, "Sade's the one with those pouty lips."
"Right." Said Griffin. "Nothin annoying bout those lips. Not-at-all. You can sing a Sade song if ya like Corrine, I won't mind. Just no more Madonna."
"Or Sinéad O'Connor." Added Sherman.
"Right." Agreed Griffin. "Too annoying." ... "So, ya gonna sing a Sade song Corrine?"
I clacked my tongue against my teeth trying to to focus on not focusing. Lips indeed. I only wish I knew any Sinéad O'Connor songs. Annoying? I'd give them annoying. I'd give them annoying real loud.
"I had a dream, a dream about you, baby. It's gonna come true, baby. They think that we're through, but baby,..."
"What the bloody..?" Yelped Stewart.
"...You'll be swell! You'll be great! She's just now at the east gate..." I sang disgustingly satisfied with myself.
"You two, leave her alone before it gets worse."
"What could be worse than Ethel Merman?" Asked Sherman.
I grinned evilly.
"No, Don't!" Shouted Stewart who was more familiar with my repertoire.
But it was too late.
"Wave your little hand and whisper So long dearie..."
"Dear God what is that?" Barked the captain.
"...You ain't gonna see me anymore..."
"Carol Channing." Sighed Stewart.
"...And when you discover that your life is dreary..."
"It's quite, loud." Offered Marks.
"Don't you come a knockin' at my door..."
"Yes." Agreed Stewart.
"...cause I'll be all dolled up And singin' that song..."
"And kinda scary." Added Sherman.
"... That says you dog, I told you so..."
"Yep, she dead on perfect so,..."
"...So wave your little hand and whisper
So long dearie..."
"bugger off will you before she decides to do the second verse!"
The were several cries of distress and promises of good behavior and one 'I kind o' like it' from Bulls before they hit him.
"Dearie, should have said so long
So long ago!!!!"
I finished with a flourish and took a sip of Fresca.
Stewart raised a questioning eyebrow.
"She doubled back at the proving grounds and is headed back towards the front entrance." I said smugly.
He grunted and typed in the coordinates.
"Pretty cocky she is for a vampire's piñata." Muttered Blaven.
I sucked in an indignant breath and scanned my mental catalog of obnoxious songs prepared to make ears bleed.
"How bout a nice ballad?" Asked Marks quickly offering me another Fresca.
"Of course." I said sweetly. "How kind." murmured taking the offered soda.
"About a maid I'll sing a song,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin..." "You have to love a girl who can sing Tom Lehrer." Said Marks smiling.
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