Chapter 16 Grace
GRACE
The silence before dawn was heavy. I came awake all at once, my body still and rigid, my eyes open but unable to see clearly.
The air felt wrong. It was thick and motionless, pressing down on me as if wanting to choke me.
My pulse thudded inside my head, slow and uneven.
I tried to move, but my body wouldn’t respond.
Something was in the room with us.
I tried to turn my head toward Hellsing, but I couldn’t move. My limbs wouldn’t respond, my breath was stuck somewhere in my chest as if hands were wrapped around my lungs.
The air at the foot of the bed changed and became colder, denser.
A shape lifted itself out of the darkness and I watched it, terror-stricken.
It was something tall, wide, and pulsing faintly, like it drew its form from the night itself.
The walls looked the same, the bed was the same, but I knew I wasn’t in the real world anymore.
I was somewhere else. Somewhere in between reality and purgatory.
Bael.
Even with the powerful wards that Hellsing had put in place, he’d found me. And that frightened me beyond all reason, because it meant nothing could stop him. Not a sigil, not a ward, nothing.
He drifted closer. His presence spread through the room, soaking into every inch of space, into my skin, spreading over my body like a heavy coat of dread.
His form rippled like smoke, but I could feel him, feel the weight of him, the hunger, its malevolence.
The smell of sulfur and iron filled my nose, thick and acrid.
My chest seized. I tried to pull air in, but nothing moved. My ribs locked. My throat closed.
“Little witch.” His voice came from everywhere at once. It slid into me, scraping the inside of my skull.
I tried to scream. Nothing came out.
“You opened the door when you touched him,” he said. His voice wasn’t a whisper. It was a vibration that rattled inside my ribs. His form stretched closer, lowering until the cold of him seeped into my bones.
“You bound yourself to the exorcist. You tied his fate to yours. And now you belong to me as well. His power feeds yours. And his soul feeds mine.”
The pressure grew stronger, crawling up the bedpost, over the blankets, until it loomed above me.
My heart thrashed in my chest, pounding against an invisible grip.
I tried to force breath into my lungs, but every inhale felt like it got snagged halfway.
My body stiffened. My pulse slowed. I tried to force my arms to move, but they felt like dead weight.
The bed dipped beside me though nothing touched it. The room grew colder, darker, and the walls seemed to breathe in and out. They were narrowing, closing in on me.
“Stop fighting it,” Bael hissed. “You made this bond. You called me. You let me in.”
My heartbeat turned erratic. The room darkened until I couldn’t see the faint gray of morning through the window.
The edges of everything began to shift. The room pulsed once, then vanished.
I was standing now, barefoot, there was cold stone beneath me, the air damp and foul.
A tunnel stretched ahead, narrow and endless.
I could hear crying, faint and distant, like voices trapped behind a wall.
Bael’s voice came again, circling me. “You’re already mine, little witch.”
He slid closer. His form hovered above me, and though he had no face, no eyes, I felt him watching me. Studying me.
“Hellsing cannot save you.”
I tried again to scream his name. My throat wouldn’t obey. It was like the air was glued inside me.
Bael’s voice sank deeper, crawling into the back of my skull. “You thought the wards would keep me out? You think his prayers matter to me?”
His tone sharpened. “I walked through his soul once. I can walk through yours.”
Pain shot down my spine, not sharp, but twisting, like something was pushing inside, searching for a place to sink hooks. I felt myself being pulled downward, deeper into the dream. No, into something beneath the dream. A black pit that roared with distant screams.
The room flickered. The bed rippled into firelight, ash drifted down around me. Then suddenly I wasn’t lying down anymore. I was standing in a narrow stone corridor where it was cold and silent. My bare feet touched the wet ground, my breath fogging out in front of me.
Bael’s voice echoed all around, bouncing from every direction.
“You’re already slipping. Give in to me. Let me inside and the pain will stop.”
Something pressed against my back. Cold fingers trailed up my spine, the chill of it ripped through me, forced me down to my knees.
I arched forward landing hard on my hands, the stone scraping my skin.
My throat burned, my voice locked deep inside.
I tried to pull away, to move, to wake up, but my body stayed trapped in the dream.
Bael towered behind me, forcing his presence deeper into me.
“Your father resisted, he fought me and managed to barely survive” Bael whispered, breath hot and rotten against my ear. “He defied me. But you? You will not. You are untested. You are not ready to fight me”
Pain shot through my chest. I cried out, but I still couldn’t hear it.
My voice didn’t exist here. I clawed at my throat.
Still nothing. The sigil seared bright, the skin blistering as if pressed to iron.
My body convulsed. The corridor flickered and twisted, walls melting into shadows.
I saw him now, no longer smoke, but rotting flesh.
His skin glistened black, his teeth glinting as he smiled.
His eyes were hollow pits that bled light. He reached for me.
I forced my lips to part. A sound slipped out. Just one small, broken word. “No.”
The space around me stuttered. The walls rippled. I said it again, louder. “No.”
Bael’s grin stretched wider. “You think the light in you will stop me? You think that mark will save you?”
He lunged. His hands slammed into my chest, cold seeping through every pore, and I felt something tear inside me. The sigil on my skin burst with heat, burning white-hot. Light exploded behind my eyes. The pain was unbearable, but it pushed him back.
His scream was pure rage, high and jagged. The corridor shook from its power. “You cannot stop me forever, witch!”
He lunged toward me and I snapped awake.
My lungs expanded all at once, hard and painful, dragging in a gasp so sharp it felt like I’d inhaled fire. My body jerked upright on the bed, sweat slicking my skin, my hands trembling uncontrollably.
I couldn’t move at first. Couldn’t speak. I could only stare, searching the room around me. The space was quiet again, it was real, but it still didn’t feel safe. The air still tasted like smoke. The scent of sulfur lingered.
Hellsing lay asleep beside me, his chest rising and falling in slow, steady breaths.
His hair was messy, his arm thrown over his head, the lines of his muscles sharp in the faint early light.
The sight of him made my throat tighten.
I wanted to reach for him, to shake him awake, to tell him what I’d seen.
But my body still wouldn’t move. My muscles felt locked in place.
I stared at him like he was the only thing tethering me to this world. Inside my mind, the words came out strong.
Wake up, Hellsing. Save me.
But my lips never moved. I managed to lean in closer, desperate, shaking, praying he would feel me. I forced my hand to rise above his chest, inches from touching his skin.
Still, he slept so peacefully. Completely unaware of what I was going throug.
I swallowed hard, every breath shaky. My body still felt trapped between two worlds, one foot in this room, the other still lingering in that corridor with Bael’s voice echoing down the walls.
“Hellsing,” I whispered across the space that separated us, the sound brittle, barely there. “Wake up.”
He didn’t stir.
My pulse thundered painfully in my ears.
Because now I knew the truth. No spell would be enough. And the bond between us…It was exactly what Bael was trying to break or use to get what he wanted.
And I wasn’t sure if my love would be able to save us both.