Disclaimer: I do not own Hellsing or any of its characters. I do not make money from this.

Rated M for safety; there's flying blades wounding people and a vampire quite explicitly drinking blood, and you never know, what later chapters will bring.

(Update: 09/01/10: I am writing the last chapters now and it felt safe to change the rating to T. Hope, no one is disappointed now)

***Chapter 1***

Anderson was right on time.

Just when the Hellsing troops in the dark alley below were getting the upper hand on the band of ghouls, the pater's first blade swished past Alucard's head.

The red-clad vampire turned slowly: »I always assumed, a monkey like you could climb walls.«

He dodged five blades, fired his Jackal and hit Anderson's left arm.

Then, as if on a secret signal, they both set off, running side by side. They raced across the roofs of the London suburb like characters in some old fashioned arcade game: leaping, dodging, shooting, flinging blades and switching positions. Eventually, the paladin had the vampire cornered. Alucard stood with his back against a chimney and enjoyed himself immensely: »Don't keep me waiting! Your move first! Then it's my turn!«

Anderson seemed to consider, where to sink the first blade.

»Come on, hurry!« Alucard pointed at his heart. »Here! Deadly, if you were fighting a human. Or here! My left lung. Choking on one's own blood feels nasty, even for me.«

Anderson stabbed.

Alucard staggered and looked down: »Both lungs. Now, that's what I call nasty!«

He choked. Blood sprayed from his lips.

»Hey! You lost your marbles up there? Do you know, what time it is?«

Alucard froze. Three storeys down, a door had opened, and suddenly, the clear night air was filled with a special, unmistakable fragrance: maiden blood. Irresistably drawn towards the sweet scent, the vampire side-stepped to peer over the edge of the roof. Anderson immediately spiked him with blades, screaming some crap about redemption and sin and how thou shalt avenge the death of immaculate gingerbread girls, by henceforward watering the lilies with yer own vile blood.

Something like that, anyways.

Alucard was no longer interested in this fight or Anderson's rantings. He aimed over his shoulder and shot Anderson, not only once, but three times, square in the head. Then, he nimbly moved down the wall to stand in front of the woman, who'd asked for marbles and the time. His vampiric senses told him that she was well in her thirties. But she looked younger in her frilly green dress that matched the colour of her eyes. Her hair was dyed red and curly. She wore silver rings, wooden bracelets and a whole bunch of necklaces: the Christian cross, the Celtic cross, the Egyptian Ankh.

Her quizzical look reminded Alucard that he had about a dozen knifes stuck in various parts of his body, mostly his back. She took that pretty well for a non-Hellsing. There was no fear in her eyes and even more telling – none in her scent.

She stepped aside and gestured him to enter her quarters.

»Or are you of that Styrian sect that insists on being verbally invited?« she asked. »In that case: Please, do come in!«

Alucard entered a room that was stuffed with knick-knack: teddybears, porcellaine dolls and figurines, Harlekin, voodoo dolls, plastic flowers, a collection of flags and postcards on the wall, sea shells from some European beach, a stone labelled ‚Tintagel Castle' and another from ‚Stonehenge'. Clothes were stored in piles on the floor. There were candles and oil lamps, charcoal and chalk.

The only place neat and tidy was her bed. Of course, it held teddybears in abundance, too.

The only scent, Alucard could smell clearly over the fragrance of wax, ashes, chalk dust and perfumes, was her blood. Her maiden blood.

»What's your name?« he asked.

»Call me Ann«, she said, removing some twisted and crooked tree limbs from an umbrella stand. »You can put the blades in here. If you don't want to keep them, that is.«

Alucard started to pull out blades and stacked them as ordered: »Ann. That your real name?«

»As real as they come«, she said. »At least, you can't use it for anagrams. Got it? Ann-agrams. Nice one, huh?«

»What's wrong with anagrams?«

»Everybody thinks, he's got a right to your soul, just because he's had a certain say in the name, it goes by. But the joke is on them, because time will change many things. Especially those, that ‚go by'.« The woman shrugged. »As I said: Ann will do. Now, let me help you with that blade.«

There was one last bayonet left. It was located under Alucard's left shoulder, out of his reach as long as he did not alter the length of his arm. Ann hefted the weapon and pulled it out. Alucard had not yet braced himself and cried out.

»It wouldn't have hurt less, if I'd pulled it out slowly«, Ann said, putting the blade into the umbrella stand that by now looked like the forgotten toolbox of a circus swordsman.

Alucard grinned: »Practical girl!«

She made him sit down on the bed. »You can heal yourself, I presume?«

»You know about that?«

»I know a lot about nosferatu«, Ann had stepped halfway behind a red curtain. Alucard heard water running, apparently she had a faucet back there. »I also know that, when he healing is done, you will need to drink blood to replenish your strength.«

»I will, indeed, but don't worry. I'm a well-trained hellhound. I don't bite the hand that strokes.«

»Oh, but I invite you to«, Ann said distractedly, looking for a towel.

»Come again?«

She was out of sight now, talking from behind the curtain: »I'd be happy to provide blood to fulfill your healing.«

She re-emerged, holding up the sleeve of her left arm. She had put off her bracelets and the crosses around her neck, except for the Ankh, and the freshly scrubbed skin was rosy.

It was then, Alucard realized, she was not joking. She was offering him blood.

He knew, he should reject her. There had to be a catch. He should get out fast and run. Report to Sir Integra. Then come back and start this thing over from the beginning.

But she was a living being, offering him blood, and, Hell, he needed it! His body was aching to have that blood, only a tiny little bit of it...

He quickly scanned her thoughts, a predator warily circling the fallen prey, not quite believing it to be really dead. There was no betrayal on her mind, just a genuine desire to feed him. Pleasure him. Heal him.

Alucard took hold of her wrist. Even the throb of the pulse was singing an invitation to his sensitive hearing: »You want to be turned into a draculina, is that it?«

»I can't be transformed«, she said. »I am, what earlier centuries called a witch. And you are not my first ‚encounter of the eyeteeth kind', so I should have found out about the consequences, if there were any, by now.«

»I understand«, Alucard said, and he really did. This was terrific! She was technically a virgin and probably forced to keep it up by the ritual necessities of her occult profession. So she'd learned to derive her carnal satisfaction from the kiss of the undead – and to get away with it somehow!

Alucard chose the spot, then peered over her arm: »I'll not kill you. There's something about you, I just might come to like.«

»Aye«, she said, closing her eyes. »About one and a half gallons of it.«

Growling softly, Alucard brought down his fangs and broke her skin. The blood came in great gushes that crushed down his throat with the force of a tidal wave, setting his solar plexus ablaze. Red hot sensations raced through even the most filigrane nervous fibres.

He caught on with the rhythm of her heart and soon, he was swooning with delight, alternately sucking and downing the blood that spurted into his mouth. Crimson sparkles danced behind his closed eyes. He could have drowned like this, with rapture filling every vein, then every capillar of his body. And there seemed no end of it: Ann's heart was strong, almost too strong for a person her size and age, and it kept the blood coming.

The monster was warring with conscience and the promise given.

The monster had no real trouble doing the little bastard under.

As the rapture reached its peak, Alucard was making purring and whimpering noises in his throat. Ann moved her lips incessantly, praying to some heathen gods, perhaps. Her heart was weakening quickly now, her blood being almost completely drained. Alucard released her wrist, or rather, he tore himself away from her. He swayed, but, being an experienced bloodsucker, he recovered fast. She smiled, as he gently laid her back.

»I broke my promise«, Alucard told her. »I killed you.«

»There is a magic to blood given freely«, Ann said. »Especially mine. You will be healed in a way, you did not even deem possible.«

Alucard reeled back, as she sat on the edge of the bed: »Healed? Of what?«

»Can't you feel it starting?«

Yes, he could tell, there was something happening. Something was changing within his body. Fibres, that had just been tingling with delight, were now sending strange signals. It felt, like he'd been leaving messages to all his limbs and they were getting back to him now, after more than fivehundred years and all at the same time.

He aimed his Jackal and released the safety catch: »What have you done?«

»You should sit down«, Ann said, genuine concern in her voice. »You're shaking.«

»What have you done?« He pulled the trigger.

He had not meant to actually hit her – he needed her to answer his question, after all - but he had not meant to miss her by almost two inches, either. Worse yet, Alucard had not been prepared for feeling the recoil of the heavy weapon, so the next shot perforated the wall a full yard off-target.

Before Alucard could readjust his aim, a sharp pain struck him in the chest. It was red hot, like a shaft of burning quicksilver through his heart. He opened his mouth to scream, but he could only gasp. In his mind, however, he called out.

Police girl! It is I! Your master is calling you!

...

POLICE GIRL! Answer me!

A flying bayonet sent Alucard's Jackal tumbling to the ground and slithering across the floor.

»Oh no, pater!« Ann said sharply. »This is not the time to intrude upon us! And in such a rude manner!«

Alucard hissed, cradling his injured hand. Blood drenched his white glove. His natural reflex was to heal the wound. But the flow just would not stop.

It was then, he realized, he was in real trouble.

Again, he sent out a silent cry for help. Only, he did not focus on Seras Victoria's name. There was another one, a secret one, a name, that he had not used in a long time - and only ever teasingly.

Yet, he knew that if this name didn't penetrate, nothing would.

He found Ann standing in Anderson's way, her arms stretched out to block any incoming blades.

Practical girl.

Alucard opted for the back exit. He turned and phased through the wall.

For one absolutely horrifying moment, he felt caught in the stone. The fabric seemed to tighten all around him, and he barely managed to get through to the other side. His lungs hurt, his head throbbed. There was grey dust on his hat and his coat was torn. He found himself in a backyard, separated from the street by a ten-foot wire mesh fence. He climbed that fence, focussing on one thought only: He had to get away from here. Back to the Hellsing mansion. Back to his coffin.

Meanwhile, in Ann's room, Anderson was trying to tear down the wall that had let his opponent escape. He screamed and ranted about cowardice and how this was a monster's way of foul play. Then he turned on the witch, giving her a piece of his mind about her unholy practices.

»We've been through this before, Anderson«, Ann simply said. »Your job was it, to bring the Hellsing vampire here. My business was with him and your arch bishop. My thanks go to the latter, my compassion belongs to the first. For you, I have only silence.«

And she stopped talking to him.

Her special gift was the third eye, and that sense showed her a young woman sitting up in her bed, her hair so blonde, it was almost white, her short-sighted blue eyes wide with terror.

She mouthed four syllables into the emptiness of her bedroom, which was strange, because Ann knew, her recent guest's name consisted of three.

But then, the witch understood: The two of them, they had secret names for each other.

This was unexpected and complicated matters.

As did the overzealous paladin complicate matters, even though he'd stomped off in a fury.

Ann had done jobs like this one before, using her gift in favour of creatures, the leaders of the Iscariot division planned to eliminate. No one had told her that the paladin would still be after Alucard, once she had finished with him.

Her eyes moved to the postcards on the wall: She had saved so many souls and in a more palpable way than Anderson claimed for his blessed bayonets.

She wondered, if she might have been wrong this time.

Still, she smiled, saying nothing.

*** End of Chapter 1 ***

Author's note: Here we go. "The game is afoot" - or rather: racing back to the Hellsing mansion. You will probably have noticed by now: I'm not an English native speaker. So, if strange grammar and funny prepositions don't scare you off, please review, and chapter 2 will be online within a couple of days.