The door burst open and Alucard entered the room. While it was true he could simply phase through the wall, sometimes there was something satisfactory about crashing in a door. Seras walked in behind him, her own entrance quiet in the wake of her Master. Both of them saw a desk and behind it was a chair that was facing away from the door. It was shaking slightly and it wasn't hard to guess that the remaining target was seated there.
"You might as well show yourself; that chair isn't going to protect you," taunted Alucard. Slowly the chair turned around. If Alucard was expecting a mighty opponent, well, he was about to be disappointed. Sitting in the chair was, for all physical purposes, a young woman, probably a little younger than Seras herself. Her red eyes, however, was a dead giveaway that she was a vampire, so her true age was hard to discern by looks alone. However, the anxious look on her face seemed more in keeping with a young vampire. She certainly wasn't as old as Alucard; probably not even half as much.
Despite the similarity in their apparent ages, she was quite an opposite to Seras. Her hair was dark and long. The top of it was pulled back in a braided crown, while the rest hung down her back in soft waves. She wore a stark white, peasant style blouse and a pair of dark red jeans. Unlike his busty fledgling, this woman was quite slim. And she seemed to lack even the fire of the Police Girl.
"You've killed the others?" she asks, looking between Alucard and the other female vampire. Her voice wasn't angry or even frightened exactly. Certainly it sounded sorrowful and more than a little bit resigned. She briefly put a hand to her forehead and closed her eyes. Alucard watched her for a few moments. "And you won't leave until you've killed me also?" she said. Whether this was a question or actually a statement was a bit hard to tell.
"That's the plan," Alucard said with a smirk, pulling out his standard gun. The woman's eyes grew a bit wider as she stared down the barrel of the gun; then she raised her eyes to look at Alucard's glasses. She sighed deeply but said nothing right away. Any moment now Alucard expected a speech. They always gave him speeches. It was a source of amusement while at the same time, a source of annoyance. The breed had fallen as of late, especially with the FREAK vampires on the loose.
"I suppose it wouldn't be any use asking you not to," the woman finally said, rising to her feet. She wasn't very tall and she certainly didn't appear as a threat. Alucard laughed in spite of himself. There was no posturing, no bragging, and no threats. There was simply the one statement with no aggressive body language. This really wasn't what he expected. He flicked a glance towards his fledgling who was openly staring at the other woman, curiosity written on her face.
"Don't you think that's a little bit pathetic?" he sneered, showing his fangs. The woman held up a hand as if it could ward him off.
"Not really," she said with a whimsical smile that didn't reach her eyes. "You've already killed the other two vampires downstairs, and that means you're stronger than them. That also means you're stronger than me, so even if I was to make a move, you could likely shoot me before I had a chance to even touch you." She looked at Seras again and nodded her head politely. "Besides, there's two of you and only one of me."
"How very interesting," Alucard mused, still sneering. "You show wisdom. Too bad it won't save you." Still, he didn't shoot, not yet. If he could get more amusement out of this encounter, then he would. So far the woman had shown no fighting initiative, or any hint that she was able to defend herself. Those he had found downstairs had the full quota of arrogance combined with stupidity. As far as he knew, she was the youngest of them all, a new addition to their family, so to speak.
"Can you at least tell me why it is so necessary?" she asked. "You and your companion are vampires, just as I am." She raised her eyebrows a little. "If there was something you wanted here, you would be welcome to it." Her arms spread outwards to indicate the house and its entire contents. "None of it really matters to me."
"I have my reasons," Alucard said flatly. In a mere blur of motion he moved from standing near the door to sitting on the desk right in front of the woman, his gun shoved under her chin, forcing it up so that she had little choice but to stare him in the face, or close her eyes. She winced at the contact but she didn't take her eyes from Alucard's face.
"I'm sure you do," the woman murmured softly. "But I doubt it's personal; I have never set my eyes on you or your companion. I've never harmed you."
"What's your name?" asked Seras, speaking for the first time since she entered the room with Alucard. Her Master shot her a look of annoyance.
"Don't get soft, Police Girl," Alucard growled directly to her mind. "She's not one of your precious human beings."
"I know, Master, but she seems so different," was Seras' somewhat plaintive reply.
"Focus." Realizing that Seras didn't have her heart in the attack, so to speak, Alucard pulled the trigger. He expected a spatter of blood to fly through the air, painting the walls behind his opponent red. Instead, there was nothing, not even the vampire woman. He heard a soft thud in the room below them; the woman had phased through the floor. Instead of being angry, he laughed softly.
"Well, well. We can rule out her being a FREAK," he said, tucking his gun away. "She's downstairs, Police Girl. This might be more interesting than I expected."
"Yes Master!" said Seras, quickly regaining her spunk as she followed Alucard out of the room. Clearly Alucard wasn't worried; if the matter was truly pressing he would have phased through the floor after their target, leaving Seras behind. Since he was letting Seras follow, she assumed he had things well in hand.
In truth, Alucard wanted just a few moments to think. The vampires he had fought first were much like the Priest in Cheddar. While they weren't FREAKS they also were a far cry from master vampires. None of them seemed to have any ability to phase or do more than raise ghouls and perform feats of speed and strength. He had thought she was just a scared child. Evidently, he had guessed wrong, and that was not good. Still, at least it kept things from being too boring. So many vampires had fallen to him, and almost all of them had been disappointments.
The pair of vampires, master and fledgling, searched back through the house, but their target was gone. This was also rather unusual as a lot of vampires they fought were highly territorial. Alucard lumped that in with the arrogance and stupidity. Of course, he had his full share of arrogance, but with one difference: he could back up his claims.
