Greetings to you all!

First off, I know that I've been silent for a good… year. And I'll admit, I was hoping to have this completed a while ago. As I mentioned elsewhere on this site, I lost a month of my summer, then classes started up and have been eating up much of my time. (Though with five engineering classes, I really shouldn't be surprised about that, should I?)

Still, I have good news. Thanks to the whole taking a year thing, this story is complete. (Well, 99.9 percent. I'll be doing a final proof read as I post chapters.) So, you won't have to wait six months for the next chapter to be written. (Just the next story.)

I'll probably take a bit of a pause before I start writing the next one. The next couple weeks are gonna be packed. But I've got basic plot concepts written for stories five, six, and seven. I'm also planning a complete rewrite for Demon Force, as I'm sure we all know it needs the help. (Not kicking myself in the teeth, or anything. I didn't have enough in mind when I started writing it. This should at least partially fix that.) For now, I've got modified versions of all three previous stories that I'll post tomorrow, once I'm out of my classes. (Fixing grammar errors, Anderson's name, name updates, etc.) Once those are up, I'll start posting the rest of this one. (Consider this short bit a teaser for the rest of the story.)

Due to a recent review for "A New Child" (Thanks again to MindAsylum!), there's another note I'd like to include here. The primary basis for my little series is the first six episodes of the thirteen episode original anime series. I may expand on that to include other things, depending on how my writing progresses. My knowledge of vampire lore is, I will admit, a little on the slim side. What I know comes mainly from movies I've seen, and it seems that each movie comes up with its own play on the concept.

So, I do understand that the stories I've written probably don't follow a lot of the mainstream vampire lore. I'm not exactly apologizing for it, as I'm sure the ideas I introduce in this story probably won't bring me any closer to that mainstream, but I did want to let folks know I'm aware of what I've done here. I consider this all to be an alternate universe story. Not to say that I can do anything I want, but I feel I can alter the rules a little here and there so long as I remain consistent with myself.

Well, that gets a majority of my notes out of the way. If I forgot something, I'll catch it in later chapters. For now, on with the show! I hope you all enjoy.

Oh, and before I forget, I don't own Hellsing. Never have, never will. I do own the stuff I added to the universe, but the universe itself isn't mine. I'm just playing in it.

And a more general disclaimer: Any copyrighted material borrowed for this story is owned by the folks who own it. I'm not making any claims on it, and I'm not going to make a cent on this story. It's just written for fun; for my enjoyment, and hopefully the enjoyment of others.

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Rebecca peeked through the slits of the closet door, praying no one would see where she was hiding. The way out was in sight… She just needed to get to it. Nervous sweat had plastered her auburn hair to her head, which she tried to keep drawn back from her eyes.

The people in this house which had been her prison for… God knew how long… looked military. All were armed. They seemed to answer to a civilian… a woman named Nasori. But if they were there for the reason she'd figured, she wouldn't want them to find her.

He'd seemed like a kind old man… Why the hell had she helped him?

She forced herself to calm. Bad as the situation was, getting all panicky would only make it worse. She needed to figure out her next move… It was something like a week before that her life had turned into hell. One moment, she's helping this harmless looking old fart with some chores around his house. Somehow she'd stumbled; twisted her ankle. He took her inside so she could sit and let it rest before calling home for help, and…

She really couldn't remember what happened. But ever since then she'd done everything she could to avoid him. He seemed content to wait. There was nowhere she could run to and, as he'd put it, she would come to see things his way.

But that all changed earlier that evening. She'd gotten this feeling of… danger. She hid in the closet. Suddenly the door was broken down and the soldiers entered. They shot the old man. From her hiding place, she saw him fall to ashes. She knew she would be next if they found her.

All she knew was that she needed to run. She had no idea who she could trust… or who she could trust herself around… She had money, or at least access to it. She could run, get to the airport, and get on whichever flight she could get on next. Hide where no one could find her.

The woman, Nasori, looked at her closet. She held her breath, praying Nasori wouldn't look there. Nasori blinked, shook her head, and hearing an "all clear" report from one of the soldiers ordered them to pull out and call in a clean team. The soldiers left, followed by Nasori. Nasori gave one last look over her shoulder, and disappeared. The door remained open.

Rebecca didn't need any better invitation to run.