Disclaimer: I do not own Underworld. Duh.

AN: This story (sans-prologue) takes place overlapping the end of the first movie and may contain a few mentions of occurrences in the second movie. As it is a fanfic, I reserve the right to alter any occurrence as to make it fit. Be aware: Anything dealing with the Gates and such characters not involved in the actual Underworld movies are considered mine. That said, it's quite obvious that Vlad Tepes is not mine but the way I portray him is. Deal. And if you don't know who Vlad Tepes is, dear God google it! You should know if you're reading vampire fics! I chose to write this because I see very little dealing with our favorite Lycan Alpha and it's been bugging me.

Prologue

Much has been written about the war between the two sects of immortal creatures to grace the Earth. Most of it had been hidden away in books guarded by the night-dwelling vampires but a few tombs still remained in the hands of other, non-immortal beings. It was through these histories that two other sects formed.

The first, the Slayers, were the most known in cult circles. Vampire killers, they stalked the night to deal death to the aristocratic blood-suckers. They relied on relics, symbols, and the often useful wooden implement to do their tasks. Lines claiming descent from Van Hellsing bred generation after generation of Slayers who took upon themselves the task of eliminating vampires from the world they knew.

It is the second sect, however, that this story concerns. Relatively unknown by the normal class and most feared by the lycans were the Hunters. A group of militaristic, blood-thirsty werewolf-slayers, the Hunters chose silver and skill to combat their prey. Unlike their night-time counterparts, their histories indicate descent from a powerful clan of magicians; more so than the common day wiccan. In the more pure lines, the powers were still retained, and no line more so than that of the Gates.

It was a day of celebration for the lycans when word that the last pure line of the Gates lay dying in a hospital in America. Lycans around the world demanded proof of her obituary from their American cousins and, once it had been shown that the Gates had indeed been declared dead, it felt as though another victory had been won. It was one less thing to worry about with so many vampires breathing down their necks.

Raze of the Pack of Lucian was the first to hear of the news in his clan. He breathed a deep sigh of relief when he received the newspaper clipping from their contacts across the ocean. Lina had been trying to kill him for the last three years, coming close a number of times. Lucian, too, seemed glad to hear that the last of the pure Hunters was no more. Although he did not fear the young woman who seemed intent on destroying his lieutenant, he did not like the idea of losing a good soldier to an obsessive teenager. He had even gone as far as to stop sending Raze across the ocean for correspondence to keep the Gates from pursuing her damnable intent.

With that threat out of the picture, Lucian moved his concentration back to his plan to create the perfect blending of species. Fruitless though his searching had been, he knew the answer to their problem was out there somewhere. The closer they came to finding the solution, the closer Lucian felt he was coming to resurfacing. He had been lying low for far too long and was getting a little bit claustrophobic of his continual isolation from the outside world. He had to be careful not to be seen by those damnable vampires or else all his planning and all the plotting he and Kraven had done would be for naught. Too bad they had to wait another forty years before Amelia returned to pass her reign to Marcus. At least that meant he had forty years to figure out how to merge the species lines…

Chapter One: The Hunted

When the foreigner demanded to accompany the Death Dealers, no one argued. She had even confronted Viktor to make her wishes known. Forcibly reminding them that she had come from Amelia's coven with the emissary in the first place and wanted blood-vengeance had been enough to convince them that she meant business. Plus, she was a soldier and would be useful.

Upon arrival at the underground lair, the Death Dealers quickly broke through the Lycan defenses and noted the foreign Death Dealer was more than capable of holding her own. So when she separated herself from their midst, they thought little of her motives. She had obviously been strong enough to be sent as protection of the emissary, she could manage on her own. They had more important things to worry about than where she had gone, anyway.

She broke away as soon as she could from the main group, knowing that sticking with them would bring far too much attention to herself. She had more pressing issues than slaughtering a bunch of dogs. As soon as she could find a dark recess to meld into, the woman reached up to her eyes and, with deft motions, plucked the blue contact lenses from their places. She rubbed her eyelids with the back of her hands for a moment after tossing the little plastic disks off to one side. She hated wearing those damn things, they itched terribly. She had found, however, that her natural red irises brought a lot more questions than necessary. All these newer vampire lines had long since bred out the red and she wasn't really interested in letting them in on who she really was with such an identifying color. Plus, she reflected as she gave her eyes a moment to adjust to the black around her, she saw a lot better without the contacts in. She would need all her senses at full if she were to make it through this labyrinth without being seen by the lycans.

Leaning against the damp stones behind her, the woman reached into the inner pockets of her trench coat, pulling out a pair of gloves. The fingers had been removed and etched into the back and palms of the thick leather were pentagrams surrounded by scrawling symbols that few anymore knew the true meaning of. It was lucky she did or she wouldn't have been able to use them. Double checking that the rest of her gear was in place, she flexed her fingers and stepped out from her dark niche. She had searching to do.

Bringing her right fist up so that her palm faced toward the ground, the woman half closed her eyes and murmured a few words that, to any normal person, would have sounded like tongues. The brief incantation caused the pentagram on the back of her hand to flair a bright red before fading to nothing. Opening her eyes fully, she took stock of her surroundings and, sensing the direction her brief spell indicated, she took off down the hall at a quick run.


The pain of it was unbearable but somehow he managed to drag himself forward, nails digging into the concrete floor as, inch by agonizing inch, he moved toward Michael and Selene. Kraven, unfortunately, had impeccable timing, cutting him off before he could make it far enough to be seen or heard by the pair. He really should have killed that man a long time ago. Although not in any position to do the type of damage needed to end the life of the cowardly vampire, Lucian did not hesitate the moment he was within reach to spear Kraven through the calf, buying a precious few moments of time to relay his message to Selene.

As expected, Kraven wasn't thrilled to see that Lucian had survived the first attack and threw him to one side. A few more bullets hammered into the lycan's body, but his task was done. He smiled darkly at the vampire, laughed one harsh, gurgling laugh, then let his eyes slip closed as the silver seeped slowly into his blood stream.

Death was a very odd sensation after being alive for too many years to count. He could see nothing and feel nothing, but he could hear noises and voices as clearly as if they stood next to him. Most of what he heard was Viktor's voice and, if he were alive to do so, would have snarled at the sound of it. Perhaps this was his personal Hell, damned to an eternity of listening to that terrible voice without being able to see or feel anything else. It was not a comforting thought.


She frowned, pausing in her run so quickly that she skidded forward a few feet on her thick boots. She held her glove up again and repeated the original command. This time, there was no reaction. Taking a deep breath, she uttered the words once more but still nothing happened. That was not a good sign. His life force was too weak to register on the lay lines. She switched commands and, after the brief flair, changed directions slightly and took a dark, wet path down a crumbling corridor. She ran like her own life depended on it until the sounds of snarling and screaming met her ears. With hardly a pause in her momentum, she turned sharply to her right and pounded down the hall.

Breaking out of the passage into a room that smelled strongly of sewage, the woman took the scene before her in with a glance before pulling a large, silver gun from her leg-holster and opening fire. The three shots landed true and, much to the confusion of the lycan being battled, the vampires surrounding him dropped to the ground with agonized screams. It took mere moments before their bodies decomposed to dust and the woman re-holstered her gun.

"Now," she spoke softly, eyes turning to the monstrous beast that had come to its senses and launched itself toward her. With a quick motion, she brought her left hand up and made a rapid gesture. The pentagram on her palm flared and the werewolf stopped mid-leap, landing on the ground with a solid thud. Fisting her hand tightly, she brought it up as if lifting something really heavy and watched, pleased, as the lycan was righted and set on his feet. She really would have to thank her mother for these gloves when she returned home.

"This won't do for communication at all," she murmured to the beast, raising her other hand. The wolf snarled at her and tried to violently wrench itself from the invisible grip on its body. The free hand moved in a complicated pattern and, with a howl of surprise, the body of the lycan contorted and, with the sickening crunch of bones, melted into its human form. "Ah, much better." The woman looked up at the massive dark man she held in her force-grip. He was almost as big as a man as he was as a wolf.

His deep voice, a mixture of gravel and rust, spat across the distance at her as his hands twitched as if imaging he had her in his grasp and not visa versa. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded. It seemed somewhat weak to say but he couldn't seem to think of anything else worthwhile.

"Someone you should not be attacking, obviously. Take me to Lucian." She shook her fist a bit and watched as his body was rattled around.

"Too late," he ground out. "He's dead."

The woman seemed to contemplate that a moment before raising the right hand and repeating her locator spell along with a few other words. The design throbbed dully.

"Not quite," she replied grimly. "But if you don't hurry up and tell me where he is, he will be."

"Never," came the gruff reply to which he was shook roughly again.

"Listen you stubborn mutt," the woman snapped, dragging him around to slam him back against the wall. "I'm not your enemy here. Either you'll lead me to him of your own will, or I will make you take me there. I assure you the second option is far less pleasant than the first."

"If you were not my enemy," he gasped roughly, still struggling against the bonds, "You would not treat me as if I were."

"Make you it is," she replied instead and her right hand came up again, fingers twisting in the air as she drew a pentagram between them. A light red trail lingered for a moment wherever her fingers passed until the design was etched into the empty space before her face. With a slight forward push, she sent the star-shaped seal speeding toward the lycan.

With a flash, it burned itself into his arm, bringing a hiss from his lips. Then he dropped to his feet as she released her left hand. Walking directly up to him, the female tilted her head back and placed her hands on her hips. "Lucian. Now."

The lycan's limbs moved of their own accord as he slowly turned and followed the wall to another hallway. The woman, close on his heels, smiled triumphantly as his body refused to obey him and led her to where she wanted to go. It was spells of this power she owed her father's education and she made another mental note to thank him for his contributions to her abilities.

One dank hallway turned into another and, as they walked, she kept her ears tuned to their surroundings. The further they moved, the more distance the sounds of fighting became until she could hear them no more. She suspected that they had moved far enough away from the fighting that the danger of them being seen was over.

They reached a flight of cement stairs that the lycan took without hesitation. They led, it proved, to a series of dirty laboratories with bad fluorescent lighting. At the sight of the equipment and conditions, the woman felt a pang of pity for the lycans having to work in these sorts of facilities. They really had been driven into a dire underworld.

The werewolf under her command stopped when he reached an area of the floor near a hole in the wall. A mixture of blood and silver smeared along the floor but there was no body. He frowned and raised a hand to point at it.

"That is where I saw him last. He was dead."

The woman moved to stand next to him, looking down at the mess with a frown. Kneeling, she ran a finger over the smear and raised it to her face. Looking around, she spotted another smear not too far away and walked to it. Running a second finger through it, she compared it to the first, sniffing lightly. "Same," she murmured. Tracing the room quickly, she found a light train of smears leading away from where they stood toward a far opening covered by loose plastic flaps. Beckoning for the lycan to follow her, she slipped through the doorway into another similarly lit room. More blood smeared the floor but she could smell already that it differed. Vampire blood and something else.

Looking briefly around, she noted what appeared to be a fairly new hole in the far wall overlooking a very watery atrium. Moving to the opening, she gazed out of it. Apart from a body in the water, there was no one to be seen. She would examine that later, though. It was obvious from here that the body belonged to a vampire and her target was in no way a night-walker.

"Woman." The grating voice brought her attention back around to the large lycan standing behind her. He was hovering over something half hidden in the corner on top of a pile of debris. Coming closer, she groaned. Lucian.

He laid silently, eyes closed and body unmoving. A number of bullet holes riddled his body and a few trails of silver sheen traced down his shirt. There was no rise to his chest but as she knelt to check his pulse, there was a faint flutter there. He was alive, although only barely. She cursed then, punching her fist into the wall behind Lucian's head. This was not going well.

Gloves up, she muttered a few words under her breath and watched as Lucian's body throbbed a very pale white before fading. Pursing her lips, the woman stood from her crouch, reaching down to Lucian and, with a heave, hauled the body over her shoulder.

"What are you doing?" the commanded lycan demanded harshly. He may have lost control over his body but she hadn't blocked his ability to speak.

"He's not dead yet," the vampire replied through gritted teeth. "Almost. Most of his body had shut down but his brain is still there. If I can..." her voice faded off as she moved into the next room. "Come here." Like an obedient robot, the lycan followed without resistance. If he ever got free, he would teach her the meaning of humiliation.

She had dropped Lucian onto one of the exam tables and was standing over him with a severe expression on her face. She seemed to be thinking over her next move.

The woman had a definite problem. He was basically dead and she had been sent with the specific purpose of retrieving him. She wasn't about to return empty handed and she really didn't want to return with his body. Without him alive, he was damnably useless.

"Well, you're not dead," she murmured to the body, staring at the bullet holes as if they were the most intriguing thing ever. "But you may as well be. Your body can't survive with this silver in it and Viktor's damn ingenious coven has found a good way to keep that silver in you." She brought her hands to her face and ran fingers through her inky hair. "What am I going to do with you?" she whispered down at the dying werewolf. "They didn't prepare me for this."

The lycan could feel her grip starting to loosen from his body. Her concentration was obviously elsewhere. Straining against the bonds holding his body, he swore he could feel it slip a bit. A little longer perhaps and he'd have the freedom he craved.

Closing her eyes, the woman ran her hands from her hair across her face. She had a horrible feeling about what she was about to do but knew it was just about her only chance at ever saving him. "Lycan. Bring me a bucket."

Although the control wasn't as strong, the lycan still felt himself moving away from the room in search of what she wanted. His body forced him to paw through piles of supplies and equipment, throwing things to the side until he'd unearthed what she had wanted. The noise of it hadn't gone unnoticed. Lycans that had somehow managed to survive the invasion started appearing from the stairwell. Two had just entered to see their comrade shuffling through junk.

"Raze? What the hell are you doing?"

Raze looked up from the bucket he'd just picked up and grimaced at his fellow wolf. "Dubas." He started walking back toward the room Lucian lay in. "Can't control my body," he growled before disappearing into the exam room.

Dubas and the other followed, frowning. "What?" Dubas' eyes met the form of the vampress and growled. "Get away from him!"

The woman looked up as the new lycans moved toward her. Her hand flew upward and moved in a wide sweep. "Restrain them!" she barked at Raze. Without looking to see that it was done, she returned her gaze to Lucian's body. The seals she had been drawing had faded, half complete and useless. Cursing, she started over. "If any of you dare interrupt this again, I will kill you," she snarled without looking up from her task. "I don't have much time before he dies and I'm not about to let that happen."

A flash of red signaled the completion of her seals. Turning toward Raze, who held both lycans up against a wall, she nodded. "Good boy." She snagged the bucket he had dropped in the process and proceeded to ignore them, carrying it back to Lucian's side. She set it on the exam table near his hip and took a deep breath. This was going to take a lot of energy.

She ignored the gurgle from the struggling werewolves and the half grunted apologies Raze responded with as he tried to explain that he couldn't help himself. With the seals floating above her head, she made a quick motion and ripped open the front of Lucian's shirt to expose the bullet holes. She placed her palms over his chest, splaying her fingers to cover as much skin as possible. With half closed eyes, she breathed in and forced herself to concentrate completely on her task.

The pentagrams blazed suddenly and she felt the movement beneath her fingers as she slowly drew the silver through his body. It was spread so thin it was going to take a while to isolate it into a singular location. Digging deep into her power-well, the woman pulled the silver as hard as she could toward one of the holes. She blessed her mother's lineage once more as she worked. The knowledge to command silver was very helpful to those with Hunter-blood.

Raze's arms were lowering. He could feel the last of her grip slipping. At last, after an agonizing moment of muscle spasms, he released his fingers from around the necks of his fellow lycans. Sputtering, they rubbed their tender throats and gathered themselves. Raze turned stiffly toward the woman nearby, still trying to move muscles that had not been under his control for the better part of the last twenty minutes. His forward motion, however, was halted out of a mixture of confusion and caution when he saw what she was actually starting to do.

The silver had progressed as far as she could make it with her current power. She felt the bonds on the werewolf slip and hoped that he had enough sense not to come blundering up and kill her when she was so close. Trying to magically pull the silver from Lucian's body, however, was not working with so much of her reserves used up. This part would have to be manual. Gritting her teeth, the woman looked down at the bullet hole around which she had gathered the deadly liquid. Although it would not harm her as it would them, ingesting it could still make her sick.

Steeling herself for a taste she knew wasn't going to be pleasant, the vampire parted her lips and felt her teeth sharpen and extend. She knew hesitating any longer could cause her grip on the silver to slip as her control had slipped on the lycan behind her so she moved quickly and sunk her teeth into the flesh around the bullet hole. Sucking hard as soon as she felt a spurt of warm liquid, the woman started drawing the silver into her mouth.

Turning to spit it into the bucket, she realized it was a bit too far out of place when half of the silver she had sucked up spilled onto the floor. "You. Grab that," she ordered quickly, jerking her head at the bucket and directing her gaze to Raze. He was frowning slightly and had obviously taken control back. "Do it unless you want this stuff to re-distribute," she snapped when he didn't move.

Curiosity got the better of Raze and, motioning for the other two to remain where they were, stepped forward and snagged the metal bucket from its position. "Good," the woman said with a nod. "Hold it about there and watch your hands." She turned back to her task, latching her mouth onto Lucian's chest.

An eternity seemed to pass while she slowly drew the silver up with her mouth and spit it into the bucket. Raze watched in fascination as, just as slowly, the blueish-purple lines tracing across Lucian's body dissolved back into the pale skin. Perhaps this Vampire was onto something. He could just kill her after she'd finished, anyway. There was no hurry.

The taste had started to change. She sucked harder, bringing up mixtures of silver and blood now. There wasn't much silver to begin with but it was a slow process and she was elated to taste the coppery liquid mixed with the metallic. Her task was almost complete. Soon, all she could taste was the intoxicating substance and pulled back, ignoring the dribble of blood running down her chin and dripping onto Lucian's already bloody chest. Motioning for Raze to put the bucket aside, she surveyed the body beside her and gripped his chest tightly as a wave of nausea washed over her. The extraction took a little too much effort.

Gathering her wits, she blinked away the black dots swarming the corners of her vision and concentrated instead on Lucian's still not-moving body. Pressing fingers to his neck, she felt for the pulse. It was still there, faint. She lowered her ear to his mouth and felt the flutter of breath against the side of her face, but it, too, was weak. Raking her memory banks, the woman tried to remember anything her mother or father had taught her about revitalizing a nearly dead person. Nothing specific came to mind and, as she ran a hand across her forehead, smearing the pale skin with a streak of red, the black dots returned with a vengeance.

A gurgling burp rolled up her throat and a bubble of red escaped her lips as the nausea took a more firm hold on her body. She tightened her grip on the table she leaned on, staring with half-parted lips at the lycan laying still below her. She felt as though she was looking at him from very far away. Another red bubble escaped her lips and, with a desperate lunge toward Raze, she grabbed the bucket and emptied the contents of her stomach into the red and silver swirl in the bottom of the vessel.

Revived for a moment, she wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and swayed back to the table, staring intently at Lucian's face. It looked pinker than it had a moment ago. Perhaps his body's natural ability to heal was kicking in now that the majority of the silver had been removed. She checked his pulse again as well as his breathing. It wasn't noticeably better. "Come on, now," she muttered under her breath. A thought occurred to the woman as she watched his face carefully. It was worth a shot. After all, drawing the silver out of him had been an improvisation and so far he was still alive.

Slowly, knowing her energies were running dangerously low, the vampire traced a symbol on the pack leader's chest. It glowed a faint blue as it appeared. It seemed to take forever to place the intricate series of lines and circles across the skin of the man. More than once she had to stop as new waves of nausea returned. When she finished, most of Lucian's chest was covered in the glowing symbols that throbbed slowly and rhythmically, matching the sluggish pace of the man's own heart. Placing her palm over where his heart was situated, she mumbled a word that caused the symbols to flash once then vanish. Her own body throbbed momentarily with the same eerie glow before it, too, faded.

Surveying her handiwork, the woman nodded to herself as though she could see something that the gathered lycans could not but was pleased at what she saw. Perhaps it would work. Only time could tell now. Turning her body slowly around, she leaned her palms on the edge of the exam table behind her and looked at Raze through blurry eyes.

"If you kill me now," she told him, swallowing heavily as the urge to vomit returned with an unforgiving urgency, "he will die as well. Keep that in mind." With a hiccough, more blood dribbled down her chin. She took a step toward the discarded bucket as though to make good use of it but never made the trip. The world around her swirled a violent red then faded to black before she hit the floor.

"Well?" Dubas asked harshly when Raze made no move to crush the woman now unconscious on the floor at their feet. "What are you waiting for?" The smaller werewolf stooped as though to grab the vampire. The dark man halted him with a firm hand and a shake of his massive head.

Instead of dealing a deathblow, Raze bent and hefted the woman up and walked her to a nearby exam table that was occupied by a variety of dirty, rusted instruments. He swept them off and replaced them with her body.

"What the hell, Raze?" Dubas demanded, following closely on the other's heels.

"Leave her be," the dark wolf growled with a tone of command not easily ignored.

"Why?" Dubas glared up at Raze but made no move to touch the vampire. "She's one of them, isn't she? You can't seriously believe that killing her will change this." The smaller man motioned to Lucian's body across the room. There was some murmured agreement from the lycans that had gathered at the door. A few more had arrived during the ordeal but had remained at a respectful distance when they saw Raze make no move to interfere with the vampress' administrations.

"Until Lucian awakens, I am Alpha here," Raze snarled, snagging the front of Dubas' shirt and shoving him backwards. "And if I chose to let her live, then any move toward her is considered mutiny. Do I make myself clear? Unless any of you think you can take me." Those present could not make themselves meet his cold gaze. Even Dubas knew he was no match for the powerful werewolf.

"Now, go search for survivors. I will watch Lucian. If he dies, I will kill the woman. You have my word on that."


AN: That is it for chapter one. I have chapter two completed. It's only a matter of time now for when I post it. So long as I get one review indicating interest, I'll continue. Otherwise, no one really cares and I'll remove the story. Either way, this is mostly for my own amusement. Thanks!