Integra was fuming, he knew it. Normally he was the only one who could provoke that kind of reaction. He and Seras had just finished debriefing with her and she had seemed calm - calmer when he'd left. Intrigued, he phased behind her, in the shadow behind the couch.
How odd.
She was alone and watching a... "movie" starring an oddly dressed human who called himself−
"Van Hellsing!" shouted a scraggy policeman on the "television set".
###
Integra wasn't pleased. It'd been the second time this week and the bloody Round Table was breathing down her neck.
Pulling out another cigarette she felt the beginnings of a migraine. She'd just listened to a detailed account of how Alucard had wrought mayhem inside a... cinema. What was worse, it had been the opening night and there were a lot of witnesses. Apparently, some vampire movie that Alucard hated was running. To make matters worse the Iscariot had been there, too. Supposedly, he had been holding a banner with "Vampires don't sparkle. Know thy enemy"
She refused to try to understand.
The accounts of what had happened afterwards varied from this point.
In the end, anyway, the two idiots had completely demolished the building and now she had to pay for that and for the refund on the tickets. Something like this always happened when those who got together. It was a good thing that the Knights had managed to cover it up, God only knows how. To top it off, that dimwit, Maxwell, had actually tried to justify sending Anderson. Thinking back, it was something about some American writer, servants of Satan and some such other nonsense.
At the end of the day, she'd just opened the TV to take her mind of the recent events and found... this. A movie about how her ancestor had defeated Dracula. And just in case Maxwell didn't know what to look for, the title was her bloody family name. He and Anderson must be laughing their holy knickers off right about now.
She was suddenly startled out of this line of thought by a choked sound. Behind her, Alucard was bent over, gripping his sides and had started cackling madly in unstoppable peals of pure mirth.
"Show some dignity, will you!" she spit out, unamused.
He did stop, at length, and, coming around the couch, said "Oh, my. No thought of revenge I ever harbored against your ancestor could have matched this..." he gestured suggestively at the screen and lazily plopped himself beside her grinning his damned Cheshire smile. "Just look at him, the annoying sot, great Van Hellsing played by one of the Yanks, no less. That large awful hat, that ugly coat−"
At this point, a well-known voice interrupted. "Hey, Pip, who's that? He looks just like Master."
"Not quite correct, Miss Victoria, Alucard wears red. He likes to stand out, I think. Would you care for more popcorn?" Walter appeared next to Integra and offered them two small bowls filled up, while Alucard rounded to discover Seras, Pip and the rest of Wild Geese, who were all assembled behind, watching attentively.
"Thank you, Walter," said Integra. "Say, Alucard does have a rather odd fashion sense, doesn't he?" she smirked at him.
Alucard was still glaring furiously at the ensemble "What's this?!"
"Training, zir." quipped Pip. "Mizz Hellsing did zay to check Bram Ztoker and everything, but this izz way more interezting. Oh, and juzt look at thoze poumons." Stammering, "Zen again, no one can compare to you, Mignone." Seras turned bright red, and it was Integra's turn to turn and scowl. Alucard raised a brow and grinned impudently.
"No need to glare, Integra, you have a great... personality."
At this point one of the soldiers actually had the gall to shush him. And this is how the evening went downhill.
###
Twenty minutes earlier everybody was ready to kill Alucard, one way or the other. He just couldn't help it, Integra thought, he was one of those people who had to comment about everything.
"What a silly hairdo, and that is Dracula?!"
"Just look at that stinking mutt. Some of its ancestors might have been werewolves, but my Baskerville would swallow it in a bite."
"What an outrageously sniveling coward. He's supposed to be me?! And that stupid girl, Anna, whiny, just like you, police girl. Hey, why are you crying? He's an actor, he's not dead. Why are you crying? You're a vampire, for Pete's sake. Look at the brides, killing elegantly and you don't see them bemoaning their mortality and all that nonsense."
"Oh, mon Dieu, petite, don't tell me you can transform in that." mumbled Pip, pale. A bride in the shape of a blue bat swooped upon a helpless villager, carried him up and let him fall through the roof of a nearby house.
"Now now, master Bernadotte, they're not real. They are made on the computer."
Stubbornly, Pip pointed at Alucard. "He shouldn't be real either, but here he iz, isn't he?
On the screen, one of the three brides had just been murdered and the other two stopped the onslaught on the little Romanian village to run away. This, of course, earned them a contemptuous huff from Alucard.
Back at the castle, Dracula was currently lamenting his eternal state.
"Do we mean so little to you? - Have you no heart?"
"No, I have no heart! I feel no love!
Nor fear...
nor joy...
nor sorrow!
I am hollow.
And I will live forever."
Seras had started sobbing quietly and more than one of the Geese had to inconspicuously wipe away a tear. Even Integra could feel the performance tug a little at her. True, the character was a murderer and should he have existed she would have killed him herself and slept none the worse for it. Also, he was completely unrealistic. Alucard had way more style and didn't whine every two minutes of screen time or mope his days away.
However, she could imagine that he felt lonely − that was one of the reasons she hadn't pressed the issue when he'd turned Seras. He'd been watching every member of the Hellsing organization, the only people who knew him, wither away and die, time and time again. And sometime in the future she would leave him too. Like her father before her, she pitied him, a little.
Lost in thought, she jumped as a deafening shot cracked and the room was plunged in darkness. After a few seconds a candle was lit to reveal the ever-resourceful Walter. Integra turned to find Alucard, contemplating the smoking end of his Jackal with evil delight.
"I completely obliterated that evil spirit that inhabited your television set. Now it will never again dirty anyone's screen again. That trash had tarnished the name of vampires and that guy saying he was Hellsing−" He looked at Integra, triumphantly. "Why, you always say I only bring problems to this organization, Integra. As amusing as it was, that individual will never again mock your reputation. Now he's dead, you can just silence the few who know of this."
Integra didn't answer. She turned and looked at the hole in the wall in front of which her television set had previously existed. The room was so silent you could have heard a pin drop.
"Alucard."
"Yes, Master."
"... get out."