Alucard slammed the door to his basement a little harder than necessary. The hinges groaned in protest, and the slab of wood reopened just a crack. Great, something to fix later. He had only just begun to lower himself into his coffin when the door groaned loudly. It made him sit up; he rarely got visitors down here. Now who might that be? And there it was, fluffy and adorable, bathing a paw with its hot pink tongue, staring at him with calculating red eyes. It finished after a moment, then kicked the door shut with a back paw. Now Alucard didn't know much about cats, but he knew enough to know that wasn't normal feline behavior. "Out with it, cat. What are you?"

It smiled again, flashing its pointed teeth. Then before his eyes, it began to shift and change. The vampire watched as the tiny kitten grew into an apex predator. Its teeth lengthened into rows of deadly fangs, while its tail split into two twitching appendages. The stray was weak and emaciated, but the demon it became, for a demon it was, was easily seventy kilos.

"Which one are you?" Alucard demanded. He sounded bored.

"Pardon?" the demon responded in her low husky voice. She rolled the 'r' instinctively.

Alucard was both unsurprised and unimpressed by her ability to speak. After their brief encounter last night, he had expected it. "Nekomata? Bakaneko? I know you're one of those Japanese cat demons, but you're all so painfully similar and insignificant that I try to ignore you altogether."

"Kasha," came the terse answer.

Alucard was familiar with the species. The race of cat demons was known for eating corpses, a polite bunch. In other stories, they stole corpses who had done terrible things in their lives and whisked them away to a hellish afterlife. "So you're here to what? Drag me off to Hell? I think Lucifer and I might step on each others' toes."

"Precisely," the cat responded. "My masters are very interested in your work here on Earth. They're dying to meet you."

"Glad to know I have fans. Tell you what, give me their names and I'll sign a few autographs."

"It doesn't work that way," the kasha responded. "I cannot return to Hell alone. You must come with me."

Alucard dismissed the feline with a wave of his hand. "Well then I hope you like London, because I like London and I have no intention of leaving."

"Then neither do I," she hissed back. "Mark my words, vampire. You will return with me, or I will do everything in my power to make your life a living hell."

The No-Life King closed the gap between them in two large strides. The room seemed to grow darker as the shadows drew closer to his body. "Care to tell me why I shouldn't snap your neck now and save myself the trouble?"

The cat gave another one of its disconcerting smiles, even more eerie in its demonic form. "You love the human and the girl vampire. They already love me." She mewed in the sweetest voice she could manage, looking at him with her most sympathetic red eyes. "In their eyes, I am a precious innocent thing. If you kill me, like... was it a hamster that you offed before?"

"It was possessed!" Alucard protested.

"Of course," the kasha purred, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "It will devastate your precious ones if they were to lose another pet."

The vampire glared at the less-than-innocent creature. It had a point, a good point. Integra and Seras were undoubtedly attached to their new flea-bitten stray. Their hearts blinded them to the truth that said kitten was likely to try to murder them in an attempt to persuade Alucard to go to Hell with her. "If you so much as scratch one of them..." he growled.

The creature raised one clawed and crossed her left breast. "I shall not. I'm no fool; you're stronger than me. You'll crush me like a bug. I shall simply have to work in more subtle ways."

"And I shall simply have to persuade the others that you are not what you claim."

The cat's eyes flashed with what the vampire would have wagered was excitement. "I shall enjoy our game, I think."

"You know, the last time I played a game of chess was over a century ago," Alucard said casually. "I barely knew the rules, but my strategy generally allowed me to prevail, until one night in Prague that is. I was playing against a Czech general, a bit of a prat but at least he was clever. He managed to reduce me to naught but my king. He still had six pieces, but I won the game."

The kasha took the bait. She was curious to know, "How?"

"Simple. I threw the chess board across the room, ripped out the man's stomach with my bare hands, and set his tent on fire," he said with the casual tone of someone asking about the weather. "My point is I hate losing, cat."

"Then I shall simply have to defeat you quickly," she purred back, shrinking to her house-cat form. With an amused twitch of her tail, she pawed the door open and slipped back into the livelier parts of the manor.

It only took her a minute to jaunt up the stairs and follow the sound of voices into the kitchen, where Integra and Seras were pouring through the pantry for something to feed their new furry friend. The demon in disguised rubbed along their ankles purring warmly.

"Is Miss Kitty hungry?" Seras asked with a coo, picking up the feline and wrapping her securely in her arms. The kitten's fur had already dried from her time near the fire, and she was starting to feel warm again.

"Miss Kitty?" Integra giggled. "Surely you can't be thinking of naming her that."

Seras held the kitten up before her, examining the bedraggled creature. "I think it fits."

"What about Midnight, because of her fur?" the Hellsing director asked. "It makes more sense."

"Or Elvis! You could be an Elvis!" The cat flattened her ears against her head, and Seras relented. "I don't think she wants to be an Elvis."

"Smokey?" Integra suggested. "Salem?"

"Chanel? Or... or Blacky?"

The Hellsing director rubbed her chin. "Suede? No that doesn't sound right at all."

"Kasha." A new voice entered the conversation. It was Alucard. "Call it Kasha."

"Why?" Integra asked. "It seems-"

"It's a demon cat. Kasha's a cat demon."

"She's not a demon!" Seras protested. Then she pressed her nose to the kitten's own soft pink one. "She's a sweet widdle kitty, isn't she?"

"Just wait until she eats something you like," Alucard snapped.

Integra, however was looking pensive. As much as she worried when she agreed with Alucard, he was occasionally very perceptive. "With two vampires and some preternaturally gifted humans under our roof, a demon name does suit our lifestyle. Kasha isn't a bad name."

Seras examined the creature in her arms closely. "Kasha-cat, Kashies, Miss Kashakins the Third. Yeah, I like it too."

The kitten looked at Alucard darkly, but then rolled over in the eternal teenager's arms and playfully batted at her dangling blonde hair. "You're so precious!" Seras cooed as she put the fuzzball down in front of a saucer of milk. Integra opened a can of tuna into a china bowl and placed it next to the saucer. The small animal sniffed the air, then hesitantly dipped a paw in the milk, licking it off when she discovered it was the source of the smell. She lost her balance as she tried to fully clean the soaking paw, and flopped over onto her side with a confused expression. The result made the two blondes devolve into fits of laughter as they rushed to help the black ball of fur up.

Alucard gritted his teeth. This cat was good. Of course, he realized, this meant WAR!