Author's Notes: Okay, this fic is getting serious on me. Nuu! I wanted it to be a crack fic, because I don't really have one. I guess my Legacy of Kain fics can count as crackfics... but nah, this one's a weird almost-serious one. WAI.


(CHAPTER 4 GOES HERE)

He was roused by Vivian, who had come over to pull on his sleeve and pat his cheek. He had been dreaming a strange dream, about a boy who was running in a snow-lined street and a man with a wide, fanged smile like a psychotic jester. He almost cracked her in the face, but the arm he was going to use was still tinglingly asleep, being stuck under Dante.

The beautiful Hellsing Estate looked less than friendly. Floodlights in the color of red bathed everything in the bloody glow of suspicion. He felt the tumultuous presence of a greater being bearing down on his supernatural senses, surprised in spite of the knowledge that this Alucard - or whatever it was - was a vampire. He had felt nothing like that from that bumbling lech Marcellus Von Trap, nor from his supernatural whores.

He found himself suddenly in a situation then. To his left, Dante was unconscious against his side, breathing calmly and gently, a warm and strangely comforting weight with one leg sprawled over his thighs. It was almost cute. He could probably take his amulet now, save himself the trouble of fighting over it, and leave these other British pigs to their vampire slaying. If Dante was foolish enough to fall for some spell like this, it was justifiable that he shouldn't be the owner of the other half of their mother's amulet. But, regardless of that, he knew that any sort of magical ritual, spell, or supernatural activity would require both of the brothers to make it work.

Vergil just couldn't see himself drag Dante on a sled to the nearest Hellish artifact club, explain to the attending Satan worshippers that Dante was a necessary component to invoking evil, and so on and so forth. He really couldn't.

In half an hour, the vehicle had reached a doubly reinforced garage door guarded by armed Hellsing soldiers, their insignias bright and important-looking. Vergil was almost tempted to be impressed that these humans could maintain such an organized operation under the pressure of supernatural circumstances. And at the hub of this great organization there was a thing called Alucard who was their trump card for any freaks. At the present, like Dante, he was incapable of waking up from some sort of sleep.

Dante's brow furrowed. As the doors open his brother coughed violently, seemed to throw up but nothing was produced but for the horrible gagging sound. It went on for awhile, and everyone stopped to stare at them as if it was Vergil's fault. It went away quickly, and Dante settled down as if nothing had happened. Vergil twitched slightly, irritation coloring his eyes a darker shade of blue. He pulled the man from the truck and again balanced his weight over one shoulder. "He's my brother," he growled, glaring at the men with a stretcher, who disappointedly trundled the thing away.

Integra Hellsing appeared beside him, the menace in her expression showing fairly clearly on the firm set of her jaw. She looked at him squarely in the face, a crooked smile forming on her lips while she did so, as if she had a very wonderful secret and wasn't going to tell.

"There are plenty of rooms; you may retire there, while I discuss this nonsense with my equals. Our butler will show you the way." She nodded to the aging man with silver-streaked hair. He seemed to have a pretentious smile that spoke volumes of secrets he would never tell. He looked old enough to be at least in his mid-sixties.

"What about me?" Vivian interjected, pressing herself up against Vergil's side as if she could not get away. Her bizarrely colored eyes warranted a second glance from Walter. She wore her new dry clothes, but she still smelled like she had just come from the pits of eternal stench. Vergil seemed no better. "I'm not leaving my master! He's my good master and won't ever send me away--"

"Girl, go take a bath and leave me be."

"WHAAAAT?" Vivian looked positively scandalized. A maid approached with a clothespin sealing her nostrils shut and dragged Vivian away. "Vergil, whyyy?"

Walter inclined himself at the waist slightly toward Vergil Sparda. They met each other's eyes, in which the two evaluated each other at a distance.

Finally, Walter said, "Come, this way, please." The aged man moved with the stealth-like walk of a old cat who still knew some tricks, and cast wary glances through the monocle he wore at one eye at the honored guest. Through marble corridors and stone and wood walls, with paintings of people Vergil did not know but whose faces carried the weight of great responsibility and secrecy, the half-demon swordsman felt every part of the way that there were eyes everywhere, watching him. Something dark and restless stirred among these walls, and its presence crept along his skin under his clothes as if it married itself to every atom of the air. He gave a pained growl and adjusted Dante's body better on his shoulder.

The room was beautiful, Vergil had to admit. It was huge enough to be an apartment all by itself, including all of the usual fixtures of a sink, and an open-door bathroom attached to it. The four-poster bed was made of unstained walnut, and there were dressers and a large mirror. Vergil looked at himself in the mirror just for a minute , while the butler opened the shades and let in some moonlight, then turned on a lamp, filling the room with a rosy pleasant glow. He didn't admit it to the butler, but he felt rather peaceful. It was a swell change from the dark, stinking whorehouse of the vampire.

"Please enjoy your stay. I will send maids to attend your brother while you join Sir Integra and the Knights to palaver later."

" 'Palaver'?" Vergil echoed, watching as the man left the room to wait outside. He shut the door and when he was alone with the sleeping twin demon, he tried to force the knots from his back and all over his body that had been plaguing him with pain for awhile now; his brother slept on obliviously. He walked to the bathroom, convinced that he wouldn't miss anything all that important if he took the time to bathe himself.

Hot water. Clean, fresh hot water, too! And he was without that simpering little female around, clinging to him, "master" this and "master" that. He dumped his clothes in a reckless heap onto the floor by the door, and almost fell into the tub when it was full, soaking the stink of the demon realm from his skin. It was a huge, round porcelaine tub, and he was chin-deep in water just by sinking down a little. His feet barely touched the other end of the tub. He washed his hair and had added oils to the water that smelled rather nice. All of the bath paraphernalia had musical sounding names, and he didn't remember what even most of them were. Not that it mattered. He scrubbed at his skin with a rough cloth and soothed it with a soft one. Then he changed the water and soaked in a fresh bath; the water wasn't as hot as before, but it had a relaxing property that put him more at ease than he wanted to be.

Time seemed to come to a tepid crawl, and his head rested to one side, his arms stretched out where his fingers could touch the hilt of his sword where he left it leaning against the tub. Lulled on the tides of near-exhaustion, he let himself find a place between waking and sleeping called "dreaming".

The world went black, and he felt as if he was floating - understandable for sleeping in a bath tub can do that to people - but he heard a voice he didn't know.

"--get ready; I hear the horses coming now."

On cue, the sound of horses hoofbeats on the ground. He felt their reverberations as they pounded up the stone-cobbled pathway nearer and nearer. The same voice shouted, "Now! Stop him!!"

There was gunfire, and some of the cracking reports sounded so familiar. Horses screamed in agony and crashed heavily to the earth. A wagon of some kind sounded as if it fell over. Vergil listened harder, his chest twitching and making the water ripple; the gunshots gave way to the sounds of a snarling monster and a chain of explosions that would have hurt Vergil's metaphysical ears. He winced, wanting to see what was going on! Then all of a sudden, Dante's voice shouted unintelligibly in pain from farther away, then the voice sounded closer in his mind.

"Shit! I can't shoot like this-- Hey, kid get out of the goddamn way!"

"Dante!!" Vergil sprung from the water, his knuckles white as he held the Yamato tightly, spilling bath wtaer over the edges onto the floor; he was poetry in motion, glowing and steaming from his skin from the hot bath as he ran to Dante, who writhed on the bed. He was choking on blood now; on his chest were blossoming bright red holes which seeped hot vitality. It seemed the wounds were springing up from nowhere. Vergil rippled with shock, for the wounds maintained their steady pumping of blood.

As if he had no idea that he was still nude, he crawled onto the bed and pulled the top sheet away. "Dante!" he yelled again. He heard the door open, heard Walter enter and stop frozen and turn right around as he saw the very naked Vergil stuffing the sheets into bleeding bullet holes.

"What the hell is going on?" Walter wanted to know, though somehow maintained the serene calm of a mindless butler.

"Get that bitch back in here," he snarled at him, his eyes smoking crimson. "Something's happening to Dante!" With a chill settling into his bones that had nothing to do with being undressed, he looked down at Dante's quickly paling face. "We both have demon blood inside of us... and wounds don't stay like this!"


The two gentlemen in red stayed in the center of the street waiting for the coach, while the boy kept inside the doorway of the restaurant. Dante did not complain one bit about the cold. He was actually feelin' pretty good, even though he had almost drowned (somehow) in that weird black shit in the other room. He stretched out his arms and shook out his legs and, well, was kind of glad he was dry. He couldn't help, however, noticing that his companion looked a bit tense.

"So, what... exactly do you do?" Dante asked quietly, to draw him out of his weird silent brooding.

"I kill vampires at the behest of my master, Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing." He was checking his weapons; Dante saw the craftsmanship and felt a surging desire to get a closer look at his guns. "These bullets," Alucard explained, "are made from a silver cross in Manchester. They're quite effective in butchering those weak little peons that call themselves nosferatu when they're really nothing like me..."

"So, you're a vampire?" Dante grinned ear to ear. "I met this fine woman in Hell once... and she was a vampire too. She tried to suck on me, but in the end she was suckin' bullets instead of blood."

"Didn't you already tell me about that?" Alucard complained, sounding bored, but really, he was impressed. "How did she end up in that tower?"

"Damned if I know. She wasn't the first freak I dispatched there, either..." Thinking about that place made Dante regretful, and he didn't like feeling regretful. The last image he had of that place was watching his brother fall... fall forever, into Hell, and the sting of a sword cutting through his hand.

"You'll see him again," Alucard said suddenly, and looked just as surprised as Dante. "Sooner than you think." He smiled as if something had dawned on him.

Dante felt warm all over, and wished he could believe him. Damn, but this vampire bastard was a weird one! He said some pretty strange shit half the time. He hunched his shoulders, leaning his blade over his shoulder and kicking snow. The boy was still in the doorway, drinking hot cocoa he had made quickly before.

Alucard suddenly stiffened, and his eyes keyed into the direction of a sound that was growing louder. "Get ready; I hear the horses coming now."

The sound was clear and bright, clattering through the dull blanket of snow as if it seemed to come from another world all on its own. Alucard seemed to rise from the ground, every strand of hair moving upward as did the corners of his mouth; a smile to scare the Devil himself. Dante wasn't paying attention, luckily. His own neck hairs bristled like a wolf's at the coming of something... strange, powerful, and otherworldly. This whole damn place was fairly freaky, but something about the coming carriage felt like... an opening and closing of a door.

He felt the ground tremble under his boots as the carriage turned the corner; it was pure black, trimmed with gleaming silver, like something purely out of the 1900's. There were four muscular, gleaming black steeds in silver traces leading the thing along at a liesurely pace. The man at the reins was stooped over and looked like a scarecrow wearing a coachman's clothes, with a head of thick knotted straw hair. As the driver sitting on the seat saw the pair in his path, he whipped the beasts faster. Their breath was fiery hot and their eyes beamed with a steadfast glow like hot coals.

Nightmares, Dante thought, and steeled himself with Ebony and Ivory warm in his hands. "Now! Stop him!" Alucard laughed, and fired at the oncoming stampede with both guns, and the constant thunder of four guns reporting at once shattered the illusion of a winter wonderland into pieces. The animals' hides exploded with red demonic blood, and reared with their forelegs kicking wildly. The carriage groaned; the animals screamed and screamed, falling on top of each other while the coach toppled, spilling the driver onto the snowy street. The stink of animal blood filled the air. Dante lunged into action, firing at the coachman, driven by the smell of demon blood that made his own sing for the killing.

Alucard shouted something else, but nothing could be heard over the dull roar in his ears. He felt his body loosen; dream-like, as if time was slowing down, both guns exploding from the muzzles in a slow-mo timelapse. The straw-headed man, however, did not make a satisfying sound when the bullets struck. They made a dull, wooden noise as they connected with his quarry. The strawman collapsed into just what he was - a scare crow with nothing for hands except gnarled twisted branches.

The twisted fingers twitched once, before lunging toward Dante, growing thicker and longer and tipped in lethal points. Dante's sword, Rebellion, dashed the spikes to oblivion; the wood crashed uselessly like tree trunks felled in a forest; the half-demon landed on top of them, almost lost his balance as they settled beneat his feet. He was about to call it a day, when he noticed the carriage on its side. The door flew open - actually, it was more accurate to say it was blown off its hinges - by a severe blow from the inside.

Rising from within it was a robed figure, whose voluptuous fabric seemed to be engorged with wind... then it blew outward, and the - thing - wearing it turned toward them. Alucard had not moved from his spot, guns held up at an angle to the sky, a bored look on his face until he saw the cloaked figure rise from the overturned coach like a cloud of choking, black smoke.

The figure wore a mask, not unlike the Oni masks certain demons wore when Dante went demon-hunting for Asian contractors. Folks would complain of old demons coming to haunt them due to ancestors' greivances and Dante, the good demon-slayer, would hunt them down and lay the beat-down on the upstart monsters. It gave him a grim satisfaction, knowing he was putting an end to centuries' old haunters and giving some Japanese folks some peace of mind.

But this thing was nothing like the grumpy restless demons of the past, bored of eternity and itching for trouble. This thing reeked of stagnating evil and devoured souls, and water invested by disease-causing bacteria. It made his stomach convulse, and he had to swallow hard to keep from vomiting. The mask was simple; it was a sickly white with black slits for eyes, and two prominent red "fangs" painted close to its nonexistent mouth. It looked cracked and stained with what Dante knew was blood.

Without hesitating, Dante fired. The creature opened its wing-shaped cloak wide and took the bullets. He felt a blast of cold air behind him and then - pain exploding from every inch of his back. He cried out and stumbled forward, and looked at the blood peppering the snow - coming from the bullets he had just fired at the masked demon. He coughed blood, then his gorge rose too hard and he vomited on the snow. The creature was silent as death itself and didn't seem to feel the need to gloat at his dilemma.

"Shit! I can't shoot like this!" He spat from his mouth, and watched out of the corner of his eye as Alucard slowly and methodically approached the demon. Dante saw a veil of crimson appear, not an inch around his body and clothes. The vampire still wore that half-smile, baring just one of his prominent fangs.

"This is interesting. You've done me a favor, Dante - jumping ahead like the damned idiot that you clearly are. I can imagine my bullets would do the same if I tried the same tack. So we have our little problem!"

Silence from the masked demon, who had moved perhaps three feet toward the pair. Dante felt the sting of Alucard's words kindle some urge to reply, but was too busy keeping the rest of his meal down. For now, it was Alucard the nosferatu's turn at the game table. He drew back his arms and holstered his guns; Dante's hope flagged. What was he thinking!? Alucard rolled back one sleeve; then the other, all very calmly, and the Oni demon waited. The sigils on the backs of his hands warmed up, then heated to a crimson flare. Alucard's face underwent a horrific transformation, eyes growing wide, and lips peeled back from rows of shark-like, razor-edged fangs. He rushed the demon Oni; Dante held his burning breath inside lungs that felt like they were on fire.

The vampire's arm shot forward, hand formed like a bladed-spear. It struck the smoky materal of the demon's body - passed through... and not far behind Alucard a black portal opened and his hand re-appeared from thin air behind him, and his fingertip of his middle finger poked him in the back - Alucard had held back at the last moment when he felt the cold air against the back of his neck above the collar of his red coat. His smile widened just before the black wings closed around him and Alucard simply disappeared... and reappeared again, clawing at the mask with the veritable ferocity of a tiger. Half of his body was submerged into the blackness as if he were taking a dip in the chest of the demon.

"Alucard!" Dante shouted, rushing forward, and stopped at once by Alucard's chastising words.

"STOP, IDIOT!! Don't come any closer!!" He twisted his head around to look at him, the words forming on his lips as he pulled and held onto that mask like it was his only lifeline. "Turn that blade against yourself, for the devil's sake!" Those were the last words he spoke before the choking smog that was the demon's living cloak devoured the vampire's body completely, darkness closing over his head like brackish water.

Alucard was gone. Dante was alone now, except for the brat who was cowering like any sensible kid would do--

"Alright," Dante said, nodding slowly, acknowledging his situation which approximated "fucked" in all the wrong applications. "Alright, man. That's cool." No, it wasn't cool, but Dante was still thinking as the creature turned toward him and advanced by floating menacingly in the direction of his voice. He held up his hands, before his left went to the sword sheathed at his back. He stood up and sauntered backwards in the harsh snow. Damn, why did it have to be cold?

Dante developed a plan. It was about as foolhardy as he was famous for being, but it had to work somehow. "Come on. Get a little closer. Then we'll see what else your disappearing trick can do."