The Words of the Wicked Are to Lie In Wait for Blood; But the Mouth of the Upright Shall Deliver.

Seras stepped out of the women's locker room in the barracks, feeling more herself than she had in days. She'd abandoned the finery that she'd been presented with while in the palace and was once more clothed in the uniform of a town guard. And, clothed in the light armor and surrounded by the familiar setting, the young woman felt once more at home in her own skin. This was what she'd worked towards, what she was meant to do, to defend the helpless, to protect those incapable of protecting themselves. She was on her intended path once more, and the corner of her lip curled in appreciation for the simplicity of freedom mixed with a duty of her own choosing.

"You got some kind of a death wish?" a gruff voice reproachfully greeted Seras nearly the very second she exited the locker room, and the girl found herself a little startled to hear it. Other than their first conversation, her traveling companion hadn't said a single word to her, only - occasionally - letting out oddly sounding grunts.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Seras replied sarcastically. "Not quite what you were expecting when sentenced to 'babysit one of the King's bimbos'? Is my lack of clubbing messing with your preconceptions about us 'pampered palace princesses'?"

Seras's words were laced with a mixture of venom and triumph, and it was obvious that she was taking pleasure in throwing Major Jayne Casey's hasty judgments back in his face. She prepared herself for another salvo, but to her surprise her undesired guardian did not escalate matters any further this time. Instead his tone seemed to lose some small measure of its gruffness as he responded, "The King's not going to like this, you know?"

"The King can stuff it," Seras replied sharply, and with far more bravery than she likely could've managed if said king was actually present in the room. "He said I had may freedom, said he wouldn't interfere, and told me that I was free to do as I please, so long as I turn to the palace to rest."

Casey, grunted again, and Seras, assuming that was the end of their little conversation began heading towards the armory. Her 'shadow' fell in step beside her, but to her surprise it seemed he was feeling unusually chatty at the moment. "He also sent me to make sure you were safe."

"Well, in that case, I'll let you come along... just so long as you don't interfere with my investigation." Seras's steps suddenly stopped as her enhanced sense detected a weapon being brought to bear on her. She turned to find that her 'protector' had unslung the very large, somewhat futuristic looking assault rifle from off his back.

"I-" Seras began and paused as she stared at the barrel of the gun for a split second. Then she summoned up her courage once again. "I took an oath to protect and serve the citizens of this area. Now some evil force is hunting them down and murdering them, and I'm not about to abandon them when they need me most. I'm not going to turn my back on my oath, and if you plan to stop me, you're going to have to kill me."

"Not really," Casey replied with a slight grin. "I could always just blow off your legs and drag you back to the palace. They would regenerate... eventually. Even still, I'd probably get an earful about it from the King... or worse."

The man paused for a second as if he were considering something. Then his grin widened more and the barrel of his gun turned away from Seras's body. His eyes moved away from her too, to roam over the form of the weapon in his hand. "A real beauty, ain't she? Callahan full-bore autolock, customized hair-trigger, double-cartridge thorough gauge, heavy armor-piercing rounds. Three years ago a Terminus Death squad came for me, five men, mercenaries, each sworn to give his life in pursuit of the target if need be. The biggest and baddest of them carried this." Jayne caressed the barrel in almost loving way as he continued, "I call her Vera."

Seras just stared at the man, one eyebrow arched up and her head slightly side-ways. "Um... do the two of you want to be alone?"

Casey's eyes narrowed at the girl. "Don't get cute," he replied sharply, then extended the weapon towards her.

Again Seras looked surprised and a little unsure. "You're... giving this to me?"

"What? Of course not! It's the best gun I've ever had, and it's got immense sentimental value. But I've seen the weapons these town guards carry. Nothing in that armory would be much good against anything but a whelp... or maybe a sparkly. And if you're going to hunt vampires, you need to use the right tool for the job."

"I... thank you," Seras replied as she took the offered weapon.

Casey grunted once more. "Just remember, I expect it back in the same condition. You break it, and I'll break you... even if you and the King are rutting."

Seras's face scrunched up momentarily, and she looked more than a little disgusted by the unexpected vulgarity. She wasn't too happy to discover that the man was still making uninformed judgments about her either. But she just sighed and resolved to continue on with her mission. Her love life - or lack thereof - wasn't a subject open for discussion... especially with someone who referred to the act of lovemaking as 'rutting'.

The night was drawing to its close as Seras and Casey finally track down the rogue vampire. It hadn't been easy. This one was a lot more cautious than the last, but between the reports, Seras's newfound sixth sense, and her shadow's rather remarkable nose, they finally managed to corner her in an old warehouse.

"Be careful," Casey warned as the two approached. "Vampires are slippery... no offense."

"None taken," Seras replied honestly, for once actually not having been offended by one of the man's inconsiderate comments. Actually, since the two of them had started talking, she was beginning to warm up to her on longer completely unwanted 'protector'. Sure, he was a judgmental, crass son of a bitch - perhaps even literally, given his own in-human status and what little Seras knew of ware-creatures. But he was also capable enough, and, like her and her mother, possessed a rather strong sense of duty.

Seras began to head towards the warehouse, but stopped as she heard a strange, and very disturbing sound behind her. It was unlike anything she'd ever heard before, but seemed closets to the sound of tearing flesh mixed with cracking bones. She turned towards it to find the man she'd been traveling with slowly fading beneath a monstrous form, as his body twisted, contorted, and transformed.

The process took several seconds to complete and looked more than a little painful. In fact the sight and sounds caused Seras to grimace more than once just from watching it. But once it was completed her shadow seemed none the worse for the wear.

He was even taller now, and broader in the chest. His arms looked incredibly muscular and well defined, even through the grey, hairy coating that now covered his body. His tee-shirt was lying on the ground beside him, intact and obviously discarded before he began his transformation, while his previously baggy pants were still secured around his legs, though now full and bulging. And his mouth... his mouth was angular, protruding and crammed with so many razor sharp teeth that it reminded Seras more of a shark's mouth than a wolf's. Only the eyes reminded the same, though the voice was not as greatly altered as the rest.

"What are you staring at?" the creature asked in an even gruffer than usual voice, though the tone was somewhat similar and still identifiable.

"I... Didn't know you could... change. Without the full moon, I mean."

"Don't believe everything you hear. Only pups, those new to the transformation and trying to deny what they are, have their forms controlled by the cycles of the moon. The full moon still stirs us, and makes us a little more... instinctive. But those who don't deny their other side can learn to control it... regardless of what state the moon may be in. Now, are we going to do this, or you going to keep staring at me as if I've sprouted a second head?"

"Can you sprout a second head?" Seras asked.

The bestial major just rolled his eyes. "What did I say about getting cute?"

"Sorry."

The inside of the warehouse was dark and quite spooky, due as much to the partially assembled mannequins and other forgotten goods that littered the interior as the knowledge that somewhere in this place lurked a rogue vampire, just waiting for the taste of blood. Seras was suddenly very grateful for the vampiric senses that allowed her to navigate the darkness as easily as if it were day. Then she was slightly less grateful as she realized that their adversary probably possessed the same ability.

"Whoever you are, come out. You're under arrest, surrender peacefully and you won't get hurt."

To Seras's surprise a figure actually did walk out into the open at her beckoning. "You mean, not until the King decided to sink his fangs into my neck, devour my flesh and pick his teeth with my bones. That is the usual punishment for a rogue vampire, is it not, Guardswoman?" the figure asked as she stood out in the open, arcane looking tattoos covering nearly every visible inch of her body and a great scythe staff stretched out behind her.

"Only if you're found guilty of the crimes you're accused of," Seras answered as she trained Vera on the perp.

"Just shoot her," Jayne prompted, but Seras's own code wouldn't permit her to attack first. Town Guards were a reactive force, not a proactive one. And Seras wasn't about to shoot at anyone who might, possibly be surrendering.

"Oh, then I guess there's no hope for little, old, Zorin Blitz," the very butch looking rogue replied. "I'm guilty of far worse things than you could possibly know. So, I guess that means the only way I'm going to get out of this alive, is for you and your companion to die."

Seras finally pulled her trigger, and realized too late that she'd been incredibly foolish not to have fired off a few rounds earlier and gotten a feel for the new gun. The recoil was significantly more than Seras was use to, and her shot went wide as a result. She cursed under her breath as she braced herself better and prepared for the next shot. But her opponent had already closed the distance between them and was swinging her scythe at Seras's throat.

Seras brought up Vera, positioning the body of the weapon in-between her own body and the enemy's strike. The move may have saved Seras's life, but it also prevented her from using the gun for its intended purpose, as both weapons remained locked against each other. The two vampires struggled in a contest of strength, each pushing against the other. But the two were equally matched, and neither one was able to gain any ground.

Fortunately for Seras, however, she was not alone in her endeavor, and Casey made that clear as he grabbed hold of their enemy's staff and flung her across the warehouse. "I told you to shoot her," he growled as Zorin slammed into a grouping of wooden crates, spilling the plush contents within unto the warehouse floor.

"I'm a guardswoman; I can't just shoot someone who maybe surrendering," Seras replied sharply as she took aim once more at the rogue.

"Indeed, well can you shoot her now?"

"Absolutely."

"Oh, I'm afraid you're about to have far greater things to worry about than little old me," Zorin replied as the tattoos covering her body began to swirl and change.

Seras fired, but the rogue leapt up into the rafters at the same time. And Seras's shot succeeded only in shredding the stuffing of a few of the plushy animals still contained in the crates Zorin had been flung into.

"Bugger, missed her again," Seras grumbled as Casey leapt up into the rafters as well.

Casey lunged at the rogue, but she jumped back. She slashed at him with her scythe, but he dodged. "Tisk, tisk, leaving your girlfriend to 'dance' with another woman, and when she's in such a bad way too, what will people say?"

"You don't honestly expect me to fall for such an obvious deception, do you? You're the only danger here. My partner's fine, just so long as I keep my eyes on..." Casey's response died in his throat as he heard a loud 'eep' from below and turned back towards Seras. "What the," he began as he saw that somehow the stuffed animals had apparently grown and morphed into hideous, nightmarish mockeries of their previous cute and cuddly forms - complete with drooling mouths, large, sharp teeth, and red, glowing eyes. And they were coming after Seras!

Seras tried not to think about the absurdity about battling an army of zombiefied, giant plushies, and, instead, focus on the task of actually fighting of the monstrous children's toys. Still she couldn't help but register the ridiculousness of her current situation as she fired another armor-piercing round through three of the creatures, then twirled around and used the butt of her borrowed gun to cave in the stuffed head of another plushy that had been coming up behind her.

Jayne jumped back down from the rafters and joined in the plushy destruction, seeming rather displeased by the idea. "Locked in an epic, life and death, struggle against a bunch of stuffed, children's toys. You know this never would've happened to me in my old unit."

"Oh just suck it up, and quite complaining. You wanted a fight, didn't you?"

Casey grunted and continued in their joint slaughter of the fluffy toys. And then, as the last one fell, the two heard a slow clapping sound from somewhere above them. "Not, bad, not bad," Zorin commented sardonically as she stared down at the two. "You've proven most adapt at defending yourselves against children's toys, but let's see how you handle yourselves against something a little more... insidious." The rogue vampire's tattoos began to swirl and reform once more as she continued, "Tell me, what do you really fear? What voices and faces haunt your nightmares?"

And suddenly the ground of the warehouse cracked and the rotting, undead forms of Seras's fellow town guards began to crawl their way out of the Earth. "This, this isn't possible," Seras commented as they began to approach her - all the town guards that had passed into death since she'd joined, even those who had fallen at the hands of regular criminals and not rogue vampires.

"Tell me about it," Casey replied as he too saw the faces of his own lost comrades.

They moaned and screeched and staggered closer to the pair. Seras even heard some of her old friends calling her by name, something that all her experience and teachings told her was impossible for zombies to do. Yet call her they did. "Seras, come to us. Why have you abandoned us? Why weren't you there for us?"

At first Seras was too stunned to do anything. She just stood there, wide-eyed and disbelieving, even as the horde drew dangerously close. But then, Casey leapt into the fray and began to attack the creatures with fang and claw, and that served to snap Seras out of her brief stupor. She attacked too, intermittently taking aim with Vera and using what martial arts she'd been trained in to fight off those who got too close. Still she could tell that something was off about the battle; she just wasn't sure what.

And then she saw Jack, stumbling along with the rest, and Seras remembered that her old partner's body hadn't been placed in the ground yet. It wasn't just unlikely that he'd be there, it was downright impossible. Then something clicked in Seras's mind, and she knew what was off about the battle. The blood that was being spilled was doing nothing to stir her vampiric nature. She could see it, even smell it when she was close enough. Yet, her hunger did not increase, nor did she feel her fangs lengthening or her tongue elongating or any of the other tell tale signs of bloodlust. The blood was strangely... hollow, empty, and completely incapable of provoking such supernatural, instinctive stirrings in her. And as Seras considered this, suddenly the truth flashed in her mind. "It's not real," she commented almost under her breath. "It's just an illusion. She's in my head, somehow preying on my fears."

This was not a battle taking place merely in the physical realm. Seras was struggling not against simple flesh and blood, but against her own fears and regrets. And so, realizing what was really going on. Seras stopped, took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and attempted to banish all fear and regret from her mind; to calm herself and focus only on her immediate task, the destruction of the rogue vampire. She shut everything else out, even the cries of her new partner, who was screaming at her to stop just standing there and help him fight. And when Seras opened her eyes once more she found all the enemies vanished, save one.

Jayne was still leaping around and lashing out at the empty air, but Seras didn't bother trying to explain what was going on to him. She didn't have the time; she wasn't sure how long she could maintain this mask of serenity. Instead she simply took aim once more at Zorin and pulled the trigger.

The shot flew true and struck the rogue right through her heart. She tumbled backwards of the beam she'd been standing on and was dust before she even hit the ground. It was over. It was all over, and the visions vanished with their master's death.

"What the... what happened?" Major Casey asked in a confused tone.

"You were right," Seras replied."

"Huh?"

"About vampires being slippery. It was a lie, all of it. None of it was real, except for Zorin."

"Oh," Jayne replied, still sounding a little confused but satisfied enough not to press for further explanation.

"Here," Seras continued as she handed Vera back to her new partner. "Thanks. 'Tis a good weapon."

"Yeah, she's my baby," Jayne replied as he took back his pride and joy. "You know... you should really consider getting a customized, high caliber weapon of your own... if you intended to keep hunting monsters and things that go bump in the night, that is."

Seras smiled. "Yeah, maybe I will. Maybe I will."

Well, I hope you all enjoyed the new chapter. The next one will be back at the palace... mostly at least. and should have the King in it as well. ;) You know, since this is listed as a Seras and Alucard fic. ;p

Have a good day, and God bless.

Metropolis Kid.

To Larisa: Thanks again for another sweet review. I'm very pleased that you enjoyed the last chapter and didn't think it was 'too filler'. :) And I'm also quite glad that you liked the way the reunion between Integra and Seras was handled. :D Yeah, Seras's new bodyguard is a little sourly... but he's not all bad. And I hope this new chapter helped to show that there is a little something beneath that sourly demeanor. Well, thanks again. :) And I hope you had some fun with the new chapter and continue to enjoy the story. ;)