Hah! I will never get tired of doing that!

Lindsay's heart was still racing from the fall. What a rush! She gave herself ten seconds to pull herself together and pack up her parachute before refocusing on the mission.

"-Blue Two, landed. On route to rendezvous-" Her radio buzzed. It was Michael. On this mission not everyone knew each other's names so they used call signs. You were more likely to remember a number than a name.

"-Blue Three, landed. On route to rendezvous-" She announced. As Lindsay moved towards the rendezvous point, the rest of the team checked in. There were four teams: Red, Blue, Green and Black. Lindsay missed her old squad. The Minotaurs sounded so much better than Blue Team. She missed her old teammates too. Michael was on Blue Team, but the third member was-

"-This is Heinkel Wolfe. I'm waiting for you both-"

Lindsay didn't want to point out that Heinkel should introduce herself as Blue One. Judging by the silence over the radio, nobody else did either.

Is this really where Seras is hiding?

Lindsay kept her doubts to herself as she marched up a hill. This was a forest, in Italy, in the middle of nowhere. How did Iscariot track her here? The place seemed peaceful enough. Lindsay could make out small animal footprints in the snow, and even a squirrel trying to find a bit more food for the winter. If Lindsay were on leave from Hellsing she'd be hiking in a place like this.

It was another twenty minutes of moving through the forest before Lindsay reached a clearing leading to the mouth of a cave. Wolfe and Michael were already waiting for her.

Aw Hell.

The cave looked innocent enough, leading into the side of a hill. That didn't make her feel any better. The mission in Harborough was still fresh in her mind. Lindsay wasn't eager to relive that.

"Lose the grenades." Wolfe voice set Lindsay on edge. It sounded inhuman as her voiced escaped through the opening in her mouth, yet Heinkel had clearly learned how to communicate through the wound. Inhuman as it sounded, Heinkel was both clear and intimidating.

Lindsay and Michael shared a nervous look.

"What are you, deaf?" Wolfe growled. "Leave your grenades outside."

Lindsay knew this had nothing to do with the grenades. It was a power play. Heinkel Wolfe was making it clear now that she gave the orders and they obeyed. Lindsay could already tell Michael wasn't ready to obey.

"Don't make me say it again." Wolfe watched them over her shoulder. Michael and Lindsay stared back. The tension was palpable.

Lindsay took a look at Michael. There were beads of sweat running down his neck as he held Wolfe's gaze. Lindsay couldn't stand it. Wolfe's…deformity was unsettling and the look in the woman's eye made Lindsay feel like she was a bug that was about to be crushed.

"Let's just leave them here". If this was a test of will, Lindsay had failed it. She took out three grenades from her pockets and dropped them to the ground. Michael looked at her, a sense of betrayal cast by his eyes.

"Fine." He said.

Without another word, Heinkel marched into the cave and the pair of them followed.

It wasn't exactly like Harborough. The lair under Harborough had been built, looked ancient with torches lining the walls. This was just a natural formation of caves and if it weren't for the lights on Michael and Lindsay's rifles, they'd be submerged in darkness. There were four entrances to this network, which is why they'd been split into four teams. Seras had nowhere to run.

But there was no sign of Seras, or anybody. Lindsay tried to listen for a sign, but all she could hear was the rock shuffling beneath their feet, and the steady drip of water in the distance.

They reached a large cavern and split up. Heinkel had disappeared into the darkness but Lindsay could see Michael thirty feet away with his flashlight.

"Found something." He called. Lindsay ran over.

"Watch your step." He helped her down a boulder face. Lindsay almost wished it were like Harborough. At least there the floors were flat. Lindsay followed Michael's light to a wooden table with some machines set on it. They looked old. Like the kind her grandfather used to show her in his attic. Relics from the Second World War.

"Looks like surveillance gear." Michael commented before the echoes of gunfire suddenly filled their ears. In a moment they had their weapons up, pointing towards the source of the noise. It wasn't them being shot at. The echoes had come from a different part of the caves.

"-This is Green two, we were attacked by a group of ghouls-" A women's voice said over the radio. Lindsay tried to remember who Green two was, but nothing came to mind. A corporal whose name she'd forgotten.

"-Black Team will come and provide support. Any casualties?-" That was Black One. The really big guy who people called Brock.

"-Negative.-"

"Well at least we know it's the right place." Michael was scanning the room around him with his rifle and light. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

Then she heard it. Just for a moment. It sounded like a knuckle cracking followed by a quiet hiss. A ghoul. Then it was quiet again. Lindsay could only hear the drip of water nearby.

"What happened to Wolfe?" Michael was whispering now as he continued to scan the room.

"I don't know." Lindsay muttered. She was in focus mode now with her heart racing and her eyes trained down the rifle's sights. She could feel them being watched. She knew whoever was watching them, wasn't Wolfe.

Drip. Drop

That's all Lindsay could hear. She'd checked their entire perimeter without a sign of danger, so why couldn't she relax. The pair silently moved across the cavern back-to-back with weapons drawn, ready for an ambush at any moment.

Drip. Drop.

Lindsay ignored the water droplets falling on her hands. She felt like she was facing a lion, ready to pounce or flee at a moment's notice. She couldn't let herself be distracted.

Drip. Drop.

That's when Lindsay realized. At first she thought it was just her eyes compensating for the darkness or maybe a trick of the light. A surge of adrenaline rush through her body as she realized the water on her hand wasn't water at all.

Blood.

She had a moment to look up and see two decayed forms hanging from stalactites before the ghouls lunged at them.

Before Lindsay realized what was happening her weapon flew out of her grasp and she was struggling on the floor. The force of the ghouls attack had knocked the wind out of her and her head his the stone floor. Her vision went blurry but she could make out a snarling, growling face mere inches from her own.

She tried to swear but all that came out of her mouth was a large grunt. The walking corpse's body was collapsed on top of hers and it was already opening its mouth to bite. Lindsay quickly shot out her left hand, holding the ghoul's face back. Barely. The smell of rot made her want to gag, and her vision was still spinning from the floor.

"You….Freak" Lindsay managed to find enough voice to insult the ghoul, as she reached her free hand for her sidearm. Her strength was failing, while the ghoul had the constant, unyielding energy of the dead. Slowly she pulled her pistol from its holster, aimed the barrel at the ghoul's face and-

The ghoul knocked it out of her hand before pinning her arm down. Its face was inching closer to her own. Only her single free hand was keeping it off of her. She squirmed and tried to roll out of its grasp. Finally she freed her arm and punched the ghoul right in the face. A loud crack accompanied the hit and the ghoul fell to its side. Suddenly she could breathe again.

She lay there, gasping for air as she saw her pistol on the ground. She crawled along the rocky floor to her sidearm, but as she reached forward the ghoul rolled her onto her back. This time it had both of her arms pinned, and Lindsay was too weak to move.

The ghoul's jaw was broken. Bone and flesh jutted out from where Lindsay had punched it. With no defense left to her, she could only watch as the ghoul, finally victorious, leaned in to devour her flesh.

Then its head exploded.

"Bloody Hell!" Lindsay's face was covered in chunks of brain and bone. The ghoul's body went limp and she forced it off of her. The monster's blood covered her uniform. She lay on the ground, coughing and wheezing until she finally saw a hand reach out in front of her.

"Are you alright?" Michael asked as he pulled her up. His uniform was also soaked in fluids Lindsay would rather not think about. He still held a smoking pistol in his other hand.

"Never better, thanks" Lindsay coughed again. A second later and she would have been ghoul food. "Unlike your friend over there." She nodded at another ghoul lying on the ground, several stab wounds had rendered the face unrecognizable and congealed brain fluid spilled onto the rock next to it. Michael hadn't been gentle.

"Never liked him anyway." Michael joked. That was bad. Michael never joked. "Where's my weapon?"

"Over there." Michael pointed out Lindsay's gun lying a couple feet across the ground, at the edge of the darkness.

She ran over and picked it up. The flashlight was cracked and broken but otherwise the firearm was fully functional. She was so focused on the gun, it was a moment before she noticed the figure in the darkness moving towards her.

"Contact!" She yelled and raised her gun. The figure was a dozen feet away from her, emerging from a side-cave. She could barely make out its movement in the darkness.

"Wait." Lindsay called out as she lowered her weapon. She recognized the figure's uniform. It was that damn priest's outfit.

"Wolfe!" Lindsay's fear of the Iscariot agent was forgotten. "We almost got killed back there. Where the he-"

Bang!

Lindsay felt the air get knocked out of her. Time slowed to a halt. She staggered back, noticing Michael running to her with his weapon drawn. She looked into the shadows as her mind processed what had just happened.

Bang! Bang!

Two more flashes of light and two more bullets hit her straight in the chest. She collapsed, the world spinning again as she heard Michael's screams mingled with more gunfire.

It sounds so distant.

All she could think about was how far away everything sounded, how numb her body had suddenly become and how the warm blood seeping through her uniform wasn't the ghoul's.

AN: When I originally laid out the story, this chapter occurred much earlier. One of the reasons for this drawn out story was so that these chapters could provide action during the slower chapters in Cheddar. Unfortunately they ended up occurring at the same time, which is another reason I wish I'd shortened the chapters of the Hellsing/Heinkel storyline.

Still, this storyline allowed me to shed more light on what Heinkel is scheming, and allow me to work in a few more nods to the Hellsing anime.