DEALS WITH THE RED DEVIL

"She hasn't said anything regarding the situation. And to make an assumption, I believe she's in shock." Walter stood in front of Integra's desk and gave his report regarding the most recent situation. Things have taken a sharp turn in the investigation since the matter now heavily involved Anna. He could only imagine how much this infuriated Integra.

"A vampire that's in shock." Integra faced away from him and stared out the window. She took her cigar out and stared at the smoke billowing off the glowing red end. "Alucard. Do you know that vampire who attacked her?" She turned around in her seat and directed her eyes towards the couch the ancient creature sat patiently and calmly on.

Alucard intertwined his fingers together and thought quietly for a moment to search through the depts of his memories. He had met many kinds of individuals in his long life, but none who were as fascinating and infuriating as the one that confronted Anna. "No. Can't say I do, but it seems Anna's familiar with him."

"How could Anna know someone you don't? Haven't you two always been together?" Integra said with a slight hissing tone in her voice. She hated the way the situation had turned. The answers were all there but being withheld by too many people within arm's reach.

"Oh, now that's a complex question," Alucard said with a dry laugh under his breath. It was hard to tell if he was bothered at all by the situation, Integra noticed. His calm demeanor seemed quite unusual, and he didn't seem at all concerned about Anna's secrecy.

Integra chewed the inside of her cheek for a second as her mind stormed. She reached across her desk and put her cigar out in the ashtray. "Alucard, are you willing to follow my orders?" she said with a sudden firmness in her voice.

This piqued Alucard's curiosity, and he looked up. "Of course. I am bound to your house, after all."

"Every order? No matter how much you might hate it?" she asked again, leaning her elbows on her desk and leveling her eyes with her knuckles. There was something strange about the way she was looking at him. Something dark and off-putting.

Alucard stayed quiet but could feel his hands start shaking. It was like his body had picked up on what she was wanting from him even before his mind could comprehend. "What is it…that you're asking of me, Integra Hellsing," he said while standing up and slowly approaching her desk.

"I'm asking for answers...Now. And you will get them for me no matter the consequences," she said without blinking or hesitating. There was no more remorse in her words, just resolution.

Unlike Integra, hesitation came swiftly for Alucard as his neutral face broke away with genuine surprise and discomfort. His body didn't stop shaking and it was like he was being pulled apart in two different directions for two different kinds of loyalty. One towards his master… and the other towards his love.

While fighting against his own body and soul, Alucard slowly bowed his head and held his glowing red seal close to his chest. "Yes, my master."

Anna placed her stark white knuckles against the door and gently knocked as she entered Integra's office. She looked to the very back of the room and saw her sitting at her desk with Walter standing silently beside her, acting like a stone statue more than a living being.

"Sir Integra, you called for me?" Anna called out gently and nervously closed the door behind her.

There was something uneasy about Integra's gaze when she looked up and met Anna's eyes. They give off a chilly, bone-shaking atmosphere that one wouldn't expect a human could make. It sucked almost all the air out of the room, and Anna couldn't help but flinch even when Integra brought out a cigar and had Walter light the end for her.

Integra took her time and kept quiet until she had burned through at least a quarter of her cigar. "Let's not pretend anymore, Anna. You've been playing innocent for far too long and it's about time that you stop. I know you're holding something back from me, and I demand to know what it is," she finally spoke as red ash fell from the end of her cigar.

Anna flinches and instinctively backed away. She feels her limbs become rigid and heavy as her fingers wrap around the fabric of her dress, squeezing tightly and shaking tremendously. She bit down on her lips and looked to the floor, repeatedly opening and closing her mouth but with no words coming out.

Integra quickly picked up on the odd behavior and knew at that moment that Anna was holding back on her. "Anna, this is an order. I need you to tell me everything that you know," she said again.

Anna closed her eyes tightly and took a breath. "Sir Integra, with all due respect." She looked up at them with these glassy eyes that were bottling up emotions that haven't surfaced in almost 500 years. They were filled with both despair and indescribable trauma "…I don't think I can."

Integra doesn't even flinch or extend any other kind of emotions. She hunched over in her seat and continued to stare down at Anna, bringing her hands up to her face. "I didn't think you would. Then…Alucard."

Bellow Anna's feet, her shadow began to bubble and expand in size. A large dark figure rose quickly out from the murkiness and stood at a great height behind her, changing into the shape of a broad-shouldered man clad in red. Anna let out a distressing cry and snapped her head over her shoulder. She tried to step away from him, but he swiftly grabbed her thin wrist with his large hand and used his other one to hold her in place.

"Alucard? What are you doing? Let me go!" Anna cried out in a panic and tried to wrench herself free. "Alucard!" She tried to look up at his face to see what expression he was making, but she couldn't see anything. He was masked in shadow and completely unreadable. Her eyes nearly bugged out of her head when he pushed her head to the side and leaned in close, opening his mouth wide that had a row of sharp teeth. "Stop it!" she screamed in horror just as his teeth sank right into her neck.

Alucard held her still within his arms and tasted her blood for the second time in his life, which was just as sweet as last time. It was thick, warm...and filled with memories.

"What did you just say?" The Count turned his head up in shock and looked directly at the person he loved most in the world, speaking the cruelest words he had ever heard and never thought she would say. It was completely out of character, and he almost thought he misheard her. The distressed look she had on her face though told him a different story.

Bridget Vermillion kept her head down and stared at her lap. "I said…you should've just left me to burn," she said with a soft but heartbroken voice.

The Count couldn't believe what he was hearing and wished she was lying, but something like that was beyond her. He had never known her to lie to him before. "If I had done that...then you would've died. What was I supposed to do?"

"Then you should've let me go in peace!" she insisted to him desperately, pleading with a cracking voice filled with far too much despair. "Count, how is this living? To take the lives of others in order to survive? I was good! I helped people. Now look what I have become!" She sprung up to her feet and felt herself close to tears. Yet she didn't want to cry. Creatures like her don't cry anymore. The only thing that could fall from her eyes now was blood. "What did you think…was going to happen by doing this to me."

"I just…wasn't ready to let you go." Those words were the only thing the Count could bring himself to mutter. It was true though. He didn't think of the consequences of his actions at the time. The only thing that mattered to him was to not let her die. Do everything in his power…to keep her beside him. "This world doesn't deserve you…and it doesn't have the right to take you away from me either."

At any other time, those words would have brought her so much joy. So much comfort. But now though…they were just excruciatingly painful, and in an instant, joy was replaced with rage. She marched up to him and pulled him down to her level by grabbing his shirt. "Count…what you have done…was the worst thing someone could've possibly done to me. I didn't want this! I never wanted this! You decided this yourself because you were too selfish to let me go!" She gasped sharply and her lungs burned from the intake of air. She roughly shoved him away and took a step back as panic swept through her veins like blood. "I can't…I just can't do this anymore."

"Please...please tell me you're still alive." The beautiful vampire clenched her throbbing chest tightly and struggled to speak, much less breathe because of the overwhelming scent of blood that permeated the air. Not only that, but it was also on the floor, on her clothes, in her hair, and was smeared all over her skin. There wasn't a single part of her body that hadn't been spread with the oozing red liquid.

She tore her eyes away from the sight, but there was no place to look that was safe and untainted. Everywhere she turned was a scene of unraveling horror. Blood-drained bodies lay rotting in the middle of the streets with every throat ripped out with dried and darkening blood pooling under their corpse. There wasn't a single person left alive, a once lively village full of at least fifty people now reduced to silence.

She struggled. Oh, how she found it so difficult to breathe with the heavy smell of warm blood that hung in the air. It smelled so very sweet but sickening at the same time.

The vampire winced when she began to hear what sounded like a buzzing noise in her ears. Loud enough to make her hunch over and grab her head. It was like hornets flying around in her brain, bouncing off the walls and stinging her one after another until she belted out this loud scream that caused all the birds in the area to flee. She scratched at her head, pulled out her hair till pieces of flesh and blood bunched up under her nails.

It wouldn't stop. The buzzing didn't leave her alone and intensified with every second and made her head feel like it was doused in boiling water.

She just wanted it to stop!

Why won't it stop!?

This was his fault. This was all his fault! That damn man who cursed her with this life that she never wanted. And for what reason? Why did he do this? Did he just want to see her suffer? Drink the blood of these innocent people who knew nothing of her?

"IT'S BECAUSE OF YOU! IT'S BECAUSE OF YOU! I CURSE YOU! I CURSE YOU WITH EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING! YOU CREATURE! YOU MONSTER! YOU...DRACULA!" She screamed till her voice bled and cracked and continued to scream even then. "I DON'T WANT THIS! I NEVER WANTED THIS! I...I.." She slowly came to a stop and placed her head against the ground that was warm and slippery with blood "I just...want to die..." She wept upon the dark continent where not a single soul was left in the area to hear her cries of shame and guilt...all till one voice spoke up.

"Hello, Vermilion." His voice was low and had a mischievous tone to it, but it was unknown to Anna's ears.

She lifted her head and came face to face with a deformed vampire that she had never seen before. Anna was taken back by his sudden appearance since she didn't sense him at all until he spoke.

He grinned widely, almost dementedly. It instantly made her skin shiver like ants crawling up and down her body. "Hey... how about we strike a deal, my dear Vermilion."

Anna felt her face become hard as her eyebrows narrowed down into a suspicious glare. "A deal?" she spoke with a grave voice and stood up fast to give herself some distance. She gave his appearance a once over and felt her stomach cringe at his nearly grotesque appearance. If she was still human, Anna would've found it hard to believe he was anything other than a monster. His limbs were far too long and gangly, and his head looked misshapen too.

The creature's unhinged smile widened when he took notice of Anna's cautious demeanor towards him. "Ah, yes…a deal. I could give you what you want most in the world…only if you give me something only you possess."

"Something only I possess? Like what?" Anna asked while cocking a brow.

"Knowledge, Vermillion! Knowledge!" He exclaimed with his long arms open wide, wide enough to probably wrap around the entirety of the world. "But not just any knowledge. The darkest. The blackest, most detestable…but beautiful knowledge you have to offer."

It was like the smell of blood intensified in the air and went from sweet all the way to rotten. Anna's body tensed up all at once and felt unease rise up within her still chest. "Black magic…You're looking at how to perform black magic. What in the world could you possibly want with such a thing?"

The creature sighed and shrugged his shoulders like he couldn't even be bothered to explain it. "My goals are my own, but what do you say? Do you wish to make a deal?"

"Deals are a two-sided thing. What are you willing to give me?"

The creature could hear the chill in her voice when she spoke but hearing her even ask that question told him that she was interested. "What you most desire of course...death."