The Major advanced into the room. The way he looked at the dessicated woman on the wall was possessive, almost loving. "She is the mother of more vampires than you can imagine, 'Alucard.'" Alucard snorted derisively.
"Come now, you were as delighted as I at the prospect of a glorious new war. Every aspect is beautiful. Every scream, every death, every win is a loss for someone, and both winning and losing are beautiful. You revelled in it the last time we faced each other. You can't tell me that you've changed in a mere 60 years. Not you. I saw your face in Brazil. It was a marvelous declaration of war. It was worthy of you."
Alucard sneered, "You don't know anything. You have created an army of filth. At least when you were human, your people had the benefit of being just that, human. Now you and your soldiers are lower than filth. You stole from this woman and attempted to replicate her glorious power through artificial means. You're not even worthy to be called a vampire, you and your army of pretenders."
"You would lecture me? You, who serve a human? You, who have the 'glorious power' you say we stole, and you yoke it to the Hellsing plow?" The Major clutched his sides as he laughed with genuine amusement.
Schroedinger pulled on the Major's sleeve. The man leaned down and his aide whispered in his ear. They needn't have bothered as Alucard's hearing was good enough to hear, "Major, the Catholic paladin is on the ship."
"Go give him an appropriate welcome, Schroedinger. Do what is necessary. I don't want to neglect our honored guest."
ooo
Anderson was doing what he did best, cutting his way through the enemies of God. He systematically swept through corridors and rooms on the giant ship, killing everything he found. They were no challenge. He curled his lip at the pathetic creature that shot him with its machine gun. "Do ye think that little toy will stop a true servant of God?"
Every one of them was the same. The vampires here were inferior creatures. These were the devils that had laid waste to London? Disgusting. He might despise the heresy of Protestantism, but he had thought that the British were stronger than that. Obviously he shouldn't take his opinion of the British based solely on Sir Integra. If they were all like her, Britain would never has declined as an empire.
With the deck he had entered on cleared, Anderson moved down. He would cleanse this blimp one room at a time. After the vampires were all destroyed, the more intellectual priests could move in and learn what they could from the Nazi ship. That wasn't his problem. He was a killer, not a scientist.
This easy cleanup was giving him too much time to think. He wondered how his fellow Iscariots were doing. None of the rest of them had his regenerative abilities. He hoped that they would not be sacrificed on the altar of Maxwell's pride. They were following their charter by killing the vampires that had invaded London, but they had exceded their charter by coming here in the first place. Maxwell's orders that no one in London was an innocent and that all should be slain sounded more like the command of Satan than an act of God. I will never lose my faith in God. I pray that God can help me with my faith in the Church.
"What's that, Priest? A crisis of faith?"
Whirling, Anderson looked down at a strange creature. It wasn't a child. It wasn't a man. It wasn't a vampire as he'd ever known vampires. It looked more like some sort of fresh faced demon with those feline ears. He'd been briefed on the meeting that had taken place in the Queen's presence. This, then, would be Schroedinger. It didn't look like it could take Alucard's bullets in the face and still be here to taunt him.
"What would ye know of faith? Yeh gave up any chance of faith when ye sold yer soul to the devil." He lunged forward to throw the small vampire against the bulkhead, but Schroedinger easily dodged him. Anderson's momentum carried him into the wall and he spun around to see where the catboy had gone. He was leaning against a wall a bit farther down the corridor looking like he was having fun.
"It's not that easy, Priest. But I'm just a boy, aren't I? I can't be that hard for the big bad vampire killer to take care of."
Anderson threw a barrage of knives at the mocking boy. He ducked in an open door and Anderson rushed down the hall to keep him from escaping.
"But Priest, why are you chasing phantoms when I'm here? Does it remind you of praying to your phantom God?" taunted the boy from behind him.
How the hell did he get there? Turning once more, he saw that the boy was now at an intersection that the priest had already checked and passed. He growled and launched himself at the vampire. Schroedinger ducked around the corner. When Anderson got to the intersection, the catboy was nowhere to be seen. Had he run through some hidden exit?
"No, Priest, I'm over here. You really are dense, aren't you?" again the taunting voice was behind him. They played this game of ring around the rosie for a few more rounds before Anderson stopped in the hallway where Schoedinger had first mocked him.
Anderson was having trouble thinking through the anger this impudent creature was causing him. He was reminded of the old sport of bull baiting with him as the bull. His face flushed red. He didn't mind a bit of play with Alucard - the demon was a worthy opponent - but this whelp was not of Alucard's stature. How dare he play these games!
Calm and rational thought were not Anderson's strong suit, but his sinful pride wouldn't allow him to be bested by some crossbreed vampire child. "Yeh want to play, boy? Fine, we'll play, but I'm making the rules this time." Anderson backed into an empty room and watched the door.
"What are the rules going to be, big man? I'm no altar boy for you to have your way with," came that hateful voice from behind him.
Anderson turned to face the creature one more time. "The rules, little kitty cat? The rules are that this is the playing field." Daggers flew, not at Schroedinger, but at the walls, pinning pages of holy spells to the walls. "No more baiting this bull. Yeh wanted the bull, but didn't want to face the horns. That's not how the game is played."
Schroedinger didn't understand until he tried to duck past Anderson to dodge out the door. There was a wall of force he could not pass and he could feel the hateful priest's eyes on him, pinning him in place.
Anderson lunged at him with a shout of "Toro!"
A/N I wrote Schroedinger this way after I realized that while he seemed to be able to teleport, he never did it when observed. I went back through the manga and did not see one instance where he was observed appearing or disappearing. Even in Joleen's illusions, he seemed to be stepping in from another part of the illusion rather than "appearing." When I read up on Schroedinger's cat, (you can find a good layman's explanation at galactic-guide .com ) what got through my distinctly nontechnical brain was that the cat is neither alive nor dead until observed. From that I extrapolated that Schroedinger can choose to be neither here nor there (everywhere and nowhere) but only while unobserved, and that he's the one who controls where he is in those circumstances. You can't take your eye off that little bugger.