Her eyes could see every detail of it: every facet of refracted light in crushed ice, every polished nickel gleam of metal, and in the centre…

Don't look…don't look. Her eyes slid around it, but her superhuman vision still told her all she needed to know. She saw glimpses of clear plastic, red liquid, medical labelling…a blood packet, sitting in the crushed ice, for her to drink. For her to drink…the thought of it both disgusted and excited her. She knew what it would feel like to drink it, knew too well. Oh dear god…she knew far too well. Yet…it was blood. Some time in the previous month someone had gone into a blood donation centre, signed some forms, had a pint of blood drained from their arm and been given a cup of tea and a biscuit. Their blood had been taken, mixed with preservative chemicals and refrigerated. It had passed through several hospitals and other medical facilities maybe, before some order had commandeered it to the Hellsing institution, and now it sat in front of her, on a small oak table with a green cloth, laid as if for the soup course of dinner. What would that person have felt if they were to be shown the truth, the darkness that lay behind the elaborate curtain of lies being spun by countless organisations belonging to countless governments around the world? This blood had been given in good faith, to help the sick and needy, and here was she, some filthy greedy blood-sucking monster, about to use it for little more purpose than to satiate her perverse lusts. Thank goodness the plastic insulated it, thank-goodness she could not smell it…yet the very sight of it entranced her, made her stomach keen with hunger, her fangs lengthen. The bright clinical red, sitting amid the slowly melting purity of the crushed ice, it was so beautiful.

So appetising.

God! She had to concentrate on something else…what was there? The small temporary room was bare: the rosewood coffin, its lid half open and the blankets and pillow she was using to try and make it seem more like a normal bed spilling onto the floor provided some visual stimulus, but not enough. There was nothing else apart from that. The coffin, the chair she sat on, the table and the blood. Blank stone walls and a metal door, old strip lighting in the ceiling…was she really going to have to live in a room like this forever…she thought of Seras' brave but useless attempts to humanise her quarters…some furniture from her old flat, cheap pictures and photos on the wall… and still it was so obviously a cold dark cellar room, a crypt, even if it was a crypt with an en suite bathroom. Seras…god dammit, what was wrong with her, Seras seemed to loom in her mind like an ever-present shadow.

I am ever-present, Integra.

Seras voice rang clear and sharp in her head. What the…

"Seras?" she asked the room at large.

You don't have to speak, Integra. As long as we are bound by blood our minds are linked.

Okay. She thought.

That's the way. I was keeping this back, worrying it might unsettle you…but you seem to be fine with it. She felt some presence moving behind her eyes. Why haven't you drunk your blood yet, Integra? You're weak, you need to drink it.

I seem to remember you held out two whole weeks before succumbing to temptation, Seras.

I was one of the most badly cared for and idiotic fledglings of all time, Integra. You are a vampire now and forever, there's nothing you can do about it, unless you fancy a long cool glass of holy water, so drink the blood.

But…Integra thought all the thoughts she had on the blood, pushed them to the front of her mind. She vaguely felt Seras examining them.

It's quite a foolish reason not to drink.

But they gave…

The gave their blood to help others. Doesn't Hellsing help others? Without us, the monsters would come for them in the night and tear them to shreds. Their blood helps defend them from the evil undead. Integra felt Seras take some sort of mental pause for breath, doubly out of place since, as a vampire, she only breathed to pass air over her vocal chords. Would you rather that you drank their blood safely and neatly from this plastic packet, or some FREAK ripped their throat out and sucked them dry, eh?

Integra kept her mental voice silent whilst her mind reeled.

"Well?"

She hadn't heard the door open behind her. She whipped around. Seras stood leaning against the door post, her hands deep in the voluminous pockets of her raincoat, smiling slightly. Maybe eight or nine years ago, now, Seras had come to her with the complaint that her modified police uniform was pretty much impractical for hunting the undead, and Integra had, grudgingly, agreed, even though Seras was a ranking member of Hellsing, unlike Alucard, and her being out of uniform wasn't strictly proper. The clothing she'd eventually arrived at was in some way similar to her former masters, but of far more modem mien. A wild-west style brown leather raincoat, good for concealing weapons and ammunition, over a long-sleeved red top, black jeans, military combat boots and a broad brown leather belt with a large metal buckle depicting, of all things, a stylised vampire bat. Round her neck was a black ribbon, which neatly concealed the two tell-tale scars of her turning and the now fading vertical gash left by one of Anderson's holy blades. Her eyes looked out from behind the red-tinted glass of a pair of thin-framed spectacles. She still wore the bright colours that had made her a running joke in her first years at Hellsing, but only off duty.

"Seras, it's just…"

"It's just that you're humanity desperately wants to find some excuse, however pathetic, not to drink that blood."

"That's not true!"

"It is and you know it. I thought up exactly the same excuses when I was trying not to drink. Everything from 'It wasn't donated to feed vampires' to, 'I might catch AIDS'." She laughed "No wonder Alucard always used to scoff at me. We can't even experience the effects of drugs or poisons in the blood we drink, much less catch STD's from it."

"But I…"

Seras walked over to the table and sat down on it, gently removing the packet of blood from the ice bucket. Then, with slow deliberation, she tore off the tab and poured it into the bowl in front of Integra. The smell assaulted the young vampires nostrils, and she almost gagged…it smelled so good...she felt herself beginning to drool.

"Mmm.,," said Seras, taking a sniff "Whoever donated that was a virgin. Drink up

quick, before I have it."

"But…"

Seras picked up the stainless steel spoon and scooped up some blood.

"Don't make me have to feed you, Integra. Your pride's already had enough

blows."

"I…"

Seras held the spoon closer to Integra's mouth, looking into her eyes. Integra

clamped her lips firmly shut, tried to look away…it was haunting her, those eyes…why on earth had she ever done this? How could death be worse? Hah…this was her death…

"Come on, Integra, don't be stubborn. You've already made the choice to become a child of the darkness. There are subsequent choices still, but this isn't one of them."

"Seras, I…"

"Come on, please Integra! You need to drink this, otherwise how the hell are you going to be strong enough for your meeting with the knights representatives? Eh?"

Oh god, why did Seras have to remind her of that, anymore than the pressure against her ribs of the case containing her new steel blue contact lenses?

"Look, Integra, didn't you ever have to take unpleasant medicine as a child?" Integra nodded "Well, think of this like that. You don't want to do it, but you have to. And you do have to Integra. You're as pale as death, and practically radiating cold. The blood will flush your skin and warm you up, at least to the level you might expect of a quite ill human."

Seras held the spoon closer. Integra opened her lips slightly, allowed her tongue to come out, slowly, gingerly, touch the blood on the spoon…then she found herself suddenly jerking forward to engulf the whole spoon in her mouth as she felt the first taste on her tongue…oh…that taste…nothing had ever tasted like that whilst she was alive, she was sure.

"But of course…" said Seras, as she withdrew the spoon from Integra's mouth, leaving a little trail of saliva, "Childhood medicines don't taste anywhere near as nice as this…"

Integra's pupils had dilated, and her tongue was still practically hanging over her lower lip.

"Seras, please can I have the spoon?"

Seras handed her the spoon. She took at and, slowly, began spooning the blood into her mouth, getting faster and faster as her lust for the rich red fluid overtook her. Seras smiled, remembering her first proper time, when she had grabbed the bowl and poured it down her throat, allowing the blood to dribble down her chin. She had been hungrier than Integra was though.

She stood up, patted her fledgling on the back.

"Good girl." She said, before walking to the door.

"Stick those contacts on and meet me and the doctors by the basement steps, OK?" Integra was too busy feeding to speak, but she managed to nod her head between spoonfuls.

Integra found herself licking the bowl clean as she finished. Damn, it tasted so nice…she almost felt happy now, between the warmth the blood was spreading through her and the praise from her master…

She shook her head. Damn, this was so confusing. She was Seras' master, she had the power to command her through the ritual of the seals, yet now...and not only was Seras now her 'master' but she seemed to be able to think of nothing but the blonde haired former policewoman. She was so sharp in her mind, every…oh God. No, think of other things, think of other things…like this damn conference. Trust the damned MI5 to pick up the rumour of her mortal wounding. They'd like nothing better than her to be dead, they still took the naïve view that Hellsings mission was to eradicate all vampires. Hah! They couldn't even begin to see the arrogance in that statement. There must be at least a thousand vampires, FREAKs and other creatures of the night in England at any one time, most of them causing absolutely no trouble, taking small amounts of blood from victims in the guise of love-making, or whilst they slept, or drinking from animals. Hellsing had enough on its hands dealing with the one to five percent of the undead population that was a threat rather than trying to root out entrenched elder vampires who could conceivably be as powerful as Alucard.

Well, now she would have to disappoint her critics by turning up alive, albeit wheelchair bound and bandaged, to lend weight to the story of an injury. Oh, but if only they knew the truth…she grinned, as she effortlessly coiled the spoon round her index finger. Oh yes…But no. No-one would ever know. She would rule Hellsing till Arthur was ready and 'die' young. No-one but those necessary would ever know she was anything other than human: Hellsing's medical staff knew, of course, as did some of the higher ranking house staff under Walter, those who could scarcely have not noticed the fact that three buckets of iced blood were being prepared instead of two, apart from that, the inner circle of government, her immediate family, and of course Walter and Seras. No-one else had the faintest idea. She smiled. Maybe she could live at least a partly human life for a little while longer…but oh god, what if she got invited to a dinner party, or something…No, she had to stop worrying, do what Seras had said, take this whole thing one night at a time. There was no other way to do it.

"Ah, Integra!" Sir Rutherford said, grinning like an idiot, "So glad to see you recovering so quickly after your terrible injury." First names. The MI5 commander must really be annoyed to see her alive.

Integra simply smiled back, keeping her lips most firmly together. "I'm gratified by your concern, Edgar. However, we Hellsing's are hardy stock. It takes more than a scum vampire to kill us."

"But of course, of course! I'm just so glad to see you alive and relatively well when we all thought for a few terrible hours that you were dead."

"I'm sure those hours crawled by like years for you, and you too, Jonathan." Sir Maybridge, chief director of infrastructure, smiled in the way people who have nothing to be happy about smile when they want to put on an act. Why was he here, Integra wondered? A quiet, melancholic man who did something to do with stocks and shares, his position among the knights almost ceremonial, like so many others. Only she, and the other knights who represented divisions of intelligence and the military actually served any useful function. Pen pushers like Maybridge were just there to nod and sign forms if they needed any motorways closed off or any buildings taken out of the power grid.

"Indeed, Sir Hellsing" It could of course just be that Rutherford had brought along Maybridge because he detested her so much, chauvinist bastard that he was. That was most likely it.

"So, apart from pleasantries, was there any purpose to this visit, gentlemen?" There almost certainly was. Otherwise, it would have been a letter wishing her good health and a bouquet of flowers or something equally petty and uninspired. No, they wanted something, and who they had sent was a sign. The two hated her, but they were physical representatives of the Round Table. Not as good as sending people who could actually tolerate her existence, but better than nothing.

"Actually," said Rutherford smarmily, taking a file from the desk and walking over to her wheelchair, "There was something." He dropped the file on her lap and stood away from her, probably feeling some false sense of security and superiority over the frail-looking woman, her face pale and lined (the makeup made her look far older than she had been when she was alive), sitting in a wheelchair with a tartan rug over her lap. If only the smug little shit actually knew... The knowledge that she was easily capable of standing up, walking over to him and ripping his arms off both comforted and frustrated her. She was, indeed, stronger now than she had ever been, at least in body if not in mind. Yet she must fake disabilities for these spineless humans, when she could tear them apart like sodden tissue paper.

She caught herself. Damn, it was so easy to slip into thinking like that. That was how Alucard thought, aloof bastard. He was deliberately avoiding her now, and she was unwilling to invoke the seals, because she was, in some ways, avoiding him too. What she needed was a chance meeting in some corridor or deserted room, but, of course, it was impossible. Alucard could now only sense her more keenly, and, whilst she had begun noticing a strange tingling at the back of her neck when Seras was nearby, her own extrasensory perception was tragically weak compared to the six-hundred year old No Life King. Anyway, what chance did she have of cornering someone who could walk through walls?

She looked down at the file. It was of plain vanilla card, with a top secret stamp covering most of one side, below a label, which read 'BELFAST REPORT' in clear block capitals.

"This is going to be about Iscariot, isn't it?" she asked, looking up. Rutherford gave a noncommittal shrug. She opened the folder. The first thing that leapt out at her was the photo of Father Lieberwitz, Iscariots chief Irish operative. He was of average height, looking about thirty, with long black hair drawn back into a ponytail. He wore form-fitting black vestments, a long black coat and a silver cross hang at his neck. The small bio sheet told more of the truth about him. A regenerator, estimated age somewhere between eighty and a hundred, capable of surviving unbelievable injuries and never aging. A monster created by the Vatican using a mixture of magic and crude science back in the nineteen-twenties. Thankfully, on the few occasions he had come into conflict with Hellsing officers attempting to pursue their duties in what was nominally both part of the united kingdom and a protestant country, his fighting style had left him unable to simply slaughter them for 'collaborating with vile demons' as other Iscariot operatives were wont to do, although he had had a few bouts with both Alucard and Seras, which had thankfully all been ended before either side had done too serious an injury to the other, though when it is nigh-on invincible immortals doing the fighting, the concept of 'serious injury' changes somewhat.

"I am already well aware of the existence and appearance of Father Piotr Lieberwitz," said Integra, turning the page to show a photograph of a tennis-ball sized glass sphere imprinted with a cross and the roman numeral XIII, accompanied by several paragraphs of writing, "And of his methods of exterminating the undead. Why are you showing me this."

"Read the next page, Integra." Said Rutherford, smiling congenially as he sat back in his chair.

She did, her eyes widening, but her lips keeping as close together as she dared. Fin ally she looked up.

"Kidnapped? Who the hell would kidnap a regenerator?"

"We have no idea, sir Integra, but it happened on our, or more appropriately, your territory. Maxwell must be scared stiff of you, if he's contacting you through us."

"He's been a bit aloof towards our organisation ever since Alucard worked out how to kill a regenerator after that annoying little bastard with the sniper rifle tried to take out one of our teams."

"Yes, I remember that, er…incident. How did Alucard arrive at the method anyway, it seems rather, well, rather precise, for the heat of battle."

"Experimentation, Edgar, experimentation." Integra allowed her lip to curl into a half smile. Normally, she would have allowed herself a small grin whilst saying something like that, but she thought she could count on neither of these men being a keen enough observer of character to notice something like that.

Rutherford looked uneasy at the thought of such experimentation, but continued on, "Anyway, since Father Lieberwitz went missing whilst on British soil, it falls to your organisation to recover him.

Integra actually laughed at that. "us, recover him? Gentlemen, number one he should not even have been in Belfast to be kidnapped, number two, doesn't it strike you as audacious for them to ask us for assistance, when Iscariot operatives have been responsible for the deaths of no less than thirty seven Hellsing operatives during the past twenty years? To put that into perspective gentlemen, that makes them more of a threat to our organisation than werewolves."

"Still sir Integra, in the interest of engendering trust and co-operation between your two organisations, who after all have the same purpose…"

"Sir Rutherford," she said, dropping the informality "Hellsing and Iscariot are utterly different organisations, affiliated to different denominations of the church, dealing with different areas of Europe. At no point do our interests collide."

"Except, Sir Integra, in Northern Ireland. On paper, it's a protestant country that is part of the United Kingdom. In reality it has almost total dependence, and half of its practising worshippers are catholic. There have been no less than five incidents this year alone when Hellsing and Iscariot operatives have hunted the same target and come into conflict."

Ah, so this was it. They wanted her to kiss and make better with that zealous little sod Maxwell. Should she refuse? No, how could she. If she refused, it would weaken her standing in the Round Table. They would whisper that she was unwilling to carry out her duty, and the issue of what some saw as her 'lax' attitude towards the undead in employing Alucard and Seras. If those people were ever to find out she herself was a bloodsucker…

"Very well." She said, closing the file. "But let it go on record that I deeply disapprove of this course of action and do not consider Section XIII to be our allies."

"Of course, Integra, now," he reached back to Maybridge, who handed him something, "Get well soon."

So they had brought flowers. How bloody marvellous.