"We pray that our Sister may find in death, the peace she could not have in life. May God and his Son watch over her soul. Amen."

Enrico Maxwell turned away from the grave and walked back toward his waiting limousine. It weighed on him that one of his few remaining people had been killed so brutally after surviving the horrors of London. He winced behind his dark glasses when he saw Father Renaldo waiting for him at the car with a notebook computer and a number of file folders clutched in his hands.

Renaldo held the door open for him and climbed in behind his leader. "Father Maxwell, I have some of the information you requested regarding Sister Heinkel's death and Sister Takagi's disappearance."

Maxwell scowled at the reminder of his demotion. Father Maxwell. Every time he heard those words, they were a slap in his face – he had been an archbishop! Now he was nothing – titular head of Iscariot because he knew too much about those in power for them to oust him, no matter how desperately they might wish to – but gone were his dreams of ascendancy. His tenure in the Church would probably end with a bullet to the brain some day soon.

"Show me what you have, Renaldo."

He watched as the man opened the computer and called up a video window. "We have the surveillance records from the car park where Sister Heinkel was murdered." He pointed to two women in the screen. "Here you see Sisters Heinkel and Takagi." They walked across the row of cars before both turned in response to something out of the camera's view. Heinkel drew her gun. Her mouth moved and she was obviously giving Takagi orders because the smaller woman faded back behind her, reaching for her katana and her glasses. Heinkel raised her gun and fired at whatever it was offscreen and Takagi removed her glasses, exchanging her mild Yumiko personality for the berserker, Yumie.

A blur passed through the camera's view and Heinkel fell. Maxwell blinked and had Renaldo back the replay up. Again, a silver blur, and Sister Heinkel's body fell forward while her head rolled away to her right. Maxwell shook his head in mixed horror and anger that a woman who had faithfully served Iscariot and the Church could be struck down so easily. He motioned to Renaldo to continue the playback for him. Yumie drew her katana and rushed toward the edge of the screen, to be met by a man dressed in black. The two fought briefly, but the man moved inhumanly fast and disarmed and disabled the woman all too quickly.

He picked up the fallen nun and carried her directly to the surveillance camera. The man appeared to be in his early to mid-thirties. He looked straight into the camera lens and spoke one word, carefully enunciating, "Maxwell." He smiled broadly enough to show the upper and lower fangs of a vampire before turning to retrieve Yumiko's glasses and exiting the frame.

Maxwell ran his tongue around his suddenly dry mouth. The vampire had directed this attack for Maxwell's eyes in particular, sending him an unmistakable message of threat.

"Do we know who he is, Renaldo? He seems oddly familiar, but I don't remember any vampires matching his description." He looked again at the frozen frame of the man – black hair pulled back in a ponytail; a long, sharp nose; thin lips and a sharp jaw. The monocle was a peculiar affectation for a vampire and struck a chord he could not place.

Renaldo cleared his throat. "Oddly, he matches a profile we have had for the last sixty years, although it is puzzling…"

"Spit it out, I don't have time to play guessing games. That vampire is clearly threatening me."

Renaldo opened one of the folders he had brought and handed Maxwell a profile photograph of the same man. "You do know who he is!" Maxwell accused.

Renaldo shook his head, "But it doesn't make sense, sir." He handed Maxwell another photograph and the man understood why his assistant had been reticent and probably confused. He recognized the man in this photograph as Walter C. Dornez, a Hellsing family retainer and their semi-retired "Angel of Death." He flipped the two photos over and looked at the date notations on them. The younger man's photograph had been taken in 1964, whereas the other was a more recent intelligence photo taken last year, before the war began. Looking at it more closely, Maxwell recognized the familiar background of the Imperial War Museum.

•••

Yumiko turned her tear-stained face to follow her captor's movements. "What are you going to do?" She had woken to find herself shackled against a St. Andrew's cross. There was no way to bring her limbs together and she had never learned something as esoteric as lock picking anyway. She had struggled until her wrists and ankles bled, only stopping when the strange vampire came and licked the wounds clean. She would rather not attract his attention in that manner again.

He looked at her now and she shivered. "I'm going to kill you, of course." He smiled and came over to examine her face. "You've been crying. Why? You're one of God's assassins. Aren't you sure of your place in the afterlife?"

Yumiko turned her face away from the vampire and shuddered with her sobs. She stiffened when he turned her face back toward him. "I asked you a question." He waited for her response; when it was not forthcoming, he asked, "Maybe your alter-ego would be more conversational?" She felt his hands on her face, removing her glasses and then Yumiko went to sleep.

Yumie woke and spat in his face and pulled at her shackles, reopening her cuts, "Get away from me, you creature of hell!"

"Tell me, why was Yumiko crying, do you think?" His pleasant demeanor didn't change when she spat on him; he just wiped the spittle from his face and watched her. He didn't stop smiling when she released a stream of invective ill befitting a nun. The man waited until she stopped to draw breath and reached out, grabbing her by her throat and pushing her back against the crosspiece behind her.

Yumie gaped like a fish out of water as her throat was constricted by the vampire's grip. Black spots swam in front of her eyes and she was just giving thanks to God that Yumiko was asleep for their death when he released her, gagging and coughing, to breathe again. "It's not that important, I suppose."

"Just…kill…me," Yumie gasped out.

"I shall. Thank you for being so obliging. However, it's not time yet."

Yumie watched him walk away, closing the door to the room where she was imprisoned. Her screams of rage echoed off the walls, but no one came.

•••

"Well you tell Sir Vladimir Hellsing that yesterday, his servant murdered one of my people and kidnapped another and he can't pretend otherwise. He will speak to me." Maxwell was apoplectic that the latest Sir Hellsing refused to take his phone calls. He growled when another voice came on the line – a woman's voice. He didn't want to talk to some woman, he wanted the damned Hellsing leader, but he paused when the woman introduced herself.

"Father Maxwell, this is Seras Victoria," the other Hellsing vampire and head of Hellsing's small army of mercenaries. She was essentially the second ranked member of the Organization. The other vampire, Alucard, held a special place in Hellsing that did not require any sort of rank. He was a power unto himself, outside the rank system. "Sir Vladimir is unavailable now but wanted me to convey to you that he is very interested in this situation with your people and your evidence against Walter Dornez. He has authorized me to inform you that, in his words, 'Walter Dornez was lost to the Hellsing Organization more than a year ago, on the day of the invasion of London. Anything he may be doing now is not at our authorization, nor are we responsible for his supposed undead condition.'"

Maxwell sputtered into the phone, but the damned bitch hung up on him after making her brief statement. He didn't know whether to believe her or not. It would be terribly convenient for them to kill off Iscariot members and pretend that it was a rogue member rather than one in good standing, acting at their direction.

He swore as he slammed the phone back on its cradle, before returning to another replay of Heinkel's murder and Takagi's kidnapping. What was going on? Would Hellsing have sent him to send such a blatant message and then deny it? Had they truly lost control of the man records called the "Angel of Death?" Maxwell had seen the records of what he had been able to do as a man. What havoc would he wreak as a vampire?

He sat, obsessively watching the recording of Wolfe Heinkel's death. It was just so personal that she had died as part of a message to him; he couldn't tear himself away from it. There were a thousand things he could be doing, but instead, he clicked the button that would replay the images again. And again.

Father Renaldo knocked on the door, entering at Renaldo's curt response. "Father Maxwell, we will need to leave soon."

Maxwell shook his head. "I'm not going."

"Father Maxwell, you have to go. Think about your position. The other twelve sections will use it as an excuse to oust you if you don't attend the meeting."

"Don't you see? This is the reason for the timing of this threat." Maxwell seized on an idea that made his eyes light with a paranoid fervor. "This is their doing. They're using this vampire to dispose of me. They've found their way to make me disappear. Damn every one of those Satan-loving heretics to hell!"

"Father Maxwell, even if that's true, you must attend or know that you are forfeiting your leadership. We have struggled for so long to keep you in a position of serving God and Iscariot, please don't throw it away now." Maxwell had to listen to Renaldo; the man had been his most trusted adviser for Maxwell's tenure in Iscariot. Had Renaldo been an ambitious man, he would have made a fine leader; however, he had always been content to provide support and advice rather than wield the power himself. He was indispensable to Iscariot and to Maxwell as Iscariot's leader.

"I have arranged for an armored limousine and a full escort, Father, but we must leave now or we will be late. You can't afford to send any negative messages now." Renaldo was insistent.

"You're right, Father Renaldo. As always, your advice is sound. I can't ignore my duty to Iscariot, regardless of the threat." He handed his briefcase to Renaldo. "Thank you for arranging an appropriate escort."

The rode in silence toward the meeting site; Maxwell used the time to organize his scattered thoughts. The recent crimes against his people had distracted him from preparing for this important meeting of the heads of all thirteen Vatican sections. Maxwell would be lucky to survive his own fellows; the vampire was hardly as dangerous in his mind now that he was focused on the internecine battle ahead.

A pair of explosions shocked both men and they looked out the windows of the limousine to see that their escort vehicles had both gone up in flames. Maxwell forgot entirely about the cutthroat section heads in favor of a more immediate fear. The limousine swerved erratically, throwing Maxwell against the interior, before stopping at the wreckage of the truck in front of them. Neither man had time to react before the door was wrenched open and a black-clad arm reached in and pulled Maxwell out of the car like a rag doll.

Renaldo climbed out and just ducked a falling loop of wire before it dropped around him. Maxwell was fighting against the grip of the man from the surveillance video. This then, was Walter Dornez – the Angel of Death. He'd lived up to the moniker so far, destroying a full escort in moments. Renaldo summoned the holy writ, which was his Order's most sacred weapon, sending flying sheets to sweep Maxwell out of the vampire's hands and deposit the priest behind his bodyguard.

Walter sent his wires to wrap the interfering priest, but Renaldo's writ flew up and swept the wires aside before they met their target. Walter quirked his lips and inclined his head in a gesture of respect to the priest. Renaldo had accomplished what no other human ever had in deflecting his deadly threads.

Father Renaldo saw the gesture, but did not acknowledge it, instead he reached into his coat and pulled out a sudden barrage of throwing knives. They were small, not more than four inches in length, but dozens seemed to spring from the man's hands and hurtle toward the place the vampire had been standing. Renaldo registered a blur of black before Walter had closed with him and struck him in the stomach with a fist. The priest was pulled over double around the pain in his stomach and before he could straighten, he felt the wires wrap around his neck before he felt nothing more.

The Iscariot section chief fired round after round at his would-be assassin, but he seemed to always be just a moment too slow to keep up with his attacker's movements. He cried out when Walter snatched his weapons from his hands, breaking several of his fingers in the process. It came almost as a relief when Walter struck Maxwell in the head and the world grayed out. Another blow to the head and the priest knew only darkness.

•••

"Father Maxwell? Father Maxwell?"

Enrico wanted nothing more than to ignore whoever was trying to wake him, but the burning acrid odor of an ampoule of smelling salts waved under his nose made him cough and gag until he opened his eyes.

"There you are, Father Maxwell. How kind of you to join us." The smiling face of the man from the surveillance cameras hove into view.

The priest choked out the name, "Dornez," while he tried to clear his vision.

"That's right. Section XIII scores two points for correctly identifying their destroyer."

Maxwell bared his teeth at the man's flippancy. "We will see you burn in the deepest pits of hell, you disgusting vermin! You cannot interfere with God's chosen."

"God's chosen?" Walter chuckled derisively. "God's choices have been wholly inadequate if you're his chosen. Look at your people – dead, doomed or damned. With their leader foremost among them."

Maxwell had only noticed the vampire when he woke, but as Walter walked across the room, he saw that they were not alone. Yumiko hung limply, chained to an X-shaped contraption – a St. Andrew's cross – just as Maxwell was restrained. Her face was tearstained behind her glasses.

Walter lifted her chin, but looked at her leader. "What shall it be for our tidbit, Iscariot? Death? Doom? Or damnation?"

The vampire laughed at Maxwell's incoherent rage. The man's pale face was flushed with his anger. Walter leaned in when Yumiko made a low request. He looked over at Maxwell, "She wants me to let Yumie out." He shook his head at the small woman, "Now why would I give you a tool to make this any easier? Foolish nun."

"Let her go, vampire!"

"Is that your request? Are you certain?" Walter cocked his head and regarded the priest.

"Let Yumiko go free, Walter Dornez. At least half of the girl is an innocent."

Yumiko pulled her chin away from Walter's grasp as the vampire laughed. "She's not nearly as innocent now as she was when she got here, priest, but if you want her to go, I can oblige. But first…" Without warning, Walter pulled on Yumiko's hair to jerk her head up and expose her neck. Maxwell watched her fists clench and then release and listened to the sounds of her whimpers as they became softer, eventually drowned out by the sounds of the vampire's feeding.

"I can let her go now, Father Maxwell," Walter commented as he first patted his lips with a handkerchief and then opened the locks on her shackles, allowing her body to drop to the floor.

The vampire stalked across the floor to his other captive. "Is she damned, doomed, or dead now, priest?" He asked as he leaned against the wall and watched Enrico as he hung in his chains, too shocked to reply. The silence stretched until it was broken by the sound of Yumiko's body pulling itself up to stand, awaiting orders from its master.

"You defiled her?"

"There is just no pleasing you Iscariots, is there?" Walter asked insouciantly. "If I hadn't 'defiled' her, as you say, she would have risen as a vampire and you would have been railing about how I had damned her. You probably would have told her to destroy herself. At least now you can pretend that her soul can be salvaged. You should be thanking me."

He pushed up off the wall and stood directly in front of Maxwell, their bodies a hairsbreadth apart, "And now, you'll need to decide which choice you want. Do you wish to be certainly damned or merely doomed?" The priest's brows knit.

Walter leaned in and breathed seductively in the other man's ear, "Tell me, Enrico, have you ever been buggered?"

•••

Alexander Anderson stood in front of Archbishop Santucci and listened to the report of Enrico Maxwell's kidnapping and Father Renaldo's death. Two fine Iscariot agents were dead and another was missing along with the head of the organization. He wordlessly accepted the data CD with the records of the events that had led up this, Anderson's appointment as interim head of Iscariot. It went without saying that he was not going to be the permanent holder of the position, but Section XIII lacked experienced members after the ill-fated attack on London and Anderson was the highest ranking living member.

The priest managed to hold his temper for the ride back to Section XIII's headquarters. He pushed past the man who attempted to open his car door for him and swept through the halls to his own spartan quarters. The few people who encountered him on his way hurried away from the sight of his flushed red face and impotently grasping empty hands.

Once inside the sanctuary of his room, he stood staring emptily at the books strewn on every available surface before falling to his knees and losing himself in prayer. "Father, I have tried to be Your faithful servant. I have sinned to do Your will. I have willingly damned myself to protect Your innocents. I expect no mercy from You. I do not deserve it, but I beg of You to find mercy for Your servants, Sister Heinkel and Father Renaldo and watch over Sister Takagi and Father Maxwell. They served You with their hearts and souls and I pray that You will take their honest service into account.

Father, there's a trial coming. I don't know what Your will is in this, but I will do my best to serve You in the ways You have given me. Please guide my hand to do what is right. I exist only to serve You. Amen."

•••

The Angel of Death did not pass over Section XIII. He gave no care to whether his victim was a firstborn son as he silently slipped from room to room in the dormitories that housed the remaining members of Iscariot. In each room he left behind the body of another warrior of God.

The last room he visited was Anderson's. The priest and the bringer of death faced each other in the small chamber. No matter how many blades the paladin threw, he could not touch the monster that had felled all of Iscariot save him. His writ would not touch the creature and he was quickly beaten into a corner and disarmed; held helpless as a babe as it pressed its face against his before running its nose across his cheek and burying sharp teeth in his throat.

Alexander Anderson snapped out of his nightmare, hand instinctively testing his throat to make sure it was whole. It was dawn. Instead of trying to return to sleep, he rolled out of bed and walked to the section chief's office – his office.

The few people awake at that hour were as disconcerted by the rumpled man in his pajamas as they had been when he'd stormed in the day before. He tried to remind himself to have either a computer put in his room or a cot put in the office – whatever it took to avoid this sort of early morning stroll.

Anderson had intended to go over the data on the CD from the archbishop again. He hadn't had to search for information on Walter Dornez – it was all already in Maxwell's computer. He remembered encountering the butler when he had been human, and old. It was difficult to ascribe the loss of four good agents to the man, no matter what the records said about his performance as Hellsing's trash man. However, when he reached the office, there was an envelope sitting on the keyboard of his computer.

He picked it up, examining the neatly handwritten "Alexander Anderson" on the front. The priest's hackles rose, his nightmare returning to haunt him. He had to forcibly remind himself that he had seen people walking the halls on his way to the office. The Angel of Death had not come to kill Section XIII's people – at least, not yet. Turning it over, it was not sealed; the flap was simply tucked inside. His pulse sped as he slipped out the two Polaroid pictures and the piece of stationery. He closed his eyes and said a quick prayer before flipping the photos over and looking at the frightened face of Enrico Maxwell and the empty gaze of the ghoul that had been Yumiko Takagi.

The enraged shouts of the paladin echoed through the early morning echo chamber of Section XIII's empty hallways. Anyone foolish enough to enter at that moment would have seen a pajama clad man wielding a large silver blade as he shouted challenges to an absent foe. Eventually that very image penetrated his fury and he made the blade disappear.

Anderson paced the room restlessly, alternately muttering prayers and curses under his breath, before finally returning to the pictures and piece of paper he had dropped on the floor. He had to force himself not to crumple the pictures in his fist; placing them instead on the desk with a gingerness befitting a bomb. With that done, he opened the note and read over it:

Paladin Anderson,

You have something I want.
I have something you want.
Come take what I have, or I will come to you to take what you have.
I am a romantic at heart. Your appointment is for 9:00 pm tonight at the Colosseum. Feel free to bring as many of your friends as you'd like. A buffet is always a treat.

Yours,
Walter C. Dornez

•••

"Father Anderson, I'm disappointed you didn't bring me a snack."

Anderson spun slowly around, trying to locate the source of the voice. The acoustics of the Colosseum were deceptive, though. "From what I saw, it looks as though ye snacked on the guards, already. Ye didn't need to do that."

"Ah, but they have no comparison to the flavor of a chaste Iscariot murderer. Truly nothing I've sampled to date can compare." Still the voice remained untraceable, shifting, as though the speaker was moving, but echoing from many places around the structure.

"I'll not risk more of my people to ye, beast. I will destroy ye myself to cleanse this world of your taint and avenge the people you have killed."

"A commendable goal. As a reward for your ability to follow instructions, you may have your Father Maxwell and Sister Takagi back."

Two figures began to shuffle out the darkness of one of the many arches that circled the arena floor. From the pictures he'd seen and the ruthlessless the vampire had already exhibited, Anderson already knew what he would see when they got closer. Even knowing what he would see did not diminish the priest's rage when he could distinguish Yumiko Takagi's and Enrico Maxwell's distorted features. Rational thought fled before the red rage that swept through the priest and Walter Dornez smiled from his concealment as the Iscariot cut down his former compatriots.

"Fight me, ye cowardly abomination! Show yerself!" Walter watched the paladin vainly stalk the Colosseum searching for him until he became bored with the man's complete lack of imagination in his threats and curses.

"Tsk, Father Anderson. How would your orphans feel to hear you speak so?" Walter stepped into view, smiling genially. His wires cut a swarm of blades from the air, but even his speed and skill were insufficient to deflect the entirety of the priest's attack and he was pushed back with a grunt when a bayonet found its mark.

The vampire was forced to leave the blade in place when Anderson charged him, swords at the ready and a maniacal grin on his face. The two men were a blur of motion through the arches of the ancient structure – Anderson, the pursuer and Walter, the pursued. Blessed silver struck off of stone and wires tore away chips from the columns.

The two men paused when one of Walter's wire sweeps struck flesh, slashed across Anderson's right eye. The priest stopped to regain his full depth perception and Walter took the opportunity to finally pluck the searing silver from his ribs. There was a lull in the activity while flesh knit and wounds healed; then without a word or motion of agreement, the pursuit began again.

The priest tried another assault of thrown blades and they were swept away again. His restraining spell met with similar failure when his opponent's filaments tore the flying pages from the air before they could wrap around his limbs as they were meant to.

Suddenly the man Alexander Anderson had been chasing faded into the shadows and the priest could not find him. He walked cautiously through the arches, expecting an attack which did not come. "Where are ye? Did ye give up yer spine along with yer soul, creature?"

Something warned him before the vampire spoke directly behind him, "I'm right here, Father Anderson." The priest whirled and shoved a sword into Walter's stomach before the first word was completely out of his enemy's mouth. He'd been aiming for the heart, but the man in black was faster than any enemy Anderson had ever faced. He was ready to follow up with the sword in his other hand when the vampire jerked himself off of the sword and wrapped him in a cocoon of wires that severed his left arm at the elbow and pinned his right against his body.

A simple amputation would not have been enough to stop the enraged regenerator, but the degree to which the biting wires bound him left him with no options, and a simple pull of the wires toppled him to the ground. He snarled and pulled against the wires, succeeding in causing blood to spill in freshets all over his body. The wounded vampire stood over him and pushed him onto his back with a foot.

"You are the enemy Alucard enjoyed so much?" Walter nudged the priest again with a toe. "I can't say I'm overly impressed." He knelt next to the prone man and dipped a finger in his captive's blood, bringing the fluid to his lips. He smiled appreciatively and nodded, "Delicious, but not virginal. Our priest has a past? Ah, well, I suppose I can glean that story from your soul." He leaned over, his face inches from Anderson's, "It will only hurt for a moment." He laughed and pulled back when his captive tried to head butt him.

The priest struggled against his restraints violently enough to bring the wires down to bone and cause actual sprays of blood from severed arteries. He could feel himself weakening before Walter had an opportunity to get his face near his neck again, but he knew that it was too late, he was doomed. It was almost as though the vampire had heard his despairing thought when he asked, "Doomed, damned, or dead? Which will you be, Iscariot?"

Doomed, damned or dead. The words struck a chord with the priest and he seized on one last idea. "I'm already damned, beast, do yer worst." Alexander Anderson met his killer with open eyes and did not flinch when he felt the cold breath and colder fangs at his throat. His last thought as he gave himself over to the darkness was, This is not a surrender.