"Master?"

Vladimir looked up from reading a report about the deaths of the various Iscariot members and frowned at Seras. She didn't usually address him that way when he was wearing this face. "What is it, Captain Victoria?" Emphasizing her title to remind her to keep up appearances.

"I've been thinking, and Pip and I have been talking about it, and I'm ready to drink your blood and be a true nosferatu. If your offer still stands, of course." Seras did a fairly good job of not looking nervous. With the lessons that the war had taught her and Pip's unconditional support and guidance, Seras had come a long way from the Police Girl she'd once been.

Vladimir looked sharply at the door behind Seras and it locked itself with a sharp click. He rose from his seat and as he did so, his hair darkened and waved loose around his head, his skin lost its honey hue and took on the pallor of the undead and his eyes shifted from blue to red. The man who had been sitting behind the desk had been Sir Vladimir Hellsing, leader of the Hellsing organization; the man who walked across the room to regard Seras appraisingly was Alucard, Hellsing's ultimate weapon.

"And why are you asking now? Are you afraid of Walter and what Millennium's little boy says?"

"Yes. I am." Seras didn't back down from Alucard even though part of her wanted to. "I'm afraid of Walter, especially if Paladin Anderson's inside him and he can use those knives. I want to do what I can to protect myself, including taking this step." The thought of their last meeting and the way he had acted still chilled her. He had been so… so casually monstrous. Shouldn't evil be a bit more intense?

Solemnly, almost grimly, Alucard looked down at her. "You do have a strong sense of self-preservation." He approved. She'd started out very slowly in her trip through undeath, but she was a survivor as her decision demonstrated to him once again. Having the mercenary's soul to bolster her own had clearly done her more good than not. Eventually they'd tire of their arrangement and the Frenchman would either have to move on, or Seras would absorb him like any lesser soul. It didn't matter much to him which happened, but he looked forward to seeing it when it did.

Alucard took off his coat, set it aside and rolled up a shirtsleeve. "Don't just stand there, take it." He held his arm out in front of her face, "This is what you wanted. Take it or stop wasting my time."

"I don't have to do anything else? Just drink your blood?"

"Nothing else."

Seras took Alucard's arm, holding it at wrist and elbow and looked up at him. Pip spoke up within her mind. Just do it, girly. We have to be strong if an insane butler paladin wants to kill us to destroy Alucard.

With no further hesitation she bent over his arm and sank her fangs into the cool flesh. Her hands clamped convulsively on his arm as the first flow of power hit her. For the briefest moment, she could feel the souls inside of her master and was both appalled and awed by the sheer number and variety of them before she became aware of their ruler. Seras had never had this kind of exposure to what really went on behind the mask of sanity that Alucard usually wore.

By the time she released his arm and stumbled back, tears were flowing down her face. Oh god, Pip, I don't want to be like that! Please don't let me be like that!

Alucard watched her expressionlessly while he rolled his sleeve back down and put his great red coat on again. "You have everything I can give you now. Don't shame me."

Seras looked up at him in shock. How could someone like him feel any shame for anything? Shh, Seras, you couldn't have seen everything that he is in just one quick look.

One quick look was more than enough. Then why did he only show me the monstrous part?

You're asking me? The important part isn't what you saw, it isn't what you're scared of someday in the future, it's what we have to worry about now. Let's keep you from losing your head to Walter and then we'll try to figure out how to keep you from losing your mind in the future.

"If you're done having a conversation from which I'm excluded, I still have work to do." In the moment between speaking and turning to walk back to his desk, Sir Vladimir was back as though Alucard had been nothing but a hallucination. "Captain Victoria, there have been reports of ghouls in Alphamstone. I will expect your troops to deal with the trash and you will report to me with your success."

He looked at the photograph of Alexander Anderson's body, just as Schrödinger had described it. "What have you done with Millennium's turncoat?"

Seras turned with her hand on the door handle. "Schrödinger, Sir? You said he couldn't stay here at Hellsing, so I found him a cottage down the road. I wanted to keep an eye on him."

Vladimir nodded, "Remind him that he will be permitted to live as long as he creates no ghouls nor kills humans.

"Of course, Sir." She turned again to leave.

"Captain Victoria."

Seras suppressed a sigh and turned around again, "Yes, Sir?"

"Wipe the blood off of your face before you leave." He smirked when she put her hand to her face and it came away wet with bloody tears. "We can't have the troops thinking I made their commander cry."

•••

Seras sat down across from Schrödinger in his tidy little sitting room. He just looked so damned young and innocent. It was too easy to forget that there was a calculating and very adult mind behind that cheerful boy's face.

"Sir Vladimir wanted me to remind you of the rules for your continued existence. You may live here as long as you kill no humans. The first dead human, or worse, ghoul, that is your fault, I will personally feed you to Alucard if I don't kill and eat you myself."

I don't want to share space with him.

Oh hush, you wouldn't be sharing space. He'd go where the other souls go. You're special and you know it.

I know, mignonette. I also know you're getting tired of only me for company. It does get lonely sometimes, doesn't it? Pip sounded almost wistful.

I just want someone else to talk to now and then. I think he does, too. You'll always be my first and only love. She smiled at Schrödinger, but the smile was entirely for Pip. Besides, now that I'm a true nosferatu, I think I can figure out this shape changing thing. We'll see about switching off now and then. I know you want your body again. We can at least figure out how to let you have it part time.

Schrödinger was unaware of the conversation was carrying on without him, but it was clear to him that her attention was elsewhere. He rolled his eyes at her threats. "I'm here. If I wanted to just wander around killing humans and leaving a trail of ghouls, I wouldn't do it right inside the territory of the most powerful vampire on earth."

She glanced down at the cell phone she held in her lap. She still hadn't heard back from the team she'd sent to Alphamstone.

"Seras Victoria, are you listening to me? You came to threaten me, the least you can do is pay attention to the person you're trying to intimidate."

"What? Oh, I'm sorry, that was rude of me, you're right." Seras picked up the phone as though holding it would make it ring then set it back down. "Right. You won't attack humans because you're smarter than that. Good. But why are you here? Why not somewhere else where you're in less danger?"

Schrödinger curled up in a corner of the couch and shrugged. "I've never had to work alone. I've spent my whole life working toward a cause that was promptly destroyed when it was set out in the world. I don't want to be a vampire hunter, but I don't want to be alone either. I can't reproduce. None of us could do it on our own. Only Doc could make more of us. So, if I want companions, I have to find them where I can. You're it."

Pip didn't buy his explanation and stepped forward in their mind to speak, "If that's the case, why did you protect her that day? You said you did. Why?"

"Do you remember the first time we met? That day with the Queen? The day your Master blew my head off?" He waited for Seras to nod. "I don't know what it was, but I just…" He shrugged again. "I didn't want you to die and when I had a chance to help you, I took it. Millennium was over anyway. The Major dismissed me, remember?"

Seras remembered. Moments after that, she ran off into the mayhem that was London, leaving Integral alone to her doom. She rubbed her hands across her suddenly chilled arms, and jumped when the phone in her lap let out of shrill ring.

"Yes? All of them? You're sure? Right. I'll be there right away." She clicked the off button and made a new phone call, heedless of the catboy's obvious curiosity.

"Sir Vladimir? Yes. I just received a report that the team I sent to Alphamstone has been wiped out. Yes, Sir. Yes, it sounds like the start of another Cheddar. Yes, I'm going to deal with it straight away. Yes, Sir, I'll report back to you when it's cleaned up." Seras clicked the phone closed and looked at Schrödinger. "I have work. Stay out of trouble."

•••

It was eerily like Cheddar. Seras couldn't help but be reminded of the night she lost one life and gained another as she swept through the ghouls that filled the streets of the tiny town. There had been fewer than two hundred residents in Alphamstone, and it seemed to Seras that every one of them was now a ghoul.

It was almost too easy for her to start at the edge of town and work her way inward, destroying the ghouls methodically. The town was so tiny that there was only one street through the center of town anyway. Despite the numbers, she didn't understand how her team had been destroyed. Even more than a hundred ghouls shouldn't have been too much for her well-trained and well-armed men to handle.

The war had taught Seras to put her feelings aside to do what needed to be done. She didn't take pleasure in destroying the mindless undead that wandered the hamlet, but neither did it pain her; she was too distracted by concern for her men and a need to find the vampire who was the inevitable source of this contagion. She had yet to see her men in any form, dead or ghouled. Where were they?

Of course, it had to be the church, didn't it? Seras groaned inwardly. Why does this have to be so much like Cheddar?

She walked inside the church. There were her men, sitting quietly in the pews, and standing behind the podium, facing away from her was a man in black whose presence screamed vampire! even though he had not moved to face her yet. The only thing missing was a helpless police girl dangling from his grasp.

Seras leveled her gun and squeezed off a shot at the vampire. It didn't matter whether his back was turned or not. He knew she was there, he was a vampire and courtesies like not shooting him from behind were more than he deserved after what he'd done to this town.

Shit fuck!

Seras tried to follow his movements, but he was fast even for a vampire. The bullet had left the barrel of her gun and her target had moved out its trajectory as though she'd thrown a paper airplane at him, not a deadly piece of blessed silver encasing an equally deadly sphere of mercury.

She finally saw whom she was facing and suppressed a small shriek of terror. Walter now stood in the middle of the aisle between her and the altar, smiling genially.

"Excellent, Miss Victoria, I was counting on your arrival before your Master's." Walter walked down the aisle toward her, casually flicking bullets out of the air with his wires while Seras took up a steady stream of fire before she had to ditch the empty clip and jam another one home. "Is that all you've learned since I saw you last? The only remaining offspring of the world's most powerful vampire and all you can do is throw useless bits of metal at me?" He made a tsking sound and suddenly lunged forward into a roll that brought him in under her fire and inside her guard.

The gun clattered to the ground when Walter aimed a fist at her face. Seras shifted faster than she ever had before and his hand passed harmlessly through her shadows. She reached out with shadows that she made more solid, trying to grab and restrain those deadly hands of his, but he was faster than she and turned to face her from the center of the church once more. Even fully alert and prepared, his movements had been little more than a blur to her.

Shit, girly, let's get our asses out of here before he hands them to us on a silver platter!

Seras was all in favor of leaving and letting Alucard handle this particular vampire. She began to slip her shadows under the door when Walter spoke again, but it wasn't his accent or his words, "Enough of this. We're not letting her get away just because ye like to play."

Seras gasped in pain and the sudden shock of returning to solid form when a silver blade thunked into the door and pinned a page there. She whirled around to see Walter throwing knives around the church, pinning more of those pages to the walls. He turned back to her and the grin that spread over his face was not nearly as terrifying as the piercing green of his eyes. She knew that smile and those eyes, and her hand went to her throat reflexively. It was true – the paladin and the vampire were together.

•••

Alucard stood on the road outside the church. Seras might not be his servant any longer, but their blood ties would always be strong. He had felt her terror and then her pain and followed them here. He could smell her blood anointing the stones that ringed this church. They looked like nothing more than small ornamental boulders, but there was a sense of old power that radiated from them. No matter, the power he felt from them was also incomplete, and after a quick walk around the church, he saw no more stones to complete the circuit. Either his enemy was a fool who was using an incomplete tool, or the final ingredient was inside.

There was only one person who was likely waiting inside for him. Alucard walked up the front path. Far be it from him to avoid a reunion with an old friend.

He was nonetheless surprised to see Seras sitting in a pew just inside the door of the church. He had to push through a familiar feeling barrier to enter the building, and the knives and pages pinned to the walls of the church told him an interesting story. He looked down at Seras where she sat. He realized now that she was tightly bound with Walter's wires with one loop wrapped around her neck and ankles preventing her from trying to even move out of her hunched over sitting position unless she wanted to decapitate herself.

He reached out and placed his hand on her head before advancing up the aisle. "Your little Vatican tricks aren't enough to keep me out, Judas Priest." He called to the man sitting in the front pew, his presence easily distinguishable from that of his ghouls. "And your wires won't be enough to stop me, Walter."

He walked toward his old enemy and even older companion. "I thought you were smarter than that."

"I do believe that I am, Alucard," Walter responded as he rose from the pew and stood at the head of the aisle.

"I think this is the part where we have a little talk about our old friendship before trying to kill each other." Alucard smiled toothily. "Do you want to skip that and move right on to trying to kill each other?"

Walter raised an eyebrow, "You don't want to hear about my homicidal adventures and how I ended up with your dear friend Alexander Anderson as an eternal passenger?"

"I can get that from your soul when we're finished, Angel of Death." Alucard raised his guns and began firing.

The podium and wall behind Walter splintered and huge holes gaped in them where Alucard's bullets impacted, but Walter was not there. He threw up an insubstantial shield that flickered occasional bright flashes of reflected light and swept Alucard's next salvo harmlessly out of the air.

"I made those guns, Alucard. They won't be the tools to kill me."

"But it's so much fun to try them out on you." Alucard fired again, almost casually destroying a handful of ghouls as the bullet plowed through them only to be cut to pieces before impacting its actual target.

Walter sidestepped the next volley and stood again at the head of the aisle. "Indeed. This is rather entertaining." He flicked a wire out down the aisle and cut the end off of Alucard's Casull. "I was never fully content with the design of that one." Alucard cut the next wire out of the air with a well-timed shot from his Jackal.

Walter's face changed and he growled, "Would ye two stop talking and finish this?" The red flash of his eyes had changed to a green glint.

Alucard's grin broadened. "Oh you do have a powerful presence inside the Angel, don't you Iscariot? How does it feel to be what you've always killed?" He snorted, "Less than that, you don't even have your own body, you're just a parasite."

Pip was distracted from trying to figure out how to get free of their bindings by Alucard's comment, Hey!

Shut up, I don't want to attract their attention. Let Alucard finish him off first. Seras was confident in Alucard, no matter what Walter did or had done. She just wished that he'd do something about Anderson's writ so she could turn to shadow and escape.

"Ye're a fine one to talk about parasites, beast." Anderson said with Walter's mouth. He pulled a handful of bayonets out of thin air. I still don't like defiling a church with your pagan tricks.

Oh do shut up, Alexander. I thought this wasn't really a church by your standards, since this isn't Catholic.

He threw the bayonets. Alucard shot the one that was going to hit him out of the air, but glanced over his shoulder at a cry of pain from Seras. Two of the blades had struck her in the shoulder and chest, and blood poured from the wounds, puddling on the pew and dripping onto the floor under it.

Alucard felt the incomplete circuit he'd sensed outside close. The feeling was stifling and he realized that he was cut off from most of the power that made him so dangerous. It was like being fully sealed again.

He turned, hair waving around his head like it had a life of its own, and looked at Walter. "What did you do?"

Walter put his finger to his lips, "Shh. Do you hear it?"

Alucard did as Walter said and heard the sound of a heart beating in the church. There were no humans here. Just three vampires and a few remaining ghouls. He stepped backward down the aisle toward the pew where Seras slumped on her side now, while keeping close watch on Walter's actions. The man seemed content to just watch him for the moment.

The heartbeat was coming from Seras? No, under Seras, under the pew where she sat. He chanced a quick look under the pew and saw the last of the stones that must complete the stone circle outside the church. They had built a Christian church on top of a place of pagan power and even gone so far as to incorporate the center stone into their building. On top of the stone that had been drenched in Seras' blood, sat a human heart, beating as steady a rhythm as though it were still inside its owner's chest.

"You're just another vampire now, Alucard. Now we'll fight as equals and see who's better." Walter watched Alucard with a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

Alucard's face twisted in fury and he advanced down the aisle, firing his gun with each step. "You killed Integral to use her for this? I'll see you in hell!"

Walter easily evaded Alucard's shots and playfully flicked a wire out to lash across Alucard's cheek, drawing first blood. "This was just a happy side effect of what I admit was an impulsive action."

Alucard dropped his clip and slammed another into his gun and kept firing. The time for friendly banter was over. He knew that he was unlikely to hit Walter with his bullets, but he intended to exhaust that option before having to initiate combat that would bring him closer to those wires. The bullets that Walter didn't fragment with the wires smashed through walls and windows, leaving huge holes behind. He would bring this church down around Walter's head before he'd allow his former companion to escape here with his life.

After loading and firing his last clip, Alucard threw his gun aside and pulled Anderson's bayonets out of Seras' body. She moaned in pain, but he knew that she was strong enough to survive the wounds. She was not just his child, but a full nosferatu, after all.

"Come on Walter, Judas Priest, let us finish this." He grinned fiercely and rushed his enemy.

A few of Walter's wires managed to draw thin lines of blood on Alucard, but he was able to use Anderson's own weapons to keep the wires from finding a purchase that would allow them to do more than superficial damage. He grinned when Walter danced back from his charge and only narrowly evaded a deadly slash from a borrowed blade.

Walter whipped the wires from his right hand back into his rings and allowed Anderson to join him. A sword appeared in his right hand and he blocked Alucard's next thrust with a resounding clang of metal on metal. "Ye're not so tough without yer devilish trick, are ye, abomination?"

"You're a fine one to talk about abominations," Alucard growled at the other vampire who glared at him with one green eye and one red. He spun and slashed across Walter's side, drawing blood and a grunt from his opponent, but he paid in blood when he blocked Anderson's sword but failed to take into account the wires in the man's other hand. Quick thinking let him sacrifice a bayonet instead of an arm, but now he was down to a single weapon.

The two vampires circled and feinted. Alucard had to keep moving to avoid being entangled, which led them around and through the church leaving splintered pews and splattered ghouls in their wake.

•••

Schrödinger wasn't sure if he regretted the curiosity that had led him to witness a once-in-a-vampire's-lifetime battle. He'd just wanted to see what sort of work Seras did when she wasn't in the middle of a war. He hadn't planned to do anything else. He was much better as an observer than as an actor, but this was an exception.

He'd felt the circle close and peeked into the church through one of the many holes that had opened in the walls. His eyes widened when he saw Walter and Alucard battling hand to hand through the church, but he didn't see Seras anywhere. After moving from hole to hole, he eventually found one that let him see her where she lay in the pew.

He swallowed and winced. This was going to get him hurt, if not killed, if he wasn't careful. He waited until the two combatants were engaged at the front of the church and tried to teleport inside. It was like trying to walk through a brick wall – useless. Whatever Walter had done to keep Alucard inside the church also kept him from just teleporting out.

He ran around to the door and peeked around the corner. Alucard hadn't closed the door when he came in and he could see Seras just feet away. Steeling himself, he ducked around the corner and hid behind the pew in front of Seras while he looked her over. She wasn't bleeding, although she had done quite a lot, but when he tried to find a way to unwrap the wires binding her, he only succeeded in cutting his fingers on them.

He looked up over the pew again to assure himself that the two vampires were still absorbed in their duel. He scooped Seras up in his arms and scuttled out of the church. Either of the others may have noticed him, but they seemed to be too absorbed in trying to kill each other to worry about him or Seras. At least, not yet.

Outside, Schrödinger tried to carry Seras out of the circle around the church and was brought up short by a barrier he could not pass, even by teleporting. He and Seras were trapped inside this circle until it was broken or they were killed. He knew which he hoped for. He picked Seras up and carried her to the small copse of trees that grew inside the circle. It was better than sitting out in the open waiting to die.

"I'll be back," he whispered and went back to watch the battle.

Under Seras' now empty pew, Integral's heart continued to beat a steady rhythm.

•••

Both combatants had noticed Seras' rescue, but it was entirely irrelevant to the matter at hand – mutually assured destruction. Walter and Alucard fought their way onward through the church. Or was it Anderson and Alucard who fought?

The point was overall moot as to who was driving Walter Dornez's body at any given time. He moved with deadly grace through the church, wielding sword and wires with equal skill. Alucard pressed an attack against his opponent, his disadvantage with his weapon compensated for by more than four centuries of experience in combat.

Both vampires bled and healed again and again. The church around them was more wounded than they were – the stains of the blood they had shed looked like blood the church had shed from its own wounded walls and pews. Alucard grinned with the challenge and Walter met the display of teeth with one of his own. If their observer hadn't known how deadly serious their battle was, he would have thought they were two friends sparring.

Having fought their way to the rear of the church, Alucard was able to retrieve another of Anderson's thrown bayonets from the wall where it had lodged. The tide of the combat seemed to turn with Alucard once again more suitably armed until Anderson's sword penetrated Alucard's guard, He buried it deep in Alucard's chest where he knew the vampire's black heart did not beat.

Alucard grinned and twisted his body, wrenching the sword free from Walter's grasp, even as his wound splattered more blood on the floor and pews. He looked down at the blade protruding from his chest, "That's not even close to enough to destroy me."

Walter matched Alucard's grin one final time, "But this is." He lunged, manifesting yet another of Anderson's limitless blades and skewered the heart that had continued to beat under the rear pew throughout their battle. "Your blood, your child's blood and your Master's heart and blood. Good bye, Alucard."

Outside, he could hear Seras' scream when blood began to pour from the wound in Alucard's chest. Alucard looked down at the spill of blood and looked back up at Walter. "At least it was you who did it, Walter, old friend." He staggered and went to his knees.

Walter walked to stand over Alucard to watch him die at long last. He had time to wonder what he would do with himself now that his obsession was complete. As he expected, Alucard lunged up for one final attempt to take Walter with him into final death. Walter tried to step back but Anderson clamped down on his body just long enough for the blessed blade Alucard held to find his heart.

We've done our duty, Walter. It's time for us to escort Alucard to hell.

Walter fell to his knees in front of Alucard and had the briefest flash of a thought, What have I done? before death came to take them both.

•••

Sir Vladimir sat at his desk speaking quietly on the phone. "No, Your Majesty, we've had no difficulties with the transition. No, no one has noticed at all. Yes, Your Majesty, you have my undying loyalty. Yes, thank you very much for your faith in me."

He hung up the phone and sat back in his chair and smiled at the small vampire sitting in the chair across from him. "Her Majesty expressed her faith in my ability to function without Alucard." He relaxed in his office chair and where Sir Vladimir had sat, Seras Victoria now stood up and commented to Schrödinger, "I really hate wearing that body."


AN: The church in Alphamstone exists almost exactly as described. It sits in the middle of standing stones with the last of the stones just inside the church under a pew on the back wall. And yes, I know that the original Dracula's first name was not Vladimir. What Hellsing would name their child after Dracula, even a Hellsing that only existed in Alucard's mind when he created "Sir Vladimir?"

Thank you very much for reading this. I know it's been bizarre and that I took a really long time between chapters four and five. Five was very hard to write. Leave me a review if you've gotten this far and tell me what you did or did not like. I love concrit because without it, I can't grow as a writer.