A/N: This story is set in between Crossfire #2 and #3.

Disclaimer: Crossfire and Hellsing are Hirano's, not mine.


"Where are you taking us?" Heinkel Wulf asked the man to her left. She and her partner had been in his car for nearly an hour now. Supposedly, the priest was going to fill them in on the details of their mission, but he'd spoken little since they'd met up with him.

"Mexico," he drawled, lighting another cigarette.

"What's in Mexico?" Yumiko Takagi asked from the backseat. The car had a working motor, and, by some miracle, air conditioning. This put it ahead of some of the other vehicles her and Heinkel had the pleasure in dealing with. The car's interior was a true marvel of engineering, however. The backseat was possibly one of the smallest backseats Yumiko had ever seen that was, in fact, still an actual backseat.

With Heinkel being the more long-legged of the two, it only made sense that she would sit in the front seat, and she had been considerate and scooted her seat forward. They were still left with the tricky proposition of fitting the katana back there. In the end, they had decided to simply leave one of the windows rolled part way down, and let the end of the sword stick out. If the road had currently been busier, they would have surely drawn attention to themselves like this, and the lowered window negated some of the benefits of the air conditioning. Yumiko regarded it as a blessing, however, because it let some of the cigarette smoke out of the car.

It was unusual for Yumiko and her partner to even come to North America. Typically, things on that continent were handled by the American branch of Iscariot, but they were stretched even thinner than the home office. All of their operatives were currently engaged elsewhere and they'd requested the Vatican's assistance.

Yumiko politely repeated the question. "What's in Mexico?"

"Mexicans," Father Green let out a long exhale before speaking again. "That's a big sword for a little thing like you. Where'd it come from?"

"Japan," Yumiko answered, still not content with his response to her question.

"You're Japanese," the father asked, "right?"

"I am."

"Always did like Mu Shu."

Heinkel barely stifled a laugh.

Yumiko frowned. Her other personality was awake, pacing behind her eyes. Yumie didn't want to kill the priest. She just wanted to smack him. Besides being very antisocial, such an action would have probably taken the car off the road, since he was the one who was driving. Yumiko told her to go to back to sleep as her fingers twisted in the skirt of her habit. "Mu Shu is Chinese, sir."

"If the job is in Mexico," Heinkel wondered, "why weren't we just sent to Mexico?"

"Ah, see now," Father Green stuck the cigarette out of the car and tapped some ash off, "it didn't start out like that. This gang of voodoo-hoodoo pagan creeps has been goin' around border towns, bustin' in churches, swipin' out collections and sacramentals."

"How do you know it's the work of pagans?" Heinkel asked as she retrieved a cigarette from her coat. Yumiko sighed as she heard the metallic sounds made by the lighter.

"Because they painted their heathen symbols on the doors with chicken blood. The cops said it was chicken blood, anyhow. Anyway, the last time they did it, they shot a priest who was unlucky enough to be there that night. Then they skid addled across the border." The father squinted in the bright Texas sun. "Hey, girl," he said to Heinkel, ignoring her raised brows, "there's a pair sunglasses in the glove box. You wanna be a saint and hand them here?"

She obliged. He put them on and continued. "Must say, when Bishop Landry said Rome was sending people out, I was expectin' someone a little different. Ah, here's the place." He pulled off the road, into the parking lot of a church.

"I thought we were going to Mexico?" Yumiko asked, slightly confused.

"We are." Father Green put the car in park. He stubbed out the cigarette butt in a Styrofoam coffee cup that seemed to be serving as an ashtray in one of the cup holders, then left the car. "But, first, we need to change vehicles. We'll never get across the border with that sticker of yours pokin' out the window like that. I'll be right back." He walked off toward the building.

"I don't know how anyone could think Mu Shu was Japanese," Yumiko grumbled.

Her partner shifted her position in the car seat so she could look at her. "It's nothing, Yumiko," she said, putting her sunglasses away. "Stop thinking about it."

"How would you like it if someone confused Austria and Germany?"

"People do that, anyway. And I don't think that's an accurate analogy." Heinkel took one last inhale off of the cigarette and smashed it down into the coffee cup. "Are you going to be ready to wake up Yumie when we get there?"

"Yes," Yumiko answered, brows furrowing, "why?"

The other woman shrugged, "no reason, just checking."

Yumiko frowned. "Oh, come on! It's been over two years since what happened in Palestine. You don't trust me?"

"No, of course I trust you. Don't you think I would have figured out a way to keep from working with you, by now, if I didn't?"

"I guess." Yumiko sighed.

"What is wrong you?" Heinkel's fingers twitched, wanting another cigarette, or possibly a gun. She didn't like being idle. "You've been like this since we got off the plane."

"I don't know. Jet lag? It's not like we had any time to adjust, or like we ever do."

"Which is why you should have adjusted to it." Heinkel smiled slightly, trying to lighten the mood. "You don't happen to know how Yumie's doing right now, do you?"

Yumiko was fidgeting with her cross. "No. It's not like we chat. Can you let me out? There's no room to move on the other side back here, and I'm getting muscle cramps."

Heinkel decided to let her succeed in changing the subject. She knew Yumiko didn't like talking about the other person in her head. She got out of the car and folded back the seat. Her partner took a moment to maneuver her way out the vehicle. Watching her stick her leg out, Heinkel wondered, not for the first time, how Yumiko could stand wearing stockings all the time, and how Yumie could tolerate them during battle. Heinkel had always hated the things.

She blinked, noticing she was no longer looking at the dark material, but rather the line where it ended, meeting the contrasting skin on Yumiko's thigh. Heinkel shook her head, not sure where her mind just went. She looked upwards as Yumiko finished extracting herself from the car and the skirt fell back into place. Yumiko gave her an odd look, blushing slightly. Heinkel flushed a bit herself as she realized Yumiko had caught her staring. "Sorry, I spaced for a moment," she explained. "The jet lag must have gotten to me, too."

A look of understanding came on Yumiko's face. "Jet lag," she said, nodding sympathetically. "It's an awful thing."

The conversation was ended by the honk of a horn as a white van with "St. Stephen's" painted on the side pulled up next to the car. The driver's window lowered, and Father Green stuck his hand out to make a beckoning gesture. "All right, ramblers . . . Let's get ramblin'. Let's go to Mexico."