"I hope I won't catch you misbehaving again."

Radu looked up from the book he had been reading. Well, attempting to read anyways, his mind was too filled with doubts and worries to really concentrate on the old novel that he had pilfered from the college library. The high blood vampires and those close to them had taken to roosting in a wing of the college that was barred from students and staff under the guise of reconstruction. There were mesmerized men working on it in the early mornings until about noon upon which they would take a dazed lunch and return to their normal lives afterwards, none the wiser. The wing itself was perfectly fine if not a bit darker and more gothic looking thanks to the presence of so many powerful vampires.

"Lady Elizabeth," Radu greeted quietly. He had hoped that by choosing to read during the daylight hours he could be left in peace. But he saw now that it was not to be. The cat had found the mouse. A game that had spanned for all the centuries he had been a vampire and one that, despite his age and wisdom, he was never good at. So the mouse sighed and set his book down on the windowsill next to him before turning his red gaze onto the lovely creature standing in the shadows. She grinned a Cheshire grin and dipped her head in the smallest of bows. It was meant as a joke, Radu knew, she had taken to calling him Prince after his brother's rise to power and had played the part of a Lady in Waiting as a laugh.

"Radu, my little prince, when will you learn?" she cooed from her spot in the shadows, one hand lifted to her mouth and the other supporting her elbow. She let out a small laugh at the look of exhausted despair that came over his face.

"Never, it seems," he muttered, turning to gaze out the window at the students who traversed the college grounds in ignorance.

"All the more fun for me then, little prince, would you not say?" she tittered and stepped forward into the light, revealing cascading brown hair and red eyes, a pixie like face, and the elegant gown of red satin that she wore. She reached a hand up, trailing her knuckles over Radu's cheek in a loving fashion.

"Yes my mistress," he mumbled.

"This might be more difficult than we originally thought it would be," Andrews said.

They stood within the courtyard of Flalger College. A fountain gurgled in the center and high above them stood the clock tower that they so often heard chiming away from any vantage point within the city. The magnificent building, ornate and grand, was filled to the brim with angsty young adults stressing over the oncoming storm that was midterms. Every which way the looked there were people hunched over books, pen to paper, and studying as if their very lives depended on it. Here and there a few could be spotted socializing but their numbers were far outnumbered by the studious lot. Regardless, the courtyard was still filled with rowdy people that would only impede their investigation.

Integra stood with her arms crossed and a cigar clenched between her teeth, staring up at the building irritably. Andrews was just behind her and to the right, eyeing the place warily, but refrained from making any further comments. He could already feel her ire rising to dangerous levels and he only hoped she would remain level headed throughout their search.

"Seras said that Radu had found them in the basement," Integra reiterated as they walked forward deeper into the courtyard. "But I looked through the blue prints of the building on the laptop and there is no basement, at least, not one of the magnitude that Radu described."

"A recent addition?" Andrews guessed in a dry and sarcastic tone. He clasped his hand behind his back as he followed her, his face turned down but his eyes scanning the property.

"Ma'am, you can't smoke on the property!"

Integra came to an abrupt stop and shut her eyes against the anger bubbling in her gut. She let out a sigh and took the cigar from her mouth, lifted a foot, and ground the ember out onto the soul of her shoe before returning it to the case kept within her back pocket. Across the courtyard a security guard nodded curtly to her before moving on in his rounds.

"Something along those lines, no doubt," she muttered.

Their search was fruitless in the end. They traipsed all across the campus, snooping in wings outsides were not permitted in, sneaking through the dorms, and searching the lowest levels of the building to no avail. The students were oblivious to their presence as well as any rumors regarding vampires, or at least, they pretended to be. They were eventually escorted off the property by the headmaster but not before Andrews was mistaken for a professor and Integra his wife. They had been wandering down one of the long hallways, one wall lined in windows, when a rather frantic looking youg man had come running after them yelling "Professor Basil!" repeatedly until they had realized he was talking to them and stopped.

"Pardon?" Andrews had said, looking more than a bit befuddled when the boy came to a stop, panting and bent over with his hands on his knees.

"I was hoping to talk to you about the final paper, you said it had to be five thousand words but you didn't give us a limit and mine happens to be a bit longer than five thousand . . ." he trailed off and straightened up in front of them, adjusting his glasses and paused. "Oh, you're not Professor Basil, I'm so sorry!" He exclaimed.

"Professor Basil, is that your wife?" another student questioned from down the hall curiously.

Integra sighed while Andrews laughed and waved the students off in nervous amusement.

By that point Integra was practically stomping through the college, irritated by their lack of findings and the constant interruptions. She had managed to lead them all the way down into the basement, but it was small, and filled with old furniture and cleaning supplies. Not at all the huge room stuffed with an army of ghouls that they were looking for. They had been standing in the dark room, debating on their next move, when the security guard found them. He had shone his flashlight on them and ordered them off the property immediately lest he call for back up. Rather than make more of a scene than they already had to two agreed to go quietly and endured the embarrassing march back through the school followed by the curious eyes of all the onlookers.

Neither of them noticed the dark figure standing at the window in one of the towers, watching them with red eyes, and grinning like a fool.

The two returned to the hotel late in the evening, the sun just sinking below the horizon, and trudged up the stairs and into their room where they found Seras waiting for them. She was standing at the window in a pair of jeans and a black button up shirt biting the nail of a thumb in thought.

"Did you find anything?" she asked.

"No," Integra answered with a sigh. She moved over to the desk and sat down, booting up the laptop, while Andrews went about preparing a late tea.

Seras fell quiet, her mood taking a dark turn at their lack of findings.

Integra logged onto her email, searching through the messages carefully, and found nothing from Hellsing. She slammed the laptop shut and leaned back in the chair and crossed her arms. "I can't get in contact with the estate or anyone from Hellsing. I'm assuming it has something to do with this place."

Andrews set a cup of tea down in front of her and hugged the tray to his chest in thought. "How strange," he mused, "that may pose a problem come Friday."

"Naturally," Integra agreed demurely.

Seras scoffed from where she stood by the window, drawing Integra's attention, while Andrews returned to the kitchen sensing that the women were about to have a more emotional discussion. While he was perfectly capable of handling such a thing he realized that Seras, in her every growing negativity, needed to have a talk with Integra and not him. They were all reaching a breaking point with their frustrations and Seras, always the more innocent and hopeful of the group, had fallen first. Odd though it was. She had remained positive in many similar situations, always the one to encourage her troops with a kind smile and a pep talk while ghouls shambled around them and a vampire laughed from afar, she had always been good at that. But now, something had changed that about her. He only hoped Integra would realize it and not assume that Seras was merely being moody.

"What's troubling you, Police Girl?"

Ah, there it was. He should not have doubted her. She was an intelligent woman after all. But must she use that horrible nickname? It was more likely to irritate the woman then help. Contrary to his thoughts, however, Seras turned to look at Integra wearing a saddened smile that spoke of frustration and appreciation.

"Radu said that he got caught when he was snooping around and paid a heavy price, the ghouls we found were sent as a warning to him, and now he's late. He was supposed to be here an hour ago and while I know he can sometimes be a bit childish and get distracted, I'm afraid for him," she explained.

"Then go look for him, I'm not your prison guard, just be smart about it," Integra offered, her tone confused and doubting the vampire's intelligence.

"He's not out and about," Seras said, "I think he's being held captive."

"How do you know this?" Integra questioned cautiously, eyeing the draculina.

"I don't know, I just feel it," she muttered angrily.

Integra fell silent and dropped her gaze to her entwined fingers in thought. She too was growing very frustrated. She had been tempted to just tell the Vatican and be done with it, and really she should have, but it was stubborn pride that would not allow her too. She would not leave this up to the Catholics to take care of while they sat on their hands in the corner like good little children. "Damnit!" she snarled and dropped a fist onto the desk. "Listen here Police Girl, this is an order!"

Seras stared wide eyed at the woman, so stunned that she dropped her hands to her side and her mouth hung open, she struggled to pull herself together and stand straight at attention. Integra had rarely given her orders in such a way. Seras was not bound to the organization like her master was and Integra generally respected that, instead making suggestions and polite demands, allowing her to do her own thing while she stood back and watched. "Yes sir!" She exclaimed.

"You find that sniveling little brat of a younger brother to your master," Integra began, forcing out through grit teeth, "And you bring him here. If you happen to run into other vampires in the process . . ." she paused, staring at the petit blonde searchingly. Did she have it in her? Could she be just as bloodthirsty and destructive as her master? "Tear them apart with no remorse," she finished. Yes, she could, Integra had seen the aftermath of what had taken place in the manor thirty years ago.

"Sir, yes sir!" Seras agreed with a determined expression. For the first time in a long while, shadows spilled from her left arm and hit the floor like some kind of thick liquid before bouncing up and overtaking her form. When it retreated, disappearing back into her arm, she was once again dressed in her uniform.

Andrews had watched on curiously having never actually seen her use her powers in such a way. Yes, he had seen her rip apart ghouls and vampires, perform simple tasks with inhuman strength, but he had never seen her shadows before.

"Seras," Integra called when the woman had moved to retrieve the Harkonnen.

"Yes?" she asked impatiently, eager to get a move on while the night was young.

Integra smirked and once again laced her fingers together in front of her, "Search and destroy."

Seras grinned and then laughed. She retrieved her weapon and as if she had been overtaken by another more darker and animalistic side she stepped onto the balcony, climbed atop the railing, and launched herself into the night. Her shadows spreading out from her back and acting like wings to carry her through the night air.

"In the fourteen years that I have been employed by the Hellsing Organization, I don't think I have ever seen such a thing," Andrews admitted from his position in the kitchenette.

Integra remained silent for a moment, lost in memory, before saying, "She is nothing like her master." She turned the chair around to face the butler as she spoke. "He was a true monster, capable of so much destruction, with no care for who died. Which is why it is laughable that he made her his fledgling . . ."

Andrews tried to imagine the kind of demon she had described but found himself at a loss. All he had to go by were rumors and stories of a demon king who would do nothing but laugh at the chaos he caused. Tales spread by survivors of the London Attack, not true accounts of his deeds, because all those who would have born witness to them had passed in the battle. He would forever be nothing but a mythological figure in his mind, a boogey man, a monster that only lived on in stories.

So why would someone like that make such a joyful thing like Seras into his fledgling? "I suppose everyone gets tired of the darkness at some point or another," he answered her unasked question with a shrug.

Integra only grunted and turned back to her laptop. She would make some more calls to pinpoint the exact problem with communications. Could she just not reach Hellsing, or was it any place outside of St. Augustine? Had the whole city unknowingly been placed on lockdown?

Seras landed at the cemetery they had visited the night before in hopes of finding him moping over the fallen teenagers. He had been so glum after the event, she had too, but she was certain he felt more guilt than anything.

The cemetery was quiet, not even crickets chirped within the trees, but a small breeze rustled the leaves and filled the plot with a mournful sound. Her red eyes scanned the tombstones, her sense extending across the grounds, and came back with nothing. She turned, taking in the street outside of the fence, and did some quick calculating. It would take her too long to search through the whole city on her own. She cursed.

"Pip! Aranu!" she called.

Just like before, darkness spilled from her arm, but formed into something very different. Pip pulled himself out of the shadows, struggling against the muck for a second, before coming to stand at attention. He grinned at her just as Aranu leapt from the shadows and paced across the cemetery curiously.

"What are you orders, mon cher?" he asked with a mock bow.

"Pip, we have to find Radu," Seras explained.

Pip scowled, "That bloody flower?"

Seras cracked a smile but nodded, "He is my friend, my master's brother, and we need to find him. He's been doing his best to help us and I think he's in trouble."

"Yes, yes," Pip appeased with raised hands. "We will help you find you flower," he muttered with a sigh and turned after the Jaguar. "Come on you big brute, we don't have all night, you can sniff about later."

Aranu snorted irritably but returned to the two regardless.

Pip flicked him in the ear and nodded to Seras with a smile before turning away and swaggering out onto the streets with the jaguar at his side. They phased through the fence as if it wasn't even there and as soon as they were a good couple of yards away she felt her knees turn to Jell-O with the strain. She heard Pip calling for Radu long after they had disappeared from sight – though the titles he called out were not so complimentary – regardless she was thankful for the two.

She looked everywhere that she could think of. She checked Pete's Alley, which was just beginning to close, but she ran through the restaurant regardless. She even checked the bathroom! She tried the wildlife reserve. Every bookstore and library. She walked along the waterside, searching through every shop and resting place. She scoured the shopping district and came up with nothing.

She was growing frantic and preparing to turn her sight onto Flagler College, regardless of being outnumbered, if it meant she would find Radu. Her master did not know he was alive. He did not know that one of the few people he had trusted in life was still alive centuries after he should have died. Her master had suffered so much in life that she could not imagine what would happen if he were to discover his little brother had been alive but was destroyed in an effort to assist them. She imagined he would finally snap.

"Where are you?!" she exclaimed.

Yes, she wanted him to survive so that her master could find him, but he had also become a good friend to her. He had shown her kindness and let her in on some of her master's most guarded secrets from his human life. She would see him thrive in the future, even if it killed her, because the Dracula brothers deserved some happiness in their lives more than she did.

She was running now, speeding through streets and alleyways in a panic, and struggling to contain the emotions that were welling up within her. The image of her master turning his back on her flashed through her mind. The thought of Radu experiencing some sort of torture with no hope of escape. She let out a cry of frustration when she found herself standing in front of a Catholic church.

The building, like all the others in St. Augustine, was ornate and tall. Windows lined its walls reach ten feet in length. A tower stood high above the streets and when she took a step back to look at its very top she recognized the sight from their hotel room.

She cursed and dropped her gaze to the ground in thought. It looked like she would have to march on the college. She would go into a blood rage without a doubt and there would be no one to stop her unless she found Radu. She clenched her fists, lost in despair, and nearly missed the flash of red from the corner of her eye.

Not now, she thought, squeezing her eyes shut. The overwhelmingly familiar presence loomed over her like a tidal wave and she was forced to shake herself out of her thoughts. She straightened and turned on the spot, fists raised and ready for a fight, and froze.

Eight pairs of red eyes stared back at her from the entrance of an ally across the street.

Could it be?

The eyes moved, stepped forward out into the street lights, and revealed a very familiar figure.

"Baskerville!" Seras exclaimed.

The monstrous dog seemed to grin in acknowledgement before turning the darting back down the alleyway. Seras lurched forward and scampered after him, determined to catch him, or at least, find out where he was going. Was her master here? Maybe he would be able to find Radu. Baskerville did not wait for her to catch up, he darted through the intricate network of alleys as if he knew the city like the back of his paw and she was forced to scramble to keep up.

His fleeting figure was hard to follow. Often times Seras would turn around a corner and find that she could not see him, lost among the cars and trashcans that took up the small streets. But then he would run by from a different direction and she would be off again, hurrying after him. She felt like she was being led on a wild goose chase. The thought of calling Pip and Aranu did not even cross her mind in her haste.

Baskerville darted down one last alley ahead of her and when she lunged out of the passage she nearly tripped over her own feet. The demon hound had led her strait into a pack of wandering ghouls. They had been rummaging through a dumpster behind a restaurant and upon her entrance, turned their attention on to her.

Overwhelming rage filled her. What did this have to do with Radu? Or her master? She narrowed her eyes and growled. Baskerville had played her for a fool, as he so often had in the past, no doubt for some form of entertainment. He was just like her master. She was tired of playing. It was time to get some answers.

She jumped into the crowd of ghouls, and much like the night before, ripped them apart with her bare hands. She never once reached for the Harkonnen that was slung over her shoulder. While she fought her way through the shambling corpses she could still sense Baskerville in the distance, probably watching the carnage in glee, and the thought angered her further. She roared and through another ghoul into the dumpster. The force caused the heavy lid to slam shut over the monster.

"To hell with this, I'm going to find out what the hell is going on once and for all!" she exclaimed. She destroyed all but one ghoul, her foot placed over its throat, holding it still against the ground while she removed the Harkonnen from her back and dropped it to the ground. She crouched and lifted the ghoul towards her with one hand, using the other to hold its face away from her, and dug her fangs into its neck.

When a vampire drinks the blood of a living creature they can gain access to its memories, thoughts and emotions. If they were to drain the source they would gain its soul and it would become a part of them for the rest of their existence. In theory, if she drank the blood of the ghoul she would get a glimpse at what was really going on.

Through the bitter and putrid taste that assaulted her tongue she was able to taste what must have once been blood but after centuries, yes, centuries, for that specific ghoul had been around far longer than Seras had been alive, it had rotted and gathered all kinds of bacteria. The second it had hit her tongue she had struggled not to gag. But the images that surfaced within her mind distracted her from the taste. They bubbled up like large pockets of air forcing their way to the surface through thick muck. She saw an older man, tall and dignified, who she knew to be Flagler thanks to the vague memories of the ghoul. But she could not garner any in depth details because the ghoul himself had been mindless for the majority of its existence. The most information she got were names, faces to go with them, and which ones brought food and which ones carried the left overs away. But there was something far darker in the corner of the ghouls mind. A creature who had shared the basement with them. A true monster that made even that mindless creature feel fear.

"How interesting."

A voice echoed within her mind and for the briefest of moments she caught a glimpse of ice blue eyes, almost white, that opened and gazed at her with rapt attention.

She gasped, unlatching her jaws from the throat of the ghoul, and stumbled back. The ghoul lay prone across the ground while she sat on the wet concrete in a daze. She tried to process the information she had just gained but her stomach churned against the vial concoction she had just guzzled down and it distracted her. She felt something cold and wet on her face and realized several agonizingly slow seconds later that it was Baskerville, sniffing at her curiously, trying to prod her into a standing position.

She turned her gaze onto the hellhound absently and groaned. She felt sick and strange and she knew that she had heard someone's voice in her head, someone who wasn't her master, and it was all Baskerville's fault. She turned over and gagged, feeling the vile liquids rushing back up her esophagus before splattering across the pavement with a rather revolting sound.

She heard the dog whine before she attempted to struggle to her feet. She wavered for a second with questionable balance, before bending down and lifted the Harkonnen onto her shoulder with the strap. She didn't know where she was going as she stumbled back down an alley, only that she had somewhere she was supposed to be, or something she was supposed to do, and that she had to hurry. But while her mind spun and her stomach heaved for the second time she could not for the life of her remember what it was that was so important.

Seras could not recall having ever been so sick and disoriented in her life. She had never been one to drink herself into a stupor but that was the only thing she could compare her current condition to. She was dizzy, and nauseas, and she felt her head pound against her skull like a savage beast begging for escape. The fear of her brain actually exploding filtered through her head and sent a spike of fear through her chest. Could that happen? She couldn't remember if something like that was possible. Surely it was. She lifted a hand to her head and moaned.

At some point she must have fallen over because she suddenly found herself curled up atop the asphalt, her back pressed against a brick wall, while Baskerville snuffled her face and whined. He looked kind of funny with eight eyes. Hadn't he only had six? Or was that spiders?

Master would know, she thought demurely, where was he anyways? Hadn't he just been there with her not a second ago? She was positive that he had been saying something rather rude while wearing that maniac grin of his and chuckling. Something to do with Integra and her cigars.

A tall figure crouched over her and blocked the light of a streetlamp from her face, drawing her attention away from the single brick she had been staring at for the past half hour. Her dulled gaze took in the red and black clothing, the red eyes, and the dark hair.

"There you are," she mumbled tiredly, "Baskerville tricked me."

"Hush little one," he said. His tone was a bit more gentle than usual, Seras noted warily.

He bent over her, lifting her gun and all into his arms, and stood. Red eyes scanned the surrounding area for the face of Baskerville but found nothing. A breeze blew through the alley, revealing the strikingly familiar, but more youthful face of Radu. He was pale and tired looking but the state Seras was in left him looking grim and distraught on top of it. He clutched her to his chest and staggered back against the adjacent wall, finding his strength failing him, and grunted upon impact.

Integra and Andrews had laid out several maps of the city and the surrounding areas as far out as the northern most edges of Florida. The room phone as well as both their cellphones decorated the coffee table between the two. An ash tray overflowing with cigar butts smoked from the corner of the table. They had been placing calls to random companies, offices, and business for the past hour. Their calls all went through until they reached the western border of the state and the circumference of that. Afterwards, they received nothing but dial tone and eventually, completely out of service.

Whatever kind of science or dark magic that had been placed over the city was certainly doing its job and blocking out signal. But how they were keeping it all under wraps was the bigger question. Tourists would not be able to leave, planes would not fly without radio, but they had heard no complaints since their arrival. But then again, the grand celebration that had most likely drawn the majority of the crowd that week had yet to take place, people wouldn't make too much of a big deal about making calls back home when they were out and about getting drunk and preparing for the grand festival.

Andrews, who was seated at a chair pulled up to the table let out a small sigh just as Integra took a draw on her most recent cigar, its ashes decorating the wood of the table beneath her. They had fallen silent after mapping out the general area of the signal block, staring at the maps in quiet contemplation, and attempting to quell to growing frustration.

Integra leaned back to relax her stiff shoulders when the familiar figure of Pip burst through the door.

"Pip?!" Integra exclaimed, the cigar between her lips falling to the table where it bounced, spraying more ash across the table, and continued to burn.

The Frenchmen looked haggard and slightly transparent but he barely had a moment to speak before the very unfamiliar figure of Aranu charged in after him paving the way for a weakened Radu to stumble in and fall to his knees with Seras still clutched within his arms. The Harkonnen finally fell from her shoulder and clattered to the ground, obliterating the stunned silence that had been birthed from their appearance.

"What in the bloody hell is going on?" Integra roared, ignorant of the guests in the adjacent rooms. She stood from her chair and glowered at Radu who refused to meet her icy gaze.

Andrews, irritated with the lack of action on anybody's part (even the jaguar who had frozen under the fury Integra exuded), leapt to his feet and rushed over to the pair on the floor. He dropped to his knees and pulled Seras from Radu's arms, which fell limply to his sides as soon as they were relieved of their burden, and into his own arms to look her over.

"We went looking for that bloody flower and something happened to Seras, she must have been in a fight, but she's sick," Pip explained through his distraught anger. He spat in the general direction of Radu irritably, annoyed that the blood of Alucard continued to trouble his Seras.

"Radu," Integra snapped. She had yet to move from where she stood, choosing to be the calm one in the situation despite her ire. Radu lifted his muddied eyes up to her and she was stunned to see the despair there. Her anger lessened, much quicker than it would have in her younger days, and she let out another sigh. "What happened?" she asked in a quieter tone.

Radu dropped his gaze back to the draculina who Andrews still held in front of him. The butler had checked her over for any injuries or biblical weapons that may have caused her condition but found nothing. "She said something about Baskerville tricking her. I smelled ghouls so I assumed she had gotten into a fight with them. But she is sick, the likes of which I have only ever heard of, she must have drank their blood. I can only imagine what it's done to her. Rotten blood is not something to be ingested," he explained dully, lifting a hand as if to touch her, before letting it fall back to his side with a sigh.

"And what about you?" Integra asked. "What is the cause of your state?" she clarified while taking in his disheveled appearance and grey flesh.

Radu grimaced and reached for his throat hesitantly before saying, "I was attacked by a less than savory character, but that is neither here or now, and it has nothing to do with this situation."

Integra remained thoughtfully quiet, eyeing the vampire with cautious trust, before grunting and turning her gaze onto her own vampire worriedly. "Andrews, get some blood in her and see that she recovers," she ordered and turned away.

"Yes Sir," Andrews responded curtly and stood with Seras in his arms. He carried her away to her room where she was placed on the bed before he returned to the kitchenette to prepare some of the medical blood stored away within the fridge.

While Andrews went about seeing to Seras, Pip and Aranu had disappeared into the shadows, leaving Integra to watch over the happenings of the room with a stern eye. Radu had dragged himself into a chair in the corner where he slumped like a corpse and closed his eye against the soft light of the room.

Integra watched Andrews breeze back into the dark bedroom where Seras rested before moving into the kitchenette herself and retrieving a pack of medical blood that she offered to Radu. The vampire lifted his gaze to her only after several seconds of her standing there in front of him had registered to his senses. His eyes immediately zeroed in on the packet hanging in front of his face and he lifted his hand, taking it from her, and let it fall back into his lap tiredly.

"Thanks," he breathed.

"Don't mention it," she grumbled and turned away, taking a seat at the desk across the room.

Radu lifted the pack to his lips after gazing at it vacantly for a span of time. His teeth pierced the bag and he drank it down hungrily then once again dropped his hand into his lap, not having the strength to hold it up any longer.

The blood, though helpful to his physical health, did nothing for the mental strain. He rubbed at his eyes and sighed, attempting to rouse himself into wakefulness, but he was struggling. He had suffered much in his life but having been gifted the existence of Seras and then to find her strewn across the pavement in some dark alley heaped with trash and fallen ashes of ghouls had frightened him in a way he had not experienced in a long time. Perhaps maybe he had felt it once or twice as a human. But after centuries of suffering at the hands of Elizabeth he had cultivated a façade quite capable of masquerading in front of his own kind in social situations while he had grown cold and distant on the inside. The death of his brother had finally broken him. He had never been able to face him, to admit that he had been changed and had not had the strength to take his freedom from the she-witch that had taken his life, but the truth of his brother's existence had been a shining light in the darkness. The hope that one day, not in the immediate future, he would be able to free himself from Elizabeth and go to him had been the soul driving force behind his existence. When the feeling of his absence had roared through his heart he had shattered and become nothing but a doll.

And then he had seen Seras, sitting across a restaurant and smiling and laughing, poking fun at the other guests with Integra. His dead heart had beat with hope. The second she had entered the room he had felt his brother's presence again. And like that he had uncurled himself and blossomed under his mask, like a tumbleweed, his roots had sensed a sustenance and taken up hold on life again. Reality kicked in and the blur that had been his existence over the past thirty years snapped into sudden clarity. And then she had made eye contact with him and scowled in such a comical way that he had truly laughed for the first time in decades.

The others at the table had given him strange looks, surprised that the usually eloquent high blood fledgling, normally the first to criticize any who showed too much emotion with a calm and cool air, had snorted. And when he realized he had garnered all their attention with his actions he had quirked a brow at them in a challenging way. The nerve!

He had slipped away after them, having caught sight of them trying to make their escape, and was surprised when Seras put herself between him and the humans as he followed. An action that spoke highly of her opinion of the two and said much about her usual company. It became obvious to him then that she was still working with Hellsing and that the impressively intimidating woman that walked ahead of her was Sir Integra Hellsing herself.

And now she was sick beyond belief, something that seemed utterly prosperous considering that she was undead, and he was to blame. She had been out looking for him because he had failed to arrive at the hotel at the agreed upon time. But like so many nights before, Elizabeth had taken it upon herself to "discipline" him, and he had not been able to pull himself back together in time. He had only just gotten a stab wound, from Elizabeth's bare hand, to close over when he stumbled upon the Draculina in the alley.

His head had started to fall back onto the chair, his eyes having fallen shut, and he jerked violently back to attention when Andrews returned from Seras's room. The butler was ringing his hands and glowering at the ground as he returned the cup he had used to hold the blood to the sink.

"What is it, Andrews?" Integra asked warily. She had been jotting down notes while searching for something on the internet, which by all rights should not have been working, when she noticed his odd behavior.

"I don't think feeding her is going to help," Andrews explained nervously.

"Explain," Integra clipped, growing annoyed with his nervous fidgeting.

"I tried, but she just threw it up, and kept mumbling something about a gentleman named Eddie and the police force," he informed.

"She's delirious then, she hasn't been in the police force for over thirty years," Integra cursed and dropped her hand onto the desk, unsure of what action to take. A sick vampire was nothing like a sick human. She couldn't exactly just order the girl to bed and to drink plenty of water. Chicken noodle soup was not an option. They couldn't check her temperature because she was dead and her heart did not beat, warm blood did not flow through her veins unless it had been recently ingested. Her master had never been sick, starved yes, but she had never experienced such a thing as a physically unhealthy vampire. Mental health was a whole other story. "Radu," she called, drawing the drowsy vampire's attention to her. "How do we take care of her?"

Radu sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and dropped his face into his hands in tired frustration. "I don't know. We don't get sick. I'm afraid I have been sheltered during my vampiric existence. I could not tell you what the less fortunate have suffered as my master is rather well off and high up in the court . . ." he trailed off.

"Your master?" Integra questioned.

Radu stared at her in confusion before suddenly growing even paler, his eyes widened, and his whole body tensed. He opened his mouth, struggling to backpedal and cover his slip up, but Integra only glowered at him. She was obviously done playing games. He dropped his gaze to the carpet and scowled, irritated with his own idiocy.

"Elizabeth Bathory," Radu muttered darkly.

"The bloody? Wasn't she after your time?" Andrews questioned from his post next to Integra.

Radu grimaced and sat back in the chair tenderly, as if saying her name caused him physical pain, and he was preparing himself for the conversation. "Elizabeth is a special case. She is so far gone, I am afraid, that things like time matter little to her."

"What do you mean she is 'so far gone'?" Integra asked.

"The darkness," Radu answered simply, "We all cling to our sanity with all our strength. The darkness is what we unconsciously crave and while some may dabble in it, play with it, few ever cross the line." He folded his arms across his chest and fought back a shiver of disgust. "She is not all there as in she had become a part of the darkness, she can be wherever she wants. She is not tethered to any time or place any longer, she has become nothing but shadow."

"How is that possible?" Integra asked, a bit in awe by the new information, and concerned for how they could possibly defeat such a creature.

Radu shrugged halfheartedly and turned his head to gaze into the dark doorway that was Seras' room. "I have been trying to figure it out all these years, I have tried countless times to defeat her –," he cut himself off and pounded a fist into the arm of the chair angrily, covering his eyes with the other.

Integra fell silent and dropped her gaze to her hands in thought. How could they possibly defeat Flagler if he had such characters backing him?