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"Are you suer you're alright?"

Rip stared me crazed.

"She is him! The enemy! The devil! Zamiel! He is this all!"

"And he is also Alucard, Dracula, The Undead, Vladimir the Impaler, the Bird of Hermes and a lot of other scary but fitting names."

Another rain of bullets bounced over the shield.

"You have angered him! What were you thinking?" she screamed.

"Listen, we are safe here. Just shut up and stay still."

She hid behind me, shivering.

"You know, i am supposed to be your enemy." i said.

"You're my enemy's enemy. You should be my friend, or not?"

"It's a long story. Anyway, you are now my prisoner, so stay there and let me concentrate."

"Prisoner? Do you think you can hold the Huntress captive?"

She grabbed her musket with amazing speed and aimed it at me. She turned from scared to scary with amazing speed. Her teeth and glasses shone in the moonlight.

"You can threaten as much as you want, but that rifle is unloaded."

She looked down into the barrel, for an instant i expected her to blow her head off like in a stupid cartoon. The musket resulted to be actually unloaded. She fell sitting.

"You seem prisoner too." she said. "Is this cage conjured by Him?"

"First, this in not a cage. This is a protection to avoid him to come inside. Second, i am prisoner because He wants to kill me while he is supposed to be my ally. Third, unless you can find a way to take the cell phone which is in his pocket neither of us is going out from here."

"So we're trapped?"

"Not precisely. If logic is not a complete lie, Integra is going to find a way to fetch us back soon and she will call him on the phone. So probably she will tell him to let us go, or at least i hope."

" Your master is doomed. Millennium forces are going to destroy her while the Demon is away."

"What?! They are attacking our manor? We must warn them! I hope he will listen! Alucard!"

As only answer the hellhound attacked the shield, obtaining nothing. Another scream of rage.

"Alucard listen! The manor is in danger! They are attacking! We must call Integra!"

"Very stupid as trick. I was expecting more of an excuse from you."

"It's no trick! She has told me! A millennium task force is..."

I had no tine to finish the phrase. A silver bullet flew through a small empty point in my shield, before the energy lines reconfigured to stop it. I was hit in the hand, a hole precisely in the centre of my palm.

It felt like burning. Like fire, more than fire. I had already been hit more than once by blessed weapons, but it's a thing you just can't get used to.

Other bullets hit the protection, another crossed it. I'd have stood a chance as long as my shield was unbreakable, but it was pointless to just try to wait under gunfire.

I turned into the dragon and let the protection down.

Another salvo flew all around me, piercing and ripping my wings. I dodged as many bullets as i could, and flown to him. I breathed a flame on his face and rose high in the sky. As i expected, Alucard ignored Rip. I hoped she would do the right thing.

I described a circle above the ship's deck, trying to avoid being hit, but i was already severely bleeding. Why the hell didn't i tell Rip what to do?

Finally, a magic bullet hit him, distracting him for a second. I blinked to clear the blood off my three eyes as i nosedived on Alucard's arm. Time slowed down, i percepted every motion around me, the harmonic fly of Rip's bullet, the slowed speed of Alucard's ones, the recoiling guns, the hand of the vampire lately trying to escape me...

I bit. He turned around again to throw me away, but i fell down with his hand in my mouth. And the gun in that hand. The Jackal, black steel with grey silver inside. He snorted at me and rose the Casull, not even aiming, but i was quicker. His right arm fell, severed from the body, cutting his last chance of stopping me. I shoot him again in the head and in the chest, then i heard the gun clicking, empty. Anyway, Alucard was down, melting into blood. I returned into my human form.

For an instant, i really feared i had killed him. Absurd as it was, it was simply a terrifying thought. He might have been my enemy, but killing Alucard was more than murder... it was deicide. I just couldn't stand living with the thought he was dead... if he could fall, then what about me?

I searched his remains, the phone was like an island into a red sea. It seemed he wasn't able to do on it the same thing he did on his clothes. It wasn't surprising, vampires and technology don't go along very well.

I tried to dial Integra's number, but someone appeared behind me and tapped my shoulder.

Someone with cat ears.

"What is it now? I am trying to save my life and that of your lieutenant."

"Oh. Our cameras have shown some strange stuff."

"Good. Now, unless you can teleport me out of here, you should let me call my master."

"Why?"

"Because she is the only one who can stop Alucard's destructive instincts. And i should better call her before he returns whole."

"You aren't going to tell her there is a Millennium raid scheduled against her, are you?"

I ostentated my most impudent expression. "No, why should i?"

"Oh well. Go on and call her then."

I dialled the number again, but he tapped my shoulder again making me go wrong. If there's anything worse than being trapped on a ship with an angry Alucard, wounded and bleeding and trying to see the phone through all the blood which is in your eyes, it's doing so with an annoying physical anomaly who bothers you.

"What the hell! How can i make the call if you keep disturbing me!?"

"Do you promise you won't tell her?"

"I promise. Now, if you don't mind..."

I dialled it again, as quick as i could.

"You had crossed your fingers!"

I nearly crunched the phone.

"Why can't you go playing with a tachionic ball of wool and let me be?"

"Don't try to cheat. You can't tell her about the raid."

"I. Am. Not. Cheating. Now, can i go on?!"

Schrö meowed in approval.

I pretended to dial the number, just to see if me interrupted me.

"You didn't push the buttons for real! I saw you!"

"Rip, would you please take this guy by his nape and cast him into the ocean?"

"She would never do that, true Rippy?"

"Can i shoot him instead?" she asked, grinning.

"Go right on."

The bullet hit him enough times to buy me thirty seconds to finally call Integra.

"Hellsing Manor. What is it again?"

"Alucardhasgonecrazyhetriedtokillmeheisabastardwearetrappedcomeheretofetchusback..."

"Stop! Speak slowly! What the Hell is this?"

"Alucard has gone crazy! He shot me!"

"Damn. I knew i should've been more specific in forbidding him. Now, why are you still alive?"

"I shot him, he is currently reduced to raw blood. Come take us back please!"

"You killed Alucard?!"

"No, i just shot him with his gun, i can't kill him... i mean, no one can!"

"Well. Tell him he won't hurt you until i have sorted out your problem."

"Heard that?" i screamed to the blood pool. Alucard's hand took shape and emerged with its middle finger risen.

"Now, if there isn't anything else..." Integra said.

"Wait! Millennium is..."

A hand covered my mouth. Rip's hand. I was too weak and hurt to oppose resistance, not that i really tried to.

"Wh't th' f'k??"

"We are sorry, the user is no longer on line." she said in the phone, then she closed the communication and threw the cell in her musket.

"Oh no, you won't!"

"Oh ja, i will!"

She shot. A shapeless mass of circuits and plastic which barely resembled the cell phone burst out the barrel aimed for the sky.

"Why?"

"You didn't really think i was going to let you tell her that?"

"Oh. YOU BASTARD!"

"You can't harm me, i am you hostage, remember?"

"Actually she ordered Alucard not to harm you, she didn't say i mustn't."

She gazed at me, one eye imploring, the other needling.

"For now, i guess it's pointless to try anything." i said. "We just wait."

We sat against the control tower, as far as we could from Alucard's pool. I wondered if he really took all that time to regenerate or he was just waiting me to lower my guard... but after all he was hit in his hearth and head by silver blessed bullets, it was pretty much even for him.

"We should say the Major to take us back, i mean, since your Master is not going to be able to do so."

"Your man can do nothing against Hellsing. Seras and the mercenaries are going to kick their asses."

" Don't be under the illusion they can beat Zorin. You'll see."

"I'm looking forward to it." i took the body of one of the fallen soldiers and incised his burnt neck with a claw to spill the blood. I needed a fix after all the power i consumed and the hurts i had taken.

"After all," she said, thoughtful, "Since Zamiel is half destroyed and your manor under attack, and since we are on neutral ground, you are more my prisoner than i am yours."

"We are both prisoners on this ship, so i don't see why disputing about it now."

We remained in silence for a while.

"Anyway your master is not going to escape, you know."

"Shut up and drink something. It is surprising you have so much energy after i almost drained you."

She took the body.

"You know, we might need someone like you in Millennium. You like to fight, you can obey orders but only when you want to, you are really powerful..."

"And i like destroying things."

"Yeah. I bet they would all like you in the battalion."

"I'm afraid my political beliefs are diametrically opposite to Nazism."

"Well it's not all about that. I mean, we still have the old symbol, but, after all races don't matter. Destruction is quite equal."

"Really?"

"Yeah, why did you think we took Jan valentine and the Dandy in, otherwise?"

"I thought it was because they were sent into suicidal missions, but seeing they sent you too without problems, i think they just don't care much about their agents."

"Mine wasn't a suicidal mission!"

"Fighting against Alucard without Integra to save you is always suicide, believe me."

She looked quite puzzled.

"So will you consider the offer?" she asked.

"Maybe. Not now. For the moment, can you do a little thing for me?"

"What?"

"That swastika medallion..."

"I'm not taking it off."

"I wasn't asking that. Just flip it."

"What do you mean?"

"Here, let me show you..."

I took the medallion off her and turned it around, so that now the cross' hooks went in anti-clockwise. The simple contact of putting it on her again was something i hadn't felt in centuries... Physical contact with mortal isn't the same as with other vampires... they are just preys, inferiors. A vampire is your kindred and your equal.

"What would that mean, now that it's reverse?"

"Actually, this is the right verse. It is an ancient symbol which represents the cycle of life and death. I believe it's from Hindu symbolism, but i'm not sure."

"So it means the utter negation of undeath, right?"

"Ehm. I had never considered this... but it might be... well, actually yes, it's precisely the opposite of living dead."

"So it doesn't make any sense."

"It's not like starting the greatest war the world has ever seen for no purpose makes much more sense than this."

She opened her mouth to say something, but stopped before starting.

"So one point for me?" i said.

"No."

She didn't turn back the swastika, anyway.