Sir Winston Churchill said that being shot at focuses the mind wonderfully.
You know, he's right.
It was in the middle of a battlefield in Heidelberg, Germany in the dead of winter. The wounds of the freshly killed soldiers steamed, creating a wonderfully ghastly scene. I looked around at the carnage, my mouth watering at the thought of all the blood spilled on the frozen ground. It was then that I came across the first group of the ghouls Walter and I had been sent to find.
They were only ghouls, after all, but the sheer number of them was impressive, and they seemed to retain some of their intelligence, somehow. It was shaping into an excellent chance for a workout, and I hefted the Armscorp 40mm MGL with a grin. I smiled, ready for the kill. My Russian style hat bobbled as I took aim and began firing. Walter waited till I finished the first volley before leaping in with his wires, slicing ghouls like so much tissue-paper. He seemed to enjoy it, too.
We got along so well in those days.
And we danced on the killing fields, ripping ghoul and Nazi soldier apart alike. Oh, to think that this was work I was more or less being paid to do! I impaled a soldier on the hitching rod of a wagon before swiping my hand through the throat of another, the white fur of my hat becoming stained with the red and my leather gloves creaked as I flexed my fingers.
As the last enemy fell, I threw back my head and let loose with a horrific laugh that echoed in the night sky, followed by a long howl that set wolves everywhere within earshot to respond in kind and I cried out to my companion.
"Listen to them, Walter! The children of the night, don't they make lovely music? Listen to it, the song of my realm, the Symphony of the night!"
The young man smiled, the cigarette dangling from his lips. "We better get along, Alucard. We're supposed to meet the regulars at the rally point by dawn. That's where they've got your coffin, in case you've forgotten."
I smiled, breathing in the smell of blood, of death and pain, feeling the death wish wind blowing into the life.
It had been so long since I dared set foot on the plains of Death, and it felt good.
And it had just begun, this dance of death.
Plenty more time to go dancing on the killing fields again before back to dreary England.
I let out another laugh, stepping on the head of a ghoul that wasn't quite dead yet.
"Sing, O Children of Darkness! Cry out, O Dogs of the Wild! The Killing Time has come, and Death has come to claim his keep!"
A/N: Anyone that can email me the references I make in this chapter gets a cookie...there is one reference to art, one to a game, one to a book, and one to a song.