Integral frowned and snarled back to the vampire, "Dragons? A mythical fire-breathing lizard. What, you expect me to believe that a dragon burned the church down?"
Alucard leered in amusement, "Well, master, the fire you described seems to fit the description, although whether an actual dragon did do burn it down, is another matter..."
Integral drew on her cigar and stared at Alucard irritably, "Dragons are myths, they don't exist. I thought someone of your age would know that,"
"In my opinion, master, someone of your age would not have much say in the matter," Alucard replied softly, slightly menancingly.
Integral frowned, and sharply replied, "Don't give me your rubbish theories. If it's supernatural, then all the more it is our business. I want you to take this mission seriously, whatever your personal opinions,"
Alucard laughed, "You always expect me to, but does that make a difference?"
Integral ignored him and continued, "Because the Hellsing organization had never thought that these supposed 'vandals' were at the most religious terrorists, no investigations on our part were ever made," she lifted up a file from her table, "This was sent by the police department on my request, and is all the information that has been consolidated so far from the three previous cases,"
Integral looked up at Alucard, who had retreated away from the desk to stare at her father's portrait.
"All the churches were also prominent nunneries,"
"...oh, nunneries...I see," Alucard mused in reply. The reply seemed...distracted, as Integral noted but passed it off.
"The bodies of the nuns were never found amongst the rubble, and are suspected to have been kidnapped,"
"Vampires can infiltrate churches as well, you understand of course master?" Alucard suddenly interjected.
"Not even the trash vampires are afraid of them," he turned slightly to look at Integral with one scarlet eye, "Cheddars' would be an excellent example of that,"
Integral frowned, "I do understand that; but the latest case was done in daylight and not even a true vampire like yourself would be capable of that,"
Integral looked down again at the documents before her, sifted through to one, and read through it quickly before continuing, "The latest one was also different. It was a cathedral that was burned down,"
"That doesn't deter from the pattern you believe, master. The cathedral was simply a show, to you, to everyone," Alucard laughed lightly.
"A 'show'?" Integral queried.
"'He' wants everyone to know 'he' is here, and 'he' doesn't fear detection," Alucard explained himself.
"Who is 'he' now?" Integral queried yet again.
"You don't believe in him, what difference does it make if I told you?" Alucard said simply.
Integral sighed in slight exasperation, "Yet again with dragons,"
Alucard suddenly seemed to be a bit irritated, and almost snapped back, "Master, since it's clear the supernatural exist, why is it you are so adamant on the fact that dragons can exist?"
It was Integral's time to laugh, "Because, Alucard, I can believe that vampires exist, that isn't difficult at this point,"
"But a dragon? It belongs to the realm of fantasy, along with unicorns, leprechauns, fairies and other such myth and legend. God never created them, and so they don't exist,"
She looked triumphantly at Alucard, making him look at her questioningly, "Vampires were once humans, humans who dealed foolishly with the devil and got what they deserved. As such, they exist, as an accident on the part of humanity, and God created humanity,"
Alucard was silent for a moment, but smiled in his usual fashion and laughed, "Excellent logic, master! Simply brilliant! I accept defeat," he then bowed graciously to her.
Integral felt herself being mocked, but she stood by her opinion, no matter the thoughts of the undead fool before her.
"Let's just leave dragons behind, and then we can get on with your duties," Integral started placing the documents orderly back into the file folder, and pushed it to the side of her desk not obstructed by Alucard's hat and glasses.
She brought out a map of London from her desk drawer and spread it out before her. Red cross marks made previously in the afternoon showed the locations of the burned down churches.
"I want you to keep an eye on churches during the night, especially those with nunneries. The 'vandals' are favouring the area around here," she circled with her finger over the general area the three churches belonged to, "There are only two more nunneries in this area, so keep an eye on both as you can,"
Alucard seemed a bit disappointed, "Oh? So I'm being a guard dog for the churches now, am I,"
Integral nodded nonchalantly, "You could say that, yes,"
"Naturally, you have to sought out these 'vandals' if you can find them, Alucard,"
Alucard smiled and picked up his hat and glasses from the side. THAT certainly made the job more appealing.
"As you wish, my master," he bowed yet again, and disappeared into the darkness of the floor.
Integral drew deeply from her cigar and breathed out a large puff of smoke. Hard to believe she actually liked fantasy novels when she was younger. But ever since she found Alucard, she never had quite the same frame of mind to read them anymore. She was brought up from young to know vampires existed, that they were real, that they were the bane of humanity and the single greatest threat to her and country.
But prior to finding Alucard, she had never truly seen a vampire, only heard stories of confrontation from her father, Walter and some soldiers.
Then she found Alucard, and things became more real than any story. What then, if the manticores, minotaurs, mermaids, imps, goblins and all such things were real too? Then, would she have an equal chance of being charmed away by a fairy, taming a unicorn, being whisked away by some great dragon...
Integral shook these thoughts from her head, becoming angry at herself. She almost forgot the Bible was the book of God, and her storybooks were written by Margaret Weis.
"He wants me to go burn another one again?" asked a man clad in white, his voice filled with amazement at the request.
Yes. He's hungry, spoke a voice from nowhere. It was like an echo, hollow and lofty, but it held tight around the area as its source was nearby.
"What! The one we got two nights ago was chocked full of nuns! Don't tell me he's hungry so quickly?" he shouted out.
Yes, there was a lot, and that was why it lasted him for two nights. Why did you think we bothered to waste our time on a cathedral in daylight? replied the voice.
Clopping noises, like hooves, moved around the man as he scowled at the request.
"Greedy pig..." he muttered to himself.
A flute-like noise, along with a loud snort, sounded around him.
Be careful or you would attract his anger, Tian, warned the unseen companion.
"Whatever..." he muttered in reply as he started walking.
The clopping and shifting grasses beside him showed his companion following him, side by side.
Have you seen Vladmir?
Tian nodded, his russet hair falling on the breeze, "The vampire's powers are restrained by the seal, but he's become a lot stronger than the last we saw him,"
Would he be too much trouble for you?
"He might, but I think we're pretty much on par," he started tugging on his gold choker.
"I'd think this stupid collar will get in my way though,"
Don't be silly. You fight fine even with it on, the other said warmly.
The cloth on Tian's shoulder depressed a little, as the unseen one nuzzled him gently.
"Thanks Neysa," he said appreciatively as the two finally walked out of the shaded park into the moonlight.
The moon was not red, but pale like a baby's face. Maybe, because of the lack of vampires now in London, the influence of evil and blood did not prevade so strongly anymore on the city.
"Neysa, you go first, I'll take some time to transform," Tian said as he began to hunched and bend to the ground.
There is no hurry, Tian. We will go together,
"Alrig-" but he was cut short as his jaw began to contort, along with the rest of his body as he shrunk down to the ground and began to stretch and twist, taking on a different and new form.
Soon, four legs were clearly seen to appear, stretching out and flexing with short claws. His snout was long, not so tapered in wolf fashion but wide with slight jowls in the manner of a typical dog. He flex his jaws and tongue as teeth itchily poked through the pink gums. His ears pulled from his skull, long and swiveling, with tapered points on each that stretched like whiskers and flittered in the wind. A line of shaggy fur started from between its ears, and it continued in both directions, going down his back and spreading all along it's bare body as well as spreading from that one point to cover his head in a fine carpet of fur.
His body was slim and lean, paws large with five typical toes and average claws. Its tail brushed the wind and the wispy ends of long fur-strands trailed its own passage through the air. Its body was in a medley of different shades of brown, all meshed and messy together in patches reminscent of mud puddles. Its eyes gave out a faint, clear amber-yellow light, leaving only its nose and tongue the remaining splash of pink on its dark and dull form.
On the whole, Tian had become an average, nondescript and mongrel dog. He shook hiss head, flexing his neck over the gold choker that gleamed on his short fur.
"Well, let's go then," Tian spoke, with equal proficiency as he were in human form.
He hutched down and lept forward with amazing thrust, his speed impossibly rapid, yet his form ran at a relatively slow pace. His paws made no sound, nor did it seem to make a disturbance on dirt or grit as he ran, a dull blur on no light and much mists.
A flute-like noise sounded once, before the sound of fast galloping hooves rang out as well.
"Ooooooh...the boredom..." growled Alucard in a slur.
He yawned aloud, baring great white saber teeth in his canine jaws. He was in his hellhound form, with only two eyes opening blazing red once he closed his mouth, licking his jaws.
He peered around the deserted street. First to the left...
Nothing.
Then, to the right...
Also nothing.
"Sweet death, take me now," he grumbled as he stood up, stretching his forepaws and neck, then his back, and onto his backlegs and tail.
He had thought, that all things considered, this would have been a most eventful night. Compared to the last three weeks of endless endless endless ENDLESS disappointment, at LAST, he had a bloody mission.
But what happens? The targets don't even show up, damn it! This was worse than being cooped up in the manor, or at least walking around London at night at leisure.
He was doomed to stay put till dawn, and if his dear targets don't show up , he would be doomed to stay put here doing absolutely nothing but staring at a church of all bloody things till dawn.
Two hours had passed since he left with his orders. As was ordered, he had made uniformed rounds on the two churches. One hour for each, and now he was back with his first.
He padded around, outside the holy ground of the church, peering in with critical eyes, then retreating to some dark corner nearby and settling down again.
Being in dog form made resting a little easier, he did not really mind sitting on the curb, but that might deter would-be targets, and he definitely didn't want to do that.
"I want to shoot something..." he murmured as he closed one pair of eyes to rest, while leaving another pair above open.
Downwind to Alucard, Tian had ran across over half a kilometre in less than five minutes, such was his supernatural speed. As he neared the gates and fences of the church, he lept high and long, right over the obstacles, and landed into the courtyard.
Once his paws reached the grass and ground, he quickly reverted back into his human form. Walking around silently, he reached the nearest wall and placed his palm flat on the rough and hewn concrete.
For a while, he was silent and still, but invisible waves of his sense spread through the wall, onto the floor inside, into the rafters, into the curtains, into the very cross motif that bore Jesus Christ proudly within.
He could smell, he could hear, and he could touch. He spread seemingly spread himself throughout the building, down into the quarters of its denizens.
"Neysa, to the right of me, left of the cross, down two flights. All along one level," he instructed as clopping hooves landed next to him, having scaled the fences as well.
The clopping sounded once more as Neysa acknowledged the instructions. Two tufts of grass and a bit of dirt were pushed back as she reared, unseen by anyone, and charged into the area of the wall just to the right of Tian.
As her head was just about to touch the church, a radiant purplish lavender pool appeared on the wall, stretched wide and narrow. As she entered this portal, her invisible form shimmered into existence just before entering it, a narrow strip of space just centimetres thick wide. Through this small window, the shining and beautiful black coat of some great beast with a black, long-haired mane and tail.
Tian watched until the last wisp of fur disappeared into the church. Then, he set out to do his part of the job.
He flung his coat open, to reveal a white sword, made of pieces of large, thick bone vetebrae that interlocked perfectly. The handle was little more than a thinner, carved piece of bone. The tip of the sword was a talon or claw of sort. The slightly curved edge of this unconventional sword had been hewn and rubbed till it was sharp. However, the whole sword was overall large and bulky, thick and powerful, but not for much fancy swordplay.
That is, if one had the skill of a human, but Tian, was not a vampire and not a human either.
The sword was latched to the front of his right shoulder, so that it hung form his shoulder blade down to his chest. He flung his right arm out, and the sword flew into his open palm on its own.
He swung it about for a while, before getting down to business.
He stuck the tip of the sword into the wall. It cut through effortlessly, the edges that touched the bone blade turned brittle and crumbled slightly. He only pushed his sword in a few centimetres, and he kept the tip embedded as he walked along the wall, pulling the sword through the wall as he did so.
Walking at a brisk pace, he went around the whole perimeter of the building, cutting through it like butter. He turned the fourth corner and walked on till he reached his initial cut; he joined the two severed ends and withdrew the sword. The church stood as sagely as before, not knowing its freshly wrought injury.
Tian took a few steps back, and stuck his sword in the ground as he waited for his companion to return.
She arrived not long after his end was done. The same purplish portal appeared once more in the wall of the church, and she lept through it. She was invisible, but not her human trail. Nuns, a dozen and more, all prancing and laughing in girlish happiness and bewitched joy as they willingly followed the invisible one. They held each other's hand in hand, forming a human chain, the one in front holding on to the tail of the invisible Neysa. Their eyes were unseeing to the scene around them, lost as they were in the mental illusion cast on them, yet they were also filled with the sincerest happiness, the innocence thought lost as they grew up.
"A pretty good haul tonight," Tian said as he mentally counted the number of women who came through till the last came through, and the portal closed.
Yes, Gonard should be satisfied, Neysa spoke beside him.
"Bring them out of the compound, I'll start the fire,"
Neysa blew a note into the air, and she lept across the fence. Despite the earthbound weight of the nuns, they too, followed her effortlessly flight, squealing in their childlike joy at the fun of it all. They will never suspect their fate, their heads only filled with a rollicking joy.
Tian waited till they were a safe distance, and picked up his sword. He turned on his heel, and walked towards the fence as if to follow them. He raised his left hand and snapped his fingers once.
Behind him, the wound of the building shone bright, shining tendrils of light seared through the building like veins and vines, creeping over and through the walls, windows, glass and tile, and woke none of the sleeping denizens within. They stretched till they reached the top and sealed themselves, enclosing the church in a bright red web.
Tian lept over the fence, half floating in his human form, and snapped his fingers once more as he touched the ground.
The tendrils seethed and strong rays of light shone outwards from them. The church looked as if it were cracking apart, like an egg's shell. Flames cut through the paths of the veins all around the church, charging and surging like scythes, uninhibited by the supposed 'blessings' upon the house of God.
Finally, the whole of the church, touched and untouched by the veins, burst into the unwordly flames with a great roar that seemed to rumble from deep within the earth. It drowned the pitiful cries of those that were left behind to sleep, now torched by the flames that burned stronger than even hellfire.
It was this roar that woke Alucard from his revery. All his six eyes flashed open in an instant. As he romped out of the alley to face the burning church, part of him cursed himself for not noticing the perpetrators approaching beforehand, while the other part of him was welling in quiet satisfaction of the destroyed church. The latter made his tail wag.
"Wait..." he growled, his nose twitching. He didn't need the wind to sense a strong presence in the area.
He galloped on his paws towards the building, coasting the fence until he saw the alleged 'vandals'.
Similarly, Tian also saw Alucard, and breathed in the undead scent that prevaded on the hellhound.
"He appears. Neysa! Get out of here, I'll handle the vampire," he hissed.
Neysa did not need anymore bidding. She quickly galloped away, the trail of nuns floating along like a trail of human balloons.
"So...this is what has been causing the human prayers so much grief," laughed Alucard, his back aching as his human arm burst through in a shower of black matter, his grip fastened on his white 454 Casull gun.
But Tian did not respond to the apparent challenge. In fact, his sword flew back under his coat and he stared at the gun with pure nonchalance.
"Hold it, vampire, I'm not going to fight you yet, not my orders," he almost hissed at the last word.
He walked up to the hound, not detered in the slightest by the gun that followed his form, the dog's head followed as well, its six pupils rolling to follow.
"Oh? Too bad!" roared Alucard. He had been inactive for three weeks and bloody hell he wasn't going to have his fun denied for another minute longer!
The gunshot rang, the silver bullet flew towards Tian in an instant. In a flash, the end portion of Tian's sword flew out, a red tendon connecting it to the rest of his bone sword. It flicked and the bullet was deflected away.
Alucard was a bit amazed, but only grinned wider in his dog face at the thrill of the challenge.
"I have a message for you!" Tian said quickly, relising the vampire was beyond rational patience.
"Oh?" Alucard laughed, his dog jaw dislocating and stretching wide as the muscles of its mouth decayed and fell away.
Deep inside its throat, the upside down and leering face of Alucard peeked out to look. His continued to fire shots, and Tian dodged backwards as he whipped out his sword.
His sword, comprised of bone pieces all connected by a single stretchable tendon, flew out and dislocated itself, swinging around Tian as he swung his sword arm powerfully. The flying pieces of invulnerable bone knocked and deflected away dangerous bullets as Tian shouted in exasperation, "Gonard says 'Hello'!"
In the dog's throat, Alucard's face froze, his trigger finger stopped and his human eyes opened wide in shock.
"Go...nard?" he almost gasped.
Margaret Weis: Margaret Weis is one of the authors of the Dragonlance series. The series is extremely serious and tough to read, but I read it when I was about nine years old. As you can see, I was several reading levels ahead of my time. Since I could read it at nine, I figured Integral could do even more so. Dragonlance is a fantasy series, which naturally, contain dragons, elves, dwarfs and all manners of folk. In my honest opinion, it's a lot more real and serious than the Lord of the Rings.
Tian: The name is Chinese hanyu piyin, which basically means the sound of the Chinese word written in English. 'Tian' has many different meanings, depending on the sound used and in what context. In this story, 'Tian' means 'Sky', and yes, Tian himself is Chinese.
Vladmir: If you don't already know (and you should already know), Vladmir is the Prince of the country which I presently cannot remember, upon which the whole Dracula myth/story is based on. And if you cannot already guess, Alucard here is 'Vladmir' of the same.
Gonard: This name is an anagram of 'Dragon'. It is also an anagram of another thing which I will not mention right now.