Chapter 3

Priests, Witches, and Vampires. Oh My!

Ceras Victoria, the vampiric "police girl" and Hellsing Organization agent, had been apprehensive in the presence of Maeve. The blond girl's muscles would tense each time she were to lay eyes on the rookie firestarter. Ceras had a timid nature about herself and therefore had been frightened to anger her. She had made an assumption that the red head's quiet nature indicated she was angry with the world and that she would burn anyone without the slightest hesitation or remorse.

Ceras had watched Maeve practice her fire conjurations and battle exercises in the courtyard one night with both fascination and horror. She watched her as Maeve closed her eyes and had sparks of orange and gold manifest in the air about her body. The tiny balls of light had formed into larger shapes which each contorted into butterflies that were made of flames. As though the butterflies were a pack of obedient hunting hounds, Maeve pointed at the dummies which were posted in scattered positions and they had fluttered towards the dummies at a fast rate. Ceras' scarlet eyes had widened in shock to see the dummies explode tremendously into several pieces after the fire butterflies had landed upon them.

"Impressive is it not, police girl?" the question had been asked from behind Ceras. She looked behind herself to see Alucard with a triumphant smile upon his face. Ceras nodded her head slowly with a spoken, "Yeah, but.." "But what?" he asked. "She's just hard to figure out. I can not tell what she will do." Ceras said with a doubtful expression. Alucard could not stop himself from chuckling and said, "I knew you would react this way. Believe it or not, but the little hellfly is as conscientious about it as you are about your vampirism. Unlike you, she did not have a choice in the matter." Ceras looked in Maeve's direction once more and said, "Still…she scares me…" "You and Hellfly have an assignment. This will be your chance to desensitize yourself. Do not disappoint me." he said while walking through a wall.

It had been an half an hour since Ceras and Maeve arrived at the scene dressed in their identical uniforms after taking a secret route through the sewer system. The only subtle difference between them is Maeve had patches that resembled flaming wings stitched upon her back. They stood in front of a recently desecrated hospital with Ceras dashing towards the opened, smashed glass doors; carrying the gargantuan Harkonnen cannon gun upon her shoulder and the ammo box in her other hand. Maeve simply walked behind her while stepping over a bloody corpse of a man dressed in a hospital gown among shrapnel and pieces of glass. "Incinerate him before he becomes a ghoul!" Ceras called over her shoulder while in the building. Maeve nodded her head and glanced over to the now gray-skinned man who seemed to be crawling his way towards them. Her eyes blinked and the man combusted suddenly into white ash upon the ground. "Good." Ceras commented, still cringing at the sight and not accustomed to the action.

They made their way into the foul smelling hall which was dimly lit and littered with several sanguine covered corpses of every age and gender. Ceras and Maeve seemed to have had an unspoken acknowledgement about their actions to perform. Ceras with her pistol removed from the belt and Maeve with her pyrokenesis shared opposite sides of the hall while carrying out the actions of disposing of the bodies. Either shooting or burning were sufficient enough to reduce them to ash in less than five minutes until reaching the end of the hall. They nodded to each other parting their separate ways at the intersection. Ceras had walked to the left side as Maeve turned to the right side, each having the concept of performing their disposal tasks to do while sharing the building.

I hope I find the host quickly in this mess. Ceras thought in the midst walking over the medicines and hypodermic needles scattered about plastic tiled floor. Each room she had glanced at consisted of people in their hospital beds bleeding from every pore.

Despite the eerie atmosphere, the vampire cannon toting girl pressed onward and had been consistent about her awareness.

After reaching the end of the hall, she found an elevator, stepped into the box, and allowed it to lift her to the second floor after activating the switch. To her disappointment, there were no lights to illuminate the interior. She frowned at this, and remarked, "Anyone ever hear of conservation?" "I do, lassie." a voice said in Scottish accented English. Ceras froze in fright knowing that it was none other the infamous Paladin Alexander Anderson, the warrior priest of Iscariot. He slammed her into the wall violently with her wrists restrained against the surface. "Let go of me you bastard!" Ceras demanded angrily while kicking him away from her which sent him flying across the room with a heavy thud.

The doors opened suddenly while he rose to his feet in a jump and brought out one of his infamous bayonets with the intention to stab her in the heart. "Hey asshole, blades are over-rated." a female's voice interrupted his moment of rage. The tall blond man dressed in ivory priest robes turned to look upon Maeve who slammed a row of silver metal knuckles between his eyes. As he held the face in a moment of excruciating pain; she grabbed Ceras by the arm, dragged her out of the elevator, and pushed the button which made him go to the top floor. Before he could leave the elevator, the doors had shut together and heard him cursing loudly as he went to the undesired floor of the building.

Maeve held Ceras by the hands with a genuine concern upon her face while looking her in the eyes. "Are you okay? Did he hurt you?" she asked as though an older sister.

Ceras blinked several times in surprise to see this unexpected side of her and replied, "He only roughed me up a little." Maeve nodded her head, grinned, and said, "Good, we have to go now before he causes anymore trouble for us. Who was that guy anyway?" "A Catholic warrior priest who works for Iscariot, Section 13 of the Vatican. He is called Paladin Alexander Anderson. He has the same purpose that we have in the Hellsing Organization." Ceras answered breathlessly. "I can see why they have him around." Maeve commented. "We can use the stairs to make our escape." Ceras said and gestured to the exit door to their right.

The two female agents made their way to the emergency stair case with Ceras in the lead. They raced down the steps at a fast pace and heard the sound of wind being cut by several objects from above them. Ceras widened her eyes in horror and screamed, "MAAAEEEVEE!!!" She pushed Maeve out of the path of the bayonets on which they had descended upon them from above. Ceras cringed in pain as several of them had penetrated her torso and plopped upon the staircase as though she were a parcel package. "No…" Maeve whispered softly while holding back her tears and lifted Ceras into a sitting position. "Speak to me…please…" she whispered again while cradling her within an embrace. "Th-there…" Ceras managed to say while pointing upwards.

Maeve looked upwards to see Anderson standing at the top of the staircase, smiling in his supposed victory. She glared upon him in a grim rage and shouted, "You mother fucker…I'm going bring you hell on earth!" "Such language coming from lassies nowadays. Tch tch, " he said while shaking his head in dismay, "So…Maeve was it?" "Yes, who wants to know?" she asked bitterly. He descended the steps while looking directly into her eyes with his emerald hued ones behind round spectacles. Maeve clutched Ceras tighter while narrowing her eyes further and said coldly, "Take one more step and your ass is mine!" He smirked while taking the step and disregarding her warning as nothing more than a useless threat. From an unknown source, flames had emerged upon his ivory sleeves and his own eyes widened in appalling terror. "You…you did this, ya heathen witch?!" he demanded in the midst of desperately smothering the fire with the beating of his hands.

Maeve settled Ceras upon the steps gently, looked upon him in a bold manner, and asked, "Guilty as charged, Father. Didn't I just say that I would bring you hell on earth?" Her fists were tightened and allowed her pyrokenesis to heat the silver knuckles upon her hands, which were sufficient tools that served as branding irons. She used these weapons to slam Anderson in the face several times after she sprang upon him.

He backed away from her while being struck repeatedly in a leap and released a several bayonets in her direction. With mere concentration, Maeve unleashed a wall of fire at which had melted the blades upon contact. "You are a devil!" he yelled in shock. "No, just a pyrokenetic. Devils attack for no reason and using an imaginary being like that to make people behave is a shitty way of promoting morals." Maeve replied. "Don't preach to me about morals, lass. If I can not finish you today, then I can finish you another day. Farewell, Little Miss Hellfire." he said while laughing maniacally after disappearing in a swirl of holy scriptures scrawled upon pages. "And I'll be waiting…" Maeve said quietly.

To be continued…