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Old Memories

"Since when do you think shopping is fun?" Cat let him lead her out of the church and towards a very expensive looking car.

He chuckled and opened the passenger door for her, "Anything involving you always turns out to be some sort of fun."

She watched him walk around the car to the driver's door and get in, "You're driving? Whose car is this?"

"That's none of our concern. They should not have just left it sitting around if they did not want someone to take it," he revved the engine and peeled out of the driveway and towards Oxford Street.

Cat yawned and looked out the window at the cars they were speeding past, "What do you think of all this?"

Alucard continued to look forward and did not answer.

"Of the marriage and how Integra will probably have a baby soon and it won't just be us anymore," Cat bit her tongue when she said us. She had not meant to make it sound that way, only that the house would be more crowded and there would be other people to attend to.

"I know what you meant," Alucard spoke coldly, "it does not matter to me. This is what they do. They keep the bloodline going to keep me imprisoned. It has always been and will always be this way."

Cat sunk down in her seat, "It isn't fair."

Alucard veered off the road and drove straight for the trees, "It isn't fair for you? Or it isn't fair for me? It isn't fair that I am bound to a family's bloodline in order to protect the world from me? Do you think that if I were free I would even give a second thought to devouring you? Give a second thought to ripping your limbs off and sucking on them like straws? Give a second thought to cracking your head opened like a chicken's egg and drinking the juices? Do you think you would run away with me and live like some sort of family?" he looked at her and glared.

Cat bit her lip and looked away, "I just meant…it isn't fair is all."

Alucard continued looking at her while he drove through the trees on the small dirt road, "The world is not fair and it never will be. We all know this to be so and yet we still strive for fairness and justice. You should have realized this a very long time ago."

Cat watched him look at her from the corner of her eye. He looked angry and sad at the same time or maybe he looked confused. She could never tell. She turned her head to look at him and he looked away, "If we didn't strive for fairness than things would be a lot worse. It's all us regular people can do. Hope that one day things will be better."

The car burst through the trees and into the sunlight. Alucard swerved out onto the country road and let out a rare sigh, "Things will get better in your lifetime. It won't be long now. We must just be patient."

Cat looked at him and cocked her head. She watched as a smile flashed across his face. Not the smile he usually wore that was terrifying and maniacal, but a real smile, or at least, as close to a real smile that a master vampire could manage.

They drove along the road in silence. Cat watched the trees go by and Alucard watched the road, or looked like he watched the road. Cat imagined that he did not need to pay attention to it. Maybe he was thinking about something. Maybe about the wedding or about what he had just said. Cat gulped. Maybe he was just reading all of her thoughts. She listened for a chuckle, but he remained quiet. Maybe he was being sneaky. Maybe she should think about something really weird or mean to see if he had any reaction.

"Maybe you should think about something more interesting so I don't fall asleep while driving."

"Maybe you should mind your own business!"

"I do mind my business, but I have so little of it that I must mind yours as well."

"Well, mind someone else's."

"You were thinking about your parents and that dream you had when you first arrived."

Cat looked over at him and scowled, "I was doing no such thing. I was thinking about how stupid you always are."

"You still wonder about how I was in your past and now coincidentally in your present. You wonder if you ever were at that dream park. Your memories are muddled and older ones have been replaced with more recent tragedy."

Cat was tempted to speak up, but she remained quiet and waited. It was a rare thing for Alucard to converse so freely.

"I met you in that park one day for the third or fourth time. You were five years old then and I had met you years earlier when you were one or two. I sat under a tree and watched as you played with your parents. They were very young, only in their mid twenties. They still were not used to having a child. They ran away from you to play a game of hide and find."

"Hide and seek," Cat said without thinking.

Alucard shot her a dirty look.

Cat swallowed some of her pride for a moment, "I'm sorry. Go on."

"They did not see how upset you were when they ran away and hid. They crouched in some bushes and watched you look around the park. It was a Sunday and they did not think you were in any danger so they settled down for some alone time," Alucard sneered, "I watched you slowly turn in a circle as you surveyed the entire park. You were crying, but without making much noise. Children's thoughts are so scattered and full of pictures and broken words, but I deduced that you did not want anyone to notice you. When you turned towards my direction you stopped and stared. You recognized me from when you were a babe, but you were wary. After a moment you began to walk over so I removed my hat so you would be less frightened. It did not help much, your eyes widened to the size of golf balls, but you kept on walking anyway. When you were about four feet away you stopped and sat down cross legged in front of me. You had a picture of a spider in your head that was reaching its leg out to a fly, but the fly was hovering just out of reach. I said hello to you and at the sound of your name from a stranger's mouth you perked up and sat on your hands and knees like a puppy. You said something along the lines of "wasur name?" so I told you and you made a face. Then we just sat in silence and you stared for five minutes. You were wearing a red and white striped beret and when you were finished staring you took notice of my hat. "Put back on your hat" you said and you picked it up and held it out at arms length. I put it on and you giggled and said "pretty". After that some boys that were maybe a year older than you started throwing balls of dirt. There were indeed three of them and they wanted a girl to pick on like most young boys do. They paid no attention to me though I was not hiding myself in the slightest. The dirt balls were missing you so you stood up and yelled at them, but they just came closer so they could hit you all the better. Rather than ask me for assistance you yelled for your parents and so I pointed to where they had gone. You yelled for me to run as well and then took off in their direction. The rest of your dream was nearly accurate. It started to rain, but not as bad as you remember and the boys did push you down in the dirt behind a bush and laugh. I decided to step in and I scared them with a face rather than eating them. Your parents were coming towards us now and I made the mistake of picking you up while I still looked a bit…well, scary. You didn't mind until you heard the fear in their voices and then you began to cry. I handed you to your mother kindly and smiled, but she was already angry and yelled at me to stay away from you. It was not even a month later that they were killed."

Cat was not sure how she was supposed to respond. By now she was used to hearing shocking news. What Alucard had just said also contradicted what he had said before about cracking her head opened. She thought about it some more as they drove and decided that the news was not all that shocking. It was a simple explanation to the dream she had had and it also revealed that her parents were not as amazing as she had thought them to be. It revealed that Alucard had taken and interest in her, too.

The car made an abrupt stop and Cat looked up. They were in one of the parking lots for Oxford Street.

"You still have not said anything," Alucard turned off the car with a wave of his hand and Cat noticed that he had never used a key.

"I just don't see what there is to say. It's only something that happened a long time ago. It's interesting, but it doesn't change anything," Cat got out of the car and slammed the door.

"Right, well let's hurry up and get you something else to wear before you attract too much attention to your self," Alucard held his arm out for her to take and they trotted off towards the shops.

"What about you? Are you going to get something to change into?" cat looked at him in his tuxedo and thought that he would probably attract more attention than she would.

Alucard snapped his fingers and his clothes melted away to reveal a plain black shirt and black slacks underneath.

"Can't you just do that for me?" Cat looked behind them to see if there was a pile of clothes, but there was not.

"Only if you want me to see you naked," Alucard sneered and put his fingers together in the napping position.

"No, never mind, I'll just go change like a normal person," she rolled her eyes and surveyed the street most of the shops were lined up on. It was Sunday so things were not yet crowded because people were still in church.

"It's going to stay like that all day today," Alucard chuckled and led her into the first casual clothing store they came to.

"What do you mean by that?" Cat let go of his arm and starting poking through the racks looking for a suitable pair of jeans and a shirt.

"Oh, you will see very shortly," he reached out and grabbed a shirt and pair of jeans off the rack and handed them to her.

"Uh, yeah I guess these will work. You're going to have to undo my laces," Cat turned and walked towards the dressing room. She felt the laces start to loosen, "Wait until I'm in there at least!" She heard him chuckle, but did not bother to turn around. Inside the dressing room she quickly slipped out of the dress and did her best to fold it without wrinkling it too badly. She slipped the jeans and shirt on knowing that they would fit and then plucked the tags off so she could hand them to the cashier.

"Hurry up. They'll be here soon," Alucard snatched her dress and it vanished into the air. He plucked the tags out of her hands and walked past the register without stopping. He tossed them and more than enough money onto the counter, "Keep it," and then he rushed out the door.

Cat jogged after him slightly bedazzled, "What on earth is so important that you have to be so rude. Then again you're always rude so what on earth is so important?"

"Werewolves."

"What?!" Cat stopped dead in her tracks and before she could even think Alucard had snatched her wrist and was dragging her along with him.

"Just two werewolves really. They are leading a gang of humans. A motorcycle gang to be exact. They like to come down here and terrorize whoever is around. They've been doing it on a specific schedule so people have started to stay home on the days they come. Humans are smarter than I give them credit for some of the time."

"So why are we here then? More precisely why am I here? You could have came and did this on your own you don't need me!" Cat tugged against him but it was no use.

"It's goof training. Plus, you would have been bored at home by yourself," he stopped walking and looked around the square they had come to.

"I wouldn't have been bored at all I would have been safe! I could have watched television or read like normal people do on Sunday night! I don't even have my guns with me! What am I going to do, throw a heel at them?" Cat yanked her arm out of his grasp and stared up at him angrily.

"I have your guns here," he pulled them and her holster belt out of his coat and dropped them into her hands.

"I can have these in public are you crazy!" she desperately tried to hide them under her shirt.

"You're with me. If anyone says anything I'll send them away. There isn't anyone out anyway. We've come too early," he led her into a side alley and leaned against a wall, "put on your holster and be ready. They'll be here in about five minutes."

"I can't believe you dragged me out here like this," she complained as she snapped the belt on, "I thought we were going to actually go shopping."

"We did go shopping," Alucard feigned a yawn and tapped his foot.

"Yeah, right. So we just have to get the two of them and then we can go? That shouldn't take too long, right?" Cat put her hands together and held them up like she was praying.

"There's fifteen total. We're killing the humans, too."

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