The building Alucard arrived at was at the end of a long dirt road in the middle of a thick forest. It was circular and built low to the ground with no windows and a large steel door stylized with a large snake. Alucard took a moment to admire the way the snake was loosely coiled, the tail squiggling and the head angled to look out at anyone approaching the door. He passed inside easily enough, noticing he set off no alarms, and found himself standing at a three-way fork.
He stretched his mind out along the hallways, each in turn. Down the left he saw two Freaks guarding the door to a room of cells containing a myriad of animals and among them was the darkly beautiful Rifka. Her hands were shackled in heavy chains attached to the wall, and keeping her company was another woman, but she was bound, naked, and unconscious. Rifka was ignoring the body and gazing moodily at the wall.
Down the middle hallway Alucard found a large torture chamber fit for anything from simple beatings to surgical operations and all manner of death. Old skeletons still hung on the walls, their jaws hanging open in the silent screams of the dammed.
"In the right hands, this place could be charming." He thought to himself with a smirk.
Down the right hallway he saw a large office, and Markus himself sitting at a desk with a fancy laptop. He then reached over to a radio and contacted his men outside the cells and inquired about Rifka. He frowned when he was told she wasn't feeding and got up to investigate. Alucard melted into the shadows.
"You have company coming." He whispered in Rifka's ear. She looked around sharply in surprise, and then her eyes narrowed.
Markus walked up to the door of her cell and looked in through the barred window. "Is she not your type, Love?"
"Not in any manner." Was her tart reply.
"You'll have to tell me what you prefer, Darling. You have to feed to keep your strength up!"
Rifka gritted her teeth angrily, turning her face away with scorn. "Idiot; If Bentomir didn't tell you, I won't either! He obviously wanted to keep you from fucking with me, and since you've killed him, you'll never know anything!"
Markus' face darkened with rage. He withdrew the controller from his pocket and wagged it threateningly. She eyed it closely. "I could make you beg me to fuck you."
Her eyes remained on the controller, but there was no less venom in her tone when she responded. "Go. Fuck. Your. Self."
Markus growled and jabbed the red button furiously. The lights on Rifka's collar turned red and she seized up against the wall with a shriek of rage and pain, choking and clawing at her neck. She began to thrash and buck as he turned the dial slightly, cursing at him even as he turned and walked off.
It wasn't until he'd left the room that the collar shut off. She slumped limply on the floor, gasping for air and unable to move. "Bastard! I'll… kill you…!"
"That could be difficult to accomplish, with you all locked up and at his mercy."
Rifka opened her eyes. A strange man in a long red coat and a pair of yellow-tinted glasses was standing over her. He had long, loose-flowing black hair and a terrible grin that showed many sharp teeth. She frowned up at him. "Who are you?"
"You've been cooped up in here for a long time, haven't you?" She nodded slowly, so he continued. "I'm Alucard, of the Hellsing Organization."
"You're the Freak Hunter? You're real? Markus has been talking about you a lot since he got his chip." She tried to move and groaned with the strain, producing a feeble twitch. "I don't have a chip. Bentomir didn't make Freaks. He liked animals."
"So what did he make you?"
"He made me a jaguar."
"That explains why you haven't touched your dinner."
Rifka ignored his comment pointedly. "I was supposed to be his bodyguard, but I became too independent. Just like a cat, right? Which is really funny, right? Well, as it turned out, Bentomir didn't appreciate the irony. He had his scientists design this collar to control me, and what do you know? The fucking thing works!"
Alucard chuckled a little, looking down at her with his creepy grin. "You're feisty! Tell me about the remote."
"It's wired to the collar to send electricity into my nerves. Bentomir learned pretty fast that overloading me with pain made me transform and go mad. He used me to kill people for him, and now Markus uses me."
"What does the other button do?"
"I guess it was supposed to reward me for good behavior, but they've never used it, so I don't know what it does."
"So, you're a naughty kitty, hmmm?"
Rifka rolled her eyes and grunted. She flexed again and this time her hand curled. "I just don't want to be here. Markus is careful to keep a good distance from me or I'd have gotten the remote away from him a long time ago."
"That's why I'm here."
She blinked. "You're here to kill him?"
"Yes."
She narrowed her eyes. "You're not the kind of man I want to owe, are you?"
Alucard treated her to his creepy grin again. "Most people don't refer to me as a man at all."
"It's still better than being Markus' slave."
"You really think so?"
She growled low in her throat, slowly forcing her tortured body to roll over so she could push up onto her hands and knees. "What are you still standing around for? Go kill that bastard!"
Alucard cackled appreciatively and melted into the shadows again.
Out in the hall, Markus stopped and turned to his guards. "Take her to the chamber," he ordered them, "I'll be along to deal with her." The men nodded and entered the cell, unhooking Rifka's chains from the wall and dragging her out. She struggled angrily and the guards stumbled, but with a minor push of a button she was limp and helpless once again. The guards dragged her into the chamber without further problems.
Markus nodded to himself and went back to his office. Sitting down at his laptop, he returned to the search he was doing on the Internet. He scrolled through a long list of recently released criminals, picking out those with lengthy and violent rap sheets and noting the address of their current residences, as well as their current place of employment, in case they needed to be bought.
"They all look pretty nasty, for humans." A smug voice said behind him.
"What?" Markus withdrew his gun and spun around. He found himself staring into the 13mm barrel of a Jackal. His eyes widened and he looked past the white gloves and red coat to the face of a man wearing a terribly sadistic grin. "It's you! You're the Vampire that works for Hellsing!"
"Well I'm glad someone here knows me!"
"Yes well, very nice to meet you but I've got to go!"
In a surprising display, Markus's form blurred and went transparent. He then dove quickly through Alucard and the wall behind him, vanishing. Alucard stared at the empty chair in surprise.
"These Freaks keep turning up with one or another of a true Vampire's skills! I've never seen one that could pass through solid matter before." A grin slowly spread over the Vampire's lips and he chuckled deeply. "This should make for an interesting battle!" He turned to follow Markus through the wall.
He arrived into the spacious torture chamber on the other side. He just barely had enough time to process the scene before it changed. Markus was standing back against the far wall, with an animal between them being held to the floor by large, heavy chains.
When Alucard arrived, his motion caught the beast's attention and glowing red eyes lifted to focus on him, revealing Rifka's shadowed face. A loud, threatening growl lifted from her throat and she pulled at her bindings.
Markus hit a switch and the chains fell off. The beast gave a wild yowl and surged forward, arms extending to rake massive claws through the Vampire's body. Having already seen what she could do with those claws, Alucard deftly moved aside, but the cat-woman dug in her toe claws and turned with him like a homing missile.
"You're fast!" Alucard stared at her in surprise as he felt her hands tearing into him; saw her mouth opening and a jaw full of razor-sharp teeth lunging for his throat. He fell under her, staring up at the creature that had been an amusing young woman just a moment ago. He tried to touch her mind, but all he found was a black, writhing mass of seething anger and pain. Under the claws of the beast, his body was quickly reduced to a puddle of blood, guts, and torn cloth.
Markus turned the collar off. Rifka dropped to the floor like a stone, making a sick splash in the gore that had once been Alucard. He snapped his fingers and his guards dragged her back to her cell.