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It had been a treat watching Rifka process the takeoff of the private jet, not knowing what to expect. Alucard watched her nervousness change to excitement, even joy, as the jet surged into the air and took flight. She even leaned over to stare out the window as the ground fell away and everything became tiny dots and squares.

"Does this view bring back any memories for you?" He asked her curiously.

"Hmm," she murmured back to him distractedly, completely taken by the view of wispy clouds around shining, white-capped mountains. "No memories, not really. Emotions, though, I'm getting lots of those. When I was human, I think I traveled a lot, and I think I must have loved to fly." She closed her eyes and tilted her head slightly, drawing in a breath. Alucard could almost see it happen as she was struck by a sudden, vivid memory.

"What did you see, just now?"

"I was on a plane… A large one. Not very crowded. There was a lot of rough turbulence, more than I'd ever experienced before. The lights were flickering, men and women were gasping and whimpering. I was terrified, but also thrilled… And then… I saw the lady sitting across from me. I saw that she seemed very frightened, and I… I said something that made her laugh. And just after that, the turbulence faded and the rest of the flight was fine."

"I like that about you, Catwoman. When you're staring into the face of fear itself, you laugh at it. And you get others to laugh at it, too."

Rifka blushed slightly, but drew her chin up, gesturing with her arms as she spoke. "Yeah, well… What good's it going to do anyone to be frightened to death while sitting like a lamb on a plane? When something scares you and you can't kill it physically, you have to defeat it emotionally. Some people start rambling mathematics. I tell jokes."

There was a silence. Rifka's mouth had fallen open slightly and she sat, slightly stunned, as her own words sank in. Familiar words. Familiar opinions. Personality quirks long buried but never quite forgotten. Not completely. Not even a genius like Bentomir, with all of his science, could remove this woman's true self from her forever.

Alucard smiled, wondering if she was remembering all the times she had sassed Markus, and even himself, when faced with the fact that she couldn't kill them with her teeth and claws. With a chuckle, he decided not to ask.

Just as the pilot said, they arrived in Russia after a quick and silent flight. Integra had phoned ahead to make sure there wouldn't be any local authorities getting in the way of their search. A call from the exploration team notified the pilot that there was an airstrip behind the compound, just barely big enough for a private jet. Coordinates were provided and the pilot laid in his course and made a smooth landing.

Alucard was pleasantly surprised by their luck, but saw the curious expression was on Rifka's face again. When the pilot announced it was safe to deplane, she unbuckled her seatbelt and walked out of the plane as if in a dream. Down the steps, slowly, stepping onto the grass. She closed her eyes as the wind struck her, blowing back her hair.

"You look as though you've remembered something again." The Vampire purred into her ear.

"Bentomir had a helicopter." She replied. "I rode in it several times as his bodyguard. It was his favorite method of travel outside this area. He kept it over…" her arm drifted to the left, and then she pointed, "there." She opened her eyes, tilting her head curiously as she saw there was no helicopter. She shrugged – it wasn't important. What was important, was the compound, and the unit of soldiers prepared to break into it. She drew her shoulders back, exhaled, and strode toward them.

Alucard followed the woman, watching her body language and expression, while extending his other senses toward the facility. He felt a prickle, just on the edges, and smiled as he noticed a ripple of tension slowly drawing across Rifka's shoulders. Her mask of cool detachment flickered, and her dark brown eyes darted quickly to the left. There was nothing to be seen, which caused the corners of her mouth to tug downward, ever so slightly. She didn't appreciate her prey's tactics.

"We're ready to bring the door down," the unit's commander informed her. It was another treat for the Vampire to enjoy the surprise and uneasiness on Rifka's face in response to being reported to.

"Let's not be hasty," Rifka smoothed her hands over her arms and took a calming breath. Her eyes continued to roam the front face of the building, keeping a careful watch. "We're definitely not alone, so breaking the door open would give away our advantage. There's no way to know – actually… yes there is. Alucard?"

"Yes, Catwoman?"

"Are there limitations to what kinds of walls you can phase through?"

Her question caused the Vampire to grin slowly from ear-to-ear, showing off his dangerous teeth. "None that I have yet encountered, my dear."

Rifka turned her hand over in a polite "go ahead, please" gesture toward the wall of the compound, and Alucard laughed softly in delight. She had certainly gotten more comfortable around him in the last few days.

Stepping forward, his form rippled and became invisible. The troops murmured and glanced amongst each other with a mixture of curiosity and nervousness. Rifka tried not to look surprised, but she could see a faint outline of the Vampire as he passed casually through the compound's wall.

"I'm inside," he stated quietly over the coms for the benefit of their human cohorts, "this building is identical to the one we found Rifka in, though a very rundown version. All of the doors are either broken or missing, and many of the walls have collapsed or have holes through them. I don't see any creatures waiting to greet us, so I'm unbarring the door for you."

Following Alucard's report, Rifka and the soldiers heard sounds of something heavy being lifted, scraping against the door and then being placed carefully on the ground with a thud. He swung the door open to allow them in, and the unit immediately took up strategic positions around the wide, half-circle shaped entry hall. Rifka entered the compound more slowly, her ears drawn back with irritation in the eerie silence. She did not want to be there, every instinct she had was telling her to leave. She showed her teeth and flexed her hands.

"Nervous?" She felt Alucard's breath on her ear as he whispered to her.

"Very," she replied, unashamed. "This place reeks of dead things."

"Dead things are potentially very interesting things; don't you think?"

The question made Rifka shiver and she glared over her shoulder, showing her teeth again in an irritated hiss, but Alucard wasn't there. He was taunting her on purpose now, watching her as she reacted to this hellscape environment. She sighed, knowing she should have expected it.

"If this compound is identical, Bentomir's office would have been at the end of the corridor on the right. Down the center corridor is the lab and torture chamber. To the left would be the pens and cages, where the slaves, animals, and experiments were kept."

Alucard chuckled quietly in his usual macabre humor. "So then, Markus didn't stray very far from his Master's design, did he?"

Rifka curled her lip, recalling how Markus had kept her in a cage down the left-hand corridor of his own compound, surrounded by the weeping and pleading of fresh kidnap victims, the catatonic silence of broken slaves, and an almost complete zoo of predatory animals, all hissing, growling, and roaring.

"He did eventually, somewhere along the line. The blueprints of the facility probably weren't anything special, nor the selection of deadly animals for source material. But the fact remains that all Markus could make were more dead things. He couldn't keep a test subject alive no matter what he tried – and it drove him mad. Bentomir must have known he couldn't trust him, to have hidden his laboratory notes from him this well."

"Ooh," Alucard slowly materialized beside Rifka, reaching out to tuck a wild curl of her hair behind her ear. "Such disdain for the freak Markus, but a veiled compliment for the mythical Bentomir… Now I know for sure that I would have liked to meet him, very much so, if you can still respect him even after everything he did to you."

"No monster is ever truly a fool," Rifka turned her dark eyes up at the Vampire, speaking quietly and venomously, "and the worst monsters are those of high intelligence; wouldn't you agree?" The way her lips curled when she was angry exposed the sharp points of her powerful canines.

Alucard's face brightened in a surprised smile. She still had no idea how enchanting she was when she showed him her fangs. "Oh, a veiled compliment for me as well? Oh yes, I do agree, Catwoman. A monster that proves to be smarter than that which hunts him is terrifying indeed. Just ask the soldiers of Hellsing!"

Grumbling under her breath, Rifka turned to look back at said soldiers, most of whom were trying to appear as though they hadn't overheard the Vampire's statement. "Send men down the right-hand corridor to search the office. The torture chamber should be empty of, living things, at least" she paused with distaste and looked up at Alucard again, "you can see for yourself if it amuses you. I'm going down the left corridor to the pens."

The commander in charge of the soldiers nodded to her advice and split up the group, half going with Rifka and the other half going to the office, leaving Alucard to pretty much do what he wanted. The soldiers were well used to his mission being somewhat separate from their own, and none of their professional business.

The group split up, moving swiftly, silently, and carefully around the debris-strewn floor. For the right-corridor team, the office proved easy to locate, but it had been tragically ransacked. The desk, chair, and several bookcases had all been knocked over. Papers, books, files and random office supplies were everywhere. With a sigh, the troops set down several boxes and began collecting everything. A larger team would be assigned to sort it back at the Hellsing base.

Alucard stepped slowly into the large, spacious chamber in the center of the compound. He reflected that it was identical in size to the first one he'd seen, but it seemed to feel smaller. It was filled with the same items Markus had arranged in his own version, but Alucard sensed sophistication in this room, whereas Markus could only achieve malice. Bentomir had been a true scientist, and therefore had less objects for torture and more equipment for experiments. Why hadn't Markus simply confiscated everything after disposing of his Master?

The vampire wandered casually toward one of the items in the room; a bed. He'd seen their like before, in hospital surgery rooms, only this one was dented, scratched, bent, and blood-stained. It's base, painted with a scratched and faded number four, was also slightly lopsided. To top it all off, he found numerous tethers built into it, more than would seemingly be necessary. The thought brought a gruesome grin to Alucard's face.

"Oh yes, one would automatically assume all these straps and bars were quite unnecessary, until you met her, that is…" He reached out and caressed his fingertips along the metal. It was cold to the touch, but in his mind, he saw a brief image flash by: Rifka, tied down and strapped in, hissing and cursing, kicking and screaming, as she was injected with needles full of unknown substances. He withdrew his hand. "Oh yes, you made them more than necessary, didn't you, Catwoman?"

He continued to explore the lab/torture chamber, noting there weren't as many bodies littering this room as there were in Markus' version. And then, he discovered the answer to his earlier question. He went back to the first bed, the one he felt had been Rifka's personal hell, and confirmed his theory. All the equipment had been broken, in some way or another. Usually in the strongest or most integral parts, there was a tear. Metal torn from metal, wiring yanked from casings. Tubing crushed, glass broken.

"I bet that if we check, we'll discover Markus was unable to replace most of these items," the vampire mused to himself, "and when he became frustrated, he tried to force the information out of Rifka, which evolved into an obsession with torture instead of science. He definitely shows a terrible lack of dominance, doesn't he?" Humming thoughtfully, he turned to his left and stepped through the wall to join the Catwoman on the other side.

The cellblock turned out to have the strongest scent of death. Many of the cages held bodies, long-decayed, skeletons in rags chewed by rats and other vermin. There were holes in the walls here, and several of the cages had been broken open. One of them appeared to have been violently destroyed. It captured Alucard's attention and he wandered over to it.

"My, my… I'm tracing you back to your roots, aren't I, Catwoman? This one was yours, wasn't it? Just like Bed 4 in the lab was yours, wasn't it?"

Rifka's body language was standoffish, her profile turned to him as if presenting him a literal cold shoulder. She wasn't appreciating his fascination with the things she still had nightmares about, but even as she tried to distance herself from his attention, he saw the rage burning in her dark eyes, and watched her hands clench into fists. "I won't assume I was the only one that rebelled with violence." She lifted her nose slightly, her expression sour. "There are other broken cages."

"Tsk, Catwoman, don't be so modest. It doesn't suit you. Just because there were more made after you doesn't mean you're not still special!"

In a snap, Rifka's temper spiked and she rounded on the Vampire, her eyes livid. "STOP JOKING ABOUT THESE THINGS-!"

A heated tirade was sure to follow – any man could tell the signs, but it was cut off abruptly by the sound of a scream from outside the compound. A scream like nothing any of them had heard before.

"I think your brothers and sisters have found us, Catwoman…" Alucard murmured with intrigue.

Rifka pressed her lips into a thin line. "Then let's go greet them…"