Many are under the belief (based on an inaccurate and blatantly racist movie) that vampires are capable of having children with normal people. I will detest this baseless lie as adamantly as I detest putting pineapple on pizza. I myself have had a string of lovers throughout my life, each one hotter than the last, most of them crazier than they were hot, and never once have I had a child of my own. The dead, it seems, cannot impregnate the living. When I was a man, I didn't have time for a family. Now that I'm dead, A part of me wishes I had had other priorities.

-excerpt from The Vampire Journals

Chapter 2: Air-Traveler's Woes

Walter pulled up to the drop-off zone, calm, cool, and collected. He straightened his tie, and opened up the driver's side door. Victoria reached out to open her door as well. Alucard put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head.

Walter greatly enjoyed doing his job, despite his near-constant blank expressions and homicidal nature. He had confided in Alucard (after much drink, a very rare occasion on all fronts), that his job was the only sense of purpose that he felt he had in life. Every time he opened a door for someone, or drove Integra to a meeting, or built someone a new firearm, it brought him one of very few pleasures he felt he could take in this life. He had mentioned that it was somehow all Alucard's fault, just before puking all over the vampire's lap and passing out.

Basically, opening the door for Victoria meant the world to him.

The Mercs, however, didn't get the message, and opened up their doors, bailing out and moving towards the back to retrieve their bags. As soon as they were out of the car, they put on gloves and sunglasses. More than likely, these guys had some domestic experience... some unpleasant domestic experience.

Walter opened the door for Miss Seras, and when she slipped out, he dipped his head in a sort of bow. Victoria curtsied for him, and went to the back for her suitcase. Walter went to the other side, and opened the door for Alucard. Walter shared a sly smile with him, to which Alucard grinned. He was training his student well so far. The smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and Walter held the door all the way open for the five-hundred-year-old pain in his ass otherwise.

Alucard stood, straightening his crimson suit, and walked around to the unloading platform. Walter followed him, clasping his hands behind his back. When they reached the other side, the Mercs were already unloaded, and waiting on the curb with their bags. Victoria was still getting her bag out of the back.

"Alrighty, faggolas", Alucard said, "follow my lead and when I tell you to go, GO. That's all. Thanks."

Alucard turned back to Walter, and crossed his arms over his stomach and lower back, and bowed deeply. Walter stretched out his arms, palms toward the sky, and returned his bow, cocking one leg out in front of him. Alucard returned to his normal height, turned towards the sliding doors, and walked through.

Almost immediately, the men behind him failed. Instead of bowing to Walter, they turned and followed him, all except for Pip, who turned to Walter and tipped his hat. Alucard would count it, but only because no one else did anything of the sort. Victoria gave him another curtsy, which he bowed towards. She was catching on faster than the trained professionals. He allowed himself a small grin.

He hated how often Walter was mistreated in his line of work. Yes, he was old and crotchety, and yes, his life was kinda boring and sad in a funny-ha-ha-I-hope-I-don't-end-up-like-that kinda way, but damnit if the man wasn't a swell dude. He would have jumped in front of a bullet for anyone here, and these stupid-ass Mercs wouldn't even give him the time of day. More than that, Alucard respected the man. They had practically raised Integra together, and the whole "Integra has three dads and all of them are gay" joke was part of what had brought him and Walter so close together. Walter didn't have to do a damn thing that he did; he could have sat in the sidelines and retained his dignity, but he had sacrificed everything to make sure Integra grew up a proper woman. So much so, that Integra saw him as more of a father figure than Alucard. He deserved to have the time of day.

He pushed his thoughts aside, and went into the airport. The interior of the airport treated them all to a great image of impatient people being forced to wait. Alucard, not having any bags, and assuming everyone had carry-ons, immediately moved to the ticket counter. The lady behind the counter raised an eyebrow at his approach.

"One... no, seven tickets to Philadelphia, and make sure they're all in first class, or I'm gonna throw a first-class fit."

The lady rolled her eyes and began typing on her keyboard. She looked up a moment later with a deadpanned expression, challenging Alucard's wicked grin.

"Sorry, sir", she said, "but everything's booked for the next... three years. Please leave."

"I think not", Alucard challenged. "Check again."

"Ok", the woman said. Without deviating her eyes from Alucard, she tapped on the keyboard once more. "Yep", she told him, "everything's booked."

"Is there any space", Alucard ventured, "in the cargo hold?"

"Let me check", she told him, without looking away. This time, she didn't even type. "Yep, all booked."

"Really", he said skeptically, as he reached into his wallet. "What if I did... this?"

He pushed a one-dollar bill across the counter. The attendant looked at him without amusement.

"Yep, still booked."

"Ok", Alucard said, as he pushed another dollar towards the attendant, "how about now?"

She continued to look unamused.

"Nope."

"Look, lady, two dollars is all I own. Are you gonna take the bribe, or walk away empty-handed?"

She glanced down at the two dollar bills on the counter, and after a moment of consideration, swiped them.

"I can book you something, but it won't be first class."

"I honestly didn't expect it to be", Alucard said, as he waited to get his tickets.

"I can at least put you all together-"

"That won't be necessary", Alucard told her, "I don't want the seat next to me smelling like sweaty pits and cigarette the entire trip."

"Actually", the woman told him, "the only seats we have open on the next flight are all together."

"Well", Alucard said with a sigh, "I guess that'll have to do."

He passed the unlimited card over the table, and she passed him the tickets. Alucard gave a nod to the boys, and they all picked up their gear and moved forward towards security. All of them, except for Police Girl, who looked around cluelessly for a moment, and then finally grabbed her suitcase, and followed.

The first checkpoint would be easy to cross. Alucard would pull his usual stunt. It worked every time. After that, he was going to have to improvise. Two more checkpoints. Two more improvs. He could do it.

"Let me in front", Alucard told them.

They obliged without a word, letting him through to the front. He walked straight up to the line, and waited.

Despite what people might think about someone who was more than five hundred years old, Alucard was not very good at waiting. Take it easy? Sure, save your energy for when you need it. Take it slow? Of course! Slow and steady wins the race, after all. Stand in line for a few hours? Yeah, no, fuck that.

One thing that Alucard had learned during his years of life, above all things; patience is good to have... in small doses. Even five hundred years is too damn short to not just go for it.

With this in mind, he began pushing through the crowd, muttering stuff about a "late flight". The others caught on, and began muscling their way through as well, except for Seras, who timidly asked people to let her in front of them. No one resisted her cuteness. She needed to learn to use it in a controlled environment, Alucard thought to himself.

When he reached the front, after many offensive slurs about his haircut, Alucard immediately went straight for the x-ray machine, did an about-face, and went for the metal detector. This was bound to get someone's attention, and, surprise, surprise, it did. A chubby security compliance officer walked right up to him.

"Can I help you, sir?"

Alucard whipped up his wicked grin.

"Well, I was going to get an x-ray, but then I remembered that it hurts my brain where the government put in that listening device."

He didn't look amused.

"Do you mind getting patted down?"

Which was code for, 'that, or I can gut-blast you right now'.

"Sure, why not?"

The officer began with Alucard's bulging pocket, as he knew he would, and produced the hand grenade. He gave the vampire a startled look, and wouldn't ya know, just enough time for Alucard to reach up and yank out the pin. His startled look grew incredibly large eyes, and he held up the grenade.

"GRENADE" Alucard yelled, in a panicked voice, "THAT MAN JUST PULLED OUT A GRENADE! I HEARD HIM SAY 'ALLAHU AKBAR' AND THEN HE PULLED THE PIN!"

Sometimes this one worked rather well, and other times it landed him in the airport jail. Either way, he was one step closer to the terminal.

"What", the officer said, "n-no, that's not-"

"Robert", another officer said, approaching him slowly, "I know you have been down since the divorce, but we can talk about this!"

"What", Robert yelled, "no, no, it's not-"

"Please, don't kill me sir", Alucard said, "I have a cat to take care of!"

"No, no", Robert said in a panicked voice, "no, I'm not-"

"Robert", the officer said, putting his hands up, and walking closer to him, "there's no need to do this! We can help you!"

"Please, sir", Alucard said, looking at the other officer, "I need to get home to see my dog, Gary!"

"Don't worry, sir", the officer said, "you can go on through."

"WHAT", Robert yelled, "you can't just do that for-"

"Thank you, sir", Alucard said, "my turtle will be pleased."

Alucard waved his two fingers forward, and the Mercs went forward, with a confused and worried Seras walking after them. As Alucard continued forward to the next checkpoint, he heard the officer, Robert, scream, "I CAN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE", and released the hammer. Little did Robert know; the grenade was a dud. Alucard hoped that he was going to have a life-changing experience behind bars.

The next checkpoint was just like the first. The only difference was that Alucard didn't have a dud grenade this time. This time, he would have to improvise.

The line to this one was long as well. For the first few minutes, Alucard did not advance. He surveyed the security, doing what more military-savvy people would call "recon", looking for weaknesses to exploit. Lo and behold, he found it in an overweight female officer who was looking rather distracted. He began shoving his way forward, easily garnering her attention. When he approached the station, she halted him.

"Where do you think you're going", the woman asked nonchalantly.

"I'm going to meet your whore of a husband. While YOU'RE stuck here at the airport, pulling another all-nighter due to staff cuts, tonight we'll be having lava cake with an 1817 Port. We'll also be having sex. Lots of sex. Now, step aside."

The stricken woman did as he asked. Alucard motioned the Mercs and a still confused-and-worried-looking Police Girl forward.

Excellent progress, excellent timing. He was a bit suspicious that things were going a little too smoothly, though that could have more or less been a natural reaction. He had been a man of power during a time when power was sought by blood. Suspicion and a flexible neck had simply gone along with the times.

He started thinking about possible approaches to the next checkpoint, keeping them as simple as possible, but when he approached the third checkpoint, there was no one there. Confused, he looked around to try and find an officer, but to his good fortune, they seemed to have all gone to lunch at the same time, tired of bullying impatient travelers with their authoritarian restrictions. Surprised at his good fortune, he motioned the confused Mercs and bouncy Police Girl forward. They passed by the Sheeple who were still standing around, waiting for someone to tell them what to do, and exited the security checkpoints into the terminals.

Finally, they were in the terminals, and finding their flight was a breeze, as they had the good fortune to come out right at the gate they were departing from. They all took their seats next to each other, until Pip tried to sit next to Alucard. He responded by standing straight up and walking to the other side of the group. Pip shrugged and stayed where he was, and Seras, who had been sitting over on his other side, scooted in closer to Pip. No one said a word as they waited for their plane.

Alucard decided to take a moment to examine the Mercs he was traveling with. They were decidedly different from the ones he had fought with in the past. While the ones he had hired back in his time had been evil bastards, they had been a necessary evil... and furthermore, far less evil than what he had fought.

"John 'Feather' Mason", he said in his thick Wallachian accent, to a man who was sharpening a nail. The man looked up at him, a grin creeping up onto his face. He himself allowed a small smile. "Are you ready?"

The grin turned wicked.

"Born for this, sir", he informed him in his British accent.

The fat Turk envoy burst through the door then, walking straight up to him, an accusing glare in his eye. He thrust a finger into his face, inches away from his thick mustache.

"You", the Turk didn't even bother addressing him by his name or even title. He was asserting his master's authority over him, like a dog snapping at a stranger. "You owe the Sultan money! A year's worth! And he demands you pay it NOW!"

He didn't rise to the bait. He kept his expression neutral, and turned his gaze towards John Mason, the curls on the back of his head falling around his shoulders as he did so. John gave him an almost imperceptible nod. He turned back to the Turk.

"Take your turban off."

"WHAT?!"

"It is impolite to wear a hat in my presence."

The Turk became furious, as he knew he would.

"Your presence?! You have no authority, no power! Whatever you have convinced yourself of, it is lies from the false god your father followed! How DARE you call my turban a hat! It is my conviction to Allah!"

He allowed a small smile to play across his lips. He nodded, and John Mason's two men, who had been waiting in the shadows, burst forth, grabbing the Turk by the arms and forcing him to the ground. The fat man shouted obscenities in his disgusting dialect, and he allowed the Turk to finish them all.

When the obese man was out of breath, panting from exertion, he told the Turk, "I am the authority here."

He nodded to John, who walked forward with his nail, asserting himself behind the Turk, and holding the nail on top of his head.

He stood from his throne, and strode calmly and confidently forward, holding out a hand. One of the mercenaries placed a hammer into it.

"The Sultan taught me to respect authority", he said, raising his hammer above his head, "or suffer dearly."

He brought the hammer down on the nail, eliciting a scream from the Turk and a barking laugh from John.

"He also taught me that whoever does the most violence rules."

He brought the hammer down again. Another scream, another laugh. Blood began trickling down the Turk's forehead. The Turk began sobbing, which brought more laughter from John.

"You have disrespected my authority with your trivial headpiece", he told the Turk, "and because of that, as per the Sultan's teachings, your headpiece, and your disrespect, will be eternally hewn together."

He raised the hammer once again, but he couldn't help but to inform him, "And my God is very much alive. Unlike your pagan god. And yourself."

He brought the hammer down a third time, and the nail went all the way through to his brain. The Turk writhed, and died. The mercenaries were now all barking laughter and joking in their British accents, as he stood there, holding the tool of his defiance in his hand, watching blood seep from the body of his true enemy.

And he realized that until he saw the same from the Sultan, he would never be happy.

When groups first started being called out, Alucard almost didn't notice. But by the second group, he was up and alert. When group three was called, he stood up, and got in line. The Mercs all followed him, with Seras bouncing in behind them. When they made it to the front of the line, and the lady scanned their tickets, the machine made a beep that didn't sound good. She looked at their tickets, and looked back at them.

"Your flight is about twenty gates that way", she said, pointing to the right.

"Oh", Alucard said.

"And they just called for final boarding."

"SHIT", Alucard said, and sprinted for their terminal.

Fortunately, they came sprinting in right as they were about to close the doors. The desk ladies, pissed off, scanned their tickets, and herded them onto the plane like cattle. The flight attendants directed them to their seats; three on one row, three behind them, and one guy across from them. They decided rather quickly that the guy with the southern accent would sit across from them, and the other three nameless Mercs would sit behind Seras, who had the window, Alucard, who was in the middle, and Pip, who was by the aisle.

Alucard noticed right off the bat that the guy with the southern accent was a people person. The first thing he did was ask if it was "ok" for him to sit in his assigned seat to the person sitting next to him. Once they said it was so, and the southerner had taken his seat, he offered the person his snack, that he had paid for, for no apparent reason other than to be nice.

Alucard, however, also noted that even though Pip didn't stink, his very presence was annoying.

Once they were all buckled in, Seras tapped her master on the shoulder, asking, "Did you bring any headphones?"

"Other than the ones that go to my Walkman", Alucard said, holding up a pair of form-fitting headphones, "no."

Pip fished some out of his pocket, and passed them down to her.

"Oh", Seras said, almost skeptically, as she accepted the headphones cautiously, "thank you."

Pip tipped his hat and said nothing more.

That really, really, pissed Alucard off. And if he were completely honest with himself, he didn't really know why.

"I like listening to the in-flight music", Seras continued, unabated, and unaware in the change in her master's mood. "Do you like the in-flight music, Master?"

"Fuck no", Alucard told her. "I prefer listening to my own music when I need to relax."

"Relax", Seras asked, almost skeptically, "what about flying makes you so nervous?"

"It's not the flying", Alucard assured her, "it's the fact that someone else is flying. There are very few people that I trust with my personal safety, and some asshole Air Force guy who was stuck flying cargo planes full of CIA harvested poppy flowers isn't one of them. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to listen to my very relaxing music, in order to de-stress."

He slipped on the headphones as he said so, and pushed play. Seras thought she heard something along the lines of, "Burning trees scorching land murdermurdermurdermurder", but it was hard to tell with the high-pitched screaming.

She looked quickly between her Master and Pip, noticing the stark contrast between the two. Alucard, with his skin paler than pale, looked like he didn't have a scratch on him, whereas Pip, his skin vibrant and lively, had a patch over his eye, undoubtedly because he lost it. Seras strongly doubted that he was a pirate enthusiast.

The contrast startled her, and deep thoughts rounded out in her mind.

If immortality means that you can never be vulnerable, than does mortality guarantee vulnerability?

She decided eventually that the answer was yes; mortal men would always be made vulnerable, by their own volition or otherwise. She, however, would not, because she could survive anything.

She cringed as a memory of Alexander Anderson throwing a bayonet at her forced its way to the forefront of her thoughts. The pain she had felt was the same she had felt the night she had been shot. If Integra hadn't swooped in to save her, she had no doubt she would be dead.

She decided to revise her ultimate finding;

I am vulnerable, whether I wish to be or not. But Master...

She looked towards him again, noticing a slight grin on his face, and wondered if that grin was truly his, or a disguise.

...

Two hours into the flight, and the crew were already serving complementary snacks.

"No thank you", Alucard told the flight attendant, "I don't need your complementary peanuts. I've already got plenty of Deez Nutz."

To her credit, the flight attendant didn't cringe too hard. She didn't even ask Police Girl if she wanted any, however. She just plopped some into her lap without a word. Pip had, of course, refused, as had the rest of the Mercs. Seras simply accepted the complementary nuts with a smile. The flight attendant walked off without so much as a glance.

Seras was listening to some crap British music. Some Kanye feature or something. Alucard took off his own headphones, and stood up to use the restroom. The only person this would look strange to would be Seras, as she had not once seen him use the restroom her entire stay, but to the Mercs, it would be completely normal.

Alucard kicked past Pip, a little rougher than he had meant to, and walked down the aisle towards the crappy stalls in the back.

One of the Mercs behind his seat, the one with the more... maybe Californian accent, tapped his arm.

"Don't get raped", he said in the accent that Alucard was fairly certain was Californian.

Alucard nodded, and took his advice as sage and sound. Hell, knowing what kind of shit Mercs had to deal with domestically on the regular, he was probably serious. Alucard continued his bathroom crusade, careful not to bump into anyone. His skin was as cold as ice, and would make anyone he bumped into very uncomfortable. In fact, he could see, as someone made themselves smaller as he walked by, his very presence made people uncomfortable.

He finally made it to the bathroom, which thankfully didn't have anyone in it, and locked the door behind him. He simply stood there for a moment. Eventually, he moved towards the mirror, and put his hand on the sink, examining his own eyes through his glasses.

"I know I made a promise to you", he said to his reflection, "but she's right. This needs to be done. And... her... we need to see her. We have to, even if it means we break our promise. Even if it means-"

Suddenly, anger like he had rarely felt before came over him, and his fist snapped against the reinforced glass, shattering it with ease.

"Damnit, Alley! I'm coming home! And fuck anyone who gets in my way!"