The absolute worst thing that you can do in a survival situation is forget to breath. The next worst thing would be forgetting to drink water, and the next worse thing after that is to fall into an obvious trap without a plan. After that, it progressively moves towards sticking your dick in a blender.

-excerpt from the Vampire Journals

Chapter 18: Parental Guidance Suggested

There were quite a few battle rifles in their faces. G3's, chambered in 7.62x51mm, Pip noticed almost immediately. Another excellent weapon, one that had served the Germans rather well.

Apparently, they were serving the Vatican now, too.

And once again, he found himself on the wrong end of these magnificent weapons.

Anderson rushed in front of them, calling out, "Weapons down, they're with me."

The Iscariots, almost begrudgingly it seemed, lowered their weapons. Some of them turned sour gazes on Alucard, and hesitant ones on Pip and Six Gun. The ones who didn't had their eyes on Anderson.

"Listen up", Anderson told them, "I need a table, with lots of towels underneath and around it. I need all three barrels of holy water from the back, and I need an IV kit."

The Iscariots, despite the confusion on their faces, immediately got to work. Within the span of two minutes, a table appeared before them, surrounded by towels. Alucard laid Seras flat on her back on the table just as one of the Iscariots appeared from the back room, rolling an old wooden barrel towards the table.

Anderson rolled up his sleeves, removed his gloves, and cracked his knuckles.

"One to sit on", Anderson told the Iscariots, as he rolled up Seras's sleeve.

The wound, Pip could see, had spread quite a bit. The black lines had traveled far up her arm, now having reached her bicep. Anderson scowled, giving a grunt of dissatisfaction.

"If I were speakin' to a saner man", he said, waving a hand in Alucard's direction, "I'd suggest we cut the bloody thing off an' be done with it."

"She's not losing an arm on my watch", Alucard told him with a deadpanned expression.

"...But I won't bother tellin' ye such", Anderson continued, "because yer a flippin' maniac. Where the heck's that IV kit?!"

"The fuck's with all this censorship?"

"Ay, watch yer bloody mouth, we're in a church!"

"Father Anderson", one of the Iscariots, who sported a heavy Italian accent, voiced. "Would it be appropriate to ask why we are lending aid to one of the Vatican's worst enemies?"

"No", Anderson told him without turning his head. "Papa Anderson knows best; follow his lead, and ye'll survive this cruel world, ye understand?"

"Of course, sir", the Iscariot responded quickly with a nod.

Pip was acutely aware of the fact that they were slowly being surrounded by heavily armed Iscariot agents, and that they were not happy about them being in this particular church. They seemed to be a bit itchy with their rifles as it was, with at least one of them questionably raising theirs every time one of the newcomers so much as moved. To Pip, though, that was all background noise.

Seeing Seras like this, helpless, and potentially dying, it made his heart ache. He wanted to reach out and squeeze her hand, take at least some of her pain away. He had gone and fallen in love with the woman, and now she was going to die. Such was his luck.

"Where on earth is that IV I asked fer?!"

Within the amount of breath it had taken him to ask that question, he had completely slid out of his trench coat. To Pip, it seemed like a logical and ordinary thing to do given the circumstance, but as he glanced at the Iscariots surrounding him, he saw that they wore curious, calculating, and even horrified expressions on their faces, glancing from him to the newcomers as if they were an entirely new thing to be considered. He wasn't sure what the significance of the trench coat was, but Pip was certain that if they didn't have the Iscariots' attention before, they undoubtedly had it now.

By the time a young nun had approached Alexander Anderson with an odd contraption in her hand, he had removed his clerical robes as well, and now stood in nothing but pants and his nice shoes. Pip was almost surprised to bear witness to the absolute hulk of a man who stood before him. He knew he had to have been in good shape, just by the way he moved, but his muscles were huge and numerous, with biceps easily as big as cannon balls, and pectorals that would have made Arnold Schwarzenegger ashamed. Perhaps that had been a slight exaggeration, yet, despite this, he had a relatively flat stomach with no apparent abdominal muscles.

Noticing where Pip was looking, the Scotsman grinned.

"Having abs doesn't mean yer strong, lass", he told the supposed woman, "it just means ye don't eat enough!"

The nun approached him, a cute little blond thing, and gently called his name, holding out the apparatus. It looked like a needle had been crudely attached to a tube with a squeezable bulb in the center of it.

He carefully took it, saying, "Bless ye, lass. Now run along; this'll get bloody."

The nun stood in place, almost as if she hadn't even heard him, carefully observing every inch of the muscular man. For a moment, it seemed that Anderson was too focused on Seras to notice, but after a moment, he turned his head towards her, a frown that showed his white teeth adorning his face.

"Go away", he told her, shooing her away with a flick of his wrist.

The nun seemed to remember herself, and quickly turned on her heels to leave, a blush rising to her cheeks.

Anderson turned back to the task at hand, as a group of Iscariots moved one of the wooden barrels closer to the table, standing it right-side up. Anderson popped the cork off of the top, and stuck the open end of the tube into the open barrel. He began pumping on the little bulb, and sure enough, liquid passed through the tube.

A bit of it spurted out of the end, landing on Seras' exposed arm. She yelped like she had been struck, and turned a horrified gaze on Anderson.

"That hurt", she said, in a voice that melted Pip's heart.

"Sorry, girly", Anderson told her with a semi-grin, "but this is only a taste of what's ta come. Unlike with sex, this won't get less painful with time."

"Wait", Alucard said, holding up a hand, his eyebrows shooting up, "is that how sex is supposed to be?! I think I've been doing it wrong!"

"Alright, buddy", Anderson told him, "the humor ends here. From now until this is over, pure concentration."

Anderson laid a hand across Seras' forehead, saying, "and girly, whatever ya do, do not fall asleep or pass out. Bite your tongue off if'n ya must do it ta keep yourself from fallin' asleep."

Seras gave him a confused look, but asked no questions. Anderson inserted the needle just above where the black track lines had spread. Then he began squeezing the bulb.

The screaming that Seras gave off was like listening to a cat be skinned alive. She spasmed and convulsed, and without being told, the Iscariots lunged on her limbs and held her down. With a grim sort of humor, Pip guessed that Seras wouldn't be falling asleep anytime soon.

Slowly, very slowly, the track marks began descending back down to the wound. Pip watched, infatuated, as the burly Scot held her limb down with one hand, and made the black lines disappear by squeezing the other. Alucard watched the entire ordeal with a deadpan expression, and Six Gun looked like he was watching the world be created.

Pip wasn't quite sure what to think about all of this. As Seras screamed and wailed, she was actively being cured. He supposed that it was part of being dead; everything came with a price.

Slowly, the tracks continued their crawl back towards the wound. The screams never ceased, never died down. Seras was not getting used to this pain.

Anderson, for his part, handled the entire thing like a professional, keeping a careful watch on his instruments, and occasionally glancing at the wound itself to take stock of its progress. Only once did he do anything different, briefly letting go of the bulb to push his glasses back up his nose.

"You give her money, to laugh at your dick, 'cause she thinks it's funny, it looks like a kid's"

The grainy sound of music being played through a flip phone's speakers interrupted the mood of the room. Most of the Iscariots and even Pip glanced towards Alucard as he fumbled to silence the newly acquired phone. The phone continued to scream obscenities through the speaker as Alucard nearly dropped it, barely catching it in time.

"I told that bitch to crush my nutsack, until I fucking jizz, I don't even want my nuts back, I don't wanna have no kids"

Finally able to pull the phone out of his pocket, Alucard immediately flipped it open, grumbling about how he needed to change the ringtones.

"Helsing Organization, Alucard speaking."

"Allow me to read off to you this case file that was just forwarded to me by the Virginia police", Integra told him in a harsh tone to the sound of shuffling papers. "'When asked about his presence at the warehouse, the subject in question responded, 'Yeah, all I know is that I'm upstairs listening to my Will Smith CD, and I seen all these flames goin' everywhere'. The interrogator in question then attempted to change the subject, but the suspect in question continued, declaring, 'Hold on a minute, bitch', and then repeatedly screaming, 'Detroit, what''."

"Detroit, baby", Alucard replied with a grin.

"Alucard, are you aware that you have a reputation to uphold? One that is tied to the Helsing Organization as a business?"

"No, that's what we have those PR guys for."

"It helps if you're not a complete and total asshole all the time!"

Right then, Seras let out a piercing scream.

"What was that?"

"What was what?"

"That sounded like the Police Girl."

"What did?"

"Alucard", Integra asked in an even tone, "did you kill the Police Girl?"

"No! … she died on her own time."

"Fucking hell."

"Look, you wanna run around trying to keep your big titty assistants alive, be my guest. But don't criticize me for doing nothing while you're an ocean away, getting ahead of me on our hentai!"

"First of all", Integra began, "I didn't say you did nothing, more like I was implying the entire ordeal was undoubtedly your fault. Second of all, I have been far too busy cleaning up your messes to even so much as open any new tabs. Third of all, is she going to live?"

"Count on it", Alucard told her confidently, though a grimace adorned his face as he said so.

He whipped the phone closed, returning his attention to Anderson, who had begun to pump again.

The screaming continued, and Pip was half-tempted to plug his ears to save his heart. But with a sudden descent, the screaming moved into dreary whimpering. Pip returned his gaze to the track marks, and to his horror, they were moving up her arm at an alarming rate. It quickly moved all the way up to her collarbone in a matter of seconds.

"No", Alucard said in a commanding voice, "no, no, NO!"

He walked over to Seras, shoving an Iscariot out of the way. He grabbed onto her other arm, squeezing it so hard the Pip thought he might break it.

"Fight it, Seras", he yelled, getting his serious face down into her drowsy one. "Fight it, for the love of God!"

Within moments, the tracks had made their way up her neck, and her eyes fluttered closed.

Alucard threw his head back, letting lose a scream that conveyed such torment that it almost made Pip vomit.

...

Seras wasn't quite sure where she had gone, or, furthermore, how she had ended up here in the first place. She didn't feel like she was in a room; rather a large, dark expanse, that she could somehow touch and see. She hesitated to believe that she could smell it and hear it or even taste it, as her mouth felt like cotton, she could only taste her own tongue, and she had yet to hear anything significant enough to constitute a full noise.

The place seemed to be lit just enough for her to see, and yet dark enough for her to be unable to make out anything. From what she could see of it, there were no walls, roof, or otherwise identifying features.

"Am I in some kind of parallel dimension", she thought out loud.

The thought would have been impossible to her a few months ago, but so much had happened within that time, she was willing to believe anything at this point.

"In a manner of speaking", a smooth, even, and light voice responded, "yes. You've been... carried to my very own corner of the world."

Seras whipped around, focusing on the new presence in the place. What she found was a man, with soft brown eyes, and an even softer smile. His short but attentive hair had an almost salt-and-pepper look, if someone had been a bit heavy on the salt, especially on his well-kept, small mustache. Despite his seeming age, his hair was only just beginning to thin at the top. His skin looked an odd combination of soft and malleable, yet leathery and firm, creased with lines of age, mostly across his forehead. He was incredibly thin, with only the barest hint of fat in the rises of his cheeks. His nose was a bit large, but ultimately, the perfect size for his face, with the hint of a crook at the end that was overshadowed by how thick it was. His trim eyebrows were knit in a way that made him look warm and inviting, yet curious and a bit mysterious. His outfit was all black, with a black suit, no tie, and a black shirt over black dress pants and black suede shoes, and he carried a cane with him. His hands were small and soft, with small veins that popped up atop the backs of them. Currently, he was sitting atop nothing, with one leg crossed over the other, and both hands resting atop the cane.

"Who are you", Seras blurted out.

"An apt question", the man said with a chuckle, "and straight to the point. Seras Victoria, I am your father."

Without really meaning to, Seras burst out laughing. The man maintained his expression, calmly waiting for her to finish.

She pointed at him, saying, "I know what me father looks like, an' you don't look a bit like him, bruv."

"Your life father, yes", the man told her in his gravelly, choir-like voice. "You see, in this new life of yours, you have two fathers; your life father, and your unlife father. I am the latter."

Seras considered that for a moment, then countered, "But how could you be my father when Alucard sired me?"

The smile on his face seemed to widen only slightly.

"Ah, yes, Al-u-card", he said in a way that seemed like it was an inside joke only him and Alucard knew the punchline to. "I am his father too. And his father's father. And his father's father's father. You see, Seras, I am father to all vampires."

She didn't have any smart response to that, so, instead, she stupidly echoed, "All vampires?"

"Yes, Seras", he said with a soft smile. "All vampires."

"Why?"

Seras thought it was a dumb question, but the man didn't treat it like a dumb question. He smiled softly, standing from his nonexistent bench, and walked carefully and precisely towards her, using the cane to support himself. Seras had seen people who had been crippled bad enough to need them, and she had busted people who were using them as an excuse to siphon disability. She got the feeling that while the man favored his right leg, the cane was just for show, and he was perfectly capable without it.

He gently snaked an arm around her shoulder, confirming her theory by being at her side faster than she could have blinked. He extended an arm outwards, towards what had moments ago been endless void. But as Seras turned her head, the void resolved itself into a vision.

"It began with my brother", he said, "a long, long time ago."

The vision was of two young men, running through a field. Neither of them looked like the man before her; their skin was tan, and leathery from hard work and lots of sunlight. Their hair grew long and wild, and they wore robes that reminded her of tunics.

"Where did you say the creature was", one of the brothers asked the other.

"Just a little farther", the other responded.

Eventually, the two of them came across a soft, muddy indention in the earth, with plenty of rocks around it. The first brother cautiously made his way forward, further into the mud. The second bent down, and picked up a large rock.

When the first had waded into the deeper mud, the second brought the rock down on the back of his head. His head split open, spilling his life essence out, but instead of falling down, the first grabbed onto the back of his bleeding head, turning around in shock. An expression of pure terror adorned his face.

"Brother", he asked, almost calmly, "why?"

He brought the rock down again, this time on his brother's forehead. This time, the man went down, his blood oozing out into the mud. He set the rock on the man's chest, using its weight to sink his body further into the muck. When the man's body had disappeared into the mud, he turned around and left.

"And, of course", the man said with a sigh, "God found out. So he cursed me to wander the earth, and put a seal upon me. He knew I would be hated, so he gave my would-be attackers something to fear."

"If ever someone were to lay their hands on you, you shall be avenged sevenfold."

"That was, of course, the end of me as a child. I went on to father many children, and even build cities. Yet, I never felt like I had any real control over my own life. When I lay dying of age, however, I finally got the chance that had always eluded me. He, the other one, came into my life, and offered me a solution; eternal life, with a price... one that I was more than happy to pay, and one that I was more than happy to share with others."

"The blood?"

"No, child, not the blood", he told her with a soft smile. "A different price; four of my... descendants... will be used to overthrow the forces of Heaven."

"Well, great, now I'm bloody confused."

"The only way we could ever win the coming war", he explained, "would be to strike first... in a meaningful way. For this, we need four horsemen... our own versions of War, Strife, Famine... and Death."

"But Master doesn't have a horse!"

"But he does, child! Feast your eyes on OM PLUG!"

At one point in her life, Seras had gone through a sort of... horse phase, like what most young girls went through. Problem was, she couldn't exactly leave the orphanage and go pet a horse in the middle of Leeds, so she just had to settle on her imagination. she had heard the term "hands" used as a form of measurement for a horse's height, and she had often wondered it they were actual hands, or just some fancy form of Imperial metric. The monster that trotted out of the shadowy fog, stepping in time rigidly, like a soldier marching, made her hands look insignificant by comparison.

Out of the shadow marched... Seras thought it might be a horse, but it was so tall she couldn't be certain. it seemed to stretch up to the infinite beyond above them, easily dwarfing her at nearly twice her size. It was covered from head to toe in sleek, darkened armor, like the kind the man from those memories had. It had a long blade curving up the front of its faceplate, like the blade of a scythe had been transplanted to the front of his face, and its eyes glowed red, like two terrific spotlights from lighthouses. When it breathed, it shot out fiery plumes of steam, like smoke from a locomotive.

It stopped abruptly before her, standing tall and strong like a soldier at attention, and allowed her to examine it further. It had a blackened leather saddle cinched tightly to its back, with boot holes that fit a rather large shoe. near the rear of the saddle it had holsters strapped to it, one of which looked like it might have been for some kind of bulky rifle. Towards the front, it had saddle bags, which looked like they held long silvery poles in them.

When she turned her gaze back to his eyes, which she could barely see a human complexion to underneath its glow, she noticed for just a brief moment that Om Plug seemed to be looking at her. It was with neither anger, like she expected, nor with bewilderment, like she most definitely had in her own, but rather with a mixture of curiosity and anticipation, like someone who was reading a book, and had just gotten to the good part. As soon as she looked, however, his eyes snapped back to the front, staring straight ahead like he hadn't just been watching her.

"Return to your Rider, Om Plug", the man said, and the horse once again marched off into the shadows.

"You see, child", the man told her gently, "I have been following your master since his true inception, when his driving force was vengeance, and his thirst for death was unquenchable. When he was bit, I was there, and when he rose to power, I was by his side. I helped him along his journey... until Anna came along. Then he fell for her, and he was lost to me. That despicable Helsing family helped convince him that he was too powerful for his own good, so he sealed himself from the world... and me. But now, I have you."

"Me?"

"Yes, you."

"What could you possibly need me for?"

The man smiled wide.

"You see, child", he told Seras, "you are offspring to him, in a way, and by extension, you are offspring to me. You are my bridge to him, and I intend to cross that bridge."

Something about the way he had said "cross" made Seras recognize immediately that she didn't want to accept whatever offer he had prepared.

"All you need do", he continued, giving her a smile that showed off his fangs, "is accept my own bite."

"Um", Seras said, taking a step back, "I, um... don't really like to be bit."

"I understand, child", the man told her, relaxing his face back into that soft smile. "But it is a moment's discomfort for unimaginable power."

"I don't want power", Seras told him, becoming agitated, "I just want to live!"

"I'm afraid that once you have... died... you remain dead, my dear."

"Well, then, no bloody thanks!"

The smile disappeared from his face. He tapped his cane on the ground, and suddenly, he was someone else.

He wore a wide-brimmed, brown hat, an old, black duster, light brown cotton pants held up by a pair of brown suspenders that accented a white, cotton button-up shirt. He had a nice pair of dark brown shoes that went well with his pants. His hat sported a crossed revolvers insignia made of brass, which looked a little brash and boisterous, yet it didn't seem out of place on him. The thing that changed most, however, was his face. He now had a youthful, if knowledgeable, and almost mocking complexion about him, in some ways strikingly similar to Alucard's own face, and his hair had grown down past his ears and lost its white color, changing instead to jet black. His hands, still uncovered, were rough and calloused, especially so around the knuckles, and his eyes glowed red like a demented spotlight, having no discernible features beneath the glow. the cane he held now sported a little skull on its top

"Listen, little lady", he said, in a tone that was deep, gravely, a little bit deadpan, and very dangerous, "I'm not sure that you've got much of a choice here. You're in my world, and when you're in my world, you play by my rules."

"You're wrong, ya muppet", Seras told him. "If you need me to get to him, then you ain't gonna hurt me. I know how this kinda crap works."

The man stared her down, becoming unmoving like a horrific statue to some god of death. Slowly, the corners of his mouth turned up, revealing a mouth full of sharp, white, almost knife-like teeth. He quite suddenly threw his head back and laughed, startling Seras into jumping.

His features began to melt back to what they had been before, to the kindly old man he had once been.

"You're right, child", he told her gently. "I won't harm you. But you will harm your master."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

The man waved a hand, and an image appeared behind him. The image was of Alucard, Pip, and Six Gun, all surrounding the table where Seras lay. The Iscariots all had their rifles leveled at them, minus Anderson, who still seemed to be sitting where he had been. The Iscariots began inching closer, and Alucard drew both of his pistols.

"Any one of you pricks move", Alucard shouted, "I'll execute every motherfucking one of you!"

"You see, Seras", he told her, "the strain you have put on him? I can keep you here indefinitely, and at the end of the day, you're the one on the ticking clock. Because that werewolf venom is still working its way up your veins, and you're torturing him by letting yourself go. Is that what you want? To be named someone's tormentor?"

Seras listened intently, but movement in the background caught her eye. Anderson moved his fingers up to her eyelids, peeling one back to see underneath, and letting it slowly back down, a puzzled look on his face.

"Seras", the man told her, "you pretend that you don't care about him, and I know you have your differences... and your doubts."

Suddenly, Anderson's face lit up with understanding. He sat up straight, focusing his core, and began breathing deeply, letting his eyelids roll shut in concentration.

"But at the end of it all", he concluded, "you will return to him. Because we are, after all, one... big... happy... family."

Anderson gently brought a hand up, and laid it across her forehead.

"So for me", he told her, "this whole debacle is only a matter of time before a resolution reveals itself. And waiting is something that I am very, very good at."

Seras began to feel a warmth creeping up behind her. The man grew a puzzled look on his face, and glanced over her shoulder to see what was behind her. Seras cranked her neck around to see the warm source as well.

Light.

A doorway of light.

Seras didn't need to think about it. She turned, and sprinted for the light. She couldn't feel the man following her, and for a moment, she entertained the thought of being home free. But as soon as she reached the light, her flesh began sizzling. Her whole body felt like it was on fire. She shrieked, and jumped back instinctively. The man chuckled.

"You could leave through the light, yes", the man told her merrily, "but it is difficult to stand in the light when one belongs to the dark."

In a flash, he was by her side.

"Tell me, Seras", he asked her in a voice that suggested he already knew the answer to his question, "what keeps you in the dark?"

Seras could swear that she heard boots pounding across tile floor, coming from the door, but she couldn't be sure.

"I don't know", she told him, with tears welling up in her eyes, "I've done nothing wrong!"

"Then the answer is quite obvious, don't you think?"

"No!"

"The only thing that keeps you in the dark is your fear. You are a coward, unable to move forward, for fear that the way forward will burn you, so to speak."

"You don't know anything about me!"

"But I know everything about you, Seras! After all... I am your-"

"HEAVENLY FATHER, SHIELD ME", Alexander Anderson cried out, as he jumped through the doorway of light, swinging a bayonet at the man.

The man seemed fazed by the sudden appearance of Anderson, but not so much that he couldn't quickly dodge... so quick, in fact, that it appeared he had simply shifted from one area to another without truly moving. As Anderson brought down another strike, the man physically moved to dodge, easily ducking under the blessed blade. The man brought his cane up, and pushed Anderson back with it, giving him enough time to change his appearance back to that cynical, dangerous man.

"Well, what do we have here", he said, in that same, gravelly voice. "A little sheep got lost from its flock. You walked into the wolf's den, sheep, and now I'm gonna make you my dinner."

"You'll find this sheep's got horns", Anderson told him, in the way that men will when they vie for domination. "And you'll find that this particular sheep is quite proficient with 'em, Cain."

"Is it really that obvious", the man said, in a deadpan tone and wicked grin that indicated he may not have minded that someone had finally found him out.

"Aye", Anderson affirmed. "Ya stick out like a sore on a donkey's arse."

"Well, then", Cain told Anderson with that same grin, "I suppose there's no point in hiding it."

Suddenly, Seras felt an overwhelming weight on her chest, as if the very air was being pushed out of her lungs. Anderson, apparently already aware of what was about to happen, quickly flung his bayonet in Cain's direction. Cain dodged, but not with quite the same speed he had shown previously. The bayonet tore a ribbon off of his white shirt, and left a thin red line underneath.

Anderson grunted. Cain grew a long, wide, toothy grin.

Suddenly, Anderson's side exploded into a bloody geyser. Blood gushed straight out of a gash that seemed to have almost instantaneously appeared. Seras was entirely certain that she hadn't seen Cain move that entire time, yet Anderson was critically wounded... in the same spot Cain had been barely scratched in.

"Looks like you're up shit creek", Cain told Anderson through that big grin, as Anderson fell to the ground, clutching his side in pain. "And now you've just gone and lost your paddle."

Cain approached Anderson, his teeth growing long and sharp in his mouth. the wound at his side evaporated, and his clothes mended so quickly, it was almost as if he had never been wounded in the first place.

"I've never added a Regenerator to my fold before", he said offhandedly, still making confident strides towards the wounded father. "Alucard seems to think they'd be the next evolution of vampires. Can you believe that, little girl?"

Seras had tried to get as flat on the ground as possible, and now she was scrambling back towards that doorway of light. The warmth it provided was little comfort to what was unfolding before her. Cain reached down towards Anderson's neck.

"You know", Cain said, as he paused to sniff Anderson's skin, "I've heard it said that no good deed goes unpunished, father. You think that's 'cause we run this world?"

"Ya may be correct", Anderson told Cain, "but there's hope at the end for us, 'cause the Lord's gonna burn ye bastards away!"

Anderson leapt up, pushing the silver cross hanging around his neck into Cain's forehead. Cain howled in pain, stepping back, and holding his face in his hands. His appearance melted once more, into that boy with the tunic and long hair Seras had been shown in the vision, only now, his face was wrinkled, and his hair was snow white.

Anderson turned and sprinted, his wound sealing up right as he reached Seras. He grabbed her up by the arm, and quickly hauled her to her feet.

"C'mon, girly", he told her, "we're leavin'."

Anderson held onto her hand, yanking her through the doorway. Her flesh sizzled, and she cried out in pain. It wasn't fair that Anderson was putting her through this; after all-

Her illusions were shattered as she saw smoke rising from Anderson's skin as well. Anderson gritted his teeth and trudged forward, squinting his eyes against the blinding light. Seras swallowed, and lunged in behind him, biting her lip to keep from screaming.

Behind her, Cain lowered his hands, the burn mark where the cross had embedded in his flesh finally fading away.

"Burn us away", he asked in a questioning tone, as he once again melted into the kindly old man in the black suit, glaring at their backs as they left him behind. "We'll see... about that."

...

Seras awoke with a scream. She had just had a horrible dream, and now her arm was in terrible pain. Turning to her left, she could see that Anderson was in terrible pain, too, clutching at his side, and grimacing. Turning to her right, she could see Alucard was aiming his huge handcannons at the people who were supposed to be helping them. To his right, Six Gun had picked up his shotgun, and to his left, Pip was leveling his 1911.

"M-Master", Seras said, finding her throat was dry and her words were like shards of glass coming up her esophagus.

Alucard turned his head around, lowering his guns. He did a full 180, and let his guns drop to the ground. He walked straight up to her, and took her right hand, squeezing it hard.

"I'm right here", he told her, looking over his glasses to look into her eyes.

"Mon Chere", Pip practically cried out, as he holstered his gun, and raced to her side. "Your arm!"

Seras glanced back down at her left arm, and to her pleasant surprise, the track marks were beating a hasty retreat back to the center point of the wound. There was still plenty of swelling around the bite, and it still looked like something that would otherwise be up for amputation. But finally, there was some good news.

Anderson leaned back up, looking over her arm, intently watching the tracks. When they had retreated to the area of swelling, Anderson looked up at Alucard.

"Now or never", he told the old vampire.

Alucard grabbed Seras' right hand, and steadied her upper arm with his other. He opened his mouth, extending his fangs, and threw his mouth onto the bite. Seras screamed at the intense and very weird sensation of having the venom sucked out of her arm, yet to her great surprise, the swelling went down in a matter of seconds. When Alucard withdrew his fangs from the wound, it looked to be no more than a few holes with a little blood leaking from them.

Alucard stood up straight, nodding at Anderson. Anderson nodded right back, and reached into his coat that lay beside him.

In a flash, Anderson withdrew a bayonet, and cleaved Alucard's head from his shoulders. Blood flew everywhere, and Seras let out a piercing scream of shock at the sight. Pip once again leveled his pistol at Anderson, but Anderson had already vaulted the table, and sliced a huge line into Alucard's chest. The decapitated body made an odd gurgling sound as Anderson reached into his pants pocket, withdrawing a small glass jar filled with clear liquid, a cross emblazoned on it. Anderson pushed it straight into the wound, and rammed his bayonet into it, shattering it inside of Alucard's body.

The body continued making those odd gurgling noises, as it stumbled backwards, clutching its chest in pain. The Iscariots all raised their rifles, aiming at the decapitated creature. Anderson raised his hand, and pointed to the head instead, which lay on one cheek, with a black fluid leaking from its mouth.

Seras screamed as everyone fired their rifles at once, reducing the head to a mound of meat in a matter of seconds. Then Anderson pointed at the body, and they unleashed a storm of bullets on it, too, pricking the white shirt full of red holes like some kind of pin cushion.

Pip once again leveled his 1911 at Anderson, yelling, "Stop!"

Anderson pointed his bayonet at Pip in a gesture of defiance, declaring, "Fire that weapon, lady, see what happens."

By this point, all of the other Iscariots had stopped firing on Alucard's mangled corpse, and had turned their weapons on Pip and Six Gun instead. Pip grimaced, but kept his aim level. Six Gun racked his shotgun in defiance.

However, as soon as the corpse of Alucard rose again, complete with a half-finished face, the mood changed entirely.

The half-finished face gave an odd half-grin as the rest of him was knit back together, and advanced quickly on Anderson. Anderson almost instinctively turned towards him, dropping the bayonet in his hand, letting it clatter to the ground. The two men clasped hands in what appeared to be the same style as the hand shake in Predator.

"We bleedin' did it, laddy", Anderson said through his wide grin.

"Meh, I knew we would", Alucard told him nonchalantly, as they dropped the handshake.

"Father Anderson", an Iscariot with a thick Italian accent commented, "I believe I speak for all of us when I ask why you would go to such lengths to save this woman... and furthermore, why you would allow what is essentially a walking blasphemy into a sacred church... no offense."

"He's talking about you, Pip", Alucard told him with a sideways grin. "You better say, 'none taken'!"

"Look, lads and lasses", Anderson told them all, puffing out his barreled, meaty chest, "I know that what I've done may seem strange to all of you, but I've given all of yous the same speech a hundred times. Sometimes I do things that are questionable, but I always do it with Christ and the Church in mind. One of these days, all that I've done will make sense, but until that day comes, just know that I would not lead ye down a false path, nor make ya worship any false gods. That being said, these idiots are now welcome members of our beloved church, and ye best treat 'em like it, or I'll clobber the lot of ya."

Seras got the distinct impression that the Iscariots weren't happy with the newcomers being welcome, much less in their cathedral, but none of them voiced any further complaints. Alucard glanced back at Seras, as if he were trying to remind himself that she was alive and well. Something on the ground by her table caught his eye, and he bent over to pick it up. To Seras' horror, it was her doodling journal. Alucard quickly stuffed it into the pocket of his pants, as Anderson approached the table once more.

"You're safe here, lass", Anderson affirmed to her, despite being sweaty and shirtless. "No harm'll come to ye. Get some rest; you'll need it."

She tried to open her mouth and say something, but her throat felt like she had been binge-eating fiberglass for three days straight. She pointed to Alucard's pocket, but Anderson gently pushed her arm back to her side, gently shushing her.

"Rest now, ya hear?"

Pip slid up next to her table as well, planting his back firmly against it, and crossing his arms over his chest, intently watching the Iscariots that still milled about, uncertain of what to do. He withdrew a cigarette, putting it between his lips. Almost instantly, Anderson reached over and plucked it from him.

"Ya shouldn't smoke these, lass", he told Pip with a disappointed look on his face. "They'll kill ya, aye?"

He turned around, grinning at Alucard, saying, "Ay, old boy, I've got a present for ya!"

By then, Seras was beginning to realize just how heavy her eyelids were. She supposed it wouldn't make too much of a difference if she just closed them for a moment...

...

Schrodinger really didn't want to be standing in front of the congregation on the zeppelin right now; in fact, more than anything, he wanted to find a dark corner to curl up in. Yet, here he was, standing before the entire congregation of the small incursion force, about two hundred in total on this smaller assault zeppelin, with such charming faces as Captain Logan and the Major himself. Zorin had been given the enviable task of preparing the other two zeppelins in the fleet with the annihilation of London, while he, of course, was being stared at disapprovingly by the crew of this smaller vessel.

It wasn't so much that he had failed that was making him feel uncomfortable being up here... moreover, it was something he had seen because of his failure.

After he had finished off the werewolf who had snuck up on him, he had turned his head to see Alucard being run through with a broken sword. Thinking that this was a rather interesting sight, he turned to pick up the camera and hopefully salvage this shit recording session, when a single word escaped the woman's lips, in the form of a question.

"Vlad?"

Asked with such passion, such vibrant wonder, it resembled someone learning what they already knew to be true, but in a context that finally made sense. For someone who existed simply because he knew he did, it made the hairs on his arms stand on end. As he turned towards the two people, he was witnessing someone truly exist for the first time in a very long time, and not by their own accord.

As the man, with his long, flowing, curly hair, and his long mustache smiled, it was like watching someone who was dead in the soul breathed back to life. He was watching something he had almost forgotten himself; true beauty. It captivated him to no end.

"I don't blame you for forgetting me, Anna", the man told her, in an accent that was similar to hers, yet impossibly richer and thicker. "It is hard for me to remember the man I once was. A man who found worth in words like Justice and Righteousness. Too long ago, that man, who was forced from a boy, was forced from me, and I feel like I have since been endlessly adrift at sea... on a prison ship."

Now, the boy was wrestling with some questions of his own; what questions he should be asking, since he felt compelled to ask something, or if he should be asking them at all.

"Now then", the Major addressed the crowd, interrupting his thoughts. "Who can tell me what Warrant Officer Schrodinger did wrong?"

He had to restrain from bristling every time they addressed him by his rank. Warrant Officer was a title given to him ceremonially, more to excuse his age rather than promote him. It was yet another reminder of the fact that Mengele had chosen to conduct his experiment on a child rather than a consenting man.

"Um", one of the men from the crowd spoke up, "he called Captain Logan mean names?"

That was another thing, too. When the werewolf had snuck up on him, he had been enraged enough to direct a nearly fifteen-minute-long rant at werewolves in general, and five of those minutes were directed at Logan specifically. He didn't have any particular thing against the man; in fact, he quite respected him as one of the only crewmen who didn't constantly treat him as either a child or a pet. Moreover, the rage itself was focused on the fact that Logan never spoke. There were plenty of occasions when Schrodinger would feel comfortable to ask Logan advice or guidance, only for the man to either grunt or silently stare at him, and then the awkward cycle would continue yet again.

Logan, for his part, had taken the rant during the video in stride. Perhaps he was, himself, quite aware of how his silent impassableness made him rather difficult to like. Now, it seemed, that fact didn't even bother him.

"While I would consider it unwise to direct your wrath towards a man who can manipulate astral projection", the Major told the questionnaire, "our Logan is a rather level-headed character, and criticism is something he is willing to take in stride. Therefore, nein, that is not what Schrodinger did wrong."

"He broke the camera?"

"While it is unfortunate the camera is mostly unsalvageable", the Major told him, "equipment is cheap when you've got Hitler's gold in your bank account, nein?"

"He should have let the werewolf rape him?"

That was another precarious fact of the matter that Schrodinger didn't care to think too hard on. The werewolf in question had called him a "pretty little thing", and had tried to pull his pants down shortly before he had taken a knife to the face. Schrodinger couldn't repress a shudder as thinking of that werewolf pulling down his pants brought back even worse memories of Auschwitz.

"First of all, Klaus", the Major said, narrowing his eyes at the questioning comrade, "I want you to report to Doc's room for a psychiatric checkup immediately. Seriously, who the fuck starts a conversation like that?"

The Nazi in question left the room, grumbling about how he was just throwing out ideas.

"Second of all", the Major continued, "nein; Herr Schrodinger is not an object to be toyed with. He is a soldier, with soldierly duties."

That was about the highest praise he had ever gotten from the Major. He would have been beaming with pride if he wasn't still trying to shake away the dark thoughts that kept demanding his attention. He was a thinking creature by nature, with thought being the very blood that flowed through his veins, and when a thought entered his mind, it couldn't leave like a normal man's thoughts could.

"Nein, I do believe you are all quite missing the point-"

"He should have set up the tripod?"

"NEIN! Well, actually, ja, but there is more to it than that... he should have been prepared, mein fellow Germans, prepared to film in the event that he wasn't able to do so himself! You see, mein brothers in arms, we have been preparing for this war for so long that we seem to be forgetting that preparation is our salvation! We doddle about without a care in the world, forgetting so plainly that when we do the simple tasks... when we do the creative, forward thinking tasks, we are setting ourselves up for success! Ja, a big portion of the outcome of this coming war will depend on luck... but, as they say, luck... favors... the prepared!"

"So, he should have set up the tripod?"

"Ja, ja, he should have set up the tripod. Fine, if that's all you want to take from this, then you're all dismissed to go do whatever it is you do."

As the congregation went off to go do their daily tasks, the Major turned to Schrodinger, saying, "Don't leave just yet, Warrant Officer. I have a word of advice before you go."

Schrodinger was able to disguise his small sigh as a cough, but he didn't think he could do the same with an eyeroll, so he didn't try it.

"Schrodinger", the Major said, "you are a thinking creature by nature, are you not?"

He was, indeed; currently, Schrodinger was thinking about how hard he would have to punch the Major in the gut to get through all of his layers of fat.

"I believe the biggest flaw of this last mission was that the enemy had the advantage of forewarning. I believe Alucard is at his most... captivating... when his arrivals are unannounced."

The Major knelt down, and leaned in towards Schrodinger. The smell of engine oil was strong about him as his lips curled into a smile.

"Here, therefore, is something for you to think about. The best way to get Alucard into a place that doesn't know he's coming is to goad him into such, nein? Why don't we do some goading then?"

Author's Notes:

If you can't tell, I'm not fond of author's notes, but there are a few things I have to address.

Thing 1: It's been a while since I've uploaded. I have returned from the land of the living to bring the dead this crap in a box. Unfortunately, life is becoming rather difficult, and I've gotta make time cuts somewhere. I will no longer be updating on a regular schedule; however, the story is by no means dead, and I shall see to it that it gets finished, at all costs.

Thing 2: Any resemblance that The Stranger carries to Stephan Weyte or Caleb from Blood are probably somewhat purely coincidental... maybe.

Thing 3: I know there's some pretty heavy themes in here, especially for a story that has Asinine in the title, and for the next few chapters, it's going to remain pretty heavy. Fair warning, if you think it's dark now, it's about to get ten times darker.