Author's Note: This is what happens when you let Juju watch Netflix documentaries about witch hunts. In my defense, it was a really, really good documentary.

"Go on then, Police Girl, tell me." There was a single gunshot and a Ghoul's head exploded mere inches from her own. Seras Victoria squeaked and threw up her shadows at the last minute; it was enough to keep most of the Ghoul Gunk (as she unaffectionately called it) off her body, but she felt a bit of brain splatter across the top of her head, too fast for her delayed reaction. She scowled and rubbed furiously at her head, but it did little more than stain her glove and work the rotting organ further into her hair. Great, now I'll smell like a corpse for a week. "Tell me you don't love me."

"I hate you, you godless shite." This only made her infuriating partner laugh, though to be honest he had been laughing all night anyway. Being allowed to roam free in his own element, in a dense wood beneath the full moon, taking down Ghouls without having to worry about cleanup duty and being able to destroy as many trees as he liked: it was as close as he could get to paradise on earth. Or Seras thought so, anyway. "I ought to just put in my two weeks. There's a million better things I could do than let you make a fool of me every night."

"You'd do that even if I weren't around." Bang, bang! Two more moaning hunks of putrid flesh dropped to the ground, dissolving into greasy ash that stained the mulchy forest floor.

"I don't make it my life's business to stay covered in grimy slop after every mission!" she argued loudly, grabbing a Ghoul that was clacking its wobbly teeth too close to her hand and shoving it face-first into a tree trunk. The face caved in on itself, jaws still working as it slumped over and skull fluids began to leak around one punctured eyeball. She waited until he came close and then rubbed her hand down his vest, smearing the odorous mess over his chest. He dropped one gun and grabbed her hand, keeping it trapped over his heart. She felt the cold emptiness beneath her fingers, wondering whether there would even be a lifeless organ there if she sliced his cavity open, or if he was literally as well as figuratively heartless. He's not heartless, though, a small voice in the back of her mind protested. He just has it set on different things.

"All the better to clean it off of you, my dear. If it makes you feel better, once we return I'll lick every inch of your skin until you're spotless." His grin widened from false generosity to downright mockery as she glared up at him, trying to pull her fingers away.

"Get stuffed," she growled when he finally allowed her to yank her hand back, turning on her heel and stomping through the trees. His laughter renewed and followed her, making her blush with mingled anger and embarrassment. In reality, he had never even so much as made to kiss her, much less go for a full on skin-licking anything. But the bolder she'd grown around him, the bolder he'd became in return until making sexual references was nearly as commonplace as Walter bringing her breakfast each evening. When she was in better moods she returned as easily as he gave, the two of them sometimes reaching such a pitch that even Sir Integra looked sideways at them, as though wondering if they were only joking or really had some secret liaison. She had never said anything, and as far as she knew neither had he. It was almost fun to keep everyone guessing what the true nature of their relationship was… until he became as insufferable as he was being tonight.

"You really hate your old master, Police Girl?" She jumped; he had sidled up to her again while she was lost in her thoughts and surprised her. She put a few paces between them again, wondering at his lack of etiquette. He acted as though personal space wasn't a thing!

"You want to know what I think about you?" she asked sweetly, intending to give him the lecture of the century if he took the bait. His smile crept further up one side of his face than the other, cluing her in on the fact that he knew exactly what she was about to do. He really is a bastard sometimes… no wonder Sir Integra stays stressed. At least I'm not really in charge of him, like she is. That was a joy in and of itself; not only did it mean that she was off the hook if he actually did misbehave in any way, but she also could technically turn a blind eye when it suited her to. It was almost frightening, how downright devilish she was becoming as the years passed.

"Please tell me," he purred in answer, closing the space between them once more. She didn't back away this time, instead letting him loom over her as her own smirk reached sneer-status. "I do miss hearing those obnoxiously loud thoughts of yours." A Ghoul stumbled into the clearing and Alucard shot, his eyes not straying from her face. She heard it dissolve as the bullet struck true, as well as the moaning sound of the rest of the Hoard as it trampled over roots and leaves in an effort to reach fresh meat.

"I think you're… Bible." He blinked twice in quick succession, watching blankly as she ducked down. A familiar scent caught on the air, half-hidden by the stench of Ghoul, and she cursed herself as she realized that she'd let her guard down. He had too, by the sound of it, since the book she'd caught sight of thumped against his skull. A split-second passed and then a loud boom ripped through the air, echoing in the woods all around them. She heard a startled flock of birds awaken and fly out into the night, calling to each other in their distress and confusion.

She tentatively opened her eyes, surprised at being unshaken by the explosion, and saw that shadows again swarmed around her body. They weren't her shades and she was both relieved and irritated that he had protected her, as though she were still some cowering fledging that needed the benefit of his watchful eye. Those days had been left behind years ago, when she was young and unlife had been more puzzling, if not simpler. Looking around for Alucard, she found that he was literally all around; a hand lay close to her, a severed boot still stood where he'd been standing, his skull was blasted into a million little fragments all around. She pursed her lips, clambering to her feet. It would take him a minute or two to pull himself back together, so it was up to her to create a distraction until he did.

"Well, well… so I missed the Draculina. I must be getting rusty." She didn't have to look up into the scarred face of the man to know exactly who it was. Alucard's self-proclaimed nemesis, arch enemy of vampires and heathens: the man with a thousand names. But only one was his true name, that the select few knew—

"Father Anderson." She stood proud and courageous where she would have once been shaking in her boots. The man still frightened her, but at the end of the day he was only a man. Perhaps he had holy power, perhaps he was just a thing, as Sir Integra had once called him to his face. But he wasn't undefeatable, no matter what he was. And one day, he'd be dead in the earth, dead like a man, and she would still be as undead as she was today. She had decided long ago that he would not be her death.

"Aye," he answered, tilting his head to examine her from the other side of the clearing. Even in the pale light of the moon she could see the dark green of his irises, the same color that the leaves around them would be in full sunlight. "Tell me, lass," he continued in a conversational tone. "What are ye monsters doing here, on my own homeland?" It took her a long moment to realize that he meant Scotland; he was so irreversibly wrapped up with the Holy Office in her mind that it was nearly impossible to imagine that he'd ever came from anyplace other than Italy.

"Cleansing it, naturally." She sounded calmer than she felt; her adrenaline was on high alert, waiting for the first movement in what would be a battle for her life. But he seemed to merely want to talk for now, most likely biding his time until he could challenge Alucard to a proper fight. He would know that his cheap little trick did virtually nothing to the ancient vampire.

"Cleansing Vatican lands?" he chuckled, one brow arching over the rim of his glasses. "Someone like yerself, cleansing?" he laughed louder, shoulders shaking. "A black-hearted devil like ye could never cleanse anything."

"I'm not black-hearted!" she protested, though she felt foolish for letting his words get to her. "I've been good enough!"

"Good enough is what got ye into such a state," he remarked wryly, looking right at her face. She knew that all he saw was the scarlet-eyed, pale visage of a blood drinker. She felt a vein of frustration bubble within her breast; what did he know about who she was deep down?!

"Don't judge me," she scowled as he took a step nearer to her. Unlike Alucard, he was slow and loud, every touch of his heel crushing the grass. Staring at his feet, it clicked in her mind that something wasn't quite right, but she couldn't figure out what it might be. Ignoring it for the moment, she instead looked back at his face, mapping the coarse stubble and ugly scar that stretched across the broad jaw. "I don't judge you. I can't; I know nothing about you, other than the fact that you're a vampire hunter."

"I'm a purifier," he corrected her. Another step, another, another. "I hunt down anything tha' is a mockery in the face o' God, be it vampire or no." She didn't move, though he was now close enough that to her vampiric sight, the pores of his skin were visible. He needs some moisturizer…. Shaking the errant thought from her mind, she found her voice again.

"But are you pure, Father?" To her amazement, that question stopped and seemed to actually stump him for a moment, eyes widening in shock before clouding with puzzlement, then narrowing in anger.

"I am," he spat, but Seras could hear the uncertainty in his voice beneath the hatred. "Now—"

"I wouldn't touch me, if I were you." His hand had twitched, but now it rested at his side. "Alucard wouldn't like that very much," she added confidently.

"And why?" he sneered, looking down his nose at her. "We have eyes everywhere, eyes that tell us that yer not under the monster's thumb now. Yer a lone Draculina, though Draculina ye are." She scoffed at this, tossing her hair.

"I wouldn't say that." A shadow passed over the priest's face.

"Ah, so yer lovers then." His nose wrinkled in distaste. "Ye've gone and bedded with the devil himself, have ye? Mated up with a whoreson." She felt the blood stain her cheeks and prayed that he couldn't see the blush in the moonlight.

"We haven't touched; I'm afraid the Police Girl likes to play hard to get." A hand clapped on her shoulder from behind and it took everything she had not to jump in front of Anderson. "Or perhaps I'm not able to meet such high standards," he corrected jeeringly. "Either way, you should listen to her; if I'm not allowed to touch, why should you be?" A glint of metal had her turning her head to see the Jackal being thrust over her shoulder, aimed right at the holy man's heart. "Well met, my nemesis."

"It's about time ye showed yer face, vampire." Bayonets fell from his sleeves, grasped by ready hands. Caught in the middle, Seras didn't know whether to duck and roll out of the way or to wait for the action. But the standoff never became a real battle, as it might have should Anderson have not been distracted by something just out of sight. Seras heard a low growl and turned as well, halfway forgetting that Alucard was right behind her and smacking her nose one good time against his chest, right where the gunk she'd smeared on him had dried. She got a nose full of thick Ghoul stench with an underlayer of Alucard-scent before pushing him aside and looking with shock at the sight before her.

The Hoard she'd heard earlier had reached the clearing but they had all, for some reason, simply stopped. They stood idly between the trees, staring out at the clearing with their blank, glassy eyes and gaping maws. Arms hanging limply, if they had looked more alive, they might have been merely watching the fight escalating between the priest and the vampires. But every once in a while, one of them would growl— a sputtering sound low in the throat— or give a soft moan. Seras peered up at Alucard, who was also looking the Ghouls with a distinct lack of concern.

Turning back to their enemy (someone ought to be watching him, and between the two of them she was the more levelheaded), Seras saw Anderson look around the clearing as though just now realizing where they were at. To her astonishment he went three different shades of pale, each one more alarming than the last as the blood drained completely from his face. He looked quickly behind him at the crushed grass, then around at the Ghouls again. If she didn't know better, she'd have thought that he would faint away right then and there. But before she could decide whether or not she wanted to ask what the matter was, a low cry that was most definitely not Ghoul carried through the air.

"What is this!? What have ye done?!" Three heads turned to see the newcomer, standing at the opposite end of the clearing with a heaving chest and fisted hands. A young woman, perhaps only fifteen or sixteen, stood facing them all. At first, Seras was startled to see a human, knowing what a nightmare the Ghouls must seem, and the carnage they had wrought in the forest behind. But the woman faced the Ghouls with no fear, not blinking twice as she glanced at the priest's bayonets, at Alucard's two guns, at her own beloved canon lying where she'd dropped it after the explosion.

She moved towards them angrily, and Seras noticed two things simultaneously. First, she realized what had been bothering her earlier—despite being in the middle of the forest, the clearing had no leaves or debris anywhere within the confines of the circle. There was only moss and soft, soft grass. Second, she saw that the young woman's step left no trace of a footprint in the grass, no trodden markings like her own, Alucard's, and Anderson's boots had left. Looking back at the woman's shapeless white dress, the pale blonde ringlets floating around her face, the piercing ice of her eyes, lighter than even Sir Integra's, she felt that perhaps she was not quite human after all. She stopped just an arm's length from them, glaring from one body to the other with unholy rage burning in her gaze.

"How dare ye defy this place," she snarled. "Get those weapons away from here!" Seras felt a glimmer of fear at the woman's tone and reached for her Harkonnen, but Alucard stopped her with a gloved hand on her forearm. Anderson was looking in the opposite direction, as though afraid his eyes might catch the woman's accidentally, but he also kept one of the bayonets on him while the others vanished to wherever they had come from.

"And just who are you?" Alucard asked in his usual smooth, smug voice. "I'm not one to take orders."

"I am Gavina the Watcher. And yer overstepping yer bounds, Romàineach." She looked on him with disgust. "I dinnae go to yer woods and tell the Zâne how to do their job. Why should ye come do so to me? Let the lass go and obey me as her heart bids—at least one of ye isnae so daft tha' ye can understand the importance o' this place." Something in her tone surprised Alucard enough that he released her arm and Seras moved beside him to gently roll the Harkonnen out of the clearing and into the shadows of the trees beyond.

"And ye!" she continued, turning her viciousness to Anderson. "Ye've been away so long tha' ye cannae take an order? I see ye trying to ignore this place, pretending that ye dinnae know what I am. Get rid of yer little toy stick before ye find it stuck where it ought never to be." Anderson swallowed hard, but his fingers tightened around the bayonet.

"I am a godly man," he said, voice low but rising with every word. "And I am not afraid of some teuchter who thinks herself a witch!" The woman laughed scornfully, crossing her arms and boldly stepping towards him.

"Oh, I only think meself a witch, do I? How 'bout ye look me in the eyes then, ye scunner? Or do ye reckon that deep down, a man o' the cloth has no better protection from a true curse than the wee Sassenach there?" The woman's mocking grew louder when he didn't move. "Yer a good lad, then; yer ma told ye about letting a bonnie forest lass look ye dead in the eye, for then what?" She moved even closer. "Would she'd ken all yer secrets and leverage them against ye as punishment for defiling her coven's dancing circle? The sign o' God's cross willnae help ye for that."

"Look," Seras spoke up unsurely, voice wavering. The woman—or witch, if indeed she was one—was really rather frightening. "I'm—We're sorry for getting in your… dancing circle. We didn't know," she half-pleaded. The woman looked long and hard at her, right in the eyes, and Seras did feel as though she were looking deep into her soul, where all her innermost thoughts and desires were buried, farther down that Alucard himself had ever dared go. Then, her eyes softened to something akin to pity.

"Aye, ye dinnae ken what ye were doin', and for that I can and will forgive ye. But these," she added in a different tone, pointing to Alucard and Anderson respectively, "these no-goods knew exactly what they were in. Did ye not see the godly man turn pale as a helpless bairn when he saw what he'd done to the grass? And the Romàineach, who has lived a thousand lifetimes and more in the span o' his time, cannae tell me that he's oblivious to the mark o' a true witches circle."

"I knew very well what it was," Alucard said blatantly, crimson gaze burning into the pale one. "I just didn't care. What is it to me if I anger a few witches?"

"What indeed," the woman growled. "And that, my love, is why ye must be punished alongside him," she sighed after a moment, turning back to Seras. "For though ye have sense enough on yer own, he relies on yer sense to keep him out o' trouble. And as they say, 'Is treasa dithis a' dol thar àn àtha na fad' o chèile'."She nodded to herself.

"But I have no idea what that means!" Seras nearly whined, not wanting to be punished just because Alucard was being his usual self. She got enough of that at home, didn't she?! Why does God hate me so?! she wanted to scream, knowing that both Alucard and Anderson would say that God didn't pay attention to people who 'chose the night'.

"Ah, dinnae worry about it. What's important is that pairs stick together." She turned back to Anderson. "And as for ye, let me offer ye a wee bit o' advice, the same given to the first Christians to ever set their feet on this sacred land; I should know, I was there." She crossed her arms, turning up her nose and speaking in a loud, commanding voice that silenced even the Ghouls. "Cha dèanar sagart gun fhoghlam, 's cha dèan foghlam sagart."

"What nonsense!" Anderson shouted, turning without thinking to confront the witch. She smiled, locking eyes with him, and Seras watched the blood leave his face as he realized his mistake.

"Aye, and 'tis nonsense tha' seals yer fate, man o' God." She uncrossed her arms and the breeze picked up, stirring her long ringlets yet never touching a single leaf outside the clearing. Seras felt a chill on the wind that crept up her spine and made her shiver, leaning closer to Alucard instinctively. Her former master had his usual devil-may-care mask in place, but she could feel the first stirrings of unease coming through his aura. Anderson just looked frightened, an expression that didn't become him in the slightest.

The witch raised her arms above her head and clapped her hands three times slowly, laughing as she did so. The wind became a tormenting gust and her lips moved, but no words could be heard over the whistling in Seras's ears. Then, it felt as though something deep within her heart was plucked away, pulled out painlessly through skin and bone and leaving a deep, throbbing ache in her chest that didn't go away. She looked up just in time to see the wind die down and a white hawk circling the clearing, screeching down at them before sailing over the trees. In the back of her mind, the witch's voice echoed. Ye and I will meet again, lass, when the July snow sits heavy o'er the hills o' England.

Snow, in July? Seras had never felt more befuddled, and she placed a hand over the throbbing in her chest, trying to see what mortal wound the witch had done to her. She blinked down at her hand, but to her astonishment she could barely see her glove against the stark blue of her uniform. She could, however, see enough to know that her body was intact, nothing piercing her body in any way. After a quick reflection, panic sat in as she realized what it was. In response to her fear, the throbbing—no, the heartbeat, sped up.

"Um…A-Al—" Before she could speak, there was a scrambling and a surprised gasp. The moon came out from behind a cloud, throwing the clearing into proper light, and she gasped as well as she saw the priest. It was Anderson, and yet, it wasn't. This Anderson was odd, smaller almost, though still tall. It was his muscles, she decided after a moment. They weren't quite as large, and there was a bagginess to his cassock that hadn't been there before. His hair was the same length, but no scar marred his features, no scraggy beginnings of a beard shadowing his face. He was feeling his newly healed cheek with one hand, gloved fingers running over the smooth skin and his eyes wide with shock and horror.

"Oh no," he whispered. "Oh no, oh no, oh no…" He threw out his hand, waiting for something. Nothing happened, and he sank to his knees. "No, God in heaven," he murmured, his head sinking down to rest his chin on his chest. "What has she done? What has she done!?" he whispered to the clearing. It was as though he'd forgotten that the vampires were there, shaking his head and staring at the ground.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned quickly, having heard nothing. Looking up, she saw a bearded, mustached face looking back at her, framed by twisting ebony tangles that hung longer than her own hair, past the shoulders and down the back. Two large, blue eyes that were a few shades darker than her own gazed down at her, roaming over her face as the lips parted and a soft breath escaped. Despite the marked changes, she still recognized Alucard and a dreadful fear came over her. Could it be? Could it possibly be?

She reached for the hand on her shoulder, feeling the warmth seeping through her uniform, and held it loosely in hers, mind in overdrive. Then she slowly put the hand, palm out and fingers spread, on her chest. The eyes dilated, widening, and she kept her hand on top of his as her other reached for his chest, brushing back strands of hair and placing her own palm above his heart. It was true, her fears confirmed.

Beneath her palm, she could feel the steady thudding of a heart that hadn't beat in over five hundred long years.

Afterword: (grin) Ah, the witch has done some magic! I'm sure y'all can think of quite a few problems to be had now, hmm? After all, that clearing is the only thing keeping our newly… incapacitated characters away from some hungry Ghouls!

Is treasa dithis a' dol thar àn àtha na fad' o chèile: "Two should stay together when crossing a ford"

Cha dèanar sagart gun fhoghlam, 's cha dèan foghlam sagart: "A priest should be learned, but learning won't make a priest."