Sorry this took me so long! I hope you enjoy this chapter despite its lateness.

Erszebet = Hungary

I don't own Hetalia! end/AN/

Feliks watched Roderich as he carefully handed him a glass of water.

"It's important to be hydrated," the man said with a murmur. Then he disappeared through an archway deeper into the house.

The churning in Feliks' gut wouldn't let him appreciate how warm the blanket was, nor how pretty the house was. It was tastefully decorated, with antique furniture and old portraits on the walls. The wallpaper had green ribbons running through it, and if Feliks took a whiff through his nose, there was the heavy scent of lavender and salt.

It was a tall house, from the outside, and though this room was small, Felix was sure he had glimpsed high ceilings.

He wished that Roderich would get his wife here and save him soon. She seemed like a good person, an angel, a saint, for daring to help him.

"Hello, I'm Erszebet." She was an angel, Feliks decided. Erszebet stood over him, long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and leather coat unzipped to reveal a pretty white blouse.

"Feliks. You said you could help me?" Feliks was desperate, ready to do anything this woman told him as his arteries felt as though they would burst with the pressure building in his body.

"Yes," she smiled, "Come with me."

Arthur grumbled to himself as the car rumbled along, wind whipping through the broken window.

Aage hadn't spoken a word, instead choosing to focus on the road. Even when Arthur had asked how long this was going to take, he'd barely murmured a vague 'a little bit' back.

Nothing was quite going the way Arthur had hoped it would. Not only was that vampire proving to be a pain, but Aage was practically ignoring him. And he wasn't some teenage girl desperate for attention, but…

Arthur didn't have many friends. More correctly, he had a teenage kid named Alfred next door who he sometimes helped out with Boy Scout projects and homework, and siblings who he didn't talk to. His mum had passed at an early age (for a mum), and he didn't have a father that he knew about.

He'd been alone, mostly, except for the occasional friendly sprite and the unicorn he had once befriended, only to watch it die a slow, whimpering death in his backyard, hidden from the sight of normal people.

So, the point was, he'd hoped to find a kindred spirit. He'd hoped for too much, he knew.

Aage mechanically turned the wheel, making a turn in a smooth curve. His blonde hair seemed to hang a bit in his eyes, but he barely bothered to blink it out.

Arthur gave a sigh, from his spot in the backseat. Aage had insisted on no one sitting in the passenger seat up front until they had vacuumed the glass off. It felt strangely disconnecting to be here, watching the back of Aage's head and occasionally seeing the side of his face as he looked to turn.

A sprite seemed to zoom past the window, and Arthur briefly wondered if they were entering a magical neighborhood. But then it was gone, and Aage was stopping the car.

"He's ahead a couple of houses," Aage said as he slipped out of the front seat, slamming the door shut behind him gently. The breeze was sending a few leaves twirling about them like particularly lazy birds, and Arthur was sure there must be more sprites about.

But now was unfortunately not the time to pursue his more favorite part of his job. "Why are we stopping here? I'm telling you, he's run off to feast. The sooner we get there to stop him, the better."

"We must sneak up," Aage said, his tone sounding flatly annoyed. He headed towards the house, which was three-storied.

And Arthur would have followed him; but just then, a dark figure came flying up the path, colliding with Aage. It was not an innocent blunder, Arthur sensed it immediately, and tried to grab the mysterious woman.

"Keep your nose clean, Landvik," the figure hissed, suddenly stamping her palm against Aage's forehead and sending him stumbling backwards.

Arthur only narrowly caught him, having to let the woman disappear down around the corner in favor Aage not cutting his head on the sidewalk.

As Aage turned to face him, the fellow wizard demanded, "What did she put on my forehead? A curse? A jinx? A tracking charm?"

It was a red ring, but it was swiftly changing into a complicated pattern of loops and sharp corners. Arthur instantly recognized it, and his stomach plummeted. "It's a changing curse. It looks like, well, I hate to say this, but it's a ghoul one."

A changing curse worked slowly; basically, once it was imprinted on a person, they slowly changed into whatever it was the curse entailed. In this case, a ghoul, a malevolent spirit that fed on corpses. It had little mind for anything other than feeding on the dead, and was known to haunt graveyards obsessively. Arthur had dispersed several in his time, and he knew them best for the creepy, deathlike chill they put over people who came near them.

Aage didn't look alarmed. "Then we'll have to force her to remove it; I sensed, Arthur, that she was a wizard, one of the ones we traced today."

"Then we have to chase her!" Arthur turned around abruptly to run where she had gone. Aage caught his shoulder.

"She's gone; she teleported." He turned back towards the house, stating, "We must rescue Mihai."

Teleportation was a single person affair; there was little a person could take with them, barely the clothes on their back. And it left no trace as to where the person had gone. Arthur wished he had the tracking senses of Aage; he would have known instantly what she was and where she had gone as well.

But anger was back in his chest at Mihai. This was the vampire's fault too! He was going to tear that fool limb from limb!

Aage ambled ahead, seeming to take little care to conceal himself. Arthur worried that the shock had set in, that Aage was terrified of what he was going to become. He tried to speak up and help. "Look, we'll leave Mihai and find someone who can remove it. Then we can come find him again later." Or better yet, not come back for him at all.

Turning around, Aage gave Arthur a bemused glance. "No. This is more important. This changing curse will take some time to have any effect, anyway."

Was Aage stupid? Did he know how hard it was to find someone who could remove a curse that was not their own, especially something like this? Arthur found himself glaring at Aage. "But it will take forever to find the right wizard! Do you want to be a ghoul?!"

Aage set his mouth into a thin line, and turned back towards the house. "I'm going to get Mihai. If you don't want to come with me, you can go home."

Arthur stared at him, flabbergasted. Go home? As if that was even an option in a crisis like this! He grumbled under his breath, and grudgingly followed after Aage. It seemed his fellow wizard was so much less than reasonable after all.

Ari slowly opened his eyes, only to find himself staring at the cement ceiling of some unknown place. He tried to turn his head, only to find it was quite firmly strapped into place. He could make out some of the place; there were many symbols all over the wall, including many he didn't recognize at all. They were magic, though, there was no doubt about that.

He caught movement at the edge of his vision, and strained to look. A figure carried another one slumped over its shoulder, which quickly rolled out of his vision as it put the slumped figure down.

Murmurings were reaching his ears like buzzing; his head felt like a motorcycle had run it over. He couldn't quite make out the noises. He got the sudden urge to vomit, and cried out, terrified he was going to drown in his own puke.

"The little one's awake," came a feminine voice, and a face appeared over his. She was older than him, he thought, and her hair was hidden by a hood.

"I'm going to hurl," he whimpered, pushing against the head strap- and the other straps he found himself held down with.

A cool hand laid on his forehead. Soft words came out of the woman's mouth, and he found his nausea subsiding.

"Why am I here? Where am I?" Ari was terrified, for lack of a better word. Even if this woman seemed nice enough, she was holding him here against his will.

"Shhh, go to sleep," she said, eyes blinking slowly and turning almost hypnotizing. Were they brown or blue or green?

He felt a haze go over him; she was putting him to sleep! He fought against it, struggling against the straps again and begging her to stop. But pretty soon, he found himself only narrowly awake.

A hyper, perky little voice spoke up in the background, but he couldn't even make out what she was saying. Was it a different someone? Was this a dream?

The dark room faded into gray sleep…

The backyard gate had been unlocked, so Aage and Arthur had snuck in through there. The sliding glass door also led was unlocked, and Aage slid it open silently.

It looked like a normal house. A picture of a woman and man hung in the room, which was filled with a table and four chairs, and connected to a tidy kitchen. A white coffee maker sat out, slowly brewing the coffee and letting an aromatic scent into the air.

Arthur was beginning to think they must have simply walked into the wrong place. "Aage, we shouldn't be here; this obviously isn't the place."

"Sh." Aage said shortly, as he crept along quietly. He seemed to have honed in on a door leading into the next room, and murmured to Arthur, "Be ready to fight."

Arthur's palms got a little sweaty. What were they going up against? Did Aage even know? What if it was a whole coven of vampires? The man was crazy!

And Arthur would have told him so, but the door swung open, and Aage dashed inside. Arthur followed, and was shocked by what he saw.

The room was high-ceilinged, and on every wall hung weapons. From guns to picks to huge wooden stakes and chains, everything a torturer could use was here.

But more importantly, in the middle of the room, hanging by his feet and dried blood caking his half-naked body, was Mihai. A bright light was turned on him, and his eyes were closed as he hung limply.

"Mihai! Wake up!" Aage slapped him across the face, trying next to try and free him from the chain bound around his ankles.

Mihai let out a feeble moan, struggling for a moment against his bonds.

Arthur knew that he had to do something; if whatever had caught Mihai came back, they could be in for it. "Catch him," he said, and shot the chain inches from Mihai's feet with a well-placed blast.

Mihai slumped against the ground, narrowly missing hitting his head thanks to Aage.

Aage quickly freed Mihai from his bonds, but the vampire still didn't move. "Wake up, you can't go to sleep!"

There wasn't a lot that Arthur knew about the physiology of vampires, but he figured that in this instance, going to sleep might mean going to sleep forever. He sighed and came over to Aage's side. "What does he need?"

"Turn off the light," Aage, seeming to suddenly realize that it must be a sun-imitating light.

Arthur did it. "Will he get up now?" They needed to get out of here!

"No. Help me carry him," Aage said, wrapping Mihai in his jacket, taking care to pull the hood down far over his face.

They didn't have time for this! But Arthur grabbed Mihai's feet, lifting and hoping to get the hell out of there and fast. They just had to get out the door and through the backyard before-

"Excuse me, but what the hell are you doing rescuing that vampire scum?!"

Oh shit.

/AN/ I know it took forever to update, but I just wanted to after I got a review recently. Cause I still like this story, you know?