AN: This is a re-upload of an old fic.

The shadows in the dusty crypt pulled into one another, distorting, shifting, thickening. Alucard's blood-red eyes took on a hellish glow, while his bone-white smile stretched until it looked like a scythe blade. The priest narrowed his eyes. He had removed his glasses - or rather, they had been dropped onto the stone floor - sometime after Anderson's arrival, and their perfect lenses had been carelessly crushed beneath one of Alucard's boots in the combatants' eagerness to attack. The priest didn't need them anyway; he could see just as well as anyone else, if not quite as well as Alucard, who could see the clearest in the dark. In the thick gloom of the sepulchre, that gave him the upper hand.

"Afraid to fight me on your own, undead filth?"

"Your insults are getting stale, priest." Alucard took a few unhurried steps toward Anderson, trailing his fingertips along the crumbling wall. Shadows curled around his fingers as he moved, leaving a blackened trail where he touched. The symbols on his gloves glowed scarlet. "Why don't we skip the banter and get back down to business?"

Anderson grit his teeth, then his face split into a grin savage enough to rival one of Alucard's. He held a bayonet in each hand, and he raised his arms to block his face, shifting his stance, ready for another round. Their wounds from the first bout had all already healed, save some pink scars on the priest's skin.

"Or better yet, maybe I'll just shut you up myself."

"What-?"

Alucard bared his teeth, and the shadows changed again, this time coalescing behind the priest and, before he could flinch away, twining around his limbs and torso like vines.

"More of your diabolic trickery!" Anderson thundered, straining against his new restraints, trying to gain enough slack to cut at them with his blades.

"Maybe," Alucard said. His eyes brightened further still as he continued to call his demonic familiars to him. Crimson eyes bloomed on his chest and in his tangling, inky hair. A black tendril coiled around Anderson's throat, forcing his head back and causing his breathing to become shallow and strained. As Alucard closed the distance between them, he drew his Jackal again; he pressed the barrel against Anderson's gut. Anderson tried to look down, but the shadows held him too tightly; they were now a dark and undulating mass surrounding him, holding him still. Alucard squeezed the trigger once, and then three more times, putting bullets through the priest's stomach, chest, and shoulder. Anderson grunted, a thin trail of blood appearing from the corner of his mouth. Alucard smiled and leaned in close.

"Not feeling so invincible now, are you, regenerator?" The tip of the limb holding Anderson's neck slipped beneath the priest's collar, causing Anderson to tense and inhale sharply.

"You can never kill me," Anderson said, his voice a hoarse growl.

"Who said anything about killing you?" Alucard leaned into Anderson's jaw, inhaling, and then moved back slightly, extended his tongue, and licked at the blood on Anderson's chin and lower lip. The priest's teeth clenched together, his fists tightened around his knives, and he tried again to free himself. He was unsuccessful, and Alucard only laughed, deep in his throat. "I said I wanted to shut you up."

With that, he raised the black gun and, forcing the priest's jaw with his free hand, roughly shoved the gun's barrel into Anderson's mouth. The paladin's eyes flew wide open in a mixture of rage and fear, and his teeth scraped against the weapon's smooth metal. Alucard's smile turned sly, and he squeezed the trigger one more time.

The back of the priest's head exploded in a gorgeous spray of red, splattering the sepulchre wall, while the shadows - which were now as much a part of Alucard as his hands and teeth - absorbed some of the gore as well. Withdrawing the gun from Anderson's ruined head, he leaned in again, this time for a kiss. He pushed his tongue between Anderson's teeth until he tasted blood and gunpowder, and then, dropping his gun, brought both hands to the sides of Anderson's face. The black tendrils moved, caressing the priest's unmoving, unresisting body, leaving slimy, dark trails as they burrowed beneath his clothes. Anderson's blood tasted strangely chemical - the result of his modifications, and the edible proof of his inhuman status. The fool considered himself holy, but he was just as much of an abomination as Alucard himself.

He stirred. The holes in his torso had almost completely healed, and now the gaping wound in his head was beginning to knit.

Alucard pulled back, and used two shadowy limbs to lift the bayonets Anderson had dropped when the vampire had shot him. Taking them both in hand, Alucard pressed the heel of one hand against the priest's chest, half pushing, half lifting him until his back hit the blood-spattered wall. His blond head lolled, but upon contact with the cold stone behind him, Anderson drew in a wet, strangled breath, then began to choke. His eyes opened, and appeared glazed for half a second. He then focused on the vampire, and his eyes narrowed in recognition, revulsion, hatred. He tried to speak through his newly healed, still-raw throat, but Alucard cut him off, kissing Anderson again, harder this time because this time the priest could feel it. His tongue met blood-slicked teeth, which parted after a moment's hesitation. Black tentacles undulated under Anderson's heavy clothing, cold and damp against his skin, while the vampire's long hair twined around the priest's neck and arms. Anderson shivered, and Alucard gave a low, satisfied growl. Then Anderson bit down.

The pain, like a warm rush, was negligible, but such a show of continued resistance made Alucard's insides twist. He almost smiled. He wouldn't have wanted Anderson to give up, not when the fight was half the thrill of it. His own blood flooded his mouth, mixing with what remained of Anderson's. He pulled back for a second, swallowing. Anderson spat the vampire's severed tongue onto the flags below. It immediately began to dissolve into reddish-black ooze, absorbed into Alucard's boot.

The vampire grimaced, baring his red teeth, and plunged the bayonet in his left hand through the priest's right elbow, pinning his arm to the wall. Anderson grunted, but the look of malice on his face did not change. He pulled against his bonds, trying once more, it seemed, to escape and resume battle. Alucard stabbed the other blade through Anderson's chest, perilously close to his heart, then grabbed a handful of blond hair and wrenched Anderson's head back. Pressing their mouths together again, he let his blood, which gushed from the ripe, fresh wound where his tongue had been, swill into Anderson' mouth. He wanted the priest to taste him. Sure enough, Anderson gagged and twisted in his restraints, but Alucard withdrew only enough to start biting at Anderson's lower lip. His free hand joined his snakelike limbs in burrowing beneath the priest's clothes, roughly taking Anderson's cock in hand and squeezing. As he drew blood from Anderson's lip, he was surprised to feel the man groan - somewhere between grudging pleasure, pain, and fury - and arch forward.

Alucard sucked at Anderson's bleeding lip for a moment before shifting back, forcing the priest to meet his eyes. He had adopted a quick, sharp rhythm, and now slim black tendrils curled around Anderson's cock as well, stroking and squeezing with a softer touch, while a thicker limb nudged its way between the priest's buttocks. Anderson grit his teeth and closed his eyes as the thing pushed inside him, but Alucard shook him by the hair and forced him to hold eye contact again.

His tongue had grown back now, and so he smirked and said, "So full of holy fire, so much fight. But you can't escape from me."

That wasn't true, and they both knew it, but it was what the priest wanted to hear. If there was no escape, if he were helpless, then his shame would be lessened. It meant that whatever happened, he couldn't have wanted it.

Alucard bent down to lick at the warm silver cross Anderson wore, then took the longer crosspiece between his teeth and leered up at his captive. He bit hard enough to dent the silver, then let it go. Returning his mouth to Anderson's neck, he felt the man shudder, heard his breathing quicken still more. His heartbeat was deafening, as was the roaring of blood through his living veins. His lips touching Anderson's throat, he purred, "Your faith can't save you now."