Blood was rushing to her head, making that clang of cymbals again, sending her thoughts into disarray. She supposed that for most people, the metaphor "seeing red" was rather ingenuous.

For Integra, merely truth.

Her vision narrowed on the paper target, and immediately she felt somewhat calmed by the action. Her hand was not as steady as she would have liked; but she was certain that would change within a couple of shots.

Letting off the first shot was like an immense stone being lifted from her chest. Nothing to depend on she thought, noticing the hole that appeared in the chest of the paper target. She was off, still, and that was infuriating enough to raise her ire again.

Second shot. Not men. This one landed true, in the heart of the target. She reviewed the words of the report she had just read, imprinted on her mind. Overall, mission was successful. However, two civilians were lost before arrival of team.

The third shot followed it, blasting through the hole left by the first, doing nothing more than enlarging its edges. Not monsters. More of the report: Alucard was unavailable for a debrief.

Nothing but a steady hand. A hand descended on her arm as she made the fourth shot, bleeding warmth through the sleeve of her shirt, setting the bullet flying vastly off-target, clanging against the wall beyond. Irritated, she turned to deal with the source of the interruption.

And it looks like you haven't even got that today, Master. There was no reason for Alucard, standing at her elbow, to speak to her telepathically--which, knowing him, gave him even more reason to do it.

She shrugged off his touch with a grimace of disgust. "Where have you been all night?" His touch unnerved her, as well anyone interrupting--no, interfering in, even--her sole form of relaxation might. As usual, he only picked the most effective means to an end. Nothing unnerved her more than proximity; than a preternatural hand bleeding filthy warmth onto her skin-

Warmth?

It dawned on her in an instant, and equally as fast she had turned on him, trained to react to exactly such a threat. In a grim reversal of that first night they had met, she now had him with his back to a wall, cornered there by his own surprise.

Still, it was hardly the same. He, after all, was chuckling.

"Who did you kill?" She was shouting now, right in his face, gun to his temple, and goddamnit, she could smell the blood on him, in this proximity, notice the blush at his cheekbones. One didn't get that from drinking cold medical blood. "You know the restriction," she hissed, in a lower voice. Of course he knows it. I want to know how he broke it.

He fixed her with a face that said he expected more of her than this. "Really. You've figured this much out. I expect you can figure the rest out, too."

As gears clicked into place in her brain, a grim smile grew on her face. "Two civilians lost their lives tonight. And really, wasn't that clever of you, to have your meal before a Hellsing team even arrived." She emptied the rest of the clip into his head. She heard him laughing as she did so, laughing with the shattered remains of his face.

He didn't even fall down. Instead of reforming the mutilated remains of his head, a growth of shadow formed from the base of his neck, sprouting the hundreds of eyes that Integra had seen enough to recreate in her nightmares.

That growth of shadow, with eyes and hands now, was curling along the ground, reaching for her. In sudden horror at the Pandora's box she had opened, she stepped back, away from the grasp of the shadow extensions, as one might step away from an expanding puddle of water.

The shadows closed on her ankles, pulling her down until she sat down hard on the concrete floor. Unlike the blood that now coursed through him, these were every bit as cold she remembered his touch to be.

"You wasted a perfectly good meal, Master," the headless form now hissed, from somewhere deep within its chest.

She struggled, as any person in the grip of shadow might, but each movement only enmeshed her more within its grasp, all blackness and red eyes.

Suddenly he was solid again, leaning over her, his hands to either side of her shoulders. Somehow, even with the smell of blood in her face, he was much less disconcerting when solid. "You wrong me, I think," he said merely this time.

"I've wronged you?" she snarled, between clenched teeth.

"I see you've forgotten your history." He pressed a hand--now cooling, she noted--to her forehead, and, like a memory forced upon her, the image of the destruction that the Valentine brothers had wrought, just months before, appeared behind her eyes. "I wasn't eager to show the world that the Institute still likes to walk blindly into traps."

Integra frowned. "I don't-"

Again he clapped a hand to her forehead, forcing speech away with the power of his vision. Two youths, now laughing and cheerful, now bloody shells. But what burned in her vision was the unblinking eye that they bore on the skin of their backs as a badge, that symbol that the Valentines had stolen from an Egyptian god himself, that symbol that they now tracked like a trail of blood through the city. She tried to formulate words. They were- that is- But she was bad at admitting a mistake.

Alucard shrugged, offhandedly. "I saw an opportunity to make myself useful, and I took it. Was it so wrong that I enjoyed it to the fullest?" He leaned closer now, setting his mouth just beside her ear, to whisper in, "See, I really was a very good pet after all. "

She cleared her throat, rose to her feet. This time, he moved back to accomodate her. "Very well. Next time a more up-to-date report about your activities will be appreciated." She turned to leave, fixing him with a harsher eye. "And if I find out any information that contradicts what you just.... demonstrated," for I know well his power of illusion, "I'll have you staked out in the garden before sunrise and use your remains to grit the path."

He moved an arm out before her, to stop her from going. Was he pouting? Yes, as close to it as a half-millenium old vampire could come, she believed. "I believe I am owed a forfeit."

The word, in that usage, was foreign to Integra. "A forfeit?"

He cocked his head to one side in amusement. "Didn't you ever play those games as a child? If you lose, you owe a forfeit." When still she said nothing. "A prize. Reward, if you will."

She calmed, though only a little. It was always wise to be wary when a wronged vampire was demanding reparations. "What will it take to appease you this time, Alucard?"

He grinned. "Blood repays blood."

She winced inwardly at the suggestion. She knew what he was after, right down to the donor. Still, she decided to play dumb. "You know where the refrigerator is. Perhaps Walter can help you select a good vintage to replace that which you lost." She smiled at a bit at her own weak sense of humor.

"Perhaps," he said coyly. "And perhaps if you pretend to feed me with this cold, fabricated excuse for blood, I'll pretend to obey."

Integra narrowed her eyes. "Oh, I see how it is." Damn, but there had never been a better moment for a cigar. She'd left them upstairs, in her office, and if this continued, she wouldn't be returning to them anytime soon. "When did I last renew the seal? Last week?"

"I forget. I seem to have that problem when not reminded." His accompanying grin was toothy, irreverant. He was fairly nosing at her, sniffing at her collar, now. "Consider this a pre-emptive strike, Master."

Much like one would do with an annoying pet doing the same, she pushed him away. "This is not happening." The problem was becoming graver than she anticipated, however. She remembered the last time she had fed him directly--when she had been much younger, and much less wise--and the folly that that had been. With his teeth in her veins, he had become more unpredictable; downright cruel, even, in a way he usually reserved for his targets. It was not an experience she had ever intended to repeat.

Clearly, Alucard had rather pleasant memories of the occasion. He was still playful, still malleable, at the moment, though, and she could still draw him away. How quickly, she knew, he could turn from obedient servant to No Life King. "Go," she said. "Talk to Walter. I'm sure there's some of me on tap upstairs." There was. She had left it waiting for the next time he required a meal to remind him of his loyalty.

He pulled himself upwards, and she saw the beginning of that change she feared echoed in the red demon eyes. "Again this fixation with feeding me cold blood."

"I wasn't aware this was still up for discussion."

It was not the response he wanted. Quicker than any human could have responded, cords of shadow whipped out and bound themselves around her shoulders, her torso, her legs, pinning her to the wall. Surprisingly, instead of fear--for this was, after all, a predictable trick of his--she felt a vague sense of righteous anger spring up in her, that he would usurp her control; that he would use his powers against her in such an inequitable way. How much blood would she have to siphon off before this one learned his place?

Her thoughts were met with a sneering laugh. "You have this compulsion with fairness, Miss Hellsing," he hissed. "given, it probably serves you well in fighting the undead.

"But what's not fair is that you can hurt me all you like, take away from me what you like, because I will. always. come. back. I don't have such luxuries with you. The line, for humans, between life and death, is too thin for me to have much fun. I can never visit on you half the things you visit on me with impunity." He looked vaguely pained at this, but continued, "Not that I complain. I rather enjoy your struggling for control over me. I'll take a bullet or two in the head for a gag anyday. But some days I feel I should return the favor."

And as if to demonstrate this, the Casull appeared in his hand, and just as suddenly, it was pointed at her head. "Check," he said simply. "Now who's in peril? But peril is always more perilous for you, isn't it, Master?"

There was hardly time for Integra to wonder at the seriousness of his play before his look of sadistic glee melted into a more thoughtful one, as he traced cold lines down her face with the side of the Casull. She shuddered a little at the touch of the cold metal, and what it represented. He seemed rather amused at her reaction. "But then, sometimes I think you rather enjoy these games we play, Master."

Once again her anger boiled at the thought. Enjoy? What I would enjoy was if you obeyed for once. Being always at the whims of a servant was irksome. Positively.... ignoble. More than danger, it was shame that haunted her now--as if at any moment some Hellsing soldier might come to the firing range, flip on the lights, and discover her in the middle of a disciplinary crisis with a subordinate.

She snorted. Some disciplinary crisis, she had to admit.

Though she had to admit, an Alucard who obeyed seemed unthinkable. Really. Almost....unnatural.

Well, then, I suppose I do, for certain values of the word enjoy equal to "does not create cognitive dissonance at the mere occasion of"

He smiled. Did he know her mind, in that moment? Who knew? Smiling was hardly indicative of anything for him. Nevertheless, the Casull descended, tracing the line of the buttons on her shirt, pausing at the places where the shoulder holster she wore had caused sweat to bleed through the fabric. She wore no suit jacket today--it impeded her movement when doing target practice, after all--and she could feel the cold touch of the weapon through the fabric.

"For certain values, hm?" Well, no doubt now. She felt the weapon brush her legs, more muted now by the wool of her trousers. "I suppose, in that, you're not much different than me. It's always worth the playing, if you can have what you want in the end." With a start, she came to realize that the Casull had come to rest at her groin. What game is he playing at now? Certainly not the same game she had been playing. "And the reward--the forfeit, if you will--always makes the game so much more enjoyable." She drew in a breath sharply, realizing suddenly that he had no intention of stopping there, and instead was stroking her with the weapon, idly, through her clothing.

She smiled, if only a bit, forced herself to relax despite the violation. "Your pride ruins your moment a bit, doesn't it?

"My mome-" His words were cut short as something with the burn of silver met the flesh of his face. It was Integra's own weapon; empty of rounds, but still not abandoned. He drew back, snarling, redrawing his shadows as he did. He looked surprised that such a little thing still had the power to burn him so much. As if his fierce telepathy had been reversed, she could almost hear him wondering, why have I let this little girl harm me...?

She spun the spent weapon around her index finger, demonstrating her temporary freedom from his shadow bonds with a sort of childish glee. Pride. Pride had felled him, hadn't it?--given her enough time and enough room to wiggle free of his cold grasp. "Testing your bounds, servant?" It was rare that she was so imperious, even with him; but then, it was rare that she gained the upper hand at all.

He laughed, licking at the part of his face that was burnt. "They only bind me if you won't let me cross them. And, as I already suggested, you rather enjoy all of this."

She had moved to the side of the room now, to the ammunition lockers, and was reaching in one of the drawers. She held up a box to show the results of what she had found: "Silver-jacketed. Maybe next time you'll think twice when I put a bullet in your head." In a couple more motions she had reloaded her weapon. "You are right. I do enjoy all of this."

He advanced on her again, apparently evidencing that he meaned to try her patience yet more. "You still owe me a forfeit. Unless that was you showing me how Hellsing repays loyalty."

She laughed, now. It was easier to be confident when she had a weapon appropriate to the task at hand. She reached up with her free hand, untied the tie at her neck, pushed back her collar. "You can smell it, can't you?" Wrapping her fingers in his hair--knocking off that infuriating hat in the process (not that it did much more than turn to shadow and rejoin the rest of his body) she dragged his head down to her neck, stopping him just short of her skin, with the pistol pointing into the curve of his neck. "I intend to torment you with it, if you insist on having your 'forfeit.' " She noted, with some amusement, that the silver of the barrel seemed be leaving a nice little sizzling mark on the flesh of his throat. Now that he was close again, she whispered in his ear, "Struggle, and I'll put a nice round hole through your throat, one that won't heal so quickly."

He laughed through a grimace of annoyance. His mouth was close enough to her neck that its resonance sent a little shiver through her. "You torment me every day with the smell of your blood, Miss Hellsing. What do you want? Do you want me to beg for it?"

She smirked. "You aren't even worthy to kiss my feet."

He laughed--it sounded more like a dry little cough. "Then I'll start there."

He flashed out of her vision, as he was wont to do, and appeared again, his head bowed to her feet.

She pointed her pistol down at the crown of his head, the closest point to her reach. The hair on his scalp twisted and writhed at the touch of the silver plating on the barrel. "Better prove yourself worthy on the way up, Nosferatu."

The barest hint of a chuckle echoed in her head. Finally, you're playing the game as I expected.

Expected? What did you expect?

The bait and switch, of course. Trying to take my mind of my mind?

Make yourself clearer or shut up.

I'll make myself abundantly clear, Master.

And then, he was seizing the moment. She wore those high boots, today--leather, Italian--they were a bit of a vanity, even for her; a vanity only indulged in for the practical uses they afforded. They zipped down the side, and Alucard had set himself--or rather, the errant, writhing hairs of his head--to the task of unzipping them, one by one.

He lifted out the left, then the right foot, and, as promised, set his lips to them, giving them a sort of devotion fit for a Hindu god. The hairs of his head, still wild and alive, swam around her feet, brushed across her toes, around her heels, and up her ankle. She wore stockings, but the fabric was ineffective against their touch--they parted the cloth as she had seen Alucard part brick and stone; they relentlessly sought flesh. Their touch was fleeting and barely physical: enough to awaken the senses but never sate them. It was like having one's feet anointed by a ghost.

Integra stared down at him in surprise, her weapon never leaving her hand. He stared up--briefly--in satisfaction.

The tendrils of shadow that were his hair were climbing now for a more precarious perch upon her flesh. She felt her heartbeat speed, knowing well enough their intent--his intent--but let him continue. Bait and switch, indeed. Will satisfying one desire sate another?

She could feel he was grinning, with his lips and those fearsome teeth pressed to her foot, but she wasn't quite sure why. Finally, he said, You remind me of one I knew, a long, long time ago.

"Oh?" So rarely he spoke of his past. She had read the records of his capture, his supposed defeat; had spent hours, in her youth, poring over the neat hand, the typewritten notes, the rods of phonograph wax thought destroyed, the patient handiwork of hours, to learn what his mouth would never speak. "I suppose you're speaking of my ancestor?"

The tendrils had paused, caressing her leg just where they had landed, halfway up her inner thigh. Again she felt the smirk at her feet. "No." The rare event of his speaking actual words made the skin of her feet vibrate pleasantly. Like the one I remember, you succeed because you have the brain of the man in the body of a woman.

It didn't take much guessing to figure it out from there. Integra smiled, suddenly pleased in a way she couldn't remember conversation with Alucard ever affording. Was she blushing? She had better not be blushing. "I think-" ... that that's a compliment that I've been waiting a long time to hear. "I think you're a foolish old man," she said instead. .... in a young man's pleasing body... the young prince of Wallachia, asleep at my feet.

Not asleep. Never asleep. Dead, simply. Does that bother you?

You bother me.

Whenever the occasion arises. He changed position now, so that his forehead, previously resting at her feet, came to rest at her left knee. His eyes were still closed; he wore a dreamy, unreadable look. Still tendrils of shadow encompassed his head, encompassed her legs, like a corona, one moment ethereal, the next, shockingly physical. Still they--he--sought a higher perch, pushing aside first one layer of cloth, then another, to rest against flesh again; flesh, this time, more yielding, more responsive.

... and respond she did, quite despite herself. At first, it was merely surprise at the cold, suddenly intimate touch that made her muscles seize. But, as she relaxed into temptation (a small price to pay), as she let the tendrils continue to clutch at her soft flesh, tangle themselves in her small hairs, brush, with increasing pressure-

"Oh," she said, quickly, a surprised sound. And then, with a pleased resignation: "Oh."

She could feel him smiling then, telepathically, a hot tickling in her brain. It was yet another sensation to add to this harvest. One might question why he was the one profiting from her pleasure, but she knew this game--though not this precise form, perhaps--well enough to know that more than anything, he played it to get a reaction.

Better that, than my blood. And better--quite fine, even--it was. She bit her tongue against the shamefully wanton sound growing in her throat--there was no need to let him know how he was affecting her, was there? Still, she couldn't help slumping in his grasp as her muscles spasmed and weakened, until there was nothing but his clutch on her knees and a net of shadows holding her up.

Like a ray of sunlight, his grin lit up her thoughts suddenly, and he intensified his efforts, those ghostly tendrils mouthing at her entrance, hungry, seeking. She couldn't help it. Through her clenched teeth, a keening sound escaped her.

You're whimpering, Master. Clearly he took pleasure in the thought.

"You-" she began, but language was suddenly more difficult than she had imagined. She gritted her teeth, composed herself as best she could. Does this please you?

Please me? I'm not the one whimpering. A pause. But there is a certain thrill in holding you in thrall. He paused again, as if taking a moment to relish her irritation at his words, his torturing touch. It makes me remember that I was powerful once.

Once again he forced a vision upon her, one which might have been colored sepia by its age. Suddenly, behind her eyes, Integra was seeing a full moon--just like Alucard so cherished--through an open window onto a room where a woman slept alone, in a white, Victorian-style nightgown. A finger slid down the woman's cheek, admiring in its touch--a finger, a hand that hadn't changed in over a hundred years, save that now it was chained, and sealed, at the mercy of Good.

Your grandfather tried so hard to keep me from her, and all in vain. In the end, it was she who overcame me, not him. It was she who won that battle, not him.

And a thousand more images followed--of that prim and keenly intelligent woman at her typewriter, a hundred years away, always waiting, waiting for what her time had denied her: a chance to live before she died.

It was all so very intense--the caresses and the visions and the voice of the demon himself in her head, directing it all. She squeezed her eyes closed against the onslaught. Her exertion caused nothing but tears to well up in her eyes. For shame, she chided herself. A Hellsing will at least play the game to its end.

And that she would, though she was clutching at nothing now, trying to grab at her last shreds of self-control. She growled at the source of it all--that vampire on his knees before her--and pushed the weapon she held deeper into the flesh of his scalp. Vaguely aware of his grimacing acknowledgement of the pain she was causing him, she managed to smile. "I hate you," she whispered.

It was the last thing she managed before she broke completely.

Much to her chagrin, he was still there after her senses returned to her. He stood at a distance now, watching her recover, with his head cocked in a sort of intellectual curiousity. "How's your firing arm now, Master? Not quite so steady?"

"Bastard," she whispered. She was shaky-legged and weak; much weaker than she expected from such an encounter--not that she had much basis in past experience. Weak. It was such an ugly word. At least if she had to feel that way, there was no need to show it. Yet another good reason to stay seated on the floor, where she had fallen.

Unexpectedly, he smiled. There was blood on his teeth.

With a growing franticness, she felt at her legs, recalled where his mouth had rested while his hair had been otherwise engaged. At the back of her knee, she found a raised welt, beginning to itch like a mosquito bite. Her eyes clouded over with fury. "You took my blood," she said quite simply. "All that time you were.... fucking me," (she disliked the truth of the word) "you had your teeth in my veins."

He looked very pleased that he had thought of the idea. "And?"

As always, anger was her ally. She rose to her feet with surprising alacrity, strode the three paces across the room to him, and grabbed him by the collar. She could smell her own blood on his lips, and with it, the smell of her own shame--it was a smell she hated, but would tolerate for now.

She lunged forward, shoving him against the wall, pinning his lips underneath hers. Forcefully, she sought entrance, and gained it, her tongue licking at his teeth, tasting her own blood.

... and just as suddenly, she pulled away, smiling. Blood repays blood.

"And," she finally responded, "I just wanted it back."

--

A/N: Lest you think that I use a silver-plated weapon as a convenient plot (or lack thereof) device, I was actually trying to make it consistent with my previous Hellsing fics, in which Integra wields a silver-plated Desert Eagle. I'm told now that this contradicts what the series says about her weaponry (which should be a Walther P38), but frankly, my dear, guns is one area where Red Anne Bonney has no expertise and would welcome assistance. As a scientist, I choose to sacrifice external validity for internal consistency. Wouldn't my supervisors be proud?