Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. - 2 Corinthians 4:16

The aged priest was unbowed by the years. He still went about his duties with the grace and joy of a much younger man. He had left behind the more violent passions of his youth. He had a successful children's ministry and had been granted an audience with the Pope himself to commend him for his service to God through the youth of his parish.

Few knew of his younger years' service to the Church in a very different capacity. One who remembered was there to see him.

The Father was tidying up the children's room. There had been a children's service that evening and the kids always left toys scattered afterwards.

A chuckle he had not heard in decades whirled him around, hand reaching into a deep pocket in his cassock.

"Judas Priest, I never thought to find you reduced to nothing more than a nursemaid."

Alexander Anderson glared at the vampire who had been his nemesis. "Children are the future of the world and of the Church. I would not expect a heathen creature such as yerself to have any regard for such things. I see that ye have not changed. Not that I should expect one such as ye to change."

The red man glided forward from the shadows. "How can I change? Unlike you, I am eternal. You may have lived longer than a normal human would, but soon you will be dust and I will be the only one to remember you."

"I would ask that ye not remember me, Alucard. I have served God for far longer than my threescore and ten and it doesn't scare me to know I will join him soon. I would ask why ye're here now, after all these years? Have ye come to mock my going the way of all flesh? If so, it is a wasted trip. Ye can not pain me with the thought of meeting my maker at long last."

"Perhaps I have come to send you on to your maker since you're so eager to see him."

The old priest snorted, "Ye'd kill me now? Ye're so pathetic that ye'd wait until I was old and grey before ye'd come to kill me? Ye're lying. Are ye lying to me, or to yerself?"

"Does it matter? I'm here. You're here. I may kill you. I may not. Let's say for the moment that I'm succumbing to the human weakness of nostalgia. I wanted to see the man who planted so many blades in my body; the man who threatened me in the British Museum; who saved my Master in London; and who killed my only fledgling in three hundred years. Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that I wanted to see you before you went to your God."

Anderson was taken aback. "I thought I was too old to be surprised, vampire. Are ye telling me that ye're falling prey to human emotion?"

"Don't push me, Anderson. I still owe you a world of pain for what you did to Seras. You killed my child and I have an eternity to hold grudges."

"And there's where we're different, beast. Ye will spend eternity on this planet holding your grudges and yer hatred. God willing, I'll spend eternity never having to see another damnable creature such as ye. Ye're right, I killed Seras. Hopefully while she was still human enough to have a chance with her soul. She was a sweet child, despite what ye did to her."

The vampire moved too fast for the old man's diminished reflexes. Anderson found himself pushed brutally against the wall with Alucard's latest large gun shoved under his chin. "My point exactly, Iscariot. She was a child. My child! I have had many years to think on this and to decide just what my revenge would be. I am about to have it, served nice and cold."

"Killing me won't give ye yer revenge. It means nothing to me. I'm over one hundred thirty years old. The regenerative abilities that made me yer foil for so many years have kept me alive long enough to be tired of living. Ye'd be just about doing me a favor since I don't know how many more years I'll be on this earth and I'm starting to get a mite tired."

"Oh no, Judas Priest, that would be the least of my plans. I'm going to give you a choice. I will choose one of the children of your parish to be my new fledgling. I notice that young Morgan Travers is one you seem quite fond of. She's smart, attractive, and remarkably, still a virgin."

For the first time, Anderson became angry. He shoved against the vampire who was restraining him, unheeding of the gun in his face. The long years had sapped him of his strength though, and he was unable to move the vampire. Alucard laughed and leaned into him, "Fight me, Judas Priest. Fight! I will take Morgan tonight, unless…"

"Unless what, Alucard? She's an innocent. Don't hurt her because of yer vendetta against me. What can I do to make ye leave her be?" The priest dropped his arms and stopped fighting his captor.

Alucard leaned in and made a show of sniffing his face. "You have been a faithful Catholic. You have kept your vow of celibacy all these years - through all the temptations, through the long decades of your service to the Church. You are still a virgin, Alexander. If you don't want Morgan to take Seras' place as my child, you will take her place."

"What?! Ye must be insane! I cannot do that!"

"Then I will kill you and you will go to your eternal rest knowing that young Morgan will be my companion in eternity. She will pay for your selfishness, Alexander, and you can rot in the Hell of your weakness knowing that." Alucard's face was a study in evil anticipation. He drank in the priest's despair and waited for his answer.

It came in a form he was not altogether expecting. He grunted at the feel of silver shoving through his flesh into his heart and was blasted back by a wave of biblical spells. He lay on the floor for a moment, tasting the pain that welled up from the wound in his chest and the myriad small cuts the pages had left on his face and neck.

He heard the Judas Priest running past him and pulled the offending knife from his body. He rolled over on his stomach and watched Anderson, calling out as his enemy's hand touched the door, "So you've chosen? You've decided that your life is more precious than Morgan's?" Anderson froze, hand still on the door. "Or do you have the illusion that you can save her from me? I don't need Morgan. I could take Thomas or Aïne or Braden. You can't protect them all. Your choice, my Judas Priest, is solely whether it will be your flesh or someone else's that I claim this night."

He savored the moment when Anderson's shoulders slumped and his hand dropped from the door. I have won! He pulled himself off the floor and joined the priest where he stood. "Hear me, Alexander Anderson," he turned the paladin to face him. "This must be your choice. Do you choose to give yourself to me?"

"I didn't choose anything, abomination! I cannot allow you to take the soul of an innocent." Alucard could hear the man's resolution breaking. He pressed his attack.

"Then you are making a choice. You may not like the choice, but the truth of this is that you do have one. You may choose to join me as my child, or you may choose to have one of the children of your parish take the place of the child you took from me. Choose and own that choice and tell me what choice you have made. Choose, Judas Priest!"

Green eyes glared into red for long minutes. Alucard relished every moment and waited for the inevitable. Eventually, the priest closed his eyes; his face flinched when he came to his decision.

"I choose to go with ye, vampire. I will be yers in penance for taking Seras from ye. I choose this to save a true innocent from yer clutches. I may be virgin, but we both know I'm no innocent." Anderson removed the cross from around his neck, kissed it and laid it aside. He took off his collar and cassock and stood before Alucard wearing his trousers and undershirt.

For his advanced years, Anderson was remarkably well preserved. So much of the aging process has to do the human body's reduced ability to regenerate itself. With his unnatural regenerative skills, the priest did not look even half his age. His hair had gone gray, but blondes always wore gray more gracefully. He had lines etched on his face. Most would say they gave depth and character. His frame was still powerful and his muscles were still firm. If he was not as insanely powerful and swift as he'd been in his heyday, he was still the match for most normal human men in their prime.

For a moment Alucard remembered Walter Dornez with regret. If only age had been so kind to the Angel, they might not have lost him to Millennium. Enough. The Judas Priest reminds me of times long gone. I have limitless time for thought; delicious action such as this comes so infrequently.

He stepped up to the waiting priest. He could see the man's pulse pounding in his throat. Anderson was doing a good job of looking stoic, but Alucard could smell his fear. Before Anderson could move, Alucard laid a gentle kiss against the man's lips. "This is where you're supposed to close your eyes."

Anderson continued to stare at him as Alucard dipped his head down to his neck. His eyes widened when he felt the vampire's teeth tear into his flesh, but they did not close until Alucard had taken so much blood that he was too weak to keep them open any longer. His knees had folded under him and the two men lay on the floor as the sounds of Alucard's feeding filled the air.

Alucard could feel Anderson lose his hold on his soul. He could feel the man's essence drawn into him. When the only grip the priest had on his being was the most tenuous of touches, Alucard drew back and opened a vein in his wrist. He fed Anderson's soul back to him, now changed, in his blood. People think we vampires don't have souls. That's not true at all. Our souls have been transformed as have our bodies, but they aren't gone. Feel this, Alexander. This is your soul. I am the Philosopher's Stone that has transmuted you. You will have eternal life. You are no longer a leaden mortal. I have made you golden.

You are my child.