Chapter Text
Love…
Are you saying we can love each other?
The first tick for the day going badly was the fact that Hellsing was in Italy. They had no right in this area, no claim on this land, and the only reason they were here at all was because their target had fled from England to Italy after breaking into several museums and stealing esoteric scripts on early saints.
The second tick was that the woman had made a beeline for Padua, and the church that contained the relics of Saint Anthony within. Now, Alexander liked relics –and he liked them as far away from his job as possible. "Collateral damage" did not even begin to describe the kind of havoc that vampire hunters tended to wreak in their surroundings, what with the challenges of keeping a creature that moved faster than the eye could track from ripping out their throats.
You didn't worry about missed bullets or blades when a monster was bearing down on you, nor did the monster itself worry about the historicity of its environment when it was making a last stand. Most buildings were lucky to remain standing when a confrontation ended, and even when they were, whole rooms almost always had to be replaced, to hide evidence if nothing else.
In essence, things got messy, fast, when vampire hunting was involved, and Alexander wanted that chaos and destruction as far away from any holy relics as he could manage. It wasn't like the Vatican could get new ones.
But the third and final strike for just how worthless getting out of bed today had been, Hellsing hadn't just sent any agent, they had sent Alucard, unaccompanied, alone. They had sent a vampire into the land of Rome.
The cigars the Hellsing woman smoked had clearly gone to her head at last, if she had somehow thought that that was a good idea.
What with the basilica being one of the eight international shrines recognized by the Holy See itself, Alexander was especially tense as he raced to get to the vampires inside the chapel proper before violence broke out. Aside from the relics, there were also a number of precious, irreplaceable treasures and artworks contained inside the church: just the thought of Alucard firing off even one shot from those so-called pistols of his had Alexander sweating.
One of the positives about this building, it was a basilica in both name and construction, which meant a large nave with a ceiling that soared high above the ground. It was a sanctuary and a treasure-house of God, where the images and art of the faithful were displayed in glorious splendor, giving the cavernous building the sense of a dragon's baroque hoard and inspiring the hearts of the congregation within to greater piety and devotion.
The open space also made it very easy to find the vampires, who were gathered near the reliquary of Saint Anthony. Alucard, to his surprise, was at some distance from the vampire that had brought the golden reliquary to the ground and was tearing at it, a frustrated look on her face.
Looking down, relief mixed with rage as Alexander saw that the filthy creature had created some kind of magical seal on the ground, and Alucard, at the very edge, was bound with odd, wispy tendrils of some rust-colored substance. However fragile they looked, they must have been formidable indeed, as the sigils on Alucard's gloves were glowing as they did when he exercised his power to the limits, and Alucard's teeth were bared in a scowl of frustration.
He wasn't being quiet, and the echoing noise of his rapid footsteps drew the attention of both vampires, though the one on the ground only glanced up at him briefly before looking back down to the reliquary, working with feverish speed.
"I'd avoid stepping into the circle, Judas Priest," Alucard noted dryly as he stopped a few meters away, the vampire flicking his eyes down at his imprisoned body. "Still, nice of you to finally show up. Better late than never, and so on."
"Get your filthy, undead hands off of that!" Alexander snarled, ignoring him and addressing the vampire on the ground. He almost needn't have bothered: the relic was proving able to defend itself very well, even through the glass of its display.
The remains of the saint seared the vampire's hands every time she touched the reliquary, making her yelp with pain and complicating retrieval quite immensely –after all, even if it was mostly gold, the reliquary was still not meant to be opened, and with the vampire being unable to touch it for more than a second before her fingers were charred right down to the bone, she couldn't get enough leverage to pry at it anyways.
"She seems to be having trouble keeping her hands on it," Alucard noted, baring his teeth in a mocking grin. His eyes cut over to Alexander. "I would kill her now, if I were you. Regardless of ill-advised handling, she knows more than enough to complete this little ritual of hers."
"Shut up!" the vampire on the floor barked, balling up her hand and punching the glass that showed the saint's preserved chin and tongue, before hissing as she pulled the smoking, half-melted stump of her hand back. It healed quickly, however, and she punched the glass again as the nauseating smell of burning flesh filled the air.
Alexander flicked out a bayonet reflectively when he saw her strike the holy relic, before wincing and glancing around.
"Are you really going to let her destroy the remains of one of your saints rather than risk harming some statuary?" Alucard drawled, no longer paying attention to the vampire that had bound him as he watched Alexander with amusement, noticing his hesitation. Alexander gave Alucard a foul look as the bound vampire continued. "I knew the clergy were hypocritical, but this is rather sad, even for you."
"Oh, shut up," Alexander muttered, wishing for a moment that the vampire working to break open the relic had bound Alucard's mouth as well as the rest of him.
He fingered the hilt of his blade nervously. He was fast, true, more than fast enough to take a vampire by surprise if he timed it right, and the woman's attention was all on her burning hands and the relic beneath her, but if he threw a bayonet with enough force to pierce her skull or ribcage and she deflected it…
The sharp sound of cracking glass drew him out of his thoughts as the female vampire gave a sharp hiss of triumph. A spiderweb of fractures had spread on the display window of the reliquary, and she began to pry frantically at the pieces with sizzling fingers as a sharp pang of fear ran through him.
If a vampire wanted something badly enough to dare the attention of Hellsing and the wrath of Iscariot, not to mention the very visceral pain of actually handling said relic, then it could only mean bad, bad things for the saint's remains. Most rituals consumed their ingredients, by fire or by dissolution, and the very fact that she had an array laid out on the marble floor indicated that she already had a specific goal in mind.
Burning fingers or not, the vampire worked fast. He had barely recognized the situation for what it was before she plunged her hand into the reliquary and pulled out the saint's jaw, red eyes alight with victory even as her fingers began to fizz and dissolve around the holy remains. A keen of mixed pain and triumph burst from her lips, and she stood quickly, already beginning to chant.
Alexander had seconds to act, possibly less, and he sent a silent prayer to God as he whipped the bayonet at her heart, hoping the momentary distraction of her achievement and the pain of the relic in her hand would keep her from dodging in that split second between throw and connection.
He exhaled in relief as God heard his prayer and the blade struck true, impaling the woman through the heart as she shuddered and staggered back, eyes wide, before abruptly turning to dust. The sigil on the floor writhed and faded, and the tendrils wrapped around Alucard dissolved like the mist they resembled. The saint's jaw fell in the midst of that ash and the huddled little pile of clothing, safe and undamaged.
Before anything else, even before confronting the still-living vampire, Alexander stepped forward quickly, bending down to carefully retrieve the relic. He paused as he noticed a tingle in it, a warmth that he felt even through his gloves, and swallowed.
"It seems that she managed to activate it," Alucard said as his booted footsteps came closer, and Alexander glared over his shoulder, seeing the vampire lazily approaching.
"It's not harmfully activated," he said with confidence, reaching down with his free hand to lift the damaged reliquary back upright. Though a paladin and not a researcher, he had still gained some experience in relics and their occult uses over the years, as well as a passing familiarity with most kinds of less religious occultism.
Color and sensation were important: the relic was faintly glowing with a bright, healthy light, and the feelings he got from it were of peace and welcome, as a saint's remains should be. Likely, the vampire had only managed to charge up the holy power that resided within the relic before he killed her, though what exactly she planned to do with the saint's jaw afterwards remained a mystery.
That was a question for later. After carefully dusting off the worse of the glass fragments and ash, he reverently replaced the relic, the tension in his shoulders easing a little as it was returned to the safe (albeit highly decorative) casing unharmed.
Only for Alucard to reach past him as he stiffened and immediately summoned a bayonet, plunging it through the bones of Alucard's wrist and twisting to the side to halt his progress.
"Don't you dare," he growled, and Alucard smirked at him, not caring about the painful tension in his extended arm –what would be painful for a human, anyways– or the blood that was slowly dripping from the wound and sliding down the shining blade.
"This relic is a part of our case," he drawled, not even bothering to hide the fact he was trying to recover it solely to enrage Alexander. Alucard had never cared about the procedure his organization followed and Alexander doubted he would begin caring any time soon. "Which is why I pursued that vampire here to begin with, Catholic."
"Lay one finger on that relic and I will personally ensure the scandal is so big that the Hellsing woman will lock you in her basement again just to avoid the politics," Alexander spat, making Alucard roll his eyes.
"So very protective over a dead man's chin," he muttered derisively. Alexander bristled.
"It's a holy relic, you depraved abomination."
Alucard grinned at his retort, chuckling to himself. "You call me depraved when you revere corpses and ritualize cannibalism," he purred, steadily prodding at Alexander's temper. "Putting the remains in a pretty gilded cage doesn't change the fact that you're proudly displaying remains, Judas Priest."
Alucard was tempting him to a fight. He was trying to provoke him, intentionally, wanting another scrap, and damn him it was working. Alexander wanted to slam a bayonet into his face and drag down, split the mocking vampire's skull like a walnut.
But he couldn't. He couldn't. Not here, not right now, not when there were so many irreplaceable things to destroy with missed or careless shots. If this was an abandoned modern building, the vampire would have already been in a pool of blood on the ground, riddled with bayonets.
His teeth scraped together loud enough for both of them to hear, before Alexander wrenched the bayonet in Alucard's wrist harder, knocking his arm aside, and shifted to stand more between the vampire and the reliquary. He flicked the bayonet back into his sleeve, before reaching back to cover the open hole in the glass with his hand.
"We are not doing this," he said tightly. "I am not fighting you here and if you touch anything, or God forbid, break it, the whole of the Vatican will tear you and your Master apart. Get out."
He would've said more, but the words choked in his throat as he saw Alucard's eyes widen for a moment, crimson gaze jerking down to the hand covering the hole in the glass behind him.
"It seems I'm not the one who should be concerned about breaking things, Judas Priest," Alucard said, grinning a little. "Rookie mistake."
Rookie mistake? What did he-
Oh.
Oh.
He was covering the glass with the hand that still had traces of Alucard's blood. He had brought vampiric blood into contact with a relic supercharged by another vampire for the purposes of a ritual.
Alexander had just enough time to curse before the light overtook them both.