Archive of Our Own ^beta

Hannibal stared at the body lying in front of him. Tilting his head slightly didn't change what he was looking at. It maybe made it more bizarre.

"What the hell?" he muttered.

"You have died," a slightly melodic voice said off to his left. "Again," it seemed to add as an afterthought as if that was actually the most important part.

"Again?" Hannibal questioned, still looking at what was left of his body. He was missing an arm and the right side of his face seemed to be covered in burns. He didn't remember losing his arm, but as he reached up to the side of his face he remembered the burns. He guessed the slashes to his abdomen by something that had to be very sharp was his cause of death. But everything felt normal and he lifted both arms and verified that he had two hands.

"Yes," was the response.

This time Hannibal turned to look in the direction of the voice. The voice belonged to a female, that much he could make out, but he would not be able to describe the appearance. It wasn't ethereal or demonic or anything really. If he had to pick a word to describe it, he would say: shadow and light. Maybe a little ocean wave-like.

"How many times have I died?" he asked, glancing over at his body again.

"Attempts have no meaning. Only success."

"The hell?"

"I will send you back to another place in your past and perhaps you will do better."

The shadow started to twist, almost churn and the light in the alley where his body laid seemed to get drawn in towards her.

"Wait! Hold your," he began to call out even as he felt his entire being start to tingle. He reached out to touch the woman, the tips of his fingers felt like they were moving through mud, and his vision swam.

Hannibal stared at the body lying in front of him. Tilting his head really didn't change what he was looking at this time so he wasn't sure why he had even done it.

"The hell, lady, I said, wait."

"You remember?"

"Yes, no. Maybe." It was like Hannibal's mind was playing catch up. Did he remember being here, wherever here was, with the shadow woman? Yes. Did he remember his life? Yes. No. Yes. He now had two sets of memories, but only one set went with the body lying in the surf and the burning hull of a ship off in the distance.

Hannibal turned to look at the Shade; his mind having named the shadow-woman. "Before you do that light sucking, watery-vortex thing and toss me back in time, could we chat first?"

The shadow manifested itself into a slightly more visible form. Definitely female. Definitely not human. Though, at this point, who was he to point fingers. Because in that last life, he wasn't fully human —it was like the sixth sense he'd always thought he had, had been on overdrive.

Sixth sense? Those gut feelings that told him to do or not do something; which he would admit he had mostly ignored in previous lives. Previous lives?

"Lady, what the hell are you doing to me?" The Shade seemed to flicker for a moment and Hannibal pressed on. "Cause it doesn't seem to be working out for you the way you want."

"An error was made before we left. I have tried many souls along the King's path to correct the error but their failure caused the world to descend into nothing but darkness and death. Your world must have both the dark and the light. Your attempts have been the closest even in their failures."

Hannibal wanted to walk into the ocean. "How many times have you tossed me back into the sea of time to fix your error?"

"Attempts have no meaning. Only success," the Shade repeated.

Hannibal doubted drowning himself would stop him from wanting to scream. "Yes, I got that the first time you said it." Hannibal paced and with each step got closer to the Shade. "You've just been tossing my, what, soul, back into my own timeline without any memory of what went wrong or what needs to be fixed?" he asked once he was within a few inches of the Shade.

"It is our way."

"How long have you been trying this? How many people?"

The Shade seemed to oscillate from visible to nothing several times. "In your terms, more than two of your millenniums, but our early attempts did not account for your world forgetting that others exist."

Hannibal turned to look at his body. "You mean vampires?"

The Shade vibrated again. "Not just, but all the creatures. You are not of a single creature design; nor are you a changed creature," there was a pause, "in most."

He had to parse that response. Clearly whatever the Shade was, it was not used to speaking to, he was going to think it, lower lifeforms. "By changed creatures, you mean the vampires, correct?"

"Yes."

"And by not a single creature, you are saying that I'm more than just a baseline human? That somewhere in my family I have another type of creature?"

"Yes."

Hannibal was trying to figure out if it mattered what the Shade's definition of creatures included. But the Shade was already starting to twist, almost churn and draw in the immediate light.

"No, wait," he called out, this time his hand managed to wrap around what he thought was the Shade's wrist, but it was already too late.

"Lady!" He yelled, watching the ash that had clearly been his body float away on the wind. "Stop that!"

This time he remembered it all. He remembered this past try and the two before, but he'd also taken just a hint of that knowledge with him. But it hadn't helped because he didn't know what needed to be corrected. He had thoughts though.

"Tell me what needs to be fixed," he demanded, "and I will try. But with no knowledge I can't truly help you. All I can continue to do is flounder. Can you show me all my past attempts?"

"Yes."

The next thing he knew he was on his knees and his head was pounding with a headache he thought was going to be the end of him. "Fuck," was all he was able to say through clenched teeth, his eyes not even wanting to open.

Twelve times. He has been tossed about in his own timeline twelve times. He had died twelve times —in seven different ways. He'd been a turned vampire in two —the "turned" there was apparently an important thing, a no-longer-not exactly-ex-vampire in one, an experimentally dhampir of some sort of another; the rest he had been whatever it was he was... is.

He had a headache. But he thought he had an idea of who he needed to save —and it was really more than one person. But one of them was more important than the others. One of them, the world turning to shit sort of rested in his hands, his decisions. And either Hannibal needed to get him to see things differently or kill him. The problem, he was Hannibal's soulmate. Because that was also a thing.

Hannibal was still kneeling, trying not to vomit whatever might be in his stomach, when he glanced the Shade's way and asked, "Who else have you tossed about in their timelines trying to save the planet from plunging into a barren darkness?" He had seen it, one of his lives had been just over two hundred years. It was probably the closest he had come but also a failure as he'd seen what had happened. How it had turned from light to dark in almost a blink of an eye. It had made him sure he hadn't been the only one.

The Shade flickered and Hannibal grabbed at his head and screamed out into the void. When he came back to himself he was dry heaving. Clearly there was nothing in his stomach, question from before answered. And he really was going to have to remember to phrase his questions and requests better.

"I will help you," he stated, climbing slowly to his feet. He wanted what he'd had twice for brief moments in two of those twelve times; and he didn't want Earth plunging into a pit of despair that made the worst zombie, end of the world movie look like a paradise. "But, I need you to answer my questions." He walked closer to the Shade, "Verbally," he added to be clear.

"You tried the crazy vampire chic?" he questioned, incredulously. Hannibal had only met her three times, and none of them had been great. "Danica," he finally said, recalling her name. "Why?"

"She is older. She would have given us more time, but she became tainted. She turned," the Shade offered. "She just wants the dark now. To sit on the throne that will never be hers."

Hannibal had kind of seen that. "Can you go back and not leap her about in her timeline?"

The Shade apparently didn't like that question. "No. She is now required as she is. Her taint has spread past her. She must continue to do as she has; her death must be at a certain time. If sooner, she will become a catalyst. She must be seen by the King, but not taint him. He must declare her death."

"Well, she can't have what isn't hers," Hannibal waved off that comment. "Moving on. The actual dhampir, Blade. Why did he not work?"

The Shade's appearance wavered for a moment. "He should not exist," the Shade continued. "His entire being is conflicted due to the matter of his birth. He enjoyed the deaths. He will become like the other."

Hannibal has seen that gleam in Blade's eyes the two times the man had killed him and he'd only been a vampire one of those times.

"The female hunter, Abagail?"

The Shade did her whole flickering thing which Hannibal now figured was her either communicating with others of her kind, trying to figure out how to answer, or learning how to speak to a lifeform it considered much lower than itself. Maybe it was a little of all of it.

"She is young and connected to various souls. But too human in her present, she has not awakened yet, and her soul and body would not withstand being restarted in this life without damage."

"Are you saying some of us have lived other lives where you have tried this?"

The Shade paused and flickered. "Yes. No. You asked something I cannot answer in your simple terms."

Hannibal walked to the edge of the roof where he had turned to dust and sat down on the balustrade. "Let me try again," Hannibal said, because he thought he had figured something out. "Abigail and I, our souls at least, have lived lives before?"

"Yes."

"Have you attempted this with those versions of us?"

"Yes."

And Hannibal figured that since they were here now, it hadn't worked. "But you couldn't use some of our past lives because we weren't who or what you needed, correct?"

"Yes," the Shade answered, seeming a bit agitated.

Hannibal didn't think the Shade was going to give him much more time before she tossed him back into his life. "Can you toss me back into one of my previous lives?"

"No."

"What would happen if you tried?"

"Death."

No matter how Hannibal tried to work that answer, it didn't seem like a good choice. Whether it be his soul's death, his past life's death, the planet. So that option was out.

"And Asher, the not changed creature?" Hannibal asked, because in a handful of his past attempts he had discovered that Asher had been more than a simple vampire. And if he was a betting person, which sometimes he was, he would say that Danica was responsible for Asher's complete change into the monster he had met during several attempts. Because the three times he had met Asher without Danica being in the picture, he had not seemed dark or crazy; definitely a little melancholy sometimes —as if he was tired of waiting. And now Hannibal understood the melancholy.

"Early, he was like you. Close in his attempts, but still failures. Later only darkness."

"What changed him?"

"The loss of his sire's brother and king; along with the continued loss of half his soulmate. And then one of his meetings with the tainted one."

Oaky, Hannibal had to parse that. "By sire, you mean his biological father?"

"Yes."

Hannibal straightened from his slight hunched position. "His father's brother was the king?"

"Is."

Is? Shit. Hannibal's gut was poking at him. That sixth sense that he was good at ignoring was screaming at him. "Can you pull him from the lives we just lived, since he died about the same time as me, and put him back along his life with some of his memories or impressions of his memories?"

"Yes, but to what end?"

"Because he's going to help me help you."

The air around him seemed to be pulled in around him and the Shade. He stood from the balustrade. He should have asked more questions before he asked the Shade to do something because his skin seemed to be both on fire and freezing at the same moment. He was standing in the middle of a vortex and when everything cleared he was knocked to the ground by a very angry, very vampiric-not-vampire Asher.

Asher was strong and pissed and it took all of Hannibal's strength to push the angry man off of him and roll far enough away he could get back to his feet. "Asher, stop!" he yelled.

"You killed me, King, I'm going to return the favor."

Hannibal snorted. "You've done that like twice already.

"I don't care," Asher started moving forward.

Here goes nothing, Hannibal thought and stood up straight, hands by his side. "Abigail's your soulmate," he stated. "That's why you couldn't kill her. Why you let her go? Why you did everything in your power to keep her away from Danica?"

Asher stopped short of his attack. "It was for nothing," he growled. "She still died. But how do you know that?"

Hannibal noticed Asher's fingers looked more like claws, the pale skin more bone and sand —just as he had seen the King of all Creatures appear. This had to be Asher's true form —sand, bone, and claws, and very fae eyes. It was additional proof that Danica had been fucking with Asher's mind because his appearance had never changed in all the times Hannibal had seen the other man —whether friend or foe. Hannibal had one more thing. "Same way I know that Anna and Zoe Sommerfield were the last of your true family's line and that neither you nor your uncle killed them."

"My uncle?" Asher questioned, confused as if he wasn't sure of what he was saying. "I don't have an uncle."

Hannibal had to make a decision and it could one hundred percent backfire on him, but he was going to trust his gut and pray. He turned to the Shade. "Give him all his memories, like you did me."

He had a moment to apologize to Asher before Asher was grabbing at his head and screaming out in pain.

Hannibal turned to look out at the city that he now understood wasn't really there. It explained the lack of birds and sounds. The roof wasn't real either. This was all a void in between. Made by the Shade to not cause more panic when yanked from his body.

"Do you want to save them?" Hannibal asked, when Asher stopped dry heaving and looked more angry than murderous.

"You know I do."

He hadn't told the Shade not to show him Asher's past lives so she hadn't blocked the knowledge from him. It was definitely an invasion of privacy, but right now he needed all the information he could get. And since he was an observer he seemed to be aware of things that he doubted Asher had noticed. That didn't really help to watch a man lose his soulmate over and over throughout the millennia each time he was repositioned to try and have his uncle make other choices. It hurt. He could see how it would be easy, with the right push, to just fall into despair and grief; into the darkness and let it take over.

Hannibal learned a lot about Asher and his uncle the King. Asher's mother had been Fae of some nature and both he and his siblings had favored their mother's people in appearance more so than their father's. But unlike his siblings, he had inherited his father's need to ingest blood to live, along with the exoskeleton that could be used in battle. And the runic birthmark on his chest that marked him as royalty. He had watched as Danica had corrupted Asher's memories; for the Shade was right, Danica was tainted.

Asher's great niece had fallen in love and married a human. They had children. Fae-touched, witches, and down the line all gifted with magical sight and intuition. Ending with Anna Sommerfiled who lost her actual vision but still had the sight; and her daughter, Zoe, who would become as gifted as Asher's sister.

And Aia, who Asher would find over and over. Who would be murdered by Danica over and over. Until one of Aia's past lives had cast a binding on her soul that could only be unlocked by another with the sight for if her soulmate couldn't find her, he couldn't lose her again; and it couldn't drive him into the dark. She had tried to save Asher in her own way.

"I cannot save Aia, can I?" Asher spoke for the first time since seeing what had happened to him over and over.

"No," the Shade answered.

Hannibal already knew the answer and had figured out something else. "We can't take the memories of all the attempts back with us either. Here in this void she's holding us in, we can process, but once back in the, let's call it, the stream, our minds would not be able to handle it all. It would drive us mad." He turned to look at the Shade. "Right?"

"Yes."

"You tried that with Danica and made things worse," Hannibal stated, not expecting an answer.

"Yes. That failure was ours and we could not reverse it once it began. It must run its course. If it is stopped too soon then the darkness will spread faster as she, unchecked, has become both its block and catalyst.”

Hannibal had a flash of insight at that moment which was giving him a headache. Her death too early would cause chaos as all the crazies wouldn't have a leader. Plus, in the attempts where Danica corrupted Asher's memories, he couldn't remember where his uncle had gone to ground because he didn't remember he had an uncle. Her corruption had wiped away who he was in order to remake him into her brother. Nor could she pass Asher off as the King, even with the branded birthmark, because he couldn't remember he was a prince. Which ruined Danica's plans and probably drove her a little more crazy each time. Even now, she just thought it was all part of some destiny or plan she had come up with all on her own.

Neither Hannibal or Asher noticed the Shade's impatience as they tried to figure out the bare basics that they needed to remember to have the best chance.

Not until it was too late and were both pulled from the void.

"Lady!" Both Hannibal and Asher yelled at the same time. They looked at each other and then glared at the Shade.

This time they had at least died together and on the same side. Both had been cut down by Blade.

"My soulmate is a stubborn pain in the ass and it's your fault, Asher."

"Me? You are one to talk," Asher growled, and pushed Hannibal away to pace; clearly both angry and upset.

Hannibal growled —Asher wasn't wrong, and Hannibal knew it. He stepped mere centimeters from the Shade. "Do not toss us back into the stream until we have a small set of memories to keep —as premonitions, gut feelings, however it is going to work— because I don't think vampires starting a nuclear winter to block out the sun was the best outcome, do you?"

"It was a failure."

"No shit."

This time they had a plan. Or so they thought.

"You failed."

"Closer than either of us ever come though than when you were trying with just one of us."

It was Asher who realized one of their issues. "It is the fourteen hundred years between your first death and the current you. He gets mere moments with you inbetween and the grief and feeling of loss is always within; growing worse with each time."

"But the same is true for you," Hannibal noted.

Asher nodded. "But something inside me now tells me I will see Aia again. He doesn't have that."

Hannibal paced. “Do you dream when you, go to ground, hibernate? Is it hibernating? I never asked. Suspended animation?” Asher closed his eyes and Hannibal knew the other man was counting to ten. “That just technically makes it premeditated,” Hannibal joked.

Asher sighed, but his lips still moved to smile slightly. “It’s probably more like Captain America in the ice than a bear. Maybe. We do wake a bit hungry though; but not ravenous. Like we need energy or calories. As for waking-dreams, like I think you are suggesting, I don't really know. I have vague impressions of my youngest sister telling me that she would be passing soon but our family lived on.”

“You closeted geek.”

“Whatever.”

Asher sounded a little exasperated and Hannibal couldn’t fault him, even with the jokes. The last try had been so close. They had both tasted what they had been missing and then watched it all implode and explode. “Then you could have visions that you could remember?”

Hannibal turned to the Shade. “Is that possible? Could I, standing here with you, touch them in their resting state?”

“Why?” It was the first time the Shade had seemed intrigued.

“Because it will give them hope.”

To Hannibal, he had only been in the void for a handful of minutes, before he was being pushed back into life. He had a brief moment to hope that this was it, that he wouldn’t see the Shade or Void again.

Hannibal woke from the craziest of dreams. He grabbed the notebook he kept next to his bed and jotted a few notes down to review later. He would have to figure out if it was a dream or just a normal dream. But coffee now, then a shower.

The coffee maker was happily dripping. The best thing he ever did was run into Abigail Whistler —and he meant that literally since the two of them backed their cars into each other. She was a great roommate and only nagged him when he left the wet towels on the bathroom floor. Which, he would admit, was kind of gross.

He found Abby sitting on a stool at their kitchen counter staring at her phone. "Abs? Everything okay? Aren't you supposed to be on your way to meet your father; or did he cancel again?" Hannibal tried to stay out of that relationship as much as possible. They also both pretended that Hannibal didn't know that her father was the leader of a vampire hunter group; which was kind of illegal. Several hundred years ago when people started to forget and the supernatural creatures became more myth than truth, they were brought back into the light. The world was mostly okay with fae, witches, and most supernaturals that could be written off as normal-ish, but vampires and shifters were another thing. Still illegal to hunt them though.

"Anna has left the group," Abby answered.

Hannibal actually thought that was probably a good idea. They only really wanted Anna for her medical and science skills. Which she could do elsewhere and not be trapped on a hunter boat moored at the marina. Especially since Zoe, her seven year old, was with her. And he figured the very bright, clearly fae-descendant child with the slight point of her ears and tri-colored eyes, wigged the other hunters out. He thought Zoe was adorable and always answered her questions. She was a bright, curious child who understood more than people thought.

"Her grand-uncle," Abby informed him; and the way she said it implied that there were too many generations and years to use the word great. "Has returned and told her she was not safe with the hunters," Abby continued, putting her phone down. "He asked her to seek refuge with him and she agreed. He's not human."

"I'm not purely human," he reminded her. He knew there was fae in his ancestry —both way back and a little more current, but his parents had died when he was very young and he never had anyone to ask. He was also quite positive a couple of other things were mixed in there, but something fae definitely dominated. It had become easier to accept he stopped trying to fight it. He was no seer like Anna, but his intuition was pretty spot on.

Abby made a face. "That's not what I meant and you know it."

He did. But Abby's family had been attacked by vampires when she was Zoe's age. Her mother had been killed. Her father had not been home, not that he had been home much from what Hannibal had gotten from Abby the few times she spoke of her past. He had been out hunting the vampires who had hunted him instead and found his family. Something or someone had protected Abby from the attack. Delivered her to a man named Caulder —who Hannibal had met and was probably less human than Hannibal was but he wasn't going to ask. Anna had been a teenager also under Caulder's care at the time. It had taken Abby's father almost two years to come visit. That trend continued until Abby was old enough to be of use to her father's hunting needs. Needless to say, Hannibal had a very low opinion of Abby's father.

"Anna's been having visions. Some of my father's group want to lock her away."

"That's called kidnapping."

Abby gave him another look. "I'm aware of that, detective. I wouldn't let them do that."

Hannibal wasn't sure Abby would have much weight with her father's group —the Nightstalkers, a name right out of a comic book— but again, he wasn't getting between the two Whistlers. He'd done that once before and he's almost positive that was how he all of a sudden became the target of a crazy vampire stalker chic. He had no proof but Hannibal didn't think it was a coincidence either. Which reminded him, he needed to find out if Danica was back in town or not. The weird vampire cases had lessened in the last couple of weeks and he hadn't had any strange deliveries of dead flowers, still bleeding hearts, or provocative clothing.

He looked down at his watch. He didn't have to be at the station until three. His new partner, who had to take unexpected family leave, was coming back to work today. He'd met the man a couple of times when he had been on patrol. And Hannibal had briefly partnered with him when he'd first become a detective earlier in the year. They had gotten along fairly well; even if the other man was all suits and proper and Hannibal was anything but. "Do you want me to go with you?" he offered.

"I," Abby started. Hannibal had never seen Abby indecisive before. "Yeah, I think... maybe that would be good."

Hannibal had only experienced Anna doing the Seer thing once. It had freaked him out and not because she was a Seer and her normally clouded eyes cleared and glowed with a golden light. No, it was because her vision directly impacted him and something he had been trying to ignore. In the end, her words had probably changed the course of his life and saved it as well.

The large brownstone mansion he drove them to was owned by the Talos Corporation. Hannibal may have run the address on the way over. In the last twenty years the name Talos had come to mean vampires, at least in this city and mainly because of Danica Talos who had taken over the large Talos skyscraper. Not that Hannibal was supposed to know that either. But his stalker was head bitch so he tried to keep tabs.

He also knew that way back in their history vampires took on the name of the family that had changed them and that there had been twelve families. Though only nine of them still existed. The Fae tea shop was a great place to sit in and just listen to the cities' non-human gossip. It's how he knew that the shifters were keeping to themselves and the new herbalist shop was owned by an earth elemental and his family.

The building he parked his car in front of had more protections on it than Hannibal had ever felt or seen. He actually wondered if for humans the building was there but not. Like a Jedi saying this building is unimportant, ignore it. He thought it felt like nothing was getting in that wasn't supposed to. He also felt very judged, but welcomed as he walked through the unseen barrier.

He followed the guy who had opened the door —who was no butler but the door area seemed to be his domain, into a large modern sitting room that was far enough from the front door that if the place was breached the occupants could probably be moved to safety. Plus he had spotted several other people that were clearly personal security or guards.

Anna was sitting at a table that had clearly been repurposed to hold her computer —her fingers moving over the braille keyboard as the speakers quietly talked to her about the stuff on the multiple monitors. There were others in the room, he ignored them all, but offered a soft hello to Anna as he walked by, leaving Abby with her.

"How is the most awesome princess in the world?" he said to the little girl surrounded by paper and crayons. Zoe dropped her crayon, sprung to her feet and ran towards him.

Hannibal dropped to his knee so he could catch her. "My knight is finally here," the little girl said with certainty, wrapping her arms around his neck. "To protect me from the evil queen and her dark knights."

Well, Hannibal thought, that was a new response. He hugged her back and got a good look at her eyes that glowed for a second with a golden light much like her mother's. As quickly as the light was there, it seemed to fade. He picked her up and moved back to the spot where she had been coloring. For a seven year old a few of the pictures he saw were quite detailed.

He knelt back down and put Zoe on her feet. "You will battle there," Zoe said, pointing to the picture of a silver building she had drawn. Hannibal recognized it as the Talos office building downtown. It was also the home of Danica, his stalker. So that probably made her the evil queen.

There was another pile of pictures, and these were more what Hannibal was used to seeing when Zoe colored. He recognized a picture that was supposed to be him then did a double take. It wasn't the fact that he seemed to be holding hands with another male; no, it was the fact that she had drawn him in blue pants, a green buttoned shirt, and a black jacket. Exactly what he had on now; which made him wonder if she had always been able to predict what he would be wearing. Another picture had who he guessed was the same man he was holding hands with and another man with yellow-blond hair and a little girl standing with them.

Since the little girl was dressed in the same colors that Zoe was wearing he figured it was her. "Who is this with you here," he asked, picking up the drawing.

One of the guards stationed in the room cleared his throat but Zoe ignored him. "That's Uncle Asher," she said, pointing to the blond. Asher wasn't exactly an everyday name, and he knew one person with that name; his new partner, Detective Asher Raymond. Hannibal wasn't sure if he believed in coincidences or not. But the dark gray blob that he took to be a jumpsuit could easily be a child's rendition of a three-piece suit.

"And this one?"

The guard cleared his throat again. This time Zoe turned to look at the guard. Her eyes had started to glow again. "It's okay, Princess Zoe," he offered. "You don't have to tell me." She turned back to him, her eyes once again the normal rings of brown and amber.

"But I'm supposed to," she shared. "You're his knight too." The noise the guard made seemed rather strained before turning on his heel and leaving the room at a quick pace. Hannibal figured that was about to be news to someone, but Hannibal kept his attention on Zoe. "He told me I could call him grandfather, but he's Uncle Asher's uncle and I don't think that's how that works, is it?" she questioned.

"It could be," he answered her.

"But he's really, really old," she imparted as if sharing a secret. "Older than even Uncle Asher." She moved her pictures around until she found the one she was looking for. "They lived here," she handed him the picture. It was a child's drawing of a ziggurat. Of the pyramid-like building he had dreamed of and left himself a note to look into just this morning. Hannibal's mind was racing. Another of those coincidences he didn't believe in.

"Hannibal," Zoe said, resting her little hands on his chest, her eyes glowing again. "You need to be very careful the next few days."

"I will," he promised, taking her hands in his. Her eyes returned to normal. He was going to have to talk to someone about an amulet or something because Zoe deserved to be a little kid.

She leaned in and whispered, "Aunt Abby is going to marry Uncle Asher.”

Hannibal nearly lost his balance and almost fell on his ass with that revelation. "That, sweetie," he said, "you need to keep to yourself until they are both ready to know that."

Zoe nodded. "Mommy says me and Aunt Abby will be going to school together soon," Zoe said. "But isn't Aunt Abby too old to be in the same classes with me?"

Hannibal laughed softly and smiled, as he taped Zoe's nose. "It depends on what you will be learning, but I bet you'll both help each other out."

"Oh yes, I will," the little girl nodded enthusiastically.

A pained moan and the sound of dry heaving had Hannibal focusing on where Abby had been talking to Anna Sommerfield. Anna was helping Abby to a nearby sofa where they both sat. Anna placed a hand on Abby's forehead and one over her heart and leaned in. Whatever Anna was saying was too quiet for Hannibal to hear.

"Oh, mommy woke up Aunt Abby."

Hannibal just let himself move to sit on the floor next to Zoe before he really did end up falling on his ass. He wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing, but he was almost positive that he knew what classes Abby and Zoe would be taking together.

He watched as Zoe colored a couple of more pictures before Zoe turned to him and handed him a picture of two dogs and what looked like a tribble. "I think you will meet the first of the dark knights tomorrow night," she said, "along with his pets."

Well, he guessed a vampire pomeranian could be viewed as a tribble. He hadn't even known that such a thing was possible. Or why? Just why?

He turned to his partner. "What? Why even?"

His partner gave him a dirty look. "Just because I'm a vampire, doesn't mean I understand the crazy ones."

Now Hannibal gave his partner a dark look. He was sure Asher hadn't meant for that to become known so soon in their partnership. "Asher, you and I are having a long talk after I shower to get the pomeranian vampire ash off my person because you are no vampire. So stop pretending." Hannibal all but marched out of the alley behind the bar where the confrontation had occurred. He didn't even know the name of the large, dumb vampire that he had accidently dispatched —he'd wanted answers to questions first. Apparently the two vampire rottweilers and the pomeranian took offense.

"Why!" he yelled into the night. Thoughts zipped around in his head. If it was a setup, who was it for? Were they supposed to die? Kidnapped? Why one vampire for the two of them? Hannibal stumped to his car and gave a full body shake. There was pomeranian vampire ash down his back and it itched. Getting more agitated as he went. He pulled his hand back before he could even touch the handle. Nope. Something in the last half hour had changed with his car. He squatted down trying to get a look under the car without having to lie on the ground. He didn't want to open the door to even pop the hood. He wasn't sure if there was an actual explosive or if it was simply that there was a vampire in his trunk. He wasn't going to find out either way.

"Where did you park?" he asked Asher.

Asher pointed off to another car from the motor pool. Hannibal actually shivered when he got closer to that car. "Nope, that's definitely the I'm probably going to explode vibe." He turned to Asher even as he grabbed him by the arm and dragged him toward the subway. "Would an explosion kill you?"

Asher turned to look at his car and made a face. "If it was designed to take the whole car out, maybe. But if not, probably a better chance of it putting me into a healing sleep; something akin to a coma."

"You would appear dead to humans," Hannibal was thinking out loud. "They'd take you to the morgue and then your body would be claimed by whom? Who would want you in a weakened state? Who'd want me dead or turned."

Hannibal badged his way onto the subway. Moved through the cars until he came to an empty one —three in the morning had its perks. Asher was apparently on his phone having their cars moved by his people. No accidental explosions or deaths should a thief try to make off with one of the cars. Hannibal closed his eyes and waited for the train to start moving. "So what are you?" he asked, not opening his eyes and not really giving Asher a chance to answer. "You're old, I know that. You are not a yokai, demon, shifter, incubus —you are sexy, but then again you definitely have Fae in you and it could just be that." He opened his eyes and looked at Asher. "Your eyes, if anyone bothers to really look at them, give that last bit away. Why a cop?"

Asher sighed and blew out a breath. Then he leaned forward and braced his arms on his knees to stare at Hannibal. "This isn't how we planned to reveal any of this to you."

Hannibal snorted. "No plan really survives. Who's we?" He said nothing else, just sat there waiting.

Asher flexed his fingers and Hannibal watched them go from human to very much looking like claws and back to human. He didn't think Asher had even noticed and he could tell it hadn't been a threat of any kind either. More like finally coming down from the alert that the fight in the alley had put them in. "Anna and Zoe Sommerfield are my descendants."

Hannibal said nothing.

"My people, our name has been lost to time and changes. At one time we were called the Talos —Asher's fingers becoming claws again for a brief second, but even that is not something we'd want to be associated with as it has been corrupted over time. Magra would perhaps be the best name. Though that is just cobbled together from Dagda and Morrigan from both my grandparents' time. My grandfather was King of All Creatures and did sometimes drink blood, so myth has made him the blood god.

"I don't even know how they were lost. If they died or went to another realm. I was very young when they were just gone. To be honest, I'm not sure I ever met them, or them I. Or if all I recall are just faded stories from my mother. And my mother was a Danu."

The train slowed for another stop, stopped, and then continued on. They had two more stops before the closest one to their precinct. Hannibal knew of the Danu, they could almost be considered fae royalty.

"As for being a cop," Asher shrugged. "Not the first time I've been a detective. It's a way to protect the city I live in and get a feel for all the creatures that live in it."

"Who is Danica to you?" Hannibal asked. "She's been stalking me for a while."

"Honestly," Asher admitted. "I haven't a clue. I do know she is not an actual descendant, but she's almost as old as I am. And," Asher rubbed at his chest, "my grandfather had two sons, my father and my uncle. My uncle never fathered children as he met his soulmate early on, only to have him taken away. But he says he has dreamed of his mate; that he came to him in dreams telling him to be patient for his return would take millenia. He woke once when the world began to forget about us. He told me his soulmate told him it was required that the world not forget about the supernatural. And the dream used that term. He has told me things over the millenia that have proven this to be true and not some deep sleep induced made up fantasy.

"My parents had three children. Myself and my two sisters. They are, were more fae than I have ever been and left this realm many centuries ago. A few of their descendants stayed though."

Hannibal set up straight. "Shit, Zoe really is a little princess."

"Yes."

"It is believed that today's vampires began with the birth of a daywalker. A Magra attacking a pregnant woman, maybe even turning her and the child's birth still being successful. The child then fed from humans, both for substance and to make more like them. It failed and created the growing infestation that was allowed while the king slept."

"Why?" Hannibal began to ask, but stopped. "You went to ground as well?" he asked.

Asher looked out the train's windows. "A century or so later; after my soulmate was murdered for the first time. And then off and on for almost a thousand years. There's only so many times you can grasp that which makes you whole just to have it ripped away from you before you go mad. I thought sleep best to prevent that."

Hannibal knew almost instantly who that was. "Abigail is her reborn."

Asher stood as the train stopped. "Yes."

"Did you dream of her?"

"No," Asher said as the doors opened at the station. He turned to look at Hannibal as he walked off the train. "You; but you led me back to her. So I guess I owe you a thank you."

The next week was a whirlwind of shit flying everywhere; and not all of it was vampire or supernatural or whatever Hannibal was calling it that day. No, some of it was just plain old humans being assholes.

Three murders, a suicide, what he swears was a wolf attack but was keeping the exact animal out of his reports, and fifteen missing persons. Not to mention the dozens of outrageous claims that were being reported —most of which Hannibal was actually guessing were real. Hannibal wanted to blame the fact on the black moon phase they were entering because of course this month was going to have two new moons. But something was changing and Hannibal could feel it. It was both good and bad. Like something very good was about to happen if he could just live through to the end.

The rumors at the Fae tea shop was that someone was cleaning house, but that the human hunters kept getting in the way. Two more vampire houses had been lost. Scorched, one rumor has said, as a warning that they had broken the King's covenant.

People were beginning to remember again that there were more than just fae-descendants in the world. Witches were okay, so were seers or precogs; even elementals seemed to be okay. But a vampire or a shifter or a demon, nope, then we'd gone too far. It wasn't like they hadn't existed; it was just that everything had stopped hiding. Even the little earth faeries were out and about because there was a purple tree now growing outside of the police station.

Hannibal came home one day to find Abby packing her things. "I," she started. "There's something coming and I need to be closer to Anna." She paused. "My father," she admitted, "would put me on the wrong path and use me up." Her hands were trembling. "He would destroy Zoe and she's the next..." Abby stopped to look at him.

"I know that she's actually a Fae princess if that is why you stopped."

"She's not just a Fae princess, Hannibal," Abby stated, zipping her suitcase closed. "She's more than that. There's a war coming unless..."

"Abby." Hannibal simply said her name. "I know exactly who my partner is. Asher and I have had a chat or two. But do you know who he is?"

She nodded.

"Do you really?"

"He's my soulmate. Or I'm his reborn. I," she rubbed at her chest, over her heart. "They tried to use me against him in the past. He took me out for coffee." She made a face at Hannibal. "He's kind of old school," she commented.

"Well," Hannibal admitted. "He is over a thousand years old."

"Hannibal," she admonished, but was at least now smiling and her hands weren't trembling. So, mission accomplished.

She walked up to him. "I don't think it was an accident, us running into each other that day at the store. I think it was the universe trying to ensure that we meet sooner rather than later. That we moved forward together. We kept each other on track."

"Are you a seer, Abby?" Hannibal asked, curiously.

"Oh hell, no," she answered with a laugh, lifting her hand as if cupping water. A small flame appeared that began to spin like a tornado then dispersed into a light warm wind. "Both of my great grandmothers were druid witches," she informed him. "High elementals."

"You know when you marry Asher," Hannibal couldn't help himself. "That will make you a princess."

"Shut up." She poked him in the chest. "None of that."

Hannibal's gut started to ache. The sixth sense of his went on full alert. "They didn't let you come here alone, did they?" he asked. He had recalled seeing the one guard that Asher had following him. It had annoyed him slightly, but it seemed to settle some of Asher's nerves.

"No."

He didn't even let her finish. He had his gun out and was already opening the door. "You need to get her out of here," he told the man. "Now. There's something coming."

"Hannibal?"

"Nope. Out you go Abby," He said pushing her and her rolling suitcase toward the guard. "I'll see you soon."

She did something so un Abby-like that it startled Hannibal. She hugged him. He hugged her back. "It will be fine," he promised. "Now go."

"Take her straight to the castle," he used the word Zoe always used to describe the mansion. "No stops."

The guard nodded and was joined by two more guards who came from the stairwell. "Reinforcements are a few minutes out," one of the guards reported.

"Do not worry about me," he commanded, he titled his head. "We'll be fine."

"And Abby," he gave his friend a look. "The next time you invite the King of All Creatures into our home, you tell me."

She shrugged as the guards surrounded her and they moved down the hallway. Moving to take the skybridge to the other building to exit from.

Hannibal turned to find the man from his dreams standing in his living room. Thankfully not dressed in leather and battle armor of the past. Instead he was dressed very modern-like in blue jeans and a white dress shirt that wasn't buttoned all the way. Hannibal figured it was so people could clearly see the runic birthmark that looked burned into the man's slightly tanned chest. The mark identified him as royalty. The design and color and the fact that it looked alive in its own right, identified him as the king. Resting just barely above it, on a leather cord was a stone amulet that he recognized from his dreams. He, the first time his soul had met this man, had given it to him —with soul magic so that they could always find one another. "So that's the secret Asher has been keeping from me," he said, more to himself than his visitor. "His uncle, the King, is my soulmate; because of course he is."

The King lifted an eyebrow but didn't speak. Hannibal took a step closer, and then another. Until his hand rested not on the brand but over the small stone amulet.

"Whatever is coming," Hannibal warned. "Cannot happen in this building. There are families here." And Hannibal had a moment of clarity; a good portion of them were supernaturals. He and Abby had picked this multi-storey, multi-building complex because it felt safe and over the years more Fae-descendants, witches, and other things had moved into the complex as well. He doubted if there were more than a handful of pure human families. The King still said nothing. "Say something," he demanded.

"You are agitated," the man observed.

Seriously, he thought. "No shit," he said. "In more ways than one right now."

"We must leave this building," the King said, and grabbed Hannibal. The man moved unbelievably fast. One second they were in his living room, next on their balcony, and then in the alley way that led into the parking garage for his complex.

Hannibal pushed himself out of the embrace. "Next time ask first," he demanded, trying not to empty the contents of his stomach. But one thing had been clear, when Hannibal's hand had touched the brand on the other man's chest. It had been him, or a him of this day and age, that had been in the King's dreams. He recognized the clothing he had been wearing. Abby had finally torn the old shirt into rags because she had said it was no longer suitable to be worn in public or even around the house.

He'd also discovered something else. "You saved her when the vampires attacked," he said.

"Yes," the King admitted. "I was too late to save her mother."

"What is your name?" Hannibal questioned. "Why don't I know that? I should know that, right?" The last part more of a question to himself.

"You called me, Drake, in our dreams," Drake answered.

With that simple sentence things came flooding into Hannibal's mind. "How long have you been awake this time?" Hannibal demanded. Why hadn't the other man shown himself before?

"Since the day I felt you be born again."

Any other time or place that might have sounded romantic. "You've been protecting Abby and the Sommerfields, haven't you? And Asher has been keeping tabs on me." Hannibal paced away. "Makes sense, I guess." Drake was the one responsible for the missing vampire houses; and Asher's family matter had been him going to help.

He felt it more than he saw anything and dodged out of the way of a sword, moving Drake with him as he moved. A black man wearing a black trench coat and sunshades brought the sword up for another attack.

"Whistler was right, his daughter would lead us to you. And now she's leading us back to the little whelp you stole."

Hannibal wasn't sure who the you was —him or Drake, and he wasn't sure if it mattered. The man had just given him information. Whistler and the Nightstalkers. And they were also after Zoe.

"I'm going to kill you both," the man said, grinning. A grin that showed off vampire teeth. While it was late afternoon, there was enough sun to keep a regular vampire indoors.

"Daywalker," Drake's voice was filled with aversion. "Your kind started all this."

Blade moved to attack and Drake changed. He'd seen Asher's hands become claws and a few days ago had seen the other man's arm change to something akin to stone to stop a knife. Drake changed more than just an arm, his entire body changed to look like it was wearing armor made of bone and stone. He hadn't expected the horns though and maybe that's where some of the myths of actual demons came from.

Drake blocked the attack and sort of swatted the sword to the side. Blade switched tactics and tried to come for him but Drake stepped in front of him. "If you die protecting me, we're fucked," Hannibal said. "Also, I'll be very, very ticked with you."

Hannnibal, pulled his gun. "Stop, police," he identified himself for the onlookers who had started to gather. Then fired two rounds center mass. Blade was pushed back, but didn't go down, and Hannibal could see the bullet impacts; the man was wearing body armor. Highly illegal. He switched his aim and fired at the arm being used to swing the sword. He wasn't sure which of the two shots hit, but Blade howled out and the sword dropped from his hand. "Run away," Hannibal hissed.

"I'll kill all of your kind," Blade announced, seething and groping for something on his person.

"Thank you for announcing that to all these people filming this," Hannibal used his other hand to indicate the growing crowd, not willing to lower the gun, but also figuring this confrontation was over —though if Blade did charge again the next shot was going to be at Blade's head. "No doubt your face will be all over the news tonight. How about I just arrest you now?"

Blade must have found whatever it was he was looking for because a cloud of something akin to a smoke or tear gas canister was dropped on the ground with a tiny explosion and Blade seemed to disappear.

Drake changed back to human and knelt down to pick up the sword. "We must go," he said. "They are after my granddaughter, the Princess," he announced loud enough that Hannibal knew that had been the intention. The crowd parted for them, half of which were bowing their heads at Drake.

There was a small fire burning on the outer gates of the mansion when they arrived. There were also three bodies with no visible wounds. The barrier had judged them unworthy. But Hannibal could also see that the barrier had taken a beating and been breached, but was still holding the notice-me-not thing it had going on. They moved through the second layer to find that the large, heavy front door had been blown off its hinges.

Everything in the foyer was kindling and still smoldering. There were several bodies —one of them the guard that Hannibal had met during his previous visit. Some Hannibal recognized as the guards and employees of the mansion; others he knew had been part of the Nightstalkers. There was also ash still floating about in the air; vampire ash. Someone had put a suicide vest on someone who could get through the wards and then set it off. Hannibal could feel that person's last moment of regret for her actions. Someone was going to pay. He and Drake advanced down the hallway and then found themselves surrounded for a moment before people started bowing.

Drake growled. "Where is the princess and where is my nephew?"

"I'm fine, uncle," Asher moved into sight. He was covered in blood and holding his arm as if it was injured. He was also purposely blocking the door into the room.

"Asher," he admonished, "remember what I said about using the word fine to describe how you were doing."

Asher gave him a dark look. "Things went to shit Hannibal."

"Better," Hannibal acknowledged, but his gut was telling him he already knew the answer to his next question. "Where is Zoe?"

"She," Asher started, only to be interrupted by a yell of his name from Abby.

Hannibal followed Asher back into the room. Abby was alive, but there was blood on her face and clothes and a gray-ish smear along one side that Hannibal knew was her trying to wipe vampire ash off of her face or hand. She was on the floor near Anna Sommerfield, her hands glowing slightly. Anna had been stabbed; the knife was still in her chest. Between whatever Abby was attempting and the knife having not been removed, it was probably what was keeping Anna alive.

There was anger boiling inside Hannibal, he could feel it. But something flashed into his mind that he could channel it. He could use it. He wasn't sure where the help was coming from, but he was going to use the knowledge it had just provided him. "Abby," he said, moving to kneel next to Anna. "I need you to move." She didn't even seem to hear him. "Asher," he redirected his request. "I need you to move her out of the way. Now."

Whatever the others saw at that moment had them moving. He leaned down next to Anna. "This is probably going to hurt," he warned.

Anna lifted a bloody hand to Hannibal's face. "If this fails," she whispered, "it's okay. You must not waste more time. Zoe," she gasped, her breathing becoming even more labored.

"Shh," he promised. "This is going to work." He looked up to find Drake kneeling on the other side of Anna's body. "When I say, pull the blade out."

Hanniba placed his hands on either side of the puncture wound, just barely touching the knife. He felt the anger become warmth and love and something else. His hands began to glow with a slight blue-ish purple hue. His eyes closed and he seemed to lose track of time. "Now," he said. He felt blood bubble up but just as quickly felt it retreat. But he couldn't get the wound to fully heal. He felt other hands join his on the wound.

"I must finish this for you," he heard Drake say. He moved his hands and opened his eyes in time to see Drake slice the palm of his hand open and drop his blood into the wound. "Worry not," he said, "she is already of my blood." Anna's breathing had evened out and it looked like she was just in a deep sleep. "This will just ensure the healing you have done will finish and that she will live a long life to see her daughter marry and have children."

Hannibal was holding Drake to that. He looked down at his blood covered hands. "Who stabbed her?" he asked as one of the guards handed him a damp towel.

"My father," Abby admitted.

"Abby," he began but she finished for him with, "is a dead man." Good, glad they were on the same page.

He looked around the room. "Zoe gave herself up, didn't she?"

"She ran through the fight and out of the broken doors into the street," the statement came from the nanny that Caulder had brought. "She told me to let her go," the woman looked down; worried that she had both the right and wrong thing. "That her knight was coming and that he would bring her home, but if I didn't let her go that the black moon would never leave. The attackers followed her."

Hannibal nodded. That sounded about right. He spotted Caulder sitting in a chair. "Is that a bullet hole in your leg?" he questioned.

"It will pass," the older man said and the statement sounded true to him.

"Asher?" he questioned, while his sixth sense was telling him other things.

"I know," Asher said, clearly upset by what he was about to say. "I can feel it too. We can't go with you. It must be you and Drake. The King and his consort knight."

Hannibal needed a moment alone with Drake. He pulled the other man from the room amongst the protests of them going alone. He ignored it all. They should have had more time, but something was pressing in on them. It was now or never.

He found a room several doors down and shut them into it. "You are my soulmate," he stated. "You will awaken all that I am meant to be. We will rule the creatures together. Destroy the vampires that have broken your covenants."

"Yes.

"What am I to you?" he asked. For this to work, he needed to know what Drake saw and felt. What the other man wanted —from him and for the future.

Drake stared into his eyes. "Everything. Your soul and mine have been entwined for all time " Drake admitted. "You are my heart and the light who will keep me from bringing this world into darkness."

"I accept," Hannibal said, moving to stand as close to Drake as he could. They both didn't have time for this and did. It needed to happen before they could move forward. The true romance was going to have to wait. "We must finish the bond now or we will always walk alone."

The words had barely left his mouth before Drake's mouth was on his. The kiss was actually soft and full of promise. Drake's hands moved to the next of Hannibal's shirt and he felt the fabric rip apart. The next moment was full of pain as Drake moved from his mouth to his neck and he felt the bite of a Magra claiming their soulmate.

He lowered to the floor as his body arched into the pain as if welcoming it and then came the burn of blood used to heal the wound. Hannibal felt like he'd gone ten rounds with the flu and barely made it off his couch alive. But as he struggled to stand, to regain his balance, he began to feel renewed. His sixth sense was now ever present —clear and focused. He felt stronger, balanced, like he was truly himself for the first time in all of his lives.

He was ready. They were ready.

Hannibal took the double shoulder holster that someone handed him and put it on. He checked the guns and then slid them into place. "We're having a long talk when I get back," he informed Asher.

"Abby," he turned to find his friend, "you need to patch the barrier. It will help direct you. And I bet Caulder can help or get people here who can. It wouldn't surprise me if Danica has another group ready to attack this place while some of us were gone." Hannibal glanced towards the entrance as if he could see out onto the street. "They are watching from somewhere," he said. "I can feel it."

Abby was already moving to sit next to Anna. Her body seemed to relax as a small green flame formed in her cupped hands.

He turned to Drake who was now wearing armor on one of his arms and carrying a rather large sword. "Ready?" he asked.

"I am," the King said. "Tonight they will pay and tomorrow our people will start anew."

Asher handed him the sword that Blade had dropped; as well as the knife that Whistler Senior had so carelessly left behind.

"Do you know where you are going?" one of the guards asked.

"I know exactly where we are going," he told the room as he walked out. "Zoe already told me."

The Talos skyscraper was kind of ugly and thankfully only had fifty-two floors. It technically wasn't even owned by the Talos Corporation anymore. Danica had just left the name in place to make her feel more important than she was.

He and Drake were both standing in the lobby. The ash of three vampires floating on the air. Drake hadn't even paused before dispatching them. He waved at the closet camera and then blew it a kiss. He was almost positive he heard Danica's scream of rage. Drake gave him a dark look but all he could do was shrug.

"Can you tell how many people are," he waved his hand in the air to push some of the ash away from his face, "left in this building?"

Drake tilted his head as if listening. "Twelve humans and the daywalker. Three fae but they feel on the brink of death. Fifty or so vampires —they become hard to distinguish as they have no true heart beat. And my granddaughter. Spaced throughout the building."

It was actually less than what Hannibal had thought there would be. He pushed the up button for all the elevators then shot out the camera that covered the area. He wanted them to know they were coming, but that's all he was giving them. Three of the elevators came down. One opened and had several vampires charging out at them. Hannibal learned that Blade's sword could easily dismember a vampire. The building was definitely going to need a new filtration system on the heating and cooling system.

He destroyed the cameras in the elevators and then for two of them he ran his hand over the buttons like he'd been warned to never do as a kid, ensuring that the decoy elevators stopped a multiple times on the way up. He and Drake got in the third. He was about to push the button for the tenth floor, but Drake stopped him. "There are three heartbeats five or six storeys above us."

They were cleaning house as they went. It made sense, it meant no one could come up behind them if all the reinforcements were already dead.

Several of the humans ended up being on six. One of them was dissecting a fae, the slightly pointed ears and skin that had once probably been a lovely shade of soft rose but was now a gray parlor in death told Hannibal all he needed to know. He shot all three of them while Drake dealt with the half dozen vampires that had been watching and the others that had came out of one of the stairwells.

They stopped again on twenty-seven where Drake took out another handful of vampires while Hannibal just kept the elevator door from closing. "What about the one cowering in the corner," he asked.

"He will leave this building and tell all the vampires that he sees that their King is back and another house is falling tonight. If he does not, I will drink from him as slowly as he tortured the last human he fed from and killed." The stairwell door banged open and then slammed closed. As threats went, it was a pretty good one.

They got off on the forty-eighth floor and sent the elevator up; making it stop at the remaining floors. They were going to take the service stairs the rest of the way up. Drake wrapped his arms around him and then did the whole move faster than light thing.

Hannibal started up the stairs, but Drake pointed to the door that would take them out onto the main floor. They moved through the corridor and into a large room. The windows had mostly been covered to keep sunlight out, but certain areas seemed to be designed to allow it to stream in. The room was filled with cages. Cages with two humans, one of the fae, and surprisingly, six vampires.The light from the setting sun would soon fill the entire cage holding the vampires. He guessed the two empty cages with ash piles had been vampires who had either been executed or the cages got the light from the rising sun and their friends would have had to watch them die —that sounded more like Danica. And the fae, he was in a cage furthest from the rays of the sun where it might have helped him.

What Hannibal wasn't expecting was to recognize one of the humans. "Hedges?" he asked. The man's face was bruised and he had seeping wounds and bites on both of his arms. The man had been to his and Abby's for game night several times. Abby had been told that Hedges had quit his day job and the Nightstalkers in a snit, and then left town. "Guess they didn't like your resignation, did they?"

Hedges let out a pained laugh that turned into a cough.

Hannibal had been watching as Drake walked the cages. "Which one of you bought your freedom if you agreed to spy on her captives?" No one spoke. Drake had apparently ruled out the fae as the spy as he ripped the door from the cage and the shackles from the man's limbs before moving the man into the clear rays of the setting sun.

Hannibal reached through the bars and grabbed Hedges arm. There was a screech of pain as Hannibal pulled the other man closer and looked into his being. The man had resigned and packed his stuff to run. He hadn't made it far before Blade caught up with him. They had been keeping him alive because Hedges had built their computer system and knew how to repair the modifications that he had made to the Talos building.

He took a deep breath and wrapped his hand around the bar near the lock and yanked. He felt the strain but also felt the lock begin to give again. He yanked one more time and the door swung open. He didn't want to risk that with the cuff around Hedges' wrist so pulled on the chain that was connected to the ceiling. It too took two yanks but then it too gave.

"Don't touch her!" One of the vampires yelled. Stepping partially into the light and not flinching as his skin began to pinken but not burn. He was yelling at Drake who had entered the cage of the other human. A young girl with wildly colored hair.

"Get out of the light, Mikel," Hedges told the vampire. "They are here to help, I promise." Hedges looked at Hannibal. "They were too human for one of the experiments and too fae for another. Instead they wanted to see if they could make an army of daywalkers from fae-descendants. Mikel is the closest they have come to succeeding." Hedges turned to look at the girl that Drake had moved to lay next to the fae. "You know that old wives tell about bathing in virgin fae blood?"

Hannibal was disgusted. "Come here, Mikel," Hannibal ordered from the darker side of Mikel's cage. Mikel hesitated. "Now," Hannibal felt the power roll out of him and Mikel moved. Hannibal grabbed his arm and he saw into Mikel's past. He and his sister had come to visit their aunt and been taken off the street several nights ago. "Do not make me regret this," he said, yanking the cell door open.

"Yes, yes" Mikel stammered. "I understand, but we have nowhere to go," he looked up at the last rays of the sun and corrected, sadly. "I have nowhere to go."

"Untrue, child," Drake said, his clawed hand reaching out to lift Mikel's face. "You are mine, no matter the form you take now. Help your sister." He let go of the boy. "Our spy is no more," Drake told him and noticed they were down three vampires. He would ask later. Maybe. He honestly wasn't sure if he cared at that moment.

Hannibal turned to the other two vampires. "You will help get them out of this building and to safety. Your King has given you a second chance, do not waste it or your death will not be kind." He pulled Hedges aside and told him where to take them and what to say to actually get in the door.

They got them all into the service elevator and going in the opposite direction of the coming fight. It was all they could do now. They were back in the stairwell and at the fifty-first floor when they heard the rapid fire of several guns into the empty elevator. He had thought they had been in the cells longer, but he guessed not.

He used the last flight of stairs to clear his mind and prepare for what was about to happen.

Thanks to the blueprints they'd had access to, Hannibal knew that technically the fifty-second floor was two storeys. The main floor was a partially open area that had originally been the welcome desk and waiting area that spread down the center of the floor from the elevator to the large two storey windows that looked out into the city. The floor had several large conference rooms and offices. The second floor was reached by open stairs midway down. Originally there had been offices up there as well. The redesign had turned most of the office spaces into fancy hotel-like suites for Danica and her vampire guests.

Her architect had cut corners and costs by just blocking the service entrance on fifty-two and its balcony floor. He and Drake just pushed through the panel and came out in one of the suites. Its occupant hadn't lived past being startled.

"Find them, find them!" he heard a woman's voice and recognized the screech at Danica. Guess he managed to piss her off which was excellent news.

They came out of the suite and used its location for them to scout the floor below in time to see four people head down the stairwell. Not ideal, but they would have to deal with it. Zoe was chained to the floor in a corner near the large, ornate chair that Danica probably used as a throne. So were the two remaining fae. Whistler was standing at a desk with several screens, probably the security feeds. There were two men standing with him and he was betting they were both human. Drake leaned in close and softly whispered that the four who had left were two vampires and two humans. That dozen or so people lounging on the couches were all vampires. So were the twelve gun-toting goons that were decked out in black gear and helmets.

"Two of the humans are," Drake paused, "gone. I can smell their blood on the air. They were food to several of those below. There is no one else up here with us and the daywalker is hiding in the shadows."

"Zoe is too far in the open," Hannibal commented, worriedly. His hands, where he had curled them around the railing, seemed to glow slightly with a greenish light. He pulled them back and stepped back, he didn't want to draw attention to them yet.

But whatever the light was, it seemed to have already served its purpose. The fae closest to Zoe started to slowly slide and crawl her way closer until her body was between the vampires and the child. "That's not," he whispered.

"The second attack against Asher has started," Whistler reported, looking up from his station. "My Queen."

Hannibal shivered. Whistler was willingly serving Danica.

Danica clapped her hands. "At least something is going right tonight."

"Hey Whistler," Hannibal called out. He hadn't meant to start the fight without more of a plan, but he hadn't been able to stop himself either. He leapt from the balcony to one of the staircase's midpoint landings and threw the knife he had pulled. "Thought you might want this back." The knife hit Whistler in the throat. The man was dead by the time his body slumped to the floor. Blade shot out of the darkness with a scream. One daywalker no longer hiding in the shadows.

The fight was on as everyone in the room seemed to pause and then scatter as Drake dropped straight to the main floor, his appearance changing from human to Magra. His transformation seemed to stun several vampires into another bout of non-movement and Drake's sword easily cut them down.

"You smell rotten," Drake said as he fought through the vampire guards. "Another daywalker who let themselves become nothing but taint and death until the light was no more."

Danica's screech of indignation he could have done without, Hannibal thought.

"We could rule together," he heard Danica coo at Drake still trying to bring him to her side, but he was leaving her and the other vampires to his soulmate. But he finally got an answer to what Danica had been and now was.

"I should have killed your soulmate when he first came into this world all those millenia ago, then you would have been mine if you had never known he existed. It showed me my path to the throne but I was too late."

Hannibal opted to ignore Danica's delusions of insanity and instead aimed his guns and shot at a couple of the vampires as he hopped over the railing to the main floor. But his main focus was the other humans and then getting to Zoe. He did get a potshot off at Danica that hit her in the shoulder.

Hannibal got lucky and managed to take out two of Whistler's henchmen before he was ducking out of the way of the third. He turned in time to see Danica pull on the chain of the fae closest to her. He tried shooting her again, but she used the fae as a shield as she bit into the man's neck. As soon as he saw the light fade from the man's eye, Hannibal started firing again. He clipped her several times in the leg and side, but he'd lost count of the bullets left and came up empty, and none of the wounds seem to have had an impact. He assumed it was because she had just fed from the fae. Instead she laughed and went to sit on her throne and watch as he and Drake battled her goons like this was all for her amusement.

He dodged out of the way of Blade's first attack. Hannibal smirked. "I have something of yours as well," Hannibal rolled to his feet, dropping the gun and pulling Blade's sword.

"I'm going to kill you," Blade said, pulling off the trenchcoat and rolling his shoulders as if showing off.

Hannibal rolled his eyes. The man needed a new line. "Tell me something, Eric," he asked as he and Blade circled. "Did Whistler sell out his family for you?" The question had been driving him crazy for a while.

"He bred with a creature and created a thing that had to be destroyed." Blade swung the sword he was carrying and Hannibal ducked out of the way and then brought his own borrowed sword up for a swing at Blade. It connected with the arm he had shot earlier. "Their blood was his entrance fee into the Nightstalkers."

So two questions answered. He wasn't sure if Abby needed to know that truth, but he also wasn't sure if he could keep it from her either. It was hers to know after all. And now they also knew that the Nightstalkers were Danica's little army of human hunters. Getting rid of the riff raff she didn't want.

Whistler's other little human tried to engage in the fight between him and Blade and got a sword in the gut. He guessed he owed Blade a thank you for that. "Thanks," he said, shoving the borrowed sword into Blade's chest. "Guess you can have it back," he said as Blade reached up to try and pull the sword from his chest, dropping his own sword in the process which Hannibal kicked out of the way.

"Grandfather!" Zoe yelled. "Hannibal!"

Hannibal let the sword go and pulled his remaining gun. He ignored Blade and started moving toward Zoe. The fae that had been protecting her had been pushed out of the way. Hannibal wasn't sure if she was still alive or not and couldn't worry about that at the moment because Danica had Zoe dangling by the collar and chain that had previously kept Zoe in the corner. It was slowly strangling her.

"This isn't how it was supposed to go!" Danica bellowed, stomping her foot. "It promised me glory. It promised I would rule. I saw it! I saw the King begging for his soulmate. Begging me to be his Queen!" She shook the chain. "I was supposed to rule!"

Hannibal shot Danica in the head just as Drake's sword cut through her neck. Zoe dropped into Drake's very human arms.

"Grandfather!"

Hannibal unloaded his gun into Blade who was charging toward Drake and Zoe. The daywalker dropped to the ground, blood pooling around it.

"Cleary, Cleary," Zoe reached out to the fae woman who had been trying to protect her. Drake put his granddaughter on the ground and let the little girl run to the fae woman. Zoe's hands glowed like Abby's had when healing Anna.

"Now," Drake turned to look and the three vampires and one human left in the room —Hannibal thought two of them might have been those that had gone down the stairs before the fight had started. "What to do with the rest of you?" They didn't wait for an answer but scattered like roaches to the nearest exit.

Drake bent to pick up Zoe and passed her off to him, then turned to pick up the fae to carry. Hannibal carried Zoe back to the station that Whistler had been using. The small markers for each member of the hit team were all showing offline and a camera that looked to be set up in the window of a vehicle showed little piles of ash and a body or two; but the building looked intact. There was even a guard sitting on the stoop with a sword. It looked like the attack had been successfully rebuffed. He entered the code he had gotten from Hedges into the computer and it started a countdown.

He went over to the bar, most of the bottles had already been broken but he found a couple that were still partially full. He tossed them near the bodies. "Princess Zoe," he asked softly. "Do you know how to conjure a cleansing fire?"

"Uh huh," she said and put her hand out and a small purple-ish flame lit into it.

"Can you pass it to me and then keep your eyes closed?"

"Of course I can," she said, merrily, "I told you that you were my knight."

"That you did honey," he agreed, taking the tiny flame that simply tickled the palm of his hand as it flickered and danced. "Eyes closed now."

Together with Drake they entered the one undamaged elevator —the express elevator that had not come down when they had called the others, and just as the doors closed he threw the flame into the room, watching it move across all the surfaces.

An explosion rocked the building as they left out of the lobby doors.

Five weeks later, even if they picked up a rock and turned it over or looked in old abandoned buildings, they couldn't find a vampire who hadn't come to them to ask and stay in the city as a proper citizen. The notice had successfully been spread that the King of All Creatures was awake and unhappy. All but one of the remaining vampire houses seemed to take that as a sign and cleaned themselves up before Drake could come for a visit. The last one had pushed its luck and was on their to-do list for the following month.

For now they were still in recuperation mode. Anna made a full recovery. He told Abby the truth of what her father had said. She had cried into Asher's shoulder. Asher had glared at him, then picked Abby up and whisked her away to his rooms. They didn't come out for a few days and food had to be sent up. There had been no immediate wedding, but Zoe's latest picture indicated that it would be in the Fall when it did happen.

Hedges was staying with them for the time being and Asher was actually paying the man to do the job where the Nightstalkers had not. Mikel and his sister were also staying with them and their aunt was a regular visitor for them both. Hannibal has also sent them to therapy and saw that lasting for years to come. For Mikel, Asher's blood had not been able to take away the full taint of being turned —the young man would never be able to walk about in the noon-day sun, but he no longer craved human blood either.

Cleary had returned to her family. And now they had two fae-apple trees growing in their front garden. Hannibal had been told they were even better than regular apples and made for a delicious pie. They would have to find someone who could actually bake to make one for them.

Zoe went to therapy once a week. So far she'd had no nightmares, maybe her precog abilities helped with that, but Hannibal was one of her protectors and he was taking that role seriously. Zoe was the first Fae princess to be born in more than a millenia. She also couldn't take the throne until at least her one hundredth birthday. She had plenty of time to live and learn; and be herself.

Hannibal was also the King's knight, hunter, consort, and soulmate. The first week after they returned from their little adventure had probably been their honeymoon phase. Then there had been a week of arguing until they both understood their roles in their relationship. The King and the Detective, Hannibal had thought that could be the name of a romance novel. They were still learning about each other, but they too had time.

Last night Zoe had presented him and Asher with a drawing. It was them, and what he thought was a female in blue and black shades. She really looked more like a shadow than a person. Zoe's eyes had glowed when she told them, "You succeeded. You are no longer travelers upon the sea of time." Then the glow had disappeared and Zoe had skipped off to find cookies.

He and Asher had also felt like a burden of some sort had been lifted; but neither of them were admitting to the other that they had seen Zoe's shadow drawing standing in the room or fading from sight as Zoe had skipped past it either.

For now, some things were better left alone.

~end~