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~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Hannibal wanted to stay. He wanted to go too. Just walk away. It would be the easiest thing to do. He just couldn't deal with what he was seeing, not again. His captain was standing in the morgue talking to Dr. Marks, the Medical Examiner. His young victim on the slab beside them. Then his Captain passed the other man a rather thick white white envelope which the ME slid into the pocket of his scrubs jacket.
They were going to sweep his solved missing person --probably murder-- case away. Again. Then there would be some computer glitch somewhere. The victim's family would be notified or not --depending on how they played it. Then there would be some transport error and the body would be accidently cremated.
It was clear the boy had not died of anything natural. The grey-palor, the human and not so human bite marks that covered the boy's neck, arms, and legs couldn't be explained by a suicide or overdose, even in a runaway. Hannibal hated the weird cases, the supernatural cases, the vampire cases. The cases that the normal humans tried to pretend weren't real.
"Will you tell my mom I didn't run away," came a voice from beside Hannibal.
Hannibal turned his head to look at the ghost standing next to him and sighed. He had been hoping the boy's spirit had already passed on. "I will try my best," he answered honestly since the payoff going on in the other room could make some explanations harder than others. "She might not get the full truth."
The boy laughed. "She wouldn't believe you about the vampires anyway. She doesn't buy into all the supernatural stuff even if there's a witch who lives down the road from us."
Most people didn't, Hannibal thought. Even when it happened right in front of them. "Can you tell me what happened?" he asked, hoping to get something that would help him.
"Got grabbed on my way out of the corner store down from my home. Big car. SUV-like. Dark windows. I know I tried to scream, fight. Then there was pain," the boy reached up to his neck before dropping his hand. "Then I was somewhere else. There was an angry man wanting to know what was going on, trying to stop things; and a crazy lady, like crazy man, laughing while ordering the others to continue. Then I was nowhere and now I'm here and there's this glowing field at the other end of the hallway."
Hannibal nodded. "Why don't you check out the field," he suggested, still watching what was going on in the exam room. He didn't need to watch to know the boy and the field would be gone as soon as the boy stepped into the field.
He pushed the swinging doors into the examination room open with a little more force than necessary. "Ah, I see you have my kidnap victim on the table," he said. “Do we have a cause of death? And have the parents been notified?"
"King!" His captain started, but Hannibal wasn't going to let the man fully cover up this death. Not now, maybe this was meant to be his last case as a cop.
Hannibal leaned over the exam table to look at one of the bruises on the boy’s arm. "There's footage from the store and the ATM of the boy being grabbed coming out of said store," he lied, while hoping it was true. He would check on that as soon as he could. "Dark SUV,” he added. “He's clearly exotic enough for the child-trafficking case Sex Crimes is working on.” Trying to give both his captain and the ME an explanation that could be used with the child's mother. It wouldn't comfort her so much to know the exact details but it was better than never knowing what had happened to her son.
It looked like the ME was faster with the lies than his captain and clearly thought if he spun it right he could keep that cash bonus that he'd already been paid. "I can confirm the victim struggled and was bound. I've sent some scrapings to DNA," Hannibal doubted that, but he was just going to let the man continue. "They'll send the reports to the lead detective on the trafficking case. There are a couple of injection sites as well, so either the child was accidentally overdosed while trying to control him or he suffered a reaction. I will know more later, but again, all reports are to be forwarded to the other detective. Apologies, King, but your captain has already let me know the case was being transferred. But the parents can let me know where to send the body."
Now his captain interrupted. "Marks, remember what we talked about. King, you can do the notification. Keep the details vague since the case is still open and no longer yours. I'll handle the rest."
His captain didn't even wait for an acknowledgement before leaving the morgue.
Hannibal looked once more at the body before leaving as well. There wasn't much more he could do, but at least he would be able to get this family some closure after two weeks --even if it wasn't the news they would want. But, Hannibal was still betting that the body would be accidentally cremated since they were all pretending not to see the dozen bite marks.
He had a notification to do; and then he needed to visit an old friend. After that he really needed to sit down and figure out if he wanted to continue being a cop or if it was really time for a change. Maybe he would do the private investigator thing again.
*++*++*++*++*
Hannibal sat in his jeep in the parking garage attached to the Talos Enterprises building in a parking spot reserved for him. Normally he would have just gone up since it was the middle of the day and he had access to the private elevator. But something was off with the building. The building normally had people coming and going all day and the lower part of the garage would have been full --even during a holiday. None of that was true today. It was like a ghost town.
So he waited. Ten minutes later his passenger side door opened, a hand dusted off the seat, before a man in dress pants and shirt climbed in; the jacket and tie were missing which wasn't as unusual as it used to be. "One day, you will get rid of this piece of shit," the man said.
"You say that about all my cars," Hannibal replied with a laugh. Admittedly, this was the worst clunker he had ever owned.
The man snorted. "One day you will actually buy something nice."
"Nah," Hanniabl said, turning to get the first real look at his passenger and was quite happy with himself for not just saying the first thing he wanted to. "Then you would have nothing to bitch about."
Hannibal had known Asher for more than three hundred years. They had even sailed to America together in the late 1800s. And in all that time he had rarely seen his friend look disheveled. Asher somehow looked worse than that. All of his senses were telling him that there was something off with his friend, with the building, and the feeling had been getting worse the longer he had sat in his car.
Before he could think more about it, he reached up and moved Asher's head to the side so he could get a better look at his friend. Asher tried to block him but failed. There on Asher's neck was a bite mark and it wasn't healing as it should. "Take off the sunglasses, Ash."
Asher sighed, but did as instructed. Asher's eyes had a red ring around the normally blue iris and they were beginning to tear up now that the sunglasses had been removed. "What the hell, Ash? Who, what?" Hannibal didn't know what to ask, but right now he was just happy he had listened to that inner voice of his and came to visit Asher today.
Asher slouched down into the seat. "I don't know," he admitted with a sigh, putting the sunglasses back on. "Danica is here,” and there was clear disgust in Asher’s voice. Asher had spoken of Danica only a few times. She and Asher shared a sire, but that was the only thing they had in common. By the time Asher had been sired, she hadn't been about, just the stories of the destruction she had left in her wake; and a vague description of her appearance. Asher had always gone in the opposite direction of wherever the rumors said Danica was.
“She bit me,” Asher continued, reaching up to his neck. “Tried to sleep with me which I just barely managed to avoid.” Disgust again. “Her bite was... is wrong. I now have this hunger that itches at me to lash out. And the sun, it's starting to burn."
Hannibal started his car and backed into a spot closer to the center of the garage out of the path of the sun his car had been parked in. That was new. Asher had been able to walk in the light of day since Hannibal had known him. Something was definitely wrong. "Drink," he said, offering his wrist.
"And if this spreads to you? No, absolutely not," Asher retorted, pushing Hannibal's wrist away. Then he tried to change the subject. "You found the boy," his voice filled with anguish. "I'm sorry about that. I tried to stop it. Did I call you about it? I think I called. Wanted to call."
Hannibal wasn't faulting Asher for the death. He had come to Asher hoping to get an idea of any new players in the area. Clearly there was a lot more going on. Asher would never stoop to feeding from a child or kidnapping. Asher was a vampire, yes; but he lived by this old code that he hardly ever spoke of. He had made sure those that lived under his roof followed that code or they didn't last long. Plus Asher had always been smart. Bodies left evidence, evidence could lead to hysteria and that was never good. Especially in times where humans ignored the fact that the supernatural existed.
"Clearly Danica didn't like that," Hannibal observed. "Now drink," he said, pulling the knife he carried from its sheath. "Or we'll see how good your new control is."
"I hate you sometimes," Asher confessed, but bit into Hannibal's wrist.
There was a sting that had never been there before, and Hannibal barely refrained from flinching. Asher only took a few swallows before letting Hannibal's wrist go. Asher's entire body seemed to shudder for a moment. His eyes glowed blue for a second or two and then Asher was climbing out of the jeep before Hannibal could stop.
"If you burst into flames" Hannibal snapped, quickly following Asher into the light, "I'm going to be pissed. And I'll ignore you if you follow me around as a ghost."
Asher ignored him and strode out into the sun and paused. Nothing happened. "We really need to figure out what the hell you actually are Hannibal," Asher turned to him and Hannibal reached up to once again move the collar of Asher's shirt out of the way. The raw, red bite mark was gone.
"I think our bigger concern at this moment is to figure out what Danica is." Hannibal glanced over at the tower and tilted his head. "Danica is supposedly older than you, right? Not that you've ever told me how old you actually are, and we will circle back to that later." It had been something he had been trying to get Asher to tell him for three hundred years. Hannibal had a bet with himself that it was more than eight hundred but less than twelve hundred. "And you've never met her. She's like the boogie man of your family or something. Are you sure this person is the real Danica?" Hannibal was thinking out loud. "I mean it's been rumors since I've known you about where she is. I know you have nothing to do with the vampire houses, but nothing says it's not one of them spreading the rumors. Or even another supernatural to keep vampires out of the area. I mean, how does anyone who can live for thousands of years prove who they are?"
"I," Asher started, "actually, no. One of the newer arrivals to the city…”
Hannibal could tell Asher had figured something out and he was betting he wasn’t going to like it.
“Son of a bitch. She's some type of empathic vampire or succubus or maybe even a siren someone thought they would turn for fun," Asher hissed, touching his neck where the bite had been. “If she’d bitten me again and gotten me to feed from her a couple of times, things could have gotten very bad. She could have tried to plant a memory.” Asher paced away and then paced back. "She came in with an entourage and one of the people who has been staying in the tower for the past half year called her Danica as well."
Hannibal didn’t like the sound of that. “A plant or someone who had a previous run-in?" Hannibal questioned then corrected himself. His instincts were leaning toward a plant. Someone running a long con. "Nope, plant feels right. So maybe not the real Danica then?”
Asher rocked his hand back and forth. “Maybe,” Asher sounded unsure. Again, something that Hannibal did not associate with his friend.
"The stories," Asher continued, "even back when I was young, could have been that of a vampire turned succubus. Most of them, over time, are not exactly stable. And end up being destroyed which is why I never put much credence in her being anything but a vampire who turned against her sire."
“Can you ask your sire?”
“No.”
Hannibal waited for more but Asher said nothing else. “Want to elaborate on that?”
“No,”
“Now who's being stubborn?” Clearly Hannibal would have to revisit that line of thought later; but that inner voice of his was telling him there were multiple things going on and Asher's sire was now key to resolving most of it. “Do you know where she was before? Something’s telling me that’s important.”
“I don’t know.” The look on Asher’s face was not a good one. “Why wouldn’t I have asked that? No, I.” Asher squeezed his eyes shut and grabbed his head. “It’s, when I try to think about it, the last few days are blurry.”
Now Hannibal was worried again. “Are you sure she only bit you once.”
“Fuck.”
And Asher wasn’t one to curse. “Yep, you are not going back in there.”
“I have to. My people are my responsibility.”
“Nope,” Hannibal grabbed Asher's arm to stop his friend from leaving.
Asher glared at him. "You can't help them if you can't remember how long she's been here. What if she whammies you again?"
"I am aware of that," Asher argued, gently pulling his arm free of Hannibal's grasp. "But I need to grab a few things, secure my business, and put the building on lockdown so no one does anything stupid."
Hannibal sighed. “Fine, let’s go. No arguing. Your place only and nowhere else.”
They walked over the skybridge and took the private elevator up. The closer they got to the penthouse floor the more Hannibal knew there was something wrong in the building. And they were definitely not staying long enough to figure it out.
When the doors opened, Hannibal let Asher go first just in case one of Danica’s people were about, but it wouldn’t have mattered. The metal shutters were open and sunlight was streaming in. Hannibal knew Asher was the only daywalker amongst his people.
"Can this Danica," he started to ask, only to have Asher tell him no before he could finish the question. "Well then, some part of you wasn't completely under her spell since you left the shutters up. And shouldn't she be able to if you share a sire."
Asher growled. "Yes," he agreed. "There is something wrong here, Hannibal," Asher admitted and looked at him for a second. "And it's not good."
Hannibal couldn't agree more. He kept an eye on Asher as his friend moved around his penthouse. A bag was quickly packed and dropped by the elevator. Hannibal knew about the hidden keyboard and monitor built into Asher's desk. He let his friend type, but the shutter never came down. He was guessing Asher was going to leave it up as a form of protection; just like the hidden controls.
He roamed the room. He hadn't been here in the last several months, but nothing had really changed. At least he thought it hadn't until he walked by a section of the wall and was instantly assailed by images. Hannibal didn't remember falling to his knees or grabbing his head.
It was like a picture book whose pages were turning in the wind trying to get to the end. Too fast for him to see everything clearly, but slow enough for him to get flashes. Like he was a traveler in someone else's memories and not all of them of this life, but of possible futures. Asher's turning. Him and Asher traveling together. Then Asher's turning from the edicts of his sire. Vampires out in the open. A young girl --Abigail the pages said, dancing with Asher. The same girl dead at Asher's feet. Human hunters, while not all that new, were operating out in the public eye which was. Abigail killing Asher. A virus. Hannibal marked. A dhampir. Deaths; so many deaths. Even his own. A man who was more than just Asher's sire. Dagon. Drake. He clutched at his heart as he repeated the name, "Drake."
"Hannibal," he heard his name but it sounded far away. Someone shook him. "Hannibal."
He let Asher help him stand. "Asher," he asked, reaching out to touch a section of the wall, "what's behind the wall."
Asher looked like he didn't want to answer; and honestly Hannibal wasn't sure they had time for the answer, but he needed it. He thought Asher would protest, but the other man didn't; he just pushed on a panel on the wall and a section of the wall opened. Inside of the small space was a part of someone's armor, a couple of swords, and a rock a little larger than a quail's egg. Hannibal recognized the almost black stone with thin lines of red, blue, and gold running through it; it was his after all.
He reached for it and Asher tried to stop him. But Hannibal knew what his eyes probably looked like --black as the stone. He picked up the stone with his left hand and let his right index finger slide down the blade of one of the swords. "We need to leave here," he said. "Danica is moving around downstairs." He wasn't sure how he knew that but it was true. He also knew that he was currently the only person in the building with a regular human heartbeat.
"Hannibal," Asher questioned. "How do you know the name Drake?"
Hannibal slid the stone into his pocket and backed out of the room. He watched as the room sealed shut. He turned to look at Asher. "Before he died," Hannibal said, his voice a little mournful, "he was my soulmate."
Asher stared at him in shock. "Hannibal," Asher admitted, "Drake isn't dead."
*++*++*++*++*
Hannibal didn't remember leaving Asher's. He didn't remember the drive which meant Asher must have driven them to his loft. He didn't remember Asher dragging his sorry ass to his couch and depositing him there. All he kept hearing over and over was, Drake isn't dead. He didn't know how that was possible; he had felt their link sever. Had seen Drake fall in battle. Felt the loss of the other half of himself. The sheer pain that had brought him to his knees; and then there had been nothing.
When Hannibal had come to, the battle had been long over. And he wasn't even where he had fallen. To this day, Hannibal didn't know what had happened. How he had been injured, how he had lived, or how long he had wandered before coming back to himself. All he knew was something in Hannibal had wrapped itself around the pain to lessen the loss and keep Hannibal sane and alive. Had dampened the broken heart and memories. After a while, the feeling of having a soulmate had become a favorite dream, but nothing real. So much so, that Hannibal had actually thought it had never been him but a dream of a previous life.
Hannibal opened his eyes and turned his head to look at Asher. "Asher," he asked, "is Drake your sire?"
"Yes."
Hannibal rolled to sit up. That's when he noticed he was gripping the stone in his hand. It took him a moment to loosen his grip so that he could place the stone on the coffee table. Asher was sitting in the chair opposite him and it was clear he had been there for a while. His friend was slouched into the chair, looking as if he hadn't slept. There was also an open laptop on the coffee table that had a travel plan pulled up. "How long have I been out?"
"Two days."
"Two days?" Hannibal hesitated. How had he lost two days?
Asher titled his head to look at him. "I think our meeting so long ago was less accidental and more Fate." Asher closed his eyes. "I'm almost eleven hundred years old. You've always wanted to know. I am the last child my sire turned. Probably close to the last true daywalker sired as well. I left my sire to travel. I returned to his side after he fought in a great battle some six hundred years ago. I felt his pain and a great sadness through the bond I share with him. He was severely wounded by a Lamia. I would later learn that their queen had wanted Drake for her mate. But Drake had just found his soulmate," Asher paused to look at Hannibal. "He felt you die."
Hannibal was confused. "But I'm not dead; and you're telling me he's not dead."
"Do you remember being in a battle?"
"I," Hannibal reached for the scar on his shoulder. He remembered being in a fight, turning to help people escape into the forests. But after that things got hazy. He couldn't even put the fight into any particular era. "I, yes. But then there was a sting. Things got hot --like my skin was on fire. My vision was blurry. I saw Drake fall. I know I did. My heart felt like it had been clawed out of my chest. Then I was... gone."
"Lamia venom," Asher stated. "Drake reported similar symptoms."
"Lamias died out," Hannibal began.
"About five hundred years ago," Asher answered. "Yes. Drake ended that war. He was so angry, so full of rage. By the time I arrived, it was mostly over."
"How could I have lost more than two hundred years?" Hannibal asked, thinking it was more of a rhetorical question than anything else.
Asher went to his kitchen and came back with a mug. Hannibal sniffed at the contents. It was filled with something familiar. Not quite coffee, not quite tea. Spices. The aroma was comforting. He remembered this. He took a sip and it was like a flash of memory. "Holy shit," Hannibal said, "Am I a Sidhe-descendant?"
"That would explain so much about you," Asher pointed out. "But, if I had to guess," the other man speculated. "More Fae than human; and probably less descendant. I don't believe my sire would have a soulmate as short-lived as a human; and it's clear he saw no reason to turn you." Asher drummed his fingers on the arm rest. "Perhaps the wilds tried to protect you from the lamia sting. Until you were healed enough to move in the waking world; not knowing they were keeping you from your soulmate. But what I know of the Fae, Sidhe probably wouldn't fill your coffee cup."
Hannibal rubbed at his chest. "How did you know about the drink?" he asked, then the answer came to him. "Drake."
Asher nodded. "There was a pouch of it in his belongings. He went to ground with it around his neck. He said he hoped the scent would bring him dreams of you. But this came from the herbal apothecary in the building next door. The owner knew exactly what I was requesting when I described it."
Hannibal breathed in the aroma again before taking another sip. It was comforting in more than one way, "Went to ground?"
"Drake is more than a vampire. More than the first vampire."
Hannibal snorted. He didn't mean to, but Asher was clearly proof of that. Outside of the fact that he walked around in the daylight, his friend's heart still beat --a lot slower than a human's, but it did beat. He also knew that Asher could eat small meals when he wanted. Plus, he'd seen the man mainline coffee more than he did. But Asher did all that when he was not surrounded by vampires.
"You know, I know you're a LaMagra, right? Even if in the three hundred years I've never seen you do the whole jaw-splitting thing." Asher made a face that told Hannibal all he needed to know about that. Asher never liked mess and that certainly extended to feeding.
"Drake is his son," Asher said matter of factly. "And the only one that stayed in this realm when most of the high supernaturals left. When his soulmate died," Asher looked at him, "and after he took his revenge. He buried himself in the old ziggurat built by his father's people. He was hoping your soul would travel back to him."
Asher stood up again. This time to pace. "Hannibal, you have to know, if I had known you were Drake's soulmate, I would never have kept you apart. But we've only talked about soulmates once or twice and you always got this faraway look."
Hannibal leaned back into the couch and closed his eyes. "I know," Hannibal sighed. "I thought I had lost my chance. But I haven't." Hannibal opened his eyes to look at Asher again. "You were making plans for us to go wake him?"
"Yeah."
"Good. There's something coming and Danica is at the center of it, and so is he. So are we." Hannibal got up and went to his storage closet. He needed to pack a bag. He needed to quit his job. He needed to ask Asher something personal. "Asher," Hannibal questioned, crossing the room. He grabbed the tin of not-coffee and tossed it into his pack. "Tell me about Abigail."
From the noise, Asher had collided with the chair he had been sitting in. "How do you know that name?"
"The stone," he answered.
Asher dropped down into the chair. "My soulmate," he faltered, somewhat. "But I've actually not approached her. I've run into her a couple of times at a coffee shop. I know she knows about magical things, even some supernatural species, but I don't think she knows anything about the different types of vampires."
"Then I think we have time where she is concerned." Hannibal put his pack down by the door and grinned. "And time for you to figure out how to approach her. Now where are we going?"
*++*++*++*++*
The answer to that question was the middle of a desert in the middle of nowhere. The ziggurat was clearly shielded from human sight but not from nature itself. The elements were slowly eating away at the stone. But he knew this place. Knew where the hallways led. Knew where the water flowed. What the place looked like filled with life. "I think," Hannibal shared, as Asher flew the helicopter closer, "that I've been here. That I spent years here."
"Hannibal, this place was fading even before Drake turned me."
Hannibal watched as Asher brought the helicopter down. There was still magic in the ziggurat; not much, and maybe in another decade it would be totally gone. But there was magic. Hannibal could feel it; welcoming him back. "I think, maybe," he said, reaching out to touch a step that had started to crumble, "my missing years were here. Somehow. It couldn't just be dreams. The memories seem too real."
He didn't need to follow Asher to know where they were going. He touched walls here and there. Feeling the magic stir more and more. And when they made the next turn the corridors began to change --the air felt lighter, the walls appeared undamaged.
"Hannibal?" Asher stopped to look at his surroundings. "Is this you?"
Hannibal touched the wall again and an old mosaic started to become visible. His hand fisted over his heart. "I think," he said, quietly. "That we were both injured more than we knew. That he sought his revenge instead of help and made the risk to his life worse. We were already entwined and sought each other, at least our souls, over the distance. We were here. We lived a life of sorts." Hannibal continued walking, his fingers never leaving the wall. "But I healed faster and couldn't stay. Something was pulling me back. And this place was fading and Drake still had so much healing to do. It needed to focus on him. We made a decision; we parted and my soul was sent back to where my body rested in the waking world. When the magic is gone from this place, so will Drake's hope of us reuniting. His anger would have returned. Bringing a lot of destruction with it."
Asher grabbed his arm. "I," he began. "You appeared in my life when I was thinking of finding a way to cease being. Abigail is the second time I've seen my soulmate. The first time it was just in time to see her people murder her for being a witch. She looked right at me and smiled. In that moment I wanted to follow her. But her little sister had a flare of power a day later." Asher stopped.
"You rescued her."
"Yes," Asher admitted. "Abigail is her descendant. I ran into you the day after I got her settled with a family who would love, train, and protect her."
"Fate is many paths, all turning like wheels," Hannibal remarked. "And at certain times you are pulled or can leap from one to another. I needed someone to help me learn to live in the real world and you needed someone to help you embrace life until both our soulmates were back. And you knew where mine still slept. I think if we hadn't met when we did, our lives would have ended tragically for us all."
They started walking again, this time down a spiral staircase. Hannibal pulled the spice mix out of his pack and rubbed some of it into his skin. The magic was changing, shifting. There was darkness, loss, and pain mixed with fading hope. "He has begun to lose hope," Hannibal observed. "I think you need to stay here."
"Hannibal," Asher warned. "He could kill you. I should..."
The magic in the hallway started moving, changing. "No," Hannibal insisted. "Plus, I don't think this place is going to let you go any further." Hannibal looked down the final passageway. "Everything is going to be okay, Ash. I promise."
*++*++*++*++*
Hannibal really hoped he could keep that promise. The anger was thicker in the resting chamber; there was more pain laced with bitterness present. The floor was stirring, sand and magic circling the air. Hannibal took the last of the spices and tossed it into the mix. When it settled. Drake was there; and not the human-looking Drake that Hannibal remembered. This one looked like the demon appearance that had been associated with LaMagra. Hannibal could feel Drake's pain and loss as a living entity.
"Are you real?" Drake asked quietly, voice somehow tinged with both anger and hope. "Are you my end?"
Hannibal stepped closer, reached out to touch Drake, but Drake backed up to avoid the touch. "I have finally traveled back to you," Hannibal said, calmly. He reached out again, making contact this time.
Drake almost sighed in relief at the touch. Hannibal watched as the other man breathed in the spice filled air. Hannibal rubbed at Drake's wrist and watched as the bone exoskeleton seemed to melt away. "I'm here, my heart. I am real. It is time to come home. It is time that we are together again." Hannibal stepped closer. "Feed, feel, learn," Hannibal said, tilting his head to the side in invitation.
It took only a second for Drake to strike. And then it was like they were falling through time. Seeing centuries in seconds. Drake before they met. The real Danica's betrayal, her shunning, and later her death after she betrayed them both to the lamia queen. Their time together. Their injuries. The years while their souls were entwined in the dream world while their bodies healed. Hannibal's time traveling the lands and seas as the world changed around him. Drake sensing Asher's distress. The feeling of the magic slowly leaving the world. The decision to let each other go hoping it was for the best. Drake's loneliness as he still recovered. The way the world openly acknowledged the supernatural and then hid that acknowledgement in cycles. Including vampires openly taking children. Hunters hunting all kinds of supernaturals to extinction. The other possible futures the stone had shown Hannibal.
Then the falling stopped. He and Drake were sprawled on the ground. Hannibal tried to move but Drake wouldn't let him go. "The magic here needs to be let free," Drake's voice was still rough. "Free it, my love. Let the world remember it once again."
Hannibal turned in Drake's embrace and brought their lips together. He didn't know exactly how he was supposed to free the magic the ziggurat had been collecting, using to heal Drake. All he could think to do was think we are well, we are ready, we are healing, we are together, and we are home.
There was a rush as the ziggurat released the remaining magic into the earth and air.
Hannibal lost another two days, but this time he was wrapped in the real embrace of his soulmate.
*++*++*++*++*
The magic released from the ziggurat slowly spread across the globe to people who would embrace it and nourish it. It would probably take years for magic to fully reawaken. But there were sights of it every now and then. Asher and Abigail had been proof of that.
The first time Asher had walked into the coffee shop after their return from the ziggurat, Abigail had looked up at Asher and smiled. "It is good to truly see you once again, Asher," she had told him, her eyes softly glowing for the magic inside of Abigail had awakened. "May our souls never be parted."
As for the Danica imposter; she had run as soon as it was known that Drake was once again walking among them. Whatever she was, she was using those skills to stay hidden for now. It irked Hannibal, probably more than it did Asher, or even Drake, but they would find her.
Some things still needed to play out as Fate saw fit.
~end~