If you haven't seen the clues yet, there are hints in every chapter about the Romani/Gypsies, Kai's past, and her parentage that you will need to understand the last chapter and epilogue. So please keep an eye out for them. I started them in the prologue but so far no one has actually questioned be about them until my lovely and incredibly intelligent beta (She was the first one who picked up on anything after all.), The Black Pages, said hey wait a second do you know what you're implying by using this phrase? (It's in the next chapter so I can't tell you what it is.) And I said yes I do and I meant to. And I listed the clues I had left so far. But any way, if you can't find them don't worry too much. I'll try and make sure that the last chapters explain it all again.

On another note. I'm apologizing in advance if it takes me a while longer than my normal weekly update to post. I'm training to be a Scuba Diver and I'm a little low on time.

Now on with the show. And please don't forget to review.

Chapter 3 Of Blood and Markets

Recap:

"Then very well." What little hope he had of ending this without more death lay gasping at his feet for breath. "Death it is."

B.P.R.D Headquarters

"I understand you witnessed everything that occurred," the German mechanical man asked, after introductions were made. "Would you tell us what happened?"

Kai's head hurt with all the emotion swirling around the room, each hammering on her skull like a drummer at a rock concert. It ran the gamut from fascination, to self-doubt, to worry and someone was nervous. It didn't take a genius to figure out that came from the bald one named Manning. Apparently, anything dealing with the tooth fairies made him nervous. It seems they were to have a chat with one that was already dead. Go figure. The explanation of how that would happen just made her head hurt worse if she tried to make sense of it again, so she forced it from her thoughts. Dead was, dead right?

"Is there the slightest possibility of all of you calming your emotions? It feels as if you're driving a knife into my skull,"she groaned, holding her head between her hands. Their faces were priceless in the seconds after she made her discomfort known. But at least they were all on the same page now. Astonishment. She could deal with that feeling, it was quiet. "Thank you." They were all faces from her drawings. Each and every one matched in almost every point. A few scars weren't there but that made little difference. She had been right. The sketches did come in handy, they were where she recognized them from, and how she knew that they could be trusted.

The one who had been introduced as Abe was the first to talk as he took a chair at her side. "You are an Empath," he said, a smile clearly evident in his voice, even if his face didn't show it. "I've never met one. I am a Telepath." He held up a webbed hand and watched as she didn't shy away from it. "May I see your hand?"

"And apparently had the ability of psychometry," Abe's mouth dropped open as Kai tapped her forehead. "There's a lot up there. Sure you're ready to explore?" Kai pressed her palm against the cool, slightly damp skin of the blue-green, fish man and felt his calm mind reach into hers. "See anything interesting up there?" She asked, showing him the evening's events from beginning to end.

He gasped toward the end of her memory and withdrew his hand. "How is it you're still alive?" If Abe could have paled he would have. Through her mind's eye he saw and felt what she did. A muted, softer version, but she didn't spare him the sensations. Or the pain. "You felt everything."

Liz, knowing her friend better than both Manning and Agent Krauss, caught what he meant before they had even begun to comprehend. "Do you mean...?" She trailed off, unable to give the words their voice as they lodged within her throat. "She felt...every..."

"Every bullet," Abe answered her. "Every burn. Every crushed body." He swallowed. "Every bite on Red and myself. Before and during. Every pain in thousands of minds." That strong a gift would drive him out of his mind, he was positive. Her talent was limitless and made the version he had feel like a carousel next to a roller coaster that was careening off its tracks and warp speed. Not many things scared him at this point in his life, he pondered, looking at the woman who hadn't been reduced to a shell of a human, driven mad by her curse, but that awe inspiring hurricane of power terrified him.

"Thank you," Kai said. It wasn't often a person could actually grasp even the slightest thread of understanding, let alone care about how it affected you, but these people did. And if her vision from the previous hours never came about, she hoped they could be friends. It was a silly desire, of course, but hey, she could hope, right? Hope kept you sane, it kept you centered when life tossed waves of persecution and hatred at you, pushing you under their weight until you wondered if you would ever see daylight again. If there was a way she could pay them back for that one moment, no matter what it took, she would repay the debt of those few seconds that someone else helped shoulder the burden she carried.

Liz took the seat on Kai's other side in a moment of compassion that came from deep within her from a place she didn't understand. It was the same place that first cared for Red all those years ago. And she thought of her own child and the days she would have with it after its birth. She couldn't bare the though of it ever being in that pain. Did that mean she was ready to be a mother, Liz asked herself taking the empath's hand in her own, rubbing soothing circles within her palm. "What do you mean before and during?"

"He means," Kai answered, as it seemed Abe couldn't find the words. "That I'm a seer as well as an empath, like Abe is a telepath with minor empathetic abilities and the psychometry thing." She turned to look into the Liz's dark eyes and saw the warmth that infused the woman's soul, not just the ability the gods had given her, not just her impending motherhood, but the fire that danced in every fiber of her being lighting her up from the inside of her caring heart. "I can feel something before it happens as well as while it happens." Liz's eyes filled with tears that she didn't want anyone else to see, so Kai provided distraction, knowing the reason for her hormone induced tears wasn't public knowledge yet.

"You," she growled, switching from her normal warm and happy nature to anger in less time than a blink of her nearly neon green eyes, turning to Hellboy. "Did you have to use such a big statue!" Granted they didn't know she wasn't really angry, but it was funny to see him trying to look ashamed of the action when he was clearly proud of being the hero. Even if it was Liz who saved the day. "Do you have any idea how it feels to have every bone in your body crushed over and over? Do you?" Okay, so maybe she was a little angry. It hurt! At least the burning was an almost instant death.

"Uh, sorry?" Hellboy said, unsure of how to deal with any other angry woman except Liz and face it, he didn't even know how to smooth things over with her. It wasn't like a lot of people yelled at him though, and no, Manning didn't count.

Kai rolled her eyes, he was like Shandor, before... before the mantle of leadership fell to his shoulders. And she hoped that Hellboy would have an easier time leading, both as a father and as a leader of his little band, when the time came. "Is there a possibility of tea?" She directed at the one called Manning. It wasn't like he had any input anyway. "Chamomile would be a great help."

He looked as if about to argue that he was not the butler until Agent Krauss coughed. And considering the man was incorporeal, having no need to cough therefore, his point was obvious. "Would you like anything else?"

Kai smiled. "A little honey in the tea would be a gods sent gift. Thank you."

As soon as he left the room Hellboy and Agent Krauss took the last two of the tacky plastic chairs around the lunch table. It seemed they hadn't wanted her to feel like a prisoner by putting her in an interrogation room and the cafeteria was the only other place they could think of to place her. At least there was no one else there other than these four to pollute the aura of the room with their emotions.

Red looked incredibly uncomfortable on the small chair, Kai thought with a smirk. Like he was worried that at any point, it could give way under him. Which, she decided was a distinct possibility, as the chair groaned threateningly under his mass. Leave it to the government to skimp on things like decent furniture.

"So Agent Krauss," Kai asked when they were finally settled, wrenching her own thoughts back to the reason they were enduring groaning chairs and the smell of last week's chili and rice special. "What is it you want to know?"

East Side Railyards. Council Chambers.

The sound of a sword cleaving the air in two was all the warning Nuada received of the attack. Ducking under the Crow Guard's arm he spun back toward the second. Nuada's hand blocked the second sentry's weapon hand before his second impacted on the man's neck, crushing his windpipe while forcing him to the ground and dislocating his shoulder with a snap.

Nuada removed the sentinel's second, much lighter and shorter sword from the sheath on his back. Nuada turned back to the double line of guards about to take them on, a cold fury coursing in his veins.

Behind him, Mr. Wink threw his mechanical hand catching a Crow Sentry's head and yanking him backwards taking him permanently out of commission with that one snap. His head was now no longer attached to his spinal column. A solider from outside heard the commotion and came running only to be impaled on the spike attached to Wink's metal elbow.

The sound of metal striking stone signaled the beginning of chaos. Elsewhere, miles away a sense of foreboding invaded a soul as she felt the beginning of an end.

Nuada ran into the fray pushing one blow off course with the flat of his blade, he turned the tide of defeat with a skill that came from a thousand years worth of time spent in practice. This was no duel with rules to be governed by. This was snatching life from the jaws of death and facing mortality at the hands of those he had personally trained. Only now would they see if the students had surpassed their master.

Within moments, all but the two guards closest to his father were dead or dying. Two by decapitation, six by slices to the abdomen that spilled their organs to the floor. Only one had showed any promise in this battle by making Nuada's nose bleed, speedily taking the shot when he had it, and now he lay down on the floor with his brother-in-arms, his blood seeping into the leaf strewn, cobble stone ground. Fluid pounded in his ears as Nuada fought to catch his breath, looking down at the corpse strewn floor. How had things gone this far?

Gold dripped from Nuada's nose, catching his attention. He touched the stream of ichor, the flow already stemming within his nostril. Close. But not enough. He looked to Nuala, who's own nose bled realizing the bond they shared had not weakened with the passage of time. That his own death would bring hers as well. What kind of father would sentence a child to death knowing it would kill the other as well? What kind of monster? He wondered, wiping the blood from his ashen face. Nuala didn't deserve that. She was the innocent child who never, not once disobeyed, who agreed with their father, supported him through everything. And still, in order to maintain the treaty, Balor would kill her. Was peace worth that?

Nuala stared at her brother, stunned by the flow of thoughts pouring off him and made her own decision in the same moment he did. If he won, she was the last person standing between him and the golden army. She would uphold the peace come what may, even if it meant her own life.

Nuada turned to the last sentries, ready to end this fight, as the blades danced in his hands. His father stood from the chair, his regal robes unfolding to kiss the floor, a smile of pride on his lips knowing what was coming, waiting for the end.

The combatants advanced toward each other. And with one slice, their battle was over. The Guards had aimed high and Nuada slid unscathed between them, cutting deep into their torsos before reaching the stairs and plunging the cold metal into his father's stomach. King Balor fell back against his throne with a muffled thud as his son fought back stunned tears of grief when he looked at the hand that had ended his father's life.

"I always loved you, Father," he murmured, touching the dead king's face softly, allowing himself that one moment to grieve, still holding in his emotions with a grip of hardened steel, only making their presence known in the younger royal's sadness roughened voice, as his father's body turned to carved alabaster, to remain that way until the earth gave way beneath him. Leaves continued to fall like golden tears throughout the chamber, mourning the fallen king along with their prince and his people.

That moment passed as quickly as it came. And soon the crown piece was connected to its mate, awaiting the next and final addition.

"Now," Nuada began. "Now for the final piece my sister." He turned back to where she had stood, only to find Nuala had vanished like morning dew under a hot sun. Only Wink stood at the end of the chamber, nervously shifting from side to side. "Where is she, Wink?" Nuada yelled, striding across the body strewn floor, blood coating the bottom of his shoes. "Where is she!"

Nuala ran through the halls and passageways of the outer chambers, sobs sapping her breath as determination carried her along. "Find her!" She heard her brother's voice echoing from the place where he slaughtered their father. He showed in that one act that he was beyond redemption. "Now!" Nuala removed the piece from her belt and looked at it, knowing that it must be hidden somewhere safe. Where? She wasn't sure yet, but she understood the burden that was now placed squarely on her own shoulders. And she prayed that she was strong enough to carry it. "Find her!"

B.P.R.D. Headquarters

Five minutes ago.

"I'm not quite sure you should be going, miss Gry," Manning said trying for the fifth time in as many minutes to get Kai to go home instead of accompany the team to the troll market. They had offered to take her home and in a way she was going straight there. Only she would be down the street instead of sitting in her apartment overlooking the east end of the Brooklyn Bridge. The majestic bridge's great spans of late nineteenth century engineering genius would still be there when tomorrow's sun rose in the hazy grey sky.

"And yet, I am," Kai said with an air of finality, carefully aiding the agents moving wooden boxes into the garbage truck that would transport them to her home borough. "Look. I know you may not agree but you don't have a choice. You can shove me out at my building and I'd still be at the market before you." He opened his mouth to tell her that he could have her arrested for obstructing justice, but she cut him to the quick. Sometimes it helped being a seer. "I'd like to see you make that stick in court. And that's if you can keep me in a cell, let alone actually put me there."

"The truth is I'm not an Agent." Manning nodded agreeing with her, not realizing he wasn't going to like her point. "I'm a civilian. Which means you can't order me not to go. I also don't play by the rules, which means I can get into places you can't and I can ask questions you can't, because anyone with a brain would know I'm not a fed. I know that area of Brooklyn better than anyone here, which means I'm an asset that you need at the moment. You may not like it, but you need me. Now I can sit and argue the point with you, or we can get the job done."

She sighed, pulling on the flowing robes that the female agent had dug out of her closet along with the clothes Kai had changed into. Should never do that to leather, she grumble silently, her lips mouthing the words as she talked to herself. No matter what you did, the smell would never come out. The leather of her shirt smelled like dust and mold. It could be worse, she supposed. At least she could move in the pants, the agent must have worn them enough to break them in. The shirt didn't cover as much as she would have liked, but she'd just have to live with it, everything else had been riddled with moth holes and falling apart. At least this would stay put unless one of the laces snapped. Hopefully the bisht would cover it. It did, after all, cover everything from her neck to the floor.

Liz laughed seeing Kai pull the cream colored bisht and niqab into place over the blood red and black leather it was supposed to conceal. "You look ridiculous." She barely got out climbing into her seat beside Red.

"I'm comfortable and armed to the teeth, that's all that matters." She pulled the robe open to one side, showing that she had finally found places for her many knives and even added a short sword or two. "I was nearly killed at my last encounter with the prince."

"All the more reason you shouldn't go," Manning groused, taking his seat.

Kai rolled her eyes behind the niqab, and since it was the only thing you could see of her once the robe was closed and her hands were safely tucked away, her opinion of him was very apparent. "And since I have no intention of dying just yet, I'm going to blend in, watch the boy's backs, and do what needs to be done. Besides," she said, grinning beneath the cotton, while jumping agilely into the truck and taking her own seat. "You never know when having extra clothes will come in handy."

"Why do I have the feeling I'm missing something?" Liz asked tiredly, snuggling into Hellboy, who obligingly wrapped an arm around her. She fell asleep almost as soon as the truck began moving, thankfully missing the detailed conversation between Abe and Agent Krauss that took every minute of the hour and a half drive and made Kai break out a deck of cards to play poker with Agent Manning. He lost everything. What part of seer didn't he understand?

East end of the Brooklyn Bridge Location of The Troll Market

"Hey!" A man called to Hellboy as he was walking past. "You're Hellboy?"

Hellboy turned toward him, a huge smile of his face always ready to meet a fan. "Yeah!"

The man laughed. "You're ugly man!" He said pulling Kai's attention from staring at the crowd that had noticed their appearance and grown in numbers in the few minutes since they had gotten to the scene. His friend tossed the beer can he had been drinking from at HB's feet, crushing the hope that maybe people would be able to see them as something other than freaks, or at least him, with that one thoughtless act.

Kai waited until the man had rounded the corner before sneaking off to make sure he never populated the earth with more of his idiot breed, and then snuck back before anyone realized she was gone.

Apparently quite a lot had gone on in the few moments she was gone because HB seemed to be threatening a troll with a canary. "Not the canary!" The troll's voice carried down to the street. Although how he was intimidating, wearing those silly lenses and carrying a tiny yellow bird in a cage, she would never understand. But it must have been working, because at the end of this paper strewn alley the troll, disguised to look like an old woman, was shaking in her shoes. "No more! No more!" She cried. "I'll take you there."

The metal doors behind her were pulled open to reveal row upon row of hanging cow carcasses hanging from the ceiling. The stench of the meat was horrendous as they walked down the aisle toward a garish sign announcing Happy Cows in on a metal sheet. That was where the old troll lead them to. She unlatched the door without being told to and slid it back.

Claw marks, Kai gasped as the cover of the entrance slid on well oiled wheels. Big claw marks, that tore a giant hole in the wall opening into the hidden entry. Dark, dank, and smelling of sewer water the chamber concealed one thing alone within its tunnels. The entrance to The Troll Market, locked behind the craftsmanship of masters in the form of, what must have been the largest lock on the face of the planet. Hellboy and Abraham led the way with the fragglewump set firmly between them into the dark hollow.

"Here we are," the fragglewump troll told them as they came to the circular entry. Green with age, the patina of the copper suggested it had been there since the bridge was built in eighteen eighty three.

"Wow," Hellboy said unimpressed by the size of the massive door. "That's some door."

Kai leaned against one of the damp support walls, bored already as Abe hastened to the lock, its three spinning tumblers making him worry that they would never get inside the fabled market. Lenses flipping in and out before one eye, making him doubt their success even more.

"It's a complex combination lock," Agent Krauss said, not even bothering to look. "What do you think, Agent Sapien?"

Abe walked back to the group shaking his head, his suit squeaking softly with each step, "Not good. With the number of symbols on the combination, we'll be here for days," he informed the group.

Agent Krauss held up his hand to stop the train of thought before it left the station. "Not necessarily."

Hellboy stopped him, holding up his own hand and turning to the fragglewump. "Let me try my technique. Open it, Lucy," he said attempting to imitate Dezi Arnaz's portrayal of Ricky Ricardo.

The fragglewump pulled herself up on her giant cricket like legs, only gaining three inches in height. "I will not!" She told them, scandalized at the very idea.

Red held out his hand for the tiny yellow bird. "Pretty please?"

The troll shuddered looking at the canary, finding the courage to shake an outraged finger in Big Red's direction. "Do as you may demon." Her highland brogue suddenly became much deeper as she ranted. "Release the yellow beast." Her face contorted at the thought. "Tear my eyes out. Rip my insides and my legs and my tongue,"she gestured to each body part, before jerking the offending digit at him again. "But I will never open that door."

Hellboy sighed before slamming his massive rock fist into the troll's face, sending her flying out of her patent leather boots to the end of the corridor, where she landed on a pile of scrap upsetting a cat in the process. "I could have told you that was coming," Kai muttered, although no one knew which party in that exchange she was talking to.

Agent Krauss turned back to Hellboy, after seeing the old woman get up and walk quickly away, shaking a finger mere inches from his nose. "Is that your investigative technique?"

Hellboy shrugged. "It said never."

"It's unconscionable," the suited agent told him furiously, before walking over to the tumblers.

"That means he didn't like it," Abe supplied when Hellboy looked confused.

"What!" Red snapped softly to his friend of more years than he wanted to think about, before turning to address the new male in the group. "So what? You gonna show us how it's done, Mr. By-The-Book? Is that it?"

The suit puffed his chest out, forcing Kai to hold in laughter at this clearly macho display. "Yes. I think I will." And then Johann Krauss did something no one was expecting. Considering one of the group was a reader, that was impressive. He opened a single valve and let himself out of his pressurized environmental suit. "Ah," he sighed. "There we are." The smoke that was his form drifted to the lock. "Let me see." And then three streams of the dusky grey mist began turning the tumblers, while part of him went inside to see when the pins clicked open. "Ah, yes."

Within seconds, the wheels and cogs of the doors began to spin, pulling back to unveil the market. "Gentlemen. Welcome to the Troll Market."

The Troll Market wasn't only the home of trolls in every shape and size. Gnomes and fae folk of all kinds wandered the cramped causeways of the market place, selling their wares. Man-sized goblins worked over hot furnaces, pounding red hot metal into everything from pots and pans, to rings and swords. Little three armed creatures that Abe couldn't provide the name for before they scurried off, raced hither and thither, running errands and carrying messages from one place to the next. Even a few slug-like creatures drug themselves along the floor leaving trails of slime on the grime covered floor.

"Agent Sapien, you take miss Gry and follow the hall down that way," Krauss said pointing off to what looked like another avenue, "radio in if you find anything." He strode off, his steps drawling furtive glances from the bustling crowds who lost interest quickly and went back to their work.

"HB," Kai said, latching onto his jacket with an iron grip, turning her fingers white and jerking him back as he started to follow Johann.

"Hey," he said calmly, as if trying to soothe a startled kitten, turning back to her, "Blue will take care of you." Looking at a place where being human was strange, he'd be nervous to walk into it as well, if he didn't already do it every day, walking around places where he stood out, that is.

Kai shook her head. "I'm not worried about that." She looked out into the milling people trying to put what she just foresaw, as she touched the metal of the door, in the right words. "When the time comes," she turned back, her green eyes boring into him as they met his face, "take the shot." She swallowed, forcing the lump in her throat to go down so that she could breathe once again. "Trust me and take it. Everything will work out." The pain of the giant green creature still pounded in her mind and body nearly making her black out from it. "It isn't the last."

"Okay,"Hellboy's brows furrowed in wonder. What the heck did she mean by that?

"Just trust me," Kai reiterated, releasing his arm. She gave him one last look before running to catch Abe and put the last piece in place to capture the new king in this game, without sacrificing the queen to the winds of war.

Abe looked close to gagging when Kai finally made her way through the throng to his side. The ring of a butcher knife on wood drew her attention to a bird like creature with tentacles chopping through the head of a fish, severing it cleanly from the body. "Get your fresh fish..." He announced in his guttural language to the folk around them, many it seems ate the fish whole. And after finding that out, Kai herself felt a bit green and pulled Abe down the corridor before looking to make sure they were going the right way.

The market itself was quite normal, if you discounted the species of people that populated it. Families walked from stall to stall, doing their weekly shopping and haggling loudly with annoyed shopkeepers about the prices of turnips and other things. Young lovers strode hand in hand whispering into each other's ear and giggling. There was even something that looked decidedly like a brothel, tucked into a corner where garish colors and beings of all species called from the lower windows to lost souls in need of comfort and companionship for a few hours at least.

It was also a Mecca for the melting pot of architects and their various styles. Everything from byzantine arches with gold inlay to the dark stoicism of medieval times showed itself in all its grandeur.

Dark woods and rust colored metals were tucked into everything with stolen electric illumination bathing everything in a yellowish light.

"Abe," Kai said pulling him to a stop before the one lone fruit seller on this side of the market. She had been counting the number of stalls they were at and so far she had gotten to forty one and still the answers were the same. No one knew anything, and if they did they weren't talking. She was a seer, not a telepath and Abe had to touch you to read your mind. And the Fae folk? They didn't touch you without knowing you, it was custom that they had used for centuries that worked very well to block tactile gifts. "This is going to take forever." She pulled out the tiny communicator she had been issued and pushed it firmly into her ear. "Why don't you head down the alley over there," she pointed to the alley filled with books and what looked like the heart of information for the market, "and I'll head this way?" She indicated the alley directly behind them that they were just about to enter. "And meet back here in thirty minutes unless we find something in which case we call the other, okay?"

"I don't think it's wise for you to go alone," Abe advised. "This isn't the human world."

Kai smiled beneath her veil. Wisdom was such a fickle thing. "I know that Abe. But everyone who is even noticing that we're here, is looking at you. No offense."

"None taken," he nodded, he had noted the looks. Not of fear or disgust like those among the humans up on the streets above, but more curious, interested even. But it did make getting answers from anyone difficult, when they were too caught up in looking at him, and touching his suit, one even pinched his ass and another he really didn't want to remember. No, no one was paying enough attention to realize that he had asked a question, let alone answer it. "Alright. But twenty minutes and not a moment longer."

"Deal."

And so Chapter 3 Of Blood and Markets comes to it's end. Thank you again to The Black Pages for her stellar work as my beta. Thank you to MirixHoney for their review. And everyone who has followed this story and been kind enough to leave a review for me. And the lovely actors, actresses, directors, producers, designers, writers, and crew that brought this world to life.

Don't forget to sign the Nuada petition! The link has been posted on my profile as well as in the prologue! Sign it or Mr Wink would like to have a word with you!

Hugs and lots of chocolate kisses to all. Mahalo for reading and reviewing once again,

J. Rainer