Warning: Violent thoughts for violent deeds. The instincts of a creature (even a sapient one) that is prone to both territorial displays and bloodlust are not nice things.

Author's Note(s): As fans of Sanctuary may note, certain scientific terms are going to be different. This is because, despite the character backstories, the show did get a few (a lot) science things wrong—most of it in the terms and can't be handwaved as old age. Science Fiction has certain, um, not quite tropes because it's not a writer/reader communication so much as a meta thing along the lines of arguments that people always get into about it because of the nature of the genre. The "But science doesn't work like that!" argument is one of those things.

҉ Also, this story references events which occur in another of my stories, On Loving a Dove. While reading this story is not necessary in order to understand this chapter or even this story, one's enjoyment of Nikola's character and journey would be improved, I feel, by reading it. Anything plot necessary I am trying to work into the narrative here.

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Legacies of Blood

Part 02: Sanctuaries

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"There is no instinct like that of the heart." – Lord Byron

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If there was one thing that Nikola was good at, it was managing boredom. Thankfully, he was Nikola Tesla and he excelled at more than one thing. For the past forty years he had been forced to publish his work under other names—having been forced to abandon his birth name outside of very selective circles. He tried not to think about the final events which had led him to conceding to Helen and James' increasingly annoyed demands to let them help him, but like a sore tooth, he had to poke at it. It had been a brilliant plan, but the problem with brilliant plans was that they either worked out magnificently or they blew up magnificently. World peace by ultimate destructive tool turned out to be more along the lines of the latter than the former and as 1942 was ending, he had found himself being hunted by pretty much everyone. Nikola had been determined to deal with it on his own—he was Nikola Tesla and he was capable of anything, after all.

Then he had met her. For eleven days he had held something far more precious than anything in the entire world. As much as he had cherished her easy acceptance and affection, the fact that she had been another of his kind—another Vampirius sanguine—was sometimes what haunted him the most. It had guided much of his work in the forty years he had hidden away from the world—as if recreating the vampire race would somehow make up for the fact that he could not do it through biological reproduction. In between stints in the lab, he searched out the broken remains of a once mighty empire, fueled by a bitter hope that where there had been one, there could be others.

Through it all, he tried to stay far away from his fellow Five and the Sanctuary, now a global network of facilities. He kept tabs on them—James was not the only one with contacts who liked hiding in shadows, and failing that, he had picked up a few tricks concerning sneaking about where he wasn't supposed to be and leaving nifty little devices behind as a parting gift. Nigel was a very good teacher in that regard. The Sanctuaries had been his practice run of the devices before he infiltrated his true targets.

Nikola had known about Nigel's death before the others. That had been another of his failures. Nigel had gotten just enough of preternatural healing from the Source Blood that he didn't age. By the time the cancer had advanced enough for the symptoms to become noticeable, it had been far beyond conventional medicine of 1961. Nikola hadn't given up trying to help until the decision was taken out of his hands. He was Nikola Tesla and he did the impossible (he could still hear the echo of her laughter at the egotistical line, already affectionate even minutes after meeting him), but it hadn't been enough, not enough to save his friend. Nigel had been the only one of the Five to whom he hadn't been more annoyance than friend. He had contacted James so that the secret world they were a part of would remain safely hidden, but had not attended the service, not willing to face the other's suspicions about his motives or to risk bringing his watchers' attention to the closeness he shared with the Sanctuary Global Network heads. James had given him a look full of sympathetic knowledge, but as the man said nothing, Nikola could safely ignore it and its implications.

Nikola nearly laughed himself sick when little Ashley was born in June 1963. Not at the emotionally-charged congress Helen and John had engaged in her lab of all stereotypical places—oh, no, nothing about that had been unexpected; Helen and John had been obsessed with each other for years, no matter how angry they were with one another. Even the fact that for all her spit and fire, Helen liked being put "in her place" wasn't all that shocking—more than a bit disappointing, but that's a different tale. It was the number of people who bought the bull-larky story about cryogenically preserving an embryo back in the 1880s. The Five had pushed the envelope of science beyond what others were capable of at the time, but that would have been beyond even them. So many of Helen's pet humans didn't even blink at the discrepancy, probably still reeling from the tilting being introduced to the abnormal underworld wrought on their paradigm. The abnormals, particularly if they had any feral senses at all, could tell that Ashley was older than her perpetual youth would indicate. Despite Lamarck's theory, skills were not inherited even when certain things about an individual could be altered on the level that would allow them to be passed onto future offspring. Ashley did get her strength and speed from her parents, but the ability to put those skills to use in combat was the byproduct of years of practice and experience.

In addition to Nikola's continued project of gathering information on the operations of the organization which he held responsible for the death of her, James would occasionally draft him for help under the table and through indirect means of communication. It seemed that the world's best consulting detective was helping a certain displaced cryptologist with a major project which required a few of Nikola's specialized skill sets. Helen was much easier to deal with when she had a half-century on him. Still, it kept him from being bored. Nikola knew that he dwelled on things when he was bored. It was not brooding, regardless of what Helen said.

It was one such mission which had brought him to the middle of the Notting Hill Carnival. Thankfully, he lacked the traditional weakness of vampires from the myths which mocked the glory of his kind. The hot sun did little more than it would to anyone who had fair skin. Unfortunately, the hyper-senses were very real and the Carnival was stimulating every single one of them. As he worked the metaphorical math of stress-relief via public bloodbath versus the annoyance of listening to both James and at least one Helen if not both scolding him, the wind unexpectedly shifted for a single burst. All thoughts of missions and obligations popped like a cork from a wine bottle. He knew that scent. He didn't know how or why or anything else—but he knew that scent.

As the lackey assigned to be his spotter began to sputter in his ear, Nikola walked right by the little store where James' contact was supposed to be meeting him. Notting Hill was packed with people—not just tourists, but also native Brits who wanted a taste of the Caribbean without ever leaving their little island. The spicy scent of jerked meat could not completely mask the longed-missed scent of ancient blood mixed with volatile ozone. He had not smelled it in ages, not in the combination that screamed what this mix did. The blood scent lingered around his fellow Five—even Ashley and the one time he had met Nigel's little Anna. That particular type of ozone would pop up in the oddest of spots, usually back alleys and abandoned buildings. Nikola had only encountered the combination in one person—and no mission would ever be more important than chasing down the mere possibility of what that scent being carried on the wind could mean.

He could practically hear the lecture on selfishness now—but they didn't know and even if they did, they couldn't understand. He had kept the secret of his White Dove close to his heart all these years. James might suspect—the man had buried a wife—but Helen, brilliant and bold Helen, for all her intelligence often missed the little details of people. Nigel had known, but only towards the end of it all. It was her scent being carried on the wind, and Nikola couldn't ignore that.

"Mummy, I want to try that," a blond boy demanded, pointing eagerly at a fried confection of some sort. The caramelized smell of it irritated Nikola's nose just as much the boy's voice grated on his ears. If it weren't for the scent he was hunting being so concentrated around the pair, Nikola would have gladly moved around them, but it wafted around them like miasma. Neither the boy nor his mother looked like his white dove, despite the smell. He was about to resign himself to the ache in his heart struggling to get his attention when a child standing on the other side of the woman turned around to face him. The world might as well have stopped.

It was impossible. No matter the evidence right before his eyes, what Nikola was seeing was impossible. Those were her eyes, dark emerald and felinely slim. That was her nose, with its tiny upturn at the end. That was her jaw, gently curved and begging to be touched. As if to emphasize the sheer impossibility of what Nikola was seeing, there were other even more familiar features. Those were his cheekbones and the way the almost shorn hair stuck up at odd angles was the same way that his did if he cut it too short. The color, though, that black that shone red around the edges, that was not from him. In all the world, Nikola had only seen it on one other person. The boy looked back at him with an expression broadcasting the same disbelief that had Nikola reeling and barely noticing as the blonde and her son moved away but the scent didn't.

"Boy," snapped the blonde from over ten feet away. The boy's open expression shuttered closed even as he turned away from Nikola to trot after the woman. Something fierce and wild snarled within Nikola as he realized that he was with them. It was wrong. He couldn't go with them. Nikola reached out to grab the boy's shoulder. The frame felt too thin in his hand, extraordinarily fragile, even more than a normal human's would. The internal snarling grew more intense.

"I have to go," the boy whispered and Nikola reveled in the tones that echoed those of his Dove. The Carnival's maelstrom of stimuli was fading as it seemed that every one of Nikola's senses focused on the impossible being standing still under his grasp. It echoed how she had taken up his attention all those years ago. The boy gave a little shudder, a barely perceptible motion that was more a ripple than a shake. "Please, just let me—"

"Boy," the woman demanded and Nikola could tell that she was closer. Instincts he didn't even know he had forced him to yank the boy to the other side of him, so that Nikola was between his boy and the woman who still hadn't used a name for the child. Rage had his electrical powers snapping beneath the surface of his skin and as he spoke, he had to mind his tongue or risk cutting it on his extended fangs. By the way that the woman flinched when he met her gaze, Nikola suspected the state of his eyes. It had been decades since he had felt so close to being completely out of control, since his features had slipped so badly. "Look, I don't know what you want with the boy," the woman declared with false bravado, "but if you take him, they will just bring him back and take their annoyance for needing to out on you."

"Who are 'they'?" Nikola queried, soft and dangerously. The woman had to swallow several times before answering. Smug pleasure at that difficulty burned through him, a savage fire that felt so much like bloodlust that it made his head swim. 'Be afraid, little human,' he taunted. 'Be very, very afraid.'

"You know who!" she shrilly whispered. The fear made her voice reedy as well and Nikola flashed her a lopsided grin. It was her turn to shudder at the glimpse of fang in that grin.

"The people in the robes," the boy supplied from behind him. Nikola felt something inside him twist in a sickening combination of terror and rage. There was a subsect of the Triple Crowns who still wore robes and it took special adaptations for his bugs to survive around them. The Cabal were bad enough, but that sect put even Druitt to shame with their sadism.

The sheer need to take the boy and disappear hit Nikola like a punch to the gut. It was more than a bit disconcerting, this sudden drive to protect the child, no matter the cost. Nikola was not prone to bouts of selflessness. In fact, he had it on pretty good authority (both Helens, even the older version) that he cared for no one besides himself. 'Ah, but that's not quite true, is it?' some part of him countered, bringing forth teasing memories of his long ago taste of paradise and the woman who thought of him as a gift and whispered seductive demands into his ears. Nikola didn't know how the boy was his—that should be impossible, at least, it was impossible with a combination with her as well—but that mattered less than the instinct which screamed that he was. If there was one thing which Nikola knew well, it was the impossible. After all, it was what he did. The memory of her laughter settled the tension within him just enough to deal with what needed to be done.

"I want the boy," Nikola stated as calmly as possible. Despite the growing threat of his arm cramping from the awkward angle it was in to assure that it didn't leave the boy when Nikola had shoved him behind himself, Nikola was glad to that he had kept that grip upon the boy. If he hadn't, he would not have felt the sharp jerk followed by impossible stillness that the boy exhibited at Nikola's words. Two hands touched his back and spasmed twice before fisting the slight excess of fabric there. The senses which seemed to have centered on the boy told Nikola that he was holding his breath. "He's coming with me."

"I told you that they will just bring him back," she bit out waspily. "They always do. You won't keep him long and you can't kill him. So there's no point in taking him."

"I'll be the judge of that," he returned in cold tones. The implication of her words, with their slight emphasis on can't over kill, made him want to bathe in someone's blood for daring whatever they did which lead to the discovery of that inability. His math from earlier seemed a lot less metaphorical than it had a quarter of an hour ago. If the boy's safety, at least for now, did not hinge on the continued secrecy surrounding the existence of abnormals, even a guarantee of James' disappointment and a double dose of Helen's fury would not be enough to save the pitiful excuse for a human before him. He didn't even know the boy's name, but the drive to keep him safe was already knitting itself to Nikola's very core. It would not be denied.

"Fine," she spat, "keep him for as long as you can. Let the fallout be on your head. Don't say I didn't warn you." The woman spun on her toes and stormed off, pushing her whiny whale of a son before her. Before the crowd could completely swallow the pair, Nikola heard her son demanding to know why they were leaving the freak behind. Fresh rage forced him to take a step forward, only to be hampered by a pull to the back of his shirt. The boy still hadn't let him go. The reminder of him cleared just enough of the rage for Nikola to suppress it beneath his reason once more.

"A thoroughly disagreeable harpy," Nikola commented. The description startled a sharp bark of laughter out of the boy who followed it with hard and desperate breaths. Nikola was more careful when he went to move this time, giving ample time for the boy to register that he was intending to turn around, not leave. Equally carefully, Nikola then shifted them into a nearby alley, so that they were out of the foot traffic of the Carnival. Once there, he took his time assessing what he could of the boy now staring at him with shining eyes filled with hopeful disbelief and bitter resignation.

"She's right, you know," the boy whispered. "No one who takes me gets to keep me long before they come to take me back to there." Nikola couldn't stop himself from curling a hand against the boy's jaw. When the boy closed his eyes and tilted into the touch, he vowed to never again even try. Barely stirring his palm, Nikola used his fingertips to rub the dip behind the hinge of the boy's jaw, making him give another of those full body shudders.

"And what of not being able to kill you?"

"I'm a freak," he replied in a whisper so low that if Nikola hadn't had the enhanced hearing of his kind, he would have missed it. The boy blinked open his eyes to search his face and Nikola wondered what he was seeing. As if to answer the unspoken question, the child stretched a hand halfway to Nikola's face before yanking it back to fist it over his heart. That aborted touch hurt far more than it should have. "Your eyes—they're like mine. But that's impossible."

"I'm Nikola Tesla," he answered, abandoning the boringly normal name he was supposed to be using without a single thought. "I always do the impossible."

"I think I like that," the boy said with a grin just as crooked as the one Nikola used to rile Helen and James up. "I'm Harry Potter, freak extraordinaire."

"No," Nikola countered. He brought his other hand up to cup Harry's other jaw and tilt his face upwards again from the dip into which it had dropped. The boy moved easily, meeting Nikola's gaze with fearful determination. The rage was still there, and the bloodlust was hot and intense enough that Nikola considered going back on Helen's little medication to deaden the need to dismantle the woman who had been with his Harry because this had to be from her. "You're not a freak, Harry, never a freak. You're like me—and I don't know how yet, but you're like her, and she was perfect, so you know what that means, don't you?"

"That I'm a colossal disappointment to a vaguely referenced woman who may not even exist?"

"Oh, miš," Nikola breathed, the Serbian endearment falling from his lips like a forgotten sigh. "Just by existing you have already exceeded my expectations." He rubbed his thumbs over Harry's cheekbones, despite there not being any tears. "I can already tell how smart you are, but I'll give you the answer any way. It means that you are just as perfect as she was."

"Nobody's perfect, least of all me," Harry countered, his eyes sliding shut again as he leaned into Nikola's touch. His tone was broken, the syllables splintered and sharp like glass. Nikola didn't resist the instinct that had him gliding one of his hands into the boy's hair and using the grip to pull him in for a hug. He was beginning to question where they were coming from, however. Nikola was not normally this touchy-feely even with people he did know and the only person he had ever felt so possessive of was her, for the brief period that he had her. Harry's next words were mumbled against his chest, slow at first and then tumbling over each other like water over rocks. "She used to call me that—I don't think she's the same person who you are referencing, but she was perfect and brilliant and then she was just gone and I was with them. They always hated me but for years, I thought—then the people in the robes started showing up, and it was fine at first, but then…"

"That's over now," Nikola vowed at the same time that another man stepped into their alley. The growl was as unplanned as it was heartfelt. Nikola pushed Harry behind him even as he turned to fully face the threat. He registered Harry's hands gripping his shirt again as the man at the mouth of the alley raised his hands in the universal sign of surrender. James' sharp eyes were glued to Nikola's face.

"Breathe through it, Nikola," James commanded, not even attempting to move from his place at the mouth of the alley. "We both do not want to explain to Helen why we needed to tranq you when you're supposed to be medicated to the point of never needing it...and I'm fairly certain you wouldn't want the boy to see that." Nikola felt the hands on his back flinch before Harry shifted, probably to look around him at James. A century of control didn't stop James' sharp intake of breath being audible; it only allowed the Sanctuary Head to recover quickly from the shock of seeing exactly what Nikola had earlier, even without even as much context as Nikola had. "I see. Well, that does change some things, doesn't it?"

"Who are you?"

"A friend," James answered Harry, "and he's already remembering that little fact, now that the surprise is fading. Are you alright? While tranq'ing you will probably not help him, but it can be arranged, if you need it." Nikola shoved ruthlessly at the protective rage which threatened to overwhelm him again at the suggestion of anyone shooting his boy, regardless of it being a logical suggestion to avoid letting a feral Vampirius sanguine loose in London. Harry's hands released their grip and smoothed the bunched fabric.

"I'd rather not be made to sleep, if it's all the same to you," Harry commented as he moved from behind Nikola. A part of him screamed that Harry was not safe so exposed, but Nikola managed to stop himself from stepping between the two. "Bad things happen when people force me to sleep."

"James, I need to get Harry off the streets," Nikola interrupted the silence which fell as the two genii tried to determine exactly what could constitute bad things when compared to the bloodbath of a rampaging vampire. "There may be company coming soon that will need to be dealt with outside of Normal eyes."

"I will need to insist on the Sanctuary, you know," James said as if it was just a reminder of a previously made plan instead of something completely new. The urge to refuse died on Nikola's lips as logic won against the damned instincts attempting to control him. Every Sanctuary was equipped with more than enough security that they would most likely be safer and as the London Sanctuary was closer than any of his bolt-holes, it had the immediacy to make up for any lack of stealth. Nikola huffed but gestured his agreement. As James spoke into his ear piece to arrange for their transportation, Nikola turned to his boy just in time to find Harry plastering himself to his front.

"I know that this isn't going to last," Harry whispered against Nikola's stomach. Nikola could feel the tremors running through the little body and hear the slight hitch in his breath. "But thank you for at least trying. That is more than anyone else has ever done before."

"Oh, miš," Nikola sighed, pulling Harry even closer, "even if they take you, I will never stop hunting for you now that I know you exist. You are mine and I don't like when people take what is mine. You're stuck with me, kiddo."

"I can think of worse people to be stuck with," Harry quipped. He leaned back to look Nikola in the eye, and the vampire was struck again by the boy's resemblance to her, especially with that particular expression on his face—all shocked wonder and teasing affection. "Even if you are impossible."