Tensions heightened, entrapped in the shabby home of Edgar Allan Poe as the night set throughout Baltimore, if Paul's correct, even if Annabelle did reach the police, they wouldn't dare come out in the night, as they're already aware of the Drekker, and they will not risk getting caught by them.

Part of how these conspiracies worked, unfortunately.

Fireplaces lit with the freshly cut logs, burnt blackened with ember fluttering out of the cracks.

Heavy curtains covered all the windows, heavily scented with rosemary, anything to give them time.

"Doctor, if it's me they want, I've no qualms giving myself up, it was my fault!" Edgar tried convincing Paul how he wanted to rectify the mistake of trying to catch a glimpse of the Drekker in the eye, but Paul admitted that he wasn't sure how they planned on coming after Edgar for the slight.

Even if Edgar gave himself up willing, they don't know if it's all the Drekker wanted, they're not exactly conversationists.

There's amazing feats Paul done during his seven years, but attempting to talk to the Drekker was a tall order even for him.

Perhaps he could attempt it, but since they have no idea the mood the Drekker were in, it would be best he not risks his life.

Annabelle uneasily paced back and forth, her baby blue eyes darting whenever she heard a noise outside, Taylor helped keep her mind off the situation, causing Annabelle to inquire how she's able to stay calm.

"Well, I trust the Doctor," Taylor haphazardly said as she blinked her emerald eyes, causing Annabelle to question how she could trust someone who seemed out of his depth with creatures he didn't quite understand.

A subtle shrug, Taylor responded with, "I've traveled with him for over two years, I'd like to think I know him well-enough."

Since that day, they've been traveling together, coupled with events thereafter, Taylor put her trust in Paul, something she never took for granted, and Paul never done anything for her to question it.

Seeing the glittering look in Taylor's emerald eyes, Annabelle calmed down as she sat with Taylor on one of the couches in the den, gripping her hands as she's spooked by any noise outside.

Stressed as he trembled, trying to keep his nerves sharp with swigs of alcohol he stored around his shabby house, Edgar tried asking Paul if there's a possibility that he's wrong, that the Drekker weren't coming for him, after all, only for Paul to inform him that with these things, there's only thing he knows for a fact: always prepare for the unexpected.

Something everyone who acted as the Doctor held close to the hilt during their time.

Even in situations where it shouldn't be needed, they're prepared for anything and anyone going awry, it's second nature for them.

Looking up at the grandfather clock, Edgar sees it's almost ten, no sign of the Drekker, and he began hearing his own heartbeat over the grandfather clock mindlessly ticking away.

Listening to the outside ambiance attentively, Paul didn't hear the tarry fiends moving around, but he refused to treat this is as a mistake in his judgement.

Taylor helped Annabelle to the kitchen where they made tea, something to soothe everyone's nerves.

Annabelle tried keeping her mind occupied as she asked about the Drekker, wanting to know what exactly the creatures were, and why they'd hunt after anyone foolish enough to look them directly in the eye.

Taylor did her best explaining them, but warned that her experiences were limited, Paul and the others before him had more experiences than she did, and at the end, she said that she wasn't sure where they came from.

"They're affront to God!" Annabelle called them.

Drinking the tea, the warmth helped open Annabelle's airway as she tried to remain calm, but there's a seeping dread that wouldn't go away.

There's a jolt when they started hearing noises coming from outside, soft but heavy thudding noises.

Alarmed, Annabelle huddled close to Taylor as they sat on the couch, their legs wobbling too much for them to stand, Edgar and Paul looking around sharply as they tried deducing where the noises headed.

"Whatever you do, Mr. Poe, do not attack them," Paul warned him as he knows it's a natural response, and Edgar already showed to disobey him once.

This time, Paul meant it.

Attacking the Drekker, no matter how much it made sense to do so in Edgar's mind, would result in a fate worse than death for everyone involved.

"What if I am to die?" Edgar questioned Paul's interpretation of events that's to come.

His mind racing, Paul tells Edgar that if it's the case, then the Drekker will solely focus on him, but again, they don't know what the Drekker want, if only Edgar, or even Annabelle.

As he tried to think, it's interrupted when they started hearing rapping at the windows, the screech as something sharp went down the glass.

The way it sounded, it's the talons on the Drekker's hand, which only served to unnerve them all, as Annabelle gripped Taylor, fright in her baby blue eyes as she nearly turned Taylor blue in the face from squeezing her tightly.

The rapping at the windows continued until it suddenly stopped, silence.

Only the grandfather clock audibly made any noise, no one spoke a word, everyone's eyes widened, hairs on their necks raised like flags.

Edgar struggled to speak, air trapped in his throat as he tried talking to Paul, but nothing came out of his mouth, as he stood in silence, his eyes fixated at every window in the den.

Paul froze when he started hearing a voice softly calling, alarmed he looked around, but as he did, he realized he was the only who was hearing the voice, no one else did, and that it was coming from somewhere inside his head.

Soft, Paul couldn't discern if it was male or female, it didn't sound hostel, worried.

"Door… you must open… the door!" The voice urged him to open the front door of Edgar's home.

Calling out to the voice internally, Paul asks, "Why?"

The voice replied, "He… inspires… Edgar… he won't hurt you… trust me, Paul."

Hearing the voice call him by name, Paul then asked, "Who are you?"

He waited for a response, but the voice didn't answer him, no matter how much he tried, it seemingly disappeared from his mind as quickly as it came.

Startled when he heard Edgar calling out to him, as he turned towards the frightened man he goes, "Mr. Poe, listen to me carefully. I am going to open the front door."

As direct and to the point he could, Paul explains to Edgar that he must open the front door and that Edgar mustn't do anything rash when Paul does.

"Wha-what are you doing?" Edgar questioned him, but Paul insisted that he open the front door.

Annabelle turned to Taylor as she asked, "Has he gone mad?"

Seeing the look in Paul's angel eyes, Taylor asserts, "The Doctor knows what he's doing!"

Shaking his head, Edgar refused the thought of Paul opening the front door, but Paul remained firmed, insistent that Edgar listen to him, even if he couldn't tell the frightened man why he needed to do this.

"You've gone mad!" Edgar refused.

"Mr. Poe, you must listen to me, it's important I do this. You said it yourself, you wanted to make right with them, consider this a way of doing just that. Do you trust me?" Paul asks Edgar as he saw the frighten man grow quiet as he questioned himself internally.

Looking up, Edgar goes, "What about Anna?"

Chewing on his inner lip, Paul says, "She'll be fine, Mr. Poe. Just listen to me. No one do anything rash. They will look frightening, but you must trust me."

Taylor trusted him wholeheartedly, but Edgar and Annabelle remained skeptical, unfortunately they had no choice, as Paul already made it for him, running to the front door, and opening it as the voice in his head instructed him.

As he did, Paul felt the brush of cold air breeze by him, there's a heavy scent of rain in the air, a rumble in the distance.

A storm.

Cogs turning in his mind, Paul concluded what it meant.

The Drekker knew it, too.

A massive storm's on the horizon, it'll be here in a short amount of time, enough energy to bore tears, they won't be in Baltimore after tonight.

With the front door opened wide, Paul ran back to the others as he kept them where they were, as much as their senses told them to run, and while that's a good idea, they mustn't do it.

They had to remain where they are.

Against themselves, Annabelle and Edgar sat quietly as they felt dread looming over them.

"Paul, what's going on?" Paul heard Taylor reach for him in his mind, a familiar voice to aid his troubling senses.

Sitting beside her with his arm around her waist, pulling her close, Paul admitted to her, "I don't know."

The clock struck midnight, a hollow sound echoed throughout Edgar's home, and the four sat in silence as there's movement coming from the front door.

Chewing on his inner lip as he held Taylor close, Paul felt reverb under his feet from the heavy footsteps coming from a lone Drekker entering through the opened doorway.

The reverb alone clued Paul which one it was, the Big One, it had come for Edgar.

"…Dre… Dre…" a low voice came from the entryway into the den, followed by clicking noises.

It took every ounce of strength keeping Annabelle from screaming at the top of her lungs as Edgar sees the tall Drekker standing there.

Looked like a giant with a foul smell of death following it, when it moved its head, Edgar sees the raven-like beak that opened and closed, sharp black spiny teeth and a needle-like blackened tongue.

Seeing those eyes up close, Edgar sees them closer, the eyes of a man, but the body of a beast.

Standing up, Edgar swallowed his fear as he approached the Big One that dwarfed him.

"It was me that looked you in the eye, no one else," Edgar forced himself to speak clearly as he looked up at the Big One. "If anyone is to be punished for slighting you, it would be me. Leave them out of it."

Forcing himself to be bold for the sake of Annabelle, Edgar implored the Big One that if it wanted to punish him for the slight, so be it, but not to lay harm to anyone else present in the den, they had no part in it.

Lowering its upper body to look at him closely, the Big One looked straight into Edgar's hazel eyes, there he saw how human those eyes of it looked, how uncanny, and the Big One let out one guttural word.

"…Evermore."

Edgar's stunned that the Big One can speak like a man, limited as it was, as he watched the large Drekker move about, clearly antagonized by the lit fireplace and the strong scent of rosemary as it shook its head agitatedly.

"…Evermore…" it hissed at him, the human eyes never broke sight of Edgar, as it moved back through the entryway, lurching to the safety of outside where there's claps of thunder that sounded closer, the wind picking up.

It came through the shabby house quickly, swiftly that none of them were able to react as they're blasted by the strong wind, putting out the candles, knocking several into the ground in loud crashes, soot spreading everywhere as the wind assaulted the fireplaces.

The flames unable to react as they're snuffed out by the heavy wind, as it went upright through the chimney.

Only when the howling wind stopped, did everyone uncover their eyes.

In darkness, the four struggled as they attempted to relit unbroken candles, when there was enough light, they see the disarray caused by the wind.

Outside, rain poured, lighting lit the midnight skies, thunder rattled the homes.

Unnerved, Edgar looked towards Paul for guidance, but he couldn't come up with a reasonable explanation.

"It… it won't come back… will it?" Annabelle gulped as she clung to her beloved cousin.

A hesitant shrug, Paul explains that the Drekker have moved on, the killing will finally cease, and Baltimore won't live in terror, again.

"What… what did it want with me?" Edgar failed to understand the purpose of the Big One's presence, figuring it would want to kill him, but instead it went through the effort just to say one word to it.

Paul couldn't say for sure, but he stated that it was of importance for the Big One to go through the effort to find him, the fact it didn't see them as threats was the best outcome they could hope for.

Now, with the Drekker gone, things should calm down in Baltimore, and Edgar can go back to the pub and collect his free drinks.

"What if they come back?" Annabelle worried about the Drekker coming back later down the line.

Rubbing his angel eyes, Paul says to her, "Your cousin has my number."

Should they turn up, again, Paul's only a short number away from coming back to try and figure things out.

Everything finally said and done, Paul and Taylor took their leave from Edgar's home, to their surprise, the TARDIS waited for them outside the door.

With ease, Paul opens the sole door, with Taylor following him inside.

As swift as it appeared, the TARDIS disappears as lighting lit up the midnight skies once, again.

Sitting on the steps, Paul wrote everything that happened down in his journal, while Taylor looked up at the monitors above the console.

Taylor read line of texts as they flowed from the top of the monitors to the bottom.

As the pen fluidly moved over the pages, Paul overhears, "Mr. Poe's publisher censured the Drekker."

True to what Paul said, despite Edgar's literary prowess, it wasn't enough to slip through the cracks of a conspiracy, the publisher reducing the Drekker to a mere raven.

Evermore, indeed.

"You can't win everything, Grace," she hears him.

She continued reading and saw that Edgar went on to have a similar career as his counterpart, with a key difference.

His beloved Annabelle Lee, having battled cancer for almost a year, took her own life via a bottle of poison she had bought the night before under the pretense of dealing with a rat problem.

Towards the end of her life, when she realized her prognoses, Annabelle feared the Ravens coming back, this time for her, and they wouldn't be as cordial with her than with her cousin.

Rather take the chance, the cancer already weakened her considerably, Annabelle proceeded to commit suicide while Edgar was at a convention in Richmond.

As his counterpart, it broke Edgar, to the point the drink was all that he wanted, despite being a celebrated writer of his time.

He would also commit suicide, as he learnt his liver was failing, and fearing his inspiration coming back for him, Edgar drank alcohol laced with cyanide, hoping to poison his body enough the Drekker wouldn't attempt to mangle it for his liver, and whatever else they might smell.

A passerby found the writer collapsed near a hydrant, unresponsive, and Edgar was pronounced dead.

The killings in Baltimore hadn't happened, again.

"Is there nothing we could've done?" Taylor asked Paul as she turned her head towards him as he stood up, having finished writing.

Stepping to her side, Paul answers, "I'm not sure we could've made a difference. They were both dead, one way or another."

Even if the Drekker weren't involved, the events would still play out, different, but Edgar and Annabelle would both die.

Slowly nodding, her ruby red hair bobbing, the few blond strands shimmering, Taylor sees a look in Paul's angel eyes, when she asked what bothered him, he replied with a heavy sigh, "I don't know, Grace."

THE END