The Long Cold Kill - Chapter Two

While investigating the murder of Andrew Stiles, vampire detective Hannibal King has been captured by his killer, a vampire named Navarro. Locked in a room for six days without blood, Hannibal has been tempted with a homeless man in the hopes he will break his vow to never drink blood from a live human.[1] When the homeless man bitten by Navarro’s minions, King is forced to drink his blood in order to save his own life and prevent the man from becoming a vampire himself.

Horrified by what he has become, Hannibal begins punching the wall over and over. However, this isn’t out of disgust, but to create an opening wide enough for him to escape in his mist form. When Navarro’s men realize what he is up to, they are too late to stop Hannibal from escaping.

With dawn on the horizon, Hannibal returns to his coffin to sleep for the day. When night falls again, the detective tracks down Tatjana Stiles to confront her about the discrepancies he found in her story. She admits that she made up the story about how she and Andrew were attacked by vampires while they were on the road. In reality, Tatjana and Andrew were not husband and wife, but partners working for the CIA. They were investigating an overseas chemical factory developing illegal biological weapons. After destroying the facility, they took the computer code that was used to manufacture the bio-weapons and split them between the two of them. For some reason, Navarro and his vampires wanted the code and stole it from Andrew and killed him.

After learning the truth, Hannibal accepts Tatjana’s assistance in tracking down Navarro and putting a stop to whatever his schemes are. The two go about town, crashing regular vampire hideouts for information and killing every blood sucker that gets in their way. As they get closer to their quarry, Hannibal is impressed with how easily Tatjana is taking to hunting down and destroying vampires. The trail eventually leads them to an abandoned subway tunnel. There the pair are captured and taken prisoner.

Navarro and his vampires begin cutting Tatjana intending to bleed her out unless Hannibal reveals the location of the other half of the codex. Not wanting another life on his hands and having deduced its location, King tells Navarro that Tatjana has hidden it inside the necklace she is always wearing. After recovering the second half of the code, Navarro explains his masterplan. He points out that the reason why vampires haven’t fully overrun humanity is due to the fact that they can only operate at night and humans have exploited this and other weaknesses to keep their numbers down. Navarro intends to bolster their numbers by unleashing a biological weapon in New York. While the American government will struggle to find a cure, Navarro will give the sick a cure by turning the mall into vampires, thus he will transform the entire population of the city into a loyal army.

What Navarro didn’t expect is that Hannibal lined the subway tunnel with plastic explosives before their capture and they are about to explode. When King makes this revelation, Navarro races to recover his bio-weapon materials, allowing Hannibal to grab Tatjana and carry her to safety. Navarro doesn’t make it out before the explosives go off, killing him and destroying his bio-weapons.

Tatjana is taken to the hospital where she is listed in critical condition. When Hannibal is able to visit her she tells him that she is in excruciating pain that will ultimately kill her and pleads with him to either end her pain or make it go away.

Three months later, Hannibal King hasn’t worked since taking on the Stiles case. He knows he’ll eventually get back to taking more cases, but he’s just not ready yet. The reason why is a newspaper story about Iraqi soldiers being drained of their blood. A United Nations investigation in the matter points to US peacekeepers in the region. This is the work of Tatjana, the first person that Hannibal has turned into a vampire, and his eternal damnation.

… This title continued as Thor (vol. 2) #1.

Recurring Characters

Hannibal King, Navarro, Tatjana Stiles

Continuity Notes

1. After Hannibal was turned into a vampire in Tomb of Dracula #25, he vowed never to drink blood from a live person. He managed to maintain this vow until last issue.

Topical References

• In this story, Navarro states that the population of New York City is about 5 million people. This figure should be considered topical as the population of NYC has increased over the years. In 2022 it is estimated that New York is home to nearly 9 million people.