Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, events, settings, or anything else taken from the TV show Sanctuary. No copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter 1: Hero – and Rescue, But Not of the Rescue

Previously on Sanctuary…

MAGNUS: The Cabal are a powerful shadow organization bent on controlling all abnormal life on the planet.

DRUITT: The war is begun.

MAGNUS: Pitting humans against abnormals, deciding who lives and who dies, the Cabal has to be stopped, that's why I started this mission more than a century ago.

DRUITT: We were a part of something, something we called The Five. A small group dedicated to expanding our knowledge of the physical world. Your mother managed to procure a very rare sample of ancient untainted vampire blood. Blood that supposedly possessed miraculous properties.

DANA WHITCOMB: Your mother and her colleagues will no doubt try to stop us. I promise you they'll fail. They'll fail because…you're going to help us complete our plan.

ASHLEY: What did you do to me?

DANA: You're going to die today, Ashley.

MAGNUS: We're too late.

DANA: Thank you Ashley. You've been everything we could have hoped for. Welcome to your rebirth.

MAGNUS: Ashley? What have they done to you?

TESLA: They used the Source Blood to change her.

MAGNUS: It's not going to stop there. There'll be more just like her very soon!

DANA: Six operatives are now ready for deployment.

MAGNUS: Name?

KATE: Kate Freelander. For the record, I'm not Cabal.

May 24, 2010

I was only fifteen when they took me. I remember the day clearly, May 24th. They came up in big black vans, taking me from the arms of my screaming mother. And then they shot her. There was no reason. She was on her knees, screaming, pleading, crying, begging them to take her instead of me. There was no one around to hear her. They loaded me in one of the cars, an easy task now that I was incapacitated by grief.

That's probably why they didn't bother to blindfold me, or stick a sack over my head. We drove a long way, and on a very bumpy road. Every time the car jostled, my head hit the hard back of the seat, building into a heavy headache that wasn't entirely unwelcome. It dulled the grief I felt. My mother had warned me they would come for me. Whoever they were. She wouldn't explain why though. All she would say was, in her soft, patient, sad voice, "Experiments."

Why me? Why not any other teenage girl in the big city? I guess it was because my father was gone. We didn't know whether he was dead, or just…gone. Still, there were other kids without fathers out there. Tons of them. So why me? By the time the van pulled up at a fancy-looking business building in a huge city, my thinking was dulled to a faint whisper in my head. The doors on the back of the car opened and my numb body tumbled out, hitting the hard floor. Pain lanced up my body, pushing me into oblivion.

When I woke up, I was strapped onto a metal table in a medium sized room with white-washed walls. An IV was hooked into my arm, and I felt no pain except my pounding headache, which was steadily getting worse as whatever drugs they were pumping into me took effect. The hard steel table I was strapped to felt as soft as a cloud, and everything around me was fuzzy and had a slight dream-like quality. There was a babble of voices outside the door, along with the footsteps of many people busy rushing about outside. The blue door opened, and I could tell by their shadows that it was a man and a woman. I tried to crane my neck around to see who it was, but there was a shackle around my head too, restricting my movement. My brain felt fuzzy, and I couldn't think straight. Nothing about this felt wrong to me, so I wasn't scared. I thought maybe this was a hospital, full of doctors who would fix me back up and send me back home as soon as possible. My mother's death must have been a hallucination from whatever disease I was suffering from, and when I got back home she would be waiting for me, her sad smile and warm comforting arms waiting for me to fall into. One of the people came over to me, and I looked at her expectantly. "She's awake," she told her companion, "Any idea when we can begin?"

"Soon, I should think," a gruff man's voice said from somewhere behind me, "They've already released the first wave. Magnus and her team should be getting the blood by now."

"Good," the woman said, "I would hate to keep her locked up in here for too long of a wait." She smiled down at me. I should have been reassured, but her eyes ruined the "I'm a kind person I'm not going to hurt you" image. I could tell they no longer viewed me as a human being, just a test subject with no feelings, squashing my hospital daydream. The realization that it was all real, that this wasn't a hospital, that these weren't doctors hit me all at once. I scrunched down on the table, trembling slightly. The woman clucked her tongue and said, "Oh don't worry young one. By the time we're done with you, nothing will scare you." She smiled a cruel smile, turning my blood to ice. She then looked at me one last time and walked away out of my view.

The man left soon after, leaving me on the cold metal table while the woman typed away on a computer in the far side of the room. Terrified as I was, I slept for a while that night. I was woken up when the door opened again with a careless bang, and a person in a white lab coat came in. "All has gone as planned. We have the blood. The Lazarus trick was a success."

"Good. Good. It is time to begin. Bring me a syringe of the Source Blood, and we'll get started right away," the woman said. She looked down at me, smiling, "It's okay, darling. You'll be so much better than before. I promise. You might even be more powerful than Ashley. You will be very, very useful to the Cabal." The man held out a small syringe filled with dark red blood to the woman, who took it reverently, as if she was holding pure gold. She held it up to the light and flicked the needle. With a swift downward motion, she stabbed it mercilessly into my arm. My body was on fire, my muscles melting like butter, and I would have thrashed around on the table had I been able to command my burning arms. The woman watched me, taking hurried notes on her clipboard. My eyes closed as the burning intensified, and I was awoken with a jolt as all the fire stopped. "You have some long days ahead of you, Juliana," the woman said as she patted my arm. My body felt warm and cold at the same time, and I was shivering.

"That's not my name," I managed to get out.

She smiled down at me. "It is now."

Days and days went by after that. I remember waking up, and feeling a stab in my arm each morning. I would never get used to that, and the Cabal doctors were anything but gentle with their syringes. But most of all, I remember changing. Not just my body—my thought processes, the way I smelled, tasted, saw, and heard. At first they brought me cranberry juice to drink at noon, but that gradually changed…to blood. I knew what it was. The human part of me was grossed out. The human part of me didn't understand what was happening. The human part of me was also getting smaller by the day. The other part, the changed part, the new part, loved it. The blood made me feel good, more alive than I had ever felt in my life. And besides, while I was enjoying my blood-drink, I heard snippets of conversation. Important conversation, held between officials, doctors, nurses, psychologists, and, of course, chemists like the ones changing me.

At the start of my imprisonment, the voices had sounded excited. Then one day they were angry. From what I could make out, Magnus had destroyed the girl named Ashley (whoever they were), and I was the Cabal's only hope. They were upset that I was nowhere near ready to go into battle. I heard one of them say that I had the vampiric qualities, but I couldn't teleport or turn invisible yet. That made no sense to me. I mean, no one could teleport or be invisible. Right?

Their treatment of me changed gradually. At the beginning of my imprisonment, I had been strapped to a cold metal table. I was escorted with chains held firmly to wherever they wanted me to go. Later on, they moved me to a different room with a real bed, but still used a super-strong mesh material to attach my left wrist to the bedpost. Along with these changes, I soon realized my body was majorly changing. I wasn't sure how I felt about that. At first, I had wished with all my heart that none of this had ever happened, that my mother was still alive, and that we were fishing by the lake together like we sometimes do. Gradually that changed too though. I hated myself for it. But the Cabal psychologists were good. I found myself starting to believe their wild, fantastic stories, and I began to want to serve the Cabal. I was glad my mother was dead. I believed the Cabal were good people, and that this Magnus person wanted creatures called abnormals to rule the world. I believed my sole purpose of existing was to destroy her and her team, she who would destroy her own race to help abnormals rise to the top. But not her own race, they taught me. She was part vampire, sort of like me. I learned her history, about how she and the rest of The Five injected themselves with vampire blood and she got the gift of longevity. I learned about her daughter, Ashley, and how the Cabal used her against Magnus but failed. The Cabal psychologists moved through that part pretty quickly, focusing more on Magnus's evil and betrayal to her species by injecting herself.

I felt sorry for Magnus, for losing her daughter, and that was the one thing they didn't count on. My empathy. My compassion. It led me to not fully believe their side of the story. I was doubtful if the Cabal were the kind, good people they made themselves out to be because they had taken Ashley and me forcibly from our mothers, and changed us. Ashley was actually used as a weapon against Magnus! I was confused about good and evil, and about who wanted to rule the world and who didn't. Still, I had enough sense to play along.

Soon they began teaching me new things, bizarre things. I learned how to turn into a full vampire at will, which made my nails and teeth become long and end in sharp points. I could jump really high, and I healed almost instantly. While in that form my pupils dilated and my voice changed. My thoughts while transformed were more focused too. More brutal, but more focused nonetheless. I took the time to think out the dilemmas in my life. To resist or not to resist. What to believe and what not to believe. I decided not to trust the Cabal or Magnus until I actually met them. Of course, I had met the Cabal, but I mean met their leader, being able to judge her face to face, not just her pets trained to conceal their real thoughts and emotions behind a mask of caring and kindness.

The procedure I was going through gave me ample time to think. Based on the stories they were teaching me as fact, I figured out pretty much why they were doing this to me. I was going to be their weapon, a tool for them to use. I didn't want to, but this place's security was as tight as a drum. There was no escape. I was going to be their puppet, doing whatever they asked me to with one pull of the string. Steal whatever they wanted. Kill whoever they wanted. They were setting me on a path surrounded by lava. If I deviated from this one straight path, I would die. All I could do was keep moving forward, and that was exactly how they wanted it. If they told me to kill, I would, no matter what damage it did to my soul. I was set on the path, and I had to follow it. I would be consumed in darkness.

I had no idea how much time was passing or had passed, but one night I was led back to my room by a Cabal doctor in a white lab suit. As usual, I glanced behind me, getting the feeling someone was watching me. No one was there. The doctor opened the door and I went inside. She followed me in and I walked to the bed and placed my wrist by it and waited for her to get the metal webbing to strap me to the bed. She looked around and frowned. She opened the gray drawers at the other end of the room, searching for what she needed. I watched her interestedly. She poked her head outside the door and stopped one of her colleagues. He peered in the room, clipboard in hand. He was African-American and wore a long white lab coat just like the woman. He spoke softly, but with my newly enhanced hearing, I could hear his low voice.

"You're missing the titanium webbing to strap her to the bed? I think the last one was used on Danaka. It's all right, we're getting a fresh shipment Wednesday morning. Juliana has a perfect record, no misbehaviors at all. Just strap her in with something else and don't tell her." The woman came back in the room and bustled around the drawers. She found a pair of handcuffs and locked one end around my wrist and the other around the pole of the bed. She left and I pulled the scant covers up with my free hand.

Only two days later, I was sleeping in my room on the bed, my wrist held by the metal cuff to the bedpost when there was a loud crash in the hallway and the door burst open. A tall, bald, sinister looking man walked in followed by another vampire, eyes blackened with a fiery rage. I could tell he was in full vampire mode, his nails extended all the way out, and teeth looking like they had been filed to sharp points. I extended my own claws, and sliced through the restraints like a knife through butter. I jumped to my feet, moving with inhuman swiftness toward the tall dude; sure that he couldn't match my speed. I was wrong. He grabbed my arm and his friend's too, and the room vanished with a flash of red light.

We reappeared in another room, but this one felt much more pleasant than the Cabal one. The man released my arm and it completed its downward swipe, although instead of slicing him I shredded a file folder on the desk. I was so surprised at where I was that my body reverted back to human form. It was some sort of office, with many armchairs, most of them facing a desk where a woman sat. The desk I was standing by was covered in papers, not so neatly filed. Some art covered the walls, including what looked like a first-grader's drawing above the door. The name Ashley was written on the bottom right in sloppy letters.

"John…what?" the woman asked, getting up swiftly from the desk and coming toward me.

"We found her in the labs. They definitely used the Source Blood on her," the tall guy replied.

The woman went over to the computer and hit a button. "Henry? Get the EM shield up and running," she said urgently.

A male voice came through the intercom, "Why? Has Druitt...?"

"It is not me this time," the man I assumed was Druitt said back, "We found a girl in the Cabal labs. They've used the Source Blood on her."

"It's up," Henry called a few seconds later.

"Thank you," the woman said, and then she turned back to me.

"What's your name?" she asked gently.

I narrowed my eyes. "Which one, the one the Cabal gave to me or my real name?"

"Whichever you prefer," she replied.

"Tayla," I answered, "Tayla Casparian."

"How do you feel, Tayla?" she asked kindly.

"Who are you? What is this place?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

"I'm Dr. Helen Magnus, and I run this place, the Sanctuary, where all sorts of abnormals can be safe."

"I've heard of you," I said distrustfully, "From the Cabal. How do I know that you're not the bad people? They told me that you sought to have humans serve abnormals!"

Magnus, Druitt, and the other guy who I later learned was Tesla launched into a story of the Lazarus virus. According to them, the Cabal dropped a virus down from the sky causing abnormals to attack humans. The virus spread via the wind currents, bringing it south. Magnus had agreed to let her daughter and Henry, the EM shield guy, break into the Cabal database from inside one of their facilities while The Five retrieved the Source Blood from Bhalasaam, an ancient vampire city. They believed the Source Blood could be a cure for the virus. They successfully completed the tests and avoided the traps and received the blood, but Ashley and Henry were captured. Druitt rescued them, but Ashley was changed (kind of like me) and brainwashed during her imprisonment. She stole the blood and gave it to Dana Whitcomb, the Cabal leader. Soon there were six super vampires, with Ashley as the leader, all of them working for the Cabal. The Cabal used them to destroy Sanctuaries around the world before they got to this one. Nikola Tesla, part of The Five, the other vampire guy, had designed a weapon that was effective against them. They defended this Sanctuary, and Ashley ended up breaking the mind control drug long enough to save her mother and the Sanctuary. She grabbed the last super-vamp and teleported while the EM shield was up, killing them both.

When the story had finished, Magnus put her hand on my arm in a comforting gesture, but I backed away quickly, slamming into a table at the unfamiliar touch. She withdrew her hand.

"How do you feel?" Magnus asked again.

"Okay, I guess. What…what am I now?" I asked guardedly.

Tesla answered me, "You're like me. Heir to the greatest race that ever lived. Sanguine Vampiris! We ruled for a golden age of progress, where—"

"Nikola!" Magnus gave him a look that clearly said: "Stop it! Your ego speaks for you!" She turned back to me. "Though Nikola's version may have been…twisted, slightly, he is correct. You are a vampire, like him. The Cabal created you, but that doesn't matter. You can stay here. Use your gifts to help us in our work," she said, "I'll have Will get a guest room ready, whatever you decide."

"Okay," I replied. I tentatively decided to trust Magnus. It wasn't like I had a choice. There was no way she would just let me go, to walk the streets, a monster she couldn't control. I also sensed truth in her story, whereas the Cabal version hadn't exactly made sense.

A handsome guy with tan hair walked in. He had his mouth open about to say something when he noticed me. He raised an eyebrow at Magnus. She gave him a slight, almost imperceptible, nod.

"This is Tayla, Will. John and Nikola brought her back here from a Cabal lab. She's going to be staying with us for a while."

"Hello, Tayla. I'm forensic psychiatrist Will Zimmerman. I work with Dr. Magnus," he said to me.

"It's nice to meet you, Will," I said.

"I think guest room number twenty-seven on the residential floor would work," Magnus said. "Have Kate come in here if you see her, I need to talk to her about that red-list dealer on Sackamora Road."

Will nodded and then spoke to me again. "Follow me," he turned to Magnus, "And by the way, we have a sighting of the empath. Declan and I will head out there as soon as I get Tayla settled in."

"No, go with Declan," Magnus said decisively, "I'll have Kate show Tayla to her room."

"Okay," Will agreed.

Magnus nodded to Druitt and Tesla, and together the two headed off down the hall. Will also took off down the hallway.

"Kate!" I could hear him call down the hallway some way off, "Druitt and Tesla found a girl in the Cabal labs. Her name's Tayla, and Magnus wants you to show her to her room. Guest room twenty-seven on the western residential corridor." A few seconds later, another person walked into the room. She was around her mid twenties, with her clothes punk style. "Hi. I'm Kate," she said.

"Hi. I'm Tayla," I replied.

"I'll show you to your room," she turned and walked down a hallway. We went up a couple floors in the elevator, and stopped in front of a door with a plaque marked Guest. "Here we are!" Kate turned the knob and opened the door for me.

It was a big bedroom, bigger than mine at home. There was a dresser, bed, small desk, and a door to the bathroom. On the bed lay a small stack of papers. I went over to look and saw that they were maps of each floor of the Sanctuary. Wow, this place is huge. I thanked Kate and told her I'd see her later. She nodded and left the room, and I got the feeling she didn't really care that I was here; she had just acted like it in front of Magnus. I walked around and explored the room some more. The closet was empty except for some clothes hangers. When I was done poking around, I felt weird with nothing else to do, and slightly self-conscious and out of place. Without thinking about it, my ears began to extend their hearing down to the floors below. The soft hum of Magnus's voice led me through the maze of hallways to where Magnus and Kate were waiting for Will and Declan to get back.

It was sort of like a garage. A couple vans and even a motorcycle were parked in their designated spaces. Unlike the rest of the Sanctuary that I'd seen, this room was relatively undecorated, with just stone walls and a half empty bottle of wine on top of the wood frame shelf. Magnus seemed to notice it at the same time I did and I think she sighed and muttered, "Nikola." Then I saw there was someone else in the garage too. He was big and hairy, like a sasquatch. I immediately took a step backward. Kate, seeing my expression, said, "It's okay, he's friendly. This is the Big Guy." I nodded hello to the Big Guy, but didn't come any closer.

"There they are," Magnus said, pointing out towards two black specks in the distance. I wondered how she could see that, because I, a vampire, could barely. Then I remembered she was part vampire too, and she had had over a century of practice. Or maybe she just had good eyesight.

Will and the other guy I assumed was Declan climbed gingerly off their motorcycles, wincing. "What happened?" Magnus asked running over to help Will.

He groaned and said, "There was this fat superhero guy and he flew away with the empath…"

"Alright, let's go upstairs and see if there is any the security camera footage. Where were you when this happened?"

"Fernley Street, between buildings 601 and 603," answered Declan, rubbing his shoulder. They trooped upstairs, Will groaning with every step until the Big Guy gave him a shoulder to lean on. Magnus got to a computer and pulled up the security footage from the alley while Kate got an ice pack for Declan. Magnus, Kate, and I gathered around the computer to see the video. Kate took control of the mouse and we watched as a big fat guy in a maroon suit beat up the two men in black, Will and Declan. Kate backed up the video so she could watch the guy in the suit send Will sprawling again…and again…and again, backwards and forwards.

"Oh wait. This is my favorite part," Kate said as she watched the video.

"Look, I'm so pleased that my pain amuses you all," Will said.

"God, look at the whiplash on that baby!" Kate exclaimed as Will somersaulted over.

"Ohhh!" Will gasped in pain as the Big Guy rubbed his back.

"I'm checkin' for broken bones," the Big Guy said, slapping Will.

"Yeah, well, if you push any harder you'll find some!" Will said, wincing.

Still watching the footage, Magnus interrupted them. "How does he manage to fly like that without wings?" Magnus asked, "I've never seen an abnormal with that kind of ability before."

"Yeah, you know, I thought the same thing when my head bounced off the ground," Will said.

Magnus smiled, and said something else to Declan. "As for your flying man, I'm having Henry look into it."

I left the room for Henry's lab to see if I could help Henry search, even though I didn't really know what that entailed. After all, it was the least thing I could do in return for Magnus's hospitality and the one thing they did teach me about what I was becoming while I was the Cabal's prisoner was vampire history. Tesla hadn't been all wrong. Vampires had been the smartest creatures on Earth. Progress had occurred while the vampires ruled. I figured the most helpful place I could be was working with Henry. Plus, I had yet to meet him. I traveled back to my room to get my maps, and headed to the lab.

"Hi. Who're you?" Henry asked as I walked in.

"I'm Tayla. I'm the reason Dr. Magnus had you put up the EM shield. Which you can power down now; I can't teleport like Druitt."

"Okay," Henry said, and typed something on his computer. A blinking light on one of the machines shut off. I was surprised he believed me so easily.

As if she could read my mind, Magnus poked her head in the doorway. "You can't teleport can you?" she asked.

"No," I answered.

"I thought not," Magnus said, "All right. Will and I are leaving to check out an unidentifiable egg in a tunnel. We'll be back later, and I want to do some blood tests on you. Henry, why don't you show Kate and Tayla how to do the afternoon feeding?"

"Sure, Doc," Henry replied, "Oh, and by the way, Druitt and Tesla nabbed a van on their way out and left it on Old Bridge before they teleported off."

"All right, Henry, we'll pick it up on our way," she replied. She left the room.

"Any leads on the flying guy?" I asked him after she left, trying to be helpful.

"Not yet, but like she said, I gotta go show Kate how to feed the abnormals in the main lab. She's new here too, you know."

"She is? But she seems so…at home here."

"Yeah. But she's a good actress."

I followed him out of the lab and up in the elevators. We met Kate in the storage room, and Henry pulled up a cart of weird looking bugs, plant material, and things I couldn't even recognize. He pushed the cart into the main lab. I kind of zoned out for a while, looking at all the amazing creatures they had there. There was a mermaid—though it looked nothing like Ariel—and what looked like fire which burned in the form of an old man's face. The rest of the creatures I had no hope of describing, much less naming.

When I finally paid attention again, Henry was saying, continuing his instruction to Kate, "River banshee: fire shrimp. Word of advice: wear gloves. Shouldn't you be writing this down or something?"

"What for?" Kate asked.

"In case you need to fill in for me one day," he answered.

Kate laughed, "Yeah right," and walked up to a glass wall behind which was a bunch of fog. "Hey," she said as she banged on the glass, "what's in here?"

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Henry warned.

"Why not?" Kate asked. She peered into the fog again, still leaning against the glass. A long octopus-like tentacle slapped against the glass she was leaning on. "Ahhh!" she yelled, "Whoa!"

"Told you," Henry said, as he pushed the cart forward again. Just then Kate's cell phone rang. She stood there staring at it as it rang loudly. "You know, that sound generally means you should answer it," Henry told her. She looked up, nodded distractedly, and then answered it.

"Yeah?" she said into the cell phone. She paused, listening to the person at the other end. "Oh! I'll call you back," Kate said, hitting the end button.

"You okay?" Henry asked, looking at her.

Kate paused and then said, "Yeah. I gotta go." She hurried out of the room. We all stared after her.

"What was that all about?" I asked.

"I have no idea," Henry said, "but c'mon, we'd better get going. The fire elemental tends to burn things up if we're late."

**~~o0o~~**

After we were done, we headed back to Henry's lab to take another crack at finding the superhero's secret identity.

"Henry," I asked, "What day is it?"

"Uh, the 14th, why?" he asked.

"The 14th of what?"

"September…2010." He looked at me quizzically.

"Okay, thanks," I replied, but my mind was buzzing. I'd been with the Cabal for four months. Magnus came in.

"Have you found anything Henry?" she asked.

"Looks like your mystery superhero's been busy," he said.

"Doing what exactly?" Magnus asked, joining us behind the computer.

Henry shrugged. "Everything it seems. Foiling robberies, beating up bad guys, and the best is this one," he clicked a video file.

"What am I looking at?" Magnus asked.

"Video of a jumper taken yesterday. Here check it out," Henry replied, moving aside. We watched as the man jumped off the top of the building and a man in a suit caught him in midair and flew away with him.

"Unbelievable!" Magnus exclaimed.

"Yeah, except the guy ended up with four crushed vertebrae from the force of the catch," Henry said, looking up at Magnus.

"Ouch. Was there any information on how we can find this flying man?"

"Well, so far he's done a good job at keeping his secret identity secret," Henry said as I nodded in agreement.

"Well, we need to track him down. For one thing, he's getting in the way of our work, for another, if he keeps this up; a lot of people are going to get seriously hurt."

"Well, I don't know if it helps but my witness reports say he arrives on the scene right away, sometimes before the police," Henry said and looked up at her again, "What, you think he's got some kind of ESP?"

"Oh Henry," Magnus said, smiling. "Good work, you two," she called as she left the room.

I came up with an idea, and later we proposed it to Magnus, who was working in her office. Will seemed to be reporting something to her. "I think he's finding crime by listening to police radio chatter," I told her, "So if you broadcast a signal saying there were robbers at some location, you could set a trap for him, catch him, and bring him back to the Sanctuary."

Magnus smiled at me and said, "You know what? That just might work. Suit up in the armory; you're coming with us if you want. Have Henry show you where it is. Tell him to load you up with some tranqs." I sprinted off down the hallway, excited to be included on an important mission, my thoughts darkened only slightly by a slight distrust of everything. Behind me, my vampire hearing picked up Will's next words.

"She's new and who knows what the Cabal has done to her. You're letting her go on such an important mission?" Will was asking.

"She was the one who came up with the idea in the first place!"

"Yes, I know that, Magnus, but I still don't think this is a good idea. It's the Cabal. Who knows what schemes they planted in her mind! You saw what they did to Ashley—"

"Yes, I know what they did to my daughter!"

"Then why are you letting her go?"

"She's going, end of story, Will."

"All right. Fine. But why in the world are you giving her tranqs? That just makes it easier for her to—"

"Will, if she wanted to kill us all, she could, with or without tranqs." At that point, Henry opened the door to the armory and I had to snap back to attention. Will's words hurt, but I knew they were justified. I was a security risk to them all. Magnus's trust and reasoning gave me a warm feeling though. Henry helped me suit up, and I met Magnus by her car. We drove to a building and Magnus pulled some strings with the police who sent the message out. We hid in the building, and sure enough the guy came, all dressed up in his suit. After a few ridiculous looking moves, he turned around and saw Magnus standing on the top of the stairs.

"Hello," she said.

"Who are you?" he asked suspiciously.

"My name is Helen Magnus, and we need to talk," she said.

"You tricked me," he said, "This is a trap!"

"Yes…but if you'll just listen…"

The superhero rose up into the air to face her. "I knew sooner or later my activities would attract the wrong kind of people. But you're going to have to do a lot better than that to bring me down!" he said, preparing to fly away through the roof. He grunted in pain and dropped to the floor. Will was standing in the doorway, holding a stunner. Magnus looked at him as he went up the stairs and I came out of the closet. I was the backup, in case Henry's new prototype stunners didn't work. I held a regular gun, loaded with tranquilizer rounds instead of bullets.

"Nice shot," Magnus said as Will approached the superhero's unmoving form.

"Well he…" Will shrugged, "he was kind of hard to miss."

Later, we got back to the Sanctuary with the man stuffed in the trunk, which felt kind of odd, like we were kidnappers or something. Magnus and Will tied him up in one of the labs while I got lost. Again. When I finally found my way back there, Will and Magnus were watching the superhero struggle against the restraints in one of the labs.

"You'll never get away with this. You think these puny restraints can hold me? Me?" he groaned and flailed with all his strength, and remained strapped to the table.

"How is he doing?" she asked.

"He's still convinced we're super villains, who have kidnapped him to conduct experiments." Will answered. Magnus showed Will the superhero's test results, and how the DNA matched with a guy named Walter. She explained that he was human, and that we were going to have to perform more extensive and complex tests on him to figure out how he could fly.

"Ugh," Will groaned, "Well, that doesn't bode well for our whole 'we're not super villains' case."

"Try to avoid the topic of total world domination," Magnus said, suppressing a smile.

"Thanks," Will said, smiling.

When we got out of the room, Magnus led me to the infirmary. She rolled up my sleeve and readied a syringe. I eyed it distastefully. There had already been too many syringes in my life. She uncapped it and wiped the crook of my left arm with a disinfectant wipe of some kind. I braced myself but forced my left arm to remain limp while the rest of my body was locked in a rigid line. Unlike the Cabal doctors, Magnus did it quickly and I barely felt it. She smiled at me as she removed the syringe from my arm and capped it. After she was done, I followed Magnus out of the lab and into the library. Will would be tied up for a while talking to Walter, and I had no idea where Henry was, so I decided to help Magnus in her research of the mysterious underground egg that she and Will had found. The creature had hatched, and was probably inside one of the construction workers, who had disappeared and apparently started eating cats. We researched in books, her father's logs, and every mythical reference to a creature that fit that description. The Big Guy brought us both tea in the library, and Magnus explained to him what she had already shared with me: how it reminded her of an abnormal encounter her father had, and how it had evolved into another stage of its life cycle. It was not much to go on, but the eyewitness accounts told of its high pitched shriek. After fifteen minutes, we came up with a plan of how to track it by its shrieks. We headed down to the lab, where Henry broke into the Terrorist Suppressing Grid.

"Your monster makes any noise over 90 decihertz and we'll know about it," Henry told the group. The only people missing were Kate, she still hadn't gotten back from whatever she was doing; and Will, because he was still talking with Walter. Henry and I came out of the lab together, and met Will as we stepped outside the elevator.

"Hey, how's it going with super dude?" Henry asked.

"Oh, pretty good," Will said as we walked down the hallway, "I managed to convince him we're not evil. So that's something. Big Guy's checking him out right now."

"Did he say how he was able to fly?" Henry asked as we rounded a corner.

"Yeah. Three weeks ago, he was hanging on a friend's yacht off the coast of Africa when they got attacked by pirates called the 'Singh Brotherhood.' Somehow, in the middle of it all, he got pushed over the side, he swam to shore, and then he found a cave, and in the cave there was this temple. And in the temple there was this ruby called the Cri—"

"Crimson Gem of Cyttorak, yeah."

"How'd you know that?" Will asked, looking at Henry strangely. I was baffled too.

"This guy's good," Henry said, holding back laughter.

"What are you talking about?" Will asked again.

"For real? You never read comic books as a kid?"

"Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, I was more of a Sherlock Holmes guy, why?"

"Okay, the Crimson Gem of Siderak? That's the stone cave Marco found in X-Men number twelve, Tournament of Juggernaut," Henry said, "The Singh Brotherhood is from the Phantom, and the yacht, if you don't know the story of the Green Arrow, then there's no hope for you, pal." Henry reached over and patted Will's shoulder. "Dude, you got played," he said.

"Crap," Will said, half laughing, half miffed. Just then the security breach alarms went off and we all looked up. We ran to the lab and found the Big Guy on the floor. Walter was missing, and we ran out to go find him. We were running down the hall, about to split up to search when we saw the hole in the wall.

"What, he…he couldn't use the door?!" Henry complained.

Later, Declan had something on Henry's sonic scan. The mysterious underground egg cat-eating creature was found in an alley, but by the time Will and I got there, the creature was long gone. Declan and his men had tried to stop it, but it was a lot bigger than a man now and the new weapons didn't work that well. I headed back to the Sanctuary while Will and Declan started a search, thinking that the bug-like creature would likely find a nearby place to cocoon. I met Henry and Magnus in the lab, just as he was saying, "Walter's suit is made of bugs?"

"It makes perfect sense," Magnus replied, "Walter isn't an abnormal, he's wearing one. I'll wager it's what's giving him his special abilities. I'll need to take another look at his blood work."

**~~o0o~~**

Later, I fetched Magnus the sample with Henry. "Are you sure this is the right sample?" she asked, looking at it magnified on a big screen.

"Absolutely. Why?" Henry asked.

"His CPK3 and cryatonine levels are through the roof," Magnus said, alarmed.

"So what does that mean?" Henry asked.

"It means that we need to talk to Walter right away."

Henry and I took another look at the blood before following her. I could sort of see what she meant—that is, if I was even looking at the right thing.

After a quick visit to the cafeteria without getting lost, I entered the lab again, and was surprised to find Walter back, with Magnus and Will standing over him. He seemed to wake up when I entered.

"What the…! How did I end up back here?"

"You'd be amazed at how much buzz it creates when a guy in a super suit falls off his balcony," Will told him. He started to get up, but Magnus pushed him back down.

"Before you go knocking another hole in my wall, know this. You are free to leave whenever you like," Magnus said.

"But, you might want to hear what we have to say first." They explained, as gently as they could, that his suit was a parasite and was feeding off him. He didn't believe them. Still trying to convince him, Will asked if he had been feeling dizzy and short of breath. Walter admitted he did feel weaker and had no idea why. He had just started to believe them when they told him to take the suit off.

"I've tried, nothing works. It's stuck!" he said. Magnus, Will and I exchanged a look. We tried everything. We couldn't freeze it off, cut it off with a chainsaw, or even explode it. We tried lasers and everything else we could think of, including my vampire nails and teeth. Walter eventually collapsed, and we had to get him back to the lab. Magnus, with my help, devised a toxin specifically designed to kill the bugs that were Walter's suit. We proposed the idea to Walter. He said flat out, "No."

"You're gonna die, Walter," Will said exasperatedly.

"I don't care," Walter responded.

Just then we got Henry on the radio. "Magnus, it's Henry. I heard from Declan. He tracked the Colianthropus to Kennington Row."

"All right," Magnus said into the radio. Turning to Walter, she said, "Think about it. Please."

I was left inside the room with Walter. Magnus had instructed me on what to do if anything went wrong with Walter while they were gone. They left me a radio too, and I listened as Magnus talked to Henry about the fight with the Colianthropus.

"The stunners aren't working! We need large containment!"

I thought Uh oh. Walter was with Henry right now, and he had just heard of the problem. Knowing the guy's liking to save people, I hurried over to the computer and pulled up the security cameras for Henry's lab. Sure enough, I caught a glimpse of a large figure zooming out the window. At least he used the window this time. Magnus would go ballistic with another hole in the wall. I decided to stay in the lab near the medical supplies in case they needed them and watch the security cameras. Suddenly, I saw the one in the elevator was off. That was weird. The cameras were never supposed to be off. Then the hallway leading from that floor's elevator dock blinked out. Then the all of the ones in the main lab. That had to be more than a coincidence. All of them malfunctioning at once? Yeah right. I hurried out of the room, grabbing a nearby stunner off the hook. I arrived above the main lab and watched from the balcony. Kate was down there, along with two men, one of whom was pointing a gun at the teenager next to him. I could hear their voices clearly.

"Your lizard! Is over here," Kate said to the fat man. The other guy, the one who had the gun, followed like a henchman. What was Kate doing? Was she going to betray the Sanctuary? Should I call Magnus? I was about to hit the call button on the radio when Kate stopped in front of the fog-filled cage. The same one that the creature had tried to eat her with one of its tentacles from earlier. I knew that was not a lizard, so I stayed put.

"I can't see anything," the fat guy said, leaning close to the glass.

"Just tap on the glass," Kate said. Following her advice, he pounded on it with his fist. Kate hit a button on her portable computer screen. The cage wall flew open, and a tentacle reached out and snatched the man into the fog. The other man trained his gun on Kate, but she was quicker. She tapped another button and the lasers at the top of the lab came toward him. They aimed directly at his chest. "Drop it," Kate commanded.

He let the gun dangle on his finger, and said, "Please…"

"Unless you want to see your autopsy before you die," she threatened, "I suggest you get the hell out of here. And spread the word, Kate Freelander is not for sale." He looked scared and ran out of the lab. Kate turned to the younger guy, who I assumed was someone she cared about. They murmured something unintelligible to each other, even with my vampire hearing, and left the room together.

**~~o0o~~**

Soon after, Magnus and Will came back, carrying Walter on a stretcher to the lab, where they laid him on the table. Henry got the toxin. Walter tried to resist, saying, "No, wait…please!" The maroon suit started flowing off him as if it were water into a container Magnus hurriedly held out from a nearby shelf.

"For the first time since I got it I really wanted it off," Walter smiled. He reached out, placing his hand on the glass, and said, "I'll miss you, little buddy." He created the Star Trek hand gesture—live long and prosper—before Will wheeled him off to the infirmary. I stepped out into the hallway. I spotted Kate a little way down the hall. I decided it was best to let her know that I had seen the whole thing.

"Hey!" I called out. She turned around. "Look, I saw what happened between you and that guy in the main lab. I was above on the balcony." She was silent, not meeting my eyes. I said, gently as I could, "Who were the guys?"

"My brother. A guy named Constantine I used to run with. One of his henchmen," she said resignedly.

"I won't tell Magnus," I assured her.

"Won't tell me what?" Magnus walked down the hall toward us. I didn't answer, and Kate remained silent. "Henry said when he went to feed the sorkel tonight, it wasn't hungry. I wondered if you knew anything about that." I retreated to the end of the hall.

"Umm…no!" Kate responded.

"And I guess you would also have no idea why all the security cameras in the main lab suddenly malfunctioned at exactly nine fourteen this evening?"

Kate shook her head. "No idea."

"I see," Magnus said, pausing.

"I asked Henry to move your things into more, permanent, quarters."

Kate nodded, like she had been expecting it, eyes downcast until she realized what Magnus had said.

"You what?" she asked.

"I trust that meets with your agenda," Magnus said, smiling slightly.

Kate stuttered, "Uh…Uh…that would be great."

Magnus smiled, and started toward me.

"Umm, Dr. Magnus! Thanks," Kate said, looking surprised and relieved. Magnus smiled and nodded, and then came over to me, still lingering at the edge of the hall.

"I suppose that goes the same for you too?" she asked.

"Yeah, that would be great, thanks," I said. I had decided when I worked with her in the library that I wanted to work with her at the Sanctuary permanently. She was kind, trustworthy, and I actually felt like I fit in here. I had seen the way she treated Walter, working to save him, even after he had disobeyed her and broken the wall. Will didn't quite trust me yet, but I knew he would. I would do everything I could to make that happen. I was no longer going to be a puppet of the Cabal's. I was going to be here of my own free will and be my own person. I mentally choked what was left of Juliana and fully embraced the Tayla inside me. For the first time since my mother's death, I felt a sense of fulfillment and happiness. She smiled and nodded at me, pleased with my decision. As I entered my room, I extended my claws to their full length. I sat on my new bed, stretched out, and told myself, "Welcome to your new home."

**~~o0o~~**

October 25, 2010

A few months later, a box arrived on the doorstep of the Sanctuary. The label on the side read Comic Publishing, Co. Magnus and I exchanged a glance before carrying it to the conference room. We met Will on the way.

"What's that?" he asked, gesturing to the box in our hands.

"What do you think?"

The Big Guy was dusting an urn in the conference room and opened the box for us. Inside lay stacks and stacks of comic books written by a certain super hero we knew. We all settled down to read, Kate and I stretched across twin armchairs and Magnus and Will shared the couch. The Big Guy even stopped dusting and sat at the table holding a bright book in his hairy hands and grunting at the pictures. Henry walked in when I was just about halfway through.

"Is there a meeting?" he asked. "What're you guys doing?"

"Walter wrote a comic book," Will said. I held mine up, and Will and Magnus did too.

"What?" Henry said incredulously.

"Check it out," Will said nodding his head toward the Big Guy. The Big Guy grunted and handed him one.

"Time to put the kids to bed?" Henry read. "No! No, oh no, no, no! He totally stole my idea! I was going to publish this when things calmed down around here!"

The Big Guy grunted again.

"It's been three months," I said, "And…you haven't published it yet."

"It's never calm in the Sanctuary!" Henry protested.

"It's too bad," Kate said, looking up, "It's really good."

"Nominated for several awards," Magnus inserted.

"Yeah, and he already sold the movie rights," the Big Guy told him. Magnus laughed and pointed to something out in the comic book to Will.

"That's you," she laughed. Will looked at the picture. He started laughing too. Henry only looked disappointed.

"Oh man!" he said.