Uno and Fog: In Which We May Have Rescued the Undead

“You realize that if we free her, there’s no way we’re not setting off alarms”

“Obviously,” he looks at me like I’m deliberately being obtuse, “you can block them from doing anything.”

“Yes, but I’m not going to be able to do anything down here besides that and they’re going to be swarming the building above us and we won’t be able to escape.”

“You could fly.”

I start to protest but then I see this wisp of a sad smile on his face and it stops me, “not funny, all the people here are going to die if we do this including us.”

“Would you want to live like this?  Pieces of yourself carved out, or, “he gestures at the woman on the table, “strapped down for all of your existence.  Better to be dead.”

I nod.  What is there to say?  Better to die than this kind of living hell.  It makes me mad and sad at the same time.  “If we do this, you promise me that we’re not letting them catch us alive.  I don’t want to end up like them.”

“I would ask the same, but I want to hurt them.”

I nod and try to smile, but it feels more like a grimace.  “Alright, hang on.”  I reach out and find the connections to the outside, feel the currents.  I extend to all the dead switches for opening the flood gates and touch them briefly, making sure I have all of them.

The power to the cells, they might not be able to escape, or even form a plan to escape, but I wasn’t going to leave them trapped, so I felt those and the bolts that fall when the power drops.

Finally the alarms, and when I have all those tendrils of power wrapped under my control, I can feel them tingling, like separate tiny bands of power running through my fingers through my body.

“I have them,” and I pull all of them, sending current where I need it, stopping it where I have to.  I nod over at The Fog, “done.“

I hear more than see him ripping the straps off the woman.  He strains to pick her up.  I’m not sure what I was expecting, that she would wake up like snow white or sleeping beauty and immediately be filled with vigor.  I have no idea how long she’s been here and how much her muscles have atrophied, or what the drugs are that have been pumping in her system.

The Fog is carrying her, he heads out.  She looks so tiny and pale.

The doors to the cells are open, some of the residents, I don’t want to call them inmates walk, stagger or shamble out of their cells, the blink and look at us dully.

“What?”  The Fog asks.

“I didn’t say anything.”  I respond, but my focus is elsewhere, watching the power, the attempts by those outside trying to figure out how to set of the fail safes.

“Not you,” he bends his head down and stops, then gently sets the young woman down.  I see him hesitate for a moment, than pull back a sleeve and expose his wrist.  I see a brief flash of needle like teeth in her mouth and dark eyes looking at him before he presses his wrist onto the woman’s mouth and she bites down.

I almost lose control of what I’m doing,  I do in fact use an expletive when asking him what was going on, said word rhyming with all my bad luck.

“Said it will make her stronger,” he said through gritted teeth.

“What, like a freaking vampire?”

He glances up at me, but says nothing.

“If she makes you into a Renfield, I won’t hesitate to put you both down.”

“Noted,” he extricated himself from the woman, she resisted for a moment before letting go of his arm, “and appreciated.”

The young woman still had dark circles around her eyes, but there was the hint of color to her cheeks.  “Thank you,” she said as The Fog wrapped his wrist.

She stumbled a little when she tried to stand and The Fog reached out and stabilized her.

She looks over at me, “I’m not a vampire.”

“Needle like teeth, supernatural healing, drinks blood, pale.  All you need is an aversion to sunlight.”

She doesn’t answer.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“You forgot dead.  I’m not dead.”

“I think the term is undead.”  I respond, “what about mirrors, got a problem with those too?”

“Only the old ones that use silver.”  I swear she’s making some kind of joke, which just irks me more.

“Enough.”  The Fog interrupts. “We can discuss how to categorize her as a cryptid later.”

The young woman looks at the other captives that are wandering aimlessly in the hall.  “I can heal them.”

“Of course you can, let me guess they have to drink your blood?”  She almost looks apologetic.

“Do it.”  The Fog tells her.

I thought this whole misadventure was weird, but it was about to get a whole lot more bizarre.

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