Chapter 91: Fear the Formula

The dark had always been his home. His place to sleep…. To rest …. To plan.

Long before he'd willingly took on the mantle of a centuries long anticipated religious figure, he knew the dark. Long before he'd become a Vampire.

Daken worked with the shadows, with nothing more than pheromone and fang.

But lately, it wasn't working in his favor like it usually did. He didn't feel that same level of relaxation and comfort when he ventured into its depths of secrets and serenity.

Maybe because there were no more secrets— or serenity.

The shadows had eyes. The whispers were screams.

That was the plan, though. There was just one loose end ruining his immersion. His oasis.

He got up from his resting place in all it's rusted railings and pretty sheets attempting to make the place look less abandoned.

The world beyond cast aside the attempts at beauty and embraced its crumbling remains. Buildings with collapsed rooftops and waterlogged foundations lay around heaps of stone. They bordered the dirt road he walked on for miles. In the backdrop, forestry attempted to make a canopy, hiding the outer world from a location better known as a historical failure.

The irradiated air stank of decay and blood. More blood in some areas than others.

In the corners of his vision he watched shapes and creatures follow his movements soundlessly. They moved like the drapes of his black longcoat that barely hid his blade.

They stopped once he reached the end of the road, facing the tallest building in the area for miles.

It wasn't exactly one building— but a collection of many architectural monoliths and metal towers that created a sort of industrial age castle.

The grey clouded sky made it look as lackluster as it was.

Two figures greeted him at the large dusty double doors. Eyes like rubies under lantern light.

One wore a leather bat suit and cowl that hugged his skin like it was painted on. He would've looked humorous if not for his muscled physique absent of fat and inhumanely long limbs.

"Baron Blood."

"Varkis, my lord." Baron Blood gave a bow.

The massive hairless hound-monster beside him dropped its head low.

"How is your control over them?"

"Hehehehe…. Now that they're more like us it's as easy as breathing!" Baron Blood replied.

"And breathing is…. Eeeeasy." The Hound-Monster beside him replied in Baron's voice with its head remaining bowed.

"Good." Daken walked past them and stepped into the massive dilapidated building.

The interior was a stark opposite of the exterior.

Dark walls climbed over a hundred feet high with guarded windows and polished metal flooring. Chandeliers jingled in the silence despite all the bodies moving through the buildings.

They hauled in machinery and corpses while others followed scientists as they studied vials and tubes full of fluids. A functioning unit.

If he stopped paying attention it looked like the room was full of lightning bugs from all the glimmering eyes.

Daken made his way to the main lab sectioned deeper into the building behind another handful of guards and Vampiric Hounds. Like the others it was dark. Spotless. Lined by cabinets and centered around an operating table.

A grotesque figure barely able to be called human crouched over a tank watching a person float in the water.

"Morbius."

"Daken." Morbius replied— obviously lacking the religious fanatics im of the other Vampires.

"How is the progress coming?"

Morbius turned away from the tank to face him.

If Daken was the type to cringe he would everytime he saw Morbius.

The man was horrifying.

A disgruntled mix between man, bat and a few other supplementary creatures. It left him covered in a thin layer of fur all along his back and arms. His frontside was hairless. Like a gorilla. Only he was pale as paper with bulging purple veins. Under his thin lanky arms glider wings of flesh connected to his hips.

He had no magical Vampiric abilities but he still found a way to wreak havoc from the skies.

He stared at Daken and his baboon like jaw unhinged in reply, "The people of Talocan hold the magic of Vampirism…. But with difficulty. I presume, living at the bottom of the ocean made them hardier than most. Internally and externally. The way their blood takes in oxygen is different. Blood and the transference of it is everything for Vampires. So they're…. Coming along. But slowly. Slower than the other Variants… and we have even less samples on that end."

"Speed it up. And don't call them Variants. We're all the same in man's world." Daken replied firmly. Doing as he planned upon waking.

"That—"

Daken brought a hand up, "Speed it up, or you lose every resources you have. Meaning no cure, endless hunger, and back into S.H.I.E.L.D custody. Simple, right? I think so."

"Yes, of course." Morbius rushed back to his equipment, muscle fibers twitching with anxiety all down his hairy back.

"Frost is waiting for you…" He mumbled once.

"I'm sure." Daken left the science lab and found himself climbing down a flight of stairs.

A dungeon of sorts welcomed him in ungodly levels of must and blood.

Hundreds of feet overhead a single lantern swung in the balance, casting dying firelight into the dusty basement.

A man lay strung up on chains with no arms or legs. Cuts marred his white skinned body like follicles of hair. In the thousands.

Below him, only a few hundred feet ahead, a man looked up at the stringed up corpse.

"Deacon."

"He's said nothing….. I'm starting to think he's got a kink we don't know about…. My lord." Deacon Frost replied as he turned to face Daken with a whip in hand.

He looked like the textbook torturer in every way. Not too big but not nearly too small. He was older— salt and pepper hair shaved short. Military style. He wore nothing but a black tank top and pants with cruel eyes that accentuated it all like jewelry. Blood that wasn't his own danced on his toned shoulders. Moving like leeches as weak Magic compelled it to attack. Deacon enjoyed watching things struggle.

It made him good at his job.

But not good enough.

"He hasn't said nothing." Daken replied.

"Correct." The chained up corpse swinging overhead rasped. "I have said much. I….. wish, to say more."

Deacon turned back to the corpse with his whip at the ready.

"That's enough." Daken stopped him. "You're dismissed."

Deacon prepared to protest.

"You're here for one reason, are you not?"

Deacon straightened. "I am."

"And I'm your ticket. So do what I say, when I say, as I say it. And Blade is yours. Now leave us."

Deacon's jaw clenched repeatedly before he walked away and out of the dark dungeon.

Then there were two.

"Daken….. or should I say, Varkis?"

Daken looked up at the emaciated corpse. Even without limbs he was gigantic. Imposing. The type to withstand time.

"Vlad Tepes. Or should I say, Dracula?"

Dracula smirked behind the shadows of his white hair. "How does it feel to be tyrant of the Vampires?"

"I'm not a Tyrant." Daken replied confidently.

"You walked into my castle— kill my finest guards, rip me limb from limb… and do the same to all the covens you can find. All for some plan of world domination. You are a tyrant, Daken."

"No. I am water."

"HAHAHAHAHA!" Dracula shook in his chains as he burst into laughter. "Are you high, child?"

"I'm formless. I'm whatever I need to be."

"Mmm, do go on." Dracula cooed.

"You're trying to play on my ego and goad me into spilling secrets. I could tell you everything about everything and you'd still be strung up like a flesh puppet. Abandon hope. It doesn't suit you."

"What suits me, Daken?" Dracula questioned.

Daken studied him from below. "Speaking your mind."

Dracula's eyes widened in excitement, "Mmmmm! Maybe you are formless. That wasn't so tyrannical of you. Interesting."

"You're not speaking your mind." Daken said.

Dracula went serious.

"Your foray into Vampirism is rife with ignorance."

"And you… as one of my many dedicated followers seeks to teach me? Fuck off."

Dracula shook his head, "If we could all perish painfully, then we'd all be allied for the moment would we not?"

Daken steadied himself as to not show discomfort. Even with his pheromones making him invisible to Dracula he couldn't risk it. "What are you talking about? Fairy tales?"

"No. But it is in a book." Dracula replied.

"My Vampires would've told me." Daken replied.

"Not if you killed some of the oldest in your campaign for dominance, boy." Dracula retorted, grinning a mouth full of pure white fangs.

"This book was made even before I was given the gift. It's a book of great magical theorem and intelligencia. And it can end us all."

"What is it called?" Daken kept his voice calm.

"You don't need its name— only the excerpt that concerns us. The Montesi Formula."

Daken's mind went blank at the mention of it. His world went black as he traveled thousands of miles in an instant.

Suddenly the world of New York welcomed him. Where exactly, he didn't know. It all looked the same to him.

He watched through the eyes of a bat in the trees, listening in on a conversation between people indirectly. Only beginning to focus at his command. His presence.

"-And with this Formula, I'll make additions. Just as sorcerers of previous generations have. Only this time, I'll add the race of Mutants. It'll be perfect. We'll be safe again. ILL SAVE THE THE WORLD! I'll be our lords Silver Dagger and purify the unpure!"

"Daken? You scared, yet?" Dracula spoke again suddenly.

Daken was back in the dungeon. In his own mind seeing with his own eyes.

"No, not at all. Thank you for the tip."

"What?— what are you going to do now?!" Dracula snarled after him as Daken walked away.

"I told you, Vlad. Abandon hope."