Chapter 86: Beastly Informant

In a single step, Bronte went from the streets of L.A to the interior of the Fantastic Fours Baxter Building.

Personnel in lab coats and anti-Vampire armor buzzed around on all floors of the tower like worker ants. The mid day sun glistened through the spotless blue-glass walls and made it look almost serene in a technological utopia kind of way if you ignored why everyone was so busy.

A couple lab coats near Bronte jumped at him and Tigra's sudden appearance.

"Code red!" Someone yelled.

"Wait! Wait!" Bronte moved to put an arm up as he held Tigra and simply wiggled his shoulder-nub.

The Human Torch flew up to the top floor in a blur of heat and light with his palms aimed.

Thankfully, he recognized Bronte.

"Are you crazy?" Johnny asked with a smirk as he flew down to Bronte. "This is a quarantined area…. I'm the only one that's supposed to break the rules… and sneak around with women here."

"Cracking jokes in the middle of a nation-wide outbreak is crazy." Bronte commented as Tigra growled at Johnny.

"How do you cope?"

"Music."

Johnny nodded casually, flinching a bit as Tigra snapped at the air in his direction.

"So why is she here?" Johnny ran a hand through his faded blonde hair.

"Where's Reed… and Sue. I need some help."

"We were… handling clean up crews in L.A, Chicago and a few other key states before being alerted to a Vampire presence here." Reed Richards answered as his endlessly extending legs carried himself and Sue up floor after floor before reaching the top where they all congregated.

It didn't take long for the area to clear out and remain with just the five of them.

"Is this a friend of yours?" Reed questioned.

"We're working on figuring out a cure as fast as we can but this is magic we're talking about. The best we can do for now is sedate her." Sue added.

"Yes and no." Bronte replied. Behind him a portal opened and The Midnight Suns stepped through casually, minus MoonKnight and Jack for obvious reasons.

Brontë continued, "I need to know if Tigra's in her right mind….. you know, vampirism aside. I can understand her. But she's saying things…. You guys have all the tech. I just want to confirm."

"You did a lot for the entire U.S . I think that's the least we can do." Reed replied.

A half an hour later and the top floor— as empty as it once was, become a small operating room fit with durable full coverage walls closing them in.

Tigra was strapped down on a steel bed. Fixed to one position. Brain scanning equipment wjth dozens of colored wires and tubing was pulled over her scalp while Reed and Sue read over her vitals on tablets while wearing their own sets of anti-Vamp gear.

They'd given a pair to everyone else as well.

"You can speak Vampire?" Ilyana whispered to Bronte as they stood at Tigra's bedside. Her voice sounded slightly muffled due to the gas mask built into their helmets.

"No, Magik. He can speak to animals…. Predators." Blade was smiling from ear to ear. "Tigra is more cat than human in many ways. And as a Vampire humans just go into instinct overdrive. Brontë already knows that language— speaks it fluently himself, you dig?"

"So you can't speak Vampire." Ilyana concluded.

"You speak cat-woman…? There's people on the internet that would kill for that power." Robbie commented.

Johnny snorted inside his suit in the corner of the room.

"So what is she saying?" Ilyana asked.

"She sees Vampires. She can't see us…. She's somewhere else." Bronte replied.

"You didn't think to bring that up to me?" Blade questioned teasingly.

"Not in the moment. As a matter of fact no, not at all. You like to play with information."

"Old habits die hard."

"So do we— but not that hard." Bronte could feel the nightmares at the edge of his mind. Tigra's tears…. Blood fiends in hospital gowns—

"Alright, slim. Clean slate. No mention of claw-daddy…. And no mind games. Hunters honor." Blade held his hand out as he stood to the right of Bronte.

The two shook up without looking at each other.

"Yay. Let's celebrate with pizza when we get back to The Abbey." Robbie mumbled inside his protective suit.

Ilyana rolled her eyes lined by makeup, "I think I'm going to throw u—"

Tigra thrashed again— exponentially and let out a terrified scream before keeling over as much as she could manage and throwing up. "AHHH— what the hell is that!?— get away from me!.... He's gone, ok! I can't do what you're asking! It's oveUGGH!!"

She went limp.

For the first time she stopped moving.

Brontë felt a sense of panic rise from within, "Is she—"

Reed held up a hand.

"She's not dead. She did just go dark, though." Sue replied.

"What does that mean?"

"Well, all her vitals are largely reduced. She's…. For lack of a better term, in a coma." Reed said as he looked up from his tablet.

He approached Tigra, standing on the opposite side of the table from them. "What is it you were hoping to learn here?"

"Was what she was seeing real?"

Reed took a deep inhale, "She isn't Schizotypical. I've ran her prior medical screenings both with the West-Coast Avengers and a few less reputable organizations. Whatever she was seeing is tied to her new change. Vampirism."

That wasn't good or bad. It just… was.

"We're working on a cure. Trust me, there's hundreds of people and Heroes hoping we find it. But things like this take time. Years….. whatever you're looking into don't get obsessed." Sue said warmly.

"I have to be." Bronte replied. "She saw him….."

"What?"

Blade patted Bronte's back. "Thanks for the help folks. Can she stay here?"

They nodded, somewhat surprised by the sudden change in conversation.

"Keep us connected."

Reed stretched a hand across the table and handed Bronte an earpiece.

"You can listen in on her all you want…." Sue said.

Brontë and the rest of the team backed away from the operating table as a portal opened.

"Oh and Brontë—" Reed said, "Thanks again. You did great things today. You've grown a lot since I last saw you."

Brontë gave them a nod and hopped through the portal.

He didn't feel different. As a matter of fact, he felt more anxious than ever.

***

The Abbey's main floor welcomed them with its gothic throw rug and dead chandelier swinging overhead.

The fireplace was full of pizza boxes and MoonKnight sat in a lazy boy with a adolescent cat-boy. Jack sat on the floor beside them eating a bowl of chicken wings.

MoonKnights mask was off. They were watching cartoons.

He was so absorbed in the show he didn't even notice them. Or he was used to superheroes randomly appearing. The kid looked just like her. Thin layer of orange fur. Stripes down his arms and legs. Tawny red hair and all.

MoonKnight placed his hands over the boys ears, "How are things— how is she?"

"Comatose." Blade replied flatly. "But she made great contributions all the same."

"What do you mean? Brontë— actually. Tell me later. Go figure it out…. I'm watching SpongeBob." MoonKnight said in a deadly serious tone.

Everyone headed downstairs.

"She's seeing him or other Vampires— but I don't really get it." Bronte started as they occupied the dark and dusty basement.

"Well you were right. You are right. Tigra's not schizo. She's sired." Blade said. "If we would've had the time to train you properly you would've known this already. Sired Vampires are more or less drones controlled by the one that bit or changed them. So she wasn't seeing Daken— he's too cautious for that."

"How do we know that— she sounded pretty scared." Bronte questioned.

"She still avoided the sun, didn't she?" Blade questioned.

Brontë nodded.

"Daken's older than me. He's been through enough militaries to adopt a chain of command in his almighty coven. Every boss has a boss that would eventually lead back to him. But not so easily. Not this easily. She's not seeing Daken. But with her, we've got a look into the coven. A stronghold— something important. A crack in the armor type situation, you get me?"

Everyone nodded.

"Now it's a game of who does what." Blade stated as he crossed his arms, "The Sired Vampire is fed images and orders— mental pleasure… anguish even, from the one that changed them. But they can't see through Tigra. It's a one way channel. Even so, if they so much as think Tigra is giving away more than they're comfortable with, our chance to get the jump on them is up in smoke."

"What about if they try to call her back?" Ilyana questioned.

Blade nodded, "I thought about that too."

"I mean… would they, though?" Robbie asked.

Blade side eyed him.

"Lo siento." Robbie dropped his eyes and threw his arms up.

"Nah go ahead." Bronte said to Robbie.

"I just mean….. this was a terrorist attack. They didn't do this to add to their numbers. We know how they want to do that. They don't want a bunch of sick humans. Everyone changed today was expendable. Like super expandable. This wasn't that type of mission, right?"

Blade nodded in approval. "That tracks."

"So now what?" Ilyana questioned, "We have an informant…. But she can only get new information to us through magical anguish and visions shared by the enemy. And that's only if she wakes up from the coma."

"Dios mio."

"We keep going as we are." Bronte said. "I gotta ask Oshtur if she knows some ancient magical cure for vampirism."

Brontë left and made his way back home.

****

The journey back took two hours and some change without Mend. He was still recovering. A process that couldn't happen in an instant or else hundreds of Vampires would've just randomly gotten loose in the middle of the day.

It did feel weird to go so long without an arm, though.

When he finally made it back to his apartment, his dogs inside were patiently awaiting his arrival at the door.

Patience should always be rewarded with walks. At least in regards to dogs. They needed exercise or they'd go insane.

He knew the feeling.

They all stayed outside for hours.

The city was quiet— in a way.

Less crowded.

No honking cars or buses with earsplitting exhaust pipes. No pedestrians yelling at cabs or street performers.

Just the dark sky and quiet below. He listened to Tigra's labored breaths over the earpiece. Listening for anything. Listening for a chance.

"What are you doing, Daken?"

When Bronte made it back home, he found Ilyana seated on his bed.

"So you could've teleported me back home… but you let me walk instead?"

"I assumed you needed it." Ilyana replied before standing up from his bed. She wore ripped black skinny jeans and a silver and black baby phat coat. The hood was lined with fur that matched the shade of her hair.

Brontë hesitated, "I feel it, actually."

"Feel… what?"

"Figure of speech." Bronte said before entering his kitchen and grabbing two beer's.

Ilyana watched him silently as Bronte's dogs surrounded her in a barrage of sniffing wet noses and tail wags.

"So… is this you playing demon-queen house guardian again or…?"

"I think I know someone we could talk to about a Vampire cure, actually. He's just…. Different."

"Who?"

"Doctor Strange."