"Previously on Sanctuary..." "This is Hollow Earth." "What if this place is the source for all abnormals, both above and beneath the surface?" "That's a real game-changer." "It seems to be scanning us." ""Akhkharu." "Blood demon."" "It must be detecting traces of the Source Blood in our DNA." "I'm not sure that's a good thing." "I can only assume that the gateway has the same defenses." "Which means we'll need some kind of shield to get past it." "And you're the only one who can build it." "Nikola!" "Well, I hope you're all happy now." "I'm ordinary." "Here's to the glorious vampire race, once mighty, now extinct." "I want my life back." "Nikola, the door!" "Being a living magnet, it's not exactly on par with being heir to the greatest race in all of history." "It makes sense, in an evil way." "If this trip is your way of apologizing for leaving me behind last time..." "Yes?" "You're officially forgiven." "I thought you might approve." " Approve?" " This is amazing." "The last known stronghold of Praxian society before they retreated into Hollow Earth." "Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves." "For all we know, the data I collected from the holographic map could be inaccurate." "Oh, really?" "Interesting." "Uh-huh." "You know, this reminds me of when we were in Egypt looking for Tut's tomb, huh?" "Ah... those wild early days, no ground-penetrating radar, no satellite imagery." "We were barely better than grave-robbers." "Five years of searching, and then one day" "Howard Carter just points at the spot." "The man was a genius, in his own way." "Also, he had excellent taste in claret." "Hello." "Dead end?" "Mm-hm." "I can feel there's power being drawn off behind here." "No visible wiring..." "A doorway?" "Yeah, possibly." "I could disengage the locking mechanism with a magnetic pulse." "And you're confident of that?" "Remember this moment, Helen." "We're about to make history." "Again." "Oh, my God, look at this." "It's the ancient script of the Sanguine Vampiris." "Vampires?" "According to the map, this was a Praxian stronghold." "Not anymore." "It says here that my ancestors drove them from this place and made it a fortress of their own." "Nikola, wait." "If this was a vampire stronghold, they'd have fortifications." "The vampire shield." "Take off your bracelet!" "Bracelet?" "I prefer to think of it as a..." "Nikola!" "Dammit!" "Stay still." "What hit me?" "Some sort of energy beam." "This room must be defended by vampire technology." "And the Source Blood shield hid my vampire DNA." "It perceived you as being an ordinary human." "Oh, that hurts." "All right, how bad is it?" "Let me see." "No, not a good idea." "The only thing keeping my insides from spreading out across the floor is the magnetic field I'm generating to hold them in." "Dear Lord." "All right, stay calm." "You know, you realize the thing about traps is that they're meant to be escape-proof, particularly when they're designed by vampires." "Well, there has to be some other way out of here." "How long can you hold on?" "For the rest of my life." "UK Lottery Winnings, plonk." "Canadian Pharmacy, double-plonk." "Delete, delete, delete." "Why don't you let Henry install a spam filter for you?" "Same reason why you wait until he's out of town before setting up your new game console." "Yeah, he never just does it." "Exactly." "He always has to design a new perfectly optimized system, and six months later, you're still waiting to play Guitar Hero." "Hmm." "And besides," "I'm shutting this account down anyway." "I haven't used it in, like, a year." "Just making sure there is nothing in here I need." "I definitely do not need to enlarge that." " What's up?" " Nigerian prince in trouble?" "Uh, no." "I just..." "gotta do something." "Wow, you move fast for a big guy." "What's going on?" "Nothing." "I'm just going for Red Bull." "You're going for bull, all right." "Let it go, okay?" "It's nothing you need to worry about." "Your pulse is thin." "You're losing blood into the cavity around the wound." ""If you cut me, do I not bleed?"" "Oh, no Shakespeare, please." "Do you remember the leaves of autumn that time we met in Oxford?" "You need to stay focused." "Your body's going into shock." "That crimson dress you were wearing..." "You'll start to feel cold, and then you'll want to sleep." "Yes." "You can't give in to it." "You need to keep that magnetic field going." "Any more blood loss, and..." "Any sensible woman would have worn black, you know, to fit in, but not Helen Magnus." "Oh, no..." "Nikola!" "Ah!" "Holy mother of..." "You need to stay awake!" "There are other ways of getting my attention." "I never knew you could be so cruel." "I'm trying to keep you alive!" "Why?" "I have a hole through my vital organs, and we're miles from surgical facilities." "You are in denial." "If I could recalibrate a stunner to cauterize the arterial damage..." "You could buy me a slow, agonizing death instead of a decent one?" "Even I don't deserve that." "You need to keep the blood circulating while we figure this out." "Helen..." "You're going to have to find another date to the prom." "You had to rush in, didn't you?" "You couldn't wait ten seconds to scan for weapons." "When have you ever known me to put common sense ahead of intellectual curiosity?" "There's only one more shot of Epi left." "You wouldn't happen to have any morphine in there instead?" "If I gave you an analgesic, it would suppress your respiration." "You'd just go to sleep." "In your arms." "And bleed out, instantly." "Also true." "Is that really what you want?" "No." "Tempting as it may sound," "I have a different final request." "It's not what you think." "Read to me." "You serious?" "Helen, we're surrounded by the greatest trove of vampire knowledge the world has ever seen." "It's killing me..." "I'm being robbed of my last great discovery." "I've spent my life trying to piece together my ancestry." "Come on, read." "All right." ""The armies of the Third Great Kingdom gathered..." "Our enemies recruited unnatural creatures of land, and sea, and air, marred by fin, and fur, and..." "scales."" "They must be referring to abnormals." "It looks like they fought side by side with the early Praxians, and then when the Praxians retreated into Hollow Earth..." "Those abnormals went with them." "It would explain why some of their species are so similar to our own." "You're welcome." ""The weak who remained stayed to serve."" "Ah, the Golden Age of Vampires of which you're so fond." "The age of human slavery." "Nikola!" "Keep reading." ""The Warrior Queen Afina and her court were laid to rest in state, to rise again in the Afterlife..."" "No, that's not quite right." ""Kianaru"?" ""After time."" ""After time... to rule into eternity."" "I like the sound of that." "Maybe I'll meet her on the other side." "Wait a second." ""Laid to rest in state..."" "There's another character." "Laid to rest... "here."" "Good heavens." "It's the Queen of the Vampires." "Just think, Nikola." "We're the first people to see this tomb in thousands of years." "Nikola, no!" "What are you doing?" "Help me up." "Are you out of your mind?" "I'm not missing out on this." "Help me up." "Come on." "Look at her." "Perfectly preserved, like an insect in amber." "They must have mastered crystal replication on an atomic level." "Oh, don't sound so surprised." "These are vampires we're talking about, after all." "Every advance we've seen in our lifetimes, nothing but a pathetic attempt to recreate what my race achieved before the humans even left the caves." "Just leave me here among vampire royalty, my only peers." "I have a better idea." "Move aside." "What are you doing?" "If there is even an ounce of fluid in that corpse, a few cells of unaltered Vampire DNA..." "Helen, I'm shocked." "Are you offering to re-vamp me?" "If you get the hell out of my way I am." "I have never been more attracted to you than I am at this moment." "Bloody hell, what is this thing made of?" "We need something stronger." "On Praxis, I used a laser scalpel to cut through the hide of an earth-moving abnormal." "Now, it's the same principle." "I just need to focus the beam..." "No, no, no, you'll overload the power condenser." "Do you have a better idea?" "Unprotected platinum coils?" "Wolf boy..." "Have a word with him about power efficiency." "I doubt Henry planned on this kind of repurposing." "That's no excuse." "Secure the oscillator, or you'll get vibration." "Yeah, I got it, thank you." "Yeah, well, get this wrong, you might as well pull the pin on a radiation grenade." "Which is starting to sound more and more attractive." "All right." "Ready or not... time for a field test." "Ah!" "Damn, it's overheating." "Yeah, I'd say I told you so, but, you know, it wouldn't bring me much satisfaction at this point." "How deep?" "A few millimeters." " Don't you dare!" " This is not over!" "It's not deep enough." "Can we pull out the explosive core and pack this borehole?" "Nikola, no!" "Oh, come on..." "Come on!" "Nikola..." "Bloody hell." "Nikola!" "Hang in there." "Oh, come on." "Fight!" "Fight." "I'm back, baby." "And it feels so good." "Hey, you know anything about, uh... uh, Taminsails?" "Yes." "They're an amphibious abnormal farmed for their TSH glands." "It's supposed to give a powerful high." "Yeah." "The buyers get them as eggs, they harvest the glands every six weeks, and they just rip 'em out, no anesthetic." "Yeah, I'd love to put a stop to it, but these places come and go, and the guys behind them stay hidden." "Well, what if I say" "I have a line on where to find one of them?" "Guy named Caster." "Works out of a warehouse on the North Shore." "I'll make some calls." "We could coordinate with law enforcement, get a Tac Team in and do some recon." "No, we need to move on this now, Will." "Get your law enforcement in place, 'cause I'm gearing up now." "You guys are free to join me if you think you can keep up." "Are you sure you're feeling all right?" "Are you kidding?" "I feel great, better than I have in years." "Ah..." "So, how did you manage to..." "Wow." "Never underestimate the power of a woman's determination." "Well, the... the stunner beam must have weakened the crystal matrix..." "Oh, right, right." "It didn't have anything to do with your fear of losing me..." "Don't let it go to your head." "Now, can we get out of here, please?" "Allow me." "Let's see..." "Well, the mortar has been reinforced with a carbon compound." "Hard as diamond." "So you can't break through it?" "Well, I'm not exactly at full strength." "I'm hungry enough to drink cow's blood." "Ah." "I've got two packets of peanuts and a protein bar." "Ew, no." "All right, stand back, I'll see what I can do." "Dammit." "These walls are part of the original Praxian fort." "They were built to withstand the strength of a vampire." "So kind of you to say." "Why would they build a booby trap without failsafes?" "I mean, there has to be some sort of control to override it." "I found these markings, thought they might be sensors, but nothing seems to operate the door." "Right." "Well, maybe they're burnt out." "That's odd." "The crystal's degrading." "It must be a reaction to the piercing of the outer layer." "My God." "She's alive." "We have to get her out of there." "We're not equipped to handle a living vampire." "Excuse me, one of us is a living vampire." "Helen, come on, this is our chance to come face to face with the last remnant of an extinct civilization." "I agree." "I'm just saying we need to wait until we can get a proper team down here." "A proper team?" "How long is that going to take?" "Come on, the crypt is disintegrating on top of her." "I'm sorry." "Once it was opened and the air got in, all bets were off." "And I opened it, I get it, thank you." "I'm not blaming you, but, yes, you woke her up, so now deal with it." "Do you want her to die in there?" "No, of course not." "Good, because I would hate to think that the only creature that's not worthy of your protection is me and my... my kin." "I just..." "H-How did you do that?" "I'm a vampire." "Infrared imaging shows a hot spot in the northwest corner." "A lot of small bodies packed in tight." "The Taminsails." "Now, we got a Tac Team covering the northwest exit." "A couple guards are coming and going, but no customer traffic." "They keep production and sales separate so they don't draw the cops." "Yeah." "These creatures have been living in captivity, so they might be a little aggressive when we try to move them." "Suit up, let's go." "There's no need to be afraid." "It's okay, we want to help you." "Come on." "Do you think she even understand us?" "I don't know." "This is... from you." "Your blood." "Nikola." "What did I tell you?" "The most brilliant, elegant race in history." "They solved the Babel problem by embedding communications in blood." "It's remarkable." "You've been asleep for a very a long time." "How are you feeling?" "I was in stasis, not asleep." "No need to patronize me." "Noted." "Imagine a business card with a drop of blood in the printing." "You'd eliminate cultural misunderstandings instantly." "Global rule becomes a legitimate possibility." "Can we focus for one minute?" "Yeah, right, sorry, we'll talk about that later." "I-I would love to talk about that later..." "Where's my brother?" "Kalmin?" "There haven't been vampires on Earth for a very long time." "But I carry on that legacy." "Dormant gene, activated by exposure to pure vampire blood." "Helen, please." "Why do you have to make it sound so clinical?" "My true nature was re-awoken with these dormant genes, and, uh, my vision, and, uh, my genius, all my gifts, from my ancestors, from you, practically wasted in this primitive modern world." "What about the rest of my people?" "There's been a shift in power." "And our beautiful cities?" "All that we built?" "Yeah, it's... all a little different than what you remember." "Thank you." "If we're the only two left, I'll have to rely on you." "It would be my honor." "I have so much to learn from you, and that's not something I ever say." "I can attest to that." "Yeah." "And what's your story?" "Are you of the Kingdom?" "Well, it's a..." "little complicated." "Just waiting for your signal, over..." "Four-three standing by." "Ready on your mark." "Go, go, go!" " Down!" "Down now!" " Down!" "Now!" "That's a pretty bad move." "You guys want to walk away." "We're here for the boxes." "Let's get these boxes." "So, you were at war with the Praxians for centuries." "They were terrified of us." "Tried to destroy us any way they could, and then they ran into the Earth like rats." "We took over all their old forts." "But it says there that you were dead." "You were sent to the Afterlife, or After-time." ""Kianaru" isn't the afterlife." "It's the future." "Right." "Right, the future." "How could I miss that?" "So, you were deliberately put into stasis for thousands of years?" "When everyone in the royal family's immortal, it's hard to pass on the throne." "My ancestors kept trying to kill each other, so we had to come up with a better way." "You took turns ruling." "Just so evolved." "I left my brother, Kalmin, in charge." "He was supposed to revive me." "But that never happened." "No, I've heard of Kalmin." "The legends say that he ruled for a thousand years before he was assassinated by his youngest son, which means that he left you in there to rot while he kept your kingdom for himself." "But look who's still around." "You and I, Nikola, not him." "He can have the past." "We'll take the future." "Yes." "None of us will have very much of a future if we don't get out of here." "Afina, can you tell us how to reopen the door that locked us in here?" "The security system was designed to protect me from my enemies." "Anyone who broke in would be killed instantly and sealed in with me." "Yes, the Egyptians did the same thing thousands of years later." "How did you set it off if you have vampire blood?" "Ah, well, that's a story for another day." "The question is, how do we get out of here now?" "There's an escape hatch behind that wall." "A human wouldn't be able to shift the weight, but one of us could." "If you have the strength." "I'm afraid I don't." "I need to feed." "Nikola and I have devised a regimen of nutrients and animal plasma." "It gives you everything you need, but we'll have to wait until we get to the surface." "Animal plasma, that's what you eat?" "Well, it's not as bad as it sounds." "It sounds terrible." "But there is a local antelope that I used to be quite fond of." "Nikola..." "Don't worry." "We'll figure everything out." "That corridor leads to another part of the cavern." "Only my most trusted servants knew of it, and now you two." "Thank you." "Could you excuse us for just one minute?" "I don't like this." "We have no idea where that tunnel leads." "Why would she lie to us?" "The woman is used to ruling over a population of serfs." "You don't think she's working her own agenda?" "Look, if she was actually bent on world domination, why would she complicate our trip out of here?" "You're assuming that all of us are going." "You're familiar with the fox and the chicken parable?" "I am." "Which are you in this story, the chicken or the fox?" "The farmer." "I don't feel safe letting her go first, and I certainly don't feel safe leaving her behind." "You have a Sasquatch for a butler and you travel the world with history's most notorious murderer, and now you don't feel safe?" "Helen, green is not a good color on you." "Don't be ridiculous." "She's intelligent, powerful, remarkably well-preserved for her age, everything I look for in a woman, and unlike someone I know, she's actually interested in me." "I'm not engaging in this childish conversation." "The more you deny it, the truer it is." "Oh, that's an excellent scientific method." " Thank you." " Really, really good..." " I can hear you." " Vampire, remember?" "You need to learn to trust me." "And if I don't?" "That's when bad things start to happen." "Afina!" "What are you doing?" "Changing the rules!" "Welcome to the New Age." "Nikola!" "Don't worry, he won't be disturbing us." "That old trap was designed for a true vampire..." "A warrior, not a schoolboy." "Why did you do that?" "When I repopulate my species," "I plan to do much better than a mixed-blood mongrel." "You, though, will be..." "quite useful." "How?" "I'm less vampire than he is." "Exactly." "A blood donor that stays young and fresh forever, but without the bitter aftertaste." "I hope you choke on it." " Easy..." " These things are expensive." "So, you want to tell me?" "Tell you what?" "Why this is so important to you?" "$63,450." "That's how much I made smuggling Tam eggs." "It started when I was 17." "They'd make a cash drop, I'd get the eggs, collect the balance on delivery." "Okay." "The guy I was running for said he was selling them as pets, but they weren't pets." " Well, you were a kid." " You were trying to survive." "You don't think there were other ways to survive?" "I made a choice because I was good at it." "Yeah, you were good at finding abnormals." "Good at turning them over to the highest bidder." "You know that's not who you are anymore." "It doesn't matter, Will." "It's who I was." "Yeah." "Well, we all have a history." "Yeah, except mine keeps coming back to bite me in the ass." "You'll never succeed." " I already have." " I'm alive, aren't I?" "The entire human race will stand against you." "You think so?" "In my experience, the human race never stood together on anything." "Well, they won't tolerate enslavement, that's for sure." "You really don't understand your own people, do you?" "They want to be told what to do." "They crave it." "They elect leaders for the sole purpose of taking difficult decisions out of their hands." "I'm here to offer a better alternative." "Dictatorship?" "In exchange for advancement, knowledge, progress..." "We've done just fine on our own." "Oh, yes, you've come so far, and yet, I bet you still spend all your time fighting, over land, resources, or my favorite, conflicting beliefs." "Am I right?" "Aw, it's all right." "It's human nature, and that's why I know I'll succeed." "I know you better than you know yourselves." "Ow." "Oh, that hurts." "Ah..." "How very nice." "No, no..." "That back-stabbing, blood-sucking bitch!" "There doesn't have to be a war." "We take you back to the Sanctuary." "You could learn from us, see what we've become." "And then what, we'll share power equally?" "Please." "You won't win." "We have weapons that could devastate the entire planet." "Your loss." "You'd have nothing left to rule." "Then we'll start over." "You're so shocked." "It's lovely." "You would really destroy the world just so you could conquer it?" "Why not, if it's there for the taking?" "Oh, come on, you didn't think you'd rule forever." "For an inferior species," "I'd say you had a pretty good run." "As did you, until we defeated you." "That won't happen again." "We're going deeper." "You spotted that, did you?" "I thought we were going to the surface." "We will." "We just have to make a quick stop along the way." "There's that shocked look again." "You know, I expected more from you, Helen." "You read the legend." ""Afina laid to rest to await Kianaru, the time of returning."" "But not just Afina." " That's right." " Afina and her court." "What is this place?" "My court." "My warriors, and they'll be very pleased with the blood donor I've brought them." "Not as crude as the way you released me." "Have I thanked you for that, by the way?" "I could always put you back in." "It's too late for that, I'm afraid." "The first seeds of a new master race." "You're lucky to be witnessing it first hand..." "You should not have done that." "Son of a..." "Afina, come on!" "I thought we had something." "Call it heat, attraction..." "You and me, we were gonna..." "I hate her." "Excellent." "I would have shared everything with you." "All the wonders of a new age." "While keeping me as your personal canteen?" "In my time, it was an honor to serve the Queen." "I'll pass." "Suit yourself." " Hi." " Hi." "Nikola..." "You're out of your depth, mongrel." "I'd rather be a mongrel than a stuck-up inbred bitch." "Just keep her under control." "My pleasure." "I need to try and reverse the process before the others wake up." "Nikola!" "I'm fine." "You worry about that." " Wait, stop!" " Don't kill him!" "I have a proposal." "Now you want to negotiate?" "Make it fast." "The Praxians, your enemies." "They left you the surface while they retreated into the depths of Hollow Earth." "Helen, no." "They're still there, in a thriving city." "More advanced than anything you had in your kingdom." "Don't do this." "Quiet." "Tell me more." "Unbelievable." "Leave the surface alone." "You can have Hollow Earth." "Take revenge on your old enemies." "That's my offer." "Damn it, no..." "How do I find it?" "The second level activates on a Praxian voice command." "You tell us how to leave..." "I'll tell you how to talk to the map." "Humans..." "I'll honor your deal, but it won't last." "Once we've conquered the world down there, we'll be back." "I don't doubt it." "We'll be waiting." "I would have so liked to have had you for my court." "In my chamber, there's a sensor at eye level near the door." "How do we activate it?" "Blood, of course." "Now, the password." ""Gateway."" "Kha Harag." "That should take you where you need to go." " Which is it?" " Uh... here." "What?" "Got your email." "You here to return the deposit I left?" "Yeah, about that." "I decided to use it on a Tam farm of my own, kind of a country home for the retired." "It was you... who busted my North Shore op." "If you can call it that." "You know what, you're crazy, coming out here alone." "I'm not alone." "A year ago, you could've pulled that trigger, and nobody would've cared, but I'm with the Sanctuary now." "Think about that combination, their toys, my attitude?" "And you do not want to piss us off any more than you already have." "My advice?" "Cash in your chips while you still can, 'cause next time, you're not gonna know what hit you." "This is your only warning!" "Cut it a little closer than I would have liked." "What, me?" "It was you who handed over the map." "How did you know she was telling the truth about the door?" "I didn't, but I had to stop her either way." "Well, thanks for consulting me about the suicide pact." "Sorry." "It's a shame we lost it, you know." "We barely downloaded a fraction of that database." "Small price to pay." "For my life?" "For saving the world from human enslavement." "Oh, right." "That too." "I'm sorry your glorious legacy didn't turn out to be all you were hoping for." "Please." "She was an entitled bitch with a Nazi complex." "The world in her image?" "I don't think so." "No, and we mustn't forget our most important achievement of the day." "My resurrection." "Oh, here we go..." "Sweet, sweet resurrection." "Didn't hurt."