"So what kind of sanctuary is this?" Xander asked as they headed to the medical bay.
"We exist to study and give refuge to things that would be considered myth. Most are naturally occurring mutations but some were created on purpose. The world at large doesn't know they exist and tends to react negatively when they do." Dr. Magnus opened a door and they walked into a wide hall. On either side were glass enclosures. Strange creatures were on the other side of the glass. Both Xander and Cordelia took a good long hard look at them and realized something.
"They're animals!" Xander exclaimed. "Just animals."
"Were you expecting something else?" Dr. Magus asked.
"You said you know a vampire. The vampires we know are literally animated bodies. There's a rift under our hometown. There's other rifts around the world. We call them Hellmouths. The vast majority of what comes out them want to eat humans. Intelligence wise, they range from animal intelligence to human level intelligence. Including languages and culture. We've never been able to convince them not to eat us. So we have to kill them to protect ourselves. Alot of them prefer children and teenagers."
"The vampires of this reality are a separate species from human. They subsisted on blood. They were highly intelligent. They were wiped out as a species a couple thousand years ago. While they needed blood to sustain themselves, they didn't need to kill to get it. The big problem with them is they thought humans should serve them. Humans objected, violently." Dr. Magnus told them. "A group of them survived for awhile but they too were eventually destroyed. The vampire we know is actually a descendant. His vampiric nature was dormant, then it wasn't. He's mostly harmless, tries to empty my wine cellar when he visits."
"The vampire we know isn't harmless, just likes to pretend he is. Is that a mermaid?!" Xander exclaimed.
"Yes, I call her Sally. She was found injured, we helped her recover and she decided to stay. We made the enclosure for her. She's also - ."
"Welcome brother friend." A 'voice' could be heard in their heads.
"Telepathic?" Cordelia said dryly.
"Yes, what do you mean by brother friend, Sally?"
"He has a touch of the ocean in him."
"You can tell? When I was in High School the swim coach experimented on the swim team. He pumped something into the steam room. It caused a massive mutation in everyone exposed. They looked alot like the thing from the black lagoon. They turned on the coach and killed him. I joined when a blank spot opened up. I was exposed three times. The mutation was halted and I'm told it's not hurting me."
"A were hyena with a marine type mutation could end up with a number of problems. You'd be someone we'd be trying to help here." Dr. Magnus told him.
"Don't worry, I'm regularly monitored by someone I trust. Cassandra would know if I was having any problems."
"Good. Well I'd like to start with a blood sample from both of you."
"Needles." Xander grumbled and held out his arm. Dr. Magus stuck a needle in the vein on the inside of his elbow and drew a vial of blood. The moment she withdrew the needle an arc of lightening healed the small puncture.
"What was that?" She asked.
"It's called the quickening." Xander said, hoping everything he'd seen meant she could be trusted with the information. "I was born with the potential for immortality. It activated when I was a senior. I will heal from any injury."
"You're immortal?!" Dr. Magnus exclaimed.
"I realize that's incredible - ."
"No, that's not it. I'm immortal. The only one as far as I know. The result of an experiment."
"We're not the same kind of immortal. My kind has an early warning system. A buzzing feeling in the back of our heads."
"How many of your kind are there?"
"At any given time, about 10,000."
"If you have an intense electrical current in your body, the buzz is most likely the equivalent of two live wires coming near each other. Are you immortal too?" She asked Cordelia as she prepared to take a blood sample from her too.
"No, unfortunately. And Xander and I are together, which eventually means he'll lose me. Doesn't stop us from loving each other though."
"Being immortal hasn't stopped me from falling in love either." Dr. Magnus said somewhat sadly.
"Doc." Henry said, coming into the medical bay. "There's a weird energy in the hall that my instruments can't identify and Kate says the EM shield wasn't breached, no fluctuation in it whatsoever. They didn't teleport in. Also, the cameras showed he had something in his hand that disappeared."
"The control device. It keeps us anchored to the device in our reality that's allowing us to reality shift. It's also what allows us to jump to a new reality. I put it in a dimensional pocket to keep it safe." Xander told them.
"You know how to make a dimensional pocket?!" Henry exclaimed.
"Yes, it's not hard once you know how."
"Can I see your control device?" Magnus asked. "Since you said you landed here by mistake, maybe there's something wrong with it."
"I didn't think of that. You know things started going wrong after we jumped into the Warehouse. I got stunned by a Tesla and dropped the control device. You're right, it may have been damaged."
"What's a Tesla?" Henry asked.
"Souped up version of a stun gun invented by Nikola Tesla in that reality."
"My advice? We never tell him." Will said.
"Agreed!" Both Dr. Magnus and Henry said.
"Tell who?" Xander asked as he pulled the control device from its dimensional pocket.
"Nicola Tesla, he's the vampire we mentioned. If he knew a counterpart of his had built something like that, he'd want to build one too. New and improved. He's got an ego that won't quit on him." Will told them.