Who: Zari, Archie, and Drake What: Re-animating Zari's father! Where: A warehouse. When: Tonight. Warnings: None. There be no flesh-eating zombies here.
Archie knew to be careful. His recent stunts made him one of the most wanted criminals in the city and just one ounce of misplaced trust could set the entire thing crumbling down. He had ambitions, though. Ambitions that were greater than the consequences of taking the wrong risk and he was willing to make any jumps he could for the right opportunity. And, reanimating Zari’s father was the opportunity he needed. It was one thing to stitch a homeless man together and watch him shamble around the laboratory before putting him out of his misery. This was a perfectly preserved corpse fresh as the day it died. An ideal test to see if he was capable of doing exactly what he wanted.
Archie showed up with the sort of promptness a professional would have. Dressed in a black suit that seemed outdated like an old magician’s get-up, Archie held his doctor’s bag in front of him and waited by the warehouse she designated. His mind ticked through possible outcomes of the night, not least of which a whole barrage of armed cops ready to turn him into swiss cheese. What would he do, then? Kill one of the cops and then bring him back to life? Run for it? It didn’t matter. If she betrayed his trust, it would just prove his point and fuel his need to get back out into the world to show it what he could do.
Zari arrived early in the day. It had taken work to get there, the city roads still slick with ice and damp, and she’d spent the better part of the afternoon lighting the ceremonial candles she’d carried with her in a messenger bag. By the time Archie arrived, the entire warehouse was a collection of golden lights flickering atop yellow and red votives. Her father was dressed in a new suit, one she had bought for him, one she thought he would have liked - gray and soft and somehow kind. He was laid out on the coroner’s table, which was draped with a cloth of red and gold, and the entire place smelled of honey and red grapes, tart like good, deep wine.
She heard Archie arrive, but Zari did not move from where she was: Kneeling in front of the table, hands clasped on her lap and eyes closed. She was dressed in traditional Santeria garb - a sari that was inappropriate for the weather outside, bare feet and bells on her ankles and wrists. She heard Archie, but she stayed where she was. She wondered, too, if Drake was there. No, she knew Drake was there somewhere. She only hoped he kept his word to her, that he kept out of sight and let this happen.
Drake was hardly a barrage of armed cops, but he wasn’t stupid enough to show up completely weaponless. If this went downhill, which he was almost certain it would, someone would have to step in. Mr. Frankenstein wannabe probably wouldn’t be much help and he didn’t expect Zari to be able to do what needed to be done either, so the task would inevitably fall to him. Promise or not he wasn’t going to stand by if her father came back as some flesh-hungry zombie and tried to rip them all to shreds.
Drake hadn’t broken his word yet, though. It was a little tricky given the location but he’d managed to scope out a spot that gave him a decent view of what was going on while keeping him hidden, and his ability made up for whatever was lacking. When Archie arrived it took a great deal of restraint to keep from making himself known; the guy was a wanted criminal and he was right there. Seconds ticked by, however, and he remained still. For now he’d wait.
Curious, Archie considered knocking on the large front of the warehouse, but instead found a side door he could enter through. A few steps into the building and the smell of decadence hit him so strongly he almost felt the urge to scratch his nose. He was a man used to the dull smell of the dead, so anything sweet and ripe seemed simply unnatural.
“Ancient. Warm. Ceremonial.” Archie drew in breath through his teeth to make a sharp sound. “I was not expecting something so...inviting.” He spoke softly behind her, moving towards the body with a certain amount of respect that seemed unpracticed with the doctor. As a man of death, all the gloomy glamor had been lost on him. Most dead bodies were just sacks of meat ready for him to work magic on. This time it left him with an odd sensation of respect that had been lost on him for so very long.
Archie stopped just steps away from her father. “You did nothing to the body to make it seem so-” He rolled his hand in the air. “Lifelike?”
Zari stood when he spoke, taking a step closer to her father. “No. I think it is a result of the electrical storm that-” she paused, having trouble saying the word, “that killed him. It was Creation, and I have run tests, biopsies on muscle tissue, and there is still electricity there. I believe it has preserved him.” She also believed it was fate, that her father had died as he had, but she did not say this to the man.
He was not what Zari had expected. He was no monster, and he was not disrespectful. If she did not know better, she would have thought him a merely scientist, as she was, and it made her relax. He was not the man who had helped her dig her father from the Earth. This hombre, he seemed harmless. She motioned to her father. “His body temperature, it is even high. But he has no brain function, no fluids, no pulse. His heart, it is intact, but it does not beat.” That was hard to say, but necessary given who she was talking to.
“Our chances, they are good?” Zari asked, sounding hopeful, desperate and despairing. She knew Drake was somewhere, and she imagined she could sense him. She wanted him to see what she saw, possibility, not someone to be stopped.
Possibility wasn’t what Drake saw as he studied the man as best he could from his vantage point. He took in what details were visible, from appearance to the way he talked and the sound of his voice, since chances were high that he’d need to find this mad doctor in the future. Nothing that could reverse death was free of consequences; everything had a price. Drake had a feeling that this man was using Zari’s desperate need to have her father back for his own purposes without a care as to what would happen once the body was reanimated. Part of him wondered if he should just put a stop to it now, but the knowledge of just how much Zari would hate him for it held him back.
Archie moved past Zari, placing his doctor’s bag in her hands as he approached the body. “Yes.” he delicately touched the dead man’s wrist and then pulled a small pen light from his jacket pocket. “I know you said his body was in good condition, but I had no idea it was this well preserved.” He opened the man’s mouth and eyes to do basic examinations before checking the body again for any signs of deterioration. “This is remarkable, Zari. Incredibly lucky.” He managed a smile the same way a real doctor might when they told a patient their body managed to fight a difficult disease on its own.
“Shall we get started?” He opened the bag he had placed in her hands and took out a syringe and a small bottle of nearly glowing green liquid. “I have to apologize in advance for not being able to do this without the aid of a chemical. But, there’s no need to worry. I’ve included nothing but the bare essentials.” Archie stuck the needle into the small bottle top and liquid seeped inside the syringe. The glow was stronger in his hands and Archie’s lips flickered in the dim light. A hint of a smile was all anyone could catch. He turned from her and carefully rolled up her father’s sleeve to expose a spread of veins. Archie applied pressure with one hand to make the preferred vein robustly jut upwards and then pushed the needle in. Seconds passed as the liquid emptied below the skin, glowing faintly until being completely mixed with blood.
Archie stepped back and put his tools back into his doctor’s bag before taking it from her. “Give it a moment.” He whispered, breathlessly waiting for the fruition of his efforts.
To say Zari tensed up would be an understatement. Her hands at her side were clutched into fists, fingernails digging into skin, and her expression was one of mixed hope, mixed fear. She felt, in that moment, unsure, and she reached forward to stop the scientist’s hand before the syringe pierced her father’s skin. But she did not move quickly enough, and it was done. She put the back of her hand to her mouth, and she stood back and watched.
When nothing happened immediately, Zari looked around for the presence of someone she knew, eyes watering, and she felt better. She felt like something ad been lifted, a weight. She had tried, and it had not worked. It was over. She had done what she could. Disappointment, yes, but mingled with a sense of rightness in the loss. She prayed to her Orisha, thanked her, but then something drew her attention to the body of her father again. Movement, a twitch, imagined surely?
“Algo paso?” Zari asked, forgetting English entirely as her attention turned back to the still body of her father. Fear rose up in her throat, thick and hard to swallow around.
“What the hell...” Drake’s voice was a low murmur, inaudible to the others in the warehouse. He wanted a sample of that green liquid, which he was willing to bet played a necessary part in the entire process, but for now his attention was focused on the still-unmoving body of Zari’s father laid out on the table. He withdrew his gun from the holster hidden inside his jacket when he thought he saw the corpse twitch, raising it silently as he kept his finger on the trigger and took aim. If Jose had indeed come back wrong then the shot had to be timed just right; not too soon, but not too late either.
Archie loomed forward, his tall frame crooked and thin like a graveyard tree. Seconds past before the man’s hand clenched into a fist and then released slowly, gently as his eyes opened. Jose looked as though someone had disturbed him from a very long, warm nap on a Sunday afternoon. Disoriented, he slumped to his side before slowly raising to unsure feet. Archie rushed to the man’s aide, wrapping his skinny arms around his back fearlessly to keep Jose from falling.
Jose only looked at him without recognition for a long while. Finally, his fuzzy gaze turned up to Zari and the expression lightened. A hand reached out for his daughter, still without the right words to speak. Jose was every bit of the man he was before he died, just perhaps a little dizzy. That and his eyes were a strange, bright green that perfectly matched the chemical Archie had injected. Jose tried to walk forward towards his daughter; stumbling a little as he found ground back in the world of the living.
Zari stared at first, the fear of what they had done coursing through her. She felt like a child, caught in that moment of regret for something that could not be taken back. Then, her father moved toward her, stumbled, and all the fear and regret melted away. She rushed forward, wrapping her arms around him and helping keep him upright. She babbled at him in Spanish - how did he feel, what did he remember, did he know who she was? He answered everything in fluent Spanish - he felt tired, he remembered the fight with the electricity Creation, of course he knew who she was. He followed up with questions of his own - how had she gotten there, where was Drake, was the Creation they were pursuing dead? She could hardly answer, crying too much at this point, and she did not know how to tell him what had happened, did not know how he would react to what she had done.
She pulled back, a whispered “espera, papi,” asking him to wait, and she turned to Archie. “Gracias,” she said, and when her father stumbled again, she looked back at him. “We will get you home,” she told him.
Drake came uncomfortably close to pulling the trigger when Jose’s body rose from the table, and then again when it--he?--reached out for Zari. To see a man he’d watched die with his own eyes return from the dead might have been seen as a miracle to some, but his reaction was more along the lines of horror and disbelief. This wasn’t right. A vial of glowing green liquid might have been enough to reanimate a body but it couldn’t manage to bring back the person they’d been; or so he thought before Jose began speaking Spanish back to his daughter. For a moment he faltered, thinking that maybe he’d been wrong after all... but then again, Zari wasn’t asking this man any of the questions that mattered.The prospect of cemeteries full of the recently deceased being brought back from the dead struck him as more of a nightmare than a dream come true.
“Now hold on just a minute.” Drake had kept his word up until that point; he’d remained out of sight and hadn’t interfered with the process. Now that it was over, though, he couldn’t stay on the sidelines any longer. The gun was slipped back inside his jacket, out of sight as he stepped out of the shadows and into the candlelight though it was still easily accessible. Everything from his tone of voice to the way he carried himself was casual and he didn’t look at Zari or at Jose, as though he was simply a random person who’d come upon the location by chance rather than someone who had connections to two of the three others in the warehouse. “I’ve got some questions for you, Dr. Frankenstein. This all seems a little too good to be true, so let’s start with what happens next,” he said, gesturing towards Jose, whom he was careful to keep in his peripheral vision just in case.
Archie was in awe of himself. Zari had made her point and if everything continued to go well, maybe he could turn over a new leaf. Spider-Man would be hard to convince, but with some well intentioned rehabilitation of loved ones, even he couldn’t deny the power Archie held. Raising his hand to give a weak wave to the father and daughter pair, restraining any desire he had to keep an eye on his subject, he heard a voice that made him turn on his heels suddenly. “Who is this idiot?” He clutched his fists defensively at his side and rose his voice towards Zari.
“You promised me. You said I could trust you.” His voice slithered with something that sounded a lot more like The Doctor who had terrorized the bank. It was a bad thing to snatch away a feeling of repentance from a man.
Zari did not want her father to find out like this, and the look she shot Drake was an angry one. He had promised her would stay out sight, this man she trusted. Nothing had gone wrong. Her father was well, and he did not need to do this. Her gaze lingered on him a moment, hurt mingling with the anger there, and then she turned to the scientist. “No,” she said, because she did not know if she would need him, if her father would need him, and she could not risk losing his attention where her father was concerned. “I did not betray you,” she insisted, hearing the slither in his voice. She took a step toward him, even as her father pulled her back.
Jose looked at Drake, an old look that spoke of years of trust between himself and the other man, even with the unnatural green of his eyes. He pulled Zari away from the unknown man.
As far as Drake was concerned he’d kept his word, since it would’ve been easy to bring the whole thing to a halt before the process could be completed, but now wasn’t the time to defend or justify his actions. Nothing about this felt right to him and he wasn’t capable of doing nothing in circumstances like these. Zari could be angry all she liked, but just because she trusted this madman didn’t mean everyone else had to feel the same way. “Relax. You’re a popular man these days, you know - someone was bound to find you sooner or later.” He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender; a necessary lie.
Drake caught the look from Jose, which unsettled him more than he was willing to admit simply because it was something a reanimated corpse shouldn’t have been capable of. “I could’ve stopped you if I wanted to, but I didn’t. I just want to make sure this guy isn’t gonna go all horror-move zombie once we all walk out of here,” Drake continued, reluctantly deciding that right now Jose was the lesser of two evils and making no move to force him away from Zari.
Archie laughed like some of his marbles were falling out of his ears. “You aren’t a mask, are you? No, a vigilante wouldn’t have let me get past showing off my needles.” This man wasn’t Spider-Man. That wonderful little pest would have webbed him to a wall by now. “It doesn’t matter. I can conclude Zari let you be here, thus taking advantage of what little trust I had left. Do you know what I’m capable of? What has just transpired here?” He waved his hand dismissively and turned sharply, walking straight up to Zari.
Archie grasped her shoulders, locking eyes with her as he loomed just above. “Let me leave. I don’t care what you do with my identity. What you tell this brickhead. You owe me your father’s life. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” His voice turned from a harsh whisper into a soft plea. There was a good man somewhere under the bubbling madness. A wounded one struggling to keep himself from completely going over the edge.
Zari’s father was an old man, and he was not at full strength, and when Archie grabbed her shoulders the old man could only push ineffectually at him. “Papi, ya,” Zari told him, worried he would be hurt, not worried for herself. “I will not stop you from going,” she promised Archie, because he had done what he had promised, he had given her father back to her, safe and whole. She glanced at Drake, who she knew would not let this happen. He would not let this man leave, and she did not ask him to. Her own participation in this was one thing, but she would not ask him to do something outside his conscience.
Zari touched her father’s cheek, and she positioned herself in front of Archie, a willing shield. “Back toward the door,” she whispered, already pushing the taller man back with her body. If Drake wanted to shoot Archie, he would have to shoot through her to do so.
Jose called out to Drake - a plea, and Zari merely tried to convey apology in her light gaze, wishing he could understand.
Drake had the gun out and aimed steadily at Archie as soon as he grasped Zari’s shoulders, his previous flippant pretense discarded in an instant. He was of the belief that redemption was, like respect, earned instead of given. This kind of power was dangerous enough to corrupt even the most moral individuals and even aside from that it was just too much for any one person to possess. If this guy didn’t want to be viewed as a madman by the general public, well, crazy zombie birds and violent hellhounds should’ve been crossed off his damn to-do list. “Don’t touch her again,” he said coldly, willing both Zari and Jose to back away so he’d have a clear shot. He only intended on incapacitating him until he could figure out who the hell to call for backup.
Instead Zari did the exact opposite of what Drake had hoped for, and he let out a string of hissed curses under his breath. “Damn it, Zari. Get out of the way.” He waved at Jose to stay back, since the man was recently un-deceased and hadn’t exactly been young when he’d died either. “I’m not going to kill him, but I can’t let him keep doing shit like this. No one has the right to... to play God,” he said in frustration, attempting to maneuver a clear shot around her.
“Do you have an ability?” Archie carefully took a step behind Zari with a grin only Drake could see. “If you use it, then you’re playing god, too. I helped your friend here, the least you could do is show me some gratitude.” He glanced back at Jose and ignored a familiar look one of the hellhounds had given him back at the bank. All of his subjects seemed to posses resentment towards him without knowing exactly what he had done for them. No one seemed to appreciate his power except the desperate and the insane.
“Goodbye Zari and good luck.” Archie whispered with another wary glance towards Jose before ducking towards the door and into the night. It was time for him to start cutting ties with the outside world if he wanted to continue his work.
Zari watched Archie go with a glance over her shoulder. She looked back at her father, then, looked at Drake, and she shook her head at the younger man. Her father had questions, and she would answer them, but she did not want him hearing he was a zombie or a revenant. She knew her father well enough to feel uneasy about the argument that was to come. She shook her head again, and she slipped her hand into Jose’s. “Vamos,” she said, tuggung him away from Drake with a pleading look. “Despues,” she told him, Drake, she would talk to him later. It was a plea, a request, a demand.
Jose looked at Drake with unnaturally glowing, questioning eyes, and then he turned to his daughter and followed her into the snow.
“It’s not the same and you know it, asshole,” Drake snarled, seconds away from shoving Zari out of the way so he could get at the grinning scientist. To hell with the gun - he’d strangle the guy with his own bare hands. Unfortunately he never had the chance, as Zari blocked his path and the man had disappeared out the door by the time he’d maneuvered around her. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered darkly, deciding against pursuit. It was too dark and he’d never catch up anyway, but that didn’t mean he was going to keep quiet about this. People needed to know that Dr. Frankenstein was capable of bringing people back from the dead; he wouldn’t mention specific names, but in his mind the guy was now officially a threat.
Drake hesitated, not wanting to let Zari leave with what was technically a zombie, but so far he hadn’t shown any sign of violent behavior. He shrugged and turned away, wanting to avoid that unnatural glowing gaze and the sight of a man who shouldn’t have been walking around in the first place. He waited until they’d both left before heading out himself, feeling far more troubled than he had in a long time.