Rituals, Regrets, and Really Dumb People

Chapter 7: The Power of Friendship and Sugar Gliders, Part 3

I didn't care what she had to say, I knew it to be right to check on them. I threw the doors open and I went inside. Despite Geraldine's protest, she walked inside as well, so did Lilly, Jo, and the soldiers and engineers.

The room was rather surprising. My bloodfreaks were here, of course, but there was a reason why it was guarded. Some of my cultists were here too. They'd been shoved in with the bloodfreaks. What was surprising, however, was that my bloodfreaks did not attack or kill the cultists stuck inside the pens with them.

I looked between them, found them all huddled together, mutant and cultist together. There was even a weirder picture with Mangler sitting drunk with Bloodfeast at the back of the room.

"Sanguine!" was called out, not just by one cultist, but the whole of them.

They stuck their arms out to me and I crossed the cages, looking at all of them. "Why are you all stuck in here? Did Typhous throw you in here?"

"Yeah," one of my cultists said, her arms hanging out the cell. "He'd hoped that the freaks would have killed us by now."

"Why did he throw you in here?"

"Loyalty to you. We spoke up, some of us got killed, some of us thrown out of the castle, some of us stuck here. Brian and Tom—man, that dude he has advising him is a monster."

"Literally," I mumbled.

"That explains the refugees we got before the monks a few days ago," Geraldine said.

"What?"

"Some men and women came to Sanctuary looking for a home right after you'd left. No ships have come the past year, so I assumed you or Nebuchadnezzar had pushed out some people. They were quick to play hush-hush and act vague when asked on the why's and where's."

I shook my head quickly and turned my attention to the good doctor. "Hey, Mangler, you okay in there man?"

"Yeah," he barked. "Just talking with my good buddy Bloodfeast here."

I jogged over to his cage and looked down at the good doctor sitting with a bottle of swill he'd smuggled in. He smelt like piss and alcohol. "Doc, you're drunk, my dude. Bloodfeast doesn't say much, just *PUPPIES* and *KILL* and stuff like that."

"I beg to differ." A voice of depth and strength rolled out of the dark shadows, from where Bloodfeast came from. It caused me to stop talking, the voice something of command and authority, something much more intelligent than what I remembered Bloodfeast sounding like. "I do like puppies, this is true, but I can, indeed, talk."

"See?" Mangler said as he pointed to Bloodfeast. "He talks to me."

"Bloodfeast, you can talk?" I asked, leaning to the cage to get a better view of him.

"I can," he said. He leaned forward, his large face displaying a deeply carved frown. This was a new light to me, his expressions so human, not the barbaric, ferocious giant that I'd used as my brutally metal vehicle of destruction. "I've been keeping Mangler in check. I insist he shouldn't drink, but he does. They fired him."

"I heard," I said, my voice containing something of disbelief. "Wait, how long have you been able to talk? I didn't even think you had much in the ways of cognitive functions."

"If your mutants, who you have termed—regrettably—as 'bloodfreaks' are any indication, then yes, it would be wise to assume such. I, however, have not lost my cognitive functions. They have, but they have some base understanding still."

That was—remarkable. "I see."

"You don't, but you will," Bloodfeast said with a soft sigh. He placed his large arms on his thighs and looked down. "Why have you come—master?"