"Sorry. I know you don't want to be disturbed while you're researching, but you know there are some matters that require you personally." Ina Sandra hurried into Luke's Laboratory and spoke as she stood beside him. On her other side was the old vampire, imprisoned in a cage formed of golden light bars, his body barely human after being tortured by Luke's experiments over the past few days. The faint rise and fall of his chest and his breathing proved that he was still alive, but his stiff, ashen face and lifeless eyes staring blankly into the void made it clear that his mind had already broken.
Thinking back to when she had first seen him in this laboratory, the old vampire had still tried to use Black Magic on her—mental hypnosis curses and the like. Back then, he had been full of vigor. Even while Luke was experimenting on his body, he had turned his head to beguile her. But now, when she looked at him again, he turned a blind eye to Luke—or rather, to any information from the outside world.
"I'm almost there," Luke said with some dissatisfaction.
"But the Stark Expo," Ina Sandra reminded him.
"I thought anyone could go to that thing," Luke grumbled, putting a black ring that glimmered with an eerie light onto his right thumb.
"Get ready. Treat it as a break in the middle of your work. You need to relax your brain," Ina Sandra said, pressing her cheek against his and ignoring his complaint.
Watching Ina Sandra leave, Luke told the White Queen to connect him to Snoke.
"BOSS." Snoke's calm, deep voice sounded through the communicator.
"How are things?" Luke asked.
The old vampire who had carried out that attack was still lying on the operating table. After he