“Awakening” is episode sixteen of season three of Sanctuary.
Magnus and Tesla are in East Africa, in some tunnels looking for the last known stronghold of the Praxians before they retreated into Hollow Earth. Magnus found the location on the holographic map and Tesla is reminiscing about their search for King Tut’s tomb.
Tesla, using his magnetic powers, detects a doorway and opens it. Inside the stronghold he also finds vampire writing – given that the Praxians really didn’t like the vampires, vampire script should not be found in one of their strongholds. It seems that the vampires had driven the Praxians from the stronghold and made it one of their own. Both Tesla and Magnus are wearing the vampire shields that Tesla created in “Hollow Men” and Magnus realises that, if this is now a vampire stronghold, appearing to not have source blood in them would be bad. Which it is; an energy beam shoots Tesla before he can remove his (mostly due to him grandstanding rather than acting) and the door closes.
The energy beam has done some serious damage to Tesla – only the magnetic field he is generating is stopping his insides from becoming his outsides. He’s miles from a decent surgery and seems certain that he’s going to die. So he wants Magnus to read the vampire history that is written on the walls. One of the inscriptions says that the vampire queen, Afina, has been laid to rest where they are. Afina is behind a wall inside a purple crystal. Tesla says that Magnus should leave him to die amongst vampire royalty. She decides to destroy the crystal, to see if there is any vampire blood inside the body. Which Magnus could use to save Tesla – and make him a vampire once more. Something he has really, really wanted.
The crystal is pretty strong so Magnus needs to alter her weapon. With backseat input from Tesla. Magnus eventually breaks the crystal enough to gain access to the body and blood, and thereby heal Tesla. There is another problem though – inside the crystal may have been the body of Queen Afina (Aliyah O’Brien; she had a brief role in Continuum), but she wasn’t actually dead. Magnus wants to come back with a proper team; Tesla says they need to get her out of the crystal now. He wants to meet the only survivor of a dead civilisation. Perhaps Tesla has not thought this through properly; Afina is a vampire queen and the vampires were really, really powerful, and he is not exactly a full-blooded vampire. Tesla is star struck but Afina has her own plans.
Back at the Sanctuary, Kate is checking an old email account to see if there’s anything important in it before she shuts it down. One of the emails is from an associate of hers so she heads off. Bigfoot realises that she is keeping a secret. Kate does end up revealing what she finds out to the others so that they can shut down an Abnormal harvesting operation. The whole thing is quite personal for Kate.