by Bob Gansler and Francisco Araujo da Costa
#0 - November 99	Vampire Tales Told

When Inspector Chelm received this through the mail, he knew what was happening. It did not take long for the British government to do the same, soon Dai Thomas called him. He had funds, whatever he desired, to reassemble the Vampire-Squad. So Chelm, and his allies, the psychich Kate Fraser, and the former policemen Mike Wheeler and Jim Briscombe, joined him to battle the undead in Britain.

The fight, however, did not rage on in the Old World alone. Much to the contrary...

Two years ago...

The wind strikes coldly at Blade's face, but colder still is the vampire-slayer. He is exiting the Cathari's HQ to try and find Janus, garbed in his old clothes, the ones he wore in the 70's. In a way, this is a return to those days, of hunting Big Daddy Fangs, as Blade calls the Transylvanian.

Except everybody's dead, Blade thinks, Rachel Van Helsing, Quincy Harker, Taj, Hannibal, Frank. Everybody. Blade reaches to his back and grabs the handle of the sword of Jonas Cray, the vampire-slayer of old, Bible John gave him. And the vamps that sent 'em there are going along.

Elsewhere, the Blood of Dracula drips slowly on a pile of ashes. From the ashes, rises an undead. Dracula is amazed: the undead has his face, his style -- he is, indeed, a clone of himself, he discovers. But how can he understand what a clone is? Why does he feel so fatherly towards the newborn Bloodstorm, his less gracious double? Good detective work, he thinks, and the thought puzzles him further.

As Dracula teaches his 'son' the finer skills of their trade, Blade encounters someone in his. Crossbow, he calls himself, and his shattered body is covered with technology and mystery. Alas, the mystery is only for Blade and not for us: Crossbow is a clone of Blade's, created with technology from AIM by the vampire Blade hates the most: the murderer of his mother, Deacon Frost!

When the doubles meet, strife is surely at hand. As they confront, the Blades manage to come out with the upper hand -- Dracula flees to care for his son, the inexperienced contender in the battle. Blade, however, finds a degree of trust in his newfound ally.

As Blade finds out the 'true story' of his new friend (that he is, 'in truth', Blade from a not-so-distant future), Dracula finds in himself a yearning he cannot understand: he wants to see the wife of his last living descendant, he wants to see a woman he never even met: Marlene Drake. But when he takes his son to his prey (or is as prey he desires her?), she has already noticed him. He finds there the vampire slayers, and the battle that ensues leaves two dead: Blade slays Bloodstorm, but Dracula's assault on Crossbow was too much for the cyborg to bear.

As he passes away, truth comes to him. The enraged Blade trespasses the heart of his undead nemesis with Jonas Cray sword, and Dracula explodes into a red mist. But if one of the undead and one of the living have passed, one of each return: Hannibal King and Frank Drake, who were trapped within the former Lord of Vampires find themselves again in existence!

Marlene Drake, witness to this horror, is rejoiced when she finds her ex-husband again among the living. She welcomes him with open arms, and despite Blade's pleas otherwise, Frank Drake leaves the slaying game for good -- specially since, one year after these events, he is the proud father of a three month-old child, Adam Quincy Drake.

"Nice middle name," Blade says, allowing himself to smile amongst the happy family he never had.

Away from this dispute is Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Woman of New Orleans. Through over a century, the mambo (priestess) has kept herself young with the aid of vampire blood. She continually needs, this blood, and she finds none that will serve her of this delicacy. Using her wangas (spells), she reaches into another dimension, one where she can find a revenant willing to bargain with her. In a world filled with vampires, much more than it can support, she reaches for one of the undead willing to escape it: its former King as title, but still in name, Hannibal King!

Thus is Dracula Untombed, and it does not forbear well for the life and undeath of any...

"My saviour is coming, and the truth shall set me free." Says Janus to his captor, Varnae, who sneers. The child isn't disturbed by the vampire ghastly features, or his sinister intents. For some reason unknown to First Born, the child of Dracula continues confident in his salvation. The reason which Varnae cannot grasp, however, is known to us: Faith.

While Blade visits the child's mother, Bible John manages to get him an appointment with the Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Strange. The visit Blade pays is not completely friendly and polite: the mage manipulated him and his friends, with lies about the 'Mystic Nine'. Despite that, however, the good doctor manages to help him: Varnae, he finds out, is hidden somewhere in the vile part of Manhattan known as Hell's Kitchen.

When Blade storms the abandoned and deconsecrated church he found Varnae to be 'holed up in', as he noted with his characteristic subtlety, he manages to free the child Janus. The greatest weapon he brings to the battlefield, however, is not one of his trademark teak daggers, but rather a silver cross given by Domini. He has no faith in the icon, but when Janus takes it, his faith is grand enough to drive away the mighty Varnae, and make him writhe in pain. However, Varnae still manages to strike Dracula's child, and when he hits the ground, he calls out 'Father'. Soon, he shines with celestial light, and is dressed in white and blue, his auric skin even more golden than before.

"C’mon, let’s get you home. Your momma’s worried about you," Blade tells him.

Janus is not the only child of Dracula our eyes are to focus on, however. Far away, in the Promised Land, Abraham Goldberg lies dead, and Sarah Godlberg frightened. Abraham accidentally killed their daughter Satrina after an argument, and she was possessed. Lilith, the Daughter of Dracula, found in Satrina Goldberg a child that hated her progenitor as much as she does his, and took her body. Crossing the ocean in a cargo ship Lilith is, however, with mixed emotions: the spell of the witch Gretchin is no longer working, she is unable to walk under daylight anymore, and blood is now a need and not a delicacy for her. But this also means she can be the hand that slays her father...

When Lilith arrives in the new world, her first meal is watched. The audience, however, is not of an ordinary man, but of Jovo Lupeski, head of Boston's foremost Satanist Cult, brother of its former leader Anton. When he approaches the revenant, he pledges allegiance to her as he did to Dracula, when he purpoted to be Satan. The name 'Lilith' confuses him -- he does not know the name as that of Dracula's revenge-minded daughter, but as the Spurner of Adam of the non-canonical texts. But when she attends the first Satanic Mass, amidst the crowd is someone who would be her downfall: Stefan Banka, a member of the Cathari! And once he tells Bible John the location of such a powerful vampire, Blade's reaction was predictable.

" I never had the pleasure of meeting Big Daddy Fangs' little girl, but I figure it'll get to him, one way or the other, if I stake her. C’mon, let’s get on the road to Beantown!"

In London, Dracula visits an old acquaintance. Nearly a century before, he slew Arthur Holmwood, Lord Godalming, one of the men that 'slew' him with Abraham Van Helsing, during the so called 'War of the Worlds' of 1901. The memory stirs in him a hatred for Fu Manchu as he enters the room of Musenda Brown, the only other remaining member of Blade's old Vampire-Slayers group.

But when he gets there, Musenda is more than Dracula can deal with. He is protected from any harm a vampire can inflict on him. He even astounds Dracula with a piece of his past the Wallachian did not know: in 1970, Musenda Brown entered Castle Dracula, pierced his heart with a wooden stake, and poured Holy Water all over him.

"Don't you get it? I'm the toughest customer you've ever had to face. I nailed you in your own castle, all by myself. Can Blade say that, can Quincy Harker say that, can even the great Abraham Van Helsing say that? You killed my friends, and I tried kill you for that. I tried, but I didn’t quite do it, but it was good enough. I wanted out of the game. I wanted to have a real life, and I have it."

The words still echo as failure to Dracula, but the uneasy truce he forged with Musenda leaves him with one less implacable foe to deal with. And in a world, where even his son is to be counted as one of his greatest enemies, and his wife Domini. They have had one peaceful gathering, and their next is doomed to be unlike it. In the night, Dracula learns something that will draw him to his family: there's a new 'King' of vampires, with an edict for his subjects not to turn anyone -- and he is in Boston.

Meanwhile, the Hannibal King of 'Earth-V' has been gathering vampires with a cause and a motive: the cause, the rule of 'no new vampires'; the motive, to supply his benefactor, Marie Laveau, with the blood of vampires. But when Lilith runs across his band, her actions are not antagonistic for once, but rather that of an alliance. After a brief encounter, the two join their forces, and marry in the Satanic Cult, uniting the Queen of Darkness's Satanists and the King's undead legion.

Nobility, however, of whatever kind, needs a lineage. How are the barren vampires to produce a heir, though? The answer is simple: King changes into a bat and flies, northward, to Long Island, to kidnap a distant relative of Lilith: Adam Quincy Drake. Frank Drake is horrified and enrages when he sees his former friend (he does not know the kidnapper to be an alternate version of Hannibal) corrupt and malevolent. Packing his hunting gear, he heads to Boston -- to Blade, who, along with Bible John Carik, has already met the Cathar Stefan Banka. Completing the band, Janus joins them, to wait for dusk...

The sire of this troubled progeny, however, has learned of this new King and his daughter's alliance to him. As Frank Drake, Blade, Stefan Banka, Janus and Bible John Carik watch in the shadows the cult gathering for the Satanic Masses, they lose the element of surprise when Dracula storms into the deconsecrated church where they gather. Without option, they follow the undead lead.

"Ah, Frank Drake. We meet again, for the first time, as it were. You have invaded my home. I shall enjoy drinking your blood again, as I did on my world." Speaks King, and they understand it is not their old friend who has performed such foul actions.

The battle now rages on in chaos, and only with their experience do Blade and Frnak Drake manage not to accidentally slay any living human; Bible John, however does not have such restraints, and attacks living and undead with the same rage, much to the dismay and horror of Stefan Banka, always reminding Carik that his actions are herectic and dark, despite their motivation. Stefan's purity, alas, proves to be his downfall: when the humans approach him with their silver daggers, he dies as martyr, without any reaction to their attacks.

Also battling are the children of Dracula, but neither Janus nor Lilith manage fatricide -- Janus does manage to save his distant cousin, Adam. Their father does not watch idly: Dracula combats fiercily the King, and both are aimed by the last bolt of Rachel Van Helsing's crossbow, held skillfully by Frank Drake. Frank wonders which one to slay, and the voice of his former lover pleading for him to use her crossbow against their great nemesis.

"But King took my son," Frank thought. "He took my only child to turn him into God-knows-what. He took my Adam, the most precious thing in the world to me." His finger pushed the trigger back. "I’m sorry, Rachel." The bolt flew straight and true and buried itself in King’s heart. Dracula completes the slaying, beheading the pretender to the throne. But once his focus shifts towards his daughter, his beloved Domini enters the former house of God. Pleading and ordering him to stop at the same time, Domini manages to keep what only loosely can be called her family intact.

"Begone, daughter." Says the Wallachian, and Lilith flees. Janus also refuses to slay his father, and both Dracula and Frank Drake make a peace as uneasy as the one between the revenant and Musenda Brown. One by one, much to Blade's incredulity, all remaining leave in peace; Dracula once again parts with Blood of his Blood, to search for that of others...

The issue was all written as a summary to Bob Gansler's excellent -- nay, that is little to say --, addictively Marvelous issues of Vampire Tales back in MV1. Much continuity comes from there, and Bob continued his VT's in MDL from those. The credits for this issue are, more accureately than in its heading, as follows: Bob Gansler (plots) and Francisco Araujo da Costa (script).

This issue retells the events from all of MV1's Vampire Tales (#12-24, and its only Annual), as well as Strange Tales #37-40. They are very much worth the reading. (The first reason for me to ask to write this was that I wanted an excuse to re-read these issues...) Once you read the, you will recognize an occasional quote here coming from those issues, and certainly have a delightful time.