Blade's feet fell heavy upon the streets as he trudged back towards Slow Boy's. His life had always been marked by anger. Perhaps that was never more true than it was this night. Ever since he had returned to London, he had been confronted by nightmares of his past. First there was the vampiric doppleganger of his mother. Then there was the depraved Lady Marguerite D'Alescio, who wanted to bear the 'perfect child of night', she whose previous scheme had resulted in the death of everyone he cared for at Lady Vanity's. Next came the gargoyle Stonecold, from his days when he was manipulated by Dr. Strange to be a Nightstalker. He also had to face the monster that he had once become - Switchblade Finally, there was the ancient vampiress, Lamia, the one who had turned and took his beloved Glory from him.

{A recap of issues #2-6}

"One link between 'em all," Blade muttered. "That stinking motherkillin' Deacon Frost. Time to finish him, once and for all." As he continued down the streets, other pedestrians immediately gave way to him. His appearance alone might have been enough to convince people to get out of his path. A powerful black man wearing a long black leather jacket might have been enough. However, it was the rage that was etched on his face that made everyone instinctively offer him the right of way. Without his goggles on, his eyes were readily apparent to all, and his eyes were inflamed with the fire of vengeance.

Blade rounded the last corner to reach the club. "I hope Slow Boy wasn't counting on a big crowd tonight, cause I'm gonna have to send 'em all packing." He was convinced that Slow Boy had set him up. Slow Boy had told him to go visit the old neighborhood, the streets where he had run with the Slayers. It had led him right to Lamia. "The witch seemed to know I was coming, and she said she was working with Frost. Slow Boy better not be mixed up in this willingly."

There was a long line of people waiting to get into Slow Boy's. Blade pushed his way to the front of the crowd. Anybody that tried to say anything to the vampire-slayer was quieted by the stern look that he effected. The bouncer at the door recognized him and opened the door for him.

Blade slammed the door behind him. Then he cracked the door open and popped his head out. "Hey Morris," he said to the bouncer. "Send all these people home. Take the night off yourself. The joint's closed."

"But Slow Boy …" Morris protested.

"You wanna mess with me, Morris?" Blade asked. There was not a hint of jocularity in his eyes.

"No way, man," Morris replied. He clapped his hands loudly. "Let's go home people!" he shouted. "We're closing early tonight."

Slamming the door again, Blade garnered the attention of the patrons already inside. "Listen up," he announced. "The place is closing early tonight, as in right now. Get out … now."

Most everybody inside of Slow Boy's knew Blade either by acquaintance or by reputation. Anyone that knew him also knew that a sense of humor was not in Blade' makeup. Those to whom Blade was not known made some efforts at protest, but they were hushed by those who knew better.

Some of the staff went to tell Slow Boy but they found the owner's office locked, and their knocks and shouts elicited no response from inside. They asked amongst themselves if any had seen Slow Boy leave. None had, but then again none had seen him for a few hours. They knew that Blade and Slow Boy were tight, and they knew better than to get on Blade's bad side. The staff helped escort the customers out and then exited themselves.

Once the place was cleared, Blade went to the entrance and barred it shut. "It might not do any good, but it can't hurt. It's not like I'm expecting any cavalry to roll in to save my hide if things go south." Blade turned and bellowed, "Slow Boy! Slow Boy! Me and you got things to talk about."

No response came. He had heard the staff whispering as they hurriedly departed that no one knew where the proprietor was, although the door to Slow Boy's office was locked.

Blade hurdled the bar, knocking a few of the leftover drinks to the ground. He stomped towards the back where Slow Boy's office was.

"Slow Boy!" Blade continued to shout. "Get your behind out here."

Coming up to the office door, Blade found that the door was indeed locked. He pulled out his Cathari katana from the back of his leather jacket. He pounded against the door with the hilt of the brand. "I know you're in there, Slow Boy."

Complete silence came from the other side of the door. "I'm giving you to the count of three, Slow Boy, or I'll knock this door down. You know I will." He paused. "One … two … " On three, he crouched and then drove his shoulder into the door. The portal was knocked off of its hinges, and it fell into the small cluttered room that Slow Boy called his office.

Slow Boy was sitting at the desk, a glazed look in his eyes. He did not blink or react with any hint of surprise at Blade's intrusion.

Blade squinted and sniffed. Something occult was in the air. "Slow Boy, what's going on?" He held the katana in front of him as he slowly stepped forward on the broken door. "Why'd you set me up?" As he came closer, he could see a pair of faint marks on Slow Boy's neck. Now it all made sense - Slow Boy was a thrall of some vampire. Blade did not need more than one chance to guess which one.

"He can't respond, Blade. Not unless I allow him to do so," a sinister voice called out.

Whirling around, Blade saw a cloud of mist floating behind him. The voice was unmistakable, its slight German accent only too well recognizable to the vampire-slayer. A male humanoid figure began to form out of the mist. He wore fluffy Victorian-style clothes that suited him much better than they had Frank Drake in his days as a Nightstalker. His white hair was slicked back and his pointed white beard was neatly trimmed. He was Deacon Frost.

"Frost!" Blade muttered. "You sonuva …!" He gripped the hilt of the katana tightly. "So that's why Slow Boy set me up. You were pulling the strings."

"But of course," Frost chuckled. "I manipulated him, I manipulated you through him. I manipulated the doppleganger of your mother, Stonecold, Switchblade, and ancient fool Lamia."

"You may have bitten him, but you ain't turned him yet," Blade proclaimed. "I could tell that much. You ain't gonna get the chance to do it."

"That presupposes that you will be able to stop me," Frost answered. "You've hunted me all of your life, yet here I stand today." He started to step forward, but Blade jabbed the katana at him. He eyed the sword. "I see you've taken up a new toy."

"Cut the crap, Frost," Blade snapped. "What's this all about? Usually you let me try to track you down. Why're you coming for me?"

"I know your soul, Blade." Frost explained as he stroked his beard. "I touched it when I took your mother."

Blade thrust halfheartedly at Frost. "You trying to make me madder by bringing my mother into it? Not smart, Frost."

"I've taken your through the various chapters of your life," Frost continued. "From birth as a Child of Night, to a Slayer of Vampires, a Stalker of Night, a Son of Midnight, and now a Hunter of Vampires. Now it is time for the final chapter in your life."

"If you're talking about being a vamp, you of all people should know that's not gonna happen." Because of Frost, Blade was immune to a vampire's bite and hypnotic powers.

"No," Frost responded. "I've had a vampiric Blade before, among other dopplegangers of you that I've created. Switchblade was one, and I'm sure you remember Crossbow."

{Crossbow first appeared in Blade: Vampire Hunter #1}

"Yeah, I remember," Blade replied. "Can't say you scored any points with me by making duplicates of me."

Frost smiled devilishly. "Such was never my intention."

"So what is it Frost?" Blade demanded. "That is, if it even is the real you. I thought I've gotten rid of you before, only to find out it was vampire-clones that I slayed."

Frost took a slight bow. "It is the true Deacon Frost that stands before you. The circle is complete. I was there at the beginning, I am now here at the end. You should thank me, Blade. I have taken you down what the poets might call memory lane. This is the final chapter, Blade. Tonight it ends. Tonight it begins. Tonight I begin my climb towards the throne of vampires. Tonight your life ends."

"Bring it on, Frost." Blade grimaced and prepared himself to attack. "I got nothing to lose."

Frost' face grew more sinister, as the vampire aspect became fully realized in his features. "Only your blood. I may not be able to turn you, but your blood will taste as sweet, though only half as sweet as your mother's."

"I warned you, Frost!" Blade cut a wide arc with the katana, but Deacon Frost stepped out of the way. Vampiric reflexes were very sharp.

"The forces of the undead are growing, Blade. We may not have gained the Daywalking Incantation, but we are stronger than before, thanks to the Book of Erebus." Frost swiped at Blade with his razor sharp nails. "While you have been treading upon the path that I laid for you, the others have been marshaling their power. Your quest for vengeance has blinded you. While you've been facing the foes I put in front of you, I've been consolidating my own power base."

"Shut up!" Blade avoided Frost's claws and he slashed in return, but Frost had dissipated into mist. Blade squinted as he looked for where Frost would reincorporate. Sometimes he felt that his goggles helped him see the undead better, but Blade knew that they were of no real help. He had gone back to wearing them recently, but now he had given up on them again. The brown leather jacket and the green eyepieces tended to make him stick out. His current attire, red shirt under a long black leather jacket was not the dress of the everyday man, but it made his less noticeable.

Frost's hand rematerialized before the rest of him did. The talons stretched out and drew a long streak of blood across Blade's face. Blade was able to turn his head away before the razor-sharp digits gouged his eyes.

"Maybe the goggles are good for something," he muttered as he swung where he guessed the rest of Frost would reform. However, the revenant had anticipated the counter-attack and resumed mist form.

Blade slowly stepped out of Slow Boy's office, past the bar, and into the main room of the club. He did not want to have to worry about Slow Boy getting hurt during the battle. The old proprietor was still mesmerized into motionlessness. Blade hoped that Deacon Frost would not use his hypnotic powers to pit Slow Boy against him. He had faced enough nightmares born of his past in the past few days. He did not relish the thought of facing Slow Boy. Not that he feared Slow Boy (the club owner was well past middle age) but thralls of the undead could act with no concern for their own safety. Blade did not kill the living, but fighting off Slow Boy could give Deacon Frost to spell his own demise.

"What's the story here, Frost?" Blade taunted as he searched the darkened corners for his opponent. "You just gonna just nip at me with these cat-and-mouse tactics. I thought you were really going to face me this time. Though maybe you chickened out and sent a clone instead again."

Mist swirled about ten feet into front of Blade. It quickly rose up to take the form of Deacon Frost. "No, Blade," he replied. "It is der echter Diakon Frost, the true Deacon Frost, who shall drink your blood. It is a pleasure I would not relinquish to one of my dopplegangers."

"Then let's get it on," Blade twirled the katana at Frost. "Let's do this man-to-man, or man-to-bloodsucker, as the case may be."

Frost sprang at Blade with unexpected quickness. He brushed aside Blade's sword and then fixed his hands around the vampire-slayer's neck. The impact knocked them both to the ground, but Frost maintained his grip.

"Bloodsucker?" Frost smiled cruelly. "You make that sound like some kind of epithet. We of the undead are the true master race, no matter what that Nazi madman spouted." His hands tensed as he squeezed tighter. "We will rule this world, and humanity will be our cattle."

Blade wriggled and landed a solid punch with his left hand to Frost's face. As a result, Frost lost his grip and Blade rolled away from the nightstalker. Blade was quickly on his feet again. "I've seen a world where the vampires won," Blade huffed. "It wasn't a nice place, especially for the vamps. Drank themselves into starvation."

{Blade is referring to the events on Earth-V from Nightstalkers #13}

Deacon Frost laughed. "Don't you think I've considered that possibility? But I am a scientist. When I ascend to the vampire throne, I will ensure that the undead do not overfeed or turn too many humans. I will lead a very ordered kingdom."

Blade lunged with the katana. "First you gotta deal with me. Plus, there's a whole lot of other pretenders to the throne - Varnae and Drac to name a few." The attack did not find the mark, but then it was not supposed to. Frost dodged the thrust, but he was unprepared for the quick turn of the wrist that Blade used. The mystic steel cut into Frost's side, slightly below his heart.

"You ain't a fighter, Frost. Like you said, you're a scientist. Scheming you're good at, I'll give you that. Fighting, you ain't in my class." Blade was ready for another strike. Forst stretched his hands out to protect himself. With a quick slice, Blade separated most of Frost's fingers from his hands.

"Urghhh!" the vampire howled. Frost knew that the digits would regenerate in time … if he survived the battle. He dropped down onto his bloody hands and shifted form again, this time into a lupine shape, albeit a wolf with no claws on its forelegs.

Blade took a step back and readied himself. Mentally, he shifted tactics to dealing with the lupine form. It was not something that he had learned out of a textbook, but from years of experience. There were moves appropriate for humanoid, bat, and wolf forms. "All part of vamp fu," Blade joked inwardly. On the outside, he showed nothing but determination.

With a roar, Frost leapt again at Blade. The vampire hoped to pin Blade to the ground and then disembowel him with his hindlegs. The strategy was very apparent to Blade. He grabbed hold of the end of the katana with his left hand as his right continued to hold the hilt. He held the sword in front of him as Frost sprang. He angled the sword so that Frost's jaws came down on the flat of the blade as they both tumbled to the ground. As Frost began tearing at Blade with his hindlegs, Blade began pushing the katana deeper into Frost's jaws.

The sword began cutting away at the muscles in Frost's jaws. He made the quick transition to mist form to escape the agony that Blade was inflicting.

"Curse you, Blade," Frost sputtered when he resumed humanoid form once again. The sword had inflicted some damage, and his words were slightly slurred.

Blade cut a Z-pattern in the air, mimicking Zorro. "You already did that, the day I was born. I finally get my revenge, mine and my mother's, today!" He rushed towards Frost, his katana tightly gripped in his right hand.

In a desperate gambit, Frost tried to pin Blade's sword-arm between his own two fingerless arms. Somewhat to his own surprise, he succeeded. With Blade's arm trapped by the inhuman strength of Frost's own, the vampire began to think that victory would be his. He hissed as he squeezed Blade's arm, striving to shatter the vampire-slayer's forearm.

Blade seemed unaffected by the pressure that Frost was exerting. He did notice the look of newfound confidence that had appeared on the revenant's face. He knew that it would be short-lived. A quick shake of his left hand brought a teak dagger out from its spring-loaded band on his wrist.

Frost heard the metallic clink of the spring. As the vampire's eyes went from Blade's captive right arm to his free left arm, he saw Blade grab the hilt of the dagger and thrust it forward. Frost screamed and released Blade's right arm. He looked down to see the teak dagger protruding from his chest. From the intolerable pain, he knew that it had penetrated his heart.

"Payback, bloodsucker!" Blade shouted viciously. "I ain't gonna make you suffer, though. I'm gonna put you out of your misery right now."

"Wait!" Frost whimpered. His fingerless hands covered the hilt of the dagger, but even with fingers, it would have been hopless. His strength had seeped away with his blood. "Please, don't."

Blade held the katana, ready to decapitate his nemesis, the bane and cause of his existence. "If you think you're gonna get any mercy from me, you're freaking nuts."

"Please," Frost coughed. Blood was drooling from his lips now. "I never wanted to be a vampire. I just wanted immortality." He coughed some more. "I … experimented with vampire blood, and I was accidentally turned."

{A somewhat inaccurate account of the events shown in Tomb of Dracula #53}

Blade shook his head. "Don't care how you got to be. A bloodsucker's a bloodsucker. And a sob story from you don't mean squat. You've made my life hell, now I'm going to send you there."

Frost stretched out his hands, but his strength was gone. They now fell limply by his sides. "Please. I beg of you." Tears started to stream down his face. "I don't want to die."

"I'll give you immortality," Blade hissed. "I'll give you your immortal reward. Give my regards to Satan when you get down there." The katana whirled around, and Deacon Frost's head was cleaved from his body.

Blade looked down at the two separate parts of Deacon Frost. He could scarcely believe it. He had finally destroyed Deacon Frost. It was the day that he had dreamt of for years. He did not know what to feel. He had half-expected that he would physically feel a weight being lifted from his soul. Instead, he only felt what he could only describe as … satisfaction.

The task was not completed yet, thought. Head and body would have to be burned to ensure that Frost never came back. Suddenly, doubt began to creep into his mind. Perhaps this was just another clone. "No," Blade concluded. "Frost wouldn't've made a clone that was a coward." In his soul, he knew that he had destroyed the monster that had killed his mother.

Blade quickly checked on Slow Boy. Now that his vampire master had been destroyed, the old proprietor had collapsed. Blade knew that a couple of shots of alcohol and a little holy water on the bite marks and Slow Boy would be as good as new.

Picking up the head and dragging Frost's body unceremoniously, Blade headed outside. He picked up a bottle of cheap liquor on the way at the bar. He poured the alcohol over the remains of Deacon Frost and then lit two matches. He dropped one on the body and one on the head. Soon both parts were ablaze. Blade kept close watch until the pyres had been reduced to ash. He scooped up one pile of ash and dumped it in a trash bin. The other he kicked into the air.

He looked down. "Rot in hell, Frost" He looked up. "I got him, momma."

It had been a long night of drinking with Slow Boy after that. The old proprietor expressed his apologies for falling under Deacon Frost's sway. Blade just patted him on the back and poured him another drink. It was a night to remember, but with all the alcohol, by morning Blade had forgotten most of it. He would, however, always recall destroying Deacon Frost though.

When he finally woke sometime in the early afternoon, he stumbled to the kitchen phone. It was probably his worst hangover ever, but he did not mind. He dialed the USA extension and then punched in the secret number to the Chiaroscuro.

"Hello?" Bible John said on the other end.

"John, it's Blade."

"Blade! I'm glad to hear from you. I've been having strong visions again."

"Let me guess, of me fighting vampires."

"Only one actually - you and Deacon Frost. The rest were about other vampires - Dracula, Varnae, Lamia, and Lilith in particular."

"We'll cross two vamps off of the list. Lamia and Frost are down for good. And I got the real Frost this time. I'm sure of it."

"Fantastic, Blade! I thought that was what my visions might have been indicating, but I was apprehensive about expecting too much. Still there are my dreams about Varnae, Dracula, and Lilith. The visions are very troubling."

Blade rubbed his forehead. "Tell me when I see you. I'm getting a flight back to New York. I'm done with this town." He said goodbye to Bible John and hung up the phone.

Deacon Frost was dead. It did not seem possible, but he knew it was true. Now what was he to do? There still were vampires in the night, and he was a vampire-slayer. "Is there really a question?" Blade thought to himself. "They all gotta go down. I'm just the one to do it."

NEXT ISSUE :

What have the rest of the vampiric community been up to lately? Catch up with Varnae, Dracula, and others.

BITING REMARKS

One letter this month:

So ends this spotlight on Blade within the pages of Vampire Tales. With the next issue, we'll expand the focus to the others of the vampiric community. What have the other vampires been up to since the destruction of the Book of Erebus? Bible John has been having dreams about them; now look for Dracula, Varnae, Lilith, as well as the angelic Janus in upcoming issues. I might even revisit the 'vampires of literature' that participated in Bloodrise. Varney, Ruthven, and Carmilla don't have any Marvel history to them, but I might just be able to find something for them.

Bob Gansler
19-July-00