| Synopsis | - Continued from last issue...
Dracula is furious that his son Janus has been killed by the treacherous Anton Lupeski. Domini attempts to calm the vampire lord, however Dracula can only rage on as he recounts the moment that led to his son's death. Dracula rages on about those who would try to destroy him and turns his fury toward the oil painting of Jesus Christ. He attempts to destroy it, but finds that it still has power over him and he cannot. Looking upon the throne he hoped to rule over, he finds it not a symbol of accomplishment, but one of mockery and smashes it.
As his rage subsides a little, Dracula thinks back to his many years of existence and thinks about his past. His thoughts turn to the years before he became a vampire, when he was merely Vlad Dracula, and he was forced into a marriage with a woman named Zofia, a woman he did not love and treated very poorly. He would recall how one night he attempted an affair with a chamber maid, when she refused because she was betrothed to someone else, Dracula would kill her. Dracula would wonder why he was brought to remember this memory, and he is visited by the memory of his daughter through Maria, Lilith, who mocks Dracula for his poor treatment of her mother, driving her to suicide so that Dracula could marry his second wife.
This brings Dracula to recollect a time in recent history when he was in Paris and weak from lack of blood consumption. His attempts at sustenance would be thwarted by the interventions of Lilith, who would swoop in and kill his victims before he could get a chance to feed on them. This would carry on until Dracula would lead her to England five days later and have her impaled on a spike near Big Ben.
His recollections done for now, Dracula flies off into the night sky and summons down a storm and contemplates about ending his own existence. Lamenting over his centuries of losses, Dracula's mind once more turns to the time when his second wife was killed by the invader Turac centuries ago. Dracula would recall how after he was turned into a vampire, he would turn his first born son over to a gypsy for raising, and that boy would grow up to hunt and attempt to kill his own father.
After lamenting over how all of his family members would eventually turn against him, Dracula goes out to find fresh victims to feed upon. He feeds upon a man, and when he is about to attack the woman accompanying him, he spots that she has a son. Delirious with grief, Dracula believes the boy to be his son Janus. Snapping out of it when the boy affirms that he is not Janus, Dracula goes to the rooftops once more and demands the powers that be to end his miserable existence. However in possible response, the storm only clears and Dracula's unlife is not ended. Dracula takes it as a sign of mocking, that his continued suffering is the penance for his life of wickedness. Furious at being left to this damnation, Dracula swears to these powers that he will rededicate his life to their destruction.
Realizing that he has not lost it all, that his wife Domini still lives, and with her at his side, he is invincible. Dracula flies off once more into the night sky, passing by his wife Domini who is leaving flowers by her sons grave. Domini speaks to the grave, asking the boy that -- when he returns to life, not to destroy his father, and not to make her choose between father and son. She leaves a flower and says that she will return with the proper prayer, and the proper words that will bring them back together.
This story is continued next issue...
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