In the wake of his
death (issue #13-14), Dracula opens his diary to record the events of his life.
On his way there after escaping Father Josiah Dawn’s tent, he was shot down by
a hunter while in bat form. He revealed himself to the man and summoned a horde
of rats to pursue the hunter…directly into the jaws of a pack of wolves….
Dracula recalls his
beloved wife Maria and his revenge against the enemy who slew her. And he
recalls another married couple, more recently. They drove out to a remote area
in the woods where the husband Richard revealed his plans to murder his wife
Kitty, so that he would gain her inheritance which he would lose by divorcing
her. He shoots her and she plunges from a cliff to the rocks below. Dracula
comes upon her and asks her if she wishes revenge. She gasps out a yes and soon
Richard is at home with his mistress and he answers a knock at the door to find
the vampirized Kitty ready to feast….
This leads Dracula
to recall a time when he was deceived: an elderly man named Orphelus who
revealed to him that he was a Roman soldier who discovered in ancient Britain a
pool of the blood of all who have ever died, which conferred upon him
immortality. Orphelus asks Dracula to take him back to that pool so that he may
renew his immortality and he offers Dracula an endless supply of the blood he
needs. Dracula agrees and flies the man to the hidden pool; Orphelus then
admits he lied, having becomes sick of immortality he wishes now to destroy the
pool and Dracula as well. The old man plunges his magic amulet into the pool
and it explodes, hurling Dracula away but his vampiric power ensures his
survival….
Recalling Blade,
Dracula thinks of the previous man to kill him: at his castle in Translvania in
1969, a Scotsman seeking to learn what happened to his son who was pursuing the
vampire lord. Dracula reveals that he killed the man but could not turn him
into a vampire because he clutched a crucifix and now the two fight. The
Scotsman pierced Dracula’s heart with a stake but the vampire lived long enough
to hurl his foe into a pit (the same one he threw Clifton Graves into in issue
#1) and crawl into his coffin before he died. Dracula closes his diary with
wicked laughter, vowing that, no matter how often he is killed, he will always
return….