Count Dracula
returns to London and pays a call on his minion in Parliament, Lord Henry;
Dracula’s two concerns are gaining diplomatic immunity and buying a castle.
Lord Henry is working on the first and found that the castle in question is
occupied by a Shiela Whittier who should be easy to dispose of….
On a farm, Martin
O’Hara has just discovered his daughter is pregnant and he beats her; even
learning she is married to her boyfriend Ted doesn’t quench the old man’s fury.
He punches Ted, accidentally killing him. The spirit of Lilith, Dracula’s
daughter rises from its grave and possesses Angel’s body; she transforms and
kills Martin before heading out on her mission of vengeance against the man who
killed her thirty years earlier: Quincy Harker….
At home, Quincy Harker
takes a call from Rachel van Helsing saying that she believes Dracula is
dead (end of TOMB OF DRACULA #21). Taj Nital is leaving, summoned home by a
mysterious note. Shortly thereafter, Lilith arrives in the guise of Angel
O’Hara and enters, pleading car trouble. When Quincy’s back is turned she
attacks, leaving him for dead….
Dracula visits
Castle Dunwick, intending to eliminate the inhabitant, one Shiela Whittier—but
she is already terrified. Then she comes face to face with Dracula….
At a pub, a guy bets
his pals he can get a date with the cold looking woman at the bar; they are
surprised when he actually leaves with him. She’s Lilith, of course, and she
kills him and drinks his blood….
Inspector Chelm
visits Quincy Harker and finds him critically injured; he calls for help….
Shiela Whittier
panics at the sight of Dracula, believing him to be her tormentor who has been
visiting nightly, leaving her back a mass of scars. He assures her that he has
never been there before and she collapses in his arms from relief. He promises
to come back that night to protect her and on leaving he sees another bat in
the sky and recognizes it. He takes on his bat form and pursues Lilith to
London where they meet at a Rugby game. We learn her background: She was the
daughter of Vlad Tepes by a wife from an arranged marriage he did not want.
Vlad threw them both out; the wife sought refuge with the Gypsies and entrusted
her baby to them before taking her own life. Later, after Vlad became Dracula
he wiped out the Gypsies and in revenge, the old Gypsy lady cursed Lilith to
become a vampire with the power to be reborn in the body of an innocent woman
who wishes her father dead. And now they are reunited and she wants to share
his throne as Queen of the Undead but he demurs and takes off, terrifying the
crowd that witnesses his transformation. Lilith swears that one day he will
acknowledge their linked destinies….
Back at Castle
Dunwick, Shiela, fleeing a pursuer, is knocked over a balcony by an unseen
force, only to be caught by Dracula, who intends to make her his servant. He
goes upstairs and is attacked with a stake wielded by Lord Henry, Dracula’s
slave. He has finally found the strength to stand up to his master and lured
him there. But now he has lost and so shoots himself to escape the vampire’s
power. Then a sinister ghostly laughter emanates from the house. Shiela’s
ordeal is not over….
Story continues in
TOMB OF DRACULA #23.
For the special marvelite in you