Inside Orpheus's manor, it was dark. A man sat in a chair, wearing a Victorian shirt, his back to the room, looking out at his courtyard from his window. He was smoking.
When suddenly, he sensed something subtle and reacted. "It's been a while, Dracula. In the meantime, how are things progressing in the vampiric dimension?"
It was a supernatural scene, and all at once, from the fireplace, Dracula emerged with an enthusiastic smile.
He noted that his old friend still had completely macabre tastes: a dark office in a thoroughly mysterious manor, and most surprisingly, the number of decapitated human heads that were mounted on the walls of his office. It was his way of displaying his dominance over humans.
Dracula stepped forward and sat in a chair as if he owned the place.
"Oh, nothing too important, you know, just a rather dull meeting with the vampire council, nothing out of the ordinary," Dracula explained before continuing. "Besides, you've gone completely mad, my dear Orpheus, to have such a collection of human heads? I entrusted my son and the sweet Isolde to you. You may not be aware that Blacky has lost his mother in the most atrocious way. I trust you have a good explanation."
Upon hearing this news, Orpheus adopted a serious demeanor and turned his chair towards Dracula to show his astonishment, given the troubling situation.
Orpheus slammed his fist on the table. "Damn it, how is that possible?" said Orpheus.
"I thought they were safe, I was wrong. But I had a particular reason that justifies my absence, it's simple."
"Some time ago, here in Capitol Hill, a madman, an American man in his forties, started a cult that practiced black magic."
"This cult is called The Black Hand."
"It's a satanic cult whose goal is to resurrect Satan and his army."
The Black Hand cult was created back when Dracula, whose real name was Jack Ritcher, was still human.
This cult had diplomatic and political leanings aimed at dictatorship. Jack Ritcher's family was predominantly wealthy, as they owned a small shipyard, which was quite something for the time.
The leader of the cult at the time was from the elite of the United States of America. For him, the cult glorified Satan by offering blood sacrifices of animals, sometimes even humans, in order to reap good harvests.
Jack Ritcher's father was always against the existence of this cult, until the day a major conflict arose between the Ritcher family and the cult leader, whose name was Harold Voorhees.
Harold Voorhees held a completely grim and twisted secret. One fine day, Jack Ritcher was walking in a forest. He was already in his thirties. At the time, this forest, which is now the city of Columbia, contained many trees. There was a small, isolated house where Harold Voorhees always went.
As Jack approached the house, he could hear crying from inside. Overcome with curiosity, he decided to open the main door of the house, but what he discovered was worthy of a horror film.
There were several young women who had been missing for months inside the house. Apparently, the black magic adept Harold Voorhees was engaging in non-consensual sexual acts with his victims, committing an abusive number of up to six physical assaults per day.
Jack, completely outraged, reported what he had seen to the villagers. They, in their anger, hunted down the Black Hand cult day and night, and every one of them was burned alive.
But before he died, Harold Voorhees cast a curse on the inhabitants who had burned him and on the Ritcher family, which resulted in an incurable disease that wiped out his entire lineage, generation after generation.
The two survivors were Jack Ritcher and Orpheus Sangrael, both of whom were also afflicted by this curse. Having participated in the eradication of the Black Hand cult, they decided to find the old black magic book that Harold Voorhees used.
They searched for pages of incantations aimed at summoning an infernal creature. They recited the incantation and drew circles of protection, holding in their hands the sacrifices of two cats they had killed.
The entity they had summoned was Satan, a ridiculous thing to do, as even few people in such cults would have dared such madness.
Their wish was to lift the curse in order to return to a normal life, but instead, the entity, being completely random and vicious, accepted the pact but in a perverse way. Decidedly, it had not appreciated the offering and had thus transformed Jack Ritcher and Orpheus Sangrael into vampires. Since then, they have been unable to die.
"When I think back to that fateful day, rage builds inside me just hearing the name of that wretched demon," Dracula thought angrily.
"I better understand your absence, which also explains the presence of these cultists' heads in this place," he continued.
"But if you're taking them seriously, there must be a serious problem, right?" Dracula asked.
Orpheus Sangrael sighed and stood up, pacing back and forth. "On the contrary, it's very serious. The cult leader, according to the information I extracted from his deceased followers, this madman is trying to unleash hell on earth by resurrecting Satan's demons and Satan himself. But for Satan to be part of it, he would have to be able to tame the minor demons of hell," Orpheus explained.
"So, his goal is to unleash this army to destroy the world, by infiltrating criminal or political organizations, and perhaps even more. And this is a threat that we cannot ignore," Orpheus finished his explanation.
Then, Dracula nodded and replied in a relaxed manner. "As long as I'm around, no one will destroy my pantry. No humans, no blood, and that is out of the question," he said to Orpheus.
"But I was planning to go back anyway, I'll let you handle this situation. I will only intervene in case of extreme emergency, but by the way, get close to Blacky and help him accept his vampiric nature and develop it," Dracula finished speaking.
Then, he turned and opened his dimensional portal. For him, Orpheus Sangrael had already understood what he meant: taking his friend's son under his wing and helping him develop was a rather tenacious task for Orpheus and a great deal of responsibility as well.
Meanwhile, with Blacky, who was at the Washington D.C. police station, the man he had disfigured was being interrogated. But Blacky wanted to deliver justice himself, because the system tends to protect mafia-like organizations, which is quite frustrating, but that was the law of the strongest, and there was nothing he could do about it.
As he was thinking tearfully, sitting in the reception area, a police officer's silhouette sat down next to him and asked him some important questions about his life.
"Excuse me, Mr. Johnson, besides your mother, do you have any family?" the officer asked, a bit shocked.
"Not really," Blacky replied.
Then, a deep voice rose and addressed the police officer. "Of course he does, this young man is coming with me."
It was Orpheus Sangrael who approached and greeted the police officer with a handshake.
The officer, confused, didn't know what to say, as Blacky had specified that he had no family.
"But sir, apparently the young man has no family, if his words are to be believed," the officer pointed out.
Orpheus Sangrael gave a strained smile and replied, "That's perfectly normal, he's in shock, he's trying to convince himself that none of this is real. He just needs a good day of rest."
Blacky said nothing, and the officer handed Orpheus a pen to sign some administrative forms that authorized Blacky's release.
Then, the two of them left the police station. Orpheus Sangrael got into his vehicle and invited Blacky to follow, which he did not refuse as he was too tired. They were heading towards Sangrael's manor in Capitol Hill.