File:Tomb of Dracula Vol 1 30 001.jpg

Description
Visiting the grave of the recently deceased Shiela Whitter, Dracula pays his respects. Talking to her grave, Dracula expresses his genuine regrets for her passing before flying off to his mansion in his bat form. Deciding to write in his journal, Dracula reflects on other times that he has allowed the perceived innocence of others get the better of him.... Recalling a time during the 1800's in Germany, when Dracula was summoned by Lyza Strang who has summoned Dracula to kill her husband Archibald Strang, explaining that her husbands quest for power would destroy both Lyza and Dracula. Lyza expresses a desire to be with Dracula and share his power. She explains how Archibald intends to becomes the Minister President of Germany an in turn would invade Romania and take Dracula's castle. However there is one more that stands in Archibald's way King William -- also known as Otto Von Bismark. Dracula would accept the woman's request and fly off into the night to seek out his target. Dracula would find Strang arguing with Bismark over who is the rightful ruler of Germany. Waiting until Strang has left, Dracula would stalk and kill the man. However, he would find that he had been betrayed as Lyza would arrive shortly after with soldiers who would stake him and throw him in the river. As it turns out, Lyza had secretly been having an affair with Bismark and had Archibald assassinated in the hopes it would help Otto win the position of Minister President. However, when Otto gained the position he would tell her he had no doubt that he would win it and exiled her from Germany less she stand trail for murder. While out in the woods she would become yet another victim of the vengeful Dracula. She would become a vampire, and would later be killed by Abraham van Helsing. Dracula would reflect how Bismark's rise to power would lead to World War I and the invasion of Romania, but digresses from the recollection to another moment when his belief in innocence was challenged a few months past... He recalled how one night he had met a young blind girl named Melanie Knight, who's parents Marcia and Paul have hit hard financial times when Paul has lost his job and cannot afford to put Melanie into the special school they intended to enroll her in. They would be having an argument about money and what to do with their daughter while she plays outside with her doll. Dracula would happen by and find himself in an odd situation where the blind girl asks Dracula to help talk her doll into taking a bath. The argument indoors would escalate to violence, and Paul in a moment of fury would shoot and kill his wife. Hearing the shot Dracula would enter the house to investigate and see that Paul had killed his wife. Throwing him out on the lawn, Dracula would then feed and kill Paul himself. When Melanie would inquire what Dracula had done, Dracula would explain that her father had killed her mother and that Dracula in turn killed her father as an act of vengeance on behalf of Melanie. Melanie, is horrified because she loves her father would burst into tears and announce her utter hatred toward Dracula, hitting him over and over. Finishing his recollection, Dracula has a hard time trying to understand how the child could not understand the concept of revenge. He then recalls his first encounter with Blade the vampire hunter, during a time he lived in China in the year 1968... Blade would come to Dracula telling him he represented a group of men who believed that in another sixty years vampires would rule the world, and that realizing humanity had no chance against their "superiors" Blade would offer his and his associates assistance to carry on Dracula's bidding during the daytime. Blade would further entice Dracula with this idea telling him that they had facilitated a plan that would speed up global conquest by vampires to only ten years. Intrigued, Dracula would agree to go with Blade to meet his associates. Dracula would meet these associates: Ogun, Azu, Musenda and Orji. However, Dracula would soon find that this was all a trap, and that they were really a group of vampire killers. They would nearly succeed in destroying Dracula by driving a stake into his heart. It would be during this battle, Blade's companion would try out wooden knives of his own design and find that they work just as well as stakes. However, their effort would be for naught, as when they would leave to prepare a grave for Dracula's body, his servants would come and remove the stake from his heart. Finishing his recollections, Dracula would muse over how when they returned the battle would end in Dracula's favor, and although Blade survived the encounter two of his fellow vampire hunters were killed, and he would further go on to recall that the only living member of that ill fated group of vampires was only Blade, while Dracula continues to live on. Dracula once more revels in the fact of his own eternal life.