[theme music playing]
[eerie music playing]
[birds chirping]
[indistinct chatter]
[chatter continues]
[birds chirping]
[growls]
[growling continues]
What the hell are you doing with your life?
I'm talking to you, Trevor Belmont...
of House Belmont, with no living relatives.
It is you I address.
Last surviving monster hunter
from out here in the armpit of the world.
What the actual hell are you thinking?
Idiot.
You're a tramp. You're excommunicated.
You have no family, you have no friends.
You've spent your entire adult life
being hated by everybody you ever met.
And you were fine with that.
You even liked it.
Nobody could get near you, nobody could ruin your life...
because there wasn't much left to ruin.
But that last little bit of it?
That was yours. And then what?
A pretty girl holds your hand
and takes you to bed, and all of a sudden...
And all of a sudden your world changes,
and you don't know what to think about it.
Sorry.
You weren't following me, were you?
This is my little place of peace.
I come out here to think sometimes.
Pretty sure your nice little house has a door on it.
[chuckling] I can't always do it at home.
Someone can always knock on my door.
Somebody always needs something.
Sometimes I have to walk outside the town
to be able to see it properly.
So: you're an actual Belmont.
I grew up with stories about your family.
Scary bedtime stories?
Mostly.
They still tell them here, you know.
But they have a different ending now.
Oh?
They end with "And the Belmonts aren't here to save you anymore,
so if you're not good, the monster will come and eat you up."
- Christ. - Yes.
Well, Lindenfelders are a basic kind of people.
Honest to the point of brutality.
You're not one of them?
Not really.
You can't be part of the town and also rule it.
To be a leader, you will always be...
held apart from the rest of your world.
I was born here, so I can claim to be a Lindenfelder.
But my family and I left when I was young.
We moved to the capital, you see.
I remember thinking as we left:
"I'll never see this place again."
I remember thinking the same thing as I left my old house.
Places have a strange way of catching back up with you.
Huh. I suppose so.
Like some roads are circular.
I rose in the court at the capital, and did just well enough...
that I was sent back here to head the town.
In my experience, no good deed goes unpunished.
Do you miss the capital?
I only passed through it a couple of times.
Well, coming back here to run the town
was an odd little revelation for me.
The same stories happen in cities,
but there are so many people in cities
that the stories just rush by.
Here, every little story is a huge thing.
A farming accident. A sickness.
A lost child. A death.
They have an importance to the whole place.
Doesn't happen in cities.
So: how long have you and Sypha been traveling together?
[Trevor grunts]
Couple of months.
We were supposed to go and rejoin her caravan, but...
things happened along the way.
And at some point, we decided to just keep moving, I suppose.
[Judge] Well, it doesn't sound like you decided much of anything.
[Trevor] I suppose not.
Not really a man with a plan, are you, Belmont?
I don't especially trust men with plans.
That Saint Germain git in town, he's a man with a plan.
- That's what they're like. - Fucking charlatan.
We used to see them in the capital, his type.
Drifting between the courts of Europe,
pulling rabbits out of hats in hope of patronage.
[Trevor] What's he doing here?
[Judge] God knows. Maybe he's finally hit bottom.
- Wait. - What?
That wasn't there yesterday.
Are you sure that's not just some kid fucking around with his first knife?
Children do not run around defacing property with knives in my town.
In fact, they don't run around at all, if I can help it.
And you know it wasn't there yesterday?
[sighs] This is my town, Belmont.
It's my job to pay attention to it.
[Trevor] I have to say, running a town does not sound like it's fun.
It has its little pleasures.
[wind whistling]
[crows cawing]
[footsteps approaching]
[inaudible]
[ominous music playing]
It's here.
It's really here.
This way?
[footsteps]
You were told where to stay, Saint Germain.
And I absolutely am.
Except that you appear to be in front of me.
Well, terribly embarrassing, really.
I was looking for somewhere discreet to urinate.
Go outside like everyone else.
Of course.
Why do you think I would believe
you were looking for somewhere to piss down here?
Well, I-I-I recently spent time in the Free Imperial City of Frankfurt
where public toilets are often accessed by step.
And since Lindenfeld is so obviously
a seat of civilization and refinement, I thought...
Outside.
Outside. Indeed.
Public toilets.
Does this really look like a palace to you?
[crows cawing]
Hello.
Hello?
I've been watching the priory for a while now.
Have you? That's nice.
Since you are a Speaker, I imagine that distracted you
from the usual Speaker pursuits of memorizing limericks,
boiling vegetables, and casually reproducing.
[chuckles] I am a Speaker. Good eye.
- I have two, in fact. - So do I.
I see that only the monks enter or leave the priory... Except for you.
Well, I am very special.
You're also a magician.
I have two eyes, too.
I'd prefer not to speak of that.
Why? You've made no secret of it.
Little tricks for the townsfolk.
Lots of talk.
- Yes. For good reason. - What reason?
Let's just say I like it better if people here believe
I'm a traveling scholar and an itinerant trickster.
What you're saying is, you'd like it to stay that way.
I've been unconscionably rude.
I also recognize a threat when I hear it.
I imagine you're used to them.
I've disrespected you, and I apologize.
I am Count Saint Germain.
I'm Sypha Belnades. Speaker Magician.
And you travel with the Belmont boy.
I do.
There is bad magic being done in that place, Saint Germain.
What exactly is it?
[sighs] All right.
There is a thing I am in search of inside the priory.
It is occult in nature.
It is quite safe, if operated wisely.
Yes, I am quite sure something else is going on in there.
It stinks of night creature.
But my only interest is in that one thing.
So I would respectfully ask
- that you go forth and... - Stop.
Oh. That's worrying.
You've seen the armbands they wear.
Yes. And now I see this.
The alchemical sign for Saturn.
And lead, denoting transformation and redemption.
And the scythe: time and the harvest.
How did they come by the sign they wear on the armbands?
They say their Visitor gave it to them.
The night creature that attacked the priory.
Did it give them this one, too?
What in the name of God is going on in there?
God? I understood you Speakers to have quite the fractious relationship with God.
On today's evidence,
I wonder if Christianity hasn't gone out of fashion.
Oh, God was terrible. He was fierce and jealous.
We all know the old stories of God, and we fear him.
But Yeshua, the Christ?
His sacrifice was a lesson in how to love unconditionally.
Which only makes sense, as my grandfather always said
that we want our children to exceed us in every way.
You're an unusual woman.
- Trevor says that. - Does he really?
Well, he says I'm crazy. But what you said is what he means.
And you did not answer my question.
I'm honestly not certain.
I am focused entirely on my personal goal.
They're all quite mad.
But this does seem...
odd.
[Trevor] "Odd" is seeing that mark...
twice in one day.
Ah, I'd like you to meet my new friend, the Count Saint Germain.
- We've met. - Yes.
I should apologize to you, too.
I was simply trying to find out if you were here for the same reason I was.
Given the nature of your family business and all.
And what reason is that?
It's personal.
I need a drink.
Do you need a drink, Saint Germain?
I do not.
Yes, you do.
Let's all go to the tavern and have a quiet little chat.
I'd prefer something more private.
There won't be any monks in the tavern,
and it's just public enough to stop me slitting your throat,
or Sypha setting you on fire. Move.
You-You wouldn't?
Oh, he wouldn't really slit your throat.
But I could kill you by looking at you.
Come. Show me how you attack.
I would, but you wouldn't let me have my bow.
[blades clanking]
Archers run out of arrows all the time.
I want to see how good you are when it comes down to a blade.
Ah. [laughs]
Why is your sword so long? I can't get close.
You want to get close?
[Alucard hisses]
Never let a vampire in close.
I'm half-vampire.
Half of me wants you to step in close enough
for me to bite out your throat.
That's why I have a bow and arrows!
Hey!
- [Sumi laughs] - Get him, Sumi!
[Alucard laughs]
[all laughing]
[laughter continues]
You have both just been eaten by vampires.
No, we captured him and made him our slave.
Make lunch now.
But I do like that you've remembered how to still be human.
This human could eat lunch, too.
All right, fine.
After which you're going to show me how you attack from a distance.
I want to see what I have to work with here.
You're working with hungry people.
Carry me to the castle and make lunch, slave.
And after that? [chuckling]
After that we'll see what's in the armory that might suit you better.
And then, we may talk about simple combat spell-casting.
But first, I will magic you greedy children up some food.
Ugh. I'll be glad when I've finished that.
Are you really an ale drinker, young magician?
I'm developing a taste for the rougher things in life.
- She means me. - I mean him.
Well, a rounded education is a good thing.
The stories I could tell you about my days in the slums of Paris.
And that one marvelous night when I invented a drink.
I made it from anise, fennel, and the mystical wormwood root.
But nobody remembers because we woke up three weeks later somewhere in Latvia,
stark naked and utterly drenched in...
Saint Germain. The priory. What's your interest?
Hmm.
I do not trust people, generally.
But Speakers are honorable...
and the pedigree of the house of Belmont speaks for itself.
Have you heard...
of the Infinite Corridor?
- Yes. - Yes.
Well, I suppose this was the wrong company
to unveil ancient occult secrets in and expect to be impressive.
Our remembered stories conflict.
Some say the Infinite Corridor is a pathway to other worlds.
Others say it's a portal to Hell.
Only one of my family ever encountered it.
She said it was like a door into countless levels of Hell.
It was in a castle in Livonia. She knocked the castle down.
Mm. Your family tends to be destructively direct.
But you're both right.
The Infinite Corridor is a route to many other worlds.
It's certainly possible that one of them is Hell.
However, in the experience of those of my particular expertise,
it is in fact a system of doors to other lands,
separated from our own by space and time.
A long time ago...
I lost someone very dear to me
in the Infinite Corridor.
And I have been looking for a way back in ever since.
Portals to the Corridor are few and far between,
and they drift in and out of existence.
There is a portal to the Infinite Corridor under the priory.
They haven't let me go down there yet, but I know it's there.
- Lithomancy. - Indeed.
The jewel has guided me here to the portal.
Of course, if I'd known there was a portal under a pile of stones in fucking Livonia,
I wouldn't have had to traipse across
the entire gaping gray asshole of Eastern Europe
to trick my way past a gaggle of mad monks, would I?
Ugh! Christ alive, do you people shit on the grapes?
- Who did you lose? - Does it matter?
Now you know why I'm here and what I'm about,
and it has nothing to do with random alchemical signs
or Sala's crazy horde.
All right, all right, calm down.
You have no enemies at this table.
Just stay out of my way. That's all I ask.
You don't want to see it, do you?
See what?
A night creature landed on a priory
that has a portal to other worlds under it.
What if that was not an accident?
[Trevor] What if they never left?
Well...
Shit.
[theme music playing]