Blade

Eric Brooks’s eyes opened for a moment, and he wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or not. But if this was just a dream, at least it was finally a good one after what seemed like an eternity of nightmares. And if it was really happening, well, it was almost too good to be true. There, in front of him, stood one of the members of the Fantastic Four, Reed Richards. And what Reed said next, Eric would never forget.

“Dracula’s gone, Blade. You’re free now.”

To be fair, Blade knew he’d never truly be free. He’d been cursed since the moment he was born with a hunger that only a fellow vampire could understand. But if Reed was right, if Dracula had truly been defeated, then at least Blade could finally rest easy. And that was a good thing, because resting was about all that he had the strength to do these days.

“Bout… damn time…” Blade whispered as his heavy eyelids shut once again. But the darkness he faded into soon gave way to a rapid series of images replaying the events that had brought him to this moment.

He didn’t know if it was days, weeks, or months ago, but it all began when Blade heard a terrifying rumor that Dracula was planning to take over New York City and transform it into his Empire of Eternal Night. As a vampire-human hybrid known as a Daywalker, Blade had devoted his entire life to bringing down the very worst members of his fanged “family”… and there were none worse than Dracula.

Blade went on a secret mission, looking for leads about a mysterious ally who had been helping raise Dracula to this unexpected position of power. When his quest finally led him to New York, however, it wasn’t long before Blade became Dracula’s Most Wanted. Blade managed to carve his way through hundreds of undead soldiers, but he was no match for Dracula himself, whose powers had been enhanced by a crystal called Chronovium. Even with Spider-Man and the Human Torch backing him up, Blade was still overpowered when the vampiric villain transformed into a giant bat and dragged the Daywalker to his doom.

Since that day, Blade had been kept in captivity, subjected to dark magic experiments and relentlessly drained of blood by Dracula. The lord of the vampires must’ve known that his Empire of Eternal Night wasn’t quite as “eternal” as the name suggested, so he was looking for ways to use Blade’s unique hybrid blood to turn all of his minions into Daywalkers in preparation for the time when the sun finally rose over the city once more. The process left Blade gravely wounded. He faded in and out of consciousness, only snapping back to reality when the pain was too much for his weakened body to bear.

So it wasn’t easy for Blade to know if Reed Richards was actually here to rescue him after all this time, or if it was just his mind playing tricks on him. After all, he figured he had lost his grip on reality quite a while ago, back when he started having deep conversations with a giant talking squirrel.

But when Blade felt his weary body being hoisted onto the Thing’s rocky shoulders, he knew that he was finally safe. And while he would have given anything to have been the one who drove a stake straight through Dracula’s black heart, he knew he had to focus on regaining his strength for whatever battle came next. Because, if he had learned anything over the years, it was that villains can die, but evil never does.

After taking Blade back to the Baxter Building, Reed quickly realized that his friend’s wounds were far too severe for him to treat alone. Fortunately, he had allies in the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda who were far better suited to help Blade heal, body and soul.

Blade was transported across the stars via one of Reed’s interdimensional bridges, arriving in the palace of King T’Challa and his sister, Shuri. There, it was hoped that he could safely rest and recover while his fellow heroes took on their next challenge — protecting a living island called Krakoa from an invasion by Ultron and his mechanical minions.

While the heroes were busy fending off the android invasion, Shuri decided to try an unorthodox treatment to restore Blade’s health. She had developed an experimental serum that used an extract of Wakanda’s sacred Heart-Shaped Herb — the same precious plant that gave the Black Panther his uncanny abilities. As it turned out, T’Challa had become a quasi-king of the vampires after falling to Dracula, so Shuri was already working on a more readily accessible cure for him. She thought this serum might be the key to healing this unusual outsider as well, even though doing so defied almost every imperial tradition she was raised to respect. The Heart-Shaped Herb was usually reserved for the Black Panther alone… but desperate times called for desperate measures.

As soon as the serum passed his lips, Blade began to have visions far stranger than giant squirrels. In his comatose mind, he found himself walking through an endless field of purple, glowing Heart-Shaped Herbs. It instantly reminded him of the stories that T’Challa had told him about Djalia, the Wakandan ancestral plane. Suddenly, a strong gust of wind blew the leaves into the sky, where they formed a woman swirling with red and black energy, a spiral adorning her forehead. But a moment later, she morphed into an enormous likeness of Bast, Wakanda’s beloved Panther Goddess. Showing respect to his divine host, Eric knelt and offered his thanks to Bast. But the Panther Goddess did not return the kindness. Instead, Bast lunged forward and clawed at Blade.

Deep inside, Blade could immediately feel what Bast was doing. She was not assaulting him, but rather his vampiric side. He had heard legends that the Heart-Shaped Herb could cure vampirism, but he had never been able to get his hands on any samples of the plant to see if there was truth to the story. But now, as this manifestation of Bast attempted to rip the infection from his body and devour it whole, he had reason to believe the rumors were true.

As much as he wanted to be free from his life-long curse, Blade refused to let go. He truly believed that he still needed his vampiric powers to help protect the world from those like Dracula who would attempt to spread their evil and harm innocents. If it meant he had to fight a Panther Goddess to remain a Daywalker, then that was exactly what he would do.

Blade leapt out of the way of Bast’s razor-sharp claws, narrowly dodging the beast’s ferocious jaws as they snapped in his direction. He reached for the sword sheathed on his back, but found that nothing was there. He quickly surmised that physical possessions must be unable to travel to this spiritual realm, which meant that the man called Blade was without the very weapon that gave him his name. As he scrambled to come up with a contingency plan on the fly, Eric let his guard down for a split second. That was enough for his feline foe to make her move.

Bast used the momentary distraction to strike a devastating blow, raking her claws across the Daywalker’s back. Blade howled in pain as he fell forward, landing on his hands and knees. The blood that poured from his wounds puddled on the fertile soil of the ancestral plane. For a moment, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get back up… but then he saw a reflection of a familiar face in the crimson pool. It was the face of his mother. When his blood mixed with the soil of this sacred realm, could it have summoned her soul? Eric didn’t know for sure, but what he did know was that he had to keep fighting. For her.

When the reflection of his mother held something out to him, Eric submerged his hand in the red liquid to grab ahold of it. He drew his hand back out and found a gleaming silver sword in his grip. Legend had it that Dracula’s cursed sword was an extension of the darkness in the vampire king’s soul. If that was true, then maybe this new weapon was a manifestation of the light in Eric’s. The parting gift from his mother.

Pulling himself back to his feet, Blade raised his sword, ready to rejoin the battle. Bast snarled at the Daywalker and prepared to pounce on her wounded prey.

“Almost had me there, kitty,” Blade said. “But you ain’t the only one with fangs… or claws…”

Lunging into the air, Blade struck the phantom Bast with his new sword, causing the Panther Goddess’ form to shatter into a million glowing leaves once again. As the leaves settled back to the ground, their brilliant purple hue faded to black. Blade watched as the leaves withered and died at his feet. He knew what this meant. Shuri’s treatment had failed. The Heart-Shaped Herb wouldn’t cure him, but thankfully, it also wouldn’t take away his birthright. He would remain a Daywalker… that is, if the day ever came where he could walk again…

Until then, Shuri would need to devote even more time and resources to healing Blade. And she wouldn’t have long until she would need to wake her sleeping champion, ready or not. There was a new enemy on the horizon: a darkness creeping its way across the galaxy, looking to snuff out every star — including the Vibranium one at the heart of the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda. That was a fate Shuri could not allow.

As Shuri watched Eric peacefully slumber, she gently placed a long, tightly-sealed package next to his body. Reed Richards had delivered it at the same time he had brought Blade to Wakanda. At the time, Reed had simply said that it was a trophy, and that Blade would know what to do with it when he woke up. Little did Shuri realize that the Sword of Dracula was within the case, awaiting its new master. After all of the lives that this cursed sword had taken over the centuries, Reed believed that it was time for it to finally do some good in someone else’s hands. And there were few hands he trusted more than Eric’s.

Shuri stepped away, closing the door behind her in order to give Blade the chance to rest uninterrupted while she formulated a new plan. If she had stayed a moment longer, however, she might have seen a second sword with a shining silver blade start to materialize beside him. Though he was still in a deep slumber, Eric’s mouth curled into a faint smile, showing just the slightest glint of his fangs.