Blood Ritual 2024
“A superior example of the vampire genre…  A pleasure from start to finish…”  Time Out

Blood Ritual

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The descendants of Elizabeth Bathory, a bloodthirsty Hungarian countess who terrorized the Carpathian countryside in the 16th century, are determined that her line shall not die. Only Catherine, a paternal descendant, has tried to escape the terrible legacy that she has grown up fearing and detesting.

Eventually, Catherine enters a convent, hoping to find the peace she has long desired. But when she meets journalist Michael Devlin, she is drawn back to the ancient castle in the Carpathian mountains. For Michael, who is haunted by the last thing he saw before losing his sight, is determined to discover the truth about the line of the infamous Elizabeth Bathory…

The lady that history had named The Blood Countess.

In the study, which was Catherine’s father’s province, hung a small, rather dark portrait.  It showed, in one corner, the single letter ‘E’ constructed out of three cruel teeth embedded in a vertical jawbone, and encircled with a coiling dragon.  It was no odder, no grislier than a great many emblems and escutcheons that belonged to any one of the once-noble families who lived out here.  But to Catherine it was disquieting.

The girl in the portrait was young and slender, with extraordinary white skin and huge, burnt-pitch eyes.  Her hair was drawn back beneath what Catherine thought was called a jewelled snood, but it looked to be silky black.  Catherine spent hours standing beneath the portrait, looking into the dark eyes, trying to decide whether there was cruelty or passion in them, or whether there was simply a dark, cold void.

The portrait was anonymous, but the lady had a name; she had been called Elizabeth.

But Catherine’s father, asked a carefully casual question, said she had been known in her day as Die Blutgräfin.

The Blood Countess.