Several years ago, I would not have believed that the dead could walk. What is impossible today may be commonplace tomorrow. 
- — Sherlock Holmes
Victorian Undead: Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula #3 is an issue of the series Victorian Undead: Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula (Volume 1) with a cover date of March, 2011. It was published on January 12, 2011.
Synopsis for the 1st Story
After disposing of the vampire plague carriers, Holmes, Watson and their new associates Professor Van Helsing, Dr. John Seward, Quincey Morris, and Jonathan Harker settle back in 221B Baker Street where Holmes and Watson learn of their acquaintances' connection to Dracula.
Months ago, Harker was sent to visit Count Dracula in his remote Transylvanian castle to provide legal advice with regards to a number of properties he'd purchased in England. It was there that he slowly started to realize the true nature of the Count and his vampiric brides. He was kept alive to finalise the legalities of his purchase before being planned to be disposed of in which Harker barely escaped and found refuge in a convent, where he was founded by his fiancee Mina Murray and married her.
It was then that Dracula traveled to Exeter on the Demeter and somehow preyed on Mina's friend Lucy Westenra, who was being courted by Morris, Seward, and Arthur Holmwood. Seward, in desperation over Lucy's health, went to his friend and mentor Professor Van Helsing for help, who quickly understood Lucy's transformation into a vampire. After Lucy's death, Van Helsing proposed in staking her before she was resurrected; however, Holmwood, also known as Lord Godalming, sided with Dracula and warned him. Lucy escaped her preemptive death, and because of the men's absence, Dracula took Mina as one of his own kin. Mina, who known about Dracula's brides and Lucy's condition, chose suicide than becoming Dracula's thrall by exposing herself in sunlight and was turned to ashes in her husband's arms.
Holmes then asks Van Helsing what he knows about Dracula. The professor explains of the Count's history: he was a voivode, who served as a Romanian knight of the Sacred Order of the Dragon, waged war against the Muslim Ottoman Turks during the 15th century, and was known for his brutality such as impaling his enemies among others; all prior to becoming a vampire, in which how he became to be varies in different accounts. After learning this, Holmes then raises several questions: how did Dracula, in his remote bastion, know of a firm of provincial Exeter solicitors, turning Lucy Westenra for coincidentally being friends with Mina, and most importantly of Arthur Holmwood's role in this. Mycroft Holmes then suddenly arrives and answers to his brother's questions: Holmwood had worked for him as an agent of the Diogenes Club.
Mycroft explains that after the rise and fall of Professor Moriarty's revenants, certain quarters of his government decided that Britain should have its own arsenal of the supernatural. Agents of the empire, Holmwood among them, were then dispatched worldwide to lead on myths, legends, and folktales: all of which proved ultimately fruitless except for Dracula. Holmwood had traveled to Dracula's castle and aligned himself with the vampire in which he suggested to Dracula of using Harker's employers and Exeter, a distant city, to draw less attention. As of now, with the plague destroyed Holmwood hadn't been seen since his visit to Buckingham Palace where he audaciously introduced Dracula to Queen Victoria; in which Van Helsing is left shocked and alarmed to hear of this as according to vampire lore, vampires cannot enter any place uninvited, and Dracula's invitation into the Palace would allow him to return there whenever he wish.
Sherlock then questions about vampires' relationship with daylight, in which Van Helsing clarifies that vampires do exist in daylight but are actually weakened by it. Sherlock then sees this as the right time to move against Dracula and request Watson to bring out the current city maps and then pinpointing the known locations of the boxes that were shipped to based on Harker's notes and Billington's manifest. Mycroft deduce the likely location of Dracula's sanctuary based on the Count's strategic mindset: Shooters Hill.
Meanwhile, Holmwood argues with Dracula over their plans to take over Britain. Holmwood voiced his disapproval of the Count's rash actions in using plague carriers, in which Holmwood wasn't even previously aware of the crates' actual contents, and therefore ruining their original plans of enthralling Victoria's progeny through a serum made from Dracula's blood. Furthermore, they are now exposed to Sherlock Holmes and his brother. Dracula, having had enough of Holmwood, grasp him by the neck and tells Holmwood that he is no use to him anymore in which he have Lucy feast on her former suitor.
Holmes and his allies later arrive at Shooters Hill and enter Severndroog Castle. They have not alerted the authorities of Dracula's location, as Holmes feared that some members of the government would seek to capture Dracula alive and exploit him. They find Holmwood's corpse in which Watson examines his body and finds it exsanguinated. Holmwood's neck has been savaged instead of a fanged bite as according to Van Helsing. They then find three boxes containing emptied coffins in which they realise they belong to Dracula's brides - the Count had brought them along on the Demeter which explains the ship's crew "disappearance." Unknown to the men, Dracula's brides and Lucy are looking down at them from above the ceiling.
Appearing in the 1st Story
Featured Characters:
- Sherlock Holmes
- Dr. John Watson
- Professor Abraham Van Helsing (Flashback and main story)
- Dr. John Seward (Flashback and main story)
- Quincey Morris (Flashback and main story)
- Jonathan Harker (Flashback and main story)
Supporting Characters:
- Mycroft Holmes
Antagonists:
- Vlad Dracula (Flashback and main story)
- Lucy Westenra (Flashback and main story)
- Brides of Dracula (Flashback and main story)
- Lord Godalming (Flashback and main story) (Dies)
Other Characters:
- Mrs. Hudson
- Mina Murray (Dies in flashback)
Locations:
- London
- 221B Baker Street
- Severndroog Castle, Shooters Hill
Items:
- None
Vehicles:
- None
Notes
- This is the first issue of the series to be publish under the DC banner.
Trivia
- According to Van Helsing, one story of how Dracula became a vampire is that he had suffered "some great loss" for which he blamed and renounced God. This is a reference to Dracula's depiction in the 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula in which Dracula found his wife Elisabeta having committed suicide (after his enemies falsely reported his death) and was enraged when a priest told him that his wife's soul is damned to Hell for committing suicide, causing him to renounce God and drinking blood from a stone cross that turned him into a vampire.
- Holmwood states to Dracula that Queen Victoria believes "family will never war on family, so encouraged these close unions!" Queen Victoria, in response to the bloody aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, had believed that it was possible to help foster peace and stability in Europe through marital alliances of her children and grandchildren. However, the alliances failed as the Queen never lived to see her descendants leading their nations to war against each other in the First World War.
See Also