Blood Ties

Teaser: Night in Toronto. A woman is talking on the phone to her mother about a failed blind date where the man tried to read the menu to her. Somewhere in the city, another man is in a room with a pentagram and candles on the floor, cutting into his palm and dripping blood on the symbols while speaking in Latin. A noise like winged animals crying comes form the other side of the room and the man accepts to grant the unseen creature what it wants in exchange for what he himself desires. The creature flies away. Back in the streets, a young man is on the phone making plans for a date with a friend. He sees the figure of a man with a cape coming towards him. He thinks that it is cool until the figure savagely attacks him, pins him to the floor and bites him. Across the street, the woman sees the attack and crosses over. The figure flees. She takes a pocket lamp and a retractable stick from her bag and checks the man, but it is too late. She follows the figure into an alley but it turns out to be a dead end and the figure has disappeared.



Title Sequence



The police have arrived to the crime scene and detectives Cellucci and Graham interrogate the woman as witness. It turns out that the woman, Vicki Nelson, is an ex-police detective and former partner of Cellucci. The interrogatory turns into a spat between Cellucci and Vicki, where he berates her for putting herself in danger when she cannot see well, second reference to Vicki's eyesight problem. Detective Graham approaches Cellucci and tells him that the body was savaged by claws and that the blood is missing, just like another recent murder. Vicki tries to find more information about it but Cellucci brushes her off.



The next day Vicki is working on another case at her detective agency when a young Goth woman, Coreen Fennel, appears and asks her to take the case of the murdered man from the day before. Coreen was his girlfriend and the person with whom he was talking on the phone during the attack. She wants Vicki's help proving that the murderer was a vampire. Vicki reluctantly takes the case, more to clear her own doubts about what she saw than because of her belief in vampires. That night, a man and a woman are making love. The woman turns her head and we can see the fang marks on her neck. Once they are finished, she wants to stay longer but the eyes of the man turn black and in a deep voice he insinuates to her that she should leave since she has a lot to do next day. The woman shakes her head as if coming out of a trance and does exactly as instructed. As the man, identified as Mr Fitzroy, leaves his apartment the doorman comments on the "Vampire" case from the news, to which the man reacts in anger stating that vampires are a myth.



Vicki is at the murder scene photographing a pentagram-like symbol on the wall and following a small blood trail. She scrapes some blood from deep inside a small crack on the Alley wall. Fitzroy arrives to the scene and feels the air. He finds the symbol and has a flashback to a room where robed and hooded people are chanting in Latin while holding him. Vicki interrupts him and he disappears before she can ask him any questions. Vicki then pursues the investigation in the morgue where the coroner, Dr. Mohadevan, explains that the teeth and claw marks from both victims are of unknown origin, neither human nor animal and that all the blood was carried away somehow.



The next day at the university bar Coreen is cleaning tables while the young man who summoned the creature, identified as Norman Bridewell, sits nearby talking to his friends. He claims that he is too busy to go out with them and that his life is soon going to change. He is going to get money, fancy clothes, expensive cars and an actual girlfriend. When Coreen approaches, he gives her a big tip and stares at her. That night, while Fitzroy awakens from a dead-like sleep and Cellucci calls Vicki to arrange a date to discuss the case, Norman summons the creature, a human-like demon, and demands the luxuries that he mentioned before. Norman agrees that the blood price that the demon demands can be taken and the demon smiles cravenly and turns into a flock of bats that fly away. It would later attack and kill a TV executive woman in parking lot.



Vicki and Cellucci chat amicably over take-away Chinese. Cellucci asks Vicki to return to the police force instead of trying to scrap a meagre living as a P.I. Even if her eyes are getting bad, her disability can be controlled but Vicki answers angrily that returning would mean that she had to accept a desk job and that she wants no pity from him. They decide to discuss the case instead of arguing. Cellucci tries to give a rational explanation for the oddities of the case and Vicki presents her client's Vampire theory. That sends them arguing again until Vicki admits that she does not believe it either. They go for some beer and as they say goodbye they kiss passionately, revealing that they were involved at some point in the past.



Vicki goes to the night club where the victim worked as a bartender to investigate. Fitzroy follows the same track and they both meet in the club. Fitzroy recognises Vicki and tries to hypnotise her into telling him what she is searching for. To his surprise and interest, she is immune to his persuasion. Both Vicki and Fitzroy find out separately that the victim had a quarrel with some tough guys the night he died and Fitzroy reaches them first. They go outside but after a few sentences Fitzroy realises that the though guys, while unpleasant, are not stepped in evil. They try to rough him up before he leaves but Fitzroy bites one of them and hypnotises the other into forgetting what he saw. Vicki comes at that moment out of the club looking for Fitzroy and the tough guys only to find them alone and confused. Dawn approaches and Fitzroy rushes to his apartment but one of his hands gets burned by sunlight, arousing the suspicions of the doorman.



The next day, Cellucci and Graham go to the crime scene of the third murder and interrogate a Hot Dog vendor who thinks that he saw bats coalescing into the figure of a man wearing a cape. Norman, the demon conjurer, is now the owner of a red Porsche and tries to pick up a young woman, who rejects him. He picks up the apple that she was eating and walks away. Vicki goes to see Dr. Mohadevan and presents the Vampire theory to her and, to her surprise, the Dr. seems to accept its possibility. There are samples of saliva from the victims' wounds that are neither human nor animal and there is a fragment of something like a bat wing from the third crime scene also neither human nor animal. These findings bring Vicki back to Cellucci to ask about the progress of the investigation, but they end up arguing again.



That night, Fitzroy arrives to the third crime scene and finds another symbol etched on a column and has another flashback to the ritual of the past, where he hears a distorted voice calling him "nightwalker" and ordering him to finish the ritual and to gain the power. Meanwhile Vicki is marking in a map the crime scenes and realises that they could mark the first three points of a pentagram. Coreen, more experienced in occult things, confirms on the phone that a pentagram is a power symbol. Vicki calls Cellucci to tell him that has an idea about where the next crime will occur. Fitzroy is on the same track.



Norman summons the demon and offers it the young woman that rejected him this morning in exchange for the love of Coreen. The demon tells him that it has not the power of love but if Norman helps it to complete the ritual, it will summon a more powerful demon that can make it happen. Norman agrees to anything while the demon pretends to bow to him in submission. It then flies away in search of its victim. At the fourth location, a park, both Fitzroy and Vicki are searching. The demon finds the young woman and slashes her throat after she cries out. Fitzroy and Vicki hear the cry and run towards it. Fitzroy arrives first and fights the demon off before it can take the young woman's blood. The demon recognises Fitzroy and tells him that his master is coming for him before flying away. While Fitzroy checks on the dead young woman and takes something from her hand, Vicki arrives and tries to detain Fitzroy. Fitzroy accidentally knocks her out and, as the police arrive, is forced to carry her away.