Blood Ties

Teaser: Mike and Vicki are having a drink in her office while she solves yet another case, this one involving a runaway accountant. After that, Mike asks Vicki if she would like to go to his son's 8th birthday party with him, since the kid asked for Aunt Vicki. This reveals that Mike and Vicki's relationship was serious enough in the past. Vicki is reluctant however to reopen that door. Meanwhile, in one of the city's parks, a group of homeless people gather around a fire. One of them, Annie, calls to a woman called Francine to remind her that the next day is turkey soup day at the mission. Francine goes away mumbling against the soup, always too salty, and some kind of growling creature follows her. She reaches her own camp and tries to reignite the fire when she is attacked, her screams only audible to the other homeless, who shrink in terror.


Title Sequence


Annie is in Vicki's office waiting for her while driving Coreen mad with her habit of touching and commenting on any object she sees. Her remarks reveal that Annie is indeed a sharp cookie despite her slightly erratic behaviour. Vicki recognises her as Annie Howard, the Panhandle Queen, from her days on patrol and Annie expresses her esteem for the decent treatment that they received from her. She then explains that she needs an investigator because several of his friends, at least four of them, have been killed. The first ones just disappeared, but they could hear Francine's screams last night and the police are not going to listen to them. She gives her almost a hundred dollars in coins and small bills for her services, not even half a day rate, but Vicki accepts the case. In the streets that morning, Mike and Det. Graham are investigating the murder of a young prostitute whose body was dumped on the sidewalk in a poor neighbourhood. She has no blood left on her body, just like the Norman Bridewell murders, but the neck wound is a fang puncture not a claw and Mike knows that Norman could not have done it since Astaroth took him. A vampire could however, and Mike is now familiar with this kind of wound from his Fitzroy research. Among the gawkers, Mike remarks someone who looks too upscale for the neighbourhood but disappears before they can question him. Still, he probably would appear in the crime scene spectators' photos.


Vicki goes to the homeless camp to look for clues concerning Francine's disappearance but not much is left since others have already helped themselves to her best possessions. Annie also insists that even if Francine was not a people person, that is why she slept apart, neither she nor the others had any enemies who would actually kill them. Vicki notices drag marks near Francine's tent and follows them to the entrance of a drainage tunnel where they find blood and Francine's bag. Meanwhile, Superintendent Crowley is putting pressure on Mike to solve the murder case fast and Mike is trying to justify to Crowley his interest in old cold cases with fang punctures, linking them to the new case. Crowley is not convinced. Vicki is in Henry's apartment, annoying him until he agrees to stop working on his novel, even if the deadline is approaching, and go inspecting sewers in search of what happened to Francine while she brings Annie and her findings to Mike. He is not too interested, but the recollection of his wanderings in Europe after the Great War reminds him of what it is to have nothing and he accepts.


Vicki and Annie talk to Mike, who is not exactly cooperative. He knows how difficult is to have coherent testimonies from homeless people, especially since most of them are on medication, and Crowley will not be pleased if he helps Vicki while there is an urgent case on the table. He finally makes an agreement with Vicki: He will help with her case if Vicki helps him with his. He shows her the victim's wounds and Vicki immediately tells him that Henry did not do it because he does not kill people to feed. Mike asks how she can be so sure, did she ask him? Then he guesses that Henry has drunk from her and gets angry while Vicki tries to explain. Finally Mike tells her that if she is so sure of Henry's innocence, she would not mind asking him to discuss this murder with him. Meanwhile, Henry goes to the sewer entrance and feels the presence of something, the thing that killed Francine, growling and looking at him from the woods. A torch comes close to his face and he makes the person stop: It is a man called Peter, of American Indian background who is there hunting a Windigo. He claims that the Windigo is the creature that killed Francine and the others to eat them. Henry brings him to Vicki's office where he explains that he lost his father to the Windigo as a child, surviving only because he hid by the fire. Since then, he has been half hunting half running from the creature. Once the Windigo sees you, it will hunt you forever. He fears that the Windigo is here because of him and that he is responsible for the deaths of Francine and the others. He wants to end it. Vicki advises him to go to a shelter for now and then discusses with Henry what to do. Henry is not keen on organising the hunting party personally and suggests letting the police do it, to which Vicki replies that she will convince Mike to do it if Henry helps with the other murder.


The next morning the man that was seen at the murder scene visits the police station to talk to Mike. He introduces himself as Javier Mendoza and tells him that he is hunting for the woman's killer and that he has a suspect: Henry Fitzroy. That certainly has Mike's attention. In Vicki's office, Coreen is researching Windigo legends and the two main variants: a cannibalistic human, usually because he or she is somehow possessed, or the monster version. This looks like the second, and it is very dangerous. Back at the station, Mendoza tells Mike that he is an officer of Cannon Law that captures and neutralises vampires so that they become harmless and their souls can be saved. He states that normal law cannot deal with abominations like Henry. Mendoza shows Mike pictures of a dead woman, Delphine Guillaume, a former lover of Henry, who was seduced and killed by him sixty years ago. He also gives Mike pictures of Henry, Vicki and Mike together and, putting both sets of pictures side by side, tells him that he should think about helping him. Mike goes that night to see Henry and Vicki and to talk about the case, and begins antagonising Henry right away. Then he shows him all the pictures of the cold cases that he has found and finishes with the picture of Delphine, whom Henry recognises immediately. Vicki tries to protest about the ambushing Mike is doing on Henry, but Henry admits that he killed Delphine and then, if Mike thinks that he still can arrest him for that, he should do it or leave.


Henry and Vicki drive to the homeless campsite to explore the sewers together. Henry is still angry at Vicki, even after she insists that she did not know what Mike planned to do or that she ever encouraged Mike to question Henry on her behalf. She asks about Delphine but Henry does not answer and when she asks him why he did deny knowing the other victims, he tells her that perhaps he did know them. As they approach the sewer, the Windigo watches from the forest. Both Vicki and Henry are seen as brightly coloured shapes, Vicki as human in deep red and Henry as vampire in golden brown. Inside, Peter joins them in the hunt and the three of them follow Henry's nose to a place where they find many human bones and Francine's jacket. The Windigo attacks from behind and Henry faces him first. Peter pushes Vicki away and goes towards the monster, but the Windigo bites Henry and throws him to the floor. As Peter sidesteps, the torch that he is carrying fells to the ground and extinguishes itself. The Windigo then takes Peter before either Vicki or Henry can prevent it. They both go outside and Vicki sees that Henry is badly wounded and needs blood to heal, but when she offers her wrist Henry tells her that the last time was an accident and that he will drop her on his way downtown.


As the night progresses, Mike works late creating a timeline for what he considers Henry's murders, finishing it with Mendoza's picture of Henry and Vicki and himself. Vicki stares at the skyline from her window, thinking. Henry feeds from an unknown and willing woman before returning to his apartment and closing the blinders to hide the first light of dawn.


The next morning, Det. Lam brings some coffee to a red-eyed Mike, who asks her what would she do if she found out the identity of a serial killer and could not arrest him, but knew of another agency that could do something to stop the murderer because it does not play by the same rules as the police. Det. Lam tells him that she believes in due process but, if the case was bad enough, she would nevertheless hand it to the other agency. No more killings, she says, and Mike echoes. Vicki and Coreen are still researching on the Windigo mythology trying to find a way to kill it. If Peter was right, the Windigo will now come after both Henry and Vicki unless they stop him. Coreen suggests silver bullets, since many cultures believe that silver has purification properties, but this sounds to Vicki like a crossover from werewolves. Coreen also finds legends that say that the Windigo's heart is made of ice and that Windigos could be killed by hot water or fire. Vicki remembers that the Windigo did not take Peter as a child because he remained by the fire and it only took him last night after the torch was put out. And they usually live on Northern regions: The Windigo is afraid of heat and fire. Coreen offers her homemade flamethrower for the hunt.


Vicki goes to Henry's that night to ask him to go with her to the sewers again, but he would rather not and advises her not to go either. Vicki insists that nobody else would help and besides, the Windigo has probably marked them both for food already, so it is better to attack first. Mike meets with Mendoza and asks him how many people has Henry killed, to which Mendoza does not answer directly but points out that Henry is five hundred-years old and feeds every night. He then vividly explains Henry's pattern of seducing women, feeding on them and, when they fall in love with him, killing them. It all fits like a glove with Mike's fears for Vicki and Mendoza's passionate rhetoric seem to be switching off the grey cells in charge of questioning statements. Mike asks what he can do and Mendoza explains that he needs someone whom Henry trusts enough to let him get close and place a device, the Iluminación del Sol, on his chest. It looks like a sun with a human face and eight rays spreading out. The device will drain Henry of his power and Mendoza will be able to control him.


Vicki tests the flamethrower before she and Henry re-enter the sewers. Henry is still angry with Vicki, unsure if she still trusts him or if he can trust her. Vicki affirms that she does not judge him, but Henry suspects that she does not want to face the reality of what he is, so he gives it to her brutally: He drinks blood or he dies. He knew exactly what he was doing when he chose to renounce to his former life and become what he is and, every time he drinks, he chooses to live. In another place, Mendoza is taking another Iluminación del Sol from the chest of a female vampire chained to the ceiling. She is Delphine. Mendoza seems to have obtained all that he wanted from her but he is not going to let her go, as he apparently promised, but he is going to let the sun kill her. She curses at him while he, looking pleased, drinks from an antique cup and thanks her for giving him the vampire he had been looking for: Henry. Back in the sewers, Henry tells Vicki about Delphine and that he turned her into a vampire, at her request. He further makes clear to Vicki that he has no qualms about taking lives, not only because he is a vampire, but because he was born the son of a king and was trained in warfare since childhood. He has killed for Country and Honour and also just instinctively, until he learned to control his impulses.


In Vicki's office, Mike startles Coreen as she was leaving and asks her if Vicki and Henry are in sewers together. Coreen confirms it and makes a joke about Henry that makes Mike realise that she knows what Henry is and does not care. Worse, she likes him that way all the better. She gives him the silver bullets that she made with his gun in mind (neither Vicki nor Henry carry one) and tells him to use them on the Windigo. In the sewer, Vicki and Henry track the Windigo to his lair but the flamethrower fails and despite managing to electrocute it, it is still coming at them. In the last minute, Mike appears and shoots at him with the silver bullets, making it vanish. Vicki and Henry are glad, but then Mike takes the device and put it against Henry's chest. Henry screams as the eight rays dig inside him, and then collapses on the floor, unable to move without having the sun rays squeeze his heart. Mendoza appears and it is clear that he and Henry have met before. He points a gun at Vicki and forces her and Mike, who claims that this was not part of their deal, to lock themselves behind a grid while he drags Henry away. Mike tries to apologise, but Vicki is not willing to listen.