Last week on Houdini & Doyle, Doyle was seemingly saved by mental telepathy. This week, Houdini has to discourage his belief in the supernatural when Bram Stoker appears to be a vampire.
A man exits a butcher shop carrying a bottle of blood. He’s being followed. He runs and pounds on Doyle’s door. Doyle greets Bram, who stumbles inside and has a scotch. Doyle thinks he’s overreacting. He brings Bram home, only to find his maid staked through the heart.
Stratton interrogates Bram. He says if she’s looking for a suspect she should find the man that followed him. The man once broke into Bram’s home and threatened his life if he didn’t stop the publication of Dracula. Doyle suggests asking the publisher to hold off printing the softcovers of Bram’s book to keep him safe. Houdini has a better idea.
Houdini puts Bram up in his hotel and Doyle hires a bodyguard to stand outside the room. Houdini’s mother is disturbed by his presence.
Stratton hands Houdini and Doyle the death threat she received. She says no fingerprints were found on the stake, but the housekeeper wrote a nasty note about Bram. Stratton thinks he used Doyle as an alibi.
Doyle goes to a vampire expert at the local University. The expert tells him about people who believe themselves to be vampires and the crazy cult that is dedicated to killing them.
Stratton finds that Bram’s maid was paid 10 times more than any of his other workers. She believes it was blackmail over an affair. Doyle disagrees.
Doyle, Houdini and Stratton go to a cemetery to find people who believe they’re vampires. The “vampires” deny any knowledge of the crime, but claim Bram is one of them.
Houdini’s mother sees Bram leave the building under mysterious circumstances. She later notifies her son who questions the bodyguard. He didn’t see Bram leave. Houdini orders the door opened and finds Bram inside. He claims he never left.
Doyle lights a candle and finds one of the “vampires” in his study. She tells him that the maid was killed by a vampire hunter named McBride. She says it’s important the police find him before the others do.
Stratton inquires why Bram paid his maid so well. He says she discovered something private about him and threatened to reveal it. He won’t say what it was. Could he have killed her to keep her quiet?
Houdini’s mother seems off. She’s homesick and dreamt that Houdini left her forever. She fears something terrible will happen. Houdini offers to take her home to visit family.
Stratton informs Doyle and Houdini that assassinations happened all over the world during times that her husband was traveling. He was within 50 miles of each assassination event. He was trying to expose them. She thinks he was a government agent. Is she right? Or was his reason for travel more sinister?
Stratton and the guys enter McBride’s home and find various wooden stakes, hammers and guns. They call out his name but find him dead with a bite mark on his neck.
Doyle gets a note that Bram is missing. Could he have killed McBride? Houdini knows where to start looking for him. They go down the street Houdini’s mother saw Bram turn down the night before. They find a broken window in a butcher shop. Bram is inside drinking blood from a teacup.
Bram informs our trio that he’s anemic. Drinking cow’s blood helps. He says his “fangs” are just teeth that went bad in recent years. He’s sensitive to sunlight but proves he’s not a vampire by standing in the light. Doyle realizes Bram has end-stage syphilis.
Smoke begins filtering into Bram’s cell. What is it?
Doyle believes McBride killed Bram’s housekeeper and the “vampires” from the cemetery killed McBride in retaliation. Gudgett comes in and tells the group that Bram has escaped.
Houdini claims he escaped from the same cell two years ago, and it’s not something Bram could have achieved on his own. Doyle recalls the “vampires” saying they know how to protect their own. They should search the cemetery.
Our trio split up to search the graveyard. Houdini, who comes upon a dead body, is knocked unconscious with a shovel.
Doyle finds Bram sealed in a tomb and releases him. Bram claims a woman took him from the jail and encased him there. He says the woman was alone. The other vampires fled because they feared they would be accused of McBride’s murder.
Stratton hears footsteps. She calls to Houdini, but there’s no answer. The vampire expert from the University appears. He’s there to kill Bram. He’s a vampire hunter. He claims McBride killed the maid. He then killed McBride to punish him for being overzealous. That’s the pot calling the kettle black. The hunter wants to exchange Bram’s whereabouts for Houdini’s, who wound up being buried alive.
Bram runs from the tomb and the hunter gives chase. Doyle tells Stratton to find Houdini while he chases after Bram’s attacker. Houdini whistles and Stratton hears it. He pulls out his money clip and starts to break through the boards of the coffin. Stratton finds the loose soil and digs.
The hunter grabs Doyle from behind and threatens to slit his throat if Bram doesn’t show himself. Doyle fights him off but is knocked against a metal pipe. Bram fights the hunter and when Doyle comes to, he finds someone burning in the cremation oven.
Stratton calls to Doyle who helps her dig up Houdini. They pull him from the earth. Bram appears and says the hunter fell into the fire while he ended up unconscious behind a crate.
Houdini walks Stratton home. They find her gate ajar and inside, someone ransacked her home. Her husband’s belongings are missing, leaving Stratton visibly shaken. Houdini offers to help her follow a lead in Buffalo when he brings his mother back to New York.
When Houdini gets home, he sees that his mother has passed away.
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