The Violet Hour - Before the Beginning - Phisto

            I came into my physical form, five hundred years earlier as Count Ferenc Nadasdy.  I was betrothed to a rare woman, Erzsebet Bathory, who matched my tastes for cruelty and was blessed with good lineage as the cousin to the Prince of Transylvania.  The Turkish forces of the Ottoman Empire had overrun the region. They and the Austrians fought throughout my distinguished military career for the blood drenched land that was not only bloodied from battle, but from Erzsebet’s fascination with torturing young female servants and bathing in their blood.  She was later known as the Queen of Blood.  I called her companion.  Though our tale is much more complicated than that.  Much.

            

           You understand that I was accustomed to having many enemies.  I had begun to thrill with each 

additional foe and spent my life plotting how to destroy them either through a gore-heavy death or 

through political and financial ruin.  Once again, my enemies were now escalating.