Appearing in "Old Wounds, Fresh Blood"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Blade (Eric Brooks)
- Thieves Guild
- Tante Mattie
- Jean-Luc LeBeau
- Unnamed members
- Carter Ryking
Antagonists:
- Jerome Mouchier (First appearance)
- Francois Chicault (First appearance; dies) (Main story and flashback) (Origin revealed)
- Fontanelle
- Black Womb (First appearance) (Shadow only)
- Cosmo Stephanapoulus
- Mariah Ellenthorpe
- Jack Farley
- ⏴ X-Cutioner (Carl Denti) ⏵
Other Characters:
- Blade's mother (Referenced)
- Tante Mattie's father (Referenced)
- X-Men (Referenced)
- Charles Xavier (Dream)
- Rogue (Only on screen as a static image or video record)
- The Antiquary (Vision or hallucination)
- Commissioner Gordon (Mentioned)
- Assassins Guild
- Bella Donna Boudreaux
- Several unnamed members
- FAO Schwarz (Mentioned) (Topical Reference)
- Elysian Enterprises (Referenced)
- Tome, Antiquary's curator (First appearance)
- Hoard, Antiquary's curator (First appearance)
- Unnamed kids part of the Antiquary's collection
- Mengo Brothers
- Greg Mengo
- Stan Mengo
- The Pig (First appearance) (Shadow only)
- Unnamed agents in the Pig's employ
- Shirow Ishihara (First appearance)
- Zoe Ishihara (First appearance) (Unnamed)
Races and Species:
Locations:
- Earth
- North America
- United States of America
- Louisiana
- New Orleans
- Assassins Guild Headquarters
- Unnamed cemetery
- The Antiquary's Mansion
- Slidell
- Tante Mattie's cabin
- New Orleans
- Nex Mexico
- Alamogordo
- Nuclear Research Facility
- Ryking Institute
- Alamogordo
- Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia (Mentioned)
- New York (Mentioned)
- Louisiana
- United States of America
- Japan (Mentioned)
- North America
- The Old Kingdom (Mentioned) (First appearance)
- Ain Ghazal (Mentioned)
- Sumer (Mentioned)
- Akkad (Mentioned)
- Dilmun (Mentioned)
- Banpo (Mentioned)
Items:
Vehicles:
- Blade's car
Synopsis for "Old Wounds, Fresh Blood"
In a warehouse, a boy has been kidnapped by a strange man with fangs. The man is able to convince the boy to present his neck by saying that he cannot be for terrifying than the boy's life in "the Antiquary's collection". However, before he can bite the boy's neck, he is interrupted by a car crashing through the window, driven by the vampire hunter Blade. They briefly fight, before the stranger throws the boy off a height, counting on Blade's desire to save victims to let him escape.
In Slidell, LA, Gambit has been summoned to a cabin by Lake Ponchartrain, owned by Mattie Baptiste. Since his exile from the guild, Gambit dislikes returning to new Orleans, but Mattie has summoned him for two reasons. The first, both she and Jean-Luc LeBeau have had lucid dreams recently, during which a telepath named "Fontanelle" interrogated their memories about him. The second reason is that the Collection of the Antiquary, a group from Gambit's history, is seeing it's members found dead in the streets with stakes through their hearts, with only one survivor so far - the boy, Jerome Mouchier, who says he was attacked by a vampire, but was saved by a "black bat". Gambit insists that innocent lives must be saved from this vampire, as soon as they can find his name. Jerome says the vampire introduced himself.
The next night, two officers from the Collection of the Antiquary, named Tome & Hoard, are telling the story to Bella Donna Boudreaux. How Francois Chicault, a member of the Assassins Guild who obsessed over the lore and origin of the New Orleans guilds, was bitten by a vampire and survived to stalk the night. How he is now attacking their members, and how they ask for help. Bella Donna laughs, as Chicault's ties to her guild were ended with his death. Outside, Gambit is eavesdropping, saitisfied that the Assassins Guild are not involved, but angstridden that he cannot talk to his ex-wife.
In his dream, Carter Ryking is a boy, running with his friend Charley through his father's workplace in Alomogordo, NM, trying to spy on the old lady until he passes a mirror, and sees his adult self. At this point, he sees the "dream therapist" known as Fontanelle, who wants him to focus on the memory, the old lady him and Charley were trying to spy on... the old lady muttering "Black Womb"...
In a secure location, X-Cutioner is praising his newest hires on their skill with their new superhuman equipment, before outlining their next mission - to lure out the mutant criminal Gambit, by kidnapping his girlfriend Rogue...
The following sunset, Gambit is searching through a New Orleans graveyard for Chicault's lair, when he is attacked by Blade. The two men are an elegant flurry of trenchcoats and body armor, until Gambit is able to gain some distance and introduce himself. Embarrassed, Blade says that Gambit's red eyes made him assume the worst. Gambit says that he had hoped to find Chicault asleep, but now that night is here, they can go to Chicault's target - the Collection of the Antiquary.
The following day, Jean-Luc LeBeau has an audience with Tome & Hoard, taking Blade & Gambit as bodyguards. The two men know the heroes disapprove of their ways, which involve taking children as slaves and either selling them to benefit the clan, or training them to manage the clan's store of occult lore. When it becomes clear that the officers value the safety of their lore more than the lives of their children, Jean-Luc makes them an offer...
That night, Chicault makes his move. In his attack on Jerome Mouchier, he was able to bite the boy's ankle. Over the last few nights, his control over Jerome has solidified, letting him direct the boy to bring the other children under vampiric control, disable the security system, tie up the adults, and formally invite him over the threshold. Grinning triumphantly, Chicault grabs a pendant from Hoard's neck, explaining that his real goal was the Antiquary's collection of occult lore, which he hopes to combine with his own researches to uncover the shared origins of the Thieves & Assassins Guilds, and, hopefully, locate "the old kingdom", their legendary lost homeland. He uses the pendant as a key in a hidden lock, and leads the group down into the storehouse of documents.
In the secure archive, Chicault is engrossed in the process of cross-referencing his notes with the collection, but he and his thralls are suddenly attacked by Blade, Gambit, Jean-Luc, and a Thieves Guild fighter, who had been lying in wait. The fight is hard, but it ends with Blade decapitating Chicault, and the curse lifting from the children.
In the aftermath, Gambit asks if Jean-Luc regrets the deal he made with Tome & Hoard - to leave the lore alone, in exchange for taking custody of the children. Jean-Luc admits that the lore could've brought Clan LeBeau great power, but that honor is their family's great treasure, and that while a life of compromises has given him regrets, it has also given him the empathy to suffer for these children, just as Gambit's empathy let him sacrifice so much for the guild.
As they watch the heroes leave, Tome & Hoard tally their fortunes. While they are rid of the vampire, the cost was a store of children it will take years to replace... but, now they have Chicault's lore to add to their own.
In an undisclosed location, the Mengo Brothers are brought before their employer, a shadowy figure identified as "The Pig", who tasks them to chase down an escaped slave named Shirow, who is traveling to New Orleans!