Something is culling the undead.
Whether they imbibe blood, leech life, or traded mortality away to their devil of choice, the revenants of the world are disappearing. The Vampyre, a possessor of many names and collector of many lives, has been fretting over the phenomenon for some time.
A laughable fear, for he is one of those canny cadaverous few who made a deal for perpetual resurrection. The bitten may crumble, but the bargainer can rise from death after death. So he reminds himself. So he worries is no longer the case. Not when the boyar in the Carpathians was one of the first to vanish.
Still, the monster from the mountains may simply be in hiding, just as the rest of the bargainers must be. The Vampyre convinces himself of this for a single night...before the monster called Quinn Morse makes itself known.