Episode Recap: Dark Ties

After Lilly's death, Vanessa doesn't miss a beat. She's back at the vamp killing game with flying colors (and that color happens to be red). She crosses paths with a brigade of rag-tag vamp killer ladies, saves their lives, and then is invited to join them. She politely declines their offer at first; then they tell her about karaoke night at the local pub.

Meanwhile at Fort Collins, Julius is sparring with Hansen's daughter, Violet, in the training room, teaching her a thing or two. In particular, she wants to know how to fight vampires, who have a completely different style than humans. And Julius proves it.

After he finishes whooping her butt, Julius drops by Doc's office for an injection and some bedside chat. Doc gets him up-to-date on her plans: she's playing nice with Hansen so she can run some more tests on the blood they found on the necklace and Vanessa's blood (the same but different, if you will). Once she has the answers, she thinks she can use that blood to spring Jolene and Flesh out of prison.

Speaking of Vanessa, she uses some of her own blood to activate that book Lilly found for her. When she does, it reveals a compass on a crucifix (a crucicompass) that moves when she moves the book. Interesting…. Meanwhile, Doc vents some of her frustration to one of the board members at Fort Collins, who's interested in tracking Doc's progress. After ingratiating herself, Doc is able to get hold of some official records, in the hopes that they might contain information about a friend of hers who went missing, possibly ending up in Loveland.

Violet convinces Julius to break out of Fort Collins into Old Town so they can practice killing vampires for real. She takes him to her local haunt, where she plays poker with tough guys in the hopes that one day she'll have enough in the bank to bust out of Fort Collins and live her dream. After a winning streak gets one of her opponents suspicious, he pulls a knife on her. It's the bartender who comes to her rescue with a cocked shotgun and scares her assailant away.

This happens a lot, mostly because she and the bartender are close like that. Like, really close like that. They slip out the back to make out, leaving Julius inside, before the bartender has to go finish his shift. That's when Violet is alone on the streets, and is accosted by a vampire. Soon, the oversized vampire is too big for Violet to fight off and finally Julius comes to the rescue. But it's too late: Violet gets bitten. Then something weird happens: the vampire changes back to human. Looks like this lady isn't all that she seems.

After leaving the wandering troupe of vampire killers, Vanessa finds herself in the middle of a killing field. It's there that she is reunite with Chad, who's set booby traps up all around to thwart vampires. He's the only one left, and it comes to Vanessa's attention that Chad's not setting traps for vampires but for humans.

Julius gives Doc a handkerchief with a sample of Violet's blood on it. He tells her that he thinks the blood might belong to another Van Helsing. Elsewhere, Vanessa does some more digging, and finds that Chad has been sustaining Tabby on human blood in a cage in his compound. After knocking out Chad, Vanessa lets Tabby feed off her in order to change her back. It works!

Back at Fort Collins, Doc thinks she's made a big breakthrough, and wants to tell Julius. Of course, her celebratory hooting and hollering alerts Hansen to her, and he takes her findings and sticks her in a cell.

Vanessa leaves Chad and Tabby with the ragtag crew of vampire killers, and she also leaves one of them - a young woman named Jack - with her katana. She doesn't want to kill anymore; her time is up.

Alone in her bedroom, while going over the events of the evening, Violet has a seizure and starts to dream: She's in an enchanted forest. There's a fountain there, and a gate. Then storm clouds gather, and an ethereal (dream) Vanessa tells her not to be afraid. Looks as though the torch has been passed down…