Plot

Mike and Vicki race against time to save Henry.

Vicky is none too pleased that Mike Celucci has helped Javier Mendoza take Henry prisoner. They focus on finding where Henry is while Coreen tries to figure out the medallion Mike slapped on Henry's chest. Vicky and Mike first find another vampire and get a preview of just what will happen to Henry if they don't hurry. Mendoza is torturing Henry insisting that he repent but it is clear that he has his own secrets. When Vicky is taken prisoner, Mike is left on his own to find them. Coreen meanwhile learns that the device Mike used to disable Henry is an ancient tool to steal a vampire of his soul.—garykmcd

NOTE: Continuation of 1.7 Heart of Ice.

Mendoza has dragged Henry to a torture chamber where he is placed in chains so that Mendoza can begin the process of saving Henry's immortal soul. By the time Vicki and Mike make their way out of the sewer through a manhole cover, Vicki is so hopping mad at Mike that she suckerpunches him in the jaw. Now contrite, Mike offers to help her find Henry. Vicki orders Mike to go down to the station and pull everything he can on Javier Mendoza. When Coreen comes in, Vicki sets her to find out whatever she can about the illuminatione del sol.

Mike gets rookie Kate Lam [Françoise Yip] to take over the search on Mendoza so that he and Vicki can go to the streets and see what they can dig up on the murdered "working girl", identified as Amy Davidson, street name "Champagne." They corner another "working girl" named Cassis who, for a price, is willing to tell them about Champagne. When they show her a photo of Javier Mendoza, she recognizes him as one of her own past clients. About a week ago, he took her to the basement of an abandoned church, she says, where he had another girl in chains. When the girl tried to bite her, Cassis let them have it with Mace and got the heck out of there. A little more money, and Cassis is willing to take Vicki and Mike to the church where it happened.

Morning is approaching when Mike and Vicki break down the doors into the church basement. Instead of Henry, however, they find Delphine. She is close to death, so Vicki slits her own palm and feeds Delphine some blood. Before Delphine can answer any questions, however, a warning buzzer is heard, and the curtains on the windows automatically open. Within seconds, Delphine is reduced to ashes. In the mess Mendoza left behind, they find plant containers from Hollenbeck Nurseries and a chalice with some vile-smelling residue in it. Mike thinks maybe Coroner Rajani Mohadevan can identify it, so they take it along with them to HQ. Rajani identifies the residue in the cup as a mixture of blood and jiaogulan, a Chinese immortality herb. The blood also had some strange properties that she hasn't yet identified, which Mike and Vicki conclude is vampire blood.

While at HQ, they also hear from Kate. She hasn't found any current references for a Javier Mendoza, but she did discover that a Javier Mendoza was a Chief Inquisitor during the Spanish Inquisition. His specialty was forcing confessions from witches. What if he isn't a fan of Javier Mendoza but he IS Javier Mendoza, Vicki wonders. He'd be over 300 years old but he couldn't be a vampire because he's been seen outside in the daytime, Mike adds. Vicki puts together 2 + 2 (vampire blood + immortality herb) and concludes that Javier Mendoza is juicing vampires and mixing their blood with the herb in order to preserve his own immortality. If so, it's likely that Henry may still be alive. Vicki takes out a map of Toronto and marks Hollenbeck Nurseries and the locations where the hooker was murdered, Delphine was found, and Cassis was picked up. It's plain to see they've all occurred within a few blocks of each other. Realizing that Mendoza is conducting his own Inquisition and probably using holy ground, Mike and Vicki conclude that he may be hiding in another church somewhere. They decide to split up so that they can search more ground while keeping in contact by phone.

Meanwhile, Henry has been burned, beaten, whipped, starved, and had blood drained from him for Mendoza's immortality concoction. This isn't the first time Henry has met up with Mendoza. Several hundred years ago, he was captured by Monseignor Mendoza and subjected to Inquisition. Henry succeeded in convincing Mendoza's devotèe, a young girl named Maria, that he was not evil. When Maria finally relented and released Henry from his cell, Henry promptly fed on her and then offered her his blood in return, When Henry later returned for her, she was just waking up. Henry watched as she reached up to embrace Mendoza, and saw him pound a stake through her heart. Mendoza maintains that it was Henry who killed Maria, while Henry maintains it was Mendoza.

Coreen hasn't made any headway finding information online about the illuminatioine del sol, so she calls on Dr Sagara, Professor of Demonology at the University. Together, they pour through Sagara's mythology texts, but find nothing until Sagara focuses on the 8 arms of the medallion and realizes that 8 on its side () could be the symbol for infinity. Or immortality, Coreen adds. Continuing the search, Coreen discovers a drawing of the illuminatione del sol in a book on Chinese legends. It tells of a warlord whose only daughter committed suicide and returned as a chiang-shi (Chinese vampire). Not wanting to see her die again, the warlord found a wise Taoist priest who fashioned the sun to control her. There was only one problem. The sun is controlled by a key. If turned clockwise, it will release. If turned counter-clockwise, it will destroy the vampire's heart.

Vicki has come across an abandoned church and made her way down to the basement. When she opens the door, however, she is immediately knocked out and drops her cellphone. When Mike tries to phone Vicki and gets only her recording, he calls Coreen to see if she's heard from Vicki. She hasn't, but Coreen does pass on to Mike the information about the sun and its key. When Vicki comes to, she is tied in a chair. Henry, chained and bloodied, stands just out of reach, starving and struggling to get to her blood. Mike continues to look for abandoned churches and arrives at the right one just as Mendoza has pushed Vicki's chair within Henry's reach and left the room. Unable to control himself, Henry leaps at Vicki, but she has been able to release the binds on her hands and flips her chair over backwards, out of his reach. Henry strains at his chains until they break.

Mike has knocked out Mendoza and taken the key from him. He finds the room where Vicki is being held and opens the door just as Henry rushes at her. Mike knocks Vicki to the ground, and Henry sinks his fangs in Mike's neck instead. Fortunately, Vicki succeeds in stopping Henry from taking too much blood. As Mike falls to the floor, he hands the key to Vicki and tells her how to remove the sun from Henry's chest. Vicki then returns to help Mike as Henry makes Mendoza his dessert. On the way out, Vicki picks up the illuminatione del sol and puts it in her pocket. [Full synopsis by bj_kuehl]