There Existed An Addiction To Blood

"**There Existed an Addiction to Blood**", published as **Episode 3 - There Existed An Addiction To Blood**, is the third episode of the first season of *Murphy*. The episode is directed by Alexandra Munroe and written by Derek Sherry. It was released on December 14, 2022, with a runtime of 57 minutes and 33 seconds.

## Synopsis

Murphy gets an invitation from an old colleague in Romania to attend a Q&A for a famous author Jack is fond of. When the circumstances turn out to be anything but normal, Murphy must decide whether to follow her training or her conscience, and deal with the consequences.

## Plot Summary

A few days after the confrontation with Peter Bourgot, Jack awakens from a recurring nightmare in which he falls into a pond in his parents' backyard, accompanied by the Song of Eirene. He notes that although he's had this dream before, this time it felt more real. He begins to get ready for his day when Murphy knocks on his door. He lets her in for coffee, though he's confused as to why she's shown up at his flat before 9:00 AM, forgetting that now that he has quit his job, he doesn't actually have any plans for the day.

Murphy brought with her two tickets to an interview and reading with famed mystery novelist Jonathan Roxburgh, an author whose books dominate an entire shelf on Jack's bookcase, at the University of Bucharest in Romania the next day. Murphy explains that Professor Marius Ardelean, Murphy's former mentor in Parliament who will be the one interviewing Roxburgh, invited her personally. She also explains that this might be more than just a pleasure trip, as Ardelean also sent newspaper clippings indicating that three women had been murdered in the Boldu-Creteasca forest over the past 20 years: Sorana Eder, Maria Bogdan, and Adelina Funar. With the tickets to the reading came airplane tickets for Murphy and Jack, so the two prepared to leave on a flight that day, with Elliot staying behind to water Jack's plants.

On the flight to Bucharest, Jack reads a copy of Dracula that he brought with him, and notices Murphy asleep in the seat next to him. Jack once again wonders about his fear of open water and is confused as to why he can't look at a large body of water without fighting a panic attack, but he feels perfectly okay being on a plane in the sky going through a lightning storm. When they get to Bucharest, they check into the Matisse hotel. There is only one bed, so Murphy offers to sleep on the pull out sofa, giving Jack the bed. Murphy once again reminds Jack that for her, this is a business trip, but nothing is stopping Jack from enjoying his newfound freedom. When Jack leaves to go visit some gardens he'd heard about, Murphy pulls out her laptop and other materials she had brought with her, doing research on the Witches Pond in the Boldu-Creteasca forest. While she comes to the conclusion that something is off about the pond and about the murders, she isn't sure whether Ardelean thinks the women were witches, or if there is something else going on that he hasn't told her about.

Jack returns to the hotel room and is amazed at the dress Murphy is wearing, never having seen her in a dress before. She and Jack head to the University, but arrive too late to get seats together. Jack insists that he'll stand at the back since he doesn't want to get in the way of Murphy's reunion with Marius. The event begins, and Ardelean asks Roxburgh various questions about the inspiration for his newest novel, Witches Pond. When Ardelean points to the part of the book he wishes Roxburgh to read from, Roxburgh is surprised since the excerpt is extremely graphic. However, an audience reaction prompts him to read the section anyways. After Roxburgh reads about a homicide detective who discovered a woman's body completely drained of blood at the Witches Pond, Murphy locks eyes with Marius and suddenly understands why he asked her to come.

At the afterparty, Murphy is scanning the room looking for Marius, and doesn't even notice when Jack tries to hand her a drink. Jack is forlorn that Roxburgh might not be making an appearance after the reading. When Murphy is wondering whether or not Marius would even recognize her after all these years, he approaches her from behind. After she introduces Jack to Marius, she asks him why he brought them here. Marius confirms that the trip would definitely be more business than pleasure, but won't elaborate further until they are in a more private location. He invites Murphy and Jack to his apartment and asks if they can come the following morning.

After Murphy changes out of her dress and into her regular clothing, she and Jack go out to see what Bucharest nightlife is like to get a real drink. When they are trying to decide where to go, Jack spots Jonathan Roxburgh outside one of the clubs and insists that they go talk to him. Not wanting to scare off the author, Murphy says that she will take the lead, though when the do, Jack lets his inner fan come out anyway. After some polite small talk, they walk away, but Jack turns around and invites Roxburgh inside, which he accepts. Jack then gets blackout drunk and wakes up the next morning in the hotel bathtub covered in his own vomit. Murphy is there when he wakes up and tells him to clean off since they have to get to Marius' apartment which is outside the city.

When they arrive, Murphy tells Marius about their encounter with Roxburgh at the club, and Marius is concerned that Roxburgh may have done something to her. She explains that Jack wasn't so lucky because Roxburgh kept buying him drinks hoping that he'd pass out somewhere so that he could be alone with Murphy. She then claims that Roxburgh is actually a vampire, much to the shock of Jack. Murphy explains that she got close enough to feel for his pulse, and there wasn't one, and that she could tell that he was trying to hypnotize her, something that wouldn't work because of her extensive Parliament training. Marius asks for her help with the case and she accepts. She and Jack leave to go back to Bucharest and look for clues at the nightclub they were at the previous night.

Luckily for Murphy and Jack, the bartender from the previous night was there picking up his paycheck, but it turns out that he doesn't know anything important, other than that he recognized Maria Bogdan and that when she brushed off Jonathan's advances, she left and he followed shortly after. Murphy and Jack go to meet Marius at a café since he's paranoid about not being in a public place. Marius tells her that when it comes time to take on Roxburgh and his vampire brides, it's important that they are killed to stop the curse at the source. Murphy rejects this idea, saying that she doesn't kill any creature she goes after. When Marius claims that her American training has made her soft, she erupts at Marius, calling him out for abandoning her when she was younger. When he doesn't say anything at first, she thinks that she may have given him a heart attack, but when she looks where he is looking, Murphy sees Maria Bogdan outside the café. She sprints for the door and tries her best to keep up with the vampire, but can't match Maria's speed. She watches her run off and realizes that sunlight doesn't affect vampires in the slightest.

Murphy and Jack bring a hysterical Marius back to his apartment, getting him to rest and making some tea. Murphy explains that Marius' ideals are in line with the "old guard" of Parliament, when the organization actually hunted monsters back before the Great Depression. She rejects this ideology, calling it barbaric and ghoulish, and saying that she doesn't want any part of it. When Marius comes to, he argues with Murphy some more about what they should do about the vampires, saying that it doesn't matter to him why Roxburgh did what he did, he only cares that he did it. Suddenly, Jack notices the roses on Marius' table and comes up with a plan inspired by *Dracula*. His plan is to follow Roxburgh home when he leaves the nightclub, steal the vampires' coffins while they are asleep, then place roses on the coffins so that they cannot escape, since a passage in *Dracula* said that doing that would prevent the vampires from opening their coffins.

They follow through on the plan, following Roxburgh to his house in the Boldu-Creteasca forest, and take Roxburgh's SUV back with them since they need a vehicle large enough to accommodate the amount of coffins they are stealing. Jack is surprised at how capable Marius is when he helps them load the coffins into the SUV since he is an older man. The three have no trouble bringing the coffins into Marius' apartment, and they place the roses on the coffin. Murphy then bangs on the lid to Jonathan Roxburgh's coffin, and they find out that the roses really work. They take the rose off of Roxburgh's coffin and restrain him by binding his hands to a chair after the lid opens. Marius then demands that Roxburgh admit to his crimes, which he does after Murphy threatens to expose Eder and Funar to the shadow of the cross which would turn them to piles of ash.

Although that's enough for Marius and he insists on killing him, Murphy stops him and asks Roxburgh why he didn't just drain the women of their blood and move on. Roxburgh explains that he only killed Eder and Funar because he had to. He was still new to being a vampire back then, and did it because he had no other access to blood, but because he didn't have the heart to kill them, he turned them into vampires, and the three lived in peace for 20 years, stealing blood from hospitals' blood banks to survive. That changed recently when an unknown person stole their blood supply and tipped off the hospitals, which started heavily securing their blood banks, leaving Roxburgh, Eder, and Funar with no choice but to hunt. Jack notes that he seemed to be sincere in his confession, and that it felt very human. Marius however, moves to kill Roxburgh with a stake that he had hidden in his coat pocket, and Murphy stops him by knocking the stake out of his hand with the cross she was holding.

A compromise was reached between everyone, and Murphy agreed to supply Roxburgh, Eder, Funar, and Bogdan with enough blood to satisfy their hunger as long as they left the innocent people of Bucharest alone. The only person who wasn't happy with the compromise was Marius. On the car ride back from Roxburgh's after they brought the coffins back, Marius tells Murphy that if her parents could see who she had become, they'd be disappointed in her, prompting her to stop the car and get out, Jack following shortly after. The two begin a long walk back to their hotel as Marius speeds past them. Jack asks Murphy how they're going to get enough blood for the vampires in only a week, to which Murphy replies she doesn't know.

After a series of calls and voicemails from Marius, which Murphy does not listen to except for the first one by accident, Murphy manages to get the blood that she had promised the vampires. She and Jack travel to Roxburgh's house with a cooler full of blood, and Murphy realizes after she knocks on the door that the curtains are down even though they were nailed into the wall the last time they were here. Knowing something is wrong, she kicks open the door to find that the coffins are gone, and she and Jack immediately notice a bouquet of roses on the table with blood dripping from the thorns. She and Jack hastily leave to go find Marius, knowing he had to be behind it, but when they arrive to Marius' apartment, they find that it has been ransacked, and that Marius is gone. Murphy then has an idea that Marius must have taken the vampires to the Witches Pond, and she and Jack get back in the car to go there.

At the Witches Pond, they discover the vampires have all been killed, nothing but piles of ash in their coffins. However, they also discover that Marius has been killed, his body found halfway between the water and the shore with a stake plunged between his shoulder blades. Murphy frantically pulls his body out of the water, apologizing to her dead mentor, when Jack notices a medallion fall out of Marius' hand. Murphy looks at the emblem in horror, saying that she knows the symbol. Jack notes that he didn't think anything could scare Murphy, but seeing the way that she looked at the medallion made him feel like all the nightmares when he had been drowning.