In the 19th century a certain count, a prominent figure in the high society of St. Petersburg, returns home from a long voyage in foreign lands. The count is haughty and brooding, and exudes an aura of danger. His menacing presence is like a clot of darkness amidst the light, his malevolence shrouds him like a cloud preceding him wherever he goes. His body is covered with tribal tattoos of disturbing nature. He dedicates the first grave in the cemetery of his estate to a certain Baron. Silhouettes can often be glimpsed in the windows of his study, although the room remains locked and no one is ever seen entering it. The count makes enemies with ease, but he is a deadly duelist and is always victorious. Every opponent he slays is one of his peers, belonging to the upper class and wielding some power and authority in their own right. The count's reputation grows more fearsome with each victory, but the count loses one of his children to a tragic accident after each duel. The deceased children come to rest in the cemetery at the estate, their tiny graves forming a curious pattern around the grave marked as the Baron's. Such is the price that the count pays for his victories to the spirits he made a covenant with across the ocean, in the city of Aurelian.
But on the eve of another duel, the spirits refuse the sacrifice and let the count know that their agreement has come to an end. Anticipating the danger, the count uses his own resources and prepares a ritual that will protect him should he be defeated. He weaves a web of spells which will, on his command, transport his soul through time and plant it into the body of his last male descendant; besides, the count leaves nothing to fortune as his blade is covered with poison. The count loses the last duel when his opponent, the last man in his line, inflicts a mortal wound on him. The dying count utters the last word completing the ritual, but his killer is affected by it too. He is also dying, poisoned by the count's blade, and his soul, instead of going to rest, is now doomed to a chain of rebirths. Otherwise, the ritual is a success, and the count comes back to life occupying the body of his last descendant, our contemporary.
The spirits have left the count, and now he can rely only on himself, but to his utmost terror, he realizes that his last opponent, having gone through one and a half centuries of rebirths, had found the truth about the count's ritual, located his last descendant and kidnapped and mutilated him. The count finds himself in a body with amputated arms and legs, lying on the floor in a room with tiled walls. Life in him is supported by an elaborate system of pipes and tubes for intravenous feeding.
There is a man in front of him. He reveals the details of his revenge to the count, orders him to remember his face and then gouges out the count's eyes, sews his ears closed and cuts off his tongue. The last thing the count feels is the vibration from the door being closed. Gradually, the complete silence starts to feel like noise to the count, and in time that noise becomes discernible enough for him to realize that it is composed of the voices of the children he had sacrificed. They, who rest in his cemetery along Baron Samedi, come out of the darkness, clutching hooks and cleavers. They begin to hack and tear the count apart. The indifferent eye of the camera watches as the remains of the body convulsively twitch on the floor.