Marya Zaleska
Marya Zaleska is a female vampire that features in Dracula's Daughter where she is played by Gloria Holden.
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Biography
Countess Marya Zaleska was the daughter of the infamous and notorious vampire known as Count Dracula. Her father became a vampire within the 16th century where he dominated the region of Transylvania where he imposed his reign of tyranny as a member of the undead. During this time, Zaleska was transformed into a vampire and she was forced to live a shadowy existence where she slept in the grave by day whilst sustaining herself on the blood of the living by night time. Despite her transformation, she retained a strong desire to return to her existence as a living human being. As a result, she used her artistic training as a painter and pianist in order to try to maintain a connection to the world of the living with sunlight. Her vampiric instincts led her to generally prefer female victims but she was noted for always keeping a man servant around her. The most loyal of these were promised the gift of eternal life of a vampire as a reward for their service. By later years, her most noted male servant was the ghoulist Sandor.
Her history remained unchanged until she learnt that her father Dracula was slain by Professor Abraham van Helsing. His death saw Marya believe that she finally found a means of removing the curse of vampirism over herself. This condition she saw as a curse that she both hated and feared. As a result, she immediately flew to England where she stole the body of Dracula in an attempt to exorcise the evil spirit that haunted it in the hopes of gaining freed. This involved the performance of a ritual on her father's body that involved burning it where she thought it would return her to being a living human being. However, the curse did not lift and the ritual failed which left Countess Zaleska devastated as a result as she came to the conclusion that she was trapped in being a vampire for the rest of her unlife. Thus, the hunger filled her each night and she was forced to hunt once more.
As a result, she sought out the help of a modern day psychiatrist called Dr. Jeffrey Garth who was an old friend of van Helsing who held an open mind to the occult after meeting him at a society party. Countess Zaleska would ask him to help her overcome the influences she felt from beyond the grave. He in turn advised her to defeat these vravings by confronting them that led to her becoming hopeful. She came to beleive that his scientific will would allow her to be strong enough to overcome the malevolent influence of Dracula. In this time, she sent Sandor to find a model to pain where she returned with Lili. Initially, Marya attempted to resist her urges but ultimately succumbed and attacked her though Lili managed to survive. Despite this, Dr. Garth hypnotized her to learn what happened leading to her suffering from a heart attack that brought about her death. Thus, the Countess came to abandon any hope of a cure being possible leading to Dr. Garth learning the truth about Marya.
Afterwards, she kidnapped Janet a woman that Garth was in love with and took her to Translyvania in order to lure the doctor to Zaleska's castle. Once there, she revealed her intention of transforming Dr. Garth into her eternal companion by making him into a vampire. He ultimately agreed in exchange for Janet's life to be spared. However, before she could complete the transformation, she was slain at the hands of her servant Sandor. Her servant had shoot her through the heart with an arrow as an act of revenge for breaking her promise of making him immortal.
Background
Personality and attributes
She was noted for despising the curse of being a vampire and desired to live the life of a normal living mortal human. Thus, she sought ways to maintain her ties to the human world but sought alternative ways of trying to remove the curse of vampirism over herself. This was because she both feared and abhored her existence as an undead being. This was because she hated the unnatural urge for drinking the blood of human beings that often overcame her at the least opportune of moments where she generally preferred female victims. Amongst humans, she claimed that she never drank wine. However, her abilities also gave her powers over others that she found addictive and sought to develop new mehods in hunting, torturing and occasionally killing her prey. As a result, she came to believe that she was eternaly damned that was complete when she failed to cure herself and that the only release from her vampiric life was through her own destruction.
According to her servant Sandor, one could see death within her eyes. He proved to be the only person that she could confide in and trust. Furthermore, he proved to be the only person that could keep the Countess's hunger under control through only barely. His dedication to his mistress was because he was deeply in love with her and secretly hoped that she would convert him into a vampire someday so that they could spend their existence together for eternity.
Powers and abilities
Being a vampire, Zaleska was cursed with unlife that made her immune to the effects of aging and kept her eternally young. However, she was forced to reside in a grave during daytime as the light of the sun was harmful to her. Furthermore, she was required to feed on the blood of living human beings in order to satiate her hunger. Similarly, she held the ability to pass this curse onto others and was able to transform others into vampires.
Amongst her powers included an exotic jeweled ring that allowed her to mesmerize her victims which she used for hunting.
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