Apis is a Serbian army colonel in Antiterra, vampirized after his initiation into the Black Hand, held captive in Belgrade and killed there by the Time Bandits.
| Type | Character (vampire) |
| Historical facet | Dragutin Dimitrijević (1856–1917) |
| Spanish entry | Apis — Coronel vampiro de la Mano Negra |
Description
His historical facet is Dragutin Dimitrijević (1856–1917), the real colonel who led the Serbian network of spies and conspirators and was executed by court-martial after the coup of 1903. In the archive, as a being of “transcended undeath”, he is a cosmic transgression that draws the Inevitables. A conspirator against the House of Obrenović, he ran the Circle of Serbia from exile in Bucharest with his wife Natalia Petrovna, also a vampire.
History
King Aleksandar I held him in the dungeons of the Royal Palace of Belgrade, fearing civil war if he were freed: the regime could neither execute him (the Circle would stage a coup) nor release him (the Black Hand would escalate).
When the Time Bandits reached Belgrade in the Bucharest arc, three factions were acting on him:
- The Prussian Inevitables offered them 75,000 points and a magic card to eliminate him.
- Draga Machine, an Inevitable diverted by love for the King, had postponed executing him, since his death would reabsorb her into the Inevitable Source.
- The exiled Circle sought to free him.
In the dungeon fight Apis wielded a level-draining magic sword, conjured incorporeal shadows of his attackers and shifted between corporeal and gaseous form. He gravely wounded Swan and Philip; Swan summoned a tiger. The two drove him back to his coffin, and the group staked and beheaded him.
His death fulfilled Draga’s mission. The Marshall Inevitable came through a gate to reabsorb her; Swan shot her point-blank and cast a divine reincarnation, which failed because Draga is an outsider. Draga and Swan vanished into the portal, leading to the group’s imprisonment in Belgrade. His death also frees the later chain toward Sarajevo 1914.