Uchronic Belgrade is the capital of Serbia on the Antiterra axis, seat of King Aleksandar I and his consort Draga Machine. In the summer of 1901 the vampire Captain Apis was executed there and Draga was lost.
| Type | Place (city) |
| Location | Confluence of the Danube and the Sava |
| Era | 1901 |
| Spanish entry | Belgrado Ucrónica |
Description
A Danubian city, center of the Balkan tensions before 1914, amplified by magic, vampirism and supernatural conspiracy. It has a royal palace, ministries and parliament, wide lamp-lit streets, stone bridges over both rivers and deep maximum-security dungeons. Its plate shows a serpent sigil carved on a riverside parapet, the mark of the conspiracy.
History
After breaking up the Circle of Serbia in Bucharest, the Time Bandits (without Claude, away on other missions) were officially invited by the King, who wished to reward them.
The train. On the night train, an Austro-Prussian agent offered a magical contract — a punched card of the Inevitable machinery — promising an immense sum to destroy Apis or to hand Draga over for Inevitable “reprogramming”. Corvino and Philip refused or signed only to gain time. The agent suggested the Inevitables were behind Draga.
The confession. The young, inexperienced King and the semi-mechanical Draga received the group. Draga confessed she is an Inevitable diverted from her mission: sent to eliminate Apis, a being of transcended undeath who breaks cosmic laws, she fell in love with Aleksandar and chose to live as a human. Killing Apis would mean reabsorption by the Inevitable Source. The King kept Apis alive in the palace dungeons, fearing civil war, and suspected the exiled Circle planned to free him.
The descent. Corvino, Philip, Swan and Aby persuaded the King to let them “finish off” Apis. Behind reinforced walls and magical barriers, Apis fought with a draining sword, incorporeal shadows of the group members and shifts into gaseous form. Swan and Philip were badly wounded, Corvino struck several times; Aby conjured support; Swan summoned a tiger and fired blessed bullets. Driven back to his coffin, Apis was staked and beheaded.
The Marshall Inevitable then came through a dimensional gate to reabsorb Draga. Swan fired and cast a reincarnation spell, failed, and vanished with her through the portal. The King cried “¡Traición! ¡Regicidio indirecto! ¡Conjura!” (“Treason! Indirect regicide! Conspiracy!”) and had Philip, Corvino and Aby arrested.
Aftermath
Belgrade mourned its Queen; European diplomacy was shaken. The group was released on condition that it keep dismantling the Circle — the Circle of the Serpent — as compensation. The arc closed with Swan separated from the group indefinitely. The Black Hand operates in the background; the chronomantic chain begun here closes thirteen years later in Sarajevo.