 Fifteen years later, Stetl is being ravaged by a plague and blockaded by the authorities of neighboring towns, with men ready to shoot any villager who tries to leave.The citizens fear that the pestilence may be due to the Count's curse, though the new physician Dr. Kersh dismisses vampires as just a myth.A travelling circus, calling itself the Circus of Night, then arrives at the village, directed by a dwarf and an alluring gypsy woman who are equivocal about how they got past the blockade; the villagers, appreciative of the distraction from their troubles, do not much question the matter.