As long as we're being gruesome let's go all the way. 'Vlad the impaler' has a reputation for bloodthirst very relevant to the story.

How so, you ask?

Well, because impalement is something a little more than 'shish kebab on a long stake' after which one is 'left to the vultures.'

When impaled a very much alive human is punctured on a lengthy shaft, which is then raised to the vertical to allow gravity to do the remainder of the killing. As the dying human, often kicking and screaming, slowly travels down the pole a great deal of blood is released, and flung about, as the death throes increase. It is a long, slow, painful, extraordinarily messy manner of killing.

Vlad, it is said, enjoyed this spectacle very much and it has been reported that he liked to get close to the dying victims. Either he liked to see and did not mind that blood got on him, or actually liked being splattered with the blood of the impaled. Though he apprarently did not deliberately seek out blood to drink, many think he did not do much to avoid the possibility, also, and this may be the origin of this trope, and thus Dracula...