Jennifer Quail

Artwork by Slake Saunders

 

The voice was male, not too deep, and had a very soft accent that might have been British. In spite of herself, Elaine looked. The man sitting beside her was dressed in neatly-pressed khakis and a white button-down shirt, short-sleeved and almost unwrinkled enough to be military, if it weren’t for the absence of insignia and a tie. Shoes weren’t polished enough, either, though they were clean. He definitely had the pallor of someone who spent most of his time indoors, though gauging by the lean muscles in the bare arms he made up for it with physical activity somewhere. His black hair was just barely too long to be military, but a tad too neat to be your average engineering geek. Whether or not he was good-looking was hard to say, as his eyes were concealed behind a pair of expensive-looking sunglasses.

 

From "Strange Roads"

 

Elaine's first look at the man calling himself Mark Valentine gives her few hints of his true undead nature.  For starters, they're sitting in the bright sunlight of Constitution Gardens, and other than a slight unnatural palor and very dark glasse, Val is doing his best impression of a living, breathing human.  It isn't until she and Alan have their first encounter with one of the Others and see Val in action she realizes that he's not at all what he appears.

 

Marcus of the Fabii, called Valentinian, was born to a very ancient and noble patrician family in Rome.  Unfortunately, by the time he was born (in or about the year AD 9 on modern calendars; he can be oddly coy about his actual birthday for someone his age)  his family was best known for how far they had fallen.  Unlike the equally-illustrious Julians, by the early Empire the Fabians were mostly noted for being, at best, odd.  The scrawny youngest son of one of the few non-adopted branches of the family did not seem destined to change that.  Only, perhaps, one strange augury that promised a long life hinted at his very unconventional destiny.  Surviving a bloody flux that claimed his father, older brothers, and one sister and growing to fit what had been a mocking cognomen, young Marcus chose the only option open to him without money for a political career or an advantageous marriage-the army.  There he joined the ranks of the Praetorian Guard.  He joined, and somehow survived, the conspiracy to remove the Emperor Caligula.  

 

And at some point early in the reign of the Emperor Claudius, he died and became immortal.

 

Val is the only one left who knows precisely what lead him to choose the long path to redemption.  Even his thrall, Nadia, knows very little about his breathing life and how he went from a self-admitted ruthless killer to an unliving bodyguard for the most powerful Mages in the world and guardian of their secrets.  What she, Nicodemus, and every Mage knows is that, as far as anyone knows, Val is the oldest vampire remaining on either side.  Decades beyond normal was typical, centuries not unheard of, but Val is past the two-millenium mark.  While for many of those years he was fighting a more conventional battle against the best the Other side could create, he most commonly can be found in the company of the Lord and Lady Mages, when those exist.  Until the day he found Elaine Gates sitting in the Freer Gallery, awash in magic even he as a vampire could see, he'd thought that role had ended with the deaths of the last Lord and Lady in Nazi Germany.  Instead, and with far fewer resources than he's ever had, he's found himself back in the thick of a magic war, with opponents who clearly have an endgame in mind, and with two Mages who had never heard of magic until the day they met. 

The world has always been a mysterious place, full of beings that gave mortal humans nightmares--blood-drinking vampires, mindless ghouls, strange shape-shifters who took the form of predatory animals.  Mortal humans feared these creatures and hunted them, declaring them cursed.  Then, one night centuries past, a vampire entered the Basicila of St. Peter fleeing from her pursuers and begged sanctuary.  The Holy Father at the time was a gentle soul and was already troubled by the mob violence these monster hunts prompted.  Still, vampires drank blood and evaded death, defying the role of humans in God's plan.  The pontiff told her and the hunters crying for her head that if she were able to confess sins and recieve Communion with no sign of God's disfavor, he would not only grant her shelter within the Basilica, he would issue a papal bulll declaring that those night creatures who adhered to the Church's teaching were no less innocent than any daywalking human and to hunt them down like animals was no more permissible than killing any other neighbor.  The vampire passed his test, demonstrating no aversion to holy objects, and the Pope honored his end of the bargain . . . .

 

In a world where vampires and werewolves are productive members of society, there have to be rules.  For vampires "living" in the society where Joszef Kiraly lives, those rules were centuries in forming and designed to protect both the breathing and the undead.  History moves slower here--creatures whose lifetimes are indefinite tend to loathe change, be it wars of independence or religious reformations, and some cultures did not embrace the notion of creatures with a conscience.  Though the era is what would be the Roaring Twenties, and some technology such as trains and automobiles have advanced like the world we know, while others (heavier than air flight, most notably) have not.  World War I has never happened and countries like Austria-Hungary and the British Empire still stand, though not necessarily with the borders known in our world.  The New World is not the countries we'd recognize but rather a hodgepodge of New England Puritans, the Southern Confederacy, French Canada (so-called, but populated by a mix of the French, English, Metis and the Native Nations), New Spain, Native territories, and centers of commerce like New Amsterdam and the Free Port of New Orleans.   And except for southern New England, where the most radical of Puritans settled, self-isolated nations like the Incan Empire, and the Mohammedian near East as represented by the Ottomans and Persians, every society has at least a few vampires.  (China and Japan, being among the self-isolated, are presumed to have supernatural beings, but contact with their peoples is highly controled by their respective Emperors so little is known of them.)

 

While the laws governing them vary by nation, most vampires live under certain common rules.  To avoid great disruptions such as the Great Succession War in England, most countries do not permit vampires to inherit noble or royal titles.  They cannot marry in the eyes of the state or the Church (as the most principle reasons for such unions, the production of children, is outside their abilities.)   To be converted to a vampire or as a willing were requires witnesses and signed documents, except in the most extreme of emergencies.  In most countries, converting  a human against their will is punishable by staking, beheading and burning.  Staking alone immobilizes the vampire and can be used for temporary (if painful) punishments.  Beheading is invariably fatal, though more sarcastic members of the undead are wont to point out that's true for most beings.  Burning is simple desecration, to emphasize  the punishment. Many vampries come from wealthy families, whether nobility or merchant-class, and usually are treated as scions with a dower income, a voice in family business, but without the ability to inherit or pass on the preeminent title or hold dynastic office of any kind. 

 

 Joszef Kiraly is a somewhat typical example.  Ordinarly an elder son, standing to inherit a title, would never have been made a vampire.  Joszef was in fact already married to the daughter of Viennese nobles, Marie-Johanna, and anticipating inheriting his father's title and the family's (always respectable!) merchant holdings in Budapest.  But like many young men he longed for adventure and was sorely tempted by military glory.  When yet another war with France (the running joke of Europe was the number of governments France went through) the opportunity for adventure was too great pass up.  Unfortunately, he discovered as many had before him that battle was anything but glorious.  He never remembered the actual blow that killed him, or the delerious point when, he is sure, he must have consented to be converted.  Dying, when his wife and their unborn child (who would take his place as heir) were waiting for him, was unthinkable.  

 

Unfortunately, in the late 1700s, the wireless was not yet invented, and word of terrible battle losses traveled faster than news of a single junior officer's conversion in the face of a fatal wound.  When Joszef finally returned, he found a house in mourning-not for him, but for Marie-Josephine.  The shock of hearing he had died sent her into premature labor.  The son was stillborn, and the childbed fever that followed had claimed Marie-Johanna only days before Joszef reached home.  Fearing the black depression he sank into would lead him to self-destruction, his family sent him to stay in Vienna with a very old friend, both to remove him from constant reminders of his grief and to learn how to adapt to his new unlife.  Though he would never have believed it at first, the years were indeed healing.  

 

Once past the novel phase-learning to adapt to life at night--and  the most painful phase, watching his family age and eventually die, Joszef discovered the greatest burden most vampires of his class eventually face: boredom.  After fifty, eighty, a hundred years, nothing seemed novel any more.  With a dower income, he had no need to work for a living, but having nothing to do only made him feel, if possible, even older.  The family business, greatly expanded since his own time, interested him only so much, but he still took the opportunity to travel when offered.  While he found the New World interesting, it was London that caught his fancy and which showed him a way to make life interesting.  When an accquaintance told him how a fellow member of his club had been murdered and the man's valet was to hang for the poisoining, Joszef found aspects of the case puzzling.  He determined to make his own investigation, which uncovered a conspiracy and saved an innocent man from the noose.  Joszef discovered he had a knack for un-knotting thorny crimes and a delicate touch that more aristocratic clients appreciated.  Rather than go back to Budapest or Vienna, he decided to settle a while in London and quietly, discretely, advertise himself as gentleman, vamprie, and consulting detective.