Declan

Growing up in the streets of Glasgow in the 80’s was never going to be easy, but I didn’t exactly make the most. Most of my early life was surrounded by drugs, booze and tits (I blame me fuckin’ parents), so when I was 12, I decided to band together with a group of like-minded hoodlums and form our little street gang called “The Punks”. We started out small: petty crimes, vandalism, loitering, just general mischief making; it wasn’t I was 14 when we grew in size and started to move up in the criminal world: starting fights with rival gangs, breaking and entering, and my personal favourite: car-jacking. I had quite the knack for hotwiring cars and joyriding around the town just for the hell of it. At 17, I was arrested for a botched car theft after the lads in blue decided to come down the alley we were in at precisely the wrong time. I found myself cornered by the boys in blue while everyone else managed to get away. The officer who arrested me took pity on me after he saw my family history (not that I wasn’t surprised me mum and dad had recently been arrested for drug possession) and offered me a choice: spent 8 years in a prison cell or enlist in the British Army. Begrudgingly, I chose the army.

Soon after, I had begun basic training for the British Army, which was brutal. Every day was run the obstacle course, breakfast, weapons training, lunch, physical training, dinner, combat training, technical training which I excelled with anything to do with cars, bed; on repeat for several months. Despite my rough reception, I did end up making a few friends amongst those who didn’t wash out; including a fellow Scotsman by the name of Thomas Markham, a fiery-haired lass called Kelly Valentine, and man of few words Jason Tarragen. A year later, I was a fully-fledged officer along with the other three and we were assigned to the same unit in the 38th Brigade. We served together for 3 years before our commanding officer, LT Aaron Waters, decided to harass Kelly and none of the others, except for myself, Thomas and Marcus, did anything to help her; we had even reported him to the officer in charge of the barracks to no effect. It wasn’t until the asshole got handsy with Kelly before I decided enough was enough and decked Waters right in the jaw; it took both Marcus And Thomas to pull me off him. I ended up being dishonourably discharged for insubordination and assaulting a superior officer while our CO got away scot free, which I thought was bullshit as did Kelly, Thomas and Marcus; and to make matters worse, Thomas and Marcus were being transferred to other regiments, leaving Kelly alone with my creep of a former CO.

I decided to go back to Glasgow after I was kicked out and try to take up a normal job as a blue-collar tradie in an auto workshop until I got myself sorted. To my surprise, one garage was willing to hire me despite my criminal record and my recent discharge from the army. I had even run into the same officer who had arrested me back then and told him what had happened to get myself discharged. While he wasn’t pleased with my actions, he did at least understand why I did it and he told me he was impressed that I did stick up for Kelly. He went on to say that he was glad the Army had managed to get me kind of straight, even if it was ultimately for nothing. The next day, I started my job as an auto mechanic and took to the work straight away, though I suppose it might have something to do with my former life as an amateur car thief. After a while I had begun to enjoy my boring, mundane life; though I wanted more out of life.

One day, I was about to head home from work when I saw a woman on the side of the road having car trouble. I decided to walk over to the car to see if I could help her and was taken by her beauty almost immediately: her flowing strawberry blonde hair, radiant skin and her vibrant blue eyes were like sapphires. (I think it might have been what they call back then ‘love at first sight’, and I didn’t do mushy romance). As I tried to diagnose the problem, I spotted various art supplies in the back of her car, including an easel and a finished canvas delicately placed on the back seat; trying to make conversation, I asked if she was a professional painter. The woman admitted that while she was an artist, she was not a very successful one and mostly painted because she enjoyed it. After some time fiddling around the engine, I discovered that the alternator wasn’t charging the battery and it was completely flat, therefore the car wouldn’t start at all; not even a jump start would have helped it. I decided the best thing to do would be to offer her another car to borrow while I sorted out her car’s power issue, and as we were sorting the details, I finally introduced myself to her and Colleen O’Reilly responded in kind. Given that Colleen was beautiful and kind, I decided to ask her if she wanted a drink before she headed home (I was half-expecting her to reject me outright), but to my pleasant surprise, she actually agreed.

Sometime later, after Colleen and I had been dating for about a year, we ran into some of my old gang members (who were now calling themselves “The Glasgow Ghosts”, which I thought was a stupid title), who didn't take too kindly to me falling in with the army. We ended getting into a scrap after two of them insulted Colleen and I reacted rather violently (by that I mean I kneecapped one of them with a nearby plank of wood). The next thing I remember, I was laying in a hospital bed with Colleen by my side, unhurt but distressed; she explained I had been knocked unconscious after I fell to the ground and I was kicked in the head, which left a thin scar on my left cheek. When I saw that her eyes were red as though she had been crying, I decided then and there to come clean about my past as a gang-banger and being in the army because of it; half expecting Colleen to walk away in disgust. To my complete surprise, Colleen simply leaned over and embraced me firmly; saying that she was grateful for me being in her life, even though I wasn’t a perfect man. I hugged her back and told her I was a better person because of her. The next day, I decided to find some of my old friends from childhood to see what was going on with our gang of knuckleheads, I found out that of the original five, two got out of the game (meself included), two were currently in jail for separate offences, and one was killed while I was still in the army. After the last founding member was killed, the Punks went from simple street kids causing misdemeanours for the hell of it, to a fully-fledged organised crime unit with branches all over Southern Scotland.

Four years after that, we ended up marrying each other with a small civil ceremony that was only attended by a few close friends of ours (I didn’t have any family to speak of nor did I want to speak to them, so I decided to not say anything to them). We continued to live happily, with me still working in that auto-shop and Colleen deciding to take up fashion design as well, and while she wasn’t necessarily popular, she was moderately successful and had managed to grab a few loyal clients. I had a few more run-in with my old gang over the years (thankfully, Colleen was not there for any of them), mostly ranging from simple harassment to attempting to pick a fight with me, which usually didn’t end well for them. It even went so far as the leader at the time, some thick-headed idiot called Miles ‘Wheels’ Wilson, to approach me and threaten everything I care about if I don’t stop attacking his men. My response was short, but effective: Well, tell your ‘men’ to stop bending over and they won’t get fucked. I added that back when I was a gang-banger, there was at least an unspoken rule that everyone knew not to break: never mess with a former members life if they got out of the game. Wheels declared on the spot that I was now a target; if any member of the gang saw me, I was to be shot on sight. I brushed him off thinking he didn’t have the balls to back up his claim.

Then, on the night of May 12th, 2009, we were heading back to the car after Colleen had a successful show of some of her latest designs at a gallery in Edinburgh. We had decided to go have a ‘few’ drinks to celebrate when I heard a car come screaming down the road and at least two SMG’s opened fire on the car, hitting both me and Colleen. I managed to drag Colleen out of the car before it went up in flames, but both of us were bleeding out in an alleyway and there was no-one else to help. I held Colleen in my arms as we both lay dying on the pavement, that was when I heard the clacking of heels coming from behind me. I turned around, still holding Colleen in my arms, and saw the owner of the gallery, Danielle Tuilia Accorsi, was standing over the two of us with a hint of sadness in her eyes. The last thing I remember before everything faded to black (I suspect due to severe blood loss) was me saying to the woman ‘please, help her.’ Though, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure I also heard Danielle say, ‘don’t worry, I will.’

The next thing I knew, my eyes suddenly shot wide open and I bolted to my feet, albeit incredibly weakened. I looked down at my stomach to find that I was no longer bleeding from my wounds; though there was still a considerable amount of blood all over my clothes. My vision was still very hazy, but in the corner of my eye, I was just able to see Danielle crouching over Colleen’s now dead body. When I realised Danielle was about to bite into my wife’s neck, I scrambled over to her and tried to pull her off Colleen. I grabbed at Danielle’s arm to pull her away, but she threw me back into the wall behind me with almost no effort; all without lifting her head from Colleen. As I struggled to get back on my feet, I heard the blissfully familiar sounds of Colleen gasping in shock and fear; I looked up and saw her sitting upright in a panic, her clothes were as bloody as mine. I felt what I could only describe as this insatiable surge of adrenaline coursing through my veins as the sight of Colleen’s bloodied clothes, but after recalling my army training and brief experiences on the battlefield, I supressed this surge as I rushed over to Colleen and embraced her fiercely. It was at this point we both realised something was wrong: we were cold to the touch and there was no heartbeat coming from either of us. Danielle, having stood back up and begun wiping what I assumed was our blood from her face, was looking at us somewhat warmly and simply said ‘Welcome to your new…unlives.’

I was about to ask what she meant by that when I heard three figures talking at the end of the alley, all male and all I recognised. I turned to the end of the alley and saw the three men that gunned my wife and I down minutes earlier walk down towards us, and something in the back of my mind snapped; all I saw was crimson at the corners of my vision and the three men right in the middle of it. As they began to question the fact that I was apparently still alive, all I muttered was ‘Which is what you won’t be in a minute’ before I lunged at them with supernatural speed. The one at the front was dead in seconds courtesy of a snapped neck, the one to his left I grabbed and threw head first into the wall with primal, almost animalistic rage; I didn’t even see his body crumple to the ground. The final guy saw his two buddies fall to the ground and me glaring at him like a crazed predator, and immediately tried to flee; though it was in vain as I felt something rush passed me and jump on top of him pinning him to the ground. My first thought however was the two corpses near me and I knelt down next to the one whose neck I had snapped, his head was cocked to the side at an alarming angle and his neck was exposed. Running purely on instinct and what I still assumed was adrenaline, I felt myself leaning towards the man’s neck and biting into it what I could have sworn were fangs instead of teeth. The moment his blood touched the back of my throat, I felt my adrenaline subside and was replaced by ecstatic bliss; I couldn’t help but indulge in the pleasure I was feeling. I also began to suspect what had actually happened to me and Colleen, though I was beyond sceptical despite mounting evidence to the contrary: we had both died and come back to life as vampires

After what felt like several minutes (when it was only several seconds), I finally removed my fangs from the fucker’s neck and sat upright, letting the ecstasy wash over my body and eventually letting it subside. As that happened, I just very faintly heard Colleen sobbing uncontrollably at the end of the alley. I looked over to find her kneeling in front of the man I let live before turning my attention to the man beneath me; I suddenly realised it was Colleen who had rushed passed me seconds before, presumably in the same state of rage I was. I immediately ran over to her, seeing the bite marks on the man’s neck, and pulled her close to me in a consoling embrace. I heard the familiar clacking of heels on concrete behind me and turned to find Danielle walking up to us. I turned to face Danielle and demanded to know what she did to us; her only response was ‘not here’ and held her hand out for us to follow her. I helped Colleen back to her feet and reluctantly guided her to Danielle but waited for a few seconds before crouching down next to the man Colleen feed on a minute earlier; knowing he was still just barely alive. I grabbed the dying man by the back of his head, leaned in close and whispered that I’d ‘see him in hell, whenever the fuck that would be’ before snapping his neck.

Danielle guided the two of us back to the gallery we were just in (using the back entrance so no-one became freaked out by the two of us covered in our own blood) and lead us into her office on the second floor of the gallery. Luckily (or unluckily, I wasn’t sure at the time), there were very few people left in the gallery as everyone had either left for the night or was busy packing everything the night’s fashion show away. When it was just the three of us in the office, Danielle was quick to apologise for the suddenness of what had happened, and that she had intended to guide us through our first feeding when we had come to terms with everything (basically she was just rambling about what her plan was with us and how everything had gone to shit). I eventually managed to cut through the rambling and asked why us; to which her response was simple, but surprisingly composed: Colleen. Danielle admitted that while she was sorely tempted to “Embrace” Colleen at a later date, she had refrained from doing so out of respect for our marriage (which I though was suspiciously selfless and charitable for a vampire). It wasn’t until after she had witnessed us getting gunned down in the drive-by that she decided to step in and preserve such a beautiful talent. What Danielle revealed next was especially surprising to me: after I had bled out, Colleen’s final words to Danielle was her pleading to help me as opposed to herself. I think I remember Danielle saying she was moved by such a romantic gesture from both of us and had to preserve both of us, but I was too focused on Colleen to listen. When I asked her why she wanted me to live instead of her even though I was far from perfect, all she did was place her hand on my now-unbeating heart and say, ‘I couldn’t imagine life without you and I know you had the strength to eventually move on.’ That one declaration from my wife made me love her even more than I already did, and I pulled her into a loving embrace; the two of us just stood there until the moment was ruined by Danielle blurting out that we were now dead and that it didn’t matter that much. We eventually separated, and I asked Danielle what I had suspected for a while: were the two of us now vampires? Danielle walked over to us, placed her hands on our shoulders and welcomed us both into the Toreador Clan.

The following night, after we were checked into a Toreador-controlled hotel for the day, Colleen and I were driven to the Accorsi estate on the edge of Manchester with Danielle accompanying us on the drive. She explained the general layout of the world we know inhabit, including the Ivory Tower, the member clans and traditions of the Camarilla, as well as the general structure of the Toreador Clan specifically. She also went into more detail about her family’s bloodline: going all the way back to Renaissance Italy at the height of the period, the Accorsi family has always been about art; both in procuring and selling art, and displaying various artworks through the many galleries they own throughout the world, including Paris, Cairo, Tokyo, and Melbourne. As one of the main Toreador bloodlines in the UK, the Accorsi family does have considerable wealth and influence throughout the many high-society circles throughout England; especially in London. Danielle explained that she owns a few different art galleries in the UK, including the one in Edinburgh where we were killed.

The two of us were silent throughout the whole car ride, but it was Colleen who broke the silence by asking what was going to happen to us now we were both vampires and part of her clan. Danielle explained that since we were still ‘fledglings’, we would be under her protection as her progenies until such a time as we could survive on our own. During that time, we would not only learn how to control our new powers as vampires, but also integrate into vampire society effectively (we both assumed she meant feeding off people) and to properly control that ravenous hunger we felt when we first awoke from our Embrace, something that she dubbed ‘The Best.’ However, she added that as we were now officially her progenies, we also had to act in accordance with the clan’s expectations as well as the Traditions of the Camarilla. As we pulled up the drive towards the estate proper, Danielle looked over both of us expectantly and said she couldn’t wait to see what we would turn out to be.

We were warned that there are other members of the Clan living on the Estate and we were told to play nice with the other Kindred. The two of us had been taken on a couple of hunts in Manchester with Danielle to make sure our growing hunger was satiated, even if it was only temporary (to be clear, while I had killed before, I still wasn’t comfortable with the idea of drinking some poor bastard’s blood for my own needs, and Colleen was far from comfortable with the idea). Our first few nights at the estate were met with a mixture of jealous stares and almost predatory glances; particularly aimed at Colleen. I ended up in a couple of fights with a few other Kindred staying in the mansion after they made some unwanted advances towards Colleen (me becoming a vampire seemed to have lessened my already short temper). We were given the same room within the estate (I guessed that was one advantage of being Embraced together, not to mention we were still technically married), but that didn’t make us feel any less uneasy about being surrounded by those who didn’t take too kindly to our arrival. There were even rumours floating around the estate that I had been Embraced as leverage for Colleen to prove her worth to Danielle, otherwise I’d be taken from her. Cutting through the rumours and the bullshit, we did learn that Danielle Accorsi had been known to Embrace potential up-and-coming artists with the hopes she’d laud over the others that she had the hottest thing of the period; only to be disappointed by what they turned out to be and practically discard them when she had the chance.

After some quiet discussion between each other about what we had learned, we decided to confront Danielle about the rumours and whether they were true in our case. While she dismissed most of the rumours as false, she did admit to one of them being sort of true: she had released some some of her progenies in the past because they were stagnant and didn’t know how to adapt to the times or were to stubborn to do so, though they were few and far between according to her. While she reassured us that wouldn’t happen to both of us, I couldn’t help but let slip a comment about saying that to some of her former progenies before they were thrown to the proverbial wolves. That turned out to nearly be a costly mistake as Danielle was suddenly in front of me and holding me up against the wall behind us. With Danielle pushing me against the wall and Colleen pleading with her to let me go, I managed to remind her that I wasn’t an artist to begin with and she sired me because of Colleen. I added that I would do anything to ensure Colleen and I would never be separated again, which intrigued Danielle; who let me drop to the ground and walked back to her desk. As I rubbed my neck (mostly out of instinct), Danielle asked about both my time in the army and as a teenage car thief; revealing she had gone through my early life prior to meeting Colleen. I admitted (rather vaguely), that I knew how to handle a gun when needed and while my thieving skills hasn’t been refreshed in recent years, I did know my way around an engine block. With that, Danielle decided to retire for the night (or day, I was still getting used to the new cycle) and dismissed the two of us, but not before saying she was going to take care of us because we were like children to her.

A couple of nights later, after things had settled down in the Accorsi Estate and we had slowly started to accept our new ‘circumstances’ (Colleen was not quite as accepting of it as I was but she did eventually come around), the two of us were driven down to Silverstone Raceway of all places. On the drive there, Danielle explained that because she attends a lot of events and parties in the high society of England; particularly in London, she was in need of someone to drive her from place to place at night and she had been looking for someone who knew their cars and who could handle themselves in a fight (who better than an ex-gang-member/army washout who was self-taught in mechanics?) Colleen was also brought along so she and Danielle could discuss some details about putting her talents in fashion design to use for her clan as well as allowing her designs to be shown to the world. After a little encouragement from me (as well as a quiet whisper saying that I would stick with her whatever her choice), Colleen agreed to hear what Danielle had to offer. When we got to Silverstone, I was greeted by my new instructors: two stunt drivers and a former racing driver (I couldn’t remember their names, all I remember was they smelled really nice). They explained that I would spend three nights a week at Silverstone learning the basics of defensive driving before moving onto the more advanced stuff; urban navigation, high-speed driving, technical driving, and chase driving (both being the chaser and the chased). The thrill of driving at such high-speeds gave me such an adrenaline rush, I could feel the engine purring through the steering wheel, the squeal of the tires as I power slid the car around a corner was a symphony to my ears, I loved every second of being behind the wheel (I had almost lost control of the Beast once or twice, which was not eager to reveal to my instructors any time soon).

The next few years was more or less a similar cycle of learning about Kindred society and the do’s and don’ts of the Camarilla, training our newly discovered powers and our new-found place within the Toreador Clan, and us getting used to being surround by socialites of the highest calibre. Not too long after I had started my drivers ed course, I discovered I had what Danielle called Auspex, which was more akin to heightened perception, and Celerity, which allowed me to move faster than normal; Colleen also had Auspex and Celerity like me, but she also had another power: Presence, or the ability to bend those around her to her will (something she wasn’t initially fond of). I had also started my new job as Danielle’s driver for whenever she had a party or event to attend, which I was not fond of to begin with (I hated those sorts of parties, they were filled with insufferable trust fund brats who’d probably never worked a day in their lives, or unlives). While out in public, Danielle was distant and somewhat cold to me like I was nothing more than just a driver to her (she was warmer to Colleen, but seemed deliberately superficial), but when we were behind closed doors, she was a lot warmer to us both and was apologetic for treating us the way we did. Some trips weren’t so bad as Colleen had travelled with us as well whenever she had fashion show she was a part of and she had to prep for it. To make travel for us easier, Danielle had a haven set up in almost every major city in the UK, including London, Cardiff, Liverpool, Edinburgh (which still held some fear over the two of us), and Dublin. Before long, Colleen (under her maiden name O’Reilly) had managed to get her name out to various members of the fashion industry and had even managed to get her own label out to the more social members of the Camarilla (other Toreadors especially began coming to her for their next outfit).

Things between Colleen and I did get a little rocky during that five-year period, especially since I was spending a lot of time away from her and she work was suffering somewhat because of it. She was getting jealous because she believed I was more dedicated to the one who made us more than the one I died with, plus she was upset we couldn’t express our love for each other like we used to (apparently, being dead means you couldn’t have proper sex anymore). One Halloween night, sensing the tension between us, Danielle decided to take us to a Halloween ball in Mayfair, and after a quick refresher on how to make ourselves look more human, told us to go hunting, but added that we were not to leave each other’s side for the whole night. Thinking it was a stupid idea and there wasn’t a point to it, the two of us entered the ballroom began seeking out our nightly prey. It wasn’t long before we found our targets: a young couple on the dance floor with a little too much alcohol in their systems. As we slowly moved around the dance floor in time with the music, following the crowd as they did the same, it almost felt like we were having our wedding night all over again; we were focused only on each other, not caring about where we were, what was around us, or who could see us. It was a tender moment, something we hadn’t had in a long time, until an unsettling but familiar churning in the pit of our stomachs reminded us why we were here.

We moved a little closer to our targets, and with little dramatic flair, I span Colleen deliberately towards the couple; who intentionally crashed into them and immediately became apologetic for bumping into them as hard as she did. As I walked over to Colleen to join in with the apologising, I couldn’t help but notice she seemed like she was glowing; almost as radiant as the day I met her. After a little creative seduction from both of us (and a lot more bubbly), we led them both to a pre-arranged hotel room (courtesy of Danielle using her connections within the hotel management) and proceeded to feed off both of them while having a very passionate foursome with the couple (I fed off the women while Colleen took the man). When they passed out from the multiple climaxes they had experienced (part of that might have had to do with our Kiss), we carefully left the room with no evidence of our bites on either of them. We felt the Beast was satiated for the time being but there was something else we were feeling, something neither of us had felt in a long time: love. From that point on, if we ever hunted together (which was often enough) and we came across a couple that took both our fancies, we would seduce them, lead them back to a hotel room, fuck them and feed off them during the ‘aftermath’. This tactic is very successful for us (and more than pleasurable for everyone involved), but it has failed once before; though through no fault of our own.

We were in Soho some time after the New Year and on our way back from a successful hunt when we heard some screaming coming from a nearby alleyway, which sounded like someone was in trouble. Curiosity getting the better of us, Colleen and I decided to investigate and maybe something about it if we were in a position to do so (at my behest, she had been given some basic self-defence training from another member of the Toreador who owed us a favour from a year back). What we found was three mangy guys, all in tattered clothes, surrounding and harassing a younger couple; no older than 21. Neither of us couldn’t hear what was being said (even with my acute hearing), but we could see the guy was trying to put up a brave face trying to protect the girl he was with, but the other three men were not buying any of it. Feeling really sympathetic to the pair (and remembering that we did in a similar situation), we decided to wait and see if they did anything to defend themselves; even though Colleen was eager to stop it. When the assailants pulled out rather crooked looking knives and the couple barely giving any resistance, we decided then and there to intervene; I made a move towards the attackers while Colleen stayed back waiting for the couple to get away. Two of the attackers I disposed of quite easily (by breaking their wrists and effectively kneecapping them), but I was distracted by the immediate problem to notice the last attacker was approaching Colleen and the couple behind her. When I saw Colleen being threatened with the knife, I felt this uncontrollable rage in the pit of my stomach and without even thinking about the consequences; I let the Beast out of its cage.

Trying to maintain some semblance of control over the Beast, I grabbed the final assailant threatening Colleen by the shoulder and threw him across the alley with inhuman force, breaking a couple of different bones in the process. I was dead set focused on the final attacker, on what he was planning do with the kids and what he threatened my wife with, that I didn’t realise my fangs were out. It wasn’t until I was about to bite into his neck that I felt someone tugging on my shoulder to gently pull me away. I span around to find Colleen cupping my face in her hands and pulling me in for a long kiss; as I began to lose myself in the kiss, I could feel the Beast’s influence begin to subside. After regaining full composure of myself, I heard the guy behind me whimpering slightly asking what I was and saying that I wasn’t human. I turned back around, smiled at the guy (with my fangs still exposed), and snapped his neck before walking over to the others and doing the same thing. We both walked over to the couple we rescued, who were shaking like leaves in a stiff wind, and told them they were coming with us.

An hour or so later (and a little memory muddling courtesy of a fellow Toreador who owed us a favour), we were at Danielle’s rooftop penthouse in Central London with our two survivors, Phoebe Levine and Sam Kennedy, sitting in the living area with a very perturbed Danielle in the room with us. Having called ahead and explained the situation to her on the way to Mayfair, Danielle immediately made sure we were allowed uninterrupted access up to the penthouse with our two guests; we also made sure we had their phones and ensured they did not leak what had happened to the outside world (thankfully they never got the chance). Danielle pulled the two of us aside and demanded an explanation (which I gave rather sheepishly), and while she did understand why we did what we did given our combined history and why I frenzied, she was less than impressed about the fact that I lost control of the Beast in full view of witnesses. She was relieved we able to ensure the Masquerade wasn’t breached and even praised us for the way we went about it but questioned why we let the two of them live and why they were in her domain. Colleen simply said that they now owed us two-fold: we saved their lives from those thugs we killed back in the alley, and we let them live after I exposed my secret, and suggested we hold it over them. Danielle suggested that we bind the two of them with our blood: if anyone drink the blood of a Kindred three times on three separate nights, then they would effectively be in love with that Kindred and would see them as their one true love. Danielle did recommend however that only two drinks of our blood should be enough for us to influence their behaviour but said she would leave that decision up to us.

In the end, Colleen and I decided to fully bind the pair to us and use our blood bond to enforce the fact that both Phoebe’s and Sam’s owed us for saving their lives, the ability to influence their behaviour didn’t hurt either (not that we told them about it). Once we were sure that the bond had taken hold on both of them (I took Phoebe and Colleen bound Sam), we decided to put them under our employ just to make sure they didn’t say something to the wrong person. We told them they would be provided with a safe place to sleep and regular work, in return they would do a few favours for us and we didn’t kill them like we did their would-be attackers (due to the memory wipe, the pair believed that we had saved their lives from the three assailants who were high on drugs and turned on each other without a moment’s notice). After that little loose end was tied off and we sent Phoebe and Sam home, Danielle told me to drive the three of us to a specific address in South Bank. When we got there, we found ourselves standing in front of a small but fashionable clothing boutique overlooking the Thames River. There was what looked like an apartment above the shop and in front of the building was a limited-edition Ducati Diavel motorcycle and a rather nice looking but not too descript BMW M3. When we asked who’s it was, Danielle simply stated it was her gift to us for our time as her progenies; she was releasing us into the world and this was her way of getting us started (I also thought she might miss us when we were gone, but I thought better of teasing her about it).

When the two of us overcame our respective surprise and shock, we thanked Danielle for bringing us back, but we couldn’t accept what she had just given us; that it was too much. After some negotiation, we agreed that we would accept the gifts, but we would still offer our services however we could (though I couldn’t help but wonder if this was what she truly wanted, but I went along with it anyway). In the end, I decided to stay on as Danielle’s head of security when she is attending her functions and Colleen would be one of her main designers for her fashion house; we’d still have access to the Accorsi estate if we needed to as well as the resources and assistance that came with it. I also asked if she could lend me some assistance in starting my own mechanics business as I was in need of a ‘day job’ (plus I had kind of missed getting my hands dirty). Danielle said she would talk with a couple of her ‘contacts’ and see if she could find somewhere I could set up shop. A few days after we moved into South Bank (we ended up calling the shop “From Dusk till Dawn”), Danielle called me back and told me of an old warehouse in Battersea I could possibly look at. Riding to the address she had given me, I found the place to be a little out of my way, but it was relatively uninhabited and in an industrial area so no-one would be the wiser; in other words, it was perfect for my needs. About two weeks later, the warehouse had been converted into a professional-looking garage with enough space for half a dozen cars plus another two bays for maintenance/repairs, the upstairs offices converted into a makeshift bedroom, and the windows blocked out so no sunlight could get in; I also had a small hidden armoury installed in the office space as well as an early warning system linked to not only my phone. During that time, word started to spread about an automotive garage specialising in aftermarket modifications was opening in Battersea and catered for a ‘specific’ clientele. While I didn’t have many clients when Cornerstone Aftermarket first opened, but I eventually managed to gather up a few customers all looking for some work done on their very extravagant cars (all of which I treat with the utmost respect, even I might not have liked the client themselves).

However, things weren’t always perfect after we were let out into the world by Danielle. A year after our respective businesses got up and running, Colleen and I were at an afterparty for a successful show at Danielle’s fashion house in Mayfair; Colleen had a pretty successful show that night and wanted to celebrate the right way (and we were feeling a bit too hungry at that point). Both of us had found our respective marks for the night and were in the process of seducing the pair of them when there was a commotion out the front of the building. Out of habit, I left the party and went down to have a look; only to find both Phoebe and Sam trying to convince the security to let them into the building so they could see us. When I asked the pair of them why they were at the fashion house, all Phoebe said was for me and Colleen to meet her at From Dusk till Dawn. I went back into the fashion house to tell Colleen about Phoebe and Sam, and she immediately had the same thought of concern as I did. Lately Sam and Phoebe had been exhibiting some weird and obsessive behaviours, like directing mortals towards either From Dusk till Dawn or Cornerstone Aftermarket when we didn’t want them to and them showing up in inopportune times for either of us. It was getting to the point with the two of them where we were considering releasing them from their services and setting the pair up in Birmingham with new identities and, if possible, their memories of the past year erased so they could get their lives back (we were starting to get used to living at night and we had started to rely on Sam and Phoebe less).

When we got back to From Dusk till Dawn, we found Sam standing next to his car and Phoebe by the front door of the store. I demanded the pair of them to tell us what the fuck was going on and warned them that it’d better be good or else. Sam simply gestured to the back seat of his car, inviting me to have a look for myself; all the while, both Sam and Phoebe’s faces were as calm and serene as I’d ever seen them. Telling Colleen to wait where she was, I cautiously walked over to Sam’s car and immediately recoiled in shock at what I saw: underneath a black blanket was a young teenage girl laying in her underwear, bound, gagged and blindfolded. I walked away from the car and towards Phoebe furiously, hoping that she could talk some sense into her boyfriend; but when she revealed that she and Sam were in on it together, I was almost furious. What tipped me over the edge was why they resorted to kidnapping: the pair of them believed that the girl would be ‘suitable for our nocturnal activities’. For whatever reason, they had gotten the idea that Colleen and I were satanic cultists who took things rather literally, and in order to stay alive, they were to please us in whatever way we needed; be good little servants in other words.

Even with the Beast whispering in my ear to take the girl in the car and deal with the other two later, I turned to Sam and demanded I have the keys to his car. With a little aggressive persuasion from Colleen, Sam handed me his car keys and was about to walk off with Phoebe if it weren’t for me growling at the pair of them to stop where they were. I gave the keys to Colleen and told her to drop the kid off somewhere safe and report her to the police; I was going to hang back and deal with our respective retainers. As Colleen walked over to the car and tried to calm the frightened girl down, I grabbed both Sam and Phoebe and dragged the pair of them away from the scene and towards the Thames in the hopes of finding a dark alley off the beaten path, luckily it was late at night so there were very few people around to notice the commotion. As soon as we were out of the public eye, I immediately began to berate them about kidnapping a teenager and asked whether they had completely lost their minds. Both Sam and Phoebe had this nonchalance about them that was truly terrifying and I was starting to wonder if Colleen and I had made a mistake about performing a blood-bond on them. In the spur of the moment, I told the pair of them to get out of my sight and I wasn’t to see them again until I said otherwise; the couple looked at each other incredulously as I walked away from the pair in disgust, Phoebe even called out to me as I disappeared from sight. By the time I walked back to From Dusk till Dawn, Colleen had called me to say she had put on a small charade for the girl, who was called Zoe Williams, and dropped her off at the nearest police station. On the way back from picking her up from the station, Colleen and I began discussing what to do with our retainers, as this latest stunt with Zoe was a step too far. After floating a couple of options (including making them disappear), we decided the best thing to do was release them for their servitude which we realised would be hard to get rid of them due to their respective blood bonds.

The following night, we called Sam and Phoebe to meet us in the same alley where we saved their lives; only for the police waiting in ambush to arrest them for Zoe Williams’ kidnapping. We watched on from a distance as Sam struggled in vain as he was put in handcuffs and put in the police cruiser, while Phoebe somehow managed to slip the police. Satisfied with the result, Colleen and I walked back to the car drove back to From Dusk till Dawn; I called the Ventrue Colleen put me in touch with about setting Sam and Phoebe up to the police to thank him and that we owed him a future favour. However, the next night we were waking up to find someone trying to break into the shop. By the time I made it downstairs, the assailant had given up with subtlety and simply smashed the glass door leading into the shop. Fumbling for the light and reaching for the knife I had stashed under the counter, I discovered that it was Phoebe standing halfway through the door covered in glass and looking like she had been crying. When Colleen came down the staircase, Phoebe demanded to know why we set them up and without either of us skipping a beat, both of us denied everything; claiming we had no idea what she was talking about. When she became more insistent about it, I walked up to Phoebe and asked her why the accomplice of a kidnapper and a predator would be taken seriously. Even though Colleen and I both knew Sam was not a sexual predator, it was part of the story that was sold to the police and we just went along with it. The moment I threatened to turn her to the police if she ever set foot on From Dusk till Dawn or Cornerstone Aftermarket again. That threat seemed to stick as neither Colleen or I hadn’t seen her since that night, though I could swear Phoebe had been following us from a distance (at least she was still unaware about what we really were, which was a fucking relief).

About six months ago, I decided to seek out some of my old friends from my brief time in the army and ask them to help sharpen my skills with firearms, so I could of more use to my sire (being able to better protect my wife didn’t hurt the cause either). Approaching Danielle about the idea (and after a little persuasion on my end), she suggested I get in contact with a couple of Nosferatu about looking for some of my old army buddies to see if they were even still in country. She pointed me towards Whitechapel where there was a small coterie of Kindred who specialised in information brokering, lead by a Nos called Jackal. The following night, I rode over to a dingy dive bar near the centre of Whitechapel, which reminded me a lot of some of the old pubs and bars that I used to frequent every now and then before I met Colleen. There was not a living soul anywhere in the pub, the place was crawling with some of the rowdiest (and ugliest) Kindred I had ever seen in my unlife; it was the stuff of nightmares (not that I wasn’t used to it already). I approached the bar and asked the bartender if they knew someone called Jackal; the female bartender (who surprisingly wasn’t the worst looking in the entire pub) directed me to a specific sewer entrance and told me to look for a hidden door not too far from the entrance. It turned out to be a blade trap that I was able to avoid with surprising ease (being able to hear it wind up didn’t help either), and with the knives sticking out of the door, the bartender entered the room with a double-barrelled shotgun aimed at my back. After seeing me not being skewered with knives, Jackal introduced herself while still having the shotgun aimed at me rather menacingly. I remained as non-hostile as I could and explained why I was there; to ask her if she could find could find some people from my army days. At that point, I heard someone further down the alley saying I didn’t have to look far.

As he stepped from the shadows, I saw someone holding a pistol in a familiar style; almost distinctly military. The apparent burn scars across his face made it hard for me (which I suspected was courtesy of the Nosferatu Clan curse), but when I heard him address me by name, I immediately recognised him as Jason Tarragen; who looked about the same as he did nearly 20 years ago (save for the ‘burn scars’). Tarragen quickly explained to Jackal that we knew each other back when we served in the British Army, then explained to me that he left the Army about two years after I was discharged. When I asked if he had heard anything about Markham and Valentine, he shook his head and told me Markham was killed in Iraq from an IED explosion. Tarragen was being suspiciously quiet about Valentine but did reveal that Jackal was the one that embraced him not long after he left the Army. I found out through Tarragen’s recount of his experiences as a Kindred that Colleen and I had it easier than most Kindred as most who had been turned were killed by those who Embraced them.

I was about to ask how he became an info broker when I heard what sounded like a group of six coming into the sewers. When I told the others that, Tarragen immediately pulled me into a nearby room and handed me his sidearm before vanishing into the dark. The disembodied voice of Tarragen whispered ‘let’s see how well you do under pressure’, and I couldn’t help but grin and reply ‘Just like old times’. I carefully checked the action of the pistol I was given, crouched down near the door and waited for the men to come into view. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tarragen appear on the other side of the door for a split second before disappearing from sight again, I couldn’t help muttering that it was a cool trick I needed to learn some time. Tuning into my acute sense of hearing, I confirmed there was six people coming into the sewer (all of which were mortal), three were armed with pistols, two had crowbars, and one had a cricket bat. Signalling Tarragen what I heard coming down the sewers, he proposed we quietly take out the three with firearms first before moving on to the other three. As soon as there was someone near the door, I pulled him into the room and quietly snapped his neck before laying him out of sight and searching his body for anything interesting. Aside from some more ammunition for his pistol and a simple looking combat knife, I didn’t find anything of use on the still warm corpse, so I held Tarragen’s gun up in the air for him to take back (the thug’s gun was a slightly higher calibre and something I felt more comfortable with). After the gun was taken from my hands, I took up the thug’s own gun and knife in my hands, with my knife hand underneath my gun hand like I was trained back in the army (almost like it was coming back to me after all these years); Tarragen piped up and said it was nice to see someone else using that style of gun-handling.

Moving quietly out of the room and behind the remaining five knuckleheads, Tarragen and I crept up behind the two at the very edges of the group (I knew they were the remaining two with firearms out). I stuck the knife into the neck of the man on the very right while Tarragen snapped the neck of the other guy, which unfortunately attracted the attention of the leader (the one with the cricket bat) and made him direct the rest of his cronies to attack us. With a flourish, Tarragen vanished into the shadows, leaving me to deal with the three thugs by myself (all without revealing my vampiric traits). I took advantage of their confusion about their missing colleagues and where Tarragen disappeared to, rushed at the one closest to me and stabbed him in the chest before shooting him in the head. Throwing the corpse to the side, I unloaded half of the magazine into the other crowbar-wielding before shoulder-charging him into the nearby wall. As the dead body hit the wall with a dull thud, I looked around for the remaining guy in the sewers; only to feel the barrel of a pistol being pressed against the back of my skull. Even I didn’t look back up at the guy (at least not without him shooting me and revealing that I’m dead), I could hear the Beast whispering in my ear to take him for all the blood he had for threatening me with a gun. While I was able to keep the Beast contained (this time), I also heard something else coming up from behind us as well as two separate voices; one was Tarragen’s, the other was distinctly female.

Hoping that whoever Tarragen was talking to was a friendly, I spoke up and told the guy that he shouldn’t have messed with someone who was ex-army as we look after one another. As soon as I finished that statement, three gunshots rang out through the tunnel and I felt the gun fall away before I heard the body splash in the water behind me. I looked over towards where Tarragen was standing, completely ignoring the fucker lying in the water, and saw a woman my (apparent) age in a hoodie and tattered jeans standing next to Tarragen. When she pulled the hoodie down, I immediately recognised the red hair of Kelly Valentine who looked surprisingly normal if not dishevelled and somewhat ratty. Tarragen explained that while Valentine was a part of his coterie, she wasn’t Clan Nosferatu; in fact, she was still a mortal albeit now a ghoul. But it was who turned Valentine into a ghoul fifteen years ago that nearly sent me into a rage: our former CO, Aaron Waters. What’s more, I was told that Valentine was blood bound to Waters for some time and used as her personal ‘companion’ before she managed to break it (with some help from Tarragen) about ten years ago and escape from his grasp. While Valentine and Tarragen might be in hiding from Waters, both of sworn that she was not going back to her former if she could help it; to that end, both Valentine and Tarragen made me promise not to tell anyone where to find her just in case it got to the wrong person. After readily agreeing to keep Kelly’s location a secret, Jackal appeared out of nowhere and agreed to do me a favour in the future if I did one for him first: ensure that a shipment of military grade firearms doesn’t reach more ‘unscrupulous’ hands and prevent bloodshed on the streets of London (I could even keep whatever firearms I wanted free of charge, as long as they didn’t end up in the ‘wrong hands’).

The past six months have relatively quiet since then, which I was not complaining about. Things between Colleen and I have been stronger (and more passionate) than ever, our respective businesses are starting to flourish, and Danielle still has me accompany her to parties or functions (though at least I get a decent pay out of it this time round). Using the sewers in Whitechapel, Tarragen, Valentine, and I continue to sharpen our marksmanship skills with random junk we find floating around; while at the same time, Jackal decided to teach me various techniques from what he called the Obfuscate discipline. We continued to watch over Zoe from a distance to make sure she was okay and that there was no residual effects from her kidnapping all those years earlier. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be any aftereffects from her ordeal; in fact, she was on the verge of being accepted into university for a criminology degree. But despite everything we had, there was still something that has eluded me for nearly ten years: vengeance for the deaths of Colleen and I. Even though we never talked about it, both of us knew we had recurring nightmares about the night we died; they might not have happened often, but they were regular enough that they’d throw us off our game every now and they. Despite Colleen’s willingness to let bygones be bygones, I felt like I couldn’t let it go but even after calling in some favours, I found nothing recent about my old gang, which made me think they had either disbanded or went to ground. For their sakes, I hope it’s the former because if hear anything about the Glasgow Ghosts or if I see any of them, I would kill them where they stood regardless of the consequences. But until that happens, I will ensure that no harm comes to the people I care about in this unlife, or there will be hell to pay.