Doran Patrick is my primary character in Chicago. He's a former soldier who served in Vietnam, was wounded and sent home, then was saved from the fates of many wounded vets by a vampire woman looking to expand her influence. Now he works for a security firm under the control of one of the vampire masters, though he's low enough on the totem pole that he is often overlooked by the high ups.
He's good at what he does, which is bodyguard service. He's paid well enough that he isn't required to take that many jobs. He drives a brand new BMW SUV/sport coupe decked out with all the best gadgets. All black, leather seats and polished mahogany. He carries a gun, listens to classical music and jazz, and while not a brain he enjoys reading D. H. Lawrence, Jane Austen and Shakespeare.
He's also a dhampyr. That means he's a vampire, but he's a daywalker. And not a daywalker like the half-turned vamps waiting to be fully embraced, but instead a type of lesser vampire that is its own species. Trying to explain the differences between the three can get sketchy because there are so many similarities. Suffice it to say that dhampyrs aren't undead like vampires. They're the product of a virus that forces them to feed like vampires and which was, according to some accounts, created long ago by vampires looking for servants who could protect their lairs during the day. The virus gives them strength and speed, though not as much as "true" vampires, and usually not as much as half-turned vamps, but they can supercharge their abilities for a short time by drawing on the virus' power. The more heavily they draw on their powers the more they need to feed. This is sort of true for the true vampires as well except with the dhampyr it happens far more quickly.
Anyway, so the vampire woman who infected him with the virus and turned him into a dhampyr was killed and Doran escaped to be on his own. Decades later he was taken in by another vampire, this one named Kean McCormick. Doran was taken into this vampire's coterie, their circle of blood feeders and surrogate family. The relationships between vampires and their coteries was complicated and varied widely. Also, coteries were often made up of a number of vampires as well as half vamps, mortals, and sometimes even other types of supernaturals. Kean and his consort Athena treated their coterie basically as their children.
Kean's story is a largely hidden one, even to the coterie. What is now known about the vampire is that he is far more powerful than anyone suspected. After the relationship between Athena and Kean grew sour, the woman went to H. G. Loomis, one of the vampire masters, and betrayed her former lover. The resulting fallout was horrific and spawned many stories. Kean revealed that rather than a vampire of under a century as he'd pretended, he was far more powerful than any of the masters. He also had gifts beyond the ken of younger vampires and which included a talent for magic. Kean instructed Doran, in secret, and Doran is thus both a vampire and a practitioner, though he keeps that second part secret.
Whatever Kean did scared the vampire masters enough that even after the man disappeared and the coterie was considered dissolved, no one messed with them. The phantom of the vampires reputation was enough to shroud them. Some members of the coterie are still close, though they are only the humans, and then Doran. None of them know Doran is anything more than another human who was getting the benefits of a periodic taste of powerful vampire blood. None of them know he's a dhampyr. He wants to keep it that way.
No comments:
Post a Comment