Adele Blakesley is the daughter of the Earl of Avery. She was born in 1863, in a northern county of England, her mother dying not long after her birth. She was raised in near isolation. Her father, a ceremonial magician, was afraid she would be harmed by his enemies. Her father left her in the country in the care of a tutor as he attempted to learn of his own past, which was lost to him through a head injury. In London he worked to discover his past and became the head of a magical society, the Rose and Cross.

 

Secretly at first, but more openly as she grew up, Adele received visits from a mysterious mage named Julian Vyse. Julian brought her happiness and silliness, things mostly alien to her. Her father's relationship with Julian Vyse was problematic, but as Vyse had information Adrian Blakesley wanted they coexisted.

 

Adele was introduced to London society when she turned 16. Her father (now posing as her brother since he did not age - for reasons he's yet to discover) taught her to protect his secret of longevity by any means necessary. Adele used her brains and her femininity, not to mention a rather undisciplined and wild ability at magic, to do just that.

When she turned 21 (she is currently 23), as a birthday present, Julian Vyse provided her the means to come forward in time to our present. She is now relucant to return to her own time, where her father has been agitating for her to marry and produce the requisite magical heirs. She's found the freedom of the current age far more to her liking. Not to mention the ease of having relationships with handsome and intriguing men - of all species.

 

Julian Vyse/Vaurien/etc admits to having been born late in the 4th century, Common Era, in the hills above the Black Sea. He's Greek, as he's quick to point out, altho that area is now Turkey. He had been left to die of exposure when only hours old. Three old wise women who collected unwanted and injured creatures found him and raised him pretty much as they raised baby rabbits and foxes and tarantulas. He was magical from the first, which might explain why his parents did not want to keep him.

 

He sometimes describes himself as a "shamanistic mage" whatever that means. He has a somewhat elastic view of time, truth, justice, dignity and common propriety. Needless to say he can be hard to befriend. Since he has a lot of trust issues, this is fine with him.

Julian is bisexual, an unabashed flirt, horny as hell; he can kill in a moment. But if he thinks of you as a friend (whether or not you actually know this) he will risk his life for you without a second's thought.

Guy Agni Wolfe:  Only just turned 21, black hair worn in a thick braid down his back to his waist, black eyes, pale skin, about 6 ft, medium build. Handsome, intense, can be disturbing. Loner, probably of necessity. Doesn't share much of himself. Acts far older than his years. He's surprisingly lacking in pretension once you get past his natural shy reluctance toward making friendships.

 His face is marked with a sigil or tattoo on his right cheek, consisting of a stylized gold flame outlined in black, with a red symbol AUM at its heart. On formal occasions and when he is startled or defensive the tattoo will suddenly flare into a fiercer version of the same, covering his entire face in gold, black and red swirls, the aum symbol throbbing in gold.

 He comes from an alternate Earth, where magic is common in the Western world and where the East, led by India, was the heart of science and technology. Only child of Sir Aubrey Wolfe, well-known iconoclastic magician who lived in the remote foothills of the Hindu Kush. Experimenter with alchemy, rumoured killed in a massive explosion.  His mother is rumoured to be either a Hindu demoness who seduced Sir Aubrey or a Lokapala (one of the world guardians said to live in the Kush) depending if the tale is told by an admirer or by decrier of Sir Aubrey. The rumours fuel social stigma, further alienating the young man from his own world.

Ray Griffin, who'd been in correspondence with Guy, reached out and brought Guy into the present world. At the time Guy was in dire straits and might have been killed.  Currently he's no way home.

The Toronto contingent: Adrian Talbot and T’beth or Tabitha are both vampires. Adrian is an actor and teacher, T’beth a sometime private investigator and full-time tough girl. Fluffy, or Agent Fluffernutter, is her boyfriend and works for an organization known as ORC, which researches vampires.  See:  Center Stage

Nimue: Nimue du Lac, Lady of the Lake, last high priestess of Avalon, redheaded siren. Yes, that Nimue. She and Michael (or Tagd, as she calls him) have been friends for a really, REALLY long time.

Uncle Rigo: is Estella’s uncle. He’s a vampire, a gypsy, and a rough and ready sort of fellow. For a full explanation of why Francis quakes with terror at mention of his name, see a little tale called “Mistress Estella”
 

The Brotherhood of Darkness is a somewhat loosely organized group of occult riff-raff, mainly composed of vampires and Druids but with other supernatural ragtag, that was formed almost by accident in 1815 when a group of magic users on the Left Hand Path (is that the PC way of saying evil witches now?) attacked some of the Druids and the survivors went to find help. Oddly enough, they went to a vampire; but hey, any port in a storm. It worked out, the bad guys were defeated, and the group has been together ever since, with additions as the years pass. They fight for truth, justice and 25 year old single malt Scotch whiskey.

 

1. Michael Fairlawn, whose real name is Tagd (Teague, you gotta love Gaelic), is an @2000 year old Archdruid, divinely granted immortality. His chief magical power is healing. He is small and thin, with blond hair and green eyes. He is highly respected, widely regarded as very wise, and tends to be pretty even- tempered. His nomination for sainthood would be guaranteed if it weren't for his inconvenient paganism.

 

2. Mary Fairlawn is Michael's mortal wife. A head nurse at the local hospital, she had the standardized cute meet with her husband, and loved him enough to marry him despite the gap in their ages. Okay, chasm. She has brown hair, which she occasionally tints to hide the grey (see: "mortal"), and brown eyes. She needs glasses now to read. She has been universally adopted as substitute mom to the Brotherhood.

 

3. Second Generation: Bess, Galen and Vivain Fairlawn are the progeny of the above. Bess was adopted as a baby, since Michael wasn't supposed to be able to father children. She's quite normal. Well, as normal as she could be. Brown haired and eyed, yet called Black Bess from childhood after either a tavern wench or a horse in a highwayman novel, Bess is currently pursuing a graduate degree in biochemistry at university. This despite a rather chequered adolescence. Galen and Vivain are the couple's natural children. Oops. They have inherited more than just green eyes from their father; both are extremely talented magically and still finding their way and learning their craft. They are now teenagers. You may quake. Oh, yes, they have red hair. Beats me how.

 

4. Maggie Bruce is one of the other Druidic survivors of the attack back in 1815. Titian-tressed, green-eyed, vivacious, sexy, Maggie; whose magic can be erratic. She prowls after likely men, and is one of the Brotherhood's most determined singles. Determined to remain single, that is. Odd, in a group that seems to have suddenly caught the mate for life fever.

 

 5. Gideon Redoak, aka the Baron, is a vampire. Short, dark-haired, with gorgeous dark eyes, Gideon isn't quite conventionally handsome. He's homosexual, but quite firmly monogamous to his partner, Joshua (see below. Er, below this entry, that is. What they do in private is their business.) Gideon had a brutal upbringing in a cheerless Puritan home, and an even more brutal turning and first half century as a vampire. As a result, he comes across as stuffy, a bit of a prude, and rather humourless. Watch him closely. He does have a sense of humour, but it's very British and very very dry.

 

6. Joshua Trevallion is Gideon's partner. They are married, in a manner of speaking; at least they consider themselves so. Josh is tall and thin, good- looking rather than outrageously handsome, with sandy hair and butterscotch coloured eyes. He became a vampire fairly recently, within the last ten years, because his alternative was dying of AIDS. Josh is an easy-going, very likeable fellow whom nearly everyone adores.

 

7. Mitch Pritchard is a werewolf. He lives with the above two as Gideon's assistant/secretary/dogsbody--uh, gofer. Somebody has to send the e-mails and answer the phones during the day. The word most used to describe Mitch is shaggy. Gangly, shaggy, goofy. His abundance of hair is brown, his eyes either blue or amber depending on the lunar cycle. When were, he is fully a large silver wolf with some control, learned the hard way, over his behaviour. He can change back and forth at will most times; he has no choice come full moon. Despite what seems a perpetual adolescence, Mitch is actually quite intelligent and loyal to his employer and the rest of the household.

 

8. Evan Jones, Gideon's bodyguard, majordomo and chauffeur, is one of a race known as the Nameless Ones because the scribe was too lazy to think of anything else to call them. They are immortals who live in cycles; high, when they are super active, especially sexually; middle, when they are relatively normal; and low, when they are unenergetic. These strange warriors tend to hire themselves out as servants, bodyguards and so forth to occult beings. Generally rich occult beings, because not many people can afford to feed Nameless Ones in high cycle. Evan has short auburn hair, hazel eyes and lots of muscles.

 

9. Ray Griffin is a mage. He was once a sorcerer on the Left Hand Path, and went about as bad as you can go. He has used magic to kill. He was trained by a bad master, whom he eventually killed in a magical duel. He turned his back on the old ways, took to the Light and the Right Hand Path, not without some difficulty. He joined the Brotherhood in order to help get his life back on some kind of track. Any track. He actually tried to kill himself at one point. He is about average height, very thin, with curly brown hair that he hates, cold blue eyes and a world class collection of scars. He has a familiar, a falcon named Andrei, that was created out of his own blood and pain. It's a long story. (It's called "Gramps", if you want to read it.)

 

 10. Estella Smith is half Rom; and Ray's girlfriend. She's a professional psychic, and a real one. She nearly fainted when she read Ray's palm. They hated each other instantly, and we all know what that means in the end. She has the Rom dark complexion, eyes and hair and tends to dress sort of upscale Gypsy. She has given up, mostly, on dangly earrings because they are an irresistable target for Andrei. Now that's love.

 

11. Alex Goldanias... oh yes, mustn't forget him. Graf Alexander Philippe Goldanias, vampire and cad. Tall, 6'4" in his socks (Fidelius), dark (black hair, storm-grey eyes) and handsome (well, goes without saying), Alex takes being Byronic seriously. He broods beautifully. He's been suicidal in the past, and that's not easy for a vampire. He dresses very nicely, in designer duds, and smokes absolutely foul specially-made panatelas (or whatever you want to call them), cigar/cigarette hybrids that are dipped in wine or rolled in rum or something stupid like that. As he says, it's not like they're going to kill him. Alex has screwed up many prior relationships, starting with his wife back when he was mortal and working up to his own cousin, Janine. He has, however, actually written and published a vampire novel, about the exploits of the Brotherhood of Darkness. This made him a touch unpopular until he pointed out that nobody would believe it was true.

 

12. Janine Goldanias is a highly confused, bitter young woman. Blonde, blue-eyed, cute and pert, Janine seduced her cousin after living in Valley Mansion for several years by climbing naked into his bed. Even the most saintly and celibate man might find himself pressured in this situation, and Alex is no saint. He not only had sex with her, he turned her into a vampire. She went a bit off the rails. This is a polite way of saying she was stark raving bonkers. In the end, she was more or less unceremoniously shipped back to Toronto, where she set about making herself unpopular with the local vampires, at least those who did not have their own television series. She started getting really seriously peeved when Alex showed signs of wishing to date a woman who wasn't threatening to boil his pet bunny.

 

13. Mrs. Jenkins is Alex's housekeeper and a retired Nameless One (see: Evan Jones.) She has a rather barbed tongue, and does not participate in Brotherhood activities. But since she turns up frequently in the story, she bears mentioning. She looks like a housekeeper. Possibly one trained by the Marines.

 

14. Francis Xavier Calvert is another perpetual teenager, but in his case, it's because he's a vampire, turned at 19 (mental age, 12 ½ ) in 1968. That pretty much explains it all right there. He looks like a fallen angel, has platinum blond hair (natural, sorry, ladies) and blue eyes, and wears torn jeans, t- shirts with defunct bands advertised on them, a leather jacket and engineer boots. He drives a Harley that should be declared a biohazard. A free spirit if ever there was one, Francis usually bounces back pretty quickly from set- backs. He has a smart mouth that many people would like to punch.

 

15. Genevieve de Monet is a master vampire, and Prince of France. (Note to my long- term fans: Yes, I just made this fact up for this story and Adventures in Decorating, it's never been mentioned before. That's why it's called _fiction_. Yes, I stole the term Prince from Vampire: The Masquerade or Kindred the Embraced or Forever Knight: the Musical or one of those silly things. So what?) Tall for a woman of her times (she's over 500 years old), blonde, blue-eyed, drop-dead gorgeous (yes, there are blonde French women), Gen lives in a real genuine castle and runs her own winery. Don't ask for the specialite de maison. She is very close to the Brotherhood, having rescued Gideon from his turnsire and turned Joshua, as well as having been in on that original fight that formed the Brotherhood. She is the head of a very similar organization of vampires in France that fights for truth, justice and good brioche. She is often consulted on points of vampire law (yes, okay, I invented that concept, too, for this story.) She's had a long-running, on-again, off-again relationship with a dangerous, temperamental male vampire (whom she turned) named Jean de la Mare. Bet you didn't know Walter had a vampire relative.

 

16. There are also Nicholas and Pandora Edwards and their son, Aisling; Nick and Pandora are both Druids, Pandora is a healer and Nicholas is a bard. Yes, classically trained. But since Pandora is not my character, I do not feel comfortable using them, which is why they're just sort of background noise. This is what happens when you marry your character off to someone else's and the someone else stops writing.

 

 

Links:

 

The exploits of the Brotherhood of Darkness: Oakwoods

(This includes “Gramps”, mentioned above, as well as many other stories. Look also for “A Novel Experience” about Alex’s publishing his book)

 

Julian: Laura Place

 

Intro to our story:  Sorry, it’s … uhm…. Complicated.

 

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Once upon a time there was a sexy young woman from Paris...

Oh, wait, I think that one's been done before....

Once upon a time there was a dark and broody not to mention handsome and smartass vampire who was a bit lonely .....

Uhm, once upon a time, in a land far far away... lived...

 

So, a young witch named Adele espied a handsome young prince (okay, he wasn't a prince but he was bloody good looking and had this sexy tattoo) at a Ghostletters New Years party. Alas, she was with a date. Francis is quite possibly the handsomest blond vampire in existence (although Genevieve de Monet might dispute that), but he lacks a certain, er, gravitas. I mean, fun in bed and carousing around on a ratty old Harley is pretty cool, but every once in awhile a girl needs more. Say a man who owns a pair of pants without holes in the knees.

 

So, our heroine does the only thing a forward and self-confident young woman can do in such circumstances. She asked Michael Fairlawn, at whose house said intriguing young man was staying, "So, uhm, who is the young man staying with you these days? Can a girl get an introduction? Do tell. He looked quite interesting at the Telegraph party but I never had a moment to say hello."

 

Michael Fairlawn to his credit, invited her to dinner en famille. Adele accepted with alacrity and only then did the entire plan devolve into farce. The fact that there are many unattached males living on the Cliff Road quickly became apparent. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to see Adele. Or perhaps it was the added attraction that Nimue would be her wingwoman.

 

Letters flew, promises made, introductions requested.

 

Michael threw up his hands in resignation, and invited any and all to dessert and coffee, but it would be only Guy and Adele for dinner.

 

Adele, in a teasing letter to Estella, commented on being interested in Guy since "[h]e's very exotic. And he dresses neatly. No torn jeans."

 

Which prompted a reply from a more reserved denizen of the Cliff Road, one who as yet had not captured Adele's eye.  I know hard to believe, but true. Alex Goldanias, in an usual fit of humour wrote, "How do you feel about dress shirts and dress pants and fishermen's knit sweaters? I might know a real man who dresses in such fashion."

 

Adele, who had no idea this wasn't Alex's usual tone, responded, "I don't think I've ever met you. Either you're not very memorable or you're the mad brother they keep locked in the belfry. Do tell! I confess I do like a man who dresses well."

 

 If there was one thing you could say about Alex, it was that he did indeed dress well. As for the locked in the belfry portion of her question, best left unremarked upon. Alex retorted he'd wrangle an invitation to afters. Adele asked him what he looked like. Others attempted to describe him. Alex himself offered, "I am not Gary Oldman."

 

Adele then directed Alex to "wear a rose between your teeth so I'll recognize you." Adele asked Alex what he was good at.

 

"Brooding?" he replied.

 

Adele then asked him how he was at love-making, which evoked a series of anonymous posts regarding Alex's lack of credentials in that department. Adele was, however, nothing if not stubborn, and she replied to the anonymous writer (who was later revealed to be Janine Goldanias)  that "Personally, I prefer to do my own serious research."

 

Somewhere along the line duelling was mentioned casually. Adele threatened, "I shall spank any fellow who thinks duelling over me would be the way to get my attention. Believe me, that sort of thing is all too prevalent (even if it is illegal) in my own world for me to find it the least bit attractive."

 

The evening of the party finally arrived: