This is the character journal for Vincent Maroni from the RP The Face I see!

Name: Valenteno
Alias: Vincent Maroni (and many more)
Age: over a thousand and lost count
Eyes: Copper
High: about 5' 8"
Race: Vampire/mage but the Mage is minor
Talants: Riding, Spying, Disguises, (more to be added when thought of)
Dangers to self: sunlight, decapitation and burning alive
Dislikes/debilitating: wooden stakes (unable to move), loss of home earth (will not fully sleep in the day but will face nightmares as well as what is going on around him), Moveing water (drain on self to the point of being like a human)

I think that is all that is needed here.

I sit here putting pen to paper not because I feel that I need to but because my sires child Warron has told me that I should. Not often do I do as he tells me but this time I will. I do not need a record of those that I have put in harms way or how they have died but he feels that a book of these stories would be best for my partners to come.

I do not dedicate this to him but to my Partner I have now. Helena Blaire Demuliar.

I could start with where I was born and how I lived but then I feel that is to much like a Biography and that is not truly what I want to set down here. Don’t look for this to be in any order, I will only write as I feel like telling.

My first partner was a young boy name Tomus, his family… no I should start earlier then that.

My Sires children Warron, Agata and I were the last ones of the many our sire had when we killed him. He had become a threat to all of our kind and so he had to die. He had already hunted down and killed off many of our siblings and we knew that if we did not act we would soon join the ranks of the truly dead. The fight was bad, worse then we would have thought it could be. His spells almost over came us but we finished him off. Agata was wounded in that fight, I know not what has happened to her since then. Warron was my brother, more then any other man I had known. He fled the tower and all that it stood for leaving me to take care of it. I tried, really I did but madness was in our blood and the fear was fresh with me. I tried to hide my nature from those in the nearby village, but they came for me and destroyed the tower, or so they thought. The spell I used took all my strength and power to set on them so they saw what they wished. I lay there for weeks before the hunger drove me from the tower.

The shepherd and his flock was the first of many to fall to me in those dark nights. I went weeks between hunting’s and after each time I hated myself and all that I had become. My mind was broken with what we had done and with no one there to talk to I did what I thought was deserved of me. Then came that fateful night I killed a full family with no thought of who they were and what I had done. My humanity came back to me that night, that night when I left the tower for good. The tower still stands when last I checked, none will go near it even now.

I lived on the land, killing animals to keep myself going. Avoiding any human contact fearing that they would see my sins upon my skin and come after me. I don’t know if only months passed or years but then I found Tomus’ family farm. He had just been born, his mother and father stood there in their main room together looking down on him with their arms wrapped around each other and a loving warmth I had not seen in a long time on their faces. That small part of me that was growing longed for this warmth, this love. I watched as he grew up, becoming a sliant part of their family that they did not know or see but was always there. It was in his tenth summer that the war broke out in the nearby lands. His father feared that his lords army would come and take Tomus away for the war. They never thought that the war could come to their little farm.

One night I woke to screams, I did not know then but it was his mother. They had cut down his father when he would not agree to join up and fight against his lord. The children were lined up against the barn their faces turned away from the scene of death when I arrived. The leader of the band was saying something; I don’t recall what it was. I attacked him, taking him down and killing him in one animal move. My eyes saw only the loss of My Family. I had not thought to save the children or the mother; to my mind they were already dead. I slathered every one who was dressed for war; they killed those in front of them before they died. When all was quiet and none moved I looked around to find the children killed by the men before I had killed them. Many of the weapons were still in their bodies. The mother lay over his husband not a mark to be seen of how she died.

I moved close to her, not fully hearing the sound of Tomus’ heart beating quickly as I reached out to her. My hands were covered in red and things that even now I wish not to think of. This and only this stopped me from moving her, I feared to contaminate her with my sickness. He saw me as I stepped back from her, his eyes seemed to accuse me of not being there, I ran. My family was dead but for a boy that saw me as the greater monster, I had been right to fear the world. This thought filled my mind so much that I did not see the tree branch that drove into me as I ran. I was impaled unable to move with dawn on the way.

In the half life state I live in when impaled by wood time dose not move like it usually dose. I do know now if it was a matter of moments or hours but he found me there. He did not run when he saw me, he did not attack me like others would have. He squeezed between me and the tree and tried to push me from the branch. Slowly inch by inch he pushed me from it, I would have screamed out from the pain if I could have. The whole time Tomus’ cried and I could not understand why he cried for me. When finely I fell onto the leaves he had placed behind me I gasped. His heart raced as he jumped back in fear.

He asked me if I was not dead, I nodded as the pain of blood in my lungs was to great to talk. As he fought the fear the slowly walked back to me his eyes wide. It was then that I noticed how much he looked like me when I had been younger. He told me that I looked dead, I agreed with him. Then he poked me where the branch had ripped through the rags of my shirt. “you’re not cut?” was his supprised replay when he found no wound. From there till dawn he asked me questions and I nodded or shook my head to answer. By dawn he had promised to keep me from the sun for the day. I had never thought he would stay passed that. Yet that night I woke to find small animals tied nearby for me to feed on, he had spent the day hunting for me.

It was an hour after dusk that I found him covered in dirt trying to dig a hole for his mothers body. I told him to get some rest and that I would take care of those that needed to be buried. The soldiers bodies lay in a pile near by ready to be put to the tourch. I surched through them for anything of value and then set them alight. The family was buried with the rest that had died over the years. I went into the woods and found a grave stone for them, it was not hard for me to carve into it a name. Now I don’t even recall the name I gave them but the stone still sits there.

As dawn came that day Tomus told me of his wish to travel with me and how he would protect me during the day if I would do so at night for him. Thus our bargain was struck and we traveled. At first our story was that he was my son and we were looking for work but a Gypsy had cursed me to burn in the sun. then as he grew older he realized how much we looked alike and persuaded me to pass as him during the night. It was then that I found that I needed my home earth, for we had not traveled far from the lands I knew well till then. Or maybe it was the dirt of my home earth had only then finely left my clothes.

The tower was filled with cobwebs when we returned, not a soul had been in it since I had fled the place. It was then that Tomus found out my full history and what darkness hunted me. He found things within the tower I would never have thought to look for, things that my sire had kept from me and my siblings of what we could do and what we had to do to stay alive. It was then that my first true bond was made, yet it was not like want I now shear with you Blaire, it was barely there. I knew what he felt but nothing else. He could not feel my needs nor could he hear my thoughts. In this he may have been a lucky one, but it did not give to him any of the advantages that yours had Blaire. He could die by a sword and he did. Five years after our trip to the tower we had been drafted to fight in a war that was over nothing special. It was during the day he had been cut down on the battle field, then taken to the monk that offered what could be called medical care then.

I found him near dead in the tent the monk trying to get him to renounce the devil that possessed him. For the monk had seen me in the night killing off those that snuck into our camp as spys. When he saw me walk up he realized what no one else had, that there was two of us. He called me a demon and drove me from the tent before I could do anything for Tomus. I am not proud of what I did then but I fled the camp taking all his stuff with me into the dark. I feared that the monk would send out hunters for me to bury me in the ground like I should have been many years before.

Lewis

My most resent partner before you Blaire, you know how he died. Yet I have not told you how he lived or how we met. He was a paperboy before I met him, his only dream was to make an impact on the world and what was in it. He wanted to write stories that would one day be as loved and adored by the masses as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective is. I think that was the original reason when he saw my advert for a partner he answered. I recall the day we met clearly. I had put an advert in the paper much like the one you answered but I did not know what my plans for a job were so I asked for people who were… well if you really wanted to see it you could in the archives for the Daily World from Pittsburg. It was the fall of 1875 and jobs were more plentiful then they are now.

I woke to find my office hall filled with men that answered my advert most of them unsuited for anything to do with me. I recognized one of them from a sketch I had seen months before while working with a cop. I don’t think he even realized that I was the one that tuned him in. but there was the line standing there all of them looking in part like me or trying to. Two of them had wigs on that made them look like woman, and not good looking ones. He was just past one and twenty yet he was eager.
He arrived later than the others and saw the line, I could see him from my office door as an applicant left it in rejection. Lewis’ shoulder’s slumped and I could almost see his thoughts of leaving as he stepped into the line. As each person came in and closed the door I looked out to see if the young man was still there. His hair was like mine yet his eyes were a dark blue, his body a bit stalker then ours. But something in him called to me unlike the others that paraded by me.

As the modern era gets more and more into the paper work I have had to find my partners faster and faster. It had been two weeks since my last partner had passed from this world and I had no one to take care of my daylight business. Two weeks and questions start to be asked at that time.

Well at one point I looked up to find I could not see him, I thought maybe I had lost my chance with him so with the last few I really look for some one that could be my double. Then as the last one walked out of my office he came running in carrying a tray of food and drinks. “sorry I got a bit hungry and thought that you would to.” His voice a matter of fact statement, there was no thought of payment for the food behind his eyes. Just the want to make sure another human being was not hungry after the hours I had sat and interviewed. This drew me to him more than how close he looked to me.

“I don’t often eat with my partners.” I said trying to think of a way to tell him without telling him the truth.

“That’s fine; this should not take too much time. It has been about fifteen minutes for each interview and those that are here longer are those that look more like you. I am guessing that you’re looking for a double for yourself.” He held out a bottle of ginger ale to me before opening one for himself. “Your offices are nicer then I would think for someone into crime, you dress like a lawyer and look like a copper. Your eyes took me and my whole outfit in when you first saw me even though you had two people coming and going from your office at that time…” I held up my hand to stop him from continuing his listing of what he had observed.

“Thank you mister…” I let the words hang hoping he would fill it in quickly and not leave an awkward moment between us.

“I am truly sorry.” He cleaned his hand from the condensation from the bottle before holding it out to me. “Lewis Valentine at your service.” I was surprised at how close his name was to my own true name. Maybe in his family line was one of the kids I may have sired before I became what I am today. Whatever the truth behind his name I realized that here I had the man that I needed.

“Mister Valentine, I am happy to see you have a good eye. What would you say to becoming a Privet Detective?” His eyebrows jumped into his hair line with the question.

“I would find it a thrilling occupation to embark upon.” He started to rise as if to leave with the good news then stopped. “That is if you will have me as your double, and why you would need a double I would not know.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me in a suggesting way that I could not for the life of me understand at the time.

“If you do not mind leaving a way for me to reach you when I make the decision then we shall talk then.” Nodding he pulled from his pocket a small note book and pen, filling out what I would need to reach him before taking his half of the food and leaving my office. I could hear him whisper about how short of an interview that one was as he walked away.

It was two nights later that I appeared on his door step as he walked home from a job he had gotten the day before, after his late night interview with me. “Would you give up your job for the one I have to offer?” I asked him from the shadows near his door. I could hear his mother inside talking to his father about their dreamer of a son and how she hopped he would one day make it good. He jumped in fear when I spoke but did not try to run as he searched the shadows for me.

“it depends on what you offer me.” His eyes widened as I walked into the street lamps light. “its you! I thought I had been passed over for one of the other lads when you did not send a note yesterday.” I smiled at the hope that filled his voice now as he spoke. “I had feared that my food had turned you against me.”

“in fact it was that kind act when you did not know me that made want to get to know you better.” I walked up to his door step and offered him my hand which he took gladly. “If you still wish to work with me I will expect you tomorrow at this time in my offices.” That was all I said to him. I turned and walked away into the darkness.

Lewis did not find out about what I was till years later. I had taught him little in those years. He had been a natural from the day I interviewed him. We got along as well as one could hope when you have a secret over your head like the sword of Damocles. It had been a trying night and I had not thought that the case we had been working on had gotten that bad so I did not think to check the office for gun men before entering it. The gun ripped through me from the shadows of the room as I opened the door. I could hear the man click the hammer home as he fired all the shots in the gun. Every one of them hit true to home. I had used enough of my powers that night so the bullets took the last of the working blood in my body from me. He said something over what he thought was my body but all I could think of what Lewis.

Lewis arrived a half an hour after the gunman had finely gone, taking with him files that had lain on my desk. The light glared painfully into my eyes as he lit the gas, having not made enough money in this line of work to have electrical lights put in. I moved ever so slightly trying to make him realize that I was not dead. When he saw that he was beside me and holding me like a loved brother. “What happened Vince,” that was the name I had first used with him it was not till later that I used Vincent. “Was it our case?” I nodded then coughed. My wounds were healed but I still was having trouble with one of the bullets lodged in my lung. That was when I made the mistake that work him up.

I looked up at him my feeders dropped and eyes red. He pulled back away from me only to return close to me moments later. “What are… no you can’t be!” I nodded knowing what he thought I was. I had the strength but I did not want to force him to let me feed. “All this time?” he scooted closer still to me as I nodded. “And you need blood now?” again a nod. His hands trembling raised up to my mouth and held his wrist there. “Can you control yourself not to kill me? Can you feed from here?” to each I nodded then he nodded and I feed.

As you know Blaine he was not in pain long, the pleasure washed over him and he came to lay next to me just enthralled in the sensations. It was then that I placed the bound between us, he was mine and I knew that at the time there was a new vampire moving in on my territory that would snag him and kill him if I did not mark him as mine. The Law of the Nine was only just starting to be enforced in America and so I could not expect him to be safe from this young one.

It seemed like hours later to both of us yet I think that it was only a matter of minutes before he came back around from the pleasure. “how old?”

“Last time I counted it was over nine hundred and that was many years ago. I seem to have lost count but if you really want me to I could.” Slowly I stood up and offered him a hand.

“how often?” His mind did not seem to be fully working as he was only getting out two words at a time but I could understand what he had to ask. His eyes were not fully focusing on what was going around him. I wondered as he stood there if he would need to be sent back home for the day.

“Sometimes it’s every day and sometimes it every other day. It all depends on how much I use up in the day before. Today I had used up a lot before I was shot by the sell sword of a man who riffled through our office. I believe that he was hired by Sir Willums.” Sir Willums was actually a con man that we later reviled to be a con man but at the time I had not heard from my contacts in the old world so I gave him the title just in case. It turned out that he had a very large network of people working cons with him all over the country. One of his men had thought that we were getting to close and without his bosses orders sent the hired gun after us.

I wonder some times Bliane if I remember him more clearly and what we said because of the bound with him or if it is just that time has not rubbed away the sharp edges of pain that they have to my older memory’s. Maybe when I set down the memorys of you here Iwill be able to fill these simple pages with more about you then any other of my partners. Do not think that this is all that you will hear of Lewis, I now move on to another memory that fills my mind as his fades into the dark pool of my life in this world.

Sabin

Sabin was an odd man when we first met. Everyone thought him mad and dangerous when I came into town. His hair was filled with the mud and clay of the local quarry but I saw beyond that to a mind that was seeing things that were driving him to madness. The glow of magic seem to seep from him like a sponge over filled with water. His hair was long under the clumps of gray clay, its color lost in the mud. He spoke of days to come where the monsters of the night would feed on all that walked the earth and the victim would go willingly unto their mouths. Now I still have not seen this future but if it comes I will be happy that I need not hide what I am.

He had turned to me as he proclaimed this his gray eyes going wide with the sight of me. “Master you come early.” I did not understand this but he seemed in need of a friend and I needed a human with me. I found my self in the last months fighting the urges to feed on the familys I passed on the road and in their homes. Tomus had taught me that if I wanted to keep this darkness at bay I had to interact with humans but now even that did not seem to be keeping me sane.

“I have never been a master of men, but if you wish for a friend.” I stepped from my horse and offered him my hand. Those around me looked upon us in fear. Sabin touched his forehead to my fingers in supplication.

“My master you do me great honor to offer me friendship when I will be but your servant.” It was not till much later that I realized that Sabin was what some would call a seer. I have somewhere within my collection a volume of his predictions, a few of them having come true already. He did not last long as he had a habit of thinking he had clothes on but not. I lost him about a year later to frost. But his time with me taught me to have a human who knew me around me as often as I could.

LAWRIE

Lawrie was a common foot pad when I ran acrossed him, or I should say he ran acrossed me. I had been without a partner for a week and five days when a footpad accosted me looking to become rich on the riches of others. He had pulled a pistol on me and brandished it about trying to get me to give up my horse, clothing and my gold. I was willing to part with two of the three he asked for, as I had many a stashes of gold hidden about the country. But what I would not give up were my clothes for in them was my native soil.

As he yelled at me to remove the clothes the thought came to me this man meant to kill me after I removed the clothes. He did not wish to make them bloody so he wanted me to remove them before he performed the deed. I pounced on him quicker than he could have seen, my feeders out and ready. He could not stand againted my attack, his shot rang out into the dark while I fed from him. A gasp and the scamper of feed alerted me to Lawrie’s appearance. I looked up to find eyes like mine looking back at me in fear. Then he stumbled and tried to crawl away from me all the time making tiny mewing sounds in his throat. Fearing that if I moved faster I would kill him of a heart burst I slowly lay down the body of the first foot pad and walked towards him. He gained enough of a burst to get back to his feet and take off down the road towards the nearby inn, the Sable Cat.

I fallowed never to far behind but not wanting to harm him more then what had already come of his encounter with me. We reached the inn court yard at the same time and as he went for the door I blocked it from opening. I could not have him trying to tell all the people in there what I was.

“I don’t know anything my lord and would not think to judge you for the killings you may have done.” His words came out in a jumble. His hair was short and straw colored, at first I had thought that it was only a hat he had made out of straw but it was truly his hair. As I stood there taking him in I realized that though his hair was not the same as mine I could with little work make him into my double. I had when I set out to fallow him only the thought to wiped from his mind the memory of me and what he had seen. But then a new idea formed into my mind.

“I wish to hire you.” I said keeping my voice calm and gentle as I imagined that he was still seeing me feeding from the foot pad and not what I was trying to show him now. Catching his eyes, how like your eyes they are Bliane and for that matter mine, I locked my mind on his. “Take a deep breath and relax.” I ordered him, he did as I told him. “now let it out and think of this clearly. If I had wanted to kill you I would have whipped you from this world and hidden the body so well that none would have found it for hundreds of years.” Now I know that his body would have been found sooner then that. Yet at that time we did not believe that the world would advance as quickly as it did.

His eyes widen at the thought that I wanted to hire him. “you want to hire me, pay me, a common footpad to do what?” disbelief soured his voice as he seemed to calculate how much he could get from me before searching out the local authorities.

“I don’t have to hire you if that be your wish.” His hand shot out quickly as he shook his head in disagreement to my statement. Our bargain struck we walked back to the other dead man and dealt with him.

It was not till two months later that he told me he had feared that I was the local killer that did not seem to care who he killed. I never told him that I had come in the first place to kill a vampire that turned out to be that killer.

As the years grow more quickly in life I can keep less back from those that come to trust me. And maybe it will be because of this that Sabin’s predictions will come true. I know not but I can always hope. Just know dear Blaine that if ever you wise to ask of me questions you think might offend, worry not. I stand as prince now in this city and as long as I hold that power here the laws set down by the nine will rule. Truth from my lips will be absolute when you as it of me.

I will not hold it from you “for your own good” like so many of my kind have gotten into the habit of doing over the years. Thinking to protect their own but only putting them into more danger as they delve into this dark and twisted world our kind calls home.

The monk

Two years it had been after Tomus’ death before I found a partner. He was a plump little monk that took care of a road side temple. I came acrossed his little temple in a rare time of peace. He was just finishing up his midnight prayers in his garden as I walked up the road. His eye alighted as he saw me in the moon light.

“good even my friend, and where do you wander at this so late an hour?” it was not till he spoke that I realized how young he was to hold the office that he did. I approached his garden but stopped at the fence where his faith created a border I could not cross. His faith in his god to protect him from evil was so strong that it kept me from crossing into it.

“Good eve’n to you father.” I said wondering if he would know what I truly was. “I am traveling to the Kings Town this night.” He raised his eyebrows at my comment. Slowly he stood from the stool he knelt on and approached the border of his garden.

“they close the gates at sundown my son.” His robes shifted as he stepped forward. He must have prayed for protection from his god as a holy force drove me to take a step back from him.

“I do not mean you any danger father, I am only passing though and looking to cause no trouble.” His eyes grew even wider as he realized what I was truly telling him. Seconds later his cross was out and he was advancing on me. “if you wish me to leave you had but to ask father.” Turning away from him I started to walk away. My reaction must have not been the one he had expected for his voice called after me in the dark.

“Wait my son.” The cross had disappeared under his habit as he took another step towards me. I no longer felt the push of his god, only a warm feeling of protection. “I wish to know you more.” I turned and smiled kindly at him. He did not condemn me like the monk who had turned me away from Tomus, nor did he cry out the wickedness of my ways.

“If you speak the truth father then I will return to you tomorrow after the sun has set.” I turned in the darkness to look back upon him. He stood at the gate to his garden searching for me in the darkness. His hands did not rest upon the cross as I had thought to see but upon the fence post made of a bundle of sticks. “there are things I must do this night father but I will return. If in the light of dawn you decide that you wish to not have me return then leave your cross upon the gate.” With those words I faded into the night.

The next night came and if found to my surprise his bench set outside of his fence and he upon it reading to pass the time. The book he read was not his holy book but one of the philosophes by a Greek that I had read in my youth. He did not notice me as I stepped up next to him until I moved his lamp so that he might get a better look at what he read. “my son! I had not heard you come up the path.” He smiled up at me and set aside his book. “The last eve you had acted as though a wall stood between you and my garden…” he looked down at the bench beside him. “I find it more comforting if one can talk eye to eye then for one of the company to stand above the rest.”

I took his hint and sat next to him as he looked out into the night. “I had come father fully expecting a band of local men reading to drive me from this land, yet it gladdens me to find this welcome.” The lamp I set between us so that it might illuminate both of us. It was then I saw why I had thought him old. His hair was snow white, his skin where I could see it pail. It was his eyes that startled me the most Bliare, have you ever seen the eyes of an albino? So like a vampire eyes when hunger is upon them, yet his were so gentle.

“the locals would see me as I saw you this night past. I serve here at this temple for all say this land and temple are cursed. Reaching out slowly, he brushed his fingers upon my cheek. “so I have not dreamed you in my lonely nights.” A smile, one of many to come, spread acrossed his face. “tell me son, how come you to this accursed half-life you now live?” I opened to him the truth of what I was and how I had come to be. He did not tell me of the sins I had committed each night that I rose or how the magic I used was of the devil and his ilk.