Biographies

Julian Davinoff (Sacrament, Sacrilege)

Julian Davinoff is one of the younger born vampires-about the same age as Stephan Sincai. They are two thousand years old. Davinoff lived in Bath, England when the Romans occupied it shortly after the birth of Christ and called it Aquae Sulis. He fought with Offa, the King of Mercia against the Welsh and oversaw the building of Offa's Dyke to defend against incursions. He was one of the original founders of the Dutch East India Company and a sponsor of Johannes Gutenberg, who invented the printing press. He has done research in the science of blood and invented shaded contact lenses he had ground by the lens makers in Germany to allow him to go abroad in daylight. He has collected art through the ages, and throughout the world.

By 1818 he is bored and jaded, having done everything-at least until he meets Sarah Ashton, Lady Clevancy.

In modern day, he lives in San Francisco on Nob Hill in luxury. His foundation supports a biotech company making synthetic blood.

Heinrich Khalenberg (Sacrament, The Hunger)

An older born vampire who finds the focus for his life in political machinations, Khalenberg is living in Vienna in 1818. He is the power behind Metternich's government. He and Julian Davinoff have been both enemies and allies in their time. He is a strict adherent to the Rules. It is he to whom Stephan Sincai turns for help when Beatrix Lisse is in trouble in 1811.

In 1818 he has broken the most important rule of all. He is homosexual and falls in love. The young man he made vampire betrays him, and he and Davinoff resolve to correct their errors one night in Vienna.

He joins the others of his kind in the North African Vampire Wars of 1819.

Beatrix Lisse (The Companion, The Hunger, cut from Sacrament)

Born in 1073 in Amsterdam, Beatrix was abandoned by her vampire mother as she came of age and into the flowering of her Companion. Left to fend for herself with no knowledge of her condition, she lives by her wits in the back alleys and slums, killing for her sustenance.

Beatrix is rescued from barbarity by Stephan Sincai. He shows her the ways of civilization and introduces her to Asharti. She comes to love him, but runs away with Asharti when she feels betrayed.

With Asharti, she rages over medieval Europe, wild and immoral. When she tires of the decadent life, she renounces sexual contact and emotional involvement. She tries to find meaning in her life in political causes. When that proves empty she attaches herself to powerful or interesting men. She has known Da Vinci, De Sade, Henry V and many others. She was the cherished empress and advisor of Shah Jehan, fifth mughal emperor for whom he built the Taj Majal in 1630 when she faked her death. He never knew that she did not return his love. But this influence through important men pales too. By 1819 the only solace left to her is art and poetry and their allure is fading fast. Now widely regarded as the most fascinating woman on the Continent, she comes to London and establishes a salon as an intellectual courtesan. Every one vies to be seen in her drawing room, the rich, the powerful, the leaders of government, science, art and industry. Yet she finds them all dull, until she meets John Staunton, Early of Langley.

Stephan Sincai (The Hunger, The Burning-April, 2006)

Stephan Sincai was born at Mirso Monastery shortly before the birth of Jesus Christ because his mother arrived there already pregnant. She lost interest in him as she took the Vow. He was raised by Brother Flavio until adulthood. Then Rubius, the Eldest banished him into the world even though he wanted to stay at Mirso. He had to experience the world before he could renounce it and return to take the Vow himself.

He wandered the world. He helped to roll away the stone from Jesus' tomb. He was a god to whom the Mayans made blood sacrifice and he was the first Dali Lama who could not save his people from being overrun by the Chinese. He came to believe that the Rules, at least as they pertained to made and born vampires, were wrong, and he set out to prove it. He rescued Beatrix and Asharti, one made and one born. He tried to treat them equally, even in loving them. But he loved Beatrix desperately, and could not love Asharti. When they left him, he was distraught.

In 1819, he is living in Beatrix's old house in the Herengracht in Amsterdam, surrounded by mementos of her. It is Stephan to whom John Staunton turns to rescue Beatrix.

By 1821, he realizes that his mercy to Asharti has created the North African Vampire Wars, in which he is not allowed to participate.

Pietr Vladamiroff (Sacrilege, in The Only One)

Second in command at Mirso only to Rubius, the Eldest, he has long ago taken the Vow and retreated from the world. He has renounced passion. He chants the Four Meditations and follows the Nine Precepts.

When Julian Davinoff returns Magda Ravel to Mirso in 1819 to be cured of her wildness and her desire to drain the last drop of blood when she feeds, Pietr is assigned to be her mentor. He achieves his goal. Magda is cured. Only when she leaves Mirso in 2003, does he realize what he's lost…

Deirdre, Freya and Estancia (The Burning-April, 2006)

Daughters of Rubius, the Eldest, they have been assigned to produce Harriers, incredibly powerful vampires to hunt down made vampires and enemies of the Elders. Their training methods are a little unorthodox to say the least.

Asharti (The Companion, The Hunger)

Born in 1059, Asharti was made by Robert Le Bois, leader of the European crusade to take Jerusalem. She was not made for love, but because she would last longer for the crusaders use and abuse if she was strong. They intended to kill her when they were done with her. Stephan Sincai rescued her and took her back to Castle Sincai in Dacia, where he introduced her to Beatrix.

She induces Beatrix to leave Stephan with her, and they rampage across Europe, draining the last drop and indulging in Asharti's need for power and sexual domination as a talisman against her early experience in Jerusalem. When Beatrix leaves her, she disappears, no one knows where.

In 1811, she resurfaces in France, bent on recreating the world in her own image. Stopped by Stephan and Khalenberg, she is exiled to North Africa, where she searches for eight years for the source of ultimate power for vampire kind. In 1819 she sends Fedeyah to buy Ian Rufford in a slave market.

Fedeyah (The Companion, The Gift in the anthology Love at First Bite-2006)

Made a eunuch in the Crusades, he escapes prison with an Englishman, and returns home with him spending a time in England. He speaks English. In the end, though people are kind to him, he finds it too green, and returns to the desert where he meets Asharti. She makes him vampire in order to have a servant and procurer who can live more than one lifetime. He is a convenience for her. He loves her incurably, cruel as she is, and serves her through the centuries.

In 1819, he buys Ian Rufford in a slave market and finds that he speaks English. Fedeyah practices his English with the slave. He joins in the North African Vampire Wars.

Magda Ravel (Sacrament, Sacrilege in The Only One anthology)

Made by Julian Davinoff around 1800 in Lisbon, she was a fascinating woman. Julian was looking for any connection to the world and fancied himself in love with her. But she couldn't take the overwhelming nature of her new Companion, and went wild, killing and making other vampires indiscriminately. In 1818 he finds her and returns her to Mirso Monastery, to be counseled and cured of her lust for blood. Rubius allows her to be taken in at the behest of Pietr Vladamiroff, even though as a made vampire she should be killed.

She stays in Mirso for 180 years, learning to control her addiction. In 2003 she is released, though she doesn't want to leave. She is sent to San Francisco, where Julian Davinoff will be her sponsor. She isn't sure but what the cure is worse than the disease.

Sarah Ashton, Lady Clevancy (Sacrament, Sacrilege in The Only One anthology)

Born in 1794, Sarah's father owned an estate called Clershing outside Bath, England. Fire burned the house and killed her mother when Sarah was 11. Her father's disastrous management and his father's before him have left the estate mortgaged to the hilt and nearly in ruins. Sarah and her father moved to a modest house in Bath on Laura Place. He never let her manage the estates and she felt powerless to affect their downward spiral toward genteel poverty.

Sarah has a love of antiquities rooted in her fascination with the ruins of a Roman villa on the estate at Clershing. She dreams of excavating it one day if she ever gets the money. But that event seems far away. Her friend since childhood, Corina Nandalay comes of very wealthy merchant stock. They tour the Continent together in 1811, having some adventures that change Sarah forever. She always feels inferior to her rich, audacious and beautiful friend. Sarah returns from the Continental tour chastened and alienated from Corina, but soon they drift back together.

After her father's death, Sarah takes on the management of the estates herself, with the aid of her steward and her father's solicitor, Mr. Lestrom. Through some innovative investments Sarah finds herself, in 1818, finally near to paying of the Clershing mortgages. Before she can do so, however, she finds that a mysterious neighbor, Julian Davinoff, who no one has ever seen, has lodged a challenge to the ownership of her land.

Elizabeth Rochewell (The Companion)

Elizabeth (Beth) was born in 1792 of an Egyptian mother and an English father who is an early practitioner of the new science of archeology. Her mother dies in childbirth, leaving her an only child. She attends Crofts School for Girls while her father wanders North Africa and the Levant, digging for the remains of ancient civilizations. She never feels like she belongs in England, though. She is treated as an outsider because of her mixed blood. Her father's forgetfulness often means her school bills are not paid. So, in 1807 at the age of fifteen, she convinces him to take her with him.

She learns hieroglyphics from the Frenchman who discovered the Rosetta Stone in 1797. She studies Coptic Christian and demotic Greek, as well as the principles of erosion in order to date their finds. Her father comes to depend upon her to organize their expeditions.

After the city of Petra is discovered in Jordan in 1812, she and her father become convinced that there is a lost sister city called Kivala somewhere in North Africa. It becomes her father's life work to find it.

In 1819, however, he is killed in a freak accident, when some masonry in a tomb collapses on him. Beth can't remain alone in the Africa she loves and is sent home to an England she dreads to live with her only relative, an aunt.

On the ship to England she meets Ian Rufford.

Ian Rufford (The Companion, The Gift in the anthology Love at First Bite-2006)

Born in 1786, Ian is the third son to the Viscount Stanbridge. His father was a wastrel who squandered the family fortune. Ian attends Cambridge where he is a surprisingly good student, but only because it comes easily, not because he applies himself. After Cambridge, Ian runs through the small inheritance his mother left him living the high life in London.

But when his brother Henry inherits upon his fathers death, Ian knows his steady brother will try to put the estate in trim. The new Viscount manages to buy a commission in the Horse Guards for the middle brother, Charlie. Ian cannot bring himself to be a charge upon his brother, who is trying to raise a young family, so he gives over his wastrel ways and joins the diplomatic core. Rockhampton, a powerful man who many think will end up as prime minister one day, thinks Ian has promise, and takes him on.

Ian is on his way to serve on the Turkish legation in 1817 when his ship is attacked in the Mediterranean by pirates. Ian survives, but is taken prisoner and sold as a slave in the market in Algiers. He is bought by Fedeyah for service to Asharti.

In 1819, Ian makes his escape by crawling into the British legation in El Golea, where Major Vernon Ware shelters him until he is well enough to return to England. Onboard ship, he meets Elizabeth Rochewell, also returning home.

John Staunton, Earl of Langley (The Hunger)

John comes from a noble line more famous for debauchery than accomplishment. Born in 1779, he is betrothed when a child to a neighbor, Cecily Warwick through arrangement between the families more to do with dowries in exchange for titles than love. John's father hopes that Cecily's dowry will clear his debt and allow him to continue his dissolute ways. But John thinks he and Cecily are a love match, that is until Cecily elopes with a penniless officer, right under his nose.

John comes to London in 1798 as a green boy from the north country with a broken heart. He falls into the toils of Angela Spenton, an older, but still ravishing beauty, married to the Earl of Spenton. Madly in love, he writes poetry to her, makes love in secret rendezvous. He is wracked with guilt that she is married and begs her to petition Parliament for a divorce. She finds him a convenient dalliance. She has no intention of divorcing Spenton. It takes John a while to discover what everyone in town already knows, including Angela, and his own parents. Angela is his half-sister, one of his father's many indiscretions. Everyone expects that he knows too, and is as debauched as his lineage would indicate, just being outrageous by making love to his half-sister. When John finds out, he is shocked and heartbroken.

He leaves for the Continent, intent on becoming as bad as everyone thinks he is. He keeps one step ahead of Napoleon's army, drinking, gaming, making love to women but never loving them. He believes women are all cold and calculating, and he vows never to be naïve enough to give his heart to one again.

While on the Continent, he becomes privy to a secret, during a drinking bout with an Archduke, that would help his country during the war. Thus begins the career that he believes gives his life purpose. He becomes a spy for England, working without pay, and using his reputation as the most debauched man in England as cover for his activities.

After ten years, he is the best agent Britain has. He has seen the most despicable side of mankind. He has killed for his country, been the consort to Napoleon's sister Pauline (a famous nymphomaniac), extorted information, lied, been betrayed and wounded repeatedly. The idealism of working for one's country has long since died. His government handler is thinking about retiring him, which may mean liquidating him personally. He has no idea what would be the driving force in his life if he was forced to quit, even though he gets little satisfaction from his work these days.

In 1811, he returns from France, realizing that there is a new and ominous presence in the French Intelligence service, which may turn the tide against Britain, now standing alone against Napoleon's empire. He may be the only one who can stop the fall. He makes his report. His handler and he make their plans. But, in order to keep up his image as a rake, he first stops by the salon of the newest intellectual courtesan in London, Beatrix Lisse, Countess of Lente.