Kindred: James Toulor: Part 6

March 18th, 1862, Rennet, France,

There are two reasons for my temporary vacation from the Americas: 1, they have become the seedy underbelly of revolution and all out civil war and 2, I had business to attend to at home.

Cyrilla happens to love war because she says her family started one over 1,000 years ago, however, I am not convinced that the chaos would be beneficial to either one of us.  As a member of the nobility, France is not the most safe land for us either, however, my reincarnated namesake is a French merchant with ties to the new French government.

Napoleon III of France has himself mixed in with enough foreign affairs that I was able to make it to Rennet under guise of a wealthy merchant while donating significant funds to his campaign to keep myself under the watchful eye of the people.  My castle miraculously stands and my lands are well kept by those human beings willing to help such a creature as myself.

Cyrilla enjoys the castle or so it seems as she stands by the window like a statue and beams at the town below.  Every now and then she causes a modicum of chaos with perfidy to amuse herself but we must feed so I take little notice as long as she cleans up her messes.  What power she must have to separate the good man from himself.

While here we've already been called upon to separate a minister or local powerhouse from himself enough for Napoleon III and his forces to take control.  It is no wonder they keep us around.  Rebellion is all about the money you have to rebel and Cyrilla and myself find it humorous that such a man as Napoleon III dresses himself as a man of the people only to demand help from such forces as they could never understand.

Our only true foes are gypsies that wander through now and then claiming to be slaughterers of kindred who can release people from their oppressors but the people neither know what kindred are or listen to the poisoned words of a gypsy.

The French involve themselves in a Mexican civil war while the Americans involve themselves in another civil war.  When the struggle of mankind to kill its own is at its height: what a lovely time for a kindred vacation.  The struggle and civil unrest here in France alone is enough for us to feed mercilessly on the people while no one takes notice of those disposed of.

France in Spring is gorgeous.  I see it only through darkness now but remember it in the light. I have been a kindred for 244 years but for 26 years before that, I saw this land as rich and fertile and it still produces liquid wealth from the ground.  Not liquid in the way that it's fluid in nature but rather in the way that it produces the disposable asset of great fortune.  Cyrilla and myself want for nothing and take whatever we want while this country devolves into power struggles as most of human history has.

Tomorrow night, we leave for the Mediterranean, crossing several auspicious European treasures to get to Cyrilla's home of Greece.  She loves the French countryside and northwestern France but I can see a part of her light up when she hears me talk of the sea bound islands of Greece.  How I love to please her.

Business drones on in its weary ways and has made me grow so tired of deeds and papers and documents of ownership.  It seems as though in their quest to separate themselves from Monarchical society, human beings have complicated their lives and given way to even greater kings of money and undisputed power.  It is one thing to be under a Monarch who allows you little courtesies provided you provide for him but another when a despot enslaves you to his own wealth.  I see the system changing and changing in my favor as I know what to do but I pity mankind as he has no idea the future he is building for himself.

With my highly empathic nature, I feel their sorrow but never do I pity those who make their own choices knowingly wrong.  Cyrilla sees futures and tells me how these grounds are stained with blood.  She walks the pastures and screams in her sleep when we share our daily coffin and I know we must depart this land soon.

                                                                         ...

As we cross the black waters of the Mediterranean, passengers seem to disappear each night and the sea captain cringes at the sickness that those we don't eat catch.

Sailing into Athens, I see the cliffs of an ancient society.  High cliffs with homes built into them in a  plateau style landscape.  Her eyes sparkle with the love of such a tiny land.  I tell her that the Chateau Rennet doubles the land of this small area but she simply smiles at me and uses the combination of Perfidy and her enigmatic sight to show me the magnificence of a great Greek past.

Her separation from humanity during this time makes me think she must have been as a god to these people.  She changes her elaborate French dressing to no more than an ornately draped sheet just before we depart the boat.  This is the first time I have seen her without clothes and although as a human I would have lusted after her curves winding like the cliffs of Athens and her areolas as small and erect as the tiny houses on the cliffs, my higher minded kindred brain sees an aureole over her naked form like the Venus' rival.  Her skin is as white as the statues as well; so much so that one would not have known, were she standing still, the difference between her and the marble of those statues.

"The Kallisti are said to have started the Trojan War, my love," She remarks with glee as I stand by the base wooden door staring at her donning her gown. "We are more than the goddesses ever were and twice the fluidity."

Cyrilla, unlike myself, never maintained any ties to Greece.  She explained to me that she was never a royal and never a commoner either.  She transcends the human understanding of class or existence altogether.  Whatever she is, she is like an angel in my visage and in her presence as well.

When we depart the boat, I notice we are followed through the streets by unknown assailants.  We stay at the finest hotels to remain public and our habits, although they spark the interest of local people do not threaten them in any way.  We must be far more cautious as Greece is not nearly the warring state as France is or even the nearby Turkey.

The nights roll on in magnificence and the beauty of this land grows on me until one night that I will never forget.

May 18th, 1864:  The night is crisp and clear and I watch Cyrilla from our balcony as she leaves our hotel to wander free for the night.  As she gets to the opposite side of the street, she is set upon by 4 black shadows who grab her and begin to take her off.  I leapt from the balcony and set upon feeding on two of them while she tore apart the other two with ease.  My blood potency was high at this point due to our feeding on each other from time to time and exchanging her ancient power so we were easily able to rip these assailants apart; however upon tasting their blood, we were a bit taken a back.

I noticed that this blood was that of the kindred.  More than that, the tiny bit of blood that I had managed to sample of Arabella De Gall the last time I had met up with her, during the rise to power of Augusto Vidal, had given me the ability to know that this blood was that of the Lancea Sanctum: the vicious papal monarchs of the kindred world.

It was of this instant that I realized our European fun had come to an end.  I had no idea that the workings of Cyrilla's capture had just begun.  We made haste and prepared to leave Europe.  We made our leave over land due to the wild nature of the Mediterranean and left Europe from the inconspicuous port of Newquay in the south of Great Britain in August of 1865 with all papers and lands secure in France.

My regret now, as I look back, is that it took us too long to leave that wretched continent...

Kindred: James Toulor: Part 5

Clara LeMieux, New Orleans:

I cannot remember the date or I do not allow myself to, as time stands still for me now but I remember the events as clear as day and recant them for the first time here as some closure to the beginning of this eternal nightmare:

I saw him in the corner with a black haired woman.  I knew somehow that this would be the end.

They stood in a circle like moving marble statues.  His svelte, gaunt figure ornately dressed as finely as a French clergyman should be.  He stood across from another man whose face or stature I can not even guess, save the knowledge of his blood on my petticoat.

I remember the ravenous undulation of the crowd as some of them talked of Monomacy and a champion.  I can only guess as to what was what and who was who suffice to say that I was chained down and beaten as a steak awaiting the platter.

I don't remember much but there was much blood.  There was a king or a prince or some sort of monarch fighting my valiant Frenchman and he showed neither love of the task nor rapture of it either.  It was not until the fighting began that I began to see him take any pleasure in the sordid game.

I make no mistake to call it a game, either, because later in my undead viciousness, I would learn that my maker took pity on me for the first time in his sorry existence and took no joy in that either.

As blood spatter began to hit the wall, the crowd began to growl and I began to feel a growing sense of detachment from myself and everyone I'd ever known.  After a while, I began to even fear myself.  It was at this moment that I noticed the black haired woman with my French knight eerily staring at me and the confusion of it all made time and relative understanding impossible to follow.

It seemed an eternity in the darkness.  As if some cruel spell had overtaken me and I knew no one but sat in the dark room of my own mind alone.

When I came to, the room was drenched in blood and many of the statue people were either gone or in pieces.  I could still see one or two people challenging each other to some sort of right of duel.  Before not to long, I was being stood over by the black haired woman, my French knight and a third fellow for whom I could gather for all intensive purposes to be Spanish.

"Take her, friend," said the Spaniard.

"With all my pleasure," said the Frenchman.

The woman, who spoke in Greek looked on with sorrow but allowed the Frenchman to bite into me with intense vigor and begin the process of taking my life.

As the light slipped from my eyes and mind, he tossed me to the floor and I sensed the Spaniard leave the room and felt the blood all around me.  The Grecian woman looked upon my lifeless body on the floor and began to leave when another figure entered the room.

She was dressed in rags but her figure was as statuesque as a princess and she carried herself in due accord.  She looked to the Spaniard and she looked to the Grecian.  They spoke but my ears were as lifeless as my body so all I heard was the low droning of my heartbeat.

It was later that Arabella DeGall would recant how she forced the Frenchman to save my life and make me kindred as she was.  She would become my confidante, my lover, my savior, my princess but she would never tell me the nature of the one who made me.  All she would tell me, from time to time, was that, "god damned James Toulor."

Kindred: James Toulor, Part 4

March 3rd, 1800,
The Yazoo Lands were as boring as any I had been to but with my commanding fortune, we quickly became the leader in every venture we undertook.

I am briefly contacted by Augusto Vidal who, through his haste and paranoia, begs me to use my influence as a duke to deter the French from taking his princedom away.  I have to move vast amounts of wealth but I manage to stall for him.  The rest is like a forgotten life; for the chaos that New Orleans brought was of little comfort to me and my stunning companion. Our life is here now and our growth is phenomenal when we're not caught up with my position as an advisor to him from 1770 up unto 6 years ago.  The fires were the last straw in our new life here in Yazoo.

Our preternatural minds gave us the stunning ability to understand complex concepts at an alarmingly quick rate. Through powers, unbeknownst to me, Cyrilla only had to touch a book, close her eyes, and she would absorb the knowledge within. She was always two steps ahead of me but whether it was through pity or through love, she never looked down upon me for my shortcomings.

A kindred seems to lose his soul and understanding of love through his transformation but never, frozen in time does he lose the passion he was born with. Through something they call, "the beast," sometimes his passion can be amplified to unimaginable levels.

Although I didn't know it at the time, nor did I care, Cyrilla was in the prime of her 2,075th year of life. She was daunting and quiet but must have heard the thoughts and felt the concerns of many for as terrifying as she could be, she was equally just. It was for this reason that one of my better qualities is the justice I had learned from her.

Looking at her now, on the veranda, I mused over how hard it had been to be allowed to have this union, partnership and dark kinship with her. Were it not for that brief coup de etat of sorts in 1779, we may not have found such romance...

Kindred: James Toulor, Part 3

"January 12th, 1742, New Orleans, Americas,
It has been 150 years of life thus far and 124 of them spent as the cunning and beautiful vampire I grace the world as.  My lands are still in tact and the deeds passed down to heirs that look hauntingly identical to myself.  I wonder why.

In any case, meandering this cold, dark, tepidly vapid road, I have traveled far and wide in search of Aribella DeGall, the Portuguese Vampire who inducted me into the Ventru; The Ventru, I have been fortunate to run across many times since but not a peep from her beautiful acting.  Unfortunately, none of her bloodline have found me.  How fascinating it was to find out that no other Vampires can read one's details from the blood.
Curses.  I was wondering who I was thinking of having for breakfast.
The Ventru are like all aristocrats, conceited, petulant and boring because of their constant vie for power. They prattle on about rules that suit them but forget that in the chaos of our kind, rules only give way to the anarchy of strength. For instance: you are a king. I am a pawn. I kill you. I am the king, and long live the king.
Many others have crossed my path to tell me of great meetings,  Those hosted by "noble" Ventru.  One, a "Bron," even told me a story that he claimed was the origin of "our species."

'Lo as Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross,' he said, 'Judas Iscariot was put in front of the masses for his crime of betrayal of the son of God. He was beaten terribly and cut to the point of death's embrace.  For sure, he was to die.
He came to Jesus after his death and wept, 'lord! I deserve death for my crime against you.  How can I ever live up to your love again?  I would give eternity to find you again and avoid the gaunt hand of Lucifer.'
and a voice spoke from within him, filled him, thundered around him but only he heard, 'I shall give you life, Judas, it was my will that you betray me and through eternity, you will see my love and your heaven will be with my brothers and sisters, children of god, and you will have your eternity to see my love and its genesis first hand.
it was with this that the son of man told Judas to drink of his blood and forever drink of gods children in his quest to live forever.'

Honestly, I had to laugh.  I laughed so hard he showed his fangs and almost screamed 'BLASPHEMER!' I apologized for dexterity and because he said he had something to show me.

'I am...'
'James Toulor of France.  Your reputation precedes you, kindred, otherwise, I may have challenged you to Monomacy and taken your heart.  You will not be as lucky if you insult out lord again.  Toulor, you are well on your way to becoming an advisor,' he said.
'an advisor?  I shudder to think of those I advise,' I said, thinking 'kill yourself,' would probably be my best and most merciful advice to those who cross my path.
'Your jobs can be diverse, young fledgling but you will be...'
'Fledgeling? I am one hundred and fifty years old, you know?' I said.
'you are young compared to the millennials, child,' he said.
I let his insult go with a laugh because of my reluctance to kill him and his promise of tickling my curiosity. In addition, I have read that the Bron are incredibly resilient to attempts at their life.  One such report said that a Bron had been tortured for hours before he finally took the mind of his captor and ended it out of boredom.  That Bron would definitely have fascinated me more than this zealot has so far.

The walk through the French quarter seemed endless and the Bron who brought me there talked all about some Invictus and how it would change my life.

I zoned out in favor of a rather vivacious woman. The way she swayed gave me rise to thoughts of all sorts of evil debauchery.  The lines between feeding on her blood and violating her the way only a vampire can were crossed and I was filled with a drive to have her.  Fortunately, as we turned into a ornately decorated mansion just outside of town and ironically far from the French quarter (I hadn't noticed due to my distraction) She turned in with us.

I looked behind me and noticed the long walkway to the french doors.  The looming trees took my eyes off the woman for but a minute and when I looked back she was gone.

The Bron laughed and said, 'Now it's my turn to laugh.  Seeing you lust after a Macellarian is just rich.'

'why's that?' I said.

'They're gluttons! Disgusting creatures that eat the humans they feed on. Barbarous, if you ask me,' he said.

'Delightfully curious and twisted.  I think I'm in love,' I said.

He gave me a look of disapproval and a slight hint of disgust and began a diatribe of our "esteemed host."

'Today, we meet in the home of a prominent man named Augusto Vidal.  He's a member of the Holy Lancea Sanctum and an even younger fledgeling than you, however, he gains ranks quick and you'd do good to listen and learn from his wisdom.

My curiosity was piqued but I had little to do with politics outside my own lands back home.  I had a commanding nature due to my prowess, good looks and money as well as owning slaves and top lieutenants who I had conveniently captured in a trance like state.  Akin to zombies but they were mortal and quite alive.  Many who heard of the ordeal assumed it had something to do with me being a vampire but hypnotic suggestion even when I was a mortal was something I had mastered and abused long before I had a powerful enough mind to make it 'mind numbingly easy'; no pun intended.

With us were tribes innumerable.  The Bron with me explained the differences:

'...And to the corner, you'll see the dauntingly beautiful Kallisti.  They go nowhere without a host of powerful protectors on account of their value to elders and their ability to use the discipline, Perfidy; a mean discipline if I say so myself.  These beautiful, evil creatures will ostracize you from your closest friends with this discipline.  I would not associate with such creatures if I were you,' said the Bron.

Naturally, I made a point of making a note to get closer to the beautiful Kallisti at the top of the stairs.

The "meeting" took place after hours of fraternizing with countless bloodlines including the Malocusian bloodline who invited me all over the world to see their homes and lavish luxuries that I "couldn't imagine" even with my regal and noble past.  Augusto Vidal even spoke to me briefly to tell me to meet with him within the next few weeks about power vacuum that needed to be filled.

I would do so and even gain the title of Advocate to present day under several regimes but it was a passing pleasure; especially because Vidal wouldn't even gain his title of "Prince" until 1770.

The meeting got under way in a surprisingly democratic fashion as they discussed concerns and accomplishments and the Malocusians made sure all the Ts were dashed and the i's dotted.  It was all too vapid for me to even write down suffice to say I didn't age during the waste of life it would have been had I been alive.  I made my connections and took my leave.

As I left, I noticed the Kallisti getting into an ornate carriage and I got in, commanding the driver to drive with my dominate discipline. She looked at me and seemed to attempt using Perfidy and Dominate on me to stop my attempt.  I laughed at her for her attempt.  She was quite strong and it made me sweat but I had considerable training in ignoring psychological suggestion.

'You're quite powerful.  You must be rather old,' I said.

'Old enough to be your grandmother,' she coyly told me.

I laughed and kissed her and to my surprise, she kissed back.  Upon biting her, however, I found that neither one of us could bond to each other.

'What's your name, elder, mine is...'

'James Toulor. Duke of Rennet France.  Your friend, Bron bloodline, George Christo told me about you. He said you would try to talk to me, I had no idea that you would try to win me.  I am Cyrilla Kay De Kallisti,' She said.

'Captivating.'"

The years were kind to us both and between us, we would move to the Yazoo lands to study the nature of mankind and forget about mortality.  Upon the flood, she would be whisked away from me by assailants unknown.  Hence I joined with a scientist who worked for me at my one of my research facilities and a local business woman to find her.

Kindred: James Toulor, Part 2

"December 25th 1622, Paris France,

This year is perhaps one of the coldest on record. It seems stupid of me to think such things for what do my kind have to worry about cold.  It is my 30th year of life and my 4th year of living undead. I am reminded that I need not think of such things as age anymore but I find that the small amount of humanity and therefore sanity that I have is held within my rememberance that I am an elder. 

A sort of snobbishness comes with age; a reason to gloat that I have survived the years that others have not.  Above that, I have survived the years and remained as beautiful as I was the day I died.

The people shiver all around me and grow wrinkles as they squint to keep the snow from their eyes. I try the same thing out of some curiosity but I am unchanged as always. They disgust me in their happiness. Mortals gallivanting around like death will never come to them but I know of at least one it will visit tonight!

She looks lost. Unchanged by the bitter frost. Unwavering in her beauty but solemnly hopeless for a better life than her rags and tattered stockings.  Amongst all the aristocracy, she is my only prey. She looks as if her blood would taste as sweet as death its self. She winces at the snow kicked up by a passing sleigh.

She gets up. What a beauty; what hot blooded despair! My angel of darkness and bitter callous lacivity!

I follow her into a darkened alley as she turns and throws me against a wall, biting into my neck and draining me with the merciless speed of a trained killer. She stops.

"James Toulor, of the Carolingian line and the Icarian sire. What brings the Duke of Rennet to Paris?" She says.
"Ha! Well nice to meet you too..." I say.
"Answer my question, fledgling!" She demands.
"No need to get snippy, Ms...."
"Arabella DeGall. Princess of Revena, Portugal and family Corajoso." She said.
"You're an aristocrat?" I say.
"As are you, as was your sire who was Icarian, which she shared with you, which makes you Icarian. It makes you and her Ventru. Welcome to the Ventru fledgling. I'm sorry your sire told you no more."
I smiled and asked if she might accompany me for a drink.
She told me my blood would make any other seem dull by comparison but we had eternity to meet again.
We stare at each other for a moment and I muse at her talent for acting for it is hard to act as a human when you are so far from being one.
In my hurry to discuss life with her I look to the street for a suggestion for but a moment but when I turned back, she was gone.
"So Ventru, I be, huh? News to me. I'm hungry. I want to kill somebody..." I thought, disappearing into the night...

Kindred: James Toulor Part 1

The year of our lord, 1592; Rennet France, a small child is born prematurely to a mother, who, in her rush to have her child in the room she was born in, ruptures and suffers a drawn out and painful death narrowly escaping the death of her infant child as well. James was the first child of Maria and Jean Toulor and Jean both hated and loved his child at the same time.

On birthdays, James got nothing but it was not so for Christmas or any other holiday. His family was Roman Catholic by tradition and though his father attended significant church events, he scorned God in secret for taking his wife till his death in 1617 by his own son's side. Jean never let his son, James, forget that he was the cause of his mother's death but Jean also never could bring himself to not see his wife in his son's face. During his youth, James often learned to survive in the wild for days on end when his father was home because of his father's severe alcoholism and disdain.

His home became the wolf den and his family, the wolves. When he was 12, he became entrapped by 6 wolves who ripped and tore his clothes and skin but as one went for the killing bite, an alpha female tore the heads from all the attacking wolves. Later, in his memoirs, James would come to describe her as massive; "a great beast who dwarfed the petulance and vitriol of humanity's disdain itself. Six foot seven at the shoulder and roughly a ton due to its muscle and mass. In all my years of vicious murder, mayhem and psychological torture, I could never inflict the pain of her jaws... well... at least not in a single session." The wolf mother spoke to him upon saving him, "foolish child! My kin are dead due to your wandering." He could not explain it but he had heard and understood her words. When he spoke back, she was amazed, "I don't wander, I hunt and kill for this is all I know."

She found him foolish for much of his time with her and even loathed his love of the slaughter. Despite her great size, she was kind and full of humility for lower life forms, which she considered James to be from. She did not hate humans but rather took pity on them and considered them lower for their base instincts which guided them.
It was because of her philosophy that James took an interest in psychology and began to dissect the human Psyche in bizarre, unusual and sometimes even cruel experimentation. "Humanity is nature's bane," he would say, "their sheer existence seems nothing short of a mistake. Therefore it is the duty of those of us outside their Psyche to interpret their society and find its purpose... or if there even is one..."

On his 25th birthday, James and his father went hunting together. Jean Toulor was a practical man and felt that his son's love for hunting and survivalist instinct in nature would make James a great soldier. Little did he know the things that went on under his own roof and that when James went "hunting" he wasn't always hunting in nature. Jean also had no idea the massive she-wolf that lived in the private forest of the Toulor family.
There was a third surprise that neither of the two could have expected that day and that was: Marau, the she-wolf, was the, "bitch of the forest," Jean Toulor had dreamed of killing ever since half of his first flock of deer had disappeared years before. She had also hated him equally for his crusade to rid her kind from the forest. When the two had seen each other, the reaction was explosive.

Jean ran a javelin through her heart a she lunged at him with the intent to kill. With his reaction time limited and his choices unclear and contested in front of him, James killed the only creature he had ever loved. With a great swing of his Claymore, he cut her head clear from her body which in turn, used the last bit of life it had to fly forward and kill Jean Toulor in one bite.

The castle was very quiet after that day and James blamed himself for both of their deaths but more than that, James's disdain of humanity only grew because he blamed them for the conflict arising in the first place. He begged and pleaded night after night for either God to make him any creature but human or take him from the earth altogether.

He took stupid risks: fights at bars with murderers, hand-to-hand combat with bucks, impaling thieves and scoundrels to intimidate their bosses but he grew strong and survived through it all as they threw money at him for his success. His "victories" of eliminating crime and prowess made him lavished upon like a prince, though he was only a Duke.  Until one night shortly after his 26th birthday in February.

She came in like a mist, cloudy to his vision and covered him in bite marks all over his body. His guards could not understand the sudden illness that struck their master. He no longer left the room, he handled all decisions in his room with the curtains drawn.  "You're not the master I once served" said his chief guard one night in 1620.  James tore his throat from his body for his insubordination.  After this night, many of his royal guard left his service.  His people paid him for his protection and the safety of his lands and at night he hunted the evil doers so his taxes would continue to come in.  It was in 1621, as he thrashed about in his room after being burned by sunlight that day that his sire appeared.

"You are my creation, James..." She said.  He ran at her with sword drawn but he only passed right through her as she changed to mist with each strike he laid to her form.  "It is of no use.  I am much older than you and much stronger but in time, you will become as I am."

"I will never become as you are, demon," said James.

"Wrong again, my silly child," said Elora.

Elora was the vampire mother many of her kind did not have.  She bred him in hatred and wrath and taught him to seize a Machiavellian rule in all he did. He ran companies and businesses that stretched the world around and all the time, he found no pleasure or joy greater than the viciousness that he would inflict upon mankind for the "wrong" they had wrought.  She loved him for his drive and motivation but she hated him for his lust for brutal justice without reason.  He knew, deep down, that half of his victims did not deserve their punishments but he could not help that he had died a man scorned and so too, did he live an undead life, scorned.

It was for this reason that in his third year of life, she vanished without a trace.  A sire who breeds in hatred, exists for breeding the perfect kindred, however, without the quick show of flawlessness, a kindred knows quicker than a human, the road ahead.  Especially one that was as old as the one that made James...