Many readers fall in love with my vampire, Christian Du Maure and though he prefers to be alone among his books and his priceless antiques, sometimes he lets us into his world.........
My name is Christian Du Mauré. I am a phantom who peregrinates from place to place: Paris, London, New York, and the American West. I live in New York now. We never stay in one place for too long. The we you ask? Michel Baptiste and I. My dearest friend since childhood. The man I followed into darkness in the year of our Lord 1757. I was twenty years old then. What did I know of consequences? I simply feared losing my best friend to the seductive world of the vampire. Neither of us could comprehend the repercussions of our choices. All we knew was the beautiful and sensual Gabrielle, our lover and our maker. She was our guide who led us on a journey of lust and blood as we wove our way into the fabric of French upper class society. Robbing their lifeblood, bit by bit, just as they did among themselves, little by little.
How can I impress what it is like to dwell forever in twilight, both man and monster, seducer and slayer? The beautiful Gabrielle ruled over the Parisian vampires with her second in command Gaétan. What they could not control with their beauty, they destroyed. All succumbed to their demands of loyalty and subservience or died. I have never been good at either loyalty or subservience, except to Michel but as always, things change. Her name was Josette and it was the summer of 1787. She was a mortal woman, married to a minor aristocrat name Luc Delacore. We had all heard the rumors of her beauty and kindness, but nothing prepared me for our introduction.
Michel and I met them one night, strolling arm in arm on the Pont Neuf for she had become the mistress of the handsome Gaétan. He reluctantly introduced us and as she extended her lily white hand for my kiss I gazed into her emerald eyes and realized how lost I had been and how lonely I had become. I was barely able to speak, saying not much more than hello to her. She was all I wanted, the exotic Josette Delacore and not long after that night she came to me. Both of us forsaking our vampire lovers for one another. Gaétan grew to hate me even more and Gabrielle became angry with me for abandoning her bed for that of a mortal and Michel. Even then he was my protector, forever watching the others who grew more powerful yet jealous of me.
The wars of the mortals affected even the undead, dividing us and straining the tenuous bloody bonds that held us together. I had always hated politics and avoided the wars of men just as Michel and I ignored the feuding of our own kind, until the wars took my Josette. Then, life as I knew it was over.
She had a child, Solange. A beautiful little girl with dark wavy hair and green eyes. Fearing their arrest she asked me to take Solange and give her to a family that could provide for her. Reluctantly I took the screaming child from her mother’s arms. I knew of many French families fleeing to England. I would have no difficulty finding one to take the beautiful child. Many nights I thought about turning Josette into one of us, of giving her the curse of eternal life and having her by my side forever. And yes, I thought that being immortal was a curse and one I could never bestow upon another. I promised myself I would never interfere in the world of mortals. Great power is great responsibility. I had to use it wisely.