• Charolette stared blankly out of her car window as she listened to the rain, silently thanking herself for bringing the parasol that rested in her lap. She knew it was not meant to protect her from the water, but she knew it would do for the time being. She brought it along to complete the outfit she was wearing; it was a French aristocratic strapless style, complete with a chest-crushing corset and plenty of ruffles. The black parasol simply gave her an accessory, as she loathed carrying any sort of purse or wallet in her hands; it ruined the old-style of which she loved to dress.

    She had never given up the old ways, and preferred to dress the way she did in her own time period. As she peered out of the car window, she reflected on her rebirth and the entrance into the dark world. How hard it had been back then, when the world still believed that vampires existed. To be hunted every night, having to flee every city that she resided in after just weeks was something she did not miss; but she did miss the class, she did miss the people, and the respect, and the proper way of doing things. She held on tight to her old ways, and favored the aristocratic way of life. As time wore on, she was considered more of a higher ‘rank’, as some of the younger ones would say. She had been reborn during the Middle Ages, somewhere between 1550 and the 1600’s. There was a significant difference in the younger vampires’ powers and her own, but rarely did she use them, and liked to believe that she didn’t have them at all.


    She lived in France throughout most of her immortal life, claiming only the most beautiful men and women to be her victims. As time wore on, though, so did the beauty of the world and the people around her. Just before the French Revolution, she took up a position in the government as an aristocrat, living such a lavish lifestyle that even she could hardly believe it. It didn’t take her but five years to realize that she had made a mistake; she fled France when the Bastille had been taken by the common people, leaving her life behind her to create a new one elsewhere. For the few decades that passed after that, she traveled all around the world. Across Europe and Asia, and finally to America, she soon came to realize that her once class-filled world from France was quickly dissipating, and she was left in one that was progressing into a new era of science and technology, with new medical treatments to fix diseases which had threatened to wipe out the planets population just decades before it.

    Charolette had only lived in Midnight City for little over five decades, but she was thankful she had found it. There, she wasn’t forced to progress as the world had. There, she was able to create her home in the French style, and it gave her freedom to live her life in the way she was used to, with more mild conveniences like electricity and running water. Those were a couple things that she enjoyed about this era; it allowed more comfort in her home than before. She was given the liberty to bathe every day, and to use an electric bulb to light a room instead of a candle. There was hardly any threat of burning her home down when using the electric bulbs, she found, mostly because she could fall asleep with a light on without worry.

    It wasn’t long before the car stopped in front of the once abandoned mansion, and she was amazed at how beautiful the building looked when lit from the inside. People were flowing through the open doors of the mansion much like water would run through a tunnel; it was a never ending stream of overly excited and interested vampires, some old and some young. She was pleased to see the turnout, but was very discouraged from entering due to her dislike of large crowds. She had always preferred a small social gathering with as many as ten people or less. She disliked being pushed up against another person, or people, and she couldn’t stand having to compete for someone’s attention while having a conversation. She enjoyed one on one discussion; it allowed for a more intimate conversation. But today she was willing to make an exception; she had never been into this home, and she had never before heard of a ‘Liam Renaud’. His name was French, and he claimed aristocracy, but she had never seen him before.

    Charolette smiled softly at her driver as he opened the door for her, and she popped open the parasol just before she stepped out of the car. She was a tall and lean woman, her body the perfect size for anyone. The corset of her black dress had made accentuated her curves, revealing a thin waist and broad hips. She reached down with her free hand and grabbed a handful of her dress, to keep the hem from touching the ground. Her dark hair had been softly pulled back, with a single curl that dangled over her shoulder and past her bosom.

    As she neared the entrance, her pace slowed due to the amount of people that had been trying to get in at once. There were quite a few wide-eyed gazes from the younger vampires around her; those who had heard of her but never saw her. There was a hushed murmur around her suddenly, and all eyes had turned to her. It wasn’t hard for Charolette to stare ahead, indifferent. In older times she may have acted flattered, but at her point in life, she disliked the attention and felt no need to return conversation or answer the questioning looks that pointed in her direction. What she did like about this situation, though, was the way that people felt the need to back away from her in respect. It allowed her room to continue walking into the mansion, and even enough to let her parasol fall in front of her so that she could brush as much water off of it as she could before she closed it and held onto it by her side.

    The time that she stayed in the mansion was the time that she took to survey the complexity of the room. On either side of the entrance hall, a flight of stairs wrapped around to meet up at the one landing where Liam soon stood. The chandelier that hung above her head was one of the largest she’d ever seen; and the human servants that this aristocrat had wandering the room with platters of food and drink were all lavishly dressed in clothes of times past. She was pleased with all of it; except for the eyes that followed her wherever she went. There was always a gap between her and the people around her, and with was slightly irking to her, until she found a circle of vampires that she was very familiar with.

    As the time passed she stood with this circle, and she had managed to grab a wine glass that wasn’t filled with wine, but another substance that was essential for vampire life. A smile erupted on her face several times during the course of their conversation, and she was put to silence when Marchel, another well known vampire in the community, announced the home owner’s arrival. She watched, a soft smile playing at her lips, as the man walked through the opening double doors to the landing which overlooked the entrance hall. There was silence for a moment, and she smiled softly as one of the men nearest to her and bent to whisper in her ear. “Well he just looks pompous, doesn’t he?” He chuckled. Charolette agreed, then whispered back; “I believe that he’s allowed to be. It is hard for even one of us to own a home as lavish and expensive as this one.”

    The hall was silenced once more when he began to speak, and she finally concluded that her first impression of the man, impersonally, was a good one. His face and expressions seemed friendly enough, and his voice had a certain pitch to it that gave him the aura of certainty and power. She liked it. Though she had never met this self proclaimed aristocrat, she was sure that there was nothing wrong with him and decided against being rude in the slightest. When he went silent, the dull roar of the hall was lifted once more and the lights dimmed. But unlike the rest of the vampires around her, she didn’t return to what she was doing before. She simply stood, with a wine glass in one hand and her parasol in the other, looking up at Liam, studying him.

    There was something about the way he stood, the way he moved that she liked. But that was simply the vampire way; the impossibility of being alive after they had already been killed. The elegance in every single movement they made. The aura of power and wisdom that followed them; vampires were made to seduce not only humans, but other vampires as well; whether it is intentional or not. They were the ultimate killing machines, built to catch the eye of everything and everyone around them. And Liam had been built perfectly, as Charolette saw it. Her eye was not easily captured, and when it was, she had to note it and find the reason why. Liam was the perfect predator, and she could see that. The amount of sophistication in the way he dressed, moved, and the way he presented himself. Of course it was normal to be like that, especially when you were a victim of the dark gift, but he was different. She couldn’t tell how, but he was.