Ancient and noble lords of the shadows, the Lasombra are scholars and philosophers, enlightened—
You dragged yourself screaming out of a grave and then that bitch hit you with a shovel. A fucking shovel right between the eyes. And she was strong, too, for all she looked like a grandmother. That whole night was a blur of blood and chaos and grave-dirt, your fangs ripping into dead flesh, screams and gunshots in the hot desert air. And when it was over, you were still standing.
"How peculiar," the old lady said. "None of my children ever survive their first night. But since you have, I ought to raise you up right."
And she did. Her name was Millicent Rue and she had been born to a fine Baltimore family back before the War Between the States. She explained that they had been a respectable and wealthy family, and why the townsfolk burned her home and forced her to flee out West never made sense to her, as they only ever dragged unimportant people to their altars in the dead of night. Vagrants, freedmen, others no decent person ought to care about. It was downright indecent of people to drive her away.
But Millicent survived. She grew hard and cunning in the mining towns of Arizona, and then she started to grow rich again. And when she felt her old body starting to die, she sought out the kind of death you come back from.
You, she explained, had no such glorious origin. You were created as a shock troop in a Mass Embrace of new vampires by a blood cult called the Sabbat, in an attempt (a failed attempt, you later learned) to claim Houston from its vampire Prince. But you survived, and that meant you were strong—and Clan Lasombra could use your strength.
So Millicent Rue began your education. She taught you about Caine, the first vampire, and the monstrous Antediluvians, his grand-childer, who slumbered beneath the earth and awaited Gehenna—the final reckoning, when they would rise up and devour their descendants…if the Sabbat didn't stop them first. She taught you about the Sabbat, the Sword of Caine, sworn to destroying those ancient vampires, feeding on them, and taking their power. Millicent whispered secrets of metamorphosis and monstrous enlightenment, promising to transform your soul into something utterly new.
And she taught you how to hunt, and how to rule. She introduced you to her then-rudimentary trade in "vessels": mortals that existed to sustain the sometimes rarefied tastes of their vampire owners. Under her tutelage, you became—
A ruthless and powerful dark knight, her iron right hand and enforcer of her will.
A semi-legitimate accountant who kept the books and tracked the blood: dangerous, criminal work that required brains, ruthless cunning, and the occasional blast of mind control.
A dark scholar of Oblivion, dedicated to the study of shadows and death.
A vampire aristocrat, trained in etiquette, manipulation, and the powers of the mind.
A hired gun with a revolver in one hand and Oblivion in the other, someone she could hire out for "odd jobs."
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