ValkyrieRaven88
New Member
Okay, I'm warning you, I'm rather shy. Criticize if you like, but please don't be harsh. This is the prologue to my vampire novel, and I wanted to know if it made people interested in the story.
This part is done as if it is a quick overview of vampire history, not an action scene or anything like that. With this as a prologue, I'm able to explain certain things about the vampire families without forcing my characters to make lengthy explanations later on. Moving on to chapter one, you would immediately get into the story.
In fact, if you heard the horrors of the feuding vampiric families just before bedtime, you’d find it hard to sleep at night. Very hard.
This isn’t your grandfather’s Dracula, either.
The vampires in Dracula were fictional characters fabricated purely to be enemies to humans. Many of the details Bram Stoker invented into it became the stereotypical image of the vampire for generations to come. That is not true. We are not all evil. And yet we are not all good. We are as good and evil as ordinary humans are, but a few nasty encounters have given us all a bad name.
Our world has been hidden to you for some time. But perhaps I should start at the very beginning…
But they still are. They still dwell in the shadows. Some wish to come out, have it as it once was. They argue that we are physically superior to the humans, more likely to come out on top in a fight. More powerful, more intelligent vampires know better. And they're the ones who are in control. Thank God. They know that the humans outnumber us by a million to one. They know that even if we started making more Undead as if they were products in a factory, the humans would catch onto us. And besides, most of us do not want trouble. Many want power, the same way most humans desire it. But power comes only a little more easily to us than to humans. Centuries-old Pureblood vampires must hide how long they have collected their own wealth. They can enter peoples' minds, make them see them differently. Make themselves look older. They must fake their own deaths and re-take the family fortune. It is not an easy life for them.
Pureblood vampires lived in families just like that of humans. Some, if not many, were large enough to be called clans. The most prominent clans grew powerful, and the slightest insult during a meeting could start warfare between clans that lasted as long as the vampires in charge lived...and when they killed each other, sometimes their children would carry on the tradition. It could continue on for centuries before being brought to an end.
The most famous inter-clan feuding was undisputedly the grudge between the Williams Clan of Ireland and the Maksimov Clan of Russia.
No vampire knew how the “bad blood” began. But it had lasted since in the Dark Ages, and continued into the twenty-first century. At the time, both clans were excessively powerful, and therefore popular with other old Pureblood families. Records show it started around the 1130's, but no one is quite sure, save the oldest of the Vampire Council, and they don't like to talk about it. What they have said on the subject is little, but enough has been gathered to surmise that vampires flocked to either side of the struggle, giving each of the clan leaders a whole army at their disposal. That was when many vampires got killed, like soldiers on a human battlefield. Now that's pathetic.
The Council finally interceded at that point. Their libraries hold evidence of a court session. However, the transcripts are ancient, smeared, and written in Latin. They fail to mention the source of the original dispute. However, the ruling is clear. Any vampire found to be directly assisting either clan in their private war would be staked, beheaded, and burned to ash, and their ashes would be mixed with a dog's table scraps to be eaten. The first three punishments sounded painful, the last one, insulting. While both clans maintained their popularity, no one dared get involved in the dispute.
In the early twentieth century, the warring was threatening to get worse. Vladimir Maksimov was killed in 1923 when one of their rivals rammed his heart with a wooden stake, after a human assistant subdued him with holy water. 243-year old Mikhail Maksimov became head of the Maksimov Clan, and decided to move the family to America. Curran Williams, aged 256, had been in control of his clan for a while. He and his sons, Aidan and Sean, followed the Maksimovs closely, immigrating to America as well. They all settled in New York.
Maksimov did his best to ignore Curran's presence. He didn't want any more trouble. His sons Valerio and Sergei were very restless, though, and out for blood. Only Maksimov prevented them from continuing with the warring. Likewise, Curran and his sons did not launch an actual attack at the Russians. With both of them living in America, it would be harder to hide any real fighting, Curran explained. He would have to irritate them enough to bring them into his domain.
When Maksimov set up an electronics business in the 1961, Curran saw his chance. Using wealth his family had acquired over millennia, he began his own electronics business. As usual, he found he was ignored. He started sending invitations to duel, launching them most specifically at Maksimov's sons. He reportedly informed his own sons that they could overcome the Maksimov men easily in battle. Sean was 126, Aidan was 115. Sergei and Valerio were only 53 and 47 at this time.
Though his impulsive children were becoming further and further encouraged by the requests, Maksimov's anger prevented them from going any further. Still, Maksimov knew he could not keep them under control forever. Sergei was already married to a Pureblood named Kira Dmitrov, a woman of considerable beauty and a passionate heart to match. He was deeply in love with her, and had settled down. However, Sergei was protective of Valerio, who was easily angered. If Valerio went, Maksimov knew that Sergei would follow, if only to make sure he wouldn't be killed. When Valerio married Anya Bergstad, a Norwegian Pureblood immigrant, he hoped that things would settle down.
In 1984, Anya became pregnant. In February of the next year, she gave birth to a baby girl, who they named Natalia. It was the night Natalia was born that Sergei was told Kira was pregnant as well. In October, Nikolai Maksimov was born. Since Sergei was the heir to the clan, the infant Nikolai was second in line to the Maksimov clan--and to the feud.
Maksimov hoped that their new children would keep his sons busy. For a time, they did. And in 1989, Sergei and Kira had another son, Alexei. In 1992, they were overjoyed when Valerio and Anya's new daughter, Sasha, was born. They still hoped to add to the family. Both Natalia and Nikolai had proven to be precocious, and were nearly inseparable at the time. Aleksei's intelligence showed as a toddler, though he was never to achieve the genius that his older brother and his cousin possessed.
Meanwhile, however, the cold war that had erupted between Curran and Maksimov's sons continued to rage, and it finally reached its peak when Curran delivered an insult about the cowardice. Valerio and Sergei, along with their wives, attacked the Williamses’ mansion. But Aidan and Sean Williams over-powered them all somehow. It remains unknown exactly how these four met their grisly end. Their bodies were dumped in front of the door to the Maksimov Manor.
Though Count Maksimov had lost his only children, not all was lost. The four grandchildren were alive and well...
That's it. Please tell me what you think. (Constructive criticism welcome; saying "boo you suck" is not constructive criticism.)
This part is done as if it is a quick overview of vampire history, not an action scene or anything like that. With this as a prologue, I'm able to explain certain things about the vampire families without forcing my characters to make lengthy explanations later on. Moving on to chapter one, you would immediately get into the story.
Prologue: Initium
This isn’t your average once-upon-a-time bedtime story.In fact, if you heard the horrors of the feuding vampiric families just before bedtime, you’d find it hard to sleep at night. Very hard.
This isn’t your grandfather’s Dracula, either.
The vampires in Dracula were fictional characters fabricated purely to be enemies to humans. Many of the details Bram Stoker invented into it became the stereotypical image of the vampire for generations to come. That is not true. We are not all evil. And yet we are not all good. We are as good and evil as ordinary humans are, but a few nasty encounters have given us all a bad name.
Our world has been hidden to you for some time. But perhaps I should start at the very beginning…
~*~*~
It was a time when vampires had to hide themselves among humans. There was a time, in the Middle Ages, that vampires roamed the nights freely, blood and chaos following every step. That time is long past. Why? Because those vampires attracted too much attention. They were met by, yes, the usual crowd of farmers with flaming torches and pitchforks. I never said that nothing held true to the stereotype. One by one, the murderous vampires that made up the majority of the population were killed by humans. A few of those bad apples remained. However, the surviving, including the then-small crowd of relatively civilized vampires, slid away into the darkness, slinking into the shadows, leaving behind only a myth of what they once were...But they still are. They still dwell in the shadows. Some wish to come out, have it as it once was. They argue that we are physically superior to the humans, more likely to come out on top in a fight. More powerful, more intelligent vampires know better. And they're the ones who are in control. Thank God. They know that the humans outnumber us by a million to one. They know that even if we started making more Undead as if they were products in a factory, the humans would catch onto us. And besides, most of us do not want trouble. Many want power, the same way most humans desire it. But power comes only a little more easily to us than to humans. Centuries-old Pureblood vampires must hide how long they have collected their own wealth. They can enter peoples' minds, make them see them differently. Make themselves look older. They must fake their own deaths and re-take the family fortune. It is not an easy life for them.
Pureblood vampires lived in families just like that of humans. Some, if not many, were large enough to be called clans. The most prominent clans grew powerful, and the slightest insult during a meeting could start warfare between clans that lasted as long as the vampires in charge lived...and when they killed each other, sometimes their children would carry on the tradition. It could continue on for centuries before being brought to an end.
The most famous inter-clan feuding was undisputedly the grudge between the Williams Clan of Ireland and the Maksimov Clan of Russia.
No vampire knew how the “bad blood” began. But it had lasted since in the Dark Ages, and continued into the twenty-first century. At the time, both clans were excessively powerful, and therefore popular with other old Pureblood families. Records show it started around the 1130's, but no one is quite sure, save the oldest of the Vampire Council, and they don't like to talk about it. What they have said on the subject is little, but enough has been gathered to surmise that vampires flocked to either side of the struggle, giving each of the clan leaders a whole army at their disposal. That was when many vampires got killed, like soldiers on a human battlefield. Now that's pathetic.
The Council finally interceded at that point. Their libraries hold evidence of a court session. However, the transcripts are ancient, smeared, and written in Latin. They fail to mention the source of the original dispute. However, the ruling is clear. Any vampire found to be directly assisting either clan in their private war would be staked, beheaded, and burned to ash, and their ashes would be mixed with a dog's table scraps to be eaten. The first three punishments sounded painful, the last one, insulting. While both clans maintained their popularity, no one dared get involved in the dispute.
In the early twentieth century, the warring was threatening to get worse. Vladimir Maksimov was killed in 1923 when one of their rivals rammed his heart with a wooden stake, after a human assistant subdued him with holy water. 243-year old Mikhail Maksimov became head of the Maksimov Clan, and decided to move the family to America. Curran Williams, aged 256, had been in control of his clan for a while. He and his sons, Aidan and Sean, followed the Maksimovs closely, immigrating to America as well. They all settled in New York.
Maksimov did his best to ignore Curran's presence. He didn't want any more trouble. His sons Valerio and Sergei were very restless, though, and out for blood. Only Maksimov prevented them from continuing with the warring. Likewise, Curran and his sons did not launch an actual attack at the Russians. With both of them living in America, it would be harder to hide any real fighting, Curran explained. He would have to irritate them enough to bring them into his domain.
When Maksimov set up an electronics business in the 1961, Curran saw his chance. Using wealth his family had acquired over millennia, he began his own electronics business. As usual, he found he was ignored. He started sending invitations to duel, launching them most specifically at Maksimov's sons. He reportedly informed his own sons that they could overcome the Maksimov men easily in battle. Sean was 126, Aidan was 115. Sergei and Valerio were only 53 and 47 at this time.
Though his impulsive children were becoming further and further encouraged by the requests, Maksimov's anger prevented them from going any further. Still, Maksimov knew he could not keep them under control forever. Sergei was already married to a Pureblood named Kira Dmitrov, a woman of considerable beauty and a passionate heart to match. He was deeply in love with her, and had settled down. However, Sergei was protective of Valerio, who was easily angered. If Valerio went, Maksimov knew that Sergei would follow, if only to make sure he wouldn't be killed. When Valerio married Anya Bergstad, a Norwegian Pureblood immigrant, he hoped that things would settle down.
In 1984, Anya became pregnant. In February of the next year, she gave birth to a baby girl, who they named Natalia. It was the night Natalia was born that Sergei was told Kira was pregnant as well. In October, Nikolai Maksimov was born. Since Sergei was the heir to the clan, the infant Nikolai was second in line to the Maksimov clan--and to the feud.
Maksimov hoped that their new children would keep his sons busy. For a time, they did. And in 1989, Sergei and Kira had another son, Alexei. In 1992, they were overjoyed when Valerio and Anya's new daughter, Sasha, was born. They still hoped to add to the family. Both Natalia and Nikolai had proven to be precocious, and were nearly inseparable at the time. Aleksei's intelligence showed as a toddler, though he was never to achieve the genius that his older brother and his cousin possessed.
Meanwhile, however, the cold war that had erupted between Curran and Maksimov's sons continued to rage, and it finally reached its peak when Curran delivered an insult about the cowardice. Valerio and Sergei, along with their wives, attacked the Williamses’ mansion. But Aidan and Sean Williams over-powered them all somehow. It remains unknown exactly how these four met their grisly end. Their bodies were dumped in front of the door to the Maksimov Manor.
Though Count Maksimov had lost his only children, not all was lost. The four grandchildren were alive and well...
That's it. Please tell me what you think. (Constructive criticism welcome; saying "boo you suck" is not constructive criticism.)
