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Emanuel had started life in France, growing up the son of a wealthy politician, who was only wealthy through backhanded and shady deals. He was in the pocket of all the local gangs and groups, even individuals who wanted something passed through the council or government. Everyone knew he was the man to go to, and you would get your wish. The other politicians knew what he did, and they benefited from it as well. Didier would take the bribes and the gifts from those who wanted something, and then he would pass them on in varying ways to his colleagues to persuade them to vote in conjunction with him. His colleagues saw nothing wrong with it, because they weren’t taking the bribes themselves – they simply went to the lavish parties and took the Christmas, Birthday, Anniversary, house warming, etc gifts. Nothing wrong with that, right? Especially when it meant you lived to see the next one.

However, all good things had to come to an end as they invariably do. Some of the locals who’d been affected by the bad decisions that had been made got together and managed to oust him from power. Without the political power he’d wielded, his connections dried up, no longer having any use for him. Things became worse and worse for the Broussard family, shunned from society and the community. Unable to gain employ anywhere due to their reputation they were slowly becoming desperate. The final straw came when their house began to be vandalised and broken into on a regular basis – once while the family were asleep within.

Luckily one old contact, Luc Fortin, stepped in and took pity on the Broussards. He himself had family who’d moved to Canada whom he’d spoken to and they were willing to offer them all employment. It would be different to any work they’d done before, but it was work, protection and a new start for them all. With a lot of financial help from Luc, Didier managed to uproot the entire family and moved them to Canada, Harper Rock. Here he joined one of the local gangs, working for the Fortin family in any and all ways required of him until he was killed while working in one of the more run down buildings.



Emanuel had been 15 when he’d moved to Harper Rock with his family. It felt to him like they were being sent into exile, banished from France in disgrace for what his father had apparently done. He’d never had any friends when he’d been growing up, but he didn’t care. Friends weren’t something he was particularly interested in. He’d watched his father while he’d worked and seen the way he kept himself detached and aloof from all but his family – and so Emanuel had adopted this trait as his own. Many times he’d heard his father utter the words “Friends only hold you back, make you weak” and he believed this with all he had.

While he’d been at school, he’d wheeled and dealed with the best of them. He got top marks in every test and every assignment, with no effort on his part whatsoever – because someone always needed or wanted something. He’d continued this pattern of behaviour throughout his life, and had set up a couple of rather lucrative businesses while still in France. Almost all of his money however had gone to his mother to help her pay bills and feed the whole family when things were tight. So the move to Emanuel was nothing more than a business opportunity – and one that intrigued him greatly.

After they were set up in their home and his father was established into the ‘business’, Emanuel decided he needed something to do to occupy his time, and so he approached Edgard, one of the leaders of the gang his father was in. Edgard humoured him at first by letting him be a drug runner. So from the underground base the gang held, Emanuel would take the Crystal Meth out to the dealers who were set up in strategic parts of the city. He would then return with the money the Gangsters handed him and give it to Edgard. Once, one Gangster short changed Emanuel, and claimed he hadn’t – so Emanuel was given the beating for stealing from the gang. From that moment on he learned to be more careful, to check and double check everything and to ensure all his I’s were dotted and his t’s crossed. The next time a gangster tried to short him, the gangster didn’t walk for a week. After that, he’d not had any problems in that department again.

Edgard was impressed with the boy and took him under his wing – especially when at the age of 17 he lost his father. Emanuel became the head of his household, he needed to step up to the plate and with Edgard’s help step up he did. Edgard taught him varying styles of hand to hand combat and gave him more responsibility within the gang. He made sure that obstacles were place in Emanuel’s way so that when the boy got around them, the entire gang could see he deserved the promotions he was given. Edgard stayed by his side throughout, grooming Emanuel and counselling him with sound and sage advice. The man became like a second father to Emanuel, and his word and opinion meant a lot to him.

Years passed and Emanuel’s life moved on as he rose through the ranks of the gang to become a member of the council of leadership. He was tasked with diplomacy between the different factions, drawing on his father’s political leanings from when he was younger and the charm he was capable of oozing when needed. He was very much a no nonsense type of man, who was blunt and to the point without the need to be coarse in language or mannerisms as so many of his fellows were. He was feared and respected by all, rumours of the punishments he was capable of dealing out on a man, woman or their family became the sort of thing that was whispered to children to make them behave.

He had his council around him, those he trusted as much as he could and he had his own branch of the gang to watch over also. Dealing in guns and pushing drugs to the residents of the city. It was easy to do and came naturally to Emanuel. However, the death of his father always nagged him, it was always there at the back of his mind. Something hadn’t been right about the way he’d been killed. He’d seen it in the faces of those who told his mother of his death and he saw it in Edgard’s face whenever he brought it up. This, coupled with the injuries he’d seen on some of his own employees over the last year, as well as the stories of missing memories like some form of amnesia had him curious. So he’d started investigating.

By the time he was in his late 20’s he was married, with kids. However, this didn’t stop him from going out on the town and picking up others. He constantly had at least one girlfriend on the go, finding it easier to unwind with someone he didn’t really care about and was simply using to his own ends. By doing so, it meant he was always calm and relaxed around his family upon whom he doted. His wife knew of his indiscretions, but she didn’t care – she knew it was her he loved and her he’d be with regardless of the women who threw themselves at him. In fact, it made her laugh when others told her of the women who tried to turn her husbands head, because she knew who he was and how he felt and she had complete trust and faith in him.

He tried to keep them all from his life as a gangster, to keep them safe and secure – never talking about them around those he worked with and never showing even a flicker of emotion when rivals threatened them. However, everyone knew that you only had to threaten his family once, and you never threatened them, or anyone else, again. It was his way, he didn’t take kindly to threats of any sort and he put up with no ******** of any sort. His judgement and punishment was swift and harsh – and so none of his trusted circle stepped out of line. All knew their place and to their place they stayed by controlling the smaller gangs they were each tasked with, coming together regularly to discuss progress and issues they might have been having.



It was only a month or two after the vampires had returned that Emanuel realised what was going on within the city. He had spotted a couple of careless feedings, fights and even the ‘birth’ of a new vampire with the murder of a human. However he left them to it, let them do their own thing so long as it didn’t interfere with his own plans and those of his gangs. Until that one fateful night, where everything changed.

He and Edgard were out walking the streets and checking up on the newer employees. Emanuel had always liked the personal touch to ensure they all knew who they ultimately answered to. They were just leaving one such meeting when a tall man stepped out and grinned at them. His fangs were evident and he obviously wasn’t being careful about who he revealed himself to – which only meant one thing. He planned to kill them both. Emanuel was tall, but this man was taller – however that wasn’t important at that point in time. The man moved at speed and lifted his gun, firing it – Emanuel and Edgard repaid in kind but not nearly as fast. The vampire came for them and seemed focussed on Edgard more than Emanuel, pushing Emanuel aside to sink it’s fangs into Edgard’s throat. Emanuel leapt to his feet and came at the man from behind, shooting him in the back a few times with no idea how to kill a vampire. As the bullet buried themselves in the Latino man’s flesh, his black blood splattered back and covered Emanuel’s face – and splashed into his mouth. The vampire lashed out, knocking Emanuel out and leaving him for dead in a blood splattered heap on the floor.

Emanuel came too a little while later and looked around – his mentor and second father lay on the floor in a torn up heap. Neither of them had had a chance against such a beast and it was only through sheer dumb luck that Emanuel was still alive and not like Edgard. He mourned for the man, kneeling by his side, holding his hand and simply staring at his face. That was when his father’s words from times gone by came to his mind.

“Friends only hold you back, make you weak”

It was if he could hear his father’s voice, not as a memory but as if he were standing beside him. However, he felt the anger building inside him and the angrier he got the darker the building got. He tried to calm himself but his hands clenched and unclenched and the darkness grew and swirled around him until it finally unleashed itself on the body of Edgard. It was Edgard he was angry at – for making him care, for making him weak, for being a friend. However, he was more intrigued – and scared – by what he’d discovered. The blood that had entered his mouth, that he’d ingested, had changed him. He tried to do it again, letting his anger build inside him at everything that had happened, yet nothing. He’d have been tempted to think it had been a dream were it not for the state of Edgard’s body. No, the only explanation was that he’d not drunk enough of it. This needed further investigation and experimentation.

To that end he planned, he plotted and then he acted. After a few months more he was ready. They’d tried to get some blood from a vampire once before, but a few of them had been killed. He’d realised his mistake had been going after a well established vampire – he needed to go after a young one. He’d found the one he thought would be suitable. She was in her early 20’s with long white hair and hadn’t been a vampire long enough to know 100% what she was doing, but she had been a vampire long enough to have discovered some of her powers. She’d seemed sweet, innocent, naïve when he’d had people interact with her to test and check the lay of the land and she seemed perfect. So his plan was set into motion.

A number of his most trusted men and women hid themselves in an abandoned building and then he himself went to accost her. He found it easy to talk to the violet eyed, little over 5’ woman and he plied her with his charm offensive and it seemed to work. He told her his friend needed help, that he needed her to help move him from where he was as he’d hurt his ankle. She came willingly, chatting lightly as they went down the street and into the abandoned building – where her chatter came to a violent end as one of the women stepped from the shadows and gagged her while a few more jumped her and held her. They picked her struggling body up, a few more gangsters having to help them due to her strength, and carried her further into the building.

Emanuel looked at her with cold, hard eyes as if he were eying a piece of **** he’d just stood in. He removed a large syringe from the bag one of the others carried and stabbed it into her arm viciously, reminded of the night Edgard had died. He drew out her blood and he noted it was black just as the one had been the night Edgard had died. His anger rose in him once more and he lashed out at her a few times – hitting her around the head until she passed out. Once she was out, everyone visibly relaxed and she was dumped into a chair by the wall, forgotten about. Emanuel turned to the group that stood waiting expectantly and held out the syringe with the needle removed to the man closest to him.

“We’ve all seen it done. You need to drink this. Now.”

Hesitatingly the man took the vial, scared of what might happen to him – but more scared of Emanuel himself. He decided the fate that lay with drinking the blood was a lesser fate than the one where he refused Emanuel. And so he drank it down.

Everyone waited with baited breath as the man stood there, then began to sway, then paled, then gave a glassy eyed smile at them all. Emanuel lifted an eyebrow curiously at the man and then checked him over and tested him. The man had powers, and he had more than Emanuel had experienced that time a few months ago. Emanuel’s face split into a large grin as he watched the others running the man through his paces. An idea was forming in his head and it was an idea that could make him a lot of money and give him more power than he’d ever dreamed was possible.

It hadn’t taken him long to split off a few of his gangsters from the main group to then set up a smaller set of Blood Thieves. These he sent out to accost the younger vampires, to take their blood from them forcibly until he had a large enough supply to set about his second stage. It took a few months to complete the collection, as he had trouble at first storing the blood. However, through trial and error he finally perfected the art of removing blood from the vampire, processing and purifying it, storing it and transporting it. He increased the numbers of the Blood Thieves little by little, changing tactics with the vampires.

Instead of having them forcibly steal and collect the blood, he had them offer money to the vampires for exactly one pint of their blood. With the blood he was shipping out to other families to help build branches of his gang in other cities he was raking in more cash than he knew what to do with. The tactic of offering cash for the blood seemed hugely popular with the vampires of all families and all generations. So when the sun rose he sat back and watched the thieves returning with bags upon bags of blood, a slight smirk across his features that gave people chills who saw it.

His plans were going well, however the following weeks that passed he noticed less blood coming in – because less thieves were returning from their nightly runs. It concerned him, as the ones who did return, returned with less blood than they had been a couple of weeks before. He considered it, discussed it with his accountant and a couple of the leaders and agreed that the best course of action was to increase the price offered for every pint of blood as well as ensuring the deals and extractions were made in more private locations. He’d heard of the issues some of the vampires were having with being seen and condemned by others, so he figured this was the best way to appease everyone.

Unfortunately however, it didn’t work. The loyal customers still returned night after night, numerous times apparently for some. However the number of gang members he was sending out were getting lower and lower, and it was getting more difficult to get others to volunteer for the job. He was having to use more and more strong handed techniques to have people go out and collect the blood. Then it came to him. He’d been making a small sideline off selling the blood to your normal, everyday humans – just the weaker stuff that was collected mind, not the more potent pints. Desperate times called for desperate measures so he sent word out that for every 10 names and a wad of cash that was given to one of his employees – he’d offer them membership in the gang, the ability to make money and join a brotherhood of men and women.

A few humans took up the offer, a slow and steady trickle of them – but not really as many as he’d hoped. Things became even more desperate when he got word of the blood hunt that was to occur. He tried to keep as many people safe, changed routines, patterns, employees. Gave them better weapons and sent out only the strongest ones – but it was to no avail. He realised that the sheer number of vampires that were against him, seemed to outweigh the ones who were apathetic or with him. Too few were the ones who supported his kind, his right to trade in a commodity that was worth a lot and pained no-one to take. There were far too many who just didn’t give a **** either way – and so the ones who opposed him and his business led the charge and held the majority. His people were dying, he needed to do something to change what was going on.

There was only one thing for it – he had to send out word and ask for a ceasefire. Try to bargain with these creatures. He sent word through all the blood thieves who were still out, pounding the streets and he sent his lawyer with a specific duty to find one of the more powerful creatures to make an offer to them in particular. He hoped they would see reason, take up his terms. Or there was going to be hell to pay!