Siobhan asked Liam to trust her, and he reluctantly agreed to see how things would work out. Siobhan made it clear that Liam was her first priority, and he became reconciled to Maggie‘s presence more quickly than Siobhan had expected.
Siobhan also enjoyed Maggie‘s company more than she expected. She felt very maternal toward the girl, and fell naturally into the kind of close relationship she‘d had with her own mother. She also enjoyed the advantage Maggie‘s talent gave her in any kind of interaction.
Maggie learned to control her vocalizations, so she was able to simply nod or shake her head slightly to communicate whether or not someone was being honest. As long as she knew Siobhan was hearing the truth, she was comfortable.
While Siobhan was happy with her choice to include Maggie in her coven, she felt no desire to seek out other talented humans. Her curiosity about that world was satisfied.
FAMOUS QUOTE
James‘s Coven
James, a tracker who loved the hunt, sought out the company of a few other vampires in order to use their help in his ongoing tracking games. His coven was nomadic. The members, all of whom are now deceased, drank human blood, as do most vampires, and they spent the majority of their lives outdoors. Because they never made the attempt to blend in with humans, they did not see the need to pay close attention to personal appearance; they looked feral to other vampires and to humans.
NAME: James
DATE OF BIRTH: Around 1780
DATE OF TRANSFORMATION: Around 1805, at approximately age 25
SOURCE OF TRANSFORMATION: A French vampire
PLACE OF ORIGIN: Present-day northwestern Pennsylvania, near Lake Erie HAIR COLOR: Light brown
EYE COLOR: Red/black (vampire)
HEIGHT: 5‘10?
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: With an average build and nondescript features, James was not as beautiful as most vampires.
SPECIAL ABILITIES: He was a skilled tracker, able to sense in advance the most likely moves of his prey.
FAMILY/COVEN RELATIONSHIPS: His mate was Victoria. Laurent also traveled in his coven for a short while.
PERSONAL HISTORY:
James was born near the end of the American Revolution. His father was a French trapper and his mother was an English girl who had come to the Americas as an indentured servant and subsequently run away from her master. They lived a nomadic lifestyle, spending most of their time on the trail and occasionally returning to Montreal or Pittsburgh to trade.
James was raised to track and trap, and he learned quickly. The Iroquois killed his parents before his eleventh birthday, but already his skills were developed enough that he was able to survive on his own. He gained a measure of fame during his late teens and early twenties as the best tracker on the frontier, as well as sometimes being called the ugliest. He didn‘t care about his face; all he cared about was winning. He was boastful about his prowess, and always up for a challenge. He won all contests of skill, until one night in Montreal, when he met a mysterious Frenchman — also claiming to be a tracker — who found James‘s confidence amusing. The Frenchman offered to best him in any test, his only condition being that the competition had to be at night. James was unimpressed by the dandified appearance of his competitor, and he agreed without hesitation, even when the Frenchman — seemingly in jest — upped the stakes to life or death. James‘s test was to release a marked deer into the wild, allow it an hour to run or hide, and then track it. Of course, the Frenchman found the deer in a matter of minutes. He returned the carcass to James, who had just begun his search, and reminded James that his life was forfeit.
James — who had witnessed the speed with which the Frenchman moved and also saw no evidence of traditional hunting methods on the deer‘s body — cried foul. He said the Frenchman obviously had an undisclosed advantage, perhaps witchcraft or demonic help. If James were given the same advantage, he was sure he could beat the Frenchman.
The French vampire was entertained by James‘s brash confidence. He agreed to give James the exact advantage he himself had, thinking it a good joke to end the bet by taking James‘s life in a different way. He bit James and left, laughing, offering a rematch in a decade or so.
He was quite pleased with his heightened abilities, and surprised that he was no longer considered ugly.
James adjusted to vampire life fairly easily. He was quite pleased with his heightened abilities, and surprised that he was no longer considered ugly. But that didn‘t soften him toward the Frenchman. It was only about six months after the newborn madness had faded when he found the French vampire and killed him — James‘s idea of winning the bet.
Being a vampire made normal tracking — James‘s lifelong pursuit — somewhat boring. His senses were so developed that it was child‘s play to track any animal or human. To liven things up, James began giving himself harder and harder challenges. He would pick someone on a crowded city street, allow himself one sniff, and then walk away from the chase for a week or a month. Then he would return to the scene and track that individual. When that became too easy, he would do the same thing on a crowded dock, follow the ship a few months later, and search for his victim in another country. Sometimes these hunts took years, but James always found his prey. Because of his success, this got boring, too. He looked for bigger challenges, and began moving away from the practice of tracking for food. Instead he tracked vampires, a more worthy prey. This practice nearly cost him his life a few times, when he‘d killed one member of a coven and then been set upon by the vengeful remnants. These dangerous experiences did not stop him; he enjoyed the escalated consequences of his game.
James met Victoria in England while playing this game. He caught the vampire scent, and though he had no idea whom he was tracking, he tried to hunt her down. It was the longest hunt he ever embarked on. No matter how fast he moved, she was one step ahead. He realized quickly that she somehow knew he was after her, though
