Elizabeth Horsmanden, Marlena

People like Marlena don’t become vampires. They live charmed lives, surrounded by comfort (but not too much), friends (but not too close) and happiness (but not too genuine). Fate sets aside a path for people like this the Kindred never enter their lives. They are neither the top of the social structure nor the bottom; they are the forgettable chattel in between, the faceless masses Kindred refer to when they use the word “kine” in a derogatory fashion. Elizabeth was an athletic woman, healthy and strong, before becoming one of the Damned. She held numerous jobs, never really settling on anything she found as her calling. She was a cheerleader for a professional football team, a fitness instructor at a gym, a physical education coordinator at a high school... the list goes on. Consider Elizabeth’s surprise, then, when a man she met at a nightclub professed to be a vampire. At first she thought it ridiculous, but over the months they saw each other, she felt herself falling more and more under his thrall. When the truth revealed itself to her as the last of her blood flowed from her veins one fateful night, that incredulity turned to horror. As she struggled against him ever more feebly, her attacker suffered one of those strange fits of remorse that sometimes afflict the Kindred, and he Embraced her to prevent himself from taking her life. To her surprise, Elizabeth was fascinated by the hidden world to which her sire introduced her. It was amazing: layer upon layer of intrigue and suspense, with ancient vendettas and fresh conspiracies arising each night. It was like being let in on a grand secret. When she had finally learned enough of the Kindred’s ways to make it on her own (in her opinion), she bid her sire farewell, changed her name in order to “start over,” and left for New York, which she had heard was in the midst of a sectarian transition. Since arriving in New York, Marlena (as Elizabeth renamed herself, in order to sever ties to her embarrassingly pedestrian past) has made the acquaintance of as many Kindred as she can. To her, Kindred society is a wellspring of potential, limited only by the ends to which one will go. Prince, primogen, rebel who knows? All of these are possible to a Lick with enough ambition. And if there’s one thing Marlena’s learned since the Embrace, it’s that ambition is the Kindred’s stock in trade.