Name: Elizabeth
Francis Pierce
Age: 217
Height: 5’ 4”
Weight: 115lbs
(52.2kg)
Eyes: brown
Hair: dark
brown
Title: Ambassador
to the Human-Other Summit, Council Chair of the New England Vampire
Council
Biography:
Lady
Elizabeth Pierce was born three weeks early to an affluent noble family in
Brighton, England in 1795. Her mother, suffering internal bleeding from a
difficult breech birth, died within days of delivery and the doctors feared the
child would soon follow. Elizabeth, however, was a strong infant and survived
to grow into a precocious child. Lord Edmund Pierce, hoping for an heir and
blaming her for the death of his beloved wife, spent little time with his young
daughter and left her in the care of a succession of nannies and governesses.
As
the child grew into a lovely young woman who was the very image of her
beautiful mother, her father remained almost constantly in London attending a
succession of parties and entertaining a multitude of mistresses. It was during
one of these wild routs that Lord Edmund met Janus Fleming, Earl of Wiltshire.
For nearly a year, the pair spent most of their time together drinking,
gambling, and sharing women of dubious moral background. In an effort to
maintain his position in society and his exalted place as the close friend of
such a notoriously infamous nobleman, Lord Edmund spent more time than was
financially healthy at the gaming tables. Unfortunately for the young
Elizabeth’s father, he wasn’t wise enough to realize he was being fleeced by
expert gamesters and watched as his modest fortune disappeared at the tables
and race tracks.
As
the summer of 1812 approached, Lord Edmund was horrified to learn just how
completely he’d brought he’d family to ruin. A particularly debauched weekend
at the Earl of Wiltshire’s Townhouse had seen the loss of the young Elizabeth’s
dowry as well as the deed to all but the entailed properties. The Pierce family
was ruined in the eyes of Society on the eve of the girl’s debut. Janus, who’d
orchestrated his “friend’s” downfall, arrived just in time to convince Edmund
not to take the “gentleman’s way out” with a shocking proposal: He’d restore
Pierce’s fortune in exchange for his daughter, Elizabeth. Convinced that his
friend intended marriage, Edmund agreed.
Their
lives were never the same again.
Elizabeth
was brought from the country to meet her “betrothed” and order her trousseau.
After three months of balls, parties, and teas, her father whisked her away
from Town and off to Lord Janus’ estate. Once they’d arrived, Elizabeth was
escorted to her room while Edmund was taken to the meet the master of the
house. Instead of a glass of brandy in the library, he was overpowered, gagged,
thrown into a cell, and shackled to the wall. When the Earl joined him, the
man’s crimson eyes glowing in the faint light which reflected off his elongated
fangs struck terror into his heart. Somehow he’d fallen into the clutches of a
monster and brought his daughter with him. With a wicked smile, Janus took
great delight in educating the nobleman as to the identity of the orchestrator
of his downfall. He praised the man for delivering to him such a lovely virgin
prize. A prize that would be savored in all ways in the very near future.
Unsuspecting
of the planned events, Elizabeth bathed in preparation for dinner with her charming
and handsome fiancé. After her bath, several maids entered to help her dress
for dinner - only they weren’t carrying any of the dresses she’d ordered.
Though she protested most vigorously, she couldn’t overpower the inhumanly
strong servants. The “maids” dragged her from her room in nothing more than a
leather collar around her neck, cuffs around her wrists and ankles, and a sheer
shift that revealed more than it concealed. Though she cried, begged, and
fought them as much as she was able, the women easily forced her down to the cellar
where her fiancé awaited her with a score or more similarly robed men.
Laid
upon a stone altar to some pagan god or even Satan himself, Elizabeth sobbed
her pleas until she was hoarse but they fell upon deaf ears. The maids threaded
rope through rings in her cuffs and secured her, spread eagled and face up, on
the cold, damp altar. She struggled but their knots held firm. When Janus
stepped up to the altar, she still held onto hope that it was all some big joke
and they’d have a laugh over tea. When he slid the robe from his body, his very
naked body, she realized that not
only was this not a joke but her fiancé was responsible for whatever was about
to happen to her.
The
night was long and filled with a multitude of emotions and revelations for the
young, innocent girl. The knowledge that vampires existed in her world seemed
almost pedestrian when compared to the vile acts they perpetrated upon her
nubile body. Janus claimed her maidenhead but each man took his turn as they
chanted prayers to an unknown god. When the night was through and she lay
bleeding, sore, and raw from their use, her fiancé committed his foulest act:
he turned her into a monster.
He
denied her blood for nearly a week until her beast was almost insane with need
and then he threw her a human meal. Her father. She couldn’t stop herself but
she swore then and there that her master would pay for the evil he’d forced
upon her.
She
had just entered her seventy-fifth year as a vampire when she happened across
Blake Simons. He was looking for a willing bedmate amongst the lower classes
while she hunted a victim for her master. Fighting Janus’ influence, she begged
the elder vampire to take her head and remove her from the hell her life had
become. Instead, he helped her destroy her maker and rebuild her life.
Elizabeth
took over some of Blake’s smaller corporations and, after almost fifty years of
hard work, bought out his shares to become the sole owner. She’s had little to
do with the vampire community over the years, preferring to remain as human as
possible. It was because of this that the Primus Concilium assigned her a place
on the New England Vampire Council. With an eye to protecting humans from evils
her kind could inflict so easily, she dedicated all her time away from her
businesses to the Council. This dedication was rewarded and she rose to
Chairman over a decade ago and have held the post ever since.
Just
prior to the Reveal, she met her mate in one of her students: a young man named
Johannes Hunsinger. She could smell the taint of disease on his body, a disease
that would take his life in the most painful of ways, and it was this knowledge
of his mortality that convinced her to do the one thing she’d sworn never to do.
She converted a human to the life of a vampire. Their joy eased her conscience
and began healing the pain of her own conversion. This enabled her to bring a
third into their small coven.
Her
happiness knows no bounds and her soul is the closest to peace than it’s been
in over two centuries.
(I believe the artist of the photo is Luis Royo, an incomparable fantasy artist whose work is simply exquisite. I wasn't able to verify that so any help there would be appreciated.)