Eleri Ceri James / Ceinwyn Roberts ["Cerberus" World of Darkness Vampire] : Backstory

[Josée's Note: Ceinwyn Roberts was originally a one-shot character in a game that extended into a fully fledged campaign. It drew elements from New World of Darkness Vampire : the Requiem, Old World of Darkness Vampire : The Masquerade and other elements of the World of Darkness as well. I loved this character as I don't think I've ever had a character since with the sheer amount of character development in such a short time. Her story is dark, her journeys are long, and her heart was (generally) in the right place.]

Eleri Ceri James / Ceinwyn Roberts

In 1985 in Conwy, North Wales, Eleri [Elle-ay-er-ee] Cery [Kerry] James was born to Ayrwen and Iwan James. As she grew up, she was considered a charming, if quiet, girl. She was a natural leader and took charge if anything ever got out of hand, but in a polite and graceful manner. She was well-liked in the town, and was known by name, if not sight. Her family kept themselves to themselves aside from the town fairs and fêtes that happened every so often. She did well in her studies (though found her attention drawn more to the boys than the work at hand quite often) and eventually went to study Psychology at Aberystwyth University. She then joined the prison service and worked on becoming a Forensic Psychologist, which she achieved after studying part time for two years. It was in her first year as a fully fledged psychologist that she met her demise.

She had been working with prisoners on a part-time basis for two years, and had had plenty of time to meet many...unsavoury characters. Some of them, she was pleased to say, had met her, spoken with her and changed their lives around. Others did not. She sat for many hours over the three years in a room with murderers...rapists...you name it, she’d come across someone who’d done (or attempted to do) it. She had heard – in great detail – of what some of those people had done and how they had tied every single knot, or traced every single victim etc. Naturally, she always had a prison officer – or at least a probation officer – in the room with her whenever she was talking to prisoners, or they were standing outside and a panic button was close to her palm. This, however, did not save her on that fateful day.

The whole prison was tense that day. Something was wrong...something was going on. There were rumours, she was told, that a prisoner was not what they seemed. Apparently prison officers who had gone into his solitary confinement cell hating his guts had returned with nothing but good things to say about him. He was diagnosed by the prison doctor as having achromatopsia, or photophobia – a severe aversion to light, and had been placed in solitary confinement not because of anything he had done, but because the windows were smaller and caused him less pain. The doctor had recommended that he be allowed to work during the night hours only and that for his sake his nights should be treated like normal people’s days. This, of course, lead to rumours. “He’s a vampire” was the common shout from the cells. “He’s not human”, “He’s unnatural”. Eleri believed none of this, but she had been called in to take a look at the guards who had met him, and at the man himself, nonetheless.

There was definitely something strange about the guards. They were almost enthralled by the man – his notes referred to him as Laurence Renner - as if his crimes had completely vanished from their heads. Eleri jotted down all her thoughts on a pad and felt concerned and confused. She wrote as a recommendation that the guards be allowed to take a few days off to gather their minds together and meet her in a week or so for a reassessment. Then came the turn of Laurence.

He was a new prisoner, one who had only been brought in a couple of days previously. He had attacked, assaulted and then murdered a young girl in a dark street, and then tried to cover it up – and failed. He was caught moving the body and sure enough, the whole country was in uproar. The whole prison population abhorred what he had done (which is saying something given the calibre of people held there...) and he had swiftly become the most hated man in the prison.

Given his history, Eleri was given the option of having an officer stand in on her meeting with Laurence and she gratefully accepted. The doctor was also invited to check that Laurence was treated well by her and was not...Eleri didn’t know what he was there for really. To check for torture? That was the most...logical?...reason she could find.

As soon as Laurence walked in, Eleri was on guard. She came across many predators in her line of work...but there was something even more malevolent and predatory about him. He looked about 20-something, but the records in front of her suggested he was older than that...by possibly double. Yet he looked scary, and frightening even in handcuffs...and she had seen many frightening people.

Eleri saw the doctor stand at the back of the room, next to the guard, and she ignored them both. She quickly got down to questioning the man about his mental wellbeing – his condition, and the way he felt about what he had done to the girl in the street. As she continued, and was about to press on to the way the officers had begun to act around him, there was a loud “thud”, and she looked over Laurence’s shoulder. The officer was lying on the floor, and Eleri reflexively stood up, concerned. The doctor assured her that he had everything under control, and she sat back down, her hand reaching for the panic button that had been sitting on her lap...but it had gone.

Now acutely aware of how tight a situation she could find herself in, Eleri stood up...as did Laurence. Standing at 5’6, the 6’1 man towered above her, yet she tried to sound in control as she told him to sit. He jeered at her, holding the panic button up in one cuffed hand. “Or what?” He asked. “You’re going to...panic?” He waved the handset at her. Eleri’s eyes flashed with panic for a second, and then she dashed across the room towards the door in her business suit and heels. She heard no footsteps behind her, so she reached a hand for the door...when the doctor stood in her way. Shouting at him to step aside, as she looked at him she felt the same pang in her stomach as she had when she looked at Laurence; that feeling of being...prey.

She stepped back, and found she had a pair of handcuffs resting against her throat, Laurence sliding his arms over her head as she focussed on the doctor. “Oh yes...” Laurence began, Eleri feeling his breath on her neck as he whispered in her ear. “...I’m not a lone...” he sniggered, “...wolf.”       Eleri gulped, the magnitude of the situation she was in causing her to shake slightly in fear. “So that’s why you’re here.” She whispered, her eyes stationed on the doctor. “His back-up man...his crony...his...bagman.” She spat the last words, and heard a chuckle from behind. “You’re so cute when you’re being feisty, doc.” She heard in her ear. “I could just eat you up.” She felt two needle-like sensations on her neck before a deep, overwhelming pleasure over took her. And then darkness.

Eleri’s eyes flickered open, trying to adjust to the dim half-light. She was lying down...on grass. Outside. There were stars in the sky and she tried to piece her mind back together. Sitting up, she resteadied herself, feeling slightly dizzy, and was shocked to see a man sitting next to her, in a suave evening suit, adjusting his cufflinks; the same man she had been interviewing before...but how was he no longer in an orange jumpsuit...out of prison... uncuffed...and...smart?

In the distance she could hear alarms...a lot of them. Sirens were wailing and the faint sound of helicopter blades was distinguishable. She swallowed and then asked “What did you do...to the prison? To me?” He laughed and shushed her. “Come with me. I promise I won’t hurt you...but you’ll understand everything when you get inside.” Eleri looked at him with distrustful eyes, but followed him through a gap in a bush and then down into a row of houses. He unlocked the door of one, and then beckoned her inside. Despite looking like a run-of-the-mill semi-detached house in the suburbs, inside it was like a bachelor’s mansion. Her jaw dropped and her mouth opened wide. He gestured – almost seductively - for her to enter the first room, and there, lying on the floor of the living room, was the body of the guard from the prison. Eleri gasped and backed away.  Laurence laughed, and took her hand, leading her into his dining room. He sat her down, and it was there that she found out what had happened – the way she was no longer human, how she needed blood to survive...that the prisoners had been right...he really was a vampire.

At this point, the front door clicked open, and Laurence stood up and welcomed his “friend”...the Doctor...in. She was then told that the doctor was in fact this vampire’s “thrall”, whatever one of those was, and that he was bloodbound to Laurence. It was then that a small moan got the three of them moving. Entering the room first, Laurence asked Eleri to remain outside, so as not to cause the man to have a heart attack. He spoke softly and graciously to the police officer, but there was an edge to his voice...the same edge he had had before Eleri lost consciousness. The room went quiet and then Eleri heard her name. Walking in, she saw a scene like none she had seen before. Her co-worker was completely relaxed and content. Even when Laurence announced that Eleri was to take her first drink from him, the officer did nothing to resist. Laurence asked for Eleri to feed opposite him – from the other side of the law enforcer’s neck, while the ghoul was forced to drink from a wrist. It was an indescribable feeling and one that Eleri loved, especially feeding alongside others. When they were suitably satiated...and the body was – given the amount of people feeding at once – drained, Laurence explained what had happened in the street with the young girl. He had found her, beaten and abused, after a long night and no vitae. He did what any – she was told – starving kindred would...and fed from her. However, given his huge hunger and her tiny frame, he had fed not unlike the three of them had from the officer and had found himself with a body to dispose of...which was how they came to find him with a body. Eleri asked him to let her find a dumping ground for the body, and he refused, saying that she was now his “childe” and therefore he had a duty to protect her. He told her that the ghoul would deal with the body – no doubt a doctor with mortuary experience would happen to come across an extra dead body or two, and that they were moving to London in a matter of days, until the case of the missing police officer, psychologist and escapee were declared cold.

They slept shortly after, and when the next night came, Laurence (who she had now found out was operating under an alibi, and his real name was Elliot Mardon) and Eleri (who had now given herself a new alias and new wardrobe – and had become Ceinwyn Roberts) began preparations for moving. The Doctor was handing his resignation in so he could move too (apparently ghouls could be dangerous if left without their masters for too long) and slowly but surely, the vampiric group moved from Conwy to London, stopping off each day at yet another of Elliot’s contacts’ homes. Elliot introduced Ceinwyn to Kindred contacts as his childe, and to mortal contacts as his girlfriend. This was not untrue, as during their long journey to London, Elliot and Ceinwyn had both been drinking of each other’s blood during the journey, forming a two-way blood bond, partly due to lack of feeding stops and partly due to Elliot’s need to “own” Ceinwyn, and Ceinwyn’s growing affection for Elliot. Ceinwyn had also become a second regnant to their accompanying ghoul, as it was thought at least then, if either of them had to go away without him on business, he would at least still fall under the effects of the bond.

It was on the third and final night when they sealed their dual blood bond, that Ceinwyn found out a large secret about her sire. He was a member of VII. This meant nothing to her until he explained that he was part of Cerberus...a group of vampires set on protecting the humans from the kindred – and occasionally the other races. Ceinwyn suddenly understood his laughter at the phrase “lone wolf”. He told her that they needed people capable of not just hitting things with sticks, axes and other pointed objects, but people like him and her; people capable of thinking before acting, people capable of creating plans and backup plans with the ability to organise others. Ceinwyn grinned. That was exactly what she was – a  thinker, a planner...an organiser and leader. She agreed to join them and to help with protecting kine by eliminating those who had strayed from the path they were set upon in the kindred world.

It was then that she found her niche. Having worked with some of the most brutal, terrible minds in the kine world, she had a way of planning brutal, terrible things for those who preyed too heavily upon them. She was an organiser and it was clear to see that she was damn good at it. However, those who worked with her came to find that unless her “beloved” – her bloodbonded pseudolover Elliot or her ghoul (whose name she never really bothered to find out) – told her she was doing something wrong or had not catered for every eventuality...or anything else negative about her, her work, or (woe betide you) said something negative or scandalous about Elliot...that those people who dared were either shouted at, at a volume of at least 260 decibels, or were given the task to set up the more dangerous aspects of her finest plans...meaning they faced final death or torpor every moment they did as they had been shouted at to do, but if they did die or get torpored, they were hailed as heroes for being stupid enough to actually go out and do it in the first damn place.

She was very quickly told by Elliot that she should find herself a covenant to nestle in – one where she could benefit from their patronage and use their skills to her advantage. It was at that point that she joined the Lancea Sanctum, taking on the role – without the knowledge of the covenant – of not just wolf to the mortal sheep, but of hunter to the kindred wolf.

 For the first time in her unlife...unlife felt good.