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Gloria handed Amelia her drink then continued," After Susan turned me, she kept me close to her for the first few months insisting that I needed to learn how to control my hunger and learn the rules of my new life. As soon as I could, I resumed my hunt despite all of Susan's warnings. I quickly found my next victim In Richmond who I took great pleasure in slitting his throat. Over the next two and half years, I crisscrossed the south managing to track down another two from my list both of which I drained. Two weeks after the war ended, I was in Atlanta looking for Martin Samuels the colonels oldest son he had been wounded and was back home when I found his father. I had truly become a monster without remorse. I found his homestead he was with his wife, who was pregnant, and I made him watch as I drained her. He begged for their lives especially the child's but I didn't care I wanted him to suffer" Gloria was in tears as she recalled the look on the poor girls face who only wrong was falling in love with the wrong man. She drained her glass of wine and had a faraway look in her eyes.
"How could I do that? I not only killed the woman but an unborn child and all I felt was satisfaction. I stayed with Martin for three days tormenting him while his dead wife lay on the floor in front of him. He begged me to kill him but I had no mercy, I repeatedly taunted him telling him this was just revenge and he had it coming after he violated my mother and murdering my parents. I left him alive tied up besides his wife's body so he could stare at his wife's dead face. I found out later he had managed to get free and hung himself. " Gloria paused a few minutes to recompose herself; "After I finished with Martin, I was a monster I only lived to avenge my parents. I did unspeakable things to get information on my next quarry. I thought nothing of using the families of people who I thought might have information I wanted. I once murdered a blacksmith's family while I made him watch. The man's only crime was he had hid his uncle from me for a week."
"I had been wondering around for weeks, when I had heard that one of the men I had been searching for had been hanging in a bar in Charleston. I was there in the process of questioning the barkeep when Lenard first saw me. He told me he could feel the emptiness in my soul and it was unbearable to him. He grabbed me and dragged me the bar after using his powers to erase the bar keeps memories of what had happened. He took me to his room and begged me to listen to him. He told me that I would be hunted as a rogue if I didn't stop my murdering spree. He warned me that Charles had ordered Susan to reign me in or put me down. Martin Samuels had left a note where he had admitted what his father, he and the rest of the unit had done to my mother and me. He said that I was the one who had murdered his wife. He had written that I had returned from the dead to avenge myself. He had written that I had drunk all of his wife's blood. He made me see that my actions were endangering everyone especially Susan, as me creator she could be held liable for my actions. "
"Lenard convinced me to talk to Susan and he went with me. Susan was less than thrilled with me at that point. She stated that she was considering just putting me down and warned me this was my last chance. I know he spent a long time talking to Susan to convince her to allow me to go to Sans Francisco with him. Susan had warned me that Lenard had taken responsibility for me and if I screwed up this time both Lenard and I would suffer the consequences."
"Two weeks later, we boarded a train and started our adventure. It took us months to make the trip by train and by stagecoach. Lenard was the most wonderful loving tolerant man I have ever known. He taught me that life was worth living. He had replaced the darkness in my soul. He not only showed me how to forgive those who had wronged me but more importantly how to forgive myself. He made sure I was educated and how to defend myself. Lenard was the one who helped me to hone my abilities. I was so fortunate that Susan was so understanding. "
"Lenard has kept in touch with Susan unbeknownst to me. He had been giving her updates on my progress. Lenard had been the one who had encouraged me to reach out to Susan who was now in Chicago. The two of us quickly renewed our friendship and became almost like sisters. Susan offered me a chance to become her personal assistant. Even in those days, Susan had her hands in many businesses including starting with providing blood to vampires. She opened her first blood bank and disguised it has a bordello. She had a special preferred area that was for vampires she would take some of her whores, take a bottle of blood from them, and sell it to her clients. The woman would have her memories altered that she had spent the evening with one of Susan's special clients and they were paid two to three times what they would make in a normal evening."
"I was happy for the first time since the night my parents were murdered. I loved life and enjoyed living it to the fullest. I took a sabbatical for five years so that Lenard and I could travel throughout the world. He would tell me about the history of each location. The things we experienced the first time we saw the world's fair or gone on a safari. Even once we got back, we were constantly going to places and doing things, I remember in nineteen- seventeen, I saw my first airplane. I know now days airplanes are common but in nineteen-seventeen, they were a novelty. I spent five dollars to take a ride in one it was the most thrilling ride of my life. Did I ever mention that I am a licensed pilot?" Gloria seemed to light up as she recalled her time with Lenard.
"No, you never did. I would love to take a ride with you one day." Amelia replied with a smile, "What kind of planes can you fly?"
"Ones with wings," Gloria replied with a chuckle. Amelia laughed as Gloria continued," I have my ATP certifications. Charles has a charter service he owns and makes sure I get enough hours to keep my licenses and I am rated to fly anything up to a Boeing Seven Sixty-Seven. Lenard was the one who convinced me to learn to fly in the twenties. When I hesitated, he goaded me into it by saying he figured it was too much for a girl like me. He used to tell me to try everything at least once. He went out, bought me a world war one surplus Jenny, he also hired David Leas; he had been a pilot in the war, to teach me how to fly. We had moved back to east coast by the time I had finished my flying lessons. I was working as a problem solver for Susan and occasionally Charles. When I wasn't on a job, I was with Lenard."
"The beginning of the thirties was a bit of blur. I remember spending a lot of time at Coney Island and going to the theatre. Of course, the late thirties were filled with talk of the war in Europe. Once the United States entered, the war I was busy; a group of vampire from the old country decided the world would be better off with Hitler in charge. Charles had tasked Susan with locating, monitoring and preventing them from undermining the United States war effort. The vampires were using their powers of persuasion to help Germany either by finding out classified information like the date and the real locations we were going to land on D-Day. We managed to intercept the female vampire that had gotten it."
"Charles decided to openly, well at least as openly as we could; help the Allies so we also went hunting human spy networks we would either destroy them or feed them false information. We especially focused on finding the people who were watching for convoy movements along our coast. Charles personally prevented an assassination attempt against Roosevelt." Gloria paused to take a sip of her wine.
"After the war, we settled back into our quiet existence Susan started setting up her blood banks usually disguising them as some kind of drug or medical research company. By nineteen fifty-four she had at least one in every major city in the United States and plus over fifty location spread out through Europe. Then in Fifty --seven Lenard said, he had to go home for a while and that he had to go alone. He explained that he be gone for a few years and would contact me when he could. During the time he was gone I got a letter here and there. I knew something had changed he seemed cold and distracted in his letters and the last phone call I received from him I hardly recognized the man I knew.
After Lenard left, I started hunting rogues for Charles. I quickly found out that I had a talent for it. In October of Sixty-one, we started receiving reports of a rogue vampire in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Charles asked me to look in to it. By the time, I had gotten to New Orleans he had moved on so I started to track him. Twenty-three days later, I caught up to him in Charleston. He was in a bar two blocks from where the two of us had meant nearly a century beforehand. When I arrived, he was raping and drinking from this petite brunet. Everyone else was already dead he had frenzied in the bar. He ripped the throats out of the others in the bar."
"I was surprised when I saw it was Lenard but it was like he was expecting me. He stopped with the girl and quickly dressed. He turned to me then smiled and closed his eyes. I was in a fog as I swung the sword and removed his head. My god, even after all of this time I still see it every time I close my eyes. The blade arcing through the air then I felt the slight jolt as the blade contacts his neck; the sound it made was sickening. I watched as the blade cleanly passes through the rest of his neck. Then time seems to pause for just a second as I watch the light of life fades from the man that had taught me how to live and love again. I watched the body fall to the ground and as it did, I felt my heart die with him. I vowed to myself that I would never let anyone close enough to hurt me like that again." Gloria stopped unable to continue. She broke down and cried for her loss, not only Lenard but also her parents.