Man, sometimes I think politics and taxes are the only things one can't escape in this life or any other. Being Immortal, I've already escaped Death. However, the tax man and local politics are coming after me. My name is Jacques Henri Acier. A six-foot-three, broad-shouldered and muscular Black man of Haitian descent currently living in the City of Toronto, Province of Ontario. I am the owner of Chez Jacques, a successful restaurant chain. We've got locations in Ottawa, Hamilton and downtown Toronto. And I'm also a centuries-old Vampire.
I was born in the City of Cap-Haitien in North Haiti on the first day of February 1841. A proud son of the first independent Black Republic in the Americas. My father Thomas Acier was a schoolteacher. My mother Jolene Guillaume Acier was a seamstress. I joined the Haitian military at the age of twenty because I wanted to defend my homeland in case the dreaded French ever came back. In those days, fear of a French invasion and the restoration of slavery was a real threat to Haitians. I lived a basically normal life until one fateful day in 1871. I met a six-foot-tall, curvy and exquisitely beautiful young Black woman named Marie Saint Preux at a ball in Port-Au-Prince. It was love at first sight. She enticed me, and I pursued her. I didn't know that she was a Vampire. And she would turn me into one of the Undead.
Marie Saint Preux true name was actually Abosede, and she was no ordinary Black woman. Far from it. Abosede was a ' primordial African goddess once worshiped in the Kingdom of Dahomey, now known as the Republic of Benin. She was over two thousand years old. This lady introduced me to a whole new world. Here is something that the world will never know. The Haitians of the old days owe their freedom not just to their prowess against the French armies but to supernatural aid. Ancient immortals from Africa were awakened from slumber by a Haitian shaman who summoned them to help the fledgling nation's Black men and Black women war against the French colonial oppressors. It's largely thanks to these ancient African Vampires that Haitians were able to defeat the French. Yep. Marie told me as much herself. This immortal lady who is known by many names is actually one of the unnamed founders of my homeland.
Marie Saint Preux transformed me into a Vampire because she was tired of ruling the Holy Family, as the secret society of African Vampires summoned by magic to the Republic of Haiti was called. Before vanishing from the world, Marie Saint Preux made me her heir. In the two thousand years she'd been alive, she only created a few Vampires. Most of her creations were female. They were collectively called the Eduwa, a gathering of beautiful yet bloodthirsty primordial African goddesses. Marie named me Lord Agbonkhina, which means Welcome to Life in the language of Benin. Thus I found myself the new leader of the Black Vampire Nation. A role for which I was unprepared, to say the least.
Marie Saint Preux transformed me into something far greater than an ordinary Vampire. The average Vampire possesses the strength of three to five healthy men, and above average speed. What makes us unique as a breed is our ability to heal. The only way to kill a Vampire is to burn him to death and scatter the ashes or behead him. Our fabulous regenerative abilities enable us to recover from all other injuries. We can re-grow just about any lost or damaged body parts. And we don't age physically. We are immune to disease and aging. We can walk in sunlight without too much discomfort, though we are mainly nocturnal. That is simply how Mother Nature made my kind.
As an ancient Vampire, Marie Saint Preux possesses abilities far beyond those of ordinary Vampires. Her physical strength is phenomenal. I have seen her lift a large boulder that ten to twenty men couldn't budge. She is also inhumanly fast, able to outrun the fastest of horses. No other living being can match her speed. These abilities she passed onto me, making me the most powerful Vampire on the planet. Of course, this didn't go unnoticed by the other ancient Vampires who had been summoned to the fledgling nation of Haiti by the shaman. They weren't exactly eager to accept me as their new King. Especially since their Queen had mysteriously vanished. Marie Saint Preux had been the leader of the entire Vampire species for over two millennia. To say that the race wasn't ready to accept a change in leadership would be an understatement.