Sean O. Doyle's page

“You know nothing, Sean.” It is true, but knowing it is still makes the young man feel dizzy. He stands quietly on the nearly deserted street looking at his own reflection in a shop window. The driver’s license in his hand and the reflection in the window are the only reason he even knows his own name. Hell, he didn’t even know what he was, but he was pretty sure a human could not normally make an entire body decay to dust with just a touch. Sean tries very hard to ignore the word that his own mind was silently screaming at him.
****
Sean woke up five hours earlier in a darkened alley in an unknown city. The tidal wave of disorientation at not knowing where he was, how he got there, why he was alone, and even who he was nearly overwhelmed him and he felt something welling up inside himself. The feeling was like the fight or flight panic, but it was so strong. Somehow, he sensed that he had to keep that wild chaos from taking over, so Sean leaned his head down and took several deep breaths. It was then that Sean realized that until that very moment, he had not been breathing at all! In fact, he could not feel his own pulse in his neck and now that he had stopped consciously controlling his breathing, it had stopped again.
Like a shot of morphine to a junkie on the edge of withdrawal, the wave of Frenzy crashed over Sean and he knew no more.
****
When he came to himself he was crouched over the body of another young man, shuddering in the throes of ecstasy like he had never felt in his entire life. Feeling life and strength suffuse him in waves, Sean very nearly lost control once again. The young man’s body was dressed in fine clothing and the body had blood staining its mouth and its elongated canines. The scent of the blood was somehow the sweetest thing Sean had ever smelled, and the most wretched, and he could somehow tell that the blood staining the dead man’s mouth belonged to the other corpse in the alley: the beautiful young girl lying a dozen feet away. She was dressed in a child’s evening gown, what a wealthy family’s daughter might wear to a concert or production. A playbill lay in the effluent in the middle of the alley a few feet from her out flung hand. She had been happy and secure in the safety of her world just a few hours ago. And the left side of her neck had been almost completely torn away. Her glassy eyes watched Sean and he nearly vomited. At the sight of her limp and empty shell, a small piece of what made Sean human died and left him a little less for its passing.
Sean took all this in only a few fleeting moments before turning his attention back to the body of the young man he still partially covered. Then the taste in his own mouth registered, a taste At least, the he had seemed a young man. But it withered and collapsed into a dried husk before Sean’s eyes. Confused, Sean reflexively leapt back from the corpse. He blinked in further confusion as he was suddenly some six feet away with a single motion.
The magnitude of his situation thundered down on Sean as he surveyed the alley. Two corpses and no witness anywhere to be found save himself. Moving on reflex, or perhaps instinct, Sean quickly covered the ground back to the dead man and crouched beside it. Placing his palm on its chest, he concentrated on something inside. He somehow flexed muscles that existed only in his mind and pushed. At first there was no sign of anything happening, but then he opened his eyes and saw the desiccated corpse shriveling in upon itself even more and crumbling to dust which streamed away in the wind blowing down the alley. Sean considered doing the same with the young girl, but stopped himself, No, the family has a right to know.
”Hey! What are you doing to her?!” The voice behind him, back by the street galvanized Sean as nothing else could have. He stood over a corpse with a torn out throat, and he had blood on his own mouth. RUN! shouted the voice in his mind, and Sean fled deeper into the alley, deeper into the night. He left his pursuers, his accusers, quickly far behind him as the darkened world swallowed him.
****
Sean shakes himself as the very recent memories wash over him once again. There, then gone, they leave him shaking slightly. He is very strong and very fast. He somehow .. ate .. that other man. The memory of the sweetness and the ecstasy thrills Sean even as the memory of feeling a little piece of himself die disgusts Sean in equal measure. Sean turns and walks away into the night, looking for answers to questions he did not even know to ask.

Sean’s memories stop on a night only a little more than a couple of weeks gone, and before that is just … nothing. His first memory is of laying on his back in an alley unsure how he got there, what city or town he was in, or even his own name. An intense hunger overwhelmed even the confusion of having no memories, and Sean found himself prowling through the night searching for something to sate the hollow gnawing inside. He could not even consider what it might be that he wanted to eat. But when he happened upon a man who seemed to be hugging a young girl, instincts he did not know he possessed took over. There was a scent on the air that inflamed his hunger to new levels and he flew at the man, feeling his teeth lengthen and sharpen, and sank his fangs into the man’s neck.
Sean was not prepared for any of the discoveries he made that night, and over the course of the next several days. But of them all, the discovery of the sweetness of feeding on fresh, hot blood was the most intense. The feeling of strength and power after feeding on every scrap of vitality and power the young man’s body possessed, his instinctive destruction of the – mostly decayed – corpse of the young man, and his flight into the darkness; none of it made any sense to Sean.
After evading discovery at the murder site of the young girl, Sean had a little time to think, and with the overwhelming hunger now held at bay, he had the mental capacity to do so. He found a wallet and a cell phone in his pockets and discovered that his name was Sean Oisin Doyle, and that an address was listed for him in Boston. A little more investigation confirmed that he was also in Boston, and he called for a taxi to take him to the address on the license.
When he arrived, Sean found not a residence, but a dilapidated and abandoned building. A thorough search of the building over the course of the following two nights turned up a small cache containing only a Colt 1911 and a briefcase full of money. Hiding his find once more, this time in a different location, Sean went out to feed on the third night.
This time, however, he used the speed and strength that the stolen blood gave him and fed on a mortal with two witnesses. Lucky for Sean that instead of a mortal policeman nearby, the person who came to investigate the shouts and screams was another Vampire. The other quickly took the necessary steps to repair this breach of the Masquerade, modifying the memories of the two bystanders. Once the others The other vampire approached Sean cautiously as he finished feeding.
Maggie Owens, Sherriff of Boston, explained to Sean in no uncertain terms exactly what would happen if he were ever to breach the Masquerade again. A handful of pointed questions quickly revealed that Sean was somehow entirely ignorant of the Masquerade, the Camarilla, the Clans, or anything else related to being a vampire. Maggie ‘invited’ Sean to return to the seat of power for the Boston Camarilla, where he would be able to present himself to the Prince of the city, as well as learn much about what it meant to be a vampire in these modern nights. Though she phrased it as an invitation, Sean heard the undertone of command in her words. Sensing, perhaps, that this was a predator much more deadly than himself, Sean went with Maggie.
What followed was a whirlwind of formality, education, and testing. Sean was questioned most closely about his past and the things he had done since coming to Boston. Not accustomed to the semi-feudal society of the vampires, it was perhaps inevitable that Sean made a bad impression on the Prince and several of his advisors. Once they were satisfied that his amnesia was genuine and that his lessons on the Masquerade had been well learned, Sean was grudgingly given probationary membership in the Camarilla and dismissed from the Prince’s presence.
Maggie took pity on Sean and explained to him that with the questionable first impression he had made, it would be perhaps better if he were to leave Boston entirely. She suggested that perhaps he might find a less stilted and formal of a setting in some of the newer cities. Perhaps Minneapolis. Sean saw the wisdom of leaving behind the unpleasant odor he had pulled upon himself and readily agreed to the wisdom in her words. Thinking him without resources Maggie gave him enough to cover the bus trip from Boston to Minneapolis and advised him on how to travel safely as a vampire. Travel at night, avoid the wild places, and carefully choose hotels. Sean discreetly collected his stash and left the next night, making his way by Greyhound overnight routes to Minneapolis.