Amelia Locke

Mortal Days

By the end of her first week as a secretary at the Chicago Sun, Amelia outed a corporate spy by rummaging through the garbage and piecing together discarded notes. She compiled her evidence, followed him under the cover of night to his secret meet-ups, discovered all of his drops and contacts, and wrapped it all up in a neat little exposé slid under the editor in chief’s door. Although it never made it to print, she made her mark and gained a reputation at the paper as “the secretary who thinks she’s a journalist”. Within the first year, she was promoted to the chief’s personal assistant and given her own office.

Amelia was a hero among the working women in the building. Her edits were sought after almost as much as the stories themselves. Over the years, the courting of her male colleagues faded due to countless rejections and was replaced with respect. Yet, Amelia still felt unfulfilled.

The chief rolled in every night about an hour after sundown. She admired him. He had never made a pass at her and always yelled at her with the same intensity and expectations he held for any of the men in the office. Although she did not know it, he had grown fond of her moxie. She was fierce, yet could paint with her written word.

A night finally came where both she and Joseph Peterson were in the office alone. She took a deep breath and marched into his office without a knock. As she demanded to be treated as a real journalist, Joseph did not look down at her or ridicule her for her gender, but applauded her tenacity. He offered her a new position as correspondent in Russia during the last years of the Cold War. He also offered her a glass of red wine — actually his vitae — thus bonding her to him.

Kindred Nights

In Moscow, Amelia mastered her craft. She wrote cutting biographies, true stories of human hardship, scathing critiques of corrupt governments and their warlike actions, and became known widely for her skill. In 1988 she was considered for a Pulitzer Prize, but fell short. Nevertheless, she made a reputation and earned respect on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

It was in Moscow that she encountered the eventual love of her life: Tatyana. This woman, hard-bitten and sharp-edged, had served as a pilot of the famous Soviet Night Witches during the Second World War, and was exiting her fifties when she met the younger, energetic Amelia. The two found each other fascinating, fell for each other, and when the Cold War ended travelled to the United States together.

By the time Amelia returned, her bond to Peterson had disappeared. Seeing him for the first time in a decade and realizing he hadn’t aged, she asked him to make her as he was. Peterson obliged after a short conversation with his sire. Amelia didn’t hesitate in giving the same “gift” to her lover that night.

Amelia continued to work at the paper following her Embrace. Writing and Tatyana were her two loves, and she often wrote reviews of Kindred entertainments for the enjoyment of the court. High society gossip wasn’t in her sphere of interest, but she adjusted her writing to suit the audience. For mortal eyes, she continued to report on mortal political affairs.

Amelia’s unlife existed quietly until Peterson claimed the throne of Chicago. He never consulted her, never warned her, and never prepared her for what might happen if his coup failed, which it did. Joseph Peterson’s exile had a ripple effect, where the new Prince Jackson cancelled all boons owed to his descendants, and stripped them of all prestige they might hold in Elysium. Though she held little, Amelia still smarted from this unnecessary punishment.

With her sponsor gone from the paper, the new editor fired her due to her perceived age making her “out of touch” with current affairs. With the help of Tatyana, Amelia started a career in online journalism for a handful of companies, but without the tangible benefit of words in a real-life newspaper, her interest wanes.