Learn more about the vampire world through these field guides, written by our favorite Drakes (and friends)!
A Human’s Guide to the Vampire Underworld
By Lucy
Vampires
Okay, so they’re a little bit dead. Or undead. Whatever. They’re still people.
There are so many vampire tribes, not to mention solitaries, it would be impossible to keep track of them all. Around Violet Hill, however, there are a few tribes that are more well-known than others: the Drakes, the Hounds, the Host, and the Hel-Blar.
But, basically, all vampires need blood to survive and they don’t like sunlight much. And, okay, they have wicked pheromones that make them seem even more beautiful than they are and make humans kind of fuzzy on the details of unwilling blood donation. So what?
They’re not perfect. They’re just vampires.
The Drakes
My best friend, Solange Drake, is going to turn into a vampire on her sixteenth birthday . . . if the bloodchange doesn’t kill her. And it better not.
It’s not her fault she carries the vampire gene. Everyone in her family has it— her father, her uncles, and her seven older brothers. Most vampires are turned by a bite and blood exchange. But there are three ancient families that carry some kind of vampire gene, which they pass on through birth—only through the male line: the Drakes, the Amritas, and the Joiiks. Together they form the Raktapa Council.
But even if Solange has to drink blood to survive, even if she’ll be able to move so fast she’ll look blurry, and even if she grows fangs, I don’t care.
She’s still my best friend.
Montmartre
Montmartre is more than 400 years old and an undead jerk.
He wants to force Solange to marry him so he can share her power when she fulfills the prophecy that says the vampire tribes will be ruled by the first daughter born to a vampire family in hundreds of years.
He thinks if he marries Solange he can lock her up and then act like the king of the vampires.
Hah.
Like I’m going to let that happen.
Hel-Blar
The Hel-Blar are vicious, feral vampires who have blue skin and a mouthful of fangs. They smell like mildew and rot, and they feed on both humans and vampires. One bite from a Hel-Blar will turn anyone—dead or undead—into a Hel-Blar too. Everyone’s afraid of them, even Helena Drake, and I didn’t think she was afraid of anything.
They’re older than dirt, but most of the ones around now were created by Montmartre when he turned humans into vampires and then left them to survive the bloodchange without any guidance. Those that didn’t die outright went mad with starvation.
It’s best to avoid them.
The Host
Eventually Montmartre perfected the blood bite that changes humans. He figured out just how much blood to give them so they’d be strong and useful. He still abandons them after he changes them, but giving them the right amount of vampire blood let’s them have a fighting chance. And if they survive the madness, he recruits them for his own personal army: the Host.
The Hounds
The Hounds are a tribe of reclusive, superstitious vampires who live in caves. They call themselves the Cwn Mamau, “The Hounds of the Mother.” They have two sets of fangs, instead of the single set of the Raktapa Council vampires or the entire mouthful of the Hel-Blar. And they follow a Shamanka—their magical leader.
Montmartre hates them because they use this magical ability to find the newly turned vampires he abandons and rescue them before he can claim them for his Host.
Helios-Ra
The Helios-Ra are a secret vampire-hunting society. Need I say more? They so totally don’t get it. Not all vampires are bad, just like not all people are good. I don’t care if they hunt Hel-Blar, but I wish they’d stay away from my best friend and her family—including her brother Nicholas, my boyfriend.
