Captain Dick

Richard Francis Burton spent the majority of his youth enlisted as a Calvary officer for the British Military. After enlisting at the age of eighteen he spent ten years on various deployments mainly to the East, Indian, and Middle Eastern countries. He prided himself on being the very best at everything he did. A strong, and virile young man he was regarded by women as being the playful, and non-assuming sort who flattered them so they seemed to fall at his feet. After the first 5 years of his military service, he was titled as Captain and later knighted for his efforts.

Dick had a preference for the exotic, however, and it was this which led him to Greater India, where he began the process of various business deals, and routes all associated with the East India Trading Company. He fell in love with a beguiling young Indian woman called Ashti, but in England, people were still uncertain of the purpose for Sleeping Dictionaries, and how they related to the Trading Routes themselves. Ashti had been the Dictionary chosen to affluence, and instruct Richard in Sanskrit, and many other Indian dialects. She taught him a great number of things, and unlike the civilized world, India boasted of the glories of human sexuality.

Richard consumed the books, and her teachings with a fiery intensity so much that some said he had become obsessed. The work presented itself as the ‘Kama Sutra,' and was the first English attempt at translation.

It became a huge success. Richard left on a short trip to London bringing his beloved with him, but knowing finer society may have an issue with her. He doted upon her left, and right and then decided to marry her correctly by English tradition. A strong protestant believer even in his libertine functions Dick always wanted Ashti to feel accepted regardless of where she had come from.

One fine morning just before dawn his beautiful wife, who had adopted the Christian English name of Isabelle Marie Burton, awoke to find Richard had not returned. It was so early even that the Roosters had yet to even crow. Isabelle sat up instantly within their grande four-post bed only to spot a pair of blood-red glowing eyes staring in the darkness. At the foot of the bed, they simply singed in the black shadows the only visible light within the room. Isabelle screamed in horror as recognition filled her eyes, in vain because as soon as a sound fled her lips the creature watching had pounced. Jaws wide open as a mouthful of razor-sharp canines tore into her left shoulder. Isabelle’s mouth flew agape as her warm blood pooled into the creature’s mouth. She twitched and kicked back at it her attempts all serving to be futile until finally, her body began to still falling lifeless to the jaws of the predator above her. The sinew of her flesh was still visible when the police found her the next day that beautiful face contorted with the lips left parted as if one final word had meant to flee them, but never had the chance.

Richard awoke in the forest covered in blood, and completely naked. He was filthy, and couldn’t imagine how he had ended up there. Nothing made sense, and it took him several hours to find his way back to town. He snuck up into his hotel room readying himself for the day, and thinking he should go find out where exactly Isabelle was. Yet, as he descended the staircase to meet the management word was given that Isabelle had been murdered, her body ravaged, and emptied of all of her blood.

Few cared; however, this was simply just an Indian girl who had been lucky enough to find the love of a charming English Captain. Richard was outraged, and demanded that her murderer be found at once.

He decided to return back to Indian, and immerse himself in the trading routes he had recently established with an old comrade, and fellow writer; Chevalier Leopold von Sacher Masoch.

It was only once he arrived in Indian that he began to connect the dots.

Two weeks prior to the full moon some sort of large wolf had attacked Richard. It had been just before he, and Isabelle had planned their short trip to London. In the process, Dick had fired a few shots from his revolver wounding the animal just in time to save his own life. The wolf, however, succeeded in biting his wrist just as he lifted the gun to fire straight between its eyes.

He balked when the bullet just ricocheted right off the animal's head, and firing yet again the wolf bounded away in fear leaving nothing but shadows in its wake. Richard had blown the animal off, and returned home only to explain to Isabelle that he had a minor accident with a dog in town. He never did care to tell her how dangerous some of the work he did actually was.

As a side project, Richard had begun to study different herbal toxicities, and the strengths of opium, cannabinoids, and cocaine. He hoped to one day secure the heroin trade of the Middle East, and wished to know the many plants, which enticed euphoric states that India had hidden in her vast, and beautiful jungles. This had been his mistake for the wolf had been no mere canine, no; the wolf had been a lycanthrope and infected Dick with his very own disease.

As Richard put the two and two together he finally came to the crushing realization that he had killed his beloved Isabelle. In a fit of rage he tore apart his laboratory smashing beakers, and jars all a reaction due to the weight of the truth; he had killed Isabelle. He had become a monster, and he had no idea how he could stop it.

Realizing that he could neither deny nor change what he had become Dick decided to take it upon himself to study blood, and viruses of which he soon learnt fueled several different afflictions. Lycanthropy, Vampirism, and even the Reanimation of the Undead were all known blood viruses that had a terrible effect upon humans.

After two years of spending time in India, Richard received word that Leopold needed to see him, and it was then that he decided a change of scenery may be well overdue. Once seeing him they would discuss the strengthening of their trading routes, and the new heroin trade. He arrived in Lemberg only to meet the most enchanting, and beautiful of ladies; those of von Masoch.

It didn’t take Dick long to realize which daughter was the strongest, and which was the most likely to survive without the security of a man. It amused him as she reminded him of the European version of his beloved Isabelle. Her name was Kaira von Masoch, but his thoughts about a happy content life with any woman had been squashed when Isabelle died, and as luck would have it Dick’s arrival in Lemberg seemed to happen at the very same time strange headlines began to fill the town newspapers.

There was another beast in the vicinity, but this one seemed to have no control over his monstrous appetite. Richard’s only clue was a single sentence he had found torn from a book near the first victim’s house. It read:

“Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’”