Born in the San Fernando Valley of Alto California, in the year of our lord, 1760 and christened Maria Cantanegrè this daughter of the Spanish nobleman, Don Ricardo Dolores Cantanegrè, was the precious jewel of her family - the only daughter of six children.

A charmed life from the outside, Don Cantanegrè kept his family well - allowing his family fortune to support the Spanish conquest of the New World and in particular, the mission system into California; he was the personal patròn of Padre Junipero Serra and the beloved Don was revered by the Church for his generosity and devotion.

- carrying the Cantanegrè name to the farthest shores...

Maria, herself grew to be most beautiful, witty deft, and... increasingly sad - the wonderful cocoon of her upbringing became a velvet prison of social mores and nobless oblige she found herself cut-off from any potential suitor by the impossibly high standards set by her father and politics in the Spanish Empire's new world arena. And love? She'd given up on that long ago. Even her innocent pubescent dalliances were dealt with extreme prejudice, true love was probably never going to happen - unless an unbelievably impossible alignment of the stars or fate or destiny intervened. A clash of forces that would also have to advance the family's position and/or wealth, preferably both...

And so she grew past the prime marrying age for women of her time - oh there were always a long line of hopeful candidates - but Don Cantanegrè 's criteria left little room for variance and the stars took far too long to line up.

Until one day - the stars, it seemed had in fact, been listening to that smallest of voices deep within her heart that even she had stopped listening to.

Maria felt the shiver from the moment she first held the letter that announced his pending arrival:

  Don Cantanegrè please welcome as my friend and our patròn into 
  your warm and lovely hacienda, El Señor Vladimiri Karkoska. He enjoys
  all rights and respects of a Don of the Royal Court of Ferdinand & 
  Isabella - we trust that you will enjoy his company and the blessings 
  and gifts of the court he bears on our behalf.

Don Cantanegrè was most pleased - again his efforts to draw the favor of the Royal Court had been successful - his little fiefdom in a fertile little corner of Southern California would continue to grow and his son would carry on the family name. Nothing was spared in the preparations for Don Karkoska's visit and Maria found herself for the first time in many years, invigorated as she led the household (her mother was curiously uniterested by the going's on). Don Cantanegrè's beautiful daughter found herself almost breathless when Señor Karkoska's carriage finally arrived.

The dashing eastern European nobleman spoke Spanish better than any Castilian, and he swept Maria off her feet from the moment their eyes first met - a fiery passion burned in his eyes only for her, a spell that was their secret alone - as if a magic viel stopped time itself, cradling them away from everyone in their presence, but never even knowing they had gone.

The normally omnipotent Don Cantanegrè had no idea of his daughter's enchantment - his guest he was the quintessential ambassador - deft, charming and sophisticated, the enthusiastic bearer of good fortune from the Royal Court.

Señor Karkoska was tireless, his days were spent counseling the Don and his elder sons on the politics and schemes on behalf of the King of Spain but his nights were spent fulfilling Maria's long dormant dreams.

...not the dreams of a pampered girl, but the dreams of a spirited, intelligent and worldly woman - dreams of love and passion and annihilation of herself into the fire of want - Her European Prince unleased her deepest desires of flesh and heart - an unquenchable hunger, an unshakable thirst

for life
for passion
for release
for surrender...

And then he kissed her.
And branded her.

And named her Santa Maria Del Oro Corazòn - that her people would regard her as a giver, and protector. Even her father would bow down to her. Her brothers could rule for Spain but she would rule for the Master of her Soul.

And she she was.

His seventh Queen - and the Clan of the Snake was established.

Oh, she had no desire for power - content to be a Queen to her Vampyre King. They sat on the black throne together, and she was in bliss - body and soul his for the asking, but her heart, the gift she alone could give, she offered up to him with great relish, every moment she lived by his side.

And the Black Empire grew bigger still. Seven Queens on five continents, his collection complete, the largest and most powerful countries ensnared by the Vampyre King's immortal chains. And whether it was a woman's perogative or the blinders that every heart wears, none of his queens knew of the other's existence. Santa Maria was no exception, her King's love for her was, she thought, complete, and total and all hers.

In fact, so blinded was she, that even the fact that she had been damned for all eternity, cast out of our Lord's heaven - damned to living death - lost forever, couldn't dampen her love.

He had baptized her in his blood, sowing the demon seed that made her the monster that fed on human life to stave off the unholy pain of a vampyre's hunger, which is so excruciating that death would be welcomed with open arms, but sadly, never an option to those of the teeth.

Oh, believe that Santa Maria threw herself into this world that was not her father's. Believe that she finally threw off the shackles of her father's dominion, believe that she became the most passionate of scholars of the Vampyre world - she devoured the scriptures, fascinated by the detail and minuatae of the Black Lord's creation - so complete had his grand mockery of life become, that it stood as a masterpiece of it's own accord and Santa Maria was to become one of its greatest forms and stewards.

But she saw also its flaws - and used her position to right its wrongs when she could. Her fondness for the humans in her little corner of influence confused her Love, after all he had granted dominion to her over life and death - why should she worry about such trifles? They were but small things now in the scope of his Master's plan.

But he gave her her head - he depended on her intellect to steer her clan. And his empire in this corner of the new world flourished under her capabale and wise stewardship.

He watched in amusement as she ruled not like her unholy sisters before her - Fear was not her weapon, respect rather, was her law.

But woe to those who broke it. The aristocratic families in the area flourished when they joined her, and withered when the chose not - bled dry by malice and greed. And the clan of the Noble Serpent flourished, and its power grew immense. It happened so quickly and quietly that two years had flown by with relative peace and great prosperity - and bliss - and so it completely caught Santa Maria off guard when her love and King, Señor Karkoska announced that he was leaving her to return to his home but that she should stay behind and tend to his California lands.

Caught blind and unaware, but always ready to love, she put aside her pain and kissed her King goodbye, pledging to rule in his name.

Which she did. She fed only when necessary, storing her strength to proect the people that paid tribute to her and her growing vampyre clan that served her, and thus the legend of the evil that haunted the rancheros and villas that forged California was only a quiet rumor, a whispered threat that kept good men vigilant adn evil men wary.

But it did nothing to soothe the heart of a woman who only wanted her master's love.

And her desire became the muse that lead her to explore the extent of the powers that her master's kiss bestowed. She learned of the six other Queens, but oddly not of her Master Lover's duplicity. Was it a woman's folly to believe herself the only love of his court? Such was the small lingering shred of humanity that had staked its claim on a forgotten corner of her Vampyre Queen's heart. She took instead solace in the Vampyre scriptures, they became her ally in the understanding of her responsibilities and fate... but she couldn't study fast enough to discover the one thing that might have prepared her for her fate...

And the earnest man who was so eager to curry her favor, was of course, granted an invitation. Sure, she read his heart and saw his malice, but he amused her, so transparent were his intentions and she thought, why not share a glass of fruit of the vine, before she wrenched his soul from his mortal body? Why shouldn't she learn, first hand, just how silly humans can be?

Santa Maria never knew what tainted blood truly was. Or how poison is the oldest tool of choice for a scorned woman.

But she would learn, first hand how very specific the scriptures are about piercing the heart and such.

She would also learn first hand that no matter how cold hell is, the cackle and screech of malice and scron from your enemy is colder still.

But the coldest of all - 

The deep chill of her Master's silence.

Crushing years of oppressive isolation and the searing pain of the oaken stake that shredded her soul from the withered body actually became her salvation - she surrendered to her pain embraced her torment with the same steely passion that fuled her oh-too-short reign. Her mind dug its talons into the never-ending torment to feed off the almost untraceable ebb of her life force, the only pulse in the stark void of ignorance that is the desert of hell...

It took decades of exhaustive effort, but she finally found a way to use her will alone to pierce the iron walls of her coffin, finally discovered a way to gather her precious strength to breach the infinite, unseen boundaries of her hell, to cry for her lover, her King and liberator, the master of her very soul.

The sky rending crack of Zeus' thunder could not have been louder than the pain and desperation of a forgotten Queen calling for her King.

The despair of the deepest hell was heard all the way to heaven itself.

But silence was her only answer.

And this girl, born Maria to a Spanish Don, born again Santa Maria through her Master's kiss, finally saw her world and life and death for the very first time.

And then Santa Maria was truly born, this time unto herself as Queen of the Clan of the Snake.

She would one day be the risen Queen and the world would be forever changed.