Character: J.P. McHaggis

I met Jessica after the attack... the Evil had damn near killed her. But she survived, because she's too damned cussed to let the Evils win. She found me at a Global Healing Convention in the campgrounds outside of Middle-of-Nowhere Bumfug, PA, playing my pipes in my battle-green kilt among the mud-covered tents, the hemp-smoking neo-hippies, and the crystal-dripping New Agers who were convincing themselves that the Earth loved them and wanted them to be happy.

I know better.

So did Jess.

My name is J.P. McHaggis. I'm a shaman. I don't mean that in a native American sense, that all Western Americans seem to assume. I was born in Argyle, moved to Soho when I was four, Bruges when I was six, then finally Portland, Oregon, by the time I was thirteen. Why did I move so often?

The Abiding Evils had taken my mother from me, and my father fought for the rest of his life to keep the Beast at bay. He lost his fight before I finished high school...

Since then, I have spent my adult life learning how to beat back the Beast. I've learned one of many ways to leech away the Vampire's venom. And it's the last thing you would possibly imagine... sound.

I play my pipes with an alt metal band that tours North America and Europe, spreading the specific harmonic convergences that feed the soul and beat the Evils into submission. At least for a while.

When she heard my music, she felt the venom release its hold. And I knew what she was the moment she spoke to me. She had that look... that need to feel normal. Those eyes that understand what is Evil, and what is not.

I try to keep her human, every day though I'm across the world. Hers is a tough case... the venom is deep in her blood, and she has the double affliction... the Beast bite that threatens to turn her into what my father had become.

But that's not going to happen.

Not on my watch...