Baqir Nejem

Baqir is attractive - and would have been even if he hadn't been turned into a vampire, with naturally olive skin and a complexion that indicates his time spent in the sun before being turned. That's unusual for a vampire, as most of them are so pale. His eyes haven't changed; they're a stunning honey-gold color which he normally puts down on census forms as "brown". His hair's dark, and cut shaggy around his ears, and he keeps a nicely-trimmed beard. Both hair and beard have silver threads, the last remnants of his old mortality. He is slim, and decently tall.

Since he does not take kindly to sun (i.e. gets set on fire and burns horribly) normally he keeps to suits and sweaters, with slacks as the usual rounding out of the uniform. People are impressed that he gets to work so early and stays so late, but hey, a man has to do what a man has to do. Chicago's chill is quite different from what he grew up in, and nobody really looks twice at him anyway. That's helped by the fact that he wears neutral colors more often than not.

Baqir is kind, especially to animals, when he can be. He regrets having to feed on them rather than humans but he refuses to be a murderer as he once was, and sees it as the lesser of two evils. He tries his best to be happy, but occasionally slides into a deep depression about his immortality. He feels like he is beginning to become bored with life and occasionally goes out on nigh-suicidal runs just to see if he can maybe end it forever.

He’s also very intelligent, with a deep interest in history – especially military history – since he’s lived through so much of it. He’s genuinely fond of humans in general, and is the kind of guy who’s always willing to lend a hand with a difficult project. He is highly secretive, however, and prizes his privacy above all else. This, combined with his home cluttered with books and artifacts, has given him a reputation as a bit of an eccentric.

Baqir grew up in 12th-century Damascus and took up the trade of tailor like his father. He was moderately successful at his trade, with a small shop, but abandoned it all to fight in Saladin’s army when the Crusaders approached. During one of the many battles for control of Jerusalem, he was attacked by what he took to be a Crusader but was a vampire. The pain of the vampire’s venom was so intense that he passed out and was taken for dead. His own people were going to bury him until he stirred, moaning about a burning pain all over his body. It took him nearly a week to recover, and the medics were all stunned by how his wounds – which had looked like savage bites! – had disappeared. Baqir was now a vampire.

Not understanding what had happened to him, he was filled with a murderous rage. He snuck into the Crusaders’ camp that night and killed ten of them, ripping them apart with his newfound strength. As he bit one of the hapless soldiers in his murderous rage, the blood slid down his throat and slightly quenched the burning thirst. Thinking of nothing but his thirst, he drained all ten dead and dying men dry, and ran back to his own camp.

When he came to his senses the next morning, safely under cover, blood still dripped from his face and hands, and the rumor of the dismembered Crusaders swept through the camp. This, along with his speedy recovery and new godlike attractiveness, earned him the nickname of “Shaitan al-Jamil” – the Beautiful Demon.

As the years went by and he continued traveling with Saladin’s army as a "secret weapon" of sorts, traveling in a covered palanquin to protect him from the sun, he realized that he could drink from animals, too. While at war it was easier to find and drink from the foes, but it was good to know that he wasn’t entirely dependent on human prey, either.

Upon Saladin’s death, Baqir decided that he wanted to learn more about his condition, and set to studying all of the texts he could find. As he learned, he traveled, but what he learned was no comfort. Creatures that drank blood were evil. He finally made his way to Prussia, where he quite by chance met another vampire, who explained it all. The other vampire thought he was strange and goaded him into drinking from a human to prove he was a true vampire. He spent some time with the vampires there before parting ways to gather more knowledge. Eventually he managed to make it to England, where he picked up a London accent for his English. He stayed there for a century or so, fighting for Britain in both World Wars. In an effort to keep his bloodlust under control, he enlisted in the RAF during WWII and fought in the Battle of Britain. He couldn’t feed from inside a plane, and all he could smell in the rarefied air was smoke and oil.

After the wars, he immigrated to the United States and spent some time in New York. With all the weirdness in that city, nobody noticed a man who always wore long sleeves and pants. The best part of New York was the large supply of petty criminals he could feed on from time to time without incurring much notice. He then moved on to Boston in the 60s, and from there through the rest of the country, making decent enough money as a history professor (why not? He lived through quite a bit of it). Finally, he’s found himself drawn here, where he now works as a professor at the University of Chicago.

The library was always a place where Soren could feel safe, if only for a little while. Librarians were nice. Librarians were kind. Librarians didn't mind if he stayed in there all day reading books, because most days reading books was what kept his monsters away. A rare few days it didn't work, but it was a reliable enough cure he'd tried to get Barnes & Noble gift cards as a prescription from his last psychiatrist. He'd been presented with a card to the patients' library instead, and when he'd dog-eared the few books they had there, he'd been granted leave to go on supervised excursions to town, always returning with stacks of books he had trouble holding. So his arms got quite strong and his mind got stronger. Books blocked out the demons in his head, it didn't matter what kind they were. Nonfiction, thriller, fantasy, science fiction...if the words on the page were engrossing enough to draw him out of his own head, the constant fear that plagued his existence subsided. Temporarily, but they subsided.

Naturally the first thing he did when he got his sea legs (so to speak) in his new town was to seek out the library. And it was a decently-sized one, too, which caused him to sag with mild relief when he saw it. He'd re-read books if he had to, but sometimes they didn't keep out the monsters so much if he knew what was coming. He'd explained it to his shrink as building up an immunity to the books. His shrink had given him a bemused look, but here he was, free from the oppressive walls of the institutions and out in the wide real world. In a manner of speaking. Boarding school was nothing like the real world, but it was a step up from an institution.

His fingers skimmed along the spines of familiar books. The Hobbit, The Bourne Identity, Les Misérables. Today he wanted something new, and he turned into the nonfiction section, smiling slightly at the clearly-marked placards displaying the Dewey Decimal System. Perhaps a biography today. He selected a biography of Carl Sagan and darted off to retrieve The Dragons of Eden from its proper place as a companion. One needs to read the work to understand the man better, after all.

On his way to a table, a flash of color caught his eye. It was a series of rainbow stripes in a girl's hair, and he was transfixed by them for a moment.

Then he noticed he was staring, and being stared at in turn.