Here we are! Midway in our trek through the vampire underworld.

If you are still with us, Draculaura and I are thrilled!

It’s been a fun couple of days so far and if you’ve missed some of what we’ve done to date I encourage you to go and catch up!

But if you have been faithfully following along, let’s get right to it.

M is for Marius, one of my favourite vampires from Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. As readers, we first meet him in Rice’s second book in the series The Vampire Lestat when Lestat goes in search of answers as to his vampire origins.

I fell in love because, as a citizen of the ancient Roman Gallic city of Massilia, he was easily the oldest vampire I’d run into to date. Born in 30 B.C., he became a scholar. He was abducted by the Druids at the age of 40 to become the replacement for their dying God of the Grove, who was badly burnt and dying.

The druids educate and prepare Marius to replace him. When they take him to the God, the God turns him into a vampire and encourages him to go to Egypt to figure out why all the vampires have been either severely burnt or destroyed the world over.

Marius does and discovers Akasha and Enkil  – the first vampires – who are in a comatose and statue-like state and had been placed in the sun, thus causing the burning of their children. He becomes their guardian over the next centuries, moving them as needed to keep them – and so vampires – safe.

He has two great loves in his life: Pandora, who he turns into a vampire early on and lives with for almost 200 years; and Armand who we have already profiled here and who he also turns into a vampire in the 15th Century.

As previously mentioned, Lestat and him connect in the late 18th century and Marius takes Lestat to the island where he is hiding Akasha and Enkil – still statue-like and known as Those Who Must Be Kept – and tells Lestat the vampire origin story. He then hides Akasha and Enkil again until the 1980s when Akasha finally wakes up and, well, more on her later.

N is for Eric Northman of True Blood fame.

As mentioned earlier in this series, the HBO show is based on Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire Mysteries.

Remember when we featured Fangtasia for the letter “F”?

Good times.

Anyway, Eric owns the bar.

He’s a little over 1000 years old at the time of the series and we discover throughout the books (or the show) that he was a Viking who was turned by a Roman vampire (in the books) or by Godric (on the show).

Either way, by the time we meet him he’s the vampire Sheriff of Area Five of northern Louisiana making him the most powerful vampire in the territory which includes Bon Temps – where the main character Sookie Stackhouse lives – and Shreveport – where his bar and headquarters is located.

Oh and, when compared to Bill Compton, Sookie’s original vampire love interest? Eric is the “bad” vampire. But he saves her life a lot and Sookie is obviously attracted to him. Love triangle fun ensues. Which is, of course, a completely new and exciting concept in vampire fiction.

The last letter of the day is O. And here? O is for Olivia Godfrey from Netflix’s Hemlock Grove.

I loved it when last year I discovered that Netflix had done an original series about vampires. I wouldn’t say that it ranks as a top vampire show (if you click the Wikipedia link above you’ll note that many critics agree), but it’s second season was released in July and for any genre fans it is certainly worth a watch.

Set in the fictional town of Hemlock Grove, Pennsylvania, Olivia is the matriarch of the town’s most powerful family. They own the Godfrey Institute – which is rumoured to conduct sinister experiments – and her lover (who is also her dead husband’s brother) is the lead psychiatrist at Hemlock Acres Hospital – the other main employer in a town marked by a stark divide between the rich and poor.

Unbeknownst to the town she’s an Upir, which is a Ukrainian vampire. Folklore informs us that Upirs are the spawn of witches and demons. This type of vampire starts out as a seemingly regular human, but with a greater pain tolerance and the ability to mesmerize. After death by suicide, they become full upir.

She was born into a wealthy Romanian family in the early 19th century. Considered the less attractive younger sister, she ran away with the family’s Roman slave who then double-crossed her after impregnating her. She kills herself and, well, doesn’t die, nine months later a daughter is born and the line continued.

The show (in season one at least) centres on her son Roman, as he discovers he is an upir and his friend – poor Peter from the other side of the tracks (so to speak) – discovers he’s a werewolf.

But her character? Well, maybe I’m just at the stage where I appreciate a vampire mom, but she does both roles with a certain poise you have to admire.

This is where I leave you today. We’re a little more than half-way through the alphabet. Tune in tomorrow to see who we have selected for P, Q and R.

Todays photos credits: Marius comes to us from Fanpop (which I might soon join at this rate), Eric Northman’s from the True Blood Wiki and Olivia is from the Hemlock Grove Wiki.