All Elder vampires go mad. All, save for one.Adrian Rowe survived the streets of Los Angeles by trusting no one. Not until he stumbled upon Garrick, an Elder vampire who offered protection, power, and a brutal initiation into a world Adrian had never imagined.After a reckless act sparks a violent chain reaction, Adrian, Garrick, and the vampire-witch Val flee to San Francisco, where a single command governs Adrian’s every move: lie low, and stay out of trouble. It’s a simple order until a quest for revenge, a hunter searching for her sister, and a group of young vampires with powers beyond their age threaten the city’s fragile balance.Torn between loyalty, vengeance, and the growing fear that Garrick may be more mad than he seems, Adrian faces a choice: hold the line, or become something far worse.Because in the world of vampires, madness isn’t a threat.It’s inevitable.

Coming Winter 2025

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Early Reviews for Madness of the Elder Vampire

Author

Darby lives in the sunny city of Boulder, Colorado. She became interested in vampires when her friends introduced her to the World of Darkness table top roleplaying games. Darby’s been writing as a hobby for as long as she can remember, but it wasn’t until a few years ago that she looked back on her works and thought “Wait, these are actually good. I am not cringing super hard right now.” She took that as a sign to turn her writing hobby into a writing profession.When she isn’t writing, you can find her sipping cocktails and thinking about writing. She also enjoys billiards, playing video games with her friends, and spoiling her two cats: Salem and Mari.

FAQ

Is this a Romance novel?
No. While the characters’ romantic life is a large part of the plot, Madness of the Elder Vampire does not follow Romance genre conventions. Madness is a dark, adult Urban Fantasy with pacing between that of a Drama and a Thriller.Is this a series? Will you be able to finish it?
The Elder Madness series is currently planned on being a trilogy. I’m pretty sure it will actually be a trilogy, but officially I’m marketing it as a series so I don’t accidentally write a five book trilogy, if I decide it needs more books.Unfortunately for my friends and family, I really really like writing. I write on weekends. I write after work. I write on vacations. I go to parties and think about how much I want to go home and write. So even if this book totally tanks and no one reads it other than my friends and family, I’m going to finish it.Is this self published? What’s Star Strix?
Star Strix is my personal LLC made for law and tax purposes. It also makes me look professional and I can stick a logo of an owl on my book’s spine.I decided to pursue self publishing for several reasons. First, given the current political climate in my home country (USA), I really want to keep distribution rights should anti-LGBTQIA+ sentiment continue to rise. I also have a large savings built up from my time as a software engineer and can afford to hire all the best talent to make my book as professional as if it were picked up by a traditional publishing company. I already have a Reedsy-accredited developmental editor hired, and plan to hire a professional copy editor and proofreader.Are you LGBTQIA+?
Perchance.Does your book have any content warnings or sexually explicit material?
Swearing and violence are both prevalent in the book. Some scenes describe gory actions, but my writing style doesn’t linger in a lot of description. (Feel free to read my free chapter on the “Read” tab to get an idea of the content you can expect.)There is no on-page, explicit sex. There is a lot of innuendo. I don’t have any current plans to make other books in the series more explicit, but I’m leaving the door open in case I feel it’s a good fit.Do you have any writing advice?
Yes! I have plans to write it up in the future. Follow me on Bluesky or sign up for my mailing list on Substack to get all writing advice and updates.When will Madness of the Elder Vampire be published?
I’m currently aiming for Winter 2025. My hope is October, since this is a story about vampires.Where can I follow you for more updates?
The best place to follow me is on Bluesky, or sign up for my mailing list on Substack.

Read the First Chapter of Madness of the Elder Vampire

Twenty Years Ago - AdrianThere was no magic preventing Adrian from entering the home of Linh Thi Nguyen uninvited, only a simple deadbolt, several security cameras, polite manners, and severe consequences. Locks could be picked, a skill Adrian had learned out of boredom but put to use more often than once. The security cameras were laughable, something meant more for mortals than vampires. Politeness was something Adrian didn’t afford often. He could always knock and ask to be let in, but he doubted Linh’s guards would open the door for him. And finally the severe consequences. Those didn’t concern Adrian in the slightest.“What’s taking so long?” one of the men behind Adrian growled.“Think you can do better?” Adrian hissed, keeping his voice low. Partly, it was to prevent alerting the house’s occupants of their intrusion, but it was also in restraint from snapping at the other man. Joseph was the Elder Regent, boss of their Coven. Whether Adrian wanted to admit it or not, Joseph owned him. And Adrian hated it. Had it not been for Garrick in the middle, Adrian would likely be dead already for mouthing off to the top-ranked vampire.The lock gave way, and the door opened into an unlit entryway. Adrian stepped into the foyer, glancing around for any sign of where Linh might be. He turned to wave the gathering of vampires through, but Joseph shoved his way past without invitation. Adrian swallowed his complaints.There was something uncanny about the inside of Linh’s mansion. The exterior appeared Victorian. Old, with massive wooden towers holding up pointed roof spires. Inside, the foundation resembled more of a cabin, with large wooden beams spanning the ceiling. The interior was dark, but that wasn’t terribly unusual; vampires didn’t require light to see. Heavy curtains blocked out any light from the windows.As the rest of Joseph’s crew entered the mansion, a blur of motion caught Adrian’s attention. He darted to the left wall just as a long, curved sword cut the air where he’d just stood, and clanged onto the stone floor. A guard had been stationed outside the door, likely waiting for them to enter before attacking. In his periphery, Adrian saw multiple guards lunging for other members of his Coven, but he kept his attention on his most immediate threat.The attacking guard raised his sword once more and charged at Adrian. The problem with swords was that they were long, sharp weapons perfect for stabbing hearts and lopping off heads: the two parts of Adrian’s body still necessary to live. But based on the guard’s stiff arms and poor balance, it was unlikely the young man had ever held a Vietnamese-style sword prior to working for Linh. Then again, Adrian had little experience fighting against swords either. But he knew how much punishment his body could take.Adrian dashed towards his attacker. The blade of the sword sliced against the left side of his torso as he closed the distance, burying his knife into the guard’s gut. A devastating blow to mortals, but a minor inconvenience to vampires. Still, the guard froze after the attack. This was likely the first time he had ever been stabbed. Before the guard had time to realize how little it mattered, Adrian took hold of the young man’s arm, twisted it onto his shoulder, and then snapped it at the elbow. The guard collapsed to the floor, crying out in pain and clutching his broken arm.With his immediate threat down, Adrian glanced around to see who needed help. Half a dozen men and women, dressed in dull gray uniforms, either lay crumpled on the ground or in the fangs of Adrian’s crew.Joseph, however, did not finish off his attacker quickly. The man was just as tall as Adrian, but far more muscular. Physical strength meant little to their magically enhanced bodies, but the sight of Joseph holding a guard by the throat, her face bloodied by repeated strikes from his fist, made the back of Adrian’s neck bristle. The brutal display was enough to make another guard, short in stature and still unharmed after their failed ambush, turn tail and run. Like a wild tiger, Joseph’s attention snapped to the cowardly guard, and he dropped the woman to pounce on his new prey.Adrian scanned the foyer to make sure they were safe, but deep down, he knew he just needed to look away. The screams and cries of Joseph’s new victim echoed through the otherwise silent mansion. Adrian was long past feeling shocked by Joseph’s outbursts of violence, but that didn’t make it easier to stand nearby while it happened. A whimper from the guard by Adrian’s feet, the one with the broken arm, caught his attention. These weren’t trained fighters, just kids who had been swept up by the wrong Elder.When the cries stopped, Adrian looked up to see Joseph’s fangs buried deep in the guard’s neck. Joseph gnashed his teeth as he fed, splattering fresh blood across his face. Several grueling seconds later, he dropped the cowardly guard at his feet and grinned at Adrian, his teeth stained red with blood.“What’cha lookin’ at me like that for?” he sneered. “Get a drink in while it’s free!”“I’m full,” Adrian said.Joseph grunted, then laughed and kicked the unconscious guard. Twice. A third time.“Are you done yet?” Adrian snapped. “We’re here for a reason.”Like a wild animal, Joseph growled and slowly sauntered up to Adrian. In the darkness of Linh’s mansion, his eyes glowed a menacing red, punctuating the blood smeared across his face. All Elder vampires suffered from the Madness, but Joseph could have been its poster boy.All Elders, save one.“Let’s go,” Joseph said in a mockingly jovial tone.A fearful weight lifted off Adrian’s chest as the Elder turned his attention away from him and directed it toward the crew of equally uncomfortable vampires standing nearby.“You four, go with him. That way.” He pointed deeper into the mansion to the right. “You three, with me.”Joseph bounded off to the left, three of his vassals following close behind. Adrian sighed in relief that he wasn’t in the group going with Joseph. The Elder may have been his boss, but he wasn’t the vampire who had turned him. That honor belonged to Garrick.“Man, what the hell,” one of the vampires in Adrian’s group, a woman named Jan, muttered. “Can’t believe Garrick made us come along.”“I think we did too good of a job chasing Juliette out of central LA,” another, Quinn, said. “Now Joseph thinks we can do the same with Linh.”“This seems like a really hasty plan, though.”“Let’s just get this over with,” Adrian grunted. “Garrick won’t let us get hurt.”An awkward silence followed, before one of the vampires, Everett, finally agreed. “Yeah. He wouldn’t send all of us if it was that dangerous.”The four vampires in Adrian’s group were all vassals of Garrick. Elder vampires rarely worked together in the same Coven, but Garrick was an exception. Technically, that made Garrick one of Joseph’s vassals, but the traditional hierarchy broke down when two Elders were involved. Elders needed the blood of other vampires, not mortals, to sustain themselves. Normally, the vassal supplied blood to the Elder Regent, but with two Elders, the structure had to subdivide further. Adrian and his group of four comprised Garrick’s crew. Garrick answered to the Elder Regent, Joseph, who had a dozen other young vassals answering directly to him.Other vampires might have considered this arrangement a family structure, but Adrian avoided that classification. He didn’t think of Everett and the others as siblings, nor did he think of Garrick as a father. They were his crew. And Garrick was…Garrick had promised to keep Adrian safe.Adrian’s inner magic surged, and he twisted the shadows around him into a cloak of darkness that shielded him from sight and sound—a trick Garrick taught him a few years ago, once his body had aged enough to use such magical powers. The other four did the same, and together they silently crept deeper into the house. Twice, a guard ran by, unaware of the crew’s presence in the shadows.When their incursion led them to the dining room, Adrian spotted a woman seated at a long, ornate table, sipping a bright red broth. The room was warmly lit by a variety of colorful lamps, and the ceiling stretched two and a half stories high. It was an elaborate sight for a room Linh had no necessity for.As the group entered, Linh flicked her wrist, and the shadows hiding them dissipated. Two more guards rushed in from a door on the opposite end of the room, but Linh held up a finger, signaling them to wait.“You do know what entering a home uninvited means, right?” Linh asked. She blotted a white cloth against her mouth, and Adrian couldn’t tell whether the red residue left behind was from her soup or her lipstick.Adrian shrugged. He knew. Traditionally, Linh could do whatever she wanted. But Joseph wasn’t one for tradition.“I would have thought Joseph knew better than to storm my home. He can kill a few guards, but that Mad dog is nothing compared to an Elder over a century his senior.”“Elder” was a status gained after two hundred years of age. Joseph hadn’t been Elder long, only about fifty years, making him two hundred fifty years turned. Linh was at least three hundred fifty. Garrick was six hundred.Adrian was twenty.“Which one of you idiots let them in?” Linh hissed at the nearest guard. “Did Joseph plant a spy in my ranks?” She stood and approached the guard. Linh was short and slender, hardly an intimidating woman, but she carried herself like a queen, and her scowl could menace even the strongest steel-hearted man. The guard froze.“I will make you my next soup unless you tell me!”“N-no Mistress Linh, please! We thought an ambush…”Everett caught Adrian’s attention with a sideways glance and an uneasy fidget. Their orders weren’t specifically to assassinate Linh, but she had to leave Los Angeles. It was unlikely that she’d do so without significant violence.The nearest guard was only a few yards away. Adrian grabbed his knife again and closed the distance as fast as he could. The guard had just enough time to react and raise his sword defensively, but it didn’t do much to stop the attack. Adrian aimed for the gut, like before, but the angle left the slice shallow. The guard’s sword caught between them, its sharp edge pointing skyward and nearly brushing Adrian’s face. Another stab below the ribcage landed, and the guard loosened his grip. Just what Adrian was waiting for. He tore the sword from the guard’s hands, took a moment to adjust the angle, then swung it like a baseball bat at neck height. The cut sliced most of the way through. Enough to kill.The fighting resumed. The noise attracted more guards from the rest of the house—or rather, servants, based on their lack of weaponry. Adrian spun around to see Linh furious. She ripped the sword out of the hands of the guard she had been intimidating and held it by her side. Unlike these untrained guards, Linh stood with a sword master’s grace.Adrian angled his shoulder forward, protecting his two most vulnerable points: first, his head and neck; second, his heart, beating slowly, but still pumping the blood vital to his existence. A strike anywhere else would just be a waste of time, unless one simply wanted to inflict pain. Of course, that meant Linh was equally difficult to kill.Linh stopped abruptly. She tilted her head toward the ceiling, then glanced at Adrian with a questioning look.“Where’s Joseph? I heard that dog barking when you first broke in.”Adrian didn’t drop his guard at the question, but she was correct. Where was Joseph? Surely he’d want to face Linh himself.“Oh, I see. You’re not one of Joseph’s vassals. You’re Garrick’s, aren’t you?”Adrian didn’t answer her, but he imagined his look of quiet panic was answer enough. She was right, but what did it matter? What dots had Linh connected that he was missing?Linh dropped the sword at her side and sighed heavily. She returned to her soup, still seated at the edge of the table.“I’m afraid we’ve both been played, boy.”She tilted the bowl back and drank the rest of the blood greedily. Just as she finished, another servant burst into the room.“Fire!” the servant shouted. “Fire, spreading quickly!”Adrian’s panic intensified. Was that what had caught Linh’s attention moments ago?“A waste of good food, if you ask me,” Linh said. “I’ll give your regards to Joseph and Garrick next time I see them.”With that, Linh’s form began to shift. Her head morphed into a monster’s, and coarse hair sprouted across her body. Skin stretched from her arms to her sides, forming a membrane that joined with her lower half. Less than a breath later, a giant bat stood in her place. With its expansive wings, the bat took flight toward the upper levels of the dining room. It clung to the ceiling and, with a massive claw, shattered a singular skylight window, sending glass shards raining down. Adrian ducked under the table to defend himself, and once the hailstorm of glass subsided, he looked back up just in time to see the bat crawl out through hole in the roof.By now, the area had dissolved into disorganized chaos. As smoke began to pour into the dining room, those who had tried to kill one another moments before ran together toward the nearest exit. Adrian was about to follow, but a shout from the foyer stopped him cold.“It’s barred! The doors are barred!”This is what Linh meant. It was rare for Elders to work together, and Adrian’s crew had gained a reputation for disposing of Joseph’s rivals. Joseph feared Garrick’s crew, and that should have frightened Adrian.Adrian looked up. He was at least a century too young for the kind of shapeshifting magic that had saved Linh. He scanned the room for a window instead. The dining room had one long window, shrouded by heavy drapes. He pulled them back—only to find a brick wall framed with wood where the glass had once been.What?Adrian grabbed a chair. Drywall was easily breakable. He slammed the chair against the wall, only for it to splinter and bounce away. Thinking he got unlucky and hit a stud, Adrian grabbed another and hit the wall a hand’s width away from the first strike. The chair splintered again, leaving little more than a scuff against the paint. Disbelieving, Adrian walked over to inspect the graze. Chipping away at the broken drywall, Adrian found brick.In her paranoia, Linh had built an impenetrable fortress. And a tomb.Now the panic truly gripped Adrian. He couldn’t escape through the doors. He couldn’t escape through the windows. He couldn’t escape through the walls. The skylight was unreachable. At this point, his only option was to hope Linh, for some crazed, Madness-fueled reason, built hidden tunnels. Or, to find some way to survive a burning building until the flames smoldered out.“Adrian!” Everett called. He and the rest of his crew ran to him. “What do we do?”He didn’t know.“Get somewhere safe!”Adrian dropped to the floor. Smoke wouldn’t kill him, as his body no longer needed to breathe, but it still stung his eyes and the room was filling up fast. What could he do to survive? A bathtub, perhaps? He crawled on the floor out of the dining room, but the next room over had flames dancing up the interior walls. Those were not reinforced by brick. Adrian had to find some kind of cover, but he was crawling blind through an unfamiliar house. He had no idea where a master bathroom would be located. Or hell, even if this house had a bathtub he could flip over on himself.He heard the screams of the servants and a loud crash. The house’s foundations were starting to crumble and collapse. Adrian didn’t have time for doubt. He either got lucky and found something fireproof to hide in, or he died.Adrian continued to crouch low and moved across the burning room. He didn’t have many options for direction. One end was fully ablaze, the other slightly less so. He made his way into what looked like a bedroom. No bathroom attached to it, however. He tried another room, this one appearing to be some kind of office featuring a very burnable wooden desk.Adrian looked behind him to see Everett run out of a room in frustration. His other two crew members stayed nearby, hoping Adrian had found safety. They flinched and glanced nervously at the ceiling when he shoo

He made his way back towards the shouts of the others, hoping they found something. But as he got closer and could hear more clearly, he realized the shouts were just as despairing as he felt. He couldn’t give up. Giving up was death.Another loud crack reverberated through the house, and before Adrian could look to see where it came from, a large, charred piece of wood slammed into his head. Upon waking seconds—at least he hoped it was seconds—later, Adrian realized his entire body was pinned beneath rubble. He tried placing his hands beneath him and pushing through, but his pounding head sapped him of all strength. He could barely get air beneath his chest before crashing back down to the floor.So this was it? He’d been played, a pawn in Elder vampire grudges, burning not in the sun but in a trap of fire. Alone.He nearly gave up. He lay on his stomach, waiting for the flames to reach him, listening to the screams of the others. But their screams changed into a new chorus, one that filled Adrian with dreaded new hope.
“Garrick!” Someone shouted. Perhaps they were simply cursing the man who put them here, but another voice joined in.“Garrick! Garrick!”He was here, and Adrian admonished the brief moments when he thought he’d been betrayed.“Gar…” Adrian tried to call out as well, but he realized just how weak he’d become. The beam pinning him to the floor didn’t allow for much air to pass into his throat to shout.Then the screams took on a different tone. Adrian listened as the cries to Garrick’s name took on a fearful pitch. And then despair. Anger. Now, they cursed him.Adrian craned his head to the doorway, and he saw a man walk in, calm as if the world around him wasn’t burning to the ground. He didn’t crawl along the floor like Adrian, but stood tall despite the smoke. Two hellish red eyes pierced through the black haze, and fell directly on him. Adrian froze. What betrayal had the others faced?
Garrick walked beside Adrian’s body, and with a loud grunt lifted the wooden beam off of him. He scooped up his body and held Adrian to his chest, then turned and walked back the way he came. Adrian gripped the man’s shirt tightly and closed his eyes to avoid the sting of the smoke. He heard the other voices, louder now, as they called Garrick’s name in desperation. It had no effect on the man, and he continued walking as if he were deaf to them.Then, without warning, they were flying. A cold breeze whipped over Adrian’s body, suddenly replacing the broiling temperature of the burning house. The shock must have knocked Adrian out cold, as the last thing he remembered seeing was a pair of great demon wings pulling him out from Hell.When he came to, they were on the ground once more in a lonely grass field, far away from the city proper. He was still in Garrick’s arms, his back leaned against a raised knee and head cradled against his chest. With his ear pressed against him, he could hear Garrick’s slow, soft heartbeat, and the vestigial spasms of a man weeping.And that’s when Adrian knew he truly loved him.