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This article is about the British vampire. For other uses, including the poem by Walt Whitman and the Sargent portrait, see Kiefer Marsden (disambiguation).

Kiefer Alistair Edmund Marsden (born 4 April 1776) is a vampire, former Catholic priest and soldier of the British armed forces, ^[1] and current soldier-under-oath to the western United States branch of the International Hunters Alliance, Los Angeles office. ^[2] Aside from, of course, his rank as one of the only three vampire officers-under-oath in the western United States Hunters Alliance branch, he is known primarily for his employment by the Clarence crime empire, ^[3] his position as executive officer to multiple battalions of the British army during World War II, ^[1] and his command of the Union troops during the vampire territory wars that occurred concurrently with the American Civil War ^[4].

Kiefer Alistair Marsden was born on April 4, 1776, two months before the end of the American Revolution, to Elisabeth Katharina Freytag von Loringhoven and Gordon Alistair Marsden. He had one older brother, August Anselm, born on 16 November 1771. ^[1] His mother Elisabeth was the descendant of a highly respected Baltic-German family ennobled in the 12th century; her relatives would later play an instrumental role in World War II. ^[5] She married Gordon Marsden, the third son of a wealthy Lancashire family, in May of 1772, although some of her family members are believed to have disapproved of the marriage, due to the fact that her husband was not technically a member of the nobility. ^[6]

In 1793, when Kiefer was seventeen, his family departed from their hometown of Ormskirk in western Lancashire, a decision driven by the extreme anti-Catholic legislation that operated in England at the time. Elisabeth von Loringhoven was not known to be particularly religious, but Gordon Marsden practiced a severe form of orthodox Roman Catholicism and expected the same of his wife and children. It is presumed that Gordon wished his elder son to be able to inherit his land and family name, and his younger son to enter the priesthood, neither of which would be possible under the circumstances present in their homeland. ^[1]

In order to protect themselves from further persecution, Gordon, Elisabeth, and their two sons moved from Ormskirk to Regensburg, Germany, where they are thought to have taken up residence with Elisabeth's elder sister's family. ^[7] Shortly after his family gained official citizenship in the country, an eighteen-year-old Kiefer entered the theological college at Regensburg, St. Wolfgang's Seminary. ^[1] Records state that he was extremely successful in his studies, impressing his instructors with his unusual intelligence and inquisitive nature, and he graduated with full honors from the seminary in 1803, some months before it was closed down. ^[8]

After leaving the seminary, Kiefer attempted to convince his father to allow him to return to their former home and join the British army, as Catholic recruits were needed for the Napoleonic Wars. Although Gordon Marsden wanted his son to remain in the Catholic Church as a missionary and refused to pay the fees for his younger son to enlist as a soldier, records indicate that Kiefer departed for the front in 1805, with all the required bills paid. ^[7] While there is no certain proof of who may have provided those funds, Kiefer was known to be extremely close to his older cousin, Hugh Marsden. Silas Marsden, Gordon's younger brother and Hugh's father, had remained in England during the persecution of Catholics, as he and his family were converted Protestants, and Hugh had found lucrative work in London as a medical student. ^[1] It is believed that Hugh sent his younger cousin the necessary support from his home in England, as he possessed both the motivation and the means.

When Kiefer Marsden joined the British forces in 1803, Britain had just declared war on France, and continued to maintain a level of low-intensity land warfare for more than a decade during the Napoleonic Wars. ^[9] During this period - spanning the years between 1803, when the war began, and 1815, when it concluded with the Battle of Waterloo - Marsden was on the front lines for approximately six years, intermittently, and spent the remainder of the war on one of the frigates of the Royal Navy. ^[1] The exact dates of his postings have not yet been identified, but it is known that he was a member of the naval force by 1805, as he is known to have fought in the Battle of Trafalgar against the Franco-Spanish fleet. However, Marsden is listed in records from 1809 and the following years as a cavalry soldier under Sir Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, who would go on to defeat Napoleon at Waterloo; it is unclear whether Marsden was actually present at the historic battle, or if his battalion was simply one of the many which Wellington commanded. ^[10]

It should be noted that all reliable evidence points to his transformation into a vampire occurring near the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars. Presumably, Marsden was turned by a fellow soldier or an officer in the army, although a few points regarding his turning remain in question, namely at what point he was able to identify his new condition and his reasons for continuing to fight in the war once he had done so. In the case of the latter, sources indicate that once Marsden returned to England, he made an extensive series of efforts to test the conditions of his immortality, which may have been in the spirit of scientific inquiry or, perhaps, simply suicide attempts. ^[1] If the second of those is indeed the case - these attempts being possibly driven by religious beliefs, or the desire not to outlive his loved ones, both of which are commonly found in young vampires ^[11] - it is possible that he maintained his position as a soldier in the expectation that he would not survive the war.

After the Napoleonic Wars came to an official close in November of 1815, Marsden resigned his post in the army and traveled from Belgium, where his battalion had been located, to England. Exactly what he did there and where he lived remains uncertain, as he did not contact any family members or acquaintances, nor are there any records of his occupation or a purchased residence under his name. However, records indicate that Marsden spent a significant amount of time attempting to put the limits of his condition to the test, via such various methods as starvation, drowning, and extreme blood loss. Due to the divergent biology of vampires in comparison to humans, none of his endeavors were successful. ^[1] His reasons for these efforts remain an enigma, although, as a Roman Catholic, he may have struggled against deeply ingrained religious beliefs to come to terms with his newfound species.

Otherwise, very little information can be found in general about Marsden's activities between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the beginning of the Crimean War in 1850. He is known to have had an interest in the Romantic movement, composing letters to George Gordon, Lord Byron, who was at the time residing in Genoa, Italy and nearing the end of his life, ^[12] as well as Johann Goethe. Marsden established a fairly close relationship with the former through these letters, and continued correspondence with Byron until the poet died in Greece in 1824. ^[13] Additionally, he is thought to have been the author of a set of two symphonic poems which achieved some popularity during the period, published under the general title Marching On and unified by recurrent musical themes based on the " Deutschlandlied," which would later be chosen as the German national anthem. ^[14] Neither of these scores, however, are believed to have survived.

What can be ascertained is that in 1828, shortly before the passage of the Catholic Relief Act, Marsden returned to the priesthood in England. How he was able to do so, given the natural aversion of vampires to sacred items, is unknown, but indicates a remarkable measure of willpower on his part. ^[1] Nevertheless, he continued to work in the United Kingdom and surrounding countries until at least 1850, and is believed to have played some sort of role in the later stages and aftermath of the Catholic emancipation. While it is unclear exactly what this role may have been, it should be noted that the Duke of Wellington, who was Prime Minister at the time, and his brother, the Marquess Wellesley, were both active members in the campaign for Catholic emancipation in England and Ireland, and, due to his position as officer during the Napoleonic Wars, Marsden was acquainted with at least one if not both of them. ^[10]

In 1853, having worked and resided at St. Peter's Cathedral in Lancaster for the past several years, Marsden was conscripted into the British army a second time. ^[1] In this case, the immediate conflict at hand was the Crimean War, in which Britain allied with France, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia to defeat Russia. Ostensibly, the cause of this war was the rights of Christian minorities in Israel and Palestine: the French and their allies supported the rights of Catholics, while Russia promoted the eastern Orthodox Christians. ^[15] It is presumed that Marsden, as a fervent Roman Catholic himself, decided to take up his former occupation as a soldier again in order to defend his own religion on an international scale.

Although his actions in the Crimea were, for the most part, unremarkable, Marsden is known to have been present at the dispatch of the French and British fleets to the Black Sea in the summer of 1853, possibly on the steamship HMS Retribution. He is also thought to have fought in the historic Battle of Balaclava, better remembered as the location of the Charge of the Light Brigade, which was later memorialized in the well-known Tennyson poem; however, no reliable sources can conclusively confirm this possibility. Records also indicate that Marsden may have been a member of the British left during the siege of Sevastopol, which lasted almost a full year until the city fell in September of 1855. ^[16]

Generally speaking, Marsden's activities between 1855 and 1861 remain a puzzle to biographers, but in 1861, he crossed the Atlantic from Lancaster to the coast of Virginia as a volunteer and mercenary in the American Civil War. Under the command of the Union generals, he fought in one of the earliest major conflicts of the Civil War, the Battle of Bull Run, in which both regiments were made up mainly of British volunteer soldiers. However, his position in the Union troops did not last long, as by the following November, he was fighting for an entirely different side of the Union: the Northern vampire army battling in the infamous territory wars of the 1860s. ^[4]

While the American Confederacy struggled to maintain its schism from the rest of the United States, its supernatural inhabitants were handling a conflict of their own, which reflected, to some degree, the pattern of the Civil War itself. In late 1862, when Marsden joined the Northern troops, the Southern undead armies were undeniably the superior force; indeed, it has been speculated that if Marsden had not become one of the Northern generals, they would have routed the Northern army and won jurisdiction of the entirety of the eastern United States. The main aggressors in the vampire territory wars were the Bonesingers, a Delaware-based clan who were extremely politically powerful and had been responsible for several recent amendments to the Great Blood Charter, ^[17] and the Ironwork Sevendays, a clan residing near the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, ^[18] who had only recently added their second name to honor the Seven Days Battles in July of that year. At the time, the Sevendays were attempting to expand their territory into the surrounding states - namely Kentucky, Ohio, and Delaware - and the Bonesingers called in their treaties with several other Northern clans, as well as their allies overseas, to repel them. ^[4]

Once enlisted, Kiefer Marsden rose through the ranks of the Northern vampire armies with astonishing rapidity, proving himself to be a brilliant officer and an extraordinarily successful general. He won every campaign assigned to him, without exception and with minimal loss of life, and was so revered by the Northern soldiers that in early 1865, the Bonesinger commander ceded complete control of the Northern army to him. It was then that the Northern army truly began to gain the upper hand, and by April of 1866, the general consensus among supernatural citizens in the area was that the Southern troops, led by Sevendays general Francis Ainsley, had met their match once and for all. The vampire South, represented by the Ironwork Sevendays, sued for peace in 1867, and signed the 26th Amendment to the Great Blood Charter - a declaration of the definitive peace treaty between the Southern and Northern clans - in February of 1868. ^[4] According to eyewitnesses, the treaty conditions were drawn up by none other than Marsden himself, as head of the Northern negotiation commission. ^[19]

It should be noted that in 1863, while traveling through Washington, D.C. with a small troop of delegates, Marsden encountered the poet Walt Whitman, who was working as a nurse in one of the army hospitals at the time. ^[1] The two became fast friends; the exact nature of their relationship, which lasted for less than a month, is unclear, but recovered letters and manuscripts indicate that Whitman wrote a series of poems dedicated to Marsden. These poems have not yet been recovered, although the few surviving titles and lines appear to suggest that the earlier few were written regarding Marsden's prowess as a soldier and general, and the latter number as romantic declarations. ^[13]

In general, very little is known about Marsden's activities between the end of the vampire territory wars in 1868 and his drafting into the British army at the beginning of World War I, as he had few contacts and did not reside in any one place for a significant amount of time. Records do indicate that his extensive travel may have been an attempt to further familiarize himself with the artistic and musical scene of the period, as he became acquainted with a number of well-known authors, artists, and composers. The first of these dates to August of 1876, when Marsden attended the first complete performance of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus in Germany. ^[14] By the 1880s, however, he had moved back to London from Germany, where he became a favored friend and confidant of the painter John Singer Sargent; a number of Sargent's portraits of Marsden, which were widely celebrated upon completion, have survived to this day, and are currently preserved in the Royal Council Gallery at Meiringen. He also resided in Russia for some time during the early 1890s, as he is known to have attended the premiere of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite in St. Petersburg, and corresponded for some years with the playwright Anton Chekhov at his estate of Melikhovo. ^[20]

What can be conclusively established, however, is that Marsden was living in London in the mid-1890s, where - having become heavily involved with the Victorian criminal underground - his name arose during the course of the Oscar Wilde trials. It is thought that the lawyers for the defense attempted to coerce him into appearing as a witness, threatening to prosecute him as one of Wilde's accomplices; more than likely, their efforts were unsuccessful, as Marsden never appeared in court. ^[21] The nature of his employment in London at the time, as well as the specific reasons why he may have been called upon to testify, remain uncertain, although it is presumed that he did have some sort of acquaintance with Wilde and refused to testify out of loyalty. ^[13]

In 1914, when Britain first declared war on Germany, Kiefer Marsden enlisted yet again as a member of the British armed forces. Presumably, he began as a soldier in the infantry. His first known engagement in the First World War was the Battle of Langemarck, which occurred northeast of Ypres and took place from 21-24 October; the Anglo-French armies were under siege there for approximately three days. Given the locations where his battalion was posted, he is thought to have been present at a number of other historic conflicts, such as the Battle of the Somme and the Loos assault in September of 1915. ^[22] As a vampire, and thus able to heal more quickly and less susceptible to death by blood loss, ^[23] he had something of an advantage over his fellow soldiers, many of whom died in machine-gun fire at Loos.

By the winter of 1916, he had been promoted to the Royal Air Force, which was then losing ground over Arras due to the improvement of German air tactics. Marsden was known to be a skilled pilot, despite the failings of Allied air power at the time, which included outmoded aircraft, poor training, and weak strategy; at one point in 1917, during the Battle of Arras and subsequent aerial conflicts, he commanded his own air crew. However, shortly afterward, he was relegated from the Air Force to the Allied armies fighting in the trenches for reasons that remain unknown, and returned to the western front, then attempting to take control of western Belgium. In June of 1917, he is thought to have been present at the Third Battle of Ypres, and records indicate that he held the post of adjutant in his battalion. ^[22]

It should be noted that while fighting at Passchendaele, Marsden's battalion suffered heavy losses from artillery fire and German mustard gas alike, including the death of their commanding officer, Lt. Col. Edward Garland, and intelligence officer, Lt. Nathan Rosenfeld. ^[24] Marsden and Rosenfeld were known to be extremely close: other soldiers described the pair as "inseparable" and "remarkably loyal," and mentioned that after the death of the latter, Marsden was quieter and more subdued than was typical of him, as well as being significantly more reckless in combat. Additionally, after the war ended and he returned to England, this sentiment was echoed by his contacts and acquaintances there, indicating that Rosenfeld's loss may have had a lasting effect on him. ^{[1] [13]} Nevertheless, he continued as a member of the same battalion for the remainder of the war, and only left for England once the armistice was decreed in 1918. ^[22]

In general, less is known about Marsden's involvement in the Second World War; he joined the Allied forces approximately a year after the war began, in 1940, and spent the majority of the war fighting at the front in France. ^[22] At first, he was sent to Belgium, which was being overrun by Germany at the time via blitzkrieg tactics, and aided there in defending the Maginot Line; however, the Allied forces were circumvented and defeated while traveling through the Ardennes. ^[25] Unlike the majority of his compatriots at the front, Marsden escaped imprisonment and was evacuated from the continent at Dunkirk in early June, before returning to battle in Boulogne near the end of the month. He is known to have been a member of a number of British raids in 1942, including Operations Myrmidon and St. Nazaire, and earned battle honors in several. ^[22]

Perhaps most notably, he also played a part in Operation Overlord, usually known as D-Day, when the Allies on the western front invaded northern France. Marsden is thought to have been present at the initial landing at Normandy, and is also known to have been involved in the later Operation Dragoon, during which the Allies invaded southern France between Toulon and Cannes. ^[22] Reports indicate, however, that while consolidating the beachhead Marsden and another young soldier, Sgt. Henry Levy - in fact the alias of Harriet Levy, who would go on to work with Marsden for upwards of twenty years - were separated from the troops and only recovered several days later. The documents and journals of fellow soldiers suggest that they may have become trapped in a cave network on the Cannes beaches; from such conclusions, we can assume that Marsden was responsible for turning Levy into a vampire at this point, in order to save her from drowning. ^[26]

However, there is no definitive proof of this, as Marsden and Levy were assigned to different battalions shortly after their return to the army. While Levy boarded one of the convoys protecting British shipping in the Atlantic, Marsden remained at the front. Other offensives he was involved in, mostly during the latter part of the war, included the battle for control of the Rur river, the offensive against German troops in the Vosges Mountains, and the counter-offensive launched by the Germans in the Ardennes. In fact, while in the Ardennes, he was named executive officer of a number of his own battalions, and proceeded to lead the defense of the supply port at Antwerp. ^[22]

When the Second World War ended in 1945, Kiefer Marsden moved from Belgium, where the battalions he commanded had been posted, to the United States. It should be noted that Harriet Levy returned to America, to which her family had emigrated from Britain some years before, around the same time, ^[26] and that the two of them took up similar criminal occupations after the war, but it is unknown whether Levy traveled there with Marsden or not. Nevertheless, what can be established is that Marsden spent the period of his life from 1946 to 1980 working in the post- Prohibition organized crime scene, initially as an assassin and mercenary for hire, and later - with the aid of his surviving contacts from the territory wars of the 1860s - as a highly respected arms dealer. ^{[1] [27]}

Having established a network of contacts among veterans and criminals during the territory wars, Marsden had very little trouble finding work, and began amassing comfortable sums of money in recompense as his reputation grew. ^[28] Accounts composed by the heads of the criminal organizations that hired Marsden state that he was quite talented in his chosen fields: "tenacious," "shrewd," and "enterprising," he negotiated the prices of weapons "as if he'd been a businessman all his life" and completed the hits he was paid to do in a manner both efficient and practical. In particular, employers noted his "incredible" marksmanship and surprising willingness to challenge opponents who had significant advantages of weight and height on him. However, records also make it clear that Marsden was considered exceedingly difficult both to work alongside and to approach on a personal level, no matter how effective a criminal he may have been. More specifically, various employers described him as "quarrelsome," "trigger-happy," "fatalistic," "high-strung" and "generally disagreeable," commenting in particular on his quick temper when it came to observations regarding his apparent young age, innocent appearance, and petite size. ^{[1] [29]}

Sometime in 1980 - after working on his own for almost forty straight years - Marsden took on a partner, Elizabeth Ashworth, an orphan and self-made criminal. ^{[1] [30]} Although the exact circumstances under which the two began working together remain something of an enigma, it is likely that the pair met when they were employed by rival organizations for the same cause and proceeded to betray their employers, divide the stolen goods between themselves, and depart the area to avoid retribution. This partnership lasted for the next fourteen years until Ashworth's death in 1994, uninterrupted by Ashworth's marriage to crime lord Fitzgerald 'Gerald' Clarence IV ^[30] and Marsden's renewal of his acquaintance with fellow ex-soldier Harriet Levy, who he would go on to partner with after losing Elizabeth. ^[28]

During the next nine years, Ashworth and Marsden's travels spanned the entirety of the United States and the majority of the crime rings, organizations, and criminally affiliated individuals present therein. Like Marsden himself, Ashworth had gained some notoriety for her recklessness and belligerence throughout her time as a criminal; despite their fame in the criminal underground, existing records seem to indicate that, if anything, their partnership actually increased their shared combativeness, and, in the words of one crime lord, "[rendered] them even more impossible to handle." ^[29] Nevertheless, their respective success rates shot upward once the two had formed a team, and regardless of Ashworth's age, Marsden's convoluted past, and their rather warlike reputation, they managed to secure their status as one of the top criminal duos of their, and indeed, perhaps all time. ^[27]

In 1989, the pair were permanently hired by the Clarence crime empire, and presumably as part of his contract, Marsden remained in Los Angeles, California, the location of the empire's headquarters, for the next several years. For some months, Marsden and Ashworth continued to work together for other organizations, but by the time Ashworth's engagement to Fitzgerald Clarence IV was announced in early 1990, she had begun working exclusively for the Clarence ring. ^[31] Marsden, on the other hand, continued his employment by a number of respected criminal institutions around the country, although more of his jobs were centered in Los Angeles than in previous cases. It is worth noting, however, that most of his jobs were with the Clarence ring, if not with Ashworth specifically, until her death in 1994, even though no records of his ever accepting a formal position with the ring may be found. ^[28]

This state of affairs drew to a close on December 18, 1994, when Elizabeth Ashworth Clarence was killed on a routine smuggling job, accompanied by none other than Kiefer Marsden. According to what records still exist, the pair were expected to retrieve a shipment of illegally traded arms and magical materials at a pre-arranged location, and Marsden stood guard while Ashworth performed routine reconnaissance. In the process, the latter was shot and died at the scene; whether Marsden was present at the actual moment of her death is uncertain. ^[30] After Elizabeth's murder, Marsden left Los Angeles and the Clarence empire almost immediately, and traveled to West Virginia, where he resided with unidentified contacts from the territory wars for some time. ^[1]

While his activities for the next decade or so are unknown, by May of 2002, Marsden had returned to his previous employment of arms trading, although based on the eastern seaboard and operating on a much smaller scale. One of his first cross-country deals during this period was with the Romain-Orléans crime ring, located in the rural Pacific Northwest but possessed of a network extending throughout the United States. Given that Harriet Levy was employed by the lord of the ring, Achille de Saint-Romain, as a general smuggler at the time, it is presumed that Marsden encountered Levy again during the final stages of this deal. ^[28] Shortly after finishing the deal, Marsden accepted an informal position in Levy's small criminal crew, made up of mechanic Zelda Day Vogel and her fellow werewolf Walter Hall, con artist Isabel Tang, and Levy herself. Over the past several years, the quartet had attained some degree of notoriety among the American criminal scene, which only increased with the addition of Marsden. ^[28]

Kiefer Marsden worked side by side with Harriet Levy and her crew for approximately the next five years, during which the group were employed mainly, if indirectly, by Achille de Saint-Romain. ^[32] Due to the rogue status of the two werewolves in Levy's crew, Saint-Romain may have been hesitant to declare his allegiance with them outright. However, it must be noted that the group were also successful elsewhere, in the pay of a number of other criminal organizations, and gained a significant reputation: Levy and Marsden for their combat experience and strategic intelligence, Vogel for her technical and piloting skills, Hall for his capabilities in lock picking and pickpocketing, and Tang for her impressive talent at conning, unusual in someone her age. ^[28] Various criminals both individual and organized favored the crew during this decade, noting their "camaraderie," "cunning," and "persistence," and complimenting the loyalty between the members of the group as well as to their employers. ^[29]

In 2007, Levy and her crew were ordered by Saint-Romain to relocate to New York City, as one of his smugglers in the area had died, and he required a replacement to shift smuggled goods onto ships at the city's main port. ^[32] Marsden accompanied the quartet across the country, and took up residence in Levy's townhouse for the following three years, continuing in his criminal work alongside Levy's company and with the aid of his contacts in New York State. ^[28]

In May of 2010, when Levy, Marsden and the rest of their crew had been securely established in New York for three years or so, Achille de Saint-Romain assigned Harriet a particularly unusual mission: to escort his former business partner, Audric Ackerman d'Aubigné, overseas to Paris. ^[33] Earlier that month, Ackerman had called on Saint-Romain at his estate, presumably to seek asylum from the International Hunters Alliance as well as the Black Cathedral (Cathédrale Noire) solar cult, which he had escaped in 1911. ^[34] Saint-Romain, who was known to do business with members of said cult, refused to grant him refuge and ordered his ward and heir Jehan Desjardins to escort Ackerman to New York City, where he intended to have Levy arrange transport to the European border. ^[33]

Upon arrival, Ackerman and Desjardins took up residence in Levy's New York townhouse, alongside Zelda Vogel, Walter Hall, Isabel Tang, Levy herself, and Marsden. This state of affairs persisted for approximately a month, until June 15, when Levy conducted Ackerman to the New York Harbor; it is thought that, as per Saint-Romain's instructions, she intended to stow him away on a transatlantic freighter to Italy. ^[35] However, before the pair were able to break into the ship in question, they were captured by the New York Hunters Alliance office's harbor watch and promptly conveyed to the office headquarters in Manhattan for questioning. ^[36] Later the same night, the interrogation of the two revealed Levy's townhouse address, and New York hunters raided the house for information about the Romain-Orléans smuggling ring. In the process, Desjardins, Vogel, Hall, Tang and Marsden were all taken captive. ^[37]

It is worth noting, however, that a full SWAT team of hunters was required to subdue them, a fact credited mainly to Marsden and Vogel. Upon the arrival of the hunters, the pair attempted to hide Desjardins, Tang, and Hall in the basement of the townhouse in order to protect them, preparing to engage in battle with the hunters themselves. However, the SWAT team arrived before they could do so, at which point Vogel offered the group extreme violence if they attempted to lay a hand on her children. The report suggests that Marsden stood by her, and added a number of threats of his own, mostly regarding what would occur if he discovered that they had harmed Ackerman and Levy in some fashion. Although Desjardins was able to prevent either side making good on these threats - according to the report, by mentioning his status as son and heir to Achille de Saint-Romain and the conflict that would ensue if he was injured - the pair still did not allow themselves to be captured peacefully. ^[37]

After consulting the Hunters Alliance Council on the subject, the New York office's Scion Captain decided to keep Levy for further questioning under temporary blood oath, mainly regarding Romain-Orléans smugglers in the area. Vogel and Hall were placed under house arrest, with the charge of not belonging to a registered werewolf pack, and Tang was set free, due to the lack of evidence regarding any of her specific crimes. ^[38] With their official interrogation having ended, Ackerman, Desjardins, and Marsden were confined in New York headquarters for several weeks as the Council and the New York office debated what should be done with the trio.

Eventually, the New York office released a statement that all three of them would be transferred to the Los Angeles office of the western United States branch, by decree of the Council. Since the researchers of the western branch were at that time heading up the investigation into Black Cathedral practices, Ackerman was expected to be valuable in that respect; Marsden, as a known former associate of the Clarence crime ring, was transferred in the hopes that he might be able to assist in negotiations between the empire and the local hunter office. ^[39] The reasons for Desjardins' transfer to Los Angeles remain unknown, but it has been suggested that he did not wish to be separated from Ackerman and/or Marsden, along with the possibility that he would be able to help arrange a treaty between the western branch and the Romain-Orléans ring as well as other local clans.

Audric Ackerman, Kiefer Marsden and Jehan Desjardins were sworn into the western branch of the Hunters Alliance under  Scion Captain Maya Verkaik on September 22, 2010. Their initial blood oath conditions, as reported by Verkaik's secretary to the Council, entailed residence inside the metropolitan area of Los Angeles at all times, a hunting quota of one death every three to four months, and unquestioned obedience to any orders given by Los Angeles hunters above the rank of  sergeant. ^[40]

In October of 2011, Audric Ackerman, accompanied by Kiefer Marsden and hunters Lt. Capt. Clementine Song and 1st Lt. Wilhelmina 'Mina' Harker, traveled to New York to receive the news of his indictment for multiple counts of first-degree and second-degree murder, as well as several counts of conspiracy to commit murder, arson, and property destruction. ^[41] Ackerman responded badly to hearing of the charges: on October 21, he left his temporary residence in Brooklyn for the evening, followed shortly by Marsden, and at approximately two o'clock in the morning, the New York office's night watch discovered nine dead from puncture wounds and blood loss in the same area. While there was no conclusive proof, and Marsden declined to state his own account of what had occurred, all circumstantial evidence pointed to Ackerman as the culprit. ^[42]

As the conditions of his blood oath had been reduced four months before, he did not face execution without trial, but several more counts of murder were added to his charges soon after the trial was set. Due to his refusal to provide evidence under interrogation directly after the murders, and the possibility of his involvement, Marsden was charged as an accomplice, but these charges were later dropped as the trial proceeded. ^[43] Marsden was also present as a witness at the trial, given that he was the only living observer of the later murders, and a number of sources reported on the length and "vehemence" of his testimony. ^[44] More specifically, he made what could be qualified as a speech on the witness stand regarding Ackerman's position as a victim of the Black Cathedral and how "absurd" the majority of the charges were; he refused to stand down when asked to do so by the judge, and only acquiesced when asked to do so by Ackerman, despite threats of removal from the court. ^[45]

After working on his own for approximately forty years, Kiefer Marsden first came into contact with Elizabeth Ashworth Clarence in 1980. Exactly how the two met is uncertain, but it is presumed that they encountered one another while working for rival crime rings, and ultimately chose to team up instead of completing the assigned job as expected. ^[30] By the end of the year, the duo were working most of their jobs together, and continued to do so for the next fourteen years, although they ceased traveling together when, in 1990, Elizabeth moved into the mansion of the Clarence crime ring. ^[27] Very little information has been made public about their time on the road together, as neither of them published any accounts of their travels and were known to be fairly private regarding their personal affairs.

Throughout their time together, criminal organizations noted how unconventional the nature of their friendship was. The pair were charged with a number of crimes outside of those they committed professionally, for no obvious reason other than enjoyment, and were also nearly arrested many times for public intoxication and causing a disturbance. Said disturbance, in the majority of cases, was the two of them fighting one another in public, often without any apparent cause; despite this, Marsden and Ashworth are not known to have ever pressed charges on one another for assault. Yet, despite these frequent conflicts, the difference in their ages, and their aggressive tendencies, they remained friends and partners for over a decade, as well as a sought-after criminal team across the United States. ^[30]

In 1989, Ashworth accepted an official position in the Clarence crime empire, and Marsden began working for the empire alongside her, although he never did so exclusively, and possibly never accepted a title himself. ^[1] In general, it is presumed that Marsden's involvement with the Clarence empire was due solely to his relationship with Elizabeth, as he made his dislike of Fitzgerald Clarence clear on multiple occasions. Perhaps the most notable of these was his speech at Ashworth and Clarence's wedding, in which Marsden expressed strong suspicion of the suitability of the union and of Clarence in particular, and threatened to punish Gerald in a variety of fairly gory fashions should he harm Elizabeth in any way. ^[46] In spite of his obvious dislike of Clarence, Marsden gave Ashworth away in place of her late father, ^[47] and was named in her will as the godfather to her son. ^[48] However, though Clarence did die before his son turned eighteen, it is unlikely that Marsden was ever called upon to care for the child. Whether this was prompted by the animosity between Clarence and Marsden, or by the fact that Marsden had departed the Clarence ring over a decade earlier and had not contacted them since, is uncertain. In fact, it is unclear whether Marsden was even informed of Clarence's death. ^[3]

Since Ashworth's death, the relative lack of information about her relationship with Marsden and the years they spent on the road together, combined with the contradictory nature of what is known therein, has resulted in a number of rumors surrounding their relationship, which include suggestions that the pair were romantically involved, that both of them were involved with Gerald Clarence during their employment by the ring, and even that Marsden may have been the father of Elizabeth's son. ^[46] As the majority of these rumors are belied by Clarence's grief after Ashworth's death - indicating a fairly close relationship between them ^[3] - and Marsden's rumored romantic involvement with colleagues Audric Ackerman and Jehan Desjardins, the most commonly accepted belief is that the pair were simply extremely close friends.

Kiefer Marsden's acquaintance with Harriet Levy is thought to have begun sometime in 1944, when the pair of them were assigned to the same battalion and worked alongside one another during the Allied invasion of northern France. In order to fight in the war, Harriet Levy disguised herself as a man, becoming Henry Levy, and was quickly promoted to the position of sergeant. ^[26] As such, she was only slightly below Marsden, who was executive officer of a number of battalions at the time, in rank, and the journals of fellow soldiers indicate that the pair fought together in combat often. Moreover, these documents also comment on how close the two were, noting that they would spend free hours trading anecdotes of the war and that they seemed to have a "natural bond" and instinctive knowledge of the other's favored moves in battle. ^[1]

During Operation Overlord, Marsden and Levy both went missing from their troop, and were only recovered several days later; it is thought that this was when Marsden turned Levy into a vampire, so that she would not drown in the cave network below the Cannes beaches. However, it should be noted that there is no conclusive proof indicating that Marsden was Levy's sire, or that she was not a vampire prior to her involvement in the First World War. Whether or not it is the case that Marsden turned her originally, records indicate that shortly after her recovery, Levy departed Marsden's battalion to join the convoys protecting British shipping in the Atlantic. It may be that she took offense at her new condition, or there may have been another conflict between them. ^[26]

It is believed that Marsden and Harriet renewed contact in the mid-1980s, while Marsden was traveling with Elizabeth Ashworth. Some years after Ashworth's death, Marsden once again began working side by side with Harriet Levy and her business partners. Most of the jobs he performed for the group were as a sniper and general bodyguard, although he is known to have been involved in several of the group's more major heists during this period. ^[28] Even disregarding the clear romantic intimacy between Levy and Zelda Day Vogel, all five members of the crew were known to be quite close; Levy stated in more than one negotiation that she regarded all her crew, including Marsden, unconditionally as family, and Isabel Tang and Walter Hall in particular as her own children. ^[49] Marsden, of course, remained closest to Levy, serving as her second-in-command and developing strategies for various heists alongside her, but records also indicate that he adopted an almost paternal attitude towards Walter Hall, instructing the young werewolf in combat techniques from the World Wars. ^[28]

Another fact worth noting is that, after Marsden's capture by the hunters, he repeatedly demanded to see Harriet, who was being held elsewhere in the New York Hunters Alliance office's headquarters, asked after her welfare, and requested his one phone call in order to contact her. ^[50] Since then, despite Marsden's multiple-year residence in Los Angeles, the two are believed to have remained in contact. It is also thought that in 2011, when Marsden traveled with Audric Ackerman to New York to receive the news of the latter's indictment, he notified Levy immediately regarding Ackerman's murder of several civilians, and may have taken Ackerman to her townhouse after the act. ^[42]

Since his transfer to the western United States branch, Los Angeles office, of the International Hunters Alliance in 2010, Kiefer Marsden has been residing with his colleagues of the day, Audric Ackerman and Jehan Desjardins. ^[2] The former is an erstwhile member of the Triangle River (Triangle Riviére) and Shadowmaker (Décideurs de l'Ombre) clans ^[51] as well as the Black Cathedral solar cult, ^[34] while the latter is the heir and son, presumably adopted, of vampire criminal kingpin Achille de Saint-Romain, head of the Romain-Orléans smuggling ring. ^[32] Marsden first encountered the two of them while living with Harriet Levy in New York City, when Saint-Romain ordered Desjardins to escort Ackerman across the country with the intent that Levy would ship him back to Europe. ^[50]

After their capture, subsequent swearing-in, and move to Los Angeles, the trio moved into an apartment together, located in the Silver Lake area and rented on their behalf by Maya Verkaik. ^[2] They have been living in the same household since then, although the exact state of their relationship remains unclear; it is debatable whether Marsden is romantically involved with Ackerman, Desjardins, or possibly both, as a number ^[52] of ^[53] tabloids ^[54] have proposed, while others have suggested that they are simply close friends or possessed of a solely professional relationship. Though no substantiated evidence exists for a serious romantic relationship between any of them, the trio have appeared in public at multiple events ^{[55] [56]} and have been known to go on day trips together, often alongside Marsden's godson Fitzgerald 'Fitz' Clarence V and his husband Ronan Salander. ^[57]

Generally speaking, opinions regarding Marsden's relationship with his housemates tend to be varied and contradictory. On the one hand, a number of incidents would seem to indicate apparent strong loyalty to them, including his refusal to give up any information about Ackerman's murder charges ^[45] and his defense of Desjardins against the hunters at Levy's home, ^[37] as well as his protectiveness toward the pair when confronted by enemies and reporters alike. His reactions to the endangerment of either of them, particularly his testimony at Ackerman's trial compared to those of other witnesses, ^[58] would seem to confirm that he has a stronger attachment to them than that of a colleague. Moreover, the trio have been observed as somewhat physically intimate in public, ^[52] although it should be noted that a degree of physical closeness was also noted in Marsden's apparently platonic relationships with Harriet Levy's crew. ^[28]

On the other hand, however, the very nature of these rumors - in that they all appear to contradict one another - might very well deny this. Vastly different descriptions of their relationship have come up in a number of articles, some remarking that a romantic relationship is unlikely given the natures of the trio, ^[59] others suggesting that the three have been romantically involved for some time and may even be engaged. ^[60] Furthermore, when questioned at the trial in 2011, Marsden stated that his speech on Ackerman's behalf was motivated "only by honor," and has made no public statements regarding their relationship since. ^[45] In the case of Desjardins, his father, Achille de Saint-Romain, when questioned about his son's coworkers in an interview in early 2012, stated that "[he doubted his] son would make the choice to involve himself with two people he knew [Achille] took issue with"; ^[61] Desjardins' obedience to Saint-Romain henceforth would seem to lead to the same conclusion. The general lack of romantic attachments throughout Marsden's life also offers some credence to this possibility.

Whatever the case may be, no sources have officially confirmed the possibility of a romantic relationship between the trio, and attempts at interviews with the three of them have been met with threats of extreme violence from both the vampires themselves and their Scion Captain. Thus, it seems that no verification of their involvement will be presented at any point in the near future.