Date of Birth: 21 December 1972

Place of Birth: Castle Hedingham, Essex, England, UK

Hair: Black

Eyes: Olive-green

Height: 5'11" (178cm)

Weight: 130 lbs (59kg)

Occupation:

Assassin/Freelance terrorist operative; employed by Arnaud de Föhn.

Marital Status:

Single/Never married

Distinguishing Marks / Characteristics:

Old gunshot scar on left shoulder (as a result, she suffers from minor reflex sympathetic dystrophy syndrome. Symptoms are sporadic and include acute pain, sensitivity to touch, and restricted movement); crescent shaped birthmark on nape of neck; thin scar on small of back; hypertrophic burn scar on right temple; clipped, upper class British accent- no longer as densely evident except during stress or other emotion.

Nationality: British

Special Abilities:

An extraordinarily skilled expert when it comes to marksmanship and sniper abilities, Lucy also has an uncanny knack and familiarity with weapons of all kinds, both modern and archaic. She's also an expert manipulator, a talented social chameleon, one hell of a driver, and, generally, very good at her job.

Bachelor of Arts: International Relations, F. E. Dzerzhinsky Academy, Moscow

Master of Science (Partial): Particle Physics, Cambridge University, England

Speaks Russian, French, German, and Arabic fluently. Able to communicate in Italian, Georgian, and other Slavic and Romantic languages, as well as a bit of Irish Gaelic, some Greek, and pathetic iota of Chinese.

Hand-to-hand Combat: Basic Spetsnaz training

Parachute jumps: HALO, LALO & HAHO

Certified pilot

Expert sniper

Explosives

Advanced KGB espionage, infiltration, and assassination training

Musical Training:    Violin

De Vere was born Lucrezia Juliette Blakeney on 21 December 1972 in the hamlet of Castle Hedingham, Essex, UK.

Her mother, Lady Emma de Vere, was the heiress of the 31^st Earl of Oxford and a concert violinist. Her father, Lord Alfred Blakeney, was an accomplished military tactician. A graduate of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, he came into military prominence - and an aristocratic title - with the SAS during the Malayan Wars. At the time of de Vere's birth, Blakeney held the military rank of Lt. Colonel, and was - unbeknownst even to his wife - the top arms dealer in Western Europe.

Blakeney made no qualms about his desire for a son and focused his remorse on Lucy. From the time she was four, he forced her through a rigorous onslaught of training, in the attempt to gain her father's respect, Lucy greeted the instruction, which included marksmanship, archery, languages, and sparring, among other subjects, openly. By the time she turned seven, his fits of violent temper and reproof led to abuse, the worst of which, at eight, permanently damaged nerves in her left arm.

At ten, her mother shipped Lucy to the prestigious Benenden Girl's School. At thirteen, de Vere joined the RAF endorsed Kent Air Training Corps. While not an astonishingly dazzling student, she graduated from secondary school two years early and entered Cambridge University shortly thereafter.

Several months following Lucrezia’s 16^th birthday, her mother died unexpectedly of glioblastoma, a rare form of brain cancer. At the funeral, she landed outright accusations that Blakeney, in some form or another, caused her mother's death. The bitter argument that ensued escalated into a physical bout when Blakeney struck his daughter and Lucy responded with twice his force. Blakeney, who, by that time, held the rank of brigadier general, ended the dispute by disinheriting her and revoking any familial support.

Adopting her mother’s maiden name in place of the Blakeney surname, she delved into her studies and pre-RAF training. However, while attending a leftist meeting on campus, a Cambridge recruiter for the Soviet KGB approached her with an offer to spy for the USSR. Given her major in particle physics and her connections with the RAF, Lucrezia had access to projects most did not.

She agreed, and de Vere quickly became a valued Soviet asset.

In early 1989, she attended a lecture series at CERN’s headquarters near Geneva, Switzerland. During one of the talks, she met Swiss biochemistry student Arnaud de Thiel. She was subsequently seldom seen outside his company.

However, de Vere’s botched file theft from CERN's primary research lab, and her murder of the employee that discovered her, cut short their brief affaire. Before CERN officials were able to pin the death on her, Lucrezia’s KGB handler smuggled her into Moscow where the KGB placed her in their higher academy – the F.E. Dzerzhinsky University.

There she fell under the tutelage of Dmitry Nikitin, a much-lauded KGB colonel, and became something of his pet project. With his support, she became an expert in explosives, and the Spetznaz forms of unarmed combat, as well as sharpening her talent for espionage and her already remarkable abilities as a sharpshooter. She graduated from the school a senior lieutenant two months after entrance.

Stationed in East Germany, de Vere honed her flairs for assassination and espionage, and rapidly became one of the USSR's most decorated lieutenants, receiving The Order of the Red Banner, the Gold Star of the Soviet Union, and the Order of Lenin. During her brief tenure, she was also recognized as a 'Distinguished Employee of State Security,' the highest honour awarded to a KGB operative.

However, Soviet Russia collapsed in late 1991, bringing the KGB’s intelligence domination down with it. After a brief term with the FSB (the KGB’s tepid replacement), and much prodding from Nikitin, the twenty-year-old de Vere resigned from military service.

Nikitin provided her with two options; she could work ad hoc for the emergent Russian Mafiya as the majority of her former comrades now did, or she could enter freelance terrorism. She chose the latter, and Lucrezia became a contract assassin under the nom de guerre of Chernyi Voron.

After a stint in Libya's state-sanctioned terrorist cadres as one of Muammar Quadhafi’s most trusted operatives, as well as turns inside organizations like the IRA, and Basque Fatherland and Liberty, de Vere returned to the New Russian Federation in 1995. Dmitry Nikitin, who had since established himself within the Red Mafiya, introduced her to the world of Russian Organized Crime.

For the next two years, Lucy focused on establishing herself as the vast Russian mafia’s top contract assassin and espionage agent. Her record was nearly perfect - save for a seemingly chronic measure of insubordination - and this spotless listing of assassinations, bombings, infiltration, seduction, larceny, corruption, and other clandestine operations eventually drew the attention the most powerful criminals in Russia and Europe.

In early 1996, Lucrezia was in the employ of the Janus syndicate of St. Petersburg. As an arms syndicate, Janus found itself losing professional ground to terrorist Arnaud de Föhn. De Föhn was rapidly becoming the pre-eminent European arms runner and Janus needed someone inside his organization to inform him of de Föhn’s transactions in the Caucasus and other Russian regions. De Vere accepted, and it was only after their initial contact that Lucrezia recognized Arnaud de Föhn and the Arnaud de Thiel she had a fling with at CERN to be the same man.

She upheld her assignment with Janus, but simultaneously became Arnaud’s lover and steadfast ally. He perfected her knowledge of plastique explosives and introduced her to the possibilities afforded by biological warfare. In turn, she offered her own expertise on a variety of subjects, and the network of contacts she established during her five years as a consummate mercenary. Moreover, although she fed information back to Janus, de Vere never directly endangered Arnaud or his organization. This partnership lasted until late 1998.

Weary of Janus' brazen attempts to leach more information out of her, and diffident to the idea of working for Arnaud long-term, de Vere resigned from Arnaud's organization. Upon leaving, she informed him only that she was jaded with him and his “trivial group of thugs.” Shortly after, Lucrezia renounced all connections to Janus. Ensuant to the break down of Janus shortly thereafter, documents were revealed that implicated her in the embezzlement of close to five million dollars from Janus' syndicate during her time with Arnaud.

By 2000, de Vere was well on her way to becoming the most notorious contract terrorist since Carlos the Jackal. No one was able to prove Chernyi Voron existed, much less attach the alias to her.

When word leaked into the criminal underground of an auction supposedly offering an invisible weapon, she was employed as the immense Solntsevskaya organization’s top assassin. Given her (albeit lacking) scientific knowledge - and her previous relationship with the auctioneer, Arnaud de Föhn - Solntsevskaya dispatched Lucrezia to Mexico to act as their representative.

The initial welcome by her former inamorato was far from cordial. She was, however, attending the auction on behalf of a potential customer, and hence, Arnaud gave her the guided tour of quicksilver's immense implications over dinner. Subsequently, there was discussion of de Vere returning to his employment, but it never ventured beyond conjecture.

Following the intervention of Darien Fawkes and the ‘Agency’, the abject failure of the QS-Gland’s proposed auction and the lab explosion that evidently killed Arnaud, Lucrezia left Mexico and resumed autonomous employment.

Several months afterwards Arnaud unexpectedly re-established contact with her. He offered her a position within his organization, and she accepted blithely. She is at present his primary operative, and while it is assumed that she occasionally still takes jobs offered to Chernyi Voron, de Vere continues to work almost exclusively for Arnaud.