The Seducer: A Gone From Daylight Inspired Story - 23. William Harker’s Journal: Entry 23

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Thursday, October 11, 1989

Is it strange that I’ve started to find the howling of wolves somehow comforting?

Rather than feel stalked, I feel this strange sense of…being protected! A feeling like those creatures are howling for my benefit rather than to strike terror in my heart. They feel like they are calling to me telling me ‘sleep soundly, we are here. Don’t worry about a thing! We protect our own!’

I’ve been having many such thoughts since my coming to stay here with Dr. V at the estate. Rather than feeling like a creepy old empty place, it feels like…home! That’s a new feeling for me. Even when I was younger and with my Mom, we’d move around a lot. We never really ever settled anywhere for more than three years at a stretch. Each apartment we’d end up in just felt like an extended hotel suite. Never did it feel like a ‘home’. Home was wherever my Mom was, I guess. It wasn’t the place that mattered so much as who I was with.

Is it possible that I’m starting to feel that way about Dr. V? We’ve grown closer these past couple of days. He’s taken to telling me stories from the ‘old country’. Legends and folk-tales, mostly. He’s been telling me these stories in Romanian so that I can practice the conversational mode of the language. I’m quite proud that I get the gist of what he’s saying most the time!

Here was an interesting tale he told me:

“There is a place in the Transylvania that sits within a mountain of the Carpathians and under a small lake. It is a cavernous pit wrought in Black Baroque and its name in the Romanian is Solomonărie. The German and the English have it as ‘Scholomance’ and it is a place where the Select learn the Dark Mysteries.

The Select are known as Șolomonari, the Keepers Of The Wisdom Of Solomon. These Select become sorcerers and are taught the powers over nature and over magic - particularly Black Magic. They learn from the Dark One spells that control the weather, that provide communion with animals, and that grant control over the spirits of the living and the dead. They are also taught the alchemy of transmutation.

For seven years the Șolomonari learn their Dark Arts within the caverns of Solomonărie and they do not see daylight until the time they graduate from their studies!

Upon their graduation, one of the Șolomonari is chosen to be the Apprentice to the Dark One. That Apprentice is further schooled in the ways of the Necromancer, a sorcerer who specializes in manipulating the powers of Death and Undeath. In the past, folk legends had it that this one Disciple Of The Dark One would be given the Dragon as his mount and he would be responsible for storms and destruction.

In this age, there have been no more classes in Solomonărie because the Dark One last chose as his Apprentice one of the Immortal Undead. With no need for a new Apprentice, there was no need for the Draft Of Solomonărie that only existed to provide His Infernal Majesty with the One that would be his Due. For over five-hundred years this Apprentice has walked the Earth doing the bidding of his Dark Master.

It is truth that the Apprentice still yet exists and that his works have been many in service to the Dark One Of The Abyss.”

Romania has many such stories.

He told me of another that connected to his Solomonărie tale - a story about the Nosferatu or the vampires:

“Of this Apprentice it can be said that he or she is one of the supposed Undead made immortal by the curse of the Nosferatu. The Nosferatu are the children of a bygone age when many gods once ruled the Earth and not just the Most Holy One. These ancient beings came to exist by the quirk of the Goddess Of The Crescent Moon, the First Huntress. She was known as Artemis to the Greeks and Diana to the Romans. She was known by other names by other peoples as well. So were her most devoted subjects, the Hunters Of Men known as the Vorvolaka, the Nosferatu, the Vampyre, etc.

Per her gifts, the Nosferatu gained immortality through the drinking of human blood. They were also given her Powers of the Hunt - inhuman strength, night seeing eyes, inhuman speed, mental acuity, and to each an extra talent gathered from one of the many powers of Artemis herself. By her will they became the greatest of all the predators of the Earth. The Wolf of Wolves, the Lion of Lions, the Hunter of Hunters!

The Nosferatu reproduce themselves by bringing back from Death a selected victim of their thirst. By the Nosferatu’s Immortal Kiss a new Hunter is born! This Fledgling becomes a Child In Darkness to their Sire, the Nosferatu that made them.

A bitter weakness to the Nosferatu is the light of the sun. This weakness is a curse set upon them by the jealous brother of Artemis, Apollo - the god of sunlight. By Apollo’s curse the Nosferatu can be unmade. Should the light of the sun touch a Nosferatu then that one shall be destroyed by it. This, beheading, or by the piercing of the heart are the only ways by which the Nosferatu can be unmade.

Mankind has rightly feared the Nosferatu and has come to fear the night because of them. But, there are things that living men can do to protect themselves from the Nosferatu. Articles of faith, for instance, can be used against some Nosferatu.

It is said that if the Nosferatu is fledged from a living person of faith then that faith shall hold power over the Nosferatu in Undeath. By mystical bonds beyond the understanding of the earthbound, the power of faith shall forever hold a Nosferatu under its influence. For instance, should a Christian man of faith be taken against his will and made into a Nosferatu, then the power of the Cross and of the Sacraments will forever damn him for the faith that he feels he has lost. Such feelings of loss and guilt will overcome a Nosferatu taken from their faith against their full will. To avoid this weakness, a potential Nosferatu must make an active choice to become one of the Undead, forsaking their past and embracing the Darkness with full willfulness.

Another weakness exploitable against the oldest and most powerful of the Nosferatu is silver. This is a weakness peculiar to true Elders of the race because it descends from a curse put upon the First One himself. It is a curse levied by Artemis against the First of the Nosferatu. Due to this curse, silver can leave a wound that will not heal in an Elder. No fledgling of the First One can abide silver! It is a bane to them. However, this does not pertain to Nosferatu of a younger ilk. They are immune to silver’s curse though silver items will tarnish and dissolve instantly when in contact with a younger Nosferatu. Thus, the wearing of silver around one’s neck can be a great barrier to an attack.

Such are the origins and some of the ways of the Nosferatu. They have become many in this world, so the living would do well to avoid being out at nightfall when those that are gone from daylight start their hunt!”

Now, of course, I’d heard of vampires from early childhood. The likes of Dracula and such have been a favorite for Halloween for generations! But, I will admit, hearing of them from the place the whole legend started from was unique. Dr. V also told the story of the vampires with a reverence I’d not seen in him before. Twists in the legend too fascinated me! The whole part about vampires coming from a Greek goddess and such - that was new to me!

Most the time, how vampires came to be aren’t explored much in the movies and books about them. Usually, there’s one big bad vampire that makes a whole bunch of little vampires and off we go. That they had a mythical origin story was very interesting to me for some reason.

We stayed up for hours chatting in this way. Dr. V has so many amazing stories and hearing them by firelight with us just sitting across from each other in big wing chairs was strangely intimate. The tales, though covering dark subjects like witches and vampires, did not bring fear to me. I felt safe enough with Dr. V there to where I could just enjoy the imaginations of a people full of such spirit and passion.

For the remains of the night, I slept soundly and dreamt of ancient forests, wolves as friends, and of being one of them! I dreamt of hunting my own prey and sharing it among my family of wolves. The dreams were so vivid I can still remember them.

Interestingly, these dreams helped drive out the horror of my experience back at my dorm. In particular, I remember a haunting refrain from my dream that was said or shown to me over and over:

“We Protect Our Own…We Protect Our Own…”