Miss Bahun: Vampire Hunting

I write to you, who are nobody and everyone.

Perhaps you are wondering who I am, where I was born and why I am leaving these rogue pages to strangers. So gentlemen and ladies, let me answer you as I pleased - or as much as I am capable.

The name given to me more than two decades ago is Katarina Aranka Bhaun, daughter of the master of arms Emil Bahun and a woman whom I knew only through diaries and paintings abandoned in an attic of a house that I still do not recognize as mine. I was born in Transylvania at the beginning of 1795, in what can now be defined as one of the coldest winters in the history of my land.

I was raised far from the loving arms of a family, in a monastery near Bistria - a small conglomerate of hovels in which, a forgotten order of exorcists, takes care of some children considered special, destined to accomplish unusual tasks because of the blood flowing in their veins and whose ultimate goal is to kill him, Dracul, the King of all vampires.

Right from the start, the art of war is taught to infants, as I was years ago. Moving from handling an anonymous wooden paperweight to a wheel gun, we juggle the most brutal martial practices known to exorcists. In addition to this, however, we are forcefully inculcated in the knowledge of botany and poisons, of the Bible of the Dark Virgin, our summit and merciful Lady and all that concerns the world of demons, from which it is impossible for us to escape once come in - a choice that unfortunately we are not allowed to make, but rather suffer as pathetic slaves.

We do not have the right to really possess anything, all our goods are in fact administered by the cardinals and priests who populate the most promising houses of the curia; we cannot love any person, because our heart can belong only to the God and his spouse, the Virgin, even if the pleasures of the flesh are not denied us: to forbid the vices of a condemned man of this holy war is not a well-seen act, in the eyes of the blessed. We are allowed to bring children into the world only with the ultimate goal of giving life to another vânător who will take our place in this grim reality once we’re defeated by death.

We must not question the doctrine of the Order or break it in any way, while this is the only philosophy of life that must belong to us. But we are human like many others and it happened that instinct got the better of us, brutally annihilating the reasoning and the awareness of going against the excommunication and then death.

Our Lady is as magnanimous as it is fierce.

We are therefore weapons at the service of the Holy Church of Rome, the only force capable of countering the evil that infests this world from eons.

We are murderers, but at the same time protectors.

We are mortal among the monsters of Hell.

We are those who in the darkest night roam the streets of cities, chasing deformed beasts poisoned by the blood of the first Corvinus. We fight them by silencing their horrifying cries forever, screams that terrify women and children, sometimes even making the men who claim to be fearless dirty their breeches.

Only a few particularly harmless creatures are excluded from this war that has continued since the Night of Times, but this does not mean they can be defined as sinless, the same that we are daily asked to exorcise.

And yet, although against every dogma and doctrine that has been taught to me, at this precise moment in my life I can’t help but wonder: am I fighting the real demons or am I just tearing down their jockeys without ever offending the knights or commanders?

Are my brothers dying for the right cause, wrongly motivated, or are they doing it for the wrong reason, but properly motivated?

Are good and evil really the light and the darkness that is professed in the Holy Scriptures?

In this Europe infected by a poison for which no cure is known, we are left with few who can boast the privilege of being able to kill supernatural beings and protect the innocent, but our ranks continue to decline and new students never seem to be ready enough to face the threats that are presented to us.

We are dying, but in particular our ability to go beyond the veil of lies that lies before our eyes is perishing and, for this, I want to leave a memoir to those who will come after me - so that they too can understand, through these pages, how reality can subvert the most concrete beliefs to such an extent that even the fidelity of the most dear friendships is doubted.

Just know one thing before you start: the story is written by the winners, but the losers always have a lot more to say.

Yours,

Miss K.A.Bahun