Supernatural the book of monsters, demons, spirits and ghouls

Vampire, part 1

The first time we ever fought vampires was when we were looking for a gun that shot magic bullets.

No, really.

Samuel Colt once made a gun and thirteen magic bullets that could kill anything with a single shot. Dad found out about it, and we realised that we finally had our kryptonite for the Yellow-Eyed Bastard. For the first time, we were on his trail and we had a line on a weapon that could make a difference. If we had to go through a nest of vampires to get that gun, we'd do it. And we did.

We were a little surprised even to find vampires, since Dad had been under the impression that a hunter buddy of his, Daniel Elkins, had killed the last remaining North America vampire. Guess Elkins had missed some, though, because we found plenty. And we weren't sure what we were getting into, because the folklore about vampires is so vast and contradictory that it's tough to sort out what's really going to work from what some medieval monk thought he heard the local sexton say over a morning glass of sour wine.

Here's a little background on vampires, before we get back to the colt.

As near as anyone can tell, the first English use of the word "vampire" happens in about 1734, in The Travels of Three English Gentlemen, now known only as part of volume four of the 1745 Harleian Miscellany: "We must not omit Observing here, that our Landlore seems to pay some regard to what Baron Valvasor has related of the Vampyres, said to infest some Parts of this Country. These Vampyres are supposed to be the Bodies of deceased Persons, animated by evil Spirits, which come out of the Graves, in the Night-time, suck the Blood of many of the living, and thereby destroy them."

This is around the same time as the first great vampire scares in continental Europe, the most famous of which was an account of the post-death activities of one Peter Plogojowitz in 1725. The entire report, as filled by a local bureaucrat, goes like this:

After a subject by the name of Peter Plogojowitz had died, ten weeks past-he lived in the village of Kisilova, in the Rahm district [of Serbia]-and had seen buried according to the Raetzin custom, it had been revealed that in this same village of Kisilova, within a week, nine people, both old and young, died also, after suffering a twenty-four-hour illness. And they said publicly, while they were yet alive, but on their death-bed, that the above mentioned Peter Plogojowitz, who had died ten weeks earlier, had come to them in their sleep, laid himself on them, so that they would have to give up the ghost. The other subjects were very distressed and strengthened even more in such beliefs by the fact that the dead Peter Plogojowitz's wife, after saying her husband had come to her and demanded his opanki, or shoes, had left the village of Kisilova and gone to another.

And since with such people (which they call vampires) various signs are to be seen-that is, the body undecomposed, the skin, hair, beard, and nails growing-the subjects resolved unanimously to open the grave of Peter Plogojowitz and to see if such above-mentioned signs were really to be found in him. To this end they came to me and, telling of these events, asked me and the local pope, or the parish priest, to be present at the viewing. And although I at first disapproved, telling them that the praiseworthy administration should first be dutifully and humbly informed, and its exalted opinion about this should be heard, they did not want to accommodate themselves to this at all, but rather gave this short answer: I could do what I want, but if I could not accord them the viewing and the legal recognition to deal with the body according to their custom, they would have to leave house and home, because by the time a gracious resolution was received from Belgrade, perhaps the entire village-and this was already supposed to have happened once before under the Turks-could be destroyed by such an evil spirit, and they did not want to wait for this.

Since I could not hold such people from the resolution they had made, either with good words or with threats, I went to the village of Kisilova, taking along the Gradisk pope, and viewed the body of Peter Plogojowitz, just exhumed, finding, in accordance with through thoughtfulness, that first of all I did not detect the slightest odor that is otherwise characteristic of the dead, and the body, except for the nose, which was somewhat fallen away, was completely fresh. The hair and beard-even the nails, of which the old ones had fallen away-had grown on him; the old skin, which was somewhat whitish, had peeled away, and a new fresh one had emerged uner it. The face, hands, and feet, and the whole body were so constituted, that they could not have been more complete in his lifetime. Not without astonishment, I saw some fresh blood in his mouth, which, according to the common observation, he had sucked from the people killed by him. In short, all the indications were present that such people (as remarked above) are said to have.

After both the pope and I had seen this spectacle, while the people grew more outraged than distressed, all the subjects, with great speed, sharpened a stake-in order to pierce the corpse of the deceased with it-and put this at his heart, whereupon, as he was pierced, not only did much blood, completely fresh, flow also through his ears and mouth, but still other wild signs (which I pass by out of high respect) took place.

Finally, according to their usual practice, they burned the often-mentioned body, in hoc casu, to ashes, of which I inform the most laudable Administration, and at the same time would like to request, obediently and humbly, that if a mistake was made in this matter, such is to be attributed not to me but to the rabble, who were beside themselves with fear.