Diary Entry of Pilates

...DATE UNKNOWN...

My spies came to me with the news of gross behaviour of an individual inside Palestine, preaching words of cannibalism and vampirism. I've heard some of these stories before, from fairy tales of the old Druids up in the Celtic territories.

The reports informed me that he had illegally gathered twelve slaves, "disciples" he called them, showing them examples of his mind-numbing powers. He apparently also worked well with hypnosis, as many peasants had said of him doing miraculous things. My men described these "miracles" as only foolery and illusion; I thank the Roman Gods, as they protect us well. Still, he seemed strong and potentially dangerous, so we had him followed and seized. One of his slaves was freed off his power by one of our most powerful priests; it was at a high cost, though, as our priest went into a comma for forty days from the effort. When freed, the slave pointed us to him. Interestingly, his mind went numb again shortly after and crawled back to his owner in remorse, as if he wanted to be enslaved again. My scouts found the slave's body under a tree afterwards... poor fool, one even comes to pity such blind obedience... we did pay him a fair amount for his deed.

When the man was brought in front of me, I asked him for his name. He said that it wasn't relevant, as he was just one of many that would come. He told me that his denominated "angels" would fall from the sky and grant my kin immortality by only drinking their blood, which rang congruent with the Druids' tales. These stories also describe horrid nightmares, and constant pains and suffering endured by these "angels", also known as vampires. Immortal, yes, but in a repeating cycle of hunger and hunt that no man should confuse as a divine reward; it is a condemning punishment. Death should be the only true reward for any Roman.

His stare dug inside my head, and his smile left no room for doubt of the truth of not only his words but of the thoughts that I just described. His teeth, salivating over the sight of my naked throat, sent chills through my spine. I knew this being should not be let loose, but, under Roman Law, the only judge for this was the will of the Jewish people, a favour from the emperor to their kind. Before the hearing, we tortured the being to try and weaken its power over the crowd. I also sent several incitators into the crowd to cheer for the petty thieve I put at the beast's side as the alternative. Who knew that the love of the family of this thieve would win over so many of the hearts of the crowd and momentarily overcome the being's numbing power? Who knew that mankind's ability to love by means of empathy would be its true saviour?

After the thieve was proclaimed as free, we set our eyes to the beast. We made it bleed to see if it secreted any clues, but our alchemists found an enigma with no resolution: its blood was human, but didn't carry any life. I ordered a handful of guards to angry the beast, to taunt him into attack and see how strong its power was against the protection of our Gods. The being didn't react however, his stance expressed weakness and relinquish; pity, I would've enjoyed to see a test of our Gods' powers.

We let it carry its cross over the hill, like any Jew, while many of its followers wallowed. Some helped, but the rest just watched. I don't understand the usefulness of such power: the only thing you can do with it is force people to praise and follow you, but not to protect you, that is left to their own will. This makes me believe that it is possible that this vampire wasn't fully matured and hadn't developed that part of his ability yet. If this is true, it was a fatal judgement on the timing of when to come to our plane; a simple, idiotic mistake. Mankind is truly lucky.

Some of my spies have reported some peasants describing a resurrection, which may appear to be worrisome, but precautions were taken. The guards watching over the cross of this being took the necessary steps, described in the Druids' tales, to kill a vampire: through a punctured heart. This "resurrection" story must be an invention of the peasants, trying to deviate some attention off from the beast onto them... it wouldn't be the first time.

I've been also informed that some followers "converted" to a new religion, having this being as their prophet with the name of Christ, or the Appointed One; appointed by who, I wonder. Others report that some "disciples" are starting to preach of a new, unifying god that has befallen over us, and that the recent earthquake is evidence of his anger towards the Roman empire.

I am not worried, in fact, I'm even amused by the whole thing. Our astronomers knew of such an earthquake, and laugh at the coincidence. I suspect that this following is just some residue of the being's power, and that this "Christianity" is just a fad that will die on its own in the coming years.