14 NOVEMBER 1894 - ST. DENIS, LEMOYNE
So much had happened in the last few weeks, and he knew he had to update his journal sooner or later. He had to admit that he'd been hesitating; duty and expectations accounted for, he still felt wrong even mentioning some of the strange things he’d witnessed – for they defied all sense of scientific reason and dipped into the otherworldly and macabre. The secrecy gave him a twinge of that sour feeling he'd had all those years ago when he traded in the Flickermen to save his own hide. A cold draft of air whistled through the darkened tavern, blowing out his struggling candle. Swiftly, he lit a match and nursed the candle back to life -- that singular point of light that cast hope in the gloom and brought order to chaos.
I cannot explain the existence of the man called Baron Von Bruegal in mundane terms. He was discovered in a cave atop one of the highest of peaks amidst countless bones of all varieties -- deer, elk, bear, human. There is no doubt he was a killer of immense prowess. The battle was brief but final. He is interred in the Saint Denis cemetery. But I am getting ahead of myself.
There is a well-established superstition amongst the populace here of a “Vampire of Saint Denis." These are, of course, merely the parlour-room fancies of idle ladies and superstition of the uneducated lower class. Nonetheless, Baron Von Bruegal, for all intents and purposes, was a normal man ten years ago, with a family and a love for mountain climbing. What happened to him to trigger this terrible downfall, I do not know, but perhaps in not knowing, it has bred a mythos of its own amongst the populace.
The clues were discovered and tracked by none other than local businesswoman Jolene Delano, proprietor of Gatorbite Grocers. It was she who pieced the story together and she who invited myself and Miss Galanis to the mountain top where the baron was slain. I expect it will be front page news in the Blackwater Ledger.
There is also the matter of the mass killer (the “Saint Denis Slasher"), who is naturally of an equally mundane origin; however, an impromptu seance at the behest of the ladies revealed miraculously of the influence of what is referred to in the dictionaries of soothsayers and silver-tongued spiritualists as an anathematismus diabola, known more colloquially as a Ravenmocker. The killer, whom I believe to be Ezekial Blackwood, Jr, is no such thing, but rather a psychotic killer who preys upon the superstitious and impressionable. I daresay, however, that the performance of the seance was entertaining indeed. I can see why so many turn to magickal arts when they are without hope. It is little different than any other religion. I would sooner sit in the pews of a church, however, than give coin to such a maudlin act.
The next steps are clear. Blackwood must be caught and executed, just as the baron met his bloody end.