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CHAPTER TWO: The Order of Aurelius and the Modern Lineage

It has been widely accepted that William the Bloody is the latest heir of the Line of Aurelius, one of the most powerful and notorious vampiric clans ever to appear in the literature. Most vampire 'clans' are no more than loose communities of fellow-travellers that fall part in five years or less, as I have said above (see the Introduction.) Most of those few clans that possess the necessary internal cohesion to survive the first few years reach their zenith within a century. The Aurelius line however has been an integral and formidable dynasty that has stood the test of time. Courting attention and seeking fame is not the usual pattern of any clan, but the Aurelians have never been ones to rest on their laurels. On the contrary, over the past millennia, they have forged a reputation that has spanned from the western shores of the New World to the deepest reaches of Asia Minor. As Jacobs (1) wrote in his seminal paper on the clan, the Order of Aurelius has consistently been a sounding board on which to gauge other clans, and the gold standard by which we still define evil among vampires.

The Aurelians likely arose from a preceding vampire clan, probably usurping power from an established hierarchy before pressing forward to forge its own history. To this day, its origins as a new line are murky at best. Most of the ancient archives belonging to what would some day form the Watchers Council were destroyed in the Great Fire of Rome in 64 CE or lost to the ages. But much information can be gleaned from the remnants. By the time the Roman Empire was in decline and Constantine the Great died in 337 CE, the Order of Aurelius had already established itself as a worthy adversary to both the Slayer line and its Watchers (2).

Reveling in death and destruction, the Order of Aurelius acted as the obscene opposite of the Pax Romana that emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus brought to the empire in the same period that marks the earliest records of the clan. It has been speculated by some (3) that the order's very name was chosen to make a mockery of the emperor's many achievements, as no one vampire named Aurelius has ever been properly identified.

Even in its infancy, the clan had chosen not to prosper in the shadows of humanity. Rather, it set its sights on the Slayer, actively seeking the Chosen One as war trophies, and killing at least four (including the trophies of William the Bloody). In 221 CE a Watcher simply named Ulpius wrote that his Slayer Claudia was slaughtered by one of the Aurelians (4). Little is known about the circumstances surrounding her death. Ulpius reports that she engaged in battle with at least one Aurelian and did not survive the melee.

Livia was another Slayer that fell at the hands of the Aurelius clan. Her death is vividly documented in the Sentry's Letter (5), a manuscript reportedly written by a member of the Praetorian Guard who had witnessed her untimely demise in 236 CE. Her body was drained and her head left on a pike. This Slayer had met her match with a praetorian turned Aurelian named Magnus. As the legend goes, Magnus wrote a warning to all who dared to cross the Order of Aurelius on the wall of a bathhouse with the dead Slayer's blood. It marked the Aurelians' rise of power and heralded the dawn of a new empire.

This repeated pattern of wanton carnage would be the Aurelians' calling card for the next two millennia. The clan prospered as Europe grew. Extending throughout the vast expanse that had once been the Roman Empire, the clan grew exponentially, feasting on nomads and noblemen alike. Like a deadly miasma, they spread through villages in the wake of the Black Death, adding to the fear and hysteria sweeping through humanity. As the plague consumed nearly one fourth of the entire Europe's population, the Children of Aurelius capitalized on the terror. Disguised as physicians and donning the nightmarish beaked masks worn to combat the stench of death, they would infiltrate households, siring the healthiest survivors and feeding on the weak (6). The drained corpses were easily disposed of among the bodies riddled with black and oozing buboes. Horror stories quickly spread of corpses rising from mass graves. Many contemporaries wrote these tales off as nothing more than plague-laden ghost stories, or signs of an impending apocalypse. To us, however, the Black Death clearly marks the era where the Aurelians became bolder in their activity.

It was here in the shadows of the Black Death that one of the Order's most influential and long-standing patriarchs was sired. Born Heinrich Josef Nest (7), the vampire who would simply be known as the Master was sired amid the filth and pestilence of plague riddled Nuremberg in 1397. It did not take long for him to ascend the ranks and assume leadership of the growing clan. His fellow Aurelians either pledged fealty to him or were quickly destroyed.

Matthias Holbein illustrated this vampire's unwavering cruelty in his Watcher's diaries, vividly recounting acts of senseless torture to vampires and humans alike. The Master was fascinated with the demonic dimensions, and frequently offered his fledglings and victims as sacrifices to conjure demons to do his bidding. No monster dared to defy this megalomaniac, and it has been documented that he still had a loyal court of minions even at the time of his demise in 1997 (8).

The Master spent his entire existence furthering the Order, propagating the line and warring with opposing factions of vampires. By the middle of the Fifteenth Century, his court ruled with an iron fist from the western shores of Spain to the foothills of the Ural Mountains (9).

He often sired several within a generation, picking and choosing the strongest lieutenants from his victims. Many willing offered their necks for a chance to be among his chosen few. With this network deeply entrenched within the major hubs of Europe such as Vienna, Paris, Amsterdam, London and Prague, the Master set his sights on the New World.

Some time in 1603, the Master was smuggled aboard the Cornucopia, captained by a Bartholomew Gilbert and destined for Chesapeake Bay in the colonies. Previous archives attributed the deaths of the crew to a native attack, but reexamination of the evidence lends credence to the hypothesis of a vampire attack. Jerome Sullivan, in his paper to the Bicentennial Conference of Watchers, on the evidence of the recently-discovered captain's log, argues that chaos had reigned supreme throughout the journey, with Gilbert and three surviving sailors the last to be slaughtered as soon as they made landfall (10).

>From the shores of Chesapeake Bay, the Master eventually made his way to the Jamestown settlement. By that time, the vast majority of the original settlers had succumbed to hunger or disease. The remnant kept a constant vigil against the indigenous Algonquin tribe (11). It did not take long for him to establish a home in the colony, and the death rate began to rise noticeably. It has been argued that he began a subclan in the Americas by siring both settlers and natives alike (12). The new flock of fierce and willing minions bided its time, lying in wait for the right moments to strike.

Of his many minions, one young prostitute, seems to have captured his attention like no other. According to Holst (13), she was born Prudence Foster, but renamed Darla under the Master's tutelage. At the time of her death, she is said to have been dying of syphilis. She was reborn a heartless killer. Once a pariah within Jamestown, she quickly became the Master's brightest and most beloved fledgling. It did not take long before she had ascended the ranks and was his beloved consort, and showed no mercy to those who had used her as a human.

Together they swept across the countryside leaving a trail of death in their wake. They were an unstoppable pair. In 1622, nearly 300 settlers in surrounding plantations died at what has been misinterpreted by historians as an Algonquin massacre. The carnage all but reached the Jamestown settlement (14). The morale of the entire region was destroyed.

As Darla grew more powerful, the Master began to grant her more freedom. By the end of the Seventeenth Century, Darla had decided to venture to the British Isles while the Master remained in the Americas. He trusted her implicitly and sent her as his personal emissary in a quest to gain control from warring vampiric clans in Dublin and London (15).

While in Ireland, Darla decided to start her own line of progeny. In the decade that she traversed the island nation, there is evidence that she sired at least a half-dozen vampires, whom she beheaded or staked when she grew tired of them. She possessed an insatiable appetite for young men, and prowled outside taverns and inns for unsuspecting playthings and meals alike. Often she would stalk a target for weeks, learning his weaknesses along the way. She was a born hunter, and used her skills to snare her most cherished prize of all. He would become her child, her lover, her peer, her Angelus.

Born on February 17, 1727 to a merchant family, Liam Gallagher was the second of three sons, and was known for his love of strong drink and easy women. It was autumn, right before the harvest of 1753, when Gallagher was laid to rest County Galway. A victim of a supposed vicious animal mauling, his throat had been torn open and he had perished from the blood loss (16). The next night, the countryside was terrorized by a new and terrifying monster, one that would be known as the Scourge of Europe.

The monstrous killer with an angel's face, the demonic Liam quickly adopted the new name Angelus, joining his sire both at her side in the hunt and in her bed as a mate. He was not a typical fledgling. Within the first week of his new existence, he had slaughtered his entire family in Galway and set fire to the family home. Angelus learned quickly, and honed his skills as a vampire with swift efficiency.

His ferocity drew attention of clans near and afar, and it did not take long for the Master to notice the new addition to the Aurelius line. In 1760, Darla finally presented him to the Master who welcomed the new heir into the court with open arms (17). There, Angelus learned the finer points of the kill from his grandsire. The elder vampire seems to have accepted the young Angelus as a protégé and groomed him for a leadership role. Although the chronicles do not often place the two vampires in the same location or even on the same continent, Angelus seems to have early acquired the Master's full confidence.

Within a decade, from what scanty records survive, Darla seems to have relinquished her power to Angelus and yielded some control of the Aurelians residing in Britain. By that time, Angelus had asserted himself as the patriarch of the clan after the Master returned to the Americas. He ruled with intimidation. Minions fell in line to serve him, and humans learned to fear him.

Yet during this transfer of power, Angelus' eyes began to wander. Granted it is vampiric nature to actively seek out future progeny and victims, but Angelus would fixate on targets. However weary Darla may have grown of this behaviour, from what little evidence exists, she did nothing to hinder it.

It is ironic that the cold and calculated Angelus would find his first progeny cloistered and ready to take her final vows as a nun. Yet she was no ordinary novice in a convent. Margaret Mary Witfield had entered the order to escape the premonitions that plagued her every day of her life. Labeled a demon by her family, she looked for solace in the Roman Catholic Church. The girl could see the future, and the burden of her gift drove her to the edge of sanity (18). An unsuspecting victim, she was pushed toward madness by the vampiric specter of Angelus and he tormented her in and out of her visions, encouraging the fear surrounding her gift.

Angelus watched from afar and bided his time until the day she would eventually take her final vows and enter the sisterhood before he drew her into his clan in the spring of 1860. He drained her in the convent's chapel. The few surviving sisters found her body strewn on the altar, the sanctuary desecrated (19). Well aware of what had murdered her, the sisters buried Ms. Whitfield's body in the convent's cemetery and kept a prayer vigil over the fresh grave.

By morning, the grave was empty, and the sisters guarding the grave were found dead, their necks broken and blood drained. Drusilla had risen.

Already quite mad at the time of her human demise, Drusilla retained the psychotic delusions with which her human counterpart had been afflicted. Her gift of clairvoyance has also been well documented in the Watcher's literature. Her ravings even heralded the awakening of Acathla (20). All the evidence agrees, however, that despite the occasional lucid moment, the new vampire was utterly insane. She obeyed the voices in her head, and vacillated between moments of clarity in which she was a true hunter and moments of absolute madness, when she was a docile as a toddler with those she trusted.

Angelus seems to have been well pleased with his creation, and over the next decade shared his affections with both his sire Darla and new plaything. Drusilla was a quick study, and it did not take long before she joined the other Aurelians on the many hunts that would define their reign of terror. Her appetite for blood and sexual gratification rivaled only that of Angelus himself (21).

Yet within the first two decades of her incarnation, Drusilla had become a burden. She was unpredictable, sometimes incapacitated by her visions. She was a liability as much as an ally. Though Darla often viewed her as a beloved child, the elder vampire also saw her as competition or deadweight. The clan could not be hindered by a madwoman. She drew unwelcome attention to the "family" at times when the clan wished to maintain a low profile.

Fortunately for her survival, Drusilla seems to have been easily subdued with playthings. Old Aurelian nests were often littered with an array of mutilated fragments of porcelain dolls - her favorite. With these she could play in her own mysterious world where she held tea parties and executions alike (22). She was mother and goddess over her inanimate minions, with which she could be distracted for hours or days. She was captivated by her playthings, and perhaps it is not surprising that she could be enthralled by something greater, something she could love and cherish forever.

She needed her own mate, one that would be implicitly hers, and could care for her when she was caught in the throes of a vision, and hunt with her side by side. On a dark London night around 1880, she was granted such a gift. It was at this time that William the Bloody joined the Order of Aurelius.

Unlike his immediate predecessors, William's origins are murkier. Though the Aurelian clan's antics are well documented at the end of the Nineteenth Century, there is a paucity of concrete information regarding his actual siring and early fledgling activities, although the literature is full of evidence documenting Angelus and his women.

An established clan, they had made London their home after cutting a swath of murderous carnage across the West Country in 1878. The archives at Scotland Yard clearly show a rise in mortality within the City of London itself shortly after Angelus and his clan were first sighted (22). Bodies were found floating in the Thames. Corpses of unfortunate lower-class men and women littered alleyways in the Whitechapel region long before Jack the Ripper started his rampage. The official reports listed animal attack or knifing as the cause of death in these cases, but recently released files suggest that at least some of these were vampiric feedings.

This was the climate that gave birth to William the Bloody.

Currently there are two schools of thought pertaining to William's siring. In fact, there has been a debate for nearly as long as William has existed regarding who is truly his sire - Angelus or Drusilla. As a fledgling, he had been seen with both vampires, learning the finer points of the hunt and testing out his new skills.

It has been long believed that Angelus was the vampire that had sired William as a distraction for Drusilla, given to her much like one of her dolls. One hypothesis was that Angelus grew tired of caring for his insane charge, and created a caretaker. He was the one spotted teaching the new fledgling to hunt and feed (23). Angelus had taken the role of disciplinarian, often reining in the new vampire's temper with both fist and fangs.

Yet a recent exploration into Drusilla gives credibility to the theory that she was the true sire. Though William's death and eventual rising were witnessed by no one, there are brief references to a dark haired woman seen in the neighborhood before he was turned. Dressed more lavishly than the lower-class prostitutes that dotted the streets, police records recount a mysterious woman lurking in the shadows, spying in windows, and following young men (24). At other times she was sighted with another woman and man. Their descriptions are consistent with Angelus and his women.

Either way, William the Bloody was welcomed into the clan in or near 1880. His identity in life remains unclear. Whoever he was, and however he seemed to die, he did not stay interred for long. Without further knowledge of his family it is impossible to say whether they met the same fate as Angelus'. But it is certainly true that almost from 'birth', William the Bloody was more dangerous than most members even of the Aurelian line.

NOTES

(1) Jacobs, Christopher M:, The Order of Aurelius: A Dynasty of Terror, Journal of the Watcher's Council of Britain, 1942 (23-78.)

(2) Weilert, NG et al. Ancient Slayer Lore of Greece and Rome, London. COW Press, 1858.

(3) Ibid. (326)

(4) Ulpius, Personal journal. c. 221. London: Watcher Council of Britain Private Archives.

(5) Anonymous: The Sentry's Letter. c. 268. Rome: Vatican Archives.

(6) Hillerup, Peter: A Vampire's View of the Black Death. Toronto: Yersinia Pestis Press, 1962.

(7) Mariposa, Emile de. "The Master - Ness". The Family of Aurelius, Vol. 1 Ch. 3. London: Council of Watchers internal monographs, 1902-1923. 48-67.

(8) Giles, Rupert. A Watcher's Diary. Unpublished, 1986-1998.

(9) Chenanceou, Edward. The Reaching Hand of the Master. London: Council of Watcher's internal monographs, 1884.

(10) Sullivan, Jerome."Captain Gilbert's Final Voyage." Journal of Paranormal Activity of North America. 1912. 4-32.

(11) Taylor, Hermione. Colonial Vampires. Boston: Burning Stake Press, 1944.

(12) Dreibelbus, Amy. "The American Aurelians," Demon Hunters, 1988. 65-75.

(13) Holst, Brandon J. "Darla: The Birth of Monster," Journal of Paranormal Activity of North America. 1956. 254-298.

(14) Whedon, Martin. Jamestown from the Underside. London: COW Press, 1998.

(15) see note 13.

(16) Van Beuren, Claudia. "Examining the Scourge: Angelus Revealed." Vampire Hunters. 1971. 189-247.

(17) Ibid.

(18) Landau, Martha. "Drusilla, the Dark Queen." Council of Watchers Quarterly Report. 1983.

(19) Gellar, Fredrick. Angelus and Drusilla. London: COW Press. 1993.

(20) Giles, Rupert. A Watcher's Diary. Unpublished, 1986-1998.

(21) Landau, Martha. "Drusilla Uncovered," Journal of the Occult. 1994. 90-132.

(22) Police Blotter, Scotland Yard Archives. 1880.

(23) Bolivar, Charles. "The Children of Aurelius," Demons Quarterly, 1987. 45-62.

(24) Death Records, St. Peter's Parish, London England.