Let us prey.

It would seem that my best opportunity to write of my nocturnal activities is during those hours when I can do little else. To briefly recap, I had found the corpse I'd named Avarice. Now we move onto Lust.

She was an attractive woman, probably mid-20's, dressed, as all things, a Catholic schoolgirl. I have never truly understood that perverse fantasy, but this body seemed quite typical of such visions. The exceptionally short, plaid miniskirt, tight, white blouse, knee-high white socks. The poor woman's hair had even been pulled back into ponytails. I could not see her face, as a picture had been glued over it. The picture was of Shay and Tina, seated at school.

Whoever chose to decorate my property with bodies made a mistake. They seem to think that my girls are strictly around to sate some kind of sexual desire. Although they are certainly receiving satisfaction along those lines, I believe I've made my intentions pertaining to them quite clear.

Upset though I might have become, why didn't the killer eliminate my girls? He - and I use the masculine pronoun simply for its ease - was able to capture an image of them at school, so he knows who they are. He's probably followed them home from school. The defenses of my home are good, but not impossible to bypass, as was proven when he left the bodies on my property. The corpses were mortal, not vampyres, which shows a willingness to kill whomever is at hand. So, again...Why not kill Shay and Tina?

Unless he knows their true age and isn't willing to kill children?

Envy was the worst of all the bodies. It was a senior citizen, male, with numerous joints affected by severe arthritis. Various wrinkles and twisted joints had a tear painted next to them. A sign of depression that mortals must age. How deep did this envy go? The answer to that was given in the condition of the corpse. It was bent at the waist...in the wrong direction. The killer was so infuriated that he'd bent the poor old man's body backwards.

Your imagination is running wild, isn't it? There are plenty of ways to main a body in such a way. The application of machinery and a bit of physics, perhaps? Then again, when you consider who is keeping this journal, your mind may have leapt to the physical power of a vampyre. But as I said, we have reason to believe we have hunters in our midst; real hunters that can tap into mystic abilities. Despite its potential consequences, I believe the vampyre hunter used something call the Strength of Shadows.

The hunter whose power comes from sin can summon superhuman strength from shadows. That is, he absorbs the shadows themselves, converting what is immaterial into very real physical prowess. Since this ability is often used at night, when the shadows are actually fewer, (they blend with the natural darkness only too easily), it is incredibly draining.

I once confronted a hunter in the late 1940's in a warehouse, where there were shadows aplenty. For a vampyre to claim to have seen something terrifying is to say the limits of horror were reached and exceeded. The man's muscles swelled so much with power garnered from the shadows that his skin split, revealing muscle tissue that appeared to drip with blackened blood. This was meant to be his final act, as he believed he had me cornered. What he didn't know was of my excessive speed. Combined with my precognitive abilities, it turned into a waste of his time, energy, and very life. Strength, by itself, does not convey any degree of invulnerability. Without the protective covering of skin, which was torn in countless places, he managed to shred a few veins. He collapsed after he lost quite a bit of blood, and had soon gone the way of the dodo.

From what little I learned after that encounter, it is up to the hunter on how many shadows to absorb. Too many, as is what happened that night, could mean the end of the hunter's life, and certainly spells a lengthy recovery period if he survives.

Back to the corpses on the grounds of my home...There was a mad scramble to remove them. We needed information, but could not turn the bodies over to the police. Direct contact with the authorities makes it difficult to subtly pull strings. Luckily, we have our own specialists in forensics. There is a dark humor at having a vampyre that can run blood tests.

What we know so far:

1. All of the bodies were killed using a powerful neuro-paralytic toxin administered via dart gun. (Bruising around the impact holes indicates something struck them at high speed.) The poison was so potent that it operated faster than the nerve conduction velocity, meaning that they were dead before they even felt the dart.
2. The brazen killer left fingerprints on the photos of the girls. Of course, the prints matched nothing in any database into which we hacked.
3. The suit has been traced back to Jason Levy, land developer extraordinaire and vampyre, who was found dead shortly after we realized who owned the suit originally.
4. The old man meant to represent Envy was Samuel Medwedosko, reported missing from his assisted living facility on Sunday.

My tale continues, but I've decided to get some rest before sundown. Until my next entry, dear readers.