Since e’en before the happy Days of noble Aspex it hath been the just and acknowledged Law of this Realm, that the speaking Dead, though they be not utterly outlaw’d (except by their ordinary Wickedness, which be altogether prodigious), might hold neither Title, nor Propertie, nor Office in this Empire; and that a Man whose Soul hath been corrupted by that blackest and most unholie of Magicks, verily, the utterly vile art of Necromancie, which our Goddess Iomedae abhorr’d in her mortal Life, and abhors no less having ascended into Heaven, is to be consider'd, by Law, truly Dead, without hope of Resurrection, and his worldly Possessions divided among his several Heirs. So altogether just and sensible is this Law, that even that Clique of Knaves and Blackguards so recently removed (by the Grace of Iomedae and our Queen) from their perversion of this Realm, the devilish and thrice-damn’d House of Thrune, did not in any way reduce or abrogate it; for the very Devils of Hell would mock for a Fool any Man which permitted the Living to be govern’d by the Dead.

And yet! If a Man go out his Door in the City of Westcrown of Late, he might think that just and noble Law abrogated now, for the Creature which calleth itself the Count of Mequizena hath been seen by every Man in the City to go abroad only by Night, to fear above all else the Sun, giver of Life and destroyer of Death. Mortal Fear of the Sun is (so do many learned Men attest) the most sure Sign of the Vampire, an Abomination which feedeth on the Blood of the Innocent to preserve its unnatural Existence. Beware, Reader! for the Eyes of the Vampire have in them a Power of Enchantment, and one who gazeth upon them may find himself in Thrall to the Abomination’s Will. Go not abroad at night while this unholie Creature resideth in our City; or if ye must, carry with you always the Signs of our Goddess Iomedae and the Holy Mother Pharasma, whose Wrath all Un-Dead fear, and a Bulb of Garlic, whose odour the Vampire in particular cannot abide.

Good and noble Queen! answer your poor Subject: why do you permit this unholie Abomination to walk our streets in the garb of a Lord of the Realm, and to maintain Possession of a County, when it is manifest to all that the just and true Law of your Realm forbiddeth it? We beseech you to grant him no more Audiences, and indeed to revoke his Titles, which he hath kept far beyond the natural Span of his Years, and to let the County of Mequizena, surely long suffering beneath his unnatural Rule, pass to such Heirs as may not already be under his Domination.