Page 23 - Hunter - The Vigil

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C CHAPTER ONE: SHADOWS CAST BY FIRELIGHT
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CHESTNUT STREET COMPACT
In an event that in some ways mirrored, and was perhaps inspired by, the
signing of the Declaration of Independence a year earlier, representatives
of Philadelphia’s various hunter cells met secretly near Independence Hall
in the latter half of 1777. At that meeting they drafted a document, the
Chestnut Street Compact (sometimes called the “Candle Compact,” both as a
reference to the Vigil and to the circumference of candles that surrounded
them that night), which expressed their commitment to each other and to
keeping Philadelphia’s population safe from supernatural malevolence.
The existence of the Compact was lost to Philadelphia’s modern-era hunters
until 1973, when a University of Pennsylvania professor unearthed a colonial
diary that referred to it, then began to piece together oblique references
from other sources. Ironically, his attempts to understand the origins and
meaning of the Compact led him to take up the Vigil as a member of Null
Mysteriis. His reconstruction from secondary sources, reproduced below,
uses some modern idioms; it’s unlikely that the terms “hunter” or “Vigil”
were spoken by the colonials protecting their homes and neighborhoods.
The Compact
The Compact
Let it be known, whereas our common humanity compels us to bind together
in a Vigil to stand for people of the City of Philadelphia against a cruel
and monstrous Enemy, we declare our allegiance to the following principles
that together our light may drive back the armies of the dark:
That hunter shall help hunter. Quarrel, personal animosity, social station,
religious conviction or political difference shall not be an impediment
when a hunter needs aid against the Enemy. No call for aid shall be denied
insofar as any are able to give assistance.
That hunter shall not fi ght hunter. No hunter will take up arms against
another, or treat him as Enemy, or work in any way against him, or seek
to undo his work. No hunter shall ally himself with the Enemy against his
fellows, nor seek treaty to his own advantage that may cause pain to another
who stands in Vigil.
That hunter shall not name hunter. The nature of the Vigil being a secret
one, for the protection of the public at large, no hunter shall reveal the
activities of another to any authority, be it civil, church or federal. No
hunter may identify another as such to anyone not of the Vigil, not to friend,
kin, colleague, neighbor, stranger or any other person or persons.
That all who stand Vigil are equal. No hunter is in nature superior to
another, all hunters have a right of saying their peace. Rank and structure
of command are for the purposes of effective prosecution of the Vigil only,
and do not extend beyond the Vigil, nor invest one hunter with authority
over another with regard to personal, family, business or other matters.
Furthermore, each hunter assembly may conduct its affairs on its own
ground as its sees fi t, subject only to the concerns of its members and the
principles of this document, and need not seek approval or permission of
those not operating within the same jurisdiction.
The Candle, Doused
The Candle, Doused
Few know what precisely caused the Compact to end back then. Ancillary
journals hint at the possibility that many of the cells were infi ltrated or
enthralled by the forces of the night, which worked in the cracks and fi ssures to
break the alliances apart. Others suggest that as the horrors of Philadelphia
waned as a result of an overly effective Compact, the hunters came to fi nd
new enemies: one another. Ideologies ramped, tempers fl ared and sword-tips and
gun barrels pivoted away from the shadows and toward the hunters. Another
interpretation suggests that, as hunters are sometimes said to represent fi re,
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