Vampires, as termed by Trevor Herbert, are predatory entities that feed on human blood. They are referred to as “bloodsuckers” in MAG 133 - Dead Horse.
Aliases
- Various
Affiliation
- Unknown (Possibly The Hunt, The Stranger, The Web, The Flesh, and/or The Slaughter)
Meta Information
First Mention
Behaviour
Vampires remain in their lairs for most of their lives, leaving only to hunt. They prefer the dark and are stronger and faster than humans. Some vampires, such as Sylvia McDonald and Robert Arden, observed by Trevor Herbert, blend with human society better, owning homes and choosing victims who will not be traced. They do not feed without killing and do not turn humans into vampires.
Vampires do not speak and are in fact biologically incapable of doing so. They communicate with humans entirely through their gaze. By meeting a human’s eyes, they impart sensations into their mind, which serves both to simulate conversation and to hypnotise their prey. Vampire hunters can thus distinguish vampires when they observe one-sided conversations where the speaking party reacts as if they were spoken to despite the silence of their conversational partner. Their hypnotism helps them escape capture: Daisy Tonner describes the police having irregular issues with suspects in missing-person cases, where recordings of interrogations showed suspects saying nothing but being let go by the officers.
Biology
Though vampires resemble humans on the outside, they are internally much different. They do not seem to have ribcages. They have teeth like a shark’s, jagged and multi-rowed, and their throats contain nothing more than a large, tubular tongue. They use these teeth to tear open the throats of victims, then clamp onto the wound with their tongue to drain the blood. In this manner, a vampire can completely drain a human of blood in about ten minutes and can do so cleanly. A vampire’s gut grows large and bloated when it feeds.
Vampires “do not have any mechanism for eating solid food” and seem to consume human blood exclusively. Trevor Herbert had his blood sucked by Robert Arden and believes that the heroin in his body is what caused the vampires to let him go and “start to shake, as though having a violent choking fit.”
Trevor Herbert finds that vampires burn very easily, and could be very dry aside from the blood they drink. Daisy Tonner’s procedure for killing vampires is to restrain their arms and legs before burning them, leaving only ashes. Trevor and the hunters in MAG 133 - Dead Horse both dealt with vampires by using large stakes, but this does not fully kill them.
Affiliations with The Entities
It is unclear exactly which Power holds claim to vampires, as they display traits typical to multiple powers.
- The Hunt: The primary drive of vampires is to hunt and feed on humans, and vampires are shown to participate in The Everchase: The Hunt’s ritual. Furthermore, people who kill vampires (Trevor Herbert, Daisy Tonner, the hunters seen in MAG 133 - Dead Horse seem disproportionately drawn towards The Hunt, as if they exist to “train” new Hunters.
- The Stranger: Vampires falsely impersonate humans and communicate without speaking aloud, both are typical of The Stranger’s agents.
- The Web: Vampires influence the minds of others and can hypnotize with their gaze, which seems in line with The Web’s predilection to control and mental manipulation.
- The Flesh: Vampires feed exclusively on human blood, analogous to The Flesh’s theorized origins in the fears of livestock animals.
- The Slaughter: The manner in which they feed is particularly violent, and statements that allude to their lairs imply they are sites of carnage.
Episode Appearances
- MAG 10 - Vampire Killer
- MAG 43 - Section 31 (mentioned)
- MAG 56 - Children of the Night
- MAG 61 - Hard Shoulder
- MAG 133 - Dead Horse
- MAG 154 - Bloody Mary (mentioned)
Trivia
- Writer Jonny Sims has cited leeches and sea cucumbers as inspiration for his vampires.