There are probably hundreds of vampire myths from around the world. In addition to the old myths, there are a variety of different types of vampires featured in fiction, each taking from it pieces of the old myths and building upon that to create the writer's idea of what a vampire might be if vampires existed. It can be a bit overwhelming to decide what you want in your own style of vampire. Because there are so many, I thought I might explain a bit about the type of vampires that grace the pages of my books. What they do, what they don't do, and why I picked the traits I picked for them.
What they do:
They do drink human blood straight from the source. In order to keep the weight of guilt from crushing them over this matter, they usually drink from the most reprehensible people they can find. However, as you will see should you read Beauty and the Beast, Arianne has not always been fortunate enough to have the luxury of drinking only from the guilty. They cry blood tears. When considering how I thought a vampire body might be using what we know of human biology and of death, it seemed only logical to me that vampires would cry blood tears just as we cry water tears. We are comprised mostly of water. Vampires are made up internally only of blood. They are violent creatures and when they are having a rough time, for whatever reason, that sometimes gets worse. Rapunzel is really the queen of being outright vicious during hard spots in her life. They can see themselves in a mirror and they have no problem with crucifixes. These were added later on in vampire lore, after Christianity started influencing cultures. I have never agreed with the logic behind these details so I discarded them. Also, the only things mentioned in the book that can kill a vampire are fire and the sun. I never really made a conscious choice not to include the stake through the heart thing but, to me, it doesn't make sense so it is never mentioned one way or the other. They can scale buildings, fly, and move so fast that they appear to be there one moment and gone the next. To me, almost anything is possible for a human. What limits us in many ways are the restrictions we put on ourselves. Vampires have no such restrictions. They can also choose to feel nothing, internally or externally. A vampire is, for all intents and purposes, dead. They have no heart beat, no breath, so it makes no sense to me that they should have skin that feels things as our skin feels things unless they want that. Emotions are another thing that, to me, a vampire would not have to possess. They feel because they want to feel. If they decided not to, they would not.
What they do not do:
They do not...emphasis on the NOT...sparkle. They cannot walk in the sunlight. They do not have any association at all with the devil. They would drink from an animal or a blood bag if they had to but my vampires would never give up hot blood from a living human. They do not drink dead blood. It makes them sick. To me, drinking dead blood for a vampire would be like eating something spoiled for a human.
Another aspect of the books that I wanted to kind of discuss is the magick. Though the steps and information about the Wheel of the Year found in Beauty and the Beast is accurate, I had to imagine what a vampire could do with magick. It would be more in every way, certainly, than the magick produced by a human. So when you see things like Kila setting something on fire by simply willing it so, it is not that I wanted to go the fantasy route and make my magick unbelievable. It is simply that it makes sense to me that a vampire, especially Kila who has been a witch since she was eleven years old, would be able to do something like that. When A Bloody Briar Rose, or Sleeping Beauty (Kila's story), comes out, everything in the beginning of the book will be true to form. The rituals, the spells, with the exception of a few spells that would most likely be impossible. Magick and Paganism are aspects of my own life I never intended to include in my books until Kila came along. Now that I have, I am trying to do my best to stay true to what it is while also figuring out what it would be in a vampire's hands. For those of you reading this who view magick only as an entertaining aspect of the story it probably won't matter but for those of you who are Pagan, I wanted to explain myself.
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