In the matter of personal grooming, except for any help they can get from photos and portraits, vampires have to cope the same way sightless people do. Czarny enjoys getting shaved at a barber shop.
Redeye.
The testimony of photographs (see below) and of strangers, including sidewalk portrait artists, gives Czarny no reason to suppose that his eyes look any different from the way they did before he was made a vampire, nor that they get bloodshot oftener or for different reasons than do other people’s.
Appearance in General.
The only actual difference being a vampire seems to make in someone’s personal appearance is in the eyeteeth. See “Fangs,” below.
Photos and Recordings.
Early cameras and acoustical sound recording processes may have failed to catch the vampire’s image or voice. As a child of the 21st century, Clement Czarny has never had any problems getting his picture taken or voice recorded with his era’s equipment, which is supposed to be sensitive enough even to record ghosts. In fact, he regularly gets photographic or holographic portraits made in order to keep up with what he looks like. He has never had a good chance to test his theory with earlier types of equipment; but, like mirrors, even the earliest cameras would surely have picked up the vampire’s clothing.
It has been suggested that early cameras failed to record vampires because of the silver in the photographic plates. Czarny doubts this. See Silver, below.
(In the fancier-free R.S.A., Czarny’s career included appearing and singing in three movie versions of famous operas; Karr does not know whether this also happened in the realizers/fanciers world.)
Sleep.
The vampire’s sleep is like anybody else’s, neither lighter nor heavier. See below, “The Sun and Daylight,” “Earth,” “Necessity of Sleeping in a Coffin,” “Sleeping Upside Down.”
Undeath.
Czarny became a vampire at age eleven. [In the fanciers-free R.S.A., thirteen.] It never stunted his normal growth and development, nor affected his mature ability to procreate normal, healthy children. It may have slowed down his aging past midlife, but not to any degree that couldn’t be accounted for by normal differences in human metabolic rates and lifestyles. He tentatively and hopefully concludes that the idea of the vampire as “Nosferatu”—”Undead”—is just another piece of anti-vampire scare propaganda, helped along toward plausibility by the lack of reflection and shadow, the ability to survive on an exclusive diet of blood, etc. (A bit of propaganda that has backfired to a certain extent, as the idea of eternal earthly life appeals to many people.)
It is true that Czarny never seems to get sick. This sometimes worries him, since the only fate he can conceive worse than eventually having to arrange for his own extermination would be turning into a kind of Struldbrug. (See Gulliver’s Travels, Book III.) On the whole, however, he trusts that if the average life expectancy for vampires exceeds the norm, it is by only twenty years or so, not enough to notice anything humanly impossible about it.
“Vampire” vs. “Human.”
Czarny hates this distinction, as he hates hearing even a wicked vampire referred to as “It” and a “Thing.” What on earth is a vampire made from a human being, if not still human? Surely if the fetus who will develop into a human is a human being, so is the vampire who started out as human! To label human vampires as non-human is a very clear piece of hate-fear propaganda—exactly the same tactic used by Nazis against Jews, by the Klan against non-WASPS, and by almost every group against its enemies as an element of warfare.
Fangs.
Yes, indeed, a vampire has fangs for eyeteeth. They are nonretractable and sharper than the average human tooth, but not as long as sometimes pictured. Czarny’s just clear the top of his lower gumline when his mouth is closed. All the same, he finds them a nuisance: they hinder him in playing many wind instruments, and he seems to be accidentally biting his lips, tongue, and the insides of his cheeks oftener than most people do. He might prefer to get his canines filed down, if he could find a modern, scientific dentist able to perceive them; but like the lack of shadow and mirror reflection, the fangs have proven to be something that very few moderns are capable of noticing. Other people can see that the vampire’s upper canines are a bit longer than usual, but so are those of a lot of non-vampires. To most modern eyes, the vampire’s eyeteeth may appear slightly atypical in their length, but not abnormally so.
Although he has no personal experience in the matter, not even by way of deliberate experimentation, Czarny thinks that as an aid to feeding on blood, the fangs would be messy and clumsy. Vampires may have been as ingenious as other people in adapting the available tool to the necessary purpose; but if bloodsucking were the only or primary purpose of the fangs, Czarny can think of other mouth adaptations that would make a lot more sense. For instance, some kind of mosquito-like tube, or a longer and more prehensile tongue. He theorizes that the fangs are a carryover from the ages when vampires commonly consumed raw meat as well as blood. See below, “The Werewolf Connection.”
III. THE VAMPIRE MYSTIQUE.
The Werewolf Connection.
This is almost certainly authentic. In fact, there may have been no difference at all between vampires and werewolves in the earliest times.
The idea of humanity as not only set apart from other animals, but “higher” than they, seems to belong to civilization. Primitive cultures regarded the animal as imbued with its own holiness, and saw in animals friends, helpers, spirit guides, even manifestations of godhead. The shaman who grew fangs and wolf-like hair would have been regarded as a link between human and animal—thus, to primitive peoples, a kind of totem or sacrament, with special power to help and heal.
Czarny suspects that the werewolf adaptations—lower as well as upper fangs, profuse facial and bodily hair, possibly wolf-like nose and ears—would have been permanent, rather than involuntarily retractable as they are in screenshows. He theorizes that the differentiation between vampires and werewolves developed when one strain largely gave up eating raw meat. Vampirism is not passed on to normally conceived children, and presumably neither is werewolfism; but adaptations may be evolutionarily transmitted in the biting and bloodsharing process by which one vampire or werewolf “begets” another. The modern vampire’s upper fangs are a remaining trace of the ancient connection. (Note that by this theory Czarny, as an omnivore, would more likely have been of the werewolf strain in primeval times; but by now the differentiation is too definite for any individual vampire or werewolf to cross over thanks to personal habits.)
The werewolf came in for the same vilification and bad press that was meted out to the vampire during the centuries of persecution. A full examination of the werewolf really demands a whole companion essay of equal length to the present piece.
How Vampires Are Made.
The essential thing is almost certainly that vampire and vampire-to-be share each other’s blood. Exactly how this is accomplished can probably vary in detail. Chances are that the vampire does not have to apply fangs to the jugular of the vampire-to-be. The idea that the vampire-to-be must die of blood loss is worth as much, or as little, as the idea that vampires are “Undead.”
The various rites and rituals through which, even today, people make themselves “blood siblings” through some harmless sharing of each other’s blood may hark back to the way vampirism is passed along, though these traces have been “laundered” by a long divorce from their origin.
Why Vampires Are Made.
Originally, it would have been to create new shamans or priests as needed. In those times, the experienced vampires and werewolves would surely have instructed the new ones, after the transition if not before, in things Czarny has had to figure out for himself, and doubtless in a good many additional secrets and small practicalities. One hopes that the final decision to be made a vampire or werewolf was voluntary.
During
the centuries of persecution, when vampires themselves were robbed of their self-esteem and self-knowledge, survival instinct—how better to ensure loyal allies?—or pure human loneliness must have driven many of them to create new vampires with or without the new ones’ assent.
Unhappily, in all ages there have probably been some wicked vampires, even renegade primitive shamans and priests, who have made new vampires for the same kinds of reasons that are commonly ascribed to all vampires in horror stories and screenshows.
Czarny likes to think that whoever made him a vampire did it as an emergency life-saving measure. He was in the middle of a near-death, out-of-body experience following a bad accident when he became aware that he was being bitten.
“Vampires prey first on their own families and friends.”
In very many cases, probably true—although for purely human reasons rather than monstrous ones. While not a religion in itself, vampirism is a religious phenomenon; and people tend to be most interested in converting their loved ones. On a secular level, who are people most eager to continue sharing companionship with? More practically speaking yet, who do people turn to first for help in times of trouble and persecution? And how better can they ensure keeping them as allies?
IV. VAMPIRIC POWERS AND ADVANTAGES.
Changing into a Bat and Flying.
If anyone can tell Czarny how, he would be very much interested to know.
This may be one of the lost secrets, but Czarny thinks it more likely that in primitive times the bat was considered an especially mystic and holy creature, much as the owl—another “child of the night”—was considered in Classical times a special pet of Athena-Minerva, and had the luck to become symbolic of wisdom. As a flying mammal, a seeming link between animals and birds, the bat could well have had some claim to be regarded with awe. It may later have come to be regarded with disgust and terror for the same reason the snake did: newer layers of religion using bad PR on favorite holy things of earlier forms of worship.
We should add that none of this rational knowledge and theorizing makes Czarny any less personally skittish about live bats.
Changing into a Wolf.
Again, Czarny would be much interested in knowing how.
Of course, our theoretical prototypical werewolf-vampire did take on many wolf-like characteristics. See “The Werewolf Connection,” above.
The prominence of the wolf in werewolf and vampire lore suggests that it was another especially sacred animal in primeval religious thought. The same qualities that must have made it so—loyalty to its kind, cooperation and success in hunting, perceived courage, etc.—as well as its kinship with the domesticated dog, have helped balance out the unreasoning disgust modern people still give the bat and snake, while at the same time the wolf’s actual if exaggerated potential dangerousness gives what remains of the animal’s bad reputation a rational basis to obscure the irrational one. (Most species of bats and snakes are really quite harmless to humans, and even beneficial in keeping down mosquitoes, mice, and suchlike pests.)
Control over “The Children of the Night.”
Czarny would really love to know the how of this one. It isn’t at all unlikely that primitive vampires had special skills with animals, even to being the original domesticators of dogs, etc. But as far as Czarny is concerned, it is among the lost secrets.
Night Vision.
Czarny’s own is excellent, but probably not beyond the optimum range of normal human potential.
Hypnotic Powers.
Nobody can simply hypnotize anybody into doing anything that goes against the subject’s own strongest instincts of self-preservation and/or morality—not unless the hypnotized themselves are willing at some level to self-destruct, sin, etc. If they are resistant, the effort to hypnotize them might even increase their resistance. When still new to vampirism, Czarny read up enough on the subject to decide that learning how to hypnotize people wouldn’t be worth it. He has never changed his decision, not even for the sake of experiment.
[N.B. It is Karr’s observation, however, that Clement Czarny seems to have an unusually high success rate at talking people into doing what he’d like. She suspects that he actually exerts some vampiric super-power of persuasion without being aware of it himself. It isn’t in his nature to try to argue people into anything immoral, illegal, fattening, or against their own will and self-interest, so almost the only times this knack surfaces in his daily life are when asking other people to let their fingers be pricked for a few drops of blood, or the other people are undecided on some point anyway; and that from time to time he can feel as spectacularly frustrated as anyone else in committee meetings, etc., can well disguise his success rate from himself; still, Karr thinks he would be interesting on a debate team, probably brilliant in suicide prevention work, and potentially valuable in politics or diplomacy.]
Turning into Mists, Sparkles, Smoke, etc. and Getting Through or Under Solid Barriers.
If this is possible, it’s another trick Czarny would appreciate knowing how to pull off. It may be one more lost secret, but he strongly doubts that it ever was really possible, and thinks that most likely the belief is one more piece of scare propaganda, based on the idea of vampires being “Undead” and therefore, in a sense, ghosts. It can make for great special stage and screen effects, though.
Even if the trick is possible (and the lack of shadow and reflection suggest that, after all, it may be), we don’t see how a vampire could go through solid barriers without first stripping off every stitch of clothing and link of jewelry. Also, any kind of surgical implants, from tooth fillings to artificial hip joints and maybe even transplanted human organs, would stay behind when the vampire went through, resulting in severe inconvenience if not excruciating pain or even worse. (See under “Health,” below.) Modern life may have rendered any vampire potential for moving through solid barriers impractical and therefore obsolete.
Climbing Vertical Surfaces.
One more trick that Czarny doubts was ever possible, but would like to know the how of if it was. Makes for fine dramatic effects in books and screenplays, however.
Health.
Czarny never seems to get sick, so there may be truth in the idea that vampires become immune to ordinary human diseases. Or he may happen to be one of these exceptional people who just “never get sick.” He hasn’t suffered from dental caries, either, since becoming a vampire; but he does have artificial repairs to a few chipped teeth.
Whether they get sick or not, vampires are as subject as anybody else to accidents and injuries. Hence the possibility of a vampire needing a surgical implant. Czarny’s experience of accidents, mostly small everyday ones from paper cuts to minor burns, suggests that he heals fast enough to cause mild comment, but not to constitute a medical phenomenon. No matter how well comparatively minor injuries heal, however, there are always some that could potentially cause a wound severe enough to require repair surgery.
Each vampire has his or her own normal blood type, and when a vampire needs a blood transfusion, the same rules apply as when anybody else needs one. As they do when a vampire donates blood for transfusion in the usual human way. Every blood type, however, is safe for the vampire to ingest through the alimentary canal.
Vampiric Immunity to Heat, Cold, and Other Weather Conditions.
Once again, Czarny’s hardiness seems to be at the top of the normal human range, but nothing phenomenal. It enables him to get along with a cape for his single outdoor wrap in all but the coldest winter weather of the Upper Midwest, and to continue wearing a cape on all but the hottest summer days; he does, however, have a lined cape for winter and a lightweight one for summer.
Of course, if vampires are immune to disease, this would give them a certain immunity to exposure as well; but the latter probably has its limits. Czarny guesses that it would be quite possible for a vampire eventually to freeze to death, bake to dea
th, or otherwise die of extreme climate conditions. It might take a longer time than for other people; or, in bright sunlight, a shorter time. (Might the tradition about vampires and sunlight point back to a time when vampires were executed by being staked out in the sun?)
It may be worth observing that modern humans on the whole seem to be considerably less hardy and resilient than primitive people to weather conditions.
V. TABOOS, ETC.
The Cross and Other Religious Symbols.
It’s all quite true about the cross. In fact, Czarny considers it part of the single most important thing about being a vampire. But it works only if the vampire is wicked or coming at you with evil intentions. (See “Reconstructed Natural History,” above.
Actually, every human being is in some measure sensitive to holy things; but with most people it’s a slight sensitivity and easily forgotten, mistaken for something else, or ignored altogether. The vampire has been resensitized with an ultra-sensitivity that cannot be ignored. However, holiness causes pain and possibly death only to the vampire in a bad state of conscience. The vampire in a good state of conscience has nothing to fear and even finds holy things very pleasant and strengthening.
Evil symbols can affect the good vampire much the same way holy ones affect the wicked vampire. Logically, evil symbols should soothe and strengthen wicked vampires; and this may be the case with vampires who are always and deliberately wicked by choice. But there seem to be few if any “evil” symbols which were not originally good symbols that got polluted. Czarny’s personal experience suggests that to a good-conscience vampire, such symbols have the evil force society now associates with them, while to a sinful vampire, the original good meaning of the symbol can reemerge with painful results. A swastika, for instance, gets Czarny coming and going.
The effect of the holy symbols of different religious traditions—Cross, Star of David, Crescent, Pentacle, etc.—varies in an interesting balance between the vampire’s own orientation and the prevalent traditions of the surrounding society. Czarny has never seen much point in old jokes about failing to ward off a Christian vampire with the Star of David, or a Jewish one with the Cross: he reacts to both, as well as to the holy things of every other religious tradition. A Christian vampire will probably be most sensitive to the Cross, except perhaps in a predominantly Jewish community where the Star of David will gain power from local feeling; and so on. The degree of discomfort or danger also varies with the vampire’s degree of sinfulness. Czarny believes that strength, toughness, and age probably have little to do with it—the more wicked vampires are, the more painful and dangerous anything holy will be to them. A very strong, tough, and experienced old drac may be able to hide it better, or even possibly to develop a sort of secularized shield to interface between his or her own molecules and the bombarding holiness—but only up to a certain point.
The Fanciers & Realizers MEGAPACK Page 150
