Vampyr

“What? Ha! Your head is filled with fairy tales and horror movies young man.”

He bustled about behind the counter, working on several timepieces and more than one computer repair seemingly simultaneously. The store was empty even though every surface was covered with products and projects and the frontage was on on of the Gray City's main avenues. The old tinker wore a set of clock maker’s glasses that the young man wanted to say had too many lenses but was far too timid to push the issue himself. In fact he was going to turn away and leave until the wizard spoke up.

“It is alright Tinker, he knows.”

Tinker eyed them both sideways. The wizard nudged the young man.

“My landlord, sir. Of the apartment building on first and Green Leaf. I-we think- well, he is a-”

“Hush!” The scattered movements came into sharp focus as he locked the front and waved them to the back. He had a harsh look for the wizard. “You were going to let him name the demon. You should know better, grandfather.”

“Oh, come now.” The wizard fairly herded the young man to the back room. “You and your damnable secret signs that no one can remember. We have an urgency.”

“Eh?” The tinker still wore his many-lensed glasses. “You don’t mean?”

The young man knew the answer to this non-question. “My sister, sir.” The tinker sighed as he turned away and leaned on the wall that formed the outermost border of his mainstreet shop. “Please sir, I will trade away anything to help her.”

The wizard scowled, the tinker laughed. The young man only thought he knew what he said. The tinker straightened as he finished the sequence on the secret pad that opened the secret way to his secret room. He stepped forward and waved them in to the portal that they could not see the other side of. The young man had no idea what lay ahead, naturally. He knew very little, all told. But he knew this threshold had a particular finality to it. Even so, it was but a moment of hesitation before he followed the tinker and the wizard into the room that technically should not exist. The room was small. Stone walls. Dry, thankfully, and lit, somehow. The walls were all lined with books arranged as if on shelves. Of course, there weren’t any shelves, but there was a ladder (that the tinker had climbed to view the uppermost books) and chairs (one of which the wizard sat at).

“Vampyr was the old spelling, and until a few decades ago where all the best information was filed. Thankfully Professor...well, never mind who, but he re-translated all the old stuff into modern common when the Dream broke and the rules changed. Ah, here. Nope, I am alright. Sit, sit. Page four thirteen, no, not there, that’s my seat. Wizard he can’t even read the dreamscript I have clearly labeled the chairs with...alright, alright, never mind. Four ten, ‘On Ghouls’, four thirteen, ‘Vampire.’ Young man. This particular kind of demon is one humans have always faced. The more fantastical kind that melts into shadow and feeds on blood yes, but even when the demons have been kept away we have still felt the subtle arts used by piggish men and fiendish women seeking to set all that they can touch to be just so. ‘Demons truly from the other side of things that posses those that summoned them and seek to sow misery and pain through the use of their subtle magiks’. The old spellings creep in there from time to time. I see you care little for where these things come from or how, understandable, we are in the cure stage since prevention has failed. Oh yes, I will tell you how to kill such a thing. Simple, really. Blessed bullets will work, for example, or a stake through the heart. Though to be fair that would kill most things. They can be burned right to ash if sufficient exposure to direct sunlight is achieved. That one takes hours, trickier than in the movies. I mean, so I’m told. Ahem. It should also be noted that, for some reason, other demons hate them. Were-creatures in particular. Seems to be a disagreement over tactics, or some hellish turf war bleeding over to our side. And of course dragons and giants are a whole other thing-what? Oh don't tell me he doesn’t know about-okay, okay. But nevermind all of that anyway, there are whole addendums to this book updated constantly on the failed attempts of humans to use one demon or against another. Anyway, to truly beat a vampire you must unweave his web of lies and uproot every evil seed she has sown in the minds of the innocent first, otherwise he will return to a new host and-worst of all-be keenly aware of you. Funny we should align them with bats, spiders are far more apt. A vampire ‘speaks such that he is believed’ you see it written there? Yes, even the most pure of us will fall for his lies. Hmm? Yes, seductor, or seductress, often. Quite a lot of the arbitrary archetypes collapse in on themselves when a modern eyes begins to examine the ancient demonologies developed by-yes, well, our wizard’s look warns me back on course. Before we talk of killing a vampire, we must first cut his web. His thralls-the technical term mind you-lend him their own life blood to make him far beyond anyone’s touch. How? I can give you the ‘how’ young man, but the tools are for you to discover. ‘Every vampiric house is built differently, having as it’s architect one of innumerably diverse furies’. Each of his thralls must be dealt with in one of three ways. You must take the vampire’s dream away by force. But this would be matching strength versus strength with the mind of an addict as the proving ground, wise men stay away from pitched battles on such uneven footing, and I see even our formidable friend would prefer another way, eh wizard? You must replace the dream. Remind the thrall who they were when they were human. Some...talisman, or book, or photo, anything that might snap a person out of a destructive pattern and make them resolve to change. Failing that? Yes, I did say three ways. Well, what do you expect me to say, he asked and I must answer wizard. Young man, in order to end the vampire’s nightmare, you will have to kill his thralls, all of them, one by one, and watch the life leave their eyes to make sure he can no longer draw strength from them.”