‘Anyway, I said their life-cycle was complex. Well, so it is, but when you think about it so are many of the life-cycles of the creatures in our own world. The liver fluke is a good example. Living in the intestines of cows, pigs and sheep, dropping their eggs in the animal’s dung, to be picked up on the feet and in the sores or openings of other animals – including men! And once they take hold on the liver – then the animal is finished. The organ is reduced to so much gorgonzola! And if the beast dies in a field, to be eaten by pigs … or if it is slaughtered and eaten by ignorant men . . . you can see how the cycle is continued. So, the vampire is something like that. It’s a parasite, anyway. But as I said, that’s the only similarity.
‘The big difference is this:
‘The tapeworm and liver fluke gradually destroy their hosts, reduce them to nothing, kill them off. In so doing they kill themselves off, too, because without a living host they themselves can’t live. But the vampire’s instinct is different. It doesn’t kill its host but grows with him, makes him more powerful, changes his nature. It learns from him, relieves him of physical weaknesses, increases his strength. It encompasses his mind and character and subverts them. Sexless in itself, the vampire adopts the sex of its host, adopts all of his vices, his passions. Men are passionate creatures, Jazz, but with a vampire in them there’s nothing to temper them. Men are warlike, and as Wamphyri they bathe ecstatically in the blood of their enemies. Men are devious, which makes the Wamphyri the most devious creatures of all!
‘But all of that is only one part of the cycle, one facet . . .
‘Now, I’ve explained how with a vampire in him a man is mentally corrupted. But then there’s the purely physical side. Vampire flesh is different. It is a protoplasm, compatible with all flesh! With the flesh of men and beasts and almost anything which lives. And as the vampire grows in its host, so it is able to change that host to its own ends – physically change him! And the Wamphyri are masters of metamorphosis. I will explain:
‘Suppose a freshly emerged swamp vampire was fortunate enough to take a wolf as its host. It would gain the wolf’s cunning, its fierceness, all its predator instincts. And it would amplify them. There are legends of wolves like that here on Sunside. It’s the same legend as the one we knew back on our Earth, which we called the legend of the werewolf! The silver bullet, Jazz, and the full moon!
‘To seduce men – for food – the vampire-ridden wolf will imitate men! It will go upon two legs, contort its features into manlike features, stalk its prey by night. And when it bites . . .
‘The vampire’s bite is virulent! It is an absolute contamination, more certain than rabies. Ah, but where rabies kills, the vampire’s bite does not. It might, if the vampire desires to kill, but on occasion the victim lives. And if at the time of the attack the vampire puts into the victim part of its own being, its own protoplasmic flesh, then that victim is vampirized. But let’s say that the attack is fatal, that the vampire drinks the victim’s blood, drains him dry (which is often the case) and leaves him a corpse. Again, in this case, even though the victim is dead, that which was inserted – which was traded for his blood – is not dead! In about seventy hours, occasionally less, the transformation is made, the metamorphosis complete. Again, as in the myths of Earth, after three days the vampire emerges, undead, to spread its contamination abroad.
‘Anyway, I’ve strayed from the point. I was trying to explain what a Wamphyri warrior creature is. Well, picture one of their flying beasts magnified in bulk by a factor of ten. Imagine such a creature with a dozen armoured necks and heads, all equipped with mouths full of unbelievable teeth – teeth like rows of scythes! Imagine these things having a like number of arms or tentacles, all terminating in murderous claws and pincers or fitted with huge versions of the Wamphyri battle-gauntlets. Get all of that formed in your mind’s eye, and you are looking at a warrior creature. They are vampires, but utterly mindless, with one and only one loyalty – to whichever Lord created them.