That idiot Professor Engelhart is convinced that he’s going to figure out why natural light will kill a vampire, and yet no matter what they try, how ever much they try to mimic it, powerful artificial light just stuns them. I tried to explain to him, it’s not the light that harms them, it’s just the light that allows them to be harmed but he seems to think I’m just a kook with mystic theories.

I suppose a big part of that comes from the fact that he’s only ever dealt with them after they’ve been muzzled or sedated. His “safety protocols” don’t exactly allow for much communication. Not that I’m sure he’d be willing to listen, even if they did want to talk to them. But hey, that’s researchers for you; never ones to get their hands dirty.

Certainly not the sort who’ll take advantage of a convenient St. Andrew’s Cross after capturing one hunting in the local goth scene. Cybergoth, if you can believe it. I suppose it makes sense, those masks are probably the least conspicuous way to hide their fangs that I’ve run into, outside of the air filtration masks that get popular whenever a forest fire breaks out.

Anyways, with her properly secured to the cross, my bad mood, my natural sadism, and her bad attitude, well, it was a great recipe for a bad night. For her anyways. I had fun.

Surprised vampire bottoms aren’t more popular with the truly sadistic, really. Though I suppose the fact that nobody believes in them is at least partially to blame for that. Oh, and the fact that they tend to try to kill you when they can, that too. Not to mention some of their other “enhancements”. Still, they do make a great bottom.

I say bottoms, because there is little to no chance of them being submissive, not to a human anyways. Maybe to one of the older or stronger vampires. Not that we know much about those. Just rumours, really. And while I’ve seen a few of them that love combat, I’ve yet to actually run into a real masochist yet.

Logically, they are probably out there. It stands to reason, they used to be human, it’s a common enough quirk in humans. The whole pain wired into pleasure, or more commonly brain chemistry that turns pain into addictive endorphins; shit still hurts, it’s just the pain brings along a friend that makes it all better. But maybe that part gets lost during that transition from what they were into the strange creature that they become. There are plenty of obvious changes, easy enough for some subtle ones to slip through. It’s not exactly like anyone has enough “subjects” to really do much research, and good luck getting access to an MRI or any of the other fancy tech to get a peek inside.

Not that Engelhart and his cohort are totally lacking in real science gear. It’s just a little random what they’ll have access to and for how long. They seem to have some funding, the conversion on their vehicles can’t be cheap. Kinda wonder what they tell the folks they hire to do the work, assuming of course they are even curious about why they are installing a cage on rails into the back of a cargo van. Maybe they figure the worst, and just prefer not to ask questions.

Not that I’m sure how far away from the worst what they do really is. It’s not human slavery, but mostly because they don’t consider their targets to qualify as human any more.

Whatever the hunters think, and how ever much they try to claim that it’s just animal cunning, the vamps are still intelligent. A little alien maybe, but it’s there. Though maybe that says more about how we view animals than it does about vamps. We know pigs are smart, but most people deny it, and they keep being eaten; the vamps are smart, that gets denied, so they keep feeding.

If someone was willing to listen to them, without a gag or muzzle, and was patient enough to wait til the initial stunning effect of the halogen lamps to wear off, you’d hear what I heard. A disjointed narrative about something in their head, images, memories maybe, but not their own; someone else’s, they are very clear on that point. Well, clear as they can be while disoriented and babbling. They are in the body of someone, staked out, ropes tight on their wrists and ankles. Despite blinding light, they can see sand and sun, another body staked out nearby, and two tall figures standing over them; two winged figures. From the description, most people would call them angels.

But really, that makes a fair amount of sense, if you believe their creation myths. Assuming you can get one talking, eventually they’ll claim to be refugees from Heaven. And the ones who burnt in the sand, those were a pair who tried to reconcile with the “Forces of Light”. The memory was burnt into the entire species, some sort of ancestral PTSD, which is why they freak out.

And it isn’t the sun light that kills them, it’s that the sun light is where the “Forces of Light” can spot them and deal with them. Pop goes the vampire. Well, sizzle, crackle, then pop, usually.

But hey, don’t take my word for it. Try it yourself. Or dismiss it like Engelhart. Rather a strange coincidence, a hunter with that name, if the myth is true.