When Lizzy agreed to become a vampire hunter she didn’t expect having to study so much. Paul gave her some books about vampires and how to kill them, and told her to check in her dad’s study for more. It was essential to know about her enemy if she wanted to properly kill them, she needed to know their powers and weaknesses. She spent all day reading the books, preparing for a pop quiz during her improvised class (which was fine, because she didn’t really have anything else to do). Once night fell, she would go to the library while everyone was already asleep and sneak through the passage to get to Paul’s house.

For their “classes”, Paul used some kind of study that was in his house. There were hundreds of books in the shelves, some of them were staked in little towers like little trees in a forest of knowledge. She sat on a chair while she heard Paul talk.

She learned a lot of stuff, including how vampires came to be.

“It is said that the first vampire was human once, but made a deal with the Devil to become immortal,” Paul explained. “The Devil enjoys tormenting humans, so he turned the human into a monster that would prey on humans and even turn them into one of them. Because of this, the vampires began to reproduce and gained power.

“Now, legends said that elves exist to purify the earth using elemental magic, and so they have the power to purify the vampire’s dark magic. However, the elves lost the war against the vampires the moment humans decided that the elves were heretics, which is why the elves of Riverbel went extinct. Now everything that is left of them are ruins, and the Elven Orbs.”

“So, if the magic of the elves is purifying, how is the vampire lord planning to use it?” asked Lizzy, somewhat confused.

“By corrupting the energy, of course. That’s what he is planning, so we need to stop him.”

There were many ways to kill a vampire. Sunlight would burn their skin to a crisp, holy water was acidic to them, they would turn into dust if they entered a home protected by a crucifix without being invited in, garlic was like poison to them, and silver would prevent any wound to regenerated.

“Don’t forget about the stakes,” Paul reminded her. “Thanks to the energy of Riverbel, the wood is blessed with purifying energy. A normal stake would only hold them down for a second, but this wood will finish the job once it goes right into their heart! Although, you won’t need to worry about that, considering that you’ll have a sword with silver.”

“Why is garlic one of their weaknesses anyways?”

“I don’t know. Allergies maybe? They do say in certain cultures that garlic is used to protect you from evil, so maybe that’s why? Not that you are going to have the chance to poison a vampire’s drink, but it’s always good to know.”

Vampires also had many abilities. They were strong, insanely strong, capable to destroy a boulder with just one hand; they were also fast, they had improved reflexes and senses, were immune to any normal poison, and were able to see in the dark. And those were just their physical attributes! Vampires were beings of the Devil, they had access to magical powers such as shapeshifting — transforming into any animal of their choice — and dark magic (a rare power that only the most powerful of vampires had). But what vampires were known for the most was their blood drinking and their ability to turn others into their slaves.

If a vampire had bit you and drank your blood to the point of death, you would only have a small window of opportunity to be turned. At that point, the vampire would only need to slip enough of their blood into you to turn you into a vampire, one that would not disobey the blood that flowed in your veins. Only the vampire-born had the power to subjugate others by turning them, for they are the only ones who still had a heartbeat.

“If they don’t give enough blood to the person, they will turn into a half-human half-bat monster known as an ur-vampyr,” Paul taught her. “Those monsters are equally as loyal, if not stronger and more beastly than their vampire counterpart, but they lose their sanity over time. The Great Vampire Lord uses them as foot soldiers for that reason, and every now and then he gets strong humans to turn them into new ur-vampyrs.”

“He only has ur-vampyrs?”

“Nobody knows! If there are normal vampires in his home, they don’t go out. Ur-vampyrs work better for intimidation, but they are easier to kill, despite being technically stronger and having the ability to fly without transforming. Still, you need to be careful, there’s always at least two of them, ready to hunt down prey.”

Paul gave Lizzy many advices to avoid becoming prey of the vampires. One of those advices was to carry a rosary around her neck. Anything that was holy was a weakness for the vampires, so their magic was unable to touch those with rosaries too. Another advice was to carry a flask of holy water for emergencies, if you were to drink holy water then the vampires wouldn’t be able to drink your blood until it was gone. This was only a last resort, though, the water wouldn’t take that long to end up outside the body, half a day up most. The more you could avoid becoming a vampire’s next drink the better, even if it was for such a short amount of time.

“Any more questions?” asked Paul once they had finished their introductory class.

“Yeah, I am curious, do vampires only drink human blood?” She was reminded of the strange marks on Jimmy’s cow. She was sure back then that they couldn’t possibly be done by a vampire, but now she wasn’t so sure.

“Good question… I don’t know. I guess that if they could drink non-human blood they wouldn’t be going after humans.”

“Of course, that makes sense…” she said with embarrassment, for asking such a dumb question.

“So, ready for the hard part of your training?”

“Of course, I was born ready!”