Believe it or not, this is less fantastical than it seems. These are definitely more ‘weird science’ vampires than ‘damned’ ones. Although they may disagree.
In the movies, whenever there’s a mystery they bring the hero right to the scene, because ‘there isn’t a moment to waste!’ In real life, you’re allowed to get some sleep until the next morning. They put me in a pretty standard DepRec vamproom instead of a normal hotel, thank God: no mirrors, no external windows, and no air conditioning. I could rest there as well as I do at home, and that’s no small thing when you’re traveling. The only problem was the bed was in the wrong place, and I fixed that in no more than a minute. Five minutes later, I was out like a light.
Four hours after that, somebody tried to kill me.
I missed most of it; vampires sleep, as they say, like the dead. The first hint I had that something was wrong was how my dreams of nothing in particular had suddenly turned into me, hyperventilating, on the floor with the blankets wrapped around me. And there was pain. Not excruciating pain, but my face burned in a way that I associate with being outside at noon on a sunny day. Sheer nightmare fuel, in other words. But that wasn’t doing me any good, so I shut down my fear.
It’s a trick you learn, when you get to be a vampire my age. It’s sort of like the trick vampires use to ignore pain, only it’s less likely to cause bone fractures and ripped muscles. I don’t like using it, because normals get even more nervous around vampires without emotions, but right now I needed to get my emergency hood and gloves on before I shrugged off the blanket. There was a source of ultraviolet light out there, and I wanted to be fully covered before I confronted it.