Last night (well, it was in fact Easter Sunday night/Easter Monday morn) I finally finished writing The Crimson Road, my sort-of-vampire-but-not-precisely-vampire novel set in the Sourdough world.They cannot move by sunlight.
Being dead – having died and returned – renders them creatures of the darkness. The night tells lies on their behalf, the glow of candles and fire giving bleached skin the illusion that something other than malice runs through their veins.
The truth of them can be revealed by day, which burns away the deceit of life they’ve created for themselves. Proper death, true death is almost instantaneous – do not touch them as they immolate for the flame sears like nothing you can imagine and you might well be taken down with the creature. No water can put out such fire.
They maintain their existence by the drinking of blood, pure and simple. They do not need to kill the one from whom they drink, but there are those who prefer to do so, claiming the death amplifies the effect of imbibing blood. After death, the teeth elongate and taper to a sharp point, the eyes become fit for seeing in the darkness, even the blackest of caverns beneath the earth, they can move silently, leap far distances so it seems they might be able to fly.
But they cannot bear the touch of light, nor the taste or smell of garlic (such plants were banned from the soil of the Darklands and thought to be eradicated hundreds of years ago), nor the presence of the thorns of the wild rose, nor (some whisper) the presence of a witch.
Miss Amelia Waterstone, Notes on Leeches and their Ilk