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VampireAlternative names

Extant (irreproducible)

Vampire (also known as Vampyr and as Van-Tal in the dimension Pylea) was a species of soulless, undead demons that could only exist on Earth by leaving their own dimension and possessing human corpses. They were hybrids, and were thus despised by other, "purer" demon species. They were well-known for feeding on the blood of mammals, particularly humans.

Vampires were first created by ancient demons infecting human hosts.

According to a legend told by the Watcher Rupert Giles, before departing Earth the last of the Old Ones mixed his blood with a human's, thus creating the first vampire.[1] Maloker, the Old One responsible for siring the first vampire, was eventually sealed within the Deeper Well.[2]

A contemporary of Maloker, the Old One Illyria, stated that she had been familiar with vampires in her time, and that they already existed before the Old Ones were driven from Earth. She, like many full-demons, degradingly referred to vampires as half-breeds. Whether or not the vampires contemporary to or followed immediately after the Old Ones were the Turok-Hans, regular vampires, or both, was never clear. When Xander briefly tapped into Maloker's memories, he became aware of a time when magic-wielding early humans were busily driving the Old Ones into the Deeper Well. Fearful that his time was up, Maloker sought to raise an army using his vampiric bite on a human. Taken in conjunction with Illyria's comments, this would imply that Illyria was one of the last Old Ones to fall, and that vampires existed for a relatively long period of time which saw the banishment of the Old Ones.

While an Old one is responsible for the creation of Vampires, the ability to create vampires was not unique to him as the Demon Lord known as Archaeus, has created at least one vampire, The Master and thus began that bloodline.

Harmony Kendall revealed vampires to the world.

Throughout most of history, the majority of humans remained ignorant or in denial of the existence of vampires, which notable exceptions including the Watchers Council, Slayers, and certain vampire hunters like Daniel Holtz and Charles Gunn. Rupert Giles once explained that people have a tendency to "rationalize what they can and forget what they can't."[1] Aimee Mann, a guest singer at The Bronze, once comically remarked that she hated playing in "vampire towns."[3]

For a period of time in Sunnydale, California, there existed a group of vampire wannabes known as the Sunset Club. Though they were aware of the existence of vampires, they were oblivious to their true nature, and referred to them as the "Lonely Ones"; they believed them to be gentle and misunderstood. They ultimately did discover the brutal and violent truth when they were attacked and nearly annihilated by Spike and his followers; they were saved by the Slayer, Buffy Summers. When meeting Angel, the actress Rebecca Lowell had also a similar poetic point of view and became intrigued by the possibilities offered by Angel's immortality to resume her career. Initially, she thought that vampires had total control over their instincts. However, she was clearly terrified by Angelus's brutality as he talked about decapitating her and carrying her head on a pike to show off after killing someone famous for the first time. Additionally, there was a vampire brothel in Sunnydale where humans could pay vampires to feed on them to get a rush from blood loss. Riley Finn made regular visits there until it was burned down by Buffy Summers in retribution.[4]

The Sunnydale High school board and the police department also appeared to be aware of the supernatural goings-on in Sunnydale, and often covered up vampire and demon attacks under order from the mayor, Richard Wilkins. When Spike and the members of the defunct Order of Aurelius attacked Sunnydale High to kill Buffy, Principal Snyder and the police chief wrote it off to the public as an attack by a gang on PCP; apparently, that excuse had been used before.[5] The U.S. government was also aware of the existence of the supernatural to some extent, and even built special units specifically meant for hunting them.

All the people present in Los Angeles became aware of vampires when the city was moved to a hell dimension by the Senior Partners of Wolfram & Hart in 2004.

In the early 21st century, the existence of vampires became public knowledge, causing them to become a subject of a fad that capitalized on the fact that many humans experienced a thrill when bitten by vampires. Harmony Kendall became the face of vampires to the media, and began starring in her own reality show called Harmony Bites.[6] In response, two new vampire movements appeared: Reform Vampirism, in which vampires drank only from willing humans and never took enough blood to kill or sire, and Vampire Supremacism, in which vampires considered humans nothing but cattle and wished for things to return to the way they were before Harmony made them public. However, with increasing attacks by zompires, mindless vampires sired after the end of magic, public opinion of vampires began to shift, leading the San Francisco Police Department to create a supernatural task force.

In the 23rd century, vampires were called "lurks" and remained public knowledge. Although, most humans were unaware that lurks were actually demons, and not simply a particularly vicious form of mutant.[7]

Unlike many other demons, the demons present in vampires appeared to have no more intelligence than solitary predatory animals, and were incapable of human speech. The principal evidence for this came from Angel's visit to the dimension Pylea. Whilst there, whenever he took on his "vampire face", he unexpectedly lost control and became a mindless beast. His behavior was remarkably similar to that of zompires (vampires who had been sired in a world void of magic). A vampire's demon core had no personality of its own. Ordinary vampires gained the qualities of the people they were in life, including memories, fears and desires. As Darla put it, "What we were informs what we become." [8] Mentally, the root of a vampire's evil nature was his or her lack of a human soul. They were unable to differentiate between right and wrong, and had little care to do so.

Willow is shocked to see how different her vampire self is.

Vampires typically lost their feelings for the people they knew upon siring. For example, after he was turned, Jesse McNally told Xander Harris that he was nothing but a "shadow" to him. Most vampires reveled in destruction and cared only for themselves, but similar to how all human beings possessed different qualities, vampires could be equally varied. While all were essentially corrupt, soulless versions of their prior selves, some became direct opposites of the people they were, while others represented an expression of the potential they had in life. When Charles Gunn was turned, he continued to want to help people, and still despised vampires (himself included); however, his actions were held unchecked, and he eventually lost his way. In contrast, William Pratt retained affection for his mother after his siring, and even turned her in order to free her from death by consumption. When she came back as a vampire and taunted him, he mercifully ended her life. Unlike Gunn, Spike, despite lacking a human soul, showed impressive amounts of loyalty and love (two traits that he possessed in spades when he was alive).[9]

Vampires, despite lacking souls, were somewhat capable of human emotions like love, but tended to take twisted, obsessive forms, like Spike's affection for Buffy Summers and James's love for Elisabeth. While Angelus and Darla were nearly inseparable throughout their history together, Angel later commented that what they had was never true love, as they were both incapable of feeling love, and sometimes abandoned one another out of self-preservation. Despite Angels words Darla came to rescue him from Holtz and even when turned again by Drusilla, Darla expressed some of the same longing she had for him as a human causing Angel to flee unable to kill her again. Watcher Duncan Fillworthe observed that vampires were nothing but regret personified, and had a "hunger for life that's been damned to never be satisfied."

The evil of individual vampires seemed to vary widely. Dalton retained enough humanity for the Judge to burn him but Angelus did not. The Judge blamed Dalton's status on his human trait of reading and also commented on Spike and Drusilla sharing the human traits of jealousy and affection.[10]

There's a leading theory amongst Watchers that a person sired by a vampire will gain the essence of the same demon as their sire, meaning offshoots of the sire's essence will enter anybody in their successive bloodline. This theory was given some weight when Buffy entered Spike's mind and saw his previous sires (Drusilla, Angelus, Darla, The Master and Archeaus).[11]

Angel transformed into a Van-Tal.

The physics of certain dimensions could affect vampires in various ways. In Pylea's case, vampires, known as "Van-Tals", possessed some differences from its Earthly counterparts such as appearing reflective surfaces, living in the sunlight, and when they transformed into their "vamp face" they took the shape of a demon green, bestial, horned beast without any traces of humanity.

According to Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, this was what the demonic component of a vampire looked like. Wesley also incorrectly theorized that such a demon could have been the one that created the first vampire (in truth this was the Old One Maloker, whose appearance did not resemble Van-Tal.). However, considering that Archaeus was the one responsible for Angel's bloodline and his appearances was similar to Angel's pure form, in that Archaeus' head and face has spikes coming out of it, Wesley was not too far off in his suggestion.

The existence of zompires puts into the question the exact savagery of the demon's essence. Zompires were sired humans that weren't inhabited by a demonic spirit due to Earth's connection to other dimension being cut off. The result wasn't lifeless shells of dead humans, but vicious creatures not too different from Van-Tals. This suggests that the bestial nature of vampires isn't something introduced by the demon's essence. but merely a component of their siring. The demonic essence could simply provide sentience by inheriting the person's memories and feelings.

Darla siring the human Liam.

To create a new vampire, blood exchange was needed. Victims of vampire attacks did not turn into new vampires unless they consumed the sire's blood when near death after being fed on by said vampire. If the vampire drained all of the victim's blood, the victim would simply die. A human who imbibed vampire blood when not at the point of death would not change.[13] Vampires experienced sexual pleasure from the act of siring, comparable to orgasm, and sometimes they might sire new vampires by sexual instinct, which would explain why many new vampires were abandoned by their sires.

The destruction of the Seed of Wonder by Buffy Summers cut off the world from magic, interrupting the normal process of becoming a vampire. Thus, all vampires sired after that point became a mindlessly feral variety that Xander Harris christened "Zompires", speculated to be the result of the siring process still taking place but the vampire demon no longer able to manifest in the resulting corpse. Once magic was restored by the creation of a new Seed the outcome of the siring process returned to normal.

Following the blood exchange, the victim died of blood loss and, according to Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, would reawaken on the night after the siring, sometime between sunset and sunrise.[14] However, certain other vampires rose a few hours after the blood exchange. No special preparations, such as burial, were required for the vampire's rebirth. Vampires mostly rose from graves because they spent a time between death and rebirth as corpses and were buried. Some vampires however, preffered to bury their progeny out of some form of tradition.

In any event, new vampires often awoke with a sensation of disorientation, in which most vampires were highly violent and feral, before recovering and realizing their new status. This was not however always the case. For example, Sarah Holtz or Holden Webster didn't attack from their awakening. This clarity usually "kicked in" after the vampire rose from the grave or at least after the first feeding. When the vampire overcame the confusion, they experienced a sensation of clarity that was new and unique, and which they would express in different ways:

The new vampire was commonly astonished by the new sensation of power and the connection to an "all-consuming evil."

Angel explaining his psychic connection to Penn.

Angel dreamed of his progeny Penn's actions, later telling his friends, "I used to have a connection with those I sired. It just means he's close. That's all".[19] Angel also demonstrated this to track down Drusilla when she first appeared in Sunnydale. Darla was later able to use this ability in combination with Calynthia powder in order to manipulate Angel's dreams.[20][21] Various Watchers had speculated that this link was the result of all vampires in the same 'bloodline' sharing a fragment of the essence of the original vampire demon that created them, which was apparently proven when Spike fell under the influence of Archaeus, the Old One who originally turned The Master into a vampire.

It was possible to bring back vampires from the dead in various ways.

In 2004, Spike was brought back from the dead as a "ghost" and then re-corporealized as a vampire. After Spike died in the final battle in the Hellmouth, Wolfram & Hart's mystical Amulet would also ensure the survival of his spirit in Los Angeles, and his physical form was returned to him in a packaged spell by Lindsey McDonald, entailing a full resurrection.

After the Master's death, the Anointed One attempted to resurrect him using his skeletal remains but was unsuccessful. The spell required the usage of the blood of those who were with the Master upon his death Rupert Giles, Jenny Calendar, Willow Rosenberg and Cordelia Chase but Buffy, Xander, and Angel stopped the ritual and destroyed the Master's skeleton to ensure that this ritual would never be attempted again. The Master was later resurrected by the Seed of Wonder as its guardian and protector during the Twilight apocalypse, but was killed again during the fight.

Angel was initially turned human by the blood of a Mohra Demon in a negated timeline, but he turned back time when he learned that his new weakness would result in Buffy dying. Years later, the Senior Partners would transform Angel into a human to make him useless to the Powers That Be,[22] but he was returned to vampire form when he provoked the now-vampiric Gunn into killing him, forcing the Senior Partners to turn back time to a point when Angel was last a vampire in order to ensure that he could still play his prophesied role in their apocalypse.

The same temporal fold also reverted Gunn who had been turned into a vampire when Los Angeles was sent to Hell back into his human state, although he had to stay in hospital for several weeks afterwards due to his 'restored' injuries now that he was only human.

Any vampires that had been killed while Los Angeles was in hell were restored because of the temporal fold. Any vampires who were sired while Los Angeles was in hell (such as Gunn) were restored to their human state although they kept their memories of being vampires.

Darla was resurrected by a ritual performed by Vocah and Wolfram & Hart, sacrificing five regular vampires to restore her, but this ritual restored her to life as a human rather than a vampire, requiring her to be sired later when the disease that had been killing her in life began to kill her again.

A strong electric shock could temporarily cause a vampire's heart to beat as if he or she was alive.[23]

The Master, an elder vampire, with his minions.

Vampires largely preferred working alone, though were sometimes found living in groups organized like packs or prides. These groups were commonly organized with the purpose of protection and feeding.

The leading vampire was known as "master", usually the sire of the group, the eldest one or the most powerful; in any event, the dominant vampire was the one capable of achieving the top position and enforce his authority through strength and violence. There were also some cases in which the leading position was occupied by a dominant couple, like Spike and Drusilla or James and Elisabeth.

The followers were commonly known as "minions" or "lackeys", though sometimes they could also be referred as "acolytes". These were commonly the progeny of the master vampire, or vampires that fell under the authority of the master due to their own weakness or youth. While minions were expected to follow the commands of their master and were punished when failing, there were examples of vampires rebelling against their masters, or even choosing to serve a new one.

In some vampire bloodlines, there was a tradition of choosing new names for themselves after being sired. The Master's bloodline was an example of this.

There were cases in which vampires wound up in the service of non-vampires, such as very powerful sorcerers or demons, even though vampires were commonly rejected by other demons who regarded them as the ultimate filth since they had human bodies.

There were some cases in which a powerful vampire required the service of human minions and lackeys, and sometimes even demons:

The vampire Luke holding the Slayer Buffy

Within vampire society, the Slayer could be described as a source of great fear. Even vampires as powerful as Angelus and Darla preferred to avoid confronting Slayers, keeping a low profile to prevent attracting her attention. Vampires felt a great deal of hatred towards Slayers, the only exceptions being ensouled vampires Angel and Spike who were in lovewith Slayer Buffy Summers.

The killing of a Slayer was considered a great feat in vampire society. For example:

Vampires were commonly described as "dead". Death could be defined as a status in which the body lacked physiological functions, such as having a heartbeat or breathing. However, vampires were able to move, feed, talk and feel despite inhabiting dead bodies. The term "undead" was much more fitting because vampires, while not alive, weren't dead either.

When a human was sired, their human soul left their body and a demon soul took possession of the corpse, reanimating it and altering its physiology. The demon within the vampire caused these alterations:

Darla and Drusilla morph into their vampire faces.

A vampire (the figure to the left) appearing on an infrared camera.

Even newly-risen vampires possess great strength.

Superhuman strength: Vampires possessed superhuman physical strength, though the exact extent and limits of this strength are debatable and often varied from individual to individual in the same way that it does in humans; either because of their age, what supernatural blood they had consumed, or how long they've been a vampire. Some vampires were capable of deforming metal with their hands,[1][62] while others were held back by wooden doors (that were barricaded from the other side albeit).[52][5] Chains had varying degrees of success and failure at restraining vampires; Angel was able to break out of them after hours of trying,[75] while others found them unbreakable. Vampires could easily press both their own weight and the weight of an average adult human, as they were shown to throw human bodies anywhere from 5 to 25ft away.

A vampire's strength increased with age, though even newly-risen vampires had incredible strength. On her first day as a vampire after being re-sired, Darla effortlessly lifted Angel (who was considerably taller and more muscular than she was) off the ground by the throat with one hand, tossed fully-grown men around and snapped a shop assistant's neck with ease.[14] Century-old vampires were able to do greater amounts of damage. Angel tore a man's heart out with his bare hands, ripped demon's limbs off and claimed he could literally rip a man's head off his body.[76][77][78][79]Angel, Spike and Drusilla have killed powerful enemies by punching a hole through their torsos [80] [81], while Angel and Dracula have decapitated opponents with a single blow. [82] [83] Spike has even at one point single-handedly flipped over a car in anger.[84]

The vampire's strength also appeared to increase when in their "game face," as Buffy ordered Angel to assume it before he fought off vampires to keep them from butting into Buffy's fight with the Master.[52] Furthermore, after assuming his vampire face, Angel was able to overpower the Beast and force him to his knees.

The blood of enhanced human and human-like beings augmented their strength to a great degree. Vampires also derived pleasure from the act of feeding off such humans. Examples of vampires feeding on superhumans and gaining a charge include:

Angel crosses a street as fast as Wesley turns his head.

Superhuman speed: Vampires could move much faster than normal humans. They could flash across distances in an instant [87][79][25][88] and preform actions very quickly in complete silence; the Master disappeared from Buffy's line of sight when she briefly looked away before hearing his voice from afar [52], Spike drained and hid the bodies of two fully grown men in a few seconds without alerting the girl they were walking with [5], and Angel entered and exited Buffy's bedroom from her window without her noticing (Xander even remarked that he wanted to put a bell on him).[89][5]

Angel could run at such speeds that he appeared to teleport several meters in mere seconds.[90][91][92][93] On one occasion, Angelus moved so fast that as he was chasing down Jenny Calendar he appeared in front of her even after she slowed him down from another direction.[94] Penn, the vampire that Angel sired when he was still Angelus, took out a room of armed police officers so fast that he was perceived as a fast-moving blur from the perspective of Kate, a human.[19]

Vampires had incredible reaction speed; Angel once spun around and caught a crossbow bolt fired at his back from point-blank range [95], side-stepped a tranquilizer dart fired at a close range and dodged bullets fired from multiple riflemen.[93][96] Spike has blocked an oncoming blade from hitting his back, by grabbing his foe and swinging her 90 degrees to the path of the blade before it could finish travelling.[97] Even a lesser vampire could bat away crossbow bolt fired less than 10 feet away.[98]

Angelus using his agility to evade danger.

Superhuman agility: Vampires possessed greater athleticism and manoeuvrability than normal humans and could leap great heights and distances.[99] A newly-risen Darla effortlessly rose up to the ceiling with Angel in hand to smash his head against the glass plane above.[14]

Angel possessed the ability to jump 10+ feet in the air.[100][35][101][102] He once jumped over a tall gate [92], and reached an airborne helicopter by leaping from within inside a building.[95] On occasion, he could jump almost 100 feet in the air.[93][103][104]

Drusilla gets hit by a car with no injuries.

Superhuman durability: Being undead, vampires could endure and survive near-limitless amounts of bodily damage so long as they were not decapitated or staked through the heart (see below). Their bodies appeared more durable to blunt force trauma than humans and could shrug off mortal wounds. However, a certain degree of damage could cause visible or debilitating effects.Drusilla was once hit by a car, but instantly got up completely unfazed.[14] A member of the Order of Aurelius was also hit by a bus and had no difficulty in killing the bus driver and the passengers afterwards.[15] Angel and Spike could take multiple gunshots to the torso and still escape. Spike even using his body as a human shield to protect Gunn and Lindsey from a Uzi sub-machine gunfire which bloodily shredded his back but didnt slow him down in the slightest.[105] Explosives could kill vampires[17][36], but older vampires like Angel and Spike could withstand explosions within close range to the source with their bodies intact and fully mobile.[106][88] Vampires could fall from high altitudes (such as skyscrapers) and land with little to no injury.[107][14][87][108][61][109] Vampires could also have live surgery preformed on them with little preparation or equipment.[59]

Accelerated healing: Vampires could heal more quickly than humans, though the process could vary depending on the severity of the injury (from months to mere seconds), and some vampires could receive permanent scars (see below). Angelus, for example, was beaten several times with a crowbar, but recovered in slightly over a minute and was able to engage in a full-blown sword fight with Buffy without any physical handicap.[46] Similarly, Angel was run over by a truck and beaten with a sledgehammer several times across his chin and mid-section, and recovered to fighting form in mere seconds.[110] Angel once took a shotgun blast to the back which pained him for the next few hours[111], but was completely healed and ready to fight the following night.[112]

Darla's hand was impaled by a stake and it completely healed moments later.[25] Spike once had his eardrums poked out, but regenerated them seconds later amidst fighting a siren.[113]

However, vampires could suffer trauma (such as being put into a coma) that rendered them unconscious. They could also have permanent scars under certain conditions: Xin Rong, for example, used an enchanted sword that gave Spike a permanent scar on his eyebrow. Their healing abilities seemed to be somewhat superior to those of a Slayer; after a brutal fight between himself and Faith Lehane, Angel was barely scorched the next day, while Faith was still healing herself.[114]

Spike picks up Buffy's scent.

Superhuman senses: Being primarily nocturnal, vampires had enhanced hearing, smell and night vision. They were especially sensitive to the scent of blood, and could distinguish individual humans and vampires by scent, as shown by the newly sired Gunn. There were exceptions: Spike was unable to identify Charlotte,[3] nor Harmony with Tamika before she showed her vamp-face (Tamika suggested she would have if she "wore less of that tacky perfume")[74]. Alphonse and his minions took some time to distinguish between both Willow Rosenberg and her Wishverse counterpart.[29]The vampireCarl was also taken aback by Spike's resistance while they were in confrontation.[34]

Angel knows one of Helen Brucker's aides is a vampire on sight.

Spike in particular had an acute sense of smell; when the Scooby Gang turned on Buffy and forced her to leave, Spike tracked her down by scent alone at least several hours after she had left.[115] He was also able to track down the demon Gnarl [116] and the psychotic Slayer Dana.[61] Angel could tell by scent that Wesley had sex with a bleached blonde the night before, and also tracked the scent of a Triune Demon across the city of London.[117] Dracula recognised Rupert Giles when he was his child self based on the scent of his blood.[118] Vampires apparently were attracted to bright colors, and the alternate Sunnydale citizens were careful not to wear brightly colored clothing.[28]

Vampires possessed a highly advanced sense of hearing which allowed them to pick up faint noises from far distances. Members of a vampire cult were able to overhear Fred whisper something to Darla who then informed her that "vampires have great hearing".[35] Angel heard a bloodthirsty demon hiss from the top floor of the Hyperion.[119] Darla used this when she spied on Buffy and Willow through a window of the library.[120]

Vampire's eyes glowing in the darkness.

Vampires appeared to possess some degree of night vision. When the Mayor turned the school's lights off, Angel assured Buffy that he could " see all right".[121] The Order of Aurelius vampires also had no problem navigating the dark sewers in pursuit of Buffy and Xander who had to use flashlights (in fact, vampires in general would normally use sewer systems to transverse during day time without any lighting aids). Additionally, the Aurelius vamps' eyes illuminated in the dark in a similar manner to many animals do which help them see in low-light environments.[1] However, unlike their other senses, a vampire's night vision appeared to be inconsistent; Angel at one point used night vision goggles while working a case with Kate Lockley,[68] while Spike needed a flashlight to see in the abandoned Initiative base.[122]

Their powers of perception were so great that they were capable of perceiving certain minuscule details that most beings would easily overlook. An example of this was when Illyria used her time-slowing powers to facilitate her and Knox's escape from the Wolfram & Hart Science Lab, Spike was the only one who "saw a blur" just before Illyria vanished, leading to him, Angel, Gunn, and Wesley to speculate that her inexplicable disappearance stemmed from altering time rather than teleportation.

Several vampires, including Dalton, Penn and Marcus, wore eyeglasses. William Pratt, however, wore eyeglasses as a human, while Spike did not seem to need them he never showed signs of either myopia or farsightedness, and was able to read books and aim a gun with no problem. According to Angel, if a vampire required glasses as a human, they still needed them after their siring.[123]

Immortality: Vampires did not physically age from the point that they were sired and could live for centuries with the same vitality and vigor. While their human selves didn't get any older, their "game face" became more gruesome and their ability to assume human form appeared to lose itself in some millennia-old vampires (see below).

Harmony fights off a vampire with no prior training.

Innate fighting prowess: Upon being sired, nearly all vampires possessed extraordinary ability in hand-to-hand combat, able to fight with great skill and shoot with great accuracy even if he or she had never possessed such skills or training as a human.

When being taught how to slay, Dawn nervously hoped that the newborn vampire pitted against her might not "know all the fancy martial arts they inevitably seem to pick up", though she was proven wrong.[124] On one occasion, Angel, even while suffering from amnesia and believing himself to be a teenager, managed to defeat Connor by fighting purely on instinct.[69] Spike also fought off and killed multiple vampires while suffering from a memory loss spell.[41]

One exception appeared to be Harmony Kendall, who had poor fighting skills during her first year as vampire, equally matching up against the human Xander in a fight.[49] Over time after her first break-up with Spike, the newly-independent Harmony eventually began honing her instincts, holding her own in fights against Riley,[59] Spike[58] and fellow Wolfram & Hart employee Tamika.[74]

Drusilla murders a Slayer by slashing her throat with her fingernails.

Sharp Fingernails: Vampires' fingernails were sharper than those of humans. Vampires like Drusilla and Dracula have killed humans by slashing their necks with their nails, and a random vampire caused Jasmine heavy bleeding by sinking his nails into her arm for a brief moment.[125][13][126][127] Additionally,Darla, Drusilla, and Dracula have used their nails to draw their own blood to feed the person they wished to sire.

Spike mentioned his desire to turn his fingernails into claws to incorporate into his fighting (saying it was "always more Dru's thing), and did use them to tear a demonic entity posing as his mother into shreds.[128][129]

Rare or Unusual Powers: There were several instances of vampires possessing unusual abilities, either by practicing magic or through some other force:

Being "dead", vampires did not age as living humans did, but the passing of centuries did benefit them.

The Master, the oldest vampire recorded

Drusilla's vamp face.

Vampires did not require oxygen to survive, allowing them to survive in poisonous atmospheres, underwater and resist strangling. Angel was unaffected by gas[137] and was even able to survive in the poisonous atmosphere of the home dimension of Jasmine's zealots.[138][139] Darla also mocked Angel when he strangled her.[25]

However, vampires did maintain some sort of breathing reflex, which allowed them to speak and smoke, and gag reflex, which could affect them when choked, though they could learn to ignore it, such as Darla when Angel strangled her[25] or when Angel was being attacked and strangled by a tentacled monster from a portal.[132]While they did not require air, they wereshown to pant after running for long periods of time. While unable to perform CPR, vampires were capable of smoking and speaking. Strangely, however, the first Turok-Han was shown torturing Spike by holding his head underwater.[53]

Wishverse Willow feeds on a human

A vampire's normal diet consisted solely of mammalian blood. They possessed the ability to completely drain a human body in a matter of seconds. Though they preferred the blood of humans, that of other mammals, including rats, pigs and otters, seemed to suffice. After their ensoulment (and before, in Spike's case) vampires Angel and Spike managed to remain strong and healthy by regularly purchasing pig's blood from butcher shops, but needed to keep them contained in fridges to keep them fresh.[120][140] Many vampires were shown to dislike the taste of non-human blood, but otter blood seemed to be something of an exception.[141][142]

Spike feeds on pig's blood.

As such, the vast majority vampires fed exclusively from humans despite being able to live on lower animals. Their soulless natures led them to value the taste (and sadistic joy of the act) first and foremost. However, if a human's blood was tainted in some way, such as through steroid use, it tasted bad to vampires.[143]Certain other factors about the human may also affect their blood's taste as youth[144] and virginity[1][86] seemed to be rather palatable choices.The blood of an elderly or middle-aged person was considered unappetizing.[5][34]

According toHarmony Kendall, individual vampires could either prefer biting on the right or left side of a human's neck, describing herself as a "right-biter." This was, however, proven false on several occasions. She may have been implying that biting a certain side of the neck might just be a preference.

Angel bites Willow to calm her down.

Continued here:
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