"Awesome." Gabe beamed. "Won't be long before you can give 'em a different jingle every time. Better than just standin' around directing traffic, right?" Although Gabriel had directed traffic before, metaphysically speaking, and it could be fun under the right circumstances. Somehow he doubted it was much fun for a wax-figure without anything else to do or people who would bother to talk to him, however.

He opened his mouth to speak again, but then he paled. "Vampires?" he whispered, almost forgetting to keep with the accent. "You have vampires?" That was--not impossible. Not here. But vampires in his world had been rendered extinct centuries ago.

Vampires as his world knew them--demons. Zombies were mindless reanimations, without soul. Vampires ... hadn't been. They had been ensouled, twisted, broken. Even damned souls needed to go to somewhere beyond, somewhere to which they could use as a compass even if they returned to Earth. Vampires hadn't been allowed even that much dignity. Never leaving the Earth, infused with magic and longevity and completely, utterly insane.

They were like poltergeists except still, in some fashion, living. Out of time. Never ageing, never dying, never finding peace.

Necromancers were difficult to look at somewhat like constant fingernails on a chalkboard were difficult to listen to, grimy and dirty and needing to be cleansed. Damned souls were a blight, an open wound, but also able to be cleaned and dressed. Vampires were an everlasting shriek of agony, necromancy distilled and bottled and a pressure-valve waiting to explode. Which they did, frequently, spreading their echoes wherever they went. It had been almost impossible to find the original stone, the one that spread the ripples, and it wasn't until they had that they'd been able to destroy them for good.

And even still, their waves remained.