"We got vampires, too, but they're not like yours," she continues. "There's this real nasty virus called HMHVV, does different stuff depending on the strain and your metatype, but every time you end up someone who needs to eat essence to survive."

She thinks for a second, then explains essence. "Essence is like - your soul, almost? It's the mana-power, the magic energy, that everything that's alive has and generates because it's alive. Get infected with HMHVV and you're still like, alive, but your essence is gonna be leaking out steadily and you can only get enough to keep yourself going by - well, some gotta drink blood, some gotta eat flesh, some gotta make a certain kind of emotion... can get real baroque. Real fuckin' problem. No cure, either; no one really knows what to do about it, 'cause it's not like people ask for the condition. Well, some people say kill anyone who gets it but those people are assholes."