Jacob said, "You girls need to consider yourselves lucky that these vampires are too damn LAZY to research this shit on their own. Hundreds, or thousands of years alive, and they write bad poetry, being typical corporate sharks or drug dealers, or loaf about like the 19th century aristocrats many of them are. Jackasses could have found the cure for cancer if they wanted."
"What? But the anti-magic armor is gone, finito, kaput, do not pass go," Katie said.
"But it DID WORK right? Ever hear of 'proof of concept?' Big companies like that tend to have plenty of spies of corporate rivals. All the research was gone, meaning anyone who'd want to make it would have to start from zero, and they'd need someone who KNOWS magic to actually get started, but the proof of concept is out there. I sure wouldn't mind having anti-magic power armor next time a witch tries to turn me into a pile of unthinking snakes."
The mages shuddered. "You're joking about that right?"
"I've seen jackasses use their talent be it business, programming, or medicine to be monsters, magic's no different. But warning you, don't think that across all of time and space for the rest of eternity you're never going to face someone who decided to research the stuff themselves. It's why after this town decided to 'test run' quasi-naked animal people shaped robots that could think thanks to the 'soul drive', but still can be mail ordered and bought and their brains are defined mentally by what their function is (otherwise they'd be paying taxes, have to sign up to unions, and being arrested for public indecency), the brains in the orient decided to just make their own, and the Yakuza bought one of the first ones to be finished building. One an idea is out there, once it's proven it can work, nothing is gonna stop people from making their own."
"Well," Gloria said, "The point is all we have to worry about is evil blood sucking vampires, not evil blood sucking vampires in anti-magic power armor."
"That's something I should warn ya. First off, them vamps are NOT whose body they're squatting in. That person is dead. No, seriously. My dad even met a ghost of someone WHILE he was fighting the vampire using their body! They have access to their memories, but that's it. They're not humans with extra bits and some odd allergies, they're parasitic spirits inhabiting a corpse. It's why vampires created from children, yes, they exist, just be prepared, (and yes, you will have nightmares afterwards) tend to not emote very much and can come across as 'cold' even by vampire standards... their host bodies' memories don't have the life experience needed for them to playact being human very well."
Gloria laughed nervously, "But... it's not like we're LIKELY gonna encounter any right? I mean, missing children get so much attention in this day and age."
"Not if their parents got snacked on first... 'Waste not, want not.' Make great spies. And good booby traps, when you find a child wrapped in a cloak crying and beginning to be 'rescued'... " Jacob looked sick. "And the 'best part' is that you can't know in a split second if they happened to spare a child just to mess with your head so you'll hesitate for one moment on that one in a hundred chance they're still human... And that's not counting the real humans who are hypnotized to willingly act as bait. Thankfully the human instinct to live is too strong for them to be used as kamikazes."
Duke said, "Thankfully us dhampirs are different. We DO have souls. But having a blood sucker that isn't harmed by sunlight so they don't need to rely on recruiting society's deformed and outcasts means plenty still gamble on ones like me being born... But what he said was right. If you face a vampire using the skin of someone you know, don't be fooled. They are NOT in there."