How do you kill a vampire?

1. Spear it in the heart with a wooden stake
2. Expose it to sunlight
3. Slap it with some garlic and throw holy water on it (may not kill it)

Those are the generic basics, though each literature/film will have its own rules. More helpful suggestions :

To keep a vampire at bay :

• Flash a crucifix at them.
• Wear garlic.
• Rebuke them in the name of the Lord
• Spill a pound of salt - they'll have to count every grain (Dracula 3000)

To kill a vampire :

1. Look for a hole above a grave. Sometimes vampires have to dig their way out.
2. Scatter salt on the floor in the vampire's latest victim's room. Help the vampire lead you right to his or her tomb.
3. Use garlic, hawthorn branches, or a cross to trap your vampire in a corner. (protect yourself from revenge by making a cross of tar on your front door).
4. Dig the vampire up on a Friday. According to the early Greeks, that's when a vampire is weakest. Take advantage of the day when vampires can't come out to play.
5. Pound iron stakes through his coffin and straight into the ground if you catch him at rest.
6. Bury his body under running water - vampires can't stand it.
7. Fire a silver bullet blessed by a priest into his heart.
8. Drive an aspen, ash or white thorn stake through his heart with a single blow if you want to make a lasting impression.
9. Pour boiling water, boiling oil or holy water into his grave.
10. Cremate his body or make a paste from his flesh for closure. Then sit down and feast on the beast.

Well, the truth is that vampires are already dead. They are considered "undead" creatures, who left their graves after dying. They are going to come back unless you do it the right way. There are two things you must do to kill a vampire:

1. Strike him in the heart with a dagger
2. Cut his head off and bury it separately from the body. (It can still come back if it can find its head.)

(Recommended reading: "Vampires" by Nancy Garden)

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Staking a vampire (sticking a stake into its heart) puts it into torpor (permanent sleep) unless the stake is removed, whereupon the vampire in question will spring back to life (or unlife, more properly) and presumably annihilate you. Staking a vampire renders it defenseless and allows you to cut off its head, which is the only way to actually kill a vampire, other than exposing it to natural sunlight. Garlic kills their appetite, (they'll be less inclined to bite you when you stink), holy water burns them like sunlight, and real sunlight will fry a vampire to ash in seconds. The crucifix is said to appear as a blinding light to vampires, but if you see one get the axe, not a crucifix.

Vampires need to drink blood to keep their undead bodies alive, so depriving a vampire of blood for a long time will eventually kill it, though a starving vampire will go insane and in its rage may become considerably stronger and more destructive than it was before.

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The ways to kill a vampire include:

• stab a vampire with a wooden stake, or a silver one
• put holy water on them
• garlic bombs

Or you could just scare them away with a cross, or a picture of a god or goddess.

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