Vampires are undead beings like that of popular literature. A stake through the heart and garlic cause them harm. The main difference is that most vampires are born from two undead parents and for the first 16 years of their life they are close to being normal. On their 16th birthday they go through a transformation and gain all vampiric abilities and weaknesses (like aversion to direct UV light).
As a fully fledged vampire they gain many abilities: super speed that borders on teleportation, the ability to hypnotise humans and the ability to create a fireball which can be thrown. They can also shapeshift; normal vampires can turn into a bat and smoke. Vampires can also open and close doors with a click of the fingers and ignite and put out candles with a wave of the hand. The count is seen to remove his soul from his body and posses a human but it is unknown whether this a common vampiric trait or just the Count's ability. Vampires can be awake in the day and as long as they don't come into direct contact with UV light they won't die.
'Half-fangs', once bitten, don't all change at once (apparently due to what blood type they have). It's possible that different blood types unconsciously resist the change but this is not proven.
Slayer reference book depiction
According to Bertrand, there is another type of vampire called a Shapeshifter . Malik's mother is the only known Shapeshifter.
Vampires have super strength, as shown by the Count, Vlad and Ingrid.
Vampires' eyes can also change colour. The most common colour in series 1 and 2 is red. In series 3 Vlad can change his entire eyes to black. It is also shown in series 3 that, when hypnotising someone, their eyes turn gold. The street vamp's eyes can turn entirely black as well. The reasons for this are unknown.
Vampires can also control the weather. When the Count gets angry, lightning strikes. It is also demonstrated briefly by Vlad in series 3.
