This one gets one more small grammar note: When you write He sliced down with his hand, and Buffy swung the scythe, then she and Thor heaved the remains of the horse into the canal, it would be better if you had a semicolon rather than a comma after "scythe." Either that or make it He sliced down with his hand, Buffy swung the scythe, and then she and Thor heaved the remains of the horse into the canal. The word "and" is a conjunction, but the word "then" isn't; it needs an "and" or a semicolon before it.

I'm glad to see you found the Homeric Hymns a useful source. It's so much less work to draw on prior art, when it's available.

There are Norse words for various sorts of undead—they were in GURPS Vikings—but I no longer remember which was which. None of them precisely corresponded to a vampire anyway.