Does Eli have fingerprints?

[metoo]

In the novel is not mentioned if Eli had left her fingerprints in the crime scenes, my concern is... the authorities never found any fingerprint? Would have been useful in the search of Eli? Her condition of vampire would have left her without any fingerprints in her fingers during the metamorphosis?

We don't know - i don't think there is anything even in LTODD that answers this. But I am going to guess that Eli does have fingerprints and that something Eli touches would have then a fingerprint in it. There would, thereby, be loads of fingerprints for the police investigators to pick up in the apartment Eli shared with Håkan. Plus those fingerprints might match up with other, older fingerprints they have on file...

I see no reason why Eli wouldn't have fingerprints. However, fingerprints are useful only if you have a finger with with to compare the print. The police doesn't have access to Eli's fingers, and thus cannot for sure say to whom those prints belongs. They might make guesses, though, based on the size of those fingers. They would likely conclude that the non-identified small prints plausibly belong to the child that accompanied Håkan Bengtsson, as observed by the moving truck driver.

I've recently read @metoo's three series of stories. They are based off the novel. In metoo's story 'Raven Flight' (Series One), Eli shows Oskar how to go about shape shifting. This is how Oskar learns to grow wings, for example. If you like this story, then we can then decide that should Eli have fingerprints (and I still think any Eliform would), then they could be made to removed. However, only upon the intention of the Eliform doing the shape modifications.

At the time I wrote Raven Flight, I harboured the the idea that Eliform vampires would be able to transform their bodies at will, any way they want. I got this impression from the novel, where Eli "thinks" his teeth sharp as well as claws on his fingers and feet, and directs the healing powers of his body. I played with this idea and made O&E use this ability for a game where they comically transformed their faces for their own amusement. I also had the idea that Eli at some time in the past had worked out how to fly, experimenting until he had learnt a way for him to grow wings. Thus making wings and flying wouldn't be innate to Eliform vampires, but something that would be within reach for an inventive mind.

Later, I scrapped this idea for my own fan fiction. It makes Eli too powerful if he can take whatever form he likes. Thus, I now limit the changes Eli can do to his body to a small, fixed set: sharpen his teeth, grow claws on hands and feet, transform his arms into wings, improve his night vision, increase his bodily strength, and heal very quickly. All of these are present in the novel.

As I learnt later from a posting JAL made on his own forum, he had had similar ideas about Eli when writing the novel. An earlier version of the scene with Eli and Tommy had Eli transfiguring himself into a sexy young woman, for the purpose of seducing Tommy. (By the way, this is the actual reason why Eli chose the dress - he needed it to present as a woman.) JAL later re-wrote the scene to what is in the published novel, for the same reason I stated above: being able to transfigure at will would make Eli too powerful.

[Wolfchild]

In the novel is not mentioned if Eli had left her fingerprints in the crime scenes, my concern is... the authorities never found any fingerprint? Would have been useful in the search of Eli? Her condition of vampire would have left her without any fingerprints in her fingers during the metamorphosis?

The metamorphosis is not portrayed as being external in the novel. Eli can change himself in certain ways, but it is portrayed as taking conscious effort:

It was dark. No one around. Eli looked up into the top of the tree, along five, six meters of smooth tree trunk. Kicked off her shoes. Thought herself new hands, new feet.

It hardly hurt at all anymore, just felt like a tingling, an electric current through her fingers and toes as they thinned out, took on a new shape. The bones crackled in her hands as they stretched out, shot out through the melting skin of the fingertips and made long, curved claws. Same thing with her toes.

Eli jumped a couple of meters up onto the trunk of the tree, dug in her claws, and climbed up to a thick branch that hung out over the path. Curled the claws on her feet around the branch and sat without moving.

A shooting sensation in her teeth as Eli thought them sharp. The enamel bulged out, was sharpened by an invisible file, became sharp. Eli carefully bit herself in her lower lip, a crescent-shaped row of needles that almost punctured the skin.

However, it is easy to assume that while this ability may be innate to Eliform vampires, knowledge of it is not. The phrase, "It hardly hurt at all anymore..." implies that this is something that Eli has practiced, or at least it is a skill that has progressed. It is something that Eli has gotten better at doing. While his transformation may have given him the ability to transform parts of himself, it did not also give him the skill to do so. He has had to grow more skillful at it over time.

Virginia shows no sign of this ability. During the course of her infection nothing is mentioned about any external transformation what so ever. Also, whenever we are given access to her internal dialog, there is not even a hint that she ever thought of doing such a thing. Even during her aborted attack on Gösta, there is no mention of Virginia thinking about needing sharp teeth.

Stories involving shape changing, such as werewolves, have always appealed to me. Even Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dracula was the crown of such stories.

Dracula? Not John W. Campbell's Who Goes There? Maybe that's just my penchant for science fiction over horror talking, or maybe the story spans genres. John Carpenter's The Thing, which was based upon Campbell's story, was one of the three best horror films ever made (so says I ).