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* WithFriendsLikeThese: Death tries to ask for help regaining his horse with [[HorsemenOfTheApocalypse his brethren War, Famine and Pestilence]] [[spoiler:only to find out that they where the ones who made that case to Time to revoke his title. While Death sees his role as integral to a cosmic balance, War, Famine and Pestilence are only concerned with themselves, seeing a world populated by the undead as a perpetual motion machine for which to feed on.]]
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Romantic Two Girl Friendship has been renamed to Pseudo Romantic Friendship. All misuse and ZC Es will be deleted and all other examples will be changed to the correct trope.
Deleted line(s) 39 (click to see context) :
* RomanticTwoGirlFriendship: Emily and Rosa are close enough to give each other {{Affectionate Nickname}}s and Rosa's definitely the team member Emily is the most devastated to see [[spoiler:in the zombie truck near the end.]] As the story doesn't focus on romance, though, whether they are an actual couple is left up in the air.
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But not all of those missions go right. One, in fact, goes ''horribly'' wrong, in which Emily is bitten by a zombie… But something else goes wrong: while her body becomes zombified − making people obviously wary of her − her mind remains entirely human. A case on which Death himself − [[TheGrimReaper who is an actual, sentient being]] − is stumped. And Death has issues of his own: for some reason he also lost his horse, his scythe and most of his powers, and the cycle of life and death has been thrown off balance by the new dominance of the undead. His and Emily's only hope seems to be a cure pesumably developped in Manhattan, last bastion of human life where the Life Preservation Initiative (LPI), which Emily is a member of, has its headquarters. These two non-human beings whose ways of thinking don't quite align will have to form an uncanny alliance and travel across the continent to restore the rule of life… and death.
to:
But not all of those missions go right. One, in fact, goes ''horribly'' wrong, in which Emily is bitten by a zombie… But something else goes wrong: while her body becomes zombified − making people obviously wary of her − her mind remains entirely human. A case on which Death himself − [[TheGrimReaper who is an actual, sentient being]] − is stumped. And Death has issues of his own: for some reason he also lost his horse, his scythe and most of his powers, and the cycle of life and death has been thrown off balance by the new dominance of the undead. His and Emily's only hope seems to be a cure pesumably developped presumably developed in Manhattan, last bastion of human life where the Life Preservation Initiative (LPI), which Emily is a member of, has its headquarters. These two non-human beings whose ways of thinking don't quite align will have to form an uncanny alliance and travel across the continent to restore the rule of life… and death.
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Dewicking per TRS decision.
Deleted line(s) 22 (click to see context) :
* BiTheWay: In a casual dialogue with Rosa, two of Emily's exes are briefly talked about, one male and one female. This is the only time Emily's bisexuality (or at least biromanticism) is explicitly mentioned and it has no bearing on the plot, but it makes it possible to interpret her interactions with either Rosa or Ramon as potentially romantic.
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* BigDamnHeroes: [[spoiler:Leif of all people]] saves the heroes at the very end [[spoiler:when they're seemingly stuck in the middle of a zombie horde. It's left deliberately ambiguous whether he set the horde on them in the first place for Engineeredheroics.]]
to:
* BigDamnHeroes: [[spoiler:Leif of all people]] saves the heroes at the very end [[spoiler:when they're seemingly stuck in the middle of a zombie horde. It's left deliberately ambiguous whether he set the horde on them in the first place for Engineeredheroics.EngineeredHeroics.]]
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* BigDamnHeroes: [[spoiler:Leif of all people]] saves the heroes at the very end [[spoiler:when they're seemingly stuck in the middle of a zombie horde.]]
to:
* BigDamnHeroes: [[spoiler:Leif of all people]] saves the heroes at the very end [[spoiler:when they're seemingly stuck in the middle of a zombie horde. It's left deliberately ambiguous whether he set the horde on them in the first place for Engineeredheroics.]]
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Changed line(s) 9,10 (click to see context) from:
But not all of those missions go right. One, in fact, goes ''horribly'' wrong, in which Emily is bitten by a zombie… But something else goes wrong: while her body becomes zombified − making people obviously wary of her − her mind remains entirely human. A case on which Death himself − [[TheGrimReaper who is an actual, sentient being]] − is stumped. And Death has issues of his own: for some reason he also lost his horse, his scythe and most of his powers, and the cycle of life and death has been thrown off balance by the new dominance of the undead. His and Emily's only hope seems to be a cure pesumably developped in Manhattan, last bastion of human life where the Life Preservation Initiative (LPI), of which Emily is a member of, has its headquarters. These two non-human beings whose ways of thinking don't quite align will have to form an uncanny alliance and travel across the continent to restore the rule of life… and death.
to:
But not all of those missions go right. One, in fact, goes ''horribly'' wrong, in which Emily is bitten by a zombie… But something else goes wrong: while her body becomes zombified − making people obviously wary of her − her mind remains entirely human. A case on which Death himself − [[TheGrimReaper who is an actual, sentient being]] − is stumped. And Death has issues of his own: for some reason he also lost his horse, his scythe and most of his powers, and the cycle of life and death has been thrown off balance by the new dominance of the undead. His and Emily's only hope seems to be a cure pesumably developped in Manhattan, last bastion of human life where the Life Preservation Initiative (LPI), of which Emily is a member of, has its headquarters. These two non-human beings whose ways of thinking don't quite align will have to form an uncanny alliance and travel across the continent to restore the rule of life… and death.
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None
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But they aren't they only ones aiming for Manhattan: Leif, a rogue vampire at odds with his brethren, and Scott, a human accompanied by a sentient gynoid named Carol, also pursue their own goals there. The paths of those three parties will cross and mingle in a strange sci-fi fantasy adventure.
to:
But they aren't they only ones aiming for Manhattan: Leif, a rogue vampire at odds with his brethren, and Scott, a human accompanied by a sentient gynoid named Carol, also pursue their own goals there. The paths of those three parties will cross and mingle in a strange strange, dark sci-fi fantasy adventure.
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* LieBackAndThinkOfEngland: Emily notes that she mostly sees sex as something to please her partners rather than herself, implying that she might be biromantic but asexual… like the author herself, coincidentally.
to:
* LieBackAndThinkOfEngland: Downplayed. Emily notes that she mostly sees sex as something to please her partners rather than herself, implying that she might be biromantic but asexual… like the author herself, coincidentally.
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Changed line(s) 36 (click to see context) from:
* LieBackAndThinkOfEngland: Emily notes that she mostly sees sex as something to please her partners rather than herself, implying that she might biromantic but asexual… like the author herself, coincidentally.
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* LieBackAndThinkOfEngland: Emily notes that she mostly sees sex as something to please her partners rather than herself, implying that she might be biromantic but asexual… like the author herself, coincidentally.
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* LieBackAndThinkOfEngland: Emily notes that she mostly sees sex as something to please her partners rather than herself, implying that she might biromantic but asexual… like the author herself, coincidentally.
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''The Immortal Journey'' is a trilogy of books by Elisa Hansen[[note]]Better known to some as youtuber Maven of the Eventide, host of the Vampire Reviews[[/note]], ''The Company of Death'' being its first entry, published in January 2019. While the book starts as your classic ZombieApocalypse horror story, the tone eventually switches to a more fantastical and whimsical story, filled with deadpan banter and quirky characters, while keeping a sense of tension and drama.
to:
''The Immortal Journey'' is a trilogy of books by Elisa Hansen[[note]]Better known to some as youtuber the Maven of the Eventide, host of the Vampire Reviews[[/note]], WebVideo/VampireReviews[[/note]], ''The Company of Death'' being its first entry, published in January 2019. While the book starts as your classic ZombieApocalypse horror story, the tone eventually switches to a more fantastical and whimsical story, filled with deadpan banter and quirky characters, while keeping a sense of tension and drama.
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[[TwentyMinutesInTheFuture In an unspecified date in the future]], two years have passed since a mysterious incident called the Ecuador Explosion, which resulted in 99% of the human population turning into zombies. Emily Campbell, along with other survivors in what used to be California, spends her days between the elimination of zombies that now swarm the cities and trying to destroy communes of vampires (said vampires revealed themselves to the world as it was ending and frequently recruit humans as slaves they can feed on in exchange for "protection").
to:
[[TwentyMinutesInTheFuture In an unspecified date in the future]], two years have passed since a mysterious incident called the Ecuador Explosion, which resulted in 99% of the human population turning into zombies. Emily Campbell, along with other survivors in what used to be California, spends her days between the elimination of zombies that now swarm the cities and trying to destroy communes of vampires (said vampires revealed themselves to the world as it was ending and frequently recruit humans as slaves they can feed on in exchange for "protection").
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* BigDamnHeroes: [[spoiler:Leif of all people]] saves the heroes at the very end [[spoiler:when they're seemingly stuck in the middle of a zombie horde.]]
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* RomanticTwoGirlFriendship: Emily and Rosa are close enough to give each other {{Affectionate Nickname}}s and Rosa's definitely the team member Emily is the most devastated to see [[spoiler:in the zombie truck near the end.]] As the story doesn't focus on romance, whether they are an actual couple is left up in the air.
to:
* RomanticTwoGirlFriendship: Emily and Rosa are close enough to give each other {{Affectionate Nickname}}s and Rosa's definitely the team member Emily is the most devastated to see [[spoiler:in the zombie truck near the end.]] As the story doesn't focus on romance, though, whether they are an actual couple is left up in the air.
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* RomanticTwoGirlFriendship: Emily and Rosa are close enough to give each other {{Affectionate Nickname}}s and Rosa's definitely the team member Emily is the most devastated to see [[spoiler:in the zombie truck near the end.]] As the story doesn't focus on romance, whether they are an actual couple is left up in the air.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 13,14 (click to see context) from:
''The Immortal Journey'' is a trilogy of books by Elisa Hansen[[note]]Better known to some as youtuber Maven of the Eventide, host of the Vampire Reviews[[/note]], with ''The Company of Death'' being its first entry, published in January 2019. While the book starts as your classic ZombieApocalypse horror story, the tone eventually switches to a more fantastical and whimsical story, filled with deadpan banter and quirky characters, while keeping a sense of tension and drama.
to:
''The Immortal Journey'' is a trilogy of books by Elisa Hansen[[note]]Better known to some as youtuber Maven of the Eventide, host of the Vampire Reviews[[/note]], with ''The Company of Death'' being its first entry, published in January 2019. While the book starts as your classic ZombieApocalypse horror story, the tone eventually switches to a more fantastical and whimsical story, filled with deadpan banter and quirky characters, while keeping a sense of tension and drama.
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Changed line(s) 36 (click to see context) from:
* PurpleProse: Played with; the Leif chapters' narration tends to feature a more sophisticated vocabulary to fit his pseudo-refined personality.
to:
* PurpleProse: Played with; the Leif chapters' narration tends to feature a more sophisticated vocabulary to fit his pseudo-refined personality.personality as well as the fact he's centuries old.
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* BiTheWay: In a casual dialogue with Rosa, two of Emily's exes are briefly talked about, one male and one female. This is the only time Emily's bisexuality is explicitly mentioned and it has no bearing on the plot, but it makes it possible to interpret her interactions with either Rosa or Ramon as potentially romantic.
to:
* BiTheWay: In a casual dialogue with Rosa, two of Emily's exes are briefly talked about, one male and one female. This is the only time Emily's bisexuality (or at least biromanticism) is explicitly mentioned and it has no bearing on the plot, but it makes it possible to interpret her interactions with either Rosa or Ramon as potentially romantic.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 13,14 (click to see context) from:
''The Immortal Journey'' is a trilogy of books by Elisan Hansen[[note]]Better known to some as youtuber Maven of the Eventide, host of the Vampire Reviews[[/note]], with ''The Company of Death'' being its first entry, published in January 2019. While the book starts as your classic ZombieApocalypse horror story, the tone eventually switches to a more fantastical and whimsical story, filled with deadpan banter and quirky characters, while keeping a sense of tension and drama.
to:
''The Immortal Journey'' is a trilogy of books by Elisan Elisa Hansen[[note]]Better known to some as youtuber Maven of the Eventide, host of the Vampire Reviews[[/note]], with ''The Company of Death'' being its first entry, published in January 2019. While the book starts as your classic ZombieApocalypse horror story, the tone eventually switches to a more fantastical and whimsical story, filled with deadpan banter and quirky characters, while keeping a sense of tension and drama.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 13,14 (click to see context) from:
''The Immortal Journey'' is Elisa Hansen's first novel series, with ''The Company of Death'' being its first entry, published in January 2019. While the book starts as your classic ZombieApocalypse horror story, the tone eventually switches to a more fantastical and whimsical story, filled with deadpan banter and quirky characters, while keeping a sense of tension and drama.
to:
''The Immortal Journey'' is Elisa Hansen's first novel series, a trilogy of books by Elisan Hansen[[note]]Better known to some as youtuber Maven of the Eventide, host of the Vampire Reviews[[/note]], with ''The Company of Death'' being its first entry, published in January 2019. While the book starts as your classic ZombieApocalypse horror story, the tone eventually switches to a more fantastical and whimsical story, filled with deadpan banter and quirky characters, while keeping a sense of tension and drama.
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[[quoteright:333:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_company_of_death.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:333:Death ain't what it used to be…]]
->''"Killing something undead wasn't like killing a real person."''
->--The opening line, [[{{foreshadowing}} which eventually takes a whole new meaning]].
[[TwentyMinutesInTheFuture In an unspecified date in the future]], two years have passed since a mysterious incident called the Ecuador Explosion, which resulted in 99% of the human population turning into zombies. Emily Campbell, along with other survivors in what used to be California, spends her days between the elimination of zombies that now swarm the cities and trying to destroy communes of vampires (said vampires revealed themselves to the world as it was ending and frequently recruit humans as slaves they can feed on in exchange for "protection").
But not all of those missions go right. One, in fact, goes ''horribly'' wrong, in which Emily is bitten by a zombie… But something else goes wrong: while her body becomes zombified − making people obviously wary of her − her mind remains entirely human. A case on which Death himself − [[TheGrimReaper who is an actual, sentient being]] − is stumped. And Death has issues of his own: for some reason he also lost his horse, his scythe and most of his powers, and the cycle of life and death has been thrown off balance by the new dominance of the undead. His and Emily's only hope seems to be a cure pesumably developped in Manhattan, last bastion of human life where the Life Preservation Initiative (LPI), of which Emily is a member of, has its headquarters. These two non-human beings whose ways of thinking don't quite align will have to form an uncanny alliance and travel across the continent to restore the rule of life… and death.
But they aren't they only ones aiming for Manhattan: Leif, a rogue vampire at odds with his brethren, and Scott, a human accompanied by a sentient gynoid named Carol, also pursue their own goals there. The paths of those three parties will cross and mingle in a strange sci-fi fantasy adventure.
''The Immortal Journey'' is Elisa Hansen's first novel series, with ''The Company of Death'' being its first entry, published in January 2019. While the book starts as your classic ZombieApocalypse horror story, the tone eventually switches to a more fantastical and whimsical story, filled with deadpan banter and quirky characters, while keeping a sense of tension and drama.
----
!!Tropes featured in ''The Company of Death''
* AffablyEvil: Leif wants nothing more than to sink his teeth in a juicy human neck, which the plot consistently denies him, but other than that he's really genial and polite, bantering and joking around. Even when he's trying to blow up his own comrades.
* AfterTheEnd: The story starts two years after a ZombieApocalypse, when killing the undead has already become a routine for the few surviving humans.
* AttractiveZombie: Zig-zagged in Scott's point of view. The first time he meets Emily, he's just horrified and scared shitless, as she has all the grey, shrunken skin, TaintedVeins and sunken, milky eyes of a walking corpse. But once he gets slightly more comfortable with her − and when she isn't facing him − he starts to ogle her a little bit and think that she still has a fairly nice body… for an undead woman.
* BiTheWay: In a casual dialogue with Rosa, two of Emily's exes are briefly talked about, one male and one female. This is the only time Emily's bisexuality is explicitly mentioned and it has no bearing on the plot, but it makes it possible to interpret her interactions with either Rosa or Ramon as potentially romantic.
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Death only cares about preserving what he calls the "balance". He doesn't mind a lot of people dying (obviously, he's Death), but he can't accept death being replaced by "undeath" − in the form of zombies or vampires − since he can no longer reap those lives even if they are "killed".
* BuffySpeak: Mostly prominent in the Scott chapters' narration, which notably give us this gem:
-->''Fuck Colin and his fucking bald-headed, girlfriend-stealing, shipseat-stealing, [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment bald-headed baldness.]]''
* ButNotTooForeign: Emily is half-Fillipino from her mother, which apparently makes her [[ButNotTooWhite more attractive to vampires]] (hence why she's initially chosen to take part in Mission 12). Several of her teammates also have some kind of Hispanic or central American heritage since the early parts of the story take place in southern California.
* DemonicSpiders: InUniverse, there are normal zombies, called the "slow ones", and then there is a minority of "fast ones", which are much harder to deal with and have killed several crucial members in Emily's squad. It is later explained that [[spoiler:the fast ones were initially humans bitten by vampires.]]
* DevelopingDoomedCharacters: The first quarter of the book is almost entirely spent with Emily and her squad preparing for the dreaded "Misson 12", the inflitration of a vampire commune by using three team members as bait. We see Emily interact with Ramon the squad leader, her friend Rosa, the HotBlooded Sherice, Daisy the merciless instructor and Carlos, who's scared out of his wits after seeing Death with his own eyes. We get attached to this team as a family, each member having their own doubts and issues. [[spoiler:When they stumble across a small travelling commune and they naïvely try to wipe it out − not expecting the vampires to use ''hordes of zombies'' as a defensive weapon −, mission 12 is aborted and absolutely none of them survive (they are even KilledOffscreen). Emily "survives", but not in the way she hoped.]] That point also coincides with the book's relative tone shift, due to the sheer absurdity of the situation Emily finds herself in.
* DontFearTheReaper: Death is overall a pretty chill guy, only a little distant and sometimes hard to communicate with considering his slight fixation on InsistentTerminology. Being deprived of a job he had been doing for millenia overnight certainly didn't help.
* DrillSergeantNasty: Daisy is described as this for Emily's unit, putting them through a TrainingFromHell that Emily begrudingly thanks for her survival. As a slight subversion, Daisy apparently sports a wicked smile even during the brutal sessions.
* DrivenToSuicide: After [[spoiler:the operation to kill the vampires went awry and her squad was seemingly wiped out]], Emily decides to ends things on her own terms, and Death appears before her, ready to reap her life. [[spoiler:[[InterruptedSuicide Then Ramon calls her on the radio.]]]]
* FeministFantasy: The protagonist is female, but even outside of her none of the women in this story are to be trifled with. Daisy the instructor is stated to be the main reason Emily's team hasn't gone soft, [[RidiculouslyHumanRobot Carol]] regularly rebuffs the man she bodyguards, her maker Nicole is an extremely gifted WrenchWench (Carol's impossibly advanced AI was created by another woman), and the leader of the Manhattan vampires is also female.
* InsistentTerminology: Death doesn't "kill" people, he "reaps" them. In other words, he doesn't directly causes the deaths but makes sure they happen at the scheduled time. He's also very adamant about not refering to zombies as "dead" but as "undead", since they are technically two very different things. These vocabulary details cause Emily to pull out her hair more than once when Death keeps correcting her mid-sentence.
* ItIsDehumanizing: The narration in the Scott chapters insistently refers to Leif as an "it", not a "he" after their first encounter, to emphasize his fear and disgust of the vampire.
* NotUsingTheZWord: [[DefiedTrope Defied.]] Emily first refuses to call the flesh eaters "zombies", making up all sorts of semantic excuses to claim that they're technically something else. Daisy calls bullshit on all of that and tells her straight up that yes, they're zombies and she should deal with it.
* PurpleProse: Played with; the Leif chapters' narration tends to feature a more sophisticated vocabulary to fit his pseudo-refined personality.
* RidiculouslyHumanRobot: While Carol considers it her mission to protect Scott, she still has enough emotions and free will to frequently act against his opinions and get irritated when he insults her. It's implied that her personality is largely based on her own creator's, Scott's sister Nicole.
* RotatingProtagonist: From around the quarter point on, the story constantly switches between three points of view − Emily and her squad (later Emily and Death), Leif's tribulations, and Scott and Carol. This allows not only for some differences in the tone and writing style of the narration, but also for some perspective tricks − notably, zombie!Emily's inhuman appearance only becomes fully evident when she is described from Scott's point of view.
* UndeathlyPallor: A distinctive trait of vampires is their extremely white and unnaturally soft skin, while Emily's skin becomes permanently gray-ish after her… little accident.
* VampiricDraining: Vampires use humans who come to them as both menial servants or guards and as a food source in exchange for giving those humans a shelter against zombies. Supposedly. They ''can'' technically feed on the blood of any animal, including other vampires, but none is as tasty or nutritious as human blood, hence why they avoid killing their humans considering how few are left.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: Despite being the squad leader and something of a mentor figure for Emily, Ramon is only 23, two years ''younger'' than she is.
[[caption-width-right:333:Death ain't what it used to be…]]
->''"Killing something undead wasn't like killing a real person."''
->--The opening line, [[{{foreshadowing}} which eventually takes a whole new meaning]].
[[TwentyMinutesInTheFuture In an unspecified date in the future]], two years have passed since a mysterious incident called the Ecuador Explosion, which resulted in 99% of the human population turning into zombies. Emily Campbell, along with other survivors in what used to be California, spends her days between the elimination of zombies that now swarm the cities and trying to destroy communes of vampires (said vampires revealed themselves to the world as it was ending and frequently recruit humans as slaves they can feed on in exchange for "protection").
But not all of those missions go right. One, in fact, goes ''horribly'' wrong, in which Emily is bitten by a zombie… But something else goes wrong: while her body becomes zombified − making people obviously wary of her − her mind remains entirely human. A case on which Death himself − [[TheGrimReaper who is an actual, sentient being]] − is stumped. And Death has issues of his own: for some reason he also lost his horse, his scythe and most of his powers, and the cycle of life and death has been thrown off balance by the new dominance of the undead. His and Emily's only hope seems to be a cure pesumably developped in Manhattan, last bastion of human life where the Life Preservation Initiative (LPI), of which Emily is a member of, has its headquarters. These two non-human beings whose ways of thinking don't quite align will have to form an uncanny alliance and travel across the continent to restore the rule of life… and death.
But they aren't they only ones aiming for Manhattan: Leif, a rogue vampire at odds with his brethren, and Scott, a human accompanied by a sentient gynoid named Carol, also pursue their own goals there. The paths of those three parties will cross and mingle in a strange sci-fi fantasy adventure.
''The Immortal Journey'' is Elisa Hansen's first novel series, with ''The Company of Death'' being its first entry, published in January 2019. While the book starts as your classic ZombieApocalypse horror story, the tone eventually switches to a more fantastical and whimsical story, filled with deadpan banter and quirky characters, while keeping a sense of tension and drama.
----
!!Tropes featured in ''The Company of Death''
* AffablyEvil: Leif wants nothing more than to sink his teeth in a juicy human neck, which the plot consistently denies him, but other than that he's really genial and polite, bantering and joking around. Even when he's trying to blow up his own comrades.
* AfterTheEnd: The story starts two years after a ZombieApocalypse, when killing the undead has already become a routine for the few surviving humans.
* AttractiveZombie: Zig-zagged in Scott's point of view. The first time he meets Emily, he's just horrified and scared shitless, as she has all the grey, shrunken skin, TaintedVeins and sunken, milky eyes of a walking corpse. But once he gets slightly more comfortable with her − and when she isn't facing him − he starts to ogle her a little bit and think that she still has a fairly nice body… for an undead woman.
* BiTheWay: In a casual dialogue with Rosa, two of Emily's exes are briefly talked about, one male and one female. This is the only time Emily's bisexuality is explicitly mentioned and it has no bearing on the plot, but it makes it possible to interpret her interactions with either Rosa or Ramon as potentially romantic.
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Death only cares about preserving what he calls the "balance". He doesn't mind a lot of people dying (obviously, he's Death), but he can't accept death being replaced by "undeath" − in the form of zombies or vampires − since he can no longer reap those lives even if they are "killed".
* BuffySpeak: Mostly prominent in the Scott chapters' narration, which notably give us this gem:
-->''Fuck Colin and his fucking bald-headed, girlfriend-stealing, shipseat-stealing, [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment bald-headed baldness.]]''
* ButNotTooForeign: Emily is half-Fillipino from her mother, which apparently makes her [[ButNotTooWhite more attractive to vampires]] (hence why she's initially chosen to take part in Mission 12). Several of her teammates also have some kind of Hispanic or central American heritage since the early parts of the story take place in southern California.
* DemonicSpiders: InUniverse, there are normal zombies, called the "slow ones", and then there is a minority of "fast ones", which are much harder to deal with and have killed several crucial members in Emily's squad. It is later explained that [[spoiler:the fast ones were initially humans bitten by vampires.]]
* DevelopingDoomedCharacters: The first quarter of the book is almost entirely spent with Emily and her squad preparing for the dreaded "Misson 12", the inflitration of a vampire commune by using three team members as bait. We see Emily interact with Ramon the squad leader, her friend Rosa, the HotBlooded Sherice, Daisy the merciless instructor and Carlos, who's scared out of his wits after seeing Death with his own eyes. We get attached to this team as a family, each member having their own doubts and issues. [[spoiler:When they stumble across a small travelling commune and they naïvely try to wipe it out − not expecting the vampires to use ''hordes of zombies'' as a defensive weapon −, mission 12 is aborted and absolutely none of them survive (they are even KilledOffscreen). Emily "survives", but not in the way she hoped.]] That point also coincides with the book's relative tone shift, due to the sheer absurdity of the situation Emily finds herself in.
* DontFearTheReaper: Death is overall a pretty chill guy, only a little distant and sometimes hard to communicate with considering his slight fixation on InsistentTerminology. Being deprived of a job he had been doing for millenia overnight certainly didn't help.
* DrillSergeantNasty: Daisy is described as this for Emily's unit, putting them through a TrainingFromHell that Emily begrudingly thanks for her survival. As a slight subversion, Daisy apparently sports a wicked smile even during the brutal sessions.
* DrivenToSuicide: After [[spoiler:the operation to kill the vampires went awry and her squad was seemingly wiped out]], Emily decides to ends things on her own terms, and Death appears before her, ready to reap her life. [[spoiler:[[InterruptedSuicide Then Ramon calls her on the radio.]]]]
* FeministFantasy: The protagonist is female, but even outside of her none of the women in this story are to be trifled with. Daisy the instructor is stated to be the main reason Emily's team hasn't gone soft, [[RidiculouslyHumanRobot Carol]] regularly rebuffs the man she bodyguards, her maker Nicole is an extremely gifted WrenchWench (Carol's impossibly advanced AI was created by another woman), and the leader of the Manhattan vampires is also female.
* InsistentTerminology: Death doesn't "kill" people, he "reaps" them. In other words, he doesn't directly causes the deaths but makes sure they happen at the scheduled time. He's also very adamant about not refering to zombies as "dead" but as "undead", since they are technically two very different things. These vocabulary details cause Emily to pull out her hair more than once when Death keeps correcting her mid-sentence.
* ItIsDehumanizing: The narration in the Scott chapters insistently refers to Leif as an "it", not a "he" after their first encounter, to emphasize his fear and disgust of the vampire.
* NotUsingTheZWord: [[DefiedTrope Defied.]] Emily first refuses to call the flesh eaters "zombies", making up all sorts of semantic excuses to claim that they're technically something else. Daisy calls bullshit on all of that and tells her straight up that yes, they're zombies and she should deal with it.
* PurpleProse: Played with; the Leif chapters' narration tends to feature a more sophisticated vocabulary to fit his pseudo-refined personality.
* RidiculouslyHumanRobot: While Carol considers it her mission to protect Scott, she still has enough emotions and free will to frequently act against his opinions and get irritated when he insults her. It's implied that her personality is largely based on her own creator's, Scott's sister Nicole.
* RotatingProtagonist: From around the quarter point on, the story constantly switches between three points of view − Emily and her squad (later Emily and Death), Leif's tribulations, and Scott and Carol. This allows not only for some differences in the tone and writing style of the narration, but also for some perspective tricks − notably, zombie!Emily's inhuman appearance only becomes fully evident when she is described from Scott's point of view.
* UndeathlyPallor: A distinctive trait of vampires is their extremely white and unnaturally soft skin, while Emily's skin becomes permanently gray-ish after her… little accident.
* VampiricDraining: Vampires use humans who come to them as both menial servants or guards and as a food source in exchange for giving those humans a shelter against zombies. Supposedly. They ''can'' technically feed on the blood of any animal, including other vampires, but none is as tasty or nutritious as human blood, hence why they avoid killing their humans considering how few are left.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: Despite being the squad leader and something of a mentor figure for Emily, Ramon is only 23, two years ''younger'' than she is.
