Line #64 Literature/CalLeandros


1	[[quoteright:330:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cal_leandros_742.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:330:The Japanese cover of ''Madhouse'', illustrated by Yuh Takashina as Kazusa.]]
3
4	Cal Leandros is [[HalfHumanHybrid half-human]], half evil elf. His mother was [[SonOfAWhore paid by the Auphe to produce a child]], and that's all she did. He was raised by his AloofBigBrother Niko ([[WiseBeyondTheirYears who was]] ''[[ImprobableAge four years old]]'' when he was [[PromotionToParent put in charge of him]]), and Niko has spent [[ChildSoldiers his entire life protecting his brother]] and becoming a badass. They've also been [[SternChase on the run.]] At age fourteen, the Auphe caught Cal. He came back two days later, [[YearInsideHourOutside two years older]], with no memory of the EldritchAbomination he'd seen.
5
6	Two years later, the guys have [[TiredOfRunning settled]] in UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity and made a few friends. But the Auphe aren't going to let Cal go...
7
8	!!Books in the series:
9	* ''Nightlife''
10	* ''Moonshine''
11	* ''Madhouse''
12	* ''Deathwish''
13	* ''Roadkill''
14	* ''Blackout''
15	* ''Doubletake''
16	* ''Slashback''
17	* ''Downfall''
18	* ''Nevermore''
19
20	Additionally, Thurman has self-published a number of short stories for the characters
21
22	"Rob" Thurman is a MoustacheDePlume for Robyn, revealing her full first name only in the fourth book of the Cal Leandros series About the Author. She has also written the Trickster novels, ''Trick of the Light'' and ''The Grimrose Path'', and the Korsak brothers' series ''Chimera'' and ''Basilisk,'', as well as the non-speculative mystery novel, ''All Seeing Eye''. The Trickster series is set in the same universe as the ''Cal Leandros'' stories and [[{{Crossover}}both include Robin Goodfellow as a character.]]
23
24	Though ''Everwar'' was intended to be the last book in the series, it was cancelled without a word and the author vanished from social media without an update, leaving the series fate up in the in the air.
25	----
26	!!''Cal Leandros'' provides examples of:
27	%%* AbandonedHospital: Shown in ''Madhouse''.
28	%%* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: Cal and Niko frequently display this trope. The world had better hope it doesn't come to a choice between it and one of the Leandros brothers.
29	%%* BadassFamily: The Leandros boys have been forced to become this.
30	* BadGuyBar: Ishiah's peri-staffed bar is a haven for all paranormal types.
31	%%* BatmanGambit: Delilah's solution to her pack demanding the death of Cal. [[spoiler:Her Alpha is dumb enough to believe that a girl can't handle killing a guy. Then she sics Cal on them, knowing that Cal is more badass than her pack.]]
32	* BrosBeforeHoes: In ''Blackout'', when Cal convinces Niko to get a tattoo, he has Ishiah write the text in Aramaic so that Niko won't be able to read it. When asked what it means, he claims it's 'Bros before Hoes'. [[spoiler:It's actually 'Brothers before Souls'.]]
33	%%* BusCrash: [[spoiler: George in ''Deathwish.'' Though since she had developed MindManipulation skills in the meantime, she actually faked her death in Grimm's memory.]]
34	%%* CannibalClan: Sawney Beane returns in ''Madhouse.''
35	* ChekhovsGun: In ''Madhouse'', Cal gives [[spoiler: Wahanket]] a gun as an offering, since he couldn't come up with anything else on short notice. It proves to have been a bad idea. [[spoiler:Good thing Wahanket had had no opportunity to practise shooting]].
36	%%* ChekhovsGunman: In ''Madhouse''.,[[spoiler: Seraglio]], of all people, turns out to be quite a nasty version. [[spoiler: Wahanket]] is no slouch in the nasty version department, either, though it comes as less of a shock.
37	%%* {{Chupacabra}}: In ''Deathwish'', chupacabras are substantially different from the usual perception. [[spoiler:Though Xolo is definitely more dangerous than you'd think.]]
38	* TheDarkTimes: Before humans, Earth was ruled by a wide variety of monsters, most of them quite nasty, with the Auphe being the worst.
39	* DeadlyDoctor: Suyolak is an anti-healer. Basically a walking plague bomb, his healing ability is comparable with a nuclear reactor, and he wants to cause harm.
40	* DespairEventHorizon: [[spoiler:In every one of their past lives, when either Cal or Niko dies, the other always soon follows. Sometimes it's direct suicide by the survivor's own hand. Other times, the survivor becomes a DeathSeeker out for revenge. Their present life is no exception, as illustrated by Niko going coldly and suicidally berserk when he's tricked by an illusion of Cal's bloody corpse.]]
41	%%* DominoRevelation: If the Auphe weren't bad enough all of the other ''weird'' monsters like the Goat Sucker show up or are often mentioned.
42	* EnemyWithin: The Darkling does this to Cal, possessing his body to use it for the Auphe.
43	%%* ForkFencing
44	%%* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Grimm even mentions the original quote (taught to him by one of the teachers he ate) after his showdown with Cal. Both brothers have to watch this, but Cal the most.
45	%%** Cal is terrified of going Auphe. Leads to TheDarkSide calling, and EvilFeelsGood.
46	%%** Niko's father, Kalakos, remarks that their bloodline is said to be descended from Achilles, an idea that Robin reaffirms by saying that Niko and Kalakos look like Achilles. [[spoiler: Of course, the truth behind that statement is slightly more complicated.]]
47	%%* ItsNotYouItsMyEnemies: Cal to George and Delilah. Justified in that the Auphe have promised to slaughter his loved ones first.
48	* KatanasAreJustBetter: Niko loves swords. Cal prefers guns. The pros and cons of the weapons are oft-debated.
49	* KnightTemplarBigBrother: Niko would burn the world to protect his brother. The only reason Cal ever gets near to any combat is because Niko is a firm believer that the only way to be ready for combat is to actually participate in it. Cal reciprocates the sentiment just as strongly, and considering he's slowly slipping into a {{Sociopathic\|Hero}} NominalHero over the course of the series with Niko as his sole MoralityChain, the question isn't really ''if'' he kills you, but how much he'll make it hurt before he does so.
50	* LaserGuidedAmnesia: The plot of ''Blackout'' involves Cal suffering amnesia due to [[spoiler:repeated]] Nepenthe spider venom.
51	* TheLegionsOfHell: The Auphe. Tumulus is just where they hang out when they're not murdering and torturing everyone else [[ForTheEvulz for the fun of it]].
52	* LongLostRelative: [[spoiler:Cal's nest of 'siblings']] in ''Blackout'' and [[spoiler:Grimm]] in ''Doubletake''. Also Niko's father Kalakos.
53	* {{Masquerade}}: The Vigil operate as "supernatural janitors" to maintain it.
54	* TheMedic: Rafferty is the brothers' werewolf friend and on-demand healer who can work miracles. He's so good at healing that he healed his cousin of their lycanthropy and stuck him in wolf form permanently.
55	* TheMindIsAPlaythingOfTheBody:
56	** Cal is losing his humanity and what conscience and empathy he has [[spoiler:as his Auphe half becomes dominant]].
57	** Catcher is slowly losing his human patterns of thinking the longer he stays a wolf.
58	%%* MuggingTheMonster: a random junkie tries this in ''Doubletake''. His intended victim? Cal.
59	* NamedAfterFirstInstallment: The series is named in Japanese after the first novel, ''Nightlife''.
60	%%* OccultDetective: Cal, Niko, and Promise's business.
61	* OneGenderRace: Pucks are all male and reproduce if not nonsexually then very much without need of two parents.
62	* OnlyYouCanRepopulateMyRace: By the fourth book, Cal is the last remaining male Auphe that the Auphe are aware of, so they try to kidnap him as a breeding stud.
63	* OurAngelsAreDifferent: Cal believes that the peris and the Greek gods with wings are probably the origins of stories about angels. Given that peris are winged humanoids and that Cal's peri boss, Ishiah, can not only seemingly appear out of nowhere but owns an actual flaming sword, he might have a point. ''Slashback'' reveals that [[spoiler:peris are former angels who quit heaven for Earth.]]
64	* OurVampiresAreDifferent: Vampires are born, and thanks to modern technology can live off supplements rather than drinking blood.
65	* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: Werewolves actually evolved from ''wolves''. According to one of the Wolf characters, they aren't humans who can turn into wolves. It's the other way around, and many of them would like to go back.
66	--> "We were wolves first. We started that way. We evolved as wolves and along the way a mutation did occur. We did split from the primary race...but that primary race was wolf."
67	* OurZombiesAreDifferent: Zombies are called revenants and they're actually alive, for all that they resemble rotted corpses of adult humans.
68	* PetMonstrosity:
69	** Salome the ''mummy cat.''
70	** ''Blackout'': Spartacus is a mummy tomcat that Cal gave to Robin to keep Salome in line. There's also the three cats Robin gifted to Promise.
71	%%* ThePlague
72	* PlagueMaster: Suyolak, a walking plague bomb trying to murder people with his off-the-charts healing ability.
73	%%* {{Portmantitle}}
74	* PowerLimiter: [[spoiler:As of ''Roadkill'', thanks to Rafferty, Cal can only open two gates within a period of a few days before he dies. In ''Blackout'', however, Cal implies that he believes his Auphe genetics will eventually override the block. In ''Doubletake,'' he turns out to be right.]]
75	%%* PrecisionFStrike: Cal may love the "F-bomb," but when Niko drops it in ''Deathwish'', it's serious. It also goes for ''Slashback'', where Niko even drinks soda and wine in that book.
76	* PsychicPowers: George is a [[TheFatalist fatalist]] on the subject of whether or not anything she sees can be changed.
77	* PsychoForHire: Darkling.
78	* {{Reincarnation}}: [[spoiler:Robin knew the brothers in many former lives, recognizing them again in ''Slashback'' when he deals with a smart-assed 11-year-old Cal. He even asks for the brother or cousin or whoever it is that's tied to him, so he can deal with the reasonable one. He says that Niko was once Achilles and Cal was once his cousin Patroclus.]]
79	* {{Retcon}}: The plot of ''Slashback'' newly mentions something that Cal actually considers worse than being stalked and taken by the Auphe. It also mentions that the brothers [[spoiler:met Robin as children.]]
80	* SaltSolution: PlayedForLaughs. While working as a bartender at the Ninth Circle, [[FirstPersonSmartass Cal]] regularly gets in trouble for forgetting to leave the salt out when making a cocktail for a vodyanoi, causing his boss [[OurAngelsAreDifferent Ishiah]] to have to remove slimy, melted vodyanoi from the bathroom floor. Considering Cal's dislike for anything that preys on humans, though, forgetfulness isn't always at fault.
81	* SerialKiller: The plot of ''Slashback'' is about Cal and Niko dealing with serial killers, both twelve years ago and in the present day.
82	* ShoutOut:
83	** In ''Blackout'', Cal uses some [[MeaningfulName Meaningful Name]]s as aliases: [[Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet Calvin F. Krueger]], [[Franchise/{{Halloween}} Calvert M. Myers]] and [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Calhoun J. Voorhees]]. It doesn't take him long to recognize that he, a killer of monsters, gets kind of a kick of naming himself after movie monsters.
84	** In the same book, he also refers to ''Series/{{MacGyver\|1985}}'':
85	--> "I could impale a nosy son of a bitch on a Norman Rockwell picket fence if I had to. Series/{{MacGyver\|1985}} had nothing on me."
86	** And he names a mummified tomcat Film/{{Spartacus}}.
87	** He also talks about [[Literature/WinnieThePooh Piglet and Christopher Robin]] not getting over it if he kills a baby monster.
88	** His usual nickname for Niko is [[Theatre/CyranoDeBergerac Cyrano]]. In ''Blackout'', when he can't quite remember the nickname, he asks Nik if he calls him [[Literature/TheAdventuresOfPinocchio Pinocchio]].
89	** When talking about an angry and badly injured Wolf, Cal refers to him as Literature/{{Cujo}} and Literature/OldYeller and asks for someone to put the poor rabid bastard down.
90	** Robin Goodfellow, at one point, asks Cal if he's familiar with the story of ''Theatre/OedipusRex''.
91	** Cal heard the story of Literature/PeterPan from Nik when he was seven and Niko was eleven. This becomes a fairly important plot point in ''Blackout''.
92	** The ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' movies also apparently exist in Cal's universe, as he refers to a mummified cat's gigantic yawn as "a preview of ''Jaws 15'', the IMAX version."
93	** Cal gets a double ShoutOut with one line: "[[Music/RayCharles It's going to be a bright, bright, bright sunshiny day]], [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Shelob]]," I said with enthusiastic dark cheer.
94	** Shortly before that, in the same paragraph, he says, "All we needed was [[Creator/HPLovecraft Cthulhu]] singing [the theme song from] ''Series/{{Rawhide}}''."
95	** He also mentions ''Film/SpiderMan3'' and Tobey Maguire.
96	** On recovering from amnesia, he says that Nik needs his real brother back--"not a [[Literature/TheStepfordWives Stepford]] version."
97	** In ''Roadkill'', he refers to Spock: "Thank God I hadn't gotten the pointed ears. Who wants to look like a ''Franchise/StarTrek'' or ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' fan boy for the rest of their natural-born lives?"
98	** When speaking of an immortal and extremely angry entity who can destroy all life on earth, Cal, referring to the entity's habit of singing Roma dirges, says, "Maybe he'll hit ''Series/AmericanIdol'' and that asshole Brit will humiliate him to death."
99	** When Cal sees a female revenant giving birth, he refers to her as "the size of [[Franchise/StarWars Jabba]], times two." He also refers to Catcher, a werewolf who is stuck in Wolf form as "Chewbacca."
100	** Rafferty's cousin Catcher was named after ''Literature/TheCatcherInTheRye''.
101	** Niko's perfectly deadpan delivery of "We're on a mission from Buddha" while wearing opaque sunglasses...while driving an old Cadillac. Apparently he likes Film/TheBluesBrothers
102	** Cal read Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/TheStand'' when he was sixteen and his brother, who was homeschooling him, demanded a book report. According to him, the book scared him nearly as badly as the Auphe do.
103	** Cal says of Catcher, "He was the happiest damn Wolf I'd ever run across. Franchise/{{Lassie}} had nothing on him."
104	** And he describes Robin offering cologne "like a professional assassin from a Film/JamesBond movie."
105	** Robin makes a sarcastic reference to Delilah, the Wolf who's Cal's sometime bedmate, "[[Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs eating [Cal's] liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti]]."
106	** Catcher refers to ''Literature/FlowersForAlgernon''.
107	** Cal tells Delilah that he doesn't care who else she sleeps with: "This isn't ''[[Series/BeverlyHills90210 Weres and Vamps 90210]]''."
108	** Robin refers to [[spoiler:his penis]] as [[Myth/KingArthur Excalibur]].
109	** Cal calls being on the run and being in very large wide-open spaces "a ''Literature/WheresWaldo'' freebie."
110	* SignificantNameShift: Cal was named "Caliban" but his abusive mother as a [[ReferencedBy/WilliamShakespeare reference]] to the monster in Creator/WilliamShakespeare's Theatre/TheTempest. His older brother, Niko, refuses to call him anything but "Cal" until he accepts his little brother might have some monstrousness from his HalfHumanHybrid heritage after all.
111	%%* SlapSlapKiss
112	* StarCrossedLovers: Cal and Georgina are both in love, but Cal refuses to risk having children with a human woman and pass on his genetics and doesn't trust birth control. As of ''Doubletake'', [[spoiler:she peeks into their future and confirms that any relationship they would have is indeed doomed.]]
113	* TomboyishName: George (really Georgina).
114	* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: After getting amnesia in ''Blackout'', Cal assumes everything nonhuman is a monster. This is ''really'' awkward when he's being introduced to his nonhuman friends.
115	* WingedHumanoid: Peris, which are later discovered to be retired angels and look the part.
116	%%* WorldOfSnark

Context Literature / CalLeandros