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Beware of unmarked spoilers below! Only spoilers for Zero Hour and Darkest Night are whited out — the rest of the series' information, as well as all trope names, remain uncovered for organizational purposes.

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Main Protagonists

    Jamie Carpenter 

Jamie Carpenter

The main protagonist of the series. When Jamie was fourteen, he saw his father gunned down by Blacklight Operators. At sixteen, after being bullied over his father's supposed treason for two years and developing a streak of anger, he's rescued from Alexandru Rusmanov by Frankenstein and enlisted into Blacklight, whereupon he becomes one of their most talented and loyal young Operators.


  • And Then John Was a Zombie: After three-and-a-half books spent hunting vampires, he becomes one himself courtesy of Gregor, the First Victim. He adjusts fairly quickly, though, and is much more comfortable as a vampire than Larissa.
  • Battle Couple: Whenever he fights alongside Larissa.
  • Berserk Button: Bringing up his father's supposed treason and death, at least until Thomas Morris's betrayal proves him posthumously innocent. Julian himself becomes one again in Darkest Night, when Jamie learns that he was Faking the Dead for years and cuts all ties with him.
  • Blood Knight: Fighting and killing vampires excites him. Especially after he becomes one himself.
  • Did Not Get the Girl: Potentially. At the end of Darkest Night, it's unclear whether he and Larissa will still be able to have a relationship.
  • Empowered Badass Normal: Becomes an immensely powerful vampire after being bitten by the First Victim.
  • Heartbroken Badass: After Larissa flees Blacklight without saying goodbye and disappears for six months at the start of Darkest Night. He stays in this mode for much of the plot.
  • Hot-Blooded: Temperamental and prone to fits of rage. It's more frequent and noticeable before he finds purpose in Blacklight, but it always remains a fixture of his personality.
  • Improbable Aiming Skills: As seen when he puts a bullet in Talbot at the end of The Rising, and virtually any time he fires the T-Bone.
  • Interspecies Romance: A human in a relationship with a vampire. And then it stops being interspecies when he is turned in Zero Hour.
  • Love Hurts: The many problems he and Larissa go through in their relationship affect him more than anything short of losing an ally. When they unofficially break up and Larissa vanishes in Darkest Night, he's inconsolable for months and never truly stops caring about her.
  • Married to the Job: Takes to his new career at Blacklight with fervent passion and becomes one of their most reliable Operators, prioritizing almost everything else beneath his duties, sometimes to the detriment of his personal relationships. This grows into one of the inciting factors in his and Larissa's breakup.
  • Maybe Ever After: At the end of Darkest Night, it's left ambiguous whether Jamie and Larissa will renew and continue their relationship (which would require Jamie to leave Blacklight while they are still recovering from Carcassonne), but they are on much better terms, both have taken the vampirism cure, and they walk out into the sunlight together.
  • One True Love: Larissa is his.
  • Rage Against the Mentor: In Darkest Night, he turns against Frankenstein when the latter reveals that he not only knew Julian was alive, but that he helped him fake his death.
  • Single-Target Sexuality: He only has eyes for Larissa, no matter what. At one point in Darkest Night, Kate drunkenly kisses him to test this, and he confirms that he feels no real attraction.
  • Undying Loyalty: To Blacklight from The Rising onward, as he is unquestioningly loyal to his job and feels most at home as an active Operator.

    Larissa Kinley 

Larissa Kinley

The series Deuteragonist. Bitten by Grey and forced to leave her family for fear of turning or killing them, she fled and fell in with Alexandru Rusmanov's band. Many years later, after failing to kill Jamie on Alexandru's order and almost killing future friend Matt Browning for blood to recover from her punishment, she enters Blacklight: first as a prisoner and untrustworthy informant, then as one of their most valued Operators and Jamie's steady girlfriend.


  • Action Girl: The single most powerful one in the series. Due to her age, innate power, and additional Blacklight training, she's virtually unmatched as an Operator and easily goes toe-to-toe with many above her level. Including Dracula himself!
  • Battle Couple: Whenever she fights alongside Jamie.
  • Character Development: In her debut, she's a shifty, widely distrusted prisoner who acts like a Soft-Spoken Sadist and Deadpan Snarker toward everyone. After being released and officially enlisted into Blacklight, she opens up and becomes more complex in her behavior and views, and is in turn shown how others around the world react to her and other vampires.
  • Hot-Blooded: A trait she shares with many other vampires, as well as her boyfriend.
  • I Am a Monster / I Just Want to Be Normal: She's never been comfortable with herself, despite her lot in life improving after joining Blacklight, and has to deal with everything from the natural drawbacks of vampirism to covert and open discrimination from other Operators. When Dracula is vanquished, Larissa's first action is to fly back to the Loop and finally take the cure.
  • Interspecies Romance: A vampire in love with a human teenager. Stops being interspecies when Jamie is turned.
  • Leaving You to Find Myself: Abandons Jamie, her friends, and Blacklight at the start of Darkest Night and winds up starting a commune in America for other displaced vampires in need of shelter and support, which finally gives her a purpose she can feel comfortable with.
  • Love Cannot Overcome: Her love for Jamie ultimately can't stop her from fleeing Blacklight due to her personal struggles.
  • Love Triangle: She and Jamie are madly in love, but others insinuate themselves into her relationship twice: Tim Albertsson kisses her in Battle Lines and expects to take things further, and the vampire Callum gets into more mutual affection with her in Darkest Night.
  • Maybe Ever After: The series ends ambiguously as to whether her relationship with Jamie can ever be restored to a romance. She is still driven to go back to Haven despite being a human, and Jamie is still too protective of Blacklight in its time of need to give it up, but they still love each other on some level and walk out into the sunlight together, hand in hand.
  • Mistaken for Cheating: She mistakes herself for cheating on Jamie when Tim Albertsson kisses her, convincing herself that she noticed and encouraged his feelings. For this she grows distant from Jamie in her self-loathing. Good thing Tim bites it before things get too bad.
  • Older Than They Look: Despite looking like an older teenage girl, she's actually over a decade older. Despite this, she isn't disturbed by falling in love and sleeping with an initially sixteen-year-old boy; instead, it's Tim Albertsson romantically fixating on someone who appears to be half his age that gives her pause.
  • Species Loyalty: Fluctuates on how she views her kind for much of the series, but her encounter with an innocent, friendly vampire who doesn't know about other vampires, Dracula, or Blacklight permanently shifts her worldview and causes her to become more protective of any vampire who isn't trying to kill her or her loved ones. Reaches its peak in Darkest Night, when she abandons Blacklight and Jamie to found a utopian commune called Haven, where vampires can gather together to live at peace with each other and themselves, away from both human persecution and Dracula's rise.
  • Stronger with Age: The power of a vampire depends on the length of time they've been turned and the age / power of the one who bit them. Larissa was bitten by Grey, among the oldest vampires in the UK, and it has been over a decade since. Do the math.
  • Weakened by the Light: As all vampires are.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?: Eternal life gets less desirable for her the more horrors she endures for being a vampire. She is happy to take the cure and become human again when the war is over, even acknowledging that she will eventually die.
  • Working with the Ex: After becoming an Operator again, she and Jamie acknowledge that their relationship is over, but continue to fight alongside each other.

    Kate Randall 

Kate Randall

An average Lindisfarne resident introduced late in the original book. Separated from her father during the evacuation after Alexandru Rusmanov's forces storm the island, she meets up with and leads Jamie's group into Alexandru's hideout. Following her courageous acts, she is enlisted into Blacklight and becomes one of Jamie's best friends.


  • Action Girl: Not quite up to Larissa's level, but she comes to be as skilled an Operator as her human allies.
  • Ascended Extra: Introduced in the climax of the original novel and mostly serves as the POV for Alexandru's takeover of Lindisfarne. In the following books, she is promoted to the tertiary protagonist and plays various major roles.
    • Demoted to Extra: She gets noticeably less to do in Darkest Night compared to her friends, as Jamie and Larissa are both vampires powerful enough to fight Dracula, while Matt is fully immersed working on the cure. Ultimately, she is prevented from participating in the assault on Carcassonne after Greg Browning's bullet knocks her into a coma, from which she wakes when the war is already wrapping up.
  • Badass Normal: Jamie is a descendant of a long line of vampire hunters, and Larissa is a vampire herself. Kate is just an ordinary girl who nonetheless manages to kick tremendous amounts of ass when called upon.
  • Game-Breaking Injury: A bullet to the carotid artery courtesy of Matt's father, which renders her comatose back at the Loop while every other Operator in the world participates in the siege of Carcassonne.
  • Heartbroken Badass: The death of Shaun Turner, her boyfriend, in The Rising leaves a mark on her for the rest of the series.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: With Paul Turner, following their mutual bonding over Shaun's death in The Rising.
  • Near-Death Experience: Almost dies when Greg Browning shoots her in Darkest Night, but she pulls through after surgery, just in time for everyone to return home from Dracula's slaying.
  • Number Two: To Paul Turner from Battle Lines on, following their bonding over Shaun's death her promotion to his direct employ.
  • Put Down Your Gun and Step Away: Tries this on Greg Browning as he threatens to shoot himself and burn several abducted protesters alive. It doesn't work.
  • Put on a Bus: Played with in Darkest Night, when Greg Browning shoots her in the neck, leaving her unconscious on a hospital bed while everyone else goes off for the final fight against Dracula.
  • Team Mom: Tends to act as this and The Heart (though the latter role sometimes falls to Matt, as well), and of the three main Operators, she is the "weakest" by default.

    Matt Browning 

Matt Browning

A particularly intelligent boy in suburban England who wanders outside just in time to get his throat ripped out by a nearly-dead Larissa Kinley. After spending the rest of the book comatose in critical condition, he is released from Blacklight custody with faked amnesia and develops an obsession with finding out the truth. Running away from home again, he manages to land himself a position as a scientist in Blacklight through convenient timing. He also becomes great friends with Jamie, Kate, and — after some hesitance — Larissa.


  • Abusive Parents: While his father does undoubtedly love him deep down, he can be needlessly rough and, in Matt's own words, cruel. Matt has no trouble packing up and running away to Blacklight when he gets the opportunity.
  • Beta Couple: Gets into a relationship with Russian transfer scientist Natalia Lenski, who is similarly a Teen Genius and head-over-heels for him. Their relationship mostly stays steady and free of the drama in the way of Jamie and Larissa's Official Couple Ordeal Syndrome. And in Darkest Night, unlike Jamie and Larissa, Matt and Natalia are definitively staying together, even if Natalia goes back to Russia and Matt to university.
  • Butt-Monkey: He's introduced suffering a Near-Death Experience, endures a long period of depression and confusion as he struggles to find the truth of what happened to him, is held hostage at gunpoint twice, and finds out his father is the leader of the Night Stalkers.
  • The Heart: Divides this role up with Kate, and takes on the brunt of it in Darkest Night in an attempt to cool things off between Jamie and Larissa.
  • Hostage Situation: He manages to get himself in two: first held at gunpoint by Dr. Talbot at the end of The Rising, from which he is rescued by Jamie, then held at gunpoint inside a speeding car by a sleeper agent for the Russians, from which is forced to extricate himself by crashing the car, in Zero Hour.
  • Incorruptible Pure Pureness: The only one among the group who never goes too far, gives in to despair, or crosses a major line. Unlike his friends, he never lets himself get distracted from his duties, and while he could be trained physically, he is not emotionally equipped to sink stakes into vampires on a regular basis. Paul Turner recognizes all of this as the entire Operator roster gears up to assault Carcassonne, and despite Matt being listed as both a Lazarus scientist and an Operator, he is mercifully exempted.
  • Labcoat of Science and Medicine: Usually wears one.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: Fakes this following his Near-Death Experience and exposure to Blacklight, but while his memory is not perfect, he still remembers and grows fixated upon the vampires and Operators.
  • Near-Death Experience: His first meeting with Larissa has her clawing his throat out in desperation to get healing blood, and he almost dies before Blacklight doctors get him stabilized.
  • Non-Action Guy: The least physically adept of the main four, more suited to flexing his mind than firing a T-Bone. However, he manages to slay Albert Harker in the climax of Battle Lines and crashes a car into a brick wall at top speed to stop the man holding him hostage in Zero Hour.
  • Only Sane Man: Often falls into this role when Jamie, Larissa, and/or Kate are caught up dealing with private drama instead of resolving their issues like adults and focusing on the world-threatening bigger pictures, which he makes it his goal to motivate them to do.
  • Slashed Throat: His throat is torn out by Larissa in his introduction, but he lives.
  • The Smart Guy: Possessing a genius-level intellect, he's undoubtedly the smartest among the group and one of the brightest minds in the whole of Blacklight.
  • Teen Genius: A scientific prodigy who, if vampires had never entered his life, would have headed off to a prestigious university. Most notably, it's he who discovers the cure for vampirism, something everyone since the days of Abraham Van Helsing has been trying to produce.

Family

    Julian Carpenter 

Julian Carpenter

Jamie's father, who was gunned down by Blacklight Operators in front of him after being framed for collaborating with vampires and leading to the destruction of the Mina. However, it is eventually revealed that he anticipated this and actually faked his death.


  • The Ace: Even those who despise him after his supposed betrayal admit that he was among the best active Operators around, and that there was virtually nothing he couldn't do.
  • Dead to Begin With: Supposedly dies in the prologue of the original book, but he was faking it with Frankenstein's help.
  • Disappeared Dad: Jamie has lived for years thinking Julian was murdered in their driveway. When he finds out the truth, he's enraged and cuts off all further contact with him.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: Dies a sudden, painful, and ignoble death trying and failing to kill Osvaldo (whom is actually killed by Valentin moments later) without even seeing his son again.
  • Establishing Character Moment: How does he announce his survival to his old friend Bob Allen? By pulling up to the NS9 headquarters in a car, giving his defunct security code, attacking the guards and engaging in a drawn-out car chase through the base that ends with him being dragged out and thrown in a cell. All just to make sure he's taken seriously when he demands to see Allen.
  • Faking the Dead: He didn't actually get shot on his driveway. How he managed to fake this is never explained, as nobody who learns of his status has any desire to hear him out.
  • Frame-Up: On the receiving end of one from Thomas Morris, requiring a long period of Faking the Dead.
  • Go Out with a Smile: After Osvaldo mortally wounds him, he passes on his letter to Valentin and dies smiling at the thought of his family.
  • Gutted Like a Fish: Vertically disemboweled by Osvaldo during the final battle.
  • Locked in the Dungeon: From the reveal that he's alive up until his monitored release in Zero Hour, he spends all of his time in a cell, first at NS9, then at the Loop.
  • So Proud of You: He's impossibly proud of everything Jamie has become.
  • Tracking Chip: Has to have one when he's on the outside. However, he knows about it, digs it out, and sends his monitors on a Wild Goose Chase so he can join the Carcassonne assault in disguise.
  • Walking Spoiler: Before The Rising, the only things known about him are told secondhand. The majority of his character is shaped after he is revealed to have faked his death, making it difficult to talk about him.

    Marie Carpenter 

Marie Carpenter

Julian's wife and Jamie's mother. After grieving the loss of her husband for years, she gets kidnapped out of the blue by Alexandru Rusmanov, inciting Jamie's journey into Blacklight for the purpose of tracking her down. However, while she is recovered safely following Alexandru's defeat, it turns out Alexandru turned her, forcing her to live in an ultraviolet cell at the Loop.


  • Beware the Nice Ones: Despite being an otherwise plain and good-natured mother, when she steps into the battlefield to help defend the Loop from Valeri, she's capable of plenty of swift and brutal kills.
  • Demoted to Extra: After being central to the plot of the first novel and playing a major role in defending the Loop in The Rising, she gets progressively less to do other than comfort or scold her son.
  • I Am a Monster: While vampirism has its perks, she hates it far more than she lets on. When the cure is synthesized, she is the first one to volunteer and willingly endure the painful transition back to humanity.
  • Let's Get Dangerous!: She gets a chance to demonstrate her penchant for combat and bloodthirstiness when Valeri's army attacks the Loop. Being turned by one of the world's oldest vampires, and already filled with parental worry and rage, makes her a surprise force to be reckoned with.
  • Mama Bear: Do not threaten Jamie or anyone he's close to when she's nearby.
  • Parents in Distress: In the first book, when she is held hostage by Alexandru and Jamie is forced to seek her out.
  • Shipper on Deck: In the early years of Jamie's relationship with Larissa, Marie expressly wishes he would get together with Kate instead. She seems to set this aside eventually, though.

    Pete Randall 

Pete Randall

Kate's father. After being separated from her in the evacuation of Lindisfarne, he grows fixated on the events of that night and eventually gets in contact with Greg Browning. They in turn meet Albert Harker and become key helpers in his scheme.


  • Chekhov's Gunman: Briefly appears in the original novel and is absent in the second, only to pop up as a major player in Battle Lines and Darkest Night.
  • Foil: To Greg Browning, his friend and partner. Unlike Greg, he's generally kind and honest, and after learning that his daughter is part of Blacklight, he mostly accepts her choice. He also genuinely wants to help vampires through SSL, unlike Greg and his Night Stalker cronies.
  • Near-Death Experience: Almost dies at Albert Harker's hands in Battle Lines. Later, he is shot in the shoulder by Greg and falls into a river, nearly drowning and falling into and out of extended unconsciousness.
  • Token Good Teammate: In Darkest Night, he is the only high-ranking member of SSL who thinks the organization was founded to help vampires and genuinely cares about accomplishing this. Greg and many others are just using it as a front to find and kill vampires.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Of both Albert Harker and SSL.

    Greg Browning 

Greg Browning

Matt's father. After witnessing Larissa almost kill Matt with Blacklight soldiers surrounding them, Greg falls into a depression that only lightens when Matt is delivered back to him... and worsens when he runs back to Blacklight months later. Despondent, Greg gets in touch with Pete Randall, and the two are in turn introduced to Albert Harker, who uses them as part of his scheme.


  • Abusive Parents: Played with; he genuinely loves Matt and makes this clear when Matt returns in The Rising, but he's also a rough, cruel Jerkass whom Matt has no problem running away from when he gets the chance to find and join Blacklight.
  • The Alcoholic: Drinks heavily.
  • Ax-Crazy: Shoots Pete Randall without hesitation for trying to reveal the Night Stalkers, and later ties up several protesters outside the Loop, douses them in petrol, and threatens to burn them alive.
  • Believing Their Own Lies: He is completely off-base and corrected multiple times in his assumption that Blacklight brainwashed Matt into joining them, but the more he tells it to himself, the more he believes it.
  • Domestic Abuse: Demeans and fights with his wife.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: Taking him down collapses the Night Stalkers and removes a major threat to vampire society, but it still leaves Dracula to deal with.
  • The Dog Was the Mastermind: This unassuming, if slightly unstable suburban father is the founder and ringleader of the Night Stalkers.
  • Hostage Situation: After being outed as the leader of the Night Stalkers, he takes several protesters hostage outside the Loop and threatens to kill them and himself unless he sees Matt again. When Paul and Kate are unable to comply with his demands, he shoots Kate and is in turn shot in the knees by Paul.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: After getting shot by Paul Turner and imprisoned within the Loop, Greg breaks down and apologizes to Matt, finally seeming to realize the atrocities he's committed. Matt shuts him up and proclaims that any love between them is gone.
  • Mysterious Backer: The board of directors for SSL in Darkest Night, whom he's never met in person. In reality, the directors are representatives of Dracula, and everything he does is part of the first vampire's plan.
  • Papa Wolf: Over Matt from The Rising onward, to an almost fanatical degree.
  • Sanity Slippage: He started off as an occasionally cruel parent, but he gets hit with this hard once Matt runs away from home. He first spirals into obsessive depression and becomes a willing player in Albert Harker's schemes; when Harker is killed and he is briefly reunited and told the truth about his son, he comes to believe Matt was brainwashed by Blacklight. He continues to decline until Darkest Night, in which he organizes the Night Stalkers, tries multiple times to outright murder Pete Randall, and, upon being found out, causes a Hostage Situation that ends with him shooting an unarmed teenage girl in the neck.
  • Stop, or I Shoot Myself!: Threatens to shoot himself and burn several hostage protesters alive unless his son is brought out to see him.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Of Albert Harker in Battle Lines and Dracula himself in Darkest Night.
  • Walking Spoiler: His later actions contrasted with his role in earlier books turn him into this.

Blacklight

    Henry Seward 

Admiral Henry Seward

The aging Director of Blacklight, and a direct descendant of John Seward. Grizzled but soft-hearted, he gladly enlists Jamie and friends to the cause despite their unconventional ages. However, in the climax of The Rising, he is kidnapped by Valeri Rusmanov and held prisoner by Dracula.


  • Cold-Blooded Torture: Dracula and Valeri endlessly inflict this on him for the months he is held prisoner by them, including losing one of his eyes.
  • Cool Old Guy: In spite of his advanced age, he can still kick ass with the best of them, and his stay at Chateau Dauncy reveals his Determinator tendencies.
  • Determinator: Despite suffering enough of Dracula's cruel whims to drop an army dead, he keeps on going through sheer force of hope and willpower.
  • Put on a Bus: At the start of Darkest Night, it is revealed that he's retired. He does not show up for the rest of the story and is barely mentioned.
  • Reluctant Retiree: In Darkest Night.
  • Taking You with Me: Tries to pull this on Dracula by jumping from the top of Chateau Dauncy, as Dracula flies down to grab him and almost dies himself due to lacking the full power to maintain shape and flight.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: At the end of Zero Hour, after enduring many months of Cold-Blooded Torture of both the physical and psychological variety, he limps back into the fold and strongly implies that he is going to resume his command with Cal Holmwood dead. Darkest Night reveals that despite his intent to do this, he was instead forced to retire from Blacklight altogether for mandatory therapy and recovery.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: The last we hear of him is that he is retiring somewhere with his wife. No new updates are given following escalating civil unrest or Dracula's catastrophic global attack, and by the end it is unknown whether he is still alive and/or how he reacted to the events.

    Cal Holmwood 

Cal Holmwood

Henry Seward's assistant, and a direct descendant of Arthur Holmwood. Following Seward's abduction during the assuault on the Loop, he is promoted to Interim Director of Blacklight.


  • Due to the Dead: His soldiers mourn him after the battle of Chateau Dauncy is finished.
  • Father to His Men: Even more so than Seward.
  • Frontline General: Even after assuming control of the entire Department, he stands alongside and personally leads soldiers in major engagements. This gets him killed at Chateau Dauncy.
  • Number Two: To Seward before his kidnapping.
  • Off with His Head!: Dracula decapitates him with a broadsword in Zero Hour.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: A youthful, reserved Nice Guy who calmly weighs suggestions from anyone, no matter their rank. Of the directors seen in the series, he is also the least stern.
  • Rousing Speech: Has a penchant for making these after becoming the Director, especially as Zero Hour draws near.
  • Secret-Keeper: One of the few people alive who knows that Julian Carpenter is still alive, and he opts not to tell Jamie.
  • Surprisingly Sudden Death: Dracula drops onto the battlefield and severs his head without warning.
  • You Are in Command Now: Gets the position because of Seward's kidnapping and the subsequent chaos it throws Blacklight into.

    Frankenstein 

Colonel Victor Frankenstein

Frankenstein's Monster himself (taking his creator's name), with the same basic origins documented in Mary Shelley's novel. He serves as a colonel for Blacklight and is one of its oldest members. Having served as the protector of the Carpenter family line for generations, he saves Jamie's life when Alexandru threatens him, introduces him to Blacklight, and aids him in his quest to find his mother. While he appears to die in a werewolf ambush after Alexandru's defeat, he actually survives — now afflicted with lycanthropy himself.


  • Big Damn Heroes: Twice in the original novel, first introducing himself by saving Jamie from Alexandru, and later kicking in the door to Alexandru's throne room with reinforcements to assist Jamie.
  • Colonel Badass: Holds this rank and is constantly referred to as such.
  • Determinator: Even after being stabbed completely through his body, he has enough energy to pull himself along the blade and inflict Eye Scream on Dracula.
  • Fur Against Fang: Tears apart vampires in his werewolf form during his rescue from Lord Dante in The Rising, as well as at the battle of Chateau Dauncy in Zero Hour, where he serves as Blacklight's secret weapon.
  • Frankenstein's Monster: The one and only, though he has taken on his creator's name to honor him.
  • Honor Before Reason: He holds his life oath toward the Carpenter family in such high regard that it compels him to take actions that might not always be smart, such as introducing Jamie to Julian at the latter's request without telling him the truth about his father's survival beforehand, unintentionally causing Jamie to reject him, his father, and Larissa for most of Darkest Night.
  • Identity Amnesia: Throughout The Rising. He's recovering from it in Battle Lines, but there are still holes in his memory.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Dracula impales him with his broadsword in the final battle at Carcassonne. He survives just long enough to pull himself along the blade and gouge out one of Dracula's eyes before passing away.
  • I Owe You My Life: After one of the Carpenters saved his life in the face of certain death, he swore to protect the Carpenter lineage in repayment — an oath he keeps up to this day.
  • Made of Iron: He's Frankenstein's Monster and a werewolf — he can take a lot of punishment and keep going unhindered. It takes Dracula's brutal impalement to do him in, and even then he manages to cling to life until Dracula is slain.
  • Mentor Occupational Hazard: Subverted; a werewolf appears to kill him at the end of the original novel by tackling him off a cliff, but he is shown to survive in The Rising.
  • Old Soldier: He's centuries old, and has served as a Vampire Hunter both independently and under Blacklight for the vast majority of that time.
  • Our Werewolves Are Different: As a werewolf, he is much more massive than any other member of his kind, and is studded with visible metal bolts and stitches.
  • Painful Transformation: Transforming into a werewolf is doubly painful for him, since he's already a stitched-together collection of parts.
  • Parental Substitute: Becomes a surrogate father figure to Jamie, since Jamie has no idea his real father is alive. Notably, while both Julian and Frankenstein die in the battle at Carcassonne, only the latter gets a Heroic Sacrifice and a short Dying Speech to Jamie — Julian is offhandedly killed by Osvaldo miles away from Jamie, and never gets to see his son again.

    Paul Turner 

Major Paul Turner

An elite soldier who initially holds the rank of Major. Following Thomas Morris's betrayal and death, he is promoted to Morris's old position as Blacklight's chief of security.


  • Asskicking Leads to Leadership: He got to be where he is by being among the best Operators around. It eventually gets him the rank of Director.
  • Character Development: Jamie first meets him as a cold, stone-serious jerk who mildly scares him. Later, after bonding with Kate, he becomes slightly friendlier (if no less stern) and comes to personally care for the protagonists.
  • Frontline General: He crosses the threshold of Carcassonne with his Operators and the other Directors, and is the first to step out of his vehicle and personally join the fight.
  • Heartbroken Badass: After his son is murdered, and even more so after Kate is shot and in a coma.
  • Heroic BSoD: When Kate is shot by Greg Browning, he freaks out, briefly loses his grip on his eternal stoic facade, and contemplates strolling down to Greg's hospital bedside and shooting him then and there.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: With Kate, from Battle Lines on.
  • Majorly Awesome: Holds the rank of Major at the start of the series.
  • Manly Tears: After Shaun's death.
  • Married to the Job: Subverted. Despite being more devoted to Blacklight than almost anyone, he does have a wife whom he cares for and visits as often as he can. After the confirmation of Dracula's defeat, his first act is to head back home and spend a night next to her.
  • Papa Wolf: Toward Shaun, and later Kate.
  • Up Through the Ranks: Goes from a Major and the chief of security to the Director of Blacklight.
  • You Are in Command Now: Takes up the reins of Director following Cal's death and Seward's retirement.

    Shaun Turner 

Shaun Turner

Paul Turner's son and an Operator in his own right. He serves on Jamie's team throughout The Rising, but is killed during the siege of the Loop by Valeri Rusmanov.


  • The Lost Lenore: Kate spends the rest of the series trying to move on from his death.
  • Neck Snap: Valeri punches him in the head so hard that his neck audibly snaps.
  • Nice Guy: One of the nicest Operators to Jamie in the first novel, and a loving boyfriend to Kate in The Rising.
  • Official Couple: With Kate in The Rising.
  • Sacrificial Lion: The first major casualty in the assault on the Loop, showcasing how the stakes have been raised.

    Angela Darcy 

Angela Darcy

A highly trained Operator who becomes one of Jamie's dependable allies.


  • Action Girl: One of the first to be introduced in the series.
  • Ascended Extra: Mostly a Satellite Character until Darkest Night, in which she is turned into a vampire, fills Kate's position on the strike team to assassinate Dracula, and is captured and tortured by Emery, whom she then kills.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: During the assault on Carcassonne, she is captured, crucified, and brutally tortured by Emery. She almost dies, but manages to kill her captor and escape in time to participate in the final battle.
  • Empowered Badass Normal: Becomes a vampire in Darkest Night.
  • Satellite Character: Compared to many other recurring characters, Angela gets less character development and running story arcs, mostly popping up as a support character in other plot lines. Until she is turned into a vampire and takes Kate's place on the Carcassonne strike team in Darkest Night.
  • Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Escapes her crucifixion by tricking Emery into thinking she's near death, then burying one of the nails in his head.

    Valentin Rusmanov 

Valentin Rusmanov

The youngest Rusmanov brother and the third general turned by Dracula. When news of Dracula's resurrection reaches him and loyalists attempt to bring him to Valeri's side, he decides that he prefers the world the way it is and joins the Blacklight cause.


  • Big Good: Serves this role as the only anti-Dracula Rusmanov and the most powerful vampire at Blacklight's disposal.
  • Blood Knight: While he didn't used to be this (a flashback to his turning shows that he is the only Rusmanov who is saddened by the loss of human life in the war), centuries of vampirism have given him the same playfully sadistic eagerness in battle as his brothers.
  • Bomb Disposal: Disarms an in-flight nuclear missile to keep it from destroying Carcassonne in Darkest Night. As a bonus, he then uses the useless metal shell to crush Osvaldo to death.
  • Cardboard Prison: He and everyone in the Loop are well aware that his cell is a formality — he could either easily pass through the ultraviolet light barrier or tunnel his way up through miles of concrete to the surface.
  • Cultured Badass: Enjoys fine art, extravagant parties, and tearing rival vampires to pieces with his bare hands.
  • Defector from Decadence: Sacrifices his immense wealth and the power afforded to him as a vampire lord in favor of living in a cell at the Loop, all in the name of killing Dracula.
  • The Dreaded: Even though he is less of an open threat than the other Rusmanovs, he is still considered this by Blacklight. When he drops through a skylight in front of Jamie's team to announce his Heel–Face Turn, it is considered an instant emergency.
  • Half the Man He Used to Be: Dracula splits him vertically in half during their battle in Zero Hour, but Larissa saves his life at the cost of letting Dracula escape.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Makes an honest one in The Rising in the name of defeating Dracula and Valeri before Zero Hour, and spends most of Battle Lines resolutely proving it.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: Becomes one of Jamie's confidants and a source of sagely wisdom for the boy. Technically, since he is many centuries old, his blossoming friendship with Marie also counts.
  • Living Forever Is Awesome: Played with. He clearly and openly enjoys his immortality and the freedom it grants him, and isn't looking forward to dying any time soon. However, as he is bidding farewell to Jamie at the end of Darkest Night, he admits that Jamie is right to take the cure, and that his brand of life isn't the kind Jamie wants or deserves to endure.
  • Pro-Human Transhuman: Firmly on the side of humanity in the war between them and Dracula's army.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: In Darkest Night, bitter over Dracula's escape and rise to full power, he regresses to a much less friendly persona and is less willing to assist Blacklight, even openly talking about his plans to betray and kill them eventually.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: To Jamie and Larissa's relationship. In listening to Larissa's tearful speech and telling her about Haven, he inadvertently breaks up the two and plants seeds of animosity that, at the end of Darkest Night, are still interfering with their chances of getting back together.
  • Vampires Are Rich: Has spent most of his long life amassing wealth, setting up businesses, and throwing lavish parties. At the start of the series, he is one of the richest men in the world.
  • Youngest Child Wins: By the end of the series, he is the only Rusmanov who hasn't been slain.

Major Antagonists

    Dracula 

Vlad Tepes, aka Dracula

The world's first and most infamous vampire. Once known as Vlad the Impaler, he fled his defeat and supposed death site in the forests of Romania in 1476, and was transformed under mysterious circumstances. He then turned his generals, the Rusmanov brothers, and terrorized the world from the shadows until his well-documented defeat at the hands of Jonathan Harker, Quincey Morris, and Abraham Van Helsing. Most people have forgotten his existence and consider him a myth... at least until he is resurrected by Valeri Rusmanov.


  • Adaptational Badass / Adaptational Villainy: Dracula is classically depicted as a wealthy recluse, content with sucking people dry in their sleep, requiring coffins to travel, and requiring servants to protect him from being easily slain in his own coffin. Once brought back to life, he's leans far back into his old identity, with all of the brilliant strategies and ruthless bloodthirstiness that entails, along with raw power unmatched by any other vampire in the world.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking: He couldn't maintain his status as the rightful lord of all vampires if he weren't also the single strongest vampire in existence.
  • Ax-Crazy: Very much so, although he pretends otherwise.
  • Big Bad: The main threat of the entire series.
  • Blood Knight: Fighting on the front lines of war has always excited him, and he gets even more out of it after his resurrection.
  • Came Back Wrong: Initially brought back from the dead as a humanoid mass of blood and ashes, and even after assuming his normal form, there is a long period where he must struggle to maintain himself and not fall apart like a rotting corpse.
  • The Chessmaster: Throughout Darkest Night. After assuming full power, he tricks Greg Browning into starting the Night Stalker movement in order to destabilize peace in the UK and keep Blacklight distracted. Once he has a suitable amount of vampires gathered, he leads the majority of them to conquer the walled city of Carcassonne as his new headquarters, while planting others aboard almost every mass transit in the world and taking them all down at once. When the Operators of the world have converged on Carcassonne as he's planned, he cripples them all with a piercing noise broadcast and keeps two massive reinforcement waves in the wings to strike at the perfect opportunity.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: What he inflicts on Henry Seward after Valeri kidnaps him, up to and including tearing out one of his eyes. There's also his favored method of impalement, which is a well-documented Cruel and Unusual Death.
  • Dragged Off to Hell: His ultimate fate. After Jamie impales him with his own broadsword, the entity that gave him vampirism centuries ago reappears from his body and manifests as a number of clawed hands that drag him into a black puddle. What happens to him next is unknown, but it can't be pleasant.
  • The Dreaded: More so than any other vampire. As the original and most powerful among his kind, he qualifies as the single most fearsome entity on the planet.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Like the Rusmanovs, he is often unflinchingly polite. However, he means absolutely none of it, having no real respect for most other people aside from himself.
  • Final Boss: The final opponent Jamie and crew face in Darkest Night.
  • General Ripper: Carries traits over from his days as a Wallachian warlord, including his boundless knowledge of military tactics.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: In the first book, wherein he remains dead until the end. The Rusmanovs are the main threat, but his influence is felt everywhere.
  • Hero Killer: Personally kills Cal Holmwood in Zero Hour and Frankenstein in Darkest Night.
  • Historical Domain Character: Vlad the Impaler was obviously a real person; in this chronology, rather than die in 1476, he fled defeat and stumbled upon something that transformed him into a vampire.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: His cherished broadsword is the weapon that does him in, and the entity that gave him is powers is the one that disposes of him.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: His favored method of execution, as per history. Fittingly, he is ultimately killed by being impaled through the heart with his sword.
  • Impromptu Tracheotomy: Jamie buries a wooden cross in Dracula's neck as the first vampire is about to bite him, turning the tide of the battle in Blacklight's favor.
  • Karmic Death: His painful, drawn-out death comes at the peak of the battle at Carcassonne, and just after he's mortally wounded Frankenstein.
  • Monster Progenitor: As the first vampire, he is singularly responsible for the worldwide spread of vampirism.
  • Race Against the Clock: He is the subject of one, as Blacklight estimates a time limit until he reaches his full power and must kill him before "Zero Hour" hits. They fail.
  • Rasputinian Death: At the end of his long battle, he is stabbed in the throat with a crucifix, shot repeatedly by Larissa, run through the heart with his own blade, and Dragged Off to Hell by the mysterious entity within him.
  • The Sociopath: He has no regard for anyone but himself and will gleefully manipulate and kill others to get his way.
  • Take Over the World: His ultimate goal.
  • Vampire Monarch: Due to his power and notoriety, vampires flock to him in droves and swear to serve him unquestioningly, considering him the demonic lord of all vampires.

    Valeri Rusmanov 

Valeri Rusmanov

The eldest of the Rusmanov brothers and the first general turned by Dracula. In the wake of his master's death, Valeri has become the most feared vampire in the world and the most prominent target of Blacklight. However, he remains the only Rusmanov loyal to Dracula, and eventually steals his ashes and resurrects him.


  • Authority Equals Asskicking: Ever since Dracula's slaying, he has been the unofficial lord of the vampire world and the master of all Dracula loyalists. He's also the second-most powerful enemy Blacklight has to face and has curb-stomped them on several occasions.
  • Big Bad: Considered this by Blacklight prior to his master's resurrection.
  • Big Brother Bully: Flashbacks show that he was this in his youth toward his younger brothers, especially Valentin.
  • Climax Boss: Serves as this for Zero Hour as the most powerful foe defeated at Chateau Dauncy, while Larissa and Valentin's confrontation with Dracula serves as a Final Boss Preview.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: Inflicts this on the Russian Operators safeguarding Dracula's ashes near the end of the original novel.
  • The Dragon: To Dracula.
  • The Dreaded: Alexandru and Valentin also count, but Valeri is by far the most feared of the Rusmanovs. Many Operators have resigned to the idea that he is so powerful as to be impossible to slay.
  • The Heavy: With his master slowly recovering his power, it falls to Valeri to enforce his will on the world. Among many other things, he is the one who steals Dracula's ashes and resurrects him, sieges the Loop, kills Shaun Turner, and kidnaps Henry Seward.
  • Karmic Death: Jamie finally stakes him outside Chateau Dauncy in Zero Hour, after four books of him being a proud Karma Houdini.
  • Stronger with Age: One of the oldest vampires alive, and it shows in his prowess on the battlefield.
  • Undying Loyalty: While Alexandru has taken up his own band of roving psychopaths and Valentin is content to be one of the richest men alive, Valeri remains eternally loyal to his post under Dracula and willingly gives up his all-powerful authority in the vampire world in favor of being his master's second-in-command once again.

    Alexandru Rusmanov 

Alexandru Rusmanov

The middle Rusmanov brother and the second general turned by Dracula. While starting out simply as a fearsome Blood Knight, Alexandru's sanity has taken a downward plunge over the centuries. In the years since Dracula's defeat, he has assembled a massive band of bloodthirsty vampires to do as he pleases with, and he eventually chooses to target the Carpenters in the interest of settling an old grudge.


  • Ax-Crazy: No matter how he justifies his actions, he really has no purpose for causing so much wanton destruction other than pure sadism and insanity.
  • Big Bad: Of the original novel. He is ultimately behind the tragedies Jamie's family has suffered and engages in the most personal confrontation with him, while his brothers remain mostly in the background and Dracula is still long-dead.
  • Big Brother Instinct: In one of the few redeeming characteristics in his life, flashbacks show that he used to have this for Valentin when they were young. It vanished over time, though, and in the modern day they feel nothing but contempt for each other.
  • Blood Knight: Like his former master and brothers, he gets an almost sexual thrill out of being in the heat of a battle.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: Extremely fond of this.
  • Death by Looking Up: Just before the enormous cross crushes his body, he starts to notice the shadow on the floor and partially glances up, but does not move out of the way soon enough.
  • The Dragon: Used to be one of Dracula's Co-Dragons, but he now has a dragon of his own: his manservant Anderson, a huge vampire with the head of a child.
  • Karmic Death: After centuries of rampaging and causing indiscriminate pain and misery, he is crushed by a massive stone cross, which shatters and dismembers his body in excruciating detail. He continues to live in unbearable agony until his vampire army is slain, at which point Jamie slowly stakes him.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: His attempts to torment the Carpenter family inadvertently lead to the introduction of the four main protagonists to Blacklight and the transformation of Frankenstein into a werewolf, both of which become huge barriers to the plans of Dracula and Valeri later on.
  • Rape, Pillage, and Burn: His assault on the island of Lindisfarne late in the book, with his vampire army explicitly doing all of this and much more to the residents who can't evacuate in time.
  • Starter Villain: The first target of Jamie's personal hatred, and the one whose antics introduce him to the realities of vampire hunting. He also dies just before Dracula's resurrection, where the real story begins.
  • Suicidal Overconfidence: His ultimate undoing comes when, confident that he has the upper hand, he offers Jamie a few free shots against him. Jamie uses these to collapse a huge stone cross on him.
  • Troll: His sole reason for turning Marie into a vampire is to antagonize Jamie further. Frankenstein even comes to the conclusion that Alexandru probably felt elated in death, getting more pleasure out of the fact that Jamie would discover the truth after his victory.

    Albert Harker 

Albert Harker

A descendant of Jonathan Harker who was supposed to be enlisted into Blacklight — however, personal grudges led him to decline. When he tried to expose the existence of vampirism to the world as a means of getting back at his father, then one of Blacklight's Directors, he was secretly locked up in Broadmoor Hospital. Many years later, he breaks out and resumes his quest after being turned by one of the blood transfusions Dracula sent out to mental hospitals worldwide; Kevin McKenna, Pete Randall, and Greg Browning are all forcibly drafted into his crusade.


  • Ax-Crazy: Holds an insane grudge against Blacklight for petty reasons, flies off the handle at the slightest annoyance, and is perfectly willing to viciously murder anyone who does not want to help him in his quest.
  • The Bad Guy Wins: Though he dies, copies of his newspaper still make it out to some areas of the public. This sparks the flame that leads to the actual exposure of the vampire world in Zero Hour.
  • Big Bad: Of Battle Lines, while Dracula and Valeri remain at Chateau Dauncy and act as precipitators of the chaos.
  • Broken Masquerade: His goal is to cause this, exposing Blacklight's operations and the existence of vampires to the public. Though he is immediately unsuccessful, his actions at the printing press open the floodgates and eventually lead to his dreams being realized.
  • Can't Stop The Signal: He claims this once the printing press starts generating his headlines. Turns out he's right — his crusade leads to the exposure of the vampire world in Zero Hour.
  • The Chessmaster: He accomplishes most of his plan with a minimum of violence, instead relying on tactical manipulations and the efforts of Kevin, Pete, and Greg.
  • Consummate Liar: Virtually every promise he makes and everything he tells his partners about Blacklight is a complete lie, but everyone goes along with it until it's too late.
  • Evil Former Friend: Of Blacklight — Frankenstein in particular used to know him.
  • Evil Is Petty: Getting revenge on Blacklight for locking him up is understandable, but his initial reasons for trying to expose them to the world were entirely petty and personal.
  • Facial Horror: His face is partially burnt off with ultraviolet light in the final battle, resulting in him sporting nasty burn scars that expose his muscle and bone.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Unfailingly polite, but make one wrong move and he'll start threatening a violent death — as long as he's not dispensing one instead.
  • Go Among Mad People: His wrongful imprisonment at Broadmoor Hospital took a huge toll on his already fragile mental state.
  • Hair-Trigger Temper: All it takes to get him homicidally angry is to slightly disagree with something he says. As Kevin learns, double-crossing him is on another level entirely.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Harker charges at Matt, who holds up his stake in terror, causing him to accidentally impale himself straight through on it.
  • Karmic Death: Staked by Matt, the son of one of the men he manipulated and planned to kill.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Manipulates Kevin, Pete, and Greg into trusting him and following along in his quest to expose Blacklight. Kevin realizes too late that they are all pawns, and it takes his death for Pete and Greg to hit the same revelation.
  • Pet the Dog: He apparently really did plan on sparing Kevin's life, a luxury that he is not ready to afford to anyone else. When Kevin winds up trying to betray him, he's devastated.
  • Revenge: Driven mad with his desire for revenge against Blacklight.
  • Sanity Slippage: His already tenuous sanity declines further during the final battle at the printing press, until he's running on animal instinct and savaging everyone in his path.
  • Serial Killer: Spends time tracking down and killing both those who have wronged him in the past and those who refuse to follow his instructions.
  • The Sociopath: He simply thinks nothing of his human victims, viewing them as a means to an end that he is allowed to dispose of whenever he feels like it.
  • Stronger with Age: Indirectly; he's only been a vampire for a few weeks, but it's Dracula's blood coursing through his veins, giving him exceptional power anyway.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Expresses this view toward everyone except for Kevin when the printing process is starting, and explicitly plans to casually kill them all when his goal has been fully accomplished.

    Lord Dante 

Dante Valeriano, aka Lord Dante

The "Vampire King of Paris". Supposedly the oldest vampire in France, Lord Dante reigns over Paris with a sprawling underground web of connections. He was once great friends with Frankenstein, but after an incident caused the monster to stab and cripple him, he developed a burning desire for revenge. Frankenstein's resurfacing as an amnesiac draws the threat his way.


  • A God Am I: Presents himself as a vampire god.
  • And I Must Scream: Frankenstein's knife is buried in his heart, which has managed to heal around it rather than lead to his death, but this has caused him to start aging without constant feeding, and he occasionally is wracked with pain and partially falls apart. This has been his condition for almost a century.
  • Arc Villain: The Big Bad of the latter half of The Rising, but he has no relation to the main conflict and dies toward the end.
  • Believing Their Own Lies: Until a girl he knew growing up walks into the room, he seems to have started buying into his own lie about being ancient vampire royalty.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: Part of this in The Rising, along with Dracula and Valeri.
  • Bullying a Dragon: He publicly tortures and humiliates Frankenstein in his theater, making clear his intent to kill him soon. As a result, he's Frankenstein's first target when the werewolf side kicks in.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: Chains Frankenstein up on a stage and brutalizes him in front of his loyal audience.
  • Cult: His army of fanatical loyalists and worshippers, combined with his position in the shadows, makes his whole setup look like this.
  • Evil Former Friend: In the past, he was a genuinely kind friend of Frankenstein's. In the present, he's a bitter sadist on a revenge crusade.
  • Filler Villain: Dante has no bearing on the driving conflict of the story — he is not in service of Dracula, and his actions don't have the impact made by villains like Albert Harker. He doesn't even directly expose Frankenstein's survival to Blacklight. His only purpose is giving Jamie a powerful vampire to slay during the finale of The Rising, since he is absent from the battle at the Loop.
  • Human Pincushion: During the battle at the theater, Jamie's rescue squad fires every T-Bone they have into his body, which cripples him and opens him up for the transformed Frankenstein to eat his heart.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Jamie and his team all fire their T-Bones into him, impaling him several times.
  • Older Than They Look / Younger Than They Look: He somehow manages to be both. He's at least a few centuries old, but he's elaborately lying about being the oldest vampire in Paris.
  • Rapid Aging: After he is impaled, he starts to age by years in seconds from his former appearance.
  • Revealing Cover Up: When a girl from his old town walks into his chambers and recognizes him by his true name, he immediately orders that she be executed. This is what tips Frankenstein off that he is lying about everything, resulting in his stabbing.
  • Revenge: Desires to torture Frankenstein to death as revenge for taking away his immortality and almost exposing his facade.
  • Sadist: He clearly enjoys torturing Frankenstein, not to mention he has humans abducted and murdered as entertainment.
  • The Sociopath: He has tons of humans tortured and killed without remorse, and he doesn't seem to care for his fellow vampires, either, considering he has one brutally killed for merely questioning his authority.
  • Vampire Monarch: The undisputed ruler of all vampires in Paris, with thousands directly following him.

Other Antagonists

    Thomas Morris 

Thomas Morris

Blacklight's chief of security and a descendant of Quincey Morris. While he initially seems to be a pleasant and loyal Operator, he is actually boiling with rage over his father's death and his family's inability to take control of Blacklight as every other descendant's family has. He eventually betrays Blacklight, framing Julian for the destruction of the Mina and internally sabotaging other operations for Alexandru, in hopes of getting his ancestor's remains recovered and resurrected along with Dracula's.


  • Frame-Up: Gave Alexandru the operational schedule for the Mina and used his security credentials to make it look like Julian was the one responsible for the leak.
  • Impromptu Tracheotomy: How Alexandru kills him.
  • I Was Only Pretending To Like You: Acts like a friend and confidant to Jamie, but he holds him and everyone else at Blacklight in unrestrained contempt and expects to watch them all die on Lindisfarne.
  • The Mole: The first of several in Blacklight's ranks, though he is the only one who starts loyal and willingly betrays them rather than being undercover from the start.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: After Jamie puts together the hole in his plan — that Quincey could never be resurrected, as he was never turned — Thomas realizes he's been deceived all along and tearfully tries to kill Alexandru, who effortlessly stabs him in the throat with his own Bowie knife.
  • Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Alexandru kills him approximately two minutes after he reveals his betrayal to the other Operators.
  • Slashed Throat: Reveals himself by slicing an Operator's throat with his Bowie knife and stepping over to Alexandru's side. A few minutes later, he is stabbed in the throat with the same blade.
  • Unwitting Pawn: His whole goal of getting his ancestor resurrected along with Dracula is a lie on Alexandru's part, maintained until Alexandru has no further use for his mole.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Once Thomas has revealed himself, Alexandru sits back while Jamie pokes a hole in his motivation and taunts him when he realizes he's been lied to. With no further use for a revealed traitor, Alexandru then kills him.

     Dr. Talbot 

Dr. Richard Talbot, aka Christopher Reynolds

The initial head of the Lazarus Project. In reality, he is Blacklight's second mole, working for Dracula directly in an attempt to isolate and eliminate the weaknesses inherent to vampirism, in hopes of making his master's army unstoppable.


    Garcia Rejon 

Garcia Rejon

An exceptionally powerful vampire drug lord targeted by NS9 in Battle Lines. Larissa helps besiege his compound during her time working in America.


  • Arc Villain: Of the multi-chapter "The War On Drugs" arc.
  • Asshole Victim: His death is hideous, but the sheer amount of suffering he's inflicted warrants every drop of blood spilt.
  • The Cartel: Leads a powerful one.
  • Groin Attack: Larissa is so furious at him by the time of their confrontation that she cripples him by crushing his testicles in her hand.
  • He-Man Woman Hater: Sexually assaults the women in his employ and uses them as his human shields against invasion, and expresses some disturbing views toward Larissa in their fight.
  • Rasputinian Death: Larissa pops his testicles, shoots him repeatedly in the limbs with his own shotgun, and neglects to stake him in favor of stomping straight through his chest and crushing his heart under her foot.
  • Shotguns Are Just Better: Despite having immense vampiric abilities, he dives into his battle with Larissa wielding a shotgun and uses it extensively throughout their engagement.
  • Would Hit a Girl: Not only does he have no compunctions about going after Larissa — outwardly a teenage girl — with a shotgun, but he uses pregnant vampire servants as human shields.

     Alastair Dempsey 

Alastair Dempsey

A psychotic Serial Killer who pretended to be a loving uncle while hiding and torturing a woman in a hidden room of his house. He was tracked down, arrested, and determined criminally insane enough to warrant confinement in Broadmoor Hospital. He is then transformed by one of the blood transfusions sent out by Dracula, and escapes to resume his reign of terror with abilities rivaling the first vampire himself.


  • Ax-Crazy: His insanity outweighs even Alexandru's, putting him in the running for the most violently unstable character in the series.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: His victims do not die quickly or painlessly.
  • Dead Guy on Display: Mangles Joe Morton's body and leaves it with an incendiary explosive trap for the other members of the trainee squad to find.
  • Determinator: Keeps coming after Jamie even after suffering numerous wounds and having his body burnt to a crisp.
  • Hero Killer: Slaughters a few members of Jamie's training team.
  • Karmic Death: He fully deserved to be shot in the head and staked.
  • Kill It with Fire: Sets up an incendiary trap at the site of Joe Morton's murder, which detonates and mortally wounds someone. Jamie returns the favor for this by dousing him in ultraviolet light, turning him into a fiery husk that continues trying to kill him.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: His habit of referring to his murders as "playing" is just the tip of the iceberg.
  • Serial Killer: Ruthlessly tortures and kills women, though he's not averse to picking off men as well if it suits him.
  • Super-Speed: His main vampiric attribute, such that it takes a long time before Jamie's squad can even get solid eye contact on him.

    The Night Stalkers 

The Night Stalkers

A group of vigilante killers who set about stalking, kidnapping, and murdering vampires in Darkest Night, following the exposure of vampirism and Department operations to the public in Zero Hour.


  • Arc Villain: For the first half of Darkest Night.
  • Badass Normal: Despite being normal humans with no training from Blacklight, they're able to subdue and execute dozens of vampires and escape several of Jamie's attempts to capture them. They're so competent that Jamie's initial hypothesis has some of them as disillusioned Blacklight members.
  • Calling Card: A white wolf's head, which they emblazon on their jackets and paint on the doors of their targets.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: With Dracula's forces laying low after the destruction of Chateau Dauncy and Dracula's near-death (and subsequent rising), they serve as the main threats Jamie's squad faces for the first half of Darkest Night. Greg Browning is outed and the rest arrested not long after Dracula razes Carcassonne.
  • The Dog Was the Mastermind: Their founder and leader? Greg Browning, who was himself manipulated by Dracula as a pawn to destabilize the UK and distract Blacklight.
  • Fantastic Racism: Despite justifying their acts by mainly targeting criminal vampires, they truly believe all vampires should be exterminated rather than cured.
  • Irony: The people who make it their mission statement to hunt down all vampires are mere pawns in Dracula's scheme to make vampires the rulers of the world.
  • Malevolent Masked Men: All members wear balaclavas and painted jackets.
  • Serial-Killer Killer: Of a sort; they primarily target vamps who are guilty of serious crimes like murder. Because Greg uses his vampire support group's confession hotline to pick targets.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Dracula is using them as a tool to keep Blacklight occupied and the public agitated.
  • Van Helsing Hate Crimes: They knock out, kidnap, and ritualistically stake vampires.
  • Vigilante Man: Vigilante killers of vampires.
  • Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: The whole group is one. SSL is a front organization for them, and the confession hotline is what they use to find their targets.

    Osvaldo 

Osvaldo

An exceptionally strong Spanish vampire who serves as Dracula's lieutenant (following Valeri's death in the destruction of Chataeu Dauncy) throughout Darkest Night.


  • Death by Looking Up: He literally glances up just as Valentin smashes him with the wreckage of the missile.
  • The Dragon: To Dracula since Valeri is out of the picture.
    • Co-Dragons: With Emery, though Dracula pays more attention to Osvaldo.
  • Hero Killer: In the middle of the final battle, he retaliates against Julian's attempt at staking him by viciously stabbing and disemboweling him.
  • Karmic Death: Killed seconds after mortally wounding Julian.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: He's introduced in Darkest Night and is nowhere near as powerful as some of the other vampires Blacklight has encountered, but it's him who murders Julian Carpenter.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: His breathless loyalty, high power level, and role as The Dragon heavily recall Valeri, who would easily slot into Osvaldo's story arc if he hadn't been staked in Zero Hour.
  • Undying Loyalty: What makes Dracula spare and promote him — despite his magnetic charisma, Osvaldo has no desire to do anything other than please and serve Dracula.

    Emery 

Emery

An unturned human who voluntarily serves as Dracula's Torture Technician in Darkest Night. Despite Dracula's hatred for humanity, Emery is kept around simply by virtue of being both fearless in his master's presence and absolutely monstrous.


  • Ax-Crazy: So much so that when he waltzes into Dracula's hideout and goes into detail about everything he would happily do if the first vampire asked him to, Dracula actually shudders before coming to respect him.
  • Co-Dragons: With Osvaldo, who fills out the more conventional role as the vampiric second-in-command.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: He only lives to inflict this. We don't see it happen often, but his crucifixion, bloodletting, and otherwise mixed torture of Angela Darcy stands out as one of the most unpleasantly brutal acts committed by a human in the series.
  • Les Collaborateurs: Dracula's only willing human servant, and the first man called upon when Dracula needs to truly brutalize a captive.
  • Karmic Death: When he leans close to the half-unconscious Angela Darcy to find out how much pain she's in, she buries one of the crucifix's nails into his jaw, rips his throat out, and drinks his blood to heal herself.
  • The Renfield: Fittingly, he serves this role for the vampire whose story is the Trope Namer.
  • The Sociopath: As he and many others point out, he has absolutely no emotions and is driven only by a desire to inflict pain.
  • Soft-Spoken Sadist: Speaks in a low, flat monotone.
  • Torture Technician: Dracula makes him into this.

Other Notable Characters

    Grey 

Grey

The leader of a vampire haven dubbed "Valhalla". One of the oldest vampires in the UK, he is responsible for turning Larissa, though he takes a while to admit it.


  • Arch-Enemy: Larissa's, for inflicting vampirism upon her and condemning her to a life of misery.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: After total absence since his self-imposed exile in the original novel, he returns in Zero Hour to give the First Victim's location to Blacklight.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Though he was never really a villain, he fully switches over to helping the good guys.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Sees the error in his ways after confronting Larissa in the original novel, pledges to redeem himself somehow, and goes into a self-imposed exile.
  • Older Than They Look: One of the single oldest vampires in the UK.
  • Serial Killer: Once every few years, he leaves Valhalla and kills a young woman who reminds him of his wife. He tried to do this to Larissa, but ended up turning her instead.
  • Silver Fox: Has silver hair, but is still fairly handsome.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: His total amount of page time is very low, and he only has two major actions in the series, but those two actions are turning Larissa into a vampire and successfully locating the First Victim in Romania.

    Tim Albertsson 

Tim Albertsson

An NS9 Operator who becomes a colleague and close friend of Larissa's when she is temporarily transferred there in Battle Lines. However, he becomes fixated on her and kisses her, causing an internal struggle within her.


  • Asshole Victim: After all of the trouble he caused, nobody's really sad that Gregor tore his throat out.
  • Jerkass: Slowly reveals himself to be this in Zero Hour.
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: Gregor does this for Larissa, albeit without her knowledge.
  • Nice Guy: Initially, he's the perfect gentleman. However, he fills out the other meaning associated with "nice guy" when he expects that his niceness be rewarded with Larissa's romantic affections.
  • Slashed Throat: Gregor tears a chunk of his throat out.
  • Yandere: Starts to come off this way toward Larissa, enough for her to violently confront him and call him pathetic for trying to get close to her.

    Kevin McKenna 

Kevin McKenna

A moderately successful reporter who comes into unwilling contact with Albert Harker and becomes his main ally in exposing Blacklight and vampirism to the world.


  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Albert Harker smashes him against a wall with all of his strength, pins him, and slowly rips his throat out.
  • Going for the Big Scoop: Needs Albert Harker's story to revitalize his tanking career, and he stays with him no matter what happens so as not to jeopardize his chance.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Unintentionally pulls one when he tries to alert Pete and Greg to Albert Harker's plans for them; instead, his painful death at Harker's hands becomes the first step to Harker's downfall.
  • Hostage Situation: Unwittingly part of one along with Pete and Greg, though he is in a better position than either of them.
  • Inspirational Martyr: People continue to honor him long after his highly publicized death, especially once vampires are revealed to the world in Zero Hour.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: He realizes too late just how insane and driven Albert Harker is, and makes an attempt to set things right, only to die soon after.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Harker's scheme is made possible by his actions. This makes him responsible by proxy for the exposure of vampires to humanity.

    The Cured Vampire 

The Cured Vampire, aka John Bell

The only vampire known to have been successfully cured, after suffering in Christopher Reynolds's experiments. After Julian gets in contact with him via Astral Projection in The Rising and makes his existence known, Blacklight and NS9 make it their mission to hunt him down in hopes of discovering the cure.


  • Astral Projection: Julian first makes contact with him in a spiritual chat via Mushroom Samba, during which he tells Julian about his torturous curing process and implores him to leave him alone.
  • Badass Normal: Despite being an ordinary human, he manages to put the entire Blacklight force sent to capture him on its heels and outruns them until the bitter end.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: Was subjected to all of the various methods of Christopher Reynolds; he is lucky to have even survived, let alone been cured.
  • Driven to Suicide: When Matt corners him, he chooses to jump in front of a semi rather than work with Blacklight.
  • Find the Cure!: The stated purpose for finding him; however, he wants nothing to do with the operation and just wants to live out the rest of his days in peace. His blood, recovered posthumously, turns out to contain the root for the successful cure after all.
  • The Ghost: Aside from his chat with Julian, he remains unseen and off the radar for the majority of the series despite Blacklight's best efforts to locate him. Even in Zero Hour, he is only seen in one chapter, at the end of which he jumps in front of a truck.
  • Leave Me Alone!: All he wants is to be left alone, but he's willing to go to such extremes as killing several Operators with a bomb in his cabin to accomplish this.
  • Le Parkour: Jumps along rooftops and through buildings when Matt and the NS9 recovery team finally find him.
  • Living Macguffin: As the single known example of a cured vampire, pursuing and capturing him is the main goal for several books, as a cure for vampirism derived from his blood would be the perfect weapon against Dracula's army.
  • Patient Zero: Inverted; he's the first person to have been cured of the vampire virus.
  • Surprisingly Sudden Death: One second he's standing on the street corner with Matt. The next — splat.

    Alan Foster 

Alan Foster

A retired Army Colonel vacationing in Carcassonne when Dracula's army takes it over in Darkest Night.


  • Badass Normal: Despite being an everyday man with no formal anti-vampire training, he manages to free himself and multiple hostages from vampire captors with little more than ingenuity.
  • Back-to-Back Badasses: With Frankenstein near the end of Darkest Night.
  • Colonel Badass: As a retired colonel, this is a given. It also adds a layer of Irony when he starts fighting with Frankenstein, who shares his rank.
  • Cool Old Guy: Long past retiring age and still capable of holding his own.
  • MacGyvering: To escape the hostage situation he finds himself in, he uses hairspray resin to stick glass shards onto a broken towel rack, making a club that he uses to bash in the brains of his vampiric captors.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: He's just an ordinary citizen introduced in Darkest Night, but his actions free Dracula's hostages, which the Blacklight strike force could not focus on.

Spoiler Characters

    The Forest Entity 

The Forest Entity

A mysterious being lurking deep in the forests of Romania. In 1476, a defeated Vlad Tepes stumbled upon it and struck a deal with it, absorbing it into his body and becoming the first vampire, Dracula.


  • Alien Sky: It manifests underneath one, with bizarre shifting constellations occasionally appearing in pitch black skies.
  • Blob Monster: Manifests as a massive, black blob with a Slasher Smile.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: Exactly what it wants and why is as inexplicable as what it is.
  • Brown Note: Looking at it messes with your mind pretty badly. When Dracula is dying and the entity rises from his body, Jamie learns this the hard way, and it takes a long time for him to stop having nightmares about it.
  • The Corrupter: Convinced Vlad Tepes to make a deal with it and become Dracula, turning the already sadistic conqueror into the single most evil and dangerous sentient being in history.
  • Deal with the Devil: Vlad Tepes made a pact with it to save himself after his army's defeat, in exchange for his soul.
  • Eldritch Abomination: It is clearly not of this world, but nothing is ever remotely explained about where it came from and why. Dracula never bothers to think too heavily about it, and none of the other characters have an inkling that it ever existed.
  • Eldritch Location: Its home, which it refers to as "The Deep", is an area in the forest that can be wandered into but not out of. The trees are endless, there's strange plants and a pitch-black sky full of unfamiliar and constantly shifting constellations, and at the deepest central part is some kind of sacrificial altar (where the entity resides) surrounded by statues depicting unknown figures committing various atrocities.
  • Evil Is Not a Toy: When Dracula is speared in the heart with his own sword, the entity reemerges from his body in a massive pillar before dragging him, kicking and screaming, into its depths.
  • Evil Tainted the Place: When Jamie finds the clearing where it spawned while tracking the First Victim, despite it last being there in the 1400s, he feels a distinct sense of power and wrongness.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: This being is responsible for Dracula's birth, and therefore for vampirism itself, making every death and cruelty inflicted throughout the series directly its fault. It's also lightly implied that it slowly eats away at Dracula's soul over the centuries, making him even more sadistic and monstrous than he already was.
  • Human Sacrifice: It spawns from an altar that clearly has had many people sacrificed on it. What this means, who the culture was that did the sacrificing, or what connection it has to the entity is unknown.
  • Karma Houdini: Possibly. After dragging the dying Dracula into itself, it simply disappears from the world, receiving no clear and explicit punishment for starting the entire series' chain of events other than losing its host.
  • The Man Behind the Man: Looking for the reason for Dracula's rise? You found it.
  • Outside-Genre Foe: It's fundamentally wrong in every way possible, has no foreshadowing to its existence, and releases vampirism on the world for little more than amusement.
  • Satan: It is heavily implied to be something like this.
  • Slasher Smile: Its only distinguishing feature.
  • Soft-Spoken Sadist: Speaks in a constant whisper, and the text implies that it might be whispering directly into Vlad's mind.
  • Walking Spoiler: Its reveal in The Rising is a shock, and it provides an explanation for one of the series' driving questions: the true origins of vampirism.

    The First Victim 

Gregor, aka the First Victim

Dracula's very first victim, a farmer he fed upon after his "birth" and inadvertently let live. Blacklight learns of his existence and sets about trying to track him down before Zero Hour hits, since his power would be equivalent to Dracula's. In Zero Hour, Jamie and other Operators are dispatched to his suspected location and manage to find him.


  • Above Good and Evil: Living for as long as he has causes him to be utterly ambivalent toward Dracula's rising and the pleas for him to help, as he views it as nothing more than another world conflict that will pass in time.
  • Ambiguously Evil: His tactics for warding off those who pursue him include displaying a number of viciously carved-up animal carcasses and murdering Tim Albertsson, whom he found rude, at night, but he is more rigidly neutral than anything else.
  • Being Watched: From the minute the Operators cross into his territory, he's watching and stalking them.
  • The Dreaded: Much of Zero Hour is spent building up his fearsome attitude and unmatched power.
  • Genius Bruiser: Despite originally being a 15th century farmer, he has grown intelligent enough to turn a large area of the forest into his private complex, including a barrier of meticulously-grown trees and an underground chamber filled with advanced computers and monitoring equipment he assembled himself.
  • The Hermit: Lives in an old cabin in the middle of the Romanian forests, and wants nothing more than to stay isolated for the rest of eternity.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He outwardly seems like a Misanthrope Supreme, but he is willing to turn Jamie into a vampire when he requests something to help them fight Dracula, and the love Larissa displays after the fact softens him and reminds him of the love he felt for a woman many centuries ago.
  • Leave Me Alone!: He wants to stay to himself by any means necessary. In fact, he leaves this message over much of his territory.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: He has limited interaction with the characters, but he's the one who bites and turns Jamie, enabling Blacklight to take the fight to Dracula.
  • Stronger with Age: As Dracula's first victim, he has existed for as long as the first vampire and is almost exactly as powerful.
  • Walking Spoiler: It takes some time before it's revealed that Valeri was not the first person turned by Dracula.

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