Literature / Old Scores

The cover art.

"When enemies stir and rivalries reawaken, old scores will be settled and blood will flow."

The Old Scores tagline

Old Scores is a 2023 dark Urban Fantasy novel by A.J. Harrison. Vampire Simon and mortal Anita Rothard meet by coincidence and slowly grow closer, but are drawn into a centuries-old vampiric blood feud with far-reaching implications.

Old Scores contains examples of:

A–M

• Alas, Poor Villain: Hans Richtein finally starts to throw off Shafax's years of mental domination, but Shafax kills him before he can truly break free.
• And Show It to You: Salem shows Shafax his heart before dropping it in a torch.
• Angry Animalistic Growl: Most of the vampires deploy this at least once.
• Animate Dead: Shafax raises a cemetery full of zombies to fight Simon and Salem.
• Asshole Victim: Tom Corley, Sr., who beats both his wife and his son. Simon brutalizes him before killing him.
• Attack on the Heart: One of the classic means of dispatching vampires, and given full credence here. Simon debilitates Christine by stabbing her through the heart before he decapitates her, and Salem rips out Shafax's heart and drops it into a torch.
• Attack the Mouth: Simon hits Tom Corley in the jaw with a baseball bat, breaking it in several places and knocking out three teeth.
• Aura Vision: Downplayed, but Sarah remarks that Simon has an aura which is both very strong and very dark.
• The Bait: Shafax vampirizes Christine to hurt Anita, hoping to draw out Simon, and thereby get to Salem.
• Bastard Understudy: How Salem seems to view Simon.
• Battle Couple:
  • Downplayed when Simon in ambushed in an alley; Anita rescues him by whacking one of his attacks with a two-by-four, and he returns the favor by almost strangling one of her attackers to death.
  • Closer to being played straight in the graveyard, when Simon and Anita trade off dealing with Christine.
• Battle Strip: Simon and Salem both strip off their shirts and coats before fighting Shafax.
• The Beastmaster: A power of older vampires, which Shafax deploys in force.
• Big Fancy House: Both the Rothard house (particularly given its hedge maze) and the Stokely estate.
• Bitch Slap: Anita slaps Christine when goaded too far by her flirtation with Simon.
• Black Magic: One of Shafax's specialties.
• The Blade Always Lands Pointy End In: When Salem pitches his katana across St. Brigid's, it lands point-first.
• Bloodlust: The scent of blood excites vampires' predatory reflexes. Simon's nearly leads him to bite Anita when she bleeds from her lip; he turns it into an aggressive First Kiss with an instant to spare. She comes out better than Maya in the backstory, when Simon's control was weaker.
  • Invoked by Salem when he cuts Maya's neck, leading Simon to kill her with Vampiric Draining.
• Bond One-Liner: After killing a human looking to rent his backup lair, Salem tells the corpse, "I'm afraid I'm going to opt not to lease at this time."
• Boom, Headshot!: Subverted. Salem shoots several zombies dead-center in their heads, but unfortunately for him, Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain is not in effect.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: Despite Simon being stronger than any human on earth, Salem taught him hand-to-hand and blade fighting anyway.
• Breaking and Bloodsucking: Downplayed, then averted; Simon uses his hypnotic powers to dominate Anita's mind, but rather than draw her out onto her balcony and bite her, he lets her go.
• Broken Masquerade: Anita's silver cross burns Simon's hand, which causes him to extend his fangs on reflex.
• Bullied into Depression: Downplayed with Anita, who evidently spent most of high school being bullied and, despite her kindness and good nature, has few friends.
• Burn the Undead: Mentioned as a means of killing vampires, though, for obvious reasons, neither Simon nor Salem tries it.
• The Caligula: Shafax is King of Vampires, a position never intended for real rule over vampires, let alone feeding on them. Salem suggests Shafax's blood gluttony has driven him insane, but notes that he was a megalomaniac even before.
• Cannot Cross Running Water: Unless there is a bridge over it, though the vampire can still only pass directly over the bridge.
• Cast from Hit Points: Downplayed. While there is evidently an element of discipline and practice, Simon can tap greater vampiric abilities than usual (such as Super-Speed) only when he is well-fed, and Shafax needs to feed regularly to sustain his atypical powers; the strain of trying to animate too much dead flesh in the graveyard actually causes mild physical degradation.
• Casts No Shadow: Simon prefers dark spots during daylight in part because they camouflage his own lack of shadow.
• Cement Shoes: Shafax's victims are already dead, but Hans uses cinder blocks to weigh down their bodies before tossing them into Lake Michigan.
• Chicago: The story is set almost entirely in Chicago and its nearby suburbs.
• Color-Coded Eyes: Bloody sclera in a vampire (ranging from the appearance of pinkeye to flat-out red instead of white) is the mark of a blood glutton.
• Combat Pragmatist: Salem, who wastes no time in killing his enemies with merciless efficiency.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Salem gets information on Simon by dislocating a gangbanger's arm and threatening to tear off his limbs.
• Cool Car: Christine's red Infiniti Coupe.
• Cool Sword: Salem has two: a Roman gladius and a Japanese katana (the latter forged by legendary swordmaker Muramasa, or so Salem claims).
• Creepy Cemetery: St. Brigid's was bad enough with just Salem living in it; when Shafax claims it, it becomes a nightmarish den of lesser monsters.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Salem rips open Shafax's chest cavity with his gladius, tears out Shafax's heart, and drops it on a torch's flames, which causes Shafax to burn from the inside out before disintegrating.
• Culturally Religious: Anita, to some degree, since her family and Marion are Catholic. She gets a rude awakening when she discovers Simon is a vampire and realizes there is hard truth underlying the faith.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: What Salem delivers to Simon.
• Curse: Shafax attempts to curse Anita, but Simon gets in the way; since Simon is already undead, the curse has no lasting impact on him, though he is briefly disoriented.
• Damsel in Distress: Heidi, while she and Miguel are Shafax's prisoners.
• Daywalking Vampire: Even direct sunlight is only disorienting, not harmful, unless it is dawn's light.
• Deadpan Snarker: After Shafax lays down an A God Am I boast, Salem quotes Shelley's "Ozymandias".
• Death Glare: Shafax gives several, notably to Salem and Anita.
• Dedication: To the author's beta readers.
• Defiant to the End: Name-dropped by Shafax, though Salem manages to avert the "end" part.
• Devour the Dragon: Shafax implies it was on his to-do list with Christine.
• Dirty Coward: Tom Corley, Sr., tries to get Simon to take his wife and son rather than him.
• Distressed Dude: Anita comes to the aid of an injured and heavily outnumbered Simon, distracting his attackers at a critical moment to allow him to turn the tables.
• Doesn't Like Guns: Salem—not for any aversion to violence, but because he thinks they are beneath him. Despite his disdain, however, he is an exceptional pistol marksman.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Shafax's verbal bewitching in the nightclub evidently brings Christine to orgasm.
• Dramatic Thunder: Christine conjures some up simply for the sake of dramatic emphasis.
• The Dreaded: Simon is clearly this to the people in his neighborhood.
• Dual Wielding: Salem indulges in it with his gladius and a katana.
• Dug Too Deep: The Mari archaeological team that awakens Shafax in the prologue.
• Dying as Yourself: Christine's beauty fades back to what she had in life after Simon decapitates her.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Although pale, black-haired Simon and Salem can both turn on the charm when they need to, their general appearance unsettles far more often than it entices.
• Elective Monarchy: The vampires have one, electing kings at infrequent assemblies called "coronas".
• Elemental Powers: Salem and Shafax both conjure mist out of thin air to veil their actions.
• Emo / Goth: Miguel's collection of friends includes people gravitating toward both stereotypes, though many in the group (including Miguel himself) do not fit either.
• Emo Teen: How Miguel's group is (collectively) treated by other humans. Simon seems to have a similarly dismissive view of them.
• Evil Sorcerer: Shafax, a practitioner of Black Magic of various kinds.
• Evil Smells Bad: Simon swishes mouthwash to remove the reek of blood from his breath.
• Eye Scream: Heidi stabs Hans Richtein in the eye with a broken beer bottle.
• Eyes Out of Sight: For most of the story, Shafax veils his eyes with a robe or sunglasses. When he finally reveals himself, it is immediately apparent why.
• Faint in Shock: After the alley fight, Anita's flood of stress hormones catches up with her and she passes out. A doctor at an urgent care diagnoses her with an acute stress reaction.
• Fan Disservice: Miguel and his friends stumble upon the beautiful Christine completely naked—and in the middle of being sacrificed in a black magic ritual to turn her into a vampire.
• Fangs Are Evil: Vampires use their fangs as their primary feeding tool, though they are retractable to preserve the appearance of humanity.
• First Kiss: Simon and Anita, outside the urgent care.
• Force and Finesse:
  • Christine and Simon, respectively.
  • Shafax and Salem give the master class version.
• The Force Is Strong with This One: Shafax can vaguely sense Salem's presence in Chicago, but he needs to use necromancy to confirm his senses.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Salem is briefly distracted by the name "Rothard" on Anita's mailbox before shaking it off. It turns out he should have given his concern more attention; Anita's uncle works for a Vampire Hunter organization.
  • After discovering Heidi's corpse, Simon notes she is prettier than he ever noticed—because she is becoming a vampire.
• Friendship Moment: Downplayed. When Shafax is dead, Salem has no clear reason to spare Simon, let alone Anita, but he does.
• Genre Mashup: A dark Urban Fantasy with Horror, Action, and Paranormal Romance elements.
• Genre Savvy:
  • Played with for Christine. When Simon cringes away from garlic mashed potatoes, she correctly identifies him as a vampire, but she means it as a joke.
  • Anita asks Salem if he is going to drink her blood when he corners her in an alley. He is annoyed, but begrudgingly impressed.
  • After the fight in the Stokely house, Simon asks Anita to wait while he retrieves his Kukri, but she thinks better of it and goes with him.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Vampires' eyes glow red as a sign of anger or intentional intimidation.
• A God Am I: Shafax claims to be a god.
• Godzilla Threshold: Downplayed in the first chapter; the tenement's denizens are clearly terrified of Simon, but Tricia Corley has grown so desperate to save her son from abuse that she asks Simon for help.
• Gratuitous Spanish: Between Marion and Anita. Justified, as it is Marion's native language and she is helping Anita practice it.
• Guns Are Worthless. Mostly played straight; they present effectively no threat to vampires (Salem is shot point-blank in the gut and is merely annoyed), and Salem discovers they have no real effect on zombies, either. Salem does provide Anita with a pistol so she can shoot Hans Richtein if given the chance, but Shafax kills him instead, though she manages to kill a coyote with it.
• Healing Factor: Vampires heal quickly from most wounds, though serious injuries take longer and require feeding.
• Heroic BSoD: After the alley fight, Anita suffers an acute stress reaction, though she bounces back within a couple hours.
• Hide Your Otherness: Simon cuts his claws, shaves the hair from his palms, and steals clothes with more color than black before visiting Anita's house.
• Hiss Before Fleeing: Shafax, after Anita shoves a crucifix in his face.
• Holy Burns Evil: Vampires are repelled by crucifixes.
• Horror Hunger: Salem notes that becoming a blood glutton amplifies a vampire's appetite, and it grows worse the more vampires are consumed.
• Human Mail: How Shafax reaches the United States, though he has planted Hans among the cargo ship's crew.
• Humanoid Abomination: How vampires see blood gluttons, like Shafax, whose physical appearance is far more bestial than Simon's or Salem's unless he is intentionally disguising himself with magic. His bloody sclera, however, can not be disguised.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Salem makes this observation when he and Simon come upon a group of teenagers beating up a homeless man.
• Hypnotic Eyes: All the vampires have this power, though it varies in intensity; Simon's control does not seem to last long after he breaks eye contact, whereas Shafax turns Hans Richtein into The Renfield for years.
• Identity Amnesia: Of a sort. Apparently uniquely among vampires, Simon has no memory of his human life.
• I Gave My Word: Part of Salem's justification for sparing Anita's life in the end.
• Immortality Hurts: Among the vampires in the novel, they endure beatings, stabbings, slashes, telekinetically broken bones, biceps clawed to shreds of muscle, stabbing through the heart, and opened chest cavities, and only two of them die.
• Immortality Immorality: None of the vampires show much remorse, but Shafax seems intent on consuming all living and unliving things.
• Immune to Bullets: Downplayed. Bullets generate enough speed and force to pierce vampire skin, but unless blessed or made of silver, don't appear to be much more than annoyances; when Salem is shot, he is more irritated about the hole in his tee shirt than the hole in his stomach.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:
  • Hans stabs Rachel through the chest and out the back with a knife.
  • Simon stabs Salem so hard the blade not only comes out the other side, but pins Salem to a boxing ring.
  • Simon pulls off another "all the way through" stab (with the same weapon, no less) against Shafax.
• Improvised Weapon: Quite a few throughout.
  • Salem uses a shovel against Simon in the construction site. Simon tries to use both a cement mixer and a screwdriver, without effect.
  • In the flashback, Salem bashes Matt's skull in with a dumbbell.
  • Heidi stabs Hans in the eye with a broken beer bottle.
• Innate Night Vision: Simon reflects that he actually sees better in darkness, without lights distracting him.
• Insane Troll Logic: Downplayed. Salem clearly sees Shafax's strategy (draw Salem out by hurting Simon, which he accomplished by vampirizing Christine to hurt Anita) as this. As Shafax notes, however, it worked (though Salem derides it as "pure, dumb luck").
• Intangibility: Shafax briefly manifests this power; even Salem is bewildered.
• Inter-Class Romance: Between Anita (whose family owns a lakefront property in Evanston) and Simon (who steals everything he owns).
• Ironic Echo: After thoroughly beating Simon within an inch of his unlife, Salem greets him with a cheerful, "Hello Simon, how are you?" He repeats the line somewhat less cheerfully when Simon has a knife to his throat, prepared to decapitate him if he kills Anita.
• It's All About Me: Played for (dark) Laughs in the pawn shop. After brutally killing two gangbangers, Salem is shot by a third, and castigates the terrified man for putting a hole in his shirt before killing him, too.
• It's Personal: It clearly is between Shafax and Salem; the story is vague as to exactly why, though apparently each killed someone the other valued.
• It's Quiet… Too Quiet: Shafax (whether intentionally or simply by being present) has imposed unnatural silence on St. Brigid's.
• I've Never Seen Anything Like This Before: Salem makes the observation about Shafax's powers.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Averted. Though Salem has a katana (evidently forged by Muramasa), he prefers his Roman gladius. The gladius survives the fight with Shafax, while the katana does not.
• Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: Salem intends this for Anita until Simon intervenes.
• The Kingslayer: Salem (and, by extension, Simon and Anita).
• Kissing Under the Influence: Christine flirts with and kisses Simon while she has been drinking, though at least partly in a (misguided, but nonetheless successful) attempt to galvanize Anita into acting on her own feelings for Simon.
• Kiss of the Vampire:
  • Christine's memories of her night with Shafax are a little blurry, but even those hazy memories give her a rush of pleasure.
  • Downplayed in the ending; Anita willingly allows Simon to bite her, but to save his unlife rather than for her own enjoyment.
• Knee-capping: Salem stabs Shafax in the knee with the broken-off tip of his katana, distracting him at a critical moment.
• Kukris Are Kool: Simon uses a kukri when he needs a bladed weapon.
• Large Ham: In response to Shafax reviving the corpses of St. Brigid's as zombies, Salem remarks, "Always the melodrama."
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Simon and Salem remorselessly prey on mortals, but their slender code of honor and Simon's relationship with Anita (and Salem's begrudging tolerance of it) set them well apart from Shafax.
• Lip Losses: After Anita smacks a man attacking Simon with a two-by-four, he threatens to bite off her lips.
• The Load: Heidi has traces of this even before she and Miguel become Shafax's prisoners, but it is played straight thereafter. Briefly subverted, though, when she stabs Hans Richtein in the eye to save Miguel.
• The Lost Lenore: Hans Richtein's thoughts reveal the death of his significant other sent him into depression.
• Master Swordsman: Salem is implied to be one.
• Mayfly–December Romance: Averted. Simon has only been a vampire roughly two decades, and is about that old physically, putting him around Anita's age.
• Meaningful Rename: Salem stopped calling himself "Flavius" at some point before meeting Simon, although, as with most things concerning Salem, what the choice means is not clear.
• Meet Cute: Simon (distracted by Miguel) and Anita (listening to headphones with her eyes closed) walk into each other.
• Mentor in Sour Armor: Salem to Simon. His "soft side deep down" is very much downplayed, but he does spare both Simon and Anita after Shafax's death.
• Mind over Matter: Shafax is telekinetic.
• Missing Reflection: Vampires have no reflections.
• Modesty Bedsheet: Christine uses one the morning after her night with Shafax.
• Monstrous Cannibalism: Vampires who drink the blood of other vampires increase their power, at the expense of amplifying their own Bloodlust and undergoing physical mutations.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Played straight with Simon and Shafax, who are both thin, but vastly stronger than any human. Downplayed a little with Salem; his vampiric strength is just as far beyond human reach, but he also has a soldier's muscular build.
• Must Be Invited: Simon narrowly averts an awkward moment at Anita's door when she steps out of his way and gestures him inside; the invitation must be verbal.
• Mysterious Past:
  • The story heavily implies Salem was Roman in life, and makes clear he and Shafax were enemies before Old Scores, but the rest is unknown.
  • Simon's human life is a mystery even to him.

N–Z

• Neck Lift: Christine muses that she could do it to Hans Richtein.
• Necromancer: Shafax showcases both the classical variant (communing with the spirits of the dead) and the modern take (raising an army of undead).
• The Nicknamer: Salem comes up with a series of food-related nicknames for Anita.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
  • Simon delivers one to Tom Corley before killing him.
  • Downplayed when Simon fights Salem; Salem beats Simon savagely, but is clearly holding back the full extent of his skills, and lets Simon go with his injuries and a warning.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Simon killing Lenny Nelson; whatever happened was apparently gruesome.
  • Exactly how and why Salem killed Trixie and her friends in St. Brigid's.
• No-Sell: After Renee elbows Chris in the solar plexus and winds him, Fritz Kalten tries the same thing on Hans, but Hans is much too tough and simply shrugs it off.
• Odd Couple: Simon and Anita—the stoic, predatory vampire and the thoughtful artist.
• Off with His Head!: Simon kills Christine by beheading her.
• Ominous Clouds: A storm gathers in Newark when the John Polidori docks, bearing Shafax.
• Ominous Fog: Shafax and Salem both conjure mist to veil their actions.
• One-Man Army: Salem mows through most of Shafax's zombies without assistance.
• One to Million to One: Shafax turns into a swarm of locusts. Salem kills one of the swarm with a throwing knife, and when Shafax reconstitutes himself, he has a minor injury.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Largely based on Dracula, but with nods to 'Salem's Lot and Nosferatu, with a few twists.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: Although "different" here is synonymous with "extinct" (according to Salem, the last werewolf was killed in 1873).
• Our Zombies Are Different: Shafax bolsters his defenses by reanimating the dead in St. Brigid's; they are, in effect, VoodooZombies, and Salem explicitly calls them "zombies."
• Painted-On Pants: Christine's clubbing outfit.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: "Don't abuse your wife and child, or you'll be savagely beaten to a pulp and murdered by a vampire"—a Space Whale Aesop for the ages.
• Peaceful in Death: Christine's face softens after her final death.
• Pet the Dog: Salem bribes a homeless man with burritos for information on Simon; the man (truthfully) reports that he does not know and has not seen Simon, but Salem gives him the burritos anyway.
• Pink Is Erotic: Christine's nail polish, lipstick, and choli top.
• Place of Protection: Salem mentions offhand to Anita that he could not have pursued her into Holy Name Cathedral.
• The Power of Blood:
  • Simon can occasionally tap vampiric abilities outside his usual range, such as Super-Speed, but only when he is well-fed.
  • Possibly Invoked by Salem, who takes the time to slaughter Shafax's summoned beasts and conjured zombies to deplete Shafax's powers; as a blood glutton, Shafax needs more blood than a normal vampire anyway.
• Protection from the Elements: Simon not only ignores a rainstorm, he doesn't even blink.
• Punched Across the Room:
  • Salem sends Simon flying with a shovel during their one-sided fight in the construction site.
  • Downplayed between Shafax and Salem; the former knocks the latter around during their second fight.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Simon thinks of Anita's eyes this way.
• Put Their Heads Together: Simon does it to a pair of reanimated corpses.
• Rage Against the Mentor: Simon indulges in it when Salem slaughters his friends at the boxing gym. He winds up stabbing Salem through the stomach.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin:
  • Christine. Her beauty persists into undeath, but though it is amplified even further, Anita thinks it looks eerie.
  • Subverted with both Simon and Salem—despite their black hair and pale skin (and inexplicably magnetic personalities), their overall look is more unsettling than attractive.
• Really 700 Years Old: As to be expected with vampires, but Shafax is somewhere around 3,800 years old, while Salem is explicitly at least 500 and heavily implied to be Roman, putting him at least at 1,500.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Blood in the sclera is the first (and apparently only non-concealable) sign of a blood glutton vampire.
• Reflective Eyes: Vampiric eyes reflect the light unnaturally.
• Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain: Subverted. Salem tries it on Shafax's zombies with a series of head shots, with little effect. He eventually hacks them into so many pieces that it is too difficult for Shafax to continue animating their flesh.
• The Renfield: Hans Richtein is turned into one for Shafax. The story implies that Hans's depression over the death of his significant other in a motorcycle accident left him vulnerable to Shafax's mental domination.
• Revenge by Proxy: Shafax threatens it against Simon, planning to torture Anita to death while Simon watches. Salem intervenes.
• Ritual Magic: Shafax uses Black Magic rituals to commune with the dead and expedite Christine's vampiric transformation.
• Rule of Three: Amidst the final confrontation, Salem still seizes the opening when Shafax presents it.
  Shafax: "I am lord! I am god! I am—"
  Salem: "Ozymandias, King of Kings."
• Running Gag: Salem's tee shirts getting ripped/torn/punctured.
• Run or Die: Anita is subjected to it twice.
  • The first time, she reluctantly leaves Simon holding the Tiger by the Tail with a knife to Salem's throat, which he is doing to save her.
  • The second time, she again (and more quickly) follows Simon's direction to run for it, leaving him to fight Christine.
• Satellite Family Member: Richard and Nancy Rothard (and Marion de Santos, who is like family to Anita); though each has a distinct personality, all serve the narrative by their relation to Anita.
• Savage Wolves: Averted. Since Chicago is a dense urban environment which has long since eradicated its native wolf population, Shafax relies on urban coyotes instead.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: It is not clear how Shafax wound up in the tomb in Mari in the first place (or, indeed, whether it was a prison or merely a resting place), but the archaeologists digging too deep definitely triggered his reemergence.
• Secret Chaser: Miguel, to Simon.
• Self-Harm: Heidi bears the scars on her wrists. Her sister later reflects that Heidi was hospitalized for a suicide attempt.
• Self-Made Orphan:
  • Christine, sort of. She kills both her parents, but only after becoming a vampire, so she is (un)dead too.
  • Heidi becomes one in the epilogue, with the same caveat, and a helping of Sibling Murder too.
• Sequel Hook: Vampire hunters are pursuing Shafax, Heidi and Miguel are undead, and exactly what happened to Anita and Simon is unclear.
• Sensitive Artist: Anita, though her emotionality is particularly emphasized in contrast to Simon's stoicism.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Invoked by Anita in response to Simon during their first meeting.
  Anita: "Aww, aren't you sweet."
  Simon: "Not generally, though the appropriate stimulus can make me so."
  Anita: (Beat) "I'm pleased to have catalyzed your infrequent flirtatiousness."
• Shout-Out:
  • Salem tells Anita, "The dead travel fast," a quote from Lenore which was itself quoted in Dracula.
  • Salem quotes the classic boast from Shelley's "Ozymandias" to mock Shafax.
• Shrinking Violet: Heidi, in spades.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: When Shafax is threatening Salem in the Stokely house, Anita shoves a crucifix in his face, forcing him to break off as he cringes.
• Sickening "Crunch!": What accompanies Salem caving in Matt's skull with a dumbbell.
• Silver Has Mystic Powers:
  • Anita's silver cross burns Simon.
  • Salem mentions silver bullets as a means of killing vampires, though no one has any on hand.
• Sinister Suffocation: Simon nearly strangles someone who assaulted Anita and him, but Anita persuades him to stop.
• Sliding Scale of Vampire Friendliness: Shafax is about as far to the Unfriendly side as possible, preying not only on humans, but other vampires. Simon and Salem are still quite Unfriendly, but they have a (thin) code of honor which makes them A Lighter Shade of Black.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil: In the graveyard, Simon, Anita, and Salem fight wild animals, then zombies, then Christine, and finally Shafax.
• Spiteful Spit: Salem spits on Shafax's robes during their fight.
• Staking the Loved One: In a more metaphorical sense. Anita does not directly kill Christine, but she kicks Salem's katana out of Christine's reach to allow Simon to get the upper hand in their fight.
• The Stinger: Two of them, each of which gets an epilogue.
  • Anita's uncle returns to Madrid, where it turns out he is part of a Vampire Hunter organization tracking Shafax.
  • Heidi and Miguel are revealed to be undead.
• Storming the Castle: Salem, Simon, and Anita attack St. Brigid's, which Shafax has commandeered for his own use.
• A Storm Is Coming: Anita notes a thunderstorm over Lake Michigan the same night Shafax arrives in Chicago.
• Stronger with Age: Demonstrated to brutal effect when Simon fights Salem.
• Supermodel Strut: Anita thinks Christine does it without even meaning to.
• Super-Reflexes: Though his Super-Speed is spotty, Simon manifests this more reliably.
• Super-Senses: Particularly sight, hearing, and smell, for vampires.
• Super-Speed: Simon, a relatively young vampire, can use it in short bursts; Salem and Shafax almost seem to teleport with speed.
• Super-Strength: Simon effortlessly takes out most non-vampire attackers. Notably, this is one of the few vampiric powers which persists into daytime.
• Super-Toughness: At night, little can harm a vampire in melee combat besides another vampire. During the day, however, they are much more susceptible to injury.
• Swarm of Rats: Shafax conjures one.
• Switching P.O.V.: The only major character not to get a POV section is Shafax.
• Tactical Withdrawal: Salem flees St. Brigid's after narrowly surviving Shafax's surprise attack.
• Taking the Bullet: Simon gets in the way of a Curse Shafax intended for Anita; since he is already undead, it has no lasting effect.
• The Team Normal: Anita, teamed with Simon and Salem.
• Tiger by the Tail: To stop Salem from killing Anita, Simon holds his kukri knife to Salem's throat. Salem lets her go, but Simon is left with the choice to kill him in cold blood anyway or let him go and risk almost certain death. Anita lampshades the trope by name.
• Training from Hell: Simon implies learning from Salem was like this.
• Triple Shifter: Downplayed with Simon, who can only emerge from vampiric sleep at noon or sunset (and can't sleep at night); socializing with Anita during the day means he gets, at most, half a day's rest.
• Troll: Salem takes obvious pleasure in aggravating most of the people he meets, from random humans who cross his path all the way up to the King of All Vampires.
• Troubled Backstory Flashback: Simon recounts the demise of his friendship with Salem to Anita. Earlier in the novel, his mind briefly drifts to the fire in the gym.
• The Undead: The vampires, obviously. During the assault on St. Brigid's, Shafax reanimates dead corpses into zombies, too.
  • There is evidently something of a hierarchy, with zombies on the bottom ("the least of the undead") and vampires somewhere higher on the list.
• Undeath Always Ends: Shafax and Christine are both slain, though Simon and Salem "survive".
• Undeathly Pallor: Even well-fed, Simon and Salem both look pale.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Shafax can not match Salem's hand-to-hand expertise, but is so titanically powerful that he only needs to land a few blows.
• Vampire Bites Suck: Usually averted, but Shafax's victims in Syria are gruesomely mutilated around the throat, and Christine takes after her sire when feeding on her parents.
• Vampire Dance: Simon is able to keep up with Anita and Christine.
• Vampire Hickey:
  • Defied in the first chapter; Simon splits the skin between the bite marks he left on a victim to give the appearance of a knife wound rather than bites.
  • Christine has bite marks on her skin after her night with Shafax.
• Vampire Monarch: Downplayed. Shafax is King of All Vampires, but Salem and Simon note that the role is intended to arbitrate disputes among vampires, not to actually reign.
• Vampire Procreation Limit: Vampiric transformation requires consuming a vampire's blood, not simply being bitten.
• Vampires Are Sex Gods:
  • Downplayed, but, despite his general lack of expressed emotion, Simon nonetheless has a magnetic effect on the women around him, including Anita and Christine (who find him appealing) and Nancy Rothard and Marion (who have a favorable impression of him). Averted with Heidi, who is obviously unsettled by Simon.
  • Christine later notes that Shafax has a much more intense version of the same quality than Simon. She has no complaints about the night they spent together, though whether they actually had sex is unclear.
• Vampires Hate Garlic: Simon has a close call with garlic mashed potatoes.
• Vampires Sleep in Coffins: Salem is "borrowing" the stone sarcophagus of a dead Irish immigrant at the beginning of the story, though he has filled it with his own native soil.
• Vampire Vannabe: Hans Richtein, though it is not clear how much is his actual desire and how much Shafax imposed on his mind.
• Vampiric Draining: The vampires usually drain their victims dry.
• Villain Ball: Lampshaded by Anita and Discussed by Salem. Shafax, after driving Salem out of St. Brigid's, moves in there rather than literally anywhere else in a metropolitan area of thousands of square miles. Salem speculates that Shafax's blood gluttony, while not driving him insane in the usual sense of hallucinations and muddled memories, has amplified his arrogance and sense of invulnerability.
• Villainous Rescue: Sort of. Anita and Salem are on the same side by the time he slaughters the Swarm of Rats attacking her under Shafax's direction.
• Villain Protagonist: Simon, a more-or-less classical vampire.
• Villain Respect: Salem claims to spare Anita's life out of respect for her courage.
• Virus-Victim Symptoms: After consuming Shafax's blood, Christine struggles to keep up her complexion.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Simon's is limited to turning into a wolf or bat. Shafax takes it UpToEleven by turning into a swarm of locusts.
• Voluntary Vampire Victim: Anita allows Simon to feed on her so he will "survive" after the climactic fight.
• Wall Crawl: Simon sticks to walls, even without handholds.
• Wardrobe Wound: Salem is increasingly annoyed as his tee shirts keep getting torn, slashed, or punctured.
• Warm Bloodbags Are Everywhere: Simon stopped taking night classes at UIC because he found them too distracting.
• Weakened by the Light: Contrary to most modern depictions of vampires (but true to Dracula), vampires do not burst into flames in sunlight; they are merely weakened, losing most of their powers until sunset. In an homage to Nosferatu, though, dawn's light will kill a vampire.
• Weather Manipulation:
  • A storm follows Shafax into Chicago.
  • During the graveyard confrontation, Christine conjures up thunder by force of will.
• We Used to Be Friends:
  • Christine kissing Simon drives a wedge between her and Anita; both feel uncomfortable with the separation, but before they can patch things up, Shafax turns Christine into a vampire and the rift becomes permanent.
  • Both Simon and Salem express skepticism about the term "friend", but they worked together for years before their falling-out.
• Wolverine Claws: Shafax in particular fights with his claws, which have mutated into talons.
• Would Hit a Girl:
  • Tom Corley, Sr., beats his wife (including with a bat).
  • Simon fights Christine twice, and holds nothing back either time.
• Would Hurt a Child: Tom Corley, Sr., is hardly gentler with his son than his wife.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: One of Simon's and Salem's few moral compunctions is refusal to prey on children.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: When Christine is killed and Shafax knows direct battle is inevitable, he feeds on Hans to bolster his depleted powers (though this is something of a case of "you are more useful as food"). He implies he had the same fate in mind for Christine eventually.