Long Before Dawn
A 2009 vampire novel by James V. Viscosi.
After demolishing a group of vampire hunters, Martel the vampire sets his sights on an attractive woman he sees pumping gas and follows her from Pennsylvania back to upstate New York, where he amuses himself by stalking her. He makes it pretty obvious that he plans to eventually turn her into a vampire, which doesn't sit well with his current vampiric paramour. But what can SHE do about it?
Tropes used in Long Before Dawn include:
- And Your Little Dog, Too
- Anyone Can Die: And boy, do they ever.
- Achilles' Heel
- Armor-Piercing Question: Roxanne to Martel, toward the end
- Badass
- Beauty Equals Goodness: Inverted with Lauren. Played straight with Roxanne.
- Big Bad: Martel, then, ultimately, Lauren
- Bittersweet Ending Roxanne lives; Barry dies. Ken is reunited with Lauren moments before blowing her up with a suicide vest.
- Blondes Are Evil: Lauren
- Blood Lust
- Collapsing Lair: Right at the beginning, the vampire hunters burn down a coffin factory where Martel has been hiding out. Later, Ken blows up the factory where Lauren and her vampires have been living.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Christian Keems
- Crowning Moment of Awesome: When a naked Lauren comes in for the kill, Jeff shoves a garlic clove where, um, the sun doesn't shine.
- Also, Roxanne vs. Christian during the final showdown at the factory.
- Earn Your Happy Ending
- Even Evil Has Standards: Well, Martel does, anyway.
- Evil Is Sexy: Martel gets busy with most of the female characters at one point or another; Lauren has enormous success picking up men in bars.
- Five-Man Band
- The Hero: Barry Brennan. Could also have been The Big Guy if the actual Big Guy weren't even bigger.
- The Lancer: Jack Davidson, once he finally realizes he is dealing with vampires and not terrorists
- The Smart Guy: Ken Fletcher. Though if he's so smart, why did he get his entire team of vampire hunters killed?
- The Big Guy: Krone
- The Chick: Roxanne Carmichael
- Tagalong Kid: Jeff Tracey
- Sixth Ranger: Monica Klein
- Flight
- Green Eyed Red Head: Roxanne
- Holy Burns Evil
- Hypnotic Eyes
- I Hate You, Vampire Dad
- I Have You Now, My Pretty: Done to Roxanne by Martel and Lauren on separate occasions.
- Immortality
- Infant Immortality: Inverted. Lauren seems to like killing babies and children, and one of the first things Christian does after getting turned into a vampire is microwave Roxanne's puppy.
- Kick the Dog
- Mind Control Eyes
- Rasputinian Death: Christian gets shot in the face, has his bowels blown out with a shotgun, gets burned by the sun, and has his genitals bitten off, before finally exploding due to overexposure to sunlight.
- Religion Is Magic
- Our Vampires Are Different: Because they sleep in cocoons made out of blood and only react to holy symbols from their former religion. Otherwise they're pretty much standard regular vampires.
- The Dog Bites Back: Krone
- The Dragon: Krone
- The Starscream: Lauren
- The Vamp: Lauren. Literally and figuratively.
- Underestimating Badassery: Martel doesn't take Lauren seriously as a threat until much too late.
- Vampire Hunter: In spades
- Viral Transformation: Martel generally arranges it so his victims don't come back as vampires; Lauren wants to raise a vampire army.
- Weakened by the Light