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Main Cast
In General
- Criminal Found Family: Robin and the Leandros brothers have spent countless lifetimes together fighting side-by-side and taking comfort in each others' presence. Along with Niko's girlfriend Promise, Cal's boss Ishiah, they make a strong found family that mostly focus on protecting themselves and each other. But protecting their lives requires lots of illegal weapons and medication, under-the-table jobs, lying about their ages, and false identification, among other various crimes.
The Leandros Brothers
- Bash Brothers: Cal and Niko are a battle team, and eventually, Robin joins in the combat alongside them.
- Family Eye Resemblance: Both got gray eyes from their mother which are commented on repeatedly as they don't actually look much alike except for them.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: They have literally reincarnated hundreds or thousands of times to be together in every life...as platonic relatives.
- Nom de Mom: Cal and Niko keep their mother's name, not because they got along with her, but because Cal's father is a nameless monster and Niko didn't meet his until he was an adult.
- Sibling Team: Try to split them up and fear the consequences. They always work in tandem.
- Son of a Whore: Cal's father paid Sophia to have him.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Niko is the older, responsible, hard-working, polite, always serious, Master Swordsman vegetarian Badass Bookworm, for whom everything has its place, while Cal, the younger brother, is bad-mouthed, snarky, gun-toting, hot dog-loving, addicted to the TV and so lazy Niko considers his room a bubonic plague-infested minefield. It even extends to their looks, with Cal being an Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette and Niko a dark-skinned blond.
Caliban "Cal" Leandros
The half-human half-Auphe son of Sophia Leandros, Cal was bred by the Auphe for the purpose of ending the world. Nineteen when the series starts, Cal has spent four years of his life running from his heritage. Sarcastic, sullen, and prone to angsting, Cal alternates between taking nothing seriously and sinking into full-on depression.
- Antagonistic Offspring: Cal would like nothing more than to see his paternal race dead. Of course, seeing as "Ax-Crazy" is a wholly insufficient understatement to describe the Auphe, we cheer him on every step of the way.
- Anti Anti Christ: Cal has no interest in ending the world, despite having been born to do it.
- Bad Powers, Good People: Cal finds some good uses for his gate-opening ability...like killing Grimm, and transporting groceries.
- Berserk Button: Hurting Niko, or Robin, or George, or any of the other people he actually cares about will send Cal into a mindless rage.
- BFG: Both his Desert Eagle and his .50 Caliber Magnum qualify as such. He keeps a jacket to try to hide them but has to leave them behind when trying to be incognito, which causes some inconveniences.
- Black Speech: The Auphe language, which he only understands subconsciously. He slips into it when really, really angry.
- Can't Have Sex, Ever: Played with. He is so afraid of impregnating the human he loves — he doesn't trust birth control at all — with his half evil fairy sperm that he will only have sex with other species that he's biologically incompatible with.
- Deadpan Snarker: All the time, as a first-person narrator. He basically lives off sarcasm.
- Determinator: Powers through some truly horrendous injuries, especially when his loved ones are in danger or Auphe need killing.
- The Dreaded: Monsters who recognize Cal's Auphe scent are scared to death of him.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Night-black hair from his mom, moon-pale skin from his Eldritch Abomination paternal side.
- Emo Teen: Serious shades of this, especially in the first book. He's already nineteen, but he makes up for it with the sheer amount of bitter, cynical angst.
- First-Person Smartass: Although in later books other narrators get a crack at telling the story, most of the books are from Cal's perspectives exclusively or primarily, so he has the opportunity to make as many snarky jokes as he likes.
- The Gunslinger: Unlike Niko, Cal really, really prefers guns. "If I could kill from a distance, hey, it meant fewer laundry bills."
- Half-Human Hybrid: He is half-human, half-Auphe.
- Heroic BSoD: In Moonshine, after Hob defeats and kidnaps Niko, Cal sinks into an icy, suicidal rage, planning to take the villain in question with them.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Cal spends most of his time fighting between his humanity and the monster Auphe half. By the end of Blackout, he's resigned to the idea that his Auphe half and his humanity is slowly slipping away. He comes back from the brink later.
- Lazy Bum: Cal is not naturally inclined towards doing any sort of work, and will bitch and moan whenever he has to.
- Meaningful Name: Cal is short for Caliban, after the monster from The Tempest. His mother made sure he knew why he had the name.
- Mirror Character: Cal and Grimm are both half-Auphe, half-human hybrids created by the Auphe in hopes of finding one who could create gates. They are also the only successes, the only two who remained free and lived into adulthood, and both hate their monstrous parents, but they have very different goals.
- Only You Can Repopulate My Race: Deathwish reveals Cal to be the only male Auphe left, and the females look so horrific that it's unlikely they could get a human male to mate with one of them.
- Patricide: During his escape from Tumulus, Cal killed the Auphe who fathered him. It's one of the few things about his time there that he's sure about.
- Properly Paranoid: Cal is suspicious of everybody's motives, sleeps and bathes with a knife on him, and is ready for fight or flight at the drop of a pin. He's right more often than he's wrong.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Georgina won't look into the future to see if they will have Auphe children, and Cal's not staying with her unless she does.
- Superpowerful Genetics: Cal's Auphe half gives him a Perfect Health — other than getting injured all the time, he's been sick once in his life — and the ability to open gates to other worlds. It also gives him genetic memory of his past lives, eventually. Just go with it.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Has a penchant for doing this once he gets angry, at one point absolutely dismembering a bodach that had killed a little girl.
- Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Cal' can't remember the two years he spent with the Auphe, and he doesn't want to.
- Unstoppable Rage: An angry Cal is a scary Cal. Niko comments that Cal has the sin of wrath all to himself. Pissing him off—properly, not brotherly irritation—is a death sentence.
- Warring Natures: Cal is half-human, half Auphe and spends most of the books struggling between the two.
Niko Leandros
Cal's protective older half-brother, Niko has spent most of his life looking out for Cal. Smart, highly educated, and probably the single most dangerous fighter in the series, Niko possesses a zen-like attitude towards life which he will drop at a moment's notice if it means protecting Cal.
- Badass Bookworm: Far smarter and more educated than Cal, Niko is a voracious reader and works as a TA at a college.
- Badass Longcoat: Niko's duster, which serves as a repository for all that is sharp in the world.
- Badass Normal: Niko does everything that he does with no special abilities.
- Berserk Button: Don't hurt Cal. And don't lie to him. He will kill you.
- Big Brother Instinct: Niko's entire character revolves around keeping Cal safe.
- Deadpan Snarker: His wit is dryer and more restrained than Cal's, but definitely there.
- Dissonant Serenity: Niko's zen attitude extends to fighting as well as his personal life.
- First-Person Smartass: While Niko narrates less than Cal does, sarcasm clearly runs in the family.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Does not swear, as he thinks it's crude. So when one slips past his lips, you know shit is going down.
- Heroic BSoD: In Deathwish when he believes that Cal has been killed. He is almost catatonic and runs on a suicide mission to avenge him.
- Honor Before Reason: Cal, Robin, and Promise all accuse Niko of suffering from this. He is significantly less practical about defeating most of their enemies than his allies.
- Implacable Man: How he appears from the other side, especially when in BSOD mode. Niko seems very calm at all times.
- Katanas Are Just Better: Niko certainly believes this. He and Cal bicker about Swords vs. Guns constantly.
- Knight Templar Big Brother: The one guaranteed way to make Niko lose all of his shit is to hurt Cal. In fact, when he's convinced via magic hallucination that Cal is dead he basically goes into Terminator mode to avenge him.
- Master Swordsman: can go blade to blade with beings who have had hundreds of years of experience, and still come out on top.
- Mayfly–December Romance: With Promise, a vampire far older than Niko being in his twenties.
- Morality Chain: To Cal, keeping his Auphe side under control simply by being his annoying older brother.
- One-Man Army: He takes out Osshossi's entire menagerie.
- Precision F-Strike: In Deathwish, after he thinks Cal has been killed. Since he doesn't swear...
- Promotion to Parent: The day Cal was born since their mother refused to care for Cal at all.
- The Stoic: Niko's has trained himself to have absolutely perfect control over his emotions.
- Suicide by Cop: His goal at the end of Deathwish is Suicide by Oshossi, after losing Cal.
- Unstoppable Rage: Slides into it during the Heroic BSoD to avenge Cal.
- Walking Armoury: Niko's coat contains, at any one time, several swords, multiple knives, a sharpened stake. Cal comments once that he half expects him to pull Jimmy Hoffa out of there.
- Will Not Tell a Lie: Having grown up with the Consummate Liar Sophia for a mother, Niko will not, under any circumstances, lie. He considers his decision to lie to Cal and dose him with Nepenthe spider venom, even to let him stay happy, to be crossing the line.
- The Worf Effect: Hob's manhandling of Niko shows that he is nobody to be trifled with.
Robin Goodfellow
A puck who works as a used car salesman, Robin is a several million-year-old being, who, desperate for companionship, has become one of the boys' few genuine friends. Enthusiastically pansexual, and the original party animal, he provides a lot of the comic relief in the series.
- Animal Motifs: A fox, as he is a Trickster.
- The Alcoholic: Though with an absolutely legendary tolerance. He was once known as "Dionysus."
- Colour Coded Eyes: Forest green and foxlike.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He usually acts like a complete hedonist who's only interested in getting into other entities' pants, skirts, fur, scales, whatever. But when pissed off, he's absolutely deadly. To put it into perspective, he has no trouble beating Niko. As it turns out, in many of their past lives, Robin was the one who trained Niko (and tried to train Cal) in combat.
- Extreme Omnisexual: Women, men, nonbinary genders, various supernatural beings, you name it, Robin has tried to screw it. Robin seems to have slept his way through the entire species roster of paranormal creatures, and takes great pride in it.
- Guile Hero: Robin can be trusted to lie as often as he talks. But he's still a good guy.
- Honest John's Dealership: "Were there are graveyards, there are flesh eating revenants. And where there are used cars, there are used car salesmen."
- Ladykiller in Love: Robin, after getting involved with Ishiah, takes up monogamy. He puts the word "monogamite" on his business card—along with the number for the suicide hotline, which Robin figures everyone will need when they learn he is no longer available.
- Mr. Vice Guy: Lust and Pride, in spades. At some point, he probably inspired a myth about them.
- Omniglot: Robin speaks — according to his own claim — all the languages in existence, and probably those that are extinct, too. That is justified because he's not human and is old enough to remember the dinosaurs. Basically, he was around before language was invented and picked them up as they came around.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: If Robin stops making innuendos, something is seriously wrong.
- Time Abyss: Robin remembers the dinosaurs. He hasn't changed at all in that time and will go on forever, barring an untimely death.
- The Trickster: Quite literally. If there's a name for a trickster, he's probably gone by it.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Certainly not Robin, but he doesn't seem to have a choice.
Promise Nottinger
A quietly beautiful vampire with an interest in Niko, Promise has her own dark secrets that she prefers to keep to herself.
- Action Girl: Can hold her own with the boys easily.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Promise does not like to talk about her history, her failures with her daughter, her exes, or anything other than the here and now.
- Friendly Neighbourhood Vampires: Promise is harmless to normals, gives to charity, and has helped take out numerous monsters that did prey on the human community.
- Gold Digger: Promise has had five rich, elderly, now-dead husbands, who left her their money.
- Immune to Bullets: Promise can more or less shrug off bullets. Unless you take her through the heart or the brain, you are wasting ammunition.
- Lady of War: Calm, serene, feminine, and will take your head off with her sword.
- May–December Romance: As a hundreds-year-old vampire, with twenty-two-year-old Niko.
- Mayfly–December Romance: Niko will die long before Promise does.
- Mysterious Past: Promise doesn't like to talk about the bad old days when she had to kill people in order to eat, and Niko usually doesn't ask.
- Neck Snap: Done to one of the assassins in Madhouse.
- The Quiet One: Promise almost never talks. When she does, she usually has something important to say.
- Serial-Killer Killer: Cal suspects that Promise did this back before the iron pill cure for vampirism was discovered, trying to limit the harm she was causing.
- The Smurfette Principle: The only member of the core cast who is female.
- Super-Strength: She's a vampire who is far stronger than she looks.
- Technicolor Eyes: Her eyes are purple.
Ishiah
After Cal gets fired from a bartending job, Ishiah hires him to work at his peri bar catering to the supernatural. He's also eventually Robin's boyfriend.
- The Bartender: Ishiah runs a bar for supernatural types in New York City and he and his peri fellows stay resolutely neutral on al kinds of things and focuses on keeping the peace in his bar unless really pushed to deal with Heaven-related issues.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: So much with Robin. Neither are even trying to hide how they feel, but Ishiah demands monogamy and Robin refuses, so they spend all of their time bickering instead.
- Resemblance Reveal: Sort of an odd case with Niko. After Robin and Ishiah finally hook up, Cal realizes Ishiah's long blond hair and pale blue eyes look an awful look like Niko's, who Robin has been hitting on since they met.
- Winged Humanoid: Ishiah is a peri, or a retired angel from Heaven, and keeps his wings alongside his mostly-human appearance.
Enemies
The Auphe
"After all, the Auphe were where the elf myth had started and if you took away the hundreds of needle-fine metal teeth, the scarlet eyes, the black talons, shredding jaws, nearly transparent skin, and a raging desire to destroy humanity, then I guess you were close enough. The pointed ears were the same, right?"
—Cal Leandros
The inspiration for the myths about elves, the Auphe are an entire race of psychotic thrill killers, sadists, and certifiable lunatics. Virtually indistinguishable from one another, the Auphe were the most feared of all monsters during the days before the rise of humanity, and still make most creatures who are aware of them twitchy.
- Always Chaotic Evil: An entire species of mass murderers, torturers, and predators, the Auphe seem to have barbarism encoded in their genetics.
- Axe-Crazy: Relentlessly mad, almost to the point of logic-less-ness, but they're also wicked smart.
- Big Bad: The race as a whole plays this role in Nightlife and Deathwish. Even afterward, fighting their nature is Cal's major conflict.
- Black Speech: Cal learned the Auphe language during his two-year stay in the Tumulus but the ability to speak it is buried in his suppressed memories and only comes out very rarely and only in very bad situations.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Auphe like to play with their food...which is basically all sentient life.
- The Dreaded: They're feared throughout the supernatural world.
- Dying Race: There are only a hundred or so Auphe left at the start of Nightlife.
- Famed In-Story: Everyone involved in the supernatural community knows what an Auphe is. And they're all terrified.
- Full-Frontal Assault: The Auphe don't go in for clothes.
- The Legions of Hell: Tumulus is an odd sort of hell.
- The Older Immortal: Predate even the pucks, though, in a bit of a twist, individual Auphe rarely live as long as their lifespan would allow.
- Our Elves Are Different: Our elves make the drow look sane, since apparently the Auphe, with metal teeth and claws and translucent skin, are where the myth of elves came from.
- Pointy Ears: They're elves. Kinda.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Auphe all come universally with red eyes.
- Thinking Up Portals: The ability to create gates is an Auphe one Cal inherited. Basically portals to wherever they want to go.
- Zerg Rush: Their usual tactic is just to rush and swarm and murder.
Sophia Leandros
Cal and Niko's mother, a Roma of the Vayash clan who ran away when she was a teenager and spent the rest of her days traveling, telling fortunes and conning customers, and drinking. She was paid by the Auphe to carry Cal but was horrified when he was born and spent his childhood calling him a monster. She burns to death when the Auphe show up to steal Cal back.
- Abusive Parents: She messed Cal and Niko up for the rest of their lives by refusing to care for them at all.
- Alcoholic Parent: Sophia would go as far as throwing empty bottles at Cal when he was a kid and ranting at him about how much of a monster he is, even though it was her who sold her womb to an Auphe for a pot of gold, which she quickly spent on more alcohol. At least on one occasion she also stole Niko's college money. While she burned to death prior to Nightlife, the experience of growing up with Sophia as a mother teaches even resident bad boy Cal to never drink more than one beer as he believes to have inherited his mother's penchant for alcoholism.
- Children Raise You: Subverted. She didn't want kids and she made that clear. Niko and Cal raised themselves and spent as little time worrying about her death as she did about them.
- Evil Matriarch: She is the worst mother.
- Older Than They Look: Was 38 when she died, but said to look much younger, with not a spot of gray in her hair.
- Parental Neglect: Sophia barely acknowledged Cal or Niko's existence, leading to Niko's Promotion to Parent.
- Roguish Romani: She was the Greek Romani mother of the protagonists Niko and Cal. She was also a scam artist, a thief, and a jailbird.
Abbagor
A troll who lives under the Brooklyn Bridge, Abbagor knows a little bit about everything, making him a useful, if homicidal informant for Robin and the Leandros boys. He is as old as the Auphe and longs to fight them again.
- All Trolls Are Different: A mass of tentacles wrapped in the shape of a man, nothing more.
- And I Must Scream: Traps his victims within his body and feeds on their minds forever.
- Blood Knight: All Abbagor actually wants is to fight.
Darkling
The last male banshee, Darkling is, in Cal's words, a nightmare for hire. Willing to do anything if the pay is right, Darkling is an integral part of the Auphe's plans for Cal and the world.
- Deadpan Snarker: Thurman seems to know how to write exactly one personality when narrating: sarcastic.
- Demonic Possession: Darkling lacks a body of his own so he takes Cal's, taking over as narrator.
- Dragon-in-Chief: The Auphe may be in charge, but it is Darkling who secures Cal for them, Darkling who opens the gate to the past, Darkling who does his utmost to eliminate Niko, Robin, and Promise, and Darkling whose moves actually drive most of the plot.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Repeatedly shocked by the actions taken by Niko, Promise, and Robin to save Cal.
- First-Person Smartass: As the narrator. See above regarding Thurman's narrative style.
- Fusion Dance: When he hijacks somebody, their memories fuse to a very large degree, creating a composite personality of Darkling and his victim.
- Kill All Humans: Fully onboard with the Auphe's scheme to travel back in time and prevent the rise of the human race.
- Intangible Man: Can become intangible, phasing through almost anything.
- Last of His Kind: Darkling is the only male banshee left. He has very little time for female banshees, so there aren't likely to be more anytime soon, either.
- Laughably Evil: Darkling's warped sense of humor is genuinely funny a lot of the time. It doesn't make him any less frightening, though.
- Man of Wealth and Taste: Darkling is not a fan of Cal's cheap, worn, casual clothing, going so far as to mug a businessman for his expensive clothes.
- Mirror Scare: He's an even entity who travels through mirrors. After the experience, Cal can't look at them anymore and Niko and Cal keep mirrors covered in their apartment.
- Psycho for Hire: Darkling likes the money and the joy of torturing victims in equal measure.
- Sinister Shades: Darkling uses them to cover his silver eyes, just the slightest bit off from Cal's gray.
- Villain Protagonist: Much of Nightlife is from his perspective.
- You Have Failed Me: Offs one of the werewolves in his employ after they fail to kill Georgina.
Flay
A member of Cerberus' crew, Flay is Caleb's agent within the Kin and acts as Cal's aide during his infiltration of Cerberus' organization. Albino, and barely able to speak, Flay is nevertheless far smarter, and far more capable, than his own poor self-esteem lets him believe.
- Hidden Depths: He's far smarter, and much less evil than his initial appearances would suggest.
- I Have Your Wife: Informs Cal that Caleb has George, Cal's true love, if not his actual girlfriend. It turns out that Caleb is holding his son, Slay, as a hostage.
- The Unintelligible: Flay, a werewolf, can barely talk because his jaws are so wolf-shaped and he can't shift.
Cerberus
A pair of single-minded Siamese twins who act as a Kin Alpha, Cerberus is the target of Cal and Niko's mission in the novel.
- Bad Boss: Cerberus punishes failure very harshly.
- Canis Major: An enormous wolf, with two heads. Fully transformed, Cerberus is the size of a Buick.
- The Don: Of the Kin, the werewolf mafia.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: Having overcome Kin prejudices against difference, Cerberus offers employment to all the outcasts in the wolf world, and is even willing to hire the likes of Cal, a human/Auphe cross.
Hobgoblin/"Hob"
- "I'm the original reason there is no honour among thieves."
- And Show It to You: Rips out Caleb's heart and makes him eat it.
- Bad Guy Bar: Runs a bar frequented by the Kin and their associates.
- Big Bad: He's the primary antagonist of Moonshine after the Auphe have been taken out for a while.
- Creepy Monotone: If Cal's description of his dead, flat voice is any indicator.
- The Dreaded: Promise and Robin have a heart attack when they realize who he is.
- Evil Twin: To Robin. "It was Goodfellow's voice, only arctic and empty. Goodfellow's face, although set with a supercilious sneer. His eyes lacking even the sliver of a soul." Turns out all pucks look like that. They're all basically clones of each other, but Goodfellow was the second and Hob was the first.
- Exit, Pursued by a Bear: Cal abandons him in Tumulus, surrounded by the Auphe.
- Famed In-Story: Infamous in-story to be precise. See The Dreaded—Robin is intimately familiar with his horrors.
- Fantastic Racism: Towards Cal, but then, who isn't prejudiced against Auphe?
- First Of Its Kind: More than likely. He's the oldest puck, and Robin suggests that he might well be the first.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: Plans to beat George to death with Cal's corpse.
- It's All About Me: Hob wants what he wants and no price is too high. Other people don't matter at all to him.
- Lack of Empathy: Whatever emotion lived inside of Hob died a long time ago. All that's left is a near-emotionless killer who takes what he wants, irrespective of who has to get hurt.
- The Man Behind the Man: Hob is forcing Caleb, the novel's apparent villain, to act according to his blackmail.
- Man of Wealth and Taste: Better dressed than even Robin, noted hedonist.
- Narcissist: He doesn't care about anyone other than himself, and lives to ram his superior status down the throats of all those around him.
- The Older Immortal: Older than all the other pucks, he might be the first.
- Perpetual Frowner: Smiles once in the entire novel.
- Pride: His cardinal vice, the vice of all pucks.
- Single-Target Sexuality: Himself. No one else deserves him.
- The Stoic: Hob displays no emotion for most of the novel, facially or verbally.
- Technically a Smile: The dead smile that he eventually does give falls into this territory.
- Time Abyss: Cal comments "You could see it in his eyes. You could see the age, and the cold-blooded apathy that comes with knowing that eventually, all things pass. All things, except you."
Sawney Beane
- "Travellers..."
- Axe-Crazy: The single most insane character in the setting. Not only is Sawney mad, but he is obsessed with madness, fixating on Cal because of his Auphe taste, and forcing his revenants to dress in straight jackets.
- Back from the Dead: Sawney was killed ages ago.
- Evil Laugh: One of his trademarks is an echoing, insane laughter.
- Healing Factor: Managed to regrow his arm in-between his first and second battles with the Leandros brothers.
- Kill It with Fire: Niko uses a flamethrower and acid to put him out of commission.
- Lightning Bruiser: Fast as an Auphe (see: inhumanly fast and nearly instantaneous), hits as hard as Abbagor.
- Nigh-Invulnerable: Sawney will come back from just about anything you throw at him. And even if you can hurt him, his Healing Factor ultimately kicks in.
- One-Man Army: If his ability to take on Niko, Cal, Promise, and Robin all at once is any indicator.
- Power Born of Madness: Most Redcaps are not this dangerous. Sawney's madness is where his power comes from.
- Serial Killer: Sawney murders lots of people, but he is especially fixated on travelers. In modern-day New York, that means just about everybody.
- Slasher Smile: Fixated on his face. It mimics the look of his scythe.
Cherish
Promise's daughter by an unknown father, Cherish comes running to her mother for help when she gets in over her head with Oshossi. Beautiful, charismatic, and manipulative, Cherish is a thief, and a liar, yet claims to be trying to change for the better.
- Antagonistic Offspring: She deliberately manipulates her mother, as well as Niko and Cal, for her own selfish ends, while continuing to prey on humans and sleep with her stepfather, Seamus. She is ultimately disowned by Promise and killed by Niko after an incident where she convinces him that his brother is dead to send him on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against one of her enemies.
- Disappeared Dad: Promise is unwilling to talk about who fathered her.
- Eviler than Thou: With Oshossi, whom she stole Xolo from. They spend most of the book trying to sic the Leandros on each other to use Xolo for their own ends.
- Manipulative Bastard: Cherish manages to use her mother to sic the Leandros brothers on Oshossi to save her own skin.
- Mind Rape: Uses the chupacabra, Xolo, to force people into complying with her wishes. She forces Niko to see an image of Cal, killed by Oshossi, in order to drive him into a Heroic BSoD.
- Parental Incest: Brags about having seduced her stepfather, Seamus, to Promise's face.
Oshossi
A South American nature spirit, who pursues Cherish to New York in the interests of reclaiming his property. Uses a veritable menagerie of South American monsters as his primary weapon.
- The Beastmaster: Osshoi is able to summon a variety of creatures from South American mythos. He's very fond of them, too.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Walks off of a building while under Xolo's influence.
- Dual Wielding: Dual wields machetes.
- Eviler than Thou: With Cherish, whom he repeatedly tries to foil so he can use Xolo as he pleases.
- Machete Mayhem: As part of his South American vibe, he comes with machetes as a weapon alongside the creatures.
- Pet the Dog: Ultimately recognizes Niko and Cal as fellow victims of Cherish and parts with them on neutral terms. There's also his genuine concern for his pets.
- Poor Communication Kills: A lot of violence could have been avoided if Niko and Oshossi had ever just sat down and compared notes. Instead, each assumes that the other knows what he is talking about, and the mayhem just escalates from there.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: His methods are dark, but his main goal is to save his rainforest from destruction.
Grimm
A human/Auphe hybrid with dreams of repopulating the species, and making hybrids like himself, rather than humanity, the fastest breeding race on the planet. He currently has 1000 young at his disposal and plans to breed many, many more. Having far better control over his Auphe abilities than Cal does, he enjoys toying with the other half-breed's emotions.
- Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Was captured and tortured by the Auphe for eighteen years, prior to his escape.
- Deceptive Disciple: Has a habit of apprenticing himself to a mentor, then killing the mentor.
- Evil Counterpart: To Cal, sharing his tastes in fashion, style, and attitude, as well as his half-Auphe heritage. Where Cal hopes to exterminate the Auphe, however, Grimm plans to recreate the race.
- Fangs Are Evil: He's got the Auphe's mouth full of needle teeth, though he can retract them in public. He's the bad one, Cal's the good one.
- Father Of A Thousand Young: By mating with as many succubi as he can, Grimm has produced 1000 offspring, all as part of his plan to create a new race of Auphe.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Half-human, half-Auphe. His children add succubus to the mix.
- Mirror Character: Cal and Grimm are both half-Auphe, half-human hybrids created by the Auphe in hopes of finding one who could create gates. They are also the only successes, the only two who remained free and lived into adulthood, and both hate their monstrous parents, but they have very different goals.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Has the signature Auphe eyes.
- Retcon: His entire existence is this. Where was Grimm when the Auphe were looking for a male sperm donor? Or when they were out to use Cal to destroy the world? When Cal has his seizures when the Auphe race was completely destroyed?
- Sinister Shades: Much like Darkling, Grimm uses these to hide his telltale red eyes.
- White Hair, Black Heart: Grimm and Cal got about inverted traits from their Auphe heritage: dark skin with white hair and red eyes, while Cal got their pale skin but his human mother's dark hair and gray eyes.
Emilian Kalakos
Niko's father, a wandering Rom mercenary from the Vayash clan who had little contact with Niko while he was growing up, only to return much later to ask the brothers for help hunting down a 'burden' of the Vayash clan.
- Action Dad: Niko definitely got his combat abilities from his dad...somehow, since his dad wasn't around to train him.
- Archnemesis Dad: Emilian is a dick and Niko has no interest in reconciling with him.
- Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Insists that life on the road hunting monsters was no life for a child, which was why he left Niko with his abusive mother Sophia. Neither Cal nor Niko buys it.
- Disappeared Dad: He walked out two weeks after Niko was born.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Cal and Niko spend most of Doubletake doing this, for all his many lies and his racism against Cal.
- Evil All Along: It's not really a surprise when Emilian betrays the brothers, honestly.
- It Runs in the Family: Blonde hair and skills with a sword, apparently, for both him and Niko.
- Papa Wolf: He saves his son, Niko, from Hephaestus and then holds him back from jumping into the boggle pit after Cal and Robin.
Occasional Allies
Delilah
Flay's sister, and a member of the Kin in good standing, Delilah meets the brothers when they use her saliva to heal an injury that Cal had suffered at the hands of Sawney Beane. As she cannot have children, she and Cal eventually enter a sexual relationship. Ambitious and driven, Delilah plans to rise as high as she can in the Kin, despite her bad breeding.
- Action Girl: Delilah becomes the first female Alpha of a Kin pack.
- Canis Major: A werewolf whose wolf shape is the size of a small pony.
- Blood Knight: Works as a bouncer at a bar because she relishes getting into fights. She repeatedly aids the brothers for similar reasons.
- Friends with Benefits: With Cal. Cal is in love with George, but he still sleeps with Delilah for quite a while.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Massive set of scars on her stomach from where Cerberus ripped a child out of her. Played for all the sympathy that it deserves.
- Klingon Promotion: Kills her Alpha and becomes leader of her pack.
- Take a Third Option: Her Alpha forces her to choose between going against the pack and killing Cal. She kills her Alpha instead.
