''Vampires'' (sometimes stylized as ''Vampire$'') is a

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

horror novel by

John Steakley John William Steakley, Jr. (July 26, 1951 – November 27, 2010) was an American science fiction author. He published two major novels, ''Armor'' (1984) and ''Vampire$'' (1990); the latter was the basis for John Carpenter's ''Vampires'' movi ...

. A

dark fantasy Dark fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy literary, artistic, and cinematic works that incorporate disturbing and frightening themes of fantasy. It often combines fantasy with elements of horror or has a gloomy dark tone or a sense of horror and dr ...

with a contemporary setting, the novel concerns a company called Vampire$, Inc. which treats

vampire A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mi ...

-hunting as a commercial enterprise, funded by large payments from the vampires' potential victims and secretly supported from the highest levels of the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

Plot summary

Vampire$, Inc. cleans out a nest of vampires, but has some difficulty collecting their payment and ultimately hosts a wild party at a local motel with all of the team and some townsfolk. The party is interrupted by a "master

" who slaughters everyone at the party with the exception of Jack Crow and his second-in-command "Cherry Cat" Catlin. The shaken Jack begins to plan the formation of a new team, aided by Father Adam, a knowledgeable young priest sent to him by the

Vatican Vatican may refer to: Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum The Holy See * The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...

. Events at the motel slaughter lead Jack to realize that silver, particularly blessed silver from a cross, can be used as a weapon against vampires. He has his weaponsmith Carl begin creating silver bullets and he recruits a skilled gunman named Felix, that Jack met while working as a government agent in Mexico. Felix proves to be as deadly with a pistol as Jack hoped and they seem to have a new and powerful resource to use against the vampires. In addition to the silver bullets, Carl also develops a "vampire detector" for use by the team, which proves to be a useful tool against the vampires (which are portrayed as fantastically fast and powerful compared to humans, particularly the 'master vampires'). A series of battles ensues, using these

silver bullet In folklore, a bullet cast from silver is often one of the few weapons that are effective against a werewolf or witch. The term ''silver bullet'' is also a metaphor for a simple, seemingly magical, solution to a difficult problem: for example, pe ...

s against the vampires, but key members of Jack's team are killed by the vampires, including Annabelle, the office manager of the team's residence, and the aging Carl. Jack, depressed and beaten, suicidally returns to a known favorite hotel where the vampires are sure to find him. Felix, Cat and Father Adam stage a rescue attempt but it ends with Father Adam dead and Jack spirited away by the vampire. The novel closes with Felix taking a leadership role within Vampire$ Inc., after thwarting an attempt by the now-vampirized Jack Crow to attack the Pope.

Relation to ''Armor''

Part of the novel is about the relationship between the lead vampire hunter, ex-

DEA The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA; ) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating drug trafficking and distribution within the U.S. It is the lead agency for domestic enf ...

agent Jack Crow, and the gunman he hires, an ex-drugrunner named Felix. A note on the copyright page states, "This Felix is no other Felix. This Jack Crow is no other Jack Crow." In this novel, Felix is the owner of a bar called the Antwar Saloon; the main characters of Steakley's military SF novel ''

Armor Armour (British English) or armor (American English; see spelling differences) is a covering used to protect an object, individual, or vehicle from physical injury or damage, especially direct contact weapons or projectiles during combat, or fr ...

'' are named Jack Crow and Felix and they fight in "the Ant War". Despite the disclaimer, the Jack Crow and Felix characters in both novels have many parallels; Jack Crow is the wisecracking almost-anti-hero in both works, and Felix is the gifted-but-reluctant warrior.

Film adaptation

The novel served as the basis for the 1998 film '' John Carpenter's Vampires''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vampires 1990 American novels 1990 fantasy novels American vampire novels American horror novels American fantasy novels adapted into films