- "He had haunted my nightmares for years, nearly killed me."
- —Anita Blake[src]
Valentine was a vampire with dozens of human kills that RPIT knows about, many of them preadolescent boys. We meet him for the first time in Guilty Pleasures.
Appearance[]
Tall and slender, with dark brown eyes and short auburn hair. His voice had a Southern thickness. In Guilty Pleasures the left side of his face was badly scarred from holy water, alike acid burns, although the damage spared his eye.
In Guilty Pleasures Valentine dressed like a riverboat gambler, in a royal purple coat with lace at the neck and down the front. He had straight black pants and boots, and a straight-brimmed hat. A gold mask covered everything but his chin and mouth. He also had another mask in silver, and another riverboat gambler outfit in black with a crimson frilly shirt that clashed with his hair. He didn't wear the mask in his coffin.
In The First Death his attire was similar, but without the hat or need for the mask.
Personality[]
Valentine was a homosexual pedophile with a liking for young boys, preferably aged twelve at most. Phillip was attacked by Valentine as a boy, and Valentine used to brag about it being what turned Phillip into a vampire junkie. Phillip was still terrified of Valentine in Guilty Pleasures.
Revenge was one of the only reasons Valentine would go after anyone older or female, and a significant and possibly also frequent motive for him. if Nikolaos hadn't kept him in check he would have been a lot more dangerous than he already was.
History[]
Valentine was the only vampire survivor of an earlier fight between his kiss of vampires and Anita, Manny, and Edward. During that fight, Anita received the scars she possessed at the beginning of Guilty Pleasures, many of them from Valentine himself, and Valentine's face was scarred by holy water she threw at him in turn. In Guilty Pleasures Valentine was a member of Nikolaos's court, although neither he nor Anita knew the other had survived until then. On their first meeting after learning the truth he promised to kill Anita when her work for Nikolaos was completed. He also helped in tormenting and eventually killing Phillip once he was captured. Valentine never got his chance to make another go at Anita, though, as he was himself killed by Edward with silver nitrate. The death wasn't quick or easy, but it was still daylight hours and Valentine never woke. Afterwards Anita blew him apart with a shotgun just to be sure he was really dead.
In the comics-only prequel we see that earlier fight in more detail and learn that while Valentine's earlier kiss was indeed killing people, they did a lot better in keeping that under the wraps than Valentine himself on his side project that focused on young boys. The leader of the group never got an opportunity to learn about his treachery.
Powers & Abilities[]
- Immortality
- Superhuman Strength
- Superhuman Speed
- Heightened Senses
- Accelerated Healing
Weaknesses[]
- Sunlight
- Silver
- Fire
- Holy Water
- Wooden Staked
- Religious Iconography