Character Analysis
Mr. Misunderstood
Horace is kind of odd, that's for sure. Despite the fact that the vamps are supposed to be in hiding, he dresses "in a Gothic assortment of crushed velvet, black satin, and patent leather" (2.23)—a.k.a. exactly like a stereotypical vampire. Nina, Sanford, and Dave all snap at him for drawing attention to their real identities. Horace's response? "Bite me" (2.26). So he clearly has a bit of an attitude problem.
Nina thinks being bitten changed Horace. In 1908, he was a young archaeologist who had the bad luck to unearth Casimir who was masquerading as a mummy. Nina thinks—upon seeing "him in a sepia-tinted photograph, wearing a high color and a silly hat" (3.5)—that he looked like "an upright twenty-one-year-old" (3.5). Nowadays, though, she suspects that he makes money from Internet scams. He's fallen a bit, then, in terms of the caliber of his character.
Do we have sympathy for Horace? Some. But we're not entirely convinced that his only problem is that he's misunderstood.
Predatory Purposes
Horace is… not a nice person. One time, to prank Nina, he pretended "to be an obsessed fan of the Bloodstone Chronicles. Having 'discovered' my address, he kept sending me creepy letters until Mum and I were on the point of moving" (5.61). Sure, he said he was doing it to make a point about how risky it is to publish vampire fiction when you're a vampire—but it's still pretty creepy.
While Nina doesn't like Horace much, and goes on the occasional tirade about how he's a "coward and a blowhard and a typical bloody vampire with no guts and no backbone" (17.80), he's not entirely useless. He does propose that they go rescue Reuben, after all.
But when it comes to the question of what to do with the McKinnons, Horace suggests killing them, "with obvious relish" (19.59). Which seems a little shady. True to form, Horace sinks his teeth into Dermid the first chance he gets. He justifies it by saying it's the only way to make sure the McKinnons don't come after them, but we're not sure we believe that Horace was acting totally selflessly there.
After everyone finds out about Horace biting Dermid, Sanford puts him under the ground as punishment. It sounds horrendous, being deprived of food and contact for years at a time, but Nina is hoping that Horace comes out better for it: "I know that Horace will survive his sentence, and that, with any luck, it will transform him into a wiser, humbler, less dangerous vampire (who won't dress in black leather and purple satin anymore)" (29.23). Let's all hope for the best for Horace… in terms of both his personal style and his personality.