Clemens looks like a well-kept German schoolboy misplaced in the wrong century. His pale, corpse-cool skin seems to take on a faint, unhealthy warmth after feeding; when starved, his clear blue eyes cloud toward a sickly yellow. His blond hair is trimmed with care, and his old military overcoat is brushed, mended, and kept free of insignia. The coat hangs heavily from his shoulders, making his narrow frame seem broader than it is. His hands draw the eye: broad-knuckled and meticulously scrubbed, with blunt nails kept short, but he holds them close to his chest as if concealing the practiced strength in them. He occupies a doorway without seeming to notice, then shifts aside with an oddly formal courtesy. His presence leaves the impression of a tidy boy who has brought the cold of a grave indoors.

Clemens is gentle in small, practical acts, such as offering a seat or carefully wrapping a broken object, yet can be merciless once he has judged someone guilty. He is proud of his neatness and discipline, but does not notice that his body has remained a boy's for decades. With strangers he is guarded and formal; with his friend he tries awkward jokes and domestic concern. When well-fed, he can be patient and almost tender. When starved or confronted with glaring light, he becomes disoriented, suspicious, and animal-fast.

Clemens remembers waking beneath the earth, not his life before it. He recalls the pressure of soil, the taste of his own burial shroud between his teeth, and the awful certainty that he had to keep chewing until he could move. He emerged as a Nachzehrer, a corpse-eating vampire, with a boy's body that has not changed since. He deserted during the First World War and carried the shame of that flight into the Second, when he joined eagerly, mistaking the familiarity of uniform and command for purpose. He now rejects the memory of that eagerness by turning his hunger against people he believes serve hateful causes, though his judgments are often brutal and self-serving. He lives near Berlin in a partly flooded German bunker, protecting its location fiercely. A few rooms are scrubbed and ordered; his little bedroom is almost museum-neat, full of objects gathered from victims and from decades he cannot keep straight. He has a computer and an old game console he cannot make work. His one friend is a tolerant teenager he regards as family, though he has never explained the full danger of being close to him. In 2026 he has no job or ordinary means of living, so he robs people and tells himself the targets deserve it. He calls himself Günther to hide, even though he suspects most people see only a vampire.