Eliot Cardale, preferring the nickname "Eli", was a student at Lockland University and a major character throughout the Villains duology. A mass murderer and serial killer, Eli managed to assist in the murders of dozens of EOs, believing that God was watching over him and insisting he participate in the removal of all ExtraOrdinary people.
He was the best friend and roommate of Victor Vale, and has been in a relationship with both Angie Knight and Serena Clarke.
Appearance[]
Eli is described to be lanky and tall, with tanned skin and rich brown hair. He has been described as being "built for the sports teams and the clubs yet never showed any desire to join either". Eli owns broad shoulders and glittering brown eyes. He has been described as handsome by a number of people, including Victor, Serena, Angie, and Sydney. Despite being thirty-seven, Eli hasn't appeared to age a day since he received his regenerative abilities, causing him to still appear twenty-two.
Personality[]
On the face of it, Eli appears charming, charismatic, and amiable, able to gain the trust of others quickly and possessing a disarming aura that causes him to be popular with the people of Lockland, Haverford, and all of the other places he has bounced around. Since his university days, he has proven to be rather ambitious and smart by being top of his classes and even figuring out how EOs are made.
However, under this charismatic mask, he can be apathetic, manipulative, calculating and self-righteous. He is religious, and believes in playing God even when it seems to be the wrong thing to do. Eli is a conflicted and complicated character with a hero complex who genuinely believes he is doing the right thing.
History[]
His father was a minister who physically abused Eli whenever he believed Eli “had the devil in him”, causing him to have various scars on his back. When he is eleven, Eli's mother committed suicide by slitting her wrists in a bathtub. A year later Eli murders his father by pushing him down the stairs, leaving him orphaned.
He is sent to live with the Russo family who dislikes him because they find him strange, and he is quickly relocated to another family. Eli is moved from house to house several times, and each time Eli learns to mimic the other children's' behaviors in order to craft and refine the appearance of a perfect child. Six months later, he is adopted by his father's nephew and his wife, who are not religious and enroll him in a school. Unfortunately, when he is fifteen, they die in a car crash. Not wanting to go back into foster care, he arranges to live on his own.
He goes to Haverford where he meets Charlotte in the university's church, and the two soon start dating. Charlotte later brings her to her family's home to meet her parents. However, soon after he arrives, Charlotte's father makes it clear to him that they don't approve of Eli's relationship with her, seeing him as just a pitiable basket case too far below their social class. Her father offers to pay for Eli's tuition at a better college in exchange for breaking up with her. After realizing he has no real attachment to Charlotte, he chooses to go to Lockland.
At Lockland, he becomes Victor's roommate to both of their displeasure. However, they become close friends and Victor introduces Eli to Angie who later becomes Eli's girlfriend. As time goes on, Eli realizes that Victor can see through his facade, and starts letting it fade and allows his true personality to show around him.
Eli believes that God revived him as an EO after he puts his life in God's hands before dying. Victor mocks this saying that Eli actually put himself in Victor's hands. After much tension, Victor asks Angie to help him become an EO
Plot[]
Vicious:
Believing that God revived him for a greater purpose as well as believing that EOs are soulless and should not be alive (excluding himself of course); he tracks down and executes other EOs. This is before he meets Serena who can control people with her voice and she asks him not to kill her. Serena helps him by controlling the entire police department and other people in power to aid Eli in his mission. The police use a matrix to track down EOs and flag them by changing their middle names with one that begins with 'Eli'. Additionally, Eli convinces Serena to let him kill Sydney her sister, he shoots Sydney but she runs away and believing her to be dead, he lets her go.
Eli's last kill is a man named Barry Lynch who Serena persuaded to rob a bank before letting Eli kill him. For this, Eli is celebrated as a local hero in a news paper which is how Victor finds him after escaping prison ten years later. Victor uses Sydney to resurrect Barry so that he can deliver a message to Eli. Disturbed, Eli plans how he is going to kill Victor and Serena insists on being the one to dispatch her sister. Eli's next target is Dominic Rusher whom he waits for in The Three Crowns. However Mitch gets to Dom first, Dom disappears and Mitch heads to the bathroom. Annoyed that Dom got away and recognizing Mitch from when Mitch was following him in the hotel, Eli follows him. Eli attempts to find out where Victor is before shooting him a few times.
After Victor posts his own profile on the police matrix with a time and place, Eli waits for him there having called Serena and the police as backup. He finds Sydney who was searching for Victor and shoots her dog Dol but Dom rescues her before she is also shot. Victor goes in to meet Eli and they stab and shoot each other a few times. Eli is injured more but keeps regenerating and Victor collapses since he doesn't have healing powers. Eli ties him with wire to a chair and kills Victor finally. However, Victor previously killed Serena so the police who have just arrived are no longer on Eli's side and arrest him whilst Eli is shouting at them to burn the body because otherwise Sydney can resurrect him. He is taken away by Stell.
Vengeful:
Eli is held in the new EON facility where Dr Harverty experiments on him by cracking him open and cutting out his organs. Since Eli is immune to anesthetic, all of this happens whilst he is fully conscious. Stell is the new director of the facility and when he finds out what is happening, he fires Harverty and relocates Eli to a cell. He then gives Eli the choice of continuing to be a science experiment or help him with capturing EOs. Eli chooses the latter but is frustrated with Stell's refusal to exterminate EOs or to put him back into the field.
Eli often has conversations in his head with Victor whilst alone. Still unaware that Victor is no longer dead, he believes this to be Victor's ghost haunting him. Stell gets Eli to work on the project of Hunter X, an unknown EO who is killing other EOs. After a year, Eli finds evidence in the form of Dr Adam Porter who died similar to Angie. Eli finally recognizes that this is Victor's work and agitated with the news that he is alive, electrocutes himself to get Stell's attention. When he awakens, he lies to Stell saying that he hit a dead end as he realizes that he wants to kill Victor himself.
Eli starts to work on Marcella's case. He also starts to convince Stell that the only way to stop Marcella would be to let him out since his power of regeneration would prevent Marcella from killing him. Eventually, when no other solution presents itself Eli is let out under strict security. He is also wearing a collar with a blade that will slice into his spine if he attempts to escape. Though this would paralyze a normal person it would only incapacitate Eli momentarily before he healed.
The climax takes place at Marcella's party. Eli and Marcella face off after Victor causes a distraction and Marcella soon realizes she can't kill Eli. However, Eli can't kill her either as Johnathan is protecting her. Stell and Victor both realize this and distract Johnathan, eventually killing him. Eli uses Marcella's power to get rid of his collar and then kills her.
He escapes from the Courthouse with Victor in pursuit. However, he is stopped from escaping by the appearance of Dr. Haverty who incapacitates him with a tranquilizer he has been working on for the last few years. He is taken back to Haverty's new lab (a storage locker) in which Haverty reveals he has created a power suppressant. He again begins to experiment on Eli except this time Eli can't heal.
Victor arrives at the storage locker before Haverty can seriously damage Eli. However, there is a gas in the storage locker that suppresses power and renders Victor's powers useless as well. While Haverty is explaining this to Victor, Eli frees himself and kills Haverty. Then Victor and Eli begin to fight. Neither can use their power so they are finally equal, but Eli is much stronger and Victor is dying. Just as Eli is about to kill Victor he is shot in the back by Sydney. His power is suppressed so he cannot heal and he dies. He sees Sydney holding the gun just before he goes and thinks she is Serena.
Relationships[]
Victor Vale[]
| “ | Turned towards Eli like a face toward a mirror. Like to like. It frightened and thrilled Eli, to be seen, and to see himself relfected. Not all of himself--they were still so different--but there was something vital, a core of the same precious metal glinting through the rock. | ” |
–Eli Cardale, Vengeful, 2: Revelation, XXII | ||
Eli first met Victor at Lockland University, when they were paired up as roommates. At first, Eli feels uneasy around him due to the fact that Victor was completely unaffected, even annoyed, by Eli's charm. It's when he starts to strip away his charming persona, that Victor finally warms up to him. Victor was the first person Eli met who was able to see through the cracks of his perfect facade to the his darker personality lurking beneath the surface. Eli in turn finds comfort in the parts of himself that he also sees in Victor.
After Victor accidentally kills Angie, Eli believes the friend he once knew to be gone, replaced by an irredeemable monster. This incident is part of what drives him to the conclusion that EOs are dangerous and wrong, and must be eliminated. Once he finds out that Victor has broken out of prison, he feels that it's his duty to kill Victor. Ultimately, he is able to accomplish this but when he does, the calm and peace that he usually feels after killing and EO is absent and he is deprived of the closure he thought Victor's death would bring him.
Although Eli is never able to let go of his negative feelings towards Victor, there is still a part of him that misses their friendship, stating at some point that there is no one else that knows and understands him as Victor does.
Serena Clarke[]
Mark Stell[]
| “ | Stell would rather let the city burn than admit that we are on the same side. | ” |
–-Eli Cardale, Vengeful, 2: Ascension, XVIII | ||
Angie Knight[]
| “ | The were like magnets, thought Victor, each with their own pull. They showed it around class, and around campus, people always drifting toward them. Even Victor felt the draw. And then when they got close enough to each other… well. | ” |
–Victor Vale, Vicious, 1: Water, Blood, and Thicker Things, IV | ||
They started dating after being introduced to each other by Victor during their sophomore year. The two are described as being a perfect match not only as a couple but also in intelligence, attractiveness, and ambition. Around Angie, Eli is a caring and attentive boyfriend, all traces of his darker side disappearing in her presence. Eli truly cared for Angie and felt that she had kept him grounded and sane, but despite himself he still felt a certain emptiness.
Powers and Abilities[]
Eli has the unconscious ability to rapidly heal from any injury he sustains. Since he has not physically aged past his early twenties, despite the fact that ten years had gone by, it can be assumed that his regeneration also prevents him from aging, or at least drastically reduces his rate of aging. It's also revealed that because of his regeneration, he doesn't need to eat or sleep, but he still does so out of habit.
Weaknesses:
- His body cannot expunge objects such as knives and bullets. If the object is large enough, it will prevent him from healing, if it is smaller, his body will heal around it.
- Dr. Haverty's power suppressor takes away his ability to heal, rendering him mortal and vulnerable to dying.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- He is a Leo.
- He is extremely religious.
- He is biromantic and heterosexual.