First, there were the dead in the graveyard, two-hundred years dead. I'd been hired to raise them to settle a dispute over who owned the land they were buried in.

Then there were the three dead teenagers in the woods, slaughtered in a way I'd never seen before.

And then they found the dead girl, drained of blood and left in her bed. I knew what that meant of course. It didn't take a degree in preternatural studies to figure out that something was wrong in and around Branson, Missouri. And I was right in the middle of it. My name is Anita Blake. Welcome to my life ...