Natives shun the cursed road to Kalikshutra, but Dr. John Eliot is eager to join a top-secret mission to the high peaks of the Himalayas. It means a chance to investigate a highly infectious brain sickness that destroys the mind, wastes the body, and shrivels the soul. And this man of science is doubly intrigued, for the mysterious epidemic gripping Kalikshutra is shrouded in vampire lore. But the horror and decimation they encounter on those haunted peaks plague Eliot as he retreats to London. Burning with the guilt of a survivor, he devotes his days to healing the poor - until he is summoned by Lady Rosamund Mowberley to investigate the disappearance of her husband. To search for his old friend, Eliot must descend into the dark underbelly of London. It's a journey that will prove even more dangerous than his trek to Kalikshutra. Accompanied by Bram Stoker - whose observations would emerge in his immortal novel, Dracula - Eliot plunges into a murky netherworld inhabited by actors, dissolute noblemen, and other denizens of the night. Reeling from memories of the Himalayas, Eliot ultimately encounters a temptation he cannot resist: the ravishing Lilah, whose brilliance is as seductive as her bearing. Gleaming with icy beauty, lips as red as a venomous flower, she is the embodiment of blood lust. And Lilah will not rest until she has coaxed Eliot's most monstrous impulses into the open ... and unleashed them on an unsuspecting London.