Mina Sun needs to die. Despite being one of the undead already.

Too bad she's a bit busy right now. Her best friend is missing. Her family is pestering her to visit. And she's struggling to fit in with the group of vampires that invited her to join their conclave. These same vampires make their second thoughts clear in the whispers and sidelong glances when she enters the room.

But Mina doesn't need their whispers to tell her she's different. She hears it when her blood sings and feels it when her gut twists, fighting a losing battle against the monster inside. The monster she's doomed to become.

And now bodies are turning up, sucked so dry they look like mummies. It's not the gargoyles: they leave a mangled, gnawed-on corpse…if they leave a corpse at all.

Instead, a new evil stalks the night. The best clue to its identity are the dying words of a homeless man, raving about the reign of night, the death of light and a blade of darkness.

Can Mina unravel the riddle, find this new evil and save her friend without releasing the monster inside?

C. Rene Astle