In the twenty-fifth book, necromancer and vampire hunter Anita Blake learns that everyone sees evil in his own way. Anita has never seen Damian, her vampire servant, in such a state. The dawn does not take him to a peaceful death, which he so desperately needs. Instead, he is tormented by cruel nightmares and bloody sweats. Now that Damian is so vulnerable, Anita needs him most. The vampire who created it, the one who tortured it for centuries, may have lost control, allowing criminal vampires to begin to brutalize, breaking one of its strictest prohibitions. Someone will say that love is the main motivator, but hate also helps to do its job. And when Anita joins her friend Edward to stop the massacre, Damian will be by her side, even if it means returning to the country that spawned all his nightmares, to a place that can't be even less hospitable to vampires, mercenaries, and necromancers.