As a former Master Sergeant in the U.S. Army, Jerisse called in a few favors until she was hired there to test the viability of a new batch of lab created vampires. Her team consists of a telepath, a misogynistic undead drill sergeant and a foppish valet named Ferdinand, who claims to be a "real" vampire. The mission takes a nosedive when the Deathlord, the resident vampire expert, is staked to death inside his own locked office. Nicholas, embittered and altered by his new "unlife" is determined to become the next Deathlord even if he has to step over Jerisse to do it. While sabotage, rebellion and murder threaten the vampire shock troop project, the veil between the supernatural and science begins to slip away. When Nicholas becomes the prime suspect for the Deathlord's murder, Jerisse has to clear his name otherwise he'll greet the dawn with a stake in his heart and she'll be a widow . . . again.