|
Think WILD, WILD... VAMPIRE HUNTERS.
In 1861 the United States is on the brink of civil war after the election of Abraham Lincoln. Meanwhile a supernatural war is about to begin as the vampires who have haunted America since the days of the Spanish conquistadors, the Vikings, and before come into conflict with immigrant vampires. As brother prepares to battle brother starting at Fort Sumter, the living dead prepare to engage in a kind of bloodshed unlike anything our young nation much less the world has ever seen.
Somebody is going to have to look out for the interests of us mere mortals, and that task seems to have fallen upon three unlikely companions: JOHN HENRY HEDGES, heir, southern gentleman, gambler, and knife-and-gunfighter extraordinaire; DEADWALKER, an Apache trained since birth to battle vampires and other supernatural enemies; and MISS ZDAN, a Tirolean gypsy hunting HELMARE BLASKO, a vampire-prince who wiped out her family.
This trio is thrown together on April 11, 1861, the eve of the attack on Fort Sumter. DEADWALKER has tracked BLASKO to Charleston, where the vampire-prince has set up court after plaguing Mexico City and the New Mexico territory, while HEDGES and ZDAN arrive separately on the British ship Devonshire. ZDAN is also hunting BLASKO, while HEDGES is returning home to Atlanta after his sister CAMILLE is murdered (unbeknownst to him by a vampire) in London. CAMILLE is here, too, and she has asked her new prince to prevent HEDGES from reaching Atlanta before she can prey on their parents (vampires instinctively make their parents their first victims). BLASKO agrees and arranges to have HEDGES invited to poker game. But BLASKO does not count on DEADWALKER, ZDAN, or the attack on Fort Sumter from upsetting his plans to kill HEDGES after the game. BLASKO does manage to escape this fiasco, but not before making three powerful enemies.