24 years have passed since Blood Dawn--the event where vampires not only revealed their existence to humanity, but conquered entire nations. Some countries like America were lucky enough to wrest free of their attempted coup, but have been plagued with dismally high murder rates ever since.

Lilith was literally made to be a killer herself--but of vampires, not humans. The first of her kind; a genetically engineered hybrid combining the superior physical attributes of a lycanthrope with the formidable psychic gifts of a vampire. She spends her days working under a human alias as the head of security at the local office of Genesis Industries--the wealthy, secretive corporation that created Lilith and the others like her.

Like Lilith, Detective William Buchanan is all-too familiar with leading a double life. Once an ordinary police officer, he now serves as a member of the December City night squad; a secret team of officers specifically trained to hunt down and kill vampires. His routine is disrupted when his squad is loaned out to another city and he is made the leader of a disparate group of new recruits.

Long suspicious of Genesis Industries and their supposedly noble goals, his most recent efforts to investigate the company had been thwarted by his own chief of police. But although the presence of a skilled hacker on his new team presents an opportunity to resume it, a much more pressing matter soon demands his attention. A vampire's body winds up in the city morgue; a vampire that has been drained of blood and marked by what appear to be the claws of a giant bird.