What could possibly go wrong on a surveillance trip to Parliament? Apparently everything. Vampire and bacteriologist John Grissom and vampire hunter Van Helsing are unlikely friends and coworkers. As members of Bow Street's fledgling clandestine investigative division, Odd Crimes, they find themselves witnesses to an assassination attempt on the Marquis of Wellesley and discover London's most notorious purveyor of stolen goods at the bottom of it. But Sir Antony's ability to influence people is unusual to say the least. The vampire and the hunter investigate, but the Egyptian elixir may prove the undoing of them both.