Book excerpt: There are vampires among us in a shadow world that has its subtle hooks into organized crime itself, as well as practically every major business, governmental, cultural, and religious institution in existence. Subtle, influencing rather than controlling, and ancient, it predates most if not all of the present-day institutions it influences. And evil. No shades of gray here. No redeeming social merit. Most of these vampires are educated, refined and charming, but as pure in their evil as the foulest of their bloodsucking kindred whose transformed faces match their twisted souls. A world of shadows; shadows of evil. When a maverick who prefers the twisted, bloodsucking condition of the classical vampire becomes too powerful to be controlled, a wave of evil is unleashed.