Book excerpt: Fourteen-year-old Nick Gautier doesn't have it easy. With a single mom struggling to make ends meet, his secondhand clothes aren't exactly making him popular with the "in" crowd at school. No, Nick fits in much better on the streets of New Orleans-at least until his so-called friends turn on him! Rescued by the mysterious Kyrian of Thrace, Nick suddenly finds himself indoctrinated into a bizarre supernatural world, that of the Dark-Hunters, where he discovers that life isn't nearly so "normal" as it once seemed. Zombified classmates and flesh-hungry demons are bad enough, but it's the dark hints about Nick's own future that are the most troubling things of all...