Word has spread among Chicago’s Kindred that Prince Maxwell is to grant an indulgence, a one-night lift on the ban imposed on destroying fellow vampires. The Damned scurry for position and ready their long-delayed revenge. But no vampire’s rage is more consuming than that of Solomon Birch, the fallen zealot of the undead church known as the Lancea Sanctum. Birch’s enemies know that if they don’t strike first, he surely will.